Sadly, Muhammad Ali was a loser

I was an amateur boxer and followed Muhammad Ali’s, formerly Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., career very closely. Ali was simply amazing, probably the greatest fighter ever.

But as a “religious” leader, an example for others, Muhammad Ali was an abject failure.

In 1964 at 22 years old, with Malcolm X as his mentor, Ali converted from Christianity to Elijah Muhammad’s Nation of Islam and became a black racist activist.

In 1975 Ali once again converted, this time to Sunni Islam, which is the Saudi Arabian form of Islam.

Finally in 2005 Ali converts to Sufism, which is a very mystical aspect of Islam where you try to perfect yourself on earth by following the exact teachings of the Islamic prophet, Muhammad.

Notwithstanding his “goodwill trips to many countries” Muhammad Ali spent the majority of his life promoting the failed, theocratic, supremacist political system known as Islam.

It is reported that at his deathbed he believed he would be with Allah in Paradise because he did more good in his life than evil.

My question for all people to consider, as the world mourns Muhammad Ali, the greatest boxer ever:

Who is it that decides whether more good was done in a life than evil, you…or God?

EDITORS NOTE: On April 28, 1967, with the United States at war in Vietnam, Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces, saying “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” On June 20, 1967, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, sentenced to five years in prison, fined $10,000 and banned from boxing for three years.

Arabic_IslamAli stated that “Islam is not a killer religion” and “Islam means peace.”

The translation of the Arabic word Islam is “submission.” Today we see Islam in general and the Islamic State in particular as anything but peaceful.

The Nation of Islam according to Discover The Networks:

The Nation of Islam (NOI) was founded in Detroit in 1930 by Wallace Dodd Fard, an itinerant salesman. Fard’s movement was composed of  traditional Islamic teachings augmented by, and interlaced with obscure mathematical, Gnostic, and heretical accretions, including an identification of all blacks as “Asiatic.” This message resonated among American blacks who had migrated north, seeking to escape racial oppression and rural poverty.

One of Fard’s earliest converts was Elijah Poole, a grade-school dropout and alcoholic Georgian who had moved to Detroit in 1923. By 1931, Poole had become known as Elijah Muhammad, and upon Fard’s sudden and mysterious disappearance in 1934, he became head of NOI.

Elijah Muhammad moved to Washington, D.C. in 1935 and began proselytizing for NOI in different cities throughout the U.S.  He advocated the creation of a separate black nation on the U.S. mainland, separate from white society in every way — economically, politically, and spiritually.

Read more.

RELATED ARTICLE: A civil rights hero? Muhammad Ali was anything but

On a ‘Roots’ Remake: Snoop Dogg Got It Right!

Quoting the Pointer Sisters song, “I’m so excited!” Black pop icon Snoop Dogg’s comments about the remake of the “Roots” TV series, in essence, is what I have been preaching to fellow blacks for decades (without his profanity).

Snoop said, “I’m sick of this s—. They are going to just keep beating that s— into our heads about how they did us, huh?” Snoop spoke against new shows and movies such as “12 Years a Slave” which “keep showing the abuse we took hundreds and hundreds of years ago.”

Snoop said, “I ain’t watching that s—, and I advise you motherf—ers as real n—— like myself; f— them television shows. Snoop continued, “ Let’s create our own s— based on today, how we live and how we inspire people today. Black is what’s real. F— that old s—.” 

I say, “Right-on bro! (in my 1970’s lingo)” Folks, for decades, I have been frustrated; trying to get through to fellow blacks that continuing to view themselves as victims and using slavery as an excuse for bad and trifling behavior only weakens them. America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it. My reward has been to be trashed in black and liberal media; called a traitorous self-hating Uncle Tom.

I pray that the truth coming from a hip black celeb like Snoop Dogg will help to remove the scales from the eyes of black youths.

The last thing the Democratic party wants is real black empowerment/independence. The Democratic party’s very existence is rooted in convincing as many voters as possible that they are forever victims of America in some way.

This is why when Oprah came out with her movie, “Selma”, I said I hoped the movie failed. I knew her movie was propaganda to convince blacks that not much has changed in America since the 1950s and that only their continued monolithic voting for Democrats will keep eternally evil and racist white America at bay. Sure enough, in a press conference promoting “Selma”, Oprah ranted about how in America, blacks still suffer the injustices portrayed in her movie on a daily basis. Meanwhile, Oprah is an American Ga-zillionaire with enormous power and influence due to her millions of white fans.

Upon seeing commercials for the upcoming “Roots” remake TV series, my reaction was pretty much the same as Snoop Dogg, “I’m not watching that crap.” Like everything Leftists produce today, I know the “Roots” remake is a political tool to promote Democratic party narratives; America sucks, government must become bigger and more controlling – blacks should be paid reparations. I also wondered how the producers would include the LGBT agenda in the remake. Would the Kunta Kinte character in the “Roots” remake be transgender?

As a young black man in 1977, I remember the original “Roots” TV series viewed by 130 million Americans. I was elated because I thought “Roots” presented slavery in a human context that decent people of all races could relate to; bringing people together. The first “Rocky” movie achieved the same universal humanity. It was such an eyeopener hearing my radical black power, whitey sucks, fellow black college student buddies excitedly raving about their new “Italian Stallion” hero after seeing the movie, “Rocky”.

In 1977, some feared the “Roots” TV series would cause riots in the streets. The American Left/Democrats of today are so divisive and so crazy with hatred for their country that they probably hope the remake of “Roots” will spark riots.

Riots in the streets would equal a crisis. The Left’s golden rule is “never let a crisis go to waste”; an opportunity to implement more government control and infringements on personal freedom.

Things Democrats label a crisis (typically fake) provide Democrats with ammo to propose more government control; more government handouts which equals more government dependency which equals more loyal Democrat voters. It is all a scam folks. And Democrats/Leftists have been playin’ blacks for decades.

So, I agree with Snoop. Enough with the Left’s relentless efforts to fill black heads with victim-hood-ism constantly rehashing how America did us wrong.

I also refuse to watch the “Hate in America” TV mini-series. The series focuses solely on white racism against blacks. If the TV series seriously sought to address hate, it would include the Black Panthers and Black Lives Matter declaring open season on killing whites and cops

Again, the TV mini-series is another Leftist tool to sell blacks the message that America is eternally racist so vote for Democrats to watch your backs.

I learned years ago, that the Left does not view Black History Month as an occasion to showcase blacks contributions to our country. The Left uses it to instill guilt in white Americans; instill that America still sucks and still owes blacks reparations, big time. With the Left’s true purpose in mind, I renamed February, “Annual White America Sucks Month.” 

When the movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness” starring leftist Will Smith came out, I thought, “Here we go again; another movie about how America sucks, is racist and blacks can’t catch a break.” I am not going to watch that crap. Well folks, I was wrong. The movie was great. It featured the true inspiring life story of Chris Gardner, a highly successful black American entrepreneur.

Surprisingly, the movie even showed how white businessmen (typically portrayed as racist, greedy SOBs) helped Gardner to pursue his dream. I related to Gardner’s story because throughout my careers, white businessmen helped me pursue my ambitions, as early as high school.

The movie, “The Pursuit of Happyness” was recently added to Netflix. Check it out. I think Snoop Dogg would approve.

RELATED ARTICLE: Black Lives Matter’s LGBTQ Agenda

‘Forgiving’ Government Employees’ Student Debt Is a Bad Idea by Jesse Saffron

Bills filed in the North Carolina General Assembly would provide student loan debt relief to “public interest” attorneys and to K-12 teachers. Both proposals are ill-advised.

Rather than erase debt for those in politically connected groups, lawmakers should work to address the root causes of skyrocketing college costs, which are borne by all North Carolina students through the tuition and fees they pay each semester. Of course, state taxpayers also cover those costs, with roughly $2.6 billion allotted annually to the University of North Carolina System.

One of the bills, H.B. 1015, would allocate $500,000 each year to the North Carolina Legal Education Assistance Fund—NC LEAF—to restore a loan repayment assistance program for public interest attorneys. (From 2002-03 through 2010-11, the program received more than $3 million from the state.)

In a Pope Center interview, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Sarah Stevens (R), said the funds would “entice attorneys to stay in the public defender’s office or District Attorney’s office” by helping to pay loans of staffers who earn less than $50,000. Stevens said she filed the bill at the behest of the N.C. Courts Commission, which is comprised of politicians (including Stevens), judges, district attorneys, and bar representatives.

Such loan forgiveness, however, is already offered at the federal level and is therefore duplicative. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, created in 2007, wipes out debt of qualified employees after ten years. In addition, income-based federal loan repayment programs created under the Obama Administration allow recent graduates to significantly reduce their monthly payments.

Because of such federal programs, even individuals with six-figure debt (the NC Legal Education Assistance Foundation—which would distribute LEAF funds—says the average debt of recent law school graduates is $110,000) can pay affordable monthly installments, and after twenty years have their outstanding balance erased.

