Immigration Anarchists’ Lies Debunked: It’s as Easy as Child’s Play.

So much of what has come to pass for “common knowledge” is actually an example of how the principle of “The Big Lie” can alter the public’s understanding of critical issues. Immigration has proven to be particularly vulnerable to this tactic.

Under that principle, officials intentionally concoct falsehoods and repeat them at every possible opportunity to convince the masses that the lies are the truth.  This principle was adopted by Nazi Germany in order to con the German populace into accepting the unfathomable depravity of the Third Reich.

Because humans think with words, control of language ultimately results in control of thought.  This was the underlying principle of my recent article, Language Wars, The Road to Tyranny is Paved With Language Censorship.

Today the attention span of most Americans can be measured in minutes, if not seconds, further exacerbating the susceptibility of folks to fall victim to language manipulation tactics. The tactics employed by the open-borders/immigration anarchists to further their cause are so easy to disprove that even a child could see through their warped logic.

First off, consider the game of “Musical Chairs,” which most children are familiar with.  In this game, as music plays,’ kids circle a line of chairs that alternate in the way that the chairs are facing.  When the music stops each child scrambles to sit in one of the chairs.  What makes the game challenging is that there is one fewer chair than the number of kids playing.  Consequently, one child is unable to find a chair and is removed from the game along with one chair.  Once again there is one chair fewer than the number of participating children.  The music starts again and the kids circle the remaining chairs until the music stops.  Each time one chair and one child are removed until the contest comes down to two kids and one chair.  Whichever kid manages to sit is declared the winner of the game.

If you wonder what this has to do with immigration, imagine that during the game one of the adults supervising the game opens a door and allows many more children to flood into the room, however, the number of chairs is not increased.  This way the odds of the children already playing the game will succeed in grabbing a seat has just been decreased due to the number of new players introduced into the game.

It should be expected that the children will scream that what has just happened is unfair and of course they would be right.

Now let’s imagine that we are not talking about a childhood game and that the chairs are available jobs and the children are adult workers who are desperate to find a job.  The “doors” that have been flung open are America’s borders and those entering the room (labor pool) are many foreign workers, deleteriously impacting jobs and wages across a wide spectrum of industries and skill levels.

Incredibly, many Americans cannot figure out the parallel between these two situations.  The Democrats who refused to stand for the State of the Union Address when President Trump noted how unemployment levels for American blacks and Latinos were at the lowest point in years were clearly unhappy. Could it be that they have been depending on making Americans more dependent on the “crumbs” that they offer? I use the term “crumbs” because this was the very word used by Nancy Pelosi to describe the thousand-dollar bonuses a number of companies provided to their employees because of the Trump tax cuts.

Next let’s think back to the days of “Hide and Seek” where one child covers his/her eyes and counts to ten and then attempts to find another child who went hiding when the first child closed his eyes.

Today that game is being played by illegal aliens with great success because the number of ICE agents, and the number of INS agents that preceded the creation of ICE, has always been insignificant when compared with the huge number of illegal aliens who have entered the United States without inspection or violating the terms of their lawful admissions.

Sanctuary city policies make it ever more difficult for the overwhelmed ICE agents to track down and apprehend illegal aliens, even when those aliens are engaged in criminal or terror-related activities.

Of course, the mayors of sanctuary cities and governors of sanctuary states hypocritically draw parallels between their actions and the actions of leaders of the Civil Rights movement who put their lives on the line to right the wrongs of slavery, racism, segregation and discrimination.

Although this parallel is an enormous falsehood, it has been repeated in the news media and by a long list of immigration anarchists and consequently many have fallen for this outrageous analogy. Illegal aliens are certainly protected by due process when they are charged with a crime.  But due process is not the same as Civil Rights. The entire point to Civil Rights laws is to guarantee all Americans, particularly American blacks, equal opportunities to be successful in America and be full participants in American society. Elements of this include access to quality in education, job opportunities and housing.

Illegal aliens are not supposed to work, and knowingly providing shelter for illegal aliens can be construed as harboring and shielding, elements of a felony under federal law, Title 8 U.S. Code § 1324.

Where aliens and jobs are concerned, even many categories of nonimmigrant aliens (temporary visitors) including aliens who lawfully enter under the Visa Waiver Program or with tourist visas may not work in the United States and immediately become subject to removal (deportation) if they seek gainful employment.

Prior to WWII the Labor Department was in charge of immigration.  The greatest concern, back then, was to shield American workers from foreign competition.  This is how the middle class was nurtured and grew to become the envy of the world and came to be known as the “American Dream.”

Incredibly when President Trump, in his State of the Union Address proclaimed, “American are dreamers too” the members of the Democratic Party reacted with sheer hostility, not only towards the President, but hostility and contempt for Americans.

Awhile back I wrote an article about the veiled attack on the middle class.  In that article I reported on how on April 30, 2009, Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, testified at a hearing advocating the passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation, conducted by Chuck Schumer, then Chairman of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee.

Greenspan was “all in” on legalizing illegal aliens, creating a guest worker program for aliens and for hugely increasing the number of H-1B visas as Bill Gates, whom he quoted, recommended.

As for the impact on American workers and American cities where illegal alien workers were concerned, Greenspan said:

Some evidence suggests that unskilled illegal immigrants (almost all from Latin America) marginally suppress wage levels of native-born Americans without a high school diploma, and impose significant costs on some state and local governments.

That “marginal suppression of wages” for America’s working poor is likely a significant cause of unemployment of Americans and a record levels of homelessness of Americans.

Greenspan’s advocacy for greatly increasing the number of H-1B foreign worker included this justification:

The second bonus would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.

Greenspan actually had the unmitigated chutzpah to refer to high-tech American workers as the “privileged elite” who are being shielded from foreign competition.  As an economist Greenspan understand “supply and demand” and seeks to greatly increase the supply of compliant and exploitable foreign workers in the labor pool to drive down everyone’s wages.

The Democrats frequently equate providing a minimum wage of $10.10 per hour or $15.00 per hour with “wage equality.”  This is clearly not about wage equality but about establishing a “standard wage” which would eradicate the middle class.

The “reforming” of our immigration laws for Greenspan and his globalist cohorts is an effort to actually re-form our immigration system to speed the destruction of the middle class.

Since that hearing Greenspan has persisted in his calls for re-forming the immigration system.

Hypocrisy is usually a clear indicator of a con job.  Schumer has called for creating a federal law with a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison for those who trespass on critical infrastructure or national landmarks.  Yet Schumer demands that aliens who trespass on America be granted United States citizenship.

A child could see through their lies.

RELATED ARTICLE: Refugees cost taxpayers billions to remain in U.S.

Michigan Wants to Investigate Church for… Ministering!

For years, we heard that the LGBT agenda wouldn’t affect you. Now, it’s not only affecting you — it’s affecting your church.

When the pastor of Metro City Church in Michigan reached out to help teenagers struggling with their sexuality, he never dreamed the workshop would be a story on the national news. After all, he was just doing what a spiritual leader should: ministering to the hurting. But no sooner had Pastor Jeremy Schossau launched the six-week program and the harassment began. Death threats started streaming into the church office — on Facebook, Twitter, and Metro City’s phone lines. Angry activists threatened to burn the church down or shoot members of the staff all because one congregation dared to offer healing, wholeness, and hope.

