No U.S. data on financial/social impact of refugee resettlement on communities

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And, I think the refugee industry wants to keep it that way! (Think about the enormous stonewalling going on in St. Cloud for instance!).

How many times over the years have I struggled to try to answer your questions about how much all of this is costing state and federal taxpayers? Now, I have a better understanding of why the facts are so elusive thanks to some researchers who sound like they do want to resettle refugees, but want answers too!

Caren Jean Frost and her fellow researchers are clearly not right-wingers. They are on to something, but will Trump’s Office of Refugee Resettlement listen?

Opinion from The Salt Lake Tribune:

Before you read know that “service providers” is the polite word for resettlement “contractors.”

Resettling refugees has become harder to justify, but not for the reasons you may expect. Lost in the passionate rhetoric of lobbyists, politicians and humanitarian agencies are statistics and evidence.

Appeals to forestall resettlement efforts speak to fears of terrorists infiltrating refugee flows, notwithstanding evidence that suggests otherwise. Advocates of resettlement reference duty, morality and hospitality, but don’t provide compelling evidence to justify the financial and social strains resettlement places on host communities.

Proponents on both sides struggle to support their reasoning with evidence, and this is the real issue. The absence of consistent data collection and measurement by service providers and government agencies has impaired policy makers’ ability to craft effective policy. Furthermore, resettlement data is full of holes and redundancies because service delivery agencies do not coordinate their data collection efforts. Additionally, service providers are unable to answer basic questions about the effectiveness of their programs and current resettlement trends because their data are not structured in an analyzable format.

Standardizing refugee resettlement data collection could revolutionize the resettlement process. It would facilitate analysis, enabling service providers and those interested in refugee statistics to more easily understand what is happening in real time. This information would also enable service providers to better serve refugee communities and educate policymakers on current trends, potential issues and policy gaps.

[….]

CCSLogo

Without meaningful data standards, agencies and organizations may struggle to evaluate their work and share information. Because funding is typically tied to defined performance or outcome measures, evaluation is a crucial element of program design. The absence of data standards makes evaluation problematic and makes comparisons across programs nearly impossible. The University of Utah’s Center for Research on Migration and Refugee Integration’s recently attempted to evaluate Catholic Community Services’ refugee case management program but was stymied before it even began because the case data were not collected in an analysis-friendly format; moreover, it is impossible to track refugee outcomes as individuals pass from one agency’s stewardship to another’s. Service providers and policymakers across the country face similar challenges.

[…..]

Data standardization can only happen if the United States’ Office of Refugee Resettlement takes the lead on this issue.Access to federal funding is already conditional on reporting to the office. The simple solution is this: tie federal funds to data standardization and formatting.

So why isn’t it being done?—surely reform doesn’t require the lazy lunks in Congress. ORR can require this before it throws more of your money at the US Refugee contractors. So why aren’t they doing it? I think I have a guess!

The Relationship Charade: Walking on Eggshells is not Reconciliation

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Many articles have been written about the growing trend of adult children choosing estrangement in American families. The recent Thanksgiving holiday has highlighted this alarming movement toward the dissolution of family bonds of love and loyalty. What is the source of this dreadful shift? What happened to honor thy father and mother?

Sheri McGregor, M.A. has written an important book titled Done With The Crying that explores the disturbing increase in families with adult children who disown their parents. There are, of course, appropriate conditions for estrangement but the current trend appears baffling to the 9,000 confused and grieving parents surveyed who cannot fathom why the children they have loved for a lifetime are choosing to reject them. Done With The Crying attempts to help devastated parents accept their loss and move on with their lives. McGregor is asking “What now?” I am asking “Why now?”

Generation gaps between parents and their adult children have traditionally been resolved with courtesy, respect, and a sense of humor. Adult children honored their parents even when they disagreed with them and chose a different path for their own lives. A fundamental level of gratitude for the parent’s efforts and dedication allowed the differences to be minimized and the family bonds maximized. What has changed?

The bewildered parents McGregor describes cannot accept the estrangement because they simply do not understand it. She describes the staggering lack of respect, restraint, gratitude, and overarching sense of entitlement in adult children’s demand for parental conformity including restricting their parents’ freedom of speech. In the upside-down world of self-seeking millennials the parent/child role has been reversed. Parents are expected to conform to their adult child’s new norms. If the parent refuses the adult child withdraws himself to a “safe space” seeking protection from the “toxic” ideas of his parents. Toxicity, like hate speech, has been redefined as anything the adult child opposes.

Respondents in McGregor’s book expose the injurious participation of the mental health community which continues to counsel disrespected parents to persevere and strive for reconciliation no matter how cruel and abusive their adult children’s behavior becomes. It is shocking that any mental health professional would advocate unconditional love in adult relationships. Separating an individual from his/her behavior is pathological in adulthood. Any adult with self-respect recognizes the destructiveness of accepting the unacceptable. So why has the mental health community abdicated its responsibility toward growth and maturity and instead embraced the regressive trend toward dependency that demands unconditional love?

The humanities students of the 60s became the social science “experts” who enthusiastically embraced left-wing politics and political correctness. They launched a seismic paradigm shift that steered American society away from adult responsibility toward valuing feelings and happiness above all else. Instead of striving for achievement and merit-based awards parents were told that their children’s self-esteem would suffer in competition. Effort became the criteria for awards, children were told they were all butterflies, and everyone received trophies for “trying.” Here is the problem. Political correctness that values feelings over facts is extremely destructive because the effort to avoid hurt feelings sacrifices objective reality. Effort and achievement are not equivalent. Theoretically education at home and at school prepares children for adulthood because in the adult world of facts it is necessary to achieve – effort is not enough.

Consider the consequences in everyday life when trying is considered equivalent to achieving. Workers try to complete tasks but don’t. Students try to understand concepts but don’t. Mothers try to get meals on the table but don’t. In the real world trying is not the same as accomplishing. The outcome of the politically correct paradigm shift has been catastrophic. It has produced infantilized chronological adults lacking adult work skills, coping skills, with zero frustration tolerance, who are too fragile to listen to anyone who disagrees with them. The outcome of their incompetence is anger and self-loathing. Even the exceptional millennials who have managed to compartmentalize their brain power, achieving quite remarkable things in academia, business, medicine, et al, remain fixated and angry in their infantilism and dependency modes.

Only in the subjective reality of their politically correct social groups can these underachieving millennials feel good about themselves. It explains why the Left hypocritically tolerates anyone who looks different but cannot tolerate anyone who thinks differently including their parents. The Left, like any orthodoxy, is extremely intolerant and relies on absolute conformity to its tenets of political correctness, moral relativity, and historical revisionism in order to survive and to recruit new members to its ideological identity politics. Those who disagree are maligned, shunned, and rejected – including parents.

Competence is the mother of self-esteem. Accomplishment creates genuine self-esteem and the marvelous sense of satisfaction that proficiency provides. Telling children that they are all butterflies (subjective reality) is dishonest because all children are not the same and they know it. Encouraging a child to accomplish a task is far more supportive of self-esteem than empty compliments because encouragement supports growth, maturity, and the acquisition of skills. The crippling policies that support the paradigm shift toward feelings has yielded a crop of immature, fragile, angry snowflakes. Anger is an extremely powerful emotion that can be exploited for destruction – and that is the underlying goal of the Left.

