I’m running for president: Is Joe Biden the Iranian Candidate?

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Former Vice-President Joe Biden in an email titled “I’m running for president” writes:

America is an idea. Based on a founding principle that all men are created equal.

It’s an idea that’s stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, and more powerful than any dictator.

It gives hope to the most desperate people on Earth. It instills in every single person in this country the belief that no matter where they start in life, there’s nothing they can’t achieve if they work at it.

Today, that idea is under attack.

We’ve got a president who assigns a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it.

A president who, like most charlatans and demagogues throughout history, seeks only to aggrandize himself, to consolidate his own power — by blaming the “other.”

If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.

I cannot stand by and watch that happen.

Our core values, our very standing in the world, our democracy, and everything that makes us who we are is at stake.

That’s why I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States.

Does anyone remember when Joe Biden after 9/11 said,

“Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.

Talk about charlatans and demagogues.

Daniel Greenfield in an August 25, 2015 FrontPage Magazine column wrote:

But the Iran Lobby’s biggest wins weren’t [Senators] Markey or Shaheen. The real victory had come long before when two of their biggest politicians, Joe Biden and John Kerry, had moved into prime positions in the administration. Not only IAPAC, but key Iran Lobby figures had been major donors to both men.

That list includes Housang Amirahmadi, the founder of the American Iranian Council, who had spoken of a campaign to “conquer Obama’s heart and mind” and had described himself as “the Iranian lobby in the United States.” It includes the Iranian Muslim Association of North America (IMAN) board members who had fundraised for Biden. And it includes the aforementioned Hassan Nemazee.

A member of Iran’s opposition had accused Biden’s campaigns of being “financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California and by the Silicon Iran network.” Biden’s affinity for the terrorist regime in Tehran was so extreme that after 9/11 he had suggested, “Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran”.

Is the latest Democratic candidate for president a proxy of Iran? Is Joe Biden the Iranian Candidate?

The question: Will Biden’s historical support for a terrorist regime that chants “death to America” hurt his candidacy?

Time will tell.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nine Radical Policies 2020 Democrats Are Putting On The Table

This Supreme Court Case Threatens the Left’s View of Group Identity, Victimhood

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Oral arguments heard at the Supreme Court Tuesday were ostensibly about whether the 2020 census could include a question about citizenship.

But don’t be fooled. The reason this case rocketed to the Supreme Court and has been so hotly contested is that the debate hinges, at bottom, on two starkly different visions of America.

In one vision, what matters is loyalty to and affiliation with a nation-state that is self-contained, independent, civic, and colorbind. In the other vision, priority is given to one’s membership in a subnational group that is based on subjective self-identity (like race or sexual orientation), and association with that group yields benefits and preferences in everything, from hiring to contracting, employment, housing, and even electoral redistricting.

The divide essentially comes down to a commitment to America as a nation vs. a commitment to one’s subgroup and the hierarchy of victimhood.

This is one of the great debates of our time—not just here, but around the world.

Whatever the Supreme Court decides—and an opinion is needed by summer if the Census Bureau is to meet its deadline of printing millions of forms—rest assured that this debate will not go away any time soon.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the death of the nation-state seem to have been greatly exaggerated. Despite pressure from above—from sovereignty-draining, transnational institutions like the United Nations and the European Union—and from below, i.e., from identity groups based on race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, and anything else that can confer conceptual victimhood (and thus special rights) on an individual, the nation-state has shown remarkable resilience.

Defenders of the nation-state remind us that democracy, the rule of law, self-determination, liberty, and everything else Americans and like-minded people hold dear depend on territorially and culturally defined nation-states. Its opponents like to portray the nation-state as archaic, unnecessary, and a gateway to authoritarianism, if not worse.

The Trump administration has championed the sovereignist view, and in 2017 recognized the importance of citizenship by requesting that a question on citizenship be added to the 2020 census.

Progressive groups have left no stone unturned in their bid to frustrate the administration on this front. Notably, these same groups defend a panoply of other census questions that divide Americans by sex, ethnicity, and race.

These groups argue that the citizenship question would depress responses among certain marginalized groups, especially Hispanics. Yet the Census Bureau says it has no credible evidence that the question would affect the quality of the data.

Dozens of progressive organizations brought suit in New York, joined by 18 states and the District of Columbia. They won in district court in New York, thus the case Tuesday was Department of Commerce v. New York.

The hearing Tuesday did not in the least devote itself to these large questions of nationhood, sovereignty, and the like. Instead, there was a lot of technical and statistical back-and-forth between liberal justices and United States Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who represented the administration, and between the conservative justices and New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood; Dale Ho, the lawyer for the New York plaintiffs; and Douglas Letter, the lawyer who represented the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives. All of these latter individuals argued against including the citizenship question.

It is difficult, as usual, to predict which way a court will go. Ho did his side no favors by admitting at one point that, yes, the Trump administration is right that citizenship data is needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

At issue is the fact that the Voting Rights Act does indeed call, in some places, for drawing districts where at least 50 percent of the voting population are members of a racial or ethnic minority.

Ho, perhaps unwittingly, made the case that “if the minority group has relatively low citizenship rates, for example, as is the case with Hispanic populations in some circumstances, then you need citizenship data to make sure that you’re drawing a district in which minority voters are, in fact, a majority of the population.”

That data is now provided by the American Community Survey, a smaller census product that goes out to fewer households. But some states, ironically including some of those suing the Trump administration, have complained that that data is not reliable.

Justice Neil Gorsuch thus jumped on Ho’s argument and pointed out that “some of the states who are now respondents before us have in litigation, including in this court, argued that [American Community Survey] data should not be relied upon for purposes of citizenship or other purposes, that the census data is more accurate. What do we do about that? It seems to me like you kind of put the government in a bit of a catch 22.”

It is the unified left that is in a catch 22, however—and the Voting Rights Act, as it is currently interpreted, put it there. The left does not mind (it in fact loves) the racial gerrymandering that is aided by census questions on ethnicity, race, and so forth. But because what is actually needed is voters, the administration can now say it needs citizenship data, since only citizens are allowed to vote.

The left is terrified by this prospect. It now realizes that available citizenship data will allow jurisdictions to apportion and redistrict seats according to voter, or citizen population, not total population, as they are constitutionally entitled to do. That would, for example, prevent liberal districts from swelling their numbers by adding populations of non-voting noncitizens or even illegal immigrants.

This essentially means citizenship data on the American nation itself—not arbitrary subgroups—would determine the shape of the House of Representatives, and the number and composition of electoral votes at election time. Our elections would more accurately represent the America that really exists, not the faux America envisioned by intersectional activists.

To win this issue, not just in the Supreme Court, but in the all-important court of public opinion, those who believe in the nation-state must constantly make the case that its view of the nation is nonracial, but instead is truly inclusive and colorblind. We must show that the other vision leads to balkanization, conflict, and ultimately, national splintering.

COMMENTARY BY

Mike Gonzalez

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, is a widely experienced international correspondent, commentator, and editor who has reported from Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He served in the George W. Bush administration, first at the Securities and Exchange Commission and then at the State Department, and is the author of “A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans.”Read his research. 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: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

In Florida, Ron DeSantis Accelerates Conservative Agenda

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As his first legislative session winds down, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—elected five months ago by the narrowest of margins—has soared in popularity while pursuing an aggressive reform agenda that includes reshaping the state’s judiciary, investigating school safety, and enforcing immigration laws.

“He’s off to a fast start. He’s a trailblazer throughout the state,” Scott Parkinson, who served as chief of staff for DeSantis in the U.S. House of Representatives, told The Daily Signal.

“As a member of Congress, he had to be a consensus builder and build coalitions. As a governor he can lead on principle. He has such a unique life experience to be a leader,” Parkinson said.

DeSantis, 40, is a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law. He went on to serve as a Navy JAG officer, as an adviser to Navy SEALs in Iraq, and as counsel for the U.S. detention center for suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before first being elected to the House in 2012.

Parkinson, now vice president of government affairs at Club for Growth, a conservative business advocacy group, said that when he saw DeSantis in late February, the governor was in active mode.

