Zhores Medvedev’s Life: A Chilling Reminder of How the Soviets Weaponized Psychiatry against Dissidents

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The practice of categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” became a ready tool of suppression in the Soviet state founded by Lenin and developed under Stalin.

The New York Times obituary opened with a simple recitation of facts: “Zhores A. Medvedev, the Soviet biologist, writer and dissident who was declared insane, confined to a mental institution and stripped of his citizenship in the 1970s after attacking a Stalinist pseudoscience, died … in London.”

Zhores Medvedev, his twin brother Roy (still alive at 93), the physicist Andrei Sakharov, and the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn were leading dissidents. They courageously put their lives on the line to smuggle manuscripts out of the Soviet Union. They wanted the wider world to learn the truth about the “the workers’ paradise” that so many Western intellectuals (some deluded, others having gone over to the dark side) praised.

A generation of Americans has been born since the Soviet Union, the USSR that President Ronald Reagan boldly labeled “the evil empire,” ceased to exist. They have little to no concept of how ferociously the USSR’s communist tyranny suppressed dissent. As the Times obituary of Dr. Medvedev illustrates, one Soviet technique of oppression was to declare that political dissidents were insane. They were then incarcerated in psychiatric hospitals where they were tormented and tortured. Some were used as human guinea pigs for dangerous experiments. (Shades of Hitler’s buddy, Dr. Mengele.) Some even succumbed to the not-so-tender ministrations of those “hospitals.”

I recall one particular example of the disgusting abuse of human beings in Soviet psychiatric hospitals. Vladimir Bukovsky, who will turn 76 later this month, spent a dozen years being shuffled between Soviet jails, labor camps, and psychiatric hospitals. One of the “therapies” administered in a psychiatric hospital was putting a cord into Bukovsky’s mouth, threading it from his throat up through his nasal passages, and then drawing it out through one of his nostrils. (Maybe the cord went in the opposite direction; I’ve never been interested in memorizing torture techniques.) Alas, this communist “treatment” did not “cure” Bukovsky of his rational (not irrational) abhorrence of tyranny and brutality.

The warped thought process that led to the perversion and weaponization of psychiatry in the Soviet Union can be traced back to the communist icon and thought leader Karl Marx. Marx propounded a spurious doctrine known as “polylogism” to justify stifling dissent. According to Marx, different classes of people had different structures in their minds. Thus, Marx declared the bourgeoisie to be mentally defective because they were inherently unable to comprehend Marx’s (allegedly) revelatory and progressive theories. Since they were, in a sense, insane, there was no valid reason for communists to “waste time” arguing with them. On the contrary, communists were justified in not only ignoring or suppressing bourgeois ideas but in liquidating the entire bourgeois class.

The practice of categorizing one’s enemies as “insane” became a ready tool of suppression in the Soviet state founded by Lenin and developed under Stalin. The USSR’s infamous secret police energetically wielded quack psychiatry as a club with which to destroy political dissidents. If you want more information about how the Soviets kidnapped and misused psychiatry, here is a link to a document that describes what American agents of the USSR were taught about psycho-political techniques in the late 1930s. (The provenance of the booklet is murky, and Soviet apologists have long tried to discredit it, but in light of numerous psychiatric abuses known to have been committed with the approval of the USSR’s rulers, the content of the book is highly plausible.)

The incarceration of Zhores Medvedev in psychiatric hospitals in the 1970s was a monstrous injustice. His “crime” was having exposed the bizarre pseudoscience of Lysenkoism that Stalin had embraced in the 1950s. Lysenko’s quack theories led to deadly crop failures and widespread starvation. Nevertheless, Stalin backed him by executing scientists who dared to disagree with Lysenko. Millions of innocents lost their lives because “truth” in the Soviet Union wasn’t scientific but political.

Another vivid example of the destructive consequences of politicizing truth is related in Solzhenitsyn’s exposé of Soviet labor camps, The Gulag Archipelago. Certain Soviet officials decided to increase the steel shipped to a certain area. When the planners issued orders for trains to carry double the steel to the designated destination, conscientious engineers informed them that it couldn’t be done. They pointed out that the existing train tracks could not support such great weights. The politicians had the engineers executed as “saboteurs” for opposing “the plan.” What followed was predictable: the loads were doubled, the tracks gave out, and the designated area ended up getting less steel, not more.

As the havoc wrought by Soviet central economic planners repeatedly demonstrated, the communist central planners refused to abandon their insufferable self-delusion and mystical belief in the power of their own will to alter reality.
This episode shows where the true insanity was in the USSR. The central planners believed that constructing their ideal country was simply a matter of will. Alas, reality doesn’t conform to the whims or will of any human being, but the arrogance of central planners remains stubbornly impervious to that inescapable fact of life. Instead, as the havoc wrought by Soviet central economic planners repeatedly demonstrated, the communist central planners refused to abandon their insufferable self-delusion and mystical belief in the power of their own will to alter reality. This was the true insanity, compounded by the error of persecuting competent scientists like Zhores Medvedev.

Sadly, the practice of branding political opponents as “insane” is not confined to the now-defunct Soviet state. In 1981, when I was completing my master’s thesis on Solzhenitsyn, I telephoned an American college professor of history to ask whether he recalled if Solzhenitsyn had been granted honorary US citizenship. (He hadn’t. President Ford didn’t want to offend the Soviet leadership.) The reply to my question was this: “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn belongs in an insane asylum.” The virus of Marx’s polylogism is, unfortunately, alive and well in American academia.

As for Zhores Medvedev, may he now rest in peace and receive his reward for his integrity and courage.

This article was reprinted from the Mises Institute.

COLUMN BY

Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson

Mark Hendrickson is Adjunct Professor of Economics at Grove City College, where he has taught since 2004. He is a Fellow for Economics and Social Policy with The Center for Vision and Values and is on the Council of Scholars of the Commonwealth Foundation.

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

Here Are The Most Egregious Fake News Stories Of 2018

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As 2018 comes to a close, it’s time to review the year’s worst cases of media misquotes, misleading narratives, major corrections and straight-up fake news.

While last year’s fake reporting largely occurred during the media’s relentless pursuit to prove Russian collusion, this year’s list is much more varied. However, some themes emerged: stories about then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the U.S. border were routinely flagged for misinformation.

Without further ado, here is the list of 2018’s worst examples of fake news:

1. WAPO BLAMES BORDER PATROL FOR DEATH OF 7-YEAR-OLD MIGRANT

The Washington Post published a story in December focusing on a 7-year-old migrant child from Guatemala who died in border patrol custody.

Despite WaPo’s misleading headline suggesting border patrol was to blame for the girl’s death, the full timeline of events and statements from the girl’s father praising border agents revealed a different story.

2. CNN AND THE HILL SPREAD RETRACTED SEXUAL ASSAULT CLAIM AGAINST KAVANAUGH

CNN and The Hill both reported on a sexual assault claim against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in late September without ever mentioning that the claim had been quickly retracted.

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 27: Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Kavanaugh was called back to testify about claims by Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 27: Judge Brett Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Kavanaugh was called back to testify about claims by Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Jeffrey Catalan apologized for making a “mistake” in leveling the false claim against Kavanaugh, but CNN and The Hill’s initial reports on the claim failed to note the retraction. The Hill later retracted a tweet bolstering the claim and CNN updated its misleading report.

3. BOSTON GLOBE CORRECTS LIZ WARREN STORY — MAKES HER LESS NATIVE AMERICAN

Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren released a DNA test in October seeking to prove her repeated claims that she has Native American ancestry.

The Boston Globe initially reported on the DNA test by explaining that Warren was somewhere between 1/32 and 1/512 Native American. However, the paper eventually issued two corrections that damaged Warren’s ancestral claims even further.

“The generational range based on the ancestor that the report identified suggests she’s between 1/64th and 1/1,024th Native American,” The Globe admitted.

4. NYT ACCUSES NIKKI HALEY OF PURCHASING EXPENSIVE CURTAINS

The New York Times initially tied U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley to expensive curtains hanging in the ambassador’s apartment in New York, writing, “Nikki Haley’s View of New York Is Priceless. Her Curtains? $52,701.”

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addresses the UNSC during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine November 26, 2018 at the United Nations in New York. - The United States on Monday warned Russia that "outlaw actions" like the seizure of Ukrainian ships in the Sea of Azov are preventing normal relations from developing between Washington and Moscow. US Ambassador Nikki Haley told the UN Security Council that "the United States would welcome a normal relationship with Russia. But outlaw actions like this one continue to make that impossible." (Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley addresses the UNSC during a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine November 26, 2018 at the United Nations in New York. (Photo by DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

However, NYT’s own article later admitted that the curtains were approved in 2016 and that Haley had no say in the matter.

5. MEDIA STILL BLAMING REPUBLICANS FOR STEELE DOSSIER

CNN’s Jim Sciutto, MSNBC’s Katy Tur, and MSNBC’s Ari Melber were all responsible for falsely claiming that Never-Trump Republicans were responsible for initial funding of the salacious Steele dossier.

Washington Free Beacon founder Paul Singer did pay Fusion GPS for standard opposition research, however, he stopped paying Fusion GPS well before they contracted Christopher Steele to create the dossier. That research was paid for solely by the DNC and the Clinton campaign.

This falsehood has been shared so many times that even former FBI director James Comeyhas repeated it.

6. CNN ANALYST PUBLISHES DUBIOUS REPORT ON ADDITIONAL KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS

CNN political analyst and Sentinel editor Brian Karem published a report in September claiming that “Montgomery County investigators” were looking into an additional allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Local police disputed that they were investigating any claims, and Karem later updated his reporting to indicate that his sources were not police, but rather random “investigators in Montgomery County.”

7. CNN ACCUSES TED CRUZ OF BEING AFRAID TO APPEAR ON THEIR NETWORK

CNN accused Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz of being “scared” to come on their programs in the wake of the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

ATASCOCITA, TX - NOVEMBER 05: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Get Out The Vote Bus Tour rally on November 5, 2018 in Atascocita, Texas. With one day to go until election day, Sen. Cruz is campaigning throughout Texas as he battles democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke in a tight race to save his Senate seat. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

ATASCOCITA, TX – NOVEMBER 05: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks during a Get Out The Vote Bus Tour rally on November 5, 2018 in Atascocita, Texas. With one day to go until election day, Sen. Cruz is campaigning throughout Texas as he battles democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke in a tight race to save his Senate seat. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

Sen. Ted Cruz blasted CNN for the falsehood, explaining on Twitter that he had done a 15-minute interview on the network the day prior.

