DEA REPORTS RECORD DEATHS FROM DRUG OVERDOSES: How a broken southern border allows narcotics to flood America.

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The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) just published the 2018 National Drug Threat Assessment that provides an extensive analysis of the drug crisis in the United States.

Here are a few quick “takeaways” published in the report that paint a disconcerting picture:

  • In 1999 drug poisoning in the U.S. accounted for 16,849 deaths, while deaths from suicide, homicide, firearms and motor vehicles accounted for more deaths than did drug poisoning.
  • In 2009 deaths attributed to drug poisoning moved into first place with 37,004 such fatalities.
  • Since 2009 drug poisoning has accounted for more deaths than did the other causes of death, with a sharp upward trend in the number of such fatalities.  In 2013, 43,982 deaths were attributed to drug poisoning, in 2014 that number increased to 47,055, in 2015 the number jumped to 52,404 and in 2016 that number had skyrocketed to 63, 632 deaths.

Here are excerpts from the report that are of extreme importance:

Heroin: Heroin use and availability continue to increase in the United States. The occurrence of heroin mixed with fentanyl is also increasing. Mexico remains the primary source of heroin available in the United States according to all available sources of intelligence, including law enforcement investigations and scientific data. Further, significant increases in opium poppy cultivation and heroin production in Mexico allow Mexican TCOs to supply high-purity, low-cost heroin, even as U.S. demand has continued to increase.

Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids: Illicit fentanyl and other synthetic opioids — primarily sourced from China and Mexico—are now the most lethal category of opioids used in the United States. Traffickers— wittingly or unwittingly— are increasingly selling fentanyl to users without mixing it with any other controlled substances and are also increasingly selling fentanyl in the form of counterfeit prescription pills. Fentanyl suppliers will continue to experiment with new fentanyl-related substances and adjust supplies in attempts to circumvent new regulations imposed by the United States, China, and Mexico.

Cocaine: Cocaine availability and use in the United States have rebounded, in large part due to the significant increases in coca cultivation and cocaine production in Colombia. As a result, past-year cocaine initiates and cocaine-involved overdose deaths are exceeding 2007 benchmark levels. Simultaneously, the increasing presence of fentanyl in the cocaine supply, likely related to the ongoing opioid crisis, is exacerbating the re-merging cocaine threat.

Methamphetamine: Methamphetamine remains prevalent and widely available, with most of the methamphetamine available in the United States being produced in Mexico and smuggled across the Southwest Border (SWB). Domestic production occurs at much lower levels than in Mexico, and seizures of domestic methamphetamine laboratories have declined steadily for many years.

Gangs: National and neighborhood-based street gangs and prison gangs continue to dominate the market for the street-sales and distribution of illicit drugs in their respective territories throughout the country. Struggle for control of these lucrative drug trafficking territories continues to be the largest factor fueling the street-gang violence facing local communities. Meanwhile, some street gangs are working in conjunction with rival gangs in order to increase their drug revenues, while individual members of assorted street gangs have profited by forming relationships with friends and family associated with Mexican cartels.

Clearly our porous borders, particularly the U.S./Mexican border, enable narcotics to flood into America with disastrous results including violent crimes, loss of life, lives ruined by drug addiction, and the impact on families and especially children, and money that finances criminal organizations and terror organizations. As I noted in my recent article Trump Connects the Dots on Dangers of Illegal Immigration, terror organizations such as Iran-sponsored Hezbollah increasingly have been working in close coordination with Latin American drug trafficking organizations to move drugs and aliens, including terrorist sleeper agents, into the United States.

Although I was an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) officer for my entire federal career, I spent roughly half of my career assigned to work with other law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations into narcotics-related crimes. Consequently my 30-year career with the former INS, the forerunner to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), provided me with an intimate view of the multifaceted immigration system. It also provided me with an insider’s understanding of the drug crisis in the United States.

Back in 1988 I became the first INS agent to be assigned to the Unified Intelligence Division (UID) of the DEA in New York City. For nearly four years I worked in close cooperation with the DEA and numerous other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies. I also worked closely with foreign law enforcement agencies of countries such as Israel, Canada, Great Britain and Japan.

While I was assigned to UID I conducted a study of arrest statistics and was startled to find that back then, approximately 60% of the individuals arrested by the DEA Task Force in NYC were identified as “foreign born.”

In 1991, I was promoted to the position of INS Senior Special Agent and was assigned, for the final ten years of my career, to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) where I continue to work with diverse law enforcement agencies to conduct investigations into large-scale drug trafficking organizations from around the world.

The issue of border security has been one of the key issues frequently discussed by the media and by a succession of administrations. For decades efforts to determine border security have been linked to the number of arrests made by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Of course those statistics are not as effective a metric to determine border security as many believe. Arrest statistics generally act as sort of Rorschach test where you could say that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”

If the Border Patrol arrests more illegal aliens, does it mean that more illegal aliens are attempting to run our borders or that the Border Patrol is becoming more effective at finding and arresting illegal aliens, perhaps because new technology has been brought to bear?

If the Border Patrol arrests fewer illegal aliens, does it mean that fewer aliens have been running our borders or that the smugglers have gotten better at evading the Border Patrol?

Several years ago when I was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on his program at Fox News he attempted to draw conclusions about the level of illegal immigration based on Border Patrol arrests. I told Neil that attempting to use arrest statistics to accurately gauge the number of illegal aliens present in the United States is a bit like taking attendance by asking those not present to raise their hands!

I told Neil that the best and most reliable metric to determine border security is the price and availability of cocaine and heroin since those narcotics are illegal and are not produced in the United States. In point of fact, every gram of those and other such substances are smuggled into the United States and provide graphic and incontrovertible evidence of a failure of border security.

The fact that heroin is as available and as inexpensive as it is provides clear evidence that our borders are as porous as a sieve.

Furthermore, because those substances are smuggled into the United States from foreign countries, the leaders of most of the drug trafficking organizations are foreign nationals who send their workers to the United States to set up shop.

These aliens are often long-time associates they have come to trust and, because their family members remain in their home countries, if they commit transgressions, their relatives will pay a heavy price indeed.

Finally, as drug use has skyrocketed and as the Drug Trafficking Organizations have become more sophisticated and violents and have gained ever more control over the smuggling routes, human trafficking is now often linked to the drug smugglers who often use the aliens they smuggle as “mules”– beasts of burden who carry drugs on their person when they cross our borders.

Those involved in the drug trade not only violate drug, finance and weapons laws; they violate immigration laws.

Meanwhile politicians from both parties have refused to fund the vital border wall to help protect America and Americans from the influx of illegal aliens and narcotics.

The Democrats have created “Sanctuary Cities” and have unbelievably called for the disbanding of ICE altogether. However, neither political party has ever sought to actually hire enough ICE agents to deter illegal immigration or contribute the sort of resources to such multi-agency task forces as OCDETF or the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), where the unique authorities and tools that our immigration laws can uniquely provide to help investigate and dismantle transnational gangs and international terror organizations.

I addressed the nexus between sanctuary policies and the drug trade in my article, New York City: Hub For The Deadly Drug Trade.

This willful failure of our political elite to bring our immigration laws to bear to protect America and Americans, and to combat transnational gangs and international terrorist organizations, was the focus of my recent article, Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design.

It is time for Americans to find true sanctuary in their towns and cities.

RELATED ARTICLE: Bolivia: The Next Explosion After Venezuela and Nicaragua

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. It is republished with permission.

Meet the Woman Who Helped Make Thanksgiving a US Holiday

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For much of the 19th century, Thanksgiving was celebrated only by New Englanders and Northeastern transplants in the upper Midwest and New York.

Without the dogged activism of Sarah Josepha Hale—a novelist, poet, and the editor of “Godey’s Lady’s Book,” a lifestyle magazine with an impressive pre-Civil War circulation of 150,000—Thanksgiving may never have become the national holiday it is today.

Sometimes referred to as the “Godmother of Thanksgiving,” Hale—whose other enduring cultural contribution is the popular nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb”—wrote thousands of letters and editorials promoting a national day of Thanksgiving before President Abraham Lincoln adopted the idea in 1863.

