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Pelosi Shuns Trump Offer to Swap Amnesty for Wall

January 21, 2019/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

President Donald Trump offered to expand amnesty for certain young illegal immigrants in exchange for money to pay for a border barrier as a compromise to end the partial government shutdown.

“This is a commonsense compromise both parties should embrace,” Trump said Saturday in a nationally televised speech from the White House.

Democratic leaders have already said they would oppose the Trump compromise, so the partial shutdown of 25 percent of the federal government will likely continue for a while.

“The radical left can never control our borders. I will never let it happen. Walls are not immoral,” the president continued during the speech. “In fact, they are the opposite of immoral, because they will save many lives and stop drugs from pouring into our country.”

During the remarks, Trump laid out a plan that would include the $5.7 billion he requested for construction of additional 230 miles of a steel border wall.

His offer to Democrats is three years of relief for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and another three-year extension for those for whom DACA protection is about to expire. DACA recipients are illegal immigrants brought to the United States by their parents.

Trump talked about the crimes, murder, drugs, and rape that result from illegal immigration, as well as the humanitarian crisis among migrants traveling to reach the United States.

“It’s got to end now. These are not talking points, these are the heartbreaking realities that are hurting innocent, precious human beings every single day on both sides of the border,” Trump said. “As a candidate for president, I promised I would fix this crisis, and I intend to keep that promise.”

Trump’s remarks come as another migrant caravan from Central America is moving toward the U.S. southern border. It also came moments after he spoke to an Oval Office naturalization ceremony that was held for legal immigrants that became citizens on Saturday.

Trump said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will bring the proposal up for a vote next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement opposing the Trump proposal before the president delivered the speech. However, she said the House would vote on its own counter proposal in the next week that did not include a wall—or DACA—to reopen the government.

Trump framed the wall as a reasonable project.

“This is not a 2,000-mile concrete structure from sea to sea,” the president said. “These are steel barriers in high-priority locations.”

Trump deserves credit for trying to security the border, but his proposed compromise is not the best way forward, said James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation.

“Amnesty encourages further illegal immigration, incentivizes the tragedy of human trafficking, and undermines our citizens’ confidence in the rule of law,” Carafano said in a statement. “Amnesty should not be part of any border security deal, especially given that many who today oppose a wall have publicly supported and even voted for physical barriers in the recent past.”

Trump’s proposal also includes $800 million for humanitarian assistance at the border, $805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports of entry, 2,750 new border agents and law enforcement professionals, and 75 new immigration judges to handle the backlog of almost 900,000 cases.

“It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter,” Pelosi said in her statement. “For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] recipients that our country needs and supports.”

Pelosi said Democrats support increasing the number of immigration judges and new technology to stop drugs and weapons from coming across the border.

“Next week, Democrats will pass a package of six bills agreed to by House and Senate negotiators and other legislation to re-open government so that we can fully negotiate on border security proposals.” Pelosi said.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image by lovepixs on Pixabay.

JUDGES GONE ROGUE: Judge embraces ‘Lawfare’ to obstruct immigration law enforcement.

January 21, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Michael Cutler

With increasing frequency judges have issued rulings that run contrary to the laws and commonsense.

Nowhere has this become a more serious issue than where immigration law enforcement is concerned.

It has become fashionable for the radical left to bash our nation’s sovereignty, our borders and the notion of our immigration laws. Of course the initial desire to open our border to “free trade” began with Conservatives and Libertarians who saw in our borders barriers to their wealth to be acquired by importing goods and workers from outside the United States.

The increasingly radicalized Democratic Party has come completely unhinged where immigration law enforcement is concerned, creating so-called “Sanctuary Cities” which openly boast that they will shield “immigrants” from immigration law enforcement.

Of course, as I have written in numerous articles, lawful immigrants and temporary (non-immigrant) alien visitors need no shielding from ICE no more than licensed motorists who operate their motor vehicles in compliance with motor vehicle laws need no shielding from police officers.

New York State’s Governor Cuomo has endorsed sanctuary polities for New York State and has referred to valiant ICE agents as “Thugs.”

Shielding illegal aliens from ICE undermines the efforts of the DHS to deter aliens from entering the United States illegally and deter aliens who are lawfully admitted from subsequently violating our immigration laws by overstaying their lawful period of admission, accepting illegal employment or otherwise violating their terms of their admission.

In point of fact, under the provisions of a federal law that is comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S. Code § 1324, it is a felony to harbor or shield illegal aliens from detection.

While a growing number of cities and states have decided to adopt “sanctuary” polities, there are some cities that continue to cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) through the 287(g) program whereby their law enforcement officers are trained by ICE to assist that division of the DHS with the vital mission of immigration law enforcement from within the interior of the United States.

Apparently a federal district judge, Catherine Blake, decided that the “solution” to local sheriffs and police officers assisting ICE in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, was to order the stay of an illegal alien who had been ordered deported by an Immigration Judge so that the alien could pursue a lawsuit against the Sheriff and his deputies who would dare assist in the enforcement of our immigration laws.

On January 17, 2019 the Conservative Review published an extensive article about this lunacy,

Judge creates right for illegal alien to block deportation … so she can sue law enforcement that provides the infuriating details of the case.

The tactic of launching lawsuits to intimidate law enforcement officers from doing their jobs and local municipalities from enacting laws contrary to their agenda has been the tactic of the ACLU under the concept that they refer to as “Lawfare.” This is similar to “warfare” but uses lawsuits in place of ammunition.

Here is an excerpt from the excellent article Conservative Review article:

Roxana Orellana Santos is an illegal alien from El Salvador who had no right to come to this country in 2005 and no right to remain in this country against the will of the people as expressed through long-standing statute. Pursuant to our laws, Santos was detained by Border Patrol when she broke into our country in Texas and then failed to appear for an immigration hearing. In 2007, an immigration judge issued an order to deport her.

A year into her fugitive life, Frederick cops informally questioned her outside a restaurant on October 7, 2008, after they thought she was running away from them. Upon receiving information from ICE through dispatch that she was here illegally, and then acting on an outstanding immigration warrant from ICE, Frederick sheriff’s deputies arrested Santos as part of their lawful cooperation with the federal government to help apprehend illegal aliens through the 287(g) program, under 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g). It’s part of a law that passed the Senate unanimously in 1996.

