Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the vaguest idea of what’s happening in Iran these days; all she knows is that Donald Trump is for it so therefore she is against it. A new series of extraordinary videos, however, pulls back the curtain on the immense anger that ordinary Iranians are now expressing for the Islamic regime. If Pelosi saw them, she would learn a great deal, but there is no chance of that, as she would never risk doing anything so pro-Trump as challenging the brutal and bloody Iranian mullahs.
The Iran Liberation Congress, headed by the Los Angeles-based Dr. Iman Foroutan, presents the videos here, as part of its ongoing efforts at “creating the building blocks of a democratic government to guide Iran following the fall of the regime of the Islamic Republic.” The Congress explains that its “members include dissidents within Iran and pro-democracy activists throughout the various communities of Iranian exiles. We are dedicated to the peaceful and complete removal of the Islamic Republic in Iran through nonviolent means (unless we must act in self-defense).”
The goal of the Iranian Liberation Congress appears to be to return Iran to the more secular days of the Shahs, as well as the end of the Islamic regime’s genocidal bellicosity and nuclear adventurism: “We are dedicated to the abolition of any and all programs involved with creating or using weapons of mass destruction, including biological or nuclear weapons. We are dedicated to the preservation of Iran’s territories and their independence. We are dedicated to the separation of religion and state, and freedom of religion for all people. We have chosen to adopt the UN Human Rights Declaration and all of its amendments. After the removal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the people of Iran, through universal suffrage, will decide the nation’s future and political system through free and fair elections.”
The videos show that there is a great deal of support for these ideas within Iran itself. In one, protesters chant: “No honor! No honor! Soleimani is a murderer and his Supreme Leader is stupid!” In another, the chant is “We are ashamed of our stupid Supreme Leader!” And in a third, the protesters cry, “Death to the Dictator! Death to the Dictator! Sepah (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) does crimes! The Supreme Leader defends them! Khamenei is a murderer! His rule is void and invalid! Death to the liar! Death to the Liar!”
The forces of the regime, meanwhile, do not appear nearly as fearsome and formidable as they have in the recent past. In one video, the police plead with protesters, when not long ago they would have simply moved in and brutalized them. “This is the Police talking,” says an amplified voice to the protesters. “Please cooperate with the police. On behalf of myself and the Police Force, please accept our condolences. But this is not right that you’re blocking the roads. Please allow the cars to move. I beg you, those who hear my voice. This is the Police.”
I beg you. Can a regime that begs people who hate it to do its bidding be long for this world? Can a regime long survive when protesters against it cry out “We are the children of war. Want to war with us? Let’s do it!”
Meanwhile, demonstrating how extraordinarily out of touch she is, Pelosi downplayed the significance of the protests. On ABC’s This Week Sunday, George Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi: “We’re seeing now demonstrations in the streets of Iran against the regime. Do you support those protesters? And would it be a good thing if they brought the regime down?”…
Protestors shot.mp4: Man: “Were you shot [to woman]? Oh, no! Shot BB gun?” Woman: “No, real bullet.” Man: “Put a bandage on her!”
[repeated chanting] “We are the children of war. Want to war with us? Let’s do it!”
“Sepah (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) does crimes! The Supreme Leader supports them!” “Death to the Dictator!”
[repeated chanting] “Death to the Dictator! Death to the Dictator!” “Sepah (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) does crimes! The Supreme Leader defends them!”
“Khamenei is a murderer! His rule is void and invalid!” “Death to the liar! Death to the Liar!”
The Iran Liberation Congress is creating the building blocks of a democratic government to guide Iran following the fall of the regime of the Islamic Republic. Our members include dissidents within Iran and pro-democracy activists throughout the various communities of Iranian exiles. We are dedicated to the peaceful and complete removal of the Islamic Republic in Iran through nonviolent means (unless we must act in self-defense). We are dedicated to the abolition of any and all programs involved with creating or using weapons of mass destruction, including biological or nuclear weapons. We are dedicated to the preservation of Iran’s territories and their independence. We are dedicated to the separation of religion and state, and freedom of religion for all people. We have chosen to adopt the UN Human Rights Declaration and all of its amendments. After the removal of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the people of Iran, through universal suffrage, will decide the nation’s future and political system through free and fair elections.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-01-19 08:07:342020-01-20 07:17:20Nancy Pelosi Should See These Videos From Iran
Imagine if a staffer of a conservative presidential candidate welcomed political violence and called for mainstream media to be dragged “out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets.”
Field organizer for Bernie Sanders Kyle Jurek was caught on an undercover video threatening that “Cities will burn” if Sanders doesn’t win the Democratic nomination. Jurek was also caught telling undercover journalists, “There is a reason why Stalin had gulags,” justifying forced re-education camps to ensure that Trump supporters are taught not to be a “Nazi.”
Jurek was exposed by Project Veritas. Here are a couple of the shocking clips:
Just imagine what the mainstream media would say if this was an @realDonaldTrump staffer threatening to go inside @MSNBC studios and drag pundits out by their hair and light them on fire in the streets.
Jurek might not be alone. According to the Washington Examiner, “Two Iowa field directors for Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign locked their Twitter accounts” after Jurek was outed. At least one of those organizers has worked with Jurek in some capacity in the past, identifying Jurek as a top-tier organizer.
Jurek deleted his Twitter account yesterday afternoon.
As journalist Andy Ngo discovered, 38-year-old Jurek was also arrested last week in Iowa and charged with drunk driving and possessing drug paraphernalia. Jurek has a history of advocating for Antifa-like political violence. He was recorded in a separate occasion justifying political violence.
Antifa, a domestic terrorist group, uses street violence as a means to an end. We’re in a climate where “social justice” activists (and increasingly, political operatives) are comfortable flirting with violence and anarchy as a means to achieve their end goals.
While the behavior of one person doesn’t reflect the whole party nor the presidential candidate, the trend in favor of open violence as a consequence for not getting one’s political way is dangerous for any republic.
For longtime civil rights activist Jeffrey Imm, the normalization of political violence as a rational response is a mirror reflection of how terrorists think. Imm spoke with Clarion Project on the disturbing trend of political violence.
“There are thousands if not millions of pro-violence troubled individuals using politics a a medium to express their hate and rage against others with impunity, [and] gaining approval from fellow troubled individuals. They believe hate gives their lives meaning.”
For conservatives, it’s increasingly frustrating to see the media ignore the open embrace of political violence by some members of society. After the 2016 elections, mainstream media predicted the conservative Right would turn to political violence but in fact the opposite has happened.
The lack of accountability to people taking to the streets and turning to brutality to achieve a political goal has been encouraged by the same media factory that is now on the target list of violent extremists like Jurek.
For Americans on the front lines working to challenge the Antifa-inspired political violence, the threat doesn’t just stop with the violence itself. Antifa also is very comfortable doxxing people it decides to single out, releasing personal information and targeting families.
If Antifa’s political violence is becoming the new norm for political operatives, the question is, what comes next and where will it stop?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2020-01-17 09:14:582020-01-17 09:16:17‘Light Them On Fire’: Bernie Sanders Organizer Wants Political Violence
“There’s a lot of hostility to religious beliefs,” says Joe Grogan, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House.
“These views are protected by the First Amendment and people who are offended by public expressions of faith need to get over it,” he adds.
In this exclusive interview at the White House, Grogan outlines what the Trump administration is doing to ensure Americans remain free to live in accordance with their beliefs. Read the lightly edited transcript, pasted below, or listen to the interview:
Rob Bluey: The Daily Signal is on location at the White House today, just moments after President [Donald] Trump’s Religious Freedom Day announcements. We’re joined by Joe Grogan, director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House.
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
Joe, thanks for talking to The Daily Signal.
Joe Grogan: Thanks for having me.
Bluey: We had some big developments happening in Washington this week. President Trump signed Phase 1 of the trade deal with China, and the U.S. Congress just passed today the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is headed to the president’s desk now for his signature.
But let’s begin with the Religious Freedom Day announcements. … There are three of them, and let’s take them one at a time. We can start with prayer in school.
Grogan: Sure. I actually just left a meeting in the Oval Office. He had a bunch of students and teachers and a coach in there, all of whom had been discriminated against in public schools for expressing their faith.
