Fact-Checking 4 Claims About Detaining Children at the Border

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The Trump administration is taking heat from Democrats and Republicans for separating parents and children after they illegally crossed the southern border.

Over the six weeks from April 19 through May 31, federal officials separated about 2,000 children from their families at the U.S.-Mexican border, the Associated Press reported last week.

President Donald Trump blamed the procedure on Democrats in Congress.

“They’re obstructing. They’re really obstructionists and they are obstructing,” Trump said Monday at the White House. “The United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility. It won’t be.”

“If you look at what’s happening in Europe, if you look at what’s happening in other places, we can’t allow that to happen to the United States—not on my watch,” he said.

During the White House press briefing Monday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said: “This is a very serious issue that has resulted after years and years of Congress not taking action.”

Here’s a look at four of the more questionable claims made about the enforcement action.

1. Democrats’ Law or Trump Policy?

“The Democrats forced that law upon our nation,” Trump asserted last week.

Democrats, backed by some media commentators, counter that it’s not the law but a Trump administration policy.

Actually, experts say, the situation is a combination of a bipartisan law and a Clinton administration policy.

In 1997, the Clinton administration entered into something called the Flores Settlement Agreement, which ended a class action lawsuit first brought in the 1980s.

The settlement established a policy that the federal government would release unaccompanied minors from custody to their parents, relatives, or other caretakers after no more than 20 days, or, alternatively, determine the “least restrictive” setting for the child.

In a separate development, in 2008 the Democrat-controlled Congress approved bipartisan legislation to combat human trafficking and President George W. Bush, a Republican, signed it into law.

Section 235 (g) in that law, the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, states that unaccompanied minors entering the United States must be transferred to the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement rather than to the Department of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit expanded the Flores settlement in 2016 to include children brought to the country illegally by their parents.

For consistency between the provision of the anti-trafficking law and the 9th Circuit’s interpretation of the Flores agreement, children who came into the country illegally with parents had to be taken into HHS custody, said Art Arthur, former general counsel for Immigration and Naturalization Services (now known as Immigration and Customs Enforcement) as well as a former federal immigration judge.

“As soon as their parents are detained, the children are classified as unaccompanied,” Arthur, now a resident fellow for law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal.

2. Unprecedented Action by Trump Administration?

Some media outlets have called the practice of separating children from parents at the border “unprecedented” or a “new low” for the United States.

What’s different under the Trump administration, though, is a “zero tolerance” approach to enforcing existing immigration laws and policy.

On May 7 in Scottsdale, Arizona, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed federal prosecutors to prosecute all adults who illegally enter the country, including those accompanied by their children, under a provision of federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1325(a)) that covers illegal entry.

“If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law,” Sessions said. “If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that.”

Since it takes more than 20 days to adjudicate an asylum claim, the 9th Circuit’s interpretation of the Flores Settlement Agreement essentially provides three options, said David Inserra, a homeland security policy analyst for The Heritage Foundation.

“The Trump administration currently faces two options: Either release every family that crosses the border and claims asylum and know that most of them will never show up at their immigration court hearing; or release the child as required by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the Flores settlement while holding the parents while awaiting trial,” Inserra told The Daily Signal.

“A third, better solution is to fix the loophole created by the 9th Circuit with regard to Flores and improve the asylum process to discourage frivolous asylum claims, while also better serving those with legitimate asylum cases,” Inserra added.

Proposed legislation by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.; Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.; and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. would reverse the 9th Circuit’s interpretation.

“This would mean only a brief period of separation while the parents are prosecuted,” Arthur said.

Depending on the outcome, the family would be reunited and either be released or deported together.

3. ‘Concentration Camps’?

Much of the criticism of separating children from parents at the border has been from Democrats.

However, former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who served under President George W. Bush, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who was once lieutenant governor of Maryland, both compared the practice to Nazi concentration camps.

The Department of Homeland Security rejected the comparison, noting that most children caught crossing the border illegally are not detained by federal officials.

“We have high standards,” Nielsen said during the White House press briefing Monday. “We give them meals and we give them education and we give them medical care. There are videos, there are TVs. I visited the detention centers myself.”

In the last fiscal year, 90 percent of apprehended children were released to a sponsor who was either a parent or close relative, according to the department.

Homeland security officials also say they work with HHS to improve and ease communication between detained parents and their children in HHS care.

Sponsors may be “a parent, adult sibling, relative, or appropriate home that meets criteria for the safety of the child and continuation of any immigration proceedings,” according to DHS. Also, a parent who is prosecuted and later released can be a sponsor and ask HHS to restore custody of the child.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dedicated a facility to operate primarily as a family reunification and removal center. ICE staff who interact with parents will receive training in trauma-informed care, and the agency will assign staff trained in mental health care to detained parents who have been separated from children, according to DHS.

4. Taking Babies From Nursing Mothers?

CNN reported last week on an illegal immigrant from Honduras who claimed her nursing daughter was pulled away from her before she was handcuffed. CNN cited a lawyer from a liberal legal group called the Texas Civil Rights Project.

In a conference call with reporters last week, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said this was not the case.

“We do not separate breastfeeding children from their parents. That does not exist. That is not a policy. That is not something that DHS does,” an official told reporters Friday. “We believe that that is false.”

An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 individuals are smuggled into the United States each year. For perspective, that number constitutes about 5.7 percent of total apprehensions of illegal immigrants in 2017, though apprehensions don’t account for all border crossings.

This article has been modified since publication.

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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13 Facts the Media ‘Pros’ Don’t Want You to Know About ‘Family Border Separation’

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is by Leah Millis/Reuters/Newscom.

Francis Condemns ‘Eugenic’ Abortions and Fake Marriage

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Robert Royal praises recent pro-life words by Pope Francis. But why was the Holy Father all but silent about abortion votes in Ireland and Argentina? 

I’d been on the road for much of the past week and hadn’t been very carefully following the news. But I woke yesterday to the heartening news that Pope Francis had strongly condemned selective abortion and the various attempts to redefine marriage as something other than a life-long commitment between one man and one woman.

Even more, he did so off-the-cuff, departing from the text he had prepared to deliver to the Forum delle famiglie, an Italian family association. It’s usually been on just such occasions – when he speaks spontaneously and “from the heart” – that he’s delivered the most troubling remarks of his pontificate. It was largely because of those remarks and his early criticism of Catholics who are constantly “insisting” and “obsessing” on life issues and marriage that he alienated and, sad to say, even lost the confidence of many active Catholics – even before the ambiguities and implied infidelities of Amoris laetitia.

