It appears that Emmanuel Macron has morphed into Hillary Clinton. Both are establishment candidates who want to protect the status quo of the establishment. Both are darlings of the media. Both are/were ahead in national polls before their respective presidential elections by double digits. Both have the unfettered support of the globalists. One lost, we shall see on Sunday how Macron fares.
Both Macron and Hillary use rhetoric that is based in the hateful Antifa movement we are seeing in the United States. It’s mantra: Resist!
Macron now has his own ‘Deplorables’ moment. Breitbart’s Raheem Kassam reports:
In a moment resembling Hillary Clinton’s infamous “deplorables” comment, Mr. Macron — who currently leads Front National leader Marine Le Pen in the polls — took to the stage at a 10,000-strong rally in Paris to dub Front National the “anti-France party”, branding their supporters “fearmongerers” and “extreme”.
“They’re here. It’s they. It’s they who are our true enemies,” declared Mr. Macron.
“Powerful, organized, skillful, determined,” he said: “You pass them in the streets, in the countryside or on the web, most often well hidden. As hateful as they are cowardly. You know them. The party of the agents of the disaster, the fearmongerers. The French far-right. It’s here”.
The French Presidential favourite was joined on stage by the country’s Energy and Environment Minister Segolene Royal, when he called for “spirit of resistance” — a word often employed by hard-left “antifa” activists and Democrats insistent upon derailing the President Trump administration in the United States.
In September 2016, then-Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton sneered at Republican supporters, calling them a “basket of deplorables”, branding them “racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic”.
“They use anger, they propagate lies. For decades they have fanned hatred, fomented divisions, imposed their discourse of discrimination,” Mr. Macron continued.
The former banker has long been known as the establishment’s candidate in France’s election, being preferred amongst the European Commission, and receiving the support of major figures across the entrenched political classes such as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former U.S. President Barack Obama.
Ms. Bridgette Bardot said this of Ms. Le Pen:
“I am very patriotic. I was raised by a father and a grandfather who fought for France and instilled in me a love of my homeland. I am not proud of what France is today… I’m not a ‘facho’ [fascist], any more than Marine Le Pen is. Marine Le Pen has the will to take France in hand, to restore borders and give priority to the French.”
Sunday, May 7th, 2017 will mark the path for France. Stay on the same globalist/one world order path with Macron or making France great again with Le Pen. Choose wisely!
“We have certainly made it a lot harder for them to operate in this space.”
Facebook and Twitter are ruthlessly clamping down on foes of jihad terror — referrals to Jihad Watch from Facebook and Twitter went down 90% on February 11 and have never rebounded — as well as upon jihadis. This is another attempt to appease Muslims and avoid appearing “Islamophobic,” by reinforcing a false moral equivalence, perpetuating the libelous and ridiculous claim that “Islamophobes” are the non-Muslim equivalent of jihad terrorists.
Maybe foes of jihad terror will have to set up secret spaces on the dark web.
“DARK WEB ISIS ‘is building its own secret social media platform to rival Facebook where fanatics can recruit new jihadis and share vile beheading videos,” by Tom Michael, The Sun, May 4, 2017:
ISIS is developing its own social media platform to rival Facebook where fanatics will be free to recruit others and share extremist material, according to the EU’s top cop.
Europol Director Rob Wainwright said the new online platform had been uncovered during a 48-hour operation targeting internet extremism last week.
More than 2,000 extremist items were identified on 52 social media platforms during the crackdown, which involved officials from the US, Belgium, Greece, Poland, and Portugal.
Speaking at a security conference in London, Wainwright said: “Within that operation it was revealed ISIS was now developing its very own social media platform – its own part of the internet to run its agenda.
“It does show that some members of Daesh (ISIS), at least, continue to innovate in this space.”
Jihadis have often relied on mainstream social media platforms to communicate and to spread propaganda.
Messaging app Telegram has proved especially popular over the past year, with terror chiefs using it to urge lone wolf attacks in the weeks leading up to Khalid Masood’s Westminster rampage.
It has also been used to share instructional videos on how to make suicide belts, along with “idiot’s guides” to other attack methods in the past.
But technology firms like Facebook and Google have come under increasing pressure to do more to tackle extremist material online, prompting the fanatics to explore other options.
Wainwright said ISIS’s decision to try and create its own social media platform was a response to combined pressure from intelligence agencies, police forces and the tech sector.
He said: “We have certainly made it a lot harder for them to operate in this space….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/isis-social-media-638x425-e1493981220888.png382638Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2017-05-05 06:47:202017-05-05 07:35:32Fitnabook: Islamic State builds social media platform to rival Facebook
Researchers examined three national surveys spanning 20 years to determine whether illicit marijuana use and disorders increased among adults in states that passed medical marijuana laws compared to states that did not. They found that between 1991 and 2012, an additional 1.1 million adult illicit marijuana users and an additional 500,000 adults with a DSM-IV-diagnosed marijuana use disorder may be attributable to the passage of medical marijuana laws. This represents a serious public health problem, they say.
The 1991-1992 survey found that use was 69 percent higher and disorders were 80 percent higher among California adults compared to other states. California was the first state to legalize pot for medical use in 1996. It showed no increase in use or disorders, likely because these numbers were so high already. In the other early medical marijuana states, however, the laws contributed to higher rates of use and disorders while these measures were declining nationwide. During the later period (2001-2002 to 2012-2013) when more states passed medical marijuana laws, “illicit use increased significantly more in these states than in non-medical marijuana states.
The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, was accompanied by an editorial which noted that psychiatrists need to understand the impact of marijuana laws for several reasons. 1) People “with mental illness are more likely to use marijuana, and both acute intoxication and chronic use can exacerbate psychiatric symptoms.” 2) Early marijuana use is associated with onset of psychosis and risk for suicide. 3) Marijuana use can interfere with the treatment of mental disorders.
Read Reuters story here. Read JAMA Psychiatry Study here. Read JAMA Psychiatry Editorial here.
Drugged Driving Now Kills More Drivers than Drunk Driving
For the first time, in 2015 (the latest year data is available) more drivers killed in auto crashes tested positive for drugs than alcohol, according to an updated report from the Governors’ Highway Safety Association and the Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility. The former is a nonprofit association representing the highway safety offices of the states, DC, US territories, and Puerto Rico. The latter is a nonprofit leading the fight to eliminate drunk driving and underage drinking and is financed by many alcohol distillers.
Drugs were present in 43 percent of fatally injured drivers with known test results, appearing more frequently than alcohol. Of the 57 percent of fatalities tested, 35.6 percent were positive for marijuana.
Read press release here, where the report can also be downloaded.
Colorado: 56 Contaminated Pot Recalls in a Year and a Half and Counting …
Colorado legalized marijuana for medical use in 2000, for commercial production, processing, distribution, and sales via dispensaries in 2009, and for recreational use in 2012. The state did not require recreational pot to be tested for contaminants until 2014
. . . or marijuana for medical use until 2016.
On September 8, 2015, the City of Denver issued the first recall of contaminated products. Since then, 55 more recalls have taken place despite laws cracking down on the use of pesticides and requiring testing for marijuana potency and the presence of other contaminants.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/pot-users.png398605National Families in Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNational Families in Action2017-05-04 05:05:462017-05-04 05:09:10Medical Pot Laws = 1.1 Million New Adult Users
Rare look inside the Culwell Center located in Garland, Texas terrorist attack on May 4th, 2015 by two Al Khilafa soldiers of ISIS as it unfolded:
The United West team thanks the Garland Police Department and Garland Police SWAT Unit for keeping all the attendees safe during this terrorist event.