The cultural revolution fomented by the radical Left demands regression, incites rebellion, and fuels the infantile anger that drives the war on America. Thought precedes behavior. Virtual children who have been indoctrinated toward entitlements, unconditional love, and eternal childhood rage when their dependency needs are unmet. Their anger is then exploited as they are groomed to become the useful idiot soldiers necessary to topple the existing government with promises of cradle-to-grave care from a romanticized socialist government. The estranged child’s loyalty shifts away from of his nuclear family to his new family of choice – he converts – and embraces the new religion of liberalism where his rejection of traditional authority is applauded in an atmosphere of adolescent rebellion.

These disinformed snowflakes are too childish and too angry to examine the reality of life in actual socialist countries. They do not interview citizens of Venezuela or Cuba – instead they just parrot the socialist propaganda. When parents expose the glaring inconsistencies between reality and Leftist ideology these fragile snowflakes choose estrangement rather than risk a personal meltdown. Millennial adult children are far more loyal to the liberal ideology that reinforces them than to their parents who challenge them.

The bewilderment and shock of estrangement for parents is rivaled only by the stunning realization that the Left purposefully foments family estrangement to shatter the bonds of family loyalty and parental authority. Grieving parents cannot accept estrangement until they realize that their adult children are choosing ideology over genealogy. The courtesy, respect, and gratitude that characterized past generations are absent in the millennial generation.

Instead of “honoring thy father and thy mother” the millennial sense of butterfly entitlement has frozen them in an infantile world (subjective reality) where only “self” and self-gratification exist. There is no reconciliation with angry adult children who continue to reject their parents’ objective reality. There is no respectful agreeing to disagree with adult children who demand parents surrender to their “version” of the truth.

The psychology of estrangement is a collision between the objective reality of the parents and the subjective reality of their children. Walking on eggshells with adult children is not reconciliation – it is a relationship charade. Parents have an obligation to stay in objective reality even when their children choose to leave. Parents of adult children who have disowned them are well-advised to walk on – walk beyond the pain of the eggshells and continue walking inside the adult world of objective reality. Your children know where to find you if they decide to walk with you. The choice is theirs.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Goudsmit Pundicity.

Florida E-Verify Constitutional Amendment Needs Public Support

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On Tuesday, November 28th the Florida Constitution Revision Commission will hold a hearing on proposed state constitutional amendments, including one that would require employers to use E-Verify to check the workplace eligibility of new hires proposals. You can see the amendment at the Floridians for E-Verify website.

The group Floridians for E-Verify Now is seeking people to attend the hearing and, if possible, testify in support of their E-Verify amendment. If you cannot attend but want to help, please see instructions further below for emailing commission members.

Regarding testimony, the group is seeking, in particular:

  • Business owners or their staff who use E-Verify;
  • American workers adversely affected by illegal workers; and
  • Farmers who use the H-2A visa program as an alternative to hiring illegal aliens.

If you want to testify, or can attend but do not wish to testify, please contact Jack Oliver at jack@floridiansforeverifynow.org or 772-215-8424. Those not wanting to testify can waive their right to speak and assign it to others.

What: Florida Constitution Revision Commission hearing

When: Tuesday, November 28 — 1-6 pm

Where: The Capital, Room 401 S

400 Monroe St., Tallahassee, Fl. 32399

Emailing Commission Members

First “copy and paste” the comments just below to the body of your email. Then type in the subject line: Please Support Floridians for E-Verify Now’s E-Verify Amendment. Now place your name in the “To” field and copy the email addresses further below and paste in your “Bcc” field.

Dear Commission Member,

Please vote to move the E-Verify Amendment forward favorably without amendments. Floridians should have a right to vote on this issue next November. Thank you.

Jacqui.lippish@flcrc.gov, Emery.Gainey@flcrc.gov, Brecht.Heuchan@flcrc.gov, Fred.karlinsky@flcrc.gov, Gary.Lester@flcrc.gov, Jeanette.Nunez@flcrc.gov, sherry.plymale@flcrc.gov

Sodom and Gomorrah – Is this the mirror of today’s society?

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By Wallace Bruschweiler & William Palumbo

Reading the constant newspaper headlines over the past weeks and months, it’s high time we ask ourselves: are we living in a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah?  These Biblical cities were infamously smote by God’s righteous cleansing by a rain of fire and brimstone; what will we do to rectify today’s situation?

The number of cases of sexual harassment/abuse from society’s so-called “elites,” (and since they run the media, government, and Hollywood, “elite” is no idle label) points to a disturbing – and, frankly revolting – number of sexual criminals running our country’s government and influential industries.  From Harvey Weinstein to Charlie Rose to Bill Clinton, the highest level of our society is veritably infested by sexual predators who know neither morals nor consequences for their destructive actions.

Tax Payer’s Slush Fund for Congressional Predators/Criminals

Adding insult to injury, we recently learned that Congress has operated slush fund to pay out various victims of sexual, racial, and handicap abuse since 1995. Under the Congressional Accountability Act (CAA) of 1995, they are required to report on the payouts from this fund, although under a convenient cloud of half-disclosed information.

According to the Office of Compliance (compliance.gov), Congress has paid out more than $17 million from 1997 – present day (20 years). This figure encompasses 264 individual cases, which include “overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act.”

Here are some questions to consider in the aftermath of this stunning and disgusting revelation:

  • How many of these cases are related to sexual harassment/abuse? Since the revelation of this fund came only after the public outing of high profile sex offenders, is it reasonable to assume that most of the cases related to sexual offenses?
  • How many individual lawmakers and aides does this slush fund affect? Is it 50? 100? 150? (Reminder: 264 cases since 1997.)  How many are repeat offenders, and who are they?
  • Is it completely fair to assume that these payments were only made to victims whose accusations were validated? It seems reasonable to conclude… yes!
  • Additionally, is it also fair to assume that each victim who was paid out of this fund is normally sworn to secrecy as a condition of the payout? If so, it is fair to point out that “money for silence” is a common applied mafia tactic.
  • What, if any, actions have been taken against the offenders?
  • What was going on in 2002, when the fund paid out nearly $4 million for a total of 10 cases? (Average of nearly $400,000 per case.) What was the nature of these claims? And who are/were the offenders?

Proposed Reforms for the Rotten Core

In the days since we have learned of this horrifying tax payer-financed fund, there have been calls for reform.  Up to and including President Trump, many people have been calling for Congress to disclose immediately the names of the criminals/offenders whose actions led these payouts. Here are our two simple, humble recommendations which should be implemented as soon as possible:

  • All names of members of Congress and their aides who admitted to criminal actions that resulted in payouts should be released so that voters can identify them, and vote accordingly in the upcoming election. Victims should not be named.
  • Any above named individual should refund the government/tax payer for any and all funds paid to victims as a result of their disgusting individual actions. The tax payer should not be responsible for any payment whatsoever that resulted from impropriety on behalf of elected officials and their staff.

Since the passage of Obamacare and its exemptions of Congressmen/women, it is commonplace to assert that elected officials should be subject to the same laws and rules as citizens. This fund for victims is the prime example! Elected officials are no different than the people who elect them, and if they are criminals they should be subject to the same investigations, arrests, penalties, and consequences.

We, the People, Accuse!

What type of a society accepts rulers that act like animals without morals or scruples?  What is now considered “normal” by our society? Is the right to routinely abuse women and men, (and dare we ask, children, too? Cf. Dennis Hastert) a reward of winning elected office?

What type of society accepts men in power who prey on women/men/boys/girls, ruin their lives through traumatic experiences, and worst of all pays for these crimes through our provided tax dollars? This is a pox on our house that we cannot afford to ignore.

