The Covington Debacle Shows the Founders Were Right to Distrust Democracy

In an age in which contempt for fellow citizens is reaching pathological levels, we can be thankful that these institutions exist to protect us.

n the shallow world of modernity, we throw around a word like “democracy” as a stand-in for “things that I like.”

Many in popular culture and elite institutions promote democracy as a cure for all that ails us—an unquestioned and unqualified blessing.

Still others turn on a dime and hope for its demise as soon as it produces outcomes they don’t like.

While democracy often plays a good and necessary role in a self-governing society, we have lost the healthy skepticism of its worst excesses that the Founding Fathers understood when they established the governing institutions of the United States.

These excesses were on full display over the weekend.

The frenzied hate mob unleashed on Catholic, “Make America Great Again” hat-wearing teens—falsely accused of harassing a Native American at the March for Life over the weekend—is a shameful reminder of how fake news can destroy lives and perpetuate evil.

Particularly disturbing is how so many people—celebrities, politicians, and even some respected leaders who should have been warier of grabbing their pitchforks before the facts had been unveiled—fell in with the scramble to condemn the students as hateful racists.

Many of these voices called for violence and other heinous actions against the children from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. There could be no quarter, no forgiveness, no mercy. The mob needed its pound of flesh.

Celebrities and so-called thought leaders spun out articles and social media posts comparing the Covington Catholic students to segregationists and Ku Klux Klansman, condemning the Catholic Church for a “shameful history of Native American abuses,” and even angrily claiming that smirks and smiles are actually racist.

Even the students’ local diocese quickly rushed into the fray to condemn the students, in effect giving cover to the media outlets seeking to ruin the students’ lives and reputations.

The story was just too good to fact check, too easy to force into a cherished narrative: that white, male Christians are unleashing violence, bigotry, and harassment on minorities all over America.

The problem is, the entire narrative was based on a wild distortion of what occurred.

The vicious and often unhinged diatribes we saw launched against the Covington Catholic students laid bare an irrational rage burning beneath the rule of law.

It is no stretch to think that left unchecked, the mob—especially the rage-fueled left—would have unjustly stripped these students of their basic freedoms and abandoned the notion of a presumption of innocence in a rush to judgment.

This is the same pattern we saw transpire in the confirmation battle over Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

So, is the problem our reckless and agenda-driven media? Yes, in part.

Media coverage of this incident was dreadful and shameful—a confirmation for many that even America’s most established and influential media institutions have become hopelessly biased and reckless in the age of Trump.

But the problem goes deeper than that. The truth is, fake news was every bit as much a problem in the late 1700s, when our country was formed, as it is today.

The use of the printing press allowed knowledge to travel like wildfire but also gave hucksters and falsehood peddlers a new tool for spreading their wares more effectively.

True, our news today travels much faster, and social media can spread hysteria like a virus. But there’s also an upside.

Public intellectuals and members of the media continually decry the decentralized nature of the internet and its ability to generate “fake news” and misleading stories. They long for the day when America had just a few big outlets acting as responsible news arbiters.

Some even suggest that the answer is to create government agencies to sort through this information and tell us what the truth is, such as what Europe is experimenting with.

This is a terrible way to address the issue.

It was legacy media outlets in the first place—like The New York TimesThe Washington Post, and CNN—that perpetuated the deceptive reporting we witnessed over the weekend and failed to follow basic journalistic practices, such as inquiring about both sides of a heated dispute.

News outlets point to foreign agents and anonymous Twitter accounts that promoted a slanted view of the controversy, but they are just using them as scapegoats. Their own journalistic malpractice is the heart of the problem.

This wouldn’t be the first time these outlets got a story massively wrong and deceived the American people, but now we at least have greater means to debunk falsehoods when they arise.

It was the skeptics who took the time to study the story from all angles, like Robby Soave at Reason, who blew the story up. Soave reviewed footage from the hours of amateur video taken of the incident. While legacy media outlets were still peddling the initial, deceptive narrative, it was collapsing with a simple review of easily obtainable evidence that refuted it.

As my colleague, Kelsey Harkness, noted on “Fox & Friends”: “Just imagine if there were no hourlong, or two-hourlong videos that could exonerate these high school boys. Their lives could be ruined.”

If anything, we need to learn a valuable lesson from this incident.

We should today heed the wisdom of John Adams, who wrote to his friend John Taylor about the excesses of democracy.

This lesson is especially important now as it’s clear that many—especially on the left—have deep and unrelenting contempt for their fellow citizens who disagree with them. He explained that while democracy is no worse than “monarchy or aristocracy,” it is often bloodier than either and “wastes, exhausts, and murders itself.”

Pure democracies devour themselves, Adams wrote, as citizens turn against citizens. “It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy.”

He continued:

Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.

The failures of democracy are the result of the fallen nature of man—a condition that cannot be cured and cannot be changed.

This is why the framers of the Constitution formed our federal republic with a complex web of checks on power.

Democracy had its place—most specifically in the frequent elections of the House of Representatives—but it was removed from decisions dealing with fundamental rights, such as free speech and the right to bear arms enshrined in the First and Second Amendments.

This is the balance the Founders sought to preserve our freedom, and in many cases, save us from ourselves.

The framers designed our system to slow down decision-making—especially at the highest, federal level—to frustrate the ambition of the leaders who represent us, to throw water on the temporary, to excite passions of the people, which may lead the country to folly or tyranny.

These concepts may be lost on progressives and those on the left who believe in the evolution or perfectibility of man (which seems untenable given that they see a potential fascist in everyone who disagrees with them).

But the Founders likely wouldn’t have been surprised by the noxious media frenzy that set out to destroy a few high school students in the name of social justice.

The Founders well understood the threat of fake news. They wisely assessed that despite the threat, the government could not be a trusted arbiter of what is real and fake—so they created the First Amendment.

Then, knowing that this judgment of truth and falsehood could be left only to the people in a free society, they put guardrails on the people themselves so that they could not use this power to tyrannize their fellow citizens on a whim.

This is the genius of America. This is why we have the world’s oldest republic.

The Founders may not have known us, but they knew history, and they themselves. They knew that unrestrained democracy would lead to a destruction of all freedom, the annihilation of God-given individual rights that governments of all types had trampled throughout human history.

In an age in which contempt for fellow citizens is reaching pathological levels, we can be thankful that these institutions exist to protect us.

Yet given the retreat of constitutional government over the past century, we have less cause for certainty that they will continue to save us from ourselves.

COLUMN BY

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor for The Daily Signal

EDITORS NOTE: This article with images was reprinted from The Daily Signal with permission. Image credit: Pixabay.

Planned Parenthood and the African-American Community

Does Planned Parenthood target blacks? That is what Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece thinks.

Recently, I spoke on my radio show with Evangelist Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is the Director of Civil Rights for the Unborn with the organization Priests for Life. The focus was on Planned Parenthood and the African-American community.

Her comments are relevant all year around, especially around this time of MLK day and the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision favoring abortion, Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973).