The report went on to note:

In a sane country, this would have been the end of the story. Santos should have been deported, pursuant to every statute on the books. But Santos, backed by an army of lawyers from the organization CASA de Maryland, sued the Frederick sheriff for what she felt was an illegal search and seizure and the county commissioners for agreeing to operate under 287(g). After endless motions while remained in the country, the district court rebuffed her claim in 2012, but the arch-liberal Fourth Circuit sided with her a year later. The court created a new right for illegals not to be apprehended by local law enforcement because of their immigration status. Last September, District Judge Catherine Blake ruled that Sheriff Jenkins could be held liable in a civil suit for the acts of his deputies. This allows Santos to proceed with a suit for civil damages. Her attorneys are seeking to milk this small county for $1 million in damages! None of us can sue her for sucking up our resources.

How many members of the law enforcement community will continue to enforce the laws when they know that they or their jurisdictions are never more than one decision away from a massive and debilitating lawsuit?

This is an outrageous example of extortion to coerce local jurisdiction to fall in line with the demands of the immigration anarchists.

There is a long standing question that asks, “Is the pen mightier than the sword.”

The answer to the question depends on who is wielding the pen. We certainly witnessed tremendous damage done to our nation by the President Obama’s pen (and phone). We are now witnessing the damage being done by judges who have decided that as Sylvester Stallone’s character, Judge Dredd intoned in the film by that name, “I am the law!”

The realm of immigration law enforcement now exists in a parallel universe where nothing that would exist anywhere else exists in this magical and treacherous kingdom.

It is a matter of routine that law enforcement agencies work in close cooperation to enforce broad spectrum of laws across the United States. When police departments encounter a person who is wanted for crimes in other jurisdictions or, perhaps, by federal agencies, that they notify the agency that has lodged a warrant in the NCIS database. In point of fact, a significant number of the FBI’s most wanted are initially arrested by local police.

Immigration law violations were treated similarly until recently with local police working closely with immigration law enforcement.

In the 1970’s as an INS agent, I was, involved in such case involving an arrest made by members of the NYPD Anti-Crime squad in Brooklyn. Police officers had stopped a car that ran a red light. The driver got out of the car and attacked the police officer who was at least twice the size of the belligerent motorist. The cop knocked the assailant to the ground and a gun, a 9mm Browning fell out of his waistband. Both men, who spoke with heavy West Indian accents were taken into custody.

In those days I worked in close cooperation with the NYPD and particularly with several of the police precincts, especially the precinct where this occurred. The sergeant who was in charge of that squad called me and asked if I could assist in figuring out who these two guys were. For whatever reason, when the NYPD ran their fingerprints no relating record could be found.

They both claimed to have been born in the U.S. In fact, the driver told me had been born “down south in Chicago.” This certainly called his claim of being a United States citizen into serious question.

I had developed a relationship with the DEA in NYC and although the INS lack the capability to electronically transmit fingerprints to the FBI in Washington, the DEA was able and willing to provide me with that capability. I ran the prints and in the middle of the night I received an urgent call from FBI Headquarters, they wanted to know where the two individuals were, it turned out that they were about to be placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List” for their involvement in serious of deadly bank robberies where they were alleged to have shot and killed several people.

Incidentally, they were both were aliens- citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who had lied about their identities and citizenship.

My partner and I received letters of commendation from the NYPD/FBI Joint Bank Robbery Task Force for identifying these two fugitives enabling them to be taken into custody and prosecuted for their crimes. Today, they are probably still in jail, where they can no longer pose a threat to anyone.

We also lodged detainers to have them taken into immigration custody if they are ever released from prison.

This is but a single example of just how successful such cooperative teamwork can be to protect our communities but could never happen today, especially in New York City.

For the globalists, the bodies of innocent victims are nothing more than “collateral damage” or, perhaps, “speed bumps” on the road to globalism and anarchy.

In all professions those who make bad decision are likely to pay a serious price. Doctors who are guilty of malpractice can be sued, lose their licenses to practice medicine, and even be prosecuted. Law enforcement officers face similar consequences when they act inappropriately.

Judges and politicians must be made similarly accountable.

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash.

Rights and Non-Rights: A Simple Way to Distinguish the Two

January 20, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Despite the centrality of rights in American history, it’s readily apparent today that Americans are of widely different views on what a right is, how many we have, where rights come from, or why we have any in the first place.

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

George Mason, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“Rights” are in the news these days perhaps as much as they were in George Mason’s time. As a score of politicians prepares to announce their 2020 campaigns for President of the United States, we can expect “rights” to be in the news every day, as they are promised to us one after another. “You have a right” to this or that and “If elected, I’ll make sure you get it” will soon be monotonous refrains.

America is a nation founded on the notion of rights. Our independence was declared in 1776 on a foundation of “unalienable” rights granted to us not by mortal authorities but by the Creator himself. Our ancestors rebelled against the British because they believed that such rights as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were being thwarted by oppressors in London. Our founding documents were put forth specifically for the purposes of securing and protecting rights. Battles both intellectual and physical were fought in the ensuing decades to ensure that rights remained a priority of government or were extended to people not originally included.

So this business of rights is indistinguishable from the American experience; indeed, it is at the very core of that experience. Remove rights from the equation, and America is just one of countless countries—past and present—in which individuals possess nothing more than what those in power decide to give them or allow them to have.

Is a right the same thing as a wish? Why or why not? Or if you need something, does that mean you have a right to it? If I require a kidney, do I have a right to one of yours? Is a right something that can or should be granted or denied by majority vote? Does a document such as the Constitution or an executive order or a law of Congress create rights, or do such paper instruments simply acknowledge rights (by either defending or eroding them) that people inherently possess?

If you walked down Main Street America in 2019 and asked random citizens these very questions, I’ll bet you’d hear a plethora of different and conflicting answers. Read over those questions again and think about how you would respond.

This essay doesn’t provide all the answers, nor does it raise all the relevant questions. Its purpose is more limited than that. If it prompts the reader to think of rights in a deeper, more thoughtful way than heretofore and then contribute to the public discourse on the subject in a meaningful way, then it’ll achieve my purposes. I’ll even include a recommended reading list at the end.

I’ve given this subject some thought over the years and feel confident in providing the reader with a couple of lists to consider. The first one itemizes what I personally think you have a right to; the second is a partial roster of things I personally think you don’t have a right to (and I readily grant that you have every right to disagree with me).

