Biden’s 2025 Budget Ignores the Border Crisis

Last week, the Biden Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget proposal. Unsurprisingly, the $7.3 trillion budget maintains status quo on the border, allocating billions in taxpayer dollars towards funding an open-borders, anti-enforcement agenda.

Of the $107.9 billion in proposed spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), $19.8 billion is allocated to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $9.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and $6.8 billion for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). However, instead of proposing any meaningful changes to secure our borders, the President chose to use the budget request to reinforce his failed policies and again call on Congress to enact a Senate border package that fails to reform our asylum system, end widespread abuse of parole, or stop the mass catch-and-release of illegal aliens.

A deeper dive into the funding proposal shows that the Biden Administration’s FY25 budget continues to focus on quickly processing and releasing illegal aliens into the country. The budget provides funding to hire 310 more “processing coordinators” and an additional 641 asylum and refugee officers, in part to support the unprecedented flow of illegal aliens claiming asylum when the vast majority are economic migrants.

In addition, $5 billion would be allocated to a new Southwest Border Contingency Fund to support surges at the border, a slush fund for Mayorkas, with very few details on how the funds would be spent. While ostensibly that fund is to help DHS respond to immigration surges along the southern border, in reality, it would serve as a replacement for the Shelter and Services Program by financially supporting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) facilitating illegal immigration. The budget request provides for tranches of the $4.7 billion fund to be made available at quarterly intervals, assuming that encounters at the southern border reach certain levels.

The creation of this $4.7 billion slush fund appears calculated to give the Biden administration as much flexibility as possible in spending taxpayer dollars while ensuring as little accountability as possible. With such broad guidelines as to the purposes for the money, the “contingency fund” would provide easy access to billions of taxpayer dollars for DHS Secretary Mayorkas to distribute as he sees fit. The first $1.4 billion would be released on January 1, 2025, three months into the fiscal year, if total encounters reach 165,000. Another $1.52 billion would be released on April 1, 2025, if total encounters reach 575,000. For context, illegal encounters through January 1 in FY23 reached over 715,000 and through April 1 reached 1.2 million. The third threshold represents a closer margin based on FY23 encounters – a 2.23 million encounter rate by July 1 as opposed to roughly 1.8 million in FY23. Even with a higher bar for the third batch of funding, though, the first two tranches, totaling nearly $3 billion, would almost certainly be dispersed.

In addition to the DHS slush fund, the President’s budget includes $652 million for an “emergency contingency fund” within Health and Human Services to handle the surge of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would be provided $9.3 billion, of which $5.5 billion would support the care and custody of UACs. This office would also use hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to support the resettlement of 125,000 new refugees from around the world as asylum seekers flood our borders.

Finally, for all of the billions in proposed spending, the President’s budget clearly conveys that removing and detaining illegal aliens is still not a priority. The proposed budget only proposes removing 125,000 aliens in FY25, a stark contrast from an average of over 400,000 per year in the first three years of the Trump Administration. Given that nearly 10 million have entered in the last three years, removing 125,000 each year would take 80 years to deport just those who entered under Biden’s watch.

The Biden administration’s failure to remove illegal aliens has also contributed to the explosion of the non-detained docket, which represents aliens who are in the country illegally, released into the interior and waiting for a court hearing. The President’s budget reveals that the non-detained docket has now exploded to over 6.3 million aliens. To make matters worse, many of the aliens on the non-detained docket have criminal backgrounds. A House Judiciary report released this January revealed there are 617,607 aliens on the non-detained docket – nearly 10 percent – who have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

In short, President Biden’s budget shows that he has no interest in securing the border, as he continues to advocate for harmful policies, refuses to take any executive action to end the crisis, and shifts blame to Congress for his own administration’s shortfalls. As highlighted by FAIR, American taxpayers are already on the hook for $151 billion to offset the costs of illegal immigration every year. The President’s FY25 budget would only compound the costs imposed on Americans while doing nothing to ensure that their safety and security is protected.

To read more about actions that Biden can take to secure our borders today, click here.

AUTHOR

Kari joined FAIR in June 2023 after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has spent time working in local, state and federal politics, the most notable being her work on a gubernatorial campaign, and with a U.S. Senator. As FAIR’s Government Relations Associate, Kari uses her prior experience to establish and maintain effective working relationships with congressional offices, federal agency personnel, and coalition members. She also plays a role in complex research and writing assignments on immigration-related topics.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column is republished with permission. © COPYRIGHT 2024 FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

DAVID BLACKMON: The Energy Transition Has Become A Big Green Hot Mess

We spend a lot of time talking and writing about the green energy subsidies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. That’s appropriate given that bill’s content of a raft of incentives and subsidies the CBO estimated would amount to $369 billion over 10 years, a number that some analysts have estimated will be a small fraction of the real final price tag of that bill.

Receiving less attention is the set of similar subsidy programs that were contained in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), one of which allocated the princely sum of $5 billion to the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Transportation (DOT) to serve as grant money to subsidize the installation of fast-charging EV charging stations around the country. In late February, Nick Pope reported at the Daily Caller that, more than two years after passage of the bill, this government program has resulted in the opening of just two locations – in Ohio and New York – that include only 8 such charging stations.

The slowness of this process should not come as a surprise to anyone, given that this subsidy program incorporates the massive bureaucracies at two federal departments. It is the nature of government agencies to find ways of slowing whatever process over which they have purview, not to speed them up. That’s not a slam on the people who staff those agencies, but a simple recognition of the realities they face in attempting to conform their actions to the complexities of the laws they are required to enforce, of which the IIJA is merely one.

This tension between the nature and complexity of western law and the need for speed the Biden White House hopes to achieve with the setting of hyper-aggressive goals and timelines related to the adoption and enforcement of its Green New Deal policies always has been and remains the central conundrum of the energy transition in the United States. The pace of the multi-faceted, $300 trillion transition is already drastically behind schedule, both in the US and across the rest of the world. There is little prospect for that pace to catch up to the desired timelines anytime in the future.

This reality is not unique to the world of electric vehicles and their associated infrastructure needs, which are massive and hugely expensive. There is also the need for dramatically expanding the electric grid, which provides power to every aspect of not only the transition but to society as a whole. The needs there were already unimaginably huge even before the rise of AI, a power hog of unprecedented proportions.

While the IRA and IIJA included incentives and subsidies that address a subset of the thousands of moving parts of an integrated energy transition, many major elements – such as the gigantic transmission expansion needed for the power grid – were left out entirely.

When the IRA was passed, I warned that the Biden White House viewed it as not a stand-alone subsidy bill, but merely as a down payment for what it viewed as a series of even larger subsidy efforts to come. If one accepts that the climate is really in an emergency condition – as the climate alarm lobby’s propaganda claims – then the passage of a perhaps unending series of debt-funded subsidy bills becomes a moral imperative, after all.

One of the big dangers there is that the momentum behind this fear-driven need for speed begins to be used as justification for the limitation or even abrogation of guaranteed rights of all stakeholders. We see this already starting to happen in states like California and Massachusetts, where Democrat Governors Gavin Newsom and Maura Healey are pushing efforts to overrule the rights of local governments to deny permits for new wind projects and other “green” energy priorities.

The slowness of federal bureaucracies only serves to heighten this sense of alarm, the worst possible motivation to justify the allocation of trillions of debt-funded dollars. It is the worst of all possible worlds, one in which policies motivated by politics promote investment decisions free markets would never create on their own and result in outcomes that do not begin to solve the problem allegedly at hand. It is, in a word, a mess.

The views and opinions express in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Muslims Understand Compassion Differently Than We Do

The idea that compassion is between man and man, not just God and man, barely exists.


