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Florida: Sarasota Tiger Bay Club panel on Immigration a Sham

April 6, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, News, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

According to its website the mission of the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club is:

To promote community understanding of current political and social issues, through public discourse and the free exchange of ideas.

The Sarasota Tiger Bay Club is a non-partisan political organization that was formed to foster understanding of public issues. We decided it was better to attack the issues in face-to-face confrontations with key policy makers than merely lament the drift of politics. We’re political, but non-partisan.

You would believe, given their mission statement, that any discussion on any topic would be fair and balanced. You would be wrong.

On Thursday, April 3rd, the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club held a panel on immigration. The three panel members were Luz Corcuera, program director of Healthy Start Coalition of Manatee, Kelly Kirschner, former Mayor of the City of Sarasota and Christian Ziegler, State Committeeman for the Republican Party of Sarasota County. Corcuera and Kirschner are pro-amnesty, Ziegler spoke for the other side. The panel was moderated by Mike Bennett, former FL state senator and Supervisor of Elections for Manatee County, FL.

Christian Ziegler

When Ziegler learned of the makeup of the panel (2 for and 1 against) he requested another panel member to provide balance and insure fairness. In an email to Tiger Bay board member Susan Nolan, Ziegler stated, “I was asked by Kim [Noyes, Executive Director of the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club] to find another panelist last week, which is why I did mention to Rich [Swier] (without knowing he had refused) when I ran into him at our prep-breakfast. I was also informed by Kim after asking about having Rich added, that the panel was set because the invitation had been sent, prep had been completed, etc.” Note: I was approached by Nolan to sit on the panel but when I learned I would be the only one speaking for one side of the issue I refused. Others, such as Sarasota resident George Fuller, declined for the same reason.

Nolan would have none of it. In an email reply to Ziegler and me Nolan stated, “I appreciate your concern, but it is not warranted. Christian will do just fine. In addition, I ask (sic) Senator Bennett to be the moderator instead of me because of his background on immigration. We are pretty happy with the panel.” Attempts to balance the panel with two for amnesty and two against failed.

The net result was the panel became a sham.

Sarasota Herald-Tribune political writer Jerry Wallace wrote, “A local forum illustrated the immigration reform debate’s complexity Thursday, with participants unable to agree even on basic terminology. The use of the words ‘amnesty’ and ‘illegal immigrant’ or who could rightly claim to be ‘for immigration reform’ were as much a point of contention at the Sarasota Tiger Bay meeting as the specifics of any bill or law. The war over words started with the opening question, when moderator and former state Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton, asked if the U.S. should allow amnesty for illegal immigrants in the nation now.”

Wallace saw the panel as a war of words, not on substance. Ziegler noted that members of Tiger Bay came up to him after the panel and said that he was not given equal time to respond to questions and in some cases was cut off before he could respond to comments made by Corcuera and Kirshner.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) estimates the annual costs of illegal immigration to be at least $113 billion a year. Nearly $29 billion of that comes from federal taxes and the rest is supplemented by state and local taxes. States continue to carry the brunt of the burden for the cost to educated, medicate and incarcerate illegals. California has the highest expenses at $21.75 billion, followed by New York at $9.47 billion, Texas $8.87 billion, Florida $5.46 billion and New Jersey $3.47 billion annually. To view a map of the costs to each state click here.

According to FAIR Florida’s cost breakdown by category are: Education $3.34 billion, Social Assistance $976.9 million, Justice $578.9 million and other expenses $567.3 million.

George Fuller writes:

Legal Immigration

Since 1970 with mass immigration the largest number are from Mexico. Of those allowed in legally, only 36% have become Naturalized but over 50% are on welfare. Of all immigrants allowed in since 1970 only 56% have become Naturalized. Think recent immigrants are coming to contribute or take?

Illegal Immigration

The first amnesty was in 1986 supposedly for under one million illegal aliens but ended up being over 3 million who were said to be yearning for citizenship. Granted amnesty over twenty eight years ago, only 40% ever became Naturalized. Not content, Congress passed an additional six amnesties or amnesty adjustments through 2000 that no one ever mentions. What is one definition of insanity?

How about the promises Congress made in 1986 and not one to this day has been kept:

There would be only one amnesty…ever…

Congress would secure the border…

Congress would mandate E-Verify so all workers would be legal.

Yet, we have those in Congress only too happy to say the immigration system is broken not remembering the promises made in ’86 or following the advice of the Jordan Commission in ’97 to eliminate chain migration.

We cannot control poverty until we control immigration levels.

FAIR states, “Illegal immigration poses a real threat to America today. Danger at the border and violence from drugs and gangs are only the beginning. Illegal aliens’ growing access and dependence on social services threatens our social and economic stability.”

To understand how much of a threat illegals are to Florida’s social and economic stability let’s look at the proposed state budget for 2014-1015:

allocation of funds in 2014 fl house budget

For a larger view click on the pie chart. Graphic courtesy of FL state Representative Ray Pilon.

You can see from the pie chart that the annual cost to educate, medicate and incarcerate illegals in Florida exceeds Florida’s Justice budget, would pay for Florida’s entire Government Operations and Agriculture and Natural Resources programs combined, and is a full 20% of the state’s Education budget.

It is sad that a real discussion of the actual costs of illegals to the state were not brought up in any detail. As Dr. Larry Reed, Executive Director of FEE, notes, “Sound policy requires that we consider long-run effects and all people, not simply short-run effects and a few people.”

Perhaps this information would have seen the light of day if the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club panel was balanced?

To read all of our stories on immigration please click here.

RELATED VIDEO: ABC News Channel 7 report on the Tiger Bay panel:

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of the Sarasota Tiger Bay Club. Those in the photo are the 2011 Board of Directors posing with James Carville, former advisor to President Bill Clinton.

DC Republicans Converge on Florida To Conspire Against Conservatives

April 5, 2014/in Elections, Featured, News, Politics/by Javier Manjarres

The Republican leadership in Congress will be holding a fundraising retreat the weekend of April 11 to benefit the George Soros supported Republican Mainstreet Partnership PAC.

There you have it. The Republican establishment in Washington, D.C., is in bed with George Soros and his many Socialist interests.

As the left-wing Talking Points Memo reported a month ago, LaTourette and his Main Street Partnership have created an affiliated Super PAC called “Defending Main Street PAC.” Along with the Chamber of Commerce and Republican Leaders, the Main Street Partnership wants to take out troublesome conservatives – Erick Erickson, Redstate

Brent Bozell

Syndicated columnist and author, Brent Bozell, has exposed the upcoming meeting on Amelia Island, Florida, in a press release from his newly-formed “For America” 501(c)4 organization.

“Having the GOP leadership headline an event for a left wing organization funded by George Soros and Big Labor Unions, with a stated mission to destroy the conservative movement is stunning. The Republican Mainstreet Partnership PAC makes no bones about it.

Their stated goal is to ‘bolster our incumbents who are under attack from the far right, and ensure that we hold on to seats represented by pragmatic Republicans that we would otherwise loose [sic] if there was an ultra-conservative in the general runoff.’ And at their upcoming meeting on the ultra-exclusive Amelia Island in Florida, their announced headliners are GOP Speaker John Boehner, Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Whip Kevin McCarthy.

“These men, who claim to be ‘leaders’ of the Republican Party, know what they’re doing. They’ve joined forces with left-wing billionaires like George Soros against their own base. What they don’t seem to understand, however, is that they’re committing political suicide. It’s just a shame they are dragging down the entire Republican Party with them. Frankly, this is what the GOP deserves with leaders like these. – Brent Bozell, For America

During a recent phone interview with the Shark Tank, Bozell reminds the Republican Party poobahs that if it wasn’t for the Tea Party in the 2010 House elections, they would still be under the leadership of liberal Democrat Representative Nancy Pelosi.

These people would not be in the majority but for the Tea Party…The only thing, that is of a positive nature since about 2004, is the 2010 House elections where they won the majority, because of the Tea Party. – Brent Bozell

Bozell added that the “establishment Republicans in Washington, D.C., are openly declaring war on what they call the Tea Party,” adding that ” there is no difference between Tea party and conservatives.”

“They are declaring war on conservatives.”-Brent Bozell

But this move to purge conservatives from the Republican Party is nothing new.

Remember back when the same arguments were being made by the moderate wing of the GOP against that “radical” Ronald Reagan?

And like Bozell says, ”The moment that Ronald Reagan won, they all became great conservatives.”