He has, of course, condemned abortion and gay “marriage” on multiple occasions. But the world, Catholic and not, seemed to sense that his heart wasn’t in it. The coverage of his recent remarks in the main secular outlets was very brief, usually just reproducing parts of an Associated Press story – quite a contrast to the extensive coverage when he seemed to be moving towards modern culture.

The Wall Street Journal made the obvious observation that the latest remarks were “unusually strong for a pope who has generally played down medical and sexual ethics and taken a strikingly conciliatory approach to gay people.”

The question arises: why now? There was the humiliating spectacle last month of the Irish overwhelmingly voting to rescind a law prohibiting abortion, after voting for gay marriage in 2015. Perhaps more to the point, just this past week, legislators in Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill allowing abortion up to fourteen weeks by just four votes.

Pope Francis was silent about Ireland – a very odd reticence by a man who has no qualms about weighing in on public issues like climate change, fossil-fuel exploration, immigration, Middle Eastern politics, Hindu persecution of Muslim Rohingyas, international economics – the list goes on. All these have moral dimensions, of course, though it’s hard to see what expertise or insight the Vatican brings to such complex situations. By contrast, allowing abortion in Ireland means the direct and immediate killing of thousands of innocents.

The pope was (perhaps) not entirely silent on this question in his native country. Back in March, he sent a letter to Argentina. It was only five paragraphs in length and mostly a thank-you for a letter he had received congratulating him on completing five years as pope. It was quite mild and, even when he turned to the question of abortion, mixed together multiple issues:

I ask you all that you be channels of the Good and the Beautiful, that you lend your support in defense of life and justice, so that peace and fraternity may appear, so that you make the world better by your work, so that you care for the weakest, and share with full hands all that God has given you.

You would have to be an Argentinean to know for certain whether this was read as strong opposition to impending abortion changes, or whether this was the right tone given the way particular nations respond to papal comments – but the official Vatican News account didn’t even mention abortion.

Perhaps that was one reason why the latest comment was not at all subtle, more in keeping with what many Catholics expect from the occupant of the Chair of Peter. Pope Francis went to the modern touchstone of evil, comparing “selective” abortions (usually because of fetal abnormalities, sex, etc.) with the Nazi eugenics program of race purification. This time, he says, we are doing the very same thing “with white gloves,” as if it’s just a medical procedure. (If you read Italian, there’s a transcript of the spontaneous remarks as well as the prepared speech here.)

Though it comes too late for the millions of innocents who will die now in Ireland and Argentina, still, it’s good that Francis gave this full-throated affirmation. We might add it wasn’t only the Nazis who practiced eugenics in the named of racism: Margaret Sanger, hero to so many American abortion advocates and founder of Planned Parenthood, took the same view – though maybe she wore lace-gloves.

It’s interesting that Francis was also so vocal about marriage. The off-the-cuff remarks refer a lot to Amoris laetitia, the very text that many of us feel both seeks answers to current troubles with marriages and – despite the announced intention of pursuing a path of mercy and discernment – weakens, perhaps implicitly contradicts, Our Lord’s strong words about the indissolubility of marriage. And will likely lead to even further confusion and breakdown.

Still, there are very good things in the recent remarks: “Life in a family: it’s a sacrifice, but a beautiful sacrifice. Love is like making pasta: you do it every day. Love within matrimony is a challenge, for the man and the woman. What’s the biggest challenge for a man? To make his wife more a woman. More woman. That she grow as a woman. And what is the challenge for a woman? To make her husband more of a man. And thus they go forward, both of them.”

This insistence on growing into being men and women will not win the Holy Father any awards at the U.N., or the E.U., or the various gender activist groups that have half-welcomed the tone he adopted from the first days of his papacy. There are other things in these off-the-cuff remarks less straightforward. But he’s affirmed “male and female He created them” and supported traditional marriage.

Where would the Church be now if only, as pope, he had stayed close to these sorts of peasant insights and not been drawn into the swamps of modernist German theology?

Robert Royal

Robert Royal

Dr. Robert Royal is editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing, and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. His most recent book is A Deeper Vision: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in the Twentieth Century, published by Ignatius Press. The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, is now available in paperback from Encounter Books.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Pope Francis in the Clementine Hall on Saturday receiving and addressing the members and children of the Forum delle famiglie [Photo credit: ANSA]. © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Once Again, Obamacare’s Constitutionality Comes Into Question

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Readers might recall that, in 2012, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, colloquially known as Obamacare, by a 5-4 vote in a case captioned NFIB v. Sebelius.

Last year, Congress revised Obamacare. In the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, Congress eliminated the penalty imposed on people who do not purchase health insurance by reducing the penalty to $0 effective January 2019.

What makes that 2017 law interesting for present purposes is this: Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the controlling opinion in NFIB v. Sebelius; he concluded that the Obamacare penalty can be characterized as a “tax”; and he decided that, so viewed, Obamacare was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power to raise taxes.

Enter Texas. In February of this year, Texas and several other states filed a lawsuit alleging that, by reducing the Obamacare tax to zero, Congress eliminated the only basis on which the Supreme Court had upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare. A sine qua non of a tax is that it generates revenue, Texas argued, and beginning in January 2019 Obamacare will no longer do so.

Accordingly, concluded Texas, starting next year Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power, so the federal courts should hold the law unconstitutional now.

The possibility that Obamacare could yet be consigned to the ash heap delighted some and troubled others. (For my opinion on the matter, see here.) Recently, the Department of Justice filed its answer to the Texas complaint. In it, the department agreed with the plaintiffs that Obamacare will become unconstitutional once the individual mandate penalty effectively disappears next year.

The Justice Department believes that, as a result, several provisions of Obamacare must go, such as the requirement that insurance companies provide coverage to someone with a pre-existing condition—but the Justice Department thinks that the rest of the statute can stand.

Texas disagrees. It argues that the Obamacare statute is like the base in Jenga: Once you remove the critical elements, the entire superstructure falls apart.

So what happens now? Here is how the case might proceed.

The district court is likely to act without delay. Why? There are no facts in dispute, only (at most) two legal issues: Is Texas right that Obamacare can no longer be upheld as a lawful exercise of Congress’ taxing power? If “No,” game over. If “Yes,” then is Texas also right that the unconstitutional portion(s) of the law cannot be severed from the remainder without leaving Obamacare a jumble of words that does not make sense?

Those issues may be difficult to resolve legally, but there is no need for a trial over the facts. Plus, the district court knows that, in all likelihood, the Supreme Court will ultimately have to resolve this dispute and that, the closer it gets to January 2019, the more attention there will be on the effect of eliminating the “tax” on the insurance markets.