Between George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving proclamation and Lincoln’s, no president had issued such a proclamation (nor had Congress, which did not recognize the holiday until 1941), though many states and localities designated their own days of Thanksgiving.

Hale saw Thanksgiving as an important supplement to the nation’s principal civic holiday: Independence Day. While Independence Day celebrates the birth of our nation, our Founding Fathers, and our founding principles, Thanksgiving celebrates the origins of the American people, family, and faith in God.

As Hale wrote in 1852: “The Fourth of July is the exponent of independence and civil freedom, Thanksgiving Day is the national pledge of Christian faith in God, acknowledging Him as the dispenser of blessings.”

Nondenominational faith in a providential God was a prominent component of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation—as it had been in Washington’s first proclamation—and it has remained so in nearly every presidential proclamation since.

While Independence Day celebrates our freedom, Thanksgiving celebrates the faith that prevents that liberty from degenerating into licentiousness. While Independence Day celebrates our nation’s sovereignty, Thanksgiving reminds us that God should be the source of our highest devotion.

Hale envisioned that a nationwide celebration of Thanksgiving would also help bind the nation together more tightly. Living under the same Constitution and the same federal government was, in her estimation, not enough to forge one people from America’s diverse inhabitants and distinct regions.

As Hale wrote:

Everything that contributes to bind us in one vast empire together, to quicken the sympathy that makes us feel from the icy North to the sunny South that we are one family, each a member of a great and free nation, not merely the unit of a remote locality, is worthy of being cherished. We have sought to reawaken and increase this sympathy, believing that the fine filaments of the affections are stronger than laws to keep the union of our states sacred in the hearts of our people.

Thanksgiving, Hale believed, would strengthen the “fine filaments of affection” by spinning a shared American origin myth from a distinctly regional history.

Plymouth Rock would become the cradle of the American people, not just New Englanders. The Pilgrims would be scrubbed clean of their idiosyncrasies and regionalisms and become embodiments of shared American values: courage, fortitude, faith, good will, and charity.

The Pilgrims were better raw material for this sort of mythologizing than other early colonists. The settlers of the Jamestown colony were the Pilgrims’ equals in courage and perseverance, but their purposes were more mercenary than messianic. They sought cheap land and fortune.

As the descendants of Jamestown settlers pushed up the James River, they did not build townships brimming with civic virtue as the Pilgrims did. Instead, they built plantations worked first by indentured servants and, later, by African slaves.

Also unlike the Jamestown settlers, who were overwhelmingly single men, the Pilgrims came across the sea with families in tow, making the Plymouth colony not just a portrait of civic association and American grit, but also a fine representation of domestic life.

For Hale, recognition and reinforcement of the family was central to the Thanksgiving holiday. She wrote:

“It is a festival which will never become obsolete, for it cherishes the best affections of the heart—the social and domestic ties. It calls together the dispersed members of the family circle, and brings plenty, joy and gladness.”

Thanksgiving is a celebration of domestic ties. Rarely do extended families come together to revel in Independence Day’s fireworks and cookouts, parades and pool parties. Adults generally stay in the towns and cities they have moved to. If they travel, it is to the shore—not over the river and through the woods.

This seems natural. Family life has little to do with the historic events or the principles of government we commemorate on the Fourth of July.

For Hale, and evidently for Lincoln also, the Civil War emphasized the need to strengthen the strained filaments of affection, buttress divided and decimated families, and remember God’s painfully obscured providence.

But the dimensions of civil society that Thanksgiving buttresses—shared cultural attachment, faith, and the family—are critical to a republican people in both peaceful and tumultuous times.

Our nation, to a greater extent than most, relies on a flourishing civil society. Our constitutionally limited government permits society to develop along its own trajectory, for good or for ill, making family and religious institutions critical sources of moral training.

Americans do not share a common ancestry or ethnicity, so building a shared historical narrative is all the more important to the sense that we are one people.

For these reasons, Lincoln was wise to make Thanksgiving an official holiday.

This article has been updated to correct a reference to a Virginia river. The Jamestown settles moved up the James River, not the Charles River as was originally written.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of John York

John York

John W. York, Ph.D., is a policy analyst in the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Surprising Story of the First Thanksgiving

In a Turkey Day ‘Recount,’ Trump Pardons Both Peas and Carrots

Here’s Why We Should Still Celebrate the Pilgrims at Thanksgiving

Podcast: The History of Thanksgiving

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: iStock Photos.

Clergy and the Caravan

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I would like to believe that these left-leaning rabbis, ministers, and imams had good intentions, joining together to meet the caravan of migrants and provide them with food, clothing and solace, but their logic is deeply flawed.  Whatever their intent, it is unconscionable and immoral for them to presume that they have the authority to offer the United States of America, home to more than 325.7 million American citizens, to any foreign hordes.  In breaking the law, they are setting themselves above the law, which is something expressly forbidden in Judaism and Christianity.

Some of the rabbis used the Holocaust as false justification for the men’s trek to the north (95% of the lot are men), but theirs is a misplaced spirit of humanitarianism.  They have drawn an unsuitable equivalence between the European Jews who were forced to flee their homes in fear for their lives with the Central Americans who were lured by the promise of welfare.   This sense of social justice is peculiarly selective, inasmuch as the rabbis were silent when “Palestinian” youths were propelling incendiary kites and balloons over Israel for more than a half year, burning thousands of acres of precious land and life; silent during these years of firing rockets and mortars into Israel, killing, crippling, and destroying; silent when Jews are attacked on the streets of Israel, France, Sweden, and Brooklyn; and silent when jihada and anti-Semite, Linda Sarsour, rants her hatred against Jews and President Trump.  Heck, they didn’t even show up to support the establishment of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, yet they managed to arise in support of an invasion into America by unknown, lawless thousands!

The leftist clerics are not entitled to overlook the possibilities that this migration is no different from the present-day Islamic migration (hijra) into Europe, creating havoc with their acts of rape, violence and destruction, bent on conquest by population.  We know that Bartolo Fuentes, former Honduran congressman and one of the marches’ coordinators, established the caravan on March 12, 2017, and the small number grew to thousands as they passed through Guatemala, El Salvador, and Mexico.  We cannot wait for recognizable uniforms, tanks, bazookas and cannons before calling it a threat.  The firing pin has been pulled, the gun powder ignited, and these are the “bullets,” which, by their sheer number, are meant to be the overpowering human projectiles – and now guided by a misguided clergy.

Mexico was not able to stop these bullets, and her offer of asylum was rebuffed, proving that the marchers are not really seeking sanctuary.  Mexicans agree with our President Trump, that this is an invasion, a “tsunami,” as the intruders continue north, waving their own flags and burning our Stars and Stripes – surely a sign of disrespect and haughty bravado, not humility.

Further, the hordes have shown their ingratitude by rejecting our food offerings, saying the meals are not “fit for pigs.”  Such behavior, which expresses no appreciation or veneration for our country, warrants no compassion.  What it does warrant is our understanding that they are not the “tired, poor, hungry masses.”  They have thus far been well fed, clothed, and tended along their journey by socio-political progressives and the United Nations.  If permitted entry, our shifting population would throw us into economic turmoil, with more taxes imposed on the middle class to pay for the non-working poor.  Once again, this is the redistribution of wealth, the goal of “global justice,” such as fueled by the Occupy movements of 2011, and the heavy taxation and unemployment of the Obama years.

If not for President Trump’s strong support for our military and police forces that had been allowed to deteriorate during the “eight years,” we would now be in the throes of invasion, no borders, no sovereignty, and in rampant chaos.  These clerics may well be of the same academic era that continues to weaken our male students, to intentionally destabilize our country, to have kept them ignorant of our history and what it took to establish these United States.  They may not understand the goals of Progressivism/Communism and Islamism, but naïveté is inexcusable in leadership positions.  If they are even partly responsible for the potential of unbridled disaster to our nation, they will have blood on their hands – and they would also succumb.

This is like no war we have ever fought.  It is global as well as within our nation.  The tactics differ as do the levels of progression and intensity, but the war is a certainty.  How it is allowed to escalate is still up to us.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash.