The coach had been fired. … There were a group of students that were told they couldn’t pray in the cafeteria for a brother of one of the students who had been in a tractor accident, and … they’d been told, “You have to take this behind a curtain or go outside, out of sight. We can’t have anybody expressing their faith in public.”
What we’re doing is we’re updating a guidance that was supposed to be updated every two years by law and hadn’t been updated since 2003, and making it explicit that students have First Amendment rights, including religious freedoms.
They have the right to express their religious beliefs openly, publicly, and if they are discriminated against or they perceive they are, the education officials in every state need to set up a procedure for them to be able to complain.
And those complaints need to be adjudicated in some way. The education official needs to inform the Department of Education how they adjudicate these claims and what they’re doing to make sure that religious beliefs are protected.
There’s a lot of hostility to religious beliefs. There’s a perception that people who express their religious beliefs somehow may be offending others who don’t have those beliefs, but it’s clearly discriminatory. These views are protected by the First Amendment and people who are offended by public expressions of faith need to get over it.
These students and teachers need to be able to, on their own time, say that they believe in God, whether they be Jewish, or Christian, or Muslim, or whatever faith that they ascribe to.
"Students and teachers and education institutions have First Amendment rights just like anybody else, including the freedom to pray and worship at their own direction." — @joegrogan45pic.twitter.com/PyGpdA3RrY
Bluey: Those personal stories have such an impact. We tend to cover a lot of them at The Daily Signal, and they are often some of our most popular stories, I think, because they don’t get the attention that they deserve in other media outlets.
The second on the list is nine proposed rules that the Trump administration is rolling out to protect religious organizations from unfair and unequal treatment by the federal government. Can you tell us what these rules entail?
Grogan: Yeah. This overturns an Obama-era regulation, which really discriminated against faith-based organizations and treated them as second-class grantees when receiving federal funds.
Basically what it said is anytime somebody goes to a faith-based organization for a service, they need to be presumed to be potentially offended by the religious nature of that organization. The religious organization needs to inform them that if they are offended by the religious nature of the organization, they can, they will find a secular organization for them to get the same service.
There’s no presumption on the part of a secular organization that somebody going there for services may be offended by the secular nature or whatever reason that institution was set up.
It’s patronizing, clearly to citizens, first and foremost, that people should be presumed to be offended by people of faith.
We all interact with people of different faiths on a daily basis and we’re not offended by it as responsible human beings, so why would the government presume this is outrageous. And why would we have this additional burden on religious organizations or people who are called to particular work to help people, out of spiritual belief, is beyond me.
But many of the things are gains of inches. This took a lot of work actually to get nine agencies to work in a collaborative way to get this done. We’re proud to have gotten it done though.
Bluey: It certainly is. The third announcement that was made involved the Supreme Court’s Trinity Lutheran case, a 2017 decision, and the Office of Management and Budget has issued some new guidance regarding grant-making. Tell us about this change.
Grogan: Yes. The Office of Management and Budget is sending out a memo to all federal agencies who give money to states to remind them that it’s up to these agencies to make sure that the states, when they distribute the money, don’t discriminate against religious organizations.
This directly comes out of the Trinity Lutheran Supreme Court decision, where Trinity Lutheran applied for a grant to improve the playground.
There was a program to make playgrounds safer and they were denied the funds. This wasn’t for religious purposes, it was to make kids safer, and yet there the state decided “no,” because they were a religious organization they couldn’t get it.
The Supreme Court said, “Look, that’s not right. This is a secular purpose and they should be able to get access to the fund, same as any other organization.”
So we’re making that explicit, from the Office of Management and Budget, and putting the agencies on notice that they need to police the states.
There are 37 states actually that have Blaine Amendments on their books, in one form or another, which came out of anti-Catholic bias, which is clear from the historical and the legal record. We need to make it clear that those amendments or other regulations or statutes that may be on the book can’t be enforced against religious organizations.
Bluey: We’re talking about these because it is Religious Freedom Day, but this is a president who’s made religious freedom of priority throughout his time in office and throughout his administration. What has it been like working with him on these issues?
Grogan: It’s fantastic. I mean, you don’t have to go in there and argue about the merits of pursuing religious freedom initiatives. You don’t have to say it’s important that we allow religious institutions back into the public square, or people of faith to pray openly.
He does ask questions. He wants to make sure we’re doing it in the right way. He wants to make sure we’ve thought things through. But this isn’t a president who needs a lot of convincing on these issues.
He’s fired up to do it and thinks that religious institutions have a central role to play in America’s civic life and the private lives of Americans, too. So he’s totally aligned.
There’s a whole group of people here across the White House, and in the agencies, many people who are veterans of various fights for religious freedom, who have been drawn to this administration to work on these issues. And to be frank, they’re having a blast in this administration to work on issues like this.
Americans have faced restrictions on their ability to live according to their religious beliefs for too long.
In changing discriminatory rules, @POTUS has returned to all Americans some of the freedoms to think, speak, & act according to their beliefs.https://t.co/ti9oMh3aDN
Now, shifting gears, let’s talk about trade. This week the president signed the Phase One trade deal with China. Obviously, a long initiative that this president has talked about even prior to his election campaign in 2016. I know China is an issue he’s focused on a great deal. Tell our listeners what they need to know about Phase One and where we go from here.
Grogan: Yeah, I think what you’re seeing in the last few weeks is really … everything’s firing on all cylinders for this president. And the entire arc of his first term is being set from going back to the first major legislative achievement, which would be tax reform, and now going where we have the omnibus spending deal right before the end of the year.
We had a number of significant policy wins, removing three Obamacare taxes, in addition to when he had removed the individual mandate. And now we’ve got the China trade deal and the USMCA passing this morning.
Making trade more fair for the United States, having a president who fights for American industries and American workers has been central to his belief system, his messaging, since long before he ran for president.
I remember growing up in upstate New York hearing him talk about this, and attacking the way NAFTA [the North American Free Trade Agreement] was constructed, attacking the way that we had let China come into the World Trade Organization, and he really has achieved a tremendous win with the China trade deal.
And matter of fact, it’s very interesting to watch a number of the president’s critics over the last few weeks belittle when this trade deal was announced to be signed. But when you see the details of it, I think that … the tone has changed.
I know some people just can’t get off their horse, but you see intellectual property protections, you see opening up of financial sectors, huge commitments to buy agricultural products, manufactured goods. It is a huge achievement.
And frankly, the work of the staff that went into it has been extraordinary. The number of meetings that the president has on this issue, he has been so focused on it. He’s inexhaustible. If it was the only issue that he had worked on for the first three years, it would still be an extraordinary achievement, if it was the only trade deal, but of course we’ve got USMCA done.
I think at the heart of it you see a president who is saying, “Look, this is not a fait accompli, that we’re going to lose American jobs, that we’re going to lose American industry, and that American workers are going to be resigned from, to do work that they would rather not do.”
And some of the contempt of the intellectual class over the last couple of decades were people who were involved in manufacturing just need to learn how to code or get used to the service economy. It’s nice to see the president saying, “No, we can still manufacture in the United States.” If we have a president and people around him willing to fight for American workers, we can win. And you see us winning.
The Phase 1 deal, while not perfect, is a step in the right direction and we should welcome the swift conclusion of a Phase 2 deal and removal of all tariffs levied over the past two years. https://t.co/EzYsjbTu6e
Bluey: You mentioned the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Final question for you here. The president has talked about how that’s going to really impact, in a positive way, American businesses and families, particularly in the heartland of this country. What does it mean for them, for those people who might not know the intricate details of the agreement, but want to know how it might change their lives?
Grogan: I think first and foremost, there has been a lot of scaremongering around the fact that the president wanted to pull out of NAFTA. But if you look at the numbers about the impact upon our agricultural sector, but also manufacturing post-NAFTA passing, according to many metrics, it’s not really a pretty picture.
What the president sought to do is to protect American industries, protect American workers, and put them at the forefront of … our trade agreement. And he has achieved that with the USMCA. It’s a total reset of our trade rules, and there’ll be more to come on that front.
The other thing to remember, too, is he signed a trade deal with Japan recently, which people forget, and that is a huge deal as well, with big commitments for purchases from American companies, produced in the United States.
