Rep. Omar Declares Support for Terrorist Financier’s Company in her native Somalia

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A controversial Minnesota congresswoman known for racially inflammatory anti-Semitic views has publicly declared her support for a terrorist organization in her native Somalia. Democrat Ilhan Omar is demanding that a telecommunications company founded and operated by a renowned terrorist financier, receive protection from that country’s government and peacekeeping forces. An Israeli-based newspaper broke the story a few days ago, but the American mainstream media has been notably silent on the matter.

The company, Hormuud Telecommunications, was created and is operated by Ahmed Nur Ali Jim’ale, a chief financier of al–Shabaab, an east African-based jihadist group that serves as Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia. In her social media account, Omar writes that Somalia’s government and peacekeeping forces need to protect Hormuud and the Somali telecom industry as they make enormous contributions to the economy and provide vital services. “During my visit to Somalia in 2011, I was surprised by the quick evolution of technology in Somalia,” Omar posts, indirectly praising the telecom firm with terrorist ties. The Israeli article includes the links to a pair of United Nations Security Council reports documenting Hormuud’s direct support for al-Shabaab.

According to the first U.N. report:

“Ali Ahmed Nur Jim’ale (Jim’ale) has served in leadership roles with the former Somali Council of Islamic Courts, also known as the Somali Islamic Courts Union, which was a radical-Islamist element. The most radical elements of the Somali Islamic Courts Union eventually formed the group known as al–Shabaab.” The document also identifies Jim’ale, a prominent businessman who controls Hormuud, as one of al-Shabab’s chief financiers. “Hormuud Telecommunications is a company identified as being one of the single largest financiers of al-Shabaab, which includes large lump sum payments to al-Shabaab in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and these payments toal-Shabaab were facilitated by Jim’ale,” the U.N. report says, adding that “Hormuud Telecommunications has provided key material and logistical support to al-Shabaab to include weapons, private fighters, and ammunition.”

The second U.N. Security Council report, published last year, links a terror attack that killed hundreds in 2017 to Hormuud. The event is described as the deadliest terror attack in Somalia’s history, carried out with a large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device. “Two employees of the principal Somali telecommunications provider, Hormuud Telecom Somalia Inc., were also prosecuted in connection with the attack, for facilitating the entry of the large vehicle-borne improvised explosive device through the Sinka Dheere checkpoint on the outskirts of Mogadishu,” according to the U.N. report.

Considering this documented history of terrorist activity, it’s outrageous that Hormuud is endorsed by a member of the United States Congress. Omar has been plagued by controversy since becoming one of the first—along with Michigan Democrat Rashida Tlaib—Muslim women elected to Congress. The mainstream media has praised the legislators for being part of a “historic freshmen class with more women and minorities than ever.” The reality is that there is more than enough credible information for the Department of Justice (DOJ), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to open criminal investigations into Omar. Back in July Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint with the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics calling for a full investigation into potential crimes tied to allegations that Omar may have married her biological brother.

In the complaint Judicial Watch documents substantial, compelling and unrefuted evidence that Omar may have committed the following crimes in violation of both federal law and Minnesota state law: perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, state and federal tax fraud and federal student loan fraud. At the very least, such violations constitute a breach of the Code of Ethics for Government Service which subject officeholders to a higher standard.

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

Comey and the De-class According to Plan

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When you look up in the dictionary the words “Bad Cop” you see a picture of James Comey. I believe that Comey will be indicted, prosecuted, charged and justice will be served. Do not be swayed by the former FBI Director’s smug comments or by the fact that AG Barr has not YET, indicted Comey. I believe it is coming in the next phase of the de-class and all according to plan.

The DOJ and the President have barely begun. Remember, please, we are at war to resurrect America and restore power back to the people. This is an intelligence battle of which we are winning. The pendulum has now shifted. They have gone from being the hunters to the hunted. Team Trump is creating the awareness with the release of the IG report, that James Comey is as corrupt as they come. His behavior indicates that he believes he is above the law. Comey continues to further bury himself. He and others, are falling for the trap. FISA brings down the house. Get ready.

The IG Report

In this 79 page IG report, you will find that Comey violated FBI policies 25 times. This shows in part, that this was not an oversight nor an error, nor a coincidence. What it does indeed show is a series of premeditated and calculated moves, (violation of FBI policy), of a political agenda to remove a duly elected and most popular President in what turned out to be a failed illegal and treasonous coup d’ etatattempt which has come to be known as the Mueller witch hunt. And what is the punishment for treason? Have a look and listen here from President Trump. When you get to the video of the President got to marker 42:19 for the biggest news story of the century that never really made the news. It’s an intel battle. Timing and optics. Remember that. We are now winning this battle.

And remember, there are three things that cannot long be hidden. The sun, the moon, and the truth. This is the age of Trump transparency. We are winning. Stay the course. Trust the plan and remember, freedom, it’s up to us.

FLORIDA: Top 3 counties with the highest number of Red Flag Law gun confiscations — Polk, Pinellas, Broward

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Since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act went into effect, 2,380 risk protection orders have been issued across the state of Florida, according to data from the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation. Polk County has issued the most of any county at 378, with Pinellas County close behind with 350. Broward County, home to Parkland, has issued 327, Volusia County has issued the next most with 173, then Miami-Dade County with 127 and Hillsborough County with 116.

In the Tampa Bay Times article ’Red flag’ laws all the rage after shootings. So what are they? Ben Leonard reports:

In Florida, new gun restrictions were passed and signed into law in March 2018 that included a red flag provision. Florida’s red flag law can be used to prevent people who have been deemed a danger to themselves or others from having a firearm.

[ … ]
Law enforcement agencies can petition a court for a risk protection order if a person poses a significant threat to themselves or others by having a gun or ammunition.

The court must have a hearing on the petition within 14 days, during which the court can issue a temporary risk protection order. The temporary order would require the person to surrender all firearms and ammunition and ban them from buying or possessing guns.

If the court gives out a full risk protection order at the hearing, it can require people to surrender their guns and ammunition and prevent them from buying or possessing guns for a year. At the end of the order, the person appeals to a judge to determine whether the order should be extended in one year increments, according to Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Jessica Mackesy.

If the order is dropped and the person wants their guns back, they can get them from the law enforcement agency that took them.

Read more.

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Malaysian Native Guilty of Installing Camera in Airplane Bathroom

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Traveling this Labor Day weekend?  Keep an eye out for hidden cameras!

I liked it so much that my headline is the same one the US Justice Department used on its press release on Tuesday.

I’m enjoying the fact that the Justice Department is getting right to the point these days and telling us if the perp is a foreign national and not saying something like: ‘Houston man pleads guilty.’