Record Numbers of Women in Congress Disprove the Need for Feminist Policies

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In January, a record number of women will serve in the U.S. House and Senate. Depending on the outcome of races that are still too close to call, the 116th Congress will have anywhere from 109 to 117 women.

That is three-and-a-half times as many women as were in the 102nd Congress of 1991-1992. And it’s cause for celebration.

But now imagine if all those women were headed to Congress following imposition of a gender quota. Few people would be celebrating women’s successes then. Instead, they would be viewed as “token legislators,” or “Title IX” recipients—incapable of being elected in their own right.

Ostensibly pro-women policies might sound good to those who want to impose certain measurable outcomes—such as equal numbers of women in high-power positions or exact parity between all men’s and all women’s wages—but they could instead backfire on women.

As it is today, male and female legislators are equal. They receive the exact same salaries, they can introduce and co-sponsor as many bills as they want (and historically, women introduce and co-sponsor more legislation than men), and they can hold committee chairs and leadership positions.

And having been elected by a free vote of their constituents—often defeating male candidates—female legislators earn the same respect as men.

If Congress were to pass a gender quota law for legislators, as California did for boardrooms of corporations headquartered there, it would demean female legislators instead of applauding their successes.

Imagine female lawmakers up against a bunch of male colleagues who resent the leg-up the women got into Congress, or being told by constituents at townhall meetings that they don’t deserve their position because they didn’t actually earn it.

That’s what’s happened with the “golden skirt” phenomenon. After Norway and other European countries passed corporate boardroom quotas, women suddenly had a huge advantage over men.

But instead of creating a general boost in the ranks for women, boardroom quotas in Norway led companies to all seek after the same small group of eligible women. One such “golden skirt” sat on the boards of as many as 90 companies at the same time.

Moreover, boardroom quotas in Norway hurt companies’ performances because they led to younger, less experienced, and less capable boards.

And as an Economist article headline declared, “Gender quotas at board level in Europe have done little to boost corporate performance or to help women lower down.”

The same would be true for so-called equal pay laws. Except that while quotas would push women into roles they otherwise wouldn’t hold, equal pay laws would prevent women from holding roles they otherwise could have.

Forcing companies to maintain gender-based equity in pay would require them to impose one-size-fits-all jobs that actually wouldn’t fit many working women’s needs and desires.

Women tend to place more value on nonwage-based job benefits, such as a flexible work schedules, on-site child care, or more generous fringe benefits. But those features wouldn’t show up in employers’ pay records, so they would be unlikely to offer them.

Moreover, equal pay for equal work is already the law of the land.

And when you take into account the measurable choices men and women make regarding things such as their occupation and hours of work, women are essentially on par with men. (Non-measurable factors, such as flexibility, likely account for the small unexplained gap in pay.)

The fact that the number of women in Congress has increased three and a half-fold since 1992 without any legislation addressing the gap shows that women are fully capable, when they choose to, of shattering so-called “glass ceilings” on their own.

Let’s hope that the 116th Congress pursues policies that would create equal opportunities for all women and men alike, instead of ones that would benefit only an elite group of women or that would limit women’s access to jobs that meet their individual needs and desires.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Rachel Greszler

Rachel Greszler

Rachel Greszler is research fellow in economics, budget, and entitlements in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, of the Institute for Economic Freedom, at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Newscom.

American’t: From Midterms to End Times

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Truly great disasters come like a thief in the night. How many foresaw Rome’s sacking in 410 A.D., her collapse 66 years later, WWI or WWII? As for today, how many see that the United States is at what some call a tipping point, what others may call a Fourth Turning? Whatever you call it, the American republic is in its last days. This is too scary for many to contemplate, but there’s something far scarier: playing ostrich and not being prepared for things to come.

The so-called Left, ever violent since its French Revolution birth and as power hungry as ever, wholly controls the culture: the media, mainstream and social; academia; and entertainment. This means it controls long-term politics, since the latter is downstream of culture. So is big business, mind you, which is why the Left controls most of it as well; this, of course, translates into funding.

Trump’s 2016 victory will not MAGA; it was merely a stay of execution, a prolonging of the inevitable. This should have been obvious in a country that could elect Barack Obama and then, like the Titanic having backed up to hit the iceberg again, re-elect him. If it wasn’t, it should be obvious now that the Democrats have seized the House in a Watergate-level rout.

The notion that this was a standard result for a president’s first midterm is only comforting when viewing matters in relative terms; that is, the “‘political spectrum’ always has a right and left side no matter how far ‘left’ that spectrum moves.”

The problem? Civilizational ebbs and flows (and collapses) are governed by absolutes, such as right and wrong; not relative qualities, such as right and left. Thinking otherwise is like supposing your transition from stage-one to stage-four cancer as a 70-year-old is like when you went from a bruised arm to a broken one as a 12-year-old because, well, both involve movement toward diminished states of health.

But this isn’t your grandfather’s Democrat Party. Voters this time empowered socialistic to socialist to closet-communist, sexual devolutionary, rabble-rousing, low-I.Q., no-virtue, ignorant freaks who often encourage political violence by their Antifa-Brownshirt useful idiots. So it’s not your great-grandfather’s America, either.

Digging into the electoral numbers also tells a tale. Ninety percent of blacks, 79 percent of Jews, 77 percent of Asians, 69 percent of Hispanics and 59 percent of women voted Democrat — same as usual. Can we stop now with talk about “Blexit,” the “Walkaway” movement, how “Hispanics are natural conservatives,” how Jews are waking up to the Left’s anti-Semitism and all the other connedservative self-delusion? People vote in accordance with their emotional and philosophical foundations, and “You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into,” as Jonathan Swift put it. Fooling oneself doesn’t help.

The voters are only getting worse, too, for three basic reasons: immigration, indoctrination and moral corruption. Let’s consider the first.

Demography is Destiny

Ever since the nation-rending Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 took effect in ’68, 85 to 90 percent of our immigrants have been Third Worlders, and 70 to 90 percent of them support Democrats upon naturalization.

This has caused a historic demographic shift (and attendant electoral one) that has seen our nation go from 85-plus percent white in 1965 to only 61 percent non-Hispanic white today. Let’s define further the political impact, using conservative figures.

We absorb approximately 1.3 million legal immigrants annually. If one million ultimately remain and are naturalized and 50 percent vote, and 80 percent of that group breaks Democrat, it means a net plus for Democrats of 300,000 voters every year and three million every decade.

The latter was Hillary Clinton’s purported 2016 popular-vote advantage.

This also translates into 15 million new Democrat voters after half a century, which was as much as Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 popular-vote margins combined. Of course, illegal migration and resultant amnesties would only increase these numbers, but are wholly unnecessary to effect this cultural and electoral annihilation. But not all un-American mentalities are imported.

We Can’t MAGA Unless We MAMA

“The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next,” the apocryphal saying goes. Today’s brainwashing not just by academia but also media and entertainment is intense. Moreover, we can’t MAGA unless we MAMA — Make America Moral Again. As Ben Franklin put it, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” Yet academia, media and, especially, entertainment subject each generation to an ever intensifying demoralization process.

So now let’s crunch some more numbers. Between Trump’s 2016 victory and Election Day 2020, more than 10 million Americans will have died; mostly older, they’re a relatively conservative voting demographic. They will more or less be replaced, however, by approximately 16 million young people who’ll turn 18 during those years. Unlike their elders, though, they’ll disproportionately cast ballots for hardcore statists.

Given this ongoing immigration and indoctrination-enabled electoral-degradation process, is it now clearer why Republicans have lost the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential contests?

Note that during our entire pre-2000 history, Republican candidates won the presidency while losing the popular vote only twice. Now it has happened twice since 2000 alone, with the GOP capturing the popular vote in just one of its three victories (G.W. Bush, 2004). How long can we continue losing it while winning the Electoral College? We can’t pull inside straights forever.

Moreover, the cards won’t be there at all once Texas turns blue, and the warning signs are already evident. Rationalize all you want, but leftist nuts Andrew “Cracker State” Gillum, Irish Bob the Phony Mexican (O’Rourke) and Stacey “Suin’ Sore Loser” Abrams came close to winning in, respectively, Florida, Texas (!) and Georgia (!); Taliban bubblehead Kyrsten Sinema did win in Arizona. We’re further down the rabbit hole than you think, Alice.