“He said he had been to his fourth city in a day,” Parkinson said. “He’s not tied to a desk in Tallahassee. He demonstrates leadership.”

DeSantis is a husband and father, too.

In 2010, the Jacksonville native married the woman who would become first lady of Florida—Casey Black DeSantis, an Emmy Award-winning TV host. They have one daughter, Madison, and a son, Mason.

In the governor’s race, DeSantis, a Republican, beat Democrat Andrew Gillum by fewer than 1% of the votes. A Mason-Dixon poll released April 4, though, shows DeSantis with a 62% approval rating. A Quinnipiac University Poll in March showed DeSantis with a 59% approval rating.

“Not surprisingly, he has had a bold agenda that has been both conservative and practical,” Sal Nuzzo, vice president for policy at James Madison Institute, a Tallahassee-based conservative think tank, told The Daily Signal.

“It is a policy-driven bold agenda, but it is refreshing to some Democrats and, in some cases, former opponents.”

School Safety

At DeSantis’ request, the Florida Supreme Court in late February ordered a statewide grand jury to investigate whether school administrators are violating any laws and potentially endangering students.

“What’s truly devastating is that the tragedy in Parkland was avoidable,” DeSantis said in a written statement. “As governor, I have a moral obligation to protect the children in our state, which is why I have requested a statewide grand jury to investigate school safety practices and failures occurring around the state and to identify measures to improve the safety of our students.”

On Feb. 14, 2018, a former student with a rifle left 17 dead and 17 others wounded at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

The shooter was known to have become violent in the past, but school officials reportedly ignored numerous warning signs at a time when the school district was promoting a politically popular alternative discipline policy.

Among the new governor’s first acts in office was to suspend Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel for his office’s poor response to the Parkland shooting. DeSantis replaced Israel with Gregory Tony, a former Coral Springs police sergeant.

Israel sued. On April 2, Broward Circuit Court Judge David Haimes upheld the governor’s authority to suspend the sheriff for neglect of duty and incompetence.

Still, Democrats in the state oppose the governor’s support for arming teachers, as do most voters despite giving DeSantis high marks, according to polls.

“Florida voters have stated loudly and clearly that they don’t want guns in our schools, yet DeSantis and Republicans continue to push legislation that would do exactly the opposite,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Terrie Rizzo said in a formal statement.

“Teachers don’t want this, parents don’t want this, our state does not want this,” Rizzo said. “This bill threatens the safety of our students and teachers. It’s time for Republicans to drop the NRA’s dangerous agenda and start focusing on the issues Floridians care about.”

Conservative Court Majority

In what could be his biggest legacy accomplishment, DeSantis quickly reshaped the Florida Supreme Court from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 conservative majority.

Florida has mandatory retirement ages for its state Supreme Court justices. In 2018, voters approved a measure raising that age from 70 to 75.

Upon the retirement of three justices, DeSantis named three relatively young successors: Barbara Lagoa, 51, the first Cuban-American female on the court; Carlos Muñiz, 49, the first Nicaraguan-American; and Robert Luck, 40, the first Orthodox Jew.

“He named three justices and changed the Supreme Court for a generation,” Parkinson said. “Even though we’ve had Republican governors since the 1990s, none [has] had a Supreme Court to back them up.”

The significance of state supreme courts should never be underestimated, said Carrie Severino, chief counsel to the Judicial Crisis Network.

“It is an incredibly significant shift,” Severino told The Daily Signal, referring to Florida’s highest court. “It was one of the more liberal state supreme courts in the nation. It has gone from a 4-3 liberal majority to a 6-1 constitutional originalist majority.”

“The Florida Supreme Court was regularly causing trouble for Rick Scott,” she said of DeSantis’ Republican predecessor. “About 90% of all cases are heard in state courts, and state supreme courts are often the last word on an array of issues.”

Education Reform

DeSantis signed an executive order to “eliminate” the controversial Common Core education standards in Florida schools.

The measure requires the state to “equip high school graduates with sufficient knowledge of America’s civics, particularly the principles reflected in the United States Constitution, so as to be capable of discharging the responsibilities associated with American citizenship.”

The governor also opened up avenues for school choice for parents, including vouchers for private school.

“I have heard parents from across the state loud and clear, and they all agree that it is time to finally end Common Core,” DeSantis said in a formal statement in late January, adding:

So today, we are taking action through this executive order to ensure that Florida has the best academic standards in the nation and eliminating Common Core from our schools, as well as reaffirming my commitment to prepare our students for the real world through an increased focus on civic education.”

Accountability, Deregulation, Other Measures

DeSantis held a summit Jan. 31 with state agency chiefs, called “Florida Deregathon,” which resulted in rolling back the state’s occupational licensing requirements. The governor’s office sponsored the event in conjunction with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and several state professional licensing boards.

In an effort to correct a past wrong—at least for the record—DeSantis issued posthumous pardons to the “Groveland 4,” four black men accused of raping a 17-year-old white girl in 1949.

The men were victims of mob violence and police shootings during the South’s Jim Crow era. The Executive Clemency Board unanimously approved the governor’s pardons.

“For 70 years, these four men have had their history wrongly written for crimes they did not commit,” DeSantis said, adding:

I believe the rule of law is society’s sacred bond. When it is trampled, we all suffer. For the Groveland 4, the truth was buried. The perpetrators celebrated. But justice has cried out from that day until this.

After decades of election problems, DeSantis also pushed for and accepted the resignation of Broward County Elections Supervisor Brenda Snipes and suspended Palm Beach County Elections Supervisor Susan Bucher.

The governor also suspended the mayor of Port Richey, Dale Glen Massad, calling him “clearly unfit.”

Before the suspension, deputies from the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office showed up at Massad’s house with an arrest warrant on charges of illegally practicing medicine at home without a license. The mayor allegedly began shooting at them.

Business Mission to Israel

DeSantis announced Tuesday that he would lead a business development mission to Israel in late May, to boost economic ties between Israel and Florida.

“I promised to be the most pro-Israel governor in America and that the first delegation I would lead would be to the state of Israel,” DeSantis said on the same day as Israel’s elections.

“Today, I’m pleased to report that I’m keeping that promise,” he said. “Our delegation will bring business, academic, and political leaders to help strengthen the bond between Florida and Israel.”

COLUMN BY

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.

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: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission.

A Message to Mayor Pete from a Latina Mama: ‘DON’T FORCE YOUR SEXUAL IDEOLOGY ON ME AND MY CHILDREN’

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By Ana Samuel

Yes, be polite to us, and we will be polite to you. But we know that we are in an intense battle over the hearts and minds of our children. Mothers are very good at educating and protecting our children from harm when we believe they are in danger. This time, that danger is the harmful sexual ideology of the Left.

I would like to respond to a tweet by Pete Buttigieg, newly announced Democratic presidential candidate. Last week, he tweeted:

People will often be polite to you in person, while advancing policies that harm you and your family. You will be polite to them in turn, but you need not stand for such harms. Instead, you push back, honestly and emphatically. So it goes, in the public square.

Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a man in a same-sex marriage. The tweet’s sub-text is that anyone who refuses to cheer for same-sex marriage or support the Left’s sexual ideology is a bigot — someone who is out to harm Mayor Pete and his family.

Mayor Pete, it cuts both ways. As a Latina mama in touch with a number of other Latinas with traditional family values, I can tell you we are faced every day with people who are “polite to us in person” but who advance and execute policies that assault our values, harm our families, and hurt our children.