This appalling revelation of a tax-funded slush fund should not go unnoticed. For example, recent accusations against Al Franken (D-MN) should not lead to 1 cent being paid out on his behalf.  All compensation money should come from Franken’s own pocket – PERIOD!

The Clintons, Bill and Hillary, ushered into Washington a disgusting culture of casual abuse and, yes, rape and pedophilia. The phenomenon, however, affects both parties and cannot and should not be looked at in a partisan manner.

It is our right – no, it is our duty – as citizens, as a civilized and moral people, to demand accountability and an absolute end to these criminals’ careers as lawmakers.

This is your government, and dammit it’s your country!  Don’t let them off the hook this time!

RELATED ARTICLES:

24 Democrat Sex Scandals The Liberal Media Is Not Reporting

John Conyers Steps Down from House Judiciary Committee.

VIDEO: Dinesh D’Souza tackles white supremacy at University of Washington

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Dinesh D’Souza writes

The Left continues to try to blame pin the racist tail on the Republican elephant, but Dinesh D’Souza has the facts. The Republican Party is now and always has been the party of emancipation, equal treatment under the law, and individual rights for ALL Americans. In fact, in the year leading up to the Civil War, EVERY SINGLE SLAVE IN AMERICA was owned by a Democrat—all 4 million of them. That’s right, not a single Republican owned a slave.

Last week, Dinesh D’Souza took the stage at the University of Washington to tackle the Left’s big lies once and for all. At the event, D’Souza showed how Republicans have been fighting against racism since the Civil War era and how Democrats continue to use blacks for their own political ends, just as they always have. It’s not the Republicans, but there ARE racists and fascists today in America today with real power. Who are they?

Watch now to learn who they are and how we can stop them.

EDITORS NOTE: Available nationwide, Dinesh D’Souza’s new book “The Big Lie” exposes the Left’s biggest lie yet: their orchestrated campaign to paint conservatives as Nazis to cover up their own fascism. To cover up their insidious fascist agenda, Democrats loudly accuse President Trump and other Republicans of being Nazis—an obvious lie, considering the GOP has been fighting the Democrats over slavery, genocide, racism and fascism from the beginning.

Now, finally, Dinesh D’Souza explodes the Left’s big lie.

Click here to order your copy immediately: http://bigliebook.com — STOP! Before you watch any other videos, watch the trailer for “Hillary’s America”—you won’t believe the lies you’ve been taught about the Democratic Party your entire life: https://youtu.be/r7e6gLht6OQ.

Want to connect with Dinesh D’Souza online for more hard-hitting analysis of current events in America? Here’s how:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dsouzadinesh
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dineshdsouza
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dineshjdsouza
Email: http://www.dineshdsouza.com/email/

The King Whom God Gives

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In a pivotal moment of Israel’s history, the people agitate for a king. Their motivation is telling: “Give us a king to govern us like other nations!” (1Sam 8:5) So much for Israel’s distinctive vocation to be a contrast society, a light to the nations. Now they merely yearn to be like all the others.

And the Lord’s response to a distraught Samuel is equally telling and terribly poignant: “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.” (1Sam 8:7)

This haunting refrain of rejection is repeated in countless variations through subsequent centuries. It culminates in the stark apostasy: “we have no king but Caesar!” (Jn 19:15)

Yet, through the centuries, the titulus affixed to the instrument of torture unwittingly proclaims the scandal and folly (and, in John’s vision, the glory) of God: “Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews.” (Jn 19:19)

However often heard, the proclamation continues to astonish and confound. A perennial scandal and folly to Jews and Greeks alike. . . .and to us. Yet as Fleming Rutledge, in her monumental study, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, rightly attests: “The crucifixion is the touchstone of Christian authenticity, the unique feature by which everything else, including the resurrection, is given its true significance.”

Preachers and theologians once frequently intoned Paul’s stirring words: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me.” (Gal 2:19-20) My impression is that they are less cited today. If so, this would serve to confirm Rutledge’s view that a contemporary Gnosticism, in its many guises, marginalizes the Cross and the sacrifice the Cross incarnates.

But in honesty, one ought not to presume that citation necessarily betokened appropriation. Even when dutifully cited, preachers and listeners (many of us, much of the time) often let the words languish in the shadowland of the merely notional.

I have long contended that crucial to the preacher’s task is fostering the passage from what Newman calls the “notional” to the “real.” Preacher, pastor, theologian, in the different contexts in which they minister, are called to be “mystagogues:” promoting a deeper appropriation of the mystery that Paul calls: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Col 1:27) But the “Christ in us” is ever the crucified and risen Savior. And the ultimate aim, as Paul states, is to present everyone mature in Christ (Col 1:28), conformed to the Crucified.

Certainly such “mystagogy,” as Pope Francis recently reminded us, remains a precious inheritance from the fathers of the Church. Despite the difference in cultural contexts, we continue to learn from their homilies. For their constant concern is “aggiornamento:” what does the challenge of the Gospel mean for us today?

Reading “the signs of the times” in light of the Gospel, therefore, is no innovation of the Second Vatican Council. It is the constant preoccupation of faithful and creative pastors throughout the history of the Church. Perhaps what their contemporary successors need to heed more diligently, however, is the defining stipulation: in light of the Gospel.

In this regard, no better exemplar can be found than Blessed John Henry Newman. His sermons discerningly probe the attitudes and dispositions, the actions and omissions of their hearers. And the norm of discernment is always Jesus Christ crucified.

In “The Cross of Christ the Measure of the World,” Newman’s melodic prose both enchants and challenges his Victorian congregation:

Christ’s Cross has put its due value upon every thing which we see, upon all fortunes, all advantages, all ranks, all dignities, all pleasures. . . .It has set a price upon the excitements, the rivalries, the hopes, the fears, the desires, the efforts, the triumphs of mortal man. It has given a meaning to the various, shifting courses, the trials, the temptations, the sufferings of his earthly state. . . .It has taught us how to live, how to use this world, what to expect, what to desire, what to hope. It is the tone into which all the strains of this world’s music are ultimately to be resolved.

A familiar liturgical trope speaks of the cross as the throne from which Christ reigns as King. But if this apprehension is to be real and not merely notional, then, as Newman urges, we must work to dethrone and put to death those usurping idolatries that occupy our hearts.

We need to take seriously Paul’s conviction that Christians “not be conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2), without fear of being bullied and dismissed as “culture warriors.” And we need to take with utmost seriousness the ongoing transformation of heart and mind this entails.

Baptismal regeneration cannot be (if it ever was) a once in a lifetime event, but must become a daily occurrence and commitment. We must be confirmed witnesses to Christ the King in a culture where sexual abuse of children and women is rampant, and consumption-driven Black Fridays multiply. Witnesses in a culture where few seem scandalized by expending hundreds of millions of dollars on a painting, prized more for its brand than its beauty, and perversely sold as: “Salvator Mundi!”

The Apostle Peter reminds the early Christians of the true price of salvation. “You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18-19) And his fellow Apostle concurs and draws the consequence: “You were bought with a price – so glorify God in your body!” (1Cor 6:20)

To the extent that we realize this, to the extent that it permeates our imagination and is embodied in our lives, our dispositions and our actions, to that extent will Jesus Christ, in truth, be our King, the King God gives.