So across the board we’re alleviating uncertainty here, heading into the final year of his first term, and the economy is roaring.
We’ve got record unemployment, record number of Americans at work now. We’ve never had so many Americans working right now. Record unemployment among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, women employment, Asian American unemployment’s at a record low. So everything is setting up beautifully.
The president has gotten attacked for so many of these policies that he was pursuing. Remember when he was running for president, they said if he was going to win, so many of the critics on the left and these brilliant economists said the economy’s in the tank, and today the Dow Jones Industrial Average is over 29,000. I think 29,200, the last I checked. So it’s a tremendous day for the president and it’s great fun to be here right now.
Passing the USMCA has opened a door to a brighter future for Americans everywhere.
It puts families, businesses, workers, and farmers first by reducing prices on goods, increasing exports, & creating more and higher paying jobs.https://t.co/vTT9zxbHW4
Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.
This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.
The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
Probably just a circus performer. Relax, you greasy Islamophobe.
“Police release name of Iranian national found with knives on Flagler Memorial Bridge,” WPTV, January 10, 2020 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
PALM BEACH, Fla. — Palm Beach police are investigating after they say a man believed to be an Iranian national was found with several knives on the Flagler Memorial Bridge on Friday.
According to Palm Beach police, a citizen called about a suspicious person in Bradley Park.
Police said the man, later identified as Masoud Yareilzoleh, had no known address and was detained by officers. The police department said he was released from custody later in the day on Friday.
Yareilzoleh’s car was found at Palm Beach International Airport. Authorities said the vehicle was searched and cleared. It’s unknown why his car was at the airport.
In addition to the knives, police said Yareilzoleh had $22,000 in cash on him when he was detained….
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-01-16 06:33:082020-01-16 06:37:02Florida: Iranian Muslim found on bridge with knives and $22,000 in cash
Days into the brave protests by Iranian citizens against their corrupt and brutal regime, Democrat airwaves were silent.
While protesters began calling out the lies of the Iranian regime over its handling of the downing of a Ukrainian Airlines commercial plane and demanding the resignation of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, until Monday, there were no words of support by high-ranking Democrats or any of the 2020 Democrat presidential contenders.
As journalist Yashar Ali, who is of Iranian decent, tweeted:
8. And while Iranians aren't a monolith and there are 80 million people in Iran, you don't see Iranians blaming President Trump for the cash (in which Iranian citizens were killed). They're blaming the IRGC and the Supreme Leader for a series of horrific mistakes
10. And that's why I tweeted this earlier today. In this context, Iranians are being used by certain people on the left (i didn't say all) as a tool to attack President Trump. But these same people don't seem to care to to support their right to protest?https://t.co/M1wLT4Lv3B
Instead, Dems were busy tweeting out their disapproval of President Trump’s hit on Iranian arch-terrorist Qasem Soleimani and sending condolences to the Iranian public – most of whom were celebrating the demise of such an evil influence on the world.
In contrast, President Trump’s tweet in Farsi in support of the Iranian protesters, garnered the most “likes” in the history of Persian Twitter, as noted by Saeed Ghasseminejad, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The tweet read: “To the brave, long-suffering people of Iran: I’ve stood with you since the beginning of my Presidency, and my Administration will continue to stand with you. We are following your protests closely, and are inspired by your courage.”
This tweet by @realDonaldTrump with more than 100k likes is already the most liked Persian tweet in the history of Twitter. A strong show of support by Iranians for Trump's Iran policy, something the MSM does not and will not report. https://t.co/4tZ0IgDZmx
By Sunday and then on Monday, Democrat radio silence was feebly broken by Joe Biden and Amy Kloucher, respectively, the latter of whom tweeted out weak and vague words of support for the “right to peacefully protest in any country, including Iran.”
Biden mainly used the opportunity to take a dig at Trump and his “reckless policies (that) needlessly endangered our interests in the Middle East.”
Trump’s reckless policies have needlessly endangered our interests in the Middle East. But none of us should be under any illusions about the Iranian regime, and the Iranian people — like all people everywhere — have the right to peaceful protest. The world should support them.
While Iranians doing just that were being shot in the streets by the regime security forces, the rest of the 2020 Democrat political contenders remained silent.
It was a shameful response for members of a party which prides itself on being a champion of human rights.
In the meantime, House Minority Leader Republican Kevin McCarthy announced his plans to introduce a resolution in Congress in support of the Iranian protesters:
I'm introducing a resolution in support of the protestors in Iran. The world is watching, and the people of Iran need to know that they are not alone in this pivotal moment.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2020-01-14 07:55:402020-01-14 07:55:48Democrat Silence on Support for Iranian Protesters
After years of reading about the alleged horrors of San Francisco, I decided I wanted to see for myself if the City by the Bay was really in such dire conditions.
I’d grown up 30 miles south of San Francisco, occasionally popping in for field trips or shopping or sightseeing. Sure, the city had always had homeless people, but the conditions I read about—needles everywhere, “poop maps” documenting the location of human feces—seemed absurd.
How bad could it actually be in one of America’s most famous cities?
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
Could one of the most famously liberal cities in the nation have disintegrated into disaster?
In 2009, I’d moved away from California. In the decade and change since, San Francisco has undergone a radical transformation. A new wave of top Silicon Valley companies—Twitter, Uber, Facebook—opened headquarters or offices in the city. And while San Francisco hadn’t ever been inexpensive, housing costs soared, with the median housing price more than doubling since 2010.
The 49ers, a football team, retained “San Francisco” in their name, but left famed Candlestick Park, now demolished, for Santa Clara, a California town south and in the middle of Silicon Valley—although San Francisco did gain the Golden State Warriors, a basketball team.
Uber and Lyft, which first came to San Francisco in 2010, now dominate ride-sharing services, their drivers swooping up and down the city’s famous hills.
Yet one change hadn’t occurred: The city has proudly remained a liberal bastion.
Home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s congressional district, San Francisco is reliably and overwhelmingly blue in every election (with perhaps a few votes going to the Green Party).
In just the past year, the city’s Board of Supervisors declared the National Rifle Association to be a “domestic terrorist organization,” and the school board voted first to paint over, and then to hide, a mural of George Washington in one of the city’s high schools—a mural, incidentally, painted by a leftist who strove to show both Washington’s greatness and flaws.
Such actions are just par for the course for San Francisco, a city of more than 884,000 that in the past decade also banned fast-food restaurants from including toys with most children’s meals; prohibited city-funded travel by local employees to 22 pro-life states; raised the minimum wage from $9.79 to $15.59 an hour; and, after banning plastic bags in 2007, first set a 10-cent fee for each nonreusable bag at stores, and then a 25-cent fee per bag.
Yes, leftist insanity has long been the norm for San Francisco. But the liberal would-be-utopia had once been seen as a great city, not a filthy environment full of struggling people.
In a tweet in December, President Donald Trump wrote: “Nancy Pelosi’s district in California has rapidly become one of the worst anywhere in the U.S. when it come[s] to the homeless and crime. It has gotten so bad, so fast.”
Showing it wasn’t just some “right-wing conspiracy” that San Francisco was falling apart, Oracle, one of the huge tech companies in the region, announced in December that its annual OpenWorld conference was going to Las Vegas for the next three years—costing San Francisco an estimated $64 million in potential revenue. An email from the San Francisco Travel Association, obtained by CNBC, mentioned “poor street conditions” as a factor.
So two days before Christmas, I left my parents’ house and made my way over to San Francisco.
I wanted to see for myself what conditions were really like. Was the middle class being driven away? Was the city as liberal as its politicians suggested? How many people were living on the streets?
Twenty-two thousand steps and four Uber and Lyft drives later, here’s what I saw.
1. Tents on Sidewalks
Before arriving in the city, I’d read that the Tenderloin neighborhood—just blocks from a major mall and retail area—is one of the worst.
Sure enough, as soon as I drift away from the retail and go a couple blocks into the Tenderloin, things get, well, smelly.
(Photos: Katrina Trinko/The Daily Signal)
To my surprise, there are tents everywhere in the neighborhood. Years ago, during the Occupy Wall Street movement, I’d visited an Occupy encampment in Boston.
This seemed similar, although there is one key difference. In Boston, the tents were set up in a park. In San Francisco, the tents are openly obstructing the sidewalk—and not just on one block.