Dr. Alveda King told me, “The leading cause of death in the African-American community is not gang-violence, gun violence, heart attack, stroke, HIV, high blood pressure, diabetes. People will name all these. No, it’s abortion. And the reason we have come to that conclusion, statistically, you’ve got 60 million plus abortions legal in America since 1973. About a third of those occur in the African-American community. That means dead babies. And, with us being 13 percent or less of America’s population, that means we are having more abortions.”

She asked, “Now does it mean that African-Americans are more immoral or don’t care? Absolutely not. We are just regular, everyday people like everyone else. But Planned Parenthood moved into our community with the abortion killing centers and said, ‘We’re here to help you. Let’s kill your baby, so you can have a better life.’ Well, killing our babies doesn’t give us a better life. I have had my own abortions in the 1970s. They were secret then, and after I became born again in 1983 and became a pro-life voice, I began to talk about how those abortions hurt me and my family.”

In 1921, Margaret Sanger founded the Birth Control League, which later changed its name to Planned Parenthood. Dr. Paul Kengor, author of Takedown, writes about when Sanger spoke to the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey in May 1926: “The Planned Parenthood founder’s KKK talk was a smash hit. Not only did it go very late, after a very long wait, but she received numerous invitations to speak to other groups like the Klan. Why would the KKK be so interested in Ms. Sanger? The reasons are obvious, a natural fit. It was because Sanger was a passionate racial eugenicist with grandiose dreams of ‘race improvement.’”

Alveda King told our listeners: “Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League [later, Planned Parenthood], said, that ‘colored people are like weeds,’ and they need to be eliminated. They need to be exterminated. We don’t want the word to get out, so let’s not package it that way. So that’s why they began to make a lot of propaganda and marketing materials, saying that abortion is a woman’s right. It will help her to finish college, get a job, do this or do that.”

Christian author and educator Dr. George Grant points out that it was not just the African-American community Sanger targeted for population control: “Now for Margaret Sanger and her followers, those undesirable aspects of humanity were largely ethnic minorities: blacks, Jews, oftentimes Slavic peoples from Eastern Europe. These were considered undesirables, ‘imbeciles’ she called them, ‘human weeds’ she called them; and so Planned Parenthood was originally designed to limit the populations of those peoples and to increase the population of what she felt were the desirable races. So right at the heart of the philosophy of Planned Parenthood is this ideological and scientific commitment to a kind of racism.”

Sanger did not want it known that she believed blacks should be targeted for a significant reduction in their population. She wrote, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” (Margaret Sanger, Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939.)

Alveda notes that Planned Parenthood said in effect, “We don’t want the word to get out, so let’s get a slick marketing plan.” That plan included such things as handing out awards (such as to her uncle—a few years before Planned Parenthood began to do abortions, beginning in 1970) and scholarships. She said, “So many people rose to success on the backs and bucks of Planned Parenthood—the rabid, feminist movement, for example—a lot of people who have been elected…the Congressional black caucus—many of them were put in office and are still in office because of dollars from eugenicists, such as Planned Parenthood.”

To see for yourself the ongoing racism of Planned Parenthood in action, notice how often their clinics are still in very poor neighborhoods. Alveda notes some of those Planned Parenthood neighborhoods have streets nearby named after her uncle.

Alveda King concludes, “That’s a baby in the womb, who should have human rights, and I believe if my uncle were here today, he would have to agree that abortion is a crime against humanity.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Cardinal Dolan: Excommunicating Andrew Cuomo “Not an Appropriate Response” for Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth

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

GAY IS ANTI-LIFE: They’ll even kill to commit sodomy.

TRANSCRIPT

Exactly 46 years ago today — to the day — the U.S. Supreme Court authorized the mass extinction of tens of millions of pre-born children — cloaking the genocide in a made up out of thin air, alleged right to privacy.

That right to privacy then went on to hatch even more destruction — against the family, natural law and so forth. One of the big issues it gave birth to was, again, a never before heard of right to sodomite marriage.

Well, those two issues linked arms and joined forces a few days ago in a “Catholic” setting as two homosexual men stood in front of a parish just before Sunday Mass with their little boy Cohen and presented a syrupy presentation about just how normal they are and how completely ordinary their situation is.

More to the point: They waxed on about how the parish was so welcoming and accepting and how wonderful all the people in it were. They were inspired to start going there regularly because on an earlier trip, they had seen a lesbian couple bringing up the gifts and being warmly accepted.

At the end of their seven-minute presentation — rife with heresy — they received a standing ovation from the warm, friendly, accepting parishioners who just ate it all up.

The normalization of not just homosexuality anymore in Catholic parishes, but now on top of it, the accompanying child abuse that occurs when a child is “born” of a sodomite pairing — yes, we said, “Born.” Because this child was not adopted. The little boy, Cohen, is a product of in vitro fertilization (IVF) and a woman whose womb the homosexuals rented because natural law prevents them from having sex, conceiving, bearing and giving birth.

So they used every technological ability at their disposal to simply skirt all Church teaching further and bring a new life into the world, willfully depriving that boy of his God-given right to a mommy.

And the pastor allowed this. And the crowd went wild. And the bishop, well, he did issue a statement expressing his displeasure and said he would be meeting to “discuss the situation” after he gets back from the March for Life events in D.C.

The diocese is the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the parish is St. Joan of Arc and the bishop is Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

The two clerical clowns who run the parish are the pastor, Fr. Jim DeBruycker, and the parochial vicar, Fr. James Cassidy — you wouldn’t even know they are priests.

These men allow this evil to take place — in fact, they encourage it. Every Sunday, whatever wild-eyed modernist who wants to ramble on about gay this or that, immigration, trans this or that, climate change is invited to get up and speak for a few minutes on just how Catholic their immorality is — how central to their faith.

For example, the gay lovers told the fawning audience — and at this point, that’s all this parish is: an audience — that it was good for Cohen to have to fathers.

They also simply passed right over the horror of IVF — again speaking of it in purely ordinary terms. And this is where the gay, anti-life crowd finds its footing.

Surely, these two sodomites posing as actual Catholics must know that the IVF method automatically results in the death of many other children as part of the process.

Various eggs (where did two men get female eggs?) are all fertilized, allowed to grow for a period and then the ones determined to be best suited to come to full term are then implanted — in this case in a rented womb.

The others — meaning the other humans — they are “discarded,” a short little euphemism for killed. If, as is pretty routine, more than one tiny human was implanted in the rent-a-womb surrogate, at some point, “selection” is made again and the “leftovers” are killed in utero.

This is malevolent. Are the two homo “dads” going to tell little Cohen that in order for him to come into existence, they had to kill off some brothers and sisters of him, because since all they can do is sodomize each other, they had to resort to science?

Are they going to tell him that they actively chose to deny him a mommy because, in the end, all they cared about was trying to make their sodomy look normal?

But perhaps most pressing: Is Archbishop Hebda going to move to laicize the clergy that promote this horror, and is he going to disband that parish — which doesn’t even call itself a parish — it’s a “community.”