The series, called “Unashamed Identity Workshop,” was advertised as a girls-only outreach for kids 12-16 years old, who struggle with thoughts that they should identify as transgender, bisexual, or gay. “Through thoughtful, relevant, and biblical counsel, we will help your girl be unashamed of her true sexual identity given to her by God at birth.” Maybe, Pastor Jeremy says in this video response to the protests (which reached a mob of hundreds outside the church over the weekend), people don’t understand what the church is doing.

“A lot of people are calling this conversion therapy,” he says. “And if you think conversion therapy is grabbing somebody and forcing them into a pastor’s office and beating them with a Bible and condemning them and spitting on them and judging them, that is wrong. We oppose that in every single way. What we are about is conversation — not conversion. We are about conversation, not condemnation… [But] we find it incredibly odd that a community that has been so vocal about tolerance… about freedom, about choice… is seemingly very anti-choice when it comes to sexuality.”

But amazingly, nothing the church says seems to matter. State legislators are so incensed at the idea that people would willingly seek help that they’re calling for an investigation into the church! “It is wildly inappropriate to offer conversation therapy classes in our communities,” state Rep Adam Zemke (D) told local reporters, despite the fact that the church offers no such therapy! “I am proud,” Zemke went on, “to sponsor a bill to prohibit these practices in Michigan.” Until then, he’s calling on state Attorney General Bill Schuette to launch an official probe under the Consumer Protection Act.

This is astonishing call — even for the Left. For liberals to attack an event at a local church (instead of a therapist’s practice or counseling nonprofit) is a radical step into totalitarianism. What’s more, it shows the raw hostility they have for any sort of religious accommodation on social issues like sexuality. A church should be the freest and most logical place to engage in these conversations. Now, the Left is trying to change even that.

“Liberals have shown their contempt for religious liberty,” FRC’s Peter Sprigg pointed out, “suing and driving out of business a Jewish ministry that helped adults achieve the same goal. If they succeed in this attack on a local church, it’s only a matter of time before they try to outlaw even the verbal expression of the truth that a person’s sexual identity can change. Even people with no personal interest in sexual orientation or gender identity counseling should be alarmed at these growing attacks on religious liberty and free speech.”

FRC’s Travis Weber agreed, warning every church that it’s only a matter of time until the Left comes for them. “This should be a wakeup call for any Christian across our country who holds to historic biblical teaching on marriage and sexuality. Those who think they can stay out of the fray and avoid conflict by publicly staying silent on this issue are mistaken. Maybe not today, but at some point, you will have to take a stand for what you believe.”


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


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Why the 2020 Census Needs a Citizenship Question

The request set off a firestorm of protest from Democratic lawmakers, liberal activists and left-leaning journalists despite the fact that before the Obama administration removed citizenship: in 2010 it was part of the main Census. They are concerned that asking about citizenship would discourage illegal aliens from participating in the 2020 Census, leading to undercounts in states like California and New York, which have large numbers of illegal residents. This would reduce the number of electoral votes and congressional districts in such states.

By Jay O’ Callaghan

In an action which set off a major uproar from the left, the Justice Department has requested that a single simple citizenship question be added to the full 2020 Census so they can better enforce voting-rights laws and increase confidence in election results.

“In order to assess and enforce compliance with Section 2’s protection against discrimination in voting, the Department needs to be able to obtain citizen voting-age population data,” Arthur E. Gary, general counsel at the justice management division of the Justice Department, wrote in a December 12th. letter to Census Bureau Acting Director Ron Jarmin.

Citizenship has long been a part of the census since the 1850s. The Obama administration removed it for the 2010 Census along with most other questions and shifted it to the smaller, in-depth rolling survey known as the American Community Survey (ACS) when it eliminated the old long form. The ACS is filled out by only one in every 38 households every year, compared to the long form which surveyed one in six households every 10 years.

Devin M. O’Malley, a Justice Department spokesman, points out the Census Bureau reports that such data isn’t precise enough to use in redistricting, and it’s important to have the citizenship question on the main Census form that will cover all Americans.

The Census Bureau states that it asks the citizenship question in general because: “we ask about place of birth, citizenship, and year of entry to provide statistics about citizens and the foreign-born population. These statistics are essential for agencies and policy makers setting and evaluating immigration policies and laws, understanding how different immigrant groups are assimilated, and monitoring against discrimination. These statistics are also used to tailor services to accommodate cultural differences.”

In a recent Supreme Court case (Evenwel v. Abbott 2016) the legality of districting based on the count of citizens or eligible voters is unsettled after the Supreme Court declined to address it. In the Evenwel case, the plaintiffs sought to require Texas to draw its Senate districts based on citizenship rather than the present method of total population.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, four former census directors, who served under administrations of both parties, supported Texas because “the geographic areas at which such estimates are available carry large error margins because of the small sample sizes.” They concluded the ACS is “an inappropriate source of data to support a constitutional rule requiring states to create districts with equal numbers of voting age citizens.”

Steven Camarota, director of research at the Center for Immigration Studies, is among the researchers who supports the request. He believes that “basically more information is always better from a researcher’s point of view…and when you look at things like apportioning and redistricting, which rely on Census data, those things are always a concern.”

The request set off a firestorm of protest from Democratic lawmakers, liberal activists and left-leaning journalists despite the fact that before the Obama administration removed citizenship: in 2010 it was part of the main Census. They are concerned that asking about citizenship would discourage illegal aliens from participating in the 2020 Census, leading to undercounts in states like California and New York, which have large numbers of illegal residents. This would reduce the number of electoral votes and congressional districts in such states.

Arguments against including the citizenship question “are weakened because citizenship was asked on Census forms throughout much of American history” according to Tony Quinn, the editor of the authoritative guide to California districts, the California Target Book.

He points out that “early in our history the Census began asking whether the individual being enumerated was born in the United States. After the Civil War, with the huge boom in European migration, the Census asked whether the person was a citizen eligible to vote. Beginning in 1880, the Census asked the place of birth not only of the enumerated person but of the parents as well.”

Quinn adds that “with the 1890 census the question was asked: are you a naturalized citizen or not. The year of immigration of a foreign-born person as well as the year of naturalization (if naturalized) was asked in the 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940 and 1950 censuses, in other words for the first half of the 20th Century.”

He also supports adding the citizenship question because: “the census asked about citizenship during the great migrations of the 19th and 20th Centuries because the government had a legitimate reason to want to know where people came from. We now have a large immigrant population, some of whom are legal and some of whom are not. Certainly, it is legitimate to want to determine who this population is.”

Questions in the 2020 Census must be decided by April, two years before the Census is conducted, and any Census questions must have the approval of Congress. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and other Census officials should endorse the Justice Department request and encourage lawmakers to add it to the 2020 Census.


ABOUT JAY O’CALLAGHAN

Jay O’Callaghan has worked extensively with issues involving the U.S. Census Bureau including serving as a professional staff member for the House Government Reform Census Subcommittee, as a senior legislative analyst for the Florida House of Representatives Redistricting Committee and for two U.S. House members. He is also a contributor to SFPPR News & Analysis, of the Conservative-Online-Journalism center at the Washington-based Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research.

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Transgender Ideology Is Riddled With Contradictions. Here Are the Big Ones.

People say that we live in a postmodern age that has rejected metaphysics. That’s not quite true.

We live in a postmodern age that promotes an alternative metaphysics. As I explain in “When Harry Became Sally,” at the heart of the transgender moment are radical ideas about the human person—in particular, that people are what they claim to be, regardless of contrary evidence. A transgender boy is a boy, not merely a girl who identifies as a boy.