Leftists are already talking about 2020, too, with a lineup resembling the bar scene in Star Wars (hat tip: Pat Buchanan). But the details don’t matter. Whatever the Democrat presidential ticket, it’ll be a ticket to Hell.

Not only is society drifting ever further from Truth (“leftwards”) for the aforementioned reasons, but consider the Democrats’ delusional perspective. Projecting, many of them have convinced themselves we’re Nazis, fascists, bigots and un-American, evil haters who have undermined the rule of law, created a constitutional crisis and who represent a clear and present danger to the republic — we’re “deplorables.” Believing this, wouldn’t you suppose these were desperate times that called for desperate measures?

When the Democrats seize the presidency and both legislative chambers — which they eventually will — they’ll have a justification for behaving as tyrannically as they fancy we have. They’ll see it as simply responding in kind to a precedent we set. You’ll have Antifa in power.

The more “conservative” Supreme Court won’t save us, either. With their power-lust and ends-justify-the-means mentality, the Left will discover that judicial supremacy isn’t in the Constitution (which it isn’t. Leftists also may just pack the SCOTUS and eliminate “uncooperative” lower courts). Unlike connedservatives, though, they’d actually act upon their epiphany and ignore inconvenient court rulings.

So these are our interesting times. If you’re now ready to split a vein or run for the Zoloft, hold on. There’s some good news here, too — if you want to call it that.

There no longer is an “American people”; there are peoples living in America. We’re balkanized not just racially, ethnically and religiously, but also ideologically, sexually and philosophically; we speak different languages, literally and figuratively. With open talk of open-borders socialism on one side and nationalism on the other, the Overton window is now so wide that each end occupies a different time zone. Frankly, many of us hate each other. If our union were a marriage, we’d have divorced long ago.

And I believe this will likely be the U.S.’s fate: dissolution. It may be precipitated by a calamity such as a severe economic collapse. If the federal government is then unable to meet its obligations (e.g., Social Security payments), the union-binding carrot will be gone. If the feds also seek to impose a tyrannical will, certain states may nullify their dictates, creating a further rift. One thing could then lead to another and….

Regardless, with the Left hurling fightin’ words (Nazi, etc.), fomenting unrest and attacking and bullying conservatives, the Cold Civil War is already afoot. Will it go hot? If so, when? For sure is that if the Left keeps pushing, it eventually will get pushback.

Of course, should this happen, we’d likely be vulnerable to enemies such as China. It all makes for a very unsure, but not uninteresting, future.

Yet if the republic does fall and dissolve, maybe, just perhaps, one of the resulting countries can be that shining city on a hill. But remember: It will be up to us to forge it, ever bearing in mind that we can’t MAGA unless we MAMA. This means instilling in ourselves virtue — including that of courage. For whatever terrors, traumas and tribulations lie ahead, we’ll need a lot of it for things to come.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Matt Botsford on Unsplash.

Understanding Nationalism

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I find the vilification of nationalism to be appalling. It is being depicted as some sort of Fascist, racist, unpatriotic institution. The reality is, nothing could be further from the truth. It is being characterized as such, because it doesn’t fit in with the progressive/socialist agenda, nor other global developments, such as climate change, immigration, and defense.

President Trump embraced the concept as part of his “America First” initiative, which is one reason why Democrats find it offensive, but it is also being embraced in Europe by the “Brexit” movement in the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, Germany, and France. This explains why French President Emmanuel Macron recently made the claim, “Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,” as he views it as a threat to his presidency and the European Union.

As just about anyone who has visited the country can tell you, France is one of the most nationalistic countries in terms of its culture and language. You either fit into their way of thinking or get out. Mr. Macron also suggested the development of a separate army to defend itself against China, Russia, and the United States. This is an insult as America has come to the aid of Europe not just once, but several times over the last 100 years, both militarily and economically.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who will not seek re-election following her term of office, also attacked nationalism by warning against “destructive isolationism.” She went on to say, “We know that most of the challenges and threats of today can no longer be solved by one nation alone, but only if we act together.”

I couldn’t agree more, but why is nationalism detrimental to this cause? In reality, it is not. People like Mr. Macron and Mrs. Merkel would have us believe we must all work together in a concerted effort, be it for the environment, immigration, health, and defense. This is all well and good, but what happens when there is a difference of opinion, and a country is asked to implement something in sharp contrast to their beliefs? In the case of “Brexit,” you withdraw from the European Union. In the case of President Trump, you withdraw from the Paris climate control accord, the Iranian peace deal, you move your embassy to Jerusalem over European objections, and you inform your “friends” you will no longer pick up the check for their activities, especially when we get nothing in return.

For many years I taught and consulted in the area of Corporate Culture. All companies, large and small, have a culture, a way of operating based on their values and perspectives. Not all companies think or act alike. In fact, the differences may be very pronounced. Also, within a Corporate Culture there may be a sub-culture, a clique or group of people (such as a department) exhibiting distinctly different characteristics. Such groups may be allowed to operate so long as they do not violate the norms of the overall culture.

Those embracing globalization would have us believe there is one corporate culture. Yes, there may be sub-cultures exhibiting minor differences, but all are expected to conform to the overall culture. This is what Macron and Merkel support. Those embracing nationalism see the world as a group of separate cultures with some similarities allowing them to work cooperatively on mutually beneficial projects. This means each culture is sovereign and is responsible for managing their own affairs. If they do not want to work with another culture, it is their prerogative.

Ideally, companies and countries should work on “Win-Win” projects, where both parties benefit. A good example of this is “NYLON” which was a joint venture based on groups in New York “NY” and London “LON.” If we run into a “Win-Lose” scenario whereby one party benefits at the expense of another, this becomes an unhealthy relationship. Whereas nationalism promotes “Win-Win” situations, globalization allows for “Win-Lose.” And frankly, America is tired of being taken for granted and asked to pay the bill all of the time.

Globalization involves the cultural integration of trade, capital, and immigration among the countries of the world. This tends to force countries to lose their identity and become subservient to others. Again, nationalism respects the sovereignty of a country.

From this perspective, French President Macron is dead wrong; patriotism, which involves the love of country, is promoted by nationalism, not globalization. If anything globalization is a deterrent to patriotism.

There is nothing wrong with forming coalitions for different endeavors, such as the United Nations, NATO, the OAS, the European Union, etc. It is when “Win-Lose” relationships form and one country must dance to the fiddle of another that discord erupts. Think about it; as citizens, does our allegiance rest with the United Nations or the United States? Frankly, I do not understand why this is a difficult concept to grasp.

Nationalism does not prohibit us from coming to the aid of our friends, as we have demonstrated for many years. However, when a friendship is abused and a financial burden added, it is time to ask why.

Nationalism is not the enemy, being asked to relinquish our sovereignty is.

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Josh Johnson on Unsplash. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

In Saying the ‘American Dream’ Is Alive in China, New York Times Shows Its Misunderstanding of Our Nation

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Most Americans are innately offended by authoritarian regimes. But not The New York Times—the newspaper of record, once again, has painted a glorified picture of a communist dictatorship.

The latest example is a series of interactive articles that praise and celebrate the rise of China. One piece was actually titled “The American Dream is Alive. In China.”

The series extols China’s growth in wealth over the last few decades—but amid the adulation, something was noticeably missing. The Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti hit the nail on the head.

Continetti also noted that China’s young adults can’t even read about how wonderful they are doing because internet censors in the authoritarian regime block information coming from American sources.

Freedom of speech and access to information are just some of the few cornerstone freedoms that are highly restricted under the Chinese regime.

A dystopian “social credit” system is on the way in China that will monitor everything its subjects do—with rewards for “good” behavior and penalties for “bad” behavior. This opens up a new potential for control over public life that was hardly imaginable in even the most repressive tyrannies of the past.

And China is not just creating this Orwellian system for its own people—it is trying to export it elsewhere.

Of course, “bad” behavior includes any speech or activity seen as critical toward the government. The economic prosperity that the Times article celebrates only comes through the good graces of the regime.