In the course of my day, I see several blocks like this clustered in the Tenderloin neighborhood and vicinity.
Some are just a block or two away from a police station. San Francisco’s new district attorney, Chesa Boudin, told the ACLU in a candidate questionnaire: “Crimes such as public camping, offering or soliciting sex, public urination, blocking a sidewalk, etc. should not and will not be prosecuted.”
I also notice something that I hadn’t seen much during my years in New York City and Washington, D.C.: homeless women, although far fewer than homeless men.
Nationally, homelessness increased by 2.7% in 2019, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. “Homelessness in California is at a crisis level,” HUD Secretary Ben Carson said in a formal statement.
Residents of San Francisco likely agree: Three-quarters of respondents to a survey said homelessness in the city was getting worse, and a little over half mentioned it as a top issue, according to a 2019 report from the San Francisco Office of the Controller.
2. 24-Hour Public Restrooms
In 2019, San Francisco decided to try keeping three public restrooms open 24 hours a day in the worst areas. It’s not cheap—to keep them clean, one attendant is present during daytime hours and, presumably for safety, two are present at night.
“History has shown that without attendants, public toilets in some of San Francisco’s most challenging neighborhoods are used for drug activity and prostitution, and become targets of vandalism,” writes the San Francisco Chronicle’s Phil Matier.
Matier also did the math: After looking at the cost of funding the toilets and the amount of times the toilets were used at night, he calculated each restroom use cost the city $28.52.
In addition to three 24/7 toilets, another 21 public toilets are available at certain hours, funded by the city. “The popular program … provides an alternative to using our streets and sidewalks as a toilet,” states the San Francisco Public Works website.
The toilets advertise that people can dispose of needles there, another sign of San Francisco’s relaxed approach to drugs. Thomas Wolf, a former drug addict who lived on the streets of San Francisco for a few months in 2018, is among those now advocating the city change its approach toward drugs.
Wolf “thinks the city is too wedded to harm reduction—making it safer to use drugs—rather than encouraging people to stop using,” the Chronicle reported in December. “He said he was offered free, clean drug paraphernalia by outreach workers, but doesn’t remember ever being offered a treatment bed or even being asked whether he wanted help quitting. Not once.”
Wolf, who has ceased using drugs and now serves on San Francisco’s Street-Level Drug Dealing Task Force and works for the Salvation Army’s Railton Place as a case manager and life skills coach, estimated that 90% of the homeless he lived with in Tenderloin and the adjacent South of Market neighborhood were addicted to drugs or alcohol.
“With harm reduction, the whole point is to use less while respecting your civil liberties,” Wolf told the Chronicle. “When I was out there homeless and leaving my needles in the street and defecating in the street and urinating in the street, was I protecting your civil liberties?”
3. Washing Sidewalks
Walking around the Tenderloin neighborhood in the morning, I encounter workers washing a sidewalk—and asking homeless people to move.
A worker sprays water right up to the brink of a homeless man’s stuff on the sidewalk. The homeless man, who is shoving his belongings into a bag or backpack, starts shouting at the worker, saying (and I’m editing this since we’re a family news outlet), “The f—, man?”
He keeps shouting, bellowing sentiments along the lines of “Who the f— do you think you are, f—ing my stuff, man?” as he continues to pack up.
In early December, the Tenderloin Community Benefit District and San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney announced the beginning of weekly power-washings in the district, instead of monthly.
David Elliott Lewis, a local who is a community organizer, said, per the press release: “Even though seeing human and animal feces on our sidewalks is a common occurrence, I find it upsetting and disturbing every single time.”
According to RentHop.com, “Tenderloin has been on a winning streak for the ‘poopiest neighborhood’ contest for the past three years. The neighborhood saw 8,644.2 animal/human waste incidents per square mile in 2017, 7,722.8 in 2018, and 6,887.9 so far in 2019.”
Washing sidewalks is hardly the only way the city is addressing the crisis. In the past decade, San Francisco has been on a spending spree to help the homeless.
“Between 2011 and 2012, SF spent $157 million on homeless services. By the 2015-2016 fiscal year, it was up to $242 million. In the most recent 2019-2020 budget proposals, the figure hit more than $364 million. But the consensus remains that more is needed,” reports Curbed San Francisco, which estimates the homeless population now could be as high as 17,600.
4. Tourist Areas
What’s going on with the tourist areas, attractions that long have drawn people from around the country and the world to San Francisco’s shores?
“The loveliness of Paris seems somehow sadly gay/The glory that was Rome is of another day/I’ve been terribly alone and forgotten in Manhattan/I’m going home to my City by the Bay,” Tony Bennett famously warbled in “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
But local business owners are concerned tourists aren’t so tempted these days to explore what was once dubbed the “Paris of the West.”
For years, Pier 39—a mix of kitschy shops, restaurants, a carousel, and the odd street entertainer—has been a top tourist destination. Now, businesses fret, times are a-changing.
“We saw a pretty sharp decline since [2016-2017],” Brian Hayes, who owns seven shops and kiosks on the pier, told ABC7 (KGO-TV). “A lot of it is attributed to the homeless.”
“I know myself I’ll go on vacation, I’ll spend more money, but I have to have a good experience and I don’t want to have to look at the homeless and I don’t want to have to see needles on the ground and human feces. It’s not where you want to go on vacation,” Sandra Fletcher, president of Simco Restaurants, which owns five restaurants on the pier and also is facing more trouble drumming up business, told ABC7.
The day I am there, Pier 39 appears to have its usual hustle and bustle. A pack of people gather around an entertainer boasting that he can pull out the balloon he’s swallowed. A kid shrieks on a bungee flying ride.
In a store that sells products only for left-handed people, customers browse. The women’s restroom is decently clean, given that it’s a free public one in a high-traffic area.
A little outside Pier 39, I see a man in a wheelchair gliding along, plaintively asking people if they could help him out. He wears a 49ers cap and a red scarf and a checked sports coat, which I hope keeps him warm in this neighborhood right on the water.
In the few blocks between the Pier and Fisherman’s Wharf—another frequent tourist stop, essentially a line of bayside restaurants and food counters selling seafood—I notice one man sleeping on the ground.
In the area around Fisherman’s Wharf, souvenir shops sell swag and gifts that capitalize on the city’s liberal reputation:
I also browse Union Square, rimmed by some of the top shopping destinations of San Francisco: a gigantic, eight-story Macy’s, a Saks Fifth Avenue boasting of carrying “faux fur” in one of its windows, a Tiffany’s with sparkling jewelry in its whimsical Christmas displays, and a sleek Apple Store. A Christmas tree is lit in the square, and an ice skating rink is open for Californians wistfully wanting to capture some taste of a white Christmas.
About a week before my visit, Union Square was where San Francisco strained to restore its reputation. On the heels of the news of the Oracle convention’s move to Vegas, Mayor London Breed declared that San Francisco is a “world class city” and pledged further steps to address homelessness.
Yet as the Chronicle’s Matier noted, Breed’s comments in Union Square came at the same time that “an image of a man with his pants around his knees defecating in a [San Francisco] Safeway aisle was rocketing around the internet and TV.”
For San Francisco, the Oracle convention wasn’t even the first blow. In 2018, tourism and convention bureau SF Travel announced that a medical association, never named, was looking for another location for its conferences after 2023, despite holding the gatherings in the city since the 1980s.
“Postconvention surveys showed their members were afraid to walk amid the open drug use, threatening behavior and mental illness that are common on the streets,” reports the San Francisco Chronicle.
I see a couple of homeless people around Union Square, but nothing unusual for an urban area. The Union Square neighborhood effectively borders the Tenderloin, however, meaning a confused tourist could easily end up there.
5. A Church for the Homeless
At lunchtime, I pop into a church—one with the glorious architecture, high ceilings, and impressive art characteristic of so many older Catholic churches in the United States.
As the church’s bells chime, the sound of a vigorous snorer fills the lulls in between.
St. Boniface Church, in the Tenderloin neighborhood, allows the homeless to sleep in the pews every weekday through a nonprofit program called the Gubbio Project.
Around since the 1860s, the parish originally was the religious home of Germans in the city. The current church was built in 1902, and although it escaped the 1906 earthquake, it was ravaged by the subsequent fires. Rebuilding was completed in 1908.
