A Troubling Year in Review

Fr. Gerald Murray: If the dark clouds of 2018 have a silver lining, it’s that there’s a chance that immoral priests and bishops will no longer be tolerated. 


One aspect of getting older, and wiser, is the shedding of once comforting, but in fact naïve illusions about individuals or groups. We normally trust that certain people and groups who profess to carry out a particular and demanding mission in society are in fact going to do just that. Past performance, as far as we know, was good and the future promises more of the same.

But reality is more complicated than that. Illusions give way to a more realistic understanding. High expectations about people and groups are often shown to be illusions based on incomplete knowledge of their past performance. The reputation for competence and integrity may exist largely because contradictory evidence of failure was carefully hidden from public view, or downplayed when made public.

The overcoming of the false impressions that once buttressed our appreciation of persons and groups is a good and necessary step in facing the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be. I remember being told that growth into maturity consists in the ever-increasing ability to deal effectively with complexity. Simplistic judgments are often attractive but are not usually sufficient.

Knowing the complexity of things, however, should not mean losing our sense of awe for God’s providence in guiding the course of the world and His Church. Discovering facts and casting aside illusions is unsettling, especially when it comes to the way the Church manages her affairs, which means how the leaders of the Church carry out their duties, which should be in absolute fidelity to the teaching of Christ.

These year-end reflections on illusion and reality are of course prompted by what has been happening in our Church during the past twelve months. The reality is that the once common high regard for bishops as a group, and for many individual bishops, has been shattered by the revelation of sexual abuse and episcopal patterns of covering up immorality and malfeasance.

Catholics in the United States and elsewhere were genuinely stunned to discover the sordid story of ex-Cardinal McCarrick’s depredations, the hidden payoffs made by other bishops to seminarian and priest victims of McCarrick, and the seemingly unhurried response of the Holy See in pursuing these canonical crimes.

McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in July and was ordered to live a life of prayer and penance without travel and public appearances while awaiting completion of a canonical process. He was first accused of molesting a seminarian in September 2017. The Holy See judged this accusation to be credible in June 2018. McCarrick has not been tried by a canonical court as of December 2018. Why the delay if the evidence was compelling six months ago?

In August, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report was released and precipitated the downfall of the most influential American cardinal, Washington’s Archbishop Donald Wuerl. Shortly thereafter, Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling, West Virginia, a McCarrick protégé, was abruptly retired and placed under investigation for sexual harassment of adults.

Dante and Virgil speak to Pope Nicholas III in the Eighth Circle of Hell by Gustave Doré, 1861 [The engraving was among a number Doré did illustrating The Divine Comedy. Nicholas III was pope from 1270-1280 and was accused of selling ecclesiastical offices, a.k.a. simony.]

There followed accusations by the former Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, that many people in the Holy See, in particular Pope Francis, knew about McCarrick’s immorality and abuse of authority and acted in ways that kept him from being held accountable.

When Pope Francis refused to answer journalists’ questions about Viganò’s charges on a flight back from Ireland, he frustrated those who want to know how McCarrick amassed such power and prestige when his behavior had been reported multiple times to the Holy See in the past. Francis told the journalists to do their job and look into Viganò’s charges. But when journalists started to call the cardinals and bishops named in Viganò’s memorandum no one wanted to respond. A cone of silence seemed to descend on the Vatican.

The American bishops asked for an investigation of McCarrick’s rise. The Holy See has only responded that a review of documents in various curial offices is being conducted. While a good first step, that hardly constitutes a thorough investigation. What about taking testimony from those in the know? Or promising to make public the evidence and the findings? Or inviting McCarrick’s victims to meet with the Holy Father and tell him directly what happened, as was the case in Chile?

The U.S. bishops were set to take concrete steps at their annual November meeting to put an end to a hierarchical culture in which priests, and even bishops such as McCarrick, were protected from revelations of crimes and allowed to continue in place, thanks to payoffs and confidentiality agreements. The last-minute instruction from the Holy See to take no action until after a February meeting in the Vatican was met with stunned incredulity. Is this the right way to address a five-alarm crisis of confidence in the Church and her leaders regarding horrendous crimes and malfeasance?

The faith and love of Catholics for Christ and His Church has been severely tried this year. The common expectation among Catholics that the bishops as a whole shared the same horror of sexual, and in particular of homosexual, immorality among the clergy has been shown to be an illusion. So be it.

Love for the Church has prompted laity to call for a reform of the hierarchy. Accountability for past failures to root out sexual immorality is the first necessity, as is a clear demonstration that a repeat of the career path of a Theodore McCarrick will be impossible in the future.

Bishops will only regain the respect of ordinary Catholics if they truly live up to what we all believe is the Church’s true mission, the salvation of souls. If the dark clouds of 2018 have a silver lining, it’s that there is now at least some chance that immoral and conniving priests and bishops will no longer be tolerated, protected, or promoted, but rather called to repent and held to account.

Fr. Gerald E. Murray

Fr. Gerald E. Murray

The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D. is a canon lawyer and the pastor of Holy Family Church in New York City.

RELATED ARTICLE: Illinois AG report says dioceses failed abuse victims

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. © 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own. The featured photo is by Giulio Del Prete on Unsplash.

Why Political Polarity? The irresistible force versus the immovable object.

In the political polarity of America today, neither side trusts the other, Left or Right, thus making it impossible to compromise or reason together, leaving us with more than just a Congress in gridlock, but the whole country as well. The two perspectives of America are truly incompatible and requires some explanation.

Liberals are at a complete loss as to why anyone would support President Trump. As one reader recently wrote to me, “I want to know if any of the crimes Trump is alleged to have committed, the factual information coming forth, the involvement of his family and the blatant lies he told and continues to tell has any bearing on your unwavering support of the man?”

Conversely, conservatives do not understand why others do not support the President. As another reader wrote, “The American voters that voted for the Communist Democrats are the traitors to our country, and the rest of us true Americans.”

The polarity of the two sides is such that neither understands the other, nor cares to.

As another example, on December 11th (2018), President Trump and Vice President Pence met with Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer in the White House to discuss a Congressional spending bill to include $5 billion in funding to accelerate building of the southern wall. Both Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer steadfastly refused to agree to it in front of television cameras. In fact, they felt awkward discussing it in such a venue. The President made it clear he would unashamedly close the federal government if he doesn’t get the money to tighten border security. The Democrats tried to browbeat the President by making the point that Mr. Trump would be solely responsible for the shutdown, not the Democrats. The President readily conceded the point with the caveat he would be doing so to protect our border and the citizens of this country, something his Congressional opponents are not willing to do.

Afterwards, Republicans applauded the president’s handling of the meeting by seeking “transparency” in front of the cameras, something the Democrats obviously felt uncomfortable doing. The Right saw the president on top of his game and outfoxed his opponents as any other businessman would do.

Liberals didn’t see it this way. Instead, the President was characterized as a bully throwing an indignant temper tantrum. His character and intelligence was again questioned, and he was described as a megalomaniac, as well as all the other usual derogatory adjectives du jour.

Democrats are quick to accuse the President of improprieties resulting from the Mueller investigation, regardless if it is true or not. Republicans see the investigation as a frivolous political distraction since nothing of substance has yet to be produced. Democrats want the investigation to continue unabated for as long as possible. Republicans have had enough and want it shut down.

Again, both sides simply do not understand the position of the other, nor wants to.

So, why the difference?

First, Democrats are more inclined to accept the news emanating from the media. Regardless if it is right or wrong, it is embraced as unbiased and factual, and is parroted as such, except that resulting from Fox News which is perceived as fallacious. The Republicans, on the other hand, are more skeptical and do not trust the news media at all, least of all print journalism, which is all perceived as an organ of the Democrats, certainly not fair and balanced. They believe the media is following a political agenda, which involves spinning the news, not accurately reporting it. Consequently, the only news they believe in is that which they see or hear themselves first-hand.

Second, Democrats have become past masters of Identity Politics. If you do not agree with their position on an issue, you are vilified as either a racist, xenophobe, homophobe, Fascist, or just not smart enough to understand what is really happening in the world. In turn, Republicans see their opposites as anti-patriotic anarchists bent on destroying the country. They consider the members of the Left as the true racists who will cheat at all costs to win an election.

And third, the platforms of Left and Right are as different as night and day. Ultimately, it is based on our interpretation of morality; what is right and what is wrong:

Left versus Right –

  • Anti-Capitalists versus anti-Socialists.
  • Agnostic versus Religious.
  • Control of rights (e.g., free speech and guns) versus protecting the Bill of Rights.
  • Free entitlements versus prosperity through hard work.
  • Big government versus small government.
  • Globalization versus Nationalism.
  • Political correctness versus Results orientation.

Yes, our differences are based on our fundamental belief of morality; always has been.

As fervently strong as Democrats believe in their interpretation of America, Republicans feel equally strong. Neither side is willing to acknowledge they are wrong, nor apologize for it; they are absolutely convinced they are correct, not their opposition. This belief in right versus wrong explains why there can never be any compromise.

It is this fundamental sense of morality which is responsible for the irresistible force versus immovable object in American culture today, as well as in the world. Unless one side conquers the other, we will have gridlock for many more years to come, assuming we do not kill ourselves first.

Just remember, in a contest of stubbornness, man will beat the jackass every time.

Keep the Faith!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies. The featured photo is by NeONBRAND on Unsplash.

The Curry Wall: Preventing access to public information. Maybe we should “recycle” politicians?

Putting stuff into the yellow-topped curbside recycling bins may make homeowners feel virtuous, but it probably isn’t saving the taxpayers any money.

The popular notion is that the garbage is sold and the operation breaks even or makes a profit.

Not quite.

The city does get $1.5 million in revenue, but it spends $2.2 million, not even counting the cost of collection. (It also avoids using space in the landfill.)

What is more, the prospects are dim for improving the situation.

Waste Management, which is heavily involved in trying to make recycling work, has been closing recycling centers and its CEO has noted: “To be sustainable overtime, recycling operations must make economic sense.”