You have a right to:

Your life (unless compromised by taking or attempting to take that of another person without a self-defense justification);
Your thoughts;
Your speech (which is really a verbal or written expression of #2) so long as you don’t steal it from another without permission or credit;
Material property you were freely given, that you created yourself, or that you freely traded for;
Raise and educate your children as you see fit;
Live in peace and freedom so long as you do not threaten the peace and freedom of others.

You do not have a right to:

High-speed broadband Internet access;
Cheeseburgers, cheap wine (or even expensive wine, for that matter), or an iPhone;
Somebody else’s house, car, boat, income, business, or bank account;
The labor of another person you’ve not freely contracted with (you can’t enslave somebody, in other words);
Medical care from a witch doctor or a skilled surgeon or anybody in between;
Taxpayer-funded (i.e., coercively-appropriated) child daycare, college education, contraceptives, colonoscopies, or sports stadiums;
Anything that’s not yours, even though you really want it and think you’re entitled to it;
Conscript other people’s children into schools you think they should attend;
Free stuff in general, unless the rightful owner chooses to offer it;
Anything a politician flattered you with by claiming you have a right to it.

Of course, gray areas and reasonable qualifications exist. For example, while I believe you do have a right to raise and educate your own children as you see fit, abuse and neglect are not defensible. But let’s keep our eyes on the big picture, the broad principles here.

Positive vs. Negative Rights

Now, look at those two lists again, carefully. How does the nature of the first list contrast with the nature of the second?

Answer: In the case of the first list, nothing is required of other people except that they leave you alone. For you to have a right to something in the second list, however, requires that other people be compelled to provide that something to you. That’s a monumental difference!

The first list comprises what are often called both “natural rights” and “negative rights”—natural because they derive from our essential nature as unique, sensate individuals and negative because they don’t impose obligations on others beyond a commitment to not violate them. The items in the second are called “positive rights” because others must give them to you or be coerced into doing so if they decline.

The late Tibor Machan, who wrote many articles for FEE in the 1970s and 1980s, elaborated on this distinction in “The Perils of Positive Rights”:

“Positive rights” trump freedom. According to this doctrine, human beings by nature owe, as a matter of enforceable obligation, part or even all of their lives to other persons. Generosity and charity thus cannot be left to individual conscience. If people have such positive rights, no one can be justified in refusing service to others; one may be conscripted to serve regardless of one’s own choices and goals.
If positive rights are valid, then negative rights cannot be, for the two are mutually contradictory.

The existence of “negative rights,” wrote Machan, “means that no one ought to enslave another, coerce another, or deprive another of his property; and that each of us may properly resist such conduct when others engage in it.”

So while I believe neither you nor I have a right to any of those disparate things in the second list, I hasten to add that we certainly have the right to seek them, to create them, to receive them as gifts from willing benefactors, or to trade for them. We just don’t have a right to compel anyone to give them to us or pay for them. If any of us did, then why wouldn’t another individual have a similar right to take them from us?

The Constitution’s Role in Rights

What about “constitutional rights,” a phrase we hear from people on all sides of the political spectrum? I like what Michael Badnarik said about them in his 2004 book, Good to be King:

People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase “constitutional rights.” I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution “grants” them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking, it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all […] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the rights you’ve always had.

If you’re motivated to explore further the nature, origin, meaning, and extent of rights, then you’re on the right website. Over decades, FEE has published many articles by numerous authors on just this matter. I close with a recommendation of 10 of the best:

Let’s Think Clearly about “Rights” by Jeffrey Harding

Human Rights are Property Rights by Murray N. Rothbard

Of Rights: Natural and Arbitrary by Clarence Carson

Is Health Care a Human Right? by Trevor Burrus

No Rights Without Property Rights by Frank Chodorov

How FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights Changed American Politics by Burton W. Folsom

Rights by Henry Hazlitt

Freedom or Free-for-All? by Lawrence W. Reed

When Wishes Become Rights by Leonard E. Read

Rights Vs. Entitlements by Steven Yates

COLUMN BY

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column with images is republished with permission. Image credit: Flickr-Ted Mielczarek | CC BY 2.0

Mr. President: ‘Build up this wall!’

January 20, 2019/in Commentary, Immigration, News, Policy, Politics/by Victor Sharpe

On Friday, June 12th, 1987, President Reagan visited West Berlin.

Standing upon a platform, overlooking the wall which the Soviets had built to keep East Germans from escaping to freedom in the West, President Reagan chose to utter words that electrified the world. Addressing Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, he said: Mr. President, “Tear down this Wall.”

Here was a wall which, since 1951, had kept hapless souls from escaping Soviet occupied East Germany. But today there is an urgent need to build up a wall on America’s southern border – not to keep people in but to keep trespassers, drug traffickers, dangerous terrorists and violent gang members from illegally infiltrating into the United States of America.

President Trump has outlined the danger that stalks the southern border and imperils America’s very sovereignty as an independent nation state. He has praised the border agents who hourly face violence from brutal criminals as they repeatedly and illegally cross the unprotected border. But this alarming fact does not phase the likes of Pelosi and Schumer or of the growing extremists within the ranks of the Democrat party. The Democrats simply will not work with President Trump and they are willing to ignore the humanitarian and national security crisis that exists and grows daily.

President Trump has stressed again and again the towering need for a wall on the southern border to prevent a tide of illegal aliens from imperiling U.S. sovereignty and bringing with it misery, violence and death.

The Democrats remain willingly blind to the horrendous flow of illegal drugs coming through the southern border. They remain blind and deaf to the human agonies from drug overdoses that are killing hundreds of American citizens every week. They are not concerned about such matters. They are solely engaged in politics and their protestations of being the party of compassion are as real as dream stuff.

Vast quantities of meths, heroin, fentanyl and cocaine flood across the porous southern border resulting in as many as 300 deaths a week from heroin alone. Yet the Democrats remain obstinately blind to such horrors, thus invoking that old saying: “There’s none so blind as those who will not see!”

In 2017, some 20,000 migrant children were brought into the United States, more often than not with unspeakable brutality by vicious coyotes and ruthless gangs. A third of the women in the caravans of despair making their way through Mexico to our southern border are sexually assaulted. In the last two years, ICE officers have confirmed arrests of criminal aliens numbering well over a quarter of a million – and the flood grows ever larger.

In his recent address to the nation, President Trump summed up what is desperately needed. He said, “Now is the time – this is the moment – to finally secure the border and create the lawful and safe immigration system Americans, and those wanting to become Americans, deserve.”