(And, in case you are wondering, Malaysia is a majority Muslim country.)

The story reminded me of my posts earlier in the year about what is now being called “video voyeurism” where a ‘new American’ was caught by an eagle-eyed teen filming women in dressing rooms in Virginia malls, see those Mumtaz Rauf posts here.

ABC-13 in Houston has good coverage of this latest story,

Halliburton employee pleads guilty to hiding camera in United first class bathroom

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — A Houston man who works for Halliburton has pleaded guilty to voyeurism after planting a camera inside an airplane bathroom and using it to record women.

Choon Ping Lee was charged with video voyeurism within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

Lee was sentenced to two months in prison and a $6,000 fine.

The incident happened May 5 on United Airlines flight 646 from San Diego to Houston.

Authorities say a first class passenger, who is also from Houston, told them she went to the bathroom at one point during the flight and noticed a device with a blue blinking light.

She claimed it was near the cabinet and wall area, close to a door hinge. The device was loosely hanging, but she said she wasn’t sure if it was part of the plane.

The passenger grabbed it with a paper towel, walked out of the bathroom and gave it to the flight crew.

According to court documents, once they arrived in Houston, the crew gave the item to George Bush Intercontinental Airport United Airlines Corporate Security.

Not only was Lee apparently a sicko, he was dumb as he shot footage of himself installing the camera!

Security, who confirmed it was a video recording device, watched the footage and saw a man installing the device in the bathroom in first class on that same flight.

Officials say they couldn’t see the man’s face, but he wore clothing and jewelry with distinct details. He wore a watch on his left hand and a small bracelet on his right wrist.

He had on a blue, short-sleeved shirt with the letters “NJC” on the back and loosely fitted jeans. He also wore black tennis shoes with black leather on top near the black laces and white trim on the bottom of the shoes.

FBI San Diego had video footage of all the passengers boarding United Airlines Flight 646. A man wearing the same clothing as the person seen in the bathroom video was spotted in the San Diego boarding area. He also wore glasses and carried a black backpack.

Video showed the man, wearing the same distinct clothing, leaving the plane after it landed in Houston.

Houston police then used video footage of the man walking through Bush Airport to help track him down.

He was identified as Lee, a Malaysian citizen. United Airlines Corporate Security confirmed Lee sat in first class on the flight.

FBI Houston recovered deleted files on the device showing another airplane bathroom where at least two women were caught on camera. Authorities discovered that the files were from an Emirates flight, and one of the victims was wearing an Emirates flight crew uniform.

Court papers show the FBI contacted Halliburton, who provided them with Lee’s travel information and that he flew on Emirates for work.

Halliburton also shared a real time photo of Lee walking down the hallway at his job site. He was wearing the watch and bracelet that matched the jewelry seen on camera on the United Airlines flight on May 5.

There is a discussion about how ‘popular’ this practice is becoming, then this,

“They can be as small as a pinhole size, hidden in a ceiling, in a coffee mug,” said Natalia Avila from Central Spy Shop.

In fact, Central Spy Shop has even heard of cases where the cameras were found on cruise ships and airbnbs.

“They could be hidden in smoke detectors, air purifiers,” said Avila.

That’s where hidden camera detectors come in. The devices use a red light to detect a camera lens and it also picks up Wi-Fi.

Are we all going to have to run out and purchase hidden camera detectors?  Yikes!

Lee was fined $6,000, will go to jail for two months and will most likely be removed from the country according to the Justice Department.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: The Vortex — The New Normal

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TRANSCRIPT

It’s now been one year to the day — yesterday, to be precise — that the first of a series of bombs were exploded by Abp. Carlo Maria Viganò over the Catholic world.

Recall the context: The Pennsylvania grand jury report had been released roughly a week before and was a prevalent topic in the secular press.

The Establishment’s crooked cardinals were somewhat on the defensive, playing the spin game and lying about everything they knew. The news about McCarrick had come out two months earlier and had become something of established fact.

Various Catholics, who up to that point had been pretty sleepy about all this evil, were starting to become red-pilled as the expression goes, meaning having their eyes opened up.

The Vatican had managed to deftly avoid any meaningful on the record comments about what was unfolding in the United States. And then, just as the Pope was on a plane coming back from a trip to Ireland, the news broke like a giant thunderclap.

The former Vatican ambassador to the United States, the papal nuncio, a very highly regarded man was coming public, revealing that not only everything reported about McCarrick was true, but much more importantly, the Pope himself knew, a large contingent of U.S. bishops were involved in the mafia-style cover-up, many of them were active homosexuals and the Pope should resign.

To add to the seriousness of his testimony, he confessed that he was going into hiding for perhaps the rest of his life, for fear of lethal retaliation.

Viganò’s testimony forced the entire issue back onto the front pages and became the topic in the Catholic media world.

It caught everyone, in particular what Viganò would later term the corrupt gay mafia running the Church, completely off guard.

Indeed, the days leading up to the release of his testimony had seen a shift in momentum back to the Establishment; they had trotted out liars like Donald Wuerl and Kevin Farrell to deny the cover-up part of the story surrounding McCarrick.

Wuerl took center stage, which made sense since he was the man who had replaced McCarrick in D.C. and covered up his crimes for him.

He did various interviews where he flat-out lied. Other cardinals rushed to the microphones to lie and deny.

McCarrick may be guilty, they said, but as to the climate in which such an evil monster could climb the ranks, they were all “shocked”

Wuerl, speaking to the lying, cheating, now-disgraced priest Fr. Thomas Rosica, said Catholics have nothing to worry about, the Church was moving along just fine.

The Establishment was re-gaining control of the messaging, which is somewhat easy to do when you are completely unaccountable and non-transparent.

This was the backdrop, a sleepy summer morning, when the Viganò truth bombs exploded over Pope Francis and corrupt gay mafia.

The homosexuals in the hierarchy were sent into a scramble, no one knew how to respond and they didn’t know how to respond because they knew it was the truth. Liars and cheats always melt when confronted with truth; it’s that “deer in the headlights” moment.

Even Pope Francis was caught completely off-guard as reporters fired questions at him. It was in that instant that he gave the response which this papacy will be most remembered for: “I will not say a single word.”

That phrase — not “who am I to judge?” — will be the phrase which encapsulates this pontificate in years to come.

In the ensuing year, Viganò kept issuing new testimonies which kept causing subsequent explosions. He named names, talked about specific instances of corruption and called fellow bishops liars.

Eventually, he gave a name to what he had first termed a “homosexual current” in the hierarchy: “a corrupt gay mafia.”

His relentless testimonies forced the agenda of U.S. bishops in their November meeting in Baltimore.

That it turn forced the Pope’s hand as he directly intervened and ordered the U.S. hierarchy to drop the subject immediately, that he was convening a special sex summit the coming February in Rome.