The reasons that recycling is losing ground are that processing costs are up and commodity prices are down.

Contamination is a major problem and is the main reason much of the material collected after considerable time and expense ends up in a landfill, by a circuitous route.

Homeowners can help by recycling all empty bottles, cans and paper, and keeping food, liquids and loose plastic bags out of the recycling bin.

Turning garbage into gold isn’t magic.

Duval County collected nearly 3 million tons of solid waste last year. Only five other counties had more.

One interesting note: Among the largest counties, Duval collects the most waste per capita – an eye-opening 17.3 pounds per person per day. That number has been growing since 2013.

Duval had a recycling rate of 58 percent, which was better than the top five but more waste went into landfill than four of the top five, because Duval burns almost no solid waste. Hillsborough recycles less but burns 27 percent of the waste it collects and Palm Beach burns 36 percent.

At one time, Duval burned much of its waste. During the 1980s there was a proposal to build an incinerator that would produce energy, but it failed to pass the City Council.

Florida, incidentally, has an ambitious goal of reaching 75 percent recycling by 2020, but isn’t even meeting the current 60 percent goal.

One reason is that the commercial sector generates two-thirds of the waste. Household recycling alone simply won’t do the job.

Since recycling, burying and burning all entail a cost, the question is whether Jacksonville is using the most cost/efficient mix of waste disposal.

It affects everyone. Currently, using recycling is optional. It could become mandatory and even more burdensome on the homeowner if he is required to separate materials himself.

We wanted to ask City Hall about this and other matters pertaining to solid waste disposal but were unable to break through the Curry Wall, which prevents access to public information.

As the recent Task Force on Open Government noted, the Curry administration seals off access to public officials in order to “control the message,” which is one way of saying “spin it in the mayor’s favor.”

We couldn’t find the information on the city’s Web site (also criticized by the task force) so we went to the people who are supposed to provide the public with information.

Mayor Lenny Curry’s highly paid public information officer gave us several snarky replies to our requests, then basically told us to go get the information ourselves from the state government. That is where we obtained the figures about waste collection and disposal.

It doesn’t tell us anything about whether the city’s costly recycling program is efficient or worthwhile, but Eye on Jacksonville will continue to seek ways to climb Curry’s Wall and obtain information.

COLUMN BY

LLOYD BROWN

Lloyd was born in Jacksonville. Graduated from the University of North Florida. He spent nearly 50 years of his life in the newspaper business …beginning as a copy boy and retiring as editorial page editor for Florida Times Union. He has also been published in a number of national newspapers and magazines, as well as Internet sites. Married with children. Military Vet. Retired. Man of few words but the words are researched well, deeply considered and thoughtfully written.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared on Eye on Jacksonville. It is republished with permission.

Why a Judge Ruled Obamacare Unconstitutional, and What Policymakers Should Do Next

A judge has declared Obamacare unconstitutional—but the case is far from over.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor, a George W. Bush appointee, granted a motion for summary judgement in favor of 20 states led by Texas that had filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down the Affordable Care Act on Friday.

Now that O’Connor has ruled, the losing side is sure to appeal to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and ultimately the Supreme Court.

However, as the case continues to wind its way through the legal system, it is imperative that policymakers pursue real health care reform. Obamacare isn’t working for too many American families and individuals slammed with high premiums and few choices. Rather than looking for ways to keep Obamacare in place amid these legal challenges, lawmakers should pursue real solutions.

The Judge’s Reasoning in Striking Down Obamacare

As part of the last year’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress repealed the financial penalty associated with failing to comply with the individual mandate, effective in 2019.

In 2012, in NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate by the narrowest of margins when Chief Justice John Roberts, providing the deciding vote, devised a novel theory construing the penalty associated with violating the individual mandate as a tax that Congress has the power to levy under the Constitution.

Texas argues that once the penalty is reduced to $0, it can no longer be considered a legitimate tax, and that therefore the individual mandate would no longer have a constitutional leg to stand on.

Moreover, Texas argues, in upholding the individual mandate, the Supreme Court appeared to rely on the argument that Congress considered the individual mandate to be a central—indeed, indispensable—component of Obamacare that is not “severable” from the rest of its provisions, and that without it, the rest of the law should be invalidated.

A group of 17 states led by California are defending the law, arguing that even a tax of $0 is still a tax, and that it was never Congress’ intent to get rid of the rest of Obamacare when it repealed the financial penalty associated with the individual mandates as part of last year’s tax bill.

In granting the plaintiffs’ motion, O’Connor stated, showing his agreement with Texas’ argument:

The [Tax Cuts and Jobs Act] eliminated that [individual mandate] tax. The Supreme Court’s reasoning in NFIB—buttressed by other binding precedent and plain text—thus compels the conclusion that the individual mandate may no longer be upheld under the tax power. And because the individual mandate continues to mandate the purchase of health insurance, it remains unsustainable under the Interstate Commerce Clause—as the Supreme Court already held.

Finally, Congress stated many times unequivocally—through enacted text signed by the president—that the individual mandate is “essential” to the ACA. And this essentiality, the [Affordable Care Act’s] text makes clear, means the mandate must work ‘together with the other provisions’ for the Act to function as intended. All nine justices to review the [Affordable Care Act] acknowledged this text and Congress’s manifest intent to establish the individual mandate as the [Affordable Care Act’s] ‘essential’ provision. The current and previous administrations have recognized that, too. Because rewriting the ACA without its ‘essential’ feature is beyond the power of an Article III court, the Court thus adheres to Congress’s textually expressed intent and binding Supreme Court precedent to find the individual mandate is inseverable from the [Affordable Care Act’s] remaining provisions.

What Should Be Next

But the legal fight aside, we need a better health care solution than Obamacare.

One of Obamacare’s core conceits was that what (allegedly) worked in Massachusetts would also work on a national scale. That hasn’t borne out.

Instead, Obamacare led to years of increasing costs and decreasing choices. Premiums doubled in the first four years of the program. Millions lost the coverage they used to have. Americans found it harder to pick the right plan and doctor, as health plan choices declined and provider networks narrowed. Frustrated providers are drowning in red tape and increasingly feeling burned out. Meanwhile, taxpayers are on the hook for the money needed to paper over Obamacare’s flawed structure.

Those who seem to benefit most from Obamacare are big insurance companies that embraced the law and receive a steady stream of taxpayer subsidies and politicians who made endless promises to reform Obamacare but failed to deliver.

Real Solutions for Pre-Existing Conditions

Regardless of these facts, expect many in Congress to call for immediate restoration of Obamacare in the name of protecting the sick and people with pre-existing conditions.

Some on the left claim Congress must protect Obamacare because only Obamacare allows Americans with pre-existing conditions to get coverage. That’s an irresponsible, false dilemma and Congress should reject it.  

There are steps that states can take right now to ensure people with pre-existing conditions are protected, even if Obamacare ultimately goes away.

Congress should let states review their health care regulations and pursue innovative ways to make coverage more affordable and accessible to Americans—regardless of their income or medical status.  Every state legislature is about to go into session in early 2019, so this is both a desirable and possible approach.

Empower the States

Congress does have a role to play in helping families and individuals get the quality private coverage they want, and helping health care professionals meet their needs. Conservatives have a proposal to achieve this: the Health Care Choices Proposal, which undoes Obamacare’s damage by letting states innovate.

Under Obamacare, insurance companies receive taxpayer subsidies dollar for dollar as they raise prices.  This proposal does away with that flawed spending scheme.

Instead, it would convert existing Obamacare spending into a grant that states would use to ensure chronically-ill patients have access to the health coverage of their choice. Greater flexibility and resources to the states means that all Americans, even those who are chronically sick, would have access to more health plans at better prices.

The Health Care Choices Proposal would lower premiums up to an estimated 32 percent and ensure that everyone can access a quality private coverage arrangement of their choice.

And everyone who gets a subsidy could decide what coverage to use it for, including private or employer-sponsored health insurance.

Individuals and families would be able to decide what coverage arrangement works for them, and decide whether to work directly with a doctor for primary care and buy catastrophic coverage, or get a plan that covers more costs up front. The proposal would be especially helpful to the working poor, who may want to have private coverage but lack the means to pay for it.

For most people, this is a much better option than what happens today: being pushed onto a government-controlled plan a bureaucrat thinks is best for them.

This proposal would build on a promising, emerging trend already happening in the states. When states have been given even a little bit of freedom from Obamacare’s mandates, they’ve been able to lower premiums using tools that ensure that the sick still retain access to care.

Politicians have long promised to replace Obamacare with solutions that help everyone. It’s time to deliver—no matter which way the courts go.

COMMENTARY BY

Portrait of Marie Fishpaw

Marie Fishpaw

Marie Fishpaw is director of domestic policy studies at The Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Family, Community, and Opportunity.

Portrait of John G. Malcolm

John G. Malcolm is the vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, overseeing The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law. Read his research. Twitter: .

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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Paul Hennessy/Polaris/Newscom.

Some Recent Energy & Environmental News

Here is the latest Energy and Environmental Newsletter.

We’ve had an extremely positive response to our proposed international meeting about improving the PR (i.e. communications) of our messages. We are still considering applications to be a participant, but the window will close soon.

One of the most important energy developments in this news-cycle, is the response of French citizens to the oppressive carbon tax. There is a special section of the Newsletter that has several good articles about this situation — like this one.

Some of the more interesting Energy related articles are:

Medical Director Warns of Turbine Health Consequences

Major Good News: Ontario Scraps the Green Energy Act

Wind Projects and Property Rights

But How do Affected Citizens Think about Wind Energy?

NY Town passes ideal wind ordinance

Some of the more informative Global Warming articles are:

Good news about Climate Change

Climate Change: Identifying the Problem

Outstanding video re Climate Change (15:30-28:00)

Former Top US Oceanographer Sentenced for Accepting a Salary from China

We are most appreciative of our network’s support and effort in 2018 — which is one of the reasons good things have been accomplished. We are optimistically looking forward to more of the same in 2019, and wish you are yours a healthy, happy and holy holiday season, and New Year.

Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone. Some documents (e.g. PDFs) are easier to read on a computer. We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize issues.

Note 2: Our intention is to put some balance into what most people see from the mainstream media about energy and environmental issues… As always, please pass this on to open-minded citizens, and link to this on your social media sites. If there are others who you think would benefit from being on our energy & environmental email list, please let me know. If at any time you’d like to be taken off this list, simply send me an email saying that.

Note 3: This Newsletter is intended to supplement the material on our website, WiseEnergy.org. The most important page there is the Winning page.

Note 4: I am not an attorney, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or our WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues.

Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House — The Sequel [Worse than the Original]

In the movies sequels are usually worse than the original. Since Washington has often been referred to as “Hollywood for ugly people,” it is perhaps appropriate to consider another sequel in the making, not in film but in politics. Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House and soon-to-be Speaker of the House of Representatives, once again was the subject of a video posted on December 7, 2018 by Fox News, in which she rejected the notion of constructing a wall along the highly porous U.S./Mexican border to prevent the entry of illegal aliens, narcotics and other contraband.

Her outrageous statements and positions on immigration law enforcement and border security seemed to strike a new low during her first stint as Speaker. She has yet to resume that position and is already providing a disturbing peek into what America and Americans are in for with her in the position that provides her with a “leadership” role in the Congress and puts her in the chain of succession to the U.S. Presidency.

As my dad used to say, “Nothing is so good it could not be better or be so bad it could not get worse.” As hard as it might be to imagine, bad as Pelosi was the last time she held the position of Speaker, she may actually prove my dad was right.

This is the Fox News video:

It is unfathomable how Pelosi could declare that protecting the United States from threats posed by international terrorists, transnational gangs and the flow of narcotics into the United States is “immoral.”

It is similarly impossible to understand how Pelosi could determine that it is immoral to prevent the illegal entry of foreign workers who all too frequently displace American and lawful immigrant workers and drive down wages and working conditions of American and lawful immigrant workers who are similarly employed.

A wall would not prevent the lawful entry of a single person into the United States. The wall would not block America’s ports of entry but would funnel all traffic destined to the United States through ports of entry where they are subject to inspection by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Inspectors and where a record of their entry into the United States is created. These issues have significant national security implications.

This is comparable to the way that guests who visit us are expected to knock on our front doors to ask permission to enter our homes. It would certainly be unacceptable for a stranger to enter our homes by climbing through a back window. Similarly an effective border wall would prevent aliens entering the United States surreptitiously.

In a very real sense, entering without inspection is, at a minimum, comparable to trespassing and, as I noted in my recent article, “Democrats Stand With Foreign Rioters,” Chuck Schumer’s hypocritical and contradictory position on trespassing on critical infrastructure and national landmarks versus aliens who trespass on America is astonishing.

Here is the relevant excerpt from my commentary:

Aliens who evade the vital inspections process conducted at ports of entry are, at a minimum, trespassing on the United States.  This is a violation of law and poses a threat to national security and public safety.

On October 13, 2014 Schumer posted a press release on his official website which announced that because of dangers created by trespassers, particularly in this era of terrorism, that he had proposed legislation that would make trespassing on critical infrastructure and/or landmarks a federal crime with a maximum prison sentence of five years.

However, Schumer, who actually cited the antics of a 16-year-old boy in his press release, had declared that anyone who trespasses, including “adrenaline junkies,” should face a five-year prison sentence.

However, when aliens trespass on the United States, even where violence is concerned, Schumer and his Democratic colleagues are determined to provide those illegal aliens with U.S. citizenship!

The open-borders immigration anarchists refer to aliens who run our borders as being “undocumented immigrants.” In point of fact, aliens who evade the inspections process conducted at ports of enter the United States without inspection.

Such an entry is in violation of U.S. Code § 1325, a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

Some “journalists” have actually seized upon this linguistic sleight of tongue and have come to refer to illegal aliens as “immigrants who lack documents,” conjuring up the image of a student who went to the bathroom without taking the hall pass. The issue is not a lack of paperwork but legal authorization to enter the United States and remain here. Some of these aliens have no shortage of documents. In my 30-year career I encountered quite a few aliens who had been deported numerous times, some having been arrested and convicted of so many crimes during each of their illegal forays into the United States that their arrest record or “rap sheet” and their immigration files could have provided wallpaper to decorate a moderately-sized house, if you like hanging garbage on walls!

Aliens who seek to evade the inspections process do so because they know that they belong to one or more categories of aliens who are legally ineligible to enter the United States. Race, religion and/or ethnicity do not have any bearing whatsoever on the admissibility of aliens who seek to enter the United States.

In fact, 8 U.S. Code § 1182 enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded from the United States. It is clear that the purpose for this section of law is protect national security, public safety and public health and protect the jobs and wages of American workers.

Among these classes of aliens who are to be prevented from entering the United States are aliens who had been previously deported from the United States, aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases or extreme mental illness, are convicted felons, human rights violators, war criminals, terrorists and spies are to be excluded as well as aliens who would seek unlawful employment, thus displacing American workers or driving down the wages of American workers who are similarly employed and aliens who would likely become public charges, thereby burdening the economies of the towns and cities where they would live.

Pelosi claims that the wall would be “ineffective.” In fact, had a wall been erected the “Caravan of Migrants” (aspiring illegal aliens) would likely have been deterred from streaming to the U.S./Mexican border.

However, more must be done to address the immigration crisis than simply constructing a wall along the southern border. As I have frequently noted, a wall along the border is comparable to a wing on an airplane. Without a wing the airplane will not fly, but a wing by itself goes nowhere. A border wall must be erected and additional enhancements must also be made to the enforcement program of the Department of Homeland Security. Currently ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has about 6,000 agents for the entire United States and they do not only enforce immigration laws but customs laws and other laws that have nothing to do with immigration. (The “C” in ICE is, after all, Customs.) ICE is more focused on those who produce counterfeit Gucci loafers than counterfeit passports. To put things in perspective, the NYPD has about 38,000 police officers, the Border Patrol has about 20,000 agents, and our armed forces have more than one million enlisted men and women.

Obviously many more ICE agents, immigration judges and support staff should be hired, not to deport all of the illegal aliens who are present in the United States (likely more than 30,000), but to imbue the immigration system with meaningful integrity and convince aspiring illegal aliens around the world that the United States takes its laws and its borders seriously.

Finally, as to the issue of the cost of constructing the wall, the wall would pay for itself just as the cost of insulating a house is payed back to the homeowner many times over through savings in the costs of heating and cooling the house. I drew upon that analogy in my article “America Needs A Border Wall Like Houses Need Insulation,” in which I noted that each year tens of billions of ill-gotten dollars flow out of the United States in the form of remittances and other means of moving the money out of the U.S. that is earned by illegal aliens and as the result of the drug trade. Finally securing that border would help to stanch the flow of money and save many, many lives as an added bonus.

Of course, as I have noted in my article “Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design,” the multiple failures of the immigration system are not the result of inability to enforce our laws but an abject lack of desire by political leaders of both parties to enforce the immigration laws.

To put it bluntly, while our borders and our immigration laws are America’s first and last lines of defense against transnational criminals and fugitives and international terrorists, to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a laundry list of other organizations and special interest groups including immigration lawyers, they are viewed as an impediment to their wealth.

While Nancy is a highly-visible proponent for open borders, there are precious few members of Congress in either party who actually disagree with her.

That is the real horror show!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. It is republished with permission. Photo by DonkeyHotey

Trump administration places Pakistan on list of worst violators of religious freedom

The Trump administration has put Pakistan “on its annual list of worst offenders for nations that it says infringe on religious freedom,” largely because of its infamous blasphemy laws. The high profile case of “Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was recently acquitted of blasphemy but has been unable to leave the country due to riots and death threats against her” highlights the severity of Islamic oppression in that country, where Muslims were hunting house to house to find and kill Bibi and her family.

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also released a report that accused “South East Asian nations of systematically failing to protect their populations’ religious rights, noting that ‘state officials’ in Pakistan often shield criminals forcing Christian or Hindu women into a Muslim marriage,” citing Pakistan as “home to the most egregious violations mentioned in the study.”

As abusive as Pakistan is to religious minorities and women, it also a state sponsor of terrorism, and is attempting to enforce its Islamic blasphemy laws internationally. Its Prime Minister Imran Khan vowed to go to the UN to stop all Muhammad cartoons and criticism of Islam, and Pakistan has already succeeded in compelling Twitter to enforce Sharia. Twitter has absurdly sent warnings out to Western foes of jihad terror and Sharia oppression, telling them that their tweets violate Pakistani blasphemy laws.

“US Downgrades Pakistan in Religious Freedom Rankings,” Associated Press, December 11, 2018:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday placed Pakistan on its annual list of worst offenders for nations that it says infringe on religious freedom.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement he added Pakistan to the U.S. list of “countries of particular concern” regarding protection for people to worship according to their beliefs. Pakistan had previously been on a special watch list for religious freedom. The downgrade means that Pakistan could be hit with U.S. sanctions, although Pompeo waived those penalties in the U.S. national interest.

U.S. Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback said the decision to designate Pakistan was largely the result of criminal blasphemy laws in the country. He said half of the world’s population of prisoners jailed for blasphemy are in Pakistan. And he noted the recent high-profile case of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Christian woman who was recently acquitted of blasphemy but has been unable to leave the country due to riots and death threats against her.

“It’s our hope that the new leadership in Pakistan will work to improve the situation,” Brownback told reporters on a conference call to detail Pompeo’s findings. “There was some encouraging signs seen recently on how they’ve handled some of the recent protesting against the blasphemy laws, and we continue to watch very carefully what’s happening to Asia Bibi.”

Other countries on the blacklist, which calls out nations for “systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom,” are China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. All had been so designated in last year’s list. Aside from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkistan received sanctions waivers.