The origins of Islam are twofold. It was a revealed religion, but grew out of pre-Islamic Arabian tribal—that is, Bedouin—culture. When Bedouin cultural values conflicted with Islam, Bedouin culture almost always won out. Over time, Islam and Bedouin culture melded into one. It is this combination that constitutes today’s Islamic culture.

The problem with Islam today is not a problem with Islam as a religion but rather Islamic culture. If Muslims choose to pray five or even 50 times a day, that is no concern of ours. But regarding Islamic culture and its view of non-Muslims, we do have a say.

Hebrew and Arabic share many common words and roots, but their meanings often diverge. For example, in both Arabic and Hebrew, the root R-Ḥ-M refers to the womb and signifies compassion. But the understanding of compassion in Judaism is very different from that of Islam.

The opening line of the Quran is: “In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate.” We know what “merciful” and “compassionate” mean in English. It relates to the relationship between God and man, and between man and man.

In Islamic culture, by contrast, compassion is only between God and man. Compassion between man and man is almost absent. This does not mean that individual Muslims do not share our Western concept of compassion, but if they do, it is not derived from Islamic culture.

When a Jew asks God for compassion and forgiveness during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he must first approach people he has wronged and ask for forgiveness. The person asked is required to have compassion and forgive. We believe that only by showing compassion to our fellow human beings will God be compassionate and forgiving towards us on Yom Kippur. Islamic culture is quite different.

On Oct. 7, we witnessed the results of this. Among those slaughtered by Gaza Muslims on that day were Bedouin Muslims who were Israeli citizens. They were killed along with Israeli Jews. Unlike the Nazis, who tried to hide their extermination program, the Muslims who slaughtered their fellow human beings—Muslims and non-Muslims—were proud of what they did, as demonstrated by the recordings of phone calls they made to the victims’ parents and friends as the murderers were terrorizing and murdering the recipients’ loved ones.

Why did the murderers also kill other Muslims? Because Muslims care first and foremost about their family, their clan and tribal associations, in that order. This has been true throughout Islamic history. Compassion towards one’s fellow human beings often barely exists.

There are many examples of this phenomenon:

When Hamas, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah send shahids—martyrs—to kill themselves in the name of Allah, they do not choose them from their own families. If they had compassion for others, why would they send other people’s children to their deaths? As we say, put your money where your mouth is.

In Arab culture, blood feuds continue for years without forgiveness or compassion. Perceived “wrongs” must be “righted” by deadly vengeance even if the original insult or crime might have happened generations ago.

Women suspected of dishonoring their families may be killed by family members. In some cases, the woman’s “transgression” is merely talking to a man who is not from the same family. It is not uncommon for fathers and even mothers to tell one of their sons to erase the blot on the family honor by killing his sister. We know of cases in which the son protested and his father told him that if he refused to kill his sister, he would be cast out of the family—which is the only security the son has.

Co-author Harold Rhode once taught a class in the Islamic world about Islamic culture. A female Muslim student wearing a hijab told him that she had to be very careful about talking to a non-relative. At the end of the day, when classes were over, her father personally escorted her home to her village. This student understood very well that if there were any rumors about her, she could end up dead. Moreover, her sisters pleaded with her not to do anything that might dishonor their family and thereby prevent them from being able to marry.

Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the country’s population was as high as 22 million. Since then, millions of Syrians have been killed, expelled or displaced to other countries. We have no idea what the population of Syria is today. It could be as little as 6-10 million. We wonder how Syrian dictator Bashar Assad could do this to his “own” people. But Assad doesn’t see most of them as his “own” people. He is a member of the Alawite sect. He is not a Sunni Muslim like approximately 72% of Syria’s pre-war population. To him, these Sunnis are expendable because their existence threatens his regime. Compassion does not enter into the equation.

When Kurdish citizens of Turkey refuse to call themselves “Turks,” the Turkish government has often labeled them “terrorists” to justify imprisoning or killing them. Not for nothing do the Kurds have a proverb: “No friends but the mountains,” expressing their feelings of loneliness, betrayal and abandonment.

When Islam conquers, it conquers by the sword. That is why there is a sword on the Saudi flag. Saudi Arabia’s ruling creed is an extreme form of Sunni Islam. Its flag symbolizes this creed. Beautiful calligraphy on the flag reads: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This simple statement, called the Shahada, is the central principle of the Islamic creed. The sword symbolizes their prophet’s conquest of pagans. The message: Either convert to Islam or die.

When shahids capture enemies, they do not just kill them. They usually make them suffer. Only then does the shahid kill his victim.

In 1947-1948, when Palestinian Arabs fled then-Palestine, their fellow Arabs responded by putting them into refugee camps, where many of them and their descendants still languish. Their “fellow Arabs” never had compassion on them and assimilated them. By contrast, when Jews fled from the surrounding Arab countries, Israel welcomed them, and the fledgling state helped to establish them as full citizens.

In Persian, the closest equivalent to the English phrase “it doesn’t matter” is “it doesn’t bring shame” (eib na-dareh). This means that what you have done will not shame or humiliate you and your family. We rarely think about shame and humiliation, but Muslims almost always have them in the back of their minds. If someone does something shameful or humiliating, others have no compassion for them.

These are just a few examples of how differently we Westerners and the Muslim world understand compassion. Our concepts of compassion and mercy are very different from those of Islamic culture. This, in short, is why so much of the Muslim world is so violent not only towards others, but towards other Muslims as well.

This article originally appeared in the Jewish News Syndicate.

AUTHORS

HAROLD RHODE

Harold Rhode received in Ph.D. in Islamic history and later served as the Turkish Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense. He is now a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

BENNETT RUDA

Bennett Ruda is a freelance journalist for The Jewish Press and a contributor to the popular Elder of Ziyon blog.

©2024. . All rights reserved.

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Michael Letts is the Founder, President, and CEO of InVest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, hence his pro-police stance for his brothers and sisters in blue.

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©2024. . All rights reserved.

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HAWAII: Democrat’s Bill HB2079 Would Legalize Child Kidnapping for Sex Change

by Austin Martin, Chair, Hawaii Libertarian Party

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill (HB2079, ‘Relating to Health’) is among the worst proposed laws of this legislative session.

Awaiting Senate action after passing the House, HB2079 grants a de-facto immunity and asylum in Hawaii for any kidnapper who claims to be helping a child receive so-called ‘gender-affirming’ treatments.

The bill’s intent to legalize interstate kidnapping is outlined in the text:

§583A-208 – Jurisdiction declined by reason of conduct:

(d)  In making a determination under this section, a court shall not consider as a factor weighing against the petitioner any taking of the child, or retention of the child after a visit or other temporary relinquishment of physical custody, from the person who has legal custody if there is evidence that the taking or retention of the child was for the purposes of obtaining gender-affirming health care services for the child and the law or policy of the other state limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender‑affirming health care services for the child.

Testimony in support of HB2079 comes from Oregon-based QueerDoc.com which describes itself as, “a telemedicine-based gender affirming clinic.”  QueerDoc arrogantly announces, “the medicine and science are not up for debate” and enthuses about 100s of mainland telehealth practitioners who “can issue a prescription for estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone blocking medications at that telehealth appointment.”

Far from unbiased, QueerDoc has an agenda for our children.  The clinic was founded by an MD who describes herself as “they” and on her website touts “lived experience as a nonbinary femme and are SUPER queer themself, enjoying queer burlesque, vintage fashion, and their queer, kinky, poly family!”

Most of this bill is a series of loopholes, redefinitions, and special opt-outs of legal norms all in service of making Hawaii a sanctuary for underage sex change surgery.  Amendments to deep and highly specialized areas of the law work together in the service of legalizing the truly unthinkable.