Fr. Robert P. Imbelli

Fr. Robert P. Imbelli

Robert Imbelli, a Priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is Associate Professor of Theology Emeritus at Boston College. He is the author of Rekindling the Christic Imagination: Theological Meditations for the New Evangelization.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is titled Christ Crucified by Diego Velázquez, 1632 [Museo del Prado, Madrid]. © 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Good Morning, Little Comrades

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Nikita S. Krushchev said, “Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all.”

Vladmir Ilyich Lenin said, “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

The teachings of the Left include discrediting the Bible and replacing religion with social justice, dishonoring America and family, controlling the schools and curricula, and normalizing promiscuity. The Left has set about “deconstructing” (breaking down) the child’s psychology, removing every facet of life that provides the sense of security needed to create a mature, stable, responsible, independent, confident, and productive adult who will contribute to a free society. And it is through today’s schools that they are deconstructing our children in order to destroy the free society.

  • Education reformers are damaging the children’s psyche with gender redefinition, creating dysfunctional adults with confused purpose.
  • California lawmakers are proposing SB48; radicals, elitists and pseudo-experts are selling corruption disguised as freedom, promoting homosexual lifestyles while reducing morality and responsibility.
  • Under Common Core, fine literature that hones our comprehension and creative skills, teaching initiative and courage, are replaced with dystopian literature that adds to their sadness, immorality, and overall impairment.  Mis-education is becoming un-education.
  • Cursive writing, known to enhance creativity, is removed from curricula, and restricts the student’s ability to read our founding documents, understand their rights, and be prone to subservience to a master regime.
  • Common core began with higher standards, intentionally designed to frustrate and make for unhappy students.  Standards were then lowered across the board, to falsely lift self-esteem, reduce achievement and raise grades, but not in keeping with maturity and ability levels.
  • Fatherless households lead to irresponsibility, rebellion, and crime; welfare policies encourage unmarried motherhood and incomplete families.
  • Schools discredit our Judeo-Christian roots and allegiance to our country, but dwell on Islam and socialism.
  • There is growing disrespect for police and government.
  • Limiting free speech has prevented students from hearing opposing views, and the schools from providing a genuine education. They are fed ideas of Socialism/Marxism, globalism, and Islamism, and cannot reason, understand, or face ideas not within their realm of indoctrination.
  • Schools are creating young fascists who are taught to march, rage and destroy, yet cannot articulate their purpose.
  • The future workforce is reduced through dysfunctional children and entitlement programs, and open to replacement by migrants who bring their tyrannical way of life with them.

And now, another assault against the children has appeared in the offing, perhaps the most egregious. A mandate that first became evident in some English schools several years ago, now seen in some Canadian and American schools, is that children should be discouraged from having “best friends.”  England’s Thomas’s Battersea school has determined, with the agreement of some (but by no means all) parents and psychologists, that group bonding would encourage inclusion of all children and prevent rejection of the few.

The strength one gets from a best-friend relationship, if removed, may be sufficient to create enough despair where the individual will seek comfort in an ever-expanding government (the Marxist purpose). As with any detrimental Leftist concept, this technique is couched as an appeal for sympathy and compassion for those who are slow to bond with a best friend, but its stealth purpose is a means of assuring equalization by removing the securities of friendship.

Of course, not all children will immediately develop warm friendships, but should that be the norm to impose on others? Our schools have already lowered standards to meet the levels of lower achievers.  Should we also remove music and the arts with deference to the less gifted, or impose a veritable “eye for an eye” on behalf of those with poorer vision?  Would not our population be better served by a sensitive teacher to help all the children overcome their timidity and fears, learn the art of conversation, and develop the social graces needed to negotiate their future?  For school personnel to reduce every student to his or her lowest common denominator is a Marxist technique.  Already implemented in grading, it guarantees equality to the masses with obedience to the authorities, and where equality is imposed, freedoms are sacrificed.

There are many quotes about the value of friends, four of which I thought prudent to include here:

“When it hurts to look back, and you’re scared to look ahead, you can look beside you and your best friend will be there” – Anonymous.

“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me” – Henry Ford.

“Things are never quite as scary when you’ve got a best friend” – Bill Watterson.

“A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults” – Charles Kingsley.

The benefits of friendship are many and unique.  We are social beings and friends fill a psychological need for survival, to cope with life’s trials and to remain inspired.  A friend is an eager companion, one who provides praise and kindly given criticism, and a way for us to learn trust and support.  Friends are there for comfort and to teach us about respect, sharing, thought, discussion and debate, analysis and problem-solving; simply put, they bring us happiness. Vital for our emotional wellbeing, best friends provide what parents and teachers cannot, particularly because the adults are less than perfect or may have, themselves, been deprived of best friends.

The lack of close friends results in emotional distress – loneliness, sadness, emptiness, withdrawal – which can also take its toll on physical health.  It is known to be the leading reason for delinquency, school dropouts, antisocial personality disorder and suicide.  In adults, loneliness precipitates depression and alcoholism, and stress with sleep disorders and multiple medical problems. Psychologist John Cacioppo of the University of Chicago concluded that social skills are crucial for mental and physical wellbeing.

In geographic situations that contribute to isolation, but where children may turn to books of imagination, challenge and rewards, achievement and travel, one might anticipate emotional success.  But today’s educational system has removed such books and replaced them with dystopian novels, where the characters are immersed in loneliness, sadness, defeat, and an environment bereft of reason. The stories provide situations of crises from which the characters may not always extricate themselves.  Therefore, with no escape and nowhere to vent, the child can lose his individuality, creativity and the chance to form valuable coping skills, and be drawn to any available group mentality, as well as drug abuse and alcoholism.

Robbing the children of the necessary human encounter and intimacy conforms to Leftist ideologies, which intend to destroy all social, economic, and political artifacts of classical liberalism. We see disintegration of the old society and family in the history of the Soviet Union, but, significantly, there are parallels in Islam’s jihadi warriors who emerge from emotional solitude and emptiness. The Arabic term, Asabiyah, defined in Kobrin’s The Jihadi Dictionary, is comparable to group consciousness, group-think, and the loss of individuality.  By destroying intimacy, empathy and compassion, the group creates the shame-honor culture, using passive-aggressive behavior of intimidation and scapegoating.  Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the aim and end of human existence.

The child who is friendless and isolated, bereft of independence and initiative, responds with obedience, guilt, and lying to protect himself from being ostracized.  He may then be vulnerable to joining violent Leftist movements or submitting to Islamic radicalization.

A civilization becoming a shadow of its former greatness – this is the gift of the Left.

‘Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data’

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You’ve heard of “fake news,” but what about fake science? That’s been around even longer, thanks to liberals. Desperate to prop up their unpopular or unnatural agendas, the Left resorts to all kinds of statistical manipulation to persuade people that their arguments are legitimate. They insist the science is “settled” on hot-button topics like abortion, the environment, homosexuality, or same-sex marriage. And they’re right. It is settled — but not on their side!

From when life begins to what your gender is, conservatives are fed up with the lies the Left is using to shut them up. The Center for Family and Human Rights’s Austin Ruse was so frustrated with this coordinated effort that he wrote a book to expose it: Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data. Yesterday, he stopped by “Washington Watch” and explained why liberals feel like they need to twist the truth. (Check out the full segment here.)