“The Gubbio Project uses the back two-thirds of the sanctuary; the church uses the front one-third to celebrate the daily Mass,” the program states on its website. “This sends a powerful message to our unhoused neighbors—they are in essence part of the community, not to be kicked out when those with homes come in to worship. It also sends a message to those attending Mass—the community includes the tired, the poor, those with mental health issues and those who are wet, cold and dirty.”
The day I arrive at St. Boniface’s, the front of the church glitters with Christmas decorations.
During the Communion service—there isn’t a Mass that day—the church is mostly quiet. During one brief moment, someone starts babbling, only to be told to be quiet by others. When I look back, I don’t see any of the homeless people actively participating in the religious rites.
After the service, I explore the rest of the church. Most of the wooden pews—with no padding for comfort—are occupied by a sleeping person. Three people are lying on the floor in the back.
I speak briefly to Michael Bonner, a new employee of the Gubbio Project. When I ask Bonner how the homeless can be helped and what should be done, he speaks of a lack of motivation, of people “going down a path of not caring anymore” instead of having “a fire burning in you.”
Bonner talks about the need for a work ethic, and how it’s too simplistic to say the homeless problem is an effect of the city’s expensive housing. But he’s also adamant that people need help: “We just can’t give up on the willing,” he says.
I ask him if the homeless people he encounters have loved ones or families who could help. Bonner says most of them are “probably embarrassed to go home” because “you don’t want to hear it from your family anymore” after presumably failing in previous tries to get off the streets.
6. No Place for the Middle Class
One of the big tensions in San Francisco—and in the wider Bay Area region—in recent years has been the perceived gulf between the affluent and everybody else. As my colleague Jarrett Stepman has chronicled, California increasingly is becoming a place for the poor and the rich, not the middle class.
So out of curiosity, I walk over to Twitter’s headquarters, just a few blocks away from St. Boniface’s, passing City Hall. Twitter is just one of several companies—others include Salesforce, Facebook, Square, and Uber—that have come to San Francisco in recent years.
No doubt the city has seen a business boom: “Citywide, the unemployment rate fell from 9% in 2011 to 2.6% this year, and the number of jobs grew from 543,600 in 2011 to an estimated 730,900 last year, according to state data,” reports the Chronicle.
The area around Twitter is quiet the day I am there, and there is no sign of anyone living—or begging—on the streets. Beneath Twitter’s headquarters is a bougie food hall and a grocery store that, incredibly, makes Whole Foods seem like an affordable option.
In the food hall, I stop for lunch at The Organic Coup—which was basically everything you’d expect from a shop in a Francisco food hall. It brands itself as the first “organic fast food restaurant” and urges me to “taste the revolution.”
Apparently, fast-food prices don’t apply in the revolutionary era: My lunch of chicken strips and tater tots, and nary a drink, costs $12.81.
However, the food hall offers plenty of options beyond organic tater tots, including—I kid you not—caviar.
One of my Lyft drivers, whose name I’m not using because I didn’t get his permission to quote him on the record, calls San Francisco a “ridiculous city.”
As we pass a gas station, where regular gas is going for $3.99 a gallon, he notes in frustration that gas where I live is probably significantly cheaper.
My Lyft driver also complains that affordable housing is a joke, saying it means something like a $900,000 for a two-bedroom condo instead of a million. The driver, who moved from Los Angeles to San Francisco 10 years ago, blames San Francisco residents for not allowing more housing, noting it had created a situation where people made a fortune on their own homes’ going up in value but where their children could not afford to buy a home and stay.
The Lyft driver’s attitude isn’t an anomaly: A 2019 survey conducted by the controller’s office found that 35% of respondents were somewhat or very likely to leave the city in the next three years, including 48% of those 35 or younger.
Although the city notes that the 35% number is in line with statistics for the past 14 years, data suggests people aren’t merely talking about leaving the city. According to real estate firm Redfin, San Francisco was second only to New York City among American cities with the dubious distinction of losing the most residents in the third quarter of 2019, the most recent period tracked.
And my driver isn’t wrong to be concerned about housing prices. “In 2010, the median sale price for a single-family house in SF came in at $751,000 … But by October of 2019, the California Association of Realtors estimated that a median-priced SF house sold for $1.65 million, more than double the value of a home the same time ten years ago,” reports Curbed SF.
7. Life on the Sidewalk
Toward the end of the day, I speak to Anthony Rodriguez, who is sitting on a box next to a man smoking in a tent. Next to the tent is a sofa.
Neither Rodriguez nor the tent man, who doesn’t want to be quoted, knows where the sofa originated.
Rodriguez is from Oakland, a city across the Bay, but says he’s been in San Francisco for about a month.
“That’s one thing about San Francisco,” he observes. “You won’t starve.”
The 51-year-old says he’s been homeless since 2015, when his mother died, and that he had been homeless at times prior to that as well.
Rodriguez tells me a complicated story I have trouble following—and entirely believing—about being discharged from a hospital too soon for an injury he incurred on his knee.
“I started drinking again because it’s cold out,” he mentions.
Overall, he likes San Francisco, especially because he meets so many people.
“If I’m lonely and sad, I always like to come out here,” Rodriguez, who doesn’t want his photo taken, tells me.
He says he has seven children, and that he’s outlived two of his ex-wives. It doesn’t appear that he is in regular touch with any family now.
The company he finds in San Francisco “fills a void for me,” he says, noting that he’s less depressed here.
“The police will wake you up,” Rodriguez says, but adds that it’s usually OK to just go across the street when that happens.
8. Poop and Needles
So am I still a poop skeptic?
After walking all over the city, I’ve seen only one instance of poop (in the Tenderloin neighborhood) and one possible needle (I wasn’t anxious to get close enough to verify)—despite the fact that I kept diligently studying the sidewalk to see if I would spot either feces or needles.
My anonymous Lyft driver, however, says that he regularly sees people shooting up heroin, and notes you can spot the dealers by noticing who has backpacks.
“In San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight’ producers filmed drug dealers operating in broad daylight. In the South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood, where many apartments rent for nearly $4,000 a month, the sidewalks were lined with used syringes,” writes Fox News’ Charles Couger.
And in the course of my research, I encounter Twitter accounts that portray a dirtier reality than what I happened to observe:
"Giant human feces against the wall near the main door of 701 Minna. This is the third time I've reported this shit, and all the tickets have been closed. But this shit is still here." (SOMA, D6) https://t.co/FUpg94ep7Ppic.twitter.com/PbgorJF4si
— PoopScoop: Get the Scoop on Poop (@PoopScoopSF) January 3, 2020
— PoopScoop: Get the Scoop on Poop (@PoopScoopSF) January 3, 2020
Needles cover the sidewalk Across the st from Mikes Bikes, at 1220 Howard st. @311.
Small business are domed under these conditions. No one wants to come here, walk threw this sh*t & needles, graffiti everywhere,get your car broken into while you get your bike serviced. pic.twitter.com/YzeZt0fSUS
At the end of the day, the increased power-washing and presence of public restrooms show the city has a real problem with these issues. But if you’re thinking about a trip to San Francisco, I wouldn’t skip it on account of these matters—just make sure you know where the bad neighborhoods are, and be sure to avoid them if you’re concerned.
9. Misery
In the weeks since I visited San Francisco and started writing this article, I’ve caught myself often thinking about the homeless people I saw—from the man who was barefoot on the street in the Mission District, to those I saw on the sidewalks from my passing car, to the man rushing to pack up his belongings as a worker sprayed the sidewalk near him.
I don’t pretend to know the exact policy solution that will “solve” homelessness—although I hope to do further reporting and interviews this year at The Daily Signal to talk to experts who have insightful ideas on ways to help.
But any visitor to San Francisco can tell the current situation isn’t working—for tourists, for residents, and perhaps most importantly, for the homeless themselves.
No doubt, mental health and addiction, perhaps both in many or most cases, make helping the homeless while respecting individual rights uniquely challenging.
But as clichéd as the term is, it’s genuinely heartbreaking to walk through blocks of people, spending their lives on the streets, often seemingly in a drugged haze—and sometimes passed out entirely.