Besides program duplication, publicly funded loan forgiveness presents an ethical problem. As my colleague George Leef argued last November, it is “extremely wasteful to lure students into high-cost degree programs with easy-to-get government loans, then saddle the taxpayers with the unpaid balance when the student later defaults or manages to qualify for loan forgiveness. That artificially inflates the demand for college credentials and helps to accelerate the constant increase in the cost of higher education.”

Since 1991 the state’s Legal Education Assistance Foundation has provided more than $5.8 million to more than 500 public interest attorneys. Almost half of that money came from donations from private law firms and various state attorney associations. Instead of shifting the majority of the costs of this program to taxpayers, it is better to let charity and attorney associations pick up the tab.

Another dubious proposal, House Bill 1031, would create the North Carolina Help Educators with Loan Payment Fund (HELP Fund) and dedicate $38.5 million of state lottery profits to reduce teachers’ debt burdens. The idea is that doing so would help to keep more educators in the state and address teacher shortages. The State Education Assistance Authority would operate the new government program, to pay up to $10,000 per year, for up to four years, of a teacher’s debt. Disbursements would depend on an individual’s ability to pay, as well as on whether he or she is assigned to a school in a low-income neighborhood or a rural part of the state. Teachers would have to stay in North Carolina for four years to receive loan forgiveness.

Defending the proposal in an interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, bill co-sponsor Representative Ed Hanes (D-Forsyth) said, “Our public school teachers are being financially squeezed at every turn. While we are working on raises, they simply aren’t coming fast enough. Our teachers and their families need relief.”

But Rep. Hanes is mistaken. According to the National Education Association, since 2013 North Carolina has topped the nation in terms of teacher pay increases. And as John Hood noted in Raleigh’s News & Observer, when factors such as cost of living and teacher age/experience are accounted for, it’s clear that state leaders have—contrary to criticism from left-leaning interest groups and teacher unions—treated educator salaries as a top priority.

Perhaps the biggest problem with Hanes’s proposal is that it is not tied to teacher quality. That was the argument made by Dr. Terry Stoops, the John Locke Foundation’s Director of Education Studies, in a recent Pope Center interview.

“The program would be more palatable if it guaranteed that only exceptional teachers would receive loan repayment,” he said. “I worry, however, that the program would benefit mediocre teachers, rather than those with a strong track record of raising student achievement.”

Aside from teacher quality, would the HELP Fund increase teacher retention?

“There is a limited body of research on the use of loan repayment as a teacher recruitment and retention tool, particularly for math, science, and special education teachers and/or those who teach in a low-performing school,” Stoops said. “It might make more sense to transfer the funds to the North Carolina Education Endowment Fund—Lt. Governor Dan Forest’s performance pay initiative—than to establish a new program and agency to run it.”

State policymakers are right to focus on student debt, which is a problem for many of North Carolina’s college graduates, not just those in teaching and legal professions. But a focus on the front-end of the problem, rising college costs, makes more sense.

Across the UNC System’s 16 schools, cost drivers include a rapidly swelling higher education bureaucracy; high instruction expenses resulting from low faculty teaching loads; and the continuation of low-enrollment degree programs. By addressing those issues, state policymakers would help reduce costs and student debt loads in the long run.

Providing special interest groups with a debt bailout would not.

This article appeared at the Pope Center.

Jesse Saffron

Jesse Saffron

Jesse Saffron is a writer and editor at the Pope Center.

When Employers Compete, Workers Win — When They Can’t, Workers Lose by Donald J. Boudreaux

David Henderson does a very nice job summarizing why stripping workers of the right to offer X as part of an employment contract makes most workers worse off, even if the intention of the government officials who do the stripping is to help workers — and, indeed, even if a Nobel laureate economist misses this reality.

Here’s another part of the picture.

Workers’ bargaining power ultimately is tied positively to workers’ alternatives: the greater the number, and the better the quality, of a worker’s employment options, the stronger is that worker’s bargaining power. If many different employers are competing for your services — each by offering you good pay, good benefits, and good work conditions — you as a worker have splendid bargaining power.*

It follows that government interventions that reduce the creation of good jobs— that is, interventions that reduce firms’ incentives to create better opportunities for employing human labor — reduce workers’ bargaining power. In turn, it follows that if overtime-pay arrangements of the sort that emerge in the absence of government restrictions on employment contracts are for many firms and workers the most efficient sorts of labor contracts available — as they are likely to be in a competitive economy — then government prohibitions that make those contract terms illegal will reduce firms’ efficiencies and, hence, dampen their willingness to create new jobs that pay as much as jobs would pay in the absence of those prohibitions.

Put differently, government restrictions that shrink the ways that employers can squeeze more efficiency into their operations shrink the number of jobs that are created, or reduce the maximum pay that employers can offer to employers who perform newly created jobs.

Over time, therefore, regulations such as the newly imposed overtime-pay diktats dampen workers’ bargaining power by reducing the number of high-as-possible-quality jobs created by employers. With fewer such jobs, there’s less competition for workers.  And with less competition for workers, workers’ bargaining power shrinks.

Note that empirically documenting this reduced competition for workers, as well as documenting its effects on workers’ pay (lower than otherwise), fringes (lower than otherwise), and work conditions (worse than otherwise) would be practically impossible. Because the consequences of these diktats play out fully only over a long span of time, it is simply too difficult for an empirical investigator to uncover, amidst all the countless other changes that occur in the economy, the details of what pay, fringes, and work conditions would beotherwise — that is, had such diktats not been imposed.

Yet unless you think you can say nothing absent empirical evidence about the effects on workers’ well-being of a reduction in the intensity and quality of competition for labor, then you should worry that these new overtime-pay diktats will, over time, make many workers worse off than they would otherwise be.

* Note that if, in this situation, you as the worker (whose services employers are competing for) agree to reduce the value that you will receive on one margin (say, pay) in order to increase the value you will receive on another margin (say, working conditions), it would be wholly mistaken for an outside observer to notice your agreement to work for lower pay and conclude from that observation that youremployer has undue bargaining power over you. And it would harm you if this outside observer, arrogant in his or her ignorance of the details of your and your employer’s affairs, orders your employer to increase your pay to some level higher than you agreed to accept.

Cross-posted from the indispensable Cafe Hayek.

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux is a senior fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Mercatus Center Board Member, a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University, and a former FEE president.

5 Ideas at the Heart of Socialism by Lawrence W. Reed

The good news is that more millennials are skeptical of economic intervention than trust the government to improve anything. The bad news is that a growing minority of young voters embrace the term socialism, which has an increasingly positive connotation even with those who don’t identify as socialist. The popular candidacy of Bernie Sanders has fueled the S-word’s redemption, but the process was already well underway in the last presidential election. A 2012 Gallup poll found that 53 percent of Democrats and 39 percent of Americans more generally had a positive reaction to the word socialism.

Political labels aside, the real danger of socialism lies neither in its formal definition nor in its evolving connotation in the rising generation. The danger lies in the ideas at the heart of socialism.

As FEE’s president Larry Reed writes in this 2011 essay, “If socialism comes, it will come because men choose to embrace its principles.”

A century ago, those principles were openly called socialism by their American advocates, but that term fell out of favor, first when the Socialist Party of America steadfastly opposed US involvement in World War I (resulting in a vicious crackdown by the federal government, including the illegal imprisonment of Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs), then later when Bolshevik revolutionaries seized power in Russia and the word socialist came to describe America’s authoritarian enemies in the Cold War.

The First World War is now a distant memory, and ever more voters were born after the fall of the Soviet empire. Historical amnesia is taking the sting out of the word socialism. Meanwhile, Senator Sanders has presented “a democratic socialist program,” according to emeritus history professor Lawrence S. Wittner, “in tune with the views of many Americans: universal healthcare (Medicare for All); tuition-free public college; a $15/hour minimum wage; increased Social Security benefits; higher taxes on the wealthy; big money out of politics; and a less militaristic foreign policy.”

Many antisocialists embrace the opposition to militarism (see, for example, Larry’s own “Antiwar Hero”), but despite the foreign policy positions of Debs and Sanders, the main ideas of socialism, whether under that name or any other, are about growing the government’s power and reach into the economy and reducing individuals’ freedom to decide the fate of their own property in voluntary exchange.

If the ideas at the heart of socialism are “in tune with the views of many Americans,” then identifying and challenging those ideas are essential to the struggle for liberty.

B.K. Marcus


A belief that I stress again and again is that we are at war — not a physical, shooting war, but a war capable of becoming just as destructive and just as costly.

Ideas have had earthshaking consequences.

The battle for the preservation and advancement of liberty is a battle not against personalities but against opposing ideas. The French author Victor Hugo declared, “One resists the invasion of armies; one does not resist the invasion of ideas.” This statement is often rendered as “More powerful than armies is an idea whose time has come.”

Ideas have had earthshaking consequences. They have determined the course of history.

Feudalism existed for a thousand years in large part because scholars, teachers, intellectuals, educators, clergymen, and politicians propagated feudalistic ideas. The notion “once a serf, always a serf” kept millions of people from ever questioning their station in life.

Under mercantilism, the widely accepted concept that the world’s wealth is fixed prompted men to take what they wanted from others in a long series of bloody wars.

The publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in 1776 is a landmark in the history of the power of ideas. As Smith’s message of free trade spread, political barriers to peaceful cooperation collapsed, and virtually the whole world decided to try freedom for a change.

Marx and the Marxists would have us believe that socialism is inevitable, that it will embrace the world as surely as the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. As long as men have free will (the power to choose right over wrong), however, nothing that involves human volition can ever be inevitable. If socialism comes, it will come because men choose to embrace its principles.

Socialism is an age-old failure, yet the socialist idea constitutes the chief threat to liberty today. As I see it, socialism can be broken down into five ideas:

1. The Pass-a-Law Syndrome

Passing laws has become a national pastime. Business in trouble? Pass a law to give it public subsidies or restrict its freedom of action. Poverty? Pass a law to abolish it. Perhaps America needs a law against passing more laws.

Almost invariably, a new law means: (a) more taxes to finance its administration, (b) additional government officials to regulate some heretofore unregulated aspect of life, and (c) penalties for violating the law. In brief, more laws mean more regimentation, more coercion. Let there be no doubt about what the word coercion means: force, plunder, compulsion, restraint. Synonyms for the verb form of the word are even more instructive: impel, exact, subject, conscript, extort, wring, pry, twist, dragoon, bludgeon, and squeeze.

When government intervenes in the free economy, bureaucrats and politicians spend most of their time undoing their own handiwork. To repair the damage of provision A, they pass provision B. Then they find that to repair provision B, they need provision C, and to undo C, they need D, and so on until the alphabet and our freedoms are exhausted.

The pass-a-law syndrome is evidence of a misplaced faith in the political process and a reliance on force, which are anathema to a free society.

2. The Get-Something-from-Government Fantasy

Government by definition has nothing to distribute except what it first takes from people. Taxes are not donations.

Perhaps America needs a law against passing more laws.

In the welfare state this basic fact gets lost in the rush for special favors and giveaways. People speak of “government money” as if it were truly free.

One who is thinking of accepting something from government that he could not acquire voluntarily should ask, “From whose pocket is it coming? Am I being robbed to pay for this benefit, or is government robbing someone else on my behalf?” Frequently, the answer will be both.

The result of this fantasy is that everyone in society has his hands in someone else’s pockets.

3. The Pass-the-Buck Psychosis

Recently, a welfare recipient wrote her welfare office and demanded, “This is my sixth child. What are you going to do about it?”

An individual is victim to the pass-the-buck psychosis when he abandons himself as the solver of his problems. He might say, “My problems are really not mine at all. They are society’s, and if society doesn’t solve them and solve them quickly, there’s going to be trouble!”

Socialism thrives on the shirking of responsibility. When men lose their spirit of independence and initiative, their confidence in themselves, they become clay in the hands of tyrants and despots.

4. The Know-It-All Affliction

Leonard Read, in “The Free Market and Its Enemy,” identified “know-it-allness” as a central feature of the socialist idea. The know-it-all is a meddler in the affairs of others. His attitude can be expressed in this way: “I know what’s best for you, but I’m not content to merely convince you of my rightness; I’d rather force you to adopt my ways.” The know-it-all evinces arrogance and a lack of tolerance for the great diversity among people.

In government, the know-it-all refrain sounds like this: “If I didn’t think of it, then it can’t be done, and since it can’t be done, we must prevent anyone from trying.” A group of West Coast businessmen once ran into this snag when their request to operate barge service between the Pacific Northwest and Southern California was denied by the (now-defunct) Interstate Commerce Commission because the agency felt that the group could not operate such a service profitably.

The miracle of the market is that when individuals are free to try, they can and do accomplish great things. Read’s well-known admonition that there should be “no man-concocted restraints against the release of creative energy” is a powerful rejection of the know-it-all affliction.

5. The Envy Obsession

Coveting the wealth and income of others has given rise to a sizable chunk of today’s socialist legislation. Envy is the fuel that runs the engine of redistribution. Surely, the many soak-the-rich schemes are rooted in envy and covetousness.

Civilizations have been known to crumble under the weight of envy and the disrespect for property it entails.

What happens when people are obsessed with envy? They blame those who are better off than themselves for their troubles. Society is fractured into classes and faction preys on faction. Civilizations have been known to crumble under the weight of envy and the disrespect for property it entails.

A Common Thread

A common thread runs through these five socialist ideas. They all appeal to man’s darker side: the primitive, noncreative, slothful, dependent, demoralizing, unproductive, and destructive side of human nature. No society can long endure if its people practice such suicidal notions.

Consider the freedom philosophy. It is an uplifting, regenerative, motivating, creative, exciting philosophy. It appeals to and relies on the higher qualities of human nature, such as self-reliance, personal responsibility, individual initiative, respect for property, and voluntary cooperation.

The outcome of the struggle between freedom and serfdom depends entirely on what percolates in the hearts and minds of men. The jury is still deliberating.

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. (“Larry”) Reed became president of FEE in 2008 after serving as chairman of its board of trustees in the 1990s and both writing and speaking for FEE since the late 1970s. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

CENSORED: Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic Video

CENSORED by Facebook: Video on Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic

On Tuesday, the European Union (EU) announced a new online speech code to be enforced by four major tech companies, including Facebook and YouTube. On Wednesday, Facebook deleted the account of Ingrid Carlqvist, Gatestone Institute’s Swedish expert.

It’s no coincidence. It’s political censorship. It’s outrageous. And it’s contrary to our Western values of free speech, political freedom and the separation of mosque and state.

Facebook blackballed Ingrid because she had posted Gatestone’s latest video, called “Sweden’s Migrant Rape Epidemic,” in which Ingrid asks: Where did peaceful, low-crime Sweden go? Why does Sweden now have the second-highest number of rapes in the world, after only Lesotho?

After enormous grassroots pressure from Gatestone’s readers, the Swedish media started reporting on Facebook’s censorship. Facebook then put Ingrid’s account back up.

Facebook and the EU have backed down — for today. But they’ll be back. What should we do? There is only one thing we can do: continue to produce our well-researched reports, and even more videos!

We need to win the battle of ideas. Can you help?

Where did peaceful, low-crime Sweden go? Why does Sweden now have the second-highest number of rapes in the world, after only Lesotho? Here is Ingrid Carlqvist of is Gatestone Institute

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ABOUT THE GATESTONE INSTITUTE:

Gatestone Institute, a non-partisan, not-for-profit international policy council and think tank is dedicated to educating the public about what the mainstream media fails to report in promoting:

  • Institutions of Democracy and the Rule of Law;
  • Human Rights
  • A free and strong economy
  • A military capable of ensuring peace at home and in the free world
  • Energy independence
  • Ensuring the public stay informed of threats to our individual liberty, sovereignty and free speech.

Gatestone Institute conducts national and international conferences, briefings and events for its members and others, with world leaders, journalists and experts — analyzing, strategizing, and keeping them informed on current issues, and where possible recommending solutions.

Gatestone Institute will be publishing books, and continues to publish an online daily report, www.gatestoneinstitute.org, that features topics such as military and diplomatic threats to the United States and our allies; events in the Middle East and their possible consequences, and the transparency and accountability of international organizations.

Undoing the Damage of the Obama Regime: Disproportionate Discipline in Education

Certain students see themselves as “untouchable.” Oklahoma City Schools and other school districts forced to adopt the Department of Education’s “steps of action” can expect similar outcomes. As others have pointed out, all students, including minority students, are harmed when criminals and criminals-in-the-making are allowed to control our schools. One civics lesson students need to learn is that under our system of justice, the punishment fits the crime, not the race. That should be the policy of the next administration. The next attorney general should lift the diktats and restore justice in our schools.

On April 20, the U.S. Department of Education announced that it had reached an agreement with the Oklahoma City Public Schools to “address disproportionate discipline of black students.”  In chilling language, the press release stated, “Before the Department’s Office for Civil Rights had completed its probe, the district expressed an interest in resolving the case voluntarily.”

The school district was “voluntarily” resolving the case after feds charged that “black students were considerably overrepresented in all of the district’s disciplinary actions.”  They found that in the 2014/2015 school year black students accounted for 42 percent of in-school suspensions even though they represented only 26 percent of the population. Patterns of discrimination were also alleged for 2011/2012.

An early signal of this backwards thinking came on February 25, 2012, when Eric Holder, then Attorney General, gave a speech advancing the “school-to-prison pipeline” theory that claims that higher rates of punishment, which are due to racism, lead to higher drop-out and imprisonment rates. In January 2014 he put school districts on notice with a memo that stated that it is a violation of federal law to punish certain races more than others.  A particularly Orwellian section read, “Schools also violate Federal law when they evenhandedly implement facially neutral policies and practices that, although not adopted with the intent to discriminate, nonetheless have an unjustified effect of discriminating against students on the basis of race.”  In other words, in defiance of logic, the “effect,” the statistical outcome, can determine whether policies were neutral or just “facially neutral.”