Hebda did not necessarily cause this issue, at least not at this parish, but he is certainly responsible now for stopping it dead in its tracks.

If that parish is still around, if those priests are still around at the end of the month, that will tell you everything you need to know about Archbishop Hebda.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant video with images is republished with permission.

Why Are Leftists Thrilled by Abortion?

Hillary Clinton and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced their satanic bill to allow abortions through all nine months up to birth. The intense jubilant faces of these two Democrats in the photo while launching their baby killing campaign was bone-chillingly evil. Clinton and Cuomo held their joined hands high in the air like an enthusiastic victorious battle-cry as they grinned ear to ear. Why were they so happy? Why were these leftist politicians barely able to contain their excitement over the thought of killing more babies?

During her presidential campaign, Hillary vowed to protect animals from cruelty and abuse. And yet, Hillary is elated over her bill to allow abortion doctors to deliver a nine-month-old baby except for the head; then shove scissors into its brain to kill it. This barbaric, shameful and evil procedure is called partial birth abortion

Hillary cosponsored the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act to end the slaughter of horses for their meat. Meanwhile, Hillary passionately defends Planned Parenthood which kills babies for their meat; selling dead baby body parts – intact heads sell for premium prices. Planned Parenthood has made over $100 million selling aborted baby parts

Abortion zealots fear a conservative majority on the Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade the unconstitutional law which made abortion legal. Here’s how abortion activist Sarah Silverman expressed the urgency of keeping constitutional judge Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court. “This is a position for life, y’all”. In her sad perverted thinking, Silverman infers that women will die if they cannot for whatever reason kill the horrible thing (baby) growing inside them even on the birth date

Eighty-five year old pro-abortion Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s health is failing. If she dies or retires, leftists fear Trump’s replacement will be a conservative. Panicked female abortion zealots are offering their body parts to keep Ginsberg alive. Abortion zealot Alyssa Milano offered her ribs, kidneys and a lung to Justice Ginsberg. Notice the intense passion to do whatever necessary to freely kill babies in the womb.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you…” (Jeremiah 1:5)

Alyssa Milano through The Fuzzy Pet Foundation compassionately rescued a dog in South Korea being raised for slaughter. It appears that Milano has zero compassion for innocent babies. She is insanely committed to murdering them before birth. Also, Milano has not complained about Planned Parenthood profiting from the sales of slaughtered baby body parts.

In 2018, abortion was the number one cause of death worldwide; over 41 million children killed before birth. Again I ask, why is this horrifying stat cause for leftists to celebrate?

In a landslide, Ireland voters repealed their anti-abortion laws. Many observers were uncomfortable with the eerie jubilation of thousands of women in the streets hugging while crying tears of sheer joy

Co-director of the abortion campaign, Orla O’Connor said, “This is a monumental day for women in Ireland. This is about women taking their rightful place in Irish society, finally.”

Another Irish women thrilled about killing babies said, “ It’s such a great victory for women, for men, for our future generation. It’s just – I’m so emotional.”

“And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth…” (Genesis 1:28) Despite God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply”, many youths vow not to have children because leftists have convinced them that childbirth is extremely destructive to the environment. Leftists foolishly believe they are smarter than God.

Unquestionably, abortion is the holy sacrament of the demonic religion of liberalism. Shockingly, over 20 religious leaders gathered to bless the opening of a new Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Washington DC. President and CEO, Dr Laura Meyers said, “In almost every message to our staff, I talk about our doing sacred work.” https://bit.ly/2RsMSaj What is wrong with these people? How can they claim moral and spiritual high ground killing babies and selling their body parts?

Insanely, a majority of the religious leaders who blessed the new dead-baby-chop-shop are black. A disproportionate high number of aborted babies are blacks. Right thinking black ministers have been sounding the alarm for years how blacks are aborting themselves in extinction.

Leftists are in constant rebellion against God’s natural order. Leftist women act like pregnancy is God’s cursed disease as devastating as cancer and abortion is the life-saving cure.

Abortion zealots do not view abortion as a necessary evil. They are actually thrilled when a mother murders her baby. There is something strange and disturbingly evil about leftists having all the sympathy in the world for animals and not an ounce of sympathy (even disdain) for innocent unborn babies – jubilant when a mother kills her baby.

RELATED ARTICLES:

We Had an Abortion. It Wasn’t My Body, but It Was My Baby.

She Got Pregnant at 18 and Did Something That Today, Few Teens Do

Podcast: The Price Children Pay for the Sexual Revolution

Young Students Explain Why They’re Pro-Life

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. The featured image is by the National Right to Life Committee.

Cleveland: Suit against Catholic Charities in boy’s shocking death

A social worker, employed through a contract with Catholic Charities of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was supposed to be checking on and protecting the nine children in the Rodriguez home, but instead she had cooked up a deal with the children’s mother to obtain the family’s food stamps.

catholic charities diocese of cleveland

In exchange she allegedly turned a blind eye to abuse and deplorable living conditions that resulted in the death of a five-year-old boy whose body was buried in the back yard.

The case became known to the police when someone called from PAKISTAN with a tip!  WTH!

This is the latest news from Cleveland.com:

Estate of Cleveland boy found buried in back yard sues Catholic Charities

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The estate of a 5-year-old Cleveland boy whose body was found in late 2017 buried behind his mother’s house has filed a lawsuit against the social services arm of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland that employed the worker who was supposed to keep tabs on the family.

The survivorship of Jordan Rodriguez filed the wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court against Catholic Charities, its employee Nancy Caraballo, the boy’s mother Larissa Rodriguez and her boyfriend Christopher Rodriguez.

nancy caraballo
Nancy Caraballo

The suit accuses Catholic Charities and Caraballo of recklessness, negligence and failing to report abuse the boy suffered in the two years leading up to his death. The estate, administrated by Michelle Rodriguez, seeks to take the case before a jury.

“While we cannot at this time comment on what is alleged in the lawsuit, Catholic Charities protects and advocates for those who are most vulnerable,” the statement said. “All employees undergo thorough background checks and extensive training with regard to ethics and specifically their duties to report child abuse or neglect.”

Jordan’s body was discovered buried in the family’s backyard in December 2017, after Cleveland police received a call from Pakistan that said Christopher Rodriguez confessed to burying the child.

Investigators responding to the call found the home in deplorable condition, and it wasn’t long before they uncovered that Caraballo, a parent educator at an agency contracted with Catholic Charities who was assigned to the Rodriguez family, had been buying Larissa Rodriguez’s food stamps at discounted prices and lying in her reports of her visits.

Caraballo was supposed to conduct monthly home visits to check on Rodriguez’s children and living conditions and file a report each time. But investigators subpoenaed her cellphone records and compared text messages between Caraballo and Rodriguez to the reports and found that, on at least 12 occasions, Caraballo simply showed up to Rodriguez’s house to pick up the food stamp card. She filed false reports that said she inspected the home.

More here.

The case will make you sick!