“CNN has aired NONE of it,” Cruz complained. “Why not air the (entire) interview?

8. CNN SPREADS FALSE STATISTIC ON SCHOOL SHOOTING

After a May school shooting in Texas, CNN anchor Jim Sciutto and political correspondent Sara Murray both claimed that there had already been 22 school shootings in 2018.

CNN’s list of “school shootings” includes accidental firearm discharges, events that don’t involve any students, and domestic disputes — hardly the incidents that most people consider to be a school shooting.

9. NBC SAT ON INFORMATION THAT CONTRADICTED KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS

While NBC’s story is not incorrect, its choice to sit on evidence that contradicted a serious sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh earned them a spot on this list.

Celebrity porn lawyer Michael Avenatti claimed he knew a second woman who could back up gang rape allegations made against Kavanaugh by his client, Julie Swetnick.

That second woman actually contradicted the allegations in a phone interview with NBC News on September 30. Mysteriously, NBC chose not to publish this information until weeks later and after Kavanaugh had already been confirmed to the Supreme Court.

10. MCCLATCHY CLAIMS MUELLER HAS EVIDENCE THAT CORROBORATES PIECE OF DOSSIER

McClatchy reported in April that special counsel Robert Mueller had evidence that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen had been in Prague in the summer of 2016. The report appeared to corroborate a key part of the largely unverified Steele dossier.

US President Donald Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen leaves US Federal Court in New York on December 12, 2018 after his sentencing after pleading guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress. - US President Donald Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen delivered a blistering attack on his former boss as he was sentenced to three years in prison on December 12, 2018 for multiple crimes. "It was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds," Cohen said as he pleaded for leniency before US District Judge William H. Pauley III.Cohen, 52, said he was taking responsiblity for his crimes "including those implicating the President of the United States of America." (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

US President Donald Trumps former attorney Michael Cohen leaves US Federal Court in New York on December 12, 2018 after his sentencing after pleading guilty to tax evasion, making false statements to a financial institution, illegal campaign contributions, and making false statements to Congress. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images)

But no other news outlets came forward to confirm McClatchy’s reporting and a spokesperson for Mueller’s team hinted to The Daily Caller News Foundation that the report may be false.

Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, emphatically denied in December that Cohen had ever been in Prague as the dossier alleges.

11. JIM ACOSTA SAID ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS WOULDN’T CLIMB BORDER

CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta got into an ugly, public battle with President Donald Trump over immigration in November. During the testy exchange, Acosta claimed that illegal immigrants would “not be” trying to climb over the U.S.-Mexico border wall.

TOPSHOT - US President Donald Trump points to journalist Jim Acosta from CNN during a post-election press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on November 7, 2018. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

TOPSHOT – US President Donald Trump points to journalist Jim Acosta from CNN during a post-election press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on November 7, 2018. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Unfortunately for Acosta, images a week later revealed that immigrants were doing exactlywhat he claimed they wouldn’t.

12. WAPO RAN KAVANAUGH STORY WITH KNOWINGLY FALSE INFORMATION

The Washington Post ran a story in October suggesting that Georgetown Preparatory School was hiring a new employee to deal with fallout from the Kavanaugh hearings.

The author of the report was informed by a spokesperson for Georgetown Prep that the new position was actually listed well before the Kavanaugh hearings. Somehow, that information didn’t make it into the report and WaPo had to issue a correction.

“This was a completely unintentional error-I read right over the date in haste. Story was corrected and correction is noted. Have a great weekend, all!” reporter Emily Heil wrote in response to backlash.

13. ANDREA MITCHELL SAYS DISGRACED FL ELECTION OFFICIAL IS A REPUBLICAN

Allegations of voter fraud and electoral misconduct in Florida during the 2018 midterms brought Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes into the spotlight.

Snipes, a Democrat, had been accused of misconduct in the past and was slammed again for violating Florida election law.

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell bafflingly said on air that Snipes is a Republican and “hardly a Democratic official, or someone doing the bidding of the Democratic candidates there.”

14. WAPO FORCED TO CORRECT NIKKI HALEY MISQUOTE

The Washington Post had to issue a correction after falsely attributing a quote about poverty to U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.

After multiple requests by Haley for WaPo to issue a correction, the paper admitted that the quote in question was actually said by The U.S. Permanent Mission to the United Nations and International Organizations in Geneva.

15. CHRIS CUOMO SHARES FALSE STORY ABOUT AR-15 PURCHASE

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo spread a false story claiming that a 20-year-old student was able to purchase an AR-15 rifle without going through a background check.

NEW YORK, NY - DECEMBER 09: Chris Cuomo attends the 12th Annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute at American Museum of Natural History on December 9, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CNN )

NEW YORK, NY – DECEMBER 09: Chris Cuomo attends the 12th Annual CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute at American Museum of Natural History on December 9, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for CNN )

The story itself admitted that the student never actually finished filling out paperwork — which would trigger the background check — nor did he purchase the gun.

Cuomo doubled down on sharing the story, insisting that the “point” he was trying to make still stood.

16. MEDIA CLAIMS TRUMP CALLED THE FBI A ‘CANCER’

President Donald Trump referred to corruption and bias within the FBI, particularly related to the Russia probe, as a “cancer” during a September interview with The Hill.

The media repeatedly misquoted the president and claimed he called the FBI itself “cancer,” despite clarification from the two people who interviewed him.

17. RACHEL MADDOW ACCUSES WH OF EDITING PUTIN TAPE

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow opened a show in July by insisting that the Trump administration edited a tape of the president’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16 in Helsinki.

The Washington Post’s Phillip Bump pointed out that the error was made by reporters too and was due to a change “between the feed from the reporters and the feed from the translator.”

18. CNN’S TRUMP TOWER STORY OBLITERATED BY LANNY DAVIS

CNN reported in July that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was prepared to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that the president had knowledge in advance of a Trump Tower meeting between his son and Russians.

WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 14: Lanny Davis attends the Newsweek & The Daily Beast 2012 Hero Summit at the United States Institute of Peace on November 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 14: Lanny Davis attends the Newsweek & The Daily Beast 2012 Hero Summit at the United States Institute of Peace on November 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images)

But Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, said in August that CNN’s reporting got “mixed up” and that Cohen had no information related to the Trump Tower meeting. Cohen said the same to Congress on two separate occasions.

CNN doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on its reporting, despite a series of issues with the report.

19. NBC’S BRIAN WILLIAMS BUNGLES HIT PIECE ABOUT TRUMP AND DOGS

MSNBC anchor Brian Williams — also a noted survivor of a helicopter attack during the Iraq war — thought he exposed the president for being a dog-hater in an August segment.

Williams claimed his team “launched an extensive web search” and only found one photo of President Donald Trump with a dog.

The Daily Caller revealed, with the help of a quick Google search, multiple photos of the president holding dogs.

20. WAPO CLAIMS MCSALLY ACCUSES OPPONENT OF TREASON

The Washington Post reported during the 2018 midterm elections that Republican Arizona Senate candidate Martha McSally accused her Democratic opponent, Kyrsten Sinema, of treason.

A transcript of McSally’s comments reveals that she was actually knocking Sinema for excusing the treasonous actions of others.

TEMPE, AZ - AUGUST 28: U.S. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) speaks during her primary election night gathering at Culinary Drop Out at The Yard on August 28, 2018 in Tempe, Arizona. U.S. Rep. Martha McSally won the Arizona GOP senate primary. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

TEMPE, AZ – AUGUST 28: U.S. Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) speaks during her primary election night gathering at Culinary Drop Out at The Yard on August 28, 2018 in Tempe, Arizona. U.S. Rep. Martha McSally won the Arizona GOP senate primary. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“You said you had no problem with [Americans joining the Taliban],” McSally said. “Kyrsten, I want to ask right now whether you’re going to apologize to the veterans and me for saying it’s okay to commit treason?”

21. NPR: DONALD TRUMP JR. COMMITTED PERJURY

NPR published a report in November insisting that Donald Trump Jr. lied to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow because his statements conflicted with those of former Trump attorney Michael Cohen.

However, NPR failed to realize that the piece of Trump Jr.’s testimony they quoted was about a different project.

“Trump Jr.’s statements about work on a Trump Tower Moscow that ended in 2014 referred to negotiations with Aras Agalarov,” The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Chuck Ross explained. “Felix Sater, a businessman with links to Cohen and Russian officials, tried to make a Trump Tower Moscow happen in 2015.”

22. NBC NEWS MISQUOTES SEN. CASSIDY, CREATES FALSE ANTI-TRUMP NARRATIVE

NBC News published and aired a misquote of Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy in December that suggested he was turning on President Donald Trump. The opposite was true.

NBC’s misquote made it seem that Cassidy was worried the president was involved in illegality related to hush payments to women he had affairs with. However, the full quote shows that Cassidy did not think the hush payments were crimes at all.

“The only question is then whether or not this so-called hush money is a crime. John Edwards obviously was prosecuted  for the same thing and Justice Department failed,” Cassidy explained.

23. TIME MAGAZINE’S FAMILY SEPARATION COVER FEATURING CRYING HONDURAN CHILD

Time Magazine published an infamous cover in June that showed a Honduran child crying at the U.S. border, apparently after she had been separated from her mother. The image quickly became the face of the “issue of family separations at the border,” despite the fact that the child in question was never separated.

An AFP journalists reads a copy of Time Magazine with a front cover using a combination of pictures showing a crying child taken at the US Border Mexico and a picture of US President Donald Trump looking down, on June 22, 2018 in Washington DC. (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images)

An AFP journalists reads a copy of Time Magazine with a front cover using a combination of pictures showing a crying child taken at the US Border Mexico and a picture of US President Donald Trump looking down, on June 22, 2018 in Washington DC. (Photo by ERIC BARADAT/AFP/Getty Images)

Later reports also revealed that, in contrast to common left-wing talking points, the mother and her child were not fleeing violence, and the mother had been previously deported from the U.S. In addition, the mother left three other children in Honduras and allegedly paid a smuggler to help her and her daughter cross the border illegally.

24. MIC WRITER CLAIMS RUSSIAN SPY WAS IN THE OVAL OFFICE

Shortly after it was revealed that a Russian spy was attempting to infiltrate right-wing networks, Mic writer Emily Singer claimed that same Russian spy was present during an Oval Office meeting with Russian diplomat Sergey Lavrov.