So what could the Democrats possible object to?

Well their obstinacy could be simply summed up as Democrat sheer bloody mindedness. Their refusal to negotiate is due to only one thing, as Rush Limbaugh has repeatedly pointed out: the Democrats hate President Trump.

They do so with a viciousness that drips vitriol and they will never accept him in office. That being the case, we must urge the President to hold firm and not give away one inch to a party that has become so extreme and so willing to inflict immense harm upon the United States of America.

A nation of laws must have the ability to enforce its laws, especially regarding immigration, but the Democrats want us to ignore our laws in favor of their radical and socialist policies. That must not ever be allowed to stand, for in their assault upon the Constitution and their malignant desire to transform America lies ruin and the end of American sovereignty and independence.

Even Majority Leader McConnell, not one to be exactly known as a Conservative firebrand, nevertheless said this after hearing the President’s TV address:

“Tonight, President Trump reaffirmed his commitment to addressing the humanitarian and security crisis at our nation’s southern border. His proposal to increase security through physical barriers suits the reality on the ground. It’s what career Border Patrol experts support and are asking for.”

McConnell also tellingly added that: “It simply builds on earlier legislation that Senate Democrats like then-Senator Obama, then-Senator Clinton, and Senator Schumer previously supported with enthusiasm.” In other words, the Democrats have called in the past for secure physical barriers on the southern border, but now they rail against it and refuse to help pay for it because it is President Trump who will build it.

This is the same Democrat party that now cynically elevates to a leading foreign affairs committee the Muslim immigrant from Somalia, Minnesota Democrat, Rep. Ilhan Omar, who reeks of anti-Semitic bile. She is among a group of recently elected members of Congress touted as the new “progressive” face of the Democratic party.

What binds these Democrats together is their hateful opposition to Israel, our only loyal ally in the Middle East. This is a key policy position for these outrageously biased and bigoted lawmakers. Speaker Pelosi, to her undying shame, knows full well who and what these people are and yet she remains mute without a word of censure.

Among Omar’s colleagues is Palestinian-American, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who was caught on video this month vowing to “impeach the motherf***er,” with regard to President Trump. Again Pelosi exhibits deafening silence.

But, Mr. President, you should know that millions upon millions of Americans support you and urge you to stand firm and defeat the monstrous and fast evolving Democrat Socialist party. The once ‘silent majority’ is with you all the way and it is silent no more.

So, dear Mr. President, electrify the world again – as your predecessor once did – and Build up this Wall.

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

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

January 20, 2019/in Courts & Law, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

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

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

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

This is the latest news from Cleveland.com:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More here.

The case will make you sick!

In February Caraballo plead not guilty here.

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

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

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

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

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

How To Drain The Swamp: Fire All ‘Non-Essential’ Government Personnel

January 20, 2019/in Economy, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by Dr. Rich Swier

The government partial shutdown continues. There are approximately 800,000 non-essential personnel who have been furloughed due to the shutdown. The Washington Post chart below lists the percentage of individuals by department who have been furloughed.

**To see a larger version of this chart click here.**

Dr. Mihai Macovei, an associated researcher at the Ludwig von Mises Institute Romania, found that income inequality and slow productivity are due to a common factor – government intervention. The more government intervention, the less productivity and more income inequality. Dr. Macovei wrote:

A growing chorus of alarmist voices decries the rising economic inequality in the Western world, especially in the United States. Surprisingly enough, the same mainstream analysts complain about the anemic growth of labor productivity without seeing the correct link between the two.
[ … ]
For the United States, the failed economic policy is the exponential growth of government intervention in the economy in the 20th century, which stifled entrepreneurship and capital accumulation. This is obvious in the rise of both government spending that redistributes away economic resources from their originators and the amount of regulatory burden.

The U.S. Congress and previous presidents have allowed government intervention to expand exponentially.

President Trump recognized that it is government intervention at every level (the swamp) that harms economic growth. Regulations by tens of thousands of un-elected government bureaucrats have keep America from being great.

Given the current shutdown and the growing realization that its impact on individual Americans has been negligible, gives the Trump administration a golden opportunity to “trim the fat.”

Fewer government bureaucrats means greater productivity and income equality.

Two goals of Making America Great Again and Keeping America Great!

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Opportunity For Federal Government Reform — Eliminate, Disperse, Privatize

Shutdown Shows How Unnecessary Much of Government Is

RELATED VIDEO: Sweden: Lessons for America? – Full Video by the Free To Choose Network.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash.

Heads Up: The Islamization of America

January 20, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, National Security, Policy, Politics, Religion/by John Michael Chambers

Slowly but surely over the past two decades and especially since the 911 false flag op, our nation has been heavily influenced and infiltrated towards the Islamization of America. With an estimated 90 Muslims having run for office in the recent mid-term elections, it is clear to see the encroaching dangers of Muslims as elected officials. Politically incorrect of me? So be it. Political correctness is nothing more than tyranny with manners, shove it! Even our President has spoken out against being sworn in on the Koran vs the Bible. And now we have Rashida Tlaib of Michigan who has just become the first Muslim women to serve in Congress. And this is what she had to say as an elected official while speaking of our President, “Impeach the Mother F*cker”. Well isn’t that special.

During the Bush and Obama regimes, things really began to change. All of a sudden the tables were turned upside down on the U.S. citizen catering to the Muslims while paving the wave towards a Sharia Law governed US under the watch of BHO, the fraud.

All of a Sudden

It is only Donald Trump who has been brave enough to take on this issue and pledges to restore our Judeo-Christian roots while welcoming legal, law-abiding people of all faiths legally, to our country. The following is an excerpt taken from my book, “Trump and the Resurrection of America“. Let’s take a stroll back a few years, before Trump and see the damage that has been created.

Before Obama there was virtually no noticeable presence of Islam in America. But then all of a sudden we must allow prayer rugs everywhere and allow for Islamic prayer in schools, airports, and businesses.