Enough Is Enough

I’m talking about policies that undermine our parental rights and duties by seeking to indoctrinate our children in progressive sexual ideology without our consent and sometimes in spite of our explicit protest. Consider just a few examples:

  • The public schools in my area where reading assignments from the Language Arts curriculum ask: “What is heteronormativity and how is it harmful?” (Mind you: this is a question from the school district’s recommended language arts curriculum for eighth graders, not from a single health teacher or counselor. It is not unusual for the LGBT theme to find its way into history classes, foreign language studies, and even STEM courses. The explicit goal is to normalize LGBT lifestyles throughout curricula).
  • Pediatricians who ask to see our teenagers alone and then push to prescribe them contraceptives or ask them about sexual behaviors that we find offensive. Our teens themselves bring these pediatricians’ inappropriate behavior to our attention. (One OBGYN slipped a prescription for oral contraceptives stealthily to a 14-year-old daughter of a Mexican friend of mine, after she had explicitly stated to his face that she did not wish to see her daughter on oral contraceptives.)
  • Sex education classes in which our kids are taught unproven Freudian-Kinseyan doctrines that “sexual repression” will cause neuroses (“express yourself, don’t suppress yourself”), and which preach about topics like abortion, masturbation, condom use, sex toys, “outercourse,” oral stimulation, and rectal intercourse, with all the humor and scientific grounding of a Saturday Night Live sketch, while refusing to seriously address the short and long-term medical and psychological health risks of those actions.
  • Public library programming where unicorns, rainbows, gingerbread persons, drag-queen story hours, and other symbols of progressive sexual ideology make an appearance, so that we must regularly steer our toddlers clear of the propaganda. With our middle-school children, it’s much harder to opt out. Trendy middle-school books (published after 2014) that appear to have fairly innocuous plots frequently feature an LGBT teen or gay couple, ever-so-gently normalizing the ideas that are so conflicting to our consciences. (Avoiding these storylines isn’t easy, since book-review websites regularly delete or block parents’ reviews that warn of LGBT elements, so we cannot even alert other parents of the real content within these books.)
  • And last but not least, the latest round of violence against children: efforts to entice children to question the reality of their sex through school gender-transitioning ceremonies, pronoun-sensitivity training, and other transgender propaganda. Parents have historically enjoyed the right to direct the education and upbringing of their children, under the correct presumption that parents—rather than school counselors, psychiatrists, teachers, government bureaucrats, or any other persons—are best able to act in their children’s best interests. Now, activists are pushing courts to allow minors to receive puberty-blocking drugs and cross-sex hormones against their parents’ objections.

Mr. Mayor, it is hypocritical for you to cry foul about policies that “harm you and your family” while your side pushes for government intrusions into the parent-child relationship at the most fundamental levels.

At some point, we say “enough is enough.” Basta.

Toleration for You, but Toleration for Me Too

Mothers tend to emphatically care about the welfare of all children, regardless of their family’s origin or current form. We also tend to emphatically care about every LGBT person—recognizing our common humanity even when we do not agree with their lifestyle choices. When we are polite to you, we are coming from a place of deep moral principle and authenticity. It’s not a superficial cover up for our true beliefs about you. You are rights-bearing individuals (like all of us) endowed with human dignity.

Although our home countries have often been viciously anti-gay places, there is a deep understanding among Hispanic mothers that those who identify as LGBT have suffered a lot, and that many have lived a life of hurt, harm and pain. We feel great sympathy for your suffering. But the ideas you have developed from painful experiences are not always sound ones. And we can distinguish between the two: between affectionate concern for you as a person and disagreement with your ideas. So please stop shutting us out of the conversation by the intellectually dishonest rhetorical expedient of implying or saying that we are bigots. We are the opposite of bigots.

We are prepared to co-exist peacefully and tolerate a great deal of what you propose, but not at the expense of losing our own ability to practice and preach our own values and freedoms. We are happy to work side-by-side with you, to have you as our coaches, neighbors and friends, but don’t cross the line and tell us what sexual values to cherish and uphold.

Check Your Financial Privilege

Blacks, the poor, and children have always paid a disproportionately heavy price for the breakdown of marriage and sexual morality in society. Marriage between husband and wife has historically been the institution that best offers women, children and the poor a decent shot at a peaceful, stable, financially secure, socially connected life.

Please note that I’m not blaming the erosion of marriage on the LGBT movement. No, we in the mainstream did that all on our own. However, the LGBT movement has further eroded marriage, and in a more shocking way. It is not a good idea to tell society that you don’t need a member of the opposite sex to have a baby or that kids don’t need a mom and a dad because they will do fine in any kind of arrangement. That’s not true, and there’s plenty of empirical data to prove it.

Respecting the truth about sexuality and marriage is also the least expensive. Friend, it takes a lot of money to circumvent nature. It takes upscale health insurance to pay for those doctor’s visits to the urologist, OBGYN, and additional medical care linked to sex outside of marriage, rectal intercourse, or cross-sex hormones. It takes a lot of money to pay for that surrogate rent-a-womb so that two men can have a baby. Even if she’s from a third world country—and easily exploitable—it’s still expensive (and the ethics don’t look good). It also takes a lot of money to go through IVF, usually requiring dual-income households.

The fact is, permanent, monogamous, exclusive marriage between husband and wife is the cheapest and highest quality deal on the market. It’s the most financially accessible way to have a child and the safest way to experience sexual pleasure. It also provides some built-in sexual complementarity: a family environment that educates in sexual diversity by example and is more likely to offer balanced childcare, with both sexes offering their unique and invested perspectives on how to raise the children.

Amigo, I’m sorry, but these are the truths of nature. Hijacking nature with cutting edge technology may sound attractive to those who can afford the niceties of upper-class life, but not to those working to meet their basic daily needs. (Do you think getting a sex change is cheap? Don’t you think the poor have other things to think about?) Your agenda requires a lot of extra cash—either that, or socialized medicine. And many of us Hispanics have fled from countries like Cuba and Venezuela (and increasingly Argentina and Mexico) precisely because socialist policies in our home countries turned despotic.

Ask yourself: is the lifestyle you are setting up as a pattern for others to follow replicable and sustainable? Or does it further destabilize the family form that has provided the greatest financial and social stability to women, children, and the poor? The evidence consistently points to the latter.

You play the victim card, but it’s well-off same-sex couples who can afford to cushion themselves and their children from the costly effects of the progressive sexual lifestyle. You can redirect your children’s attention away from the gaping absence of a mother or a father towards a good education, nice clothes, memorable experiences, and recreation. However, your lifestyle cannot be sustained by millions of people who make less money than you. The mothers in my circles know this, and we care about those poor children — and their mothers and fathers, too.

The weight of the past fifty years of social science evidence is virtually unanimous in its conclusion: children — and societies — do best when kids are raised by their married, stable, biological parents. Separate a child from his or her biological mother or father, and you’ve made that child much more likely to experience internal conflict, significant pain and suffering, relational struggles, and a host of other issues.

Challenge Accepted

So yes, be polite to us, and we will be polite to you. But we know that we are in an intense battle for the hearts and minds of our children. We mothers may be underground and quiet, we may not be marching in the streets, and we may not be debating you in public. But we are meeting for coffees in our homes, talking privately with our school teachers, spreading thoughts the media refuses to print, and speaking freely while the First Amendment still means something. Yes, so long as we still enjoy the freedom of association in this country, we will continue to meet and organize, to speak and teach.

Mothers are very good at educating and protecting our children from harm when we believe they are in danger. This time, that danger is the sexual ideology of the Left.

Finally, to my Latina sisters, my message is this: ¡Encuentren su voz! ¡No dejen que la ideología de genero de la izquierda borre nuestros valores culturales sobre la familia! ¡No dejen de ejercer sus derechos de madres! ¡Mamas del mundo: únanse!

This essay originally appeared at Public Discourse: The Journal of the Witherspoon Institute and is reprinted with permission.

COLUMN BY

Ana Samuel

Ana Samuel, PhD, is the daughter of Mexican immigrants, the wife of an Argentine immigrant, and the mother of six awesome children. She completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University and her doctoral degree from the University of Notre Dame before becoming a founding mother and the Academic Director of CanaVox.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column is republished with permission.

BREAKING: CRC Exposes Left-Wing Dark Money Network

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As presidential candidates promise to refuse so-called “dark money” and Members of Congress decry the role of money in politics, a Special Report from CRC dispels one of the biggest myths in political discourse: the Left doesn’t use “dark money.”

CRC’s report by investigative researcher Hayden Ludwig, Big Money in Dark Shadows: Arabella Advisors’ Half-billion-dollar “Dark Money” Network, profiles four nonprofit organizations, all controlled by senior leaders at Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy.