The two Muslim Jihadi shooters were wearing body armor, they were armed with 100 round drum fed fully automatic AK-47’s, and had grenades they did not have time to detonate. There mission, luckily for us, failed but imagine for a brief moment what would could have happened if these to Muslim Jihadis picked a softer location like a mall, restaurant, or hospital.
Interestingly there was not one single pro Islamist protester at the event. Conversely, at the Stand with the Prophet event in January close to 250 Muslim protesters and their sympathizers were protesting against the 2000+ patriots who were protesting the Muslim event being held at the Culwell Center.
Geert Wilders, who was there, speaks just after the Garland, Texas attack.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/isis-garland.jpg370640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-05-03 09:26:262017-05-03 09:26:26VIDEO: Remembering the first ISIS attack in the U.S. on May 4th, 2015
Last night I appeared at the University of Buffalo at the invitation of the courageous students of Young Americans for Freedom, who have to put up with this Left-fascist thuggery on a daily basis, while I left Buffalo this morning. I say I “appeared,” because to say “I spoke” would be exaggerating a bit. Rather, I started a few sentences, made a couple of points, in between being screamed at by Leftist and Islamic supremacist fascists who think they’re opposing fascism.
The Spectrum article below is not that bad a report from the campus newspaper, showing the Left-fascist opposition to the freedom of speech, with a few exceptions: I am not a “self-proclaimed expert on radical Islam,” as I have never proclaimed myself an expert on anything, and my work stands or falls on the basis of the evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah, history and current events. Nor do I ever speak about “radical Islam,” which is a Western construct that does not exist in the Islamic world. And I didn’t call the fascists “uninformed fascists”; although they are indeed uninformed and think they know a great deal more than they actually do, I didn’t use that word. Finally, the reporters Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley wrote that I was “unphased” by the screaming fascists, when I was actually “unfazed.”
That said, I am grateful to Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley for a generally accurate report. Note the claims of victimhood trotted out yet again by the Muslims quoted in the article. They have hoodwinked the University of Buffalo Left-fascists into thinking that it’s “Islamophobes,” rather than jihad terrorists, who are killing people around the world. And that is one thing I said last night, although it is doubtful that the fascists heard it: the guy holding the sign “Queers Against Islamophobia” and any feminists in the audience have no idea what they’re enabling. By shutting down any discussion of the motivating ideology of the jihad threat and consigning it all to the realm of “hatred” and “bigotry,” they are only enabling that threat to grow, and one day, they may very well experience the consequences of their actions firsthand.
Meanwhile, UPD Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle “wished more university staff were present at the event to contain the disruptive crowd of students who were unable to get in.” This is disingenuous in the extreme. There were hordes of disruptive students who got in with no problem. What’s more, Schoenle overruled a plan that his subordinates had agreed to with my security team, that hecklers and screamers would be asked to be quiet and then escorted out. Schoenle actively aided and abetted the Left-fascist destruction of the event. Write him, courteously and politely, and remind him of the importance of the freedom of speech as the foundation of any free society, and the dangers of aiding and abetting Left-fascist thuggery for the future of any free society, at gws3@buffalo.edu. Also Tom Tiberi from Campus Life should was supposedly there to assist in making the event successful, but just stood by and did nothing while the Left-fascists screamed their abuse. He’s at tiberi@buffalo.edu. Remember: all messages to Schoenle and Tiberi should be polite, respectful, and courteous, sticking to the facts and calling them out for their malfeasance and allowance of Left-fascist thuggery.
Below the student paper article is the article from the Buffalo News, which is worthwhile only for capturing one thing I said: “The attempt to silence someone who has a differing viewpoint was a ‘quintessentially fascist act, and you are manifesting it in a wonderful way tonight,’ said Spencer.” There is also this: “Spencer frequently discusses terrorism by Muslims as being religiously motivated, an argument that has put him in the cross-hairs of American Muslims who say his interpretation of Islam is dangerously inaccurate and perverts their faith.”
Those American Muslims have a big problem on their hands, because in reality, I have no interpretation of Islam at all, but only report on how Muslims interpret it, which all too often involves justifications of and exhortations to violence. They are avid to silence me because they don’t want Americans to know how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify hatred, violence, and supremacism.
And so the University of Buffalo Left-fascists abundantly signaled their virtue by screaming at me for an hour and a half. What have they accomplished by doing so? Will the jihad threat thereby go away? Alas, no.
“A campus divided: Robert Spencer’s visit met with chaos and opposition from UB community,” by Ashley Inkumsah and Sarah Crowley, The Spectrum (University of Buffalo), May 2, 2017:
Students and faculty piled into Knox 109 to both hear Robert Spencer’s speech and protest his appearance.
Robert Spencer couldn’t speak for more than 30 seconds without students shouting and cursing at him on Monday night.
Spencer planned to speak to students about “the dangers of jihad in today’s world” but constant heckling from the crowd made it near impossible for him to complete a full sentence. Spencer, a self-proclaimed expert on radical Islam, runs a website called Jihad Watch.
Students called Spencer things like a “Nazi, “Trump Jr.” and a “pseudo-intellectual,” and most of his hour-long speech was inaudible. Spencer seemed unphased [sic] as students shouted over him and he responded, calling the crowd “uninformed fascists.”
Students who were anti-Spencer and pro-Spencer attended the event. In the end, many students left feeling little had been accomplished for either side.
“I think what ends up happening in debates like this where there’s different people who feel very strongly about different things, instead of seeing the other side’s perspective is they strengthen their own perspective,” said Fiza Ali, senior finance major.
Hundreds of students and faculty were unable to get into Knox 109, which only fits 200 people. University Police said the room reached its full capacity and letting more people in would be a fire hazard.
Students banged on the door chanting “let us in” as UPD struggled to contain the rowdy students. The officers were flustered and visibly unprepared for the unruly crowd. Two officers searched their phones to find laws to cite to students about why they couldn’t get in.
But many people weren’t surprised with this outcome.
When Spencer’s visit was announced it immediately caused a firestorm across the university and posed questions about the implications of free speech.
Although Student Association did not pay for Spencer to speak, thousands of students and faculty petitioned for SA to remove its logo from flyers about Spencer’s visit and many demanded his visit be canceled all together. Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) invited Spencer for the club’s first official event.
Despite the outcries of discontent from the UB community, Spencer still spoke. He entered Knox 109 to a swarm of boos and middle fingers from the crowd.
Spencer held a thumbs up with a grin on his face and took his phone out to record people booing him.
“I was invited to speak whether you like that or not,” Spencer said.
When Spencer agreed to debate anyone, he was met with a roaring applause.
Students asked him a wide range of questions, such as, what the central tenets of Islam were, what measures the military should take to defend against terrorism and if white men contributed to U.S. terrorism.
Midway through every answer, someone interrupted.
YAF Chairwoman Lynn Sementilli repeatedly asked students to quiet down as they interrupted Spencer while he tried to answer questions.
Before Spencer’s speech, Muslim Student Association held a peaceful sit-in as students gathered on the ground floor of Knox Hall. Roughly 80 students and faculty members showed solidarity for Muslims while some prayed.
“This is our narrative, our voice being stripped from us, and we demand to take it back,” said MSA President Samiha Islam. “Spencer and his followers have never been impacted by Islamophobia, we have. More Muslims have been harmed and killed by ISIS than any other group in the world. We vociferously denounce terrorism at every junction, hundreds of times publicly and privately and declare this is not what Islam represents.”
Kadija Mohammed, a sophomore undecided major, said she was disappointed that the university allowed Spencer to speak.