The same could be said with the 2010 and 2012 Senate wins by Rubio, Cruz, Lee, and Paul, who were quickly labeled “Whacko Birds” for not conforming to the establishment’s way of legislating.

The “Whacko Bird” Senate squadron of Marco Rubio, Cruz, Lee and Rand Paul has taken off.

Just to rub some more political salt into wounds of those dastardly establishment Republicans, Bozell points out “how well the moderates” have done in the recent losing elections of 2006 and 2012

In the 2012 campaign for instance, Bozell says that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “knee-capped the defund effort” by “stabbing Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in the back,” when he punted on Obamacare, and went out of his way with other like-minded Republican Senators marginalize them.

McConnell, McCain, Cornyn, and others in the Senate, supported the Charlie Crist-type moderate candidates against the “Whackos” in 2010 and 2012m and even “went out of their way to destroy” them, just so that they would be able to control the left-leaning GOP message coming out of the U.S. Senate.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Shark Tank.

Report: Global Warming Causes ‘No Net Harm’ to Environment or Human Health

April 4, 2014/in Energy, Environment, Featured, Healthcare, News, Policy, Science/by Dr. Rich Swier

Independent review of climate science contradicts “alarmist” views of United Nations report.

The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) on Monday released Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts. The 1,062-page report contains thousands of citations to peer-reviewed scientific literature — and concludes rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels are causing “no net harm to the global environment or to human health and often finds the opposite: net benefits to plants, including important food crops, and to animals and human health.”

Click here to read the full report in digital form (PDF). An 18-page Summary for Policymakers is available here. Print versions of the full report and the summary will be released by NIPCC in Washington, DC the week of April 7th. Individual chapters of the full report can be downloaded at the Climate Change Reconsidered Web site.

Among the findings in Climate Change Reconsidered II: Biological Impacts:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is a non-toxic, non-irritating, and natural component of the atmosphere. Long-term CO2 enrichment studies confirm the findings of shorter-term experiments, demonstrating numerous growth-enhancing, water-conserving, and stress-alleviating effects of elevated atmospheric CO2 on plants growing in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.
There is little or no risk of increasing food insecurity due to global warming or rising atmospheric CO2 levels.Farmers and others who depend on rural livelihoods for income are benefiting from rising agricultural productivity around the world, including in parts of Asia and Africa where the need for increased food supplies is most critical. Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels play a key role in the realization of such benefits.
Rising temperatures and atmospheric CO2 levels do not pose a significant threat to aquatic life. Many aquatic species have shown considerable tolerance to temperatures and CO2 values predicted for the next few centuries, and many have demonstrated a likelihood of positive responses in empirical studies. Any projected adverse impacts of rising temperatures or declining seawater and freshwater pH levels (“acidification”) will be largely mitigated through phenotypic adaptation or evolution during the many decades to centuries it is expected to take for pH levels to fall.
A modest warming of the planet will result in a net reduction of human mortality from temperature-related events.More lives are saved by global warming via the amelioration of cold-related deaths than are lost due to excessive heat. Global warming will have a negligible influence on human morbidity and the spread of infectious diseases.

NIPCC scientists and experts from Washington, DC-based think tanks will be in Washington the week of April 7th to publicly release the final two volumes of the Climate Change Reconsidered II series: Biological Impacts, which is available online at www.climatechangereconsidered.org, and Human Welfare, Energy, and Policies, which will become available online during the coming week.

ABOUT THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE

The Heartland Institute is a 30-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit the Heartland Institute website or call 312/377-4000.

ABOUT THE NONGOVERNMENTAL INTERNATIONAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE

The Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) is an international panel of scientists and scholars who first came together in 2003 to provide an independent review of the climate science cited by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). NIPCC has produced five major scientific reports so far and plans to release one more in the coming weeks. These reports have been endorsed by leading scientists from around the world, been cited in peer-reviewed journals, and are credited with changing the global debate over climate change. No corporate or government funding was solicited or received to support production of these reports.

Muslim tells Muslims: “If you feel you are uncomfortable here — then leave the country”

April 4, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, National Security, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

Qadir visits a study group hosted by Institute of Politics fellow Farah Pandith. Photo courtesy of Harvard Political Review.

Rachael Hanna, Associate World Editor for the Harvard Political Review interviewed Hanif Qadir, Founder of the Active Change Foundation (ACF). According to the ACF website, “Hanif is recognised as one of the UK’s leading specialists in positively transforming violent extremists. He is actively involved in advising and assisting senior policy makers in reforming key aspects of the Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) agenda. He works closely with a wide range of Governmental institutions, most of the UK’s Police authorities including the Metropolitan Police and research academics across the globe, with a view to applying a more sensitive and sensible approach in counter terrorism strategies.”

Given Qadir’s background, and that he is a practicing Muslim, this question and answer from the interview stands out:

HPR: In more conservative Muslims communities, how do you deal with the conflict that they might feel exists between some of their beliefs and the modernity of Britain?

HQ: I find that quite easy to handle. There is nowhere in Britain where you are not allowed to practice your faith. In every part of Britain, there are mosques and people are allowed to practice their faith as long as it doesn’t harm others. So my argument to [conservative Muslims] always will be, “If you feel uncomfortable about being a Muslim in Britain, you are not being compelled to live in Britain. You can choose to leave.” And sometimes, if they feel strongly about their views, then I will quote [Koranic] verse to them about emigrating for the sake of Allah to a land where you can feel comfortable practicing your religion. So if you feel you are uncomfortable here, then please your Lord and leave the country. [Emphasis added]

To read the full Harvard Political Review interview click here.

Qadir believes “the War on Terror absolutely can be won.”

“I believe wholeheartedly that it can be won. Communities have a role to play in this. We cannot tackle this problem without the backing of the community, and the only thing that will allow that to happen is if the government and its institutions support organizations like the ACF to go into communities and build that collateral. There has to be more participation from young people and from communities in politics, government, and education,” notes Qadir.

In the video below former extremist and Founder of The Active Change Foundation Hanif Qadir tells us his story of getting sucked into radical thinking, how young people get radicalized, what we can do to prevent it and if its possible to win over the extremists:

[youtube]http://youtu.be/8CZP1vabiV8[/youtube]

There are many who question current US policy in the war on terror under Presidents G.W. Bush and Barack Obama. Former federal agent and author of Muslim Mafia David Gaubatz stated in an interview:

A “radical Muslim” is a “practicing” Muslim. A “Moderate” Muslim is a “non-practicing” Muslim or otherwise known as an “Apostate of Islam.” I ask readers to read my prior article, “The Fallacy of the Moderate Muslim.” There are essentially four types of people associated with Islam.

You have the “Pure Muslim” who does everything he or she can to be an example of what Islam was mandated to be by Prophet Mohammed (the founder of Islam). These folks are the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and a dozen other Islamic terrorist groups. They are otherwise known as the band of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The second group are Muslims who found and lead such organizations as CAIR, ISNA, MSA [Muslim Students’ Association], MANA [Muslim Alliance in North America], etc. They spend millions on public relations to make themselves appear as peaceful Muslims only wanting to help other Muslims in need. In actuality, these groups are simply fronts of the Muslim Brotherhood to help fund their illegal operations.
The third group consists of what the world describes as “Moderate” Muslims. They have little to do with Islam and Sharia law. The majority of them are simply Apostates of Islam. The dangerous part is that some of these so-called moderates will side with Islamic terror groups when “the time is right.”
The fourth type of group is made up of liberals worldwide who are non-Muslim but who support the Islamic ideology before they would support their own governments in America, Egypt, UK, etc. They are a grave danger, because they provide cover for terror groups.

Qadir and his colleagues at ACF appear to fit into the type 3 category of Muslims. Practicing their religion without the violence associated with it.

To read more articles by Rachael Hanna go to: http://harvardpolitics.com/author/rachael-hanna/

The Common Core License: Open to Alteration by “Inner Circle” of Owners!

April 3, 2014/in Education, Featured, News, Policy, Regulation/by Mercedes Schneider

The so-called Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are being billed as “Preparing America’s Students for Success“; as “important for your child”; indeed, as The American Education Solution:

The Common Core is a set of high-quality academic standards in mathematics and English language arts/literacy (ELA). These learning goals outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. The standards were created to ensure that all students graduate from high school with the skills and knowledge necessary to succeed in college, career, and life, regardless of where they live. [Emphasis added.]

What if CCSS doesn’t work?

Who is responsible?

Not the copyright holders, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).