Such an argument would be a hard sell with obvious and serious crimes, such as assault.  So the Department focuses on violations that are minor and open to interpretation.  The memo asked school officials to give a second look to such offenses as “being tardy to class, being in possession of a cellular phone, being found insubordinate, acting out, or not wearing the proper school uniform.”

The Department also charged Oklahoma City Schools with lack of clarity on “parameters of certain disciplinary actions . . . such as ‘defiance of authority’ and ‘disrespect.’”

Such infractions can fall under the category of “willful defiance,” which a number of school districts in California are eliminating as a category for punishment. The Daily Caller reported in May 2015 that Oakland schools were joining a number of other California districts in lessening or eliminating punishment for such behavior as ignoring or swearing at teachers, sleeping, or texting.

As part of its “voluntary” compliance agreement, the Oklahoma City school district has agreed to take “twelve steps of action,” including hiring a “discipline supervisor” and expert advisors; training staff, students, and parents; and making other efforts to change school “climate.”  “Resources” for “positive discipline” are offered at the Office of Civil Rights’ “Rethink Discipline” website.  It, however, only provides links to videos and left-wing groups.  One, Teachers Unite, promotes “restorative justice,” a practice that often involves a lot of talking and “apologies.”

The Link to Black Lives Matter

The basis for such harmful policies—the idea that black students are punished disproportionately because of their race—is not borne out by the evidence.  A 2014 study in the Journal of Criminal Justice showed that suspensions were given on the basis of students’ behavior.

It is radical groups, like the Black Lives Matter movement, that are providing the charges, according to A.P.Dillon, a North Carolina blogger, researcher, and writer.  She exposes the agents promoting the “school-to-prison” pipeline theory, a term coined by radical sociology professor Nancy Heitzag in 2009.

Dillon has been writing about a case in Wake County.  In January 2014, the North Carolina NAACP, the ACLU, and several “school to prison” groups filed suit against Wake County Schools and the Wake County Sheriffs alleging a “pattern of discrimination and unlawful criminalization.”

In an April 15, 2016, blog post on a public hearing on school discipline, Dillon provided additional information on the left-wing groups that provide the “statistics” behind the complaints.  These include Youth Organizing Institute, NC HEAT, Education Justice Alliance, Dignity in Schools, and Coalition of Concerned Citizens for African-American Children. The students who make the complaints have been indoctrinated and radicalized by such student groups as NC Student Power Union, remnants of Occupy Chapel Hill, the Southern Vision Alliance, NC HEAT, and Youth Organizing Institute.

I wanted to know who brought charges in Oklahoma City and how many schools are being investigated, but received no reply to multiple telephone calls and emails to the Department of Education.

The Outcomes?

What will the outcomes be?

We can get a foretaste from Minneapolis schools, whose superintendant, Valeria Silva, led the way.  Silva sees “defiance, disrespect, and disruption” as “subjective behaviors.”  In 2011, the district adopted a “Strong Schools, Strong Communities” plan that replaced suspension for “continual willful disobedience” with “restorative justice.” For $2 million, “diversity” consultant Pacific Educational Group taught teachers that their “white privilege” distorted their judgment.

The result, as Katherine Kersten reports, is that certain students see themselves as “untouchable.”  High school students, who come to school only for the free breakfasts, lunches, and WiFi, roam uncontrolled through hallways.  They invade classrooms, riot, and body-slam teachers.  In elementary schools, students spew obscenities, knock over chairs and trash cans, and attack each other, as teachers stand by helplessly.

Oklahoma City Schools and other school districts forced to adopt the Department’s “steps of action” can expect similar outcomes.  As others have pointed out, all students, including minority students, are harmed when criminals and criminals-in-the-making are allowed to control our schools.

One civics lesson students need to learn is that under our system of justice, the punishment fits the crime, not the race.

That should be the policy of the next administration.  The next attorney general should lift these diktats and restore justice in our schools.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website.

Census Bureau: Illegal immigration has surged by 57%

Today, President Obama said “Right now, the number of people trying to cross our border illegally is near its lowest level in forty years.”

These are the current immigration rates according to the latest data culled from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey by the Center for Immigration Studies:

  • Legal immigration: 1 million per year
  • Illegal immigration: 550,000 per year

immigration under obama

“Census: Illegal immigration up 57% to 550,000, one new Albuquerque A YEAR”
Washington Examiner

The report dispels projections that immigration — legal and illegal — would drop due to a pull back in immigrants from Mexico. Instead, it has grown with new countries in Latin America, Cuba and Asia fueling the surge, said the CIS report titled, “New Data: Immigration Surged in 2014 and 2015.”

“New Data: Immigration Surged in 2014 and 2015”
Center for Immigration Studies

At the same time as illegal immigration has increased, the number of new permanent legal visas issued overseas and long-term temporary immigration (e.g. guest workers and foreign students) have also increased somewhat. We estimate that 2.03 million new legal immigrants entered in 2013 and 2014, compared to 1.6 million in 2012 and 2013.

“Immigration figures highest since Clinton; new arrivals less likely from Mexico”
Washington Times

“The idea that somehow the era of mass immigration is over is wrong,” said Steven A. Camarota, a demographer and research director at the center. “Basically, a decline from Mexico has been replaced by increases from elsewhere.”

“Legal and Illegal Immigration Surges Over Past Two Years”
Breitbart

The 3.1 million new arrivals of 2014 and 2015 represent a dramatic increase compared to the prior two years when 2.3 million entered in 2012 and 2013.

“U.S. Immigration at 15-Year High With 3 Million Arrivals Over the Past Two Years”
MRCtv

CIS estimates that about 1.1 million legal immigrants and 550,000 new illegal aliens settled in the United States annually in 2014 and 2015.

“U.S. Census Data: 57 Percent Increase in Illegal Immigration in Two Years
The New American

The report attributed the increase in immigration to several factors, including cutbacks in border and immigration enforcement, an improved economy (which attracts more immigrants), and the “expansive nature” of our legal immigration system (especially for long-term temporary visas such as guest workers and foreign students).

“CIS: Immigration Levels Increased 39% in Last Two Years”
NumbersUSA

This immigration increase can be attributed to lack of interior enforcement, the Obama administration’s catch and release policy for border apprehensions, and anincrease in temporary worker visas passed by Congress in last year’s omnibus bill.

“New Analysis: 3.1 Million Immigrants Arrived Over the Past 2 Years”
Conservative Review

What this report also demonstrates is that illegal immigration is increasing precisely during the most protracted rise in legal immigration. Apologists for illegal immigration often contend that this odious phenomenon is a symptom of not allowing in enough people through legal channels. The reality is the opposite: the more we make America the prime destination for millions of people from third world countries the more people will be incentivized to leave their desperate straits and join their family members at all costs.

“Illegal immigration has exploded 57% in less than two years with at least 550,000 new illegal aliens pouring into US”
NumbersUSA tweet (with chart)

“How could the lack of legal immigration be the cause of illegal immigration when legal imm. is at an all time high?”
Daniel Horowitz tweet

“GRAPH: Immigration (Legal and Illegal) Surged in 2014-2015 (in millions)”
CIS tweet

“Well, so much for the “immigration wave is over” narrative.”
Mark Krikorian tweet

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The Face of Evil: Surveying the ISIS Killing Fields in Northern Iraq

1 Year After Steinle Death, San Francisco Unveils Immigration Policy Keeping ‘Sanctuary’ Protections

Georgia: Muslim woman in burqa attacks family with American flag

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is Gabriella Garcia holding a sign with “la lucha es de todos”, which translated means “the struggle is everything”, outside of a political rally for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rally in Dallas, Texas 0n September 14, 2015. A man holds a sign “America sin Trump” translates to “America without Trump”. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Stone.

Nuit Debout: Up All Night[Mare]

According to the calendar established by the Nuit Debout [standing up all night] movement, today would be the 78th of May; the world began on the 31st of March when protestors against a lukewarm labor reform bill set up shop at Place de la République to formulate a new world. Labor reform is a sure fire spark for mobilizing the masses here in France where Marxist economics is as solid as the paving stones that are thrown at the police. According to the latter day French Marxists, the common people have been crushed under the heel of unbridled capitalism ever since…. the end of WW2… or maybe since the 19th century. The last straw, they claim, is this attempt by a nominally Socialist government to deliver the working class (which now includes almost everyone) into the jaws of finance, management, and globalization. Did the Hollande government hope the bill would be swallowed by naming it after the recently appointed Labor Minister, Myriam el Khomri? It didn’t work.

Initially, free market capitalists had a favorable opinion of the proposed reform that would have introduced a bit of flexibility in labor relations. But the idea that small companies would more readily hire if they could more easily lay off workers when business was bad is poison to the Marxist-Leninists. It would reduce the already beleaguered employees to servitude, they declare. And they won’t allow it.

As is its wont, the government diluted the bill, losing support from the right while energizing opposition at the far left of its shaky majority. Debate in the Assembly was axed by the “49.3” option that gives deputies the choice of accepting the bill or bringing down the government. The opposition’s no-confidence motion didn’t pass. The rebellious faction of the majority was only two votes short of submitting its own no confidence motion. One more instance of getting nowhere fast.