The dream begins and ends with the state.

This exclusion and repression includes entire groups of people whose only crime is having the “wrong” ideas.

BBC reported in October how millions of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang province have been placed in massive re-education camps—a modern Gulag Archipelago.

Olivia Enos, an Asian Studies Center research associate within the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation,wrote in July:

Chinese government authorities long have persecuted the more than 11 million Uighurs in the region, collectivizing them, bulldozing their residences, requiring them to submit to invasive DNA and biometric tests, and now forcing them to live with Chinese officials in their homes.

This is hardly something Americans should rush to embrace. Instead, it should lead us to reassess the notion that there was some kind of “end of history” when the Soviet Union collapsed.

The end of the Cold War was certainly a triumph for free people everywhere and clear evidence that capitalism is superior to communism.

However, the fall of the USSR—as great a victory as that was—did not end the recurring conflict between freedom and tyranny, or guarantee the universal embrace of representative government and preservation of God-given rights.

It may have even made us less alert to encroaching despotism.

The New York Times piece missed a key aspect of the American dream: that it is not just about the accumulation of wealth. Our prosperity is the byproduct of a system of order and liberty, provided by the Constitution, which protects the cornerstone freedoms that we hold dear: the freedom of religion, the freedom to associate and protest government and unjust laws, the freedom to protect and defend oneself and one’s community.

Fostering these rights, among many others, are what have made America a beacon of light to the world.

A rich man who must fear practicing religion under threat of imprisonment, who may arbitrarily be placed in a reeducation camp because of his religious or political views, and who does not even have power over the most fundamental decision of bringing life into this world is not a free man—and hardly living the “American dream.”

He is a man living under the very kind of arbitrary government that the Founding Fathers rebelled against, that anti-slavery advocates like Abraham Lincoln worked to end, and what generations of Americans opposed in the 20th century following the rise of fascism and communism.

The unique system that developed in the United States was built around concepts of consent, on the idea that the state is not the bearer of all “truths,” and that we are born free and equal with inalienable rights that must not be infringed.

While America has not always lived up to these ideals, they are worthy and timeless goals that make America not just a great, but a good country.

Our challenge in the 21st century is the same as in previous centuries. We have a choice to make: Do we still hold on to the timeless truths of our founding, or have we lost faith in the ideas that led us to become the most powerful and prosperous country on earth in a historical blink of an eye?

Perhaps many today—including distinguished journalists for The New York Times—forget how some Americans in a previous era looked longingly at authoritarian governments with envy and saw them as a glorious road to the future.

The potential for arbitrary governments to lord power over their citizens presents a far deeper threat to liberty than “fake news,” or the apparent chaos that comes through the freedom of speech and association.

As the playwright Joseph Addison wrote in “Cato: A Tragedy,” one of George Washington’s favorite plays:

A day, an hour, of virtuous liberty

Is worth a whole eternity in bondage.

This is the seed of the American dream, of a people who—despite the material reward of life under British rule—refused to accept the chains of autocracy in exchange for temporary comfort.

As the liberal newspaper of record wistfully depicts a nation that values material prosperity over genuine freedom, Americans would be wise to be cautious.

Instead of glorifying autocracy, we should re-examine the traits that have made us not just powerful and fantastically wealthy, but exceptional—a place where the common man and woman can make their way without violating the dictates of their conscience, without pleading with the state for scraps beneath the table of all-powerful authorities.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor and commentary writer for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Stephen Shaver/UPI/Newscom.

VIDEO: Planned Parenthood Minds Its Ps and LGBTQs

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Imagine how upset you’d be to find out that your tax dollars were funding radical sexual propaganda targeted at your kids. Well, thanks to Planned Parenthood, you already are. Apparently, the nation’s biggest abortion business isn’t content with destroying innocent lives anymore. Now it wants to undermine your moral values too.

Of course, Americans got a whiff of this back in 2016, when then-president Cecile Richards surprised people by saying, “Planned Parenthood believes that reproductive rights are deeply connected to LGBTQ rights…” In an announcement that raised more than a few eyebrows, because there is no obvious connection, she made it clear that the organization was quickly becoming one-stop shopping for the Left’s social agenda. “[Our] affiliates now provide hormone treatments for transgender people in 26 centers across 10 states.”

Now, the group that enjoys more than a half-billion of your hard-earned tax dollars a year is already wrapping its tentacles around another hot-button topic: the transgender debate. And based on the firestorm in Sarasota, Florida, Planned Parenthood is off to a flying start. Its idea of a sex education video — men groping women and same-sex couples making out — made parents hit the fan.

Despite the backlash in Florida, the group is back at it this week with a special project for “Trans Awareness Week.” In partnership with the LGBT activists at GLAAD, Planned Parenthood has taken it upon themselves to teach people to be less offensive to men who identify as women and vice-versa. The campaign, called “Beyond the Binary,” includes a new vocabulary list that makes the abortion group the newest members of the politically-correct language police.

Among other things, Breitbart points out, the “linguistic guide” scraps the terms “boys and girls” for the more generic “children.” “His” or “her” should be “their” — which is not only ridiculous, but grammatically incorrect. Apparently, science isn’t the only casualty of the Left’s gender-free march. If activists get their way, English will be the next to go. Group salutations like “guys” are supposed to give way to “folks.” “‘Brothers and sisters,’ should simply be ‘siblings,’ while ‘ladies and gentlemen’ should be ‘distinguished guests.'” All of this, Williams goes on, with a backdrop of rainbow birth control. “With its cheery backdrop of multi-colored condoms, one could almost forget that Planned Parenthood’s chief business is killing little children in their mothers’ wombs.”

Although LGBT activism can’t be as lucrative as the group’s biggest moneymaker — abortion — it certainly diversifies their already fanatical portfolio. And with Planned Parenthood’s latest hire, Dr. Sara Flowers, the organization shows no signs of slowing down. Flowers may not be a household name — but she’s about to become a household presence, now that the former director at the Gay Men’s Health Crisis has just been put in charge of Planned Parenthood’s “education” efforts. And, as far as she’s concerned, sex ed is “more than learning about birth control and sexually-transmitted infections. Ideally, sex education should address… gender identity and sexual orientation…” If you think the public-school indoctrination is bad now, just wait. Planned Parenthood has unlimited access to more than 1.5 million kids through sex education. Is yours one of them? Make sure you contact your local district office and find out.

Meanwhile, when the group isn’t busy brainwashing children (or aborting them), it’s spreading plenty of misinformation online. In new videos targeting moms and dads (no doubt also funded by unwilling taxpayers), Planned Parenthood has disturbing answers to questions like “How do I know if my kid is transgender?” Children, they insist without a scrap of science to back it up, can know their gender identity by age three, the group suggests. And, “there’s nothing you as a parent can do to change [it].” Some little kids, the narrator says, “may understand that the gender that everyone says they are is not who they really know they are inside. And that’s the definition of transgender.” If you want to try counseling, the videos urge, talk with someone who’s “supportive of transgender identities.” Forcing them into a gender box, Planned Parenthood warns, will hurt them. That’s hardly the advice of the real experts at the American College of Pediatricians, who insist this kind of guidance is “child abuse.”

After its baby body parts sales, overbilling scandals, sexual abuse cover-ups, gender targeting, unsanitary clinic conditions, botched abortions, falsified medical information, and political campaigns, Planned Parenthood didn’t have a lot of credibility to fall back on. Now, with this stampede into LGBT activism, whatever shred of credibility Planned Parenthood had in claiming to be a “health care provider” should be put to rest. This is all the more reason for Congress to finish the job it started last fall and cut off Planned Parenthood’s funding at the source: the federal government.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.

VIDEO: D.C. Carry Permits Skyrocket After Recent Move From “May Issue” to “Shall Issue”

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Washington, D.C. concealed carry permits jump over 1440% since District went ‘shall issue.’

NRATV’s Kerry Picket joins Dana Loesch with the latest.

Nancy Pelosi Emailed A ‘Critical Priorities’ Survey. You Won’t Believe What’s In It.