The Supreme Court will need to decide this issue because of the odd way that it upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare in NFIB v. Sebelius. Four justices concluded that Obamacare was a lawful regulation of commerce, and four disagreed. Roberts was the fifth vote to uphold Obamacare. He decided that the health care law could be upheld as a tax, but not as a regulation of commerce.

The result was that five justices found the law constitutional, but they disagreed about why.

Given the odd nature of the court’s lineup in NFIB v. Sebelius and the pending disappearance of the “tax,” it is incumbent on the Supreme Court to take up the issue once again and—hopefully—come up with a majority opinion that puts the matter to rest.

Once the district court issues its decision, it is possible for one or more parties to ask the Supreme Court to review the case even before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit does.

How? One of the parties could file in the Supreme Court what is known as a “petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment,” a mechanism that allows a party to leapfrog over the appeals court and go directly to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court does not have to grant such a petition, and it prefers to have at least one appeals court review an issue before taking it up, because it likes the help that comes with having three circuit judges write about a problem. But it may not make much of a difference because the court of appeals is also likely to act expeditiously.

Regardless of how the case reaches the Supreme Court, it is likely that the Supreme Court will revisit the constitutionality of Obamacare this fall. With luck, the whole matter will finally be resolved before the end of this year. Stay tuned.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J. Larkin Jr. directs The Heritage Foundation’s project to counter abuse of the criminal law, particularly at the federal level, as senior legal research fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. Read his research.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

Senators Announce Bill to Protect States’ Legalization of Marijuana

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One likes to think of policymaking as a deliberative process, one where legislators base their debates on scientific information to craft evidence-based bills. Au contraire, mes amis.

For several years, an emerging marijuana industry has poured money into sponsoring ballot initiatives and lobbying state legislators to legalize marijuana. Industry’s money not only legalized pot for medical use in 31 states and for recreational use in 8 of those states, but also silenced the nonprofit voices of prevention, treatment, and public health that lack the wherewithal to compete. The legislative playing field is by no means level.

In January, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Obama Administration’s Cole Memo, which gave the industry a pass from federal enforcement so long as it adhered to eight conditions (all of which were violated within weeks without follow-up enforcement).

Infuriated by Sessions’ action, Colorado Sen. Cory Gardener put a hold on all judicial candidates nominated by President Trump until he capitulated in April, promising he would uphold states’ rights to legalize pot.

Last week, Senators Gardener and Elizabeth Warren (MA) introduced the Strengthening the Tenth Amendment Through Entrusting States (STATES) Act. Representatives Jared Polis (CO), David Joyce (OH), and Earl Blumenauer (OR) introduced the companion bill in the House. President Trump announced he would support the bill.

The STATES Act would exempt states that have legalized marijuana from the US Controlled Substances Act. If Congress passes the Act, the marijuana industry will not only be able to expand in states that have made pot legal, it will amass even more money to lobby for full legalization in the 42 states that haven’t.

Americans have no idea how much money is being spent by the marijuana industry to get what it wants: full legalization nationwide at the expense of public health.

Read ABSNews story here.

Yes, You Can Become Addicted to Marijuana. And the Problem is Growing.

Although many Americans are unaware that marijuana can cause addiction, in the public health and medical communities, “it is a well-defined disorder that includes physical withdrawal symptoms, cravings and psychological dependence,” and increasing numbers of people are seeking treatment for it, notes this Pew Charitable Trusts story.

Experts are trying to find out why. Some think the intense levels of THC in marijuana strains (up to 20%) and concentrates (up to 80%) are responsible for the upsurge. Others think it may be because more users are taking the drug multiple times a day.

Nearly 3 million Americans meet the diagnostic criteria for marijuana dependence.

This article chronicles the trajectory of marijuana addiction in one young man, Quintin Pohl, pictured above, now age 17. Quintin began smoking marijuana in middle school and is now free of the drug thanks to treatment at a California residential treatment center and extensive follow-up aftercare.

Read this Pew Charitable Trusts story here.

Vermont Marijuana: What Parents Should Know about Pot and Juuling THC

The latest fad for teens and tweens is “to Juul.” Picture above, Juuls are e-cigarettes popular with young people who often post pictures of themselves on social media inhaling candy-flavored liquids from them. Juuls and other e-cigarettes heat the liquids and produce vapors which can then be inhaled.

The liquids can contain nicotine or cannabis oil. No one can tell the difference, but both can be harmful to health. Some chemicals in e-cigarette liquids are carcinogenic.

Schools are developing policies that ban Juuls on campus and recommend that parents reinforce that message at home with their teenagers. Legal marijuana will soon be available in Vermont but not for anyone under age 21. This article offers six tips to parents to help them talk with their teenagers about marijuana.

Read the Burlington Free Press article here.

Helping to End Addiction Over the Long-term (HEAL)

The directors of the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; and the National Institute on Drug Abuse lay out a research plan for ending addiction over the long term.

Read the JAMA article here.

The Marijuana Report is a weekly e-newsletter published by National Families in Action in partnership with SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana).

Visit National Families in Action’s website, The Marijuana Report.Org, to learn more about the marijuana story unfolding across the nation.

Subscribe to The Marijuana Report.

Our mission is to protect children from addictive drugs by shining light on the science that underlies their effects.

Addictive drugs harm children, families, and communities.

Legalizing them creates commercial industries that make drugs more available, increase use, and expand harms.

Science shows that addiction begins in childhood.

It is a pediatric disease that is preventable.

We work to prevent the emergence of commercial addictive drug industries that will target children.

We support FDA approved medicines.

We support the assessment, treatment, and/or social and educational services
for users and low-level dealers as alternatives to incarceration.

About SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana)

SAM is a nonpartisan alliance of lawmakers, scientists and other concerned citizens who want to move beyond simplistic discussions of “incarceration versus legalization” when discussing marijuana use and instead focus on practical changes in marijuana policy that neither demonizes users nor legalizes the drug. SAM supports a treatment, health-first marijuana policy.  SAM has four main goals:

  • To inform public policy with the science of today’s marijuana.
  • To reduce the unintended consequences of current marijuana policies, such as lifelong stigma due to arrest.
  • To prevent the establishment of “Big Marijuana” – and a 21st-Century tobacco industry that would market marijuana to children.
  • To promote research of marijuana’s medical properties and produce, non-smoked, non-psychoactive pharmacy-attainable medications.

ICYMI: Facebook Is Still Targeting Conservatives, Protecting Planned Parenthood’s Abuse Cover-Ups

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Last week, we told you that Starbucks is still funding Planned Parenthood despite the abortion giant’s cover-ups of sexual abuse of underage girls. We’ve now been made aware that Live Action — the amazing organization which has exposed this illegal and immoral practice — has been blocked from promoting one of their videos on Facebook!