The implication was that all would be set right at this Roman summit scheduled for three days.

It was not to be the case. It was a sham, designed to cover up and ignore the thrust of Viganò’s claim, that the evil was due to the corrupt gay mafia.

Together, the Pope and the lying Cdls. Blase Cupich and Donald Wuerl, who eventually had to step down in disgrace, developed the PR message that it was not a “corrupt gay mafia,” but rather “clericalism” that was to blame for the crime.

Cupich who had been dispatched by the Pope to put out the blaze, forbid any mention of homosexuality at the summit, or any talk of homopredator clergy abusing anyone other than minors.

The specific subject of seminarians being sexually abused and assaulted by homosexual faculty and staff was strictly off-limits.

The Rome summit in February was where the corrupt gay mafia re-gained control of the narrative. In the popular mind of Catholics who care, a new normal has been established.

Homosexuality within the clerical ranks is now exposed, and Rome doesn’t care. The lack of accountability in this life, and the concentration of power, has allowed the corrupt gay mafia to return to business as usual.

Men like homosexualist James Martin are in one sense even more free now than before to be bold.

The issue now out of the closet, is now able to be lied about and spun tirelessly, and the faithful are now able to be denigrated and mocked by various clergy in heightened political terms like bigot and hater.

What is now blindingly clear is this: The rot and filth of the corrupt gay mafia is deeper and more widespread than anyone who loves the Church could ever have imagined.

This rot and filth has been covered up for, excused and deliberately overlooked by the entire Establishment who rely on their connections and relationships with these evil men to keep bread on their table.

This is a long, long battle that needs to be engaged. It will not go away for years. In fact, until all these wicked prelates are rotting and smoldering in their graves, only then will there be any hope, in a temporal sense, of change — and even then, not a thing is guaranteed.

The climate in religious orders, in the hierarchy, in dioceses and chanceries all over the West is one which embraces the world, does not seek to convert it.

Even among various Catholics who may not necessarily agree with the corrupt gay mafia, there is still a spirit of acquiescence and softness, an emasculation, a lack of willingness to confront evil head-on and call out wickedness in high places in the Church. Ultimately, this is why Viganò is still in hiding for fear of his life.

The major contribution Abp. Viganò made was not to expose the evil, but to show the battle lines, to bring them into the Catholic consciousness.

Now, it is up to the faithful to decide to fight for the soul of the Church. That is going to require highpersonal sacrifice on every level, mostly reputation and relationships.

There is a corrupt gay mafia with a stranglehold on the Church. Loyal sons and daughters of the Church must now fight in any and every way their individual circumstances allow.

The “new normal” must be resisted and defeated.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Failing to use required DNA technology to identify criminal aliens

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DHS malfeasance undermines national security and public safety.

The pace at which events occur often makes it all but impossible to keep pace. This is particularly true where the multi-faceted immigration crisis is concerned.

While much attention is paid to the abject lack of security of the U.S./Mexican border, there are many other failings of the immigration system that often go unreported and ignored by the mainstream media and our politicians.  I have repeatedly noted that while I am a firm supporter of the need to construct an effective wall/barrier along the southern border, there are many other elements of the immigration system that are no less important.  I have therefore come to compare the wall along the border with a wing on an airplane.  Without its wing an airplane won’t fly, however, a wing by itself goes nowhere.

On Wednesday August 21,  I was invited by the producers at Fox News’ Fox & Friends First to participate in an interview to discuss a just-posted  Fox News report, Watchdog Alerts President Trump That Border Agency Violated DNA Collection Law For Years, Letting Violent Criminals Walk Free.

That troubling report included the following excerpt:

In a scathing letter to Trump, exclusively obtained by Fox News, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said CBP’s “noncompliance with the law has allowed subjects subsequently accused of violent crimes, including homicide and sexual assault, to elude detection even when detained multiple times by CBP or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).”

CBP REBUKED FOR FAILURE TO COLLECT DNA FROM MIGRANT DETAINEES

The OSC told the White House that it was taking the “strongest possible step” to “rebuke the agency’s failure to comply with the law,” as well as its “unreasonable” attempts to defend its own conduct.

Under the law, CBP was required to collect DNA from individuals in its custody, to be run against FBI violent-crimes databases. The procedure is separate from DNA collection designed to establish familial relationships among migrants at the border.

Aliens who were released by this demonstration of nonfeasance and, indeed, malfeasance, have committed more violent crimes, thereby claiming more innocent victims.

I accepted the invitation and Fox News has posted my interview under the title, Government watchdog says CBP violated its DNA collection law for years.

As I noted during my interview, bad guys use changes in identity the way a chameleon uses changes in coloration, to hide in plain sight among its intended victims.

Everyone associates the arrest of suspects with the fingerprinting and photographing of those who are arrested as a means of determining their true identities and to make certain that their fingerprints are retained for future reference.  Currently DNA is also used as a means of identifying those who are taken into custody for the same reason.

Fingerprints, photographs and DNA all constitute biometrics.

The law that mandated that ICE and CBP use DNA to properly identify aliens who are taken into custody, was enacted back in 2005.  During the Obama administration, Secretary Janet Napolitano asked the Attorney General to waive this important requirement claiming a lack of resources.  Not surprisingly, the Attorney General complied.

Incredibly, nothing has apparently changed under the Trump administration and, as a consequence, hundreds of thousands of aliens who should have undergone DNA screening did not during the Obama administration and during the current administration.

The issue of the consequence of the failure of immigration law enforcement to effectively use biometrics is not new.  In fact, we can look back to the particularly egregious case of Ángel Maturino Reséndiz-Ramirez  aka the “Railway Killer” as noted in this excerpt in a Wikipedia article about him:

Murders and methodology

By illegally jumping on and off trains within and across Mexico, Canada and the United States, generally crossing borders illegally, Reséndiz was able to evade authorities for a considerable time. United States government records show that he had been deported to Mexico at least four times since first entering the U.S. in 1973.[4]

Reséndiz killed at least 15 people[5] with rocks, a pickaxe, and other blunt objects, mainly in their homes. After each murder, he would linger in the homes for a while, mainly to eat; he took sentimental items and laid out the victims’ driver’s licenses to learn about their lives. He stole jewelry and other items and gave them to his wife and mother, who lived in Rodeo, Durango, Mexico. Much of the jewelry was sold or melted down. Some of the items that were removed from the homes were returned by his wife and mother after his surrender. Money, however, was sometimes left at the scene. He raped some of his female victims; however, rape served as a secondary intent. Most of his victims were found covered with a blanket or otherwise obscured from immediate view.