In February Caraballo plead not guilty here.

Then here in April she was sentenced to 3 years for the food stamp fraud.

And, now get this, she reformed in jail and was out in six months, here.

As is usual there is no mention of the immigration status of either Caraballo or the Rodriquez duo.

But I am interested in why a call to police came from Pakistan. Were there Pakistani convenience store proprietors in on the food stamp fraud?

RELATED ARTICLES:

Tuberculosis in the Migrant and Refugee Population: Is Silence Deception?

Worcester “Man” Admits Guilt in Identity Theft Scheme at Crooked Convenience Store

Feds Recover $2.5 Billion from Health Care Industry Fraud in 2018

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash.

Senator Ted Cruz: We Will Never Surrender on Life

This week, millions of Americans mourn the 46th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that forced legalized abortion on demand onto the 50 states and has led to the deaths of tens of millions of Americans.

But the hundreds of thousands marching for life in Washington, D.C., and hometowns across the nation also celebrate the great progress we have made since then, fighting to restore the God-given rights of all Americans, of every age.

Under Roe, 60 million precious lives—generations of sons and daughters—have been lost in the United States alone. For far too long, the tragic practice of abortion has not only denied the most basic rights of those in the womb, but has also left mothers suffering with tremendous loss and pain.

It has been used by governments to limit population growth, as seen in China’s infamous “one child policy.” It has been used to eliminate unwanted baby girls from societies where baby boys are prized. And now, nations like Iceland are proudly announcing the elimination of afflictions such as Down syndrome because they’ve aborted almost all the babies who were diagnosed.

Even while legal, the horrors of abortion were thrown into public view by the prolific serial killer Kermit Gosnell, whose sheer contempt for human life extended from the unborn, to infants, to their mothers themselves. A few years later, undercover videotapes revealing frank discussions of aborted body part sales shocked and outraged the nation.

But pro-life activists should be heartened by the growing list of victories achieved for unborn Americans in recent years.

From its first days in office, the Trump administration reinstated and expanded the Mexico City policy, which blocks federal funding for nongovernmental organizations that facilitate abortions. In the Senate, we’ve been able to confirm more and more of the administration’s constitutionalist judges who recognize the terrible jurisprudence behind Roe v. Wade.

We passed a law allowing states to deny Title X funding to Planned Parenthood, and saw the federal government finalize religious exemptions to prevent the Little Sisters of the Poor and private employers from being required to provide abortifacient drugs.

Last January, I introduced the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban late-term abortions that result in pain and suffering for an unborn child. After five months, an unborn child’s toes, eyelids, fingers, and eyelashes have formed. He or she has a heartbeat, and can feel pain.

While this bill was blocked by Senate Democrats, it reflects the growing body of evidence that unborn children can sense and suffer, and that the pro-life movement stands on the side of science.

There is still much work ahead of us. Thankfully, many legislators are stepping up in the 116th Congress and offering ways for our country to move beyond the horror of abortion, and I’m proud to be a co-sponsor for these vital initiatives.

A big one is the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would prohibit the Department of Health and Human Services from providing federal family planning grants and other funds to entities that perform abortions—entities like Planned Parenthood.

I am also co-sponsoring the Protect Funding for Women’s Health Care Act, which redirects federal funding from abortion providers to better women’s health organizations that provide cervical and breast cancer screenings, diagnostic laboratory and radiology services, well-child care, prenatal and postnatal care, immunizations, and more.

The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act amends the federal criminal code to make it a crime to knowingly transport a minor to another state to obtain an abortion without satisfying a parental involvement law in the minor’s resident state. Too many girls and young women have been victimized by abusers and human traffickers under the current system, and this policy would be a vast improvement for expecting mothers, children, and parents alike.

Finally, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act would establish a government-wide statutory prohibition on taxpayer subsidies for abortion and abortion coverage. This legislation would also prohibit subsidies in the form of refundable, advanceable tax credits for abortion coverage, and would codify an annual renewed appropriations policy providing conscience protections.

I am proud to join all of these measures to protect human life from its first stages of development. I look forward to a time when every child—girl or boy, with special needs or special mind—has the opportunity to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Keep marching for them.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Sen. Ted Cruz

Sen. Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is a U.S. senator from Texas. Twitter: @SenTedCruz.

RELATED ARTICLES:

New York Senate Passes Bill Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth

Planned Parenthood Celebrates 61 Million Abortions Under Roe, Wants Abortion Legal Up to Birth

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Leandro Cesar Santana on Unsplash.

Podcast: A Former Planned Parenthood Employee Shares Why She Changed

Today is the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and we’re joined by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood employee who had a change of heart and is now a pro-life advocate. Plus: Rachel del Guidice shares why she’s been attending the march for the past 13 years.

We also cover these stories:

  • A day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to delay his State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump delayed Pelosi’s trip overseas.
  • A measure pushed by House Republicans that would keep the government closed but would provide pay to affected government employees failed, with only six Democrats voting for it.
  • Sen. Lindsey Graham re-introduced a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunesSoundCloudGoogle Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

PODCAST BY

Portrait of Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.

Portrait of Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Send an email to Katrina. Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko.

Portrait of Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis is the commentary editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcastSend an email to Daniel. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images and podcast is republished with permission. Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images

Medical Jihad Means Death to the Patient

Islam has been at war with competing ideologies since the time of Muhammad. The objective was and continues to be the establishment of a worldwide Islamic caliphate. In 1928, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Egyptian cleric Hassan al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood which continues to be the voice of Islamic expansionism and a source of virulent antisemitism worldwide.

According to al-Banna, “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” The Muslim Brotherhood’s founding manifesto clearly and unapologetically states its tenets:

“Allah is our goal, the prophet our model, the Koran our constitution, the Jihad our path and death for the sake of Allah the loftiest of our wishes.”

German scholar and historian Matthias Kuntzel explains the connection between Islamism and antisemitism in his extraordinary 2007 book Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism, and the Roots of 9/11. Kuntzel identifies the Muslim Brotherhood as the ideological reference and organizational core of radical Islam. He warns that, “whoever does not want to combat antisemitism hasn’t the slightest chance of defeating Islamism.” 

Kuntzel argues that, “The Brotherhood’s most significant innovation was their concept of jihad as holy war, which significantly differed from other contemporary doctrines and, associated with that, the passionately pursued goal of dying a martyr’s death in the war with the unbeliever.” He identifies “the start point of Islamism as the new interpretation of jihad, espoused with uncompromising militancy by Hassan al-Banna, the first to preach this kind of jihad in modern times.” 

Kuntzel explains the intimate connection between jihad and Jew-hatred, and the behavior of, “University students who blow themselves up with the aim of heavenly self-improvement, priests who throw hydrochloric acid into young women’s faces to punish them for violating the obligation to wear the veil, parents who cheerfully prepare their children for jihad with dummy explosive belts: anyone seeking to find the motives for such behaviors enters a world in which reason is considered betrayal, doubt a deadly sin, and the Jews ’the brothers of monkeys, murderers of the Prophet, bloodsuckers, and warmongers.’”