Yes, these two groups formally get the credit for owning CCSS. Indeed, they insist upon it:

NGA Center/CCSSO shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards, and no claims to the contrary shall be made.

NGA and CCSSO insist that CCSS is theirs.

Funny how states across the nation are fighting over “keeping” or not “keeping” a CCSS that states are bound to but do not even really own.

It’s also funny how the NGA and CCSSO organizations “own” CCSS but the American public does not get to know the exact individuals behind such “ownership.”

Cloudy at the inner circle– just like CCSS development.

Despite the exact individuals running this CCSS copyright show, both NGA and CCSSO insist that if CCSS doesn’t deliver, they cannot be held accountable. According to the license:

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED AS-IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND NGA CENTER/CCSSO MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY,FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR THE PRESENCE OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS, WHETHER OR NOT DISCOVERABLE.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL NGA CENTER OR CCSSO, INDIVIDUALLY OR JOINTLY, BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY LEGAL THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER FOR CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR A COMBINATION THEREOF (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH RISK AND POTENTIAL DAMAGE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, LICENSEE WAIVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK LEGAL REDRESS AGAINST, AND RELEASES FROM ALL LIABILITY AND COVENANTS NOT TO SUE, NGA CENTER AND CCSSO.

Got that? NGA and CCSSO get to overtly, directly, and intentionally bill CCSS as “ensuring” “what a student should know”– yet in doublespeak, NGA and CCSSO also maintain that they “make no representations or warranties of any kind.“

There’s more.

CCSS and NGA “reserve the right” to alter the terms of the license as they wish:

NGA Center and CCSSO reserve the right to release the Common Core State Standards under different license terms…

Who is bound to any capricious change that NGA and CCSSO might make in the future to CCSS? According to the license:

ANY PERSON WHO EXERCISES ANY RIGHTS TO THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS THEREBY ACCEPTS AND AGREES TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE.

Let us consider some of the former drafts of the CCSS license. Here is an excerpt from the November 24, 2010 version:

Impermissible Uses:

The following are prohibited uses of the Common Core State Standards: (a)revising, including editing; (b) recasting, such as in the form of abridged or condensed versions, in a manner that, in the view of NGA Center and CCSSO,changes the meaning or intent of the Common Core State Standards or any part thereof; (c) sublicensing; (d) sale; (e) claiming of ownership, including copyright; (f) any use that may be prejudicial to the Common Core State Standards, NGA Center, or CCSSO; and (g) any use contrary to the express terms of this License. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Common Core State Standards may be included in larger works published by the Licensee, even if such larger works are sold or copyrighted by the Licensee.

(The same restriction is also part of the December 21, 2010, January 23, 2011, and February 24, 2011 CCSS license versions. My thanks to Suzette Lopez for sending these links my way.)

That restriction would certainly dampen the current push to “rebrand” CCSS or to cosmetically alter CCSS (like Indiana is doing).

However, there is nothing stopping the CCSS copyright holders from mandating 100% CCSS adherence once, say, all current legislative sessions are ended.

That’s right: Laws passed regarding “modifying” CCSS can be made null by a change in CCSS copyright that requires 100% CCSS adherence.

Tricky, but NGA and CCSSO “own” CCSS. Never forget that.

Let’s consider another sinister possibility due to this copyright.

On March 31, 2o14, I wrote a post in which I discussed the issue of CCSS curriculum regulation (including the possibility of a CCSS regulatory agency) on the horizon. It seems that on March 6, 2014, members of the Brookings Institute suggested the following:

The Common Core (meaning NGA and CCSSO) should vigorously enforce their licensing agreement. In the past textbook writers and others have inappropriately claimed that they aligned course content. Supporters of standards based reform should recognize that low quality content could sink the standards and enforce their copyright accordingly.

Let us not forget that proponents of CCSS have repeatedly noted that CCSS is “not a curriculum.” Technically, they would still be able to say as much even if NGA and CCSSO expand their dictatorial reach and require that curriculum be submitted for their review prior to earning some CCSS “seal of approval.”

NGA and CCSSO could alter *their* CCSS copyright to require their approval of curricular materials used in school districts across the nation.

CCSS is all about sameness, for sameness can be mass produced and rake in phenomenal dolares for contemporary education profiteers.

Sameness is important for making money.

Some CCSS proponents, like Springfield, Missouri, school board member Annie Busch, call this sameness “consistency.”

Here is how “consistency” works:

Keep CCSS the same. (If CCSS veers, then enforce sameness via copyright duress.)

Keep the curriculum the same. (This way, the market is not state-specific; instead, the market is nationwide.)

Keep the tests the same. (NGA and CCSSO curriculum “oversight” is only one step away from CCSS test “oversight.)

While we’re at it, have NGA and CCSSO include data collection requirements as part of the CCSS “agreement” with the CCSS “owners.”

Does this sound far fetched?

States that “choose to retain” CCSS (loosely defined since stakeholders have never been in the driver’s seat of this car) will continue to fight off such standardization pressures.

Keep your eyes open for it.

And do not be fooled by articles like this State Impact piece in which Achieve, “a nonprofit that helped develop the standards” (uh huh) tries to tell the public that states with CCSS can make unlimited changes and that the CCSS copyright is to “protect the rights of the states that developed them.”

The “owners” of CCSS (whoever the inner circle “owners” might be) meant for this venture to indefinitely yield fat fiscal returns.

RELATED VIDEO: This video courtesy of Utahns Against Common Core shows a series of ELA books by Zaner-Bloser with a core theme that is not literature and writing. It is social justice activism for ages 6 and up.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/FSHoxWaVeto[/youtube]

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is of President Barack Obama seen through a door to the pantry near the State Dining Room of the White House as he waits to meet with the National Governors Association on 25 February 2013.

Today’s Totalitarianism

April 2, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, Government Transparency, Gun Rights, News, Policy, Politics/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

FREEMAN April 2014 Edition.

When people go around armed with mobile phones and makeshift shields, what are the powers that be to do? Recent events in Venezuela and Ukraine suggest no status quo is safe when popular movements are networked and determined.

The trouble is, the world has not yet learned to be networked and determined as a permanent alternative to State control. After any revolution, a networked and determined people could be self-governing, though this rarely happens; revolutions remain as likely to usher in something not much better—maybe even worse—than what preceded them. Egypt is currently living out a version of this.

Most people still default to the idea that a more benevolent leviathan is going to make everything okay. And there are always would-be leviathans waiting in the wings. The hope that they’ll be less brutal is just that—hope. After regimes are toppled or swept aside, strongmen, puppet governments, or hostile neighbors are almost always well positioned to take and keep power. Problems return.

Further, when you strip off a dictator like removing a scab, what’s left underneath is often a factionalized people.

In the case of the Ukraine, it appears there’s a Russian-speaking faction that is sympathetic to Putin. There is a Ukrainian nationalist faction that is decidedly not into wearing any more totalitarian yokes, but that flirts with notions of ethnic purity, blood, and soil. There is yet another faction that fancies itself European and thinks the European superstate is the right umbrella. And on and on. Foreign powers may also have helped set a match to the tender—the United States, the EU, and Russia are all prime suspects.

In the case of Venezuela, however, the protests seem to have originated primarily among the young who are tired of shortages and suppressed freedoms that come from the Bolivarian state. CNN reports:

The weeks of protests across Venezuela mark the biggest threat President Nicolas Maduro has faced since his election last year. Demonstrators say they have taken to the streets to protest shortages of goods, high inflation and high crime.

Opposition protesters and government officials have traded blame for the violence for weeks.

The current Venezuelan leader argues that brutal suppression is justified; his charismatic predecessor, Hugo Chavez, thought the same thing. And in the mind of the State, it almost always is:

Think about what the U.S. government would do if a political group laid out a road map for overthrowing President Barack Obama, Maduro said.

“What would happen in the United States if a group said they were going to start something in the United States so that President Obama leaves, resigns, to change the constitutional government of the United States?” Maduro said. “Surely, the state would react, would use all the force that the law gives it to re-establish order and to put those who are against the Constitution where they belong.”

Surely it is a bizarro-world justification in which such regimes appeal to any Constitution in the same breath as President Obama, who thinks of the U.S. Constitution as quaint, brittle toilet tissue. But then again, Maduro is right that the U.S. government has all the power it needs to suppress any serious popular uprising—and, one expects, wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

What about states with determined but unconnected people? North Korea is still squirming along under a totalitarian thumb, as the portly Kim Jong Un takes leads from his father and grandfather, whose advice can be summed up in the dictators’ dictum: “A weak fist wipes away tears.” The highest echelon in Pyongyang reserves its fists for striking down and holding down its people—a determined, but sadly unconnected people. Thus the Hermit Kingdom could stay in penury and subjugation for many more years.