Singer claimed Russian spy Maria Butina was spotted in a photo of the meeting, citing the fact that she has red hair like the woman in the photo.

The woman in the photo is actually NSC staffer Cari Lutkins.

25. LAWRENCE O’DONNELL SPREADS FAKE LINDSEY GRAHAM QUOTE

MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell misquoted Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham in September to suggest that he was bashing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 27: Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughof sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON, DC – SEPTEMBER 27: Christine Blasey Ford testifies before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill September 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. Blasey Ford, a professor at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughof sexually assaulting her during a party in 1982 when they were high school students in suburban Maryland. (Photo by Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)

O’Donnell claimed that Graham called Ford’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh “garbage,” but Graham’s actual quote reveals he was talking specifically about gang rape allegations.

“If you’re a gang rapist when you’re in high school, you don’t just let it go,” Graham said. “[Kavanaugh’s] been at the highest level of public service, under tremendous scrutiny, 6 FBI investigations, and we missed the sophomore and junior gang rapist.”

“We didn’t miss it. It’s a bunch of garbage,” Graham asserted.

26. JENNIFER RUBIN MAKES FALSE ACCUSATION ABOUT GOP’S KAVANAUGH PROSECUTOR

Jennifer Rubin, The Washington Post’s “conservative” columnist, claimed that the prosecutor chosen by the GOP to question Dr. Christine Blasey Ford had previously worked with controversial Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was not “someone from Sheriff Joe’s operation” as Rubin claimed— the two worked in separate agencies. Mitchell was employed at the Maricopa County Attorney’s office, while Arpaio worked in the Sheriff’s Department.

27. MEDIA SPREADS CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT MELANIA POST-SURGERY

First lady Melania Trump took some time away from public life in June after undergoing kidney surgery, and the media quickly started speculating about her whereabouts.

The media elevated several bizarre claims about Melania, including an allegation that she had moved out of the White House and another that she was secretly recovering from plastic surgery.

Other reporters didn’t cite the conspiracies, but did suggest that something was amiss about Melania’s brief respite from the spotlight.

US First Lady Melania Trump reads the book "Oliver the Ornament" as she visits children at Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, on December 13, 2018. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

US First Lady Melania Trump reads the book “Oliver the Ornament” as she visits children at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC, on December 13, 2018. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

“The last time we caught a glimpse of her was on May 10,” CNN reporter Brian Stelter said. “There’s been a lot of questions about her surgery at Walter Reed and now her invisibility…how long does she have to be out of sight to make this a legitimate media story?”

28. NEW YORKER PUBLISHES KAVANAUGH ACCUSATION WITH ZERO CORROBORATION

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow — generally known for their sharp reporting on sexual harassment — made a major blunder with their report on Deborah Ramirez’s allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face at a college party, but The New Yorker was unable to produce any firsthand witnesses or even confirm that Kavanaugh was at the party in question.

The New York Times even opted not to run the same allegation because they were unable to corroborate it. Ramirez herself admitted she had significant memory gaps about the incident and she told former classmates that she wasn’t even sure if Kavanaugh was the offender.

29. DAILY BEAST CLAIMS MIGRANTS IN CARAVAN DON’T HAVE DISEASES

The Daily Beast claimed that there is “zero evidence” that members of the migrant caravan were bringing HIV and TB into the United States.

The Tijuana Health Department reported a handful of cases of tuberculosis, HIV and chickenpox among the caravan. Officials with the Mexican state of Baja California disputed that there have been cases of tuberculosis, but confirmed that some migrants are carrying HIV and chickenpox.

30. AP PINS IMMIGRANT ABUSE ON TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

The Associated Press published a report in June about abuse of child immigrants in the U.S., but did its best to bury the fact that the abuse primarily occurred under the Obama administration.

As this reporter noted at the time, “The article mentions President Donald Trump and his administration’s zero-tolerance policy at least four times in the first ten paragraphs, leaving the implicit suggestion that the Trump administration is responsible for the alleged abuse.”

The AP sneakily admitted in the 20th paragraph that the alleged abuse began in 2016 — during the Obama administration — but never bothered to mention Obama’s name in connection with the report.

31. KAVANAUGH CLERK FLASHED ‘WHITE POWER’ SYMBOL

Former Brett Kavanaugh clerk Zina Bash, who was sitting behind the Supreme Court nominee during his hearings, was accused of flashing a white supremacist symbol on camera.

The accusation stemmed from a video clip that showed Bash’s hand resting on her arm with the “OK sign,” a symbol that leftists have claimed actually signals “white power.”

Far from being a white supremacist, Bash is Mexican and Jewish and her grandparents were Holocaust survivors.

“The attacks today on my wife are repulsive,” Bash’s husband said. “Everyone tweeting this vicious conspiracy theory should be ashamed of themselves. We weren’t even familiar with the hateful symbol being attributed to her for the random way she rested her hand during a long hearing.”

32. MEDIA CLAIMS OBAMA DIDN’T SEPARATE FAMILIES AT THE BORDER

Several reporters claimed during the uproar over President Donald Trump’s family separations at the border that President Barack Obama never separated families.

However, reports from McClatchy and statements from former Obama administration officials revealed that, yes, Obama did separate some families who crossed the borderillegally.

MCALLEN, TX - SEPTEMBER 08: A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. The Border Patrol opened the holding center to temporarily house the children after tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the border illegally into the United States during the spring and summer. Although the flow of underage immigrants has since slowed greatly, thousands of them are now housed in centers around the United States as immigration courts process their cases. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

MCALLEN, TX – SEPTEMBER 08: A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. The Border Patrol opened the holding center to temporarily house the children after tens of thousands of families and unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the border illegally into the United States during the spring and summer. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

“ICE could not devise a safe way where men and children could be in detention together in one facility,” Leon Fresco, a deputy assistant attorney general under Obama, said. “It was deemed too much of a security risk.”

COLUMN BY

Amber Athey

Media and Breaking News Editor. Follow Amber on Twitter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Caller is republished with permission.

Restoring Civilization: We Can’t MAGA Unless We MAMA

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They can sense it. They can feel it. Something is seriously wrong in our civilization, and many people know it. This is why despite the relatively good economic times, most Americans polled say our country is on the “wrong track.” Yet many are like a gravely ill man who knows he’s not well but can’t precisely identify his ailment. Most often, Americans have only a vague sense of cultural malaise, or they “self-diagnose” wrongly.

Years ago I had a brief “state of the nation” discussion with a very fine, older country gentleman. While no philosopher, he did offer the following diagnosis. Struggling for words and gesticulating a bit, he said, “There’s…there’s no morality.”

Most believe morality is important both personally and nationally. We generally agree that an immoral man treads a dangerous path; of course, it’s likewise for two immoral men, five, 53 or 1,053 — or a whole nation-full.

Echoing many Founders, George Washington noted that “morality is a necessary spring of popular government.” The famous apocryphal saying goes, “America is great because America is good, and if she ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.” For sure, we can’t MAGA unless we MAMA — Make America Moral Again.

Yet if immorality is the diagnosis and restoring morality the cure, we must know what this thing called “morality” is. Ah, that’s where agreement can end.

Talk to most people today — especially the people who study people, sociologists and anthropologists — and they’ll “identify morality with social code,” as Sociology Guide puts it. They’ll essentially say what sociologists Durkheim and Sumner do, “that things are good or bad if they are so considered by society or public opinion,” the site continues. “Durkheim stated that we do not disapprove of an action because it is a crime but it is a crime because we disapprove of it.” Yet true or not, would the majority really view an action as a crime, in the all-important moral sense, if they came to believe it was true?

Consider a man I knew who once proclaimed, “Murder isn’t wrong; it’s just that society says it is.” Clearly, “public opinion” isn’t swaying him much.

Yet how do you argue with him? Barring reference to something outside of man (i.e., God) dictating murder’s “immorality,” you’re left with a striking reality:

Society is all there is to say anything.

Then “Man is the measure of all things,” as Greek philosopher Protagoras put it.

Yet acceptance of the “society says” thesis presents a problem: Now you must convince others to equate “public opinion” with credible, binding “morality.” This is mostly fruitless because, frankly, it’s stupid.

Man’s opinion is just that — opinion. If the term “morality” is essentially synonymous, it’s a risible redundancy. If we’re acting as slick marketers, trying to elevate “opinion” via assignment of an impressive-sounding title, it’s false advertising. So if that is all we’re really talking about — “opinion” or “societal considerations” — let’s drop the pretense and just say what we mean:

We sentient organic robots (soulless entities comprising chemicals and water) have preferences for how others should behave (subject to change with or without notice). No, we can’t call these tastes “morality” — but, hey, we can punish the heck out of you for defying our collective will (see North Korea et al.).

To cement the point, consider my patent explanation. Who or what determines what this thing we call morality is?

Only two possibilities exist: Either man or something outside of him does. If the latter, something vastly superior and inerrant (i.e., God), then we really can say morality exists, apart from man. It’s real. Yet what are the man-as-measure implications?

Well, imagine the vast majority of the world loved chocolate but hated vanilla. Would this make vanilla “wrong” or “evil”? It’s just a matter of preference, of whatever flavor works for you.

Okay, but is it any more logical saying murder is “bad” or “wrong” if we only do so because the vast majority of the world prefers we not kill others in a manner the vast majority considers “unjust”? If it’s all just consensus “opinion,” it then occupies the same category as flavors: preference.

This is the matter’s stark reality, boiled down. It’s why serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer’s darkness-enabling attitude was, as his father related in a 1996 interview (video below; relevant portion at 40:26), “If it [life] all happens naturalistically, what’s the need for a God? Can’t I set my own rules?” It’s why occultist Aleister Crowley, branded “the wickedest man in the world,” succinctly stated, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” (Preference Über Alles 101).

[Please insert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgw0x0TxRO8]

This perspective engenders what’s often called “moral relativism,” the notion that “Truth” (absolute by definition) is illusion and what’s called “morality” changes with the time and people. But saying all is preference is actually moral nihilism, the belief that “morality” (properly understood) doesn’t actually exist — because, again, “opinion” isn’t morality.