“I was shocked that there weren’t any moves by the school to stop him from coming, considering he’s banned from the U.K., like you have to be pretty bad to be banned from the U.K., if the queen doesn’t want to see your face, that’s a bad day,” Mohammed said.
Spencer spent a large portion of his speech reading from the Quran.
He read a part of Quran about gays and lesbians that referred to them as “adulterers,” and the crowd erupted in boos and cursed at him.
Sementilli said she expected the crowd to ask “tough questions,” but didn’t expect the crowd to impede on the dialogue.
“They are responsible for their own actions obviously we can’t control what anybody does,” she said. “It would have been nice if they would’ve been more respectful to the speaker and participated in a more productive dialogue.”
Both Luciana Sena, a senior legal studies major and Jared Armitage, a junior political science major, feel conservative perspectives aren’t heard on campus.
“It’s kind of an ongoing discussion here with the more conservative or Republican groups on campus that our free speech is often suppressed and I think that we saw that here today by not allowing one side of the discussion to speak,” Sena said.
UPD Chief of Police Gerald Schoenle wished more university staff were present at the event to contain the disruptive crowd of students who were unable to get in. He said the university will try to hold future potentially chaotic events in bigger venues like the Student Union Theater or Alumni Arena.
“Overall, well nobody got hurt, the points were heard on both sides so from that perspective so from that point of view it went OK,” Schoenle said.
“Controversial speaker at UB shouted down, heckled,” by Jay Tokasz, Buffalo News, May 1, 2017:
It wasn’t Berkeley or Middlebury, by any stretch.
But controversial speaker Robert Spencer was repeatedly shouted down and heckled at the podium Monday inside a University at Buffalo lecture room, as he tried to give a talk on “Exposing Radical Islam: The Dangers of Jihad in Today’s World.”
Two hundred people, most of them clearly opposed to Spencer’s point of view on Islam, sat in on the talk, while another 100 or more people were kept outside the room by university police due to fire code limits inside.
University officials and police had been on alert for the potential for significant demonstrations, in light of recent havoc at other campuses across the country over conservative-leaning speakers like Spencer, an author whose books on terrorism have been widely criticized by Islamic groups as anti-Muslim.
Spencer used a microphone during his talk but was frequently drowned out by shouts and chants to let more students inside. Some students called him a Nazi, while others yelled for him to shut up.
Spencer at times pulled out his cellphone to record the boisterous crowd. The attempt to silence someone who has a differing viewpoint was a “quintessentially fascist act, and you are manifesting it in a wonderful way tonight,” said Spencer. “What you have in this room besides the manifestation of fascism is a very interesting phenomenon in that I would doubt that any one of you has read a single thing I’ve written.”
Students began showing up to demonstrate against Spencer nearly two hours before his talk.
Tension had been building on campus since the conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom announced Spencer’s visit in April.
One of the aims of the group, which has had a chapter at UB since February, is to bring conservative-minded speakers to campus.
Within days, graduate student Alexandra Prince circulated a petition condemning Spencer as a “notorious Islamophobe and hate monger” and urging that student fees not be used to give him a platform on campus for hate speech.
Spencer frequently discusses terrorism by Muslims as being religiously motivated, an argument that has put him in the cross-hairs of American Muslims who say his interpretation of Islam is dangerously inaccurate and perverts their faith.
Spencer is part of a speaker’s bureau organized by the national Young Americans for Freedom Foundation, and he frequently talks on college campuses at the invitation of local YAF chapters….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/University-of-Buffalo-logo-e1493806056740.jpg349640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2017-05-03 06:08:352017-05-03 06:10:24Left-fascists at University of Buffalo shut down discussion of Radical Islamic threats
What will promote human life? What will promote human flourishing — realizing the full potential of life? How do we maximize the years in our life and the life in our years? Answer: cheap and reliable power.
Organic Fossil Fuels are the Lifeblood of Civilization!
Florida’s Governor, Congressional delegation and state legislature must make it their number 1 priority to make the Sunshine State Energy Independent by 2020 or sooner!
Florida:
Imports all of its natural gas and 99.9 % of its oil.
Imports all of its refined petroleum based products (e.g. gasoline).
Is the second largest user of natural gas, Texas being the largest.
Geologists believe there may be large oil and natural gas deposits in the federal Outer Continental Shelf off of Florida’s western coast.
Florida was second only to Texas in 2014 in net electricity generation from natural gas, which accounted for 61% of Florida’s net generation; coal accounted for almost 23%, the state’s nuclear power plants accounted for 12%, and other resources, including renewable energy, supplied the remaining electricity generation.
Renewable energy accounted for 2.3% of Florida’s total net electricity generation in 2014, and the state ranked 10th in the nation in net generation from utility-scale solar energy.
In part because of high air conditioning use during the hot summer months and the widespread use of electricity for home heating during the winter months, Florida’s retail electricity sales to the residential sector were second in the nation after Texas in 2014.
Electricity accounts for 90% of the site energy consumed by Florida households, and the annual electricity expenditures of $1,900 are 40% higher than the U.S. average, according to EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey.
Even as human populations have grown dramatically and increased their use of fossil fuels, the world has become a much better place.
As CO2 emissions have risen so too have the GDP per person, life expectancy and the population.
Florida politicians are addicted to the precautionary principle (“better safe than sorry”). It is a maxim embraced by government planners and regulators in the Sunshine state at every level. They do not even want to determine what organic fossil fuels lay off of Florida’s coastlines. The precautionary principle worked to stop the building of nuclear power plants in the United States after the 3 Mile Island incident. Today the same tactic is being used to stop off shore drilling using the Deepwater Horizon incident.
Off shore drilling naysayers use the example of the Deepwater Horizon spill to strike fear into the hearts of Floridians. But as FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” An example of using the fear factor (precautionary principle) is what happened in Japan following the meltdown of a nuclear power plan in Fukushima. The facts are that no one has died from radiation, nor has cancer increased however, 1,600 did die of stress due to the unnecessary evacuation of people from the area.
Fear kills.
What off shore naysayers, fear mongers, don’t tell you is that mother nature is the greatest polluter in the Gulf of Mexico. According to NOAA over 2,500 barrels of oil naturally seeps daily from fissures in the Gulf. This seeping has been going on for tens of thousands of years, yet the Gulf is doing just fine. Would it not be better to capture this oil, and natural gas, than have it continue to seep into the Gulf?
Some argue that even if natural gas is discovered in Florida’s waters that building an on shore natural gas processing plant is not economically feasible or politically doable. There is an answer to this negative with a positive via new technology. Israel is faced with the same concerns about onshore natural gas processing plants. To solve the problem Nobel Energy and Shell Oil have come up with a solution. Process the natural gas using floating plants. According to Robert Sullivan of the New York Times:
It’s called Prelude, and it’s bigger than big. More than 530 yards long and 80 yards wide, it was constructed with 260,000 metric tons of steel, more than was used in the entire original World Trade Center complex, and it’s expected to displace 600,000 metric tons of water, or as much as six aircraft carriers. Even the paint job is huge: Most big vessels dry-dock every five years for a new coat, but Prelude’s paint is supposed to last 25 years. It will produce more natural gas than Hong Kong needs in a year. And it’s so big that you can’t really photograph it, at least not all at once.
