The National Football League is at it again. Just weeks after team owners and the league agreed to try to win back millions of fan by having players stand for the anthem, the NFL Players Association, the same organization 2ndVote exposed funding organizations tied to liberal billionaire George Soros, has forced the league to delay implementation of the rule. Via NPR:
They announced what they’re calling a standstill agreement. Now, last week, the union filed a grievance against the NFL’s new anthem policy. And as part of this standstill agreement, the union agreed to put the grievance on hold. Now, the NFL agreed to put its new policy on hold, meaning no new rules relating to the anthem will be issued or enforced for the next several weeks. And what they’re doing – they’re doing this while they engage in what they call confidential discussions to try to resolve the issue.
From a purely business perspective, capitulating to the players is clearly a bad idea. The fans have identified the anthem protests for what they are: the promotion of a false narrative that America is a racist country. And they have made themselves heard loud and clear by simply tuning out. Will owners actually listen, and stand up to the political chicanery at work behind the anthem protests? Or will they continue to let themselves be shaken down by the activist players?
The answer should be obvious to any team owner: follow the money. The NFL Players Association is a left-wing activist group that financially supports other left-wing activist groups. The NFL’s fans are the league’s financial driver and represent a broad swath of America that turns to sport for what it is–entertainment, not politics.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is from Shutterstock.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/nfl-football-e1532774138315.jpg3596402ndvote .comhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png2ndvote .com2018-07-28 06:36:192018-07-28 06:36:19Follow The Money: Will NFL Owners Choose George Soros or Millions of Their Fans?
The George Soros-backed American Immigration Council is the latest group hell-bent on “resisting” commonsense immigration enforcement in the U.S. Several in this group are, themselves, practicing immigration attorneys who should know the truth about the dangers of open borders policies in communities across the U.S. However, however, many lawyers at the American Immigration Council gloss over facts and, instead, promote dangerously false information about the legal aspects of the immigration issue.
One such example of the white-washing lawyers at the American Immigration Council is Joshua Breisblatt, the group’s Senior Policy Analyst and an immigration attorney with an extensive background in immigration law and the lobbying efforts mounted in the Halls of Congress to push the open borders agenda. His bio notes that he had worked for Former Congressman Harry Mitchell of Arizona. Breisblatt penned an outrageously deceitful article on the group’s website titled: “USCIS Is Slowly Being Morphed Into an Immigration Enforcement Agency.”
The article begins with these three paragraphs:
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued new guidance to initiate deportation proceedings for thousands of applicants denied for any immigration benefit. This policy change will have far-reaching implications for many of those interacting with the agency, but also signals a major shift in how USCIS operates.
USCIS was never meant to be tasked with immigration enforcement. Their mandate has always been administering immigration benefits. With its distinct mission, USCIS was created to focus exclusively on their customer service function, processing applications for visas, green cards, naturalization, and humanitarian benefits.
The new USCIS guidance instructs staff to issue a Notice to Appear (NTA) to anyone who is unlawfully present when an application, petition, or benefit request is denied. This will include virtually all undocumented applicants, as well as those individuals whose lawful status expires while their request is pending before USCIS.
In other words, Breisblatt opposes the Trump administration’s sensible policy of removal (deportation hearings) for illegal aliens whose applications for immigration benefits are denied.
Generally, such applications are denied if an alien is ineligible for the immigration benefit – for whatever reason. But the main reason many denials of benefits is that the alien committed immigration fraud by lying on their application.
In fact, it appears Breisblatt objects to the necessary adjudications process altogether, referring to it as simply “processing applications”were providing service for the aliens being the key issue.
What Breisblatt and the American Immigration Council advocates for, instead, is a policy where fraud would be encouraged and enabled.
I am intimately familiar with the adjudications process. Early in my career with the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) I was assigned in the mid 1970’s for a one year period, as an Adjudications Officer- then known as an Immigration Examiner, to a pilot program to combat immigration fraud by interviewing aliens and their U.S. citizen or lawful immigrant spouses who had filed petitions to provide the aliens with lawful immigration status.
The program was created when a sudden and massive influx of applications for lawful immigrant status flooded the New York District Office.
It appeared that many of the “loving couples” were likely not living together but had entered into a sham marriage wherein the U.S. citizen or lawful immigrant petitioning spouse was paid to marry the alien.
When major discrepancies were discovered during the interview (the husband and wife were interviewed separately) the case was immediately assigned to a team of INS investigators. If the couple conceded that they were not living together, the illegal alien was immediately taken into custody and was put before an immigration judge within a day or two.
In cases where the couple denied committing fraud, a team of INS investigators would conduct a field investigation. If evidence was found that the couple was not living together, the alien was arrested per an administrative warrant and held for a deportation hearing.
Within just a few months, the number of petitions that were filed plummeted as the aliens came to realize that if they would face consequences for committing fraud.
Immigration fraud involves several federal laws such as 18 U.S. Code § 1546 which includes this excerpt which notes that immigration fraud committed in connection with terrorism carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison:
Whoever knowingly makes under oath, or as permitted under penalty of perjury under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, knowingly subscribes as true, any false statement with respect to a material fact in any application, affidavit, or other document required by the immigration laws or regulations prescribed thereunder, or knowingly presents any such application, affidavit, or other document which contains any such false statement or which fails to contain any reasonable basis in law or fact—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 25 years (if the offense was committed to facilitate an act of international terrorism (as defined in section 2331 of this title)), 20 years (if the offense was committed to facilitate a drug trafficking crime (as defined in section 929(a) of this title)), 10 years (in the case of the first or second such offense, if the offense was not committed to facilitate such an act of international terrorism or a drug trafficking crime), or 15 years (in the case of any other offense), or both.
This is certainly an extremely serious crime.
Yet the American Immigration Council would have you believe that the best way to deal with immigration fraud is to just approve all of the applications so that we don’t add more cases to the already overflowing backlog of applications for benefits or clog the overcrowded immigration courts.
Incredibly, Breisblatt provided a link to an official document issued by the Immigration Ombudsman of the administration of George W. Bush, that purportedly supports his claim that previous administrations opposed the issuance of NTA’s to illegal aliens whose applications for immigration benefits were denied.
Nothing could be further from the truth. That document includes this excerpt:
Recommendation to USCIS that its policy on issuing Notices to Appear be standardized to provide that NTAs be issued and filed with the immigration court in all cases where, as a result of adjustment of status denial, the applicant is out of status.
