At the request of a scandal-plagued Democratic senator tried for bribery and corruption, the head of the government’s international media networks is abusing his office to punish employees behind a broadcast critical of leftwing billionaire George Soros. U.S.
Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Chief John F. Lansing, an Obama appointee, is utilizing Stalinist techniques to retaliate against the journalists and producers involved in the Spanish-language segment which aired in May 2018 on Television Martí and was available for months online. Eight reporters and editors at the taxpayer-funded media outlet have been fired and Lansing has ordered a review of all content to address “patterns of unethical, unprofessional, biased, or sub-standard journalism.”
An employee at the Miami, Florida-based Martí headquarters said in a local newspaper report “the environment that has been created by the upper hierarchy of the Agency for Global Media is repressive. People write with fear. Adjectives are no longer used.”
Television Martí—and its radio counterpart—operate under the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB) and comprise one of the USAGM’s five international multimedia networks. The others are Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting. The media outlets get about $685 million a year from American taxpayers and reportedly reach 345 million people worldwide in 59 languages.
The global media agency was created to counter disinformation spread by oppressive regimes abroad. The USAGM website states that its mission is “to inform, engage and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” Television and Radio Martí were created to promote freedom and democracy by providing the people of Cuba with objective news and information programming.
The Soros broadcast focused on his efforts to cripple sovereign governments in Latin America. Judicial Watch was cited as a source because it investigated State Department funding of Soros groups in Colombia and published a report on Soros’ initiatives to advance a radical globalist agenda in Guatemala. Judicial Watch also released a special report documenting the financial and staffing nexus between Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the U.S. government.
In that document, Judicial Watch connects the dots between U.S.-funded entities and OSF affiliates to further the Hungarian-born philanthropist’s agenda seeking to destabilize legitimate governments, erase national borders, target conservative politicians, finance civil unrest, subvert institutions of higher education, and orchestrate refugee crises for political gain. A few years ago Judicial Watch exposed a scheme in which the U.S. government spent millions of dollars to destabilize the democratically elected, center-right government in Macedonia by colluding with Soros’ OSF.
More than five months after the Spanish-language Soros broadcast aired on Television Martí, the segment caught the eye of disgraced New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. In an October 31, 2018 letter to Lansing, the senator orders an immediate investigation into the Soros broadcast as well as an audit “on patterns of unethical and unprofessional reporting” at OCB. Menendez also smears Judicial Watch, stating that the Soros segment had “no credible sourcing” and “occasionally cites only a fringe website.”
Lansing uses similar language in a mainstream newspaper article about the recent Martí firings over the Soros video. “The person developing the Soros story was using Judicial Watch as a source as I understand it — the story was not only poorly sourced, it relied heavily on one less-than-credible source,” Lansing says in the article, which states that “Soros has emerged as a leading boogeyman on the right.”
Menendez, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee despite his sordid history, blocked President Trump’s nomination last year to replace Lansing as USAGM chief. A few years ago, Menendez was charged with federal bribery and corruption stemming from his relationship with a crooked south Florida eye doctor that lavished him with cash, gifts and trips in exchange for political favors. The eye doctor, Salomon Melgen, got convicted of stealing $73 million from Medicare and was sentenced to 17 years in prison. Menendez got off because jurors were unable to reach a verdict and his trial ended in mistrial.
His colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee determined that the veteran lawmaker not only violated senate rules, but also federal law and applicable standards of conduct. In a public letter of admonition, the committee writes that over a six-year period Menendez knowingly and repeatedly accepted gifts of significant value from Melgen in violation of senate rules and federal law. “Additionally, while accepting these gifts, you used your position as a Member of the Senate to advance Dr. Melgen’s personal and business interests,” the committee writes.
Menendez has been embroiled in other corruption schemes throughout his political career and Judicial Watch has served as a credible source in uncovering them. As far back as 2007, Menendez was investigated by a federal grand jury for illegally steering lobbying business to his former chief of staff Kay LiCausi, with whom he was also romantically linked. In just a few years, her firm reported $1.3 million in business with nearly $300,000 coming from a New Jersey medical center that was later awarded government funding thanks to a push from her former boss and lover.
In 2010, Menendez and his colleague in corruption, New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg, allocated $8 million for a public walkway and park space adjacent to upscale, waterfront condos built by a developer whose executives donated generously to their political campaigns. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the developer’s Washington D.C. lobbyist was a longtime senior aide to Menendez. The senator was also embroiled in a hooker scandal in the Dominican Republic with his incarcerated eye doctor pal and he hired an illegal immigrant sex offender to work in his senate office.
EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/jd-usagm.jpg360640Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2019-03-06 16:42:452019-03-06 16:42:47U.S. Government Media Network Fires Journalists Over Report Critical of Soros
Why Interior Immigration Enforcement is a crucial element of immigration law enforcement.
President Trump’s logical decision to declare a national emergency to fund the border wall must be highly commended, just as it should reinforce the equally important need for effective enforcement of the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.
When I testified before the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus in November 2001, just weeks after the terror attacks of 9/11, my testimony included the concept of what I came to refer to as the “Immigration Enforcement Tripod.”
Under that concept, the Border Patrol enforces the immigration laws between ports of entry, primarily engaging in interdiction of aliens attempting to enter the United States without inspection, the Immigration Inspectors (now known as CBP – Customs and Border Protection Inspectors) enforce and administer the immigration laws at ports of entry and finally, the INS agents, now known as ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States, comprising the third leg of the Immigration Enforcement Tripod.
Traditionally the interior enforcement mission has been all but neglected even though, in many ways, it is the most important element of immigration law enforcement program.
Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.
Nevertheless, this lack of interior enforcement persists. I have come to refer to this as Immigration failures by design, turning America into a de facto “Sanctuary Country.”
Today, nationally, there are merely about 6,000 ICE agents as compared with more than 45,000 TSA employees.
Most Americans are unaware as to just how critical the interior enforcement of the immigration laws is because scant attention has been paid to the work that ICE agents do.
Today I will provide you with my insider’s view of that vital mission that is impeded and obstructed by treacherous Sanctuary Cities and the abject lack of resources dedicated by the federal government to this mission.
To begin with, in creating the Department of Homeland Security after the attacks of 9/11 President George W. Bush created an unwieldy bureaucratic leviathan that blatantly ignored the lessons of 9/11, creating what Republican Congressman John Hostettler referred to as, “Immigration incoherence.”
Hostettler, the then Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims made that point in his prepared remarks during a May 5, 2005 hearing on the topic, New ”Dual Missions” Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.
I testified at that hearing.
Here are two excerpts from Chairman Hostettler’s prepared remarks:
At no time during the reorganization planning was it anticipated by the Committee that an immigration enforcement agency would share its role with other enforcement functions, such as enforcement of our customs laws. This simply results in the creation of dual or multiple missions that the act sought to avoid in the first place.
Failure to adhere to the statutory framework established by HSA (Homeland Security Act) has produced immigration enforcement incoherence that undermines the immigration enforcement mission central to DHS, and undermines the security of our Nation’s borders and citizens.
[ … ]
The 9/11 terrorists all came to the United States without weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda’s plan was additional immigration focus, vetting and enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation’s security.
The enforcement of our immigration laws involves much more than merely arresting illegal aliens who are illegally present in the United States.
ICE agents, who are not sidelined by investigating non-immigration crimes such as violations of customs laws, financial crimes, narcotics, kiddie porn, intellectual property law violations or assisting Secret Service, also conduct employer sanctions investigations into employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens. In addition to fining unscrupulous employers aliens who work illegally may be deported for their violations of law to deter such violations and to liberate these jobs for Americans and lawful immigrants.
ICE agents conduct background investigations and investigate immigration fraud.
This includes marriage fraud, labor certification fraud and other fraud schemes and fraud conspiracies that may involve crooked immigration lawyers and others who conspire to enable aliens to acquire lawful status by lying on applications for visas and Green Cards.
Immigration Fraud investigations also targets identity crimes and the production of altered or counterfeit identity documents such as passports and Green Cards (Alien Registration Receipt Cards) and other documents relevant to the filing for immigration benefits and visas.
The 9/11 Commission identified immigration fraud as the key method of entry and embedding for intentional terrorists such as the 9/11 hijackers.
ICE agents also conduct human trafficking and alien smuggling investigations and also participate in various multi-agency task forces such as the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Violent Gang Task Force (VGTF) and the task force to which I was assigned for the final ten years of my career, the Organized Crime, Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). In point of fact, it was OCDETF that successfully investigated Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
While making note of multi-agency investigations, it is important to note that contrary to the bogus assertions made by mayors of Sanctuary Cities, when ICE agents cooperate with police departments, illegal alien victims of crimes are not inhibited from coming forward. The opposite is true. Visas can be provided to such alien crime victims that enable illegal aliens to remain in the United States if they cooperate with law enforcement agencies including local and state police. Other visas are available for illegal aliens who assist law enforcement in identifying and arresting criminals and terrorists helping to cultivate informants and cooperating witnesses.
Finally, years ago INS agents worked closely, and highly effectively, with local police to raid houses of prostitution, illegal gambling operations and other criminal enterprises. Illegal aliens who frequented those illegal operations were arrested and deported, deterring illegal aliens from patronizing those criminal enterprises. With the loss of illegal aliens clientele, frequently these criminal operations were no longer profitable. Many were permanently shut down.
Not unlike other crimes, the solution to immigration law violations is effective law enforcement.
The abject lack of ICE agents and resources severely hobbles the interior enforcement mission. Violations of law go undetected, un-investigated and unpunished when there is a lack of resources.
For decades the leaders of both parties have refused to adequately fund the interior enforcement mission. Rather than providing the solutions they became a part of the problem, eager to satisfy the globalists while conning Americans and undermining national security.
This betrayal must end.
EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/ice-2-e1551786647447.jpg360640Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2019-03-05 06:50:572019-03-05 06:50:59ICE – As Vitally Important As A Border Wall
NRA Executive Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland.
TRANSCRIPT
Good morning special guests and CPAC attendees and all Americans who share in the hope and promise of our great nation, which we celebrate here today.