[ … ]
What makes this giant liquefied-natural-gas enterprise feasible, paradoxically enough, is the miniaturization its construction represents. It’s much smaller than landlocked equivalents — imagine shrinking your local refinery until it fits on a barge. Shell Oil, which has the biggest stake in the project, describes Prelude as more environmentally friendly than an onshore site. There are no estuaries under threat, no shorelines to run pipe across and reduced risks to population centers, given the explosiveness of natural gas. And it is designed to ride out extreme weather, thanks to three giant 6,700-horsepower thrusters that can turn it into the wind and waves. “These are the things that the naval architects had to worry through,” says Robert Bea, co-founder of the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, at the University of California, Berkeley. “It works like a big-ass weather vane.”
Environmentalists use the fear factor when talking about drilling for natural gas and oil off of Florida’s shores. The same is true for some of Florida’s Congressional delegation, such as Rep. Vern Buchanan. Fear is not good public policy.
What is good public policy is insuring that Floridians have access to cheap and reliable power in the foreseeable future. Now it the time to take action. Waiting is not an option.
If Governor Rick Scott and Republicans are committed to creating jobs, then they must diversify the economy by promoting energy independence. Energy independence will lead to reduced costs for electricity, gasoline and diversify the economy. That is good public policy.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/drilling-sunset-e1493685438348.jpg384640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-05-01 20:37:292017-05-03 05:59:44Florida must become energy independent by 2020
On April 26, 2017 ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) posted a self-explanatory news release, “DHS announces launch of new office for victims of illegal immigrant crime, Office built with input from victims impacted by crime” that is illustrative of President Trump’s pro-American mindset and commitment to keeping his immigration campaign promises.
This long overdue approach to immigration stands in stark contrast to the Obama administration that sought to portray illegal aliens, including such aliens who committed serious and often heinous crimes, of being the “victims” while blithely ignoring the true victims, those who either fall victim to the violence of criminal aliens or are members of the families of such victims.
This bogus and morally bankrupt perspective is still a fundamental element of the policies of the leaders of the Democratic Party and is behind the creation of “Sanctuary Cities” whose mayors should be given an MVP Award by ISIS and drug cartels.
America’s immigration laws were enacted to protect national security, public safety, public health and the lives and livelihoods of Americans.
A review of a section of law comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S. Code § 1182 – Inadmissible aliens provides clear and unequivocal evidence of how reasonable and vital our immigration laws are to America and Americans.
Therefore it is hard to imagine who could be opposed to the effective and fair enforcement of such fundamental laws. However, for decades, the enforcement and administration of our immigration laws, under a succession of administrations from both political parties, put the desires of aliens, special interest groups and corporations ahead of Americans.
Consequently, huge numbers of Americans have lost their lives and livelihoods as a direct result of what I have come to refer to as Immigration Failures – By Design.
The artful use of Orwellian language by politicians, pollsters and pundits and the steady drumbeat of propaganda by the mainstream media has, over the past several decades, obfuscated the important distinction between lawful immigrants and illegal aliens.
Proponents of effective immigration law enforcement have come to be vilified as being xenophobes, racists and haters.
Journalists routinely castigate immigration law enforcement proponents by branding them “Anti-Immigrant” while immigration anarchists are glowingly praised as being “Pro-Immigrant.”
Americans have been told that the “immigrants” (illegal aliens) are willing to do the physically demanding work Americans are too lazy to do while America must important foreign workers to do the high-tech jobs Americans are too dumb to do.
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy he made it clear that if elected he would end the immigration madness.
Yet, since his election, President Trump’s immigration policies have been opposed by the leadership of the Democratic Party and even from some members of the Republican Party.
The manifestation of that resistance includes lawsuits and withholding of funds for the construction of the border wall and the hiring of more immigration enforcement personnel.
Nevertheless he continues to try to keep his promises that the enforcement and administration of our immigration laws would prioritize the needs and interests of Americans over aliens and the various globalist corporations and special interest groups who oppose border security and effective immigration law enforcement- no matter the costs to America and Americans.
Two of the witnesses who testified at that hearing, were Michelle Root and Laura Wilkerson, the mothers of two children who were killed by illegal aliens.
CNS reported on Laura Wilkerson’s testimony in which she provided horrific details about the torture and murder of her high school student son by Hermilo Vildo Moralez, an illegal alien whom he had befriended.
Now the Trump administration is attempting to do precisely what Laura Wilkerson so passionately implored Congress to do.
The administration’s multi-pronged strategy would include the construction of a wall along the U.S. / Mexican border and adding more Border Patrol agents to combat the flood of illegal aliens and narcotics into the United States and by enforcing the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.
For many decades the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States, constituting the third leg of what I have come to refer to as the “Immigration Law Enforcement Tripod” has been all but missing.
This deficiency is being addressed by President Trump and by Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
President Trump is seeking the funds to triple the number of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) enforcement personnel and expand the number of immigration judges to help clear the backlog of deportation (removal) cases. His policies also include ending the lunacy of declaring categories of illegal aliens to be “protected” from removal as was done by the Obama administration.
In April 2015 the United States Sentencing Commission published an Analysis of Illegal Reentry Offenses that reported that in FY 2013 illegal reentry prosecutions accounted for 26% of all federal prosecutions, noting 18,498 such prosecutions were conducted and involved aliens with serious criminal histories as well as aliens who had no prior convictions.
However, the fact that the U.S. Sentencing Commission analysis reported that most of the aliens who were prosecuted for unlawful reentry were apprehended at or near the border illustrates the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.
This provides evidence that resources for interior enforcement must be greatly increased.
The leadership of the Democratic Party, however, is adamant about not funding the border wall and has resisted efforts to hire an adequate number of ICE agents. Further complicating this issue is the fact that there are Republicans who are also opposed to some of these essential measures.
It would be difficult to find a better (worse?) example of politicians playing politics with innocent lives and national security.
On a personal level, the actions and statements by Attorney General Session are extremely gratifying for me. In the early 1980’s I approached then New York Senator Al D’Amato with the proposal that the reentry laws be modified to make unlawful reentry by criminal aliens a crime that would carry a maximum penalty of 20 years. At the time the reentry laws made no distinction about whether an alien had been convicted of any crimes and the maximum penalty for unlawful reentry was two years in prison.
Senator D’Amato and his staff worked with me, met with a number of my colleagues I introduced to him and his staffers.
We convinced him to draft the legislation and, in an example of serendipity, the chief of investigations for the INS in New York City, Walter Connery, wrote a legislative initiative to enact such legislation and sent it to Senator D’Amato shortly after we had concluded our meetings with the Senator and his staff.
However, we did not know about Walter’s efforts and he knew nothing of our efforts until I mentioned it to him casually during a meeting.
Walter was the former head of Internal Affairs for the NYPD and became the director of the equivalent bureau at INS Headquarters (Office of Professional Responsibility) before he was assigned to head up the Investigations Branch in New York City. It certainly did not hurt that he was also an attorney.
Senator D’Amato was, ultimately, instrumental in drafting the legislation and getting it enacted.
The Senator also met with President Reagan to implement a program that would come to be known as the “Institutional Hearing Program” I suggested be created. Under this program deportation hearings would be conducted inside prisons for aliens who had been convicted of committing serious crimes. This would enable their deportations to be finalized before they were released from custody.
This way they could, immediately upon completion of their jail sentences, be deported from the United States.
That program has been extremely successful but needs more funding.
Solutions to “fix” the immigration system are not that difficult to devise. All it requires is a sincere desire to actually enforce our immigration laws and imbue the immigration system with real integrity.
Too many of our political “leaders” lack that sincere desire.