All of a sudden we must stop serving pork in prisons.
All of a sudden we are inundated with lawsuits by Muslims  who are offended by American culture.
All of a sudden Muslims are suing employers and refusing to do  their jobs if they personally deem it conflicts with Sharia Law.  All of a sudden…
All of a sudden the Attorney General of the United States vows to prosecute anyone who engages in “anti-Muslim speech.”
All of a sudden Muslim training compounds are popping up throughout the USA.
All of a sudden Jihadists who engage in terrorism and openly admit they acted in the name of Islam and ISIS are emphatically declared NOT Islamic by our leaders, and/or their actions are determined to not be terrorism but some other nebulous thing like “workplace violence.”  All of a sudden…
All of a sudden white men are declared to be the greatest terror threat to the country by our leaders, even while ISIS and Al Qaeda promise attacks inside the USA.
All of a sudden it becomes U.S. policy that secular Middle East dictators who were benign or friendly to the West must be replaced by fundamentalist Muslims and the Muslim Brotherhood.
All of a sudden America has reduced its nuclear stockpiles to 1950 levels, as Obama’s stated goal of a nuke-free America by the time he leaves office continues uninterrupted.
All of a sudden a deal with Iran must be made at any cost, with a pathway to nuclear weapons and hundreds of billions of dollars handed over to fund their programs.
All of a sudden America apologizes to Muslim states and sponsors of terror worldwide for acts of aggression, war, and sabotage they perpetrate against our soldiers.
AllofasuddentheAmericanNavyisdiminishedto1917pre- World War I levels of only 300 ships. The Army is at pre-1940 levels. The Air Force scraps 500 planes and plans to retire the use of the A-10 Thunderbolt close air support fighter. A further draw down of another 40,000 military personnel is in progress
All of a sudden half of our aircraft carriers are recalled for maintenance by Obama, rendering the Atlantic unguarded— none are in the Middle East  And all of a sudden…
All of a sudden Islam is taught in schools. Christianity and the Bible are banned in schools.
All of a sudden Obama has to empty Guantanamo Bay of captured jihadists and let them loose in jihad-friendly Islamic states or bring them to America.
All of a sudden America negotiated with terrorists and traded five Taliban commanders for a deserter and Jihad sympathizer.
All of a sudden there is no money for poor, disabled, job- less, or displaced Americans, but there is endless money for  Obama’s “Syrian refugee” resettlement programs.
All of a sudden Obama fills the federal government with  Muslims in key positions.
All of a sudden the most important thing for Obama to do  after a mass shooting by two jihadists is to disarm American citizens.

Well thank God for this great awakening in the era of Trump. There is a new Sheriff in town to address these issues, reverse this trajectory and restore our Judeo-Christain country. There is so much to be done.

MAGA

So many battles are being fought and even more that we have not even begun to fight with any “teeth”. Battles such as Geo-Engineering, Chemtrails, Monsanto, Big Pharma, deadly vaccines, the border security, election theft and election fraud, the debt and the Federal Reserve, the Islamization of America and so many more issues. All will be addressed in due time over the next six years with Donald Trump in office. But not without exposing the crimes and transgression and the treasonous acts committed by the Deep State and its operatives. I have written quite a bit about this subject, you can search in the archives of my posts. Hang in there. So much more lies ahead.

EDITORS NOTE: This JMC column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by أخٌ في الله … on Unsplash.

VIDEO: What is a man? A response to Gillette.

January 19, 2019/in Culture War, News, Policy, Politics, Video/by Dr. Rich Swier

Ilan Srulovicz, the CEO and founder of Egard Watch Company, produced and released this YouTube video. It tells the truth about men. Please watch it.

Srulovicz said:

I created the video for a few reasons. I believe the statistics in the video are widely ignored or dismissed. I have tried to bring light to them myself in the past and had a difficult time having them acknowledged as an issue.

The Gillette ad rubbed me the wrong way. I, like the overwhelming majority of men, am absolutely disgusted by sexual assault, rape, bullying, so why throw it in my face as if my “gender” as a whole is toxic? Using terms like “toxic masculinity” is using too broad a stroke to address specific issues — issues which I agree very much need to be addressed, especially after all the crazy stuff we’ve seen in Hollywood.

I am not against Gillette trying to start a conversation about assault, but I do have an issue with how they went about it.

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EDITORS NOTE: This video is by the Egard Watch Company . The featured photo is by Sharon Garcia on Unsplash.

Keep Telling Your Members of Congress to Oppose “Universal” Background Check Bills

January 19, 2019/in Courts & Law, Gun Rights, Policy, Politics/by NRA Institute for Legislative Action

On January 8, two bills were introduced in Congress to impose so-called “universal” background checks. The bills, H.R. 8 and S. 42, are being misleadingly described as simply requiring background checks on all sales of firearms, but this is just a small part of what these overbroad pieces of legislation would do.

A vote on this gun control legislation could take place as early as the first weeks of February. Therefore, it is vital that gun owners immediately contact their members of Congress to urge them to oppose this legislation, and that gun owners encourage their freedom-minded family and friends to do the same.

Traps for Law-Abiding Gun Owners

Both bills would make it a crime, subject to certain exceptions, to simply hand a firearm to another person. Any time gun owners carry out this simple act, they would potentially be exposing themselves to criminal penalties. While the bills do create some exceptions, they are overly complicated and create many traps for unwary gun owners. Accidental violations of these complicated provisions are not excused under the proposed legislation.

Keep Telling Your Members of Congress to Oppose “Universal” Background Check Bills

Ask your Representative and Senators to oppose H.R.8 and S.42. Additionally, you may call your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators using the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

TAKE ACTION TODAY

This legislation is not about public safety. These bills attack law-abiding gun owners by placing further burdens on gun ownership and use. For the anti-gun groups and politicians intent on criminalizing the private transfer of firearms, this legislation is just another step in their effort to extinguish America’s vibrant and legitimate gun culture.

Expanded Background Checks Don’t Work

Proponents of so-called “universal” background checks claim that this legislation is the “most important” thing that can be done to stop dangerous people from obtaining firearms. This is a lie. There is no evidence that expanded background checks are useful for this purpose.

Just last year, a study by anti-gun researchers confirmed that expanded background checks in California did not reduce gun homicides or gun suicides.

This finding is consistent with a review of past studies on expanded background checks by the RAND Corporation that found that “evidence of the effect of private-seller background checks on firearm homicides is inconclusive.”

In 2013, the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice researched so-called “universal” background checks and determined that they would be not be effective without further harsh firearms restrictions and efforts to combat straw purchasing.