Reséndiz-Ramirez had been in Border Patrol custody at least four times, was deported back to Mexico, illegally reentered and killed more innocent people.

He was eventually identified as the cold-blooded murderer of at least 15 people, put on trial and found guilty.  He was subsequently executed but his execution did not bring any of his victims back to life.  The families of those victims will never be the same.

Back then immigration law enforcement personnel did not transmit fingerprints electronically but usually by mail!  All too often we would arrest an illegal alien, mail out the fingerprints and then, weeks later, receive a response that the alien was wanted for serious crimes.  Of course, by then he/she had been deported or released.

During my first Congressional hearing, on May 20, 1997 before the House Immigration Subcommittee on the topic of Visa Fraud And Immigration Benefits Application Fraud when I was asked about a common problem I encountered in my positions as Immigration Inspector, Immigration Adjudications Officer and Special Agent, I replied that one of the biggest challenges was to uncover the true identities of those whom we interacted with and that imposters were a huge issue.  Within a year the former INS began implementing electronic fingerprinting, but on a limited scale.

Here we are approaching the 18th anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.  The 9/11 Commission was clear in its finding that the key method of entry and embedding for terrorists was immigration fraud and identity fraud.

Yet we are now finding out that DNA technology which is a tremendously valuable tool that could enhance national security and public safety has been all but ignored by elements of the Department of Homeland Security or, as I came to refer to it when it was first created, the Department of Homeland Surrender.

It is completely unacceptable that CBP and ICE failed in its most fundamental mission: to protect America and Americans from aliens who pose a threat to national security and/or public safety.

Immigration enforcement personnel should learn from the mistakes of the past.  However, as the famed playwright George Bernard Shaw lamented, “We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”

The Trump administration must act swiftly and decisively to plug this gaping hole in the immigration system.

Failure is not an option!

RELATED ARTICLE: Taxpayer-Funded Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society Sending Immigration Lawyers to Border so More Migrants Can Get In!

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Inconvenient Truth about Public Charge Provisions of Immigration Laws

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There are two broad categories of lies that could be referred to as crimes of commission and crimes of omission.

The crime of commission is when facts are blatantly misrepresented, while the crime of omission involves leaving out relevant information, for example, when statements are taken out of context or relevant information is left out of the report.

These tactics have become commonplace and routine particularly when the mainstream media reports on the Trump administration and also when it reports on issues pertaining to immigration.

When the Trump administration promulgates policies that impact immigration, synergy kicks in and the truth is likely nowhere to be found.

Over a century ago a popular expression, the streets are paved with gold, drew immigrants to the United States who were determined to strike it rich in America.  When they got here they found that the streets were paved, not with gold, but with cobblestones that came from the cargo holds of ships that used those cobblestones as ballast.

Back then the cargo holds of the merchant ships that arrived at America’s ports were filled with cobblestones that served as ballast to keep those ships stable on the voyage to the United States.  Once here, those stones were off-loaded and all sorts of products that were made in America replaced the cobblestones in the cargo holds of those ships that returned to their original ports with merchandise to be sold.

The cobblestones were used to pave the roads of the port cities.

Nevertheless the immigrants who came to America worked hard and earned a living and built their futures in our nation.  None of them expected, nor received a “free ride.”

You could say that rather than being paved with gold, the streets were paved with blood, sweat and tears of the immigrants.

With their new-found freedom to worship and to pursue their dreams, many succeeded in building successful and happy lives in the United States.

On August 12, 2019 Business Today breathlessly published a Reuters News report under the title, “New Trump administration rule to target legal immigrants who get public assistance”.  The subtitle of that report utterly twisted the truth:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a sweeping rule on Monday that would limit legal immigration by denying visas and permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of people for being too poor

That article also included this excerpt:

The 837-page rule could be the most drastic of all the Trump administration’s policies targeting the legal immigration system, experts have said. Advocates for immigrants have criticized the plan as an effort to cut legal immigration without going through Congress to change U.S. law.

The new rule is derived from the Immigration Act of 1882, which allows the U.S. government to deny a visa to anyone likely to become a “public charge.”

That last paragraph creates the utterly false impression that President Trump had to dig back to law books published 137 years ago to find legal justification for invoking the concept of public charge to prevent aliens on public assistance from receiving lawful immigrant status.

In reality, while the notion of public charge was first codified in 1882, it has persisted in all subsequent rewrites of America’s immigration laws and, in fact, is still an element of the current Immigration and Nationality Act.

The claim that Trump’s public charge policies would deny entry to aliens who are poor is false.  This concern does not deny entry to aliens who are poor.  Historically many immigrants who were destitute have come to the United States.  However, they worked their way up the economic ladder to create the American Dream for themselves, their families and ultimately, for America.

The issue is not whether or not an alien seeking to enter the U.S. is poor but if that alien has the physical capabilities and skills and/or education to work and be self-sufficient in the United States.

In fact, Ellis Island was run by Public Health officials along with immigration officials.  Public Health officials had two concerns- that the arriving immigrants were not suffering from dangerous communicable diseases that could create a deadly epidemic and that the arriving immigrants were mentally and physically capable of working and supporting themselves and, perhaps, their families.

My earlier article, “The Left’s Immigration Con Game”, referenced the extraordinary documentary, “Forgotten Ellis Island”, that chronicles the true story about Ellis Island, and the story is not particularly pretty or romantic and runs contrary to the bogus mythology told by the immigration anarchists of today.

On August 16, 2019 CNBC reported, “Advocacy groups file suit to block Trump’s new ‘public charge’ immigration rule” that included this outrageous quote:

“This rule change is a direct attack on communities of color and their families and furthers this administration’s desire to make this country work primarily for the wealthy and white,” said Antionette Dozier, senior attorney at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “Our immigration system cannot be based on the racial animosities of this administration or whether or not people are wealthy.”

More recently NBC reported, “New York, Connecticut and Vermont sue to block Trump’s public charge rule.”

Once again, the Left is resorting to “Lawfare”, filing lawsuits to achieve political objectives.

The quote that appears in the CNBC article noted above from Western Center on Law and Poverty was quick to invoke race.  Let us also be clear that race, religion and/or ethnicity play absolutely no role in determining whether or not to admit aliens into the United States.

The grounds for determining admissibility of aliens into the United States is codified in a section of the current Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. Code § 1182.

Among the categories of aliens who are excludible are aliens who suffer dangerous communicable diseases, serious mental illness, are criminals, spies, terrorists, human rights violators, fugitives from justice, aliens who had been previously deported (removed) from the United States and aliens who have committed fraud in their applications for visas and/or immigration benefits.

Additionally, it establishes that aliens are inadmissible (excludible) if they are likely to become public charges.