I can’t imagine tents provide much shelter against the chilly, Bay-driven winds of San Francisco, or that anyone who feels driven to defecate on the street is truly in his right mind.
Seeing this at Christmastime—when most of the country was on the cusp of days of joyful celebrations, ample family time, presents galore, and gourmet meals—was especially upsetting.
The status quo in San Francisco has a real human cost.
The left long has prided itself on having more compassion for, and solutions for, the poorest Americans than the right does.
But if one thing is clear when walking around San Francisco, it’s that this liberal bastion has absolutely failed some Americans who are struggling the hardest right now.
All photos in this article were taken by the author. In a few photos, faces have been blurred to respect privacy.
This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.
The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2020-01-13 06:57:162020-01-14 05:30:35Tents, Homelessness, and Misery: 9 Things I Saw in San Francisco
The conventional wisdom regarding Nancy Pelosi’s holding of the impeachment articles is that, as someone put it, she’d pulled the pin on the grenade and then didn’t know what to do. Yet even if she has bumbled into her current predicament, which seems likely, is there now some method to her madness? Has she found a way to turn lemons into at least a thimble of lemonade by using the situation to damage the presidential candidate she doesn’t want to see capture the Democratic nomination — burgeoning Bernie Sanders — and help the establishment choice, Joe Biden?
It’s now being pointed out that if Pelosi releases the impeachment articles next week, as is rumored, it will hurt the campaigns of the five senators seeking the Democratic nomination, as they’ll have to leave the campaign trail to be present for the trial. This is at just the time when one of those senators, Sanders, is surging in the polls; is leading in the first contest, Iowa, which is just weeks away; and who now, many Democratic observers say (and often fear), may very well be the nominee.
In reference to this forced campaign-trail absence, “‘Of course it matters,’ [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren said in an interview this week,” reportsPolitico. “‘We just did a 3½-hour selfie line. Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter to do face to face.’”
Yet the Massachusetts politician and the three other senators who aren’t Bernie are expendable. Warren’s star has been fading, her lies and fanciful policy proposals having caught up to her. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has risen a bit of late, but no one really believes she’ll be the nominee. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) now just serves as a token allowing the Democrats to say, “Look, our field isn’t entirely white!” (an unpardonable sin in their now “woke” party). As for Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), well, few people will notice his absence because few even notice his presence.
But Bernie matters. With him hitting his stride and the first contest (on Feb. 3) being significant because it can establish or kill momentum — and with the polls close — his absence is significant.
This has to please the Democratic establishment. Its power brokers hobbled Bernie in 2016, and they surely don’t want him now, either. First, he’s not actually a Democrat but an independent; he’s also anti-establishment, and the Democrat machine wants in the White House a Democrat, and one who’ll play ball. It’s also likely that insiders consider the white and wizened socialist septuagenarian unelectable.
Evidencing this establishment antipathy was a November report stating that Barack Obama had actually vowed to intervene if Sanders seemed poised to be the nominee. In fact, one could just imagine the ex-president on the phone with Pelosi strategizing on how to bury Bernie.
But Pelosi wouldn’t need any prodding. Not only is she a major head on the Democratic-machine hydra who has assuredly pondered how the impeachment articles’ release will affect the primary contest, but there’s another factor:
It’s quite likely that to Pelosi this is not just professional, but personal.
Remember that Bernie is the candidate of Pelosi’s nemesis, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. In fact, the New York socialist upstart has been campaigning by his side, helping to rally younger voters, and is a major factor in his post-heart-attack campaign’s resuscitation.
Also note that it’s Ocasio-Cortez and her radical crew who pushed Pelosi into going forward with impeachment in the first place, an action the House speaker apparently opposed and which has been disastrous for her party. So she certainly must find the prospect of using Ocasio-Cortez’ tactic of choice (impeachment) to damage her candidate of choice quite poetic — and delicious.
Add to this that Ocasio-Cortez is now refusing to pay her Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dues and has been working to primary establishment Democrats — thus challenging Pelosi’s power — and one can only imagine how much the speaker despises the congresswoman.
Remember, too, that Pelosi is a political operator who’ll “cut your head off and you won’t even know you’re bleeding,” as her daughter Alexandra put it last year. I suspect the speaker may believe that releasing the impeachment articles next week sticks a shiv in Bernie’s back — and by proxy in Ocasio-Cortez’ — and will relish every minute of it.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2020-01-12 06:13:212020-01-13 06:43:04Is Pelosi Timing the Impeachment Articles’ Release so as to Damage Bernie?
“What Beltrami County is doing is denying refugees a chance at a better life,” said Omar. “Native Minnesotans blame the influx of Somalis for spikes in crime. Minnesota statistics released in July 2018 showed that incidents of violent crime including murder decreased compared to 2017, but rape and involuntary sex trafficking rose to the highest rate seen in almost a quarter-century.”
So apparently Minnesotans aren’t allowed to try to provide a better life for themselves and their children. They must instead be wholly concerned with providing Muslim migrants a better life.
“Omar sounds off after Minnesota county bans refugee resettlement – aided by Trump executive order,” by Danielle Wallace, Fox News, January 10, 2020 (thanks to the Geller Report):
After an executive order by President Trump made it possible, a northern Minnesota county on Tuesday night opted to ban the resettlement of refugees within its boundaries, becoming the first in the state and the second in the nation to do so.
The vote at a crowded public meeting in Beltrami County, a sparsely inhabited area surrounding Red Lake, drew condemnation from many Minnesota Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar.
The move was viewed by many as a reaction to spiking crime in the state since large numbers of Somali refugees began arriving, according to reports. But supporters say it was simply an exercise of their rights, as facilitated by the president.
“President Trump empowered counties to have a voice in the decision-making process for the federal refugee resettlement program,” state Rep. Matt Grossell, a Republican, told the Duluth News Tribune. “Tonight, Beltrami County exercised that option.”
In a Twitter message Wednesday, Omar – who immigrated to Minnesota from Somalia as a teenager – saw the vote differently.
“Over 20 years ago, the state of Minnesota welcomed my family with open arms. I never would’ve had the opportunities that led me to Congress had I been rejected,” Omar wrote. “What Beltrami County is doing is denying refugees a chance at a better life.”
Omar fled Somalia with her family near the beginning of the country’s civil war in 1991 and lived in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years until immigrating to the U.S. in 1995.
The Trump administration announced in November that resettlement agencies must get written consent from state and local officials in any jurisdiction where they want to help resettle refugees beyond June 2020. The order says the agencies were not working closely enough with local officials on resettling refugees and his administration acted to respect communities that believe they do not have the jobs or other resources to be able to take in refugees. Refugees have the right to move anywhere in the United States after their initial resettlement, but at their own expense.
The vote drew applause from many of the crowd of more than 150 people present at the board chambers in Bemidji, Minn., which is about 140 miles northwest of Duluth. Native Minnesotans blame the influx of Somalis for spikes in crime.
Minnesota statistics released in July 2018 showed that incidents of violent crime including murder decreased compared to 2017, but rape and involuntary sex trafficking rose to the highest rate seen in almost a quarter-century, The Duluth News Tribune reported, citing the state Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The report did not give a definitive reason for the spike….
With Beto O’Rourke out of the race, it’s up to Bernie Sanders to come up with the best hot take on the killing of Soleimani. And he delivers exactly the sort of rambling senile socialist rant you would expect from Jeremy Corbyn. All he leaves out is throwing around “empire”, “endless war”, and “neo-liberalism”. And then blaming the whole thing on corporations. But at least he manages to compare Trump to Putin and Xi.
SANDERS: No, I think it was an assassination. I think it was in violation of international law. This guy was (INAUDIBLE) — was a bad news guy, but he was a ranking official of the Iranian government.
And Baghdadi was the ranking head of the Islamic State.
So what?
If a foreign government official decides to engage in terrorist operations, he’s a terrorist. The silly argument that Soleimani can’t be killed because he has an official title is nonsense. Terrorists don’t stop being terrorists because they have titles.
And you know what? Once you get into violating international law in that sense, you can say there are a lot of bad people all over the world running governments. Kim Jong-un in North Korea, not exactly a nice guy, responsible for the death, perhaps, of hundreds of thousands of people in his own country, to name one of many, you know?