This problem also has a simple solution. Any politician, on any level of government, who is not willing to act in the best interests of America and his/her constituents, must come to understand that elections have consequences – for them.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-signing-eo-e1493629692815.jpg360640Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2017-05-01 05:08:482017-05-02 06:22:24Promise Kept: President Trump Assists the Victims of Criminal Illegal Aliens
President Trump has a busy schedule this week. On Friday, he becomes the first sitting president since Ronald Reagan in 1983 to address the members of the National Rifle Association during our Annual Meeting and Exhibits in Atlanta, GA. The next day he will hold a rally at the PA Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg to mark the 100th day of his presidency.
One event he will not be attending is the 103rd Annual White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) Dinner in Washington, D.C. Here, too, he shares a parallel with Ronald Reagan, who was the last president to skip the event in 1981 (albeit because he was still recovering from a recent assassination attempt). Before Reagan, both Presidents Jimmy Carter (1978 and 1980) and Richard Nixon (1972 and 1974) skipped the dinner of their own volition.
The mainstream media have made no secret of their opposition to President Trump. Articles have openly questioned the “legitimacy” of his presidency, and some within the media have even admitted they do not believe ordinary journalistic ethics or practices apply to him. As a writer for the New York Times acknowledged during the election: “[L]et’s face it: Balance has been on vacation since Mr. Trump stepped onto his golden Trump Tower escalator last year to announce his candidacy.”
Meanwhile, the American people who voted the president into office have made no secret of their disgust with the media. During the election, an annual Gallup poll showed Americans’ trust and confidence in the mass media “to report the news fully, accurately and fairly” dropped to its lowest level since the organization first began asking the question in 1972. Nearly 70% of the poll’s respondents found the media untrustworthy.
It cannot be said often or emphatically enough: the media elite just don’t get it. First, they blew the biggest political story of the 21st Century by failing to recognize the momentum of Trump’s presidential campaign. Then – rather than recognize and begin addressing their own colossal professional failure – they simply re-dedicated themselves to opposing his presidency. Even Poltico recently acknowledged that Trump’s election was “not just as an embarrassment for the press but … an indictment” and made clear “the national media just doesn’t get the nation it purportedly covers.”
The press’ reaction to Trump’s decision to skip the WHCA Dinner reinforces this negative view. Criticizing Trump for reaching out to the ordinary Americans who elected him, rather than the press figures who despise him, a former WHCA board member made clear in statements to The Hill that reporters really do continue to believe it’s all about themselves.
“I feel bad, because a lot of White House reporters are going to have to go and cover [Trump’s Pennsylvania rally] and not come to our own dinner,” she said. “It’s one thing for him to stay home, and that was fine. And he can just tweet about us and be mean, and that would be kind of funny, and it would feel right. But for him to stage a competing event — we just can’t even have our dinner? We just can’t even do that?”
This is a remarkable admission. They have to go to work “out there” in America, rather than gather in the Washington, D.C. Hilton with their like-minded colleagues and a bevy of like-minded Hollywood celebrities for a night of self-congratulation and mutual regard.
And as The Hill article noted, even for those who will attend, it won’t be like the good old days when Barack Obama was president and the real Tinseltown A-Listers flocked to bask in his presence. “That really mushroomed during the Obama years,” the WHCA board member told The Hill, “because celebrities love Democrats and big party-givers love celebrities.”
Most Americans probably have better things to do than to give the WHCA Dinner much thought at all. And the press can at least look forward to the public re-emergence of Barack Obama, who a USA Today writer called “the ultimate media President” because he “made the media feel good.”
Obama reappeared on Monday to give a speech to a friendly crowd at the University of Chicago, where he used to teach in the law school.
The news also broke this week that Obama will follow in the footsteps of Hillary Clinton by accepting $400,000 to address a gathering of Wall Street investment bankers. In a shocking display of pay inequity, however, his fee will be nearly twice what Clinton charged private businesses for similar events. This follows on last month’s announcement that the former president and first lady landed a $65 million book deal – the largest ever – for the publication of their presidential memoirs.
Of course, it’s natural for people to gather with their friends and supporters. For Trump, that means the hardworking Americans who do the necessary but mostly unglamorous work of growing, building, moving, and fixing things the country relies on for our daily lives. For the media, it means each other. And for Barack Obama, it lately means “young people” and rich bankers at whom he sometimes wags his finger but from whom he always gladly accepts large sums of money.
Here at the NRA, we look forward to seeing the president in Atlanta.
As for the surly press corps that will begrudgingly covering the events while their colleagues feast in the Nation’s Capitol, consider it an opportunity to visit that part of America that you should at least know exists, even if you remain determined to misunderstand it.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-oval-office-1-e1493508702647.jpg356640NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2017-04-29 19:31:532017-04-29 19:31:53Press Basks in Self-Pity as President Skips Media Event to Engage with America
Donald Trump’s tax plan seems to mark a new chapter in his presidency, from floundering around with strange and sometimes scary policies (bombings, border closings, saber rattling) to focusing on what actually matters and what can actually make the difference for the American people and the American economy.
Under Trump’s plan, taxes on corporate profits go from 35% to 15%. They should be zero (like the Bahamas), but this is a good start. Taxes on capital gains go from 23.8% to 20%. Again, it should be zero (as with New Zealand), but it is a start. Rates for all individuals are lowered to three: 10%, 25%, and 35%. The standard deduction for individuals is doubled (politically brilliant). The estate tax and the alternative minimum tax is gone. Popular deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest are preserved. The hare-brained idea of a “border adjustment tax” is toast.
All of this is wonderful, but the shining light of this plan is the dramatic reduction in taxes on corporate profits. The economics of this are based on a simple but profoundly true insight. Economic growth is the key to a good society. This is where good jobs come from. This is how technology improves. This is what gives everyone a brighter outlook on life. If you can imagine that your tomorrow will be more prosperous and flourishing than today, your life seems to be on track.
Tax Capital, Wreck Prosperity
Where does economic growth come from? For decades dating back perhaps a hundred-plus years, people imagined that it could come from government programs and policy manipulation. Surely there are some levers somewhere in the center of power that can cause this thing we call economic growth. We just need solid experts with power, resources, and intelligence to manage the system.
This turns out to be entirely wrong. It hasn’t worked. Since 2008, government has tried to mastermind an economic recovery. It has floundered. We are coming up on a full decade of this nonsense with economic growth barely crawling along. We are surviving, not thriving, and income growth, capital formation, and entrepreneurial opportunity restricted and punished at every turn.
The Trump tax plan is rooted in a much better idea. Economic growth must come from the private sector. It must come from investment in private capital. The owners of this capital who are doing well and earn profits should be allowed to keep them and invest them. This creates new job opportunities. It allows for more complex production strategies. It expands the division of labor.
The crucial institution here is capital. Sorry, anti-capitalists. It’s just true. Capital can be defined as the produced goods for production, not consumption. It is making things for the purpose of making other things. Think about it. Without capital, you can still have markets, creativity, hard work, enterprise. But so long as you have an absence of capital, you are forever floundering around just working to make and sell things for consumption. This is called living hand to mouth.Without capital, and the private ownership of capital, and security over your property rights, you can’t have economic growth. You can’t have complex production. You can’t raise wages. You can’t live a better life. Every tax on capital, capital formation, capital accumulation, and business profit reduces the security of property rights over capital. This is a sure way to attack economic growth at its source.
And this is precisely what American policy has done. The rest of the world has been wising up about this, reducing taxes on capital for the last 15 years. But the US has languished in the mythology of the past, regarding capital not as a font of prosperity but rather a fund of stagnant resources to be pillaged by planners in government. It is not surprising that this strategy results in slow growth and even permanent recession.