Check out that video here.

Live Action’s exposure campaign may be followed here and here.

We all know that Facebook doesn’t like conservatives. But blocking access to exposing a taxpayer-funded organization’s shocking cover-ups is just too far. Planned Parenthood has long protected its abortion bottom line by sending little girls back to sexual abusers. One abortion center in Mobile, Alabama gave two abortions to one girl in 2014 in just four months — and only admitted it to state authorities after they were caught.

That’s illegal. But authorities let Planned Parenthood slide, just as corporate backers have. This must stop. We urge you to spend your second vote dollars at companies that don’t back Planned Parenthood. This is an abortion company which protects sexual abusers, kills unborn children, and has illegally sold babies’ body parts.

You can see all the companies that support Planned Parenthood’s abortion industry on 2ndVote’s resource page here. Let them know they won’t be getting your second vote!

Help us continue developing the content and research that conservatives are using to hold corporations for their activism by becoming a 2ndVote Member today!

The Importance of Dads in an Increasingly Fatherless America

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There is a growing split taking place among American fathers today.

On the one hand, more and more children are growing up without a dad in their lives. But on the other hand, fathers who are involved in their kids’ lives have actually become even more active.

The Pew Research Center reports that fathers who live in the same home as their children have become increasingly engaged in the lives of their kids over the past half-century. In 2015, fathers reported spending an average of 7 hours a week interacting with their children, compared with 2.5 hours in 1965.

Today, 57 percent of dads say they see parenting as a central part of their identity.

This encouraging shift in fatherhood involvement could be owing, at least in part, to the greater amounts of research showing the importance of a father’s role in the life of his child. Nonprofits like Focus on the Family have championed the role of fathers and have promoted well-researched materials to back up their claims.

While it’s true more fathers are taking the time to come home from work and throw the football around with their kid, an increasing number of children find themselves without an active paternal presence in their lives.

Pew reports that only 11 percent of American children lived apart from their dads in 1960. Today, that number has grown to 27 percent. One in every three American children are now growing up in a home without their biological father.

There is a “father absence crisis in America,” according to National Fatherhood Initiative, and the results are sobering.

Studies have found that children raised without a father are:

  • At a higher risk of having behavioral problems.
  • Four times more likely to live in poverty.
  • More likely to be incarcerated in their lifetime.
  • Twice as likely to never graduate high school.
  • At a seven times higher risk of teen pregnancy.
  • More vulnerable to abuse and neglect.
  • More likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.
  • Twice as likely to be obese.

From education to personal health to career success, children who lack a father find themselves at a disadvantage to their peers raised in a two-parent household.

A 2017 Heritage Foundation article reported that “routine family bonding activities like reading bedtime stories and eating meals together have a profound effect on children’s educational development and psychological well-being.”

Simply put: Dads, we need you.

As I reflect back upon my own childhood and the role my dad played, and is still playing in my life, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude. My father is far from perfect, but he was present.

School was challenging for me as a kid, so my dad often took time to help me with my homework after he got home from work. I remember sitting on our living room couch struggling to understand my math homework with my dad’s instruction.

To be honest, I’m not sure he was much of a help—but he was there. I have always known that my dad was there for me, not just because he told me he was, but because he showed me. The greatest gift my father has ever given me was his time.

So to the fathers who have sacrificed for their children, who have worked to be involved in each day of their child’s life, thank you. Your children will always remember your involvement in their lives.

And to the fathers who would like to do more, remember the importance of your role. It is not about being perfect, but being present.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen

Virginia Allen is an administrative assistant at The Heritage Foundation.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Naming the ‘Father Hunger’An Interview With Richard Rohr

The Silent Suffering of Fathers After Abortion

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by AleksandarNakic/Getty Images.

Rule to Defund Planned Parenthood Moves Forward

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WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) by Anita Carey : The federal government is proposing removing federal tax dollars from Planned Parenthood, and is seeking the public’s opinion on its proposed rule.

In May, when President Trump spoke at the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List) Gala, he introduced the Protect Life Rule that would stop all federal money from the Title X family planning program from going to organizations that perform abortions. Last week, the federal government opened the mandatory 60-day public commenting period before legislative discussions to adopt the rule.

Father Stephen Imbaratto of Priests for Life calls this “a good and proper first step to totally defunding the abortion industry.”

Eric Scheidler, executive director of Pro-Life Action League, told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood likes to pretend that low-income women depend on them for health care, but that’s simply untrue.” He explained that they offer mostly contraception and abortion services, while only providing about one percent of all STD testings and less than one percent of all Pap tests.

Title X was passed in 1970 and was aimed at providing government grants to public or nonprofit entities to establish and operate family planning projects, “including natural family planning methods, infertility services and services for adolescents.” The program was never intended to be used to fund abortion.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) explained that the new rule is needed because there is not sufficient guidance to ensure funding is not used to encourage or promote abortion as a method of family planning.

Scheidler said that the $60 million Planned Parenthood would be stripped of “would go to healthcare providers that offer a wider range of services and a higher standard of care.” He added, “This could include pregnancy resource centers and abstinence programs.”

Mallory Quigley, vice president of communications for Susan B. Anthony List, told Church Militant, “The Protect Life Rule directs tax dollars to Title X centers that do not provide or perform aboartions — such as the growning number of community and rural health centers that far outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities — without reducing family planning funding by a dime.”

“These alternatives offer holistic ppreventative and primary care, not just for women, but for their children, as well as men,” Quigley noted. Planned Parenthood often tells women not to bring their children with them to appointments.

In 2016, Title X handed out over $286 million in taxpayer money to 48 states and 43 family planning agencies that provide contraception, testing for sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and cancer screenings to almost 3,900 clinics. Planned Parenthood receives about $60 million from Title X grants, representing only about 20 percent of all the federal money they receive.

Father Imbaratto told Church Militant, “Planned Parenthood gets more than this and by all accounts spends all government monies either directly or indirectly to elect pro-abortion candidates.”

Quigley said abortion mills can use this funding as a “slush fund” that allows them to pay for rent, electricity, and other overhead costs. “It can also be used for advertising within the community to attract more clients,” she said.

A recent poll found 60 percent of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion. Quigley said it’s important for all pro-life Americans to submit comments to the HHS: “A large outpouring of public support ensures that the abortion lobby understands the majority of Americans side with President Trump and support the pro-life action taken by the administration.”

Scheidler pointed out that stripping Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding would “reduce Planned Parenthood’s access to low-income women, who will have to go elsewhere for family planning.” He said this could reduce the number of women seeking abortions because “Planned Parenthood will not be able to market abortion to these women.”