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill’s unique and unmistakable true intent is to allow legal protections for any non-parent with sufficient access and means to remove a child of any age from their home state, and to bring them to Hawaii in the name of receiving “Gender Affirming Care” – so long as they could not receive said ‘care’ in their home state.

The many sections of Hawaii Revised Statutes affected by the Hawaii Kidnapping Bill are designed to trigger a series of child-custody ‘loopholes’ that cause inter-state barriers to be systematically removed, so long as the instigator says the magic words: “Gender Affirming Care.”

The bill accomplishes its perverse ends by a ‘reinterpretation’ of a critical section of the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) which governs interstate child-custody proceedings, and amending over a dozen other laws, to exempt any petitioner from the oversight offered by Hawaii’s Family Court system.

The bill’s proposed amendments to the UCCJEA redefine a family-court emergency, to allow any person “acting as a parent” to obtain emergency temporary custody against natural parents who decline to provide their children so-called “Gender Affirming Care.”   Natural parents’ refusal to provide sex-change procedures would be treated as being of the same legal weight and severity as actual physical abuse or child abandonment.

The bill reads:

§583A-204, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

(a)  A court of this State [has] shall have temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this State and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because [the]:

(1)  The child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse[.]; or

(2)  The child has been unable to obtain gender‑affirming health care services.

This language plainly redefines a custody “emergency” to mean “unable to obtain gender‑affirming health care services.”

The rewriting of this uniform, nationwide custody law also undermines and threatens Hawaii’s participation in the UCCJEA.  The whole point of our Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act is uniformity.  If Hawaii passes HB2079 and stops returning children to other states, we risk being unable to secure the return of any Hawaii child who is taken out of state to pursue a custody battle.

The court that prevails in exercising jurisdiction first, usually maintains jurisdiction for the rest of the case, both practically and statistically speaking.  Under the proposed language from HB2079, once ‘emergency jurisdiction’ is sought and approved by the Hawaii Family Court, several critical timelines begin to toll for the legal residency of the child to determine which court will have the ultimate say in final custody determinations.

The next phase is the so-called ‘temporary orders’ hearing. This section of HB2079 creates another loophole that can be easily exploited by a motivated kidnapper to keep a stolen child for longer than the short-term ‘emergency jurisdiction’ alone would allow.

The loophole specifically reads:

(d) The presence of a child in this State for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care services shall be sufficient to meet the requirements of subsection (a)(2).”

Subsection (a)(2) governs what a court must do when the child is not clearly a legal resident of the State.

The UCCJEA prohibits this kind of abuse of temporary placement – as the original language of (a)(2) along with requirements (A) & (B) below shows us:

§583A-201 Initial child-custody jurisdiction.

(a)  Except as otherwise provided in section 583A-204, a court of this State shall have jurisdiction to make an initial child-custody determination only if: …

(1)  This State is the home state of the child …or…

(2)  A court of another state does not have jurisdiction under paragraph (1), or a court of the home state of the child has declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that this State is the more appropriate forum under section 583A-207 or 583A-208, and:

(A)  The child and the child’s parents, or the child and at least one parent or a person acting as a parent, have a significant connection with this State other than mere physical presence; and

(B)  Substantial evidence is available in this State concerning the child’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships;…

Under the proposed language from HB2079, these UCCJEA requirements are magically deemed “satisfied” and replaced–by using three magic words: “Gender Affirming Care”, if the child is from a state that has sex-change laws deemed insufficient by Hawaii and/or the natural parents are not providing sex-change ‘treatments.’  The kidnapper–who may be a non-relative– is treated by the Hawaii Family Court like a good Samaritan who will be granted temporary custody of a child stolen from his or her biological parents.   No recourse nor due process is available for the affected victims and their families in their home state.

Local parents are also stripped of Hawaii Family Court recourse because HB2079 places their failure to provide access to so-called ‘Gender Affirming Care’ in the same category as child abuse, or more specifically, medical neglect.   There is no meaningful due process for any family that is accused of medical neglect.  There is no provision for legal representation or even notification of parents.

This bill goes to great lengths to enable outrageous practices across state lines.  It aims to build long-term and short-term cases against parents who are otherwise perfectly fit – solely based on their sex-change viewpoint and/or the laws of their state.  It allows any motivated adult to kidnap children with impunity from any state deemed insufficient in its sex-change laws.

In the recent Geanna Bradley torture-murder case , her legal guardians allegedly exploited telehealth for months or even years to hide their alleged torture of Geanna.  Yet HB2079 allows telehealth practitioners to prescribe sex-change hormones to juveniles:

§329-     Prescriptions; gender-affirming health care services.  (a)  Notwithstanding this chapter or any other law to the contrary, for the purposes of providing gender‑affirming health care services, a practitioner who is licensed in this State may prescribe schedule III and IV controlled substances, including testosterone:

(1)  While the practitioner is located outside the State; and

(2)  Without conducting an in‑person consultation with the patient; provided that the practitioner shall prescribe the controlled substances via a synchronous audio-visual telehealth interaction

According to the text, a single telehealth Zoom call is all it would take: after that, upon filing a petition to exercise emergency jurisdiction to a Hawaii court, instantly, the kidnapping of any child legally becomes a civil case and no longer open to prosecution as a criminal matter – denying victims and their families the help of federal or state law enforcement to return their children before permanent harm is done, and also forcing the out-of-state family to travel to Hawaii to be present for hearings. If the kidnapper has a long enough head-start and the family doesn’t suspect them, by the time they find out what is happening, it could already be too late.

If the home state claims the child was kidnapped and attempts to escalate a criminal case – the bill’s authors, disgustingly, have thought of that possibility too:

§323J-6  Denial of demands for surrender.  Notwithstanding any provision of chapter 832 to the contrary, the governor shall deny any demand made by the executive authority of any state for the surrender of any person charged with a crime under the laws of that state when the alleged crime involves [the provision or receipt of,]:

(1) Seeking, receiving, paying for, or [assistance with,] inquiring about reproductive health care services[,] or gender-affirming health care services;

(2) Providing or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care services or gender-affirming health care services;

(3) Assisting or aiding or abetting in any of the conduct described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(4) Attempting or intending to engage in or providing material support for (or any other theory of vicarious, attempt, joint, several, or conspiracy liability derived therefrom) conduct described in paragraphs (1) to (3),”

Laws contrary to the public policy of this State.

(a)  A law of another state authorizing a civil action or criminal prosecution based on any of the following [is] shall be declared to be contrary to the public policy of this State:

(1)  [Receiving, seeking, or] Seeking, receiving, paying for, or inquiring about reproductive health care services[;] or gender-affirming health care services that are lawful under the laws of this State;

(2)  Providing or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care services[;] or gender‑affirming health care services that are lawful under the laws of this State;

(3)  [Engaging in conduct that assists or aids or abets the provision or receipt of reproductive health care services;] Assisting or aiding or abetting in any of the conduct described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(4)  Attempting or intending to engage in or providing material support for (or any other theory of vicarious, attempt, joint, several, or conspiracy liability derived therefrom) conduct described in paragraphs (1) to (3)[,in accordance with the laws of this State].

HB2079 would forbid the entire State of Hawaii, including the Governor, from disclosing records or extraditing any kidnapper charged in another state, so long as the kidnapper alleges that the purpose of taking the child was to provide access to gender affirming care. It would forbid the courts from returning any child kidnapped from their home state under these auspices by nullifying any direct criminal charges. The authoritarian bill even forbids sending any information about whether the child has been subjected to life-changing procedures, like sex-change surgeries, even if the biological parents obtained help from the other states’ Governors, or if other authorities were to make formal legal demands.  It would leave out-of-state parents completely in the dark and at the mercy of distant kangaroo courts. It even forbids the extradition of anyone charged with a crime in connection with ‘helping a child to receive Gender Affirming Care’, granting effective immunity for the actions of interstate kidnappers, so long as those actions are claimed to be in service of helping the child access Gender Affirming Care, even if they are wanted fugitives for those acts in another state.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill also makes it a crime to interfere with the kidnappers or to disclose any data about the ‘Gender Affirming Care’ with anyone other than the kidnapper-petitioner, even if ordered by another court.