Uzbekistan had previously been named a “country of particular concern,” but Pompeo upgraded it to the special watch list. The watch list now also includes the Comoros Islands and Russia.

In addition, Pompeo designated several Islamic militant groups as “entities of particular concern” as they do not meet the definition of countries. Those are the al-Nusra front in Syria, the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaida, Somalia’s al-Shabab, Boko Haram in West Africa, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, the Islamic State and the Taliban…..

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

The Conceit Behind California’s Bad Idea to Tax Text Messages

State bureaucrats are moving to impose a texting tax on California residents in the name of providing mobile services to the poor.


California routinely makes national headlines for its big government policies. This week is no different, as bureaucrats move to impose a texting tax on state residents in the name of providing mobile services to the poor.

In a November proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission, Commissioner Carla J. Peterman laid out the “proposed decision” exploring the potential effectiveness of the tax.

According to that 52-page report, California’s budget continues to increase even as tax revenues fall:

“A review of California’s total reported intrastate telecommunications industry revenue, which is used to fund universal service, shows a steady decline in revenue from $16.527 Billion in 2011 to $11.296 Billion in 2017. At the same time, California Public Purpose Program budgets show a steady increase from $670 million in 2011 to $998 million in 2017…”

California’s Public Purpose program, which adds a surcharge to consumers’ bills for utilities like gas in order to provide universal services to those who can’t afford them, would be tasked with facilitating the proposed text tax. And though the analysis refers to “industry revenue,” the funds would come from taxing individual wireless customers.

Mercury News, a San Jose-based news outlet, noted that while it is still unclear how much consumers would be forced to pay, the fee would “likely would be billed as a flat surcharge per customer” as opposed to a per-text rate.

While the Commission’s analysis acknowledges opposing arguments—including carrier companies’ assertions that the tax “would not preserve and advance universal service because it does not broaden the base of universal service consumers”—the commission ultimately advocated the additional tax burden.

Parties supporting the collection of surcharges on text messaging revenue argue that it will help preserve and advance universal service by increasing the revenue base upon which Public Purpose Programs rely,” they write. “We agree.”

Business advocacy groups like the Bay Area Council, the California Chamber of Commerce, and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group estimated that the proposed tax could generate $44.5 million in tax revenue per year. However, “they add that under the regulators’ proposal the charge could be applied retroactively for five years—which they call ‘an alarming precedent’—and could amount to a bill of more than $220 million for California consumers,” Mercury News reports.

“It’s a dumb idea,” said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council business advocacy group. “This is how conversations take place in this day and age, and it’s almost like saying there should be a tax on the conversations we have.”

Wunderman also questioned the necessity of additional taxes, referencing California’s current budget surplus:

“While perhaps well-intentioned, the specific programs that the commissioners are hoping to fund with your tax dollars already has around $1 billion to spend. These programs are not in need of greater funding from texting or any other source, and even if they were, there is already an approved, transparent process at the commission to raise the necessary funds without the need to create new taxes.”

Further, the proposed fees make even less sense considering the rise in popularity of internet-based messaging services like Facebook Messenger, Skype, WhatsApp, and Telegram, which would not be subject to the tax. In fact, the tax could very well push consumers further toward these internet-based apps to avoid extra costs.

The November document is not legally binding, but it does assert the Commission’s alleged power to impose a texting tax.

Whether or not the proposed tax becomes actual policy come January, the simple fact that it has been suggested at all illustrates the misguided yet pervasive belief in California that government omnipotence can create prosperity.

It’s precisely this type of thinking that has caused the Golden State to squander one of the largest economies in the world, driving away businesses and individuals alike and inflating costs of living with the imposition of convoluted, interventionist policies. Because of restrictive zoning laws and bureaucratic regulations that make housing inaccessible to the middle class and the poor, for example, California continues to claim the highest rate of poverty in the country despite the billions of dollars it spends on welfare and social services.

Despite the best—and heavy-handed—efforts of politicians and bureaucrats, the people they claim to represent continue to suffer under their policies. This should all come as no surprise. As economist Friedrich von Hayek observed:

“To act on the belief that we possess the knowledge and the power which enable us to shape the processes of society entirely to our liking, knowledge which in fact we do not possess, is likely to make us do much harm.”

COLUMN BY

Carey Wedler

Carey Wedler

Carey Wedler is a video blogger and Senior Editor for Anti-Media.

RELATED VIDEO: The Spending Monkeys.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by JESHOOTS-com on Pixabay.

The Case for Privatizing Social Security Just Got Stronger

A new OECD report highlights some of the economic benefits of private retirement systems.


The world is in the middle of a dramatic demographic transition caused by increasing lifespans and falling birthrates.

One consequence of this change is that traditional tax-and-transfer, pay-as-you-go retirement schemes (such as Social Security in the United States) are basically bankrupt.

The problem is so acute that even the normally statist bureaucrats at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are expressing considerable sympathy for reforms that would allow much greater reliance on private savings (shifting to what is known as “funded” systems).

Countries should introduce funded arrangements gradually… Policymakers should carefully assess the transition as it may put an additional, short-term, strain on public finances… Tax rules should be straightforward, stable and consistent across all retirement savings plans. …Countries with an “EET” tax regime should maintain the deferred taxation structure… Funded, private pensions may be expected to support broader economic growth and accelerate the development of local capital markets by creating a pool of pension savings that must be invested. The role of funded, private pensions in economic development is likely to become more important still as countries place a higher priority on the objective of labour force participation. Funded pensions increase the incentive to work and save and by encouraging older workers to stay in the labour market they can help to address concerns about the sustainability and adequacy of public PAYG pensions in the face of demographic changes.

Here’s a chart from the OECD report. It shows that many developed nations already have fully or partly privatized systems.

By the way, I corrected a glaring mistake. The OECD chart shows Australia as blue. I changed it to white since they have a fully private Social Security system Down Under.

The report highlights some of the secondary economic benefits of private systems.

Funded pensions offer a number of advantages compared to PAYG pensions. They provide stronger incentives to participate in the labor market and to save for retirement. They create a pool of savings that can be put to productive use in the broader economy. Increasing national savings or reallocating savings to longer-term investment supports the development of financial markets. …More domestic savings reduces dependency on foreign savings to finance necessary investment. Higher investment may lead to higher productive capacity, increasing GDP, wages and employment, higher tax revenues and lower deficits.

Here’s the chart showing that countries with private retirement systems are among the world leaders in pension assets.

The report highlights some of the specific nations and how they benefited.

Over the long term, transition costs may be at least partially offset by additional positive economic effects associated with introducing private pensions rather than relying solely on public provision. …poverty rates have declined in Australia, the Netherlands and Switzerland since mandatory funded pensions were introduced. The initial transformation of Poland’s public PAYG system into a multi-pillar DC approach helped to encourage Warsaw’s development as a financial centre. …the introduction of funded DC pensions in Chile encouraged the growth of financial markets and provided a source of domestic financing.

For those seeking additional information on national reforms, I’ve written about the following jurisdictions.

At some point, I also need to write about the Singaporean system, which is one of the reasons that nation is so successful.

P.S. Needless to say, it would be nice if the United States was added to this list at some point. Though I won’t be holding my breath for any progress while Trump is in the White House.

This International Liberty article was republished with permission.

COLUMN BY

The Future of Energy Sustainability Has Never Looked Brighter… Thanks to Free Markets

The congruence of private gain and social good in energy markets is reason to give thanks this holiday season.


Depletion … pollution … security … climate change. These flashpoints of energy sustainability have been invoked time and again to advocate forced (government) transformation away from fossil fuels. But each complaint has been highly exaggerated for the purpose of demoting the primary role of mineral energies (natural gas, coal, and petroleum) in modern living.

The congruence of private gain and social good in energy markets is a great reason to give thanks this holiday season. Consumers in good conscience can stay warm with natural gas and fuel oil, as well as travel on gasoline and diesel. Electricity, too, can be generated with the cheapest and most versatile carbon-based energy without regret.

Energy sustainability is an offshoot of sustainable development, classically defined in a 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

The so-called Brundtland Report led to the 1992 United Nations conference in Rio de Janeiro and Agenda 21, a 350-page action plan by the United Nations for global sustainable development, signed by 178 countries, including the United States. For implementation ideas, the Clinton/Gore Administration created the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (1993–99), which defined sustainability as “economic growth that will benefit present and future generations without detrimentally affecting the resources or biological systems of the planet.”

According to the “Vision Statement” of PCSD’s Sustainable America: A New Consensus for Prosperity, Opportunity, and a Healthy Environment for the Future (1996):

Our vision is of a life-sustaining Earth…. A sustainable United States will have a growing economy that provides equitable opportunities for satisfying livelihoods and a safe, healthy, high quality life for current and future generations. Our nation will protect its environment, its natural resource base, and the functions and viability of natural systems on which all life depends (p. iv).

Given this definition, are mineral energies “sustainable”? The answer is a resounding yes under a free-market interpretation of sustainable development:

A sustainable energy market is one in which the quantity, quality, and utility of energy improve over time. Sustainable energy becomes more available, more affordable, more usable and reliable, and cleaner. Energy consumers do not borrow from the future; they subsidize the future by continually improving today’s energy economy, which the future inherits (Bradley, Capitalism at Work: Business, Government, and Energy, p. 187).

The energy sustainability triad has been depletion, pollution, and climate change. A fourth area, energy security, primarily relating to unstable oil imports from Middle Eastern countries, arose in the 1970s and peaked with the Gulf War in 1990–91.

Depletionism concerns resource exhaustion, better known as Peak Oil (and Peak Natural Gas), where demand outraces supply to result in increasing prices. Pollution has centered around the criteria air pollutants: carbon monoxide (CO), sulfur dioxide (SO2), particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), lead (Pb), and volatile organic compounds (VOC). Climate change has shifted from brief worry about anthropogenic global cooling to an ongoing concern of anthropogenic global warming.