Susan B. Anthony List agrees, saying, “Research released by the Charlotte Lozier Institute in 2018 shows Planned Parenthood has inflated the U.S. abortion rate, controlling more than 35 percent of the abortion industry and resulting in more than three million ‘extra’ abortions that could have been avoided.”

Quigley noted that Planned Parenthood’s annual report show that “despite the increase in taxpayer funding, the only thing not to decline at Planned Parenthood is the number of abortions they do.”

“To fully defund Planned Parenthood of all federal money would require legislation,” Scheidler explains. He said the November general election could provide enough votes in the Senate to look at “making Planned Parenthood ineligible for Medicaid funds, which would be a dramatic pro-life victory — and very bad for Planned Parenthood.”

“There is no need to justify withholding such funds,” Dr. Monica Miller, national director of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, said. “One red cent of taxpayer money should never be granted to any group that fails to respect life.”

“No other argument need be given and Planned Parenthood is the flagship when it comes to carrying the blood of the unborn,” Miller said.

Quigley noted that their “working to-do list” in the pro-life movement mirrors Trumps’s campaign promises: “appointing only pro-life Supreme Court nominees,  to defund Planned Parenthood … to protect the Hyde Amendment, and to advance and sign into law the Pan-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act — which would end abortion after five months.”

“This is not about the pro-life movement,” Fr. Imbaratto clarified. “It’s about babies and moms.”

The commenting period runs to July 31. Pro-lifers are asked to weigh in before the period closes.

Meet the Arnolds: Planned Parenthood’s Billionaire Benefactors

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With Starbucks in hot water over its donations to Planned Parenthood, 2ndVote decided to look into other major donors to the abortionist the general public might night be aware of.

John and Laura Arnold

The Laura and John Arnold Foundation has donated almost one billion dollars to research since 2011. The organization is renowned for its focus on evidence-based solutions to public policy problems. Its grants fund projects have funded research on those suffering from mental health, better understanding of gun violence, and bail reform.

What’s less known is that behind the Foundation’s “evidence-based” efforts is frequently distinctly left-wing, anti-life advocacy.

For example, while the Arnolds give to both parties, John Arnold was a bundler for the 2008 Obama campaign. According to Huffington Post in 2012:

Billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron trader and his wife Laura, were slated to host in their Houston home a $10,000-ticket Obama fundraiser to feature Michelle Obama last October (the event was postponed). Arnold describes himself as a libertarian, and his wife Laura identifies as a Democrat. Still, Arnold was one of Obama’s top 2008 donors, a bundler who gave the campaign between $50,000 and $100,000. According to Huffington Post’s FundRace, he has given $35,800 to the Obama Victory Fund 2012.

Both Arnolds have also contributed a few thousand each to Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and hundreds of thousands to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The Arnolds have also personally donated millions of dollars to Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood’s powerful political arm. In the past two years alone, the Arnolds contributed to the following pro-abortion entities:

Also, their foundation gave nearly $1.5 million in 2015 and 2016 to Improving Contraceptive Options Now (ICON), a research project of MRDC which explicitly focuses on funding abortion-inducing drugs and devices like the Intra-Uterine Device for teenagers.

See more of 2nd Vote’s research on which companies and non-profits are funding Planned Parenthood here.

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RELATED ARTICLE: Child Abuse Cover-Ups Haven’t Stopped Starbucks’ Funding of Planned Parenthood

CrossFit Exposed: LGBT Ideology Trumps Fitness & Health

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CrossFit CEO Greg Glassman has spent years helping other people become physically fit. It has made him a wealthy man and made his company one of the world’s largest. He has used that influence to fight against the soda lobby and to urge politicians to act on behalf of “science” to improve Americans’ health.

Unfortunately, this week Glassman used ideology instead of science to fire an employee who espoused traditional Christian sexual values. This hypocrisy — science and research which show that same-sex sexual relationships are inherently harmful to the human body — is doubly appalling because it is a betrayal of America’s tradition of religious tolerance.

The full story can be seen here and here. The short version is that a CrossFit-affiliated fitness center in Indianapolis cancelled a planned LGBT Pride workout because the owner believed that “total health involves the body, the emotions, relationships, and the spirit.” According to the owner, pride is “the foundational detractor from health” and “as a business we will choose to deploy our resources towards those efforts and causes that line up with our own values and beliefs.”

LGBT activists’ reactions caused that gym to close. Things escalated when CrossFit’s now-fired Chief Knowledge Officer Russell Berger – a Christian pastor – said in since-deleted Tweets, “The intolerence of the LGBTQ ideology toward any alternative views is mind-blowing” and that “the tactics of some in the LGBTQ movement toward dissent is an existential threat to the freedom of expression.”

Glassman made things clear in a statement to BuzzFeed:

“He needs to take a big dose of ‘shut the f— up’ and hide out for a while. It’s sad,” Glassman told BuzzFeed. “We do so much good work with such pure hearts — to have some zealot in his off-time do something this stupid, we’re all upset.

Berger’s firing makes two things clear. First, CrossFit is aligned with leftist hostility to anything short of celebration of LGBT ideology. Second, their mission to use data to improve physical fitness only goes so far. The fact is that same-sex sexual relationships are unhealthy. Centers for Disease Control studies have shown time and again that same-sex sexual relationships are linked to emotional and physical harm — including the highest rates of HIV/AIDS for men. And a researcher at Catholic University of America showed that children raised by same-sex couples are less emotionally healthy compared to those raised in homes led by heterosexual, married parents.

Millions of people rely on CrossFit for guidance on physical fitness. We urge you to use your second vote to tell CrossFit that their intolerance and hypocrisy are unacceptable.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Indianapolis CrossFit Gym Cancels LGBT Member’s ‘PRIDE’ Workout Because It Goes Against God’s Wishes

CrossFit Just Fired Its Spokesperson Who Said LGBT Pride Is A “Sin”

The Racism of Government Family Planning

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New proposed changes in regulations from the Department of Health and Human Services will close the door on using funds from its Title X family planning program for abortion.

HHS’ Office of Population Affairs, which administers this program, is a poster child for ill-conceived government policy. How is it, in our nation that cherishes the ideals of human freedom and dignity, that we’re funding government bureaucrats to advise low-income citizens—almost a quarter of these “clients” are black—about how many children they should bring into this world and when?

Despite explicit language in the legislation that created the Title X family program in 1970 prohibiting funding “programs in which abortion is a method of family planning,” this directive has been effectively ignored.

HHS reports that 4 million individuals are getting services through this program. However, 1.6 million of them, 40 percent, according to the Guttmacher Institute, are receiving these services at Planned Parenthood clinics.

Given the millions that Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, spends on lobbying and political contributions, its success in keeping the faucet of federal funding of its activities open comes as no surprise.