Wherever one lands on the continuum between pacificism and hostile interventionism, it is difficult not to let one’s feelings for oppressed people guide his thoughts away from either pragmatism or principle. And yet we must take care: Meddling in foreign affairs rarely ends up in any sort of postwar stability, liberation, or liberalization. It’s frustrating to see Putin get away with it. And we certainly wouldn’t want to live next to such a regime. But the simple fact that the United States could bomb or sanction Russia into even more suffering by no means guarantees a positive outcome if the United States does. The last 40 years of American military misadventures demonstrate that.

A couple of our readers challenged our publishing sentiments with respect to Ukraine. For example, we lent our pages to an anonymous Ukrainian journalist early on, when few outlets were reporting much of anything at all. Indeed, we got this story out relatively early. While we stand by any peoples longing to be free, we remain uncertain about the extent to which foreign meddlers were involved in the uprising, much less whether such meddling was warranted.

In any case, if The Freeman takes any position on matters like these, we side with peoples against illiberal States, realizing all the while that self-determination can be an imperfect process carried out in a world of opportunistic state actors and Hobbesian calculi. And of course we hope that determined and connected people can learn to do more than throw off power. We hope that someday, they can keep it and lock it away from the totalitarians forever.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of FFE and Shutterstock.

Florida: 5,000 Legal Students To Lose Their Dream

April 2, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

In a report released by Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) the impact of providing College Tuition Subsidy for Illegal Aliens (HB851/SB1400, a.k.a. in-state tuition) will be that approximately 5,000 legal students will be displaced in Florida higher level institutions by illegal alien students. These legislators are unwilling to raise taxes for the additional illegal alien students by expanding capacity so legal students will consequently be displaced.

While Democrats have consistently supported college tuition subsidy for illegal aliens only recently has Republican Leadership supported the measure. The impetus for Republicans to support the benefit seems to be a distorted belief that Governor Rick Scott’s sagging poll numbers will be bolstered.

While the number of displaced legal students and fiscal cost vary slightly between HB851 and SB1400 the estimates are similar:

HB851 will displace of 5,026 legal students
SB1400 will displace 5,175 legal students

The fiscal cost of HB851 is estimated at $21.7 million.
The fiscal cost of SB1400 is estimated at $22.7 million.

The full report is available at:

http://www.flimen.org/images/HB851-SB1400%20Cost%20Estimate.pdf

Massachusetts: Scott Lively upends LGBT gubernatorial candidate forum!

March 31, 2014/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by MassResistance

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. – George Orwell

Candidate Scott Lively shocked the politicians and audience at the Massachusetts LGBT gubernatorial debate. Doesn’t flinch from the truth! A lesson for the pro-family movement.

Pastor Scott Lively, an independent candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, shocked the other politicians and audience members at a televised candidate forum on “LGBTQ issues” at the Boston Public Library on March 25. Rather than join in the pro-“gay” chorus, Lively described the truths about those behaviors from a medical, sociological, and biblical standpoint. It was a cold dose of common sense that few there had likely heard before.

The forum was held in the Boston Public Library on March 25. It was jointly sponsored by the homosexual lobby group MassEquality and the left-wing public television station WGBH. All of the declared candidates for Governor participated except the two Republicans, Charlie Baker and Mark Fisher.

Candidates for Governor (left to right): biotech executive Joe Avellone (D), former Medicare and Medicaid administrator Don Berwick (D), Attorney General Martha Coakley (D), health care executive Evan Falchuk (I), State Treasurer Steve Grossman (D), former Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem (D),Scott Lively (I), venture capitalist Jeff McCormick (I).

Pandering vs straight talk

All seven of the other candidates for Governor — both Democrats and Independents, including the current state Attorney General and Treasurer — enthusiastically voiced their support for the homosexual and transgender agendas and their willingness to advance them in the state if elected.

For most people it’s particularly frightening to see the extent that many politicians are willing to bow to the radical homosexual and transgender movement without seemingly any second thoughts. Few pro-family people realize that.

But Lively told the group that as governor he “would ban LGBT propaganda to children.” Regarding laws supporting transgenderism he said, “It’s perfectly rational and reasonable to exercise discrimination on those grounds . . . We should be helping people to overcome this and not encourage those who persist in the delusion.”

Attorney General Martha Coakley (left) and Scott Lively.

Very hostile environment

The hostility during the event against Lively was fairly dramatic. The crowd of about 150 appeared to consist overwhelmingly of pro-homosexual supporters. There were also about 6-12 Lively supporters there. But just about every time he spoke he was interrupted by loud, rude noises from the audience, which the moderator made little effort to stop. It’s been observed that homosexual activists are emotionally much like 10-year-olds, and that was certainly evident there. (Even then, this was actually more orderly than other venues. At least the activists stayed in their seats this time!)

The audience entering the auditorium just before the forum begins.

In addition, the other candidates were visibly annoyed with Lively’s straight talk. At one point during the debate, Independent candidate Jeff McCormick, who spoke right after Lively, sneered at him and said, “I should win an award after this. Someone owes me a martini.”

But watching this was a clinic on how to fight back in a seemingly overwhelming situation. It wasn’t an easy venue for any pro-family politician. But Lively took it in stride. He did not take any of the hostile bait thrown at him, nor did he veer from his calm but forceful demeanor. This seemed to make his message all the more powerful.

Watch the video of the forum. (1 hr 25 min.) Just watching the first several minutes shows you all you need to see!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/K547pmAoz1I[/youtube]

A few of the questions and answers from the forum

Here is a sample of three of the questions, and how various candidates (and Lively) answered them.

Q. How do you plan to use your role as governor to make Massachusetts the best place for LGBTQ people to live? And how would you tout these initiatives across the country? And how would you use the governor’s office as the bully pulpit?

Joe Avellone. I’m going to have an LGBT Summit yearly to understand the evolving positions and create an LGBT agenda from the governor’s office that we will use in the Legislature to make sure that we keep advancing the agenda.

Attorney General Martha Coakley. We just passed the amendment to the bullying bill and we’ll make sure it’s implemented in the corner office to make sure that LGBTQ children get all the help they need to be good students and have a good future.

Evan Falachuk. The Mass LGBTQ Commission for Youth laid a pretty thorough agenda of items that need to be taken care of. As governor I’ll appoint an assistant secretary and someone who’s a program manager. You need someone in charge of quarterbacking to make that happen, and that will be a big part of my agenda.

Scott Lively. As governor I would ban LGBT propaganda to children. This is a law that I advocated for in Russia. They have found it to be successful for their society. There remains no objective proof that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable despite decades of effort which means that it is an acquired condition. We must assume that that’s true and if that assumption is true, then it is extraordinarily irresponsible to be treating our children as guinea pigs in a massive social experiment. They should be protected from the promotion of homosexuality as good, normal alternative choice for themselves.

Q. Do you support non-discrimination protection for transgender people in public places or accommodations? If so, how do you respond to arguments opposing these protections that provoke controversy and allege public safety issues?

Jeff McCormick. Absolutely I support that. It actually makes my skin crawl to understand how some people can take a segment of our population [and discriminate against it] . . . If I’m having a Catholic wedding or if I’m having a bar mitzvah, it doesn’t make sense to me how someone can selectively discriminate in our society at all. To me this is an absolute no-brainer.

Scott Lively. Discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or nationality is completely irrational because those things are morally neutral. But sexual conduct is not morally neutral. And has serious public health, sociological, moral implications. Its perfectly rational and reasonable to exercise discrimination on those grounds. So all the arguments attempting to compare race with homosexuality and transgenderism are simply comparing apples and oranges. I think transgenderism is clearly self-evidently dysfunctional and this it is simply insanity for our society to be embracing it as a normal variant of human sexuality. We should be helping people to overcome this and not encourage those who persist in the delusion.

Juliette Kayyem. Absolutely I would support an inclusion of transgender. Let me be clear on the transgender issue. We can respect other view points, but we’re on the right side of history here. Anyone who has lived the last 20, 30, 40 years know that we are on the right side of history. There is only one way forward in Massachusetts, let alone the United States, and its going to be to include transgender, non-conforming gender, however you want to describe the anti-discrimination statute. We should be ahead of this and we are not.