What This Can Do for Growth
I have no regression to present to you but this much I can say out of experience and intuition. If this tax plan goes through, the entire class of entrepreneurs, investors, and merchants will receiving a loud signal: this country is safe for you to realize your dreams and make the dreams of others come true.It wouldn’t surprise me to see GDP growth go from an anemic 1-2% to reach 4% and higher in one year. There is so much pent-up energy in this country. This tax cut will unleash it. And think what it means for the next recession or financial crisis. It prepares the entire country to weather such an event better than we otherwise would.
The beauty of unleashing the power of private capital is that the brilliant results will always be surprising. We don’t know what kind of experimentation in investment and business expansion this will create. This is the nature of a capitalist economy rooted in the freedom of enterprise. It defies our every expectation. No model can forecast with precision the range of results here. We only know that good things will come.
Now, of course, the opponents will talk of the deficit and the national debt. What about the lost revenue? The problem is that every revenue forecast is based on a static model. But an economy rooted in capital formation is not a static one. It is entirely possible that new profits and business expansion will produce even more revenue, even if it is taxed at a lower rate.If you want to cut the deficit, there is only one way: cut spending. I see no evidence that either party wants to do this. Too bad. This should change. But it is both economically stupid and morally unsound to attempt to balance the budget on the backs of taxpayers. Letting people keep more of what they earn is the right thing to do, regardless of government’s fiscal problems.
In the meantime, these pious incantations of the word “deficit, deficit, deficit,” should be seen for what they are: excuses to continue to loot people of their just earnings.
The Politics of It
Already the opponents of this plan are kvetching in the predictable way. This is a tax cut for the rich! Well, yes, and that’s good. Rich capitalists – sorry for yet another hard truth – are society’s benefactors.
But you know why this line of attack isn’t going to work this time? Take a look at the standard deduction change. It is doubled. Not a single middle-class taxpayer is unaware of what this means. This is because they are profoundly aware of how the tax system works. If you take the standard deduction from $6,200 to $15,000, that means people are going to keep far more of their own money. There is not a single taxpayer in this country who will not welcome that.
This is why it strikes me as crazy for Democrats to inveigh against this plan. Doing so only cements their reputation as the party of pillage. Do they really want the United States to be outcompeted by every other nation in the OECD? What they should do is rally behind this, forgetting all the ridiculous pieties about the deficit and the rich and so on. Do they favor the interests of the American people are not?It’s also fantastic politics to retain the deductions for charitable giving and mortgage interest. These are popular for a reason. They are two of the only ways that average people can save on their tax bill. It always pained me when the GOP would propose a “flat tax” that eliminated these provisions. People are very aware: taking away an existing tax break is a terrible foreshadowing of bad things to come. So this Trump plan dispenses with all that. Good.
As for compliance costs of the current system, the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax will do worlds of good.
What I love most about this plan is its real-world economic foundation. It embraces a truth that so many want to avoid. If you want jobs, rising wages, and economic growth, you have to stop the war on capital. You have to go the other way. You need to celebrate capital and allow rewards to flow to those who are driving forward economic progress.
It’s a simple but brilliant point. Finally, we’ve got a tax proposal that embraces it.
Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/slash-taxes.jpg360640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2017-04-28 12:30:132017-04-28 12:35:25Trump’s Tax Plan Is Brilliant Politics and Even Better Economics by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Since we are coming up on 100 days I was anxious to see how Trump was doing with his campaign promise to (at least) put a moratorium on the UN/US Refugee Admissions Program for 120 days to review how refugees are vetted and look to assure “extreme vetting” was put in place.
My guess about the flip-flop: His friends in the hotel and food production industries told him they needed this steady supply of low wage refugee laborers whose wages you supplement with welfare payments. Great business model!
Ho hum! Isn’t happening! And, I don’t want to hear of one defender who says he was stymied by judges. He never had to place a refugee slowdown in an Executive Order! The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the President enormous powers.
Here (below) is a screenshot map of where the 12,218 were placed since Inauguration Day up until this morning’s data at Wrapsnet.
This puts the number for the fiscal year, as of today, at 42,235.
Trump also said he was capping the number for the year at 50,000, but at the present rate of admission, he will surpass 60,000 (an average number since 9/11).
Top resettlement countries included:
Burma (1,497) 401 of these are Rohingya Muslims who, like Syrians, cannot be vetted.
DR Congo (1,866) We are well on our way to reach 50,000 we promised the UN we would scatter across America.
Iraq (1,503) Over 122,000 have been admitted since 2009.
Somalia (1,359) We have admitted well over 100,000 over past 20 years, will it ever end?
Syria (1,472) Remember Trump said he would stop them completely, even said he would send some back, ha! ha!
How many Trump refugees did you get?
Alaska got 23 while the diversity-lovers in Hawaii got a big fat zero (again!). LOL! Of course, D.C. got none. And, for new readers wondering about Wyoming, it is the only state in the nation to have never joined the program.
Biggest tests for Trump come in September.
If he throws billions of taxpayer dollars to the refugee industry in the 2018 budget and doesn’t drastically cut refugee admissions for the upcoming year, then we will know for sure that the United Nations/US Refugee Admissions Program will never be reformed.
EndNote: I was just reminded of the story from yesterday about Ivanka Trump’s views on Syrians, here. Sure hope Daddy isn’t listening to Ivanka (again!).
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-refugees-e1478777748666.png353640Ann Corcoranhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAnn Corcoran2017-04-28 05:09:542017-04-28 05:09:54President Trump has admitted 12,218 refugees since Inauguration Day: 1,472 Syrians, 1,359 Somalis
The thrust of the argument here is that to shut down voices that the Leftist establishment considers odious — which includes mine, although I am not mentioned in this article (no, I am not Richard Spencer) — is aiding the oppressed to have a voice that they are usually denied.
This is an argument for Brownshirt thuggery and/or totalitarian control of the public discourse.
Who will be entrusted with the power to determine whether a group is sufficiently oppressed to be allowed to be heard? Whoever will have that power will be able to impose his or her views tyrannically, with all dissent suppressed.
Moreover, the idea that these oppressed groups have no voice as it is, and conservative speakers coming in would further silence and marginalize them, is sheer Leftist fantasy. In reality, the overwhelmingly dominant point of view on university and college campuses today is that of the hard-Left. Jihad is a response to U.S. imperialism, Muslims are always and in every case oppressed victims of racism and “Islamophobia” — try uttering a word of disagreement to those propositions on a university or college campus today, and see what happens. These idea have near-total dominance on campus today. Letting me speak (and I did speak at Truman State University a couple of weeks ago, and have two more university appearances coming up) or others with dissenting points of view is simply allowing a small opposing word to be uttered amid the relentless and never-ending bleat for the other side.
The New York Times, perhaps realizing that it cannot win with its ideas on a level playing field, has now published here a sly apologetic for totalitarian censorship. To its everlasting shame, although I doubt that Ulrich Baer or the Times editors will notice my indictment amid all the applause they’re receiving for this piece from their peers.
“What ‘Snowflakes’ Get Right About Free Speech,” by Ulrich Baer, New York Times, April 24, 2017:
At one of the premieres of his landmark Holocaust documentary, “Shoah” (1985), the filmmaker Claude Lanzmann was challenged by a member of the audience, a woman who identified herself as a Holocaust survivor. Lanzmann listened politely as the woman recounted her harrowing personal account of the Holocaust to make the point that the film failed to fully represent the recollections of survivors. When she finished, Lanzmann waited a bit, and then said, “Madame, you are an experience, but not an argument.”
This exchange, conveyed to me by the Russian literature scholar Victor Erlich some years ago, has stayed with me, and it has taken on renewed significance as the struggles on American campuses to negotiate issues of free speech have intensified — most recently in protests at Auburn University against a visit by the white nationalist Richard Spencer.