Read the full report here and find the executive summary of Big Money in Dark Shadows below.

Executive Summary

The political Left often criticizes—and the mainstream media frequently report on—the network of center-right nonprofits funded by billionaire entrepreneurs Charles and David Koch. But few politicos know of a left-wing leviathan in Washington, D.C., with a reach rivaling that of the Koch network.

This study by the Capital Research Center documents a shadowy web into which nearly $600 million flowed in 2017, the most recent year for which tax returns are available. Operating under the aegis of “philanthropy,” this network is housed in and staffed by a for-profit, privately held consultancy called Arabella Advisors, LLC.* Arabella manages four nonprofit entities—the New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund—each of which shares an address and interlocking officers with Arabella.

The Arabella Advisors network includes over 340 different entities/projects.

Philanthropic advising is lucrative for Arabella, in part because its clients are so wealthy: it claims its donors’ assets are worth more than $100 billion. Between 2007 and 2017, Arabella’s four nonprofit Funds paid a combined $76 million in management fees to Arabella Advisors. Some of the nation’s largest grantmaking institutions, including the Rockefeller, Packard, and Kellogg Foundations are donors to the funds managed by Arabella. It remains unclear why such large and powerful institutions seek outside philanthropic consulting, but presumably a significant part of Arabella’s appeal lies in its ability to obscure large financial transactions.

The line between philanthropy and political advocacy at Arabella is blurry indeed. Most of the projects hosted by the four Funds and financed by Arabella’s donors advocate for controversial positions on social issues, for the expansion of government—or both. Yet thanks to the unique financial arrangements of the network and the lack of donor disclosure, it is impossible to trace which organization pays for the various campaigns and political movements spawned by Arabella’s Funds.

According to the nonprofit organizations’ tax returns, between 2013 and 2017, the Arabella network received a staggering $1.6 billion in contributions, which it has used to advance its donors’ agendas through dozens of “front” groups and “astroturf” initiatives. The Arabella network of funds is also growing rapidly: from 2013 to 2017, the network’s revenues grew by an incredible 392 percent. Arabella’s network often plays host to highly influential groups on the Left. For example, the Democracy Alliance, a network of donors co-founded by billionaire George Soros, has used the New Venture Fund and Sixteen Thirty Fund to host at least eight projects that don’t disclose their original funders. While financial information for the 2018 election year has not been disclosed, the Arabella network will likely show continued steep revenue growth.

Revenues of the nonprofit entities managed by Arabella Advisors: New Venture Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, Windward Fund, and Hopewell Fund. These organizations collected a combined $1.6 billion in revenue from 2013-2017. Between 2016 and 2017, revenues jumped 41 percent.

The mainstream media rarely mention any part of the Arabella empire, but in 2018 a Politico report on the Sixteen Thirty Fund—which is exempt under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code—described that portion of the empire as a “liberal secret-money network” in which nonprofit groups spend millions of dollars to shape elections and policy “even while criticizing ‘dark money’ and its effects on politics. . . . They have aired 6,885 broadcast TV ads [during the 2018 election campaign], according to Advertising Analytics, a TV tracking firm—more than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and almost as many as [the Koch-supported] Americans for Prosperity, two of the five biggest nonprofit political advertisers focused on the House and Senate in the first half of this year.”

Despite the vast scope of Arabella’s influence, its “dark money” network goes largely ignored by media outlets. In the last year, mainstream outlets published 47 stories about Arabella Advisors or its four funding vehicles—most mentioning the network only in passing. In contrast, the Koch network appeared 189 times in the same outlets, and the coverage included much more thorough reporting than anything written on Arabella.**

The size and scope of the Arabella network of funds demonstrates that far more “dark money” exists on the left side of the political spectrum than has been previously admitted. Before left-of-center politicians and activists demand laws to increase government disclosure of donors who fund campaigns and public policy advocacy, they should consider voluntarily disclosing their own donors.

RELATED ARTICLE: Blood Money: How Qatar Bought Off the Entire DC Media Establishment

RELATED VIDEO: Blood Money.

NOTES:

* “Arabella Advisors, LLC” is organized in Virginia and was originally named “Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, LLC.” Despite the name change, as of April 1, 2019, the Certificate of Authority to do business in the District of Columbia is still under the original name. In addition, according to the online records of the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Arabella Advisors, LLC (under either name) does not have a general business license to conduct business in the District of Columbia, as is required by D.C. Code §47-2851.03d(a).

**  A LexisNexis search of the terms “Arabella Advisors,” “New Venture Fund,” “Sixteen Thirty Fund,” “Hopewell Fund,” and “Windward Fund” in major media outlets showed nine results when refined for duplicated content. Using LexisNexis to search “Koch” within three words of “network” of the same media outlets showed 189 stories with no obvious duplicate entries. Both searches were limited in time span from March 22, 2018, to March 22, 2019.

† This is the number of individual projects/campaigns CRC has been able to identify.

The New Venture Fund lists the number of its various projects here.

Unless otherwise noted, all revenue, expenditure, and growth figures come from Form 990’s filed with the IRS by the nonprofit organizations from 2013 to 2017.

Read the full report here.

ICE Field Operation Liberated Hundreds of Jobs — Interior enforcement of immigration laws helps American workers.

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On April 3, 2019, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) posted a news release: ICE executes federal criminal search warrant in North Texas which announced the administrative arrest of more than 280 aliens who were found to be working illegally at CVE Technology Group Inc. and four of CVE’s staffing companies.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is the division of ICE that conducted this highly effective field investigation which constitutes an element of the interior enforcement mission of our immigration laws.

The news release included this excerpt:

HSI is the federal law enforcement agency responsible for upholding the laws established by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which requires employers to verify the identity and work eligibility of individuals they hire.

These laws help protect jobs for U.S. citizens and lawful U.S. residents, eliminate unfair competitive advantages for companies that unlawfully hire an illegal workforce, and strengthen public safety and national security.

Unauthorized workers often use stolen identities of legal U.S. workers, which can profoundly damage for years the identity-theft victim’s credit, medical records and other aspects of their everyday life.

HSI’s worksite enforcement investigators help combat worker exploitation, illegal wages, child labor and other illegal practices. Work site enforcement investigations often involve additional criminal activity, such as alien smuggling, human trafficking, money laundering, document fraud, worker exploitation and/or substandard wage and working conditions.

Immigration anarchists frequently justify their opposition to the enforcement of our immigration laws by making emotional appeals about how illegal immigration is all about desperate people who simply want to be able to live better lives. They often even raise the oxymoronic notion of enabling illegal aliens to achieve “the American dream.”

Indeed, the DREAM Act was actually an acronym for “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.”

Compassion, however, is never a consideration for hapless American and lawful immigrant workers who lose their jobs to illegal aliens or suffer wage suppression because of the massive influx of illegal alien workers.

The rhetoric about how immigrants (actually illegal aliens) do the work Americans won’t do leaves out the second half of that sentence, that Americans won’t do those jobs for substandard wages under dangerous substandard conditions.

It is infuriating that the “American Dream” has become ever more elusive for Americans and lawful immigrants, particularly among America’s minority communities, while political con artists have the chutzpah to invoke the imagery of the “American Dream” to create the DREAM Act.

When the DREAM Act scam was properly voted down by Congress, President Obama created the sequel to the DREAM Act, DACA: Deferred Action Childhood Arrival, by Obama’s capricious executive caveat.

Employers who intentionally hire illegal aliens do so not out of compassion but a desire to exploit vulnerable workers, paying them substandard wages under conditions that are often so substandard as to be illegally dangerous.

There is nothing compassionate about exploitation!

Furthermore, as the ICE news release reported, many aliens who work illegally not only violate our immigration laws and take the jobs Americans need, but frequently engage in identity theft and commit other crimes.

Anyone who has ever fallen victim to identity theft can attest to how profoundly this crime has deleteriously impacted their lives.

Illegal immigration is anything but a “victimless crime.”

Economists are always concerned about unemployment rates and with the number of jobs that are created or lost by the American economy but omit the critical issues of whether American workers are gaining or losing jobs and how their wages are increasing or stagnating.