Killing terrorists isn’t a violation of international law, but if it were, are all violations equivalent? Bernie’s argument is that if you shoplift, you might as well be a serial killer. It’s the sort of purity that lefties would vehemently reject when it comes to criminal justice, but not international law.
Funny.
The president of China now has put a million people in — Muslims, into educational camps. Some would call them concentration camps. But once you start this business of a major country saying, hey, we have the right to assassinate, then you’re unleashing international anarchy.
Some being Bernie. Anyway I thought he was a supporter of anarchists. And assassinations. The KGB did quite a bit of it.
I’m not a lawyer on these things, it might be. But this guy is, you know, was, as bad as he was, an official of the Iranian government.
And you unleash — then if China does that, you know, if Russia does that, you know, Russia has been implicated under Putin with assassinating dissidents.
I’m not a lawyer, I’m just a senator running for president and speaking on CNN.
Doesn’t Bernie have any lawyers working for his campaign? Or proxies? Or is it all Islamists who support Louie Farrakhan and killing Jews?
Anyway, according to a supporter of every Marxist terror group on the planet, killing an Islamist terrorist is just like Putin killing dissidents. So Soleimani must be a dissident? Attacking a US embassy would be his form of dissent.
What would President Sanders do if a US embassy were attacked by Iran? Apologize. And blame some guy on YouTube for making a video.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-01-11 06:37:352020-01-14 07:03:24Bernie Sanders: Killing a Terrorist Is Like Putting Muslims in Concentration Camps
Seven years ago, I got a call every parent fears: I lost my daughter to a driver who was high on “legal” marijuana. With this new pot vaping crisis, I’m worried more parents will lose their children if we don’t stop the growth of the marijuana industry.
Across the nation, a growing number of vaping-related illnesses and deaths have left government officials scrambling to fix a problem they should have seen coming.
After years of dubious claims by both the vaping and pot industries, we are now feeling acute consequences. America is beginning to wake up to some of these concerns. That is, everyone except the banking industry, which senses a massive investment opportunity: legalized pot.
While parents like me are losing their loved ones, the marijuana industry and its promoters are pushing a bill granting increased investment into the industry, dispensaries in Oregon and Colorado are furiously pulling contaminated vapes from their shelves, and pot growers are shipping their over-production of high-potency marijuana to and through non-legalized states.
In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>
The banking industry is now ramping up lobbying on Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. Indeed, Crapo recently announced his committee, the Senate Banking Committee, will take up legislation supported by the pot industry, disingenuously named the “SAFE Banking Act.”
The legislation, which would create an exception to U.S. banking law to allow lenders to make loans to marijuana firms even though it remains against federal law, is part of an aggressive effort to commercialize today’s new super-potent pot.
This would give pot shops and their corporate parent companies access to more investment capital even though marijuana has been proven to be addictive and harmful by medical science and is being used increasingly by young people in the form of flavored pot vapes. Today’s marijuana isn’t your Woodstock weed.
As a mom, it is difficult to understand why lawmakers have decided that now, with an epidemic in drug use going on, is a good time to push for legislation that amounts to backdoor legalization and a reward for this industry.
The vaping crisis is broader than flavored tobacco products. Marijuana vape oils account for more than 80% of the cases of the mysterious lung illnesses.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned against vaping any tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) oils. Even the American Vaping Association’s national spokesperson warned the public, “If you don’t want to die or end up in a hospital, stop vaping illegal THC oils immediately.”
Some are quick to blame the black market, but at least three deaths and numerous cases of illness are linked to “legal” pot products.
Crapo is considering advancing legislation that will ensure the explosion of the commercial pot market without addressing the long-lasting consequences that have been the hallmark of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma.
The SAFE Banking Act fails to acknowledge the industry’s practice of working around state regulations to continue marketing flavored, potentially deadly pot vaping oils, and pot candies that appeal to children. We should not reward them with this legislation.
If Crapo and others in the Senate empower Big Marijuana, they could be setting up Americans for a lifetime of negative consequences.
Corinne Gasper lost her daughter to a marijuana-impaired driver and is now an advocate with Smart Approaches to Marijuana, which opposes the legalization of recreational marijuana.
This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.
The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2020-01-11 06:20:502020-01-11 06:23:11I Lost My Child Due to a Driver High on Marijuana. Now, This Bill Would Reward Big Pot.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats spent months lecturing Americans to take impeachment seriously. They claimed it was a matter of national security—so important, in fact, that it excused rushing a sham “investigation” through the House of Representatives.
It was the fastest impeachment in American history. And now. . . silence.
After months of saying there was no time to waste, Speaker Pelosi pumped the brakes. Rather than delivering the articles of impeachment to the Senate for trial, she’s holding onto them, refusing to name the “managers” whose job will be to make the House Democrats’ case to the Senate.
“I’ll send them over when I’m ready,” Pelosi said today.
This stunthorribly undercuts the Democrats’ case in two big ways. First, it makes a mockery of the Constitution, which unambiguously grants the Senate the “sole power to try all impeachments.” That means Senate leaders are responsible for outlining the process they’ll follow. House leaders got to use their own rules for the impeachment inquiry and vote—they don’t get to decide how the Senate does its job, too.
Second, Pelosi’s stalling confirms the doubts of both House Republicans and Democrats who voted against impeachment: There was no evidence to move forward. Not only did Democrat leaders fail to show that President Donald J. Trump broke the law; their articles of impeachment don’t even allege that he committed a crime. For the first time in history, a President has been impeached for solely political reasons.
Even Senate Democrats are finding it hard to excuse this behavior, and a growing number of them are calling on Speaker Pelosi to end the stalling. It’s easy to see why: If even Democrats can’t take their own impeachment seriously, why should anybody else?
America is a nation of builders. Bureaucrats shouldn’t hold us back.
Better infrastructure in every community is key to America’s future. The list includes improved roads, bridges, airports, and other major projects that currently have to go through a maze of byzantine regulations to get over the finish line.
— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) January 9, 2020
Today, President Trump proposed a new rule under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to ensure our infrastructure can be built in a timely, affordable manner.
“From day one, my Administration has made fixing this regulatory nightmare a top priority,” the President said. “We want to build new roads, bridges, tunnels, highways—bigger, better, faster, and we want to build them at less cost.”
The outdated regulations guiding NEPA haven’t seen a major update of this nature in more than 40 years. President Trump’s proposed rule would establish time limits of 2 years for the completion of environmental impact statements. The average time it takes right now to complete these reviews is nearly 5 years. It can drag on more than 7 years for highways.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png001600 Daily - The White Househttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png1600 Daily - The White House2020-01-10 05:59:422020-01-10 06:00:16Must-watch video: Turns out impeachment wasn’t so ‘urgent’
Matthews is of course correct, except for the minor detail that when Soleimani covered “Don’t Be Cruel,” he sang “Be Cruel.”
These people’s intense hatred of President Trump has driven them mad.
“Chris Matthews Compares Soleimani to Elvis Presley and Princess Diana,” by Andrew Kugle, Washington Free Beacon, January 8, 2020 (thanks to the Geller Report):
MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews on Wednesday night compared deceased Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani to Elvis Presley and Princess Diana.
“When some people die, you don’t know what the impact is going to be. When Princess Diana died, for example, there was a huge emotional outpouring,” Matthews said. “Elvis Presley in our culture—it turns out that this general we killed was a beloved hero of the Iranian people to the point where—look at the people, we got pictures up now—these enormous crowds coming out. There’s no American emotion in this case, but there’s a hell of a lot of emotion on the other side.”
Soleimani led the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps which trained, funded, and armed Iran-sympathetic terrorist groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and around the Middle East, killing thousands, including hundreds of Americans.
“Should our leaders know what they’re doing when they kill somebody?” Matthews asked Rep. Joaquin Castro (D., Texas).
Castro replied that Trump’s strategy of pulling out of the nuclear deal and putting pressure on Iran has failed.
“They very much could have anticipated that Iranians would react in this way, both the Iranian public but also that the government would strike back,” Castro said. “This speaks to a much larger issue, Chris, which is the president has had a very chaotic and erratic foreign policy, especially with respect to Iran.”…
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2020-01-10 05:44:202020-01-10 05:47:00MSNBC’s Chris Matthews likens jihad terror mastermind Soleimani to Princess Diana and Elvis Presley [Video]
While the media often portray themselves as noble guardians of the truth who keep a close watch on those in power, the reality is quite the opposite: It is they who are in power and often swoop down to crush the powerless.