Of course, few think matters through as thoroughly as a Dahmer or Crowley. (In fact, a possible reason sociopaths may possess above-average intelligence is that they’re smart enough to grasp the “morality” question’s two possibilities — either morality exists as something divinely-authored, something transcendent, or there is no morality — but draw the wrong conclusion.) Yet moral relativism/nihilism has swept Western civilization. And hell has followed with it.

How relativistic/nihilistic are we? A Barna Group study found that in 2002 already, most Americans did not believe in (absolute) Truth, in morality; in fact, only six percent of teens did. Thus are they most likely to base what once were called “moral decisions” on…wait for it…feelings. Surprise, surprise.

Such prevailing philosophical/moral rot collapses civilization. For anything can be justified. Rape, kill, steal, violate the Constitution as a judge, commit vote fraud? Why not? Who’s to say it’s wrong? Don’t impose values on me, dude.

To analogize it, imagine we fell victim to “dietary relativism/nihilism” and fancied the rules of nutrition nonexistent. With only taste left to govern dietary choices, most would indulge junk food; nutritional disorder would reign and health deteriorate. Moreover, considering one man’s poison another’s pleasure, we might sample those pretty red berries the birds gobble down. Hey, if it tastes good, eat it.

This reflects what’s befalling our “If it feels good, do it” Western civilization. Considering the rules of any system non-existent or irrelevant brings movement toward disorder — and a point where those who can impose their preferences restore order, a tyrannical one.

Having said this, discussing “Truth” and God evokes complaints, as the morally relativistic/nihilistic world view influences even many conservatives, and secularists find faith-oriented talk unsettling.

So let’s focus here on not faith but fact. As to this and the world’s Dahmers, Crowleys and the murder-skeptic man I knew, call them names, but don’t call them illogical. Within their universe of “data”— that “God doesn’t exist” and thus only organic robots can be the measure — they’re right: Murder’s status isn’t “wrong,” just “unpreferred.”

Note that moral principles cannot be proven scientifically any more than God’s existence; you can’t see a moral under a microscope or a principle in a Petri dish. Science only tells us what we can do, not what we should. Finding guidance on “should” necessitates transcending the physical and venturing into the metaphysical. It requires, pure logic informs, taking a leap of faith.

Something else not a matter of faith but fact is man’s psychology: People operate by certain principles. Like it or not, believing as Dahmer did (when young) about God leads to believing as he did about morality. “If man is all there is to make up rules, why can’t I just make up my own?”

As I put it in 2013, “Just as people wouldn’t abide by the ‘laws’ of physics if they didn’t believe they existed (the idea of jumping off a building and flying sounds like fun), and there weren’t obvious and immediate consequences for their violation (splat!), they won’t be likely to abide by morality if they believe its laws don’t exist.”

Of course, this rarely leads to serial killing. But it always — at population level — leads to serial immorality. This is an immutable rule of man.

So how should we combat our time’s moral relativism/nihilism? First, realize that from the Greek philosophers to the early/medieval Christians to the Founding Fathers, Western civilization was not forged by relativists/nihilists. It won’t be maintained by them, either. “If it feels good, do it” yields a healthy society even less than “If it tastes good, eat it” does a healthy body.

Thus, one needn’t have faith to understand that belief in Truth is utilitarian. As George Washington warned, “[R]eason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

Second, know that moral relativism/nihilism’s appeal is that it’s the ultimate get-out-of-sin free card. After all, my sins can’t be sins if there are no such things as sins, only “lifestyle choices.” Yet also know that we can have this seemingly eternal but illusory absolution — or we can have civilization. We can’t have both.

So act as if Truth exists; seek it, speak it, love it, for it will set you free. Realize also that relativism is juvenile pseudo-philosophy. For if everything were relative, what you believed would be relative, too, and thus meaningless. So let’s talk about what’s meaningful.

The alternative? Well, it was expressed nicely by an old New Yorker cartoon. It featured the Devil addressing a large group of arrivals in Hell and saying, reassuringly, “You’ll find there’s no right or wrong here. Just what works for you.”

It’s an alluring idea — and a powerful one. It creates Hell on Earth, too.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab (preferably) or Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

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EDITORS NOTE: This article is the second in a series on exposing modern (liberal) lies, explaining the disordered leftist mind and restoring civilization. The first is here. The “American’t” essay, which illustrates our problems, is here. The edited featured photo by Jonny Swales on Unsplash.

Advertisers Cower as Libs Gin up Attacks on Tucker Carlson

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“Approximately 20” companies have caved to pressure from liberal groups and pulled or suspended advertising from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show after the host’s recent statements about immigration:

“We have a moral obligation to admit the world’s poor they tell us, even if it makes our own country poorer, and dirtier, and more divided,” he said at the start of his program last week. “Immigration is an act of atonement. Previous leaders of our country committed sins. We must pay for those sins by welcoming an endless chain of migrant caravans.”

While many immigrants seek the American Dream, policies that encourage illegal immigration such as open borders and sanctuary cities undermine the rule of law. Furthermore, unchecked immigration is an invitation for chaos and a significant detriment to the social fabric of our nation — for example, the higher serious crime rates by illegal immigrants as compared to native-born Americans and legal immigrants.

Not surprisingly, the campaign to push companies away from Carlson’s show is led by leftist hack website Media Matters — an organization funded by liberal billionaire George Soros. According to Media Matters, advertisements on a network covering a different viewpoint on immigration policy amounts to “sponsoring fascism.” Of course, Pacific Life, who is “pausing” ads, continues to support pro-abortion organizations, while Media Matters convenient ignores the historical role of abortion in the eugenics philosophies promulgated by real, actual fascists. The abortion industry is also complicit in enabling human traffickers who prey on vulnerable immigrants.

Do companies like Pacific Life support the abortion industry’s attack on immigrants? The virtue signaling over Carlson’s comments is outrageously hypocritical when corporate bank accounts directly fund the destruction of life, particularly in immigrant communities. This means 2ndVoters must work harder to engage these companies through direct contact and by holding them accountable with your dollars.

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EDITORS NOTE: The column with images by 2ndVote is republished with permission. The featured photo is from Shutterstock.

Christmas: The Revelation of God’s Inner Life of Love

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By FRC Managing Editor Dan Hart

There’s a certain magic about the Advent and Christmas season that always seems to take hold in the hearts of those who celebrate it. As we count down the days to Christmas, our anticipation builds, and for most of us, this magical feeling combines with a bit of anxiety as we scurry from one shop to the next to buy just a few more presents for our families and friends. This tradition of gift giving has become one of the central rituals that embodies Christmas. Despite the American tendency to over-commercialize this tradition, gift giving remains an important reminder for Christians to keep the central message of Christmas foremost in our thoughts and deeds: love.

As children, gift giving was all about the thrill of the gifts themselves. What treasures did Santa bring this year? We couldn’t wait to rip off the wrapping paper and experience the euphoria of a new toy. But as we grow older, we begin to realize that it’s not so much about the gifts themselves that brings us joy. What our hearts truly hunger for is what these gifts signify: to receive love in the form of a gift.

In the truest sense of the word, Christmas is the greatest gift human beings have ever received. And just like wrapped presents under the tree, God’s gift to humanity for the first Christmas was, in a certain way, wrapped in mystery. When the angel of the Lord first came to Mary to reveal her role in the coming of Christ, it mystified her: “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” (Luke 1:34). Likewise, when Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, first learned that she was with child, he was stunned. But “since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19).

Nevertheless, when Mary and Joseph took a step forward in faith, they came to know the ultimate expression of God’s love: His Son. Christmas, then, marks the beginning of the full revelation of the inner life of God to man. First, He came in the form of a baby. Not only does this elicit from us a natural response to care for and nurture our relationship with the Christ child, it also reveals His innate fruitfulness—He brings forth life even from seemingly impossible situations. Examples of this are found all throughout Scripture. In the book of Judges, an angel announces God’s gift of life to the wife of Manoah, who was barren, and the heroic Samson is the result (Judges 13). In the Gospel of Luke, God continues His lifegiving work with the miraculous conception of John the Baptist, despite the fact that his mother Elizabeth “was barren and both [her and her husband Zechariah] were advanced in years” (Luke 1:7). God’s intrinsically fruitful nature miraculously culminates in Christ’s conception in the womb of a virgin (Luke 1:27).

This divine fruitfulness points toward what actually occurs on Christmas: the perfect union of God’s divine nature with our human nature in the Christ child. Christmas reveals to us that God is in fact wholly human through His Son, who is one with His Father through the unity of the Holy Spirit — which makes up the Holy Trinity. This truth is mysterious and overwhelming, but if we think about it in terms of the nature of God’s inner life, it becomes a little more comprehensible. If God is love (1 John 4:8), then there must be a lover (God the Father), a beloved (the Son), and their shared love (the Holy Spirit).

This truth becomes even more comprehensible for us when we see the Holy Trinity imaged in marriage: the husband (lover), the wife (the beloved), and the fruitfulness of their shared love, which bears spiritual fruit and often results in a literal incarnation of their unity — a child.

So what is Christmas, at its root? It is God fulfilling His plan of salvation for humankind by giving us the perfect gift of His Son, thereby revealing His true nature, His inner life of love. What a gift! May we all receive it with a truly free and open heart.

May you and your family have a blessed and merry Christmas and a fruitful New Year!

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

EDITORS NOTE: This column by the Family Research Council with images is republished with permission.

BREAKING: Trump Moves Towards Shutdown Over Wall Funding

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President Donald Trump informed GOP leadership that he will not sign a continuing resolution passed by the Senate late Wednesday because it does not contain funding for his proposed wall along U.S. southern border, House Speaker Paul Ryan revealed at the White House Thursday afternoon.

Ryan spoke alongside House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy after meeting with Trump for nearly an hour. Ryan told reporters that Trump informed them he would not sign the bill without border security funding. McCarthy said he was optimistic that some deal could be reached within Congress ahead of the Friday deadline.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders quickly released a statement declaring:

President Trump just met with Republican Members of the House. Not surprisingly, they all feel strongly about Border Security — stopping the flow of drugs, stopping human trafficking, and stopping terrorism. We protect nations all over the world, but Democrats are unwilling to protect our nation. We urgently need funding for border security and that includes a wall.

Trump’s declaration to Ryan is the latest in a head-spinning saga of shutdown politics with a central fight for funding his proposed wall along the U.S. southern border. Democratic lawmakers insist they will give Trump no more than $1.3 billion in funding while Republicans say they need $5 billion.

Trump originally pledged to shut the government down during a fiery Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. The president went so far as to declare he would be “proud” to do the shutdown and that it would be politically beneficial to him.