It’s understandable why activists make these claims. An argument about transgender identities will be much more persuasive if it concerns who someone is, not merely how someone identifies. And so the rhetoric of the transgender moment drips with ontological assertions: People are the gender they prefer to be. That’s the claim.

Transgender activists don’t admit that this is a metaphysical claim. They don’t want to have the debate on the level of philosophy, so they dress it up as a scientific and medical claim. And they’ve co-opted many professional associations for their cause.

Thus the American Psychological Association, in a pamphlet titled “Answers to Your Questions about Transgender People, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression,” tells us, “Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.”

Notice the politicized language: A person’s sex is “assigned at birth.” Back in 2005, even the Human Rights Campaign referred instead to “birth sex” and “physical sex.”

The phrase “sex assigned at birth” is now favored because it makes room for “gender identity” as the real basis of a person’s sex.

In an expert declaration to a federal district court in North Carolina concerning H.B. 2, Dr. Deanna Adkins stated, “From a medical perspective, the appropriate determinant of sex is gender identity.” Adkins is a professor at Duke University School of Medicine and the director of the Duke Center for Child and Adolescent Gender Care (which opened in 2015).

Adkins argues that gender identity is not only the preferred basis for determining sex, but “the only medically supported determinant of sex.” Every other method is bad science, she claims: “It is counter to medical science to use chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, external genitalia, or secondary sex characteristics to override gender identity for purposes of classifying someone as male or female.”

This is a remarkable claim, not least because the argument recently was that gender is only a social construct, while sex is a biological reality. Now, activists claim that gender identity is destiny, while biological sex is the social construct.

Adkins doesn’t say if she would apply this rule to all mammalian species. But why should sex be determined differently in humans than in other mammals? And if medical science holds that gender identity determines sex in humans, what does this mean for the use of medicinal agents that have different effects on males and females? Does the proper dosage of medicine depend on the patient’s sex or gender identity?

But what exactly is this “gender identity” that is supposed to be the true medical determinant of sex? Adkins defines it as “a person’s inner sense of belonging to a particular gender, such as male or female.”

Note that little phrase “such as,” implying that the options are not necessarily limited to male or female. Other activists are more forthcoming in admitting that gender identity need not be restricted to the binary choice of male or female, but can include both or neither. The American Psychological Association, for example, defines “gender identity” as “a person’s internal sense of being male, female, or something else.”

Adkins asserts that being transgender is not a mental disorder, but simply “a normal developmental variation.” And she claims, further, that medical and mental health professionals who specialize in the treatment of gender dysphoria are in agreement with this view.

Transgender Catechism

These notions about sex and gender are now being taught to young children. Activists have created child-friendly graphics for this purpose, such as the “Genderbread Person.” The Genderbread Person teaches that when it comes to sexuality and gender, people have five different characteristics, each of them falling along a spectrum.

There’s “gender identity,” which is “how you, in your head, define your gender, based on how much you align (or don’t align) with what you understand to be the options for gender.” The graphic lists “4 (of infinite)” possibilities for gender identity: “woman-ness,” “man-ness,” “two-spirit,” or “genderqueer.”

The second characteristic is “gender expression,” which is “the way you present gender, through your actions, dress, and demeanor.” In addition to “feminine” or “masculine,” the options are “butch,” “femme,” “androgynous,” or “gender neutral.”

Third is “biological sex,” defined as “the physical sex characteristics you’re born with and develop, including genitalia, body shape, voice pitch, body hair, hormones, chromosomes, etc.”

The final two characteristics concern sexual orientation: “sexually attracted to” and “romantically attracted to.” The options include “Women/Females/Femininity” and “Men/Males/Masculinity.” Which seems rather binary.

The Genderbread Person tries to localize these five characteristics on the body: gender identity in the brain, sexual and romantic attraction in the heart, biological sex in the pelvis, and gender expression everywhere.

The Genderbread Person espouses the latest iteration of transgender ideology. (Photo: Sam Killerman/It’s Prounounced Metrosexual)

The Genderbread Person presented here is version 3.3, incorporating adjustments made in response to criticism of earlier versions. But even this one violates current dogma. Some activists have complained that the Genderbread Person looks overly male.

A more serious fault in the eyes of many activists is the use of the term “biological sex.” Time magazine drew criticism for the same transgression in 2014 after publishing a profile of Laverne Cox, the “first out trans person” to be featured on the cover.

At least the folks at Time got credit for trying to be “good allies, explaining what many see as a complicated issue,” wrote Mey Rude in an article titled “It’s Time for People to Stop Using the Social Construct of ‘Biological Sex’ to Defend Their Transmisogyny.” (It’s hard to keep up with the transgender moment.)

But Time was judged guilty of using “a simplistic and outdated understanding of biology to perpetuate some very dangerous ideas about trans women,” and failing to acknowledge that biological sex “isn’t something we’re actually born with, it’s something that doctors or our parents assign us at birth.”

Today, transgender “allies” in good standing don’t use the Genderbread Person in their classrooms, but opt for the “Gender Unicorn,” which was created by Trans Student Educational Resources. It has a body shape that doesn’t appear either male or female, and instead of a “biological sex” it has a “sex assigned at birth.”

Those are the significant changes to the Genderbread Person, and they were made so that the new graphic would “more accurately portray the distinction between gender, sex assigned at birth, and sexuality.”

According to Trans Student Education Resources, “Biological sex is an ambiguous word that has no scale and no meaning besides that it is related to some sex characteristics. It is also harmful to trans people. Instead, we prefer ‘sex assigned at birth’ which provides a more accurate description of what biological sex may be trying to communicate.”

The Gender Unicorn is the graphic that children are likely to encounter in school. These are the dogmas they are likely to be catechized to profess.

The Gender Unicorn is used to avoid using a male or female body as default. (Photo: Landyn Pan and Anna Moore/Trans Student Educational Resources)

While activists claim that the possibilities for gender identity are rather expansive—man, woman, both, neither—they also insist that gender identity is innate, or established at a very young age, and thereafter immutable.

Dr. George Brown, a professor of psychiatry and a three-time board member of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, stated in his declaration to the federal court in North Carolina that gender identity “is usually established early in life, by the age of 2 to 3 years old.”

Addressing the same court, Adkins asserted that “evidence strongly suggests that gender identity is innate or fixed at a young age and that gender identity has a strong biological basis.” (At no point in her expert declaration did she cite any sources for any of her claims.)

Transgender Contradictions

If the claims presented in this essay strike you as confusing, you’re not alone. The thinking of transgender activists is inherently confused and filled with internal contradictions. Activists never acknowledge those contradictions. Instead, they opportunistically rely on whichever claim is useful at any given moment.

Here I’m talking about transgender activists. Most people who suffer from gender dysphoria are not activists, and many of them reject the activists’ claims. Many of them may be regarded as victims of the activists, as I show in my book.

Many of those who feel distress over their bodily sex know that they aren’t really the opposite sex, and do not wish to “transition.” They wish to receive help in coming to identify with and accept their bodily self. They don’t think their feelings of gender dysphoria define reality.

But transgender activists do. Regardless of whether they identify as “cisgender” or “transgender,” the activists promote a highly subjective and incoherent worldview.

On the one hand, they claim that the real self is something other than the physical body, in a new form of Gnostic dualism, yet at the same time they embrace a materialist philosophy in which only the material world exists. They say that gender is purely a social construct, while asserting that a person can be “trapped” in the wrong gender.