“What’s behind it is an ideology that, in our scientific age, needs scientific facts to back them up — when in fact, they don’t exist. The language of our age… is science, and if you don’t come to a political argument with a study in hand — or two or three — then you’re in trouble. People automatically want to know what the science says and what the social science says. And what’s driving it is a Leftist political agenda in search of arguments that will convince the public. And therefore they go out and either create these studies or commission studies that tend to be phony… Either the sample sizes are too small or the sample sizes are drawn from sympathetic audiences — there’s a whole lot of ways to game these studies, mostly in social science… A lot of the things they’re trying to prove are not really provable, and so they have to rely on fake science.”

For years, the far Left has tried to pin the anti-science label on conservatives, but the irony, Austin points out, is that “not only is the other side making things up, but science generally confirms the things we believe — like natural law… In the work that you and I do, we run across this all the time. On homosexuality, for instance, [they tell us] it’s inborn, and if you don’t believe it’s inborn and immutable, then you’re a hater. But science doesn’t show it’s inborn or that it’s immutable…”

The Left claims to be the party of science, but some won’t even acknowledge basic biology! In the battle over gender identity, they can’t accept that our sex is determined by our chromosomes at birth. They think it’s defined by feelings! And unfortunately, Austin explains, fake science is even more dangerous than fake news because scientific statistics — no matter their dubious origins — tend to lodge in our brains and stay there. Fake news, on the other hand, is just superseded by the next news cycle.

In other words, conservatives have to fight even harder to be heard! Consider partnering with FRC as we speak truth into a culture — and Capitol — that desperately needs it. Our work depends on people like you.

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

Also in the November 17 Washington Update:

A Tax Bill Tanks Giving

The B-I-B-L-E, Yes, That’s the Museum for Me

The Humanitarian Hoax of Unconditional Love: Killing America With Kindness

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The humanitarian hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Unconditional love is the Holy Grail for millennials. They talk about it, dream about it, want it, need it, and are outraged if anyone dares to question its value. Unconditional love is, after all, “settled” science among millennial “experts” whose opinions are accepted and observed with religious conformity by their devotees.

Wikipedia defines unconditional love as “affection without any limitations or love without conditions.” The current demand for unconditional love is consistent with the left-wing liberal campaign to value feelings over facts and effort over achievement as metrics for what is good in society. So, let’s examine unconditional love.

First, an appropriate season for unconditional love exists during infancy and early childhood. Parents accept anything and everything that babies do – we love them for just being. Babies and young children lack the ability for any self-control so we do not expect standards of behavior – anything goes. Unconditional love separates the individual from his/her behavior which is entirely appropriate for infants and young children. When the demand for unconditional love is extended into adulthood the individual inappropriately demands to be loved without regard for his/her behavior in the same way an infant is loved.

Relationships are structured with written, spoken, and unspoken rules and standards of behavior. Family relationships, social relationships, business relationships, professional relationships, sexual relationships are all organized on some level by rules that participants are expected to follow. Societies are similarly organized by their infrastructure of rules/laws that citizens are expected to observe. What makes infancy and early childhood so exceptional is its distinguishing “no rules” formula. Society temporarily accepts the separation of the individual from his/her behavior. What happens when a society refuses adulthood and instead strives for permanent childhood?

When the no rules formula is protracted and adulthood is rejected the result is an infantilized population and social chaos. Consider the societal implications of adults who refuse to abide by laws – traffic laws, property laws, environmental laws, civil rights laws, family laws. All rules and regulations are considered anathema to chronological adults living in the subjective reality of “no rules” infancy including college campuses that no longer respect Constitutional guarantees of free speech. Fragile infantilized students require safe spaces and trigger warnings to protect them from ideas that they disagree with. College students have historically been considered future leaders. How can a leader be a leader in a pluralist society if he/she cannot even listen to an opposing point of view?

The demand to restrict free speech and the need for safe spaces demonstrates the dependency and failure to thrive that the demands for eternal childhood has created. Valuing feelings over facts, effort over achievement, redefining free speech as hate speech, and the underlying demand for unconditional love are all hallmarks of an infantilized society.

Who has fueled and financed the descent of our adult society into eternal childhood and what is its purpose?

Let’s review. Children are easily manipulated. Thought precedes behavior. A society of chronological adults who think and behave like children are easily manipulated because childhood is a state of dependency and powerlessness. Any population that can be reduced to the state of childhood is easily controlled. A regressed society is the unaware and compliant society described by Hillary as the Left’s goal. Why?

Children live in a world of subjective reality and magical thinking. They believe whatever they are told without questioning blatant inconsistencies or ambiguities. College students demanding free speech for themselves do not acknowledge the glaring hypocrisy of denying free speech to opposing voices or relabeling oppositional views as hate speech. Their hypocrisy exposes the childishness of their stance. Attempts to rationally argue or debate the inconsistencies are as futile as trying to convince a three year old that he cannot fly. The problem is, of course, that these students are chronological adults – they are virtual children not actual children and their temper tantrums are dangerous.

Students who are virtual children are being recruited on campuses by anarchist groups funded by George Soros’ Open Society organizations to become soldiers in the Leftist war on America. The Leftist war on America targets the three pillars of our society that support the dreams of our Founding Fathers – family, church, patriotism. The Leftist intention is to destroy America from within and replace our democracy with socialism. The attack on the family is rooted in the destructive demand for unconditional love by infantile chronological adult children. Parents are disrespected with the same arrogance that authority figures including teachers, religious leaders, and the police are disrespected. Attacks against traditional authority are deliberately designed to make society ungovernable and families unsustainable.

Free speech is hate speech for students on campus who view oppositional speakers as an enemy that must be silenced. Parents with opposing views are considered toxic by adult children who choose estrangement to secure silence. Their childish all or nothing perspective rejects the mature option of discussion and/or agreeing to disagree. Tyrannical demands to accept the unacceptable shatters relationships, families, and societies. But in the upside-down world of Leftist politics the infantile demand for unconditional love remains the Holy Grail. Free speech activists remain as baffled as parents of estranged adult children until they realize that the destruction of free speech and the shattering of families is the goal of the Leftist war on America and the tactical purpose of demanding eternal childhood.

If America is to survive we must continue to love our infants and young children unconditionally but insist upon growth, respect, and self-control from adults in society. We must be resolute that our children grow up emotionally and accept the responsibilities and standards of behavior of adulthood because a society of infants is unsustainable. We must protect free speech and reserve unconditional love for infants and young children or the Leftist war on America will have succeeded.

If the Left prevails then 241 years of American freedom will be lost because an infantilized American public was seduced by the humanitarian hoax of unconditional love advanced by leftist humanitarian hucksters promising eternal dependence to a public too frightened to grow up and live in objective reality as responsible adults. The humanitarian hoax of unconditional love will have succeeded in killing America with “kindness.”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Goudsmit Pundicity.

The Ugly Truth About Sex Reassignment the Transgender Lobby Doesn’t Want You to Know [+video]

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Sex reassignment is as natural as being born, some in the media tell us. And many Americans are buying it.

But a growing chorus of dissenters made up of physicians, researchers, and even transgender individuals is beginning to paint a far different picture of the truth.

These dissenters are now coming forward to expose just how harmful gender transition and reassignment are—both medically and sociologically speaking.

First, consider recent revelations about how problematic sex reassignment surgery is as a therapy for gender dysphoria.

In an interview with The Telegraph, world-renowned genital reconstructive surgeon Miroslav Djordjevic said his clinics are experiencing an increase in “reversal” surgeries for those who want their genitalia back. These people express crippling levels of depression and, in some instances, suicidal thoughts.

In male-to-female reassignment surgery, doctors such as Djordjevic transform the man’s genitals into the shape of a vagina, removing the testicles and inverting the penis.