But now the Trump administration is stepping up to enforce the law, with the positive additional benefit of protecting human life. You might say that our president understands that building a culture of life is a vital part of making America “great again.”

The new HHS order requires complete financial and physical separation of Title X funds from abortion activity. No Title X funds can be used for abortion. And abortions cannot be performed in any facility in which programs being funded by Title X are taking place.

Although Title X counselors will be prohibited from discussing abortion as a family planning measure, they can discuss it when a woman has already decided it’s what she wants. Then they can provide a list of abortion providers.

But as we think about this, let’s consider the bigger question. What is the federal government doing in the family planning business anyway?

The Office of Population Affairs describes, among the activities of its “Family Planning Mission,” offering guidance “to assist individuals in determining the number and spacing of their children.”

Given that this family planning guidance is targeted to low-income Americans, who happen to be disproportionately black, let’s consider what has happened to the black family since the Office of Population Affairs first began.

The budget of the Title X family planning program in 1971 was $6 million. Today, it is $286 million dollars, an increase of fiftyfold. What have we gotten?

In 1970, 38 percent of black babies were born to unwed mothers. Today it is more than 70 percent.

In 1960, 10 years before the program started, 2 percent of black children lived with an unmarried parent. By 2008, 41 percent did.

In 1960, 61 percent of blacks over the age of 18 were married. By 2008, 32 percent were.

I would suggest that government “family planning” is really an insidious, pernicious kind of racism. It’s not about improving the quality of life, but rather it is about discouraging black women, and other poor women, from having children and encouraging them to abort their pregnancies.

The collateral damage has been the collapse of the black family.

This important new HHS proposed rule will take care of the abortion issue.

But we need a broader initiative to get rid of the damaging and wasteful government “family planning” business.

The nation would be better served, particularly at a time of trillion-dollar deficits, to return the $286 million spent on Title X programs to taxpayers.

Black women should be getting their “family planning” guidance from their pastor, not from government bureaucrats.

Star Parker is an author and president of CURE, Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Contact her at www.urbancure.org. To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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Portrait of Star Parker

Star Parker

Star Parker is a columnist for The Daily Signal and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Twitter: .

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by  Resolution Productions Blend Images/Newscom.

‘Right to Try” Law Provides Access to Experimental Treatment to 1 Million Terminally Ill Americans

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SAN DIEGO, CA /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Congressional Candidate, and San Diego “Top Doctor,” Dr. James Veltmeyer announced today that his wife, cancer patient, Laura Veltmeyer may be one of the one million Americans that stand to benefit from President Trump’s recently signed “Right to Try” Law.

The Law, formally known as “Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, and Matthew Belllina Right to Try Act of 2017” amends existing Federal law to allow certain unapproved, experimental drugs to be administered to terminally ill patients who have exhausted all approved treatment options and are unable to participate in clinical drug trials.

“One of the biggest failings of the Health Care System is that there are hundreds of experimental drugs that potentially benefit terminal patients, but until now, they have been withheld from patients because of bureaucratic processes and red tape. While the FDA must be applauded for their diligence in preventing harmful medicines from entering the USA market, every year terminal patients are forced to go offshore in search of promising treatments that are not available in our own Country,” said Dr. James Veltmeyer, Republican Candidate for the 52nd Congressional District.

President Donald Trump stated in reference to the law “People who are terminally ill should not have to go from country to country to seek a cure — I want to give them a chance right here at home.”

“My wife and mother of my 2 children, is currently suffering from Stage IV Breast Cancer. As her condition advances, it is comforting to know that my wife now has the choice to receive treatments that can potentially save her life,” said Dr. Veltmeyer.

Dr. Veltmeyer is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Therapeutic Solutions International, a biotechnology company that recently announced its intention to provide access to its StemVax product for terminal patients under the newly passed Law.

“I am running for Congress to represent our community and to fix the Health Care system. The 52nd District houses some of the most advanced biotechnology companies that are developing new treatments for terminal diseases.  It is saddening that the current Congressman for the 52nd District, Scott Peters, not only ignored the rights of terminal patients, but also of biotechnology companies, in voting against this Bill.”

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Trump kissing Jordan McLinn, a Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy patient, after signing the “Right to Try” act on May 30, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Photo/AP/Evan Vucci)

Marijuana Industry Harming Babies? Not on Our Watch!

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Two weeks ago, The Marijuana Report published a story (3rd article) about a new study showing that 70 percent of 400 Colorado dispensaries recommended marijuana to pregnant women for morning sickness. Scientific studies show the drug can harm the unborn when mothers use it.

Today, the Marijuana Accountability Project (MAC) and Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM) are hanging baby bibs on dispensary doors, State House offices and the Colorado Department of Revenue, which regulates the industry. The bibs display the slogan: “Don’t hurt our future – CO kids.”

“Going against all available science, the marijuana industry is now recommending pot for pregnant women, actively putting their profits ahead of the healthy development of future Coloradans,” says Justin Luke Riley, MAC’s founder.

“This is a new low,” adds Dr. Kevin Sabet, founder and president of SAM. “We demand that the Colorado state government take immediate action and stop the pot industry from continuing with this. Pot and pregnancy don’t mix.”

See the MAC/SAM news release here.

Acute Poisonings from a Synthetic Cannabinoid Sold as Cannabidiol — Utah, 2017–2018

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that a federal/state investigation identified 52 suspected cases in Utah of adverse reactions people experienced after consuming CBD products that turned out to contain a synthetic cannabinoid, 4-CCB, but no CBD. Most of the people vaped the liquid, and 60 percent went to emergency departments with such adverse effects as altered mental status, nausea or vomiting, and seizures or shaking.

Many of the products were labeled Yolo CBD oil, pictured above. They displayed no manufacturer’s name or list of ingredients.

Cannabidiol is a non-psychoactive component of marijuana that scientists are studying for potential medical use. It is illegal under federal law and in Utah, although it can be bought online and in local shops.

Rapid discovery of the problem and state and federal warnings to the public contained the outbreak.

The CDC report warns, “This investigation highlights the hazards of consuming unregulated products labeled as CBD. States could consider regulating products labeled as CBD and establishing surveillance systems for illness associated with products labeled as CBD to minimize the risk for recurrences of this emerging public health threat.”

Executive Editor’s note: Amazon lists 13 pages of CBD oil products. Typing “CBD oil images” into Google brings up hundreds more. There is no guarantee any are safe. States that have legalized marijuana for medical use sometimes test products and find their labels are not always accurate.

Read the CDC report here.

Inside a Raid on a Cuban Drug Den in Colorado

This week NBC’s Today Show aired a video that shows everything is not all right with marijuana legalization in Colorado, as its officials would have you believe.