All this is predicated on nothing more than a single telehealth Zoom call as ‘evidence’ for the life-changing decision of an interstate judicial child custody determination.

It mandates nondisclosure by every last ‘mandatory reporter’ professional and care provider that could conceivably influence such a proceeding, placing a permanent professional gag order on whatever is done to the abducted children, no matter what authority or expert is doing the questioning.

It would be a crime under State law to comply with any oversight or investigation into the kidnappings from outside of Hawaii. Inside Hawaii, the situation would only be different if the family consented to give their children sex-changes; if not, then the provisions, when taken together, may form a direct bar to anyone requesting this information for any purpose contrary to promoting access to Gender Affirming Care. (The most relevant sections on this inquiry include: §323J-2, §323J-3, §323J-4, §451J-12). It appears that any family in Hawaii who does not consent to such care would not have access to records.

The authors of the Hawaii Kidnapping Bill have made a very distinct legislative package designed to facilitate abusive behavior. If it passes, the odds of an out-of-state family ever getting their child back from Hawaii legally would be slim.  This law provides for atrocities against vulnerable, trafficked minors – with no legal protection or recourse for defendants and victims, and full protection for the perpetrators.

HB2079:  Text, Status –  Passed Third Reading in the House, March 5, 2024, with Representative(s) Chun, Souza voting aye with reservations; Representative(s) Aiu, Alcos, Garcia, Gates, Holt, Kila, Kong, La Chica, Lamosao, Martinez, Matsumoto, Pierick, Quinlan, Ward voting no (14) and Representative(s) Cochran, Woodson excused (2).

EDITORS NOTE: This Hawaii Free Press column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Let’s Focus On Islam, Again

Elections are coming up in the U.S., but an important topic is left off the table.

This topic is Islam, a dangerous religion, that contradicts everything that Christian civilization stands for.

You would think that such a grave threat as the Rise of Islam in the World would be an important talking point among presidential candidates. But they shy away from discussing it. Or, as in the case of Joe Biden, they even embrace this dangerous religion, and wrongly think of it as a religion of peace.

The reason that not one famous American politician these days dares to talk about Islam, is fear for the consequences. There is great fear that one gets death threats from Muslims, or that the media will portray one as a racist and hater, or that one becomes a target of an assassinations.

Many years ago, I had a mentor in Bloemendaal, a village to the North of the town of Harlem. The name of my mentor was Mr. Spaanderman. He was more than 70 years old and his profession was psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Mr. Spaanderman taught me lessons about fear. He said that fear is a bad counselor. In fact, he entrusted me that fear is the worst counselor.

If you listen to your fears, you are in the end not superior to the animals.

I hope that the situation in America changes for the better. That means that the difficult topics are being talked about by politicians.

I personally consider Islam the gravest threat to Western civilization. And I have good reason to do so, as I have studied this religion in-depth. Let’s focus on Islam again.

©2024. Matthys van Raalten. All rights reserved.

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Haiti: Here We Go Again—The BorderLine

Haiti, a Maryland-sized country sharing half the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, won independence from France in 1804 and since then has been beset by political strife and poverty.

Today, Haiti has descended into a Hobbesian state of nature, in which gang leaders like Jimmy Chérizier, aka “Barbecue,” will fight for control until someone stops them or one of them wins.

This month, gangs ransacked police stations, the airport, and public buildings and released hundreds of prisoners from jails. Just last weekend, what’s left of Haiti’s government declared an emergency in what seems to be more of a cry for help than notification of any change in circumstances.

At the same time, the U.S. Embassy evacuated nonessential staff in the dead of night, and the unelected prime minister resigned, unable to return from a trip abroad.

On March 13, U.S. Southern Command deployed a Marine Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team to support the Marine Security Guard unit permanently assigned to protect U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince. These Marines will protect U.S. facilities and personnel but won’t attempt to restore order outside.

While the U.S. has pledged financial support for a U.N. mission to help stabilize security in Haiti, the American people are reluctant to lead yet another foreign intervention. Although the effort might keep the peace and temporarily earn the gratitude of the Haitian people, it would quickly be resented by the U.S. and global Left as neocolonialism. And it might fail outright and result in the loss of American lives and treasure.

Haiti’s last president was assassinated in July 2021. After that, Ariel Henry was sworn in as interim prime minister with U.S. support. He agreed to hold elections in 2023 and form a new government in February 2024. When he didn’t, riots erupted.

Meanwhile, Guy Philippe, a former police chief who helped force out President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, completed a nine-year sentence in U.S. prison for helping Colombian drug smugglers, only to return home to contend for power with the likes of Barbecue.

As the situation in Haiti unraveled, the Biden administration proposed “an inclusive, Haitian-intensive-led process to find a broader political consensus around a new transitional government,” according to the State Department.

After a meeting in Jamaica with regional leaders, the U.S. supported a “transitional council” to set up elections. This would require not only pacifying or co-opting Haiti’s 300 gangs and various warlords, but also finding countries willing to send soldiers and police to do the work.

In less squeamish times, the U.S. simply took Haiti over. In 1915, after Haiti went through seven presidents in five years, President Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines, who remained until 1934.

From 1957-1986, Haiti was under the dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. After a popular uprising overthrew the regime, a brief period of democracy followed, but things fell apart again in 1991. Back went the U.S. in the 1994 Operation Restore Democracy. That restoration didn’t last long.

From 2004 to 2017, the United Nations had a stabilization and security mission in Haiti that kept things from boiling over. In 2011, there were 12,500 soldiers and police in Haiti from 50 U.N. member countries. U.S. troops were not there, but we paid nearly half of the tab.

What did that get us?

At minimum, it avoided the current lawlessness, economic collapse, and potentially massive outflows of “boat people” to the U.S. that we saw in the 1980s and 1990s. But it was not a recipe for lasting stability.

The U.N. provided security, but it could not supply the country or prevent brain drain, nor could it cure the corruption, endemic poverty, and entrenched oligarchy that have kept Haiti stuck in the early stage of development. The U.N.’s reputation was also tarnished with allegations of sexual assault and a cholera outbreak linked to U.N. peacekeepers who killed thousands of Haitians.

Now, Haiti is back to square one. In 2023, gangs killed more than 4,700 people. Kidnappings for ransom by gangs such as the Kraze Baryè are common. In early 2023, a vigilante movement called “bwa kale” (peeled wood) briefly tamped down the gangs by being equally brutal, but a few months later, the chaos returned.

Busy with war in Ukraine, Chinese expansionism, and the war Hamas started with Israel, no one wants to deal with Haiti yet again.

So, what’s the world to do?

Like other presidents before him, Joe Biden’s approach so far has been to prop up a weak and unpopular Haitian leader and hope for the best. Former U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote described backing Henry as “arrogance and the hubris.” Now, with Henry resigning in favor of a “transitional council,” U.S. options are shrinking, and are all bad.

In 1969, a CIA estimate concluded that should Haiti destabilize after the fall of François Duvalier, “the United States would stand to gain nothing through intervention.” That was before the massive migrant outflows of the 1980s and 1990s. This threat looms yet again, and the Biden administration, given its generally lax approach to immigration, seems to be wholly unprepared.