In female-to-male reassignment surgery, doctors remove the woman’s breasts, uterus, and ovaries, and extend the urethra so that the woman-turned-man can urinate from the standing position.

A recent Newsweek article takes note of Djordjevic’s concerns, illustrating their legitimacy by pointing to the case of Charles Kane, a man who underwent male-to-female reassignment surgery.

In a BBC interview, Kane explains that he decided to have the initial surgery immediately after having a nervous breakdown. But after having the surgery and identifying as a female named “Sam Hashimi,” Kane soon regretted the decision and went for reversal surgery.

“When I was in the psychiatric hospital,” Kane said, “there was a man on one side of me who thought he was King George and another guy on the other side who thought he was Jesus Christ. I decided I was [a girl named] Sam.”

Similarly, Claudia MacLean, a transgender woman, is quoted as saying her psychiatrist referred her to a sex reassignment surgeon after having only a 45-minute consultation. “In my opinion,” MacLean said, “what happened to me was all about money.”

Given that clinics charge up to $50,000 for reassignment surgeries, Djordjevic says he fears that doctors are stuffing their bank accounts without concern for the physical and psychological well-being of their patients.

Physical and psychological well-being should be a concern, given that 41 percent of transgender people will attempt suicide at some point in their lives, and people who have had sex reassignment surgery are approximately 20 times more likely than the general population to die by suicide.

In addition to the problems inherent to sex reassignment surgery, we should recognize the troublesome nature of giving hormonal “treatments” to gender dysphoric children to delay puberty.

In a recent paper, “Growing Pains: Problems with Puberty Suppression in Treating Gender Dysphoria,” endocrinologist Paul Hruz, biostatistician Lawrence Mayer, and psychiatrist Paul McHugh challenge this practice.

They note that approximately 80 percent of gender dysphoric children grow comfortable in their bodies and no longer experience dysphoria, and conclude that there is “little evidence that puberty suppression is reversible, safe, or effective for treating gender dysphoria.”

Thus, scientific evidence suggests that hormone-induced puberty suppression is harmful and even abusive.

Finally, gender transitions are problematic for society at large, as revealed in recent debates about restroom usage, military realities, housing policies, and sporting events.

What is often overlooked in these debates is the troublesome and even dangerous situation created when transgendered “females” compete in female athletic competitions.

Consider the 2014 women’s mixed martial arts bout between Tamikka Brents and Fallon Fox. During a two-minute beating, Brents suffered a concussion, an orbital bone fracture, and a head wound requiring seven staples.

“I’ve fought a lot of women and have never felt the strength that I felt in a fight as I did that night,” said Brents.

As it turns out, her opponent, Fox, wasn’t born female. She is a biological male who identifies as transgender.

Brents thought Fox had an unfair advantage. “I can’t answer whether it’s because she was born a man or not because I’m not a doctor,” said Brents. “I can only say, I’ve never felt so overpowered ever in my life, and I am an abnormally strong female in my own right.”

Brents was right to consider Fox’s advantage unfair: The physical differences between men and women are significant enough that professional female fighters cannot compete effectively against other professional male fighters.

Given all this, why do we not see a more constructive and sustained public debate among surgeons, psychiatrists, and lawmakers about the ethics of sex reassignment?

The most significant reason is the power of the transgender lobby.

Consider psychotherapist James Caspian’s recent claim that Bath Spa University in the United Kingdom refused his application to conduct research on sex reversal surgeries because the topic was deemed “potentially politically incorrect.”

According to Caspian, the university initially approved his research proposal, but later rejected it because of the backlash it expected from powerful transgender lobbies.

Regardless of how politically incorrect the evidence may be, and even while we accommodate the privacy and safety concerns of those who identify as transgender, we must also draw a sober and honest conclusion about the human costs of sex reassignment.

The best medical science, social science, philosophy, and theology coalesce. As Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Ryan Anderson puts it, they reveal that sex is a biological reality, that gender is the social expression of that reality, and that sex reassignment surgeries and treatments are therefore not good remedies for the distress felt by people with gender dysphoria.

The most helpful therapies for gender dysphoria, therefore, will be ones that help people live in conformity with the biological truth about their bodies.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Bruce Ashford

Bruce Ashford

Bruce Ashford is provost and professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the co-author of “One Nation Under God: A Christian Hope for American Politics,” and blogs at “Christianity for the Common Good. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLE: DNC Official Says She Doesn’t Want To Recruit ‘Cisgender Straight White Males’ | Daily Wire

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Attacking Judge Moore’s Morality is a Dirty Leftist Trick

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Black Christian Conservative Republican Lloyd Marcus here. I call upon all my fellow Christians not to abandon our brother Roy Moore who is running for U.S. Senate Alabama. Right before the election, 40 year old sexual misconduct allegations have come out against Judge Moore which he has denied.

Judge Moore is hated by Leftists and establishment Republicans because he is an outspoken character driven Christian conservative; a faithful courageous defender of our Constitution, principles and values which have made America great. Moore elected to the US Senate would be extremely helpful to Trump draining-the-swamp and making America great again.

Judge Moore’s unwavering commitment to biblical morals and support of Trump’s agenda makes Moore the last person fake news media, Hollywood, democrats and RINO Republicans want to see in the US Senate.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Leftists and RINOs are clamoring for Moore to drop out of the race; claiming Moore is morally unfit to serve. These same people told us president Bill Clinton having an intern perform oral sex on him in the White House was none of our business. To defend Clinton, Leftists threw all men under the bus by claiming any man in a powerful position would say yes to sex with a starry-eyed young woman. Their narrative was particularly offensive to me because my dad and brother were men in powerful positions. Dad was the pastor of a large congregation and my brother was commissioner of a kids football league. Neither of them would mimic president Clinton’s adulterous philandering, sexual harassment and sexual assaults.

Leftists sold America their lie that president Clinton’s serial adultery was no big deal. Sexual immorality was the acceptable new normal for men in power (if they were democrats). Now, these same people who circled the wagons to protect Clinton are pounding on Moore’s political door with axes and pitchforks, demanding that he get out of the race over unfounded 40 year old allegations.

But what if the 40 year old allegations against Judge Moore are true. Judge Moore became a Christian several years ago. His consistent behavior, standing up for religious liberty and freedom strongly suggest his conversion to Christianity was real. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.” In other words, when Moore put his trust in Jesus and repented of his sinful life, Moore became a new man.

Before his encounter with Christ, the Apostle Paul was a bad man who killed Christians. 40 years before God used Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, Moses murdered a man. The Bible says “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). After becoming new people via their new birth in Christ, God has used everyone from former prostitutes to murders in extraordinary ways. So how on earth can any Christian join Leftists in deeming our brother in Christ, Roy Moore, morally unfit to serve today based on 40 year old unfounded allegations?

It is pretty obnoxious watching the same people (Leftists) who seek to normalize and legalize every conceivable sexual perversion trying to disqualify Moore on moral grounds. As Rush Limbaugh has stated on numerous occasions, Leftists view sexual misconduct as resume enhancement for democrat politicians.

Check out the glaring hypocrisy. Leftists are calling for Moore’s political head on a platter. And yet, they gave the following democrats, for the most part, a pass for their sexual misconduct; Anthony Weiner, Eliot Spitzer, David Wu, Kwame Kilpatrick, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, David Paterson, Antonio Villaraigosa, Marc Dann, Paul J. Morrison, Gary Condit, Tim Mahoney, Roosevelt Dobbins, Neil Goldschmidt, Jim McGreevey, Bob Wise, Paul E. Patton, Mel Reynolds, Brock Adams, Chuck Robb, Gavin Newsom, Sam Adams and Barney Frank. Fake news media did not collectively declare that the sexual misconduct of these democrats made them unfit to serve. 