This posture changed significantly, however, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders broke from this hardline position Tuesday.

As she related to Fox News, “There are certainly a number of different funding sources that we’ve identified that we can use — that we can couple with money that would be given through congressional appropriations — that would help us get to that $5 billion that the president needs in order to protect our border.”

Trump’s newest declaration to Ryan appears to show he is back where he began and that shutdown may be unavoidable.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images was originally published by The Daily Caller Foundation. It is republished with permission.

What Would Actually Be Affected in a Government Shutdown

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“Government shutdown.” Probably no two words strike more fear in the hearts of Washington politicians.

The fact that another shutdown is imminent is a sign of how dysfunctional Washington’s budgeting process really is. What was once an orderly process where timelines were largely met has morphed into a political game plagued by brinkmanship and out-of-control spending.

Despite promises from Congress that the process would be different this year, here we are again.

This time the biggest issue holding up a deal is a confrontation between President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats over border security funding.

As Congress barrels toward a Friday spending showdown, the potential of a partial government shutdown is very real. But what would it actually mean?

A shutdown wouldn’t be good, of course, but it’s not as scary as you think. There wouldn’t be lawlessness in the streets. You’d still get your Social Security check.

Here’s what a shutdown and an alternative might look like:

Government Shutdown

If Congress and the president are unable to reach an agreement by Friday, then the federal government will enter into a partial shutdown. Five of 12 annual spending bills became law in September. That includes the military, so there is no threat to national defense.

It also includes the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior, and Veterans Affairs. In fact, 75 percent of the discretionary budget has already been funded through September 2019.

Still, a partial shutdown would mean that major federal agencies such as the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, State, and Transportation would be left without funding.

Many of the services they provide, however, would not be interrupted. Four hundred and twenty thousand “essential” federal employees would continue to work, including 41,000 law enforcement and correctional officers and up to 88 percent of DHS employees. America’s safety would not be sacrificed.

You shouldn’t worry about your benefit payments being impacted either. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid payments, as well as veterans benefits, would continue uninterrupted. These programs don’t rely on Congress taking action for annual funding to continue, or their appropriations were already passed into law.

Mail service would also continue as scheduled since the Postal Service has its own revenue stream. National parks would remain open, though with reduced staff.

About 380,000 federal employees would be furloughed for the duration of a shutdown, meaning that they wouldn’t be paid nor expected to work. Agencies that would be most affected include the Department of Commerce, NASA, the IRS, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Based on past government shutdowns, all furloughed employees would likely be paid when the shutdown ends.

A Continuing Resolution

Another possible outcome to get around the current funding impasse is for Congress to pursue a continuing resolution to keep the government open. That scenario played out as the last funding deadline approached on Dec. 7.

Under this situation, agencies would operate at their 2018 budget levels for the duration of the continuing resolution. Congress could choose to extend funding for a short period of time (likely into early 2019) or could opt for a full-year continuing resolution.

If Congress passes a short-term continuing resolution, then it would be back in the same mess in just a few short weeks.

Passing a full-year continuing resolution would put an end to the budget drama for this year. However, it would also leave both Republicans and Democrats unsatisfied, with Trump not getting additional border security money and Democrats unable to enact some of their priorities.

But it would save taxpayers money. If unfunded agencies simply continued to receive money at the 2018 level, it would cut spending by $11 billion.

It’s not a lot, but with the national debt soon expected to cross $22 trillion, every penny counts.

Regardless of what happens, one thing is clear: The budget process is broken, and taxpayers are the real losers. When Congress is constantly budgeting by crisis, it erodes oversight and leads to wasteful spending. Citizens should demand that Congress not only make the budget process better, but also ensure a sustainable budget future.

The cost of failing to do that is much scarier than a government shutdown.

Originally Distributed by Tribune News Service

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Justin Bogie

Justin Bogie

Justin Bogie is a senior policy analyst in fiscal affairs at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by The Daily Signal is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Vadim Sherbakov on Unsplash.

Growing Blame America First Crowd Rushes To The Border

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In describing the 1984 San Francisco Democrats, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Jeane Kirkpatrick said, “They always blame America first.” She was referring of the fringe elements of the Democratic Party.

Unfortunately, because of monopolistic control of the culture-moving powers, what is fringe in the Democratic Party becomes more mainstream over time, and we see that clearly in this era.

The Blame America Firsters have been enthralled at the chance to show how terrible America is at every turn, and the basic national sovereignty issue of having secure borders is just the perfect issue.

Of course Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cut her protesting chops by going down to the border during the manufactured crisis of separating children from their parents, which was done at the orders of the 9th Circuit Court ostensibly to protect the children and implemented by President Obama. The separating of children was painted as exemplar of Americans not caring about the plight of the poor, and of course being racist — despite the fact that America does more for the world’s poor by many factors than any other country, or most continents, and Africans don’t seem to think we are too racist as they choose America in droves.

Throughout the traipsing northward of the caravan of illegal immigrants (they broke their way into Mexico, so it is accurate to call them illegal immigrants even before trying to break their way into America) there has been a sort of delight at the prospect of being able to paint America as uncaring and racist for having so much and giving so little.

Every poor or dangerous decision made by a migrant on their way illegally across Mexico to America was portrayed as America’s fault.

But this came to a head when a seven-year-old Honduran girl died a few hours after her father knowingly and unlawfully took her across the border. The girl had apparently not eaten or drank for several days. She went into convulsions on the bus on which she was being transported to the nearest border crossing post (where her father should have been seeking to enter) and paramedics had been alerted and were waiting. From there she was emergency flown to a hospital but could not be saved.

She went on a months long trek across deserts and dangerous terrain, was exhausted and clearly depleted of nutrition and water. But here were the headlines splashed everywhere by the Blame America First media:

USA Today’s headline: “Migrant girl, 7, dies in Border Patrol custody of dehydration, shock”

NBC News headline: “Girl who crossed border with dad died in Border Patrol custody”

KTLA headline: “7-Year-Old Immigrant Girl Dies After Being Arrested by Border Patrol”

CNN’ headline: “Thousands of miles away, grieving family wants to know how 7-year-old girl died in US custody”

The CNN story is particularly nauseating in it’s blame America first. Here’s the lead:

“Jakelin Caal Maquin jumped up and down when her father told her they’re leaving their impoverished Guatemalan village for the United States. When the rest of her family sent them off, nobody imagined the 7-year-old girl would not come back alive.

She died last week after Border Patrol agents detained her and her father in the New Mexico desert. Her death, which was only made public Thursday, has raised questions from members of Congress and advocates about how migrants are treated at the border.”

Just shameless. But more.

“The girl’s death comes months after a toddler died six weeks after being released from an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Dilley, Texas. The toddler’s mother and her attorneys alleged she contracted a respiratory infection after they arrived at the detention center and that ICE provided substandard medical care for the 19-month-old.”

See, an illegal immigrant dies hours after being arrested by American authorities and her dehydration and starvation are not to blame, it’s the American’s fault. But a toddler dies six weeks after leaving an American facility and…it’s the American’s fault. In the same story!

The purposeful juxtaposition of the girl’s arrest by the Border Patrol — which was obviously her best hope for survival — was meant to blame the Americans for her death. No other way to read it. (Yes, this all conflates with raging Trump hatred in the media.)

Even the girl’s father said the American agents did everything they could and he had no complaints about the care — which was probably a thousand times better than it would have been in rural Honduras. Apparently an ambulance chasing lawyer had not gotten to the father to explain he needed to blame America so the lawyer could get a fat check from taxpayers. That will come.

Speaking of lawyers, next in the congo line of Blame America First was the American Civil Liberties Union, an organization just spiraling down the partisan toilet (see Christine Ford and the collapse of civil rights protections for political correctness.)

Cynthia Pompa, advocacy manager for the ACLU Border Rights Center, said the Honduran girl’s death shows the “inhumane conditions” at border patrol facilities. (Ironically, again, so much irony, the facilities would be less overrun if we actually had a wall.)

“Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths,” Pompa said. Because there is no responsibility for anyone anywhere based on their own actions. It’s all America’s fault.

Then came the lowest forms of Blame America First — the politicians, slithering below even the lawyers to slap America.

Twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted: “There are no words to capture the horror of a seven-year-old girl dying of dehydration in U.S. custody. What’s happening at our borders is a humanitarian crisis.”

Grandstander Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, the ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, said Homeland Security officials would face questions on the matter in a hearing scheduled for Thursday. We “will be demanding immediate answers to this tragedy,” Nadler said.

Lost in all of this rush to blame America first is the actual tragedy of a 7-year-old girl who is dead and a father who is grieving — neither of which would have happened if the father had not made a series of choices that put her in such a dangerous situation. The only role America played was being the most attractive country in the world in which to live.

We probably shouldn’t apologize for that.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Sophie Potyka on Unsplash.

Trump Makes Unscheduled Visit to Honor Fallen Soldiers During ‘Wreaths Across America’ Event

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President Donald Trump made an unannounced visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Saturday to honor America’s fallen as thousands across the country laid wreaths on veterans’ graves.

Trump paid his respects as volunteers for Wreaths Across America waited in long lines to place a Christmas wreath on the tombs of America’s greatest heroes.

The event, which is held every December, aims to “remember, honor, and teach” about those who served, and perished, fighting for America’s freedom. In addition to Arlington National Cemetery, Wreaths Across America Day is observed at more than 1,400 cemeteries in all 50 states, as well as at sea and abroad.

The president made the surprise visit to the military cemetery roughly an hour after the wreath-laying event began. He walked through the grounds and viewed firsthand, in the rain and wind, the tributes that were given to America’s veterans.

Trump faced criticism in November for not attending a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day and later admitted that despite attending a memorial service for World War I soldiers in Paris the day earlier, he should have also gone to Arlington on the federal holiday.

“As you know, I just left the day before the American Cemetery, and I probably think—and that was one where it was raining as hard as you can imagine, and I made a speech at the American Cemetery the day before, and I probably—you know, in retrospect, I should have,” Trump said at the time. “I did last year, and I will virtually every year.”

Trump praised Wreaths Across America organizers and the volunteers for their dedicated and honorable work in the gloomy weather.

“They do a great job, a really great job,” Trump said during his visit. “Thank you.”