This is how the current Immigration and Nationality Act unambiguously lays out the entire issue of public charge:

(4)  Public charge

(A)   In general

Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.

(B)   Factors to be taken into account

(i)  In determining whether an alien is inadmissible under this paragraph, the consular officer or the Attorney General shall at a minimum consider the alien’s–

(I)  age;

(II)  health;

(III)  family status;

(IV)  assets, resources, and financial status;  and

(V)  education and skills.

(ii)  In addition to the factors under clause (i), the consular officer or the Attorney General may also consider any affidavit of support under section 1183a of this title for purposes of exclusion under this paragraph.

The media has accused President Trump of wanting to separate families.  In point of fact, family members may provide an affidavit of support wherein they guarantee that they will provide financial assistance to their family members who seek to immigrate to the United States.  This would help to unite families not divide them.

The issue is not about dividing families or denying poor people an opportunity to immigrate to the United States, but to protect the financial solvency of the United States, an issue of increasing concern as the national debt continues to soar into the stratosphere, by simply enforcing existing laws.

I must remind you that the imposition of American policies to address public charge laws is not new, but has a long-established history that goes back 137 years.

It is clear that the United States is unable to secure its borders.  Billions of humans around the world live below the poverty line.  If the United States was to permit all of the world’s poor to come to America with the expectation of receiving free healthcare, free education, housing subsidies and other such free benefits, our nation would implode.

As it is, our national debt has soared into the stratosphere and continues its upward trajectory.

The time has come for the Radical Left to be reminded of one of their favorite chants, the one that deals with “sustainability!”

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Antifa Update

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It has been some time since I last wrote about Antifa, the self-proclaimed anarchists/communists who have adopted violent tactics to attack anyone not agreeing with their political agenda, which is nothing less than to subvert and overthrow the government of the United states. Their tactics are well recorded on film, everything from Berkeley, to attacking conservative writer Andy Ngo, to the recent confrontation in Portland, Oregon, and much more.

They are anti-capitalists, anti-religion (particularly Christianity), but they are also very organized. The scary part is they are misguided, armed, and view themselves as international terrorists, a true recipe for disaster. Interestingly, aside from former VP Joe Biden, I am told all of the other Democrat presidential candidates have yet to condemn Antifa and, as such, it is presumed they are soliciting the support of the group which is considered far-left and sympathetic to Democrat causes. In contrast, the Trump administration has openly condemned the group.

Recently, Republican Congressmen introduced resolutions to declare Antifa a terrorist organization. In the Senate, Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D. (LA) and Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) introduced Senate Resolution 279 (July 18, 2019). One week later, Rep. Brian K. Fitzpatrick (PA-1) introduced House Resolution 525 (July 25, 2019) based on the language contained in the Senate version. The Senate version was referred to the Judiciary Committee for review, and the House version has moved to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. It will be interesting to see how these two bills progress through the two chambers, and if anyone opposes them.

Two people have already voiced their displeasure with the proposed legislation. The first is Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union, who told The Washington Post she opposes labeling groups as domestic terrorists, seeing it as a threat to the freedoms embodied in the First Amendment. The second person, Rep Debra Haaland (NM-D) claims Antifa represents “peaceful protesters” trying to “safeguard their city.” I have trouble with this in lieu of the recent developments in Portland where the Antifa protesters came to provoke a confrontation.

Should the legislation pass, this will mean Antifa can be treated as any other terrorist group and subject to prosecution under the Patriot Act. Some suggest this is too extreme, that they are just misled kids who don’t comprehend the legalities of their actions. Their behavior though is reminiscent of the Gestapo which came to power in 1933 in Nazi Germany. The biggest difference between the two groups is the Gestapo was an arm of the government, but not so with Antifa. Nonetheless, their tactics were similar in they both attacked anyone who did not conform to their ideology.

You may think classifying Antifa as a terrorist organization is a no-brainer, that everyone would like to be rid of them. Not so fast. It has become a political football for the Democrats who do not want to alienate this far-left group of voters. Yes, I think they deplore the actual violence they create, but they are looking to groups like Antifa to loudly strong-arm and neutralize groups on the right, just as the Gestapo’s “goon squads” did in Germany. Likewise, they may be sharpening their skills for political intimidation at the voting precincts. So, do not look for any significant action to pass on Antifa until after the 2020 elections, if at all. It is not in the best interests of the Democrats to do so at this time.

By the way, I find it interesting the “Anti-Fascists” (hence the origin of their name), still do not know what a fascist is. Rather, they should just look in the mirror.

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also do not forget my new books, “How to Run a Nonprofit” and “Tim’s Senior Moments”, both available in Printed and eBook form.

RELATED ARTICLE: Iowa Professor Becomes Poster Child For Antifa Violence

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right Column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

The Glendon Commission

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David Carlin: We are witnessing a cultural revolution as atheists and liberals work to destroy Christianity and replace it with a God-less worldview.

In July, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo created something called the “Commission on Unalienable Rights,” the purpose of which is to “provide the Secretary of State advice and recommendations concerning international human rights matters” along with “fresh thinking about human rights discourse where such discourse has departed from our nation’s founding principles of natural law and natural rights.”

The chair of the commission is Mary Ann Glendon, one of America’s leading Catholic intellectuals.  She is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican.  What’s more, she was Pompeo’s mentor when he was a student at Harvard Law School.

Many people on the political left have objected to the creation of this commission.  The expression “natural law” makes them nervous, as does the fact that an out-and-out Catholic like Glendon is its chair.

I myself am very pleased, because I hope it may serve, at least in some small way, to check the astonishing proliferation of “fundamental human rights” that we have seen in the United States in recent decades.  The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized a right to abortion (Roe v. Wade), a right to homosexual sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas), and a right to same-sex “marriage” (Obergefell v. Hodges).  In the future, if this trend continues, it will probably recognize a right to euthanasia.  And God only knows what else.

Those on the political Left have figured out a way of enacting their agenda while bypassing the democratic process.  You like X and you want it to be the law of the land.  But you can’t get X through Congress or state legislatures.  So you decide that X is a fundamental human right, a right that cannot be negated by popular majorities.

And then you go to the U.S. Supreme Court. And if you’re lucky the Court will have a majority of liberal justices on it, and they will agree with you.  And since, according to the liberal view, all fundamental human rights are implicitly contained in the U.S. Constitution (they are alluded to in the Ninth Amendment), X now becomes a Constitutional right.

If you object that you cannot find X in the Constitution, despite having read that document very carefully, you will be told that we have a “living Constitution” and that only out-of-date right-wingers read the Constitution literally.

If you reply that Justice Antonin Scalia once said, “The Constitution says what it says, and it doesn’t say something else,” you will be told that while Scalia was a fine fellow (since he was a friend of the saintly Ruth Bader Ginsburg), he was nonetheless an out-of-date right-winger whose originalism was as worthwhile as Confederate money.