Matthias Kuntzel explores some forms of the Muslim Brotherhood’s holy jihad in America but not all of them.  

The conversion of America from a Judeo-Christian country into a sharia compliant Muslim country through public school indoctrination was the unapologetic objective announced by Muslima Sharifa Alkhateeb in her 1989 speech hosted by the Muslim Brotherhood organization the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Alkhateeb, the late managing editor of the American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences (AJISS), advocated using US public schools to proselytize and convert America to Islam. 

Alkhateeb was born in Philadelphia 1946 but lived with her husband in Saudi Arabia from 1978 and 1987 where she was a teacher. In 1988 she returned to the United States and became a diversity consultant with the Fairfax County Public Schools in Fairfax, Virginia. 

Three decades later, what is most disturbing is how effective the Muslim effort has been in proselytizing Islam in the public schools and shattering our constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state. What is most stunning is the Muslim supremacist and imperialist attitude that perversely insists that Islamization of infidels is the path to world peace.  

In the 1960s Alkhateeb, an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood offshoot the Muslim Students Association (MSA), worked with Hillary Clinton. Under Bill Clinton, a top Muslim Brother became his “Muslim outreach officer” and selected all of the imams for our prison system and military; most still in place today.

The virulent antisemitism fomented by the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States and embraced by the leftist Democrats, was exponentially increased under Obama and has produced the current antisemitic Democratic Party of Jihad that seeks to overthrow the government of President Donald Trump.

American citizens enjoy enviable levels of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and the possibility for upward mobility unequaled elsewhere in the world. Historically, American life has elicited two irreconcilable responses. The first is emulation where people seek to live like Americans either by legally immigrating to the United States and assimilating, or by attempting to reform their home countries.

The second response is anger and envy where people seek to destroy American life because the freedoms in America pose a threat to the stability of their home countries or to their ideological hegemony. It is the second response that connects the Muslim Brotherhood to America and to Muslims inside America including American born Muslims who embrace Islam’s supremacist tenets of sedition.

It is seditious to advocate the overthrow of the government and to attempt to replace Constitutional law with Koranic sharia law. Former radical Muslima Isik Abla lists eight types of jihad currently being waged against Western countries, including the US, in their campaign to rule the world under Islam.

1. Population jihad- Media jihad

2. Education jihad

3. Economic jihad-

4. Physical jihad

5. Legal jihad

6. Humanitarian jihad

7. Political jihad

America has just been introduced to the 9th jihad, medical jihad, and its current manifestation 27 year old Lara Kollab – the genocidal Muslim American doctor who vowed to purposely give Jews the wrong meds. WHAT?? The silence of the medical community regarding this outrage is deafening. The only thing worse than Kollab’s unconscionable intention to deliberately kill Jewish patients is that there are those who believe that this medical jihadi should be given a second chance!!

Muslims in America must choose between the two irreconcilable responses to the freedoms of American life. American citizens, including Muslim-American citizens, who embrace American life and honor the constitution are welcome in America. Those who reject American life and seek to replace our constitution with supremacist Koranic sharia law are enemies of the state and should be treated as such. 

First comes Saturday and then comes Sunday. Islamic antisemitism in America will be followed by Islamic anti-Christianism. Islamists are already slaughtering Christians in the middle east. The Islamic caliphate does not differentiate between Christians and Jews – we are all infidels.

Americans must understand that Islamic expansionism and all forms of Islamic jihad must be identified, opposed, defeated, and expunged from America. Silence is no longer an option. We must proudly shout our intention to preserve the Judeo-Christian traditions that are foundational to freedom, liberty and justice in America. 

It is imperative that the Muslim Brotherhood be designated a terrorist organization and an existential enemy of the United States. Islamic jihad means death to America as clearly as medical jihad means death to the patient.

EDITORS NOTE: This Goudsmit Pundicity column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Leonardo Yip on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Americans for Truth Live Debut Webcast

Folks, this is the debut episode of our new daily AFTAH webcast, “Americans For Truth Live.” It will air live Monday through Friday at noon Central Time (1:00 PM Eastern, 10:00 AM Pacific, 11:00 AM Mountain) right here on the AFTAH website. As you can see, we are still ironing out some wrinkles in the show, but I am super excited about it.

Americans For Truth Live will feature tons of hard-hitting, politically INcorrect analysis and interviews with some of the leading front-line happy warriors fighting Big LGBTQ, in America and across the globe. There will be more than a little laughter, and lots of God’s honest Truth. This video explains how AFTAH and our message is different: we’re hopping off the “Always on Defense” pro-family train, and are not afraid to speak tough truths, even if that means criticizing the Republican Party or (brace yourself!) Fox News.

Pro-LGBTQ “progressives” and the gay-/trans-cheerleading liberal media are now celebrating 11-year-old “drag kid” “Desmond Is Amazing” (Desmond Napoles).

Please spread the word about this new webcast. Share it everywhere. Tell your family and friends. Join the counter-revolution against the reckless Sexual and Gender-Rebelling Left–you know, the LGBTQueer activists and their “progressive” allies who think we all should celebrate an 11-year-old boy who identifies as a “drag kid” and performs at “gay” bars where men throw dollar bills at him.

Send me your feedback at americansfortruth@gmail.com, and please pray for and support this show if you are able [donate safely online HERE] so we can begin setting men and woman to freely and aggressively defend Truth against the secular-Left lies all around us. Because it’s God’s Truth to defend, not ours.

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

Transgender Theory Enables Child Abuse

Pope Francis said teaching children about being transgender is a moral problem which he calls “ideological colonisation”. He said explaining gender theory to youngsters is wrong because it can change their “mentality”. The pontiff shared, “A father asked his ten-year-old-son: ‘What do you want to do when you grow older?’ The child replied: ‘A girl’. The father realized that in the school books the gender theory was taught. This is against the natural things.” Pope Francis declared gender theory is part of a “global war against the family”. 

Unexpected voices like renowned feminist professor Camille Paglia are saying well-meaning adults transgendering minors is child abuse. Professor Paglia actually called it “evil” to help troubled kids make permanent decisions for which there is no turning back. As commonsense normal thinking adults, our response to Ms Paglia’s comment is, “Well dah”.

Public radio show host Jesse Thorn identified his two-year-old son as a girl; dressing his son as a girl and calling him a girl name. Ponder that folks, a two-year-old. We all know this is insane child abuse. When comedian Owen Benjamin compassionately said Thorn was abusing his child, LGBTQ enforcers crushed Benjamin’s career. His tours were canceled and he was blacklisted in Hollywood.