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I am on the Democratic Party email list. I just received a survey from Nancy Pelosi titled “📎 need input. NOT money.” The email states:

I’m coming to you one more time this week to make sure you have your voice heard.

BEFORE MIDNIGHT: Take my critical priorities survey before our new members head to their home districts. I can’t wait to share your thoughts with them. >>

I’ve been able to meet with all our new Democratic members of Congress.

They have inspired me so much, and I’m so ready to work with them to stop President Trump’s agenda and rescue President Obama’s legacy.

And I must be honest with you, in order to make that a reality, I need you with me.

Please, can I count on you to take 3O seconds and share your top priorities with me and all our new Democratic Congress members?

NOTE: While the title states that Nancy is not seeking money, the last question requires you to send money.

It appears from the email that Nancy Pelosi’s and the Democrat’s agenda is to “stop President Trump’s agenda and rescue President Obama’s legacy.”

Here are the “Critical Priorities”:

Which issues do you want our Democrats to know matter most to you right now? (Check all that apply)

  • Restoring the Voting Rights Act and protecting voting rights
  • Protecting DREAMers and immigrants
  • Protecting Robert Mueller and his investigation
  • Continued funding for Medicare and Social Security
  • Protecting our environment and slowing climate change
  • Health care coverage for pre-existing conditions
  • Building on the progress of Obamacare
  • Gun violence prevention
  • A $15 minimum wage
  • The economy
  • LGBTQ rights
  • Preserving President Obama’s Medicaid expansion
  • Making tuition affordable for all

The only questions on the survey that are a priority with President Trump, and Republicans in the House, are funding Medicare and Social Security, Health care coverage for pre-existing conditions and the economy.

All the rest of the critical priorities are for narrow constituencies. It’s interesting that Nancy is still focused on former President Obama’s legacy.

Well, at least there are some things that Nancy is in sync with Republicans and the American people.

A good sign? Or a bad sign?

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s Facebook page.

Democrat Socialism and Sodomy: Two Social Poisoned Pills

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I became interested in links between democrat socialism and sodomy. During my research I found, to my surprise, that today they are inextricably linked.

Socialism and sodomy have the same goals, the destruction of heterosexuality and the traditional nuclear family.

The targets are straight males and fathers who are married with children. But why is this the goal? Isn’t this a poisoned pill for every society?

Sodomy predates Christianity

Many look at sodomy from a biblical perspective citing the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:1-30. However, sodomy predates Christianity. It was a political issue for centuries that ancient nations dealt with in different ways both socially and in law. In her 2014 column “Did Spartan Warriors Embrace Homosexuality?” Kayla Jameth wrote:

Crete, Athens, Corinth and Thebes practiced classic pederasty. A homosocial institute that encouraged love in a myriad of forms between an older man (erastês) and a youth (erômenos). The terms carry certain connotations that directly or indirectly influence modern views on this relationship.

The mentor, or erastês, is intended to be an older man who guides the youth through the upper echelons of society. This was an ancient form of social networking. Erastês means “lover”. This has been taken to imply a sexual relationship. Especially as erômenos means “beloved”. These are not so much descriptions of the individuals as titles for their place in the relationship.

Were all pederastic relationships sexual? I doubt that was the case, as the majority of men now, and likely then, identify as straight/heterosexual. That’s nothing more than statistics. Were there bisexuals and bi-curious individuals? Without a doubt, but once again not to the exclusion of straight individuals.

The article “Before Homosexuality: Sodomy” notes:

Same-sex sexual acts have a history; today they are called homosexuality. Before homosexuality they were called sodomy. In England during the reign of King Henry VIII sodomy became a civil offense with the passage of the buggery Act of 1533. In Germany in the late 1860s the transition from a religious model to a medical model for same-sex sexual acts begin. It was at this time the term homosexual came about. [Emphasis added]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports:

Gay and bisexual men are the population most affected by HIV in the United States. In 2016, gay and bisexual men accounted for 67% of the 40,324 new HIV diagnoses in the United States and 6 dependent areas. Approximately 492,000 sexually active gay and bisexual men are at high risk for HIV; however, we have more tools to prevent HIV than ever before.

Download the Fact Sheet

Where does Socialism fit in?

Thomas Harrison, co-director of the Campaign for Peace and Democracy and a member of the editorial board of New Politics, in his 2009 column “Socialism and Homosexuality” wrote:

MARX AND ENGELS NEVER SUBJECTED homophobia to the sort of historical materialist criticism that they, especially Engels, applied to the family and the oppression of women. Indeed, Engels in particular evinced all the prejudices of high Victorianism when it came to homosexuality. 

[ … ]

Engels’ pioneering analysis, published in 1884 as The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, tried to show that the family and the oppression of women were not embedded in “human nature,” but arose historically in conjunction with the emergence of class societies2; the abolition of class society, therefore, could be expected to free women and abolish the family, at least as a site of gender inequality. At the same time, Engels presents heterosexuality as unproblematically “natural.” Homosexuality is briefly mentioned, disparagingly, in connection with ancient Greece as nothing but a product of misogyny.

Harrison then outlines the new Democrat Socialist view on sodomy stating, “Without excusing Engels’ ugly homophobia, and that of Marx, it seems short sighted to simply equate them with the standard-issue bigots of their time. Marxism, as a method of historical analysis and a theory of democratic revolution from below, created the tools for understanding the relation of gay oppression to misogyny and compulsory heterosexuality, and for pointing the way toward liberation.”

The neo-Marxist must embrace gays as victims of oppression. In the United States, gays are not oppressed and are subject to equal protection under the law. The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. Overt oppression of gays is seen in predominantly Muslim countries such as Iran.

Anyone who criticizes sodomy is labeled homophobic, unless they are Muslims. The great oxymoron is the political joining at the hip of Democrat Socialists with Islamists. In the end one will win politically. If the Islamists win then sodomy will be outlawed. If the Democrat Socialists win then heterosexual males and families will be outlawed. These are two poisoned pills that will kill any society.

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EDITORS NOTE: The edited featured photo is by Marc Schäfer on Unsplash.

President Trump’s Proclamation on Mass Migration

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The whole idea of Democratic operatives’ well funded caravans is to overwhelm the U.S. asylum system and turn thousands of illegal aliens loose into our country in order to become “undocumented Democrats” and fraudulently vote in elections.

President Trump’s new rule on asylum fixes a dangerous loophole.

President Trump signed a presidential proclamation (below) that prevents migrants from claiming asylum unless they do so at an official border crossing. Despite pushback from the leftist organizations, like the ACLU, the order merely directs people to one of more than 300 ports of entry to legally present their asylum claims, which will be evaluated in a fair and orderly process. Heritage experts say this new rule will fix a loophole that has been used to overwhelm the immigration system, destabilize the border region, and make millions for human trafficking cartels.

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Presidential Proclamation Addressing Mass Migration Through the Southern Border of the United States

IMMIGRATION Issued on: November 9, 2018

The United States expects the arrival at the border between the United States and Mexico (southern border) of a substantial number of aliens primarily from Central America who appear to have no lawful basis for admission into our country. They are traveling in large, organized groups through Mexico and reportedly intend to enter the United States unlawfully or without proper documentation and to seek asylum, despite the fact that, based on past experience, a significant majority will not be eligible for or be granted that benefit. Many entered Mexico unlawfully — some with violence — and have rejected opportunities to apply for asylum and benefits in Mexico. The arrival of large numbers of aliens will contribute to the overloading of our immigration and asylum system and to the release of thousands of aliens into the interior of the United States. The continuing and threatened mass migration of aliens with no basis for admission into the United States through our southern border has precipitated a crisis and undermines the integrity of our borders. I therefore must take immediate action to protect the national interest, and to maintain the effectiveness of the asylum system for legitimate asylum seekers who demonstrate that they have fled persecution and warrant the many special benefits associated with asylum.

In recent weeks, an average of approximately 2,000 inadmissible aliens have entered each day at our southern border. In Fiscal Year 2018 overall, 124,511 aliens were found inadmissible at ports of entry on the southern border, while 396,579 aliens were apprehended entering the United States unlawfully between such ports of entry. The great number of aliens who cross unlawfully into the United States through the southern border consumes tremendous resources as the Government seeks to surveil, apprehend, screen, process, and detain them.