For the government, failure to place a removable alien before an Immigration Judge creates a perception that the government tolerates violation of immigration laws;
For USCIS, if an NTA is not issued, (a) an applicant can file a new adjustment of status application which must be processed; (b) along with the new adjustment application, an applicant can also file for employment authorization. Thus, some applicants who are ineligible for adjustment of status can continue to file for it and receive employment authorization despite the knowledge that they will be denied at some point;
For applicants who wish to have an Immigration Judge review their adjustment application, USCIS failure to issue an NTA precludes such an opportunity;
For the public, USCIS failure to issue an NTA to a removable alien can be seen as neglecting a duty to ensure compliance with the immigration laws; and
For ICE, DHS’s enforcement branch, retaining removable aliens in USCIS processing prevents a true assessment of the number of cases pending and, thereby, precludes accurate resource planning and allocation.
As an INS special agent, I spent years investigating immigration fraud. Indeed my very first fraud investigation led me to uncover a terror plot in Israel. Fortunately, working with the Israeli National Police and the FBI a bombing at an oil refinery was averted.
The second largest contingent of federal agents who are assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) are immigration law enforcement agents because international terrorists generally commit multiple immigration law violations- often beginning with visa fraud and/or immigration benefit fraud.
The official report of the 9/11 Commission staff, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel focuses considerable attention on the issue of immigration fraud and included these statements:
“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud.
Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.
Given their backgrounds, these far-left American Immigration Council lobbyists clearly know the risks that immigration fraud creates in American communities and to average Americans. Yet, they are determined to obfuscate the truth and leave our nation vulnerable to Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill.
Efforts by these opponents of fair and effective immigration law enforcement are succeeding in sparking subversive protests across the United States, under the banner of “Occupy ICE.”
From Portland, Oregon to New York City and towns and cities and states in between, demonstrators have been convinced or, more properly conned, into resisting immigration laws that protect national security, public safety and the livelihoods of American and lawful immigrant workers.
For those who think they are demonstrating compassion by obstructing immigration law enforcement, a bit of advice is in order, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine. The featured image is by Fibonacci Blue.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/en-defensa-del-tps-fibonacci-blu-e1532684865381.jpg360640Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2018-07-27 05:47:572018-07-27 06:08:36LIES OF THE SOROS-BACKED IMMIGRATION LOBBY: Why Americans should worry about their dishonest agenda.
All you have to do is look at what’s happening in the Netherlands to understand why the Thomas More Law Center is so zealously fighting against Islamic indoctrination in public schools across the United States.
Parents in the Netherlands can’t stop their children from being subjected to Islamic indoctrination. In fact, parents who refuse to let their children attend mosque trips, are subject to fines and are often bullied by their schools. Such bullying also happens here in the United States as witnessed by Libby Hilsenrath when she made the public aware of Islamic indoctrination in the Chathams Middle School.
But, parents in the United States have the Thomas More Law Center and our Constitution to stop this indoctrination. Hugo Bos, investigating Islamic indoctrination in Dutch schools, is aware of the lawsuits fighting Islamic indoctrination being filed by the Thomas More Law Center in the United States.
The Church Militant website contains a disturbing article on how Dutch Children are being forced to submit to Islam.
Please contact the Thomas More Law Center here if you become aware of Islamic Indoctrination in your child’s public school.
Help us with our continuing battle to stop Islamic indoctrination in our public schools by donating to the Thomas More Law Center. Your donations are tax-deductible.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/islamtruefaith-e1532683335420.jpg387640Thomas More Law Centerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThomas More Law Center2018-07-27 05:22:222018-08-09 06:24:20Why We Fight Islamic Indoctrination In U.S. Public Schools
In what President Donald Trump called “a very big day for free and fair trade,” he and the leader of the European Union agreed Wednesday to work to end tariffs on nonautomotive products.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Trump met at the White House, then went to the Rose Garden to announce not only a cease-fire but disarmament in what was turning into a trade war.
“Together, we are more than 50 percent of trade. If we team up, we can make our planet a better, more secure, and more prosperous place,” Trump said, later adding: “This is why we agreed today to, first of all, to work together toward zero tariffs, zero nontariff barriers, and zero subsidies on nonauto industrial goods.”
The two leaders’ agreement included resolving the tariffs on steel and aluminum imposed by the Trump administration, which the EU has retaliated against.
“I had the intention to make a deal today, and we made a deal today,” Juncker said. “We have identified a number of areas on which to work together. Work towards zero tariffs on industrial goods, that was my main intention, to propose to come down to zero tariffs on industrial goods. We’ve [also] decided to strengthen our cooperation on energy.”
At this point, the audience, including several members of Congress, began to applaud.
“The announcements today from President Trump and EU President Juncker were an encouraging first step to put the brakes on the trade war,” Tori Whiting, a trade economist at The Heritage Foundation who has written extensively on tariffs, told The Daily Signal in an email.
“The White House should immediately follow up its promises to eliminate tariffs on steel and aluminum for the EU and work to establish similar deals with other allies,” Whiting said. “The president should also suspend the national security investigation into automobile imports.”
The Rose Garden event was not initially on the president’s schedule, suggesting it was likely contingent on the outcome of talks between the two leaders.
Trump said the U.S. and EU would work to reduce trade barriers and increase trade on chemicals, pharmaceuticals, medical products, and soybeans.
Trump drilled down on soybeans after objections from farmers to several of the tariffs the administration has pushed.
“Soybeans is a big deal, and the European Union is going to start immediately to buy a lot of soybeans,” Trump said. “There is a tremendous market, [and the EU will] buy a lot of soybeans from our farmers in the Midwest primarily.”
The president continued:
This will open markets for farmers and workers, increase investment, and lead to greater prosperity for both the United States and the European Union. It will also make trade fairer and more reciprocal—my favorite word—reciprocal.
Trump and Juncker said the EU wanted to import more liquified natural gas from the United States, reform the World Trade Organization, and establish a joint working group to evaluate tariff measures. The two leaders agreed not to violate the spirit of the agreement before the final deal is reached.
“As far as agriculture is concerned, the European Union can import more soybeans from the U.S., and it will be done,” Juncker said. “And we have also agreed to work together on the reform of the WTO. Of course, it is on the understanding that as long as we are negotiating, unless one party stops the negotiations, we hold off further tariffs.”
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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of President Donald Trump and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker preparing to make a joint statement on trade Wednesday in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Photo: Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom)
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/EU-Trump-1250x650-e1532605483672.jpg376640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-26 07:45:142018-07-26 07:46:20Trump, EU Leader Agree to Work Toward ‘Zero Tariffs’
As taxpayers continue to back student loans, The Heritage Foundation’s Mary Clare Amselem joins us to talk about how a college professor co-wrote a research paper with her dead cat—and what can be done on the higher ed front. Plus: Republicans accuse Twitter of treating them differently than Democrats.