Political candidates on all levels of government frequently claim that if elected they would help new companies to create more jobs. Creating new jobs can be a risky and time-consuming proposition.

However, just as it is said that “A penny saved is a penny earned,” I would argue that a job that is liberated is no different from a job that is created. Effective enforcement of our immigration laws can result in jobs being liberated — that is to say, freed up by removing aliens who are working illegally thereby immediately providing Americans and lawful immigrants with those jobs.

Investigations into the willful employment of illegal aliens is known as “Worksite Investigations” and can help to put Americans to work and enable them to support themselves and their families.

To put this specific case into proper perspective, the HSI agents who participated in this field investigation liberated at least 280 jobs, making them immediately available for American and lawful immigrant workers.

Radical Democrats who have created “Sanctuary Cities” and demonize immigration law enforcement officers are now calling for the removal of any criminal penalties provided in the Immigration and Nationality Act for aliens who enter the United States without inspection, even though Senator Schumer has proposed legislation that would have made trespassing on critical infrastructure and national landmarks a federal crime with a five-year prison sentence to deter trespassing.

Cheap labor is anything but cheap, as I noted in my recent article, “Open Borders Facilitate America’s Race To The Bottom.”

Not only is there no compassion in exploitation of foreign workers, there is certainly no compassion in acting against the interests of American workers and their families.

Today more foreign workers enter the United States each year than the number of new jobs that are created. America’s generous immigration policies permit more than one million lawful immigrants to enter the United States each year. Additionally a human tsunami of illegal aliens enter the United States, as exemplified by the crisis on our southern border. Finally, hundreds of thousands of aliens who are lawfully admitted into the United States as non-immigrants violate the terms of the admission, not only by remaining in the United States after their authorized period of admission has expired, but by otherwise violating their terms of admission, frequently involving their illegal employment in the United States.

The Immigration and Nationality Act, as it now exists, would provide strong tools to combat illegal employment of aliens in the United States. However, what is lacking is an adequate number of ICE agents to actually enforce these important laws, resulting in Immigration Failures By Design.

Sanctuary Cities further encourage illegal immigration and hobble efforts to enforce our nation’s immigration laws.

Today there are roughly 6,000 ICE agents for the entire United States of America and more than half of their time is not dedicated to the enforcement of our immigration laws but customs laws and other non-immigration laws.

So, while mandatory E-Verify would be helpful to end the employment of illegal aliens, without an adequate number of ICE agents to conduct field investigations, unscrupulous employers will easily game the system by hiring illegal aliens “off the books” or otherwise defraud the immigration system.

Advocates for “Immigration Reform” are determined to undermine any efforts or resources to enforce our immigration laws and/or secure our borders.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine and is republished with permission.

PODCAST: Julian Assange There Are No Coincidences

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Julian Assange was arrested last Thursday [April 11, 2019] in London and faces a charge in the United States of conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010. He has been holed up in Ecuador’s embassy in Britain to avoid capture as the U.S. unseals the hacking conspiracy Indictment.

Coincidence or Part of the Plan?

So do you think it is by accident, by mere coincidence that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested? I believe not. It is part of the plan as the de-classification has begun. The investigators are being investigated. The deep state is in panic mode. Julian Assange is being sought after for the alleged conspiring with Bradley (Chelsea) Manning in the hacking of government computers. Some consider Assange to be guilty of espionage and many others, including Ron Paul, consider Assange to be a hero. I am in the hero camp.

We have begun to witness many events rapidly unfolding since the Comey collusion delusion hoax has proven to be a failed treasonous coupe d’ etat attempt against this great and duly elected President Donald Trump. One such event, is the arrest of Julian Assange, which will prove to be a monumental event. Why? Because once under oath in the United States, Assange will reveal and confirm what we have known all along. Assange has the goods. Assange has the e-mails, the source files, the evidence and he will reveal all we need to know under oath.

Will we hear under oath and review such documents surrounding uranium one? Russia and the dems? The revelation of the e-mails? Will we come to learn just who put the hit on Seth Rich? Seems to me Assange being returned to the U.S courts is in line with what the President is doing as a multi-faceted de-class mission. Even if Assange is somehow found guilty (he may not be), in the court of law, as I understand it, the sentence for this act could be five years. If this is the outcome, I would suspect that President Trump will pardon him. Again, time will tell. Stay tuned. It’s just begun.

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The Poison of Main Stream Media Propaganda

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If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly. Thomas Sowell

The media has brainwashed the electorate to expect the government to do something. The best economic policy of any government is to do nothing but reduce the size of the government, reduce the size of the laws, and reduce the size of regulations. Marc Faber

There is no greater tyranny, than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.  Montesquieu

Maxine Waters was last year’s cheerleader for publicly confronting and harassing Trump administration members.  Now we’ve degenerated even further into the foul-mouthed language against our President from Muslim Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and the anti-Semitic diatribes from Muslim Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.  There is no respect for the office.  The last two years were disgusting enough with Pelosi and Schumer, now it has sunk into the depths of depravity.  “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”  I Peter 5:8 perfectly describes this evil.

The socialist (communist) Democratic Party and their propaganda arm, the lapdogs in the main stream media (MSM), have pushed their bias, lies and distorted views of anything Trump to the level of violence.

We can thank the 1964 NYTs v. Sullivan decision which removed libel and slander from the province of state law and state courts.  Supreme Court Justice William Brennan set out the rule that reshaped libel law with his majority opinion. A public official could recover in a libel action only if and when a court found that the libelous statement about the official was made with “actual malice”—that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.  As long as the press has an “absence of malice,” public officials are barred from recovering damages for the publication of false statements about them.

And just how does one now prove actual malice?  They can’t, and thus reputations of public figures are destroyed or promoted at will by the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, our MSM, the experts in brainwashing.

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin’s famous adage needs an update.  “The only thing certain in life is death and taxes” …and lies from the media.

Attacks on Politicos

The propaganda via the MSM has also affected Americans who fully believe media’s duplicity and deception.  There are many examples.  Former Director Kirsten Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security was accosted and driven out of a Mexican Restaurant where she and her party had chosen to dine.

Back in June of 2018, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders and other diners in her party were asked to leave by the owner of The Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia.  They immediately left.  Sarah and her husband went home, but the rest of the family went across the street to another restaurant, where the owner of the Red Hen, Stephanie Wilkinson, followed them and tried to get them tossed from that restaurant as well.  As of September of 2018, the entire town is still struggling to recover its image as a welcoming community. The whole town faced a backlash after The Red Hen refused to serve Sanders and her family.  Cordiality is now a thing of the past.

Even Senator Mitch McConnell and his wife, Transportation Secretary, Elaine Chao were attacked by a mob.

And Vice President Pence was lectured from the Broadway stage as he sat in the audience watching the play, Hamilton.

This is what both media and Democrats like Maxine Waters are promoting.  Congresswoman Waters needs to lose her next election to Republican Omar Navarro.

Propaganda Spreads Nationwide

We all saw the expressions of hatred for Trump via Kathy Griffin and even the Shakespeare in the Park production of Julius Caesar wherein a Trump looking Caesar is murdered.  We even saw pictures of school teachers, in front of their classes, pretending to shoot a holograph of our President.  There has been far more and far worse.  Imagine the outrage and banishment of anyone who would have tried that with Barack Hussein Obama.

This evil has spread to Americans who now believe it is politically and publicly condoned to attack anyone they disagree with, especially those with a MAGA hat or a Trump t-shirt.

A Texas teen at a fast food Whataburger Restaurant had his MAGA hat grabbed by the server and a drink thrown in his face.  Yes, an adult did this to a youngster just because he had on a MAGA hat.  As he threw the drink, he screamed at the teen, “The President you ain’t supporting.”

Just recently a 74-year-old Jewish man wearing a MAGA hat was having coffee in a Starbucks and a crazed socialist Democrat lackey starting screaming that he was a NAZI and asking others to join in.  Rebecca Mankey, took a picture of Victor inside Starbucks and posted it to her Facebook page (which is now deactivated), with a tirade, calling on others to confront Victor if they see him.  Read the full story here.