Q. May 2014 is the ten year anniversary of marriage equality. Yet state data shows persistent disparities for LGBTQ youth, especially for LGBTQ youth of color and transgender youth. What do you see as the most urgent needs of this most vulnerable population and how will you measure your success as governor in addressing these disparities?

State Treasurer Steve Grossman. I’m very proud of the Governor who has $38 million in the budget for a variety of mental health services, many of which directly affect LGBT youth and homeless youth and I think that’s a budget that we can build on. Even during tough economic times we have to recognize that our most vulnerable populations need to be served on mental health and behavioral health need to be funded adequately.

Juliette Kayyem. I believe a lot of this can be addressed through focusing on kindness. The bullying that occurs against many students that are LGBTQ is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable as a legal matter. And as I told you earlier I brought the federal government’s first anti-bullying complaint against a school district. It was the football players against the cheerleaders — but it had a similar focus which was the schools, and the governments that give them money, have the responsibility to make sure its kids are kind to each other . . . I also think straight children of gay parents are also facing discrimination that we can address as well. It begins with focusing on kindness.

Scott Lively. Frankly I agree, that kindness is what the kids need most. I don’t think its kind to affirm a dysfunctional sexual identity, that our lives are fluid. If an adult decides they want to identify as a homosexual, bi-sexual, or transgender, that’s their choice. But we shouldn’t push that on the kids. We should assume that they have the ability to overcome that problem. I was a street kid myself and I knew a lot of people who were struggling with this. Most of them did not want to have a homosexual orientation and if they had had a chance to have counseling for that, they would have taken it. Regarding bullying, I don’t think that we should be having bullying policies that force all the kids to be pro-gay when we can solve the problem by teaching them to respect each other despite their differences.

Reaction from the liberal press

After the forum finished, most of the press in attendance — predictably biased against the pro-family viewpoint — nevertheless seemed to gather around Lively. If nothing else, he stood out as an independent thinker. The other candidates had generally repeated the same rather mindless pro-“gay” political pandering. As one newspaper reported, “Other than Lively, the candidates agreed on most issues.”

Lively being interviewed by reporter for Boston homosexual newspaper Rainbow Times.

Of all the media coverage, probably the fairest came from the Boston University newspaper, the Daily Free Press. It covered the event without noticeable bias.

On the other hand, the left-leaning Springfield Republican newspaper in Western Massachusetts was over-the-top in its bias and near-hysteria in its coverage.

The Springfield Republican newspaper’s flaming headline.

An important lesson for the pro-family movement

Many conservatives, including us, have stated repeatedly that the major factor for pro-family losses on these issues has been the almost universal reluctance of politicians and pro-family leaders to tell the truth. Instead, under pressure they usually sink into a mushy morass of political correctness and moral compromise (e.g., civil unions, “gay” adoptions). In our opinion, that’s how we lost the major gay-marriage court cases last year and it’s how we continue to lose in legislatures, in courtrooms, and in the public square.

Our people, and particularly our politicians, are deathly afraid of being called names or demeaned by the liberal establishment. It’s the road to hell.

Without the truth there are no weapons for a fight, only gradual capitulation. But telling the truth forcefully and fearlessly over and over again is the basis of victory over a movement that depends on lies and disinformation for its success.

It’s going to be an interesting political summer in Massachusetts.

In a video taken right after the forum ended, Scott Lively gives his reaction. (32 sec.)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/PyXEu6Oaaso[/youtube]

Power Play: Political influence of Florida’s top energy corporations

March 31, 2014/in Featured, News, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Rich Swier

The nonpartisan government watchdog group Integrity Florida released a research report titled “Power Play: Political influence of Florida’s top energy corporations”.

The findings conclude that, increasingly, the Florida Legislature sets its agenda and policy outcomes based on the needs of large political donors rather than the public interest. In one recent example, the sitting state senate president openly explained his position on a public policy issue as supporting whatever one major campaign donor tells him to support. A large Budweiser distributor contributed nearly $300,000 to political candidates and committees aligned with Senate President Don Gaetz and had the edge on its smaller craft beer industry competitors.

A similar pattern exists for the energy sector in Florida where the Florida Legislature maintains a traditional, regulated monopoly-utility model. This report examines the political influence of the state’s four largest electric utility companies: Florida Power & Light, Duke Energy (formerly Progress Energy), TECO Energy and Gulf Power.

These four corporations registered, on average, one lobbyist for every two state legislators each legislative session between 2007 and 2013. For the last five election cycles, these electric utilities were among the largest donors to state-level campaigns in Florida.

In the same period of time, the policy wins for the four electric utilities included rate increases for customers, legislation that allows early cost recovery for nuclear facilities that have not been built, the defeat of a proposal that would have increased electric bill transparency and the removal of consumer-friendly state regulators who opposed two proposed rate hikes.

Summary of Research Findings

Major campaign donations. Electric utilities contributed more than $18 million to state-level candidates and party organizations between the 2004 and 2012 election cycles.
Significant lobbying. Lobbying spending by Florida’s four largest electric utilities was more than $12 million between 2007 and 2013.
Revolving door and cronyism. Electric utilities have made a point of hiring former state regulators and have employed the firms of several sitting state legislators.
Higher electric bills for consumers. Floridians have faced higher electric utility bills from each of the four corporations examined in this study in recent years.
Anti-consumer regulations. The Florida Legislature and the Florida Public Service Commission routinely side with electric utilities rather than consumers.

Summary of Policy Reform Recommendations

Apply uniform ethics rules for legislators and local officials. If local officials are banned from legislative lobbying, then apply the same rules to legislators lobbying local officials.
Put inspector general reports online. Inspector general investigative reports and audits should be posted online by the Florida Public Service Commission and all state and local agencies.
Put gift and client disclosures made by all state and local officials online.
Require additional disclosure for political donations from government vendors and companies regulated by the Public Service Commission.
Establish electric bill transparency. Unbundle bills with detailed disclosure of rate components.

ABOUT INTEGRITY FLORIDA

Integrity Florida is a nonpartisan research institute and government watchdog whose mission is to promote integrity in government and expose public corruption. More information at www.IntegrityFlorida.org.

Democrats Being Democrats

March 31, 2014/in Elections, Featured, News, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Paul R. Hollrah

Having begun my career as a lobbyist under the dome of the state capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I know a thing or two about political corruption in the Keystone State and the City of Brotherly Love… I’ve seen it “up close and personal.” So it came as no surprise when the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story on March 16, detailing the results of a sting operation launched in 2010 under then-Pennsylvania attorney general, now governor, Tom Corbett.

However, to fully understand the evolution of the sting operation it is necessary to begin at the very beginning. The central character in the sting is a man named Tyron B. Ali, age 40, an immigrant from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad. Ali is the owner of a day-care center in North Philadelphia and a registered lobbyist in Harrisburg.

Ali first came to the attention of law enforcement officials in April 2009 when he was arrested in connection with a $430,000 fraud. According to the Inquirer, Ali was accused of submitting phony invoices and forging hundreds of bank statements, tax forms, and paychecks in a Pennsylvania program designed to aid low-income families and seniors. State prosecutors were also aware that, in order to circumvent statutory campaign contribution limits, Ali was found to have been lining up illegal “straw” contributions for the campaign of Daniel D. McCaffery, a Democratic candidate for Philadelphia DA, now a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge.

In that case, campaign finance records showed that four contributions of $2,500 each were made to the McCaffrey campaign, all from associates of Ali. However, at about the same time that Ali delivered the four checks to the McCaffrey campaign, McCaffery staffers learned of Ali’s arrest in the unrelated fraud case. McCaffery’s campaign manager telephoned the four donors and one admitted that the money was not his; the money was Ali’s.

Then, in a surprising move for a Democrat, McCaffery reported the violations to attorney general Tom Corbett, a Republican, and promptly refunded the illegal contributions. It was then that a top prosecutor, Frank Fina, chief of the attorney general’s Public Corruption section (who earlier led the criminal investigation of Penn State assistant head football coach, Jerry Sandusky), was assigned to handle the Ali investigation. In the hope of receiving a more lenient outcome in his fraud indictment, Ali agreed to assist Fina’s investigation into widespread official corruption by wearing a body wire.

In order to keep Ali from “wandering off the reservation,” the attorney general assigned a 24-year veteran of the attorney general’s office to serve as his driver and constant companion. In the eighteen month period between October 13, 2010 and April 23, 2012, Ali produced some 400 hours of audio and video recordings detailing 113 conversations with Pennsylvania political figures, Republicans and Democrats. And although Ali dangled inducements before a great many politicians, of both political parties, only four Democratic lawmakers and a Philadelphia traffic court judge took the bait.