By the way, Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a prostitution business from Frank’s home. Were there serious calls for Frank to resign? Nope.

This attack on Moore’s morals (right before the election) is a dirty trick to get a rock solid bold, brave and courageous Conservative warrior out of the arena. My fellow Christians, please do not fall for it.

New York City: Hub for the Deadly Drug Trade

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“Sanctuary” policies attract foreign drug traffickers, fugitives and terrorists.

The mission of the immigration elements of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is, in part, to protect America and Americans from aliens who pose a threat to national security and the safety and well-being of those who are in the United States. DHS is also charged with securing our nation’s borders, America’s first and last line of defense, to prevent contraband such as narcotics and illegal weapons from entering the United States.

Today, my commentary is predicated on news reports that in August 2017 the DEA and other law enforcement agencies, including the NYPD, conducted a field operation that resulted in the arrest of two Mexican citizens, Rogelio Alvarado-Robles and Blanca Flores-Solis, a middle-aged husband and wife from Mexico, and the seizure, pursuant to the execution of a search warrant, of 213 pounds of narcotics in their apartment in the fashionable Kew Gardens neighborhood of Queens New York.

On November 13, 2017 The Washington Post reported on this investigation (“Mexican traffickers making New York a hub for lucrative — and deadly — fentanyl”), appropriately filing the report under “National Security.”

We will delve into this case, but first I want to ask a simple question and then provide some background information to put things into proper perspective.

The NYPD consists of over 35,000 officers and has garnered the reputation, around the world, for being the most sophisticated, well-equipped and effective police department in America, if not the entire world.

Why then would a foreign drug trafficking organization move its operation into New York City?

I would suggest that the fact that the city is a self-declared “sanctuary” for illegal aliens plays a significant role in that decision.

I spent half of my career with the INS assigned to elements of the “War on Drugs.”  Back in 1989, as a member of the Unified Intelligence Division of the DEA, I began tracking the arrest statistics for the DEA in New York and was startled to find that at least 60% of those arrested by the DEA Task Force in NYC for drug-related crimes were identified as “foreign born.”

Nevertheless many members of the United States Congress are adamantly opposed to the construction of a wall or other fortifications along the U.S./Mexican border, declaring that it would somehow stop commerce and that such a wall would be an affront to Mexico.

In point of fact, the wall President Trump is determined to construct would not block ports of entry into the United States, only make certain to funnel all traffic through ports of entry to stop the flow of illegal aliens and the criminals and potential terrorists among them from evading the vetting process conducted at ports of entry.

Furthermore, such fortifications would also go a long way to stopping the flood of contraband, particularly narcotics currently inundating the United States.

The proponents of open borders and immigration anarchy claim that sanctuary policies protect “immigrants” from immigration law enforcement authorities.  Their position on border security and immigration law enforcement run in diametric opposition to the mission of the DHS.

In reality, lawful immigrants and temporary foreign visitors who abide by our laws need no protection from the the components agencies of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) who are charged with enforcing and administering our nation’s immigration laws.

Indeed, aliens who are lawfully admitted into the United States are admitted by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) inspectors and aliens who are granted immigration benefits such as political asylum, lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship are granted those benefits by Adjudications Officers of USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) a division of the DHS.

Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 is the section of law that enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded from the United States and includes aliens who who suffer from dangerous communicable, diseases or extreme mental illness as are criminals, human rights violators, terrorists and spies.  That law is utterly blind as to race, religion and/or ethnicity.

The media fosters the false narrative about immigration law enforcement by describing advocates for secure borders and effective immigration law enforcement as “Anti-Immigrant” while using the term “Pro-Immigrant” to describe immigration anarchists.

The use of misleading language is a tactic that undermines public understanding of critical issues and ultimately undermines our very democracy. In point of fact, The Road to Tyranny Is Paved with Language Censorship.

Having provided this background information, let’s go back to the seizure of that massive quantity of narcotics that included 141 pounds of pure fentanyl, making this the largest seizure of fentanyl in U.S. history.

Fentanyl is 50 times more potent than heroin.

In fact, according to the DEA, the fentanyl that was seized during this field operation could provide lethal doses to 32 million people.

In other words, according to the DEA, the quantity of fentanyl seized in that one apartment could kill roughly 10% of the entire population of the United States!

According that that Washington Post report Rogelio Alvarado-Robles and his wife  Blanca Flores-Solis, had flown to New York City about a month before their arrest and that the couple had no criminal histories and carried no weapons but were described by law enforcement sources as one of the many Mexican “drug cartel emissaries” have turned New York City into their Northeast distributions hub that employs aliens from the Dominican Republic as their “sales teams” that move incredible quantities of drugs through the “Big Apple” to cities located in neighboring states.

The article also noted that this year more than 350 pounds of pure fentanyl has been seized in New York City, a ten-fold increase in the quantity of this deadly drug that was seized in 2016 and that last year more than 60,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States, with a fivefold increase in deaths attributed to synthetic opioids as fentanyl as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Washington Post report includes this excerpt:

According to DEA intelligence gleaned from wiretaps, about 80 percent of the fentanyl seized in the New York area appears to be linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The organization remains North America’s dominant trafficking group, even as its leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, awaits trial in a maximum-security jail in Lower Manhattan.

Sinaloa’s smuggling machine has carried on without Guzman, meaning his legal defense may be funded in part with profits from fentanyl sales made just a few miles from his cell.

The Sinaloa group does not bother with retail-level commerce, according to the DEA. It uses New York to deliver large wholesale shipments to middlemen, typically local Dominican traffickers. Those groups distribute to markets in New England, Pennsylvania, Baltimore and other places where the opioid crisis is raging.

On September 18, 2017 the NYPD issued a press release about the investigation seizure of the record quantities of fentanyl that includes this excerpt about a terrifying trend:

These cases highlight the enormous amount of fentanyl surging through New York City, hitting the streets and escalating overdose deaths. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, fentanyl is driving a spike in fatal overdoses, which reached an all-time high of 1,374 deaths in New York City in 2016 – 46% more than in 2015. A dangerously strong synthetic opioid, fentanyl is approximately 50 times stronger than heroin and is increasingly found mixed into the city’s illicit narcotics supply.

Dead is dead.  While the number of people dying of gunshots wounds in NYC is decreasing, the number of deaths attributable to drug overdoses is skyrocketing but, incredibly, there is no mention of the fact that the couple arrested were citizens of Mexico, that the narcotics were smuggled into the United States from Mexico or that aliens from the Dominican Republic were used as “salesmen” to market these drugs on street corners of New York City and other cities across the Northeast.

This should not, perhaps come as a surprise because New York City is a “Sanctuary City” that not only shields illegal aliens from detection by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) but also provides “municipal ID” to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens further enabling them to embed themselves in New York City.

Nearly five years ago the NY Times published an important and illuminating article, Roosevelt Avenue, a Corridor of Vice that reported on the nexus between illegal immigration, false identity documents and a variety of crimes including human trafficking, prostitution and narcotics.