Criminals are not deterred by background checks. ATF has reported, “[t]he most frequent type of trafficking channel identified in ATF investigations is straw purchasing from federally licensed firearms dealers. Nearly 50 percent … .” A Chicago-area inmate explained this reality to researchers from the University of Chicago in relation to Illinois’s stringent firearm licensing regime for a 2015 study, stating, “All they need is one person who got a gun card in the ‘hood’ and everybody got one.”

A 2016 Department of Justice survey of “state and federal prisoners who had possessed a firearm during the offense for which they were serving” found that the most common source of prisoner firearms was “Off the street/underground market.” This was defined as “Illegal sources of firearms that include markets for stolen goods, middlemen for stolen goods, criminals or criminal enterprises, or individuals or groups involved in sales of illegal drugs.” Less than one percent had obtained their firearm from a gun show.

The research confirms that anti-gun members of Congress aren’t interested in actually addressing violent crime; they’re just trying to deflect the blame on law-abiding gun owners. Please use this link to let your elected officials know that you won’t be blamed for the actions of violent criminals. Ask your Representative and Senators to oppose H.R.8 and S.42. Additionally, you may call your U.S. Representative and U.S. Senators using the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

RELATED ARTICLE: On Silencers & Suppressors

EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with images is republished with permission.

Congress Earns ‘Nero Award’ For Fiddling While America is Invaded: Why Democrats’ actions are especially egregious.

January 19, 2019/in Culture War, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Michael Cutler

President Trump has decided to not sign off on the federal budget until it includes money for a physical barrier to finally secure the dangerous and highly porous U.S./Mexican border from the un-inspected entry of aliens and cargo.

That tough decision has been a long time coming.

With no budget, nonessential sections of the government have been shut down and some federal employees deemed “essential” are working without pay.

As a former federal employee I can certainly empathize with those federal employees. I recall working without pay when prior partial government shutdowns occurred.

Many pundits and “political analysts” have said that the administration should compromise. As things now stand, there is nothing to compromise about. Any “compromise” with Pelosi and company would only compromise national security. That “compromise” has been ongoing for decades and we have all too many dead bodies that prove how dangerous open borders are.

The media is focused on how many days federal employees have gone without pay, but no one is keeping track of how many years our borders have failed to prevent the entry of narcotics, weapons, criminals, terrorists and foreign workers who displace hard-working Americans and drive down the wages of those who are fortunate to keep their jobs.

The mainstream media has reported, as part of coverage about the impact of the partial government shutdown, that some TSA employees have failed to report for duty, thereby causing delays at airports as long lines of travelers wait to be screened by the diminished workforce.

Certainly there is not much that can be done when TSA personnel don’t show up for work. After all, no one would want to board an airliner unless all passengers and their luggage are carefully screened.

However, isn’t it ironic that folks would never willingly fly on an airliner unless all of the passengers and cargo were carefully vetted, and yet because of our corrupt and globalist politicians, because of the multiple failures to secure our borders (including that perilous and porous one we share with Mexico), we are forced to live among millions of aliens who entered the United States without screening?

Yet that is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today and, if anyone complains about this, they are quickly tossed into Hillary’s “basket of deplorables”!

For the first two years of the Trump administration the House and Senate were both controlled by a Republican majority. Nevertheless the President’s call for funding for the border wall went unheeded and ignored.

Let’s be fair and honest: the “leadership” of both the Democrats and Republicans has never wanted secure borders or effective immigration law enforcement.

This was the underlying predication for my article, “Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design.”

It is not that America cannot secure its borders; it is that our political elites from both parties don’t want those borders to be made secure. They have come to see the immigration system as a delivery system for an unlimited supply of easily exploited foreign workers from Third World countries who come to America with Third World expectations of meager wages and unreasonable and hazardous working conditions.

Many of the politicians from both parties are attorneys. For them, particularly those who practice immigration law, a tsunami of illegal aliens provides an endless stream of clients for immigration law firms from coast to coast and border to border.

I discussed this on the “Breitbart News Tonight” radio show of which Breitbart posted a follow-up news article, “Exclusive–Michael Cutler: Immigration ‘Crisis’ a ‘Delivery System’ for Elites.”

This is why the political leaders from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been insisting that since we cannot deport all of the illegal aliens who are present in the United States, the best we can do is legalize them to “get them out of the shadows.”

This is a thinly disguised game of “bait and switch” with the ultimate goal of getting those millions of illegal aliens into the waiting rooms of immigration law firms around the United States.

The Democrats exclaim that we must be “compassionate” and provide these “immigrants” with a pathway to citizenship while the Republicans insist that they are going to stand strong and “only” provide millions of illegal aliens with permission to work.

Either way, aspiring illegal aliens from around the world are getting the message: enter the United States by any means possible and little will be done to remove (deport) you but eventually you will be granted permission to work in the United States and gain lawful status.

The Democrats have insisted that when illegal aliens enter the United States, if they utter the magic password “political asylum” they will immediately be swept into a massive program that will enable them to remain in the country for many years. This further entices millions more illegal aliens to head for the United States.

In essence, the starter’s pistol has thus been fired for aspiring illegal aliens from around the world and for these aliens the “finish line” is the border of the United States.

That imagery is certainly apparent as we witness yet another “migrant caravan” heading north from El Salvador to the U.S./Mexican border.

The Democratic Party is adamant about not “wasting money” on a border wall or other such “low tech” solution to border security. Instead they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on drones and sensors that would alert the overwhelmed Border Patrol when aliens run the border.

I have written about this madness in several articles but am compelled once again to make note of what should be obvious but is never reported in the mainstream media: a succession of government reports have shown that drones, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, have been involved in fewer than one-half of one percent of all Border Patrol arrests.

Drones and sensors should be thought of as a sort of national burglar alarm for America. Drones and burglar alarms cannot make any arrests. All that they do is notify the appropriate authorities that a break-in has occurred or that our borders have been violated and then it is up to law enforcement agencies to respond to that alarm.

Many homes have burglar alarms, but I have never seen a house that is equipped with one that not only did not have strong, secure locks on the front door, but no front door at all!

For decades Americans have been held hostage in their own homes as more drugs and gang members have flowed across our borders and committed violent crimes in towns and cities across the United States.

Now hapless federal employees are being held hostage to the outrageous demands of the Democrats that nothing of meaningful consequence be done to truly secure the dangerous Mexican border.

Even as Chuck Schumer insists that there is no crisis and that President Trump is simply having a “temper tantrum,” not far from Schumer’s own home in Brooklyn, New York, a trial is being conducted at the federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn (Eastern District of New York).