The Declaration of Independence not only had a list of natural rights (equality, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness).  It also had an epistemology of moral knowledge. It held that the reality of these rights was self-evident.

Now if this is our standard (let’s call it the Jefferson standard), if we say that if X is to count as a fundamental human right, X will have to be self-evidently such, then our newer rights – the “rights” to abortion, to homosexual sodomy, to same-sex “marriage,” or to euthanasia – are not rights at all; for they are far, far from self-evident.  If they were self-evident rights, there would be an almost universal consensus on them.

If we were to use the Jefferson standard, only if almost every American agreed that X is a fundamental human right would the Supreme Court declare that X, despite not being mentioned in the Constitution, is one of those unenumerated rights alluded to in the Ninth Amendment.

But if we are not to use the Jefferson standard when deciding what is, and what is not, a fundamental human right, what standard are we to use?  Apparently, nothing better than a majority vote of the Supreme Court.  If five justices say that X is a fundamental right, X is a fundamental human right.

Now that’s just fine for many people on the political Left.  For they can then multiply “fundamental human rights” and hope that their multiplications will be ratified by at least five “living Constitution” members of the Supreme Court.  But for the rest of us, for people who like to think that we are living in a democratic republic that operates within the framework of a Constitution that was intended by its makers to be read literally, this potentially unlimited multiplication of fundamental rights is a disaster.

And for Christians too it’s a disaster – at least for old-fashioned Christians, who subscribe to the faith and morals of the early Church, e.g., orthodox Catholics and Evangelical Protestants.  For the leftist list of fundamental human rights contains items that are quite incompatible with Christianity.

And so, when the Supreme Court declares that, for example, abortion, homosexual sodomy, same-sex “marriage,” and euthanasia are fundamental rights, it is by very clear implication also declaring that Christianity is the enemy of human rights.

We are, as I see things, in the middle of a great but slow-moving cultural revolution in the United States, as atheists and their near-atheist fellow-travelers (including religiously liberal Protestants and Catholics) attempt to destroy the traditional Christian ethic and worldview and replace it with a God-less ethic and worldview.

So far, the atheist coalition seems to be winning. Their advance, supported by the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, our leading universities, and the Democratic Party, looks unstoppable.  And one of the great instruments of this advance is the idea that the leftist agenda can be enacted by the un-democratic “discovery” of more and more fundamental human rights.

Can the Glendon commission stop this advance?  Probably not.  But perhaps it can slow it down, giving Christians more time in which to rally their troops and fight back.  In any case, the work of the commission, and the atheistic reaction to it, will be absolutely essential to watch.

COLUMN BY

David Carlin

David Carlin is a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Nigerians Arrested by FBI for Scamming Millions from Elderly and Vulnerable Women

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“We believe this is one of the largest cases of its kind in U.S. history.” – US Attorney Nick Hanna

The FBI announced this week that over a dozen were under arrest in the U.S. and efforts were being made to find additional co-conspirators around the world in fraud schemes  involving at least 32 victims.

Here is The Hill on this good news,

Justice charges 80 in massive online fraud case linked to Nigerian defendants

The Department of Justice on Thursday unsealed a 252-count federal indictment charging 80 defendants, many of whom are Nigerian nationals, with conspiring to steal millions of dollars through online scams.

The indictment was unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and was made public shortly afterauthorities arrested 14 of the defendants across the United States, with 11 of these defendants apprehended in the Los Angeles region. The majority of the defendants are outside the country, with many likely in Nigeria.

The defendants involved in the case were charged with attempting to defraud individuals of millions of dollars through the use of business email compromise (BEC) and online romance scams, in addition to other schemes meant to target the elderly.

The investigation is being led by the FBI, with each of the defendants charged with “conspiracy to commit fraud, conspiracy to launder money, and aggravated identity theft,” according to Justice Department. Some defendants also face fraud and money laundering charges.

U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna described the scams used by the defendants during a press conference on Thursday, saying that “fraud networks now target individuals and businesses alike.”

“In the BEC scams, the fraudsters will often hack a company’s email system, impersonate company personnel, and direct payments to bank accounts that funnel money back to the fraudsters in Nigeria,” Hanna said. “In the romance scams, victims think they are developing a dating relationship, when in fact they are just being tricked into sending money to the fraudsters.”

Hanna added that “we believe this is one of the largest cases of its kind in U.S. history.”

Paul Delacourt, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said during the same press conference that losses involved in this case for victims total around $10 million. He said defendants attempted to obtain $40 million from victims.

There were at least 32 victims in the case, from the United States and other countries including Japan, the United Kingdom, Lebanon, Ukraine, China, Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Delacourt said the case began in 2016 after one individual was victimized by the defendants. The two main defendants in the case are Nigerian citizens Valentine Iro and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe.

More here.

And, don’t miss the  Stars and Stripes story about how some of the crooks pretended to be US military personnel when they scammed hundreds of thousands from lonely women.

I know you are shaking your head and wondering who in their right mind would be so foolish to send money to a stranger they met on the internet.  Well, as we have heard in previous posts on Nigerian romance scammers, these Nigerian creeps are skilled actors and preying on vulnerable and lonely people seems to come naturally to them.

Keep an eye on your elderly friends and family members and don’t let them fall for these despicable scams.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Utah: Nigerian Arrested for Murder Faces Additional Charges

64% Of Federal Arrests Were Of Non-Citizens In 2018, DOJ Finds

Just 20 Miles From White House, Illegal Immigrant Rape Cases Keep Piling Up

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Judicial Watch Major Court Victory: Montgomery County, Maryland Must Clean up Voter Rolls!

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Since we are on the subject of sanctuary county—Montgomery County, MD (see my previous post)—here is a bit of good news for a change!  (Hat tip: Cathy)

Thank God for Judicial Watch!  Note that it took TWO full years before the county is being forced to comply.

From JW’s press release:

JUDICIAL WATCH VICTORY: FEDERAL COURT ORDERS MARYLAND TO PRODUCE VOTER REGISTRATION LIST DATA TO JUDICIAL WATCH

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court has ordered the State of Maryland to produce voter list data for Montgomery County, the state’s biggest county. The court ruling comes in the Judicial Watch lawsuit filed July 18, 2017, against Montgomery County and the Maryland State Boards of Elections under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Baltimore Division (Judicial Watch vs. Linda H. Lamone, et al. (No. 1:17-cv-02006)). The decision follows NVRA-related Judicial Watch successes in California and Kentucky that could lead to removal of up to 1.85 million inactive voters from voter registration lists. The NVRA requires states to take reasonable steps to clean up its voting rolls and to make documents about its voter list maintenance practices available to anyone who asks.