The Daily Signal podcast is a 25-minute weekday podcast that shares the news highlights conservatives need to know and features an in-depth interview. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud.
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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of a Duke University student is by Andy Mead/YCJ/Icon Sportswire 918m.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/180725_duke-1250x650-e1532603169897.jpg410640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-26 07:06:492018-07-26 07:08:09Podcast: More Proof Colleges Have Become Insane
As the separation of families pouring in from Mexico dominates the airwaves several disturbing cases involving illegal aliens shift the focus back to the devastating impact of America’s poorly guarded southern border. In the last few days alone, an illegal immigrant who had been deported eleven times attacked his wife with a chainsaw in front of their children, another got charged with a series of violent rapes and dozens were arrested for operating a major human and drug smuggling enterprise in a major U.S. city.
The gruesome chainsaw attack occurred in Los Angeles County, which has long offered illegal immigrants sanctuary. A man named Alejandro Alvarez-Villegas, deported to his native Mexico 11 times since 2005, tried to kill his wife with a chainsaw.
In local media reports, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) refers to him as a “serial immigration violator,” but the agency fails to explain how that could possibly occur. Alvarez-Villegas has been charged with seven felonies and is being held without bail.
One California newspaper worries that the assailant’s immigration status will fuel calls for a big wall on the border with Mexico and spark “illegal immigration foes to point to the U.S. immigration system as a failure in need of revamping.” The piece also quotes open borders advocates saying that domestic violence happens among Americans citizens too and that it’s not an “undocumented” problem.
Several hundred miles north in San Francisco, an illegal immigrant from Peru recently got charged with rape by force or violence and other crimes. The 37-year-old, Orlando Vilchez Lazo, was a driver for the ride-sharing company Lyft who somehow passed a background check.
Lazo faces life in prison and is being held in jail in San Francisco on $4.2 million bail. San Francisco has long provided Illegal aliens with sanctuary and forbids it law enforcement agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officials. Judicial Watch has sued the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department (SFSD) to prevent the use of taxpayer funds on policies that prohibit department personnel from cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement officials.
Back in 2008 Judicial Watch investigated the SFSD’s handling of an illegal alien (Edwin Ramos) charged with the triple murder of three innocent American citizens. Ramos, who had been arrested on three prior occasions and convicted with two felonies, was never turned over to federal immigration authorities for removal to his native El Salvador under San Francisco’s sanctuary policies.
In the other recent case involving serious illegal immigrant criminal activity, 18 human smugglers and 117 illegal aliens got arrested in three stash houses in the area surrounding El Paso, Texas and southern New Mexico. Most of the illegal aliens—93—are from Mexico and the rest from Guatemala (12), Honduras (6), Brazil (3), El Salvador (2) and Peru (1). At least three of the illegal immigrants have serious criminal records, according to information released by ICE.
A 32-year-old Mexican man busted in the ring has convictions for child endangerment and driving while intoxicated as well as being arrested for illegally re-entering the U.S. after being deported. A 30-year-old Mexican has ties to a drug cartel and was previously arrested for fraud and misuse of visas. A 34-year-old Guatemalan has an outstanding warrant in Florida for driving under the influence and has also been charged with illegally re-entering the U.S. after deportation, according to the feds.
Besides arresting the criminal elements, the feds also seized more than 1,000 pounds of marijuana in the El Paso bust, large amounts of U.S. and Mexican cash, nine vehicles and three tractor-trailers. Two American citizens were nabbed in the operation, including a 42-year-old man with prior convictions for aggravated stalking, kidnaping, possessing a deadly weapon and possessing marijuana with intent to distribute. The other U.S. citizen, a 25-year-old man, has prior convictions for escape from custody, possessing marijuana, assault and driving while intoxicated.
While all this is going on, the overwhelming majority of immigration-related media coverage continues to focus on children being separated from their parents. A new national poll reveals that most Americans consider immigration the most important problem facing the nation.
Matthew Hanley on the philosopher del Noce’s analysis of modernism: any thought pertaining to divinity in man is deemed meaningless and irrelevant.
When previously on this site I wrote about the first book translated into English by the Italian philosopher Augusto Del Noce (d. 1989), I wanted to include his almost offhand remark: “There is no family if there is no ideal heritage to hand down.” He was making larger points about the unprecedented assault on tradition and authority that characterize modernity.
Even in isolation, this observation helps explain the fact that the West, along with cultures as disparate as Iran and Japan, are in the throes of severe demographic implosion. That crisis cannot easily be assigned to a specific religion, given the global nature of the phenomenon, but does point towards a widespread metaphysical crisis.
Explaining the ongoing crisis of meaning occasioned by the breakdown of common ideals and permanent values is Del Noce’s strong suit. Thankfully, there is now another compilation of his work available for the Anglosphere: The Age of Secularization consists of essays and lectures Del Noce delivered between 1964-69, translated – and splendidly summarized – by Carlo Lancellotti.
With the collapse of metaphysics, only science and religion remain as valid categories of thought, with one necessarily pitted against the other. (No points for guessing which is in the driver’s seat.) Powerful prophets of science, celebrated in their own hometown (especially here in Silicon Valley), say it must increase, while religion must decrease.
Science has established itself as an idol because we have made political and historical decisions (think forward not just backward) that “branded the traditional ideals as dis-values.” Progress is simply its twin idol.
Modernity itself is regarded axiomatically as a positive value. It definitively casts old ideals aside but is not capable of establishing new ones, since the category of absolute value itself is deemed absurd.
As a result, we now inhabit a technocratic society that is radically irreligious: any thought of matters pertaining to the divine in man, to his interiority, is deemed meaningless – totally irrelevant. Del Noce would not have been the least bit surprised by the recent revelations that social media giants are censoring “traditional” (i.e., mainly Christian) viewpoints; this is only the culmination of the broad pattern he saw emerging.
Del Noce was, in essence, writing about the rise of “Nones” decades before that term was on the horizon. He is careful to say that it is not just Catholicism that is threatened by the modern technological mindset, but religion itself – the whole “religious dimension” in man.
He is also careful to say this mindset is not a direct byproduct of technological development but has its ultimate origins in “a religious deviation.” The nature of our modern crisis, he stresses, is above all religious in nature. Religion can only be tolerated (like some drugs) as a stimulant, but never as a sincere means of pursuing truth; this he regards as the “essence of blasphemy.”