The real action was in the streets, where the el Khomri bill served as a handy pretext for the burgeoning convergence of revolts. Branded as a refreshing ex nihilo creation of youthful idealists, Nuit Debout attracted abundant media attention. Our own little Place Tahrir! Journalists love to fraternize with these populist manifestations…unless and until they turn on the media, punch them in the face, smash their cameras and mikes. Enthusiastic uncritical coverage is their best option for maintaining safe access. Nothing is better than youth for branding a movement. Witness the image of Aylan drowned on a Turkish beach that opened Western nations to a battering ram of physically fit young men of combat age that pushed their way up from Greece to Germany in the summer of 2015 [see the Humanitarian Jihad chapter in Black Flag].

The media concocted a flattering trendy image of Nuit Debout by a combination of clever camera angles and judicious choices of unofficial spokespersons, relayed by commentators and public opinion all the way from the president to the average citizen. Most of whom had not set foot in the occupied square. Days and nights went by without producing a single quotable Great Idea, but the aura of a touching search for higher truth, greater social justice, a more perfect democracy was maintained. The proof was in the numbers: night after night, Nuit Debout enthusiastically filled the Square. Who cared if “up all night” was a giant nuisance for people living around the Place de la République, bashed by high decibel techno concerts from dusk to dawn?

When thuggish violence hitched on to the bandwagon it was dismissed as opportunistic mischief, on the margins of the real thing: folkloric booths, sloppy graffiti, grimy tents, and the pretentious General Assemblies. Emerging at midnight from the entrails of Nuit Debout, “smashers” attacked the police for hours on end with iron bars, rocks, glass bottles, firebombs…  Self-proclaimed as an open to the winds movement with no leaders, no vertical structure, Nuit Debout, the ultimate in “participative democracy,” was excused of responsibility for the “marginal” elements that attack the police and destroy public & private property, particularly banks. Disclaimed by some but not all of the moderates, the masked men of the armed branch slip in and out of the conglomerate, expressing with blunt objects the verbal hostility of Nuit Debout rhetoric. Hundreds of policemen have been injured, some critically. When asked if they condemn the violence, unofficial spokespersons give Mohamed Abbas type answers: I condemn all violence, the violence of unemployment, the violence of globalization, discrimination, income inequality, the violence of police brutality, disproportionate force… Nothing is their fault. When a homeless man stabbed a fellow-in-misery “on the margins” of a Nuit Debout General Assembly in Bordeaux, they said “He’s not us. The homeless come because there’s a free meal.” There are commissions on housing, legal aid, what have you, but a real creepy homeless thug doesn’t belong.

Opposition to the el Khomri labor law was the spark; revolution becomes the goal. There is nothing the current government could do to satisfy the hunger of these jusqu’au boutistes sitting cross-legged on the cold paving of Place de la République a few meters from the makeshift memorial to the victims of jihad murders. Nuit Debout by the light of day is not a pretty sight. Around the pedestal of Marianne, the symbol of the French Republic, flowers and candles have been replaced by heavy handed slogans, posters, declarations, and threats from the bitter-enders. Clusters of layabouts, neither young nor idealistic nor visibly dreaming of a beautiful new world, sprawl at the feet of the Republic, drinking and scowling. Up close and real, the occupation is a sad spectacle of vintage revolt, a convergence of lost causes driven by an occult leadership of middle aged losers that can’t get 1% of the vote in free and fair democratic elections, and a rising bunch of ambitious new firebrands manipulating a small core of earnest seekers of truth and a bright future. Pauperized college graduates and young professionals, under-skilled lower middle class job seekers floundering in a depressed economy, adolescents embarking on life’s adventure, bobos thirsty for social justice, non-starters haunted by the specter of unemployment are drawn into a farcical replay of outworn platitudes.

It’s political pedophilia, this convergence of every retrograde movement — communists, anarchists, apartment squatters, and a long list of antis: globalization, private property, war, weapons, capitalism,-rubbing up the misguided energies of young justice-seekers. Branded as fresh, new, and hopeful Nuit Debout is a rehash of all that has failed.

April 16: To my knowledge, the only person who was aggressively kicked off the Nuit Debout occupied premises, is Alain Finkielkraut, philosopher, writer, member of the Academy, and Jewish. I had made a tour of Place de la République earlier that day. The first thing I saw was BDS Queen Olivia Zemor and her little princes decked out in green Boycott Israel t-shirts with sparkling clean keffieh around their necks milling around the shiny green BDS truck decorated with Israeli atrocity photos. To the extent that any factual statement can be made about Nuit Debout, they have apparently welcomed BDS into the fold of convergent causes. By the light of day the heart of this brave new world is a sorry sight. Stupid graffiti all over: on the paving, the newly installed massive wood benches, the street lamps, the fancy metro entrance, and the Marianne itself. Sloppy makeshift booths in the style of the Calais “jungle” with less imaginative graphics. The place reeks of piss, marijuana, and imposture. Shop windows around the square and down the adjoining streets are tagged, cracked and/or boarded up. The terrace of the 4-star Crowne Plaza Holiday Inn is deserted, a glass partition is smashed. Every morning, municipal workers come and clean up the mess.

On January 11, 2015, millions of Parisian people stood up (= debout) against jihad. In November, 130 people were murdered in the vicinity of Place de la République; the spontaneous standing up was not possible, because the president declared a state of emergency. People came anyway, left candles, flowers, and scrawled messages. The nation was dumbstruck, the government appeared to be resolute. What has become of the popular resolve and President Hollande’s solemn promise to defend the nation? Though much has been done, often out of the public eye, to dismantle the jihadist cells, political squabbling weakened the sense of resolve. Under pressure from the far left of the fragile Socialist majority, the promised measures were diluted and went down the tubes. Then, protests against the labor reform bill took center stage. Literally, at Place de la République. Effectively turning its back on resistance against jihad violence.

Squatting the memorial square, the pretentious movement that is supposedly imagining a better world, deliberately ignores the immediate and present danger of Islamic conquest. Daesh isn’t the enemy. It doesn’t even exist in their world view. The enemy is the capitalist, the financier, and representative democracy. They are against the state of emergency like the labor reform bill; it’s only purpose, they claim, is to repress us. The amorphous conglomerate of movements describes itself as pacifist while stimulating and generating violence that mobilizes and attacks law enforcement. Despite the nightly pitched battles with the police, the Occupation is authorized by an indulgent government.

This retrograde social protest serves as a vector for the mistreatment and humiliation of the police that we must rely on to protect us from the next jihad attack. Hundreds of thugs bash, burn, and pound; a handful of are arrested every night. Most, we can assume, will escape with light or no punishment. TV broadcasts show these battles, police on the run for hours on end, unable to stop the destruction, holding up their shields against rocks and paving stones. Hooded masked (often with keffieh) thugs running wild, triumphant, fearless. And many “legitimate demonstrators” staying on the scene, walking in and among these fights, making no attempt to stop the thugs.

In a nation of over 66 million, with free elections, free press, and all the liberties that go with it, a shapeless conglomerate, a miniscule minority claiming to express the will of the people, arrogant young men and women sit in a public square and demand immediate compliance. Offered a microphone, one after the other, they parrot the same tweet-format declaration: we demand the immediate withdrawal of the bill. No modifications, no negotiations.

And, what a coincidence, to find BDS among the sour notes. On the 15th of May, its popularity flagging, Nuit Debout picked up steam with a world-wide celebration of the 5-year anniversary of Podemos, an outgrowth of los Indignados of the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. The French version, les Indignés, was inspired by a thin bestselling treatise by the late Stéphane Hessel whose major target of indignation was the State of Israel. Olivier Besancenot, another recycled agitator dug up by the media to praise Nuit Debout, is the former presidential candidate of the toothless New Anti-capitalist Party that provided cover for the pro-jihad anti-Jewish stampedes in the summer of 2014, when the black flag of jihad was flown on the Marianne. Student leaders in these protest movements often work their way up in the leftist ranks. Julien Bayou of the Green Party, deputy mayor of Paris, active in the Jeudi Noir apartment squatters commando, was on board the Gaza flotilla a few years ago.

Today, May 18th, police unions demonstrated all over France. Since Nuit Debout converged with the trade unions on May Day, strikes, demonstrations, and violence have spread and intensified.  As could be expected, the smashers also turn against the trade union security details. More than 300 policemen have been injured, some critically. In Nantes, 5 or 6 thugs jumped on an isolated policeman as he stepped out of his patrol car. They knocked him down, tore off his helmet, and smashed him in the face and head with iron bars. One 18 year-old has been charged with attempted murder in that case.

After six weeks of constant humiliation of law enforcement, the Police Chief is determined to show the appropriate severity. He announced that 40 individuals have been banned from certain arrondissements where labor unions will be demonstrating this week. Isn’t this pathetic? Isn’t it pathetic when the men and women who are supposedly standing ready to counter the next jihadist onslaught are reduced to congregating right there, at Place de la République, to beg for a bit of consideration?