Rep. Louise Bishop took $1,500; Rep. Vanessa Brown took $4,000; Rep. Michelle Brownlee took $3,500; Rep. Ronald G. Waters accepted multiple gifts totaling $7,650; and Traffic Court Judge Thomasine Tynes received a Tiffany bracelet. All are Democrats, all are from Philadelphia (representing precincts that gave not one single vote to Mitt Romney in 2012), and all are African-Americans.

According to the Inquirer, “Things were going so well that, in the summer of 2012, prosecutors considered setting Ali up in a fancy lobbying office near the Capitol. The plan was to rig the office with hidden cameras and expand the hunt…” However, before they could implement the plan, Pennsylvanians went to the polls and elected Democrat Kathleen Kane as attorney general. Within days after taking office Kane brought the investigation to an abrupt halt.

Thumbing through the Democrat Party playbook, Kane found that the simplest and easiest ploy to support her brazenly partisan contempt for the rule of law would be to do what Democrats always do when they find themselves without a plausible argument: she threw down the race card. In a statement to the Inquirer on Friday, March 14, Kane called the investigation “poorly conceived, badly managed, and tainted by racism,” saying it had “targeted African Americans.”

In truth, what motivated Kane was the need to keep Philadelphia’s black voters on the Democrat political plantation. It just wasn’t smart politics for a Democrat attorney general to prosecute four black Democrat lawmakers and a black Democrat judge for accepting bribes, even though most of their crimes were caught on audio and/or video tape.

The Inquirer report reminded readers that, during her 2012 campaign for attorney general, Kane had been critical of what she felt was the slow pace of the Sandusky investigation at Penn State. Once elected, she hired a former Philadelphia federal prosecutor to investigate Fina’s handling of the case. After a full year of investigating the investigation, Kane declared that her investigation was taking longer than she had anticipated.

In Democrat-speak, that is another way of saying that it takes a lot longer to uncover Republican wrongdoing when there is no wrongdoing to be uncovered. But that doesn’t normally stop Democrats when they’re out to find dirt on Republicans. According to the Inquirer, within hours after taking office, when Fina was in his last week on the job, Kane sent technicians into his office on a “black bag” mission, after working hours, for the purpose of removing the hard drive from his computer… apparently in the faint hope of finding some usable tidbit of damning evidence relating to his conduct of the Sandusky case.

If nothing else, the mess in Pennsylvania is a perfect example of what happens when the people elect Democrats to public office. Since the publication of the Inquirer story on March 16, the Democrat Party has been hit by a long list of scandals, from New York to California, where State Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), an outspoken foe of 2^nd Amendment gun rights, has been charged with multiple offenses, including charges relating to illegal gun trafficking.

But the biggest Democrat fish caught in the corruption net is Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)… the most despicable Democrat in a long list of despicable Democrats. Reid is charged with digging into his campaign chest to give his granddaughter, Ryan Elizabeth Reid, a gift of $17,000, even though she is an aspiring actress in New York and did no useful work for the Reid campaign. Several members of Congress have gone to prison for committing similar crimes. It remains to be seen how “Dingy Harry” manages to slither out of this predicament.

This is not to say that there is not an occasional rotten apple in the Republican barrel, but in all my years as a lobbyist and as a political operative I have found very few Republicans who’ve demonstrated the sort of moral and ethical lapses that we regularly see among Democrats. During my years in the political arena I can recall only two instances in which I was solicited for a bribe. The first was a member of the Kentucky State Senate and the second was a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Both were Democrats. My immediate response in both instances was, “I’m sorry, but we just don’t work that way.”

I have long felt that it is impossible to be elected to public office as a Democrat without first making a deal with the devil. And while there exists a single common thread of ideology that binds all Republicans… of all ages, races, creeds, professions, and economic status… the same is not true of Democrats. The Democrat Party is a coalition of special interests, each of which demand something specific, and quite different, from government.

For example, when a Democrat candidate appears before a black audience, his/her stance on quality education must be vastly different from the message he/she delivers before an audience of unionized public school teachers. And when that same politician campaigns before a group of radical environmentalists, his/her message on issues such as the Keystone XL pipeline must be vastly different from the message he/she would deliver before a roomful of blue collar workers.

In order to be successful as a Democratic candidate it is absolutely essential to have a separate position on all of the major issues for each of the party’s many constituencies, and to remember without fail which lies you’ve told to each of them. It is such a flexible moral compass… standard equipment for all Democrats… that made it possible for all those members of the Pennsylvania Black Caucus to succumb so easily to Mr. Ali’s proffered goodies.

But all is not lost; the Pennsylvania bribery sting may yet have a silver lining. It is possible that the greatest beneficiary of the Black Caucus political scandal will be Republican governor Tom Corbett. As matters now stand, Corbett’s approval rating is somewhere in the mid-30s and his reelection chances appear to be in a bit of trouble. But when the Democrats choose a candidate from among seven candidates running in the May primary, that candidate will be called upon to defend attorney General Kane and the bribe takers of the Black Caucus. Yes, the fish does rot from the head and it’s clear that Barack Obama’s Chicago-style politics has infected Democrats all across the country… just in time to backfire on the Democrat Party and its candidates in November.

LIST OF DESPICABLE Ds: Camden, NJ – Mayor Dana Redd; Flint, MI – Mayor Dayne Walling; Detroit, MI – Mayor Dave Bing/Mike Duggan; Oakland, CA – Mayor Jean Quan; St. Louis, MO – Mayor Francis Slay; Cleveland, OH – Mayor Frank Jackson; Gary, IN – Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson; Newark, NJ – Mayor Corey Booker/Luis Quintana; Bridgeport, CT – Mayor Bill Finch; Birmingham, AL – Mayor William A. Bell.

How teachers’ “attitude restructuring” is hypersexualizing your kids

March 30, 2014/in Culture War, Education, Featured, News, Science/by Dr. Judith Reisman

Note: Thomas R. Hampson, chief investigator, Liberty Center for Child Protection, contributed to this column.

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” – Matthew 10:16

Ira L. Reiss. Photo courtesy of the Kinsey Institute.

Ira L. Reiss, a sociologist and professor emeritus at Minnesota University, was a charter member of Alfred Kinsey’s Sex Cult. His papers, articles, and audio and video recordings already are housed at the Kinsey Institute, 57 years of his work so far. Reiss, like other Kinsey disciples, advocated the production of pornography and its display for “training” purposes to prepare students entering the new sexuality fields spawned by Kinsey’s supposed revelations on sex. Kinsey gleefully promoted this type of material, which during the late ’60s started to be called Sexuality Attitude Restructuring (later renamed Reassessment), or SAR, sessions.

These training sessions are promoted as sexual desensitization seminars, pornographic extravaganzas of all manner of enthusiastic sexual activities presented to groups of men and women as training to become certified therapists, counselors, educators or researchers. In addition to desensitizing sexologists to the images of heterosexual activities, sado-masochism, group sex, sodomy, the use of sex “toys” and homosexual behavior, the sex leaders also hold small group discussions to explore the participants’ attitudes and biases in order to neutralize any “negative” views.

But the stated purpose of these sessions is not the whole story, or even the real story.

Early on, these sessions were not used to merely desensitize and encourage acceptance of all sex acts but as indoctrination into a “sex positive” mindset. (Such training has been a requirement for certification by the American Association of Sex Educators Counselors and Therapists, or AASECT, from the beginning.) SAR leaders also often pressured participants into sexual experimentation with each other.

Reiss revealed this in his book, “An Insider’s View of Sexual Science since Kinsey,” recounting his experience at an eight-day SAR session in San Francisco in 1972. At the time, Reiss already was a professor at the University of Minnesota where its medical school was one the first in the country to offer SAR training to medical students. But it was a new, untested program.

The director of U of M’s SAR program had secured a grant from the Playboy Foundation to send 25 couples from the University, all expenses paid, to San Francisco to receive training from the group that had followed on Kinsey’s practices, the National Sex Forum (aka the National Sex and Drug Forum). The purpose was to improve the programming at Minnesota. Reiss and wife were among the volunteers for the Playboy-sponsored training of future national sex educators. Reiss reports:

“The view presented by many of the staff was supportive of people trying out the full variety of sexual acts that exist (S and M, gay, extramarital, group sex, etc.). The supposed purpose was to allow people to break through their old restrictive sexual attitudes. I had no objection to offering such options. However, as they elaborated, it became clear that this support of broad experimentation was more than just permission giving – it was presented as a demand to experiment.”