Undeterred by past failures, last October, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution to authorize a Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti. The Biden administration pledged $200 million to fund it. Kenya offered to send up to 1,000 police officers to train and assist Haitian police and “protect strategic installations,” but it put a hold on this after Henry resigned. Even if they eventually agree to go, 1,000 Kenyan cops alone won’t do it.

In fiscal year 2021, over 46,000 Haitians were caught trying to cross U.S. borders illegally. Most of these were “asylum shoppers,” Haitians who had already been living safely elsewhere outside of Haiti but saw the chance under Biden to move to the United States instead.

In 2023, the official number trying to cross the border was down to 2,430, but they had not really stopped coming.

The Biden administration, partly to avoid more media nightmares of Haitians huddling under bridges at the border, invented a program to let Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in the U.S. by abusing immigration parole.

Customs and Border Protection data indicates that nearly 160,000 Haitians came in through parole programs last year and another 80,000 have come in fiscal year 2024 so far. Many Haitians already in the U.S. illegally benefit from “temporary protected status,” which shields them from deportation.

The White House is reportedly dusting off plans to use the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention camp for Haitians caught attempting to enter the U.S. by boat.

When Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton used Guantanamo for initial asylum screenings in the early 1990s, the camp’s capacity was about 12,000 people, though now it could hold 60,000.

Under the George W. Bush administration in 2004, thousands of Haitians attempted to use a “shark visa” to get to America, meaning they would leave on tiny, unseaworthy boats and hope to make it outside Haiti’s 12-mile territorial waters to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who crossed into the U.S. under Biden’s parole program or over the open southern border, there would surely have been some corrupt government officials, criminals, and gang members. We don’t know how many, because the Department of Homeland Security can’t check all their criminal records back in Haiti or elsewhere.

But the exodus also contained a considerable portion of Haiti’s middle class. Up to 40% of health care workers have left in the last few years, and more than 1,600 Haitian police officers left just last year. Putting Haiti-Dumpty back together again without educated professionals will be nearly impossible.

The best-case scenario for a new international mission to Haiti would be to reestablish law and order enough to hold an election, then hand over power and leave.

The whole cycle of political collapse could then repeat itself in a decade. But in the meantime, the U.S. could repatriate asylum-seekers, end temporary protected status, and discontinue the mass parole program benefiting Haiti. That way, thousands of educated, skilled Haitians could assist in rebuilding their own country.

AUTHOR

Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.

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The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.

Joe Biden Backs Schumer After Senator Calls For New Elections In Israel — And now the crisis begins!

According to the Associated Press:

Schumer, a Jewish Democrat from New York, sent tremors through both countries this week when he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” and warned that “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah” as the Palestinian death toll continues to grow.

Biden is backing Schumer, signifying a new low in American-Israeli relations during this administration.

“He made a good speech,” Biden said in the Oval Office during a meeting with Ireland’s prime minister. “I think he expressed serious concerns shared not only by him but by many Americans.”

The full text of Schumer’s speech is published by the Times of Israel.

The speech and the subsequent support of it from Biden as he and Schumer hope to see the current Israeli government fall during a war for its very survival was recently reported on here. The speech and Biden’s approval represent a strategy to make Netanyahu the fall guy and install a government more to the left’s liking. As I recently wrote on Jihad Watch: Biden reportedly attempting to collapse Netanyahu government mid-war:

Here is one key reason why Biden is now reportedly attempting to force the collapse of Netanyahu’s government in the middle of a war:

Netanyahu has been a frequent obstacle to Democrats’ policies in the Middle East, starting with his opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and continuing into his opposition to Biden’s Palestinian state ideas.

Another reason is the dilemma Biden faces in light of the upcoming elections, given his dependence on the Muslim vote and the pressure he has been receiving from Muslim communities. By shifting attention to Israel and the Netanyahu government, Biden diverts scrutiny away from himself, and creates an excuse for evading his responsibility to ally with Israel against jihad terror. He also gets to shift blame away from his administration for pouring money into the coffers of Iran. Under Obama, Iran — a main funder of Hamas — received $33.3 billion dollars in backroom deals. Under Biden, billions more have flowed into Iran.

Creating a crisis to avert attention and responsibility has become a signature ploy of Democrats.

And now the crisis begins.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Admin Hands Out $500 Million For Oil Drilling In Middle East

The Biden administration is providing financing for oil development in the Middle East after taking numerous steps to restrict domestic production, according to Bloomberg News.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank — a nominally independent government entity that aims to boost the American economy “by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services” —  approved a $500 million loan guarantee for oil and gas development in Bahrain on Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. The funding follows the Biden administration’s decisions to release the most restrictive offshore oil and gas leasing schedule in American history and cancel seven previously-issued oil and gas leases in Alaska, among other actions intended to rein in domestic oil production.

The Export-Import Bank’s loan guarantee will “increase the production of oil and the availability of gas to meet the future energy demands” of Bahrain, the institution told Bloomberg News. The $500 million of financing was about five times larger than what some lawmakers were anticipating.

Six Democratic lawmakers, including Sens. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, wrote a Tuesday letter to the Export-Import Bank in which they implored the agency to not move forward with $100 million of financing because of potential negative ramifications for the climate. After the $500 million loan guarantee was announced, Merkley proceeded to describe the Export-Import Bank as a “rogue agency,” according to Bloomberg News.

While the Export-Import Bank is a nominally independent part of the executive branch, President Joe Biden appointed or successfully nominated Chair Reta Jo Lewis, Vice Chair Judith Pryor and board members Owen Herrnstadt and Spencer Bacchus.

In addition to the restrictive offshore leasing schedule and lease cancellations in Alaska, the Biden administration has moved to take millions of acres of federal lands off the table for oil and gas activity after unsuccessfully attempting to halt drilling on all federal lands in 2021. While U.S. oil production did reach record levels at the end of 2023, energy sector experts previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that those production levels have been reached in spite of the Biden administration’s approach, rather than because of it.

The experts who spoke to the DCNF said this is because most of the growth in production has occurred on state and private lands, where Biden does not have the ability to directly shut down drilling. They added that the oil wells of today are the result of planning and financing decisions made several years in the past.

Neither the White House nor the Export-Import Bank responded immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Biden Admin Talks Tough On Big Oil, But Gave Them Regular Access To Discuss Key Regulatory Change

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Foregone Conclusion

The biggest news story that the media, let alone the Democrat media axis – the most powerful propaganda apparatus in the world, is not covering, has not covered and will not cover is that the 2024 election is a forgone conclusion. The Democrats stole 2020. They stole it right before our eyes. They stopped counting in the battleground states in the middle of the night when Trump was all but declared the winner. Yes, he was that far ahead, and then, when the machines came back online hours later, the coup was complete and what followed was a revolution, an overthrow of we the people culminating in the prosecution and imprisonment of those who protested against the steal on January 6. I don’t think they will be as messy this time. The election system itself in blue/purple states, the infrastructure is a Democrat apparatus. They have a good deal of practice under their belts. There is nothing they love more than the constant drone of nonsensical flapping tongues talk, talk, talking about the election on TV, in social media, anywhere and everywhere. “The polls show…..” As if.

How does anyone believe the Republicans will be able to win in November? It’s not possible. Why is everyone talking about the race like it’s viable or fair or possible? It’s mass delusion. The election machinery is immense, meticulous, tentacles everywhere even in the GOP. And the enemy of the people controls it.  If I’m wrong, tell me what I ain’t seeing.

The reason why they are keeping a rotting, demented corpse who sniffs, fondles little children and walks into walls on the ticket, is because it’s in the bag. It doesn’t matter who they put on the ticket. He’s not running the country anyway.

The Republicans are useless. They have done nothing for four years. Controlled opposition.