The collective “Urgence: notre police assasine” requested authorization for a counter demonstration under the nose of the police unions. The request was turned down. So they came anyway. Several hundred. Turned away from Place de la République they gathered nearby in front of the Bourse de Travail, where they scuffled with police before marching toward the Quai de Valmy on the St. Martin canal. A patrol car returning from a mission that had nothing to do with today’s demonstration, innocently driving along the Quai, triggered the rage of the collective against police brutality. A woman who witnessed the scene said, “They were angry, they saw the police car, it was like a red rag in front of a bull.”

They started hammering the car with iron bars, smashed open the windows, tried but failed to grab the cops out of the car, smashed the rear window, and threw a firebomb into the car. The policeman and woman managed to escape without getting their heads smashed. They were armed, explained the Police Chief, but they did not use their weapons because they did not want to kill anyone.

Daesh distributes its atrocity videos, and our newscasts dispay the humiliation of law enforcement. Won’t our aspiring local jihadists relish these scenes broadcast daily on French television? Aren’t they drooling at the sight of that flaming car, those smashed windows, those bashed ATMs, those hefty paving stones and murderous iron bars?  Can you hear their sneering laughter at the sight of the earnest young and not so young, sitting on the pavement as if it were desert sands, repeating outworn slogans and lost in magical thinking?  Sitting ducks!

PS: One of the Nuit Debout non-leaders (nothing is vertical in their ideal world), François Ruffin, a journalist from Amiens (we say “the provinces”), editor & chief bottle washer of a magazine called Fakir (pronounced Fa-Keer in French), inspired by Michael Moore, made a “direct action” (in the words of another non-leader, Frédéric Lordon of Le Monde Diplomatique) film, Merci Patron, showing how he tricked Bernard Arnault, CEO of LVMH, into giving €45,000 to a couple of workers that had been ruined when LVMH delocalized the production of Kenzo suits from France to Poland, then to Bulgaria and soon to Greece. Ruffin, who says the suits cost €30 to make and sell for €900, made a profit of €500,000 on the film. In a recent issue of Fakir, Ruffin quotes at great length his comrade Iglesias of Podemos who, in turn, praises to the heavens his role model: Lenin. It all adds up!

Nidra Poller is an American novelist and journalist living in Paris since 1972. She publishes regularly in the Wall Street Journal Europe, New English Review, and other outlets.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in Family Security Matters. Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Florida: Eleven refugees entered the Sunshine State with active TB since 2013

This is the next in a series of stunning refugee health reports from Michael Patrick Leahy at Breitbart.

Most Americans are shocked to learn that we are still admitting tens of thousands of Cuban “refugees” each year with most going to Florida. Now to add insult to injury we learn that they are not screened for TB and some have arrived with an active form of the communicable disease.

cuba-unloading-ship-1024x834

Cuban immigrants off loading in Florida.

We knew refugees were permitted to move to your towns and cities with latent Tuberculosis but had never heard that cases of active TB were arriving until Leahy began his series.

Do you remember a few years ago the media was going berserk because one guy with active TB flew on a plane somewhere and the news media was going crazy trying to piece together information on where he had been and with whom he sat on the plane.

Well, just think about this, eleven cases were walking around Florida’s mostly Cuban community with active TB in the last couple of years.

So where is the mainstream media now?

Here is Leahy again in a very detailed account of the situation:

Eleven refugees with active tuberculosis (TB) were among more than 111,000 refugees who arrived in Florida during the three years between 2013 and 2015, according to a report the Florida Department of Health recently sent to Breitbart News.

Their active TB status was determined in medical screenings completed within 90 days of their arrival in the Sunshine State.

This news comes barely a week after Breitbart News reported that four refugees with active TB were sent to Indiana in 2015

[….]

The vast majority of these refugees who arrived in Florida between 2013 and 2015–104,000 of the 111,000– came from Cuba under the “wet-foot, dry-foot policy,” the 1995 “amendment to the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. . . [that] gives migrants from Cuba special treatment that no other group of refugees or immigrants receives… [and] puts Cubans who reach U.S. soil on a fast track to permanent residency,” as Dan Moffett reports.

Only a small percentage of these 104,000 Cuban refugees–an estimated total of 3,000–entered as “traditional arrival” refugees, the program through which approximately 70,000 refugees per year enter the United States from over 100 different countries.

If you are confused by the numbers, Leahy explains that the huge number of Cuban supposed “refugees” admitted to the US are given the same special treatment that regular refugees receive.  However, at least the regular refugees have some screening abroad while the Cubans do not.  They can literally walk around in your neighborhoods for weeks before they even get any health screening.

Continue reading here.

This is our 300th post in our ‘health issues’ category.  Some of Leahy’s earlier reports are archived there.

I wonder, are volunteers who work with refugees briefed by the resettlement contractor about what diseases, parasites etc. the refugees might be carrying?

RELATED ARTICLES:

Great mystery in Sweden: How do we suddenly have more men than women?

Some in Germany worried about large number of conversions from Islam to Christianity

Disease spread by sand fleas arriving in the West with Syrian refugees

Top resettlement states in last ten years

West Virginia you are up next as expanding federal refugee program looking for fresh territory

Abraham Lincoln fought against ‘political correctness’

The first president elected by the Republican Party fought political correctness during his time.

Professor  in the column Lincoln’s Teaching – and Our Politics writes:

Lincoln famously complained that there was nowhere that people could talk about slavery – they couldn’t talk about it in the churches because “it didn’t belong there.” It was too political, too divisive. And they couldn’t talk about it in politics because it was too explosive. It was a moral and religious question, too unsettling for our politics. It was the gravest issue before us. It was the issue that truly went to the core of the kind of regime we meant to establish and the kind of people we had sought to be. And yet we couldn’t talk about it readily in public.

[Emphasis added]

From the time of Lincoln let’s fast forward to today and Donald J. Trump, the GOP nominee for president of the United States. Professor Arkes wrote:

We bring back here one of the most enduring lessons Lincoln taught, with a problem that persistently haunts our politics: One of the prime tasks of the political man is to teach, through his own, artful example how ordinary people can talk about the issues that truly run to the root. But that presupposes the prior, truly first task. The political man or woman will need to get clear in the first place on the questions that really were central; the questions, as Lincoln said, from which everything else radiated. [Emphasis added]

Trump has been criticized for his lack of “civility.” But is civility a code word for political correctness? Is Trump talking about “issues that truly run to the root”?

Democrats, Republicans and world leaders alike call for Mr. Trump to tone down his rhetoric. The Democrats have called Mr. Trumps comments racist, bigoted and hateful. Some blame the violence seen at Trump rallies on his words. Daily the media bombards us with polls showing the unpopularity of Mr. Trump. However, let is not forget that President Lincoln was also unpopular in his time.

Professor Arkes noted, “That is why, as he [Lincoln] said, that proposition, ‘all men are created equal’ really was the ‘father of all moral principle’ in us. As Lincoln showed, the case in principle for slavery could not be confined to blacks. A government that could accept the slavery of black people could easily begin disfranchising certain classes of whites as well. And with a simple shift of labels, a whole other class of ‘human persons’ can be removed altogether from the circle of ‘rights-bearing beings’.”

“But if a politician uses the N-word, if Donald Trump says a derisive word about women – none of these things has been beneath the notice, and the lingering attention, of the media,” writes Professor Arkes.

Therefore are not topics such as immigration, abortion, women, homosexuality, religion and Islam worthy of public discourse?

In the column Why Morality is the Only Thing We Should Legislate Selwyn Duke writes:

“You can’t legislate morality!” is a common battle cry today.

It’s thought to be a quintessentially American idea, even though the Founding Fathers never expressed such a sentiment. Nor did the early Americans who would unabashedly enforce a biblically based code of morality in their localities, both via social pressure and governmental laws, with transgressors sometimes spending time in stocks — or worse. No, our common battle cry is a modern idea, and one of modernism. It also betrays a fundamental, and dangerous, misunderstanding of law’s nature.

In reality, the only thing we should legislate is morality. The only other option is legislating whims or immorality.

American voters will decide on November 8th if saying things that are unpopular is needed and necessary or if being political correct is the new normal.

As George Orwell noted, “In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Perhaps it is time to stop deceiving ourselves?

Memorial Day: Reflecting On Heroes

A few Memorial Days ago, I recall myself comfy on the sofa overstuffed with cookout delights, watching a documentary on TV about conscientious objectors. The program portrayed these guys as moral superiors. I thought, “You guys are able to bloviate about the evils of war and pursue careers as American artists, college professors and so on because other brave young men went to war to fight for you; defending your freedom.”

Another Memorial Day TV program featured WWII soldier and character actor Charles Durning. Durning earned three Purple Hearts. He was awarded the Bronze and Silver Stars for valor and the World War II Victory Medal. The French consul presented Durning with the National Order of the Legion of Honor.

At the 2008 National Memorial Day Concert, Durning stood at the podium and wept for his fallen brothers. Wow! Do they make character driven courageous men like that anymore?

I served in the US Army stationed at Ft Bragg NC, drafted from 1969-1971. My entire battalion received orders for Vietnam accept myself and another soldier. Thus, I never experienced serving in a combat zone.