When Reiss resisted, the SAR leaders ridiculed him, one of them saying, “Are you hostile to group sex or gay sex, and is that why [you are] so cautious about trying something new? Are you biased?”

Reiss did not object to the activity. Rather, he objected to demanding it. It should be promoted, not required, according to Reiss. Such promoting, demanding and encouraging of freewheeling sexual libertinism SAR trainers have been doing for over 40 years now.

While AASECT requires SAR training as an element in their certification standards, the Kinsey Institute is still involved, and Planned Parenthood has joined in. SAR trainings are regularly available now.

Mentally and emotionally corrupted graduates of the SAR training become the “experts” who design sex-ed courses and teach our children. Thus, they have “determined” that the anus is a “genital” as it is described in the currently used sex education program in Hawaii, that orgies are natural entertainment, that sex addiction is a myth, that addiction to pornography is not possible, that it’s normal for children of any age to have sex and that they have the right to choose whatever sexual activity they may think to try with whomever they want, and that sodomy (legalized by the Supreme Court in 2003) is a healthy sexual practice for all sexual orientations.

The whole purpose of these “sex positive” programs is not to liberate adults from their Victorian moral prisons but to indoctrinate children into an unrestrained, sexually available lifestyle. Even if such “programs” are not being taught in all schools yet, this material has been made available on multiple websites and are widely promoted to all, regardless of age. The Kinsey Institute, SIECUS, Planned Parenthood, AASECT and others all provide, or recommend, sites that extoll the virtues of unrestrained sexual experimentation.

Is it any wonder that youthful STDs, pregnancies, abortions and abuse are pandemic?

Which brings us to one of the big lies spread by these organizations: safe/safer sex.

Typical of schools throughout the country, the Minnesota AIDS Project experts (SAR graduates) tell youngsters they can cut and use plastic wrap as a “barrier” when a child has oral/anal contact.

What?

To make matters worse, many of these groups have for years been spreading the false advertising that condoms and dental dams are FDA approved for such bizarre and damaging use. They are not. (See my recent column, “Condoms never FDA-approved for sodomy.”)

Do “condoms” and homemade barriers give the protection Planned Parenthood and other groups claim? Or do these groups promote their use merely as cover for the real purpose – to hypersexualize younger and younger children, groom them and leave them increasingly vulnerable to disease, death and sexual abuse by peers and adults?

Isn’t it time we start holding these groups legally accountable for knowingly spreading their junk science? Let us hear from you if you are among the millions who have been harmed by their “grooming” lies.

Carbon Footprint: Using Unborn Fetuses as “Renewable Energy”

March 30, 2014/in Culture War, Energy, Environment, Featured, News, Policy, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

Environmentalists believe that mankind is a scourge, an infestation if you will, upon the earth and must be at the least controlled and at worst eliminated to protect mother earth. Those who are believers in population control embrace the policies of organizations like Planned Parenthood, founded by Margaret Sanger. “The feminist movement, of which Sanger was a major exponent, always identified with eugenics,” wrote Edwin Black.

Edwin Black, author of War Against The Weak, writes, “… Sanger vigorously opposed charitable efforts to uplift the downtrodden and deprived, and argued extensively that it was better that the cold and hungry be left without help, so that the eugenically superior strains could multiply without competition from ‘the unfit.’ She repeatedly referred to the lower classes and the unfit as ‘human waste’ not worthy of assistance, and proudly quoted the extreme eugenic view that human ‘weeds’ should be ‘exterminated.’ Moreover, for both political and genuine ideological reasons, Sanger associated closely with some of some of America’s most fanatical eugenic racists.” Sanger stated, “My criticism, therefore, is not directed at the ‘failure’ of philanthropy, but rather at its success.” [Emphasis added]

One of England’s leading hospitals used the remains of 797 unborn babies in its own ‘waste to energy’ incinerator, for a savings of £18.50 per cremation. Photo courtesy of the Boston Globe.

Fast forward to today. Jeff Jacoby in his column How unborn babies become ‘clinical waste’, writes, “JONATHAN SWIFT was being satirical when he penned his “modest proposal” that destitute Irish parents alleviate their financial woes by selling their children as delicacies for rich landowners. He assured his readers that 1-year-olds are delicious, ‘whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled.’ That was satire circa 1729. Imagine what Swift at his most scathing would write today — say, a 21st-century “modest proposal” to use unborn fetuses for renewable energy. But this — from a prominent story last week in The Telegraph, a British newspaper — wasn’t satire:

“The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found. Ten [National Health Service] trusts have admitted burning fetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat. . . . At least 15,500 fetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s ‘Dispatches’ discovered.”

The Wire’s Phillip Bump writes, “American conservatives are very upset. Breitbart’s new UK outlet picked up the story, with commenters linking the practice to the Nazis, to Hell, to environmentalists, and to Democrats, in some variation of that order. The response was similar on Twitter. (“What’s the carbon footprint of burning dead, aborted infants?”). A columnist at RedState identified as “streiff” did the yeoman’s work of delineating the slippery slope.

This is what happens when a society loses faith. Humans lose their humanity. When that humanity is lost, society feels free to use humans in whatever way it perceives will generate the best Return on Investment. In order to justify abortion, the unborn had to be dehumanized.

“While it always to poke fun at the Brits, this is undoubtedly happening today in the United States,” streiff writes. It is like the film Soylent Green, the writer argues, in which people judged not to be useful to society are turned into food.

Burning fetuses is just the first step on the road to perdition. What’s the carbon footprint for a burned baby? What’s the moral price for burning one?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of TShirtBordello.com.

Florida: 3-Way Sex Cop busted

March 30, 2014/in Culture War, Featured, News/by Dr. Rich Swier

Mayor Jim Blucher, North Port City Commission Seat # 4

The message of North Port Chief of Police Kevin Vespia states, “Our citizens expect and deserve that their police officers will act with honor and integrity at all times.” Well it seems they are not, not by any stretch of the imagination. The City of North Port, Florida and the North Port Police Department (NPPD) have a major and growing scandal on their collective hands.

WWSB ABC Channel 7 reports, “Since we first reported the ongoing scandal involving sexual assault at a party attended by on- and off-duty North Port police officers, multiple people have come forward with stories about previous wild parties involving members of the department. One of these people is a former law enforcement officer here on the Suncoast, and while he wasn’t at the party the night of the alleged assault, he says he has been to several other similar parties hosted and attended by North Port cops where things got out of hand.”

Bill Warner, a Sarasota private investigator, posted a column on his blog titled “Told You So Sarasota: NPPD Swinger Parties With Drugs Headed Up By 3 Way Sex Cop Melanie Turner.” North Port resident Sherry Smart, after reading Warner’s article, sent an email to the City Commissioners. Smart states, “3 Way Sex Cop…. what a great tag line for North Port. Perhaps we would get more visitors to our ‘esteemed’ city with that for our city motto instead of ‘the city where you can achieve anything’… but then again perhaps those are interchangeable like our police officers at sex parties?”

Smart notes, “The article does not elude [sic] to a ONE time event. Good officers (those who don’t do 3 ways with their peers) would be fearful to expose this behavior. They would be fearful of repercussions from those who do not wish to be exposed… or rather, found out. (Exposure doesn’t seem to bother them). Because we now have an officer who has committed suicide rather than go to court and eventually jail, this leads one to question…. what else was there that he didn’t want to come to light and with this dire action, he thought would die with him? So what’s the percentage of exposure — 10%? with another 90% hidden within the department?”

North Port Chief of Police Kevin Vespia

rhonda difranco vice mayor city of north port

North Port Vice-Mayor Rhonda Y. DiFranco

It has been reported by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune that North Port Vice-Mayor Rhonda Y. DiFranco’s female domestic partner is Jennifer S. Cohen. DiFranco, Cohen and former Sarasota City Commissioner Ken Sheilan (who is a homosexual) were the force and faces behind the effort to approve a domestic partner registry in North Port. Vice Mayor DiFranco is the City Commission’s liaison to the North Port Police Department. DiFranco is also a retired Sarasota County Deputy Sheriff.

Smart concludes with, “Houston we have a problem. (Stating the obvious here) So now what are you going to do about it? I do have some thoughts on how to go about routing [sic] out the rotten roots. Am waiting expectantly to hear your thoughts.”