Benjamin has a comedy special. Here is the headline of a hit-piece written to end Benjamin’s career. “Why is Amazon promoting this anti-trans alt right troll’s comedy special?” Do you see how this works folks. Benjamin courageously exposed the abuse of a child and he is branded an extreme-right nutcase hater. LGBTQ enforcers seek to shame and destroy anyone who dares to state the obvious truth that gender theory is child abuse hiding in plain sight

American College of Pediatricians president, Dr Michelle Cretella, wrote, “Transgender Ideology Has Infiltrated My Field and Produced Large-Scale Child Abuse.” Dr Cretella said transgender ideology is not rooted in reality. She said sex is hardwired before birth and it cannot change. Dr Cretella continued, “By feeding children and families these lies, children are having their normal psychological development interrupted. They’re being put on puberty blockers which essentially castrates them chemically – followed by surgical mutilation later on. This is child abuse. It’s not health care.”

Dr Cretella said we need to nurture children through natural puberty. “Our job as parents and physicians is to help children embrace their healthy bodies. And when this is done, once they get past puberty to late adolescence, as many as 95% will come to embrace their bodies – and identify with their biological sex.” 

Dr Cretella made this important point. “See, according to most mainstream medical organizations, if you want to cut off a healthy arm or a healthy leg, you’re mentally ill. But if you want to cut off healthy breasts or a penis, you’re transgender. Dr Cretella enraged LGBTQ enforcers by saying, “No one is born transgender.” Dr Cretella is under severe attack.

Folks, can you believe we live in such a crazy evil time in which stating scientific facts and publicly expressing a desire to protect children could cost you your livelihood and even your life (death threats)?

Every time I write about LGBTQ enforcers bullying the masses into submission, my frustrated wife Mary says, “Let people know they are only 3 percent of the population.” 

So this is where we are folks. We instinctively know LGBTQ indoctrination is child abuse. And yet, far too many are afraid to say it out loud. LGBTQ enforcers are using government, corporations, the medical profession, social media and mainstream media to bully the mainstream into allowing the abuse of children. How did such a tiny segment of our population (3%) obtain such dictatorial power?

God will severely judge those who lead new believers and children astray. “but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

God instructs parents to loving protect and raise their children. “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) God does not want government usurping parental authority over America’s children.

It takes courage to stand in a culture which humiliates and high-tech executes all who refuse to kneel in worship to their god of debauchery. Shouldn’t abusing children be our red line in the sand?

RELATED ARTICLE: Pelosi’s Equality Act Could Lead to More Parents Losing Custody of Kids Who Want Gender ‘Transition’

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

Boston Mayor Proposes Draconian Interrogation Health Care Measure In The Name Of Gun Safety.

On January 10, City of Boston Mayor Marty Walsh announced his legislative agenda for 2019.  In what represents the latest leftist assault on privacy rights and gun ownership, the Mayor proposed that medical professionals be required “. . . to ask patients about the presence of guns in their homes. . . ”  The government mandated interrogation is to be undertaken “. . . with the goal of identifying red flags that could indicate risks relative to suicide, domestic violence, or child access to guns.”  

In point of fact, the Mayor’s proposal is the latest end-around towards developing a comprehensive registry of gun ownership within Boston, a clear violation of Bostonians’ privacy rights and an intimidation tactic designed to shame gun owners into relinquishing their guns.  

Amazingly, the topic of physician inquiries into their patients’ gun ownership status is marred with controversy.  This is largely due to the incredulous position and legislative efforts undertaken by the American Academy of Pediatrics in support of banning handguns.  In 1992, the AAP, an organization created for the purpose of promoting pediatrician education and representing issues important to pediatricians, actually thought it was sound legislative policy to intrude onto the expressed constitutional rights of American citizens by supporting legislation that would “prohibit the possession, sale or manufacture of handguns in the United States.” Stupidly, the AAP then went on to post it on their website as one of its stated missions.

The issue came to a head when, in the State of Florida, legislation was introduced that would fine a physician $5 million for merely asking a patient if he or she had a gun in his or her home.  The proposed legislation arose from an incident where a dense physician in Ocala, Florida, refused to see a patient because she would not disclose her gun ownership status.  The logical and sane conclusion to the controversy would have been for the woman to simply see another doctor and share with her friends and community the lunacy of the physician through personal or media communications.  At most, she could have reported this physician’s unethical practice to the Board of Medicine and let the issue play itself out that way.  Instead, she chose to approach her state legislator who propagated the insanity by proposing a multi-million dollar punishment for physicians who merely ask a question.  The fact that the state legislature even considered the bill is a testament to the absurdity of the times in which we live.

Ultimately, the bill was watered down so that what was passed, the Firearms Owners’ Privacy Protections Act (FOPA), prohibited physicians from documenting a patient’s gun ownership status unless it was directly relevant to the care of the patient.  The bill also prohibited physicians from discriminating against an individual based on the person’s gun ownership status.  Violation of the law was punishable by “. . . a fine of up to $10,000.00, a letter of reprimand, probation, suspension, compulsory remedial education, or permanent license revocation.”

The ensuing multi-year, multi-million-dollar, social and legal controversy ended with an Eleventh Circuit Federal Court ruling tossing the law out as unconstitutional, but the ridiculous, unnecessary, and painful process did bring to light a number of issues regarding the nexus between health care, medical documentation, and personal liberties.  

First, indisputably, a physician ought to be able to ask a patient about guns.  The issue of accidental gun deaths is a serious problem in American society.  Anywhere between 77 and 113 pediatric, gun-related deaths take place in our country each year.  Efforts at curtailing these deaths are generally laudable, and the fact is that primary care physicians such as pediatricians engage in all sorts of health screenings designed to prevent disease or injury.  Gun safety should be no different.  

On the other hand, gun ownership is a cherished right that is to be zealously guarded. Any organization, including the AAP, seeking to decimate that right must be vehemently opposed.  The act of refusing a gun owner service merely because that owner is wishing to protect a right expressly enshrined in the Constitution is unconscionable and becomes even more egregious when the patient’s ownership status becomes part of his or her permanent record and accessible by the government.  Perhaps, the greater problem is our acquiescence to government funding of our health care and to giving it access to our personal information, but that is another issue altogether.  

The principal benefit to our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is to provide a check upon the power of government.  That effect is undoubtedly endangered when the government is allowed to know exactly who owns such weapons and unduly regulates who accesses them.

Florida and its physicians learned valuable lessons about gun rights and health care through its experience with the Doc v. Glocks drama; lessons that apparently were not heeded by Mayor Marty Walsh.  

Mayor Walsh’s proposal is vastly more draconian than either the Ocala physician’s actions or the state legislature’s response to it.  Walsh wants to mandate that physicians interrogate patients about gun ownership.  This would no longer be a situation where a pretentious physician on an individual basis decides to ask a question to the point of sacrificing his relationship with his patient.  What Walsh is proposing is that physicians work as agents of the state to collect information from patients regarding their most sacred rights and record it for the government’s benefit.  The very idea of this proposal strikes a dictatorial and oppressive tone. 

Adding to the tyrannical optics, it is the Police Commissioner who is out in public heralding the benign intent of the proposal. Boston Police Commissioner William Gross explained that the goal would be to identify those at risk for domestic violence, suicide or child access to guns in order to guide people to mental health counseling, resources or other help. In short, he said, “We’re just asking [medical professionals] to help identify ways to save lives.” 