Lanzmann’s blunt reply favored reasoned analysis over personal memory. In light of his painstaking research into the Holocaust, his comment must have seemed insensitive but necessary at the time. Ironically, “Shoah” eventually helped usher in an era of testimony that elevated stories of trauma to a new level of importance, especially in cultural production and universities.
During the 1980s and ’90s, a shift occurred in American culture; personal experience and testimony, especially of suffering and oppression, began to challenge the primacy of argument. Freedom of expression became a flash point in this shift. Then as now, both liberals and conservatives were wary of the privileging of personal experience, with its powerful emotional impact, over reason and argument, which some fear will bring an end to civilization, or at least to freedom of speech.
We should resist the temptation to rehash these debates. Doing so would overlook the fact that a thorough generational shift has occurred. Widespread caricatures of students as overly sensitive, vulnerable and entitled “snowflakes” fail to acknowledge the philosophical work that was carried out, especially in the 1980s and ’90s, to legitimate experience — especially traumatic experience — which had been dismissed for decades as unreliable, untrustworthy and inaccessible to understanding.
Milo Yiannopoulos
The philosopher Jean-François Lyotard, best known for his prescient analysis in “The Postmodern Condition” of how public discourse discards the categories of true/false and just/unjust in favor of valuing the mere fact that something is being communicated, examined the tension between experience and argument in a different way.
Instead of defining freedom of expression as guaranteeing the robust debate from which the truth emerges, Lyotard focused on the asymmetry of different positions when personal experience is challenged by abstract arguments. His extreme example was Holocaust denial, where invidious but often well-publicized cranks confronted survivors with the absurd challenge to produce incontrovertible eyewitness evidence of their experience of the killing machines set up by the Nazis to exterminate the Jews of Europe. Not only was such evidence unavailable, but it also challenged the Jewish survivors to produce evidence of their own legitimacy in a discourse that had systematically denied their humanity.
Lyotard shifted attention away from the content of free speech to the way certain topics restrict speech as a public good. Some things are unmentionable and undebatable, but not because they offend the sensibilities of the sheltered young. Some topics, such as claims that some human beings are by definition inferior to others, or illegal or unworthy of legal standing, are not open to debate because such people cannot debate them on the same terms.
The recent student demonstrations at Auburn against Spencer’s visit — as well as protests on other campuses against Charles Murray, Milo Yiannopoulos and others — should be understood as an attempt to ensure the conditions of free speech for a greater group of people, rather than censorship. Liberal free-speech advocates rush to point out that the views of these individuals must be heard first to be rejected. But this is not the case. Universities invite speakers not chiefly to present otherwise unavailable discoveries, but to present to the public views they have presented elsewhere. When those views invalidate the humanity of some people, they restrict speech as a public good.
In such cases there is no inherent value to be gained from debating them in public. In today’s age, we also have a simple solution that should appease all those concerned that students are insufficiently exposed to controversial views. It is called the internet, where all kinds of offensive expression flourish unfettered on a vast platform available to nearly all.
The great value and importance of freedom of expression, for higher education and for democracy, is hard to underestimate. But it has been regrettably easy for commentators to create a simple dichotomy between a younger generation’s oversensitivity and free speech as an absolute good that leads to the truth. We would do better to focus on a more sophisticated understanding, such as the one provided by Lyotard, of the necessary conditions for speech to be a common, public good. This requires the realization that in politics, the parameters of public speech must be continually redrawn to accommodate those who previously had no standing.
The rights of transgender people for legal equality and protection against discrimination are a current example in a long history of such redefinitions. It is only when trans people are recognized as fully human, rather than as men and women in disguise, as Ben Carson, the current secretary of housing and urban development claims, that their rights can be fully recognized in policy decisions.
The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community. Free-speech protections — not only but especially in universities, which aim to educate students in how to belong to various communities — should not mean that someone’s humanity, or their right to participate in political speech as political agents, can be freely attacked, demeaned or questioned.
THE STUDENT ACTIVISM that has roiled campuses — at Auburn, Missouri, Yale, Berkeley, Middlebury and elsewhere — is an opportunity to take stock of free speech issues in a changed world. It is also an opportunity to take into account the past few decades of scholarship that has honed our understanding of the rights to expression in higher education, which maintains particularly high standards of what is worthy of debate….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/liberal-anarchists-e1492605373880.png360640Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2017-04-26 07:42:032017-04-26 07:43:20New York Times defends Antifa thuggery on college campuses
Marion Anne Perrine “Marine” Le Pen is a French lawyer and politician. Ms. Le Pen stepped down as the president of the National Front to become the people’s candidate. “Tonight, I am no longer the president of the National Front. I am the presidential candidate,” she said on French public television news after winning in the first round of the election.
If elected Ms. Le Pen would become the first woman to lead the Gouvernement de la République française.
Marion Anne Perrine “Marine” Le Pen and Emmanuel Macron (right)
Maxime Lépante has described Le Pen’s opponent Emmanuel Macron as, “[T]he horrible crossbreeding of Obama and Soros and Justin Trudeau.”
Marine Le Pen, the presidential candidate for France’s populist National Front (FN), has pledged to put France first, hitting out at “financial globalisation”, “mass immigration”, and “Islamic fundamentalism” in a landmark speech.
The 48-year-old said that “financial globalisation and Islamist globalisation are helping each other out”, and “those two ideologies aim to bring France to its knees”.
According to Le Pen, globalisation can be summed up as “manufacturing with slaves to sell to the unemployed”. She pledged that an FN-led republic would be “will be all about the local, not the global”.
To regain our freedom and mastery of our destiny by restoring to the French people its sovereignty (monetary, legislative, territorial, economic).
Guarantee freedom of expression and digital freedoms through their inclusion in fundamental freedoms protected by the Constitution, while strengthening the fight against cyber-jihadism and pedophilia.
Defending women’s rights : fighting against Islamism, which undermines their fundamental freedoms; Put in place a national plan for equal pay for women and men and fight against job and social insecurity.
Ensure the freedom of schooling of children according to their choices , while at the same time strictly controlling the compatibility with the values of the Republic of the education provided in private non-contractual institutions.
Massive re-armament of the security forces : personnel (recruitment plan of 15,000 police and gendarmes), equipment (modernization of equipment, police stations and barracks, adaptation of armaments to new threats), but also morally and (Including the presumption of self-defense). Guarantee the military status of gendarmes.
Fight against juvenile delinquency by empowering parents by eliminating the payment of social assistance to parents of repeat offenders in the event of manifest educational deficiencies.
Restore national borders and exit the Schengen area (a special arrangement for border workers will be put in place to facilitate border crossing). Replenish the number of staff removed from customs by the recruitment of 6,000 staff during the five-year period.
Reducing legal immigration to an annual balance of 10 000. To put an end to automatic automatic family reunification and reconciliation and the automatic acquisition of French nationality by marriage. Remove the suction pumps from immigration.
Putting in place a plan for re-industrialization in the framework of cooperation involving industry and the state-strategist to give priority to the real economy in the face of speculative finance.
Supporting French companies in the face of unfair international competition through the establishment of intelligent protectionism and the restoration of a national currency adapted to our economy, which is the lever of our competitiveness.
Establish a true economic patriotism by freeing itself from European constraints and by reserving public order to French companies if the price gap is reasonable. Reserve a part of the public order to SMEs.