Indeed, he says the ongoing process of secularization is chiefly characterized by the expansion of atheism. Our world is one that accepts the essential Marxist negations of transcendence; specifically, we reject both Platonism and Christianity, even if we have simultaneously abandoned the religious (messianic) and eschatological dimensions of classical Marxism.
In this way, Marxism prevails even as it delivers disintegration: any sense of the sacred is obliterated – replaced by technological progress and individualism in its purest form, understood as complete separation from God.
With this metaphysical orientation, the future displaces the eternal; original sin is turned into a myth rather than, as Chesterton quipped, viewed as the easiest doctrine to prove (just take a look around).
Augusto del Noce
Modern man insists upon his innocence, whereas Christians presuppose the need for forgiveness. Modern man also insists that freedom necessarily requires the power to create, however capriciously, one’s own reality – chiefly one’s own moral code. The transgender craze is but the latest, most visible extension of this metaphysical outlook.
Del Noce identified many other trends that have become much more pronounced today: the intolerance of the tolerant, and the false compassion that exonerates blatant transgressions as if they were not transgressions (i.e. “an absolute refusal to be scandalized”). He warned that those who are faithful to “old values” in opposition to the “new” will become “social outcasts,” even “regarded as members of an inferior moral race, destined to disappear.”
He recognized way back then that we aren’t really a Christian people anymore. But he also recognized that this isn’t an entirely new phenomenon in that, “at least since the French Revolution, Catholics determined to be really Catholic have been, generally, de facto, persecuted.”
Progressive Catholics, whom he analyses in great depth, have much more in common with secular progressives than they do with regular (orthodox) Catholics. In today’s parlance, they are “liberals first.” They downplay glaring metaphysical differences between Catholicism and modernism, and ultimately reject Greek thought, specifically belief in an “absolute and meta-historical order of values.”
They are all too disposed to welcome what they view as the “true part” of Marxism; these “new Catholics,” he writes, “are Marxists in via,” who stand “irreparably contrary to tradition,” thereby contributing to the grand project of dissolution.
They are enamored with efforts to bring Christianity into harmony with modernity – tinkering with it here, updating it there. They see Vatican II, in his trenchant turn of phrase, as “the Church’s act of contrition with respect to her past.” This is ultimately a self-defeating proposition. Indeed, the whole idea that Christianity can be surpassed – edified by certain mental maneuvers to suit modern sensibilities (what he terms “meta-Christianity”) – is bound to lead to radical anti-Christianity.
This is high stakes stuff; the only way to avoid catastrophe, he concludes, is to recover genuinely truthful religious instincts. This means that the Catholic Church will have to overcome its own crisis – and reject “the progressivist and Modernist invasion” that ineluctably and “fatally” leads to “a death of God theology” and a thoroughly secularized milieu.
The odds have become even longer since Del Noce wrote, but the cards he laid on the table still seem like the only winning hand.
Matthew Hanley
Matthew Hanley is senior fellow with the National Catholic Bioethics Center. With Jokin de Irala, M.D., he is the author of Affirming Love, Avoiding AIDS: What Africa Can Teach the West, which recently won a best-book award from the Catholic Press Association. The opinions expressed here are Mr. Hanley’s and not those of the NCBC.
Gun control is the set of laws or policies that regulate the manufacture, sale, transfer, possession, modification or use of firearms by civilians, not the radical left’s definition of gun control.
Gun control only means that one should be in control of their firearm at all times.
How is this accomplished?
Through responsible firearm ownership, which can be broken down into three critical measures.
First, know how to use your firearm.
Second, keep your firearm safe.
Third, promote firearm safety.
These three critical measures that result in responsible firearm ownership are the type of gun control that should be promoted. By practicing responsible firearm ownership, you are controlling your gun.
If you are a law-abiding gun owner, it is your duty to practice responsible firearm ownership. As a gun owner, you have passed numerous requirements to purchase and own a firearm. The more prominent reasons to be denied include a felony conviction, a misdemeanor conviction punishable by more than two years in prison, a domestic violence charge, dishonorable discharge from the military, or being ruled mentally unfit by a judge.
By not falling into these categories it is expected of you by society to practice the three critical measures of responsible firearm ownership previously stated.
Even with the long list of requirements to meet in order to purchase and own a firearm, the left would still like to see its ideas of gun control become law and further restrict law-abiding citizens from owning firearms.
According to a recent Pew Research Center poll, protection tops the list of reasons for owning a firearm. Furthermore, 74 percent of gun owners believe that owning a firearm is tied to their sense of personal freedom.
So why then does the left continue its assault on their second amendment rights, when the primary reason for owning a firearm is for self-defense?
There can be no sound reasoning for implementing stricter gun laws on law-abiding citizens when the data prove that stricter gun control laws do not work. As of June 30, more than 1,700 people have been shot in Chicago.
Yet, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence ranked Illinois No. 8 in the country for strictest gun control laws — California is ranked No. 1.
California has extreme gun control measures such as a 10-day waiting period on gun purchases, universal background checks, gun registration, gun confiscation laws, an “assault weapons” ban, and a “good cause” requirement for concealed carry.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Hill.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/kids-guns-e1386882799305.jpg359640Tyler Yzaguirrehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngTyler Yzaguirre2018-07-26 06:03:552018-07-26 06:56:07Left-wing radicals want more gun laws. Here’s how to resist
Democrats are leading the way to open borders by allowing non-citizens to vote first in school districts and then will seek the same in Federal elections. This dovetails with California’s Sanctuary City State policy. While the media obsesses about Russian interference in U.S. elections California Democrats have figured out a way to undermine our entire electoral system.
Democrats shout about 12 Russians interfering in our election, while at the same time promoting giving 1.2 million illegal aliens voting rights. Isn’t giving illegals a right to vote colluding to fix elections?
In San Francisco, immigrants who are in the country illegally are now eligible to register and vote in school board elections. Of course, this is clearly illegal under the California Constitution.
Article II, Section 2 of the California Constitution says, “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.”
However, the pro-illegal immigration, sanctuary state-supporting Democratic majority in Sacramento has no interest in enforcing the law when it’s being ignored by fellow Democrats. After all, their long-range plans for a ruling majority depend on continuous law breaking to get enough non-Americans to vote. The Californians who don’t support their radical views, can simply be eclipsed by non-citizen voters who will.
As the San Francisco ABC News affiliate reported, the county’s District 7 Elections Supervisor Norman Yee said, ”We want to give immigrants the right to vote.”
As Thomas points out, this is only the beginning of a much larger strategy.
“Who doubts this is the first step by the left and Democrats toward full voting rights in state and eventually in federal elections? The claim by lawyers will be that it is discriminatory to allow undocumented immigrants to vote in local and state elections and not for members of Congress and for president. At bottom this is what the entire immigration debate is about.”
Thomas concludes, “For Democrats, it’s a perfect cover for their ultimate goal: importing votes.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Illegal-Voters-e1600273023581.jpg360640Robert Hellerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRobert Heller2018-07-26 05:42:132018-07-26 07:11:28Democrats Electoral Strategy: Open Borders and Let Non-Citizens Vote
Iren Fogel was only 13 when her family was brought to Nazi Germany’s Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
Her parents, four of her five siblings, and most other relatives were murdered upon arrival from a Hungarian-ruled part of Czechoslovakia.
For eight months, Iren and her 17-year-old sister Serena worked and lived next to the crematorium. Every day, they saw young mothers and children and elderly men and women take their last steps because they were Jews.
“We watched them enter the gate that led to the gas chamber,” Irene Fogel Weiss, now 88, told reporters and others Monday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Hall of Remembrance.
“My brain could not absorb what I was seeing. I thought this place must not be on this earth and that no one knew that this existed, and if they knew, surely they would stop it.”
Weiss, who later added the second “e” to her first name, gave the first of 13 testimonies from victims of contemporary religious persecution who will speak at the Holocaust Memorial Museum over three days, during the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom.
The conference of foreign ministers, with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo as host, aims to inspire global action against religious persecution and discrimination.
The conference at the Holocaust Memorial Museum will feature survivors of persecution from across the world—Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Tibetan Buddhist, Uyghur Muslim, Yezidi—who speak about their experiences. They’re from countries such as China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, and Vietnam.
A picture of Irene Fogel Weiss, showing a bundled-up girl facing the photographer on a crowded ramp at the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, hangs in the museum where she now volunteers.
“It is tragic that over 70 years later, the world is faced with other regimes that commit hideous atrocities against its own citizens,” Weiss said.
Beginning Tuesday, each day of the conference will focus on a specific topic for foreign and domestic representatives and civil society groups, a list not released by the State Department.
Former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, President Donald Trump’s international ambassador at large for religious freedom, spoke Monday about what he has seen since assuming his duties Feb. 1. In many countries, Brownback said, persecution and death are common for religious minorities.
“Each and every person in their world has an unalienable right to religious freedom,” Brownback, who is a Catholic, said. “They have that right. Yet, sadly, most of the people in the world live in an environment where religious restriction are significant and often deadly.”
Brownback was a senator and representative from Kansas before his election as governor in 2010. He was re-elected in 2014 and resigned early this year after his razor-thin Senate confirmation to the religious liberty post.
Brownback vowed Monday that the “evil” persecution of and discrimination against religious minorities will be “defeated.”
“I’m delighted that this administration has made this a top foreign policy priority, and we are going to push it and push it aggressively,” he said. “We will use this [conference] to push religious freedom issues around the world … we will seek to find allies to push this topic forward.”
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/auschwitz-e1532511308341.jpg359640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-25 05:37:472018-07-25 05:46:46Victims of Religious Persecution Tell Their Stories at International Conference in D.C.
A school district voted unanimously to become the first Virginia county to permit armed teachers, but Virginia government officials are not pleased.
The Lee County School Board decided earlier in July to arm teachers in its 11-school, 3,200-student school district, but faces backlash from Virginia’s Department of Education and attorney general, according to The Washington Post Wednesday.
“[There are] one or two people out in the community that are not for it, and I think it’s probably from an anti-gun standpoint, really,” Lee County School Board member Rob Hines said. “But people can have concerns about it. We have concerns about it. We just think that, financially, it’s our best option and we have to do something.”
The board believes 50 out of Lee County’s 700 school employees will be responsible for concealed weapons in September after going through psychological evaluations, background checks, and summer training. Virginia state law forbids the presence of firearms on school property, but the Lee County School Board will attempt to classify the armed employees as “conservators of the peace” to gain exemption.
“We recently found out about this scheme, and we’re looking into it,” Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s spokesman, Michael Kelly, told the Post. “It’s troubling to learn that people are putting so much time and effort into getting around the law and getting more guns into schools when the focus should clearly be on creating a safe, welcoming learning environment.”
Kelly said that Virginia “clearly prohibits guns in schools,” barring a few small exceptions.
“Lee County did not approach the department for guidance or technical assistance before the local school board took this action,” Virginia Department of Education spokesman Charles Pyle said. His department is examining the school district’s decision in light of “relevant statutes.”
Fourteen states have armed teachers and 16 more states give school boards discretion over arming teachers as of March, according to VICE News. Virginia is not listed as one of those states.
COLUMN BY
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/wildlightrmpix005416-1250x650-e1532468521816.jpg393640The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2018-07-24 17:43:022018-07-24 17:53:34Virginia Government Officials Not Happy With First School District to Arm Teachers
In this era of growing mass censorship of conservative, traditionalist opinion and overt media bias, the need for alternative news and information outlets has never been greater. No hyperbole. Legitimately never greater. The reason is twofold:
➔ The victory of political correctness and the rise of identity politics on the American left, which dominates the dissemination of information in the nation;
➔ The social media revolution that also is dominated by the American left and increasingly willing to flex the anti-free speech instincts of its fellow travelers.
This has been growing over the past couple of years, but the depth of it has been rapidly revealed since the election of Donald Trump. Even many anti-Trumpers on the right (alas, not all) have come to realize with assurity that the American left has a powerful streak that would censor all speech with which they disagree. Amazingly, this is even true in the media to a degree.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz issued a strong warning about the monopolistic power of Silicon Valley during a recent interview on the Breitbart News Sunday program. He said “The nexus of power in media has moved from New York City to Silicon Valley” and that America needs to “look at all the tools we have to protect free speech and prevent the Internet from becoming a vehicle for censorship.”
Cruz was referring to the shadowbanning on Twitter, where views not agreeable to the Twitter overmasters drop into a dark pit, and no one or almost no one, sees them. Conservative Twitter users frequently notice that suddenly no one is engaging with their tweets and whistleblowers have confirmed Twitter does this as a practice.
Youtube, which is owned by Google, has been demonetizing conservative channels by flagging them as having “inappropriate” content that scares off advertisers and viewers, and essentially attempts to silence the conservative sites by bankrupting them. Dozens of large conservative sites — including those as unoffensive and mainstream as PragerU — have seen dramatic demonetization on Youtube as suddenly video after video is flagged. Youtube just recently announced it will spend $25 million of its own money to promote its own list of the same “trusted” news sites.
And Facebook has replaced its discredited “trending news” section after the company was caught filling it with leftist news that was not in any way measurably “trending.” It was so bad and Facebook is so influential, that it became the subject of Congressional inquiries that included founder Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress.
But what Facebook is replacing it with is a feature called “breaking news,” that will be populated only by “trustworthy and quality sources.” Not surprisingly, the list of 80 such outlets appears to be dominated by, if not exclusively featuring, leftist publications. Facebook is not revealing the criteria for how the 80 were chosen, but in addition to the Washington Post, it was leaked that the much more leftist Vox and The Verge are on the “trustworthy” list.
Most recently, Apple has launched a “midterms election” feature of “trusted sources” for its official News app on iPhones, which like Facebook seems to include largely leftist publications from the old mainstream media to outright leftist Vox and Axios.
Apple News does not have the reach of the Big Three in social media, but it demonstrates that every dissemination organ out there is run by leftists who will choose to tell consumers what they should be consuming rather than allow the freedom for consumers to choose themselves.
Back to Cruz: “That is a level of power that is staggering, and I think it poses a real and present danger to our democratic system, particularly given the extreme left-wing bias of Silicon Valley. What we’ve seen over and over again, they’re acting to muzzle and silence conservative views, views they disagree with. That’s frightening.”
The problem is less and less with an absence of alternative news and comment sources. Those have multiplied in recent years, including big hitters from Foxnews.com, Breitbart, the Daily Caller, Washington Examiner, Newsmax, the Daily Wire and so on to smaller hitters such as Liberty Nation, Sparta Report and The Revolutionary Act.
The problem is broad dissemination for people not already familiar with their platforms. And as bad as the stacked deck is for conservative news views, it is compounded by the shifting of the-once solid conservative alternative of the Drudge Report into a more mainstream, celebrity-soaked, sensationalistic, UFO and sex robots site. Not really what conservative, traditionalist Americans are after.
There are really only two alternatives to this. One is to declare the social media giants — particularly Facebook — a monopoly in the information dissemination industry and either break it up like Ma Bell was broken into the Baby Bells, or regulate it like utilities are. That option should rub every conservative wrong because it places the government as the overseer of information. A fairly terrible and certainly untrustworthy option at best — and the government is already a player in the progressives establishment.
The other option is for conservatives and traditionalist Americans to use alternative information disseminating sites. The most prominent of these is the fast-rising Whatfinger News, which is a solidly conservative news aggregator in the space of Drudge, but with literally 10 times more story links from reliable sources.
While Drudge puts up 25 to 30 new links per day, Whatfinger * adds 250 to 400 new links daily. The site is much more complete in covering the news and issues from a range of conservative perspectives with none of the nonsense that Drudge now indulges in.
Whatfinger News is followed by alternative Drudge look-alikes The Liberty Daily and Citizen Free Press. Try them out to see what works for you. They are all providing a more conservative alternative to Drudge, but we prefer Whatfinger as the layout is clean and well-organized and you can count on a huge number of new items every day — nicely prioritized.
This approach to the mass censoring is the best option for freedom-loving conservatives. It allows a broad reach, at least into the conservative community, for all of the right-leaning news sites to aid in distribution of content that counters the liberal media narrative.
But it can only work if conservatives share such alternatives with each other. Whatfinger’s growth has been almost exclusively by word of mouth, and it has grown fast in just two years. If conservatives will share these sites on their own social media accounts by the millions, the word will spread rapidly and others who may be traditionalists or even moderates will see other news options that the social media giants are censoring.
This needs to happen quickly, before the social media censors go further and block such attempts. Don’t think that won’t happen. Based on what has gone on since November 2016, everything is possible.
(* NOTE: The Revolutionary Act has no financial arrangement with Whatfinger and no quid pro quo on articles. Like every one of our posts, this is a straightforward opinion.)
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/whatfinger-vs-social-media.jpg360640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-07-24 17:05:362018-07-24 17:05:36Social Media Proves The Need For Whatfinger Style Alternatives
Is the President of the United States a mere “twitter warrior?” Or is he really serious about Iran? Here is his early morning, all-caps statement that is making heads explode in the Twittersphere:
The proximate cause for Trump’s tweet was a threat by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani the day before to close the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping traffic, where he warned Trump, “Do not play with the lion’s tail; you will regret it forever.”
Rouhani himself was responding to a momentous speech at the Reagan Library by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, where he outlined the new “Trump Doctrine” toward Iran.
“The mission set for our team is clear,” Pompeo said. “It’s to deny the Iranian leadership the resources, the wealth, the funds, the capacity to continue to foment terrorism around the world and to deny the people inside of Iran the freedoms that they so richly deserve.”
If you’re reading this page, you’ve probably already had your fill of the hysterics and bombast from the organized left in response to this latest Trump tweet, starting with Rachel Maddow, the Atlantic, and their fellow gutter-creatures.
So here is what you need to know to determine whether this President is serious.
Jan. 20, 2017: Donald Trump takes office.
Jan. 29, 2017: Iran launches a medium-range nuclear-capable missile to probe the intentions of the new administration.
Feb. 1, 2017: National Security advisor Michael Flynn makes an appearance in the White House briefing room, telling reporters that the administration is “officially putting Iran on notice” to stop such tests.
Feb. 3, 2017: The U.S. administration imposes new sanctions on Iranian individuals and companies involved in the missile program.
The Iranians cooled their heels for seven months after that. When they next conducted a missile test in September 2017, it prompted an immediately – if restrained – response from the President.
Remember that by this point, the President was already embroiled in the Mueller probe, and was being advised by a Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, and a national security advisor, H.R. McMaster, who were both eager to preserve the bad Iran nuclear deal.
Nevertheless, on October 13, 2017, President Trump took the first step toward withdrawing from the deal by refusing to certify that Iran was in compliance. He pulled out of the deal formally on May 8, 2018, unleashing a firestorm of doom and gloom predictions from our European allies and from former Obama administration officials, who have taken to behaving like official lobbyists for Tehran.
The Iranians responded by threatening to immediately resume uranium enrichment, a gesture which former international nuclear inspector David Albright qualified as “more bark than bite,” and—once again–- to close the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. (If they don’t threaten to close the Strait of Hormuz once a month, they might forget where it is).
Here are the little-known facts, as tweeted out by the President on July 8:
Iranian harassment of U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf ceased almost as soon as the President took office in January 2017, going down from 36 incidents in 2016 to just 14 incidents in 2017. (The last was in August 2017). For the past twelve months, the Iranian navy and the IRGC fast attack boats have not once threatened a U.S. warship. Guess why?
In the case of this regime in Tehran, it’s sometimes necessary to speak loudly and carry a big stick. That has been President Trump’s approach, and it is working.
The regime has scaled back its ballistic missile tests, and in recent months has restrained its Houthi allies in Yemen from firing missiles into Saudi Arabia and the UAE.
And while Iran has continued to expand and solidify its “land bridge” through Iraq and Syria to the Israeli border, it now faces virtually unlimited counter-strikes from the Israel Air Force that Prime Minister Netanyahu coordinates ahead of time with Russia.
As with so many other issues involving this President, skeptics need to look at his actions, not just his tweets–– although I happen to enjoy his tweets, and think they are an effective means of speaking directly to friends and foes over the heads of the drive-by media.
The Pompeo speech was everything pro-freedom advocates in Iran could have wished. If you read nothing else today, please take five minutes to read the entire speech. It is amazing.
In it, Pompeo made clear that he – and by extension, the President – understand the futility of past efforts to change the behavior of the Tehran regime by offering inducements and concessions. We are facing a regime that behaves in accordance with its profound anti-Western, expansionist, Sharia-imposing ideology. The only way we in the West can change that behavior is by helping the people of Iran to reclaim their country and their government.
And those Iranian “moderates” Washington always seems to be seeking? Pompeo drew laughs from the audience when he joked they were the “Iranian unicorn,” a mythical beast.
Pompeo cited specific examples of top regime officials who have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars – and in the case of the Supreme Leader, $95 billion – from the people of Iran. That’s a first from a senior U.S. leader. And, as I hinted above, he made clear that this administration understands that the root of the problem is “the revolutionary nature of the regime itself,” in other words, its ideology.
The tyrants of Tehran are freaking out.
For decades they thought they could bully the United States into inaction. Not since President Reagan sank one-third of the Iranian navy during Operation Praying Mantis in April 1988 has the United States stood up to Iranian military provocation in the Gulf.
Put simply, we have nothing to fear from a military confrontation with Iran, especially in the waters of the Persian Gulf. But the Iranians are very afraid.
Add to this the rapid plunge of the Iranian currency following the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal – before new sanctions were even imposed – and you can understand the growing panic in Tehran.
The mullahs are going down. They can smell it. They see a multitude of opposition groups meeting in Germany and the United States openly and proudly, in ways not seen since 2007. They see the new budget from the State Department to support Internet freedom in Iran taking effect, making it increasingly hard for them to kill dissidents in darkness. They see a U.S. administration openly reaching out to dissidents, and openly embracing their cause. And they see their economy circling the drain—as I say, even before new sanctions go into place next month.
Their days are numbered, and they know it.
Secretary Pompeo reminded the nay-sayers, who claim it could be “centuries” before the regime falls, of how quickly things can change. “There are disjunctive moments. There are times when things happen that are unexpected, unanticipated. Our revolution will be one of them,” he said.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-ruhani-faceoff-e1532463398730.jpg355640Kenneth R. Timmermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKenneth R. Timmerman2018-07-24 16:17:152018-07-24 16:51:35TRUMP DOCTRINE VS. ROUHANI: Is Donald Trump Serious about Iran? You bet.
Listen here to the full podcast, which features an interview with Mona Charen and a discussion of a new study showing kids don’t play as much outside, or read the lightly edited transcript of the Charen interview below.
Mona, first I wanted to touch on something you bring up in the intro to the book: Women aren’t happy. You note that women’s happiness has declined since the early 1970s, that women are significantly more likely than men to be on antidepressants. Is there a relationship between women’s dissatisfaction and feminism in your view?
Mona Charen: I think there is a connection because I think that one of the things that the feminist movement did is it removed something from the lives of women that’s very important to them, and that is security. Women need security because we are more vulnerable than men. We’re the ones who are smaller and weaker. We are the ones who have babies, who nurse babies. Security is very important to us. Because of the decline of marriage and the more raw, sexual environment that women are forced to live in now, there’s less security than there used to be.
Trinko:Interesting. As someone who hates being out of my comfort zone, I can relate to that. You also mentioned in the introduction to your book [Facebook Chief Operating Officer] Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In”. Obviously that’s an enormously influential book. It’s encouraged women to lean in to their careers, even if they’re having children—to essentially still be aggressive on the career front. What do you think about Sandberg’s advice and can women have it all?
Charen: Women can have it all, but not all at once. We are lucky that most of us can expect to live long lives, and there’s time enough to do everything in a sequential pattern, not necessarily all at once.
I also resist this idea of having it all because I believe that to be our fullest and best selves, we have to also focus on giving to others and not just living for ourselves. When I was a mother and when I was with my kids, I felt that I was where I really needed to be. That was a good feeling, and it made me happy. There was another part to your question about having it all. What was it?
Trinko: Well, women can have it all, but it sounds like you’re saying …
Charen: Yes, women can, but again, I would just push back a little bit on this idea of having as being the goal. I think we should all want to live rounded lives where we give and receive love to one another.
Trinko: Good. What do you think about sexual assault right now, particularly on college campuses? What is the right approach to this matter?
Charen: Well, conservatives have made a point of saying that the 1 in 5 or the 1 in 4 statistic is not true, and I agree, that is not. It’s an exaggeration, but I think conservatives have gone a little too far in stressing only the stories about mattress girl and others or the University of Virginia case, a rape on campus where they turned out to be hoaxes, because there really is a problem.
There really is a lot of very bad behavior going on. Conservatives should not be perceived as indifferent to the mistreatment of women or the rape of women. It is happening in numbers way beyond what should be tolerable.
That’s my plea is to take it seriously and begin to examine what is going wrong between the sexes. Why is there so much sexual assault? I point to a number of things, the hookup culture, the excessive drinking that characterizes dating life now (if you can even call it dating), and the confusion about sex where people aren’t getting clear signals about what is acceptable and what isn’t. The whole regime of so-called affirmative consent is confusing and unhelpful.
Trinko: Yeah, it seems like many of these people are saying, “Well, you didn’t read my signals.” It’s like, well, how could someone you’ve met a couple hours ago …
Charen: Exactly.
Trinko: … read your signals? Maybe the bigger question is why are you having this intimate activity right away?
Charen: Yes.
Trinko: I make a point of trying to read a lot of feminist takes just to keep that in mind. Obviously the term toxic masculinity is used a lot.
Charen: A lot, yeah.
Trinko: What do you think about that term, and in general, what should we be doing about the boys right now?
Charen: One of my critiques about feminism is that they have a tendency to disparage men as a sex. To say even the phrase toxic masculinity …
Imagine toxic femininity. Feminists would be up in arms if there were such a term being bandied about, much less whole courses about it in men’s studies departments. Look, men are human beings. They have strengths and weaknesses. Masculinity brings with it some serious problems, like aggression, like a huge sex drive that has to be controlled, but masculinity also brings with it a self-sacrifice, a willingness to be brave and to protect those who are weak and vulnerable.
One of the things that I cite in my chapter on this where I’m talking about toxic masculinity are the cases where for example, when that shooter entered the theater in Aurora, Colorado, no fewer than four young men covered their girlfriends with their own bodies to protect them.
Trinko: Wow.
Charen: Three died doing so.
Trinko:I did not know that.
Charen: You can say what you want about men and about masculinity, but that’s part of masculinity, that natural, self-sacrificing heroism.
Let’s be fair to men. If men have become very sexually aggressive and insensitive, maybe it’s because all of the rules about dating have been thrown out the window, and we live in a culture that is drenched in pornography and in which we are told that the old standards about courtship and dating are completely passe.
Trinko: Actually, you just mentioned pornography, and I think that’s something that we don’t really talk about very much publicly, which is interesting. You see that studies show that an enormous number of people are looking at it, including some women as well. How do you think that forms part of the problem between the sexes right now?
Charen: I think it’s a huge part of the problem. I think it definitely invades people’s imaginations and infiltrates what people think is normal behavior. The Harvey Weinstein story with some of the behaviors that he engaged in were just so grotesque. I thought, “Where did he get these ideas like masturbating into a potted plant?” No normal woman would have ever told him that that was a turn on. He had to have gotten that from some pornographic thing somewhere.
Trinko: Yeah, I think it’s definitely shaping desires. It seems every, I don’t know, [every] few months you read another story about high schoolers or college girls feeling they have to engage in some new behavior. They’re told, “Oh, well, I saw it in porn.”
Charen: Yeah, exactly. I’m sorry, but it used to be that boys would think they were lucky if a girl would let him kiss her or touch her somewhere, right. Now boys are making these demands that women do things to their bodies to make themselves appealing that are totally unnatural and weird. Is this progress?
Trinko: Not in my view. A lot of conservative conversation focuses on what’s wrong with the current culture, but are there any positive ideas that could help women lead more fulfilling lives?
Charen: Absolutely. One of the things that I liked in the research for my book is that I’ve found there are countercultural movements afoot. There’s a professor at Boston College called Kerry Cronin who has assigned dating to her students and taught them how to ask someone out on a date and how to go out on dates. She gives advice in class about how to do it. The students support each other, and they’re very enthusiastic.
Under her rules, the students have to be home by 10 p.m. There can be no drinking on the date. It can’t be a movie because there has to be an opportunity for conversation. In any event, and they have to ask someone they’re genuinely interested in, not just a friend to get out of the assignment, I suppose. It’s just reintroducing these things, reintroducing the idea of romance. I think it might just catch on.
Trinko: Yeah, I think it might. It’s always interesting to me. I’m a bit older than a college student, but at the same time, it seems that so many people in the overall millennial generation are more comfortable being physical with a stranger than being verbally intimate.
Charen: Exactly. I said to one of my sons that they can’t protect their bodies, but they do protect their souls. They put up walls so that people can’t really get to know them.
Trinko: Absolutely. You see that a lot on dating sites. Now one critique I imagine the left would say about this book is that essentially it’s wanting to go back to the 1950s. Is that your ideal era?
Charen: No.
Trinko: Let’s say you could wave a wand and change society. What does it look like?
Charen: If I could wave a wand and change society, I would change it to 2018 to the habits of people who are living right now but who happen to be college graduates. If you look at the patterns of dating and marriage and childbearing of the college graduate cohort in our society, you don’t have to go back to the 1950s, they’re doing it right now. Their patterns of finishing school, getting married, and having babies in that order, it hasn’t changed very much from the patterns that used to characterize everybody in the 1950s.
Some people say, “You want to go back to the 50s.” No, I just want all of our people in every income category, especially those at the bottom who need the support of families even more than the people at the top, to be able to benefit from having a mother and a father in the home, having two incomes, having that stability and that great start in life.
The Daily Signal podcast is a 25-minute weekday podcast that shares the news highlights conservatives need to know and features an in-depth interview. Subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, or SoundCloud.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/180723_hats-1250x650-e1532431639955.jpg378640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-24 07:30:112018-07-24 07:30:33PODCAST: The Reasons Women Aren’t Happy Today
A left-wing organization is wrongly labeling others as “hate groups,” a Muslim leader who works against Islamist terrorists says.
Maajid Nawaz recently settled out of court with the Southern Poverty Law Center for over $3 million after he challenged it for listing his left-of-center group as extremist.
“I want them to understand that something clearly went wrong in the processes here,” Nawaz said Friday on “Fox & Friends.” “If it could have gone wrong for me, which is such a clear case, then there are others.”
Listing Nawaz and his research group, Quilliam, as anti-Muslim extremists cost the Southern Poverty Law Center $3.4 million in a settlement payment paired with a video apology.
In 2016, the SPLC had labeled Quilliam, which markets itself as the “world’s first counter-extremism organization,” as an anti-Muslim hate group for its calls to reform Islam. Nawaz, who is British and a former radical Muslim, moved to sue the SPLC on grounds of defamation.
The matter was settled out of court June 18, with the SPLC agreeing to pay the $3.4 million and issue a public apology.
“I grew up respecting the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their work against the KKK, in particular, was something, somebody like me … grew up appreciating,” Nawaz said in the interview on “Fox & Friends.”
The SPLC has been in the news in recent years for labeling mainstream conservative organizations, including the traditional values group Family Research Council and the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, as hate groups. They and otherssay the liberal group does so to those it disagrees with to raise money.
Nawaz, who calls himself a liberal politically, said his inclusion on the SPLC’s list of hate groups was “shocking.”
Labeling someone an anti-Muslim extremist is dangerous because “that’s putting a target on our heads for the jihadists to come and kill us,” he said.
“These are serious allegations that terrorists take very, very seriously, and they go after people like us,” he said.
Nawaz said he told the SPLC that “we agree on more than we disagree when it comes to challenging extremism,” and that he wanted to understand how he had ended up on its list.
Nawaz said he believes that the SPLC’s apology was sincere, and that his inclusion on a list of hate groups was a “genuine mistake.” But, he said, he is “still trying to explore and get to the bottom of this.”
Jeremiah Poff is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/ptsphotoshottwo779439-cropped-1250x650-e1532428480415.jpg386640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-24 06:35:462018-07-24 06:35:46Muslim Who Squeezed $3M Out of SPLC for Calling Him an Anti-Muslim Extremist Says Others Also Wrongly Labeled