They say there are no meaningful differences between man and woman, yet they rely on rigid sex stereotypes to argue that “gender identity” is real, while human embodiment is not. They claim that truth is whatever a person says it is, yet they believe there’s a real self to be discovered inside that person.

They promote a radical expressive individualism in which people are free to do whatever they want and define the truth however they wish, yet they try ruthlessly to enforce acceptance of transgender ideology.

It’s hard to see how these contradictory positions can be combined. If you pull too hard on any one thread of transgender ideology, the whole tapestry comes unraveled. But here are some questions we can pose:

If gender is a social construct, how can gender identity be innate and immutable? How can one’s identity with respect to a social construct be determined by biology in the womb? How can one’s identity be unchangeable (immutable) with respect to an ever-changing social construct? And if gender identity is innate, how can it be “fluid”?

The challenge for activists is to offer a plausible definition of gender and gender identity that is independent of bodily sex.

Is there a gender binary or not? Somehow, it both does and does not exist, according to transgender activists. If the categories of “man” and “woman” are objective enough that people can identify as, and bemen and women, how can gender also be a spectrum, where people can identify as, and be, both, or neither, or somewhere in between?

What does it even mean to have an internal sense of gender? What does gender feel like? What meaning can we give to the concept of sex or gender—and thus what internal “sense” can we have of gender—apart from having a body of a particular sex?

Apart from having a male body, what does it “feel like” to be a man? Apart from having a female body, what does it “feel like” to be a woman? What does it feel like to be both a man and a woman, or to be neither?

The challenge for the transgender activist is to explain what these feelings are like, and how someone could know if he or she “feels like” the opposite sex, or neither, or both.

Even if trans activists could answer these questions about feelings, that still wouldn’t address the matter of reality. Why should feeling like a man—whatever that means—make someone a man? Why do our feelings determine reality on the question of sex, but on little else? Our feelings don’t determine our age or our height. And few people buy into Rachel Dolezal’s claim to identify as a black woman, since she is clearly not.

If those who identify as transgender are the sex with which they identify, why doesn’t that apply to other attributes or categories of being? What about people who identify as animals, or able-bodied people who identify as disabled? Do all of these self-professed identities determine reality? If not, why not?

And should these people receive medical treatment to transform their bodies to accord with their minds? Why accept transgender “reality,” but not trans-racial, trans-species, and trans-abled reality?

The challenge for activists is to explain why a person’s “real” sex is determined by an inner “gender identity,” but age and height and race and species are not determined by an inner sense of identity.

Of course, a transgender activist could reply that an “identity” is, by definition, just an inner sense of self. But if that’s the case, gender identity is merely a disclosure of how one feels. Saying that someone is transgender, then, says only that the person has feelings that he or she is the opposite sex.

Gender identity, so understood, has no bearing at all on the meaning of “sex” or anything else. But transgender activists claim that a person’s self-professed “gender identity” is that person’s “sex.”

The challenge for activists is to explain why the mere feeling of being male or female (or both or neither) makes someone male or female (or both or neither).

Gender identity can sound a lot like religious identity, which is determined by beliefs. But those beliefs don’t determine reality. Someone who identifies as a Christian believes that Jesus is the Christ. Someone who identifies as a Muslim believes that Muhammad is the final prophet. But Jesus either is or is not the Christ, and Muhammad either is or is not the final prophet, regardless of what anyone happens to believe.

So, too, a person either is or is not a man, regardless of what anyone—including that person—happens to believe. The challenge for transgender activists is to present an argument for why transgender beliefs determine reality.

Determining reality is the heart of the matter, and here too we find contradictions.

On the one hand, transgender activists want the authority of science as they make metaphysical claims, saying that science reveals gender identity to be innate and unchanging. On the other hand, they deny that biology is destiny, insisting that people are free to be who they want to be.

Which is it? Is our gender identity biologically determined and immutable, or self-created and changeable? If the former, how do we account for people whose gender identity changes over time? Do these people have the wrong sense of gender at some time or other?

And if gender identity is self-created, why must other people accept it as reality? If we should be free to choose our own gender reality, why can some people impose their idea of reality on others just because they identify as transgender?

The challenge for the transgender activist is to articulate some conception of truth as the basis for how we understand the common good and how society should be ordered.

As I document in depth in “When Harry Became Sally,” the claims of transgender activists are confusing because they are philosophically incoherent. Activists rely on contradictory claims as needed to advance their position, but their ideology keeps evolving, so that even allies and LGBT organizations can get left behind as “progress” marches on.

At the core of the ideology is the radical claim that feelings determine reality. From this idea come extreme demands for society to play along with subjective reality claims. Trans ideologues ignore contrary evidence and competing interests, they disparage alternative practices, and they aim to muffle skeptical voices and shut down any disagreement.

The movement has to keep patching and shoring up its beliefs, policing the faithful, coercing the heretics, and punishing apostates, because as soon as its furious efforts flag for a moment or someone successfully stands up to it, the whole charade is exposed. That’s what happens when your dogmas are so contrary to obvious, basic, everyday truths.

A transgender future is not the “right side of history,” yet activists have convinced the most powerful sectors of our society to acquiesce to their demands. While the claims they make are manifestly false, it will take real work to prevent the spread of these harmful ideas.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ryan T. Anderson

Ryan T. Anderson, Ph.D., is the William E. Simon Senior Research Fellow in American Principles and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, where he researches and writes about marriage, bioethics, religious liberty and political philosophy. Anderson is the author of several books and his research has been cited by two U.S. Supreme Court justices in two separate cases. Read his Heritage research. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

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VIDEO: Germans Fight Back Against the Migrant Violence Toward Young Girls and Women!

Rebel Media’s Tommy Robinson reports:

The first in our three-part series in – where we document the resistance coming from ordinary Germans who are fed up with what’s been happening to their country.

We started out in Cottbus, where we heard about the fatal stabbing of a 15 year old girl called Mia in Kandel, by a ‘child’ migrant who was taken in and looked after ‘like a son’ by her parents.

We also heard about a young boy who was stabbed in the face when trying to protect his girlfriend from a Syrian migrant who was groping her as they walked through a local park.

Keep your eyes on Germany, 2018 is the year when German women will lead the way to speak out against the horrific crimes taking place across Europe thanks to undocumented, mass migration.

85 Years of Physician Assisted Death: From Nazi Germany’s T-4 Program to Washington, D.C.’s ‘Death with Dignity Act’

I came across an October 10, 1933 article titled “Nazi Plan to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups Oppose Move” published in The New York Times. The NYT reported:

The Ministry of Justice … explaining the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today announced its intentions to authorize physicians to end the sufferings of the incurable patient … in the interest of true humanity …”

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the “Murder of the Handicapped” program in Nazi Germany known as T-4:

Wartime, Adolf Hitler suggested, “was the best time for the elimination of the incurably ill.”Many Germans did not want to be reminded of individuals who did not measure up to their concept of a “master race.”The physically and mentally handicapped were viewed as “useless” to society, a threat to Aryan genetic purity, and, ultimately, unworthy of life. At the beginning of World War II, individuals who were mentally retarded, physically handicapped, or mentally ill were targeted for murder in what the Nazis called the “T-4,” or “euthanasia,” program.

[ … ]

Despite public protests in 1941, the Nazi leadership continued this program in secret throughout the war. About 200,000 handicapped people were murdered between 1940 and 1945.