The defendant in this case is a citizen of Mexico, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the alleged leader of the infamous Mexican Sinaloa Drug Cartel that purportedly smuggled more than 200 tons of cocaine into the United States along with tonnage of other drugs including cocaine, meth and marijuana across the U.S./Mexican border that President Trump is determined to finally secure.

There have been many articles written about the trial but one in particular has managed to capture some of the trial’s “highlights” (lowlights?). That article, “Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s trial: Nine crazy moments,” was published on January 10, 2019 by the BBC.

Here is a particularly disturbing excerpt from that news report:

Hi-tech murder room

A trusted hitman for El Chapo kept a “murder room” in his mansion on the US border, which featured a drain on the floor to more easily clean up after slayings.

Edgar Galvan testified in January that Antonio “Jaguar” Marrufo had a room with white tiles that was sound-proofed “so no noise comes out”.

“In that house, no one comes out,” Galvan told jurors.

Galvan said his role in the organisation was to smuggle weapons into the US, so that Marrufo could use them to “clear” the region of rivals.

At the time, he was living in El Paso, Texas, while Marrufo was living in Ciudad Juarez, just across the US-Mexico border.

But both men are now in jail on firearms and gun charges.

Perhaps someone should send Mr. Schumer and his radical cohorts a copy of the article.

During his administration Bill Clinton attempted to redefine the term “is.”

Now Schumer and the Democrats would like to redefine the term “crisis”; however, as John Adams sagely noted, “Facts are stubborn things.”

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EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash.

VIDEO: It’s All Related — The Filth. And your damnation is the goal.

January 18, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Church Militant

TRANSCRIPT

The operational word to describe things in the Church these days, to borrow from Pope Benedict, is filth.

And while the filth all comes in a number of different varieties, it is all related. And for the record, we should understand filth in the broad sense of that which leads people either away from the Faith or into sin, or both, but especially away from the Faith, thus essentially destroying their supernatural defense against the diabolical. So let’s examine the various types of filth, remembering that, at the end of the day, it’s still all filth.

There is, of course, the headline filth of homosexual predation on both adults as well as minors. But that’s not the only filth.

There is the theological filth of the past 50 years, and this has many facets to it. From the insanity that we have a reasonable hope all men are saved, to what amounts to a universalism that all religions are essentially the same and lead to God, to the demonic notion that your conscience, even uninformed or even malformed, is the final arbiter of truth.

All these individual pieces of theological filth are interrelated, each one feeding and feeding off the other. Then there is the liturgical filth manifest in nearly every parish: the lack of reverence in Mass; the failure to understand the Mass as a sacrifice, not a mere meal; the emasculation of many priests; the horrible, childish preaching; the non-stop emphasis on emotionalism; the focus on the community as opposed to the worship of God.

Moving down the filth list, we come across the particular filth of the acceptance of heresy. Many converts from Protestantism will tell you that more and more they don’t see that much of a difference between what they converted from and the Church.

That’s been intentional. Whatever the motives, and that depends on who you are looking at, there was and continues to be an intentional push to make the Church appear and sound more and more Protestant.

Protestantism is a heresy, with its emphasis on personal relationship with Christ outside of the Church, the sacraments, devotions, etc. Yet more and more, Church leaders continue to peddle these heretical beliefs as somehow able to be interpreted as Catholic, the Alpha program being the most notable, but by no means the only one.

The distinctions between Catholicism — the one true faith — and the 40,000 different heretical sects which comprise Protestantism are simply downplayed in classrooms, pulpits, writings, you name it.

Wherever a Catholic lives, you will find a Catholic priest short-changing the Faith and handing over spiritual poison to the faithful.

The failure to preach on the need for confession, the need to be properly disposed to receive Holy Communion, the need for a vigilant prayer life, a spirituality modeled on the saints and so forth. The majority of Catholics hear none of this the majority of the time. That’s filthy because the lack of this knowledge leaves them defenseless against the attacks of the devil.

But the underlying point is straightforward, all this filth is related, all from the same source, just expressed differently at different times in differing ways.

Be it moral, theological, liturgical, catechetical, it’s all the same filth. And it’s all accomplishing the same end: the destruction of souls.

Ask ourselves why would a Catholic have the slightest idea that the Mass is a sacrifice, a representation of the oblation of the Son to the Father.

How would he draw that conclusion when all he hears is “we are family” and “turn around and greet your neighbor” and lay people run around all over the altar handing out the bread to the community?

Ask yourselves why a Catholic would see any essential difference between the Church and heretical set of beliefs when all he sees and hears in the parish are those same heretical beliefs and notions, just with a thin Catholic veneer. The list goes on and on.

The Catholic faithful have been assaulted from every side and in every way from Catholic leaders for the past half-century, and now, they have been reduced to a remnant, the authentic believers.

Those who still go to Mass but do not either understand or believe the Faith will disappear soon enough as they die off, their parishes continue to close and their children and grandchildren never come into a Catholic parish.

All that will be left from that crowd is some vague memory that “grandma, I think, used to be Catholic, didn’t she? Whatever.”

This has been a master plan to repackage the Faith, to break from Tradition, for the past half-century and give the devil his due — he has been wildly successful. For any Catholics out there who are perhaps coming around to this reality but still aren’t sold on it, who think clapping in Mass and girl altar boys and so-called eucharistic ministers are okay, consider this.

Even if those things — and many others — were well-intentioned — and they weren’t — you have to admit they have been a colossal failure.

There are now fewer parishes in the United States then there were when all this began in 1965. And while owing strictly to overall population increases the raw number of Catholics has increased, there are fewer going to Mass and receiving the sacraments than, again, back in 1965.

Open your eyes, just like we had to here at Church Militant when all this became undeniable to us as well. Do you believe the Church is the means to salvation? Do you believe there is no salvation apart from the Church?

Then, if those doctrines of the Church are correct — notice the word “doctrines” — then wouldn’t Satan want to destroy the Church? If he wanted to destroy the Church, what would he do?

How about introducing, little by little at first, a level of filth and poison so as to corrupt the clergy who are the bearers of the sacred. He went after them at the Last Supper in the upper room and hasn’t stopped since.

All this filth has one goal: your damnation and the same for your families.

Senator Ted Cruz: We Will Never Surrender on Life

January 18, 2019/in Culture War, Featured, Healthcare, Policy, Politics/by The Daily Signal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep marching for them.