If Smart receives a reply we will post an update to this column. The following questions have been sent to all of the City Commissioners:

1. Who hired Officer Melanie Turner and when?
2. Did the department do a background check on Officer Turner?
3. Did the department know Officer Turner was a lesbian?
4. If so, was this not a red flag to the department?

Jennifer S. Cohen.

The contact information for the City of North Port Commission is:

Cheryl Cook, Commissioner, Seat # 1, ccook@cityofnorthport.com
Tom Jones, Commissioner, Seat # 2, tjones@cityofnorthport.com
Rhonda Y. DiFranco, Vice-Mayor Seat # 3, rdifranco@cityofnorthport.com
Jim Blucher, Mayor, Seat # 4, jblucher@cityofnorthport.com
Linda Yates, Commissioner, Seat # 5, lyates@cityofnorthport.com

Dozens of Elected Lawmakers Arrested by the FBI: Guess What — They’re all Democrats!

March 29, 2014/in Courts & Law, Featured, News, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Joseph R. John

World Net Daily reported that the FBI executed a dozen arrest warrants against elected officials in eight states. Elected officials like Democratic mayor of Charlotte, N.C., Patrick Cannon, who was arrested Wednesday. The offices of Democratic New York state Assemblyman William Scarborough were raided Wednesday, and Democratic state Senators John Sampson and Malcolm Smith were indicted on federal corruption charges. In Rhode Island, House Speaker Gordon Fox resigned after his office was raided this week as part of a joint investigation of the IRS, the FBI, the U.S. attorney’s office and state police.

These arrests all have one thing in common, that the media has been reluctant to report, every one of the elected officials are “Democrats” The arrests are explained in more detail in the World Net Daily article here. The arrests were executed by my former colleagues in the FBI in the states of New York, New Jersey, California, Rhode Island, Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, and North Carolina.

The American people must be wondering when Obama will try to interfere with the FBI and tell Holder to rein the FBI in? It doesn’t look good to have so many corrupt Democrat elected officials arrested—without a single Republican arrest.

The corruption and scandals which occurred in the Democratic Party have gotten completely out of hand over the last 5 years. We have witnessed the Fast & Furious illegal gun running operations in Mexico & Syria, the cover-up by Admiral Mullen of the fact that Obama refused to execute “Cross Border Authority” resulting in the death of 4 Americans (including 2 courageous Navy SEALs who saved 32 lives). We watched as the IRS targeted conservative groups so they couldn’t participate in last national presidential election. Democratic appointees in DOD have been violating the “Freedom of Religion” of Chaplains & members of the US Armed Forces.

President Obama’s repeated violation of the US Constitution with impunity and his refusal to uphold the valid laws of the land he disagrees with and that he swore to uphold in his oath of office. The Democrats in Congress are allowing the President to illegally change the flawed Obamacare Federal Law, thirty-nine times to date, in violation of the US Constitution.

Democratic appointees at DOD are destroying the “Combat Effectiveness” of the US Army and the US Navy preventing the US Armed Forces with the capability to defend the Republic from foreign and domestic enemies. The FEC is allowing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to funnel thousands of dollars in political donations to his granddaughter’s company. Americas citizens have been witnessing democratic appointees in government abuse the freedom accorded to all Americans by the Bill of Rights.

Growing numbers say in polls they do not trust Obama to use the information NSA has gathered on them to target them like Democrats used the IRS to target conservatives. Finally, the Democrats are keeping the borders “wide open” in order to facilitate the free flow of illegal immigrants into America, which is facilitating the infiltration of Middle Eastern terrorists from a safe house in Mexico City.

By its own actions the Democratic party, a party we once respected, no longer is protecting and defending the US Constitution. Rather it is intentionally restricting the US Armed Forces from their ability to defend the Republic from enemies both foreign and domestic. The Party of JFK is facilitating the destruction of the 238 year old free enterprise system that built the most effective economic engine in the history of mankind. Sadly, they are facilitating Obama’s turn to Socialism.

Socialism has failed where ever it has ever been tried—in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Communist Russia, Communist Cuba, Socialist Venezuela, Communist East Germany, Communist Romania, Communist Czechoslovakia, Communist Poland, Communist Bulgaria, Communist Yugoslavia, Communist Hungary, Communist Latvia, Communist Lithuania, Communist Estonia, Communist Ukraine, and Communist China.

Yet the corrupt Democratic party, led by Pelosi, Reid, Obama, and funded by Soros, is trying to drive the United States economy into a $24 trillion debt, continue to increase oppressive taxes on both the American people and businesses, overregulating business driving them out of the country, restricting energy production, and installing a socialist system where distribution of wealth will be the cornerstone of its economic policy resulting in the majority of the population being on government welfare.

The destabilizing and un-American activities and programs executed by the Democratic party over the last 5 years, listed above, goes hand and glove with the “Voter Fraud” perpetrated and supported by the democrats thru the ACORN organization they supported. ACORN was charged with multiple criminal activity in many states following the presidential election of 2008; subsequently, all 30 ACORN state chapters were closed, because the Congress restricted government agencies from providing funding ACORN, so ACORN simply decided to change its name.

New and different names were adopted for each of the 30 different state ACORN chapters; for the most part, they kept the same leadership, and reopened with new names in 30 states (the goal of the reorganization was to be able to continue receive federal funding thru HEW). Those newly named ACORN organizations are now being funded by the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Catherine Sibelius.

In the general presidential election of 2012, Sibelius used federal funds to pay the organizations that changed their names from ACORN, and they again engaged in massive voter fraud in the key battleground states in 2012 like they did in 2008. Despite of the disastrous & incompetent roll out of the flawed Obamacare Law, Sibelius was not removed; she was probably retained because of her experience in employing programs at HEW to fund the follow-on organizations that replaced ACORN; Sibelius is again funding the follow-on organizations that changed their names from ACORN so they can engage in voter fraud again in the 2014 election.

From what we have been able to determine, with only 7 months to go to the 2014 mid-term election, the Republican party has done relatively little to stem the expected massive violation of federal election laws that will take place again in 2014.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of handcuffs is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

GOP Leaders Launch a Civil War by Opening Fire on Conservatives and the TEA Party

March 29, 2014/in Elections, Featured, News, Politics/by Dr. Rich Swier

MANASSAS, Va., PRNewswire-USNewswire — Following is the statement of Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, Richard Viguerie.

“Republican Congressional leaders, less than three hundred miles from Fort Sumter where the Confederates fired on the federal government and launched a horrific four-year American Civil War, are meeting to declare a civil war against conservatives who are the base of the Republican Party.”

“Since the purpose of the weekend meeting at the Ritz Carlton on Amelia Island in Florida is to raise money and strategizing as to how to defeat limited-government constitutional conservatives in Republican primaries, this meeting is an act of war by Eric Cantor and the Republican Congressional leadership.”

“By fighting conservatives, Republican congressional leaders are publicly acknowledging they do not share the core values of conservatives and Tea Partyers, including limited-government, fidelity to the constitution, lower taxes, balanced budget, significantly reducing the size, scope and reach of the federal government.”

“The Republican primary voters will now be able to clearly see who are the principled conservatives verses those candidates receiving support from the Ruling Class, Crony Capitalists such as Karl Rove, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell.”

“Grass roots conservatives wish Republican leaders could get as angry at the lawlessness of the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats as they do at conservatives.”

“This meeting is proof positive that the Republican Establishment thinks the Tea Party is alive, strong, and a major threat to their existence.”

What is most interesting is Viguerie’s “Ruling Class, Crony Capitalists” like Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor have their current political positions because of the Tea Party. By attacking the Tea Party Republicans run the of risk losing local elections, something they abhor.

There are tangible, ideological differences between the Democrat and Republican party platforms. There is little difference between the parties “ruling class” when it comes to what they do when in office, with some notable exceptions.

Members of the Tea Party are predominantly classical liberals. Therefore the Republican party platform that appeals most to them is the Republican platform. However, the ruling class believes it can eat its young and still win elections. That attitude is what lost Republicans the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

The first law of politics, and war, is secure your base. Ruling class Republicans should take heed of that maxim. If you tread on the Tea Party it may come back and bite you in 2014 and again in 2016.

A party, like a nation, divided will not stand.

ABOUT RICHARD VIGUERIE

Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called “one of the creators of the modern conservative movement” (The Nation) and one of the “conservatives of the century”(Washington Times). He is the author of the new book, Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.