My buddy, Gerry “Boats” Milhollen experienced combat in Vietnam. He suffered night terrors for several years and other emotional issues which cost him his marriage. Gerry said what pained him and fellow combat vets the most is that unlike other US troops returning from war, they never received a welcome home. Quite the opposite. Vietnam vets were spat upon and called baby killers.

I asked Gerry to share his thoughts in a tribute I recorded a few years ago titled, “Welcome Home Brother.” 

I was in my late teens when my cousin Jackie’s husband Norman Byrd was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

Norman never returned home. It was all pretty surreal. I found his name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington DC.

My daughter recently retired from the US Navy. She went in directly after high school and worked her way up to retiring as an officer. Her cousins on her mom’s side lived in the mean hood of west Baltimore. Many became addicted to drugs. One of her cousins was murdered by thugs.

I remember my daughter telling me that when she came home on leave after basic training, she immediately noticed that she no longer had much in common with her friends. They were still kids and the military made her an adult.

My daughter said before she retired, it pained her to see what the Navy was becoming. The discipline which had molded and shaped her was being thrown out the window due to political correctness. She said rather than training sailors, she felt like a babysitter.

I heard a black preacher tell his congregation that he would love to see the government go through the ghetto scooping up fatherless young black men for the military. They would learn to shut-up, respect authority and receive a paycheck for a job well done. While the preacher’s comments were tongue-in-cheek, I get his point and agree. Despite it being under attack by Obama, Leftist social engineering and political correctness, the US military is still a pretty good place to turn youths into responsible adults.

Traveling the country on Tea Party Express, I had the pleasure of meeting Debbie Lee, the gold star mom of Marc Alan Lee, the first Navy Seal to die in Operation Iragi Freedom. In honor of her decorated son, Debbie founded AmericasMightyWarriors.org which helps the families of fallen soldiers. I organized patriot music artists across America to record a song titled, “Taking Back America”. We selected 44 songs from the artists to be included in a project titled, Tea Are The World”. All the proceeds benefit Debbie’s AmericasMightyWarriors.org. 

While enjoying your family cookouts, please reflect and give a nod to those whose courage and sacrifice made it all possible; the US military.

Why Morality is the Only Thing We Should Legislate

“You can’t legislate morality!” is a common battle cry today. It’s thought to be a quintessentially American idea, even though the Founding Fathers never expressed such a sentiment. Nor did the early Americans who would unabashedly enforce a biblically based code of morality in their localities, both via social pressure and governmental laws, with transgressors sometimes spending time in stocks — or worse. No, our common battle cry is a modern idea, and one of modernism. It also betrays a fundamental, and dangerous, misunderstanding of law’s nature.

In reality, the only thing we should legislate is morality. The only other option is legislating whims or immorality.

One problem with addressing this issue, which I have done several times, is that many readers have a reason-clouding emotional reaction induced by the assumption that I’m advocating big government. So I’ll preface what follows by saying that even if we enact just one law — let’s say, prohibiting murder — we have legislated morality. The only people who could credibly say they wouldn’t legislate morality are those who wouldn’t legislate at all: anarchists.

I’ll start by putting this simply. Could you imagine a legislator saying, “This law doesn’t prevent something that’s wrong, but I’m going to impose it on you anyway”? What if he said, “This other law doesn’t mandate anything that is a good, but I’ll compel you to adhere to it simply because I feel like it”? Would you suppose his legislation had a sound basis? Or would you think that, unlike a prohibition against murder or theft, the imposition of something lacking a moral foundation (“rightness” or “wrongness”) was the very definition of tyranny?

Generally speaking, a law is by definition the imposition of a value (which can be positive, negative or neutral), and a just law is the imposition of a moral principle (good by definition). This is because a law — with the exception of laws for naming post offices and such (which don’t constrain us and which won’t be included henceforth when I speak of “laws”) — states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof. If this is not the case, again, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area? There is no point imposing something that doesn’t prevent a wrong or mandate some good. This is why there will never be a powerful movement lobbying to criminalize strawberry ice cream or kumquats.

As an example, what is the possible justification for speed laws? Well, there is the idea that it’s wrong to endanger others or yourself, and, in the latter case, it could be based on the idea that it’s wrong to engage in reckless actions that could cause you to become a burden on society. Of course, some or all of these arguments may be valid or not, but the point is this: if a law is not underpinned by a valid moral principle, it is not a just law. Without morality, laws can be based on nothing but air.

One cause of the strong negative reaction (generally among libertarian-leaners) to the above is the word “morality” itself; as with “capitalism” in liberal circles, the term has taken on a negative connotation. Yet this is partially due to a narrow and incorrect view of what morality is. Use the word, and many imagine the Church Lady or a preacher breathing fire and brimstone; moreover, reflecting our libertine age’s spirit, people’s minds often automatically go to sex. “Stay out of the bedroom!” we hear, even though the only side legislating bedroom-related matters today is the Left (e.g., contraception mandate, forcing businesses to cater faux weddings). It’s almost as if, dare I say, some people are worried that others may ruin their fun.

Morality encompasses far more than sexual matters, however. Yet it is narrow in one way: it includes only correct principles of rightness. And, again, when these are not the stuff of laws, elements of wrongness will be.

Speaking of which, everyone advocating legislation seeks to impose a conception of morality or, as modernists are wont to put it, a “values” set. For example, the only justification for forcing bakers to service faux weddings is the (incorrect) notion that it’s “wrong” to deny such service. ObamaCare could only be justified based on the idea that providing medical care for those who can’t afford it is a moral imperative. And “transgender” bathroom laws would have to be based on the fancy that it’s wrong to disallow someone from using facilities associated with his “gender identity.”

A common argument I’ve heard in response to the above is “No, I don’t legislate morality; something should only be illegal if it harms another.” Other arguments are that we should merely prohibit “force” or protect “property rights.” Leaving alone the deep matter of what constitutes “harm,” these assertions are, with all due respect, dodges. Is it “wrong” to harm another, use unjust force against him or violate property rights? If not, why trouble over it?

People making the harm, force or property-rights argument are almost universally sincere, except with themselves, as it’s self-deception. It’s a way of preserving a mistaken ideological principle (“Don’t legislate morality”) by obscuring what it is you’re actually doing when making law. It’s also dangerous because it keeps things on a more superficial level. It’s a way relativistic moderns can avoid dealing with something they consider inconvenient, messy and divisive: determining “What is good?” But when you don’t work hard to settle what is good, you end up with what is bad.

Another reason many people are oblivious to the values/morality underpinning their conception of law is that many moral principles are now woven so seamlessly into our civilization’s fabric that we don’t recognize them as “morality.” Yet a moral does not cease to be a moral because it becomes a meme. Consider that while we take for granted that theft, murder and slavery should be governmentally prohibited, most pre-Christian pagans would have found such an idea foreign. Pillaging for a living, Viking-style, was common and accepted; might made right. And while you might not murder or enslave your fellow group members (one problem Athenians had with Spartans was that the latter enslaved other Greeks: the Helots), outsiders were fair game. In fact, if there had been such a thing as a libertarian Roman, he just might have said to Christians endeavoring to outlaw the brutality of the arena, “You can’t legislate morality!”

There can be no such thing as a separation of morality and state. That is, unless we want to regress to man’s default, the immoral state.

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

Do CEOs Make 335 Times More Than Average Workers? by Mark J. Perry

Manufacturing Ammo for Class Warfare.

The AFL-CIO released its annual report on CEO pay last week (see details here and here), and has calculated a CEO-to-worker-pay ratio of 335-to-1 for 2015, based on the average total compensation package for S&P 500 CEOs of $12.4 million last year, and average annual pay of $36,875 for America’s 99 million rank-and-file workers.

Here are some observations on the AFL-CIO’s questionable methodology that is uses every year to calculate an inflated CEO-to-worker pay ratio (see this related CD post from last May), and an analysis of how a complete confiscation of CEO pay would affect average worker pay.

Dubious Math for Worker Pay

In its 2016 report, the AFL-CIO reports that the average nonsupervisory rank-and-file worker made $36,875 annually in 2015 based on “average nonsupervisory worker pay according to Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2015 data.”

No other details are provided, but the $36,875 annual average worker pay calculated by the AFL-CIO is apparently based on an hourly wage of $21.04 for the average nonsupervisory worker in 2015 (BLS data here), an average workweek of only 33.7 hours (BLS data here) for the average rank-and-file nonsupervisory worker, and an assumption of 52 weeks of work per year ($21.04 per hour x 33.7 hours per week x 52 weeks ≈ $36,875).

Here’s an important statistical issue: Every year the AFL-CIO does an apples-to-oranges comparison of: a) total CEO compensation for only 500 CEOs working full-time to b) the cash wages only for 99 million rank-and-file workers, who work less than 35 hours per week on average, and are therefore mostly part-time workers.

But you would never know that from the AFL-CIO’s website because the details of average worker pay are never really explained, and I guess nobody has ever bothered to check and find out that the AFL-CIO is using average annual worker pay for mostly part-time employees who only work 33.7 hours per week on average.