As CEO and Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association,I have the privilege of directing one of the oldest and most successful advocacy groups in the world. At the NRA, we are dedicated to protecting your constitutional rights, promoting our most cherished values and carrying the torch for the freedoms that define the greatness of America.
The NRA has grown to almost five-and-a-half million members—the most in our history. And we represent the interests of an estimated 100 million gun owners.
Our members come from every walk of life. They represent people of every race, religion, gender, profession and political persuasion. And that diversity gives rise today to our plans for the future growth of the Association and inspires us to embrace a more inclusive vision of ourselves. The NRA is 148 years old. An advocacy group built upon the strongest of foundations, the principles of our Founding Fathers.
Our nation was founded by people in pursuit of liberty. That’s why the Declaration of Independence is the first document of the U.S. legal code. In their great wisdom, the fathers of this nation saw the need to protect our God-given liberties—fundamental freedoms—from being trampled by despots, dictators and demagogues, and from intrusion by the government they founded.
And so, they left us with a list of our most cherished freedoms—the Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to our Constitution. And in our First and Second Amendments, our founders gave us two freedoms that historically belonged ONLY to the upper class. They gave us the freedom to speak freely, boldly and honestly. And they gave us the freedom to bear arms in defense of ourselves, our families and our nation.
When I started at the NRA more than 40 years ago, we certainly faced opposition. To be sure, we engaged in full contact advocacy with those who challenged our point of view and we debated issues of importance to our nation with all of our might.
As opponents in debates over important issues, the NRA often shared a seat at the table with those who opposed our values—even with those opposed to the Second Amendment freedoms for which we stand. The debates were tough. They were spirited. And they were defined by committed and unwavering voices.
Political differences aside, there was recognition that the NRA and advocacy groups of every kind are entitled to their voice in the discussion on matters that speak to our safety, security and ideals.
Boy, what a difference a couple of decades make! Today, we at the NRA awaken each morning to new challenges, to threats against our organization heated and vile, political rhetoric and new forms of opposition that violate the spirit and letter of the very freedoms our republic was founded to protect.
Today, many of our adversaries seek to challenge not only our opinions, but our very right to express them. Rather than compete in the marketplace of ideas, they want to rig the competition or foreclose it altogether.
Let me share an example. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo hates the NRA. He hates the freedoms for which we stand. And he’s not shy about saying so. If you agree with our positions, the governor of New York says you have “no place”—that’s a direct quote—”no place” in his state. No matter how much he’d like to, New York’s governor can’t just expel gun owners from the state. He can’t just ban the NRA. That would overtly violate the Constitution.
So instead, Governor Cuomo decided to covertly violate the Constitution by using his power over Wall Street to starve the NRA of funds. At the governor’s direction, New York’s banking regulator sent letters to the CEOs of every bank and every insurance company doing business in the state.
The letters urged those institutions to blacklist Second Amendment groups, especially the NRA. To deny us bank accounts. To block NRA members from purchasing affinity insurance, including health insurance for their families.
To prevent us from purchasing ads on the airwaves. To suffocate Second Amendment speech by choking off the funds that make speech possible. That’s Governor Cuomo’s goal.
To achieve it, the governor didn’t just threaten companies, he acted. New York started to punish companies that did business with the NRA. The state imposed multi-million-dollar penalties and forced several of our business partners to abandon us. Let me say that again. The state imposed multi-million-dollar penalties and forced several of our business partners to abandon us.
Just imagine the national outcry if the governor of a red state did the same thing to Planned Parenthood, PETA or the Sierra Club. If a Republican governor forced businesses to blacklist those groups based on the viewpoint of their speech, the media would be going nuts. Fleets of constitutional scholars would descend from every political persuasion. Every prestige newspaper would proclaim a grave threat to the First Amendment. And you know what? They’d be right.
Governor Cuomo would be wrong to try to censor Planned Parenthood, just like he’s wrong to censor the NRA. It’s morally wrong. It’s legally wrong. And that type of coercion and oppression of free speech is downright anti-American.
As Governor Cuomo would soon discover, attempting to silence the voices of our five-and-a-half million NRA members won’t be tolerated. In New York, the NRA did what patriots have always done in the face of tyranny. We fought back.
We took the governor to federal court under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. And in a great victory for principle over partisanship, the American Civil Liberties Union joined our cause. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the NRA and I’m incredibly proud to have them as a partner in this fight.
The court has already upheld the NRA’s freedom-of-speech claims against Governor Cuomo. And let me tell you, I can’t wait for our organization to get them in front of a jury. I believe that Americans still keep faith with the Constitution, even when politicians don’t.
Against the backdrop of all this, the governor and his henchmen appear to have gone even a step further. New York’s new attorney general—the chosen candidate of Governor Cuomo—vowed to attack the NRA as a pillar of her campaign platform.
Even before day one in office and without a shred of evidence that we’ve done anything wrong, the attorney general publicly labeled the NRA a “criminal enterprise” like MS-13 or the mafia. She promised a fishing expedition into the NRA’s files, at taxpayer expense, to see if she could find any crimes to substantiate her slander.
In other words, she promised to fulfill a vision quest that is little more than a rank political vendetta. Contriving a criminal investigation to target a political opponent is the act of a third-world petty tyrant, not a distinguished public servant. And the America I know doesn’t tolerate such an abuse of power.
Here’s what’s going on. In real time, before your very eyes, we are fighting perhaps the most important piece of First Amendment constitutional advocacy in the history of our country. This case will decide whether or not government can be weaponized against you if your opinion differs from theirs.
True to this independent spirit, Americans have begun to notice Governor Cuomo’s attack on the First Amendment. And they don’t like what they see.
A Wall Street Journal columnist observes that the NRA getting its day in court is “welcome news for those helping to restrain the power of government.” He commented that, “there is enormous interest for all Americans in making sure that a politician like Mr. Cuomo … cannot abuse his authority to silence law-abiding citizens with whom he disagrees.”
Closer to home for the governor, a columnist from the state capital of Albany wrote that the governor “has essentially weaponized the state’s regulatory authorities” to go after the NRA, calling his conduct “tyrannical.” And political voices from the “right” and the “left?” From the National Review all the all the way to the New Republic have defended NRA’s free speech rights.
It is no surprise that the message from the courtroom is echoed in the court of public opinion. Our case is being discussed in law schools right now—it’s that critical to our fundamental right to speak.
Let me say it again. In our First and Second Amendments, our Founders gave us two freedoms that historically belonged only to the upper class. They gave us the freedom to speak freely, boldly and honestly. And they gave us the freedom to bear arms in defense of ourselves, our families and our liberty.
These rights are the cornerstone of our foundation as a free society. From the start, they made Americans different from the serfs and subjects of the old world. And centuries later, these rights continue to make America not just different, but better, than other countries.
For the NRA, freedom of speech is as essential as any other liberty.
Because you can’t advocate effectively for our Second Amendment freedoms without the right to speak out against its enemies. No public official can weaponize the power of government to attack organizations simply because they have a different political point of view. Many believe that Barry Goldwater got it right when he said that extremism in the defense of liberty is no VICE.
But what we’re seeing today is extremism that’s hostile to liberty.
These extremists want to revoke your freedom of speech, your freedom of assembly and your freedom of association if you hold views the elites don’t like.
And leftist pundits aren’t the only ones who feel this way. The oligarchs of Silicon Valley want progressive speech amplified and conservative speech suppressed.
A whistleblower at Google leaked a PowerPoint presentation last year titled, “The Good Censor.” The document claims that Google—which is one of the world’s most powerful monopolies—has “shifted away” from the “American
tradition” of free speech.
It says Google shifted toward the quote “European tradition” of censorship. And wouldn’t you know it, in the European tradition, Google began to censor firearms instructional videos this year.
Just like the Second Amendment, the First Amendment must be defended absolutely, against all incursions, without compromise.
And just like the Second Amendment, we should aim to exercise our First Amendment rights responsibly. Not by censoring others, but by lifting up our own voices. By speaking out with dignity, purpose and courage in a way that honors the founders’ gift to us. More, better speech—that’s the way to fix America.
George Washington said, “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led like sheep to the slaughter.” My friends, rest assured, the NRA will never let that happen.
There is a great saying: adversity doesn’t build character, it reveals it.
I can tell you that in times like this, the character and identity of the NRA will reveal itself in the most visible of ways. We will fight back against anyone who attempts to silence us. Understand this, we will advocate, as loudly and boldly as ever, for our First and Second Amendment freedoms.
My call today is for each one of us to embrace and respect the constitutional freedoms that are afforded to all of us. This is our moment of truth. To our members, I thank you for standing with us and holding tightly to the freedoms for which we stand. To those of you just learning of our cause, I invite you to become part of the future of the NRA, inspired by the constant belief in the spirit of America.
Come join the NRA—the unabashed, unapologetic fighter for the freedoms that have always made America the greatest nation on earth. America, the home of the free and the land of the brave.
God Bless all of you and God bless the United States of America.
EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with video and images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/wayne-lapierre-cpac-2019.jpg338600NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2019-03-04 15:40:462019-03-04 15:48:22Wayne LaPierre: CPAC 2019
The Daily Signal was at all three days of the Conservative Political Action Conference, the largest annual national gathering of conservative activists, in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside Washington, and we’ve rounded up some of the highlights of our coverage.
Vice President Mike Pence Speaks Out Against the ‘Culture of Death’
“Life is winning in America. For all the progress we’re making, tragically, at the very moment more Americans are embracing the right to life, leading members of the Democratic Party are embracing a radical agenda of abortion on demand,” Pence said Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Pence called President Donald Trump the “most pro-life president in history,” noting that Trump revoked U.S. tax dollars from funding abortions abroad and signed legislation allowing states to defund Planned Parenthood.
“Democrats are standing for late-term abortion, infanticide, and a culture of death,” Pence said. “I promise you, this president, this party, and this movement will always stand for the unborn and stand for the inalienable right to life.”
Pence also said the people of Venezuela are embracing freedom against the embattled socialist regime of dictator Nicolas Maduro.