Advocates promised voters in 2012 that legalization would wipe out the marijuana black market. But the law allows people to grow their own at home, and pot cartels are taking that literally. Many are renting homes in upscale communities, gutting them, and growing huge marijuana crops inside. And that’s not legal, even in Colorado.

This shocking video shows how out of control the black market has become in the state by taking up residence in people’s homes and neighborhoods.

Click on picture or here to view the video.

Study Links Marijuana to Increased Death Risk among Young Heart Attack Sufferers

About 10 percent of people age 50 or younger who suffer a certain kind of heart attack (a Type 1 myocardial infarction or MI) use marijuana, cocaine, or both.

Researchers studied 2,097 patients in that age range from two Boston medical centers. They identified marijuana use in 6 percent of patients, cocaine use in 4.7 percent, and 1.7 percent used both.

Compared to nonusers, ratios for all-cause mortality were 2.09 for marijuana and 1.91 for cocaine; for cardiovascular death, ratios were 2.13 for marijuana and 2.32 for cocaine.

The researchers stress not enough is known yet to confirm causal effects, but say their study indicates a pressing need for more research to determine the potential relationship between drug use and poor cardiovascular outcomes.

Read Cardiovascular Business article here.

Read the Journal of the American College of Cardiology abstract here.

When Marijuana Is Used before Cigarettes or Alcohol: Demographic Predictors and Associations with Heavy Use, Cannabis Use Disorder, and Other Drug-related Outcomes

Gateway drugs for youth are alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. This study finds that adolescents who use marijuana first are more likely to be male, older, and Black, American Indian/Alaskan Native, multiracial, or Hispanic rather than White or Asian.

Researchers analyzed data on 275,559 people aged 12 to 21 from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2004 and 2014. Over that time, those using marijuana first (compared to alcohol or tobacco first) increased from 4.8 percent to 8.8 percent.

Those who began with marijuana were also more likely to become heavy users and to develop a cannabis use disorder.

The researchers say their study suggests that drug prevention strategies may need to target groups differently based on their risk of initiating alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana use first.

Read Prevention Science study here. See chart explanation on page 5.

Marijuana: Big Tobacco 2.0

This excellent article explains the parallels between the tobacco and marijuana industries.

“Savvy corporations such as Philip Morris, Lucky Strike, R.J. Reynolds, and the rest pitched their products with campaigns that made use of what were then revolutionary fields of advertising, public relations, and social psychology, portraying an inherently worthless, corrosive product as something that empowered, bettered, and liberated its consumers,” the author writes. And the marijuana industry is executing the same playbook, he continues.

“As was the case with smoking tobacco, smoking marijuana is said to prove you’re sociable, hip, and modern.

“As with tobacco, marijuana is portrayed not only as largely harmless, but as objectively good for you, with a credible function as self-medication for all sorts of ailments.

“As with tobacco, marijuana is presented as a signifier of individual liberty and self-empowerment.

“As with critics of tobacco, critics of marijuana are cast as petty tyrants trampling on freedom while peddling hysterical junk science.

“And as with the tobacco industry, a cash-flush marijuana industry is eager to use its wealth to slant scientific study and political debate, lest its flattering claims begin to sire organized suspicion.”

Read full National Review article here.

Democrats and Hollywood Mainstreaming Pedophilia

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The Official Democratic Store sent out an email on May 23, 2018 introducing it’s “Democratic collection” of Gay pride shirts, lapel pins and campaign buttons.

On the same day the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) reported:

The producer of the children’s film, “Show Dogs,” has pulled the film from theaters around the world and will recut it, removing two scenes that seemed to groom children for sexual abuse. This film is about a dog that goes undercover at a dog show competition – harmless enough except for the story arc where the only way for him to win and save the day was to allow unwanted touching of his genitals, while his coach practiced it with him and encouraged him to just go to his “zen” place. Yes…I know…it is hard to believe this was in a children’s film, to begin with. [Emphasis added]

You may read more about the film “Show Dogs” on the NCOSE website by clicking here.

What does homosexuality have to do with child abuse?

PubMed.gov is a resource on research done on homosexuals and child abuse. PubMed.gov lists a 2001 study by the California School of Professional Psychology titled “Comparative data of childhood and adolescence molestation in heterosexual and homosexual persons.” The abstract reads:

In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation. This research is apparently the first survey that has reported substantial homosexual molestation of girls. Suggestions for future research were offered. [Emphasis added]

The following is a graphic from a CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) online slide presentation, “HIV Surveillance in Adolescents and Young Adults”  breaks down the incidence of HIV among young men ages 13-24. In 2011, an astonishing 94.9 percent of HIV diagnoses among teenage boys (13-19-years-old) were linked to homosexual (“male-to-male”) sex. And 94.1 percent of the cases among young men ages 20-24 were from “gay” sex:

HIV-Young-Adult-Males-2011-CDC

How pedophilia is becoming mainstream

We have reported on efforts by groups such as B4U-ACT and the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to indoctrinate children into believing that sex with men by children is not only normal but encouraged (watch the two videos below for a history of these groups).

Dr. Judith Reisman in her 2016 column “They’re mainstreaming pedophilia!” wrote:

Alfred Kinsey’s ongoing sexual anarchy campaign has no end in sight.

Matt Barber, associate dean of the Liberty University School of Law, and I attended the “B4U-ACT” pedophile conference Aug. 17 [2015]. To eliminate the “stigma” against pedophiles, this growing sexual anarchist lobby wants the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to redefine pedophilia as a normal sexual orientation of “Minor-Attracted Persons.”

Adhering to the Kinsey principle of lulling “straights” into a false sense of security, pedophile dress was largely conservative – short hair, jackets, some ties and few noticeable male ear piercings.

Matt Barber and I sat in the back of the meeting room among roughly 50 activists and their “mental health” attending female enablers. “Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies,” keynoted “Fred Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., as founder, National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma; Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.”

However, the sex clinic was initially founded by John Money, Ph.D., to give judges “leeway” to keep child molesters out of jail. Money (deceased), a pedophile advocate, also called for an end to all age-of-consent laws. Dr. Berlin was his disciple.

The Guardian’s Catherine Shoard reports:

On Tuesday [May 22, 2018] a new report from advocacy group GLAAD found only 12.8% of mainstream films featured LGBTQ characters. They have called for the number to rise to 50% by 2024.

Democrats and Hollywood are focused on fundamentally transforming our children into gender confused targets for pedophiles.