Questions: a) How would the AFL-CIO’s CEO-to-worker pay ratio change if we calculate average worker pay for full-time workers, b) how would the ratio change if we compare the average pay for a rank-and-file workers who work the same number of hours that a typical CEO works, e.g. 45, 50 or 60 hours per week, and c) how would the ratio change if we compare total compensation of both CEOs and rank-and-file workers working full-time?

 

The chart above summarizes how the CEO-to-worker pay ratio would change, here are the details:

a. Assuming a 40-hour workweek for a rank-and-file worker at an hourly wage $21.04 and average annual pay of $43,763, we would get a CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 283-to-1.

b. Assuming a 45-hour workweek for rank-and-file workers at an hourly wage $21.04 (and 5 weekly hours of overtime at $31.56 an hour) and average annual pay of $51,969, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio would be 239-to-1.

c. Assuming a 50-hour workweek for rank-and-file workers at an hourly wage $21.04 (and 10 weekly hours of overtime at $31.56 an hour) and average annual pay of $60,174, we would get aCEO-to-worker pay ratio of 206-to-1.

d. Assuming a 60-hour workweek for rank-and-file workers at an hourly wage $21.04 (and 20 weekly hours of overtime at $31.56 an hour) and average annual pay of $76,585, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio would be 162-to-1 (or less than half of the AFL-CIO’s reported ratio of 335-to-1).

e. Assuming a 40-hour workweek for full-time rank-and-file workers at $21.04 an hour, and adding the monetary value of employer-provided benefits of $9.59 per hour (based on the 45.6% average that benefits represent as a share of hourly earnings according to the BLS), and total compensation of $63,719, we would get a CEO-to-worker compensation ratio of 195-to-1.

If we further considered a 50 or 60 hour workweek and fringe benefits for rank-and-file workers for an even more accurate apples-to-apples comparison, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio starts approaching 100-to-1, which is a far cry from the AFL-CIO’s 335-to-1 ratio that will be generating sensationalized media coverage in the coming weeks.

Confiscation and Redistribution of CEO Pay

And what’s the whole point of the AFL-CIO’s annual reports on CEO-to-worker pay ratio? The sub-title of the AFL-CIO’s 2015 Executive Paywatch websitepretty much sums it up: “High paid CEOs and the low wage economy.” The AFL-CIO’s message seems to be that if CEOs weren’t being so generously over-compensated then the rank-and-file workers would be doing much better and making higher wages. For example, according to the AFL-CIO in 2014:

America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, a country where hard work and playing by the rules would provide working families a middle-class standard of living. But in recent decades, corporate CEOs have been taking a greater share of the economic pie while workers’ wages have stagnated.

The AFL-CIO has fallen here for the zero-sum, fixed pie fallacy, one of the most common economic mistakes that falsely assumes that one party can gain only at the expense of another. But let’s assume that there is a “fixed pie of wages” and do some confiscation and redistribution of CEO compensation to see how that would affect average rank-and-file worker pay.

Question: If the CEOs of the S&P 500 companies received $12.4 million on average last year, then as a group, those 500 CEOs received about $6.20 billion in total compensation in 2015. If the AFL-CIO could wave a magic wand and confiscate that entire amount and redistribute $6.20 billion to the current 99 million rank-and-file workers, what would each one get?

Answer: An annual increase in pay of about $63 for each rank-and-file worker before taxes, or about $1.20 more per week, or 3.5 cents per hour. In other words, complete confiscation and redistribution of S&P 500 CEO compensation would make almost no difference for the average rank-and-file worker.

Bottom Line

The AFL-CIO can only get a distorted and inflated CEO-to-worker pay ratio of 335-to-1 with an apples-to-oranges analysis that compares the total annual compensation of a small, select group of CEOs heading America’s largest multi-national corporations, who probably typically work 50-60 hours per week or more, to the average annual cash wages of part-time rank-and-file employees who work less 34 hours per week on average.

Once we make a more statistically valid apples-to-apples comparison, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio falls in half from the AFL-CIO’s 335-to-1 ratio to only 162-to-1 if we assume a 60-hour work week for the average worker (to be comparable to the workweek of an average CEO), and the ratio falls to less than 200-to-1 once we consider total compensation for both CEOs and full-time rank-and-file workers. Further, even if we could confiscate 100% of the compensation of all S&P 500 CEOs, the typical rank-and-file worker would probably get less than $1 per week in after-tax earnings. Big deal.

Just like last year, the CEO-to-worker pay ratio reported by the AFL-CIO gets my annual “Biggest Blindly Accepted Statistical Fairy Tale of the Year Award.” Well no, it’s actually a tie with the gender wage gap myth and the incessantly repeated “77 cents on the dollar” statistical falsehood. What’s disappointing is that much of the mainstream media seem to blindly accept both of these statistical falsehoods without ever challenging the “statistical legerdemain” that are used to produce and perpetuate these statistical myths.

One exception was this excellent article last year by IBD’s John Merline (“Do CEOs Make 300 Times What Workers Get? Not Even Close“) who concluded:

What’s not understandable is why the mainstream press keeps repeating the massively inflated 300-to-1 number without noting the statistical legerdemain that produced it.

This article is reprinted with the permission of the American Enterprise Institute.

COLUMN BY

Mark J. Perry

Mark J. Perry is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.

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Nora Patterson former Democrat and Planned Parenthood Board Member running for Florida Senate

nora patterson at opening of pp facility in sarasota

Nora Patterson (sixth from the left) at ribbon cutting of largest Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Florida, located in the City of Sarasota.

Career politician Nora Patterson has filed to run for the Florida Senate in District 23. Patterson will be running against Florida State Representatives Ray Pilon and Greg Steube and former Florida State Representative Doug Holder in the Republican primary in Sarasota County, Florida.

Patterson is a long time supporter and former President of the Board of Directors of the largest Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Florida, located in Rosemary District, a minority area in North Sarasota County.

In 1998, when running for the Sarasota City Commission, Rod Thompson from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that Patterson “has served as president of the board of directors for Planned Parenthood of Southwest Florida” … and she is “very much a supporter of Planned Parenthood.”

john and nora patterson

John and Nora Patterson at the March 2013 Planned Parenthood annual dinner. Source: Gulfshore Media, LLC.

In June, 2006 Patterson, with her husband John who is a partner with Shutt & Bowen, LLP law firm, attended a Planned Parenthood fundraiser. Sarasota Magazine reported on the Ruby Gala and wrote:

At the Ruby gala, big names were everywhere: Cornelia Matson in regal purple, Lee Peterson, Nancy Reinheimer, Betty Schoenbaum, Anita Holec, Caren Lobo, Flori Roberts,Leila Gompertz-too many to name. And husbands galore! Many politicos-Mayor Mary Ann Servian, former Mayor Mollie Cardamone, Commissioner Ken Shelin, School Board members John Lewis and Carol Todd, County Commissioner Nora Patterson and Betty Castor. Alex Sink, and other candidates for office were also there.

In 2007 Sarasota County voted for an $8 million bond to help fund a new Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

While a Sarasota County Commissioner Patterson was the only one to vote to continue using county taxes to fund Planned Parenthood. Steven Ertlet from LifeNews.com in 2008 reported:

Sarasota County in Florida has cut the money it sends to a local Planned Parenthood abortion business. Officials, citing poor economic conditions and the need to better balance the city budget, removed the second $12,500 of the original $25,000 allocated for Planned Parenthood family planning programs.

[ … ]

Nora Patterson was the only member of the commission to vote to retain the Planned Parenthood funding. The county gave the abortion center a $30,000 grant in 2007 and $28,000 in 2006.

Zac Anderson from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports, “Patterson is viewed as a moderate on a number of issues. She is a former Democrat who supports abortion rights ‘up to a certain point in the pregnancy’ and once served as president of the board of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Florida, although she noted her board stint was before the local affiliate performed abortions.” [Emphasis added]

Patterson’s efforts to distance herself from Planned Parenthood is misrepresenting the fact that she has consistently supported abortions, and the funding thereof, using Sarasota tax dollars ever since she left as President of Southwest Florida Planned Parenthood.

Stephanie Armour from the Wall Street Journal reports:

Three Planned Parenthood Federation of America clinics in Florida were ordered to stop performing second-trimester abortions after an investigation found they didn’t have the proper licenses, the state Agency for Health Care Administration said Wednesday.

The investigation also found one clinic that wasn’t keeping proper logs relating to fetal remains, according to the agency. The state may take additional actions, including administrative sanctions, against the clinics.

“Licenses are in place to protect the patient from unscrupulous operators and the state of Florida will ensure every facility is held accountable for its actions,” the agency said in a news release.

[ … ]

Florida Gov. Rick Scott last month ordered an investigation of Planned Parenthood clinics in the state following an antiabortion group’s release of undercover videos of Planned Parenthood officials discussing the procurement of fetal tissue for research following abortions.

Perhaps Sarasota County voters should judge Nora Patterson on the company she keeps? That company being Planned Parenthood, and the industrial complex that makes a profit off of baby body parts.

Nora Patterson has been a loyal soldier in the war against the innocent and unborn.

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