Aliens who enter the United States unlawfully or without proper documentation and are subject to expedited removal may avoid being promptly removed by demonstrating, during an initial screening process, a credible fear of persecution or torture. Approximately 2 decades ago, most aliens deemed inadmissible at a port of entry or apprehended after unlawfully entering the United States through the southern border were single adults who were promptly returned to Mexico, and very few asserted a fear of return. Since then, however, there has been a massive increase in fear-of-persecution or torture claims by aliens who enter the United States through the southern border. The vast majority of such aliens are found to satisfy the credible-fear threshold, although only a fraction of the claimants whose claims are adjudicated ultimately qualify for asylum or other protection. Aliens found to have a credible fear are often released into the interior of the United States, as a result of a lack of detention space and a variety of other legal and practical difficulties, pending adjudication of their claims in a full removal proceeding in immigration court. The immigration adjudication process often takes years to complete because of the growing volume of claims and because of the need to expedite proceedings for detained aliens. During that time, many released aliens fail to appear for hearings, do not comply with subsequent orders of removal, or are difficult to locate and remove.

Members of family units pose particular challenges. The Federal Government lacks sufficient facilities to house families together. Virtually all members of family units who enter the United States through the southern border, unlawfully or without proper documentation, and that are found to have a credible fear of persecution, are thus released into the United States. Against this backdrop of near-assurance of release, the number of such aliens traveling as family units who enter through the southern border and claim a credible fear of persecution has greatly increased. And large numbers of family units decide to make the dangerous and unlawful border crossing with their children.

The United States has a long and proud history of offering protection to aliens who are fleeing persecution and torture and who qualify under the standards articulated in our immigration laws, including through our asylum system and the Refugee Admissions Program. But our system is being overwhelmed by migration through our southern border. Crossing the border to avoid detection and then, if apprehended, claiming a fear of persecution is in too many instances an avenue to near-automatic release into the interior of the United States. Once released, such aliens are very difficult to remove. An additional influx of large groups of aliens arriving at once through the southern border would add tremendous strain to an already taxed system, especially if they avoid orderly processing by unlawfully crossing the southern border.

The entry of large numbers of aliens into the United States unlawfully between ports of entry on the southern border is contrary to the national interest, and our law has long recognized that aliens who seek to lawfully enter the United States must do so at ports of entry. Unlawful entry puts lives of both law enforcement and aliens at risk. By contrast, entry at ports of entry at the southern border allows for orderly processing, which enables the efficient deployment of law enforcement resources across our vast southern border.

Failing to take immediate action to stem the mass migration the United States is currently experiencing and anticipating would only encourage additional mass unlawful migration and further overwhelming of the system.

Other presidents have taken strong action to prevent mass migration. In Proclamation 4865 of September 29, 1981 (High Seas Interdiction of Illegal Aliens), in response to an influx of Haitian nationals traveling to the United States by sea, President Reagan suspended the entry of undocumented aliens from the high seas and ordered the Coast Guard to intercept such aliens before they reached United States shores and to return them to their point of origin. In Executive Order 12807 of May 24, 1992 (Interdiction of Illegal Aliens), in response to a dramatic increase in the unlawful mass migration of Haitian nationals to the United States, President Bush ordered additional measures to interdict such Haitian nationals and return them to their home country. The Supreme Court upheld the legality of those measures in Sale v. Haitian Centers Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155 (1993).

I am similarly acting to suspend, for a limited period, the entry of certain aliens in order to address the problem of large numbers of aliens traveling through Mexico to enter our country unlawfully or without proper documentation. I am tailoring the suspension to channel these aliens to ports of entry, so that, if they enter the United States, they do so in an orderly and controlled manner instead of unlawfully. Under this suspension, aliens entering through the southern border, even those without proper documentation, may, consistent with this proclamation, avail themselves of our asylum system, provided that they properly present themselves for inspection at a port of entry. In anticipation of a large group of aliens arriving in the coming weeks, I am directing the Secretary of Homeland Security to commit additional resources to support our ports of entry at the southern border to assist in processing those aliens — and all others arriving at our ports of entry — as efficiently as possible.

But aliens who enter the United States unlawfully through the southern border in contravention of this proclamation will be ineligible to be granted asylum under the regulation promulgated by the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security that became effective earlier today. Those aliens may, however, still seek other forms of protection from persecution or torture. In addition, this limited suspension will facilitate ongoing negotiations with Mexico and other countries regarding appropriate cooperative arrangements to prevent unlawful mass migration to the United States through the southern border. Thus, this proclamation is also necessary to manage and conduct the foreign affairs of the United States effectively.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 212(f) and 215(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) (8 U.S.C. 1182(f) and 1185(a), respectively) hereby find that, absent the measures set forth in this proclamation, the entry into the United States of persons described in section 1 of this proclamation would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and that their entry should be subject to certain restrictions, limitations, and exceptions. I therefore hereby proclaim the following:

Section 1. Suspension and Limitation on Entry. The entry of any alien into the United States across the international boundary between the United States and Mexico is hereby suspended and limited, subject to section 2 of this proclamation. That suspension and limitation shall expire 90 days after the date of this proclamation or the date on which an agreement permits the United States to remove aliens to Mexico in compliance with the terms of section 208(a)(2)(A) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1158(a)(2)(A)), whichever is earlier.

Sec. 2. Scope and Implementation of Suspension and Limitation on Entry. (a) The suspension and limitation on entry pursuant to section 1 of this proclamation shall apply only to aliens who enter the United States after the date of this proclamation.

(b) The suspension and limitation on entry pursuant to section 1 of this proclamation shall not apply to any alien who enters the United States at a port of entry and properly presents for inspection, or to any lawful permanent resident of the United States.

(c) Nothing in this proclamation shall limit an alien entering the United States from being considered for withholding of removal under section 241(b)(3) of the INA (8 U.S.C. 1231(b)(3)) or protection pursuant to the regulations promulgated under the authority of the implementing legislation regarding the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, or limit the statutory processes afforded to unaccompanied alien children upon entering the United States under section 279 of title 6, United States Code, and section 1232 of title 8, United States Code.

(d) No later than 90 days after the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall jointly submit to the President, through the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, a recommendation on whether an extension or renewal of the suspension or limitation on entry in section 1 of this proclamation is in the interests of the United States.

Sec. 3. Interdiction. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall consult with the Government of Mexico regarding appropriate steps — consistent with applicable law and the foreign policy, national security, and public-safety interests of the United States — to address the approach of large groups of aliens traveling through Mexico with the intent of entering the United States unlawfully, including efforts to deter, dissuade, and return such aliens before they physically enter United States territory through the southern border.

Sec. 4. Severability. It is the policy of the United States to enforce this proclamation to the maximum extent possible to advance the interests of the United States. Accordingly:

(a) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and the application of its other provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby; and

(b) if any provision of this proclamation, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid because of the failure to follow certain procedures, the relevant executive branch officials shall implement those procedural requirements to conform with existing law and with any applicable court orders.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this proclamation shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This proclamation shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This proclamation is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eighteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-third.

DONALD J. TRUMP

EDITOR NOTE: This column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Don Ross III on Unsplash.

Blaming the Victim in the Digital Age

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Consider the following scenario:

A murder investigation is underway to determine the identity of the shooter. The detective questioning the suspect accuses him of shooting the woman he robbed. The suspect indignantly retorts, “BUT SHE WOULDN’T GIVE ME HER PURSE!!”

WHAT? The robber is blaming the victim because she refused to give him what he wanted! The victimizer is rationalizing his behavior and misrepresents himself as the victim.

The facts of this case are not in dispute – the suspect admits he shot the woman he was robbing. It is the interpretation of those facts that are being disputed – WHO is to blame – victim or victimizer?

In a sane society the shooter is blamed for the murder and is held criminally responsible. In today’s upside down world of Leftist Democrat identity politics, society accepts the shooter’s interpretation and the victim is being blamed for not surrendering to the demands of the victimizer. The perpetrator has been allowed to frame the argument.