This is what the Democratic socialists (communists) and their propaganda arm in the main stream media have given us.  Propriety, civility, public decorum, common courtesy and human dignity have been discarded by the brainwashed fools who listen to the propaganda arm of the Democratic socialists.

Media Propaganda Hits Home

Several months ago, a dear friend of 45 years, who happens to be a black American gal, called me regarding Donald Trump and racism.  We lived catty corner from each other years back when our children were young, and we constantly talked, ran to each other’s homes, and even helped decorate our homes together.  Her oldest daughter attended Catholic school, and I sewed her plaid outfits for her.

Over the years we kept in touch despite the moves, and went on cruises together with our hubbies, talked about our pets, our children and our faith in God.  And when we hurt, we called each other even in the middle of the night.  She and her husband were highly educated; both of them made over six figure incomes when they were working.

After her husband passed suddenly a good dozen years ago, my friend has been in our home numerous times and once even brought one of her friends with her.  We have had years of fun and friendship together.  I cannot express how much I love this sweet Christian gal, who sings like an angel and can dance up a boogie-woogie storm.

Yet, in these 45 or more years I have never discussed politics with her, and she never with me, until Trump. She has called me twice and claimed Trump was a racist.

Why? Because when the neo-Nazis and the white supremacists got in a battle with each other in Charlottesville, VA in August of 2017 over a Confederate monument, the media lied about what the President said, and my friend’s excuse for saying he’s a racist is because she believes the lie.  This is her only excuse to call President Trump a racist.

I tried to explain the truth to her.  I gave her many examples and even mentioned to her that as a Christian with four children of her own, how could she vote for anyone who wasn’t pro-life.  This over 45 year very close friendship may have come to an end because of the propaganda of the MSM and there is little I can do to dissuade her.

Running for President Made Trump a Racist

President Trump was never called a racist and bigot until he ran as the 2016 Republican presidential candidate.  Before then, he was well liked by many liberal celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Michael Jackson. Trump was known as a bombastic businessman, but he always had a pretty diverse circle of friends. Even on his show, The Apprentice, the contestants and celebrities were from all backgrounds, genders and ethnicities.

In the 1990s, Donald Trump worked with the Rainbow-PUSH coalition to help bring more black Americans and minorities into corporate America. Jesse Jackson was so impressed that, in 1999, he praised Trump for a lifetime of helping the African American community. That’s right, a lifetime, not just one day, or one hour…

In 1986, Trump was awarded the Ellis Island award for contributing to bettering the conditions of inner-city black youths.  He is standing alongside Muhammed Ali, and Rosa Parks.

I also explained to my dear friend that over 30 years ago, Donald Trump upset the applecart of racism in the elite clubs of Palm Beach, Florida.  He fought until the old “gentlemen’s agreement” went the way of the horse and carriage and all clubs in the area opened their doors to both Jewish and black folks as he did when he opened Mar-a-Lago.  They fought him, but he persevered and won against their racist policies.

Lynne Patton, a lovely black gal who has worked for the Trumps for a dozen years, now heads Region II of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which oversees New York and New Jersey.  Her boss is Dr. Ben Carson, Secretary of HUD.  Lynne originally worked for Eric Trump’s Foundation and was even the wedding planner for Eric’s wedding.  She even cast two of Trump’s Apprentice programs.

She, and others I’ve spoken to have told me point blank that Trump is the least racist person they’ve ever known.  Lynne has openly stated that as a daughter of a Birmingham, Alabama father, she would never work for someone who was a racist.  When I told my dear friend this, she said she no longer liked Ben Carson.

The true statistics of non-whites hired by the Trump organization in all departments including upper management shows an abundance of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.  What counts with Trump is ability and loyalty, not your color, your faith or your ethnic background.

Obviously, Diamond and Silk adore our President and are seen on Fox News at least once a week.  They were even at several of Trump’s campaign rallies.

Conclusion

Unfortunately, the things I told my friend did not resonate with her.  She believes the propaganda spewed by the media to destroy Trump and his supporters is absolute truth.  She has been brainwashed by the lies of the MSM…lies they’re allowed to spout on a daily basis because of the 1964 Supreme Court decision in NYTs v. Sullivan.

I’m still shocked that after knowing me for 45 years that she would think that I could possibly vote for anyone who was a racist.  I’m not sure if she was trying to convince me to not support Trump or if she thought I had some racist tendencies.  As heartbroken as I was after her last call, I phoned another friend, a gracious black gentleman who is married to a beautiful white woman and they totally understood and comforted me.

The media and the Democratic Party have completely destroyed our once most cordial and genteel culture.  We have become a nation filled with hatred and violence against those who do not buy into the Marxist worldview.  Daily, they spread their poison.

What the left hates about Donald Trump is the same thing they hate about America, that the typical American still loves God, family and country.

RELATED ARTICLE: Who’s Worse—Julian Assange or the New York Times and Washington Post?

VIDEO EXPOSE: Vicious Anti-Semitism at University of North Carolina and Duke University

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United With Israel in a column titled “SHOCKING: Rampant Anti-Semitism at US College’s ‘Gaza’ Conference” wrote:

Ami Horowitz exposes how a thin veneer of anti-Israel sentiment hides an ocean of open anti-Semitism at a recent conference on the Gaza conflict.

Filmmaker Ami Horowitz made some disturbing discoveries at a Gaza conference on the conflict in Gaza organized by the University of North Carolina and Duke University.

From the speakers to the entertainment, Ami quickly discovers anti-Israel sentiment is no more than a flimsy disguise for open anti-Semitism.

The fact that hate like this is acceptable at an American university in 2019 is absolutely horrifying.

The Daily Wire published this video titled “Ami on the Move: Open Anti-Semitism At UNC And Duke Conference” on its YouTube channel:

RELATED ARTICLE: One third of Americans do not believe six million Jews were murdered in Holocaust

ACLU Attacks Florida Legislature’s Effort to Ban Sanctuary Cities

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Florida Senator Joe Gruters (R-District 23) has sponsored Senate Bill 168 to ban sanctuary cities in the Sunshine State. SB 168 reads,

Federal Immigration Enforcement; Prohibiting sanctuary policies; requiring state entities, local governmental entities, and law enforcement agencies to use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law; authorizing a law enforcement agency to transport an alien unlawfully present in the United States under certain circumstances; prohibiting discrimination on specified grounds, etc.

The bill is moving forward in the Florida legislature. Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing the legislature to get the bill to his desk for signing.

There is an effort by the ACLU to demonize those who support the bill, including Senator Gruters. In an email to constituents Senator Gruters wrote:

The ACLU is on the attack against my efforts to ban sanctuary cities & counties (click to read tweet) and many have asked me to comment on their rhetoric. (Scroll down to read an article covering their attack).

My take: At best, the ACLU simply doesn’t get it. At worst, they are disingenuously engaging in fear tactics in an effort to defeat my legislation banning sanctuary cities.

Let me be clear… Florida is always open to law abiding people – no matter their country of origin or skin color – and once my legislation passes, the only thing that will change in our state is that we will be closed to criminal illegal aliens!

Also – casually tossing around or alluding to me, or anyone else who supports cracking down on criminal illegal aliens, as being “racist” isn’t just getting old, it’s giving cover to real racists.

The people see right through the ACLU’s crazy rhetoric and it’s not going to stop me from working my tail off to ban sanctuary cities in Florida!

-Joe

ARTICLE: ACLU Issues Florida Travel Advisory for ‘Immigrants and People of Color’

The same old canard of racism is being thrown around once again to protect MS13 gang members, human trafficking, drug dealers and those in Florida who are here illegally.

Illegal aliens harm Floridians in many ways. It is estimated that Florida annually spends $5 billion to educate, incarcerate and medicate illegal aliens. That is $5 billion dollars that could be returned to legal citizens of the Sunshine State.

According to News-Press contributor Christopher Crowley,

Illegal immigration is a serious problem facing the United States and Florida. Illegal immigrants take jobs from lower-skilled American workers as well as depress overall wages. In 2017, the Center for Immigration Studies reported a disproportionate number of illegal immigrants committed federal crimes. Data regarding illegal immigrants in Florida State Courts simply does not exist. However, as a former state prosecutor and current criminal trial attorney for twenty years in Southwest, Florida, I personally witnessed thousands of illegal aliens appear in felony Court on a host of serious criminal charges.