Judicial Watch had sought the Maryland voter list data after discovering that there were more registered voters in Montgomery County than citizens over the age of 18 who could register.

[….]

The dispute over the voter registration list arose from an April 11, 2017, notice letter sent to Maryland election officials, in which Judicial Watch explained Montgomery County had an impossibly high registration rate. The letter threatened a lawsuit if the problems with Montgomery County’s voter rolls were not fixed. The letter also requested access to Montgomery County voter registration lists in order to evaluate the efficacy of any “programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of Maryland’s official eligible voter lists during the past 2 years.”

Democrat Maryland officials, in response, attacked and smeared Judicial Watch by suggesting it was an agent of Russia.

More here.

Just a reminder!  Maryland is run by the Dems even as it has a Republican (never Trumper!) governor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

4 Things to Know About Trump’s New Voter Fraud Claim

Another Rape in Montgomery County, MD, Sanctuary to Illegals

Trump Administration to Close Loophole Blocking Immigration Enforcement

The New York Times Works for the Left, and Now Everyone Should Know It

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

His Name Was Seth Rich! [Videos]

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Posted by Eeyore

Seth Rich Murder Update: FBI Claims They Didn’t Investigate but NSA Claims Can’t Disclose Files Due to Matter of National Security

We first reported in late July that Texas businessman Ed Butowsky filed a lawsuit where he outed reporter Ellen Ratner as his source for information on Seth Rich. The DNC operative was murdered in the summer of 2016 in Washington DC. His murder was never solved. According to the lawsuit Seth Rich provided WikiLeaks the DNC emails before the 2016 election, not Russia.

This totally destroys the FBI and Mueller’s claims that Russians hacked the DNC to obtain these emails.

Butowsky claims in his lawsuit:

Ms. Rattner said Mr. Assange told her that Seth Rich and his brother, Aaron, were responsible for releasing the DNC emails to Wikileaks. Ms. Rattner said Mr. Assange wanted the information relayed to Seth’s parents, as it might explain the motive for Seth’s murder.

On November 9 2016 Ellen Ratner admitted publicly that she met with Julian Assange for three hours the Saturday before the 2016 election. According to Ratner, Julian Assange told her the leaks were not from the Russians, they were from an internal source from the Hillary Campaign.

Please read the rest at GW linked at the top.

Also, the clip of Assange talking to Hannity about the reward pretty much nails it for me.

I have somewhere the interview with Assange by Hannity, where Julian specifically states that he is offering reward for information leading to the killer of Seth Rich by name, because he wants to protect his sources. But he does not directly say Seth Rich was his source on the DNC email leaks. Seth Rich did have access to that material however.

Once I find that clip, and I know I have it somewhere, I will restore it and add it to this post.

Congress’s Behavior Police To Register Potential Future Criminals

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By KrisAnne Hall.

The TAPS Act is not the solution to gun violence many members of Congress are professing it to be. The unlimited and arbitrary authority this Act bestows upon an unaccountable bureaucracy of 24 people, combined with the language of double-speak and contradictions creating loopholes allowing completely unsupervised and unchecked authority, is reminiscent of the Sedition Act of 1798.

The TAPS Act will create a brand new bureaucracy under the authority of the Department of Homeland Security. A non-elected bureaucrat will be authorized by Congress to appoint 23 other non-elected bureaucrats to “identify individuals who are exhibiting patterns of concerning behavior” and then to “manage” those Americans.

The sole purpose of this bureaucracy of 24 will be to create State and federal behavioral policing body ruling over the perceived behavior of the American people — a KGB-style agency not only monitoring the behavior of Americans, but also functioning as judge, jury, and executioner.

This Act mandates the Secretary of Homeland Security to establish a Joint Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management Task Force: a 24 member bureaucracy consisting of one government employee (level GS-15 or above) and 23 people from non-governmental organizations of the Secretary’s choosing. Not a single member of this 24 person bureaucracy will be elected by the people, therefore the people will retain no control whatsoever over the actions or activity of this newly created bureaucracy that will possess, by Congressional consent, an enormous amount of arbitrary and unchecked power over the people (see §4(a)).

The sole purpose of this task force is “identifying individuals who are exhibiting patterns of concerning behavior” and create a power to control those people on a federal and local level (§3(2)). This Act contains no clear definition of “concerning behavior.” As a matter of fact, the Act relies upon the Task Force (24 non-elected bureaucrats) to first define “concerning behavior” and then empower the “monitors” tasked with “identifying individuals” that exhibit that behavior.

According to (§3(2)(a)) no actual criminal act must take place to invoke the power this bureaucracy creates. A Federal or State agent must only believe an individual is “interested” in committing their definition of “concerning behavior” to summon this new and undefined power to action.  The DHS will then be “empowered” to implement these arbitrary rules with no acknowledgement of any of the rights of the people.

To take the legal-eeze off it, this is intended to create a registry of people who may commit crimes at some unspecified and unknown time in the future. This registry will then be used to begin a step-by-step usurpation of their individual rights, from the assumption of innocence and due process to the 1st and 2nd Amendments and more.

Once a State or federal gent has identified an American believed to be interested in some kind of concerning behavior, §3(2)(b) authorizes the bureaucracy to empower these agents to investigate and gather information from multiple sources (sources remain undefined in this Act) on this individual American to find “articulable facts” supporting whether this person is truly exhibiting an “interest” in committing “concerning behavior.”

The 4th Amendment requires the government to obtain a warrant based upon probable cause (not articulable facts), supported by oath or affirmation, particularly describing the places to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. Under the 4 th Amendment, it is impossible for this Task Force to empower any government agent to do what Congress has authorized it to do. But the Act makes no mention of the 4 th Amendment or the government’s requirement to respect and secure the rights of the people.  According to §3(2)(c) of this Act, after the bureaucracy has compiled its “articulable facts” by circumventing the 4th Amendment’s requirements on government, the bureaucracy is now empower an government agent to “manage” the threat of “concerning behavior.” There is no definition within the Act for the word “manage.” However, the “Powers of the Task Force” are defined in §4(f) as follows:

“Any member of the Task Force may, if authorized by the Task Force, take any action which the Task Force is authorized to take by this section.”

While there are no guidelines created by Congress on how this bureaucracy is supposed to define “manage” or “identify” the behavior of Americans, §2 of the Act establishes that the Task Force will create its own “guidelines and best practices” in order to devise a “national standard” of action.  Therefore, it seems indisputable through §2 and §4(f) that any member of the Task Force can take any action it chooses as long the Task Force will establish the guidelines and practices for such action. The only limit of a government agent and the agency as a whole, rests solely upon the whim of the individual bureaucrat and the bureaucracy to limit itself.  There’s not a lot of history suggesting that would happen.