“Freedom is more generous, more helpful, and more humane than any other social or economic model ever attempted because it is the only philosophy that respects the dignity and worth of every single life and sees every man, woman, and child as made in the image of God,” Pence said.
2. Lindsey Graham Praises Trump for Kavanaugh Nomination
“I want to thank the president for nominating Brett,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said at CPAC. “He did something not everyone does. He had somebody’s back when it really mattered. There were a bunch of people saying we need to move on, and the president said, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s truly called draining the swamp.”
Graham asked the CPAC audience to imagine what would have happened if Democrats had been able to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Qualified prospective nominees would be reluctant to step forward if the tactics employed against Kavanaugh had prevailed, he said.
3. Parkland Student: ‘Government Failed at All Levels’
Kyle Kashuv, now director of high school outreach for Turning Point USA, a nonprofit youth organization, was a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman opened fire Feb. 14, 2018, killing 14 students and three staff members. Seventeen others were wounded.
“What happened at Parkland wasn’t a gun issue,” Kashuv said during a session on gun control at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Kashuv, 17, pointed to statistics that show crime rates have declined as gun ownership has gone up.
He also expressed frustration that law enforcement officials received multiple reports about earlier behavior by the young man responsible for the shooting, but did nothing.
“Government failed at all levels,” Kashuv said. “Every single level of government knew this could happen. I’m targeting individuals who allowed this to happen. A gun is an inanimate object without someone pulling the trigger.”
4. Cabinet Secretaries Call for Senate to Confirm More Nominees
“One thing that has slowed us up a little bit is getting the nominations [through the Senate],” Energy Secretary Rick Perry said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Our friends on the Democratic side have not been quite as helpful as we’d like for them to be from the standpoint of getting nominations through.”
Perry said seats on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the energy industry and approved projects, should be filled.
FERC still has a couple of openings [and it] could be really important to get those done,” Perry said. “Billions of dollars in projects are going to get approved at FERC … that will allow our natural resources to be moved all around the world.”
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao stressed that this isn’t the fault of the Senate majority leader—her husband, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
“It’s not the Senate majority leader’s fault. I want to make that very clear. It’s not his fault,” Chao said. “It is the deliberate policy of the Senate minority leader [Chuck Schumer] to slow up the nominations of this administration by invoking cloture at every single step of the nominations process on the floor.”
5. Activist Assaulted at UC Berkeley Describes What Happened
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal podcast, Hayden Williams, who was attacked in February when recruiting students for a conservative group at University of California, Berkeley recounted what occurred:
As soon as I pulled out my phone, one of them said, ‘You guys are promoting violence,’ and then out of nowhere my phone gets smacked out of my hand. I go to pick it up off the ground and then the table gets flipped over and I turn around and this guy is just looking at me with flames in his eyes and he starts telling me, ‘Get out of my face, get that camera out of my face,’ and he starts pushing me and punching at me. It was just a really scary situation.
I’ve got most of it on film but he swatted my phone down about three times in total and the third time he got it I think the video stopped for whatever reason and he took my phone from me.
Luckily there was a third-person angle, some student who was walking by and realized what happened, basically, just took it upon himself to record.
So we have this angle, and if you actually look closely at the video, you can see my phone in this guy’s right hand when he punches me and knocks my hat off my head and then it looks like I’m tussling for his sweater or something, but really I’m just trying to retrieve my phone from him. Fortunately, he drops it and it lands between my legs and I go to pick it up and he kind of walks away, but he’s still yelling.
I look down at my phone and I realize that he was coming back and I didn’t know if it was still recording or not, my phone. He just gets in my face and starts yelling and I’m like, ‘Oh, wow, this is a really tense situation.’ And I look down at my phone again after he’s done yelling and right then is when he just throws the hardest punch I’ve ever taken in my life.
The really disturbing part though was the people around us that were egging him on. … Some guy was saying, ‘I’m on your side, you’re winning this fight.’ It was just really demented. I don’t care who you are, what you believe, if I see you in a distressed situation like that and you’re being attacked, I’m going to do everything I can to help you out. I wouldn’t even think about mocking you.
Zachary Greenberg was arrested and charged Friday for allegedly attacking Williams.
6. Van Jones Defends Working With Conservatives on Criminal Justice Reform
Van Jones, a former Obama administration official and leading commentator on the left, responded Friday to liberal critics who call him a “sellout” for agreeing to talk about prison reform at a major gathering of conservatives.
“If you’re on Twitter calling me a sellout for working with Trump on criminal justice reform, here is what I know about you: If you’re on Twitter, you’re not in a federal prison because they don’t have Twitter in federal prison,” Jones said.
“I don’t have to listen to you. I care about the people that are locked up. That’s what I care about,” Jones said, prompting applause from the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“There are common ground issues where we do agree and we won’t work together on those all too often, and that has got to stop in America,” Jones said.
7. Sen. Ted Cruz Laments Republicans Didn’t Fund Wall Earlier
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said Friday that he urged the Trump administration and his fellow Senate Republicans to make a strong push for the border wall while the GOP still controlled both chambers of Congress.
“What I urged my colleagues, and I urged the president and I urged the vice president, and I urged the administration: Let’s take up a budget reconciliation and let’s build the wall,” Cruz said at the Conservative Political Action Conference. “Let’s fund the wall. Let’s get it done.”
Cruz recalled telling colleagues this during an August presentation, which he recalled was 183 days before the midterm elections, when Republicans lost their House majority.
Cruz asserted that the November elections would have turned out differently had his colleagues listened:
I want you just to imagine, if they had taken that advice, if we had had that fight, and you had seen Elizabeth Warren screaming on the Senate floor to stop it, Bernie Sanders pulling what little hair he has out of his head, if in September or October, it [had] culminated in Republicans’ standing together [in] funding and building the wall, I’ll tell you, I don’t think we would have lost the House of Representatives.
8. Sen. James Lankford Says Too Few Americans Live Their Faith
Not living one’s faith can become a threat to religious liberty, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said while speaking on a panel Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“One of the greatest challenges we have to religious liberty in this modern day is people that actually claim a faith and don’t live a faith,” Lankford said. “Having a culture that is a vibrant culture of faith for people that not only have a faith, but they choose to live it, matters in our culture.”
“There are a whole group of people that say you can have a faith—just leave it over there, just don’t bring it out of your house,” Lankford continued. “Or that have a faith designation or a denomination designation, and it’s almost like a membership in a club for them.”
Lankford went on to describe a modern-day struggle when faith is merely a label, like identifying with a political party.
“[It’s] not very meaningful in their life,” Lankford said. “It’s just—I have this particular label, whether it be Republican, Democrat, independent, conservative, liberal—they also had this label.”
Lankford later said: “I tell people all the time, if you have a faith, live it. For people that only practice their faith on weekends, I try to remind them: Things that you only do on weekends are called a hobby. That’s not a faith.”
9. Football Player Arrested for Shoplifting Advocates Criminal Justice Reform
Growing up in a small town outside of Jackson, Mississippi, NFL linebacker Demario Davis had never seen a two-parent household that put faith first. His mother had him when she was 16 years old and his father served in the Army. As a child, he was surrounded by drugs, crimes, and gangs.
His football career landed him a scholarship to Arkansas State University, where as a freshman, Davis got caught shoplifting at Walmart. His bond was set at $10,000—a sum he could never afford. Without paying it, he’d go to jail.
Davis’ football coach bailed him out.
“Because I was an athlete, I was able to not go to jail,” Davis told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday.
It was then Davis said he realized how many people went to prison simply because they couldn’t pay the bill for bail. Had his coach not stepped in, he would have been one of them.
And going to prison, Davis said, “is almost like a death sentence.”
“One-third of the people who die in jail die in the first week. Also, three quarters of the deaths that happen in our country in jail are pre-trial inmates,” Davis said. “So it’s almost like a death sentence to send somebody to jail for that extended period of time without them being convicted.”
Davis returned to college with a renewed commitment to turn his life around. He met a Christian pastor at just the right time, who welcomed him into a relationship with Christ.
Now both an NFL football player and a criminal justice reform advocate, he says there should be no such thing as cash bail for nonviolent offenders, an effort he says the country spends $13 billion on as a result of incarcerating people before their trial.
“I think the momentum is starting to move in the right direction,” he said, pointing to cities such as the District of Columbia, which has eliminated the cash bail system.
10. Top Trump Economic Adviser Says We Should Put Socialism ‘on Trial’
Larry Kudlow, director of the president’s National Economic Council, called Thursday for putting socialism “on trial”—and convicting it.
“I want you, and everybody in this room and your friends and your neighbors, I want you to put socialism on trial, that’s what I’m asking,” Kudlow said, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“I don’t want us to stand idly by,” he told the CPAC audience. “I don’t want to let this stuff fester. I want it challenged. I want it debated. I want it rebutted. I want to convict socialism.”
The top economic adviser to Trump noted the emergence of support for socialism among young voters and among Democrats in Congress.
He singled out the so-called Green New Deal, a proposal backed by congressional Democrats in the form of a resolution sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.
The Democrats’ plan would move the country away from fossil fuels while implementing a raft of liberal initiatives.
Kudlow called the proposal “central planning on a grand scale.”
11. Georgia Senator Celebrates Economic Boom Under Trump
A Georgia lawmaker and former business executive says the economy is seeing historic gains under Trump.
“This is the greatest economic turnaround in U.S. history, 5 million new jobs … we’re growing the economy,” Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., told the Thursday morning crowd of conservatives gatred at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“The Obama administration … by the way, that was eight years [of] the lowest economic growth in U.S. history,” Perdue said.
He said that all Americans, not just some, are seeing the benefits of the Trump economy, especially since the president signed Republican lawmakers’ tax cuts into law on Dec. 22, 2017.
“We’ve got … the lowest unemployment in 50 years, [and the] lowest African-American, Asian, and Hispanic unemployment ever,” Perdue said. “So this is moving in the right direction.”
Perdue spoke during a discussion of the national debt moderated by Tim Chapman, executive director of Heritage Action for America, the lobbying arm of The Heritage Foundation.
“Taxes were not the government’s money in the first place,” Chapman said at one point. “It was the people’s money in the first place.”