The answer is simple. Paper ballots. One day voting. And that will not happen.

‘They Are Miles Ahead’: Despite ‘Election Integrity’ Hype, GOP Could Be Walking Into 2024 Legal Buzzsaw

By: Reagan Reese, Daily Caller, March 14, 2024:

Republicans are walking a tightrope heading into the 2024 election.

They must show their base that they are fighting hard on the issue of election integrity, which many conservatives believe cost former President Donald Trump his 2020 re-election bid.

Simultaneously, they must operate in the reality that they now live in the world of ballot harvesting and drop-boxes.

That dichotomy is why the Republican National Committee (RNC) told the Daily Caller they are committed to prioritizing election integrity efforts between now and November. They are waging lawsuits on issues ranging from ballot access to voting rules. Yet the party is also heavily pushing its “Bank Your Vote” initiative, encouraging Republicans to vote early.

Other elements of the party seem more resigned to playing by Democrats’ rules rather than trying to change them. The Caller also reached out to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), which the RNC said is helping bankroll the party’s legal fights.

After sending the Daily Caller a link to an Axios article about get out the vote efforts, and then ignoring multiple follow-up requests for an interview about election integrity, NRCC spokesperson Will Reinert sent the Caller the following: “We’ve complained about your coverage several times to editors, so to tell you the truth, we really don’t care to engage on pieces we don’t care about to help you guys out.”

A prominent conservative pundit read the Reinert email and told the Daily Caller, “‘pieces we don’t care about’ is the giveaway. They’re mailing it in on election prep, in other words.”

Election integrity is, however, an issue Republican voters care deeply about: coming out of the last presidential election, nearly two-thirds of Republicans and Trump voters said they had little faith votes were counted accurately, according to one poll.

In 2020, a number of election laws were changed, and others were straight up ignored, in key states due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In swing states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona, voters had expanded access to methods of voting including ballot drop-boxes, mail-in voting and early voting thanks to Democratic Party legal efforts led by Marc Elias. (RELATED: Key Swing State Election Laws Under Fire Over Voter Integrity Provisions)

Elias is a high-powered attorney who has played a leading role in hundreds of lawsuits seeking to make it easier to vote and undo Republican efforts to make elections more secure.

A Daily Caller review of current election laws found that the situation on the ground remains dire for election integrity hawks. A number of key battleground states, including those that delivered Biden the presidency, are still slated to use many of the election procedures in 2024 that outraged Republicans in 2020.

At least seven are slated to deploy ballot drop-boxes. Nearly all are likely to have no-excuse absentee voting. Five are on track to have more than two weeks of early voting, and Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and North Carolina will mail out absentee ballots more than six weeks before election day.

“As we’ve talked about, the damage done by Democrats to change laws during COVID was unprecedented. There’s still a lot of work to do, not everything is where we want to be right now. But that’s why we’re scaling up this massive program and filing all this litigation because we’re actively trying to fix it up,” an RNC official told the Daily Caller. “We understand that there are still issues, especially in swing states with key stuff we need to fix. That’s why this exists.”

Continue reading,

AUTHOR

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Led by Riley Gaines, 16 Women File Groundbreaking Suit against the NCAA

The NCAA has ignored Congressits own committee membersstate legislators, parents, and female athletes, but it can’t ignore this. In what is being called “a day of reckoning” for President Charlie Baker, the country’s biggest collegiate sports association is being taken to court over a radical transgender policy that has physically hurt, traumatized, and robbed young athletes of opportunities across America. “This is the time to speak up for all the women in the future,” swimmer Reka Gyorgy insisted. “It’s been two years, and nothing [has] happened. When will we change things if it’s not now?”

Those two years Gyorgy mentions are personal. It was 2022 when she lost her All-American title to Lia Thomas, something she’d worked for five years to achieve. Because Thomas decided to swim as a female, Reka was bumped to 17th — one spot shy of the top-16 cutoff she needed. She thought back on that devastation in an exclusive interview with The Free Press’s Francesca Block. “I was in the best physical [shape] I have ever been,” she explained. “And [this was my] the last chance. I was a senior, I was ready for racing. I was ready [to] give it all.” And yet, “going into the race [where] you know that one spot is going to be taken for sure [by Thomas], that’s a totally different mindset.”

“[W]atching that last heat of the 500 freestyle, it was just so emotional,” Gyorgy remembers. “Looking at the screen after the last heat touched the wall [and] seeing my name at 17th, I was shocked, to be honest. I went through all the feelings. … I was surrounded by my teammates and my coaches, and I started crying. I broke down because I felt right away that I [wouldn’t] have the second chance to swim again. And it just wasn’t fair. It was so unfair.”

While Riley Gaines grabbed most of the headlines after tying with Thomas for the trophy, it was Gyorgy who sent the first public letter of complaint to the NCAA. After the 2022 tournament, “[Reka] was really the first athlete at that national championships to take a stand,” Gaines said. “Had she not done that and had I not seen that, I certainly would not have taken the stand that I did. So I could not be more grateful for Rica. And she certainly inspired and continues to inspire more people than I think even she could possibly realize.”

Now the two women are linking arms, along with college athletes across swimming, volleyball, track, and diving, who’ve all been victims of the NCAA’s indifference toward Title IX and the devastation their rules have done to fair play. The lawsuit, which was organized by the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, is considered the first of its kind — and, if you ask most Americans, long overdue. Among other things, it demands the association “revoke all awards given to trans athletes in women’s competition and ‘reassign’ them to their female contenders. It also asks for ‘damages for pain and suffering, mental and emotional distress, suffering and anxiety…” The Free Press explains.

Some of the most horrifying stories of Thomas’s involvement in girls’ swimming have come at the expense of girls’ privacy — another reason the women felt compelled to sue. As Gaines has shared before, most of the competitors at the NCAA Championships in Georgia had zero warning that a naked Thomas would be in the women’s locker room. “The first time we found out that this would be the case was when we were actually undressing next to this six-foot-four man who was also simultaneously undressing, fully exposing himself and his male genitalia,” Gaines said. “We were not given any prior acknowledgement. We were not given a way to make other arrangements for ourselves. This was something as women, as female athletes, that we felt uncomfortable with.”

One elite swimmer and fellow plaintiff, Kylee Alons, a 31-time All-American, was so embarrassed that she changed in a utility room after she encountered Thomas. “I was literally racing U.S. and Olympic gold medalists, and I was changing in a storage closet at this elite-level meet,” she told Block.

“… I can’t even put into words the feelings,” Gaines shared. “I mean, of course it’s awkward, it’s embarrassing, it’s uncomfortable, but really the feelings of betrayal and utter violation. And honestly, the locker room aspect of this whole thing was traumatizing. And it wasn’t even necessarily traumatizing because of what we were forced to see or how we as women were forcibly exploited without our consent. It was traumatic for me to know just how easy it was for those people who created and enforce these policies [to] totally dismiss our rights to privacy without even a second thought, without even bare minimum forewarning us.”

One thing people might not realize, Block explained after reading the lawsuit, is that a competitive swimming race suit “is much different.” “It’s really tight. It could take 15 to 20 minutes, sometimes 30, 40 minutes to put on.” So these young women aren’t talking about a few minutes of discomfort. “And let’s be honest here,” Gaines admitted, “a swimming locker room [is] not a place of modesty. I think we can all agree a locker room is not a comfortable place in general. But growing up a swimmer, I think, at least for speaking for myself, you grow to feel comfortable being vulnerable in that environment. But that vulnerability was entirely stripped from us. When you have your back turned, you’re undressing, and all of a sudden you hear a man’s voice in that changing space. … It was innate for every girl in that locker room to cover themselves, whether that was with their hands or their towels or their clothes — and to get out of that locker room as quickly as they could.”