The T-4 program became the model for the mass murder of Jews, Roma (Gypsies), and others in camps equipped with gas chambers that the Nazis would open in 1941 and 1942. The program also served as a training ground for SS members who manned these camps. [Emphasis added]

Where did the idea of Euthanasia come from?

According to Encyclopedia.com:

A few proposals to legalize euthanasia were made in the United States and Germany during the latter portion of the nineteenth century. However, it was not until after World War I that euthanasia advocacy began in earnest. In 1920, two highly respected German academics, Karl Binding, a law professor, and Alfred Hoche, a physician, wrote Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, which advocated euthanasia as a compassionate “healing treatment.” The authors argued that mercy killing should be permitted for three categories of patients upon request of competent patients or the families of the incompetent: the terminally ill or mortally wounded, people who were unconscious, and disabled people—particularly those with cognitive impairments. The book, which may have coined the term “right to die,” also promoted euthanasia of cognitively disabled people as a way of saving societal resources. [Emphasis added]

Fast forward to today.

There are two euthanasia programs that are legal in the United States of America.

The first was the January 22nd, 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade which legalized abortion. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum noted that under the Nazi T-4 program, “Handicapped infants and small children were also killed by injection with a deadly dose of drugs or by starvation. The bodies of the victims were burned in large ovens called crematoria.” In the United States the unborn and born after a failed abortion are killed by doctors using similar procedures and their body parts sold to the highest bidder.

The second and more recent phenomenon is the passage of legalization legalizing physician assisted death or PAD in six states and the District of Columbia.

According to Euthanasia.ProCon.org there are six states and the District of Columbia, the seat of the federal government, that have legalized physician assisted death.

Six States with Legal Physician-Assisted Suicide
State Date Passed How Passed (Yes Vote) Residency Required? Minimum Age # of Months Until Expected Death # of Requests to Physician
1. California Sep. 11, 2015 ABX2-15 End of Life Option Act Yes 18 Six or less Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written
2. Colorado Nov. 8, 2016 Proposition 106, End of Life Options Act (65%) Yes 18 Six or less Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written
3. DC Oct. 5, 2016 B21-0038 Death with Dignity Act of 2016 (3-2) Yes 18 Six or less Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written
4. Montana Dec. 31, 2009 Montana Supreme Court in Baxter v. Montana (5-4) Yes * * *
5. Oregon Nov. 8, 1994
Ballot Measure 16 (51%)
Yes
18
Six or less
Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written
6. Vermont May 20, 2013 Act 39 (Bill S.77 “End of Life Choices”) Yes 18 Six or less Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written
7. Washington Nov. 4, 2008
Initiative 1000 (58%)
Yes
18
Six or less
Two oral (at least 15 days apart) and one written

QUESTION: How is euthanasia different from Physician Assisted Death? ANSWER: It’s not.

In June, 2017 CNN stated as “fact“:

Physician-assisted suicide differs from euthanasia, which is defined as the act of assisting people with their death in order to end their suffering, but without the backing of a controlling legal authority.

Euthanasia is defined by Merriam-Webster as:

The act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (such as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.

What is being done today in six states and the District of Columbia is no different than what was done in Nazi Germany. These six states and the District of Columbia have done what Nazi Germany did, legalize the killing of the infirm (euthanasia). The only difference is the industrial scale of those euthanized.

ISideWith.com asked Democrats the question “Should terminally ill patients be allowed to end their lives via assisted suicide?” The results showed that 88% of Democrats polled supported PAD. Google on April 20th, 2016 reported:

Paradoxically, none of the 2016 Republican Presidential frontrunners have taken an official position on the issue. While, the Democratic Platform is silent on euthanasia and assisted suicide, the front runners for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination are both pro-euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide.

It is also interesting that the District of Columbia and five of the six states that have legalized PAD were won by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Presidential election.

Will we end up living in a society where life is so cheap that nobody cares that large numbers of human beings are dying? Are we already there?

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Nazi Plan to Kill the Disabled: What the U.S. Government Knew and When It Knew It

Woman Aborts Child To Help ‘Save’ the Planet

Bermuda Becomes First Country to Repeal Gay Marriage

HAMILTON, Bermuda by Alexander Slavsky (ChurchMilitant.com) – After Bermuda’s House of Assembly and Senate voted to reverse so-called same-sex marriage in December, the governor signed it into the law on Wednesday, making Bermuda the first country in the world to roll back gay marriage.

Bermuda’s governor, John Rankin, signed the measure into law after last year’s Bermuda Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage. Walton Brown, minister of home affairs, said the legislation reflects the resistance to same-sex marriage from the socially conservative island, while complying with European court rulings that recognize and protect same-sex partners in the territory.

“The act is intended to strike a fair balance between two currently irreconcilable groups in Bermuda, by restating that marriage must be between a male and a female while at the same time recognising and protecting the rights of same-sex couples,” commented Brown, whose ruling Progressive Labour Party (PLP) suggested the repeal.

Same-sex couples can register for a domestic partnership under the Domestic Partnership Act, while the nearly half-dozen gay marriages that occurred in Bermuda last year are recognized under the new law.

Image

Bermuda Gov. John Rankin

Brown said same-couples have the same rights as married heterosexual couples, including “the right to inherit in the case of no will, the right to a partner’s pensions, access to property rights, the right to make medical decisions on behalf of one’s partner and the right to live and work in Bermuda as the domestic partner of a Bermudian.”

LGBT activists claim domestic partnerships are equivalent to second-class status and it is unprecedented for a country to reverse gay marriage after legalizing it. Ty Cobb, director of Human Rights Campaign Global, remarked, “Governor Rankin and the Bermuda Parliament have shamefully made Bermuda the first national territory in the world to repeal marriage equality.”

“This decision strips loving same-sex couples of the right to marry and jeopardizes Bermuda’s international reputation and economy,” said Cobb.

In the U.K.’s House of Commons, Labour politician Chris Bryant insisted in a tweet on Wednesday, “This totally undermines UK effort to advance LGBT rights.” A month ago, he referred to the bill as a “deeply unpleasant and very cynical piece of legislation.”

Joe Gibbons, a 64-year-old same-sex “married” Bermudian, commented, “This is not equality, and the British government has obviously just said, ‘This is not our fight.'”

Image

UK Foreign Minister Harriet Baldwin

The junior foreign office minister, Harriet Baldwin, noted that the U.K. government was “obviously disappointed” with the reversal but insisted the Bermuda government passed the law through legal means: British territories, including Bermuda, are “separate, self-governing jurisdictions with their own democratically elected representatives that have the right to self-government.”

The House of Assembly passed the legislation December 8 without amendment to replace same-sex marriage with domestic partnerships after a five-hour debate. The Senate approved it December 13. The act was approved 24–10 in both houses.

The May ruling legalizing so-called same-sex marriage contradicted a referendum in 2016 in which a majority of citizens voted against same-sex marriage and civil unions by more than a margin of 2–1. Brown acknowledged the referendum on Wednesday, adding that the government believes “this Act addresses this position while also complying with the European courts by ensuring that recognition and protection for same-sex couples are put in place.”

Here Are the Best Valentine’s Day Shopping Options That Are #AnywhereButTARGET

Cards, candy, flowers, and where to eat are the top decisions many will be making for Valentine’s Day. But for conservatives, being prepared for the holiday is just as important as making sure you are “shopping your values.” And at 2ndVote we’re making sure we have the best options for many of these items that are #AnywhereButTARGET.

A little bit of planning by using 2ndVote’s resources like our company database, mobile app (for Apple and Android products), and our Everyday Shopping Guide can point you in the right direction.