12. Sen. Mike Lee Attacks Left’s Double Standard on Federalism
The government system known as federalism is what makes America great and guards against too much power in too few hands, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in remarks Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“What is making America great again, and what I believe will continue to make America great again, is our continued move in that direction toward rebalancing power, toward sending power back to where it belongs, which is with the people,” Lee said in his speech at CPAC.
Lee described federalism, with its emphasis on powers reserved to the states, as the key to freedom.
“By being free, we can unlock our unlimited human potential,” the Utah Republican said. “In order to do that, we have to make sure that the government’s not on our back.”
He said “the accumulation of power in the hands of the few” is the main threat to freedom.
Lee criticized the Obama administration and the Democratic Party for not remaining consistent in their demand for upholding federalism and the Constitution’s separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
“Where was their outrage over the violation of the Constitution and the separation of powers in the last decade?” Lee said, pointing to the national emergency that President Barack Obama declared in 2011 to take military action against Libya.
“Where was the concern about Congress’ Article 1 power over immigration and naturalization when in 2012 President Obama failed to get the legislation passed from Congress?” Lee added. “So he created a brand new immigration amnesty program out of thin air.”
The reference was to Obama’s unilateral order establishing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects hundreds of thousands of those brought here illegally as children from deportation.
13. House Freedom Caucus Chairman Talks Failures of Socialism
Americans have to look no further than Venezuela to see the harms of socialism, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus told conservative activists gathered Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
“In Venezuela, they’re wondering if [they] have enough rabbits to feed their people,” Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said.
“We’ve got to get to a point where we celebrate capitalism and understand that in America it doesn’t matter who you are, where you came from, that the American dream is available for everybody,” Meadows said. “I’ve lived the American dream and, quite frankly, it is available to each and every person.”
14. Rep. Jim Jordan Shares Why He Thinks Washington Doesn’t Like Trump
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told the CPAC crowd that politicians and bureaucrats don’t like Trump because he keeps his word.
“The bottom line is this town doesn’t like the president because this town is not used to people coming here and doing what they say,” Jordan said. “But the American people, you all appreciate that very fact. It’s something I appreciate … I [wish] every single American could have time to sit down and talk with the president.”
The Ohio lawmaker said Trump truly cares about American citizens and the future of the country.
“When you’re around the president, … you can sense the love he has for our troops, for our law enforcement, for the American [people],” Jordan said. “You can just feel it. And that’s what you want in a commander in chief.”
15. Sen. Joni Ernst Weighs in on North Korea
Does the slogan “America first” also mean “America alone?”
That was the question asked Friday during the Conservative Political Action Conference, following Trump’s second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“It’s a great opportunity on this panel to talk about a question that I have been asked a lot and that is: ‘America first’—does that mean America is alone?” Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, asked the CPAC audience.
“Absolutely not,” she answered. “It just simply means that America is leading from a position of strength.”
Moderator Katie Pavlich, editor of conservative news organization Townhall, asked what the next step might be with North Korea. In response, Ernst stressed the importance of America’s allies:
[North Korea has] other capabilities as well as chemical agents and biological agents. So all across the board, we have to make sure that we are safeguarding our own people, and yes, will that require our allies? Of course, it will. China we typically don’t think of as an ally, but in this case, they are very close to North Korea and we can use them strong-arming the North Koreans a little bit.
The senator from Iowa also agreed that Trump made the right decision in walking away from the terms Kim presented, stressing this would be a “long haul.”
16. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers Shares How House Conservatives Are Trying to Protect Babies
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal podcast, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., discussed how House Republicans want to protect abortion survivors. Here’s an excerpt from their conversations:
Rachel del Guidice: I’d like to start off by getting your thoughts on the Senate’s recent failure to pass legislation to protect babies born alive after an abortion, and what the House is trying to do right now to pass a similar measure.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers: It’s just heartbreaking. I was disheartened by the vote, 44 senators that voted against legislation that would protect babies who were born alive, babies that had survived an abortion, were outside the womb, and yet they were not willing to bring in the insurer under law that they would bring in the doctor’s care.
In years past, this is passed with unanimous consent in the Senate. So it really exposed the extreme position that the left is taking right now, that Democrats are saying they reject legislation to protect babies born alive.
In the House, we are moving forward with a discharge petition. As you know, the Democrats have the majority in the House. One way that we can bring a bill to the floor is to demand a discharge petition.
You have to get 218 people to sign a discharge petition, and then you can bypass Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bring the bill directly to the floor. We’re working actively on that right now.
17. Gov. Scott Walker Shares an Insight From a Polish Immigrant
America’s greatness is built on freedom, former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, and he had a story about an immigrant from Poland to illustrate that.
The Wisconsin Republican, who lost his bid for a third term as governor in November, regaled his audience with his account of an encounter with a supporter while eating with his family at a restaurant.
Walker said a woman approached to introduce herself and her daughter, whose birthday is coming up in March. A native of Poland, his supporter said she couldn’t understand the socialist faction in America.
“She talked a little bit about politics but, really gripping for today’s panel, she told me that she could not fathom … having come to America from an Eastern European country, she couldn’t fathom how anyone in this country would embrace socialism.”
As the woman spoke, Walker said, he saw a contrast between her home country and America:
She said she knew firsthand, as did her family, the failures of socialism. She said she knew about me from the past, from where she came from, [and] that she sees it just as we do today. … She came to America because she knew … freedom and prosperity did not come from the clumsy man in the government. They come from inspiring people to live their own lives and control their own destinies, and the dignity [of] work. That is what makes America great.
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood. We have all been waiting so long for the hammer of justice to come down upon the deep state and its operatives. Having written about this extensively over the past 2 years first in my book Trump and the Resurrection of America, but also in the many articles I’ve written on my website, I draft this short post with much anticipation of the events on the now very short term horizon, like sixteen more days to be more specific.
Declassification Countdown – Trump Goes To War With The Deep State
The declassification will come in stages. We cannot expect justice to be served just yet. This comes a bit later. We are at steps 6, 7 & 8 on the scale of discovery and action. It is the media that will be hit the hardest with the soon to be steps of declassification. Why? Because the truth will be revealed and the media will have no choice but to cover it. What will they say? How will they handle this? After all, we are talking about evidence. Facts. Truth. Through FISA and other sources.
As you think this trough, this further exposes and implicates the MSM fake news deep state mouth pieces and slowly but surly the public and global support for Trump shifts (even if not expressed). The MSM will be fuhrer exposed not to mention all those implicated in the declassification. This then leads to the trials, hearings, grand juries and indictments which then leads to justice. And let us not forget, the military tribunals are already under way with at least two tribunals already completed where justice has been served.
And so, sixteen days to go. Get the popcorn and enjoy the paradigm shift of power and control as President Trump and team goes on the offense. This battle of sorts will rage on for some years to come as Trump restores the power to the people. Stay the course and trust the plan.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of WhiteHouse.gov.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/president-trump-image-white-house-e1551617504267.png348640John Michael Chambershttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Michael Chambers2019-03-03 07:54:262019-03-03 07:57:19Declassification Countdown – Trump Goes To War With The Deep State
“Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“A young pregnant wife has been hospitalized for a simple attack of appendicitis. The doctors had to apply ice to her stomach and when the treatments ended the doctors suggested that she abort the child, they told her it was the best solution because the baby would be born with some disability, but the young brave wife decided not to abort, and the child was born. That woman was my Mother and I was the child.” (And yes, he is blind, and he has a voice like the angels.) Andrea Bocelli – Listen to him sing “O Holy Night”
To compel a man to subsidize with
his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful
and tyrannical. Thomas Jefferson
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not guaranteed to unborn human
babies in America. Yet, if you’re
pronounced dead when your heart stops beating, why are we not pronounced alive
when an unborn baby’s heart is heard beating?
Within 16 to 24 days after conception, the unborn child’s heart can be
heard, especially via ultrasound.
Doctors use several different
methods to listen to the fetal heartbeat. At about 3 weeks, when the heart
first begins to beat, the sound of the little heart is too soft to hear. A
doctor’s stethoscope is not sensitive enough to hear the baby’s heart beating. Very soon thereafter however, physicians can
see the motion using ultrasound technology.
A special stethoscope called a
fetoscope works well when the unborn baby is larger, usually around 15-17
weeks. An active baby however, can make this method of listening a bit
challenging. Often when the fetoscope is finally in the right place on the
woman’s belly, the unborn baby will change positions and the doctor must move
the stethoscope again in search of the heartbeat.
The presence of a fetal heartbeat
confirms pregnancy, as long as doctors are certain to distinguish the baby’s
heartbeat from the mothers. Usually this is not difficult as the unborn baby
has a much faster heart rate than the mother.
State Heartbeat Bills
In the landmark Roe v.
Wade ruling in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court said states can’t abolish
abortions before viability — the point at which a fetus can survive outside of
the womb which is 24 to 28 weeks gestation; full gestation is 40 weeks.
Iowa – A federal court blocked a
heartbeat abortion measure in Iowa after it passed into law over the summer. In mid-February 2019, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds
said that she will not appeal a ruling that struck down a state law that banned
most abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected. Her decision not to appeal means the law will
never take effect, handing a major victory to supporters of legal abortion.
Reynolds signed the law – which would have been the most restrictive abortion limit in the country – last year. Abortion providers quickly sued and District Court Judge Michael Huppert ruled the law unconstitutional.
Reynolds said in a news release that she doesn’t see a way to successfully appeal the ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court, in light of its ruling last year that struck down a 72-hour waiting period for abortions and found a fundamental right to abortion in the Iowa Constitution.
Arkansas – A fetal heartbeat bill, banning abortion after twelve weeks, was passed on January 31, 2013 by the Arkansas Senate, vetoed in Arkansas by Governor Mike Beebe, but, on March 6, 2013, his veto was overridden by the Arkansas House of Representatives. A federal judge issued a temporary injunction against the Arkansas law in May 2013, and in March 2014, it was struck down by federal judge Susan Webber Wright, who described the law as unconstitutional.