Peak supply fears have been quelled by new generation oil and gas extraction technology that, yet again, has turned high-cost and inaccessible supply into economically mined resources. In response, fossil fuel foes have turned to a keep-it-in-the-ground strategy conceding that many decades, if not centuries, of oil and gas inventory await. And with the US becoming the oil and gas center of the world, earlier concerns over energy security have faded.

Regarding the once vexing problem of urban air pollution, the US Environmental Protection Agency has documented a 73 percent decline in criteria emissions since 1970, with further improvement expected. Technology in light of achievable regulatory rules has made fossil fuels and clean air a success story that industry critics did not think possible early on.

Climate change? This is an issue entirely separate from the above, but the direct benefits of carbon dioxide fertilization and moderate warming have made the debate over costs versus benefits of anthropogenic climate change ambiguous. The public policy takeaway is not to regulate CO2 but to embrace free markets at home and abroad to capitalize on the positives and ameliorate the negatives of weather and climate change, natural or anthropogenic.

The energy sustainability debate relates to the larger intellectual tradition of free market environmentalism. The private property and voluntary exchange model was codified by authors Terry Anderson and Donald Leal as follows:

Free market environmentalism emphasizes the importance of market processes in determining optimal amounts of resource use. Only when rights are well-defined, enforced, and transferable will self-interested individuals confront the trade-offs inherent in a world of scarcity (Free Market Environmentalism, 1991: p. 22).

Private entrepreneurship seeking gains from trade is key to overcoming negative externalities:

As entrepreneurs move to fill profit niches, prices will reflect the values we place on resources and the environment. Mistakes will be made, but in the process a niche will be opened and profit opportunities will attract resources managers with a better idea (ibid., pp. 22–23).

“In cases where definition and enforcement costs are insurmountable, political solutions may be called for,” Anderson and Leal add, warning that “those kinds of solutions often become entrenched and stand in the way of innovative market processes that promote fiscal responsibility, efficient resource use, and individual freedom” (ibid., p. 23).

In a 1993 essay, “Sustainable Development—A Free-Market Perspective,” Fred Smith applied the Anderson/Leal framework as an alternative to sustainable development. Free market environmentalism, Smith states (p. 297), “recognizes that the greatest hope for protecting environmental values lies in the empowerment of individuals to protect those environmental resources that they value (via a creative extension of property rights).” He explains (pp. 298–99):

Sustainable development is not an artifact of the physical world but of human arrangements. Environmental resources will be protected or endangered depending upon the type of institutional framework we create, or allow to evolve, to address these concerns.

After going through examples of self-interested solutions to economic and environmental progress, Smith concludes: “The empirical evidence is clear: resources integrated into a private property system do, in fact, achieve ‘sustainability’” (p. 301).

Smith also insists that “government failure” be assessed alongside alleged market failure, noting how “individuals who make resource-use decisions in a bureaucracy are rarely those who bear the costs or receive the benefits of such decisions” (p. 304). In this regard, he contrasts the politicization of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR) with drilling in the Audubon Society’s Rainey wildlife sanctuary in Louisiana (ibid.).

In a 1999 policy analysis for the Cato Institute titled “The Increasing Sustainability of Conventional Energy,” I concluded:

[T]he technology of fossil-fuel extraction, combustion, and consumption continues to rapidly improve. Fossil fuels continue to have a global market share of approximately 85 percent, and all economic and environmental indicators are positive. Numerous technological advances have made coal, natural gas, and petroleum more abundant, more versatile, more reliable, and less polluting than ever before, and the technologies are being transferred from developed to emerging markets. These positive trends can be expected to continue in the 21st century.

Almost twenty years later, production and consumption trends for mineral energies remain robust despite determined, costly government policies to force wind power and solar energy into electrical generation and ethanol into transportation markets. The global market share for fossil fuels remains more than 80 percent, with the most recent year registering growth rates of 3 percent, 1 percent, and 1.6 percent for natural gas, coal, and oil, respectively.

It is not doom-and-gloom in the energy market but quite the opposite. New generations of technology have made our ever-increasing quantities of oil, coal, and natural gas environmental products, not just energy products. The sustainability threat is not free markets but government ownership and direction of resources in the name of energy sustainability. That supreme irony must be the subject for another day.

COLUMN BY

Robert L. Bradley Jr.

Robert L. Bradley Jr.

Robert L. Bradley Jr. is the CEO and founder of the Institute for Energy Research.

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

Sign Petition to Uphold the Scientific Definition of Sex in Federal Law and Policy

A petition has been created to define gender as immutable and binary. The on-line form of this document may be signed by anyone in agreement with its contents.


You may sign the petition here.


RELATED ARTICLE: Misguided Proposal From Christian Leaders and LGBT Activists Is Anything but ‘Fairness for All’

Full text of the petition:

December 4, 2018

Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, U.S. Department of Justice

Secretary Alex Azar, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Secretary Betsy DeVos, U.S. Department of Education

Dear Mr. Whitaker, Secretary Azar, and Secretary DeVos,

We, the undersigned medical, legal, and policy organizations and individuals applaud the Trump Administration’s intention to uphold the scientific definition of sex in federal law and policy, such that girls and women will regain their sex-based legal protections, and the human rights of all will be preserved.

On February 22, 2017, the Department of Justice, in conjunction with the Department of Education, sent a Dear Colleague letter rescinding unprecedented “guidance” the previous administration had issued to expand the definition of sex in Title IX to include gender identity. On October 4, 2017, the Department of Justice issued a Memorandum regarding Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to clarify that gender identity is not legally included in the definition of sex, pointing out that the ordinary meaning of “sex” is biologically based. The New York Times article on Oct. 21, 2018 regarding a leaked memo from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) leads us to believe that HHS is continuing this trend and leading an effort to have a uniform, scientifically based, definition of sex across the various agencies. We write to applaud and encourage this effort.

Not only is an expanded definition of sex unscientific, but it has also proven harmful, as we detail below.

According to the Institute of Medicine, sex is a narrowly defined biological term. Sex is a biological trait that defines living things as male and female based on the complement of sex chromosomes and the presence of reproductive organs.[i] The American Psychiatric Association defines sex similarly as the “biological indication of male and female (understood in the context of reproductive capacity), such as sex chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia.” [ii]

Human sex is a binary, biologically determined, and immutable trait from conception forward.The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design for the obvious purpose of the reproduction of our species. This principle is self-evident. “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of male and female, respectively, and are found in every cell of the human body including the brain. Sex is established at conception, declares itself in utero, and is acknowledged at birth.

Sex differences are real and consequential. The Institute of Medicine recognized the singular importance of sex to health and the field of medicine nearly two decades ago. Sex chromosomes impart innate differences between men and women in literally every cell of our bodies.[i] There are over 6500 shared genes that are expressed differently in human males and females.[iii]These differences impact our brains, organ systems, propensity for developing certain diseases, differential responses to drugs, toxins and pain, differential cognitive and emotional processes, behavior and more.[i]

Individuals who identify as transgender deserve optimal medical treatment which is influenced by biological sex. In reality, an individual who identifies as transgender remains either a biological male or female. This objective biological fact has bearing upon their health even beyond sex-specific illnesses.

Diseases that affect both sexes often have different frequencies, presentations and responses to treatments in males and females; therefore, different preventative, diagnostic, and treatment approaches may be required for males and females. Doctors and scientists unconstrained by transgender politics know full well that were we to treat patients in accordance with a discordant gender identity, instead of their real sex, the results could be catastrophic.[i] For example, the heart medication, Betapace, is three times more likely to cause a lethal heart rhythm called torsades de pointes in women than it is in men.[iv]

Sex is not a spectrum; congenital disorders are not additional sexes. The final result of sex development in humans is unambiguously male or female over 99.98 percent of the time. “Intersex” is a term that encompasses a variety of congenital disorders of sex development that result in sex ambiguity and/or a mismatch between sex chromosomes and appearance.These disorders occur in less than 0.02 percent of all births.[v][vi] A spectrum is defined as “a continuous distribution” or a distribution in which “no specific outcome is more likely than others.” [vi] Clearly, the existence of rare disorders of sex development do not constitute a sex spectrum.

As evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright of University of California, Santa Barbara recently penned, “The claim that classifying people’s sex upon anatomy and genetics ‘has no basis in science’ has itself no basis in reality, as any method exhibiting a predictive accuracy of over 99.98 percent would place it among the most precise methods in all the life sciences.” [vi]

The use of congenital disorders to advance the myth that there are a multitude of human sexes which exist on a spectrum is ideological and political activism, not science.

Gender identity is not an immutable trait found anywhere in the body, brain, or DNA.[vii] Gender identity is an awareness of, and comfort level with, one’s physical body. Gender identity may be factually correct or factually incorrect, and, unlike sex, may change. Children with gender dysphoria, for example, will come to identify with their biological sex in 61-98 percent of cases by adulthood.[viii] There is also a rise in the number of adults who seek surgery to reverse their past sex reassignment surgeries.[ix]

The claim that upholding the scientific definition of sex will increase suicide among transgender identifying people is false. Individuals who identify as transgender may have mistaken beliefs about themselves and their bodies. They suffer real emotional distress and are at a higher risk for mental illness, including suicidal ideation, as compared to the general population. Social and medical “gender transition and affirmation,” however, is not proven to decrease suicide rates.

The rate of suicide attempts among transgender identified individuals has been estimated to be almost 9 times that of the general population.[x] Sweden is a transgender affirming country that has adopted laws and policies conflating sex and gender-identity. Nevertheless, a study conducted by researchers there in 2011 found the rate of completed suicides among surgically “gender-affirmed” adults to be 19 times greater than that of the general population.[xi] Clearly, transgender affirmation does not prevent suicide, and may paradoxically worsen the emotional health of these individuals in the long term.