Drug money bankrolls gangs and terror organizations.  Drugs have a direct and indirect nexus to violent crime.  Considering that most of the narcotics peddled in the United States is smuggled into the United States by aliens, it is beyond belief that any mayor of any city would turn his town or city into a magnet for aliens whose presence in the United States may undermine national security and public safety.

A few weeks ago I asked, Who Deserves The Drug Cartel’s MVP Award?

Mayors of “Sanctuary Cities” and governors of “Sanctuary States” must certainly be prime candidates for this “award.”

Under Totalitarian Islamic Sharia Law, Weinstein Could Walk

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The Harvey Weinstein exposé has opened a can of worms. The news is filled on a daily basis about sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace. If the West were ruled by Sharia, however, it would likely not be in the news. First, under strict Sharia, women would not be in the workplace if men were there. No women, no groping.

Furthermore, there would be no rape to report. Why? Under Sharia, rape can only be proven if there are four male witnesses. If a man rapes a women in private, no witnesses, no problem. But wait.  Can’t the woman report the crime? Yes she can, but in a Sharia court, her testimony has only half the value of a male witness. Result? No conviction.

There is another reason that there would be no news about sexual abuse in the workplace. Under Sharia, a woman is seen as the cause of the molestation. She is so attractive to a man that he can’t control himself. She is the perpetrator. The man is the victim.

Conclusion? Sharia could solve the problem of these news headlines, but at the cost of inhumanity towards women.

Totalitarian Islam

Mohammed practiced totalitarianism. All people around him had to submit to his demands. After Arabia submitted, Mohammed left Arabia and began his mission to have Sharia rule the world. Just as in the year 632, after Islam enters a society, over time, the society becomes totally Islamic. This is totalitarianism.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Political Islam, a totalitarian doctrine

The True History of Muslim Conquests

Make America Christian Again

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Error is a great dissipator of time and energy. I have this from Goethe – some letter he wrote to somebody else – but might easily find it said or indicated in a thousand other places. Yea, Goethe says the truth should often be repeated, in a world where error ceaselessly repeats.

This maxim comes back to me by courtesy of my very bad habit of reading the news – itself a great dissipator of time and energy. The news is vexing. Surely I need not give examples.

There are holy fools, though currently hard to find; there are trivial fools; and then there are the malicious ones. These last are great dissipators, not only of themselves. It would be well if we could utterly ignore them, but they tend to be ambitious, too. It takes time and energy to stop them.

In America today (as a Canadian I count myself into the continent), it would seem that error is constitutionally enshrined. It is expressed as the separation of Church and State. This meant one thing to its Christian authors, means another to their distant heathen descendants.

By excluding from public life the very principles upon which American society was founded, error is awarded a kind of monopoly, to be enforced by myriad government departments.

Now, we are mostly Catholic in our “safe space” here, and America’s founders (both pre- and post-Revolutionary) were mostly Protestant. But the home truths that were formerly recognized crossed denominational lines.

Virginia, Massachusetts, and Quebec were quite distinct regions, both in church and out, yet to an observer from China they would be much the same. The notion of man in a fallen world, born into the slavery of sin and needing redemption, was common to all factions. So many particulars followed from this.

Among the few movies I have seen was Nashville, directed by the late Robert Altman for the U.S. Bicentennial. Among its delicious sub-plots was the odyssey of a pretentious BBC journalist (played by Geraldine Chaplin), in search of “the real America,” and constantly getting it wrong.

On a Sunday morning, she has placed herself in a huge parking lot for yellow school buses. She finds deep symbolism in these sleeping metal hulks.

But the camera then takes us to the various churches – Baptist, Methodist, Episcopal, etc. – where the film’s comic stock characters are found. All are singing and praying and listening to sermons. We are shown a “real America,” which the toff from England has entirely overlooked.

Goethe in the Roman Campagna by J.H.W. Tischbein, 1787 [Städel Museum, Frankfurt]

I mention the movie because it was so recent; 1976 is not so long ago. I can remember it myself, and I’m only in my sixties. I can remember the fact of church attendance from my Ontario boyhood, and that it was the North American “normal.” I was not raised by conscious, church-attending Christians, but realized that this was abnormal.

My parents were, in a sense, old-fashioned liberals, anti-clerical by disposition, and my mama, in fact, a conscious atheist, but I don’t think it ever occurred to them that the religious culture of the whole continent had to be destroyed. Even mama would say, “People who believe, behave better.”

They take for granted things people who don’t have to think about – with all the mistakes that follow when one must re-invent morality from scratch. The believers had basic notions about right and wrong, installed soon after birth. Even the children from the faithless homes absorbed these from the larger society.

Hypocrites, yes, most of the believers; and they were atheists, too, for all practical purposes, in the moments when they forgot that God is watching. This is not the Christian but the human condition: we are frequently in error.

Which is why Goethe – himself some kind of old-fashioned liberal – says we return to truth as to waking, from sleep, feeling refreshed. Sunday, “every bloody Sunday,” was our wake-up call.

I am not the sort of naïve chump who thinks America simply thought again about religion and decided in our democratic way that it was inconvenient and disposable. It took a lot of arduous work to undermine, in the progressives’ “long march through the institutions.” It took a lot of capitulation from our guardian figures of authority.

And as everyone knows, and every progressive likes to chant, history does not move backwards. There is nothing about the old America that will spontaneously re-assemble. It never assembled itself in the first place but was a product of human aspiration and work, dating back long before its discovery and settlement.

A great deal has been overthrown in a couple of generations. We are not discussing a generational transition, but a civilizational one. When we disembrace Christianity, our Christian past becomes incomprehensible to us. Our ancestors become impossibly strange. Their church attendance becomes an alienating factor. The surviving Christians become an exotic minority cult, in need of careful government watch and regulation.

The slogan, “Make America Great Again” may have worked through the last presidential election, but it is empty. It assumes there was once an America that was great. Perhaps there was, but this is no longer America. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Greatness likewise becomes an empty concept unless the sense of the term can be specified. Do we mean “great” in the sense of large? But we are already large. Do we mean it in the sense of economically vibrant? But we are already unprecedented in our production of tawdry goods. Or do we include in our specification some sense of the noble and worthy?

Obviously, this last is meant, even through confusion. But without a clear conception of the noble and worthy we are still at a loss. And this will not come from nothing.

Which is why I propose the alternative slogan, “Make America Christian Again.” And since history does not move backwards, let’s focus on making it Catholic this time. For otherwise we’ll dissipate time and energy.

David Warren

David Warren

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist with the Ottawa Citizen. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

EDITORS NOTE: © 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

VIDEO: #AnywhereButTARGET is impacting Target’s bottom line!

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As the Thanksgiving leftovers start to fill the fridge, many people will be turning their attention to the start of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday is just a couple days away, and the retail industry expects to bring in its highest revenues over the next few weeks.

We launched our #AnywhereButTARGET campaign just one year ago during Target’s most critical time for business and we know they felt the impact. Last Christmas shopping season, Target reported a 3% drop in sales and saw profits decrease by 43% because of millions deciding to shop #AnywhereButTARGET.

However, despite the impact to their bottom line, Target continues to champion the left’s radical agenda. Not only does Target contribute financially to liberal activists, but its dangerous policy of allowing men into women’s restroom and bathroom facilities remains in place.

Let’s continue holding Target accountable for its left-wing activism!

Our #AnywhereButTARGET campaign continues this Christmas shopping season and we need your help spreading the word.

Please watch this video and share with your friends and family. Let’s keep sending Target’s leadership the message that we’re still shopping #AnywhereButTARGET.

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