The escalating antisemitism in Europe and America illustrates the same operating principle of blaming the victim where the perpetrators are being allowed to frame the argument. This is how it works.

Tabitha Korol’s recent article, “Paradise Long-lost,” documents the blatant falsehoods and misrepresentations in Randa Siniora’s October 25, 2018 anti-Semitic address to the UN Security Council. So, let’s investigate Ms. Siniora’s odious “blame the victim” presentation.

Ms. Siniora begins her address with a lofty self-aggrandizing introduction to frame the argument:

“Mr. President, Excellencies, Civil Society colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good morning. Today, I speak in my capacity as the General Director of the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC). I also speak on behalf of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security. I speak to you as a peace leader and as a human rights defender who has witnessed, documented, and spoken out about violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for three decades.”

The body of Siniora’s 1500 word speech typifies the deliberate worldwide effort to demonize Israel. The incessant repetition of lies, distortions, and blaming Jews for Arab violence defines the current echo chamber that is propagandizing adults on the Internet and indoctrinating children in schools worldwide.

It is Hitler’s old tried and true political strategy – if you tell a lie big enough and long enough it will be believed as the truth.

Propaganda is a far more powerful tool than bullets in Western societies. Ever since oil was discovered in Saudi Arabia the greedy West has allowed itself to be propagandized by the anti-Semitic Jew hatred of the Arab world. Politicians were bribed, university chairs were bought, Internet behemoths began curating/censoring content, and pro-Arab policies became normative resulting in sharia compliant anti-Semites serving in public office.

We live in a 21st century digital world that is indoctrinating the public to blame the victim and believe that the Jews are the problem. Rational arguments and documented facts are not persuasive to those who embrace their political self-interest with emotional religious zeal. The anti-semitic echo chamber in Nazi Germany transformed a sovereign country into a killing machine. Today, the United Nations represents a worldwide anti-Semitic echo chamber united against Israel. The United States and Israel are powerful sovereign nations and formidable obstacles in the globalist campaign for one world government.

We are now at a global tipping point. The liberal Leftist Democrats in the United States and the ultra-left Labor party in England have been exposed for embracing the anti-Semitic lies of the echo chamber. The Leftist leaders will collapse their countries’ economies if they gain power and will blame the Jews for the collapse.

It is not enough for rational people to shake their heads confused by how it is possible for lies, inconsistencies, and distortions to be believed. They must fight back by exposing the deliberateness of the propaganda effort to blame the Jews and recognize that antisemitism is a galvanizing political tool. The lying echo chamber that promotes the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and supports Ms. Siniora is the same lying echo chamber that facilitated Obama’s catastrophic anti-American anti-Semitic Iran deal.

The Constitution of the United States has been America’s enduring, non-partisan, foundational document guaranteeing our individual rights and freedoms for 242 years. Leftist Democrats are seeking to transform our Constitution into a living breathing document that will reflect their partisan political aspirations. This partisan transformation will allow the institutionalization of antisemitism and legalize its blame the victim infrastructure.

It is essential to recognize that masses of illegal immigrants bring antisemitism with them when they cross the border. Population shifting and forced illegal immigration is a political strategy designed to collapse the economies and sovereignty of Western nations in preparation for one world government.

Like Hitler in the 1930s, Leftist leaders here and abroad are using the unifying tool of antisemitism to gain partisan power and control over their respective governments. They have embraced the Islamists and Globalists in a bizarre alliance of common cause.

Here is the problem.

The Leftist/Islamist/Globalist axis is the short term head of a poisonous three-headed snake. The Islamists believe they will prevail. The Globalists believe they will prevail. The Leftists are the useful idiots for both sides. Time will tell the outcome.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Goudsmit Pundicity. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash.

U.S. Bishops, Vatican Slapped with Simultaneous Lawsuits. Church leaders accused of conspiracy, deception, concealment.

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) by Stephen Wynne– On Tuesday, as the U.S. bishops were still absorbing the news that the Vatican had blocked action on clerical sex abuse, they were slapped with two simultaneous lawsuits, with one naming the Holy See as a defendant.

Both lawsuits seek to force open diocesan secret archives by court order, compelling the U.S. Church to reveal the identities and histories of its predators.

One suit, launched by six clerical sex abuse victims, was filed in federal district court in Minnesota. It alleges that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) concealed “the known histories and identities from the public, parishioners and law enforcement of clergy accused of sexually abusing children across the country.”

Speaking Tuesday, Jeff Anderson, attorney for the six plaintiffs, warned the Church “maintains” a threat to public safety.

The same day, a class-action suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against both the USCCB and the Vatican itself — an unprecedented legal move.

It accuses the Church of conspiracy and running a criminal enterprise under federal racketeering statutes.

According to the 80-page class-action suit:

This case is about the endemic, systemic, rampant, and pervasive rape and sexual abuse of Plaintiffs and Class Members perpetrated by Roman Catholic Church cardinals, bishops, monsignors, priests, sisters, lay leaders, members of Catholic religious orders, educators, and other of Defendants’ personnel, members, agents, and representatives (collectively, “Clergy” or “Catholic Clergy”) while serving in active ministry — with the knowledge of Defendants.

It accuses Church leaders of promoting a public hazard by covering up the crimes of predator priests:

Rather than safeguarding and protecting Plaintiffs and Class Members — who were minor children at the time — Defendants protected the abusive Clergy, took extraordinary measures to conceal their wrongful conduct, moved them from parish to parish, without warning church members or the general public, thereby further facilitating their predatory practices, failed and refused to report the abusive Clergy to law enforcement or other responsible authorities as required by law, and — incredibly — even promoted the abusive Clergy. Defendants’ wrongful acts are ongoing and continuous.

The class-action suit accuses the Church of violating the federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which was originally devised to target organized crime syndicates. It seeks to triple financial damages for “unlawful and intentional schemes, actions, inaction, omissions, cover-up, deception, and concealment, obstructive behavior regarding investigations, and conspiracy of silence,” which “constitute assault, breach of fiduciary duty, negligence/gross negligence, negligence per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress, wrongful death, public nuisance, conspiracy, and aiding and abetting.”

The class-action suit is historic, in that it attempts to hold the Vatican liable in the United States for the actions of its clergy — a first. Up to now, the Vatican has avoided liability by claiming it has no direct authority over clergy.

But this assertion was shattered on Monday when the Holy See blocked the USCCB vote in Baltimore.

“If that’s not command responsibility, I don’t know what is,” said attorney Mitchell A. Toups, who is helping lead the class-action suit.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with video and images is republished with permission.

Where to Shop this Christmas

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With Black Friday next week and Cyber Monday soon after, it is clear Christmas shopping is about to be in full swing. Maybe you’ve received a few Christmas gift lists, maybe you’ve sent them out, or maybe you’re left to your own devices this year for your loved ones. Whatever your situation, Christmas shopping can easily send you scrambling all over town in search of those perfect gifts, so here are a handful of stores that we suggest doing your Christmas shopping at this year.

Ace Hardware
Is there a handy guy or gal in your life that would like some new tools? Ace Hardware, rightfully coined the helpful place, is your destination. There variety of tools and helpful service make it the perfect alternative for Home Depot and Lowe’s.

Anthropologie
Anthropologie is the gift destination this year for the trendsetter in your family. The store is packed full of trendy home decor and the latest fashion. Buying their gift from Anthropologie will transform you into the ”cool one” this Christmas.

Overstock.com
Overstock is the website to check out if the idea of visiting a store during Christmas time makes you nauseated. They have everything from furniture to jewelry. If you have a long list filled with variety and in need of convenience, Overstock is a great alternative to Amazon this year.

When you’re rushed, it’s easy to forget to check 2ndVote scores to make sure your dollar is aligning with your values. That’s why we’ve made the list and checked it twice so you don’t have to stress about where to go this season. Here is our complete Christmas List:


Ace Hardware – 4
Anthropologie – 3
Bass Pro Shops – 5
Bed Bath & Beyond – 3
Dillards – 3
Hobby Lobby – 5
J.Crew – 3
Kay Jewelers – 3
Overstock.com – 4
World Market – 3

Click here to find out what stores to avoid shopping at this Christmas!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.