Watch this One America News Network video titled “The Cost of Illegal Immigration.”

The Democrats and the ACLU are no longer helping Americans and Floridians. They are enabling law breakers.

RELATED VIDEO: Eliseo Medina Speaks on Immigrants for Progressive Votes.

Documents Detailing Google’s ‘News Blacklist’ Show Manual Manipulation Of Special Search Result

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Google does manipulate its search results manually, contrary to the company’s official denials, documents obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller indicate.

Two official policies dubbed the “misrepresentation policy” and the “good neighbor policy” inform the company’s “XPA news blacklist,” which is maintained by Google’s Trust & Safety team. “T&S will be in charge of updating the blacklist as when there is a demand,” reads one of the documents shared with The Daily Caller.

“The deceptive_news domain blacklist is going to be used by many search features to filter problematic sites that violate the good neighbor and misrepresentation policies,” the policy document says.

That document reads that it was, “approved by gomes@, nayak@, haahr@ as of 8/13/2018.” Ben Gomes is Google’s head of search, who reports directly to CEO Sundar Pichai. Pandu Nayak is a Google Fellow, and Paul Haahr is a software engineer, whose bio on Google’s internal network Moma indicates that he is also involved in, “fringe ranking: not showing fake news, hate speech, conspiracy theories, or science/medical/history denial unless we’re sure that’s what the user wants.”

“The purpose of the blacklist will be to bar the sites from surfacing in any Search feature or news product. It will not cause a demotion in the organic search results or de-index them altogether,” reads the policy document obtained by The Daily Caller. What that means is that targeted sites will not be removed from the “ten blue links” portion of search results, but the blacklist applies to most of the other search features, like “top news,” “videos” or the various sidebars that are returned as search results.

In a section of the memo entitled “Eligibility for GNP [Good Neighbor Policy] enforcement,” the types of search results impacted by the policy are described:

“If your product shows any of the following, Misrep and GNP would apply to your PA.

  • Shows content from users and news publishers (percieved 3P voice). Ex: UGC, News corpus, etc.
  • Outputs single answers (perceived to come from the open web). Ex: Web answers, Video answers, etc.
  • Shows content owned, licensed, or edited by Google (perceived to come directly from Google). Ex: Knowledge panels, News summaries, Oneboxes, Munin carousels, etc.”

The “ten blue links” may not be impacted by the blacklist, but virtually every other kind of Google search result is. While hard numbers are not available for how much traffic is directed through the ten links versus the other search blocks, since the latter appear so high on the results page, the impact could be significant.

“Focus on the user,” said a source at Google who described the program to The Daily Caller. “Users need to trust any content that Google shows them, whether it’s the ten blue links or other special search results.”

Sundar Pichai testified before the House Judiciary Committee on December 11 of last year. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) asked why a search for the term “idiot” returned a photo of President Trump. In response, Pichai said “This is working at scale, we don’t manually intervene on any particular search result.”

A memo about the deceptive news blacklist was also obtained by the Daily Caller, showing its last edit as December 3, 2018, a week before Pichai’s congressional testimony This document, which describes the process by which a site can be blacklisted for deceptive news, clearly shows that there is a manual component:

“The beginning of the workflow starts when a website is placed on a watchlist which is used for monitoring of sites to determine if they violate the Good Neighbor Policy. This watchlist is maintained and stored by Ares with access restricted to policy & enforcement specialists working on the Good Neighbor Policy. Access to the listing can also be shared at the discretion of pcounsel and legal investigations on a need to know basis to enforce or enrich the policy violations. The investigation of the watchlist is done in the tool Athena, the Ares manual review tool, and intakes signals from Search, Webspan, and Ares in order to complete reviews. … Once a domain is determined to be violating the misrepresentation policy or the Good Neighbor Policy, such patterns are then added to deceptive_news_blacklist_domains.txt by the Trust & Safety team.”

The document indicates that there is, among other things, a “manual review tool” involved in maintaining the blacklist.

On the blacklist are a number of conservative sites, including Gateway Pundit, Matt Walsh’s blog, Gary North’s blog “teapartyeconomist.com,” Caroline Glick’s website, Conservative Tribune, a property of The Western Journal, and the website of the American Spectator.

“You can’t trust the human judgment of Google’s Trust and Safety team,” said the source at Google with knowledge of their practices.

Requests for comment from Google’s press team have gone unreturned as of publication time.

COLUMN BY

J. Arthur Bloom

Deputy Editor of The Daily Caller. Follow J. Arthur Bloom on Twitter.

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

The TEA Party is Back with ‘Stop Socialism Choose Freedom’ Rallies on April 15th!

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President Trump has our economy booming. Unemployment claims are at an unprecedented 50 year low. There are more jobs available than there are workers to fill them.

And yet, every Democrat presidential candidate is on a mad dash to socialism. If a Democrat is elected president in 2020, we will be thrust back to the depressing days of Obama’s failed economy; record high numbers of Americans on food stamps, unemployment and disability. Democrats are like drug dealers seeking to insidiously addict Americans to government dependency solely to control their lives, behavior and voting loyalty.

From the beginning of the Tea Party movement, I traveled the country on numerous national Tea Party bus tours, speaking and performing my song, “American Tea Party Anthem” at over 500 Tea Party rallies nationwide.

Reflecting back to Obama’s horrible economy, I fondly remember the five dollar lady. After my performance on stage at a rally in Texas, I was approached by a humble woman. She thanked me for what our team of patriots was doing for our country. She explained that Obama’s anti-business policies cost her husband, a trucker, his job. With tears in her eyes, she grabbed my hand with both her hands, giving me a crumpled up five dollar bill for gas for our tour bus. I instinctively knew that five dollars was a huge contribution from her. The five dollar lady drove home the importance of our mission and responsibility to push back against Obama’s plan to transform America into a socialist nation.

On April 15th, Stop Socialism Choose Freedom Rallies are scheduled across America; 300 thus far with more added daily. Yes, the Tea Party is back. Please join us.

Actually, the Tea Party never went away. We matured, working behind the scenes to elect conservatives, becoming less visible. I became Chairman of the Conservative Campaign Committee, traveling the country helping to elect conservatives in House and Senate races. 

With their every attempt to remove Trump from office failing, the evil coalition of Democrats, fake news and the deep state have become totally deranged. They seek to create a race war and violence on Trump supporters while arrogantly breaking laws. No sacrifice is too large or scheme too low if it will remove Trump from of the White House.

Democrats’ extreme lawless resistance requires the Tea Party to become highly visible again. The Tea Party is the righteous legal-resistance to Democrats’ deranged, violent and illegal-resistance.

I am excited to announce that 34% of those who attended Trump’s latest rally in Michigan were registered Democrats. Trump is also winning blacks, Hispanics and millennials. 

This means despite fake news media’s 24/7 lies, deceptions and distortions about Trump, more Americans are beginning to discern that Trump is good for America. Lets pull formerly duped Americans into our Tea Party fold to rally behind our president.

Please allow me to address Democrats’ and fake news media’s despicable hate-generating lie that says the Tea Party and Trump are racist. I am a proud black American who attended over 500 Tea Party rallies nationwide. I was showered with patriot love and appreciation. Trump has an excellent record of hiring blacks. Blacks are experiencing unprecedented prosperity under Trump; historic low unemployment. 

Brother and sister Americans who love our country, lets join together to save America by keeping Trump in the White House. Please sign on to participate in the April 15th, Stop Socialism Choose Freedom Rallies. 

Thirty-two year old Todd Beamer was an American passenger aboard United Airlines Flight 93 which was hijacked as part of the Islamic terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Beamer lead a band of courageous fellow passengers in an attempt to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, control was lost of the aircraft. It crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, saving the hijackers’ intended target which prevented the murder of more Americans. Upon the passengers launching their attack, Beamer said, “Let’s roll.”