No Real Congressional Oversight

Congress retains no real authority to check, balance, limit, modify, or control the exercise of power created by this bureaucracy.  The only requirement for this new bureaucracy is to operate as the behavioral police in America and after one year the Secretary (the GS-15 government employee) will submit a report to Congress telling Congress what they have been doing for the past year. The Act then requires DHS to report to Congress once a year every subsequent year on how the guidelines are working, not as a check and balance.

A deceived member of Congress may attempt to assert that the only authority of the bureaucracy is to make “suggestions to Congress” as to what the proper course of action should be. However, that assertion can be seen as pure error by reading §3(2)(c) of this Act.

A deceived member of Congress may believe that this federal bureaucracy will have no power over the State and local police powers. However §8 of this Act establishes that federal grant money will be given to local jurisdictions which will undeniably establish the power for this Bureaucracy to control local and State authorities once they accept that money. So just as with the Department of Education and so many other federal agencies, if the States submit to federal authority, they’ll get the money. Most to all States will. (Surely the American people recognize this sleight of hand by now!)

A deceived Supreme Court, upon legal challenge, will likely fail to recognize this Act to be vague and full of self-defining authority for a non-elected bureaucracy. SCOTUS has long held great deference to federal agencies and their agents to define their own authority and procedures when Congress leaves holes in the laws.

The Constitution delegates no authority to Congress to fund, recommend, or create a behavioral police for the people. The writing of this Act and the Act’s website proves that every co-sponsor of this Bill knows this as fact! First, the Act makes no mention of due process, the rights of the people, nor any reliance upon or limit established by the Constitution of the United States.

Secondly, if you go to the Bill’s website and click on the hyperlink “Constitutional Authority Statement” the link takes you back to a copy of the Bill text, with no statement of authority whatsoever. The Constitution is not what the foundation for this Act, but fear of guns on the left and fear of terrorists on the right.

So, with the passage of this Act, Congress will create a new bureaucracy who will be empowered to create its own guidelines and procedures on how it will operate; and to define, identify, and enforce government control upon its self-defined “concerning behavior” of individuals in America — complete autonomous, arbitrary, self-defined authority resting in the hands of bureaucrats elected by no one, and controlled by no one.

This Act, on its face, violates the 4th , 5th , 6th , and 8th Amendments. But as in every arbitrary law, the whole truth of its offense to the rights of the people cannot be fully known until the law is put into action. If this Act is used as some members of Congress profess, it is highly likely that execution of this Act will violate large swaths of the Constitution — including the 1st , 2nd , 4th , 5th , 6th , 7th , 8th , 9th , and 10th Amendments. Constitution and the rights of the people be damned, the bureaucrats will have their power under the illusion of keeping people safe — always the justification for taking away rights.

Members of Congress are championing this Bill as the “be all and end all” solution to gun violence in America, yet the Bill does not even once mention the words “gun” or “ammunition.” It should be clear now that the TAPS Act is not about gun control at all, it is about people control. It will target any American who voices, types, or indicates a thought toward questioning government policy, people, or power. (See the FBI Memo defining and identifying the “new” standard for domestic terrorist.)

How any politician who professes a knowledge of the Constitution or professes a love for America, her people, and their rights could ever back this insidious piece of legislation is completely beyond my comprehension. And as Patrick Henry said in 1788: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.”

It’s time for the American people to hold these pretend patriots suspect and tell them to change their vote or change their vocation.

If any person, including members of Congress would like to discuss this with me, my door is open. My website: KrisAnneHall.com.

ABOUT KRISANNE HALL

KrisAnne Hall is a former biochemist, Russian linguist for the US Army, and former prosecutor for the State of Florida. KrisAnne also practiced First Amendment Law for a prominent Florida non-profit Law firm. KrisAnne now travels the country teaching the foundational principles of Liberty and our Constitutional Republic. KrisAnne is the author of 6 books on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, she also has an internationally popular radio and television show and her books and classes have been featured on C-SPAN TV. KrisAnne can be found at www.KrisAnneHall.com.

VIDEO: Red Flag Red Flags

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Confiscating guns from legal owners who have done no wrong violates everything the USA stands for!

To learn more about “Red Flag” laws please click here.

RELATED ARTICLE: Florida Man Lost His 2A Rights, Thanks To Red Flag Laws And Mistaken Identity 

VIDEO: How We Can Safeguard Our Election Process

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In the freest nation in the world, our system of government and our very liberty depend on free and fair elections. Whether they’re selecting a mayor or the president of the United States, every American must be able to trust the process, or the democratic system itself breaks down.

When someone commits voter fraud, the process is no longer fair, everyone’s vote gets diluted, and in some cases, election results are changed.

Contrary to the claims of many on the left, voter fraud is a very real problem. As the Supreme Court noted when it upheld Indiana’s voter ID law, flagrant examples of voter fraud have been documented throughout this nation’s history.

The National Commission on Federal Election Reform has said that in many close elections, fraud can absolutely change the outcome. Cases of local elections getting overturned because of fraud have occurred in New Jersey, Indiana, and other states.

Although hundreds of people have been convicted in recent years, voter fraud often goes undetected. And even when it’s discovered, overburdened prosecutors rarely prioritize these cases.

Fraudsters can steal votes and change election outcomes in several ways, including: voting in someone else’s name, registering in multiple locations to vote multiple times in the same election, voting even though they’re not eligible because they’re felons or noncitizens, or paying or intimidating people to vote for certain candidates.

Unfortunately, many on the left are attempting to make election fraud easier by fighting laws that require an ID to vote. They’ve pushed to get noncitizens and jailed inmates to vote. And they’ve sued states that have tried to purge their voter rolls of people registered in multiple states.

How can we fix the problem?

Since states control much of the electoral process, they must pass laws requiring government-issued IDs to vote. That ensures people aren’t stealing others’ identities and their right to vote.

States should join voter registration cross-check programs to identify voters registered in multiple places. One cross-check program has identified hundreds of thousands of potential duplicate registrations across 30 states as well as evidence of illegal double voting.

States should also compare voter rolls with government records to identify convicted felons and noncitizens who should be removed from the rolls. And the federal government should cooperate with these efforts and make Department of Homeland Security and other databases available to state officials.

Preserving this great experiment that is America depends on having free and fair elections where all Americans can trust the process and the results.

Something as critical as election integrity can’t be left to a simple honor system. One of the most important roles of government is to safeguard the electoral process and ensure that every voter’s right to cast a ballot is protected. That not only protects our right to vote; that’s how we protect the future of our very republic.

COMMENTARY BY

Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. Read his research. Twitter: .

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

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