Upholding the scientific definition of sex in law and policy protects everyone’s right to privacy, protection and equal treatment, especially that of girls and women. It is impossible to protect girls’ and women’s rights unless the law defines them solely according to objective biological reality and not according to subjective gender identity. When gender identity is erroneously treated as equivalent to sex in law and policy, then a male may at any time demand the rights, protections and access afforded to females. This automatically strips girls and women of their right to sex-based privacy, protection, and a proper playing field to compete equally. Transgender ideology thereby transforms all that was once reserved for females alone into another male prerogative.

Boys, for example, are literally running away with state level championship titles in girls’ sports because they identify as transgender.[xii] How is it just to award honors – which could include athletic college scholarships – reserved for female high school athletes, to boys who are innately biologically bigger, stronger and faster?

Of greater concern, gender identity has been used to allow biological males in spaces previously reserved for women. As a result, girls and women are suffering sexual assaults at the hands of biological men in women’s shelters,[xiii][xiv] women’s prisons [xv] and even elementary school girls’ bathrooms.[xvi]

As the biological men and women they are, transgender-identified individuals possess the same human dignity and right to the equal protection of the law as all Americans. For the law to respect the human dignity of all Americans, including those who identify as transgender, it must be based on biological truth; not on ideological falsehoods at the expense of children and women’s rights, health and well-being.

For all of these reasons, it is with unwavering conviction that we urge the Trump Administration to uphold the original scientific meaning and legal intent of the term “sex” in federal law and policy.

Please note that university and hospital affiliations are for identification only and do not imply institutional endorsement.

Sincerely,

Michelle Cretella, M.D.
Executive Director, American College of Pediatricians

Quentin Van Meter, MD
President, American College of Pediatricians
Pediatric Endocrinologist

Donna Harrison, M.D.
Executive Director, American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists

Peter Morrow, M.D.
President, Catholic Medical Association

Stephen M. Krason, Ph.D.
President, Society of Catholic Social Scientists

Paul McHugh, M.D.
University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital

Michael K. Laidlaw, M.D.
Endocrinologist and member of gdworkinggroup.org

Craig Stump M.D., Ph.D., FACE
Endocrinologist, University of Arizona College of Medicine

Paul W. Hruz M.D., Ph.D.
Pediatric Endocrinologist, Physician-Scientist, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Professor of Cellular Biology & Physiology

Angela Lanfranchi M.D. FACS

Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

Susan J Bradley, M.D., FRCP(C)

Professor Emerita, University of Toronto

J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology Northwestern University

Marie T. Hilliard, MS, MA, JCL, Ph.D., RN
The National Catholic Bioethics Center

Mary Lou Singleton, MSN, FPC-BC

Christopher Doyle, LPC
Co-Founder National Task Force for Therapy Equality

David Pickup, LMFT
Co-Founder National Task Force for Therapy Equality

Laura Haynes, Ph.D., California Licensed Psychologist
USA Representative, International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice (IFTCC.org)

Michael Farris, J.D.
President, CEO, & General Counsel
Alliance Defending Freedom

Matthew D. Staver, Esq.
Founder and President, Liberty Council

Charles LiMandri, J.D.
Founder and President, Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund

Robert J. Muise, Esq.
Co-Founder, American Freedom Law Center

Gerard V. Bradley, J.D.
Professor of Law University of Notre Dame

Steven D. Smith, J.D.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law University of San Diego

Maimon Schwarzschild, J.D.
Professor of Law University of San Diego

Larry Alexander, LL.B.
Warren Distinguished Professor of Law University of San Diego

Tony Perkins
President
Family Research Council

Frank Cannon
President
American Principles Project

Matthew J. Franck, Ph.D.
Senior Fellow, Witherspoon Institute

Sharon Slater
President, Family Watch International

Austin Ruse
President, Center for Family and Human Rights

Allan C. Carlson, Ph.D., Editor,
The Natural Family: An International Journal of Research and Policy

Patrick Lee, Ph.D.
McAleer Professor of Bioethics
Center for Bioethics, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Christopher Wolfe, Ph.D.
Distinguished Affiliate Professor, University of Dallas
President, American Public Philosophy Institute

Rev. D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D.
Research Professor of Sociology and Director, Leo Institute for Catholic Social Research, The Catholic University of America

Robert G Kennedy, Ph.D.
Department of Catholic Studies University of St. Thomas

Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D.
Founder and President, The Ruth Institute

References

[i] Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health: Does Sex Matter? In: Wizemann TM, editor; Pardue ML, editor. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2001.

[ii] American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5 (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013), p. 829.

[iii] “Researchers Identify 6,500 Genes That Are Expressed Differently in Men and Women,” Weizmann Wonder Wander (Weizmann Institute of Science), May 3, 2017, online at: https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/researchers-identify-6500-genes-are-expressed-differently-men-and-women; reporting on: Moran Gershoni and Shmuel Pietrokovski, “The landscape of sex-differential transcriptome and its consequent selection in human adults,” BMC Biology 15:7 (2017), which says, “[T]here are over 6500 protein-coding genes with significant SDE [sex-differential expression] in at least one tissue.” Online at: https://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12915-017-0352-z.

[iv] Lehmann MH, et. al. Circulation. 1996 Nov 15;94(10):2535-41. Abstract available online at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8921798

[v] Sax L. “How Common is Intersex? A Response to Anne Fausto-Sterling,” Journal of Sex Research 39:3 (August 2002), pp. 174-178. Online at:

http://www.leonardsax.com/how-common-is-intersex-a-response-to-anne-fausto-sterling/.

[vi] Wright C. “The New Evolution Deniers.” Quillette. Nov 30, 2018. Available online at: https://quillette.com/2018/11/30/the-new-evolution…

[vii] McHugh PR, Mayer LS. “Sexuality and Gender findings from the Biological,Psychological and Social Sciences.” The New Atlantis. Fall 2016. Available onlineat: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/introd…

[viii] Ristori J, Steensma TD. Gender dysphoria in childhood. Int Rev Psychiatry. 2016;28(1):13-20.

[ix] Borreli L. “Transgender Surgery: Regret Rates Highest In Male to Female Reassignment Operations.” Newsweek. October 3, 2017. Available online at: https://www.newsweek.com/transgender-women-transge…

[x] Haas AP, Rodgers PL & Herman J. “Suicide Attempts Among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults: Findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey,” Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law, January 2014. Available online at: http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu

[xi] Cecilia Dhejne, et al., “Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden,” PLoS ONE 6 (2011); online at: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885.

[xii] Mayer R. “Transgender Track Athlete Wins CT State Championship, Debate Ensues.” June 13, 2018. CBS News. Available online at: https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2018/06/13/transgende…

[xiii]Hoggard, Corin. “Shelter forced women to shower with person who identified as a transgender woman and sexually harassed them, lawsuit says.”ABC 30 Action News, Fresno, CA, May 23, 2018; online at: https://abc30.com/homeless-women-harassed-in-showe…

[xiv] Sam Pazzano, “Predator who claimed to be transgender declared dangerous offender,” Toronto Sun, February 26, 2014; online at: http://www.torontosun.com/2014/02/26/predator-who-claimed-to-be-transgender-declared-dangerous-offender.

[xv] Janet Fife-Yeomans, “Sex change killer Maddison Hall to be free as a bird,” Daily Telegraph, April 2, 2010; online at: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/sex-change-killer-to-be-free-as-a-bird/news-story/b1fecc9a9a4717607de6e980980e0ba5?sv=e95663cd723e2f8ffa0caa3329e03203.

[xvi] Alliance Defending Freedom, “US opens investigation into sexual assault of minor child in Georgia, violation of Title IX,” Press Release (October 3, 2018); online at:

http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/99205?search=1.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Ken Treloar on Unsplash.

Muslim workers at Amazon demand longer prayer times, less work

Amazon has banned Jihad Watch from Amazon Smile and Amazon Associates, but its aid to jihadis has not led to its being accorded any breaks by its Muslim workers.

“Amazon says it has offered accommodations such as providing prayer mats for workers, converting a conference room into prayer space during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and approving shift transfers for fasting workers.”

But it isn’t enough.

“The workers, many of whom are practicing Muslims, say the required productivity rate is too high, the company is unconcerned about worker injuries and that the conditions don’t allow practicing Muslims to pray as they otherwise would.”

The idea is to reinforce the principle, already established in other cases, that Muslims must always have special privileges and accommodations that others do not have. This is true now at Amazon unless non-Muslim workers get time off work equal to the prayer breaks that Muslims are given. Islamic law denies non-Muslims basic rights; only Muslims enjoy full rights in an Islamic society. To establish a similar situation in the U.S. is the ultimate goal here.

“Somali-American Amazon workers demand better conditions,” by Kerem Yucel and Nova Safo, AFP, December 15, 2018 (thanks to Mark):

A group of Amazon workers in Minnesota who are Somali refugees resettled in the Midwestern US state demanded better working conditions Friday during a protest outside one of the retailer’s warehouses.

Hundreds braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate outside of the Amazon warehouse in the Minneapolis suburb of Shakopee—home to a sizable Somali immigrant population from which Amazon has heavily recruited….

“We don’t have rights in the company,” worker Abdulkadir Ahmad, 30, told AFP.

The workers, many of whom are practicing Muslims, say the required productivity rate is too high, the company is unconcerned about worker injuries and that the conditions don’t allow practicing Muslims to pray as they otherwise would.

“We do not have enough time to pray. There is a lot of pressure. They say your rate is too low,” Ahmad said.

The workers timed their protest during the busy holiday shopping season, hoping to force the online retailer to make changes.

Amazon’s accommodations

They already have had some success. Amazon says it has offered accommodations such as providing prayer mats for workers, converting a conference room into prayer space during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and approving shift transfers for fasting workers.

“Additionally, we’ve continued to hire and develop East African employees. We’re a leader in this space and we feel really good about our record here,” Amazon spokeswoman Shevaun Brown told AFP via email….

But workers say Amazon’s efforts so far have fallen short.

“We are appreciative they’ve sat down and talked with us, but we are not seeing real action,” activist Abdi Muse said.