Below you’ll see a few suggestions from our research to help you pick the right alternatives in the days leading up to February 14th. Here we have some of the “best options”, as well as some companies you might want to avoid.

Retail
Hobby Lobby – 5
Bed Bath & Beyond – 3
Family Dollar – 3
Target – 1.4

Cards
American Greetings – 2.9
Hallmark – 2.3

Flowers
ProFlowers – 3
Edible Arrangements – 3 (Not technically flowers, but it counts for a decorative arrangement and a treat!)

Candy
Russell Stover – 3
Godiva – 3
Hershey – 2
Mars – 2.1

Jewelry
Kay Jewelers – 3
Tiffany & Co. – 2.3

Restaurants
Bonefish Grill – 3
Carrabba’s Italian Grill – 3
Cheesecake Factory – 3
Fleming’s – 3
Outback Steakhouse – 3
Olive Garden – 1
Red Lobster – 1
The Capital Grille – 1

Be sure to help share #AnywhereButTARGET campaign by visiting AnywhereButTARGET.com this week and spread the word!

Help us continue holding corporations accountable for their activism by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

Black Christian Voters: Will Racial Loyalty Once Again Overrule Character, Ideology & Intentions in 2020?

The American Left is giddy about Oprah running for president in 2020. White America naively thought electing a black president would end them being called racist. Obama and his minions used his skin-color as a bludgeon to beat into submission and silence anyone who opposed him behaving as our king; ignoring laws and the Constitution. Republicans sheepishly complied.

President Oprah would have two bludgeons to beat the American people into submission; her race and gender. Anyone who opposes Queen Oprah implementing her far left racial socialist/progressive agenda will be high-tech flogged and lynched.

Hopefully, voters will say to Leftists, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. We fell for your Trojan Horse, Obama. We will not fall for another leftist fanatic, Oprah.”

Will black Christians betray Christ to support Oprah the way they did for Obama? Black preachers who preached against homosexuality and abortion for decades reversed their opinions to support Obama.

Under Obama, my brother said his black church hired attorneys to fight government attacking their religious liberty. His congregation loves Democrats and hate Republicans. My brother is fearless regarding speaking his mind. He told church board members their behavior was insane. He said voting for Democrats is like giving your enemies hammers to hit you in the head and then purchasing helmets to protect yourself from them. Board members think he’s weird.

Black Christians are unaware or refuse to accept that Obama was America’s most biblically hostile U. S. president. A black minister buddy of 30 years defended Obama claiming we’re not a Christian nation. Clearly, black Christians chose racial loyalty over Christ.

Will black Christian voters ignore presidential candidate Oprah saying Jesus is not the only way to heaven? Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the father, but by me.” Oprah said Jesus claiming his exclusive divinity “would make Jesus the biggest egoist that ever lived.” Sadly, black megachurch pastors will ignore Oprah’s blasphemy, urging their congregations to vote for the first black woman president.

Oprah promoted the outrageous lie that homosexuality is a gift from God. Oprah is a Leftist zealot fighting for an anti-biblical sexual revolution.

Leftists’ believe childbirth destroys the planet. Leftists’ shroud their war on the unborn with pretty words like “defending reproductive freedom” and “open and equal access to family planning.” In plain language, leftist like Oprah, the NAACP and Congressional Black Caucus passionately support killing babies to save the planet. Planned Parenthood illegally chops up babies for profit. “Inact” baby heads sell at premium prices. 

Planned Parenthood was founded by racist Margaret Sander to exterminate blacks because she thought them inferior and a menace to society. 

Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s niece, Dr Alveda King and other black Christians are exposing Planned Parenthood’s war of black babies. Why are 79% of Planned Parenthood clinics located in minority communities? Black abortions are disproportionately high. Blacks are only 13% of the population. And yet, 30% of aborted babies are black.

Since 1973, over 60 million babies have been aborted; over one third of them are black — stealth black genocide. Oprah places her Leftist ideology above the best interest of black Americans. Oprah’s Democrats fight to keep congress giving Planned Parenthood $500 million a year to kill black babies. Pro-life advocates want that 500 mil given to women clinics that do not perform adoptions. Non-abortion clinics outnumber Planned Parenthood 20 to 1. More black babies will die if Oprah is elected.

Even black Leftist Tavis Smiley admitted that blacks moved backwards under Obama. Under Trump, black unemployment dropped to an historical low. Oprah and fake news persist in insidiously attempting to brand Trump racist. Oprah’s presidency would harm blacks — killing jobs by reinstating Obama’s absurd environmental regulations and punishing taxes.

I remember black Americans, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt, shamefully celebrating OJ getting away with practically beheading the mother of his children. Despite Obama’s unprecedented attacks on religious liberty and policies harmful to blacks, blacks still overwhelmingly worship Obama. Therefore, I doubt that Oprah undeifying Jesus, her Leftist policies sure to harm blacks economically nor her support for black genocide will impact black’s blind loyalty to her skin-color in 2020.

The Insidious and Growing Global Attack on Freedom of Speech

The issue of freedom of speech was briefly in the headlines when Poland passed a law restricting the use of words associating it, as a nation and a people, with the Nazi Holocaust. The use of phrases like “Polish death camps” is now punishable under this new law. Members of the European Union do not have a First Amendment but they have two documents that address the rights of citizens to speak their minds.

According to Wikipedia these are:

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, provides, in Article 19, that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

And the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), signed on 4 November 1950, guarantees a broad range of human rights to inhabitants of member countries of the Council of Europe, which includes almost all European nations. These rights include Article 10, which entitles all citizens to free expression. Echoing the language of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights this provides that:

Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

In 2012 Iowa State University published a list of countries without First Amendment rights. Iowa State University notes:

To Americans, the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s citizens, but in many cases, it is a luxury that does not exist outside of America.

As Americans, we are fortunate enough to have laws, or in this case amendments, that grant us as citizens certain rights that are meant to be upheld by our government. One of the most important amendments is the first: the right to speech, press, religion, assembly, and petition. To Americans, this may seem to be a simple demand of a country’s people, however in many cases, it is a luxury that only Americans have.

The countries without a First Amendment listed in the Iowa State white paper are: Afghanistan, China, India, Great Britain and South Korea.

Mike Gonzalez in an article titled Europe’s War on Free Speech notes:

Any American who ever questions whether the First Amendment is vital to protect free speech should just cast a glance across the Atlantic. Europeans share the same values we do—indeed, our concept of rights derives from European philosophers—and yet they often adopt misguided laws that circumscribe freedom of expression.

[ … ]

Poland is but the latest European country to ban freedom of expression it finds uncomfortable. Many of these speech codes and laws have to do with the trauma of the Nazi legacy, but others extend far beyond.

In the United Kingdom, for example, the Public Order Act 1986 prohibits the “expressions of racial hatred, which is defined as hatred against a group of persons by reason of the group’s colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.”

People have been fined and jailed both for expressing religious objections to the gay lifestyle or, at the other end, for displaying anti-religious bigotry.

In Germany, Holocaust denial is punishable by law. New hate speech rules, known locally as NetzDG and which came into full force last month, demand that social media giants promptly remove potentially illegal material, some of it within 24 hours of being notified, or face fines.

And France in 1990 passed a law that also made it a crime to deny the Holocaust.