COLUMN BY

Molly Prince

Molly Prince is a reporter for The Daily Caller News Foundation. Twitter: @mollyfprince.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.Molly Prince is a reporter for The Daily Caller News Foundation. Photo: Elizabeth Fraser/ZUMA Press/Newscom.

Sign Petition to Uphold the Scientific Definition of Sex in Federal Law and Policy

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A petition has been created to define gender as immutable and binary. The on-line form of this document may be signed by anyone in agreement with its contents.

You may sign the petition here.

RELATED ARTICLE: Misguided Proposal From Christian Leaders and LGBT Activists Is Anything but ‘Fairness for All’

Full text of the petition:

December 4, 2018

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, U.S. Department of Justice

Secretary Alex Azar, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Secretary Betsy DeVos, U.S. Department of Education

Dear Mr. Whitaker, Secretary Azar, and Secretary DeVos,

We, the undersigned medical, legal, and policy organizations and individuals applaud the Trump Administration’s intention to uphold the scientific definition of sex in federal law and policy, such that girls and women will regain their sex-based legal protections, and the human rights of all will be preserved.

On February 22, 2017, the Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Department of Education, sent a Dear Colleague letter rescinding unprecedented “guidance” the previous administration had issued to expand the definition of sex in Title IX to include gender identity. On October 4, 2017, the Department of Justice issued a Memorandum regarding Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify that gender identity is not legally included in the definition of sex, pointing out that the ordinary meaning of “sex” is biologically based. The New York Times article on Oct. 21, 2018 regarding a leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leads us to believe that HHS is continuing this trend and leading an effort to have a uniform, scientifically based, definition of sex across the various agencies. We write to applaud and encourage this effort.

Not only is an expanded definition of sex unscientific, but it has also proven harmful, as we detail below.

According to the Institute of Medicine, sex is a narrowly defined biological term. Sex is a biological trait that defines living things as male and female based on the complement of sex chromosomes and the presence of reproductive organs.[i] The American Psychiatric Association defines sex similarly as the “biological indication of male and female (understood in the context of reproductive capacity), such as sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia.” [ii]

Human sex is a binary, biologically determined, and immutable trait from conception forward.The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design for the obvious purpose of the reproduction of our species. This principle is self-evident. “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of male and female, respectively, and are found in every cell of the human body including the brain. Sex is established at conception, declares itself in utero, and is acknowledged at birth.

Sex differences are real and consequential. The Institute of Medicine recognized the singular importance of sex to health and the field of medicine nearly two decades ago. Sex chromosomes impart innate differences between men and women in literally every cell of our bodies.[i] There are over 6500 shared genes that are expressed differently in human males and females.[iii]These differences impact our brains, organ systems, propensity for developing certain diseases, differential responses to drugs, toxins and pain, differential cognitive and emotional processes, behavior and more.[i]

Individuals who identify as transgender deserve optimal medical treatment which is influenced by biological sex. In reality, an individual who identifies as transgender remains either a biological male or female. This objective biological fact has bearing upon their health even beyond sex-specific illnesses.

Diseases that affect both sexes often have different frequencies, presentations and responses to treatments in males and females; therefore, different preventative, diagnostic, and treatment approaches may be required for males and females. Doctors and scientists unconstrained by transgender politics know full well that were we to treat patients in accordance with a discordant gender identity, instead of their real sex, the results could be catastrophic.[i] For example, the heart medication, Betapace, is three times more likely to cause a lethal heart rhythm called torsades de pointes in women than it is in men.[iv]

Sex is not a spectrum; congenital disorders are not additional sexes. The final result of sex development in humans is unambiguously male or female over 99.98 percent of the time. “Intersex” is a term that encompasses a variety of congenital disorders of sex development that result in sex ambiguity and/or a mismatch between sex chromosomes and appearance.These disorders occur in less than 0.02 percent of all births.[v], [vi] A spectrum is defined as “a continuous distribution” or a distribution in which “no specific outcome is more likely than others.” [vi] Clearly, the existence of rare disorders of sex development do not constitute a sex spectrum.

As evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright of University of California, Santa Barbara recently penned, “The claim that classifying people’s sex upon anatomy and genetics ‘has no basis in science’ has itself no basis in reality, as any method exhibiting a predictive accuracy of over 99.98 percent would place it among the most precise methods in all the life sciences.” [vi]

The use of congenital disorders to advance the myth that there are a multitude of human sexes which exist on a spectrum is ideological and political activism, not science.

Gender identity is not an immutable trait found anywhere in the body, brain, or DNA.[vii] Gender identity is an awareness of, and comfort level with, one’s physical body. Gender identity may be factually correct or factually incorrect, and, unlike sex, may change. Children with gender dysphoria, for example, will come to identify with their biological sex in 61-98 percent of cases by adulthood.[viii] There is also a rise in the number of adults who seek surgery to reverse their past sex reassignment surgeries.[ix]

The claim that upholding the scientific definition of sex will increase suicide among transgender identifying people is false. Individuals who identify as transgender may have mistaken beliefs about themselves and their bodies. They suffer real emotional distress and are at a higher risk for mental illness, including suicidal ideation, as compared to the general population. Social and medical “gender transition and affirmation,” however, is not proven to decrease suicide rates.

The rate of suicide attempts among transgender identified individuals has been estimated to be almost 9 times that of the general population.[x] Sweden is a transgender affirming country that has adopted laws and policies conflating sex and gender-identity. Nevertheless, a study conducted by researchers there in 2011 found the rate of completed suicides among surgically “gender-affirmed” adults to be 19 times greater than that of the general population.[xi] Clearly, transgender affirmation does not prevent suicide, and may paradoxically worsen the emotional health of these individuals in the long term.

Upholding the scientific definition of sex in law and policy protects everyone’s right to privacy, protection and equal treatment, especially that of girls and women. It is impossible to protect girls’ and women’s rights unless the law defines them solely according to objective biological reality and not according to subjective gender identity. When gender identity is erroneously treated as equivalent to sex in law and policy, then a male may at any time demand the rights, protections and access afforded to females. This automatically strips girls and women of their right to sex-based privacy, protection, and a proper playing field to compete equally. Transgender ideology thereby transforms all that was once reserved for females alone into another male prerogative.

Boys, for example, are literally running away with state level championship titles in girls’ sports because they identify as transgender.[xii] How is it just to award honors – which could include athletic college scholarships – reserved for female high school athletes, to boys who are innately biologically bigger, stronger and faster?

Of greater concern, gender identity has been used to allow biological males in spaces previously reserved for women. As a result, girls and women are suffering sexual assaults at the hands of biological men in women’s shelters,[xiii], [xiv] women’s prisons [xv] and even elementary school girls’ bathrooms.[xvi]

As the biological men and women they are, transgender-identified individuals possess the same human dignity and right to the equal protection of the law as all Americans. For the law to respect the human dignity of all Americans, including those who identify as transgender, it must be based on biological truth; not on ideological falsehoods at the expense of children and women’s rights, health and well-being.

For all of these reasons, it is with unwavering conviction that we urge the Trump Administration to uphold the original scientific meaning and legal intent of the term “sex” in federal law and policy.

Please note that university and hospital affiliations are for identification only and do not imply institutional endorsement.

Sincerely,

Michelle Cretella, M.D.
Executive Director, American College of Pediatricians

Quentin Van Meter, MD
President, American College of Pediatricians
Pediatric Endocrinologist

Donna Harrison, M.D.
Executive Director, American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Peter Morrow, M.D.
President, Catholic Medical Association

Stephen M. Krason, Ph.D.
President, Society of Catholic Social Scientists

Paul McHugh, M.D.
University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital

Michael K. Laidlaw, M.D.
Endocrinologist and member of gdworkinggroup.org

Craig Stump M.D., Ph.D., FACE
Endocrinologist, University of Arizona College of Medicine

Paul W. Hruz M.D., Ph.D.
Pediatric Endocrinologist, Physician-Scientist, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Professor of Cellular Biology & Physiology

Angela Lanfranchi M.D. FACS

Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Susan J Bradley, M.D., FRCP(C)

Professor Emerita, University of Toronto

J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology Northwestern University

Marie T. Hilliard, MS, MA, JCL, Ph.D., RN
The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Mary Lou Singleton, MSN, FPC-BC

Christopher Doyle, LPC
Co-Founder National Task Force for Therapy Equality

David Pickup, LMFT
Co-Founder National Task Force for Therapy Equality

Laura Haynes, Ph.D., California Licensed Psychologist
USA Representative, International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC.org)

Michael Farris, J.D.
President, CEO, & General Counsel
Alliance Defending Freedom

Matthew D. Staver, Esq.
Founder and President, Liberty Council

Charles LiMandri, J.D.
Founder and President, Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund

Robert J. Muise, Esq.
Co-Founder, American Freedom Law Center

Gerard V. Bradley, J.D.
Professor of Law University of Notre Dame

Steven D. Smith, J.D.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law University of San Diego

Maimon Schwarzschild, J.D.
Professor of Law University of San Diego

Larry Alexander, LL.B.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law University of San Diego

Tony Perkins
President
Family Research Council

Frank Cannon
President
American Principles Project

Matthew J. Franck, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, Witherspoon Institute

Sharon Slater
President, Family Watch International

Austin Ruse
President, Center for Family and Human Rights

Allan C. Carlson, Ph.D., Editor,
The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy

Patrick Lee, Ph.D.
McAleer Professor of Bioethics
Center for Bioethics, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Christopher Wolfe, Ph.D.
Distinguished Affiliate Professor, University of Dallas
President, American Public Philosophy Institute

Rev. D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D.
Research Professor of Sociology and Director, Leo Institute for Catholic Social Research, The Catholic University of America

Robert G Kennedy, Ph.D.
Department of Catholic Studies University of St. Thomas

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
Founder and President, The Ruth Institute

References

[i] Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter? In: Wizemann TM, editor; Pardue ML, editor. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2001.

[ii] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013), p. 829.

[iii] “Researchers Identify 6,500 Genes That Are Expressed Differently in Men and Women,” Weizmann Wonder Wander (Weizmann Institute of Science), May 3, 2017, online at: https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/researchers-identify-6500-genes-are-expressed-differently-men-and-women; reporting on: Moran Gershoni and Shmuel Pietrokovski, “The landscape of sex-differential transcriptome and its consequent selection in human adults,” BMC Biology 15:7 (2017), which says, “[T]here are over 6500 protein-coding genes with significant SDE [sex-differential expression] in at least one tissue.” Online at: https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12915-017-0352-z.