Muse is the executive director of the Awood Center, a union-backed non-profit that organized the protest and helps East African workers in the state….

“When workers leave Amazon, they still live with the back pain, chronic illness, and hurt and harm caused during their employment,” said Ahmed Anshur, the imam at the Al-Ihsan Islamic Center in the nearby state capital of Saint Paul.

Protesters said they want the multibillion-dollar company to give back to the struggling community that has been a major source of its workforce in the Minneapolis area by giving money to a community fund to help struggling immigrant families.

“It’s not a handout or a donation,” said Mohamed Omar, imam at another Minneapolis suburban mosque….

Of course not. Why, who would think such a thing?\

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared on Jihad Watch. It is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash.

Illegal Immigration and the Cost of Stupidity

Boggles the mind. I mean really, have a look at the numbers and tell me what I am missing. Illegal Immigration and the Cost of Stupidity. It boggles the mind. Or does it? As you think through this, you may come to realize that they are de-cloaked. The enemy within has been going through a full scale de-cloaking and they are now hidden in plain sight. Check out my recent interview at INFOWARS for a more in depth view about the enemy within and their intentions (Globalization) and vision for America.

Nationalism vs. Globalism

So we can see in the recent transparent exchange between Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and President Trump (with VP Pence quietly and wisely observing) that we are heading for a showdown in a matter of days. Fundamentally, it comes down to this. Nationalism vs. Globalism, a clash of world views. I will tell you this. Trump will get his wall and Mexico in the end, will be paying for it.

I talked about the cost of illegal immigration recently in this interview. The immigration segment begins at time marker 36:10. But before we get into the cost of illegal immigration which is detailed below, I would like to share with you some views with regards to this subject. Why all the attacks and backlash against then candidate Trump and now President Trump? This is an easy one to explain. You see once you come to understand the ruling elite’s goal for a New World Order, a one world government (Globalism), it all begins to make sense.

Stripping away the sovereignty of nations began in Europe. The consolidation became known as the European Union. Border-less neighboring nations, one currency. Ah, kumbaya-not! Can you say BREXIT? So how did that work out? Disastrous. Turn on the evening news. Been to Paris lately? Meanwhile on the streets in Poland, England and France thousands are chanting “We want Trump”. Oh yeah, MSM failed to cover that. So Trump gains global support and is the most loved man alive today. But back on point.

As you stroll through somewhat recent history you find that the globalist’s plan was quite similar for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. A parallel move to the European Union and the Euro, was to be the North American Union and the Amero. Sure they called it a conspiracy, but as we know many of the conspiracy theories of yesterday have proven to be the conspiracy facts and realities of today in this great awakening that is taking place around the world today.

During George W. Bush’s time in the White House marching to the beat of Globalism just like his Poppy, (may he rest_ _ ), the plan was simply this. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico was to become the North American Union, a border-less nation with one currency called the Amero. Don’t believe me? It was on the floor of Congress.  Look it up. Get some skin in the game. Lou Dobbs, when at CNN at the time had this to say about the North American Union.

So here comes candidate Trump, upsetting the globalists apple cart. You can clearly see now in this de-cloaking stage I referred to earlier, why low energy Jeb, GWB and now deceased Poppy Bush all spoke out against then candidate Trump even after winning the GOP nomination. Nor did they did attend the RNC acceptance event. All three Bush’s also have denounced the now sitting President, President Donald Trump.

So again, here comes candidate and now President Trump. So why all the border backlash then and now? Well besides stripping the sovereignty of the U.S. via the North American Union, that border makes the deep state globalists a lot of money and feeds their goals to over throw America in many ways as well as feeding their sick, evil, demented perverted appetites. It is through this Mexican border where they control and cash in on running drugs, weapons and child sex trafficking.Thus catch and release and open border policies. Well there is a new Sheriff in town and this is about to end.

The Front Door is Closed

We all have a front door wherever it is that we live. It has a lock or locks on it too. Why? Well of course to keep us safe from uninvited intruders. After all you would not just let anyone into your home unless you invite them, know who they are, and why they will be coming into your home. Why? Because you want to protect yourself and your loved ones from being assaulted, raped, or killed. You want to protect the things you own from being damaged or stolen. Same goes for our country. My good friend Dr. Richard Davis, (R.I.P.), contributed this article to my website. Please read it. It is called My Front Door.

And Now The Numbers

Go ahead – have a look. Feast your eyes on these numbers. (then rush to the toilet because it may make you sick). You will never look at Pelosi and Schumer the same again giving our great President a song and a dance for $5 billion! These figures are excerpted from my book “Trump and the Resurrection of America” in chapter sixteen titled, “Immigration”.

1.  $14 billion to $22 billion dollars are spent each year on welfare to illegal aliens (that’s Billion with a ‘B’)

2. 22 billion dollars a year are spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens

3.  $7.5 billion dollars are spent each year on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

4.  $12 billion dollars are spent each year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they still cannot speak a word of English

5.  $27 billion dollars are spent each year for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

6.  $3 Million Dollars ‘PER DAY’ is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.  That’s $1.2 Billion a year.

7.  28% percent of all federal prison inmates are illegal aliens.

8.  $190 billion dollars are spent each year on illegal aliens for welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.

9.  $200 billion dollars per year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.

10.  The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens.  In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US.

11.  During the year 2005, there were 8 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our southern border with as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from other terrorist countries.  Over 10,000 of those were middle-eastern terrorists.  Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin, crack, guns, and marijuana crossed into the U.S. from the southern border.

12.  The National Policy Institute, estimates that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.

13.  In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $65 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin, to their families and friends.

14.  The dark side of illegal immigration:  Over one million sex crimes have been committed by illegal immigrants in the United States!

The Denver Post?

Even the liberal Denver Post ran an article titled “What if They Left“. An excerpt is below,

I, Tina Griego, journalist for the Denver Rocky Mountain News wrote a column titled, “Mexican Visitor’s Lament.” I interviewed Mexican journalist Evangelina Hernandez while visiting Denver last week. Hernandez said, “Illegal aliens pay rent, buy groceries, buy clothes. What happens to your country’s economy if 20 million people go away?”

Hmmm, I thought, what would happen? So I did my due diligence, buried my nose as a reporter into the FACTS I found below. It’s a good question… it deserves an honest answer. Over 80% of Americans demand secured borders and illegal migration stopped. But what would happen if all 20 million or more vacated America? The answers I found may surprise you!

In California, if 3.5 million illegal aliens moved back to Mexico, it would leave an extra $10.2 billion to spend on overloaded school systems, bankrupt hospitals and overrun prisons. It would leave highways cleaner, safer and less congested. Everyone could understand one another as English became the dominant language again.

In Colorado, 500,000 illegal migrants, plus their 300,000 kids and grandchildren would move back “home,” mostly to Mexico. That would save Colorado an estimated $2 billion (other experts say $7 billion) annually in taxes that pay for schooling, medical, social-services and incarceration costs.  It means 12,000 gang members would vanish out of Denver alone.  Colorado would save more than $20 million in prison costs, and the terror that those 7,300 alien criminals set upon local citizens.  Denver Officer Don Young and hundreds of Colorado victims would not have suffered death, accidents, rapes and other crimes by illegals.  Denver Public Schools would not suffer a 67% dropout/flunk rate because of thousands of illegal alien students speaking 41 different languages.  At least 200,000 vehicles would vanish from our gridlocked cities in Colorado.  Denver’s 4% unemployment rate would vanish as our working poor would gain jobs at a living wage.

In Florida, 1.5 million illegals would return the Sunshine State back to America, the rule of law, and English.

In Chicago, Illinois, 2.1 million illegals would free up hospitals, schools, prisons and highways for a safer, cleaner and more crime-free experience.

If 20 million illegal aliens returned ‘home,’ the U.S.economy would return to the rule of law.  Employers would hire legal American citizens at a living wage. Everyone would pay their fair share of taxes because they wouldn’t be working off the books.  That would result in an additional $401 billion in IRS income taxes collected annually, and an equal amount for local, state and city coffers.

No more push ‘1’ for Spanish or ‘2’ for English.  No more confusion in American schools that now must contend with over 100 languages that degrade the educational system for American kids.  Our overcrowded schools would lose more than two million illegal alien kids at a cost of billions in ESL and free breakfasts and lunches.

We would lose 500,000 illegal criminal alien inmates at a cost of more than $1.6 billion annually.  That includes 15,000 MS-13 gang members who distribute $130 billion in drugs annually would vacate our country.  In cities like L.A., 20,000 members of the ’18th Street Gang’ would vanish from our nation.  No more Mexican forgery gangs for ID theft from Americans! No more foreign rapists and child molesters!

Losing more than 20 million people would clear up our crowded highways and gridlock.  Cleaner air and less drinking and driving American deaths by illegal aliens!

America’s economy is drained.  Taxpayers are harmed.  Employers get rich Over $80 billion annually wouldn’t return to the aliens’ home countries by cash transfers.  Illegal migrants earned half that money un taxed,which further drains America’s economy which currently suffers a $20 trillion debt.  $20 trillion debt!!!

At least 400,000 anchor babies would not be born in our country, costing us $109 billion per year per cycle.

At least 86 hospitals in California, Georgia and Florida would still be operating instead of being bankrupt out of existence because illegals pay nothing via the EMTOLA Act.  Americans wouldn’t suffer thousands of TB and hepatitis cases rampant in our country – brought in by illegals un-screened at our borders.

Our cities would see 20 million less people driving, polluting and grid locking our cities.  It would also put the ‘progressives’ on the horns of a dilemma; illegal aliens and their families cause 11% of our greenhouse gases.