Mr. Gonzalez quoted what U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said about Poland’s effort to limit freedom of speech. Secretary Tillerson stated:

The United States reaffirms that terms like ‘Polish death camps’ are painful and misleading. Such historical inaccuracies affect Poland, our strong ally, and must be combatted in ways that protect fundamental freedoms. We believe that open debate, scholarship, and education are the best means of countering misleading speech.

Secretary Tillerson’s comment can be applied to those who want to stifle freedom of speech in America.

Today Americans are witnessing the insidious global suppression of free speech. This suppression is based on concepts that were unheard of just a few years ago. Using words such as homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigot, misogynist, white privilege has caused colleges, universities, businesses, religious institutions, the media, governments and individuals to self-censor their speech. Those speaking out about social issues, Islam and government overreach have become criminals in countries such as Canada, France, Germany and Great Britain.

In the United States the military wing of the anti-free speech movement is Antifa.

Hashtag social media campaigns like #BlackLivesMatter has created a racial divide in America, #OccupyWallStreet has fomented class warfare and the #MeToo movement has chilled speech between men and women. #Resist has become the movement embraced by members of Antifa to stifle free speech, especially on college campuses like the University of California – Berkeley. Some even fear using gender specific words, like mankind, so as not to offend the gender confused. Absurd you say?

As Ayn Rand wrote:

The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.

President Trump is doing what he can to contest the uncontested absurdities of yesterday. But he is facing strong head winds from what has become known as “the swamp.” For you see the first right in the First Amendment is that Congress shall “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” President Trump is restoring the free exercise of religious liberty in via the Executive Branch of our government.

Without Judeo/Christian religious liberty there is no freedom of speech.

The more our Judeo/Christian values are rejected the more freedom of speech is restricted and outlawed. It is a slope we have been sliding down and its time to climb back up the mountain to regain our fundamental belief that “In God We Trust.”

RELATED ARTICLE: The 10 worst colleges for free speech: 2018

EDITORS NOTE: Congressman Vern Buchanan (R-FL District 16) in an email titled “George Orwell is Laughing” wrote:

Huckleberry Finn survived countless dangers in Mark Twain’s classic novel, but he couldn’t beat the PC police in Minnesota.

A school district there has removed The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird from its reading list because the books “contain oppressive language” and “humiliated and marginalized students.”

Safe spaces, micro-aggression, trigger warnings…….where does the political correctness end?

Another famous novelist, George Orwell, would be laughing if he were alive to witness this absurdity. Orwell of course coined the term “thought police” in his classic book Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Consider these other “Orwellian” examples of political correctness:

The Washington State Corrections Department now refers to inmates as “students”, which means the infamous Green River Killer, Gary Ridgeway – the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history – is a student at Walla Walla’s Washington State Penitentiary.

University of California students voted to ban the American flag from hanging in its main lobby because flags are “symbols of patriotism or weapons for nationalism.”

One of Mark Twain’s quips would seem to apply to those who advocate this nonsense: “Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.”

What do you think?

Vern

Problematic Women: Should Gun Rights Be Included in #MeToo?


Facebook and Google create a new dating policy, men say they’re now uncomfortable interacting with women in the workplace, and conservative women say #TimesUp is getting political by hiring Anita Hill. Has the #MeToo movement gone too far? We discuss in this week’s edition of “Problematic Women,” co-hosted with Bre Payton of The Federalist.

We also interview Savannah Lindquist, a college graduate sexually assaulted at Temple University, and learn why she says the #MeToo movement should include supporting gun rights for women. Learn more about her story here, and watch the video above or listen to the podcast below.

Portrait of Kelsey Harkness

Kelsey Harkness is a senior news producer at The Daily Signal, and host of “Problematic Women,” a podcast and Facebook Live show. Send an email to Kelsey. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.

Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.

Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.

Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.

The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.

Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.

Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.

You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.

Please make a gift to support The Daily Signal.

SUPPORT THE DAILY SIGNAL

Fake News and Real Consequences

What should Christians do in a world of fake news? It’s a question I’ve heard frequently from listeners to my radio show “Washington Watch.” Media distortion is a real and present danger, as President Donald Trump knows better than anyone. But in the last several months, the problem has ballooned well beyond the White House gates. The relationship between Americans and the press is rockier than ever — and not just for conservatives.

As Harvard points out, the skepticism surrounding what used to be one of the country’s most respected institution is at an all-time high. A whopping 65 percent of Americans think the mainstream media is full of fake news, including 53 percent of Democrats and 60 percent of independents. An astounding 84 percent of voters said it’s hard to know what to believe online. Over the past two years, Gallup has clocked similar numbers across the country, pointing out that more people have “very little” confidence in newspapers. According to Gallup these are the lowest levels of confidence they’ve ever recorded in the 45 years.

This agenda of intentional deception is raising serious questions about the media — but the rising skepticism from the public doesn’t seem to be prompting the kind of soul-searching that’s necessary to snap the press back to respectability. Instead, the media often seems to be digging in deeper, casting its net of deception even wider. Two weeks ago, I was caught up in a headline war of my own when a 45-minute podcast was reduced to a five-word soundbite taken completely out of context. It was sensational and controversial, which is what the media intended when it took a comment I made in a broader conversation and turned it into a national caption that Christians excuse sin.

Like so many news outlets, Politico is desperately trying to understand evangelicals’ strong support for the president — who’s made good on his promises but carries plenty of moral baggage. In a lengthy interview, which lasted about 45 minutes, I made the point that Christians weren’t rationalizing or excusing bad behavior. Here’s the transcript from that conversation. I want you to see the raw transcript from the portion of the interview that other media outlets crafted narratives and headlines from that aren’t even close to what I said in this very straight forward podcast with Edward-Isaac Dovere:

Dovere: You know, we have a situation in which it seems this woman is claiming from an interview she did years ago, that she had sex with the president – well, not then the president, but with Donald Trump, three months after his son was born. So he’s married and with a porn star, that just seems like what would be a huge problem…

Perkins: Well, it’s not — I would not say it’s not a problem. But I would say… I think it’s important to understand is that evangelicals did not vote for Donald Trump based on his moral qualifications but based upon what he said he was going to do and who he was surrounding himself with. Now, that was in the context of a general election.

Dovere: Right.

Perkins: When you had Hillary Clinton – who, you know, embraces abortion and the whole homosexual agenda — and herself does not have a pristine background with some of the stuff between her and Bill. So, that’s the context, you’ve got to put it in that context.

Dovere: That’s totally fair. I guess you know well that’s 2016 and you get the decisions that were made in 2016. Now it’s 2018. Does this give you pause at all?

Perkins: Well… I think he’s maturing as president — and back to what we said earlier, I think from a human being standpoint and a spiritual being standpoint, I think he is maturing as well because of the people he’s been around and the influences that he has brought into his life. Again, evangelical support is not unconditional. If the president were to all of the sudden revert back to some of that behavior as president, evangelical support will not be there. So it’s basically, we gave him a mulligan. You know, you get a do-over. You can start —

Dovere: A mulligan for 70 years of his life?

Perkins: I mean the guy — I mean this is what he’s committed to. And as long as he commits to that and continues on that, he will have the support of evangelicals.

Dovere: There are people who are not evangelicals who would say this — and there are some people who are evangelicals but whose politics don’t line up with yours who would say — it’s hypocritical to say that you believe in all the things you believe and–

Perkins: But what’s the option?

Dovere: Yeah.

Perkins: What’s the option? That’s what I would ask, what are the options I have? Is one of the options to sit at home and allow Hillary Clinton to —

Dovere: No, no, no but in 2018 —

Perkins: OK, but why should I not support him now when he’s actually doing the things that I asked him to do? I mean I say me, but I mean we —

Dovere: Right, right.