North Dakota – North Dakota HB 1456 was signed into law in March 2013 by former Governor Jack Dalrymple, who stated that it was “a legitimate attempt by a state legislature to discover the boundaries of Roe v. Wade. A federal district court found that it clearly violated the constitutional protections afforded in Roe v. Wade and it was quickly blocked.
In July of that year, a lawsuit had been filed with regard to the law by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) on behalf of the only abortion clinic in North Dakota, Red River Women’s Clinic. In July 2015, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the bill. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, but the court denied a writ of certiorari in January 2015 and let stand the decision of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals.
North Dakota spent $491,016 to unsuccessfully defend the laws, and also paid the clinic’s lawyers $245,000 as part of a settlement. Other states should take notice. Link
Federal courts have already struck down similar “heartbeat
bills” including the 20 week bans in Arizona and Idaho.
Kentucky – Already mired in three lawsuits over abortion restrictions, Kentucky lawmakers are ratcheting up the stakes with a new bill to ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected. In January of 2017, Pro-life Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin signed two pro-life bills into law: The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act (SB5) and a bill that offers an abortion-minded woman the opportunity to see an ultrasound of her unborn child (HB2). Link I like both of these bills. They eat away at the ability of abortion clinics to kill our babies.
SB5, like the laws in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas,
Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, says you cannot abort a child
capable of experiencing pain, a capacity that medical science has demonstrated
takes place no later than at 20 weeks.
Tennessee – State Representative Micah Van Huss has rewritten his original heartbeat bill. It is HB0077. State Senator Mark Pody introduced SB1236. Both bills require the person attempting to do the abortion to check for the unborn baby’s heartbeat. In reading Senator Pody’s bill, it appears as though ultrasound is always done, and it is not. If our new Governor, Bill Lee, signs onto the heartbeat bill, I am sure, like other states, it will be challenged in court.
All pro-lifers are praying to save our unborn human babies. We want the murders stopped, but each of the heartbeat bills are challenged because of the original Roe v. Wade decision regarding viability of life. The very text of these bills leaves it up to the abortion provider to check for a heartbeat. Check the summary of Tennessee’s House Bill 0077. These bills put the requirement of the finding the heartbeat on the person least likely to want to find a heartbeat—the abortion doctors themselves.
Are we to believe every abortion clinic is going to hire a certified pro-life
ultrasound nurse who will honestly do the work required to find a heartbeat…the
pressing, searching, roving, seeking with the tools required to find a tiny
heartbeat? No. And why would they?
Ultrasound is completely operator dependent. One can manipulate the scan
however they want. And in the hands of an abortion provider, that scan can
prove to be deadly.
Killing unborn babies is a huge cash crop. Abortion providers know this. And why would an abortion doctor tell a woman in her third trimester that the heart can be heard when they make far more money on selling baby parts from late term abortions.
Abortion is a very lucrative business, and this has been true from the beginning. By last count, Planned Parenthood (a tax-exempt organization!) has $951 million in total assets! Marvin Olasky observes and documents in his book, Abortion Rites, that there have long been doctors who supported abortion, “if not for principle, at least for principal.” Link
It’s all about money, that’s the bottom line. Pro-life lobbyists think up these bills, and
then pound their chests in pride, and when it fails, this allows them to ask
for more money to fight for this useless law in court, all the while bragging
about how many lives that will be saved because laws like this magically make
abortion doctors have “good faith.” They know abortion providers will never act
in good faith with the heartbeat bills.
Supreme Court and Roe
Courts don’t make laws, although in today’s America, our
President is stopped by leftist judges from carrying out his constitutional
duties. Prior to Roe v.
Wade abortion was illegal in 30 states and legal under certain
circumstances in 20 states.
It was a state decision and it should have remained so.
We have to stop placing our trust in multi-million-dollar
lobby groups and instead place our trust in the King of Glory. Keep working, and keep praying because
President Trump may actually have an opportunity to put one or two more pro-life
justices on the Supreme Court.
If that were to happen, and Roe was overturned, the State of Tennessee already has bills in both houses of our legislature that will protect our unborn babies. The Human Life Protection Act (SB 1257 / HB 1029) avoids constitutional challenges by taking effect upon reversal, in part or in full, of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court. It restores Tennessee’s pre-Roe law and prohibits abortion except to save a mother’s life. Such policies have been enacted in Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Similar legislation is presently being considered in other states such as Kentucky and Arkansas where it passed the state Senate.
Rep. Susan Lynn (Republican, Mt. Juliet, Tennessee) said, “It
has always been the priority of Tennessee’s pro-life movement to restore
protection to the largest number of unborn children and women in our state.
While states like New York are moving to strip any limits to abortion–even at
the moments just before birth—Tennessee wants to be known for protecting our
children.”
Unfortunately, the heartbeat bill has served to cost states many taxpayer
dollars and in some states, those dollars went to the very perpetrators of this
evil. How? Many of the lawyers for the pro-abortion proponents
sit on the boards of Planned Parenthood.
Conclusion
America has embraced a culture of death. The slaughter of our unborn even at the moment of birth is an atrocity of satanic proportions which needs to be quelled. Roe v. Wade needs to be overturned. Proponents of abortion thrill to dancing in the blood of these babies. New York Governor Cuomo was overjoyed to pass his infanticide bill promoting abortion at the very moment of birth. Molech would be proud.
The United States Senate voted on an anti-infanticide bill introduced by Senator Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The legislation needed 60 votes to pass, and it failed by a vote of 53 in favor and 44 against. The bill stated that “if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant is a legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States, and entitled to all the protections of such laws.” Link Babies of botched abortions have been left crying for hours to die alone.
This is the 10th time Congressional Democrats thwarted an attempt by Republicans to vote on a bill that would provide medical care and treatment for babies who survived failed abortions — eight times in the House and twice in the Senate.
Every Democratic presidential hopeful — Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sherrod Brown, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren, along with Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — voted against this common-sense bill. Democrats Doug Jones, Joe Manchin, and Bob Casey Jr. voted in favor of the bill. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) did not vote on the bill. Where were they?
EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/maria-oswalt-1364300-unsplash-e1551610478230.jpg381640Kelleigh Nelsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKelleigh Nelson2019-03-03 05:54:532019-03-03 08:00:04Should Pro-Lifers Support The Heartbeat Bills?
When Napa County Sheriff’s Deputy Riley Jarecki initiated a routine traffic stop earlier this month, she probably did not consider that the refusal of California officials to comply with federal immigration authorities had put her in the direct path of a habitual illegal alien criminal with drug and mental health issues.
But that is what happened on Feb. 17 when Jarecki pulled over Javier Hernandez-Morales, who’d been deported three times since 2011 and had arrests for a range of crimes from multiple counts of driving under the influence, battery on a peace officer, illegal possession of a firearm and violating his probation. And there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, according to Fox News.
After she approached his car window, the Mexican national fired a gun at Jarecki, who shot back, including at least one fatal gunshot.
“It’s unfortunate that our law enforcement partners and the community are subjected to dangerous consequences because of inflexible state laws that protect criminal aliens,” said ICE spokesman Richard Rocha in a statement.
The incident, Rocha said, could have been prevented had ICE been kept in the loop about Hernandez-Morales’ releases from jail. “This is an impactful, scary example of how public safety is affected by laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies’ ability to cooperate with ICE,” he said.
When Hernandez immigration status became known, local officials shifted blame and denied wrongdoing by insisting they were following state law.
“We are in compliance with state law. That is the law of the state of California, and the county intends to comply with state law,” Napa County Supervisor Vallea Ramos told a local CBS News affiliate.
The law in question is SB54, a measure signed in 2017 by former Gov. Jerry Brown and that affords protection to all illegal aliens.
The problem for California politicians and local law enforcement who want to absolve themselves of responsibility is that, according to the Los Angeles Times, three detainers for Hernandez-Morales were issued by ICE to Napa County Jail in 2014, 2015 and 2016; and a further detainer to Sonoma County Jail in 2016.
None were honored and all were issued prior to SB54 going into effect.
The controversial law received warranted criticism in December after Newman (Calif.) Police Cpl. Ronil Singh was killed by an illegal alien who had several drunk driving arrests. Like Hernandez, Singh’s murderer should have been deported years ago.
Perhaps the most outrageous displays of blame-shifting is the op-ed penned by Jodi Hernandez, a relative of Jarecki’s attacker.
Published in the Napa Valley Register, the stunning letter implies that Hernandez was merely a victim of an uncaring system that denied him access to mental health care and did not recognize his humanity.
After apologizing to Deputy Jarecki for being forced into a situation where she had to shoot the suspect, Jodi Hernandez launched an assault of her own against enforcing immigration law.
After noting Javier had worked in the vineyards doing work that “kept the engine that is Napa Valley going,” she asserted that America was “rotting from the inside out.”
She went on. Americans, she wrote, “have lost our ability to relate to the rest of humanity from our place of relative affluence in comparison to the rest of the world” and then she argued the nation “cannot ignore the pain and anguish of an individual and expect to have a safe, strong country.”
Javier Hernandez-Morales was a Mexican national. He was in the U.S. illegally. And he was a habitual criminal with an active arrest warrant. The primary responsibility of officials in California is not to tend to his mental health needs of foreign nationals, but the safety and security of their residents and U.S. citizens.
The thinking of open border policymakers and individuals like Jodi Hernandez is not only foolish, but deadly.
Jennifer joined FAIR as Web Content Writer in 2017 and brings to the role extensive communications and media background. She began her career as a policy research analyst on multiple national and state political campaigns before entering journalism. In addition to spending over a decade writing for several broadcast and print news outlets, Jennifer directed communications strategy for a member of Congress and a military nonprofit.
EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/handcuffs-e1551528714267.jpg418640Federation for American Immigration Reformhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFederation for American Immigration Reform2019-03-02 07:12:072019-03-02 07:15:59Epic Excuse-Making Follows Near-Fatal Police Shooting By Criminal Alien
It’s hard for people who obey and respect the law to keep their heads from exploding in the face of affronts to common sense and the rule of law. Our Corruption Chronicles blog explains the latest abuse of our system:
Represented by an extremist nonprofit that lists conservative organizations on a catalogue of “hate groups,” seven illegal immigrants detained in a workplace raid are suing the federal agents that arrested them, claiming that they were racially profiled for being Latino. In a federal court complaint filed this week by their pro bono attorneys at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the illegal aliens assert that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents violated their Constitutional rights against illegal seizures and to equal protection under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The raid occurred last spring at a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant in a small rural town called Bean Station in east Tennessee. Agents from ICE and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) raided the facility as part of a lengthy investigation into the owner’s multi-million-dollar tax evasion and fraud scheme. About 100 illegal aliens were arrested, most of them from Guatemala and Mexico and some had been previously deported from the U.S. more than once. At least 54 people were deported immediately, some were released and others faced federal or state charges, according to a local news report following the seize.
The owner of the business, James Brantley, eventually pled guilty to multiple federal crimes, including tax fraud, wire fraud, and employment of unauthorized illegal aliens. The feds say he avoided paying nearly $1.3 million in taxes by hiring at least 150 illegal aliens and paying them off the books in cash. The scheme began in 1988 and continued through 2018 when he got busted. Brantley had reported to the IRS that he had only 44 wage-earning employees, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). To avoid Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) tax obligations, unemployment insurance premiums, unemployment tax and workers’ compensation insurance premiums he paid illegal immigrants in cash at a rate of $8-$10 per hour.
The feds said it was a criminal investigation from day one, not simply an immigration enforcement action as many open borders activists alleged. “Tax fraud is an outrage to hard-working Americans directly harmed when criminals cheat their obligation to society by failing to pay their fair share, and the employment of illegal workers also poses a serious threat to public safety as the use of fraudulent identity documents exposes Americans to potential identity theft and other financial harm,” said the special agent from ICE Homeland Security Investigations who led the probe.
Leftist groups went ballistic, asserting that illegal immigrants were victims whose “rights” were violated by the federal government. Outraged, the SPLC called it the largest workplace immigration raid since the George W. Bush administration. “What happened on April 5, 2018 was law enforcement overreach, plain and simple,” said the group’s senior supervising attorney Meredith Stewart. “We, as a nation, have a shared set of ideals, rooted in the Bill of Rights: We have a right to be free of racial profiling and unlawful arrests. If we are not willing to uphold those ideals for everyone in this country, then we are all at risk of losing our rights.” In the complaint, SPLC attorneys write that the federal officers conspired to plan and execute the forceful and prolonged seizure of the meatpacking plant’s Latino workforce solely on the basis of their actual or apparent race or ethnicity.
The defendants are nine ICE agents who are accused of using “brutal and excessive force without any provocation.” They cursed, shoved and punched workers, according to the SPLC complaint. A Tennessee group that’s helping in the case says the lawsuit addresses the brutality the workers faced at the hands of agents. The nonprofit, Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC), claims the workplace raid was an “unconscionable abuse of power” with “human costs.” The SPLC, an Obama-tied leftist group that helped a gunman commit an act of terrorism against a conservative organization, has the lead in the case. A few years ago a gunman received a 25-year prison sentence for carrying out the politically-motivated shooting of the Family Research Council (FRC) headquarters after admitting that he learned about the FRC from the SPLC “hate map.” Prosecutors called it an act of terrorism and recommended a 45-year sentence.
Cheap labor explains why there is so much resistance to protecting our border.
EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by Activedia on Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/law-1063249_640.jpg480640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2019-03-02 05:45:102019-03-02 05:45:12Illegal Aliens Arrested in Workplace Raid Sue Over ‘Rights’
If you watched the Democrat’s little circus this week in front of the House Oversight Committee, you may have been alternately angered and amused. The Cohen hearing was an echo of the Kavanaugh hearings. It was a blatant misuse of that hallowed room in the Capitol. Here’s what I wrote for Fox News:
Congress and the corrupt Washington Establishment set a new low for abuse of power Wednesday with the testimony of Michael Cohen before the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
As President Trump’s former personal lawyer, Cohen can’t ethically testify to Congress about his interactions with Trump. Cohen knows this. Congress knows this. Special Counsel Robert Mueller knows this.
That the committee hearing took place anyway shows the lawless depth to the partisan Deep State abuse targeting President Trump.
Shameful.
Cohen’s testimony is not credible. He has a demonstrated record of not only lying to Congress, but of violating his ethical duties as a lawyer.
Cohen’s testimony did more than abuse Trump’s rights. Congress benefitted from this abuse and arguably obtained confidential documents belonging to President Trump in violation of its own rules, the president’s rights and the law.
Sure enough, the Democratic-controlled hearing was set up through Clinton, Inc., consigliore Lanny Davis, who is representing Cohen for free.
Judicial Watch uncovered Hillary Clinton emails showing Davis to be her biggest fan.
For example, on October 20, 2010, lawyer Davis wrote Hillary Clinton an email saying: “Thank you H for who you are and what you do,” followed in the exchange by another with “PS. I swear you look younger and better every time I see you, Good night dear Hillary. Lanny.”
So as we witness Cohen – with encouragement from Democrats – trampling over the rights of President Trump, remember this abuse would never have happened without the involvement of Team Clinton.
The Clinton team and Democratic National Committee directly colluded with the Obama Justice Department and FBI to target Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. This led to illicit spying on Trump and his team, an attempted coup by pro-Clinton Deep Staters, and the related appointment of a special counsel to try the further the aim of overthrowing President Trump.
And now the coup effort continues through hearings featuring Cohen this week set up in collusion with Hillary Clinton’s closest associates.
Why would Democrats, who cheered for Cohen to be indicted just a few months ago, now give him a platform to speak to the nation?
The answer is simple: They’re still not over Hillary Clinton losing the 2016 election to Donald Trump.
Michael Cohen is a criminal and Michael Cohen is a political prop. Michael Cohen is the furthest thing from a victim.
At the hearing Wednesday we witnessed history. Unfortunately for the reputation of the House, it is the type of history that will live in infamy.
We have a federal Freedom of Information Act lawsuit pending for Michael Cohen’s alleged influence peddling and fraud related to his attempts to cash in on his relationship with President Trump. Also, we recently sent an official complaint to the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (IG) calling for investigations into leaks of information about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. The complaint asks for an investigation of leaks to BuzzFeed suggesting that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.
Neither the abuses of power in an effort to end the Trump presidency, nor Judicial Watch’s relentless legal efforts to expose these abuses to the light of day will end soon.
EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/judicial-watch-logo.jpg359640Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2019-03-02 05:33:262019-03-02 05:49:25Cohen’s Testimony against Trump Was Plainly Unethical
Liberal House Democrats just unveiled the Medicare for All Act of 2019, a comprehensive bill to abolish virtually all private health plans—including employer-sponsored coverage—and impose total federal government control over Americans’ health care.
Despite its sweeping and detailed government control, as well as the imposition of huge but unknown costs, the 120-page bill has nonetheless initially attracted 106 Democrat co-sponsors, almost half of all Democrats in the House.
The legislation is profoundly authoritarian.
For example, Section 107 ensures that no American, regardless of their personal wants or medical needs, would be able to enroll in any alternative health plan that “duplicates” the government’s coverage.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the bill’s primary sponsor, is at least open about the bill’s intent: “The Medicare for All bill really makes it clear what we mean by ‘Medicare for All.’ We mean a system where there are no private insurance companies that provide these core comprehensive benefits.”
Under Section 201, Congress would decide the content of the health benefits package, what is and is not to be available in the new government health plan. The bill forbids cost sharing, a statutory prohibition guaranteed to induce demand and hike Americans’ overall health costs.
Americans would not be able simply to spend their own money for medical care from a doctor of their choice. Personal contracts between doctors and patients outside of the government plan would be tightly restricted. Under Section 301, “ … no charge will be made to any individual for any covered items or services than for payment authorized by this Act.”
Under Section 303, a provider “ … may not bill or enter into any private contract with any individual eligible for benefits under the Act for any item or service that is a benefit under this Act.”
Even private contracts for “non-covered” medical services require the doctor to report them to the health and human services secretary. Section 303 also stipulates that a private contract between a doctor and a patient for “covered” services would be permissible if and only if the doctor signs and files the affidavit with the secretary of HHS and refrains from submitting any claim for any person “enrolled under this Act” for two full years.
Altogether, these restrictions, layered atop the prohibition on private insurance coverage, would virtually eliminate private agreements between doctors and patients.
In practice, Americans could spend their own money on their own terms with just the very few doctors who could afford to see cash-paying patients entirely outside the system.
In most respects, the new House bill is broadly similar to Sen. Bernie Sanders’, I-Vt., bill. Beyond creating a government monopoly of health insurance, it centralizes key health care decisions in the office of the secretary of HHS; establishes a national health budget; and it creates a temporary Medicare-style “public option” (along with subsidies for enrollees) in the moribund Obamacare exchanges.
Like Sanders’ bill, the House bill would also eliminate Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the Obamacare exchange plans, and Tricare, the health program for military dependents. All of these beneficiaries would be absorbed into the new government plan; it would not be a matter of personal choice.
In striking contrast to the earlier version of the House “Medicare for All” bill, the new House bill contains no tax or funding provisions. This is a conspicuous omission. This is especially so because the House sponsors (under Section 204) also incorporate long-term care coverage, including nursing home and community-based care, into the basic benefit package. This coverage would likely be hugely expensive.
Recall that independent analysts from the Mercatus Center and the Urban Institute roughly agree that the true 10-year cost of Sanders’ similar plan would be approximately $32 trillion.
Ken Thorpe of Emory University, formerly an adviser to President Bill Clinton, estimates that the federal taxation needed to finance the Sanders’ plan would amount to an additional 20 percent tax on workers’ income, and more than 7 out of 10 working families would end up paying more for health care than they do today.
The federal spending and taxation needed to fund the new House bill would certainly be larger. Beyond the potential impact of the bill on the nation’s deficits and debt, independent analysts and economists will also focus laser-like on the size and impact of the new federal taxes on individuals and families at various income levels.
Simply taxing “the rich” will not cut it.
The House co-sponsors of the Medicare for All Act intend a rapid transformation of American health care.