[iv] Lehmann MH, et. al. Circulation. 1996 Nov 15;94(10):2535-41. Abstract available online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8921798

[v] Sax L. “How Common is Intersex? A Response to Anne Fausto-Sterling,” Journal of Sex Research 39:3 (August 2002), pp. 174-178. Online at:

http://www.leonardsax.com/how-common-is-intersex-a-response-to-anne-fausto-sterling/.

[vi] Wright C. “The New Evolution Deniers.” Quillette. Nov 30, 2018. Available online at: https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution…

[vii] McHugh PR, Mayer LS. “Sexuality and Gender findings from the Biological,Psychological and Social Sciences.” The New Atlantis. Fall 2016. Available onlineat: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/introd…

[viii] Ristori J, Steensma TD. Gender dysphoria in childhood. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2016;28(1):13-20.

[ix] Borreli L. “Transgender Surgery: Regret Rates Highest In Male to Female Reassignment Operations.” Newsweek. October 3, 2017. Available online at: https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-women-transge…

[x] Haas AP, Rodgers PL & Herman J. “Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults: Findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, January 2014. Available online at: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu

[xi] Cecilia Dhejne, et al., “Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden,” PLoS ONE 6 (2011); online at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885.

[xii] Mayer R. “Transgender Track Athlete Wins CT State Championship, Debate Ensues.” June 13, 2018. CBS News. Available online at: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/06/13/transgende…

[xiii]Hoggard, Corin. “Shelter forced women to shower with person who identified as a transgender woman and sexually harassed them, lawsuit says.”ABC 30 Action News, Fresno, CA, May 23, 2018; online at: https://abc30.com/homeless-women-harassed-in-showe…

[xiv] Sam Pazzano, “Predator who claimed to be transgender declared dangerous offender,” Toronto Sun, February 26, 2014; online at: http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/26/predator-who-claimed-to-be-transgender-declared-dangerous-offender.

[xv] Janet Fife-Yeomans, “Sex change killer Maddison Hall to be free as a bird,” Daily Telegraph, April 2, 2010; online at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sex-change-killer-to-be-free-as-a-bird/news-story/b1fecc9a9a4717607de6e980980e0ba5?sv=e95663cd723e2f8ffa0caa3329e03203.

[xvi] Alliance Defending Freedom, “US opens investigation into sexual assault of minor child in Georgia, violation of Title IX,” Press Release (October 3, 2018); online at:

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/99205?search=1.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Ken Treloar on Unsplash.

News Flash: Michael Bloomberg Not a Fan of the First Amendment, Either

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Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor and billionaire patron of the Nanny State, may be gearing up for the presidential race in 2020. He gave the idea of running as an independent candidate “serious consideration” in 2016, but ultimately decided against it.

A recent Washington Post story on Mr. Bloomberg’s potential 2020 bid highlighted what it called his “disturbing attitude toward the First Amendment,” which safeguards, among other things, freedom of speech and freedom of the press from government interference. Mr. Bloomberg, the founder of the eponymous Bloomberg L.P., a privately-held financial information and media company that operates Bloomberg News, indicated in a radio interview earlier this month, that, “[q]uite honestly, I don’t want the reporters I’m paying to write a bad story about me… I don’t want them to be independent.” To ensure that the coverage from his own news outlet would be consistent with these expectations, he added that, should he run for president, one option would be to eliminate any political reporting by his employees. Kathy Kiely, who wrote the Post story, is herself the former politics editor at Bloomberg News who resigned in 2016 over concerns that the media company could not cover its owner’s possible presidential run in the same way that it reported on other candidates.

This authoritarian outlook is hardly a revelation to anyone who has followed Mr. Bloomberg’s activism regarding another fundamental constitutional right.

While professing his support for the Second Amendment and that “no one wants to take away anyone’s guns,” his efforts – through his Everytown gun control group and otherwise – have included advocating for bans on the manufacture and sale of “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines,” increased background checks, and in Washington State, spending a quarter of a million dollars to push through an initiative in November that bans the purchase and possession of semiautomatic rifles by law-abiding young adults, without an exception for guns lawfully acquired before the law takes effect. In an appearance in 2015, he apparently went so far as to advocate an age, race and gender-based ban, to “get the guns” away from minority males.

In a move evocative of his “bad story” strategy, in 2015 Mr. Bloomberg set up The Trace, an anti-gun news outlet “whose only mission is to write on gun issues from his perspective” and ensure that the “news” on guns and gun control is in line with his own messaging.

Contrary to this record (and perhaps mindful that most Americans take a dim view of any meddling with their civil rights), Mr. Bloomberg appeared on television a few days ago to assure viewers that “the Second Amendment gives you the right to own weapons and there’s nothing wrong with that,” and “if you want to buy a gun and go through a background check process … I’m not opposed, I’m not in favor of taking that away one bit.”

Freedom loving citizens shouldn’t be fooled into thinking Mr. Bloomberg has become much more open-minded about the Second Amendment as part of his possible bid for the White House. After all, we already know that he thinks we’re “pretty stupid” for exercising our constitutional rights.

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

Why Our Country Needs the Wall, and Now

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The United States is the most generous, pro-immigrant country in the world. Annually, we take in more immigrants than any other country on the planet.

Couple that with the fact that immigration has been a driving issue in the last two campaign cycles, and it is more than reasonable to demand that the next funding bill include commonsense border security measures.

With only days left before Congress gavels out and the power in the House of Representatives shifts from Republicans to Democrats, we, as members of Congress, must fulfill the promises we made to the American people to uphold the rule of law and secure our borders.

Congress must fund President Donald Trump’s border wall and close the “catch and release” loopholes in the upcoming must-pass spending bill. We must do it now.

The statistics are frightening. This fall, Border Patrol arrested a massive number of people coming across the border, as loopholes in our immigration laws continue to pull illegal aliens into the United States—more than 100,000 people in October and November alone.

These significant illegal immigration attempts are giving immigrants a bad name. Historically, immigrants to America have come here legally to seek a better life and contribute to our economy. In the case of illegal immigrants, their very first act on U.S. soil is to break the law.

That’s why it is critical that we stop the inflow. Doing so will allow us to focus on reforms that prioritize legal immigration and reward law-abiding people for doing the right thing. And we know how to do this: a border wall, and ending catch and release.

Catch and release is the natural result of a series of loopholes in current U.S. asylum laws that encourage lawbreaking. Because of various legal settlements and the unintended consequences of a 2008 law, when families come to the U.S. to claim asylum, they are released out of legal custody into the country to await a hearing. Many never show for their hearings, and simply disappear into America.

Armed with this knowledge, illegal immigrants game the system to get into the U.S. and plant roots, undermining our laws. Fixing this and making it easier for border agents to send illegal immigrants home will discourage illegal immigration and encourage people to immigrate the right way.

We need to pair this with a border wall, so that illegal immigrants cannot physically cross our border in the first place. And we know border walls work. When Israel constructed a barrier along its southern border, it cut down on illegal immigration by 99 percent. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, in the places where we currently have strong barriers, illegal crossings have also been drastically reduced.

Like so many entrenched, partisan issues in our country, the problem of illegal immigration is solvable, but will require compromise.

A good place to start will be with border security measures that Democrats have historically agreed to, and closing loopholes in current laws. Then, we can get back to doing what we have historically done best: welcoming legal immigrants from around the world with open arms.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Ted Budd

Ted Budd

Ted Budd is the U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 13th district. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Pappis Jean Pierre Polaris/Sipa/Newscom.

Here’s the biggest security threat now facing President Trump… and it’s not what you think.

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OBAMA’S WAR IS UPON US

How the ex-Radical-in-Chief created a security vacuum that Iran rushed to fill.

Donald Trump has a name for everything and everyone, from Crooked Hillary to Little Rocket Man, who for a time became his best friend. Will he call the next region-wide conflagration in the Middle East, when it breaks out, Obama’s War?

If he hasn’t thought of that already, he should start considering it now. Because the catastrophic policies of our former president have emboldened the Islamic state of Iran and enabled it to threaten the United States and our allies militarily in ways never before possible.

When Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited a strong U.S. military and diplomatic posture across the Middle East.

The U.S.-Israel strategic relationship was at its peak, with the Bush White House openly supporting Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s latest attempt to stop Hamas terror in Gaza.

The U.S. enjoyed a close relationship with a secular Turkey, that itself had strong ties to Israel.

Egypt was at peace, Qaddafi had come into the Western camp and abandoned terrorism and its nuclear weapons program, and the insurgency in Iraq had been crushed.

Al Qaeda truly was “on the run,” while Iran was beginning to feel the crunch of international sanctions over its previously covert nuclear weapons program.

Obama succeeded in reversing every one of these strong U.S. positions, treating Islamic Iran as a friend and Israel as an enemy while promoting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist spawn.

And while President Trump has taken great strides to reverse the enormous damage to our strategic posture Obama caused, fighting his way out of the spider’s web of Iran deal restrictions Obama enacted against the United States has taken nearly two years, time the Iranian regime has put to good use.

Iran today can bracket Israel with more than 150,000 rockets and guided missiles from the North and the South. That’s more than twenty times what it had available during the 2006 war. In addition to its proxies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the recently formed Golan Liberation Brigade in Syria – Iran now enjoys a “land bridge” directly linking it through Iraq and Syria to Israel’s northern border.

Terror chief Qais al Khazali, known for his attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, officially opened the land bridge by leading a military convoy from Iraq into Southern Lebanon in December 2017, where he did a stand-up for an Iranian-backed television network while surveying Israel from the Lebanese side of the border.

Khazali was acting on orders from Quds Force terror-meister, Qassem Suleymani, and met up in Beirut with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah before heading to the South.

At the same time, the Iranians and their local minions have been burrowing tunnels into Israel from Lebanon that the IDF began targeting last week.

From its bases in Yemen, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has lobbed missiles at the Saudi capitol, Riyadh, and at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley forced the media to acknowledge these aggressive Iranian actions by unveiling Iranian missile fragments at a press conference at Andrews Air Force base exactly one year ago.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has now revealed that the ballistic missile Iran test-fired last week was capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads to targets as far away as Europe. Even the Europeans finally realize that the Iran deal did nothing to restrain Iran’s nuclear weapons development or tame its aggressive behavior. It was not the U.S. but France that convened the UN Security Council to condemn the Iranian test.