Reka reminded people that this was a position the NCAA forced them into. “As Riley said, we didn’t get a heads up. … And it might seem silly for some people, but we had 18- to 22-year-old girls in the locker room — and some of them may not have seen a naked male before. And [it’s] just not right.”

At the end of the day, the women say, they’re all victims of the radical agenda of the Biden administration, the NCAA, and International Olympic Committee (IOC), whose main goal seems to be “actively and openly discriminating against women on the basis of our sex, which is everything that Title IX was passed to prevent from happening.”

And in a stunning admission by Baker to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the NCAA pursued this extreme trans policy without ever studying the “physical, psychological, or emotional harm” of the trans policy on female athletes. “That’s a bombshell,” Concerned Women for America’s Doreen Denny insisted after discovering it — buried — on page 18 of the president’s written response. That alone should be “grounds for the NCAA to cease and desist” from its policy immediately.

And it’s not as if the NCAA hadn’t been pressed to study the issue. Members of its own committees, including Bill Bock, who were experts on the science, urged the association to act. Bock’s years with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency led him to believe that allowing men to compete against women was essentially “massive, authorized cheating.” And yet, as he explained after resigning in protest, “There was no real mechanism for me to bring that issue to anybody within my committee and force a decision on it or something like that. … The board of directors of the NCAA is the ultimate decision maker. And they were the ones that ultimately made the decision to continue to allow Thomas to compete.”

When people asked about protecting a level playing field, the NCAA “tried to avoid the question,” Bock said. “Mostly, they [tried] to talk about something else … [like] inclusiveness and the need to be open to whatever somebody feels about themselves. … And then they say, ‘This could cause people to self-harm if we don’t allow them to do this.’ And so, we should make sport unfair because people will self-harm.”

But the biological realities are real, most international sports bodies have conceded as they snap back to stricter, girls-only rules. “Women are not just a testosterone threshold,” Gaines argued. “That is not the qualification to being a woman. Even if Thomas had zero nanomoles per liter of testosterone in his body, there are still advantages that males possess over women that make this unfair. The bottom line is, even if this wasn’t a physical sport, it’s a woman’s category, and by allowing men into women’s category, you are, again, objectively discriminating against women on the basis of our sex.”

To the haters who say she’s just anti-trans, Gaines fires back, “My stance is not anti-anything. My stance is pro-reality. It is pro-fairness. It is pro-common sense. It is pro-woman. And if being pro-woman is deemed anti-trans, then it must mean that being pro-trans is deemed anti-woman. And what do we call someone who’s anti-woman? We call them a misogynist.”

At the end of the day, she argued, “Reka and myself and the other athletes who are signed onto this lawsuit, we are standing for something. We are standing for women again. We are standing for women’s sports. We are standing for reality. We are not standing against anything. There’s certainly a place for people who identify as trans to compete in sports. Of course there is. And I encourage everyone, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation or race … to play sports, but play in a category that is fair and that is safe. Thomas competing against us was neither of those things.”

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: Female University Athletes File Lawsuit Against NCAA Over Transgender Policy

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

A Plea For Help From A Dutch patriot

For the most part of my life, I have been obstructed by the Dutch government. The worst that my government did to me, is diagnose me with schizophrenia.

The reason that this raw ordeal happened to me, is that I’m a classical liberal. In the United States, I would be called a conservative.

Some of my strong believes are:

  1. There is a God.
  2. A country has a right to defend itself when attacked by a foreign country.
  3. Feminism is bad.
  4. Homosexuality is a sin.
  5. French culture is awful.
  6. Dutch people can be proud of their History.
  7. Marxism is of the devil.

I have always been outspoken about my beliefs. Most of the Dutch people strongly disagree with me, as they have been brainwashed by the leftist media and leftist political leaders.

Every once in four weeks time, I have to report to a government building. There I’m being questioned and I’m treated with a medicine. This amounts to torture.

I want to sue the Dutch government for the way they obstructed me, during my studies at the University of Amsterdam, during my career as a businessman, during my time as a political dissident.

All help from American citizens is appreciated. You can help me by posting a message of support on your social media accounts. I do not ask for donations.

If you are a lawyer or a legal expert, you should understand that Dutch law is very complicated, and I can thus not be assisted by non-Dutch people in the legal proceedings.

©2024. Matthys van Raalten. All rights reserved.

The Pentagon Is Paying A Chinese Communist Party-Linked Venture Capital Firm For Tutoring Services

The CEO of a Chinese venture capital firm that quietly bought up a U.S. education company holding a Pentagon contract has long-standing connections to multiple Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence units, the Daily Caller News Foundation has learned.

Primavera Capital, a Hong Kong-based venture capital firm, was an early investor in TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, and owns Princeton Review and Tutor.com. However, a review of the firm’s Chinese-language website found that CEO and founder Fred Hu has extensive ties to the Chinese government and belonged to organizations that the U.S. government has identified as part of the CCP’s “United Front” system.

The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) says the CCP uses its United Front system to influence foreign actors and collect intelligence. China’s United Front is overseen by the United Front Work Department (UFWD), which USCC has characterized as a “Chinese intelligence service.”

The USCC was established by Congress to monitor and investigate the national security implications of the economic relationship between the U.S. and China.

Primavera, through its ownership of Tutor.com, now holds a contract with the Pentagon, Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton wrote to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in February 2024. The tutoring service is a “long-standing provider” to U.S. military servicemembers and their families, and is funded by the Pentagon’s Defense Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) General Library Program.

In 2008, Hu became a delegate of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) in Hunan province, according to his company’s website, which the DCNF translated from Chinese. Hunan’s CPPCC membership roster identifies Hu as a delegate in 20132021 and during the most recently listed 2022 congress.

“CPPCC delegates attend a high-profile annual meeting to receive direction from the CCP regarding the ways its policies should be characterized to both domestic and foreign audiences,” according to the USCC. “Delegates to the CPPCC serve as proxies for CCP interests by virtue of their participation in this forum, and they frequently act as interlocutors with foreign government officials, businesses and academic institutions.”

The CPPCC’s charter states that delegates must “uphold the leadership” of the CCP, “facilitate implementation of state foreign policy,” “take advantage of the CPPCC as a united front organization” and even “keep state secrets.”

Hu appears in photos on the Hunan CPPCC’s website and on Chinese state-run media social media accounts wearing the CPPCC’s distinctive red, clip-on delegate’s badge at the organization’s meetings and during interviews.

Despite this, a Primavera spokesperson denied that Hu any ties to the Chinese government.

“Dr. Fred Hu is not a member of the CCP or any other political party, and Primavera Capital has no ties to any political party in China or any other country,” Primavera’s spokesperson told the DCNF by email. “Dr. Hu is not an advisor to the Chinese government, and belongs to none of the United Front organizations.”

Yet, Hu is also listed on the Western Returned Scholars Association’s (WRSA) website as a “director” of the organization’s “Entrepreneur Alliance.”

“WRSA is subordinate to the United Front Work Department, the CCP agency tasked with coordinating influence operations at the operational level” and seeks to “meet the requirements of the [CCP] leadership that it should ‘become a bridge between the Party and overseas students and scholars,’” a 2020 USCC staff research report states.

Toward that end, WRSA conducts “influence operations by disseminating propaganda,” the 2020 report states.

U.S. lawmakers have raised concerns over Primavera’s ownership of Tutor.com, an online tutoring platform.

Tutor.com partners with universities, K–12 schools, libraries and the U.S. military to “provide 24/7, on-demand tutoring and homework help,” according to its website.