Under Section 106 of the bill, they authorize the completion of this massive disruption of today’s public and private health insurance arrangements within just two years.
In the meantime, analysts at the Congressional Budget Office have a very big job to do.
Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., a seasoned veteran of more than three decades in Washington policymaking, is a senior fellow in domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation.
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by Wikimedia Commons.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Warren_Medicare_for_All_36492682584-e1551480304398.jpg452640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-03-01 17:45:162019-03-01 17:56:53House Democrats Unveil Plan to Bring Total Government Control Over American Health Care
Yesterday, Veritas published documents from a brave former Facebook insider which show how conservatives’ pages are targeted and “deboosted.” These documents also reveal plans to suppress distribution, and they appear to conflate conservative speech with abusive “troll behavior.”
When Facebook commented on our investigations, they didn’t refute our documents, instead, they attacked our insider. And when they tried to reject our conclusions, they contradicted themselves.
Facebook told The Verge that their ActionDeboostLiveDistribution tag is used to “deboost” content uploaded through the API as live content that is not actually live content.
Veritas has learned from people on the inside of Facebook that SIGMA: ActionDeboostLiveDistribution was created for the purpose of ferreting out suicide and self-injury content.
So which is it?
How has this tool been used for political purposes?
And when it happens — why aren’t users being notified?
I figured Veritas should ask the people behind these documents to explain themselves, so I took a trip to California.
When I questioned two of these Facebook employees about their actions, well — take a look for yourself. . .
They were so shocked that a journalist is trying to hold a tech giant accountable that one of them said:
“I’m a little worried for my safety given the way that you’re stalking me.”
The irony!
What about how our brave insider feels?
She has been attacked and ridiculed by one of the most powerful companies in the world. Facebook, which has billions of daily users — now has her in their crosshairs.
At any rate, after asking more questions of him, the Facebook employee got so upset he got on his bike and quickly peddled away!
EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas column with video and images is republished with permission. The featured image is by geralt from Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/interaction-1233873_640.jpg354640O'Keefe Media Grouphttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngO'Keefe Media Group2019-03-01 05:08:362019-03-01 05:10:00Facebook Employee: He ran away from me on his bike . . .
This must be an example of the *diversity and cultural enrichment* that we’ve been promised by the Democrats….
(Grim, a commenter at the Hal Turner Radio Show)
Reader Kris sent me this story and remarked that there was very little to be found in the news on the early-February murder and the police officer-involved shooting that finished off the murderer, and she is right.
If you go toHal Turner Radio Show to view the police cam video, don’t open it if you are squeamish.
Kris is right. Although some of the story is available at the Seattle Times, I had to go to the UK Daily Mail for what really happened. Why didn’t this story make national news?
Police release footage of the moment an agitated knife-wielding suspect is shot dead by cops after ‘murdering his girlfriend by beheading her’ in a Seattle apartment
A knife-wielding suspect thought to have killed his girlfriend by ‘beheading’ her was shot dead by police when officers stormed the apartment.
Officers were called to a suspected domestic violence incident in Seattle and had to force the door open on February 7 at around 3.30am.
Victim Vaquedano and alleged killer Rodriquez. No mention of their immigration status.
Police found the suspect, named by police as Danny Rodriguez, 34, brandishing a knife and appearing agitated.
Officers soon noticed the weapon and shouted, ‘oh s***, get out’ with the second cop saying, ‘he’s got a knife’, as they peered through the crack of the door and saw the suspect inside the apartment.
Both officers told the man to ‘stay right there, don’t move, we will shoot you’ and ordered him to, ‘stop, don’t touch the knife’, before telling him to ‘look away’ and to ‘get down on the ground’.
They then saw a woman’s body lying on the floor, with one of the two cops saying ‘s***, she’s had her head cut off’.
The victim was later identified as 48-year-old Irma Rodriguez Vaquedano.
[….]
The Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG) told the Seattle Times in a statement: ‘The suspect acted aggressively and gave the officers no choice but to fire their weapons to stop this threat.’
[….]
…. family members of Vaquedano, who is thought to be from Honduras, told Colombian newspaper El Heraldo, that the pair had been a couple for several years.
The final take-away from what follows is that America is a pretty frickin’ amazing country when it comes to racism and bigotry.
It’s so good, in fact, that a small but booming industry has sprung up creating hoaxes to perpetuate the illusion of a bigoted country when the fact that there are so many hoaxes is one of the strong proofs of how little there is in reality.
The Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax — he paid Nigerians to pretend to attack him, pour bleach on him and put a noose around his neck — is just the latest. It follows in a long line of hate crime hoaxes being perpetrated by the left, Democrats and the media, but I repeat myself, creating an industry that was super fueled by the Trayvon Martin race hoax.
But Trayvon was only the start. Fuel was added in Ferguson, Baltimore and elsewhere. And all of the straight up hoaxes or race-baiting misrepresentations and grew into wildfires with the belching bellows of a credulous, fellow-traveling media.
This running annual survey by Gallup Poll on race relations shows the damage done by a series of hate crime hoaxes starting in 2013.
What happened in 2013? It’s what happened in 2012 that led to 2013. George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, after Martin attacked him and knocked him to the ground. It was self defense. That was the initial State’s Attorney decision after interviews with witnesses and examining all of the physical evidence. No charges.
But 2012, you may recall, was an election year. Barack Obama was in the midst of his re-election campaign and had already shown himself more than willing to stoke racial tensions — both purposely and incidentally — for his own purposes. The national media, and we all understand they are aligned with Democratic politicians and were major allies of Obama, ginned up the story of outrage that a white man had killed a young black teen in cold blood and was walking away scot free. Pictures of Trayvon in the media were from when he was 13 and pretty young and innocent looking.
The problem was that Trayvon was 18 and a filled out man. His social media accounts showed a full-size young man brooding in a hoodie or giving us all the finger — pictures the media refused to run, sticking with the five-year-old photo of a skinny kid. The other problem: Zimmerman was not white. He was Hispanic.
The photo the media ran most often:
Photos of the young man who actually attacked Zimmerman:
No matter. The narrative was set. This is not to say it was OK to shoot him because of the photos. His actions apparently dictated that.
It is to say that the media was particularly egregious on this hoax, actively participating in it. Beyond just absurd credulity and using the wrong photo, CNN and NBC News were both caught manipulating Zimmerman’s 911 tape to twist him into a racist by badly taking things out of context and warping some of the words. ABC News actually airbrushed a photo of Zimmerman’s bloodied scalp to remove the wounds he received from Martin.
The narrative whipping up the public, prosecutors ended up charging Zimmerman with murder — a wild overreach that was doomed from the beginning. It went to trial and Zimmerman was duly acquitted after a full-fledged circus because while the race-inflaming industry had changed the narrative and the charges, the evidence itself had not changed.
But the damage was done. Florida was branded again as racist. America was racist. Black men were being gunned down on the streets. And the racial tensions that had been finally healing were cut back open again because it benefitted Obama and the Democratic, race-hustling machine let by Al Sharpton and the NAACP.
Gallup’s poll showed a plunge in American attitudes on race relations the following year when it was taken. All based on a hate crime hoax.
It got worse. In 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a black community, part of the St. Louis metro area, a black teen named Michael Brown was shot by a white cop and killed, his body laying in the street until paramedics arrived. The race-baiting industry, led by the media megaphone portion, went into high gear, including reporting that Brown had put his hands up and said don’t shoot. “Hands up don’t shoot” became the mantra of activists and many in the media. Riots ensued. The police officer went into hiding and Black Lives Matter was birthed.
But this too was a hate crime hoax. It turns out, when the investigation was done and all the evidence in, even Obama’s race-driven Justice Department found no cause against the police officer because “hands up don’t shoot” never happened. What actually took place was that Brown, always called a teen despite being a nearly 300-pound 19-year-old man, had just robbed a Korean grocery store and threatened the owner. It’s on tape.
When the officer responding to the call saw him walking down the street, he told him to stop. Brown ultimately ended up attacking the officer, punched him in the face and tried to take his gun. The officer shot Brown multiple times and killed him. There’s no disputing this as even Obama’s team had to admit this is what happened.
But the burning, looting and rioting that resulted from the irresponsible (at best) media hoax reporting had done more damage to American race relations. In 2014 and 2015, Gallup’s poll fell further. It leveled out at a much worse place by 2016 and has actually stayed steady at that point through 2018. So six years ago, the number of blacks who thought race relations between blacks and white was bad nearly doubled, from 29 percent in 2012 to 53 percent by 2015. It actually dropped a little by 2018 to 47 percent, but still very high. Whites track that trajectory.
Hoax hate crimes are nothing really new. They’ve been used to further the left’s agenda for decades. In 1987, Al Sharpton created the Tawana Brawley hoax, which claimed that four white men raped a black girl. It never happened, it finally came out. But riots and at least one actual death stemmed from the hoax.
Sharpton has been well-rewarded for lying and creating hysteria over the hoax. He got national recognition and displaced Jesse Jackson as the ultimate race hustler. He made millions of dollars, was given a television show, a talk radio show and even ran for president in 2004. Oh, and he was invited to Obama’s White House 82 times — to advise on matters of race. Frankly, it appears Obama took his advice.
The Daily Caller has compiled a list of 21 of the most egregious hate crime hoaxes just during the Trump administration. (Other sites have the total, including small ones, at nearly 400.) There are many more, but these are a few that stand out. They range from racist hate crime hoaxes to anti-gay hate crime hoaxes to anti-Muslim hate crime hoaxes. Basically, the full panoply of the left.
Note, that these all disappeared from the news immediately upon being determined by authorities to be hoaxes. But the media continues to jump on the next one. Remember way back to the Covington school boys hate crime hoax, before the Jussie Smollett hate crime hoax?
Of course, unless you file a false police report, and the police decide to actually charge you with that — there is no downside to hoaxing and a lot of upside potential. The cost-benefit analysis for the hoaxer is very positive.
There will be more, and the media will leap to believe them. And American race relations and divisions will either remain bad or get deeper.