In a nutshell, Iran today is poised to wreak havoc across the Middle East and beyond with military and strategic capabilities it did not possess a decade ago, including the ability to target U.S. aircraft carriers with ground-based missiles.

Short of U.S. military force, the sole limiting factor on Iran’s actions will be the position of Russian President Vladmir Putin. Will Putin seek to restrain Iran? Or give the Iranian regime free reign?

This is one reason why it is so important for the U.S. President to maintain an open channel of communications to the Kremlin, meeting with Putin, say, at G-20 summit meetings and one-on-one.

Why do you think the anti-Israel Left is so eager to hog-tie President Trump in Russia witch hunt investigations, forcing him to downscale relations with the Russians to the point that the two leaders no longer talk, at least not in public? Because they actually favor a strong Iran and see it and Russia as constraints on the evil United States. As Obama put it in his address to the UN General Assembly in September 2016, “We’ve bound our power to international laws and institutions.”

Russia signaled a strategic shift in its position toward a potential Iranian-led regional war on September 17, when a Syrian air defense crew downed a Russian Ilyushin-20 spy plane over Syrian air space, killing all fourteen Russian crewmen on board.

Putin could have called it a “tragic accident,” which indeed it was. Instead, he blamed Israel for the attack.

Until then, Israel enjoyed a special relationship with Russia when it came to Syria. The IDF had a hot line to the Russian defense ministry, which it used to give a heads up before Israeli air strikes against Iranian positions inside Syria. The result: not a single Russia missile was ever fired at an IDF fighter jet.

When a particularly large strike was in the offing, Prime Minister Netanyahu would fly to Moscow to brief Putin ahead of time. With Putin’s green light, Israel then decimated IRGC and Hezbollah positions.

All of that changed after September 17.

Today, Putin refuses to meet with Netanyahu and the Russian military has rejected Israeli efforts to deconflict its operations in Syria with the Russians.

Last month, Russia turned over operational control of its sophisticated S-300/400 air defense batteries in Syria to the Syrian military, a clear sign that restraint toward IDF fighter jets was over.

On November 29, Israeli showed that it takes these moves seriously, launching its first-ever major strike on Iranian Quds Force position inside Syria using surface-to-surface missiles and long-range artillery. By using unmanned weapons, Israel avoided the possibility that Syrian air defense batteries could shoot down an IDF jet or that Israel might inadvertently kill a Russian military advisor.

After that attack, Netanyahu met in Brussels with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, where the two pledged to work in tandem to contain Iranian “aggression.”

“As we have been warning for some time, Iran’s missile testing and missile proliferation is growing. We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence,” Pompeo said.

Taken as a whole, I believe Iran actually welcomes U.S. and Israeli military action, now that Russia has made clear it will no longer restrain Iran. Seen from Tehran, they have many cards to play, including the activation of Iran’s vast underground terror networks in North America and Europe and an ability to target U.S. military bases in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the region.

Successive U.S. administrations have a bad track record of holding the Islamic state of Iran accountable for its aggression. We never responded to the 1983 attack that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon, nor did we hit Iran for its direct material involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.

While Team Trump has reimposed sanctions and escalated the rhetoric, it has yet to take military action against Iran’s Islamic regime. But when that happens, make no mistake: the United States will be fighting Obama’s war.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. The featured photo is by Keith Zhu on Unsplash.

PODCAST: Tech the Halls with Google Hearings

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House conservatives have been searching for the opportunity to talk to Google CEO Sundar Pichai — and yesterday, in a packed Judiciary Committee, they finally got their chance. Thanks to a string of leaked emails and videos, most Americans already had a pretty good idea where the tech giant stands politically. But on Capitol Hill, 2,800 miles from his Google compound, it was important to be reminded.

Most Americans had probably never heard of Pichai until yesterday — but every one of them has felt his effect. With 90 percent of the world’s online searches at his fingertips, Pichai and his team have more to do with the information people see every day than almost anyone on the planet. That’s what makes his ideology so troubling. In a company so openly disgusted by half of the country, conservatives are right to wonder if they’re getting a fair shake.

Judging by the company Google keeps, they’re not. Back in February, the company finally admitted that one of the groups it trusts to “monitor” internet content is none other than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) — a group that’s made a small fortune as political defamation machine. The fact that Google cozied up to Morris Dees’s group was especially surprising since everyone else — from the FBI and U.S. Army to Barack Obama’s Justice Department — backed away from SPLC for either its ties to domestic terrorism or its reckless “hate labeling.” As a growing number of journalists will tell you, the last organization anyone should be relying on for neutrality in the public debate is a group that even Politico called “a problem for the nation.”

Still, Pichai seemed to have no trouble defending the partnership, even when Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) brought up SPLC’s role in inspiring gunman Floyd Corkins to walk in our building armed with enough ammo to kill everyone on staff. Despite that — and the string of scandals from falsely labeling conservatives — Pichai reiterated, “The Southern Poverty Law Center is a trusted flagger.”

Louie couldn’t believe his ears. “The Southern Poverty Law Center,” he argued, “has really stirred up more hate than about any other group I know. They stirred up one guy to the point that he went to the Family Research [Council] — and I know those people and they’re Christians. And they believe — and I believe — that Christianity is really more based on love than about any other religion in history… [a]nd yet they stirred up hate against [FRC] and a guy comes in shooting… Now, you consider them a trusted flagger, yet they keep creating problems for people that are not haters.”

And conservatives aren’t the only ones who think so. SPLC has raised the eyebrows of more than a few major news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and most recently, the Washington Post — who are all questioning the group’s credibility. “Researchers at the SPLC have set themselves up as the ultimate judges of hate in America,” the Post points out. “But are they judging fairly?” A growing number of people from both sides said no.

On yesterday’s “Washington Watch,” PJ Media’s Alex O’Neil thought Sundar’s answer on SPLC may be the most compelling evidence that Google is targeting conservatives.

“Sundar Pichai kept denying any evidence that Google has been discriminating against conservative and Christian groups… But I think the SPLC bit is very telling. You had the CEO of Google admit that he considers the Southern Poverty Law Center a ‘trusted flagger’ [even though it] lists mainstream conservative and Christian groups as ‘hate groups’ — along with the KKK. [This is who they] rely upon to determine which speech should or should not be allowed on YouTube.”

To O’Neil, who’s followed Google’s money, the company’s bias isn’t really a surprise. “What we’ve seen with a lot of big tech companies if you look at where their employees give money, it’s very firmly on the Democratic side.” If Sundar Pichai wants his company’s objectivity to be taken seriously, then he needs to walk away from politically-charged groups like the SPLC. Conservatives don’t want regulation, but we do want fairness.

For more on Google’s partnership with SPLC, don’t miss my conversation with Rep. Gohmert.

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

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

Media Buries Key Facts to Conceal Migrant Health Threat—TB, Hepatitis, HIV

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Here’s a great example of the mainstream media distorting information to promote a liberal agenda, an act that is especially pervasive when it comes to immigration coverage. A story published by NBC news, and reiterated by various other outlets, claims illegal immigrants don’t bring disease into the United States.

The headline reads: “Migrants don’t bring disease. In fact, they help fight it, report says.” The article focuses on a study commissioned by a medical journal called the Lancet and University College London. The finished product is titled “Global patterns of mortality in international migrants: a systematic review and meta-analysis” and one of the researchers, Dr. Paul Spiegel, proclaims that migrants spreading disease is a “false argument” used to keep them out. The editor of the Lancet said; “In too many countries, the issue of migration is used to divide societies and advance a populist agenda.”

Nevertheless, buried deep in the news article the reporter offers this important nugget from the study, only after writing that migrants are less likely than people in their host countries to die of heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and other ills: “The exceptions are hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV.”

Last we checked those are deadly diseases and Judicial Watch has interviewed medical experts that confirm illegal immigrants do indeed pose a serious public health threat to the U.S. by bringing dangerous diseases into the country. This includes tuberculosis, dengue and Chikungunya. Just last month a prominent physician in a key border state warned that the caravan streaming north from Honduras will undoubtedly bring infectious diseases into the U.S. Among them are extremely drug resistant strands of tuberculosis and mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya that are widespread in the region.

The same week Judicial Watch published the story about the caravan health threat a major newspaper reported on the health crisis created by the influx of Venezuelans fleeing to neighboring countries. The migrants are spreading malaria, yellow fever, diphtheria, dengue, tuberculosis and AIDS throughout South America. Many of the diseases had been considered eradicated in the neighboring Latin American countries, according to government officials cited in the article, which states that “contagion from Venezuela’s economic meltdown is starting to spread to neighboring countries—not financially, but literally, in the form of potentially deadly diseases carried among millions of refugees.”

As an example, the story reveals that “measles reappeared with a vengeance” in a Brazilian city near the Venezuelan border that had declared the highly contagious airborne disease “vanquished” nearly two decades ago. “Measles is already spreading beyond the Brazilian Amazon to other Brazilian states, as well as Colombia, Peru and as far south as Argentina, according to recent Pan American Health Organization reports,” the article states. “Other diseases racing through communities in Venezuela are now crossing borders and raising concerns among health authorities as far away as the U.S.”

Years ago, when Barack Obama let tens of thousands of illegal immigrant minors into the country, health experts warned about the serious hazards to the American public. Most of the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) came from Central America, like the current caravan, and they crossed into the U.S. through Mexico, in the same way that the caravan expects to.

Swine flu, dengue fever and Ebola were among the diseases that the hordes of UACs brought with them, according to lawmakers and medical experts interviewed by Judicial Watch during the influx. At the time, a U.S. Congressman, who is also a medical doctor, told Judicial Watch about the danger to the American public as well as the Border Patrol agents forced to care for the UACs. The former lawmaker, Phil Gingrey, referred to it as a “severe and dangerous” crisis because the Central American youths were importing infectious diseases considered to be largely eradicated in this country.

Many migrants lack basic vaccinations such as those to prevent chicken pox or measles, leaving America’s young children and the elderly particularly susceptible, Gingrey pointed out then. To handle the escalating health crisis the CDC activated an Emergency Operations Center (EOC) that largely operated in secrecy.

Even the recent study twisted by the mainstream media acknowledges that illegal immigrants are likely to carry hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV. Selectively burying the information doesn’t change the severity of the matter. Though not a mainstream media outlet, a popular leftist news and opinion site went so far as to label those who claim migrants pose a threat to public health racist.

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Fancycrave on Unsplash.