Perkins: I mean, he’s done more to restore religious freedom given the background over the last eight years than any president we have ever had. He is actually doing what he said: he is keeping his promise. So I have no reason to say, ‘Alright, well, 10 years ago you said this, so I am going to drop my support.’ Again, it’s not unconditional, this President keeps his commitment and his promise to the evangelicals that supported him, and he continues to you know walk this straight and narrow if you will…”

I went on to explain how evangelicals could come to the point of supporting Mr. Trump, I told the reporter that we — of all people — understand grace and new beginnings. That message never made it to the majority of Americans. Instead, they opened their web browsers and Twitter feeds to outright lies. “Evangelicals trumpet morality while condoning the rankest sin,” was the lead from the Daily Kos. “It’s unlikely,” Salon scoffed, “that after a lifetime of disingenuousness Tony Perkins and other leaders of the Christian right will admit that their entire crusade was never about ‘values.'” The fake controversy exploded, with the New York Times fanning the flames: “Christian conservatives may believe strongly in their own righteousness. But from the outside, it looks as if their movement was never really about morality at all.” “Rank hypocrites,” cried the Washington Post. The viciousness dripped from the Left’s megaphones, CNN and MSNBC, to print outlets like the New Orleans Times Picayune with a creative license usually reserved for fiction.

The debate raged on this week in editorial pages like USA Today. Fortunately, I had the chance to counter the spin in my own response. Evangelicals, I warned, are not offering blind allegiance.

You have to understand the motive behind these headlines. It’s not to uphold a biblical standard of morality. Instead, it’s designed to accomplish two objectives in the pursuit of snuffing out the flame of conservative, constitutional governance. The first objective is to discredit evangelicals and try to brand them with the Left’s scarlet letter H — hypocrite. That facilitates their second objective, which is to drive a wedge between the president and evangelical voters so that they don’t turn out in record numbers and vote with unity, like they did in 2016. Suppressing the evangelical vote would enable the Left to retake Congress, impeach the president, and pick up where Barack Obama left off with his pro-abortion, anti-Christian policies.

Thankfully, FRC has its own ways of cutting through the media’s lies and misrepresentations. Through this publication, along with my daily radio show, we were able to show the intentional distortion of the media. But this episode certainly underscores a lot of things, including the vigilance Christians need to have when they take in today’s headlines. It’s not enough to know the fake news is out there. As disciples of truth, we have to practice real discernment. Who can you trust? The Update and “Washington Watch” are two daily, reliable options for getting the news you care about from a Christian perspective. If you know people searching for credible commentary, share it! Click here for a station listing and Update sign-up.


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


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State Department Releases Report on the Trump Administration’s Anti-abortion Mexico City Policy

Human Life Action reports that on Wednesday evening (2/7/2018) the U.S. State Department released a 6-month report on the implementation of the Mexico City Policy which President Trump reinstated and expanded on his third day in office (January 23, 2017).

The Mexico City Policy, first announced at the United Nation’s 1984 Conference on Population in Mexico City, requires foreign-based non-governmental organizations receiving U.S. financial aid to certify that they will not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning overseas. This policy is one of the most significant policy initiatives on abortion ever taken by the United States in the area of foreign assistance.

The policy was put into effect by executive action during the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush but was rescinded during the Bill Clinton and Barack Obama administrations. In the past, the Mexico City Policy applied only to international family planning funds (currently appropriated at “not less than $575,000,000). When President Trump reinstated the policy last year he expanded it to all global health assistance funding (currently appropriated at about $8.8 billion). And he aptly renamed the policy “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA).”

The 6-month report shows that, so far, 99.5 percent of organizations receiving U.S. funding (729 out of 733) have agreed to comply with the policy.

Of the four organizations that declined to comply, efforts are underway to transition their funded activities to other providers to minimize disruption of services. If funds are redirected to other organizations, the level of funding available for that country remains the same.

Among the four organizations that declined to accept the policy are International Planned Parenthood Federation and Marie Stopes International, both major purveyors and promoters of abortion.

The report acknowledges that, as of the 6-month report deadline (September 2017), not all existing agreements had yet received new funding (the point at which organizations must agree to the terms of PLGHA), so the picture on progress and challenges is still developing. A further review of PLGHA will be conducted by December 15, 2018.

Cardinal Dolan’s statement praising the Trump administration for reinstating and expanding the policy can be read here. Our comments in support of the policy submitted to the State Department last October can be read here.

Walgreens’ new policy welcomes men into women’s restrooms

In a shocking policy announcement, Walgreens has now directed its stores to allow men full and unrestricted access to women’s restrooms in all of its 8,100 stores.

On Nov. 17, 2017, Walgreens distributed a memo stating, “All individuals have a right to use restroom facilities that correspond to the individual’s gender identity, regardless of the individual’s sex assigned at birth.”

The policy came as the result of being pressured by the ACLU of Southern California.

Since a similar public policy was announced by Target Stores, Inc. two years ago, dozens of women and children have been victimized by male predators inside Target stores.

Walgreens’ new policy could potentially result in female customers becoming victims of voyeurism, sexual assault and physical attack.

1. Sign our petition urging Walgreens to immediately reverse its dangerous policy that allows men unrestricted access into women’s restrooms.

2. To make your voice heard even more, please call Walgreen’s corporate office at 1-800-925-4733 and share your concerns.

3. If you are a Walgreens’ customer, let your local store manager hear from you. You can find the local store number here.

If our mission resonates with you, please consider supporting our work financially with a tax-deductible donation. The easiest way to do that is through online giving. It is easy to use, and most of all, it is secure.

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At National Prayer Breakfast, Trump Doesn’t Waffle

Every president since Eisenhower has spoken at the National Prayer Breakfast. But not everyone has practiced the policies they preach. Barack Obama was famous for using the event to talk about the “inherent dignity of every person” only to ride back to an office that did more to promote abortion than any White House in history. Or to insist “we can’t leave our values at the door,” while he ordered Americans to do exactly that on marriage, health care, and faith. With Obama, what you heard wasn’t necessarily what you got.In the year since Donald Trump has been in office, he hasn’t just talked a good game — he’s walked it. When he stepped up to the microphone this morning to promote religious liberty, 12 months of accomplishments already spoke volumes. Executive orders, HHS rules, Justice Department briefs, and confirmations like Sam Brownback’s point to just how sincere the president is about what he says.

This morning, he didn’t disappoint, using the opportunity to draw the country’s attention back to the importance of our First Freedom.

“Our rights,” Trump said, “are not given to us by man. Our rights come from our Creator. No matter what, no Earthly force can take those rights away.” Then, in a nod to one of the biggest struggles in our society, he took time to highlight real tolerance and what it means to a nation like ours. “When Americans are able to live by their convictions, to speak openly of their faith, and to teach their children what is right, our families thrive, our communities flourish, and our nation can achieve anything at all.”

Then, broadening his scope, he hinted at the work cut out for Brownback, America’s new Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom. “Together, as Americans, we are a tireless force for justice and for peace… We know that millions of people in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea and other countries suffer under repressive and brutal regimes. America stands with all people suffering oppression and religious persecution.”

It was another solid speech that reminded us all: words matter. But we can all be grateful that to this president, actions matter just as much.

For more on what the administration is doing to safeguard religious freedom, don’t miss my interview with Ambassador Brownback (below).


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


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