Time to stop the sexual exploitation of our most vulnerable, our underage children.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Learning the Lessons of Chile

CDC: 94 to 95 Percent of HIV Cases among Boys and Young Men Linked to Homosexual Sex

Goal of “gay” programs in schools: Persuade kids to “come out” early as homosexuals. Here’s how they do it —

Perverts, pedophiles and pederasts in high offices

RELATED VIDEOS: 

Controversy Over Push to Redefine Pedophilia.

Homosexuality

‘Boy Scout’ Policy Requires Condoms to be ‘Readily and Easily Accessible to All Participants’ at World Jamboree Scouting Event

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(Orlando, FL) The World Organization of the Scout Movement (WOSM) released itshealth and safety guidelines for the World Jamboree to be held at the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia July 22 through August 2, 2019.

The guidelines require that host organizations, who in this case include the former Boy Scouts of America (now Scouts BSA),

“… ensure that condoms are readily and easily accessible for all participants and IST [staff] at a number of locations on the site. Heads of Contingent must be informed in advance and made aware of their responsibility in communicating this policy to their Participants, Unit Leaders, Contingent Staff, and IST in an appropriate way.” (See Guideline 7.3 on page 10 of the document.) 

Stunningly, the World Jamboree Guideline 7.3 also has “exceptions,” allowances and instructions for the consumption of alcohol in “confined areas” at the 12-day camping event. (It appears the Jamboree guidelines were drafted after the 2015 World Jamboree in Japan in preparation for the 2019 event and were just recently released in an email.)

The 2019 World Jamboree will be hosted by three national Scout organizations: Scouts Canada, Asociación de Scouts de México, and the Boy Scouts of America (now Scouts BSA). The theme for the 24th Jamboree will be to “Unlock a New World” and promotional materials claim the event will be “a celebration of cultural exchange, mutual understanding, peace, and friendship.”

This announcement comes on the heels of the BSA changing its membership policy earlier this month to allow girls to fully participate in local Boy Scout Troop programs and their official name change to remove the word “boy” to transform into the new genderless “Scouts BSA.”

The change to allow girls into the BSA provoked a blistering response from the national Girl Scouts of America organization last year when they issued the following statement:

“The Boy Scouts’ house is on fire. Instead of addressing systemic issues of continuing sexual assault, financial mismanagement and deficient programming, BSA’s senior management wants to add an accelerant to the house fire by recruiting girls.”

Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger, who also serves as Chairman of the Board for the Christian scouting movement Trail Life USA issued the following statement:

“In light of the mandatory condom policy, it is not clear how far down the rabbit hole the Boy Scouts will continue to fall. With the addition of condoms and alcohol, the World Jamboree is starting to sound more like a 1960s Woodstock festival rather than a campout that parents would want to send their children to! All of this should be deeply disturbing to the churches that are chartering Boy Scout Troops. These policies present a clear youth protection problem that the BSA absolutely refuses to recognize. The fact that they are requiring that  condoms be ‘readily accessible’ and are communicating this to everyone– including youth participants–shows that the BSA is both anticipating and facilitating sexual conduct between minors at this event. These policies are both outrageous and completely irresponsible.”

More than 160 national scout organizations representing more than 200 nations and territories are expected to participate in this massive West Virginia 12-day camping event, which based on recent membership policy changes should include openly-gay boys, openly-gay adult scout leaders, transgendered boys and adults and now also girls.

ABOUT TRAIL LIFE USA

Trail Life LogoTrail Life USA has over 739 local troops chartered with various churches and school organizations in 48 states. For more information on joining a troop or starting a troop with this Christ-centered, boy focused, high adventure program see www.TrailLifeUSA.com. More on the history of the launch of Trail Life USA can be found here.

The Florida Family Policy Council is one of 40 other state-based policy organizations associated with Focus on the Family and the Family Policy Alliance.

Trump’s New Regs Move Tax Dollars away from Abortion

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It’s a big day in Washington where an injustice a quarter of a century in the making is finally being corrected. It was January 22, 1993 — the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade -when then President Bill Clinton suspended President Ronald Reagan’s regulation preventing federal Title X funds from going to family planning clinics where abortions are performed. Unbelievably, Clinton even went so far as to require every provider to refer for abortion, which disqualified pro-life and faith-based groups that have religious and moral objections to abortion from participating in the program. Since then, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers have used these federal family planning programs as a slush fund to pay overhead expenses including staff salaries, facility rent, and even furniture. Sadly, no president over the past 25 years has stopped this co-mingling of taxpayer funds with the abortion industry — that is until today.

Under President Trump’s rule announced today, like Reagan’s, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers will have to choose between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets family planning dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, this will loosen Planned Parenthood’s grip on more than $60 million in taxpayer dollars. The new regulations will draw a bright line between abortion centers and family planning programs — just as the federal law requires and the Supreme Court upheld in a 1991 ruling.

Praise for the president is pouring in from pro-life leaders and Members of Congress. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) who serves as Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus applauded the new rule noting that it “at long last reinstates principles first put forward under the Reagan administration, and upheld by the Supreme Court nearly three decades ago…Abortion is not family planning — in sharp contrast, the violence of abortion wounds families.” Rep. Robert Aderholt (R- Ala.) also offered praise and explained, “we only have to look to Planned Parenthood’s activities in our own state to see why they do not deserve federal funds. Just within the last few years, the clinic in Mobile performed two abortions in less than a year on a 14-year-old girl. She was clearly being sexually abused, but no one at Planned Parenthood notified authorities, as is required by law. For them, it was another routine abortion.”

And remember, it was David Daleiden and his undercover videos that uncovered Planned Parenthood’s horrific routine of selling baby body parts. Thanks to President Trump, their routine — at least when it comes to treating the taxpayers like an ATM machine — is beginning to change. President Trump has teed up Congress to take the step toward the ultimate goal of ending taxpayers’ forced partnership with the abortion industry. That includes an end to Planned Parenthood’s federal gravy train in multiple federal programs in which they get over $400 million each year. The House has already voted to redirect tax dollars away from the abortion giant and the Senate came within one vote last year of sending the measure to President Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

With hundreds of millions at stake, Planned Parenthood’s PAC announced last month that they will spend $ 30 million dollars on the midterm elections. Obviously, it’s illegal for Richards to use even a cent of federal funds on the group’s political activities. And while her accountants use every possible trick to keep the monies separate, it is hard to separate the fact that $30 million is available to influence elections because the outcome of those elections has produced nearly a half a billion dollars of government money to fund their Leftist mission. In the meantime, President Trump is following through on his campaign promise that his administration will advocate for mothers and their unborn children every day he occupies the White House and take important steps to ensure taxpayers are not subsidizing the abortion industry. Join me in thanking the president by sending him an email of appreciation via the White House comment page.

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

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