COMMENTARY BY

Sen. Ted Cruz

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

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

Karen Pence: The Teacher and the Religious Test

January 18, 2019/in Culture War, Education, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

It was supposed to be a day celebrating religious freedom in America. Instead, liberals decided to show everyone just how much our First Freedom is at risk. For Christians, who’ve tried to warn people that these last several years were about a lot more than marriage, the attacks on Second Lady Karen Pence certainly seem to prove their point. Three years after Obergefell, all of the lies about “love” and “tolerance” have been eclipsed by the court cases, articles, and editorial demonizing people of faith. What Americans see now is the truth: the Left is coming for our freedom. And they have no intention of letting up.

Like Joe Biden’s wife, Karen Pence spent years in the classroom. When Mike was in Congress, she taught art at Immanuel Christian School in Virginia — and no one batted an eye. Of course, that was back in the early 2000s, when the Left’s charm offensive on same-sex marriage was still in full swing. We’ll be accommodating, they said. We just want to co-exist, they said. Our relationships won’t affect you, they said. A handful of years later, “affected” doesn’t begin to describe to what happens to conservatives who think differently than the totalitarian Left.

Of course, the Pences are not strangers to the other side’s viciousness. Every time the media is reminded about the family’s faith, they become hysterical all over again — a scene that played out this week when Karen announced she’d be volunteering at Immanuel Christian this spring. “I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do,” she said in a statement. “I have missed teaching art, and it’s great to return to the school where I taught art for 12 years.”

She can’t go back there, LGBT activists raged! They reject homosexuality! Yes, well, that’s what orthodox Christian schools do. (Not to mention Jewish and Muslim ones too.) Would it have been headline news if Jill Biden taught at a Roman Catholic school? Probably not. Yet, the Left and their media chums are hurling profanity at the Pences for something that, even five years ago, wouldn’t have been controversial. Frankly, the only thing that would have been shocking is if Karen worked at a Christian school that didn’t act like a Christian school.

CNN’s Kate Bennett was just one of the talking heads who doesn’t get it. “So, lemme get this straight,” she tweeted, “the second lady of the United States has chosen to work at a school that openly discriminates against LGBT adults and children?” “So, lemme get this straight,” Ben Shapiro fired back. “You’re a reporter but you’ve never heard of religious people before? ‘BREAKING: Pence’s wife is working for a Christian school that requires that Christian students pledge to abide by Christian standards of sin that have not changed in 2,000 years.'”

To be honest, the Left’s real problem isn’t that Mike Pence’s wife is working at an evangelical school — but that evangelical schools exist at all. Since they do, the last thing liberals want is for anyone in public office to be associated with them. And despite what you’ve heard from the forces of intolerance, Immanuel Christian doesn’t “ban” anyone from their school. What they do, Chad Greene, points out, “is require a specific set of behavioral and religious belief standards equally applied to everyone. Many in the Christian world make a distinction regarding LGBT people that the left typically refuses to consider, between a person and his actions.” As Christians, our behavior doesn’t define us — we define our behavior.

Immanuel is in the business of teaching Christianity. What would be the point of a religious school if it didn’t? This “immediate, visceral reaction” shows just how far the Left will go to shame people of faith into silence. Worse, it proves the day they told us was coming is finally here. Back in 2015, during the Obergefell arguments, President Obama’s top lawyer, Donald Verrilli pulled back the curtain on the Left’s real goal in one surprisingly candid moment. When Justice Samuel Alito pressed the solicitor general on whether same-sex marriage would give the government a weapon to threaten Christian schools, Verrilli seemed uncomfortable but admitted, “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.”

We haven’t seen the Left fully implement their plans, because they haven’t had the benefit of another radical president in the White House to build on the liberal legacy of Barack Obama. But we don’t have to guess what they’ll do if they get one. It’s all spelled out in the most recent Democratic National Platform. Religious freedom, as Americans have known it for 233 years, will not be safe in the hands of a movement that is surgically targeting people of faith.

When I talked to the vice president on “Washington Watch” earlier today, he didn’t mince words. “Karen and I have been in and around public life for almost two decades, and so — to be honest — we’re used to the criticism. But the attacks on Christian education by the mainstream media have got to stop. We cherish the freedom of religion in this country. This administration stands four-square for the freedom of religion of people of all faiths. And to see the mainstream media to criticize my wife because she’s choosing to return to the classroom of an elementary Christian school is wrong.”

There used to be a consensus in this country that religious liberty was for everyone. When the Religious Freedom Restoration Act came before Congress, only three members voted against it. Over time, some liberals tried to isolate faith — to churches, Christian schools, or family rooms. You’ve heard me say before that the Left’s hope is to quarantine religion within the four walls of the church. Now, it’s becoming clear — even that won’t satisfy them.

“I have always had a problem with the idea that religion is something we must keep to ourselves,” Matt Walsh writes in the Daily Wire. “Indeed, the Christian faith requires exactly the opposite. But in the case of Karen Pence and her new employer, they are doing exactly what the Left demanded. This school is merely trying to operate by biblical principles within its own walls and on its own property. It is a Christian school simply being a Christian school. It isn’t bothering anyone. It isn’t invading anyone’s home and lecturing them about their sexual behavior. It isn’t preventing anyone from working or living or enjoying their lives. It is just saying, very reasonably, very unobtrusively, ‘We are going to conduct ourselves according to Christian moral tradition. If you don’t want to accept that moral tradition, then by all means go somewhere else.'”
“This is exactly, precisely, the approach that the Left for years endorsed and insisted upon. But suddenly it’s a problem. Suddenly, even Christianity behind closed doors, on private property, in a private school, is a target of outrage and scorn. It was a lie all along. They were never planning to stop outside the walls of our homes and our churches and our schools. That’s just what they said to lull us to sleep.”
“Now the next phase begins.”

Sign the pledge to pray for Karen Pence openly lives her faith by biblical truth.

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

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

We also cover these stories:

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

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PODCAST BY

Rachel del Guidice

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

Katrina Trinko

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

Daniel Davis

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

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

Medical Jihad Means Death to the Patient

January 17, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, Healthcare, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Linda Goudsmit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Population jihad- Media jihad

2. Education jihad

3. Economic jihad-

4. Physical jihad

5. Legal jihad

6. Humanitarian jihad

7. Political jihad

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

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

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

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

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

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