Isn’t it interesting that practically every oppressive idea proposed by the left is buttressed by the goal of saving lives?  And by the way, despite the Police Commissioner’s comment, the government wouldn’t be asking for help, it would be mandating it.  In short, anyone harboring a concern regarding excessive governmental intrusion ought to instinctively recall Benjamin Franklin’s words: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

From a practical nature, it is clear that neither the Mayor nor the Police Commissioner have given their proposal sufficient thought.  Not only does their recommendation clearly intrude on people’s liberties, but what happens when a patient refuses to divulge such information? Are we going to refuse him or her treatment?  Will we fine him or her, or jail the person?  What happens if a physician refuses to participate?  And what happens if there is a gun-related accident, death, or suicide following a contact with a physician, does the doctor become liable? 

Mayor Marty Shaw’s proposal is a bad idea at so many levels.  It is draconian, offensive to the Constitution, disrespectful to the free and unencumbered practice of medicine, and an undue intrusion into patient’s privacy rights.  Bostonians must oppose it lest the mayor’s disease spread elsewhere.

EDITORS NOTE: This column from The Federalist Pages is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Jason Leung on Unsplash.

Data Show California Is a Living Example of the Good Intentions Fallacy

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.”

During a speech at Harvard several years ago, Charlie Munger related a story about a surgeon who removed “bushel baskets full of normal gallbladders” from patients. The doctor was eventually removed, but much later than he should have been.

Munger, the vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, wondered what motivated the doctor, so he asked a surgeon who participated in the removal of the physician.

“He thought that the gallbladder was the source of all medical evil, and if you really love your patients, you couldn’t get that organ out rapidly enough,” the physician explained.

The doctor was not motivated by profit or sadism; he very much believed he was doing right.

The anecdote is a perfect illustration of the righteousness fallacy, which Barry Brownstein noted is rampant in modern politics and a key driver of democratic socialism.

The Righteousness Fallacy (also known as the fallacy of good intentions) is described by author Dr. Bo Bennett as the idea that one is correct because their intentions are pure.

It recently occurred to me that California is a perfect example of this fallacy. Consider these three facts about the Golden State:

  1. California spends about $98.5 billion annually on welfare—the most in the US—but has the highest poverty rate in America.
  2. California has the highest income tax rate in the US, at 13.3 percent, but the fourth greatest income inequality of the 50 states.
  3. California has one of the most regulated housing markets in America, yet it has the highest homeless population in American and ranks 49th (per capita) in housing supply.

That politicians would persist with harmful policies should come as little surprise. The Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once observed the uncanny proclivity of politicians “to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”

In his book Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman described the danger of such thinking.

[The threat comes] … from men of good intentions and good will who wish to reform us. Impatient with the slowness of persuasion and example to achieve the great social changes they envision, they’re anxious to use the power of the state to achieve their ends and confident in their ability to do so. Yet… Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it. 

I don’t doubt that California lawmakers, like the physician who was removing healthy gall bladders, believe they are doing the right thing. Yet they, like the physician, need to wake up to reality and realize they aren’t making people better.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. Serving previously as Director of Digital Media at Intellectual Takeout, Jon was responsible for daily editorial content, web strategy, and social media operations. Before that, he was the Senior Editor of The History Channel Magazine, Managing Editor at Scout.com, and general assignment reporter for the Panama City News Herald. Jon also served as an intern in the speechwriting department under George W. Bush.

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

De Blasio’s Plan For New York Universal Health Care Is Smoke And Mirrors.

On January 7th, the same day President Trump appeared on national television to discuss immigration, the government shutdown, and border security, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced that the City of New York will guarantee health care for everyone regardless of insurance or immigration status.  In all, the plan will cover 600,000 people, half of whom are undocumented, and he is going to do it for $100 million.  In fact, argued the mayor, the program will not cost the city anything because of the savings realized from the dramatic reductions in emergency room care.

In defense of the plan, De Blasio averred that health care is a right and that it is time for New Yorkers to start conducting their affairs as such.  Since the federal government is trying to disrupt our health care system, he proclaimed, it is time for New Yorkers to take matters into their own hands and guarantee people’s inherent right to health care.  

Despite De Blasio’s uncontained enthusiasm, there are two fatal problems with his program.  First, as we know and the left continues to ignore, health carenot a right.  And second, in point of fact, his amazing program adds virtually nothing to what New Yorkers already have at their disposal

Health Care Is Not A Right.

What is a right?  

There are many different kinds of rights. First, there is the undisputed interest. This is what attaches when one has a just or legal claim or title upon a property or object, such as when one strikes gold in a Nevada minefield. Under those circumstances, the person owning the land or declaring his or her stake upon it has a right to that land and to the minerals within it.  This right is commensurate with ownership or possession.  Since health care is not a defined, palpable property, then this cannot be the type of right of which De Blasio speaks.  

A right can also be statutory; created by government.  In this case, the “right’ is given to you by the government.  One example is the right to a trial by jury.  Here, one has the undisputed access to a trial by jury because the state has declared it to be the so.  This particular right is based on the foundational principles giving rise to the United States, the declarations contained within the Bill of Rights, and guaranteed by the constitutions of the various states.  

A statutory right is not inherently yours, as the government has provided it for you.  In other words, there would be no trial by jury; no trial at all in fact; if it weren’t for the fact that the government constructed the framework with which to provide it.  Generally, this kind of right is associated with a price tag.  It takes money to hire a defense attorney, a prosecuting attorney, a judge, and a building in which to conduct it.  And yes, the jury is hired as well.  Since no American government has declared a statutory right to health care, this too is not the type of right to which De Blasio is referring.  

The third is the fundamental right, or human right; the ones the Founders called “inalienable.”  These rights are afforded to us by the Creator.  They belong to us.  They are not for government to give or to take away, although under some circumstances, through the consent of the governed, government may regulate them.  Our inalienable rights include a right to life, liberty, the pursuit of property, the right to labor, the right to speak, the right to seek the truth, the right to defend yourself, the right to bear arms, the right to your own beliefs, and of course, the right to pursue happiness.  Each of these is yours by right.  They are inherent in you.  

It appears this last category of right is the one to which De Blasio refers when he speaks of a right to health care, but he would be wrong.  

You cannot have a right to health care because you need others to realize it.  What isyours, like the right to pursue happiness or property, is your right to pursuehealth care.  

So, is health care a privilege? Yes, it is.  

It is a privilege to have someone toil over you.  It is a privilege to have someone attend to you.  It is a privilege to have someone sell you something.  So when De Blasio says health care is a right, he is wrong.  It doesn’t matter how many times he says it and repeats it, and that all the liberals say it and repeat it.  It doesn’t matter that 100% of all people are convinced that health care is a right, it still doesn’t make it a right because you can’t force another person to slave and toil over you to obtain the product or service. 