Most recently, Cotton sent a letter to the Department of Defense (DOD) concerning a contract that the Pentagon has with Tutor.com. Cotton’s letter characterized the relationship as “ill-advised, reckless and a danger to U.S. national security,” citing a May 2023 Wall Street Journal investigation.

“While providing educational services, Tutor.com collects personal data on users, such as location, internet protocol addresses and contents of the tutoring sessions,” Cotton wrote. “As Chinese national security laws require companies to release confidential business and customer data to the Chinese government, we are paying to expose our military and their children’s private information to the Chinese Communist Party.”

Parents Defending Education, a “grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools,” recently identified dozens of U.S. K-12 schools using Tutor.com.

In 2018, Primavera was also one of several venture capital firms to invest a total of $3 billion into ByteDance, which owns TikTok.

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Application Act, which, if passed, would force ByteDance to sell its interest in TikTok.

The vote came just days after FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that ByteDance is “beholden to the CCP” during questioning from Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.

“The different kinds of influence operations you’re describing, are extraordinarily difficult to detect, which is part of what makes the national security concerns represented by TikTok so significant,” Wray told Rubio.

Primavera’s portfolio shows that the firm has also invested in companies tied to alleged human rights violations, including Chinese artificial intelligence company SenseTime.

In 2019, the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security blacklisted SenseTime for allegedly developing racial profiling facial recognition technologies to track ethnic minorities in China’s western province of Xinjiang, which the Chinese government has used in relation to China’s ongoing genocide.

“It’s concerning that a platform providing services to the U.S. military has close connections to a ‘trusted advisor’ to the Chinese government,” a majority spokesperson from the House Select Committee on the CCP told the DCNF. “This issue warrants further scrutiny.”

DOD did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip

RELATED ARTICLE: China’s Military Could Be Reaping The Benefits Of Takeover Of US Ag Giant

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All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Judge Says Fani Willis Must Ditch Nathan Wade Or Step Aside From Trump Case

A judge declined Friday to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case against former President Donald Trump.

Judge Scott McAfee found that the defendants had “failed to meet their burden of proving that the District Attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest in this case through her personal relationship and recurring travels with her lead prosecutor.” However, he said that the record “highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that infects the current structure of the prosecution team,” stating that Nathan Wade must either withdraw or Willis and her whole office can choose to step aside to solve the problem.

McAfee wrote that disqualifying Willis was not necessary “when a less drastic and sufficiently remedial option is available.”

“The Court therefore concludes that the prosecution of this case cannot proceed until the State selects one of two options,” he wrote. “The District Attorney may choose to step aside, along with the whole of her office, and refer the prosecution to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council for reassignment. See O.C.G.A. § 15-18-5. Alternatively, SADA Wade can withdraw, allowing the District Attorney, the Defendants, and the public to move forward without his presence or remuneration distracting from and potentially compromising the merits of this case.”

Trump co-defendant Michael Roman alleged in a Jan. 8 motion that Willis financially benefited from awarding her romantic partner Nathan Wade a lucrative contract to work as special prosecutor on the case when he took her on vacations using money earned from his position.

Willis and Wade both denied the relationship began before he was hired, though a long-time friend of Willis, Robin Yeartie, testified that it began in 2019. They claimed the expenses were split roughly equally, with Willis paying him back in cash.

McAfee wrote that an “odor of mendacity remains” about the testimony of Willis and Wade.

“The Court is not under an obligation to ferret out every instance of potential dishonesty from each witness or defendant ever presented in open court,” he wrote. “Yet reasonable questions about whether the District Attorney and her hand-selected lead SADA testified untruthfully about the timing of their relationship further underpin the finding of an appearance of impropriety and the need to make proportional efforts to cure it.”

Steve Sadow, Trump’s lead defense counsel, said in a statement that they will “use all legal options available as we continue to fight to end this case, which should never have been brought in the first place.”

“While respecting the Court’s decision, we believe that the Court did not afford appropriate significance to the prosecutorial misconduct of Willis and Wade, including the financial benefits, testifying untruthfully about when their personal relationship began, as well as Willis’ extrajudicial MLK ‘church speech,’ where she played the race card and falsely accused the defendants and their counsel of racism,” Sadow said.

McAfee’s ruling addressed other grounds defendants used to call for disqualification, including Willis’ failure to disclose gifts from Wade on her financial disclosures and a church speech she gave in January blaming the allegations on race.

He called the speech “legally improper,” noting that this kind of public comment “creates dangerous waters for the District Attorney to wade further into.”

“The time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity, but that is not the motion presently before the Court,” he wrote.

As for witnesses, McAfee found Yeartie’s testimony raised doubts about the testimony of Willis and Wade but “lacked context and detail.” He found that he could not “place any stock in the testimony of Terrance Bradley,” Wade’s former law partner.

Texts revealed Bradley, who said on the witness stand that he “could not recall” details about their relationship, shared many details with defense attorney Ashleigh Merchant, even suggesting witnesses she could subpoena to confirm them.

“His inconsistencies, demeanor, and generally non-responsive answers left far too brittle a foundation upon which to build any conclusions,” McAfee wrote.

McAfee issued a ruling Wednesday dismissing six of the counts in the indictment that did not offer defendants “enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently.”

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

BBYO Survey Reports that 71% of Jewish Teens Have Experienced Anti-Semitism

Research shows high-schoolers encounter hate both in person and online. 

BBYO has released the results of a new survey of 1,989 Jewish students conducted from Jan. 23 to Feb. 5.

The researchers found that 71% had experienced antisemitic hate or discrimination. Those who have faced it in person numbered 61% while 46% saw it online, and 36% had experienced both forms. Of those who had experienced in-person hate, 46% said it occurred at school and 45% chose not to report the incident.

For the teens who encountered online anti-Jewish hate, they reported that the most common platforms were Instagram (33%), TikTok (23%) and Snapchat (17%).

Matt Grossman, CEO of BBYO, called the survey “a critical wake-up call, revealing the stark reality that Jewish teens are enduring.”

The Jewish youth organization said in a statement that “the data indicates that the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and the subsequent spread of misinformation and antisemitic rhetoric and violence have had a traumatic impact on Jewish high school students’ safety, well-being, and mental health.”

According to the report, 74% of BBYO members have seen more discrimination since Oct. 7.

Grossman emphasized that “every Jewish teen deserves to feel safe and supported, and it is incumbent upon us to ensure they have those safe spaces, as well as the tools and assistance they need, to navigate these turbulent times with strength and pride. We are so proud and grateful that involvement with BBYO has played such a significant role in helping teens cope with elevated levels of stress and anxiety.”

The uptick in antisemitic incidents and even hate crimes on college campuses has also come to play an important role this year for 64% of respondents in deciding which school to attend.

ABOUT BBYO

BBYO is the leading pluralistic teen movement aspiring to involve more Jewish teens in more meaningful Jewish experiences. For over 95 years, BBYO has provided exceptional identity enrichment and leadership development experiences for hundreds of thousands of Jewish teens.

For nearly a century, BBYO‘s leadership programs, the Aleph Zadik Aleph (AZA, high school fraternity) and the B’nai B’rith Girls (BBG, high school sorority) have been providing exceptional leadership programs and identity enrichment experiences, shaping the confidence and character of more than 350,000 alumni who are among the most prominent figures in business, politics, academia, the arts, and Jewish communal life. Now, BBYO’s network of teens, alumni, parents, volunteers, and philanthropists serves as the Jewish community’s most valuable platform for delivering to the post Bar/Bat Mitzvah audience fun, meaningful, and affordable experiences that inspire a lasting connection to the Jewish people.

RELATED ARTICLE: Islamist Propaganda Organization Promotes Divisive Agenda in New Jersey Schools

EDITORS NOTE: This JNS – Jewish News Syndicate column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.