Over one million of Mexico’s poorest citizens now live inside and along our border from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego, California, in what the New York Times called, ‘colonies’ or new neighborhoods.  Trouble is, those living areas resemble Bombay and Calcutta where grinding poverty, filth, diseases, drugs, crimes, no sanitation and worse.  They live without sewage, clean water,streets, roads, electricity, or any kind of sanitation.  The New York Times reported them to be America’s new ‘ Third World ‘ inside our own country.  Within 20 years, at their current growth rate, they expect 20 million residents of those colonies.  (I’ve seen them personally in Texas and Arizona; it’s sickening beyond anything you can imagine.)  By enforcing our laws, we could repatriate them back to Mexico.  We should invite 20 million aliens to go home, fix their own countries and/or make a better life in Mexico.  We already invite a million people into our country legally annually, more than all other countries combined.  We cannot and must not allow anarchy at our borders, more anarchy within our borders and growing lawlessness at every level in our nation.

It’s time to stand up for our country, our culture, our civilization and our way of life.

 Conclusion

Immigration and the cost of stupidity? It’s not about the numbers as you can see. This game from Pelosi and company will backfire. Trump will build his wall. Mexico will pay for it. Oh yeah…follow Q. Carry on my friends, carry on.

It’s no longer about Democrat vs. Republican, left vs. right. This facade is nothing more than a corrupt controlled, contrived divide and conquer. We shall unite for the good of humanity as we strive to resurrect America from this post constitutional republic of utter lawlessness. We are now embarking upon this path.

The ultra left? Forget about them. We will deal with them at a later date. But your friends, neighbors, associates, family members who are Democrats? They are coming aboard. And soon the swamp will be drained both left and right. Share with them this post. Intelligent common people of good will may see the light. There are any fronts where we can help our friends and neighbors to see the light. This article focused on immigration. There are many unifying topics that will bring us together in life and at the ballot box in 2020. Pedophilia for example. I have written about this subject on and off over the past two years as well as in my book “Trump and the Resurrection of America. Here is a link to get you started.

Dangerous and challenging times indeed. But when your children and grand children ask you”What were you doing when the global governance was being thrust upon America and the world?” What will YOUR answer be? Freedom, it’s up to us! Stay safe. Pray for our President. Stay the course. We are winning my friends, we are winning!

RELATED ARTICLE: White House, Congress Gear Up For a Potential Government Shutdown Over Border Wall Funding 

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

Do you know what we celebrate on Saturday, Dec 15th, 2018?

Our Bill of Rights or the UN’s human rights?


On December 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights became a fundamental part of the Constitution of the United States. Some two years beforehand, the representatives of the 13 colonies gathered together, but they were nervous because they well knew from the history of England and Europe that Kings and Parliaments arbitrarily could take away the people’s freedoms.

For this reason they insisted that some basic rights and freedoms be written into the Constitution so that no future government could ever take them away or oppress the citizens of the land: thus the Bill of Rights was written consisting of ten crucial amendments to the glorious Constitution.

On December 15, 2018 we celebrate the 227th anniversary of these important amendments that have proved so essential to the American political tradition. But the very Constitution is now threatened from within the United States. Our public education system is riddled with teachers, tenured professors and administrators who question its validity in these first decades of the 21st century.

Children come home telling their parents that, “in class today we learned about the Bill of Rights and what parts to change or cut out.” We hear from these same children that their teachers say it’s too old or it was written long ago in 1789 and that a new one would fit today’s world much better. Or that the teachers say the whole Constitution has really old ideas in it and its holding us back from being progressive.

Tragically our schools and colleges have become Socialist Conveyor belts churning out cookie-cutter little socialists who know little if anything of American history or the reasons why the Founding Fathers wrote the Bill of Rights in the first place. Let’s take the First Amendment and its first right, namely – Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion.

In other words, the government cannot create an official religion or church or make citizens attend it. The memories of the horrific religious wars in England and throughout Europe were what motivated this part of the First Amendment. In England and Europe, religious wars were endemic. Each Christian nation’s army calling upon the same Lord and Savior to give it victory. The ‘Thirty Years War’ from 1618 to 1648 led to unspeakable horrors of man’s inhumanity to man and all in the name of which Church would be preeminent.

The Founding Fathers in America knew of such horrors. Their ancestors had fled to America’s shores to escape from it. They wanted to make sure that in America there would never be such misery and division.

Included in the First Amendment is the Free Exercise clause which prevents the government from interfering with how people worship. These unchangeable words of immense wisdom provide us with safety from oppression, but foolish folks today would abandon it to create a new dystopian world in the name of illusory progressivism.

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press. We should be able to say what we want and publish or broadcast our ideas. But we all know that such enshrined rights are being circumscribed by the same progressive oppression known as political correctness – a sinister assault upon the First Amendment and a direct attack upon what the Founding Fathers wanted, which was to be sure that people were not punished or ostracized for what they said.

So called progressives (a cute name for latter day socialists and communists) would gladly dump the rights of freedom of religion, speech and the press as enshrined in the First Amendment. Instead, they would willingly embrace the grotesque human rights hypocrisy that the globalist United Nations foists upon the world.

The relentless attacks by these same progressives, many of whom now infest the increasingly leftwing Democrat Party, know that it is the Second Amendment which is their prime target because it keeps the entire Constitution and the Bill of Rights alive. Indeed, all rights are dependent on a strong Second Amendment.

” … the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” These are the words that progressives would tear up as they take away our guns and leave us defenseless against a tyrannical government.

The United States had joined the travesty of the UN Human Rights Council in 2009 during former President Barack Hussein Obama’s first term. This occurred after the Council was established to replace the widely discredited earlier UN Commission on Human Rights. But this new Human Rights Council is fundamentally flawed from the outset for it fails to incorporate any meaningful criteria for membership and instead is led by – and subject to – control and manipulation by the very human rights abusers, such as Iran, that the Council was meant to expel and censure.

Taking the moral high ground, the U.S. recently removed itself from that shameful disgrace, which the morally compromised United Nations foisted upon the world.

There can be no comparison between the towering vision of the Bill of Rights with the hypocrisy of the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN General Assembly, or of that other oppressive organization: The European Union.

Fortunately the U.S, Australia, Israel and most East European nations have justifiably rejected the UN’s Migration Pact, which is the latest assault by globalists on a national citizen’s right. The UN is not seeking colonization, but conquest. The citizens of nations who accept the pact will be slaves. The rights of “UN citizens” will supersede those of citizens in their own home countries.

In conclusion we hear so often the insidious talk by progressives about “reasonable gun control laws.” Americans should be terrified of that word, “CONTROL.” After all, it was the favorite word used by Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin and increasingly we now hear it used by the globalists in the UN and in the EU.

So this Saturday, please remember why we celebrate this 227th anniversary of our treasured Bill of Rights and why we must rally together to protect and support it.

RELATED ARTICLE: Oregon Is Vaporizing Free-speech Rights for Small-business Owners

EDITORS NOTE: © Victor Sharpe. The featured photo is by Anthony Garand on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Judicial Watch Gives Testimony on Capitol Hill about Clinton Foundation

When I was asked by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Government Operations to testify this week about the Clinton Foundation, I knew the challenge would be organizing the vast trove of information we have accumulated through court action over the past several years.

That evidence, I told the committee, warrants a serious investigation of the Clinton Foundation. Moreover, there is evidence that the Obama Justice Department suppressed an investigation of the Foundation.

In my testimony, I said that we were suspicious from the very beginning of Hillary Clinton’s term at the State Department if she and Bill could keep Foundation and government business separate. By 2014, it was evident that we were right, and we issued a report with the Washington Examiner:

A joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton‘s tenure as secretary of state…

State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill Clinton’s proposed speeches did not object to a single one.

Some of the speeches were delivered in global hotspots and were paid for by entities with business or policy interests in the U.S.

[ … ]

[A]n inspection by the Examiner and Judicial Watch of donations to the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton’s personal financial disclosure forms, and the State Department conflict-of-interest reviews show that at least $48 million flowed to the Clintons’ personal coffers from many entities that clearly had interests in influencing the Obama administration — and perhaps currying favor with a future president as well.

I detailed for the committee Bill Clinton’s speeches in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and China, all of which poured enormous sums into the Foundation. And there were Bill Clinton’s infamous speeches in Russia. There he gave two for $625,000. One was to the Russian investment bank, Renaissance Capital, at a 2010 event.

I also reminded the committee that it was our efforts that uncovered Hillary Clinton’s notorious private email system, which effectively shielded her various dealings. After our lawsuits forced the disclosure of the Clinton email server, another Judicial Watch lawsuit broke open what is now known as the Clinton Foundation pay-to-play scandal.

Emails we uncovered demonstrate that Clinton Foundation donors and supporters received special favors and consideration from the Clinton State Department. Just one example:

Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain: A Judicial Watch-obtained Huma Abedin-Doug Band email exchange from 2009 revealed that Crown Prince Salman of Bahrain requested a meeting with Secretary of State Clinton but was forced to go through the Clinton Foundation for an appointment. Abedin advised Band that when she went through “normal channels” at State, Clinton declined to meet. After Band intervened, however, the meeting was set up within forty-eight hours. According to the Clinton Foundation website, in 2005, Salman committed to establishing the Crown Prince’s International Scholarship Program (CPISP) for the Clinton Global Initiative. And by 2010, it had spent $32 million in conjunction with CGI. The Kingdom of Bahrain reportedly gave between $50,000 and $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. And Bahrain Petroleum also gave an additional $25,000 to $50,000.

I concluded my prepared remarks this way:

Judicial Watch will continue its various independent lawsuits and investigations, on behalf of the public interest, into the Clinton Foundation and the related Clinton email scandal.

Because the Clinton Foundation issue is not a “private” scandal. It is a State Department scandal, it is an FBI scandal, it is a Justice Department scandal, it a foreign potentate scandal, it is a shady corporation scandal, and, for sure, it is a government transparency scandal.

It was a privilege to represent you before Congress and to put forward in a public forum what we have known for a long time about Bill and Hillary Clinton and their Foundation: Influence pays handsomely.

You can watch my testimony and congressional follow-up questions here. If you wish, scroll directly to the 15-minute mark where I begin.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with videos and images is republished with permission.