What is a right is your freedom to approach someone offering the service and to ask him or her to provide the service.  That is the pursuit of health care and that is your right.  This is exactly in keeping with Benjamin Franklin’s words, “The Constitution only give people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”

De Blasio’s Plan Is Mathematically Impossible.

De Blasio says he is going to cover 600,000 people with $100 million.  This would mean that his health care plan would cover 600,000 individual lives at a price tag of $167.00 per person per year.  

Sound too good to be true? That’s because it is.

In point of fact, what De Blasio says he is going to achieve for New York for the first time in the city’s history, New York already has.  New York City already spends $8 billion per year on health care to treat 1.1 million people who otherwise wouldn’t have access to care.  This includes the undocumented.  The effort traces back to the 18th century with the inception of Belleview Hospital. Anyone without insurance can go there to get treated, either through the emergency room or through a primary care doctor.  

So if all these things already exist, what’s De Blasio offering that’s new?  

Nothing really, just better customer service.  

New York HHC Director Mitchell Katz saidwhen asked on the matter, “You can definitely walk into any emergency room, you can go to a clinic, but what is missing is the good customer service to ensure that you get an available appointment. . . That’s what we’re missing and the mayor is providing.”  

The New York Times seemed to agree when it wrote,  “The $100 million would go to both establishing the customer service component and hiring additional doctors and nurses.”  

Adding to the lacklusterness of the proposal is the uncertainty in the details, as is often the case when politicians try to take credit for nothing.  According to The New York Times, “. . . officials could not provide a breakdown of how much would be spent on each [component of the program].  Indeed, details of how those seeking care could do so under the new plan were not immediately clear, nor was an exact start date.”  The Federalist Pages met with the same problem in its review of De Blasio’s proposal.

The fact of the matter is that, predictably, the City of New York’s less-than-Utopian system is already present and operating; with a shortfall, of course.  For years New York’s hospital system has been under severe financial strain.  Indeed, according to New York’s Independent Budget Office, New York hospitals anticipate budget shortfalls of more than $156 million in 2018, increasing to $1.8 billion in 2022.

As expected, De Blasio continues to deceitfully sell fake, utopic visions.  It’s high time sound policy analysts call him out on it.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist Pages. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash.

Podcast: What Woke Scientists Don’t Get About Masculinity

Traditional masculinity is “harmful”—but don’t take it from us. That’s the new verdict of the American Psychological Association. We discuss the association’s new guidelines on counseling for men and boys, as well as the ideological shift behind it. Plus: President Donald Trump’s policy in Syria seems to be in flux. Last month, he announced U.S. troops would be withdrawing, but now the timeline seems longer. Heritage Foundation Middle East expert Jim Phillips unpacks what Trump’s goals in Syria are, and how they can best be achieved. 

We also cover these stories:

  • Trump is visiting the border today.
  • Trump tweeted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would stop sending money to California until the state improves its forest fire prevention practices.
  • Fifty-one percent of Democrats now call themselves liberals.
  • The first lady of California would like to be known as the “first partner.”

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunesSoundCloudGoogle Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

PODCAST BY

Portrait of Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Send an email to Katrina. Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko.

Portrait of Daniel Davis


Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis is the commentary editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcastSend an email to Daniel. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.

RELATED ARTICLE:

Activists, Not Healers: Why I Despise What My Profession Has Become

The Scientific Experts Who Hate Science

Scientists Making War on ‘Traditional Masculinity’ Are Political Hacks

I’m a Conservative Female College Student. Here’s How I Overcame Fear and Became Confident.

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images and podcast by The Daily Signal is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Joel Bengs on Unsplash.

Is your Neighborhood Pharmacist a Crook?

Some are, but maybe not your local friendly, helpful health professional!

sessions and weed
You can bet the drug industry and the Medicare fraudsters were happy to see Sessions out as Attorney General

A little over six months ago, then Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a major federal crackdown on doctors, pharmacists and other health providers for fueling the opioid crisis and using your Medicare and Medicaid dollars to line their pockets.

Here is a bit of one story about Sessions’ announcement.

From State News  June 28, 2018:

Federal agencies on Thursday announced charges in what Attorney General Jeff Sessions called “the largest health care fraud takedown in American history,” an investigation into over $2 billion in alleged fraud by doctors, pharmacists, and nurses.

Many of the allegations centered on illegitimate opioid prescriptions. The Justice Department charged 162 defendants, including 76 doctors, for their roles dispensing opioids and narcotics, the result of investigations spanning 30 state Medicaid programs and numerous enforcement agencies.

[….]

“Some of our most trusted medical officials, professionals, look at their patients, vulnerable people suffering from addiction, and they see dollar signs,” Sessions said.

The alleged fraud and false billings collectively accounted for 13 million illegal opioid dosages, the Justice Department said, and also included 23 pharmacists and 19 nurses.

The Department of Health and Human Services also announced that since July 2017, it has excluded over 2,700 individuals and 587 providers from Medicare and Medicaid “for conduct related to opioid diversion and abuse” — including 67 doctors, 402 nurses, and 40 pharmacy services.

More here.

Here are a couple of more recent cases of Pharmacy fraud

Don’t miss my post from last week about Pharmacist Haytham “Tom” Fakih in Dearborn, Michigan.

Florida Fraudster

From a Justice Department Press release in December, here.

The owner of a Miami, Florida-area pharmacy who caused Medicare to pay more than $8.4 million over a six-year period for prescription drugs that were never provided to beneficiaries was sentenced today to 87 months in prison.

[….]

Antonio Perez Jr., 48, of Miami Beach, Florida, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno of the Southern District of Florida, who also ordered Perez to pay $8,415,824 in restitution and to forfeit the same amount. Perez was ordered to forfeit four Miami-area properties worth approximately $700,000 and multiple bank accounts totaling over $250,000. Perez previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud.

[….]

During the course of the scheme, Medicare paid Valles Pharmacy Discount over $32 million, of which at least $8.4 million was for prescription drugs that Valles Pharmacy never purchased and never provided to Medicare beneficiaries, Perez admitted.

ahktmar-pharmacy
The owner of Akhtamar Pharmacy will be sentenced in February.

California case

Also in December a federal jury found Pharmacist Tamar Tatarian, 39, of Pasadena, California guilty of a Medicare fraud scheme after she billed Medicare $1.3 million for drugs she never purchased or distributed.

You will be interested to see that she was one of those caught in Sessions’ big sweep earlier this year.

Tatarian, the owner of Akhtamar Pharmacy, will be sentenced next month.

Secret decoder ring at work!  Tatarian must be Armenian. See the Legend of Akhtamar.  My reference to Secret decoder ring comes from Ann Coulter’s ‘Adios America’ where she rightly points out that readers of news stories about crooks and criminals must search for clues about where the alleged perp might come from and how he/she got in to the country.

Exception!  See yesterday’s post about the Russians ripping off Washington staters! There the reporter actually says where those arrested were from.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images by Frauds, Crooks and Criminals is republished with permission. The featured photo is by rawpixel on Unsplash.