Reducing the administrative and fiscal complexity of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): dedicated one – stop-shop (social, fiscal and administrative), generalization of the “emploi emploi service entreprise” New device based on a personalized evaluation thanks to an occupational medicine that will be reconstituted. The penalty will be offset by an increase in pension annuities.
The media is characterizing Ms. Le Pen as the “far right candidate” and her opponent Macron as a “moderate.” Maxime Lépante reports that Macron is anything but a moderate. Lépante writes:
Macron is an ultra-leftist who viscerally hates France and the French people. He has said many times that “there is no French culture”, that “he has never seen French art” (meaning that French art doesn’t exist), therefore he denies the very existence of the French people (because all people has his own culture)! And he has accused France of crimes against humanity in Algeria, when in fact it’s the Algerians who are guilty of crimes against humanity, because they reduced into slavery more than 1 million of our ancestors and slaughtered more than 1 million French people from 8th to 19th century!
Macron has said time and again that he supports mass immigration into France from Africa ! That millions of immigrants will continue to invade our European countries and that it’s a good thing! And he has praised the traitor to the German people Angela Merkel for letting 1 million illegal Muslim immigrants invade Germany in 2015, resulting in thousands of German women raped and numerous terrorist attacks!
Macron has said that he wants to create an “French-Algerian Youth Office” to increase the entry of Algerians into France, these Algerians being predominantly racist scums who insult and rape our wives and daughters, who attack and kill our parents and children, who rob, maim, kill, commit terror attack after terror attack. As a reminder, Muslims represent more than 70% of the prisoners in our prisons.
France has a choice on Sunday, May 7th, 2017 between Marine Le Pen, the French patriot and Emmanuel Macron, the establishment’s choice.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/marin-le-pen-black-and-white.jpg360640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-04-25 06:02:122017-04-25 19:27:17Marine Le Pen is the ‘France First’ candidate
Alfred Kinsey’s ongoing sexual anarchy campaign has no end in sight.
Matt Barber, associate dean of the Liberty University School of Law, and I attended the “B4U-ACT” pedophile conference Aug. 17. To eliminate the “stigma” against pedophiles, this growing sexual anarchist lobby wants the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to redefine pedophilia as a normal sexual orientation of “Minor-Attracted Persons.”
Adhering to the Kinsey principle of lulling “straights” into a false sense of security, pedophile dress was largely conservative – short hair, jackets, some ties and few noticeable male ear piercings.
Matt Barber and I sat in the back of the meeting room among roughly 50 activists and their “mental health” attending female enablers. “Pedophilia, Minor-Attracted Persons, and the DSM: Issues and Controversies,” keynoted “Fred Berlin, M.D., Ph.D., as founder, National Institute for the Study, Prevention and Treatment of Sexual Trauma; Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic.”
Did you know that a 14-year-old child can legally marry in New York State?
Ending child marriage is urgent, because it is deeply harmful to children, wherever they live. Married children often drop out of school, and are locked in poverty as a result. Married girls often become pregnant soon, and early pregnancy involves serious health risks for pregnant girls and their babies. Girls who marry earlier are at higher risk of domestic violence than women who marry as adults. Married girls often face extra barriers in escaping an abusive or unhappy marriage, and accessing shelter and legal assistance.
[ … ]
In New York, between 2000 and 2010, 3,853 children under 18 married, with permission from parents, judges, or both. In the vast majority of cases, it was girls marrying adult men. In 2014, 3 percent of Serbian women age 20 to 24 reported that they married before age 18.
Organizations such as B4U-ACT, the followers of Mohammed, pedophiles, pederasts and Kinseyites. This is child abuse, plain and simple. We hope this warning is heeded by elected leaders at all levels. Child trafficking, child prostitution and using children as sex slaves by groups such as ISIS is an epidemic.
INFOGRAPHIC: Kinsey flow chart, courtesy of Dr. Judith Reisman:
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/pedophilia-stop-it.jpg363640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-04-21 05:20:472017-04-21 13:29:36Did you know that a 14-year-old child can legally marry in New York State?
The far-Left Islamic apologist Malcolm Nance is the quintessential establishment counter-terror “expert.” (I had to laugh when I saw his self-description: he says he is a “former Arabic speaking naval intelligence counter-terrorism and intelligence officer specializing in the Middle East.” “Former Arabic speaking,” eh? How did he forget all his Arabic?) His book on the Islamic State is a prime example of fake news: poorly researched, poorly written, apologetic and whitewashed regarding the Islamic State’s motivating ideology. And so it is no surprise that he would turn out to be, like so many Leftists these days, actually in favor of Islamic State action when it is directed against those whom he hates and fears.
Nance and others readily traffic in the demonization and smearing of those who are pointing out how jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to justify violence and hatred; apparently Nance and his colleagues are just fine with the fact that if all those who speak out about the root causes of jihad terror are marginalized and silenced, the jihad will be able to advance unimpeded and unopposed. The Left in America today is increasingly violent, authoritarian, and intolerant of dissent.
All that said, it should also be noted that Trump’s congratulating Erdogan for becoming a dictator was absolute madness and testimony to the chaos that reigns inside the Trump administration, but unlike Malcolm Nance, my knowing that doesn’t move me to call for any Islamic State massacres.
Complying with the tax code costs the United States a cool trillion dollars per year. That’s the entire GDP of Mexico, wasted because of the sheer complexity of our tax code, which runs to 74,000 pages or so when taken with the IRS policies and parts of the CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) that bear directly on it.
As for those penalties that the IRS collects from us, largely for making honest mistakes and not rectifying them in time – they total up to the GDP of Estonia.
Think about that – about the shear human cost and waste – all the good not done for others, all the time not spent with families, all the industrial production foregone – because our politicians can’t wrest themselves away from the special interests and campaign donors, or put the well-being of Americans before their re-election or their preferred political ideology.
Disgusted by this state of affairs, a few folks from an outfit called the Tax Revolution Institute are about to draw a little attention to the problem.
They won’t be marching in the street or writing letters to politicians to explain the need to solve this problem, knowing full well that they are utterly incapable of working out how.
Rather, their protest will be altogether more sedentary and civilized.
They are just going to read it.
… But they are going to do so outside the IRS building in DC from dawn to dusk on Tax Day, April 18th, and they’re going to livestream the whole event on their website at TaxRevolution.us.
Now that I’d like to see… but probably not for the full 14 hours…
They will have the entire tax code with them… along with, I hope, plenty of water.
They’re really going to do it. How many of the 74,000 pages will they get through, though…?
Robin Koerner is British-born and recently became a citizen of the USA. A decade ago, he founded WatchingAmerica.com, an organization of over 200 volunteers that translates and posts views about the USA from all over the world, works as a trainer and a consultant, and recently wrote the book If You Can Keep It.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/cost-of-tax-code.jpg360640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2017-04-19 20:56:502017-04-19 20:56:50The Cost of the Tax Code, Understandably
Macron now has his own ‘Deplorables’ moment. Breitbart’s Raheem Kassam reports:
Researchers examined three national surveys spanning 20 years to determine whether illicit marijuana use and disorders increased among adults in states that passed medical marijuana laws compared to states that did not. They found that between 1991 and 2012, an additional 1.1 million adult illicit marijuana users and an additional 500,000 adults with a DSM-IV-diagnosed marijuana use disorder may be attributable to the passage of medical marijuana laws. This represents a serious public health problem, they say.
Rare look inside the Culwell Center located in Garland, Texas terrorist attack on May 4th, 2015 by two Al Khilafa soldiers of ISIS as it unfolded:
Tax Capital, Wreck Prosperity
“What ‘Snowflakes’ Get Right About Free Speech,” by Ulrich Baer, 