Wait, here’s one new hot off the presses. Two days ago, The Detroit Free Press reported that a transgender, gay-rights activist who had fought for a local anti-discrimination ordinance in Jackson, Michigan, and had his house burned down in 2017, blamed haters, was just charged with arson for setting the fire himself. It’s like clockwork.
Notice that the hate crime hoaxes are not just regarding blacks, although they are an important part of intersectional politics of the left. It is also gays, Muslims and so on. This has helped fuel intersectional politics, continuing the broad hoax that America is a racist, bigoted place.
The really ironic part is that progressive Democrats have to continually keep making up these hoaxes, because there is so little racism and bigotry left in the United States. Yet the perceptions are wildly different. We know why, and we know who benefits.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/news-517380_1280-e1551396146133.jpg330639Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-02-28 18:20:152019-02-28 18:22:41Trayvon Martin Hate Hoax Created Modern Identity Politics
Colorado is joining a list of states attempting to overturn the way Americans have selected their presidents for over two centuries.
The Colorado Legislature recently passed a bill to join an interstate effort called the “interstate compact,” to attempt to sidestep the Electoral College system defined by the Constitution. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, called the Electoral College an “undemocratic relic” and vowed to sign the bill into law.
So far, 12 states representing 172 Electoral College votes have passed the initiative into law. With the addition of Colorado (which has nine votes), that number will rise to 181. They need 270 for the compact to go into effect. It would then undoubtedly be challenged in the courts.
Some major voices on the left were gleeful about the potential change.
While the Constitution, intentionally, gives wide latitude to states to create their own electoral systems, the law passed in Colorado, along with the rest of this effort, would be unprecedented. It would be the first time states potentially outsource their Electoral College votes to the will of the nation as a whole, rather than having elections determined by their own voters. The result of this, ironically, could be very undemocratic.
For instance, if the people of Colorado vote overwhelmingly for a Democrat, yet the total popular vote of the nation goes Republican, all of the state’s votes would go to the Republican, essentially overturning the will of the people in Colorado.
The Electoral College is already fairly democratic. Nearly every state switched to direct, democratic elections of electoral votes in the early 19th century, as opposed to selection by state legislatures. What the national popular vote would do is overturn the concept of federalism, which recognizes that states have unique interests that deserve representation in the electoral system. We are not just a nation of individuals, but a nation of communities and states.
Some have dismissed the Electoral College system as outmoded and unjust. But they are mistaken—the Electoral College system remains highly relevant and necessary today. The 2016 election actually demonstrated that.
In 2016, states that had gone Democratic in presidential politics for a generation flipped to Republican, in large part because of a unique candidate who appealed to their interests. While one candidate capitalized on their support, the other took them for granted and focused elsewhere. The result was a startling upset that demonstrates why the Framers wanted an Electoral College.
Without an Electoral College, candidates could more easily write off certain constituencies located in limited areas. The Electoral College binds those votes up with a larger mass of votes so that in order to win the whole, candidates have to appeal to the interests of more constituents.
Under a popular vote system, candidates could ignore entire localities and focus on driving up votes among their natural supporters.
Many on the left have also complained that the Electoral College gives an undue weight to small states, which, in their minds, are conservative.
It’s true that small states are given a boost because Electoral College votes are based on population and Senate votes. Since every state automatically has two senators, small states do get slightly more weight per their population. But in practice, this ends up benefitting Democrats just as much as Republicans.
In 2018, for instance, the 10 smallest states sent 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans to the Senate, and the 10 largest states sent 11 Democrats and nine Republicans to the Senate.
This system of electors is not perfect, of course. But it is the best system for a large and diverse country like the United States, as it favors candidates who do the best job of appealing to diverse interests and not just the big population centers.
In fact, while the Founding Fathers disagreed on many things, the Electoral College was one thing that received the most wide acceptance, as Alexander Hamilton recorded in Federalist 68:
The mode of appointment of the chief magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system … which has escaped without severe censure. … I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent.
In addition to protecting diverse interests, the diffused federal nature of the Electoral College is also a vital tool to counteract election fraud and contentious recounts that could undo the public will.
Imagine if the 2000 recount of the presidential contest between Al Gore and George W. Bush included not just Florida, but the entire nation. That’s what would have happened if the Electoral College weren’t in place to isolate election systems from each other.
It doesn’t take long to see how the new system that the Colorado bill aims for could become a nightmare to deal with in other ways, too, especially in tightly contested races.
This Twitter thread explains one highly plausible scenario in which the national popular vote is decided by around 100,000 votes—a tiny margin given the nation’s population is over 320 million.
If Colorado were to narrowly choose a Democrat, while the other states chose the Republican by a wide margin, Colorado would have no way of making the other states conduct a recount.
The people of Colorado would essentially be forced to throw the election to a candidate they didn’t support.
Even more problematic is the effort in New Jersey to strip President Donald Trump from the state ballot over his refusal to release his tax returns. This will likely be ruled unconstitutional, but consider what it would do if implemented under a national popular vote: With Trump off the ballot in all of New Jersey, it would skew the vote for the entire nation.
Interestingly, stripping a candidate from the ballot has been used as a tactic against a Republican presidential candidate before. Southern states made it nearly impossible to create ballots for Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, which severely depressed his support in those states.
Fortunately, because of the Electoral College, Lincoln was able to win without these states, even though he ended up with only around 39 percent of the popular vote.
If the nation had simply taken a popular vote at the time, Lincoln may never have been elected president.
At the end of the day, the Colorado law is unlikely to ever be put into effect, despite the best efforts of activists.
It’s important to note that while Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has publicly voiced support for abolishing the Electoral College, she has said it would take a constitutional amendment to do so.
“There are some things that I would like to change, one is the Electoral College,” she said in 2017 when asked about things she’d change in the Constitution. “But that would require a constitutional amendment and amending our Constitution is powerfully hard to do.”
Given the unlikeliness of such an amendment—which, according to Gallup, actually reached a high point of popularity after the 2016 election—national popular vote activists have turned to more indirect means to accomplish their ends.
This misguided attempt to subvert the Constitution and abolish the Electoral College has been cooked up for partisan purposes. It is based on the false notion that Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016 reflected a failure in our electoral system—not an abysmal candidate—and that this “relic” from the founding stands in the way of progressive dominance of U.S. politics.
Such a view is not only partisan, but historically ignorant. It overlooks all that the Electoral College has produced—chiefly, a stable political system that forces politicians to reckon with our nation’s diverse needs.
We would be wise to cling to that system and reject these machinations to upend it.
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Josh Carter on Unsplash.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/josh-carter-1137080-unsplash-1.jpg36485472The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-02-28 06:58:422019-02-28 06:58:43Effort to Abandon Electoral College Gains Steam. Here’s What It Would Ruin for America.
This week the Supreme Court will hear arguments about a large memorial cross on a busy highway in Bladensburg, Maryland. The American Humanist Association argues that it is an assault on the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
The Bladensburg Cross was built primarily by a group of mothers after World War I who mourned the loss of their sons in the Great War. Forty-nine men from Prince George’s County in Maryland are memorialized on the cross which was built in their honor in 1925.
Later a highway was constructed that passed the cross, making it widely visible. Jeremy Dys, Deputy General Counsel of First Liberty Institute, which is defending the cross before the Supreme Court said in an interview for our television program: “They mimicked the design of the gravestones that their sons were buried under in Europe. And so it stood there without any complaint until about five years ago when some atheist groups got together and decided that the presence of that memorial on public property is offensive in violating the Constitution. The Fourth Circuit has agreed with them.”
The Humanists’ website states, “…the longer a constitutional violation like this persists, the greater the harm to non-Christian residents forced to encounter the cross year after year.”
Does the Constitution mandate that the cross be torn down? An honest look at our history shows the atheists are the ones out of step with our traditions, as opposed to the 84 percent of Americans who support that cross.
Was the establishment clause violated when:
The Constitution was signed “in the Year of Our Lord” (as in Jesus)?
George Washington became the first president under the Constitution, and was sworn in on the Bible, which he leaned over and kissed? Then in his First Inaugural Address in New York City, he mentioned his gratitude to God repeatedly. Then he led the cabinet and the Congressional members and Supreme Court justices over to St. Paul’s Chapel for a two hour Christian worship service, which included communion, in which he also partook.
The same men who gave us the First Amendment hired chaplains for the military and chaplains for the House and Senate? This practice has been challenged, all the way up to the Supreme Court, but SCOTUS ruled in favor of the chaplains (1983)—since such a practice predated the Constitution itself.
Jefferson approved and regularly attended the Sunday morning Christian worship services held in the U. S. Capitol building as president? Jefferson even made a suggestion or two on potential preachers for pulpit supply.
James Madison also regularly attended those services when he was president as well?
These last two facts are significant because if the ACLU and the American Humanist Association and their ilk had patron saints, they would be Jefferson and Madison.
President Abraham Lincoln called for the annual holiday of Thanksgiving (to God), which we continue to celebrate year after year? He also called for a day of prayer on March 30, 1863, in which he declared: “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God . . . and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”
FDR issued copies of the New Testament and the Psalms to servicemen in World War II? He also gave out a Jewish version which had passages from the Old Testament. He wrote: “As Commander-in-Chief, I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States.” I have copy of one of these New Testaments. It was my dad’s, who served in the Navy in World War II.
And on it goes.
Joseph Story, a Harvard Law professor and Supreme Court Justice in the early 1800s, wrote a massive commentary on the Constitution. He said about the First Amendment: “An attempt to level all religions, and to make it a matter of state policy to hold all in utter indifference, would have created universal disapprobation, if not universal indignation.” Yet that’s exactly the false interpretation of the First Amendment that the humanists are demanding.
What the American Humanist Association and the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation are trying to do is to remake America into something the settlers and founders of this nation never intended it to be—a secular wasteland.
Perhaps Ike said it best. In 1955, President Eisenhower said, “Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first—the most basic—expression of Americanism. Thus the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus with God’s help, it will continue to be.”
EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by sspiehs3 from Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/god-1772560_640.jpg426640Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2019-02-27 18:34:152019-02-28 06:42:48Humanists: Tear Down That Cross!