This was the case in the frenzy surrounding Nick Sandmann, a teenage student at Covington Catholic High School who donned a “Make American Great Again” hat and became cast as a national villain overnight.
On Tuesday, Sandmann enjoyed some measure of vindication. After suing multiple media outlets for libel, including the Washington Post, he confirmed that CNN had reached a settlement with him for damages and “emotional distress” caused by the network’s coverage of the viral incident that took place in 2019.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
The financial terms of Sandmann’s settlement were not disclosed.
In January 2019, a series of major media outlets published stories about a videotaped encounter he had with a Native American activist in Washington, D.C. That viral video proved to be highly deceptive, as was the media account about the incident, which painted a complex scene in simple terms.
It was a shameful example of media outlets rushing to fuel a preconceived narrative, recklessly pursuing a story with a high potential for “rage clicks” as well as high potential to permanently harm a teenager who never sought the public spotlight.
This story was fake news built on top of fake news, a leading example of why Americans have lost trust in media and journalists. It was Example A of how the media can fail to act with appropriate objectivity in the search to shine a light on those in power, and can instead be weaponized against the powerless who don’t have favored status in America’s elite newsrooms.
Celebrities, politicians, and social media mobs did the work of piling on to destroy a young person who had been carelessly dropped into the maelstrom.
Omaha elder and Vietnam War veteran Nathan Phillips endured hateful taunts with dignity and strength, then urged us all to do better.
Crowds can easily be ginned up into a mob by false information, and as the frenzy peaks, the rights and very lives of individuals can be ruthlessly trampled on.
None of this would have happened if CNN and other outlets had been more cautious in their reporting on a story with such explosive potential. Instead, they were derelict.
They chose to push the tale that Sandmann acted in an aggressive and racist manner toward a Native American man, who simply wanted to protest peacefully and play music.
As my colleague, Katrina Trinko, wrote at the time: “Finally, [the media] had a piece of proof that supported their cherished narrative: that most Trump supporters were bigots and racists who backed the wall and other initiatives because of their racist views.”
Only after these stories were published, and the mobs had been armed with their digital pitchforks, did a slow trickle of information begin to reveal the reality of the situation.
With time, it became clear thatthe facts did not support the misleading initial reports and commentary.
Sandmann, it turns out, had not been the aggressor in the situation. The Native American man, Nathan Phillips, actually approached the teen after being egged on by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites, a black nationalist group, who had been yelling out racist and other derogatory comments, but were completely absent in the initial reporting.
In addition, many outlets initially reported (falsely) that Phillips was a “veteran,” which of course increased the rage toward Sandmann. That turned out not to be true after a review of his military records, which revealed that he had briefly been in the U.S. Marines, but never deployed.
In the end, the media’s forced story collapsed under the weight of evidence.
One would hope that the Covington fiasco would be a wake up call for the media, a “teachable moment.”
But given all of the other media follies in the last few years and a poor response to public criticism, it seems unlikely the media will change their ways.
To win back the public, media outlets need to ditch their preconceived narratives and work harder to find the truth.
With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:
Is socialism really morally sound?
The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2020-01-09 07:22:002020-01-10 05:29:47MAGA Hat-Wearing Teen Just Got a Settlement From CNN. Media: Learn Your Lesson.
An epidemic of federal employees watching porn on taxpayer time has reached a new low at one agency where a veteran staffer “viewed child pornography on a government computer on multiple occasions,” according to an audit. The unidentified employee worked at the Bureau of Land Management, which operates under the Department of the Interior (DOI) and admitted to investigators from the agency’s Inspector General’s office that he viewed adult pornography on multiple occasions though he knew DOI policy prohibits it. A year ago, a separate DOI employee infected agency networks with Russian malware after visiting thousands of porn sites on his government computer. A forensic examination determined the employee, who was never identified, had an extensive history of visiting porn websites and saving material on an unauthorized drive. In both cases the employees retired and faced no consequences.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2020-01-08 15:09:482020-01-08 15:11:54Epidemic of Government Employees Watching Porn on Taxpayer Time
“There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make man and woman into beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things–their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women.” — Alexis de Tocqueville, “How Americans Understand the Equality of the Sexes,” 1840
“If families are falling apart, it’s because men are suffering. Men are hurting. It’s not just that they’re walking away from their families. It’s that they’re not being the fathers they’re meant to be.” — Lieutenant General Jerry Boykin, U.S. Army (Ret.)
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” — Genesis 1:27King James Version
EDITORS NOTE: This is the fifth in a series titled Decadent Democrats. You may read the previous installments here:
One of the main goals of Democrats has been to make men and women the same. We are not talking about voting rights, equal pay for equal work or access to opportunities to advance in our society and culture.
What Democrats have embraced is making men and women biologically alike. Hence degrading both sexes.
Democrats support the ideal of gender neutral pronouns, bathrooms that allow men and women equal access, homosexuality, bi-sexuality, transgenderism and even having sex with animals.
This issue made front page headlines recently after J.K. Rowling posted this on Twitter:
Dress however you please. Call yourself whatever you like. Sleep with any consenting adult who’ll have you. Live your best life in peace and security. But force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real? #IStandWithMaya#ThisIsNotADrill
This tweet drew backlash from Rowling’s liberal fans. According to The Daily Signal’sNicole Russell:
Rowling’s level-headed take on this topic may come as a surprise to some, given her history of supporting liberal politicians. But just as surprising are the facts that led to Maya Forstater’s firing.
Forstater, 45, was employed as a tax expert at the Center for Global Development, a British think tank. In 2018, her organization fired her after she posted comments on Twitter that criticized the U.K. government’s plans to let people self-identify according to the gender they choose.
[ … ]
After being fired, she filed a complaint with an employment tribunal and alleged that she was discriminated against on the basis of her beliefs.
She reiterated those beliefs in her witness statement to the tribunal. She said she is “gender critical,” meaning that she believes “‘sex’ is a material reality which should not be conflated with ‘gender’ or ‘gender identity’ and that “being female (or male) is an immutable biological fact, not a feeling or an identity.”
The tribunal rejected her claim. In a lengthy judgment issued on Dec. 18, Judge James Tayler ruled that her view is “not worthy of respect in a democratic society,” calling it “absolutist” and “incompatible with human dignity and fundamental rights of others.” [Emphasis added]
Here is Maya Forstater’s tweet on allowing people to self identify:
UK gov consultation on reforming the #GenderRecognitionAct – proposes to dramatically change scope of the law; from requiring medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria for change of sex on birth certificate, to using the basis of 'self identification' https://t.co/excZ7Pk7dm
Jamie Shupe, retired from the Army with the rank of Sergeant First Class. Shupe, who previously identified as transgender, was the first American to obtain nonbinary status under law. In an article titled I Was America’s First ‘Nonbinary’ Person. It Was All a ShamShupe wrote:
Three years into my gender change from male to female, I looked hard into the mirror one day. When I did, the facade of femininity and womanhood crumbled.
Despite having taken or been injected with every hormone and antiandrogen concoction in the VA’s medical arsenal, I didn’t look anything like a female. People on the street agreed. Their harsh stares reflected the reality behind my fraudulent existence as a woman. Biological sex is immutable.
It took three years for that reality to set in with me. [Emphasis added]
Conclusion
Ayn Rand wrote, “The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow.”
“What are today’s absurdities? Capitalist greed, rampant racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and police brutality, hate speech, income inequality, white privilege, rape culture, toxic masculinity, man-made global climate change, and the many “micro-aggressions” that send our college-aged daffodils searching for safe spaces.”
We must add to this the absurd idea the a man and a woman are biologically the same.
[A]nd if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
Today America’s disorderly women are in the Democratic Party and are no longer superior. Rather they are slaves to the decadent policies of their political party. As are their weak and decadent men.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2020-01-08 03:53:212020-01-11 06:33:31DECADENT DEMOCRATS: From Creating Weak Men and Disorderly Women to Making Sex a Biological Reality Illegal