Yes, the Tea Party is back! Quoting heroic American Todd Beamer, “Let’s roll.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Tea Party Backs ‘Stop Socialism, Choose Freedom’ Rallies on Tax Day

VIDEO: Unmasking the Corruption Behind San Francisco’s Cycle of Homelessness

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“Talking to the people that I’ve talked to, I realized that there is a petri dish of ideologies that a lot of people have, and they run the spectrum from complete anarchy to complete socialism. And because I don’t think it’s sustainable, one thing is going to happen: It’s just going to collapse on itself.”

From the filth on the streets to the filth in city hall, Colion Noir pulls the mask off the city of San Francisco, exposing the real reasons behind a homelessness epidemic that’s only getting worse.

“It’s startling how much degeneracy and homelessness and open drug use exist in what is supposed to be a shining beacon of a city… Overwhelmingly, I just could not help but get this feeling that there’s a lot of enabling going on.”

Liberal policies in San Francisco have created a parasitic population of vagrants who thrive off the system, which, in turn, fills the pocket books and bolsters the power of the elites living within the city.

EDITORS NOTE: These NRA-ILA videos with commentary are republished with permission.

The Senate’s Nuclear War over Confirmations

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President Trump may be halfway through his first term, but he still has jobs to fill. Unfortunately for him, hiring hasn’t exactly been the easiest thing in a Senate full of Democrats desperately trying to run out the clock on his presidency.

It’s not a new problem, but it’s certainly an exacerbating one. Presidents throughout modern history have had to deal with the minority party’s shenanigans to confirm everyone from U.S. ambassadors to executive branch bureaucrats. As usual, though, Donald Trump seems to bring out the worst in liberals, who’ve been engaged in record-setting obstruction to stop the White House from getting its personnel in place. “If we don’t stop this behavior now,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned, “it will become the norm.”

Apart from the lightning-fast pace of judicial nominees, Senate Republicans have had a devil of a time getting lower-rung nominees through Senator Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) party. Even after a cloture vote, Democrats have been forcing another 30 hours of debate on the chamber for every nominee — not because it affected the outcome, but because it made the process as painful as possible for Republicans. By prolonging the vote, Democrats had the satisfaction of watching the GOP business grind to a halt.

Senators James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) were tired of the games and wanted to cut down the debate to just two hours, especially since the chamber would have already voted on whether or not to proceed with a name. “Just imagine if Democrats’ behavior over the past two years becomes the norm,” Senator John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters. “Presidents could be waiting years to adequately staff their administrations, and the Senate would be perpetually tied up on unnecessary cloture votes, leaving less and less ti[m]e to actually do the business of governing.”

What’s been especially frustrating, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) pointed out, is that these delays have nothing to do with the nominees themselves. They’re just a protest vote against the president. “Over the past two years, some in this body have decided that they will oppose any nominee suggested by President Trump,” he argued.

On Wednesday, McConnell used what some call the “nuclear option” to change the Senate precedent. By a vote of 51-48, Republicans agreed to pick up the pace on Trump’s hires on everyone but cabinet, Supreme Court, and circuit court nominees. From now on, Democrats will only be able to slow things down for two extra hours — not 30. But not every Republican was a fan of the idea, as Senators Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Susan Collins (R-Maine.) made quite clear. The Senate, Lee argued, needs “to serve its deliberative function in our constitutional system… The current rules can work for the American people; they simply require us to do the same.”

For all of the worries that this will come back to bite Republicans, McConnell seemed well aware of the risks. Still, he said, this is about making the environment better for everyone. “… [A]bsent a change, these [delaying] tactics seem guaranteed to become standard practice for Senate minorities on both sides. I don’t think any of us want that in the future.”

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission.

Florida Is Ground Zero In Fight Against Sanctuary Cities

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Banning sanctuary cities has a very real chance of passing in Florida this year — and that’s creating an emotion-driven battle with Democrats and the open-borders lobby.

The sanctuary bill sponsored by Sarasota Republican Sen. Joe Gruters — who is also Chairman of the Republican Party of Florida — has become the most contentious issue of the year in the seemingly always-contentious Florida Legislature.

While such legislation has not gone anywhere in past sessions, it is fast-tracked this year with the Republican leadership structure all onboard. Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose popularity has swelled since his narrow election in November, is a major supporter of President Trump’s immigration and border security policies while former Gov. Rick Scott’s support on the issue was somewhat tepid.

So legislators in the GOP-controlled Legislature are pushing legislation that would clearly define what constitutes sanctuary policies — one of the problems plaguing the issue — and would prohibit any state or local governments from adopting such policies, formally or informally.

Of course the importance of Florida in national elections as the largest swing state in the nation is well-known. But it can also be a bellwether state as far as what is acceptable to the broader American electorate. With its huge population of immigrated Midwesterners, Southerners and Northeasterners, no state is more representative of America than Florida.

If a strong sanctuary city ban can be passed in Florida, then it may have the politically broad support that it seems to have in the polls. And that makes it a winner in 2020 for Republicans.

All of which is bringing out the long knives of the Democrat Left.

First came the press conferences with the most sympathetic representatives opposing a ban on sanctuary cities — young adults who were brought illegally as young children and are now allowed to stay here legally through DACA…but their parents are not. These people tell the stories of how hard it was growing up and not being able to travel freely or do some of the other things that legal American children could do because their families were not supposed to be here — although they are allowed to do all those things now. (Speakers included Florida State University students, so not suffering too badly.) Gratitude is not usually much a part of these dog-and-pony shows.

Second, the slime machine known as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which is slowly but steadily being discredited even in parts of the media, is still used by too many gullible or biased reporters as a legitimate source. And so the SPLC launched an attack on the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Gruters, by trying to tie him to what they describe as a hate group — the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR.

Here’s how Zac Anderson, the political reporter for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune put it, acting as a gullible tool for the SPLC as he has in the past against Republicans:

“Several people associated with the Federation for American Immigration Reform — an organization branded by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a “hate group” — provided input to Sarasota state Sen. Joe Gruters and his staff as they worked to advance so-called “sanctuary city” immigration enforcement legislation.

An email obtained by the Herald-Tribune shows that David Jaroslav, the state and local legislative manager for FAIR, worked with Floridians for Immigration Enforcement to offer advice for Gruters’ staff on how to the defend the sanctuary bill against critics. Jaroslav emailed comments to Floridians for Immigration Enforcement President Kenneth Morrow Jr., who passed the comments on to Gruters’ staff.”

Notice the tenuousness of the connections. A person or people connected to FAIR (not a hate group) sent Gruter’s staff emails on how to defend against critics. But here’s the headline: “Members of alleged hate group linked to Sarasota legislator’s immigration bill.” Well that sounds a whole lot worse than was actually backed up in the article, which itself is a sham because it rests on the SPLC’s increasingly discredited hate list.

Of course, the branding of FAIR as a hate group when their policies are not hateful and their web site is very specifically opposed to any form of discrimination, is absurd. The SPLC takes two or three comments of the founder from 25-40 years ago, without context, and labels the group hateful to this day — exactly like they would never do with the far more extensive hateful and blatantly racist writings of, say, the founder of Planned Parenthood.

There continues to be this symbiotic relationship between the SPLC and willing dupes in the media. The SPLC has used both the Trump presidency to promote the misinformation that hate crimes are on the rise, and also success in media coverage hammering conservatives, as leverage for record amounts of fundraising — doubling funding since 2015. This, even while Politico, the Atlantic and others are increasingly questioning the SPLC’s legitimacy.

The bill’s definition of sanctuary cities is important. The primary reason there are officially no sanctuary cities or counties in Florida is because there is no agreed upon definition of what constitutes a sanctuary policy. But there are some communities who do not particularly cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials when the agency issues an immigration detainer asking police to hold someone who is suspected of being in the country illegally, along with other cooperative issues.

Expect more dirt and media complicity in the fight for the rule of law, and of order, in Florida — reflecting the rest of the country. And the front line of that fight is sanctuary cities.

RELATED ARTICLE: Poll: 67% Of Likely Voters Say Illegal Immigration Is A Serious Problem, Most Believe Democrats Don’t Want To Stop It 

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission.