12 Times Gun Owners Defended Themselves and Others

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Many lawmakers around the country welcomed in the new year by pursuing legislation that would severely curtail the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms.

Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens began 2020 just as they ended 2019—by showing repeatedly just how instrumental that right is to the security of a free state.

According to almost every major study on the issue, Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year. Even if we assume the lower end of this range, it means an incredible number of times that Americans relied on the Second Amendment—not government getting there on time—to protect their inalienable rights.

During every month of last year, we highlighted some of the stories of average, everyday Americans who used their guns to protect their lives and livelihoods from criminals.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

The first month of 2020 provided still more examples of citizens exercising their Second Amendment rights in defense of themselves and others. Here are 12:

  • Jan. 1, Dublin, California: A lawful gun owner relied upon his Second Amendment rights to defend his life when an ex-girlfriend and her armed acquaintance assaulted him in his own home. Police said the ex-girlfriend and acquaintance showed up purporting to want some of her possessions back, but instead threatened the resident with a gun. He fired at his two attackers as he fled and called police. The ex-girlfriend was killed, and her acquaintance wounded in the exchange of gunfire. Police determined that the lawful gun owner acted in self-defense. The armed acquaintance was charged with her death under the state’s Provocative Act Doctrine, since he ultimately provoked the violent confrontation.
  • Jan. 4, Columbus, Indiana: A homeowner shot and killed an intruder wielding a baseball bat who broke into his home in the middle of the night. The intruder may have been in the middle of a mental health crisis, as the Department of Veterans Affairs recently had requested that local law enforcement take the man to a hospital, but he refused to go. Neighbors reported that, in the minutes before the shooting, the man was seen walking up and down the street in a highly agitated manner, smashing windows and cursing loudly.
  • Jan. 7, Pascagoula, Mississippi: A man suspected in a string of burglaries picked the wrong house to break into, at the wrong time. The armed homeowner returned in the middle of the morning to find the burglar in his bedroom. The burglar tried to pull his gun, but the homeowner instead shot and killed him.
  • Jan. 10, Dallas: A concealed-carry permit holder was socializing with guests at a home cookout when three armed men attempted to rob them all at gunpoint. The permit holder drew his own handgun and fatally shot one of the robbers. The other two fled.
  • Jan. 11, Tulsa, Oklahoma: A homeowner’s son was asleep in the living room when he was awoken by the family dogs barking at a man on the porch. The man demanded to see his fiancée but was told he had the wrong house and needed to leave. Instead, the man broke into the family’s car, then tried to kick in the back door. The homeowner’s son warned the man multiple times that he was armed and would shoot him if he stepped foot in the house. Nonetheless, the man barged inside. True to his word, the son shot and wounded the man, who retreated and was later arrested.
  • Jan. 12, Pittsburgh: A young father used his handgun to defend himself, his fiancée, and their 10-month-old child after an intruder broke into their apartment and threatened them at gunpoint. The man shot and killed the intruder.
  • Jan. 14, Pierce County, Washington: The driver of a pickup truck began passing cars dangerously on a winding two-lane road, then took offense when another driver honked at him. Police said the pickup driver stopped his truck, halting traffic, then climbed out with a gun, pointing it at the people in the car behind him. A passenger in that car also was armed and ultimately was forced to shoot and kill the pickup driver in defense of himself and those around him.
  • Jan. 19, Danville, Illinois: When several armed men in ski masks kicked in his door one night, a 31-year-old homeowner defended himself with his handgun, firing multiple rounds at the intruders. One was killed and the others fled, police said.
  • Jan. 22, Warren, Michigan: A young man with a concealed-carry permit was returning home from a late night out at a show when he was accosted on his doorstep by a man with a gun. A neighbor’s doorbell camera captured the next harrowing moments: The permit holder drew his gun in self-defense and fired approximately 10 rounds at his would-be attacker. The attacker, wounded, fired back but did not hit the permit holder. About 20 shots were fired, police said, most apparently by the permit holder. Police arrested the intruder.
  • Jan. 24, Cape Coral, Florida: A good Samaritan with a firearm in his truck defended three women from a man who followed them out of a bar in a threatening manner. The women yelled at passing vehicles for help, and the truck driver stopped and allowed the women to take refuge inside as he confronted the aggressive man. The man retreated to his own vehicle when he saw that the truck driver was armed. He then rammed the truck several times while the women were still inside. The truck driver fired a couple of rounds into the tailgate of the man’s vehicle and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. Police charged the man with aggravated assault and determined that the truck driver acted in lawful defense of himself and the women.
  • Jan. 27, Brown County, Texas: A 13-year-old boy used the family rifle to protect his grandmother during a domestic violence incident, shooting and wounding a man because he was “fearful that his grandmother was going to be killed,” police said. Investigators said the man was “actively assaulting” the boy’s grandmother and threatened other family members, including a juvenile.
  • Jan. 31, Detroit: A woman shot and wounded a man who broke into her apartment in the middle of the night. A neighbor told reporters that it is a dangerous neighborhood and that there are regularly “gunshots up and down the area.” This time the gunshots were from a law-abiding citizen defending herself against a criminal.

As we noted in closing out 2019, it’s vital that Americans routinely hear these stories.

The “good guy with a gun” is not a myth but an integral part of American society, serving to protect individual liberty and increase public safety.

We all want safe communities, but our focus should be on doing the right thing instead of just doing “something.” The right thing certainly includes protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens, who regularly rely on those rights.

COMMENTARY BY

Amy Swearer

Amy Swearer is a senior legal policy analyst at the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Why the Movie Industry Is Fleeing California

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Why is the film industry abandoning its Mount Olympus?

Ah, Hollywood. The Mecca of filmmaking. Thousands of would-be actors, screenwriters, and directors flock to Los Angeles, California to fulfill their dreams of becoming a star because, after all, that’s where movie-making happens. Everyone knows this.

And for close to a century, it was true. But today, Hollywood—the way we generally think of it—is fading away and going elsewhere. In fact, in 2017, only ten of the top 100 movies produced that year were made mostly in California.

It’s no secret that the entire state of California is experiencing a large and sustained out-flow of residents, but Los Angeles County, in particular, is showing the biggest losses. The question is why.

Why is the film industry abandoning its Mount Olympus?

A Hollywood Origin Story

Let’s back up for a minute and look at how Hollywood (the term used to describe the mainstream film industry because, yes, you’re correct, Hollywood, originally Hollywoodland, came from the name of a specific neighborhood in Los Angeles) came to be in Los Angeles to begin with.

Back at the end of the 19th century, motion pictures were a very new technology, and a handful of people held almost all of the patents related to the filming and screening of said films. Chief among them was Thomas Edison.

History remembers Edison as an important inventor but not so much as a nice guy. That’s probably a fair assessment, especially when it comes to early film-making technology.

Films at the tail-end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in America were made almost exclusively on the East Coast—New Jersey, mostly. Films were short, silent, and lacked much of the subtlety and nuance that modern moviegoers have come to expect from cinema. At the time, though, they were cutting-edge and incredibly popular.

One could make a very good living running a show house or nickelodeon in any big city.

Right up until December 1908, that is.

That’s when Edison spearheaded the creation of the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), generally referred to as the Edison Trust. It was comprised of the holders of all the significant patents related to the production and screening of motion pictures, including Biograph, Vitagraph, American Mutoscope, Kodak, and others.

Edison was widely known for having strong opinions about what kinds of movies should be made, how long they should be, who should be credited in them, and what it should cost to show them. With the control of the patents he himself owned combined with the collective clout of the other members, the MPPC ruled the movie-making industry with an iron fist. They sued those who didn’t comply with their dictates for patent infringement, refused to sell them equipment and film, and, occasionally, sent hired hooligans to wreck up movie sets or show houses.

As Dan Lewis at Mental Floss writes,

In short, if you wanted to be in the movie business, you did so at the pleasure of Thomas Edison. And Edison (via the MPPC) was not one to back down. The Company took to the courts to prevent the unauthorized use of everything from cameras to projectors — and in many cases, the films themselves. According to Steven Bach in his book, Final Cut, the MPPC even went to the extreme “solution” of hiring mob-affiliated thugs to enforce the patents extra-judiciously. Pay up — or else.

As you might imagine, some filmmakers chafed under such rigid constraints and looked for ways to escape Edison and his MPPC. Their solution? Head west.

After Arizona failed its audition, Los Angeles became the destination for aspiring filmmakers. In addition to being as far away as possible from New Jersey and the MPPC, the tiny town boasted a copious amount of sunny weather—critical to filmmakers in the days of extremely limited artificial lighting—as well as an abundance of cheap real estate and high-skill, low-cost labor.

The local government was pro-business. Should the MPPC actually manage to send a lawsuit that far away, the Mexican border was close enough to duck across until the process server gave up and went home. The geography was varied and beautiful.

After WWI broke out, Los Angeles became the movie-making hot-spot as American film production was sought out to replace the movies that were no longer being made in war-torn Europe. Hollywood’s star was on the rise, and millions of people over the decades decided to hitch their wagons to it.

Hollywood’s Act II Problems

For most of the 20th century, it was good to be Hollywood. There was no shortage of money and talent coming in the door. But over time, things began to change. As film technology made big advancements like broadcast TV in the 1950s and home video in the 1980s, the various roles in the film industry in California also saw surges in unionization.

This led to the various roles on film sets to be increasingly tightly-defined and contractually protected. No one may step even an inch into someone else’s lane.

Nick Bilton in Vanity Fair relates the “Raindrop Story” he heard from a Hollywood screenwriter:

The production was shooting a scene in the foyer of a law firm, which the lead rushed into from the rain to utter some line that this screenwriter had composed. After an early take, the director yelled “Cut,” and this screenwriter, as is customary, ambled off to the side with the actor to offer a comment on his delivery. As they stood there chatting, the screenwriter noticed that a tiny droplet of rain remained on the actor’s shoulder. Politely, as they spoke, he brushed it off. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, an employee from the production’s wardrobe department rushed over to berate him. “That is not your job,” she scolded. “That is my job.”

The screenwriter was stunned. But he had also worked in Hollywood long enough to understand what she was really saying: quite literally, wiping rain off an actor’s wardrobe was her job—a job that was well paid and protected by a union. And as with the other couple of hundred people on set, only she could perform it.

And it’s not just unionized labor that’s expensive in California. Sticking with labor costs, California has the second-highest minimum wage in the country at $13 an hour, though that’s set to increase to $15 an hour by 2022. And though there’s still some back-and-forthing going on regarding the notorious AB5 law, many businesses in the state are being told they need to hire their freelancers as (far more expensive) permanent employees.

Not only that, but California’s real estate and housing markets are among the most expensive in the country, a trend that shows no real sign of improving. The state’s zoning and building regulations make innovation difficult. Special preferential political treatment of the California agriculture industry has led to water rationing for individuals during drought conditions.

In fact, drinking water isn’t the only beverage subject to regulation in California. Furthermore, the state’s 2019 kerfuffle with electricity provider PG&E’s rolling blackouts for customers during high winds is also largely a problem created by the meddlesome state government.

Once all of these factors—and the above list is by no means comprehensive—are taken into account, California has the highest poverty rate in the US.

It isn’t that filmmakers don’t want to film in Los Angeles—they do. But all of these combined constraints significantly increase the total costs of filming and producing in California. Heck, not even films set in Los Angeles are being shot in Los Angeles these days.

So, take the barriers and high costs in California, combine it with fewer and fewer people going to the movies anymore, and the result is a shrinking profit margin for production studios. Something was bound to give.

Around the mid-1990s, other states and countries saw a chance to entice production companies away from California and to bring their cool—and taxable—jobs with them. States like Louisiana and Georgia along with Canada began offering some pretty sweet incentives packages for filmmakers and production companies.

Some places offered subsidies (direct payments), but the lion’s share of pretty much all of the financial incentive packages was tax breaks (a lower tax bill). Though those two kinds of incentives are often conflated, they are not, in fact, the same thing.

And it worked. The state of Georgia, the UK, and Canada all top California when it comes to the number of films shot and produced there.


via Gfycat

Why would production companies leave what has become their ancestral homeland for Georgia or Louisiana? The same reasons they went to California in the first place: to make more money.

Outside constraints—whether from tyrannical patent trolls like the Edison Trust, micromanaging union guidelines, or well-meaning but poorly-considered legislation—made making movies expensive enough that a reduction in production costs was enough to outweigh the hassle of relocating. It was true in 1909, and it was true in 1997. It remains true today.

Though the film industry is one of the most visible ones to ease its way out of California, it’s by no means alone. The entire state is seeing residents of all kinds leaving. In 2018 alone, the state saw a net loss of about 190,000 residents. That’s slightly more than the entire population of Shreveport, Louisiana. According to a recent UC Berkeley poll, about half of the people still living in California have considered leaving.

When asked why, 71 percent cited the high cost of housing and 51 percent said it was because of the high tax burden.At the end of the day, filmmakers are just trying to make a living creating art. That’s already a difficult path to navigate. It should surprise no one that when a smoother route opens up, a lot of people would choose it over the more difficult one.

And the same is true for every industry everywhere. Instead of making life more difficult and expensive by putting up barriers like high taxes, occupational licensing requirements, compulsory union membership, expensive building requirements, and so on that satisfy special interest requests without doing much to improve life for everyday people, California could just let individuals, businesses, and industries succeed or fail based on their own merits in the market. With fewer obstacles to overcome just to get started, individuals and their businesses would stand a much better chance of improving their lives.

For Hollywood, history is repeating itself. California used to be a safe haven for those looking to escape the control freaks of the Edison Trust. Now California itself is the control freak that entertainment entrepreneurs are fleeing as they seek refuge elsewhere. The exodus of talent (and tax dollars) from California won’t stop until it restores the relative economic freedom that allowed Hollywood to become the entertainment capital of the world in the first place.

Jen Maffessanti

Jen Maffessanti is a Senior Associate Editor at FEE and mother of two. When she’s not advocating for liberty or chasing kids, she can usually be found cooking or maybe racing cars. Check out her website.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Rush Limbaugh, Trump and the Tea Party Family

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It was an exciting time. In 2009, a grassroots movement of concerned Americans scheduled 800 Tea Party rallies nationwide on tax day, April 15th. Forty percent of tea partiers voted for Obama, naively believing it would end our nation’s racial divide. They did not realize that Obama was a Trojan Horse; a progressive-warrior hiding inside his black-skin exterior. Once Obama began implementing his undercover mission to transform America into a socialist/progressive country, Americans said, no. His sinister policies included persecuting Christians and opening borders to illegals. Obama betrayed Americans.

In 2009, I was among only a few blacks in the Tea Party movement. When Obama told Joe the Plumber that he intended to “spread the wealth around”, I knew he was talking socialism and was not the right man to lead my beloved country. Therefore, my brother Jerry and I were the only blacks in our circle of family and friends who did not vote for the first black president.

One day I was in Florida driving to Walmart when I wrote the “American Tea Party Anthem” in my car. I few days later, I was in a recording studio recording the song. A few days later, I was interviewed on Fox News about the song. A few days later, I was on a flight to Santa Barbara California to perform the song at a Tea Party rally. I’ve performed at 500 tea party rallies on 14 Tea Party Express and other national bus tours.

Proven psychopathic liar Elizabeth Warren is all over TV telling the tale of receiving $3 for her presidential campaign from a college student who only had $6 in the bank.

Warren’s tale triggered my memory of the woman I fondly call my “Five Dollar Lady.” At a Tea Party rally in Texas, a humble white woman approached me with tears rolling down her cheeks. She thanked me and our team for touring the country pushing back against Obama’s over-reaching and job-killing regulations which cost her trucker husband his job. She grabbed my hand and placed a crumbled $5 bill in it towards gas for our tour bus. We were family.

The Tea Party truly felt like a huge family, united in our love for God, family, country, liberty, our military and our flag. I believe Billy Graham said if you find a perfect church, don’t join it because you will screw it up. In other words, wherever there are humans, there will be some corruption. I watched some original Tea Party leaders abandon our principles. In their minds, the movement became solely about furthering their careers and financial gain. They betrayed the Tea Party.

Despite 1.7 million tea partiers showing up in Washington DC to protest Obamacare, it was made law in the midnight hour against the will of a majority of Americans. Obama lied 29 times. “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.” Americans were betrayed.

The Tea Party transitioned from hosting rallies to creating activist organizations. We labored long and hard to elect conservatives who vowed to fight on our behalf in Washington DC. Sadly, several became swamp dwellers. We were betrayed.

Republicans promised the Tea Party that if we helped them win the House, they would repeal Obamacare. We did and they did not. We the People were betrayed again.

We held our noses to rally behind Mitt Romney for president. We were devastated when Mitt Romney wimped out, refusing to forcefully challenge Obama’s rhetoric during their second debate. In essence, Romney gifted Obama an undeserved second term. We felt betrayed.

Then, along came Donald Trump. Democrats, fake news media, Hollywood and deep state elites saw a clown. But to all of us who love our country, Trump’s America first agenda ignited a resurgence of the spirit of the Tea Party.

Unlike those who have abandoned Tea Party values, Rush Limbaugh has faithfully remained a constant peerless voice, boldly speaking truth.

Millions are praying in response to Rush’s advanced cancer diagnosis. Trump awarding Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom meant a lot to us all. People are actually calling Rush’s radio show offering him a lung. Wow!

It occurred to me that the outpouring of love for Rush has caused me to once again feel a part of a huge great American family, similar to the early days of the Tea Party. We are family folks. We are family.

Neither Rush nor Trump have betrayed us. We must reelect Trump in November.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Trump Train 2020

New Yorkers Blister De Blasio Over Rising Crime, Bail Reform [Video]

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In a town hall in Queens, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was lambasted by New Yorkers who are fed up with the rising crime rate, with his policies of neighborhood jails and homeless shelters, and with the state’s failed new “bail reform.”

“I’m 56 years old, lived in this city my whole life, and you are the worst mayor that New York City has ever seen,” one resident stated. “Many people are being beaten, slashed, and hurt by criminals being released,” said another resident regarding Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s new bail reform law, in the wake of which violent crime has risen. “New York City is becoming a crime city. Could you please get rid of bail reform to make our city safer?”

“Forget bail reform. Bail reform is not working. Do you understand?” pleaded a resident. “I think you have no clue what goes on in regular people’s lives,” declared another. “Why don’t I feel safe Mr. Mayor?”

De Blasio dismissed their concerns as the result of listening to “right-wing propaganda” and to people “whipping up fear.”

Bill de Blasio

47 Known Connections

De Blasio Voices His Support for Socialism

In an interview that was published in New York magazine in September 2017, de Blasio made the following comments:

  • “What’s been hardest is the way our legal system is structured to favor private property. I think people all over this city, of every background, would like to have the city government be able to determine which building goes where, how high it will be, who gets to live in it, what the rent will be. I think there’s a socialistic impulse, which I hear every day, in every kind of community, that they would like things to be planned in accordance to their needs. And I would, too. Unfortunately, what stands in the way of that is hundreds of years of history that have elevated property rights and wealth to the point that that’s the reality that calls the tune on a lot of development…. Look, if I had my druthers, the city government would determine every single plot of land, how development would proceed. And there would be very stringent requirements around income levels and rents. That’s a world I’d love to see, and I think what we have, in this city at least, are people who would love to have the New Deal back, on one level. They’d love to have a very, very powerful government, including a federal government, involved in directly addressing their day-to-day reality.”

To learn more about de Blasio, click on the profile link HERE.

RELATED VIDEO: Antifa calls for violence in New York City

MISSOURI: 11-year-old Gives Birth in Bathtub After Being Raped for Months

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This is a sick story about people who should not have been in the US in the first place.

Thanks to reader Maria for sending it.

From the New York Post:

Teen charged with incest, rape after 11-year-old relative gives birth

A St. Louis teen confessed to raping his 11-year-old relative about 100 times after she gave birth to his baby in a bathtub, according to a news report.

Cops were tipped off to the alleged abuse at the hands of Norvin Leonidas Lopez-Cante when his father brought an infant to St. Joseph Hospital on Tuesday and told police someone left the child on his front porch, KSDK-TV reported.

The baby still had its umbilical cord and placenta attached and a body temperature of 90 degrees, the NBC affiliate said.

On Thursday, police visited the father, Francisco Javier Gonzalez-Lopez, and he told them his 17-year-old son was the father of the child and their 11-year-old relative was the baby’s mother — but claimed he had no knowledge of the abuse or the pregnancy until the girl gave birth.

Lopez-Cante later admitted to authorities that he had sex with the girl about twice a week, a total of about 100 times, the report said.

The story gets worse!

From KSDK Five on Your Side:

Woman charged after 11-year-old daughter gives birth to baby in a bathtub

ST CHARLES, Mo. — A mother was charged after her 11-year-old daughter gave birth in a bathtub last week.

Lesbia Cante pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a charge of endangering the welfare of a child. In court Wednesday, her cash-only bail was increased to $100,000 from $10,000.

[….]

Gonzalez-Lopez said he did not know the girl was pregnant or that Lopez-Cante was raping her until she gave birth to the child in their bathtub.

After police read Lopez-Cante his Miranda rights, he told police he had sex with the girl about 100 times but did not know she was pregnant. He said he did not know when he first had sex with her but said it happened about twice a week.

[….]

Lopez-Cante was charged with first-degree statutory rape, statutory sodomy and incest. His bond was set at $25,000, cash-only.

Gonzalez-Lopez was charged with endangering the welfare of a child for his role in the incident. His bail was set at $10,000, cash only.

Charging documents said he entered the country illegally and was previously deported.

Look at those bail amounts—Gonzalez-Lopez who has been previously deported gets the lowest bail of the bunch!

I didn’t see any mention of the nationality of these sickos..  Let me know if you do!

Aside from wreaking the girl’s life, the illegal aliens will now cost taxpayers a fortune as their cases move through the criminal justice system. Expensive incarceration will surely follow.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

VIDEO: ‘Antifa Bully’ Threatens Pelosi’s Republican Challenger With Death

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A man identified as an ‘Antifa bully’ by Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Republican challenger John Dennis threatened Dennis with death.

Dennis, who is also chair of the San Francisco Republican Party, filmed the incident with the Far-Left protester which took place during a clean-up event on the streets of San Francisco.

The man, who did not know Dennis, accused him of being a racist. During the incident, the ‘Antifa bully’ also said to Dennis, “I’m going to catch you when all the cameras aren’t around and I’m gonna f— you up!”

Dennis said the man was making “all kinds of vulgar gestures to suburban moms who came in to clean up San Francisco. He was also threatening every guy he could find in the crowd.”

Dennis decided to approach the man to try to defuse the situation.

Watch Laura Ingraham’s interview with John Dennis on the Ingraham Angle

Also this month, police in Portland refused to protect a videographer attempting to film masked Antifa protesters ostensibly demonstrating against a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) rally — a rally that never happened.

As reported by News Radio WRVA, the videographer — Nate Millsap, who runs a YouTube page called Stumptown Matters – said the Antifa protesters had “concealed objects or weapons in their hands” and that one of them approached him while shaking a can of pepper spray.

According to the report, “Millsap retreated and ran into police fitted with riot gear. At this point, the group had stopped chasing him, but were still shouting insults at him. But Millsap received little help or sympathy from the police, who told him if he ran back toward the mob, ‘We’re not gonna come out and save you.’

“One officer added, “You better come up with a different plan, like maybe go somewhere else, dude.”

Watch Millsap’s video of the incident:

Meanwhile in New York, two university teachers face questioning over their reported involvement in the violent and destructive January 31 rampage through the New York City subway system.

The teachers were named as Nitasha Dhillon, a professor at the University of Buffalo, and Amin Husain, an adjunct instructor at New York University. The two are co-founders of the Far-Left movement Decolonize this Place, which called for a “city-wide convergence” at Grand Central Station to “f— the police.”

The January 31 event saw hundreds of protesters storm the subway system, jumping and vandalizing the turnstiles and spraying graffiti on the walls.

NYC estimates that the protest cost the city $100,000. Thirteen people were arrested in the melee.

Among the demands of the protesters were banning police from patrolling the subway system and making subway rides free.

RELATED STORIES:

Police Stand By While Conservative Reporter Assaulted by Antifa 

Antifa Violence Talk Cancelled Due to … Threat of Antifa Violence

Antifa Blocks, Berates Elderly Woman Using Walker

Dems Meet Privately With Iranian FM: How Is This OK?

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Democrat members of Congress met privately with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif without the knowledge or approval by the State Department.

The meeting took place at the recent Munich Security Conference, an annual forum where world leaders discuss international threats, reported The Federalist, which broke the story.

At least one senator who was at the meeting, Chris Murphy (D-CT), defended his actions in an online post, writing,

“I have no delusions about Iran — they are our adversary, responsible for the killing of thousands of Americans and unacceptable levels of support for terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East. But I think it’s dangerous to not talk to your enemies … A lack of dialogue leaves nations guessing about their enemy’s intentions, and guessing wrong can lead to catastrophic mistakes.”

Murphy, a staunch critic of Trump’s Iran policy, said he asked Zarif whether the reprisals against the U.S. for the recent assassination of Iranian terror general Qasem Soleimani were over and told him that if groups in Iraq that are affiliated with Iran attack U.S. forces, it will be “an unacceptable escalation.”

He also said he brought up the issue of American prisoners held by Iran and the recent increase in attacks by the Houthis (an Iranian proxy group in Yemen) since the Soleimani hit.

Murphy concluded by stating,

“I don’t know whether my visit with Zarif will make a difference. I’m not the President or the Secretary of State — I’m just a rank and file U.S. Senator. I cannot conduct diplomacy on behalf of the whole of the U.S. government, and I don’t pretend to be in a position to do so. But if Trump isn’t going to talk to Iran, then someone should.”

He then erroneously states,

“Congress is a co-equal branch of government, responsible along with the Executive for setting foreign policy.”

It is for this reason that Murphy and other Democrats were wrong in meeting with Zarif (in addition to the fact that these members of Congress have a history of being virulently against almost anything the president does).

In fact, according to the Constitution, it is the responsibility of the executive branch of government (the president) to set foreign policy. It is the responsibility of the Senate to ratify treaties (which the Obama administration brazenly circumvented when making the Iran deal).

In fact, there is a law on the books that addresses such meetings. The Logan Act, promulgated in 1799, prohibits private citizens from conducting official diplomacy and makes it a felony for unauthorized Americans to negotiate with governments in disputes with the U.S.

The U.S. cut off diplomatic relations with Iran after President Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement in May 2018. Since then, the U.S.’ policy has been to isolate and bankrupt Iran – the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world – through a “maximum pressure campaign.”

Meetings such as Murphy’s and other Democrat members of Congress with an Iranian regime official defy that policy. Moreover, they send a message of disunity – and hence, weakness — to Iran.

During the conference, “Murphy and Zarif both criticized U.S. foreign policy during a two-hour discussion on the Middle East,” The Federalist reported.

The news outlet also noted that,

“Murphy’s meeting with Zarif comes while Murphy has defended Democratic rogue meetings with foreign leaders in the past while offering harsh criticism of Republicans who sent an open letter to the Iranian regime while the Obama administration stamped out the details of a nuclear agreement with the Middle Eastern adversary. Murphy, a staunch defender of the agreement said the Republicans were ‘undermining the authority of the president.’

“In 2017, Murphy also condemned former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn following anonymous leaks of a phone call between Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kysylak surfaced.

“‘Any effort to undermine our nation’s foreign policy – even during a transition period – may be illegal and must be taken seriously,’ Murphy said at the time.”

Murphy and his cohorts should be censored and perhaps even prosecuted for their actions.

Tell us what you think. Take a minute to answer out poll below:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Canada: Seeding the State With Totalitarianism

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I was born and raised in Pakistan. Later in life, my husband and I lived in at least three Arab cities. We have also traveled extensively through most of the Muslim majority countries. As a young couple, our goal was to establish our careers and gain financial stability.

We quickly learned that in order to achieve these goals, there were certain things we could never discuss publicly. This included absolutely no criticism of the ruling family in any given country or any aspect of religion, government, laws, gender inequality or human rights aberrations (all of which we saw).

In short, there was no freedom of expression.

At the end of 1988, already a young family, we moved to Canada to embrace the values of freedom of speech, freedom of (or from) religion, gender equality and a healthy respect for debate and discussion.

It took some time to absorb all this and feel empowered to speak out. I started by writing in the local newspaper. I could now freely critique and question the status quo – especially gender issues and the growing Islamist agenda I saw.

Thirty years down the road, can I do this in Canada today? The answer is a resounding “no!” Is Canada beginning to resemble the theocracies we left behind? Yes, because Canada is starting to show signs of totalitarianism.

The freedoms that we came here for are at stake, with the most important of all being freedom of speech. It started with a wave of political correctness leading to Motion 103 (M103) which does not allow for any critique of Islam or Muslims.

M103 has petrified Canadians into silence so much so that they can’t even question extremist attacks on our soil or the rise of hate-speech in places of worship.

Then we have Bill C-25 which seeks to impose “diversity” within all corporations, complete with financial penalties against organizations that do not comply with these government standards.

This has resulted in people routinely running to the Human Rights Commission with complaints if they happen to be a minority and did not get their coveted job (forget about the fact that they might not have the proper credentials).

Diversity has become the buzz word for the Human Rights Commission. I’ve always held that diversity can only happen organically (without being imposed), but it seems that now it is being forced.

In addition, there is Bill C-16 which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression. The bill mandates all citizens must address others by their preferred pronouns and transgender fantasies … or else!

It’s “zir,” “ze,” “zem” or “zeir.” The keyword here is “mandate” which means that at places of work or academic institutions if this choice is not followed, there is trouble.

An example of someone who has suffered terribly due to these totalitarian laws is Canadian Professor Jordan Peterson, who received massive backlash for refusing to adhere to the gender pronouns which he called “compelled speech” and for speaking out against political correctness. I agree with Professor Peterson that these expressions can’t and should not be mandated by the government of a “liberal” democracy.

David Solway in a piece in American Thinker writes

“To describe Canada as a totalitarian state-in-progress sounds like a gross and indeed absurd exaggeration. Yet many premonitory signs are present.”

He goes on to say “There are other laws on the books, bills such as C-59, C-75 and C-76 that reduce and even criminalize freedom of expression, infringe on privacy rights, compromise due process and render government transparency a thing of the past.”

Are we headed down a slippery slope? It sure looks that way.

Fear of being called a racist or a bigot does not allow for any exchange of ideas. And in that fear, freedom dies.

RELATED STORIES:

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EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Tradwife movement reminds us of the virtue of service in marriage

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In a culture that has championed feminism, the Women’s March, #MeToo, and national campaigns to close the gender pay gap, life as a full-time homemaker seems anything but progressive. And yet, the growing #TradWife social media movement celebrates the classic domestic female as its role model.

The movement, often illustrated with 1950s posters of apple-cheeked housewives brandishing vacuums or serving their husbands dinner, consists of a growing multitude of women who proclaim their choice to be “traditional” wives by staying at home and fulfilling household duties rather than pursuing a career outside the home.

Not surprisingly, the trend has met fierce backlash. Critics have called it backwards, dangerous, and even racist. The reactions generally claim either that misogynistic males are hypnotizing their wives into submission, or that women who somehow prefer domestic life are spreading an insidious message that hinders the female crusade for equality.

The critiques raise plenty of questions about gender roles and feminism, but they also prove that our culture has largely abandoned an important reality: that while a happy marriage has nothing to do with servitude, it has everything to do with service.

Alena Pettitt, one of the most prominent public faces of the Tradwife movement, makes this abundantly clear. In a BBC interview with Victoria Derbyshire last month, the British marketing-manager-turned-housewife explained why she embraced the Tradwife life: “My talents lie in domesticity and cooking, and I love it,” she said. Soon after, she added, “It’s also an act of service for my husband, and it’s a way I demonstrate and show love.”

Derbyshire’s immediate follow-up: “Is it servitude?”

Even though Pettitt continued to speak about her free decision to work in the home, the question had already proven that Derbyshire, along with most modern feminists, missed the point.

By and large, full-time female homemaking is interpreted as servitude, even when it is freely chosen. In part, that is because it is associated with a time in which women were restricted legally, professionally, financially, and socially. While many of those restrictions have been lifted, the interpretation remains. Why? One big factor is that our culture’s emphasis on individual career success, particularly for women, has fuelled and intensified it.

Within a worldview that urges women to be just as successful (if not more so) than men, domestic life is an entirely backwards choice, because 1) it limits a woman’s chances to achieve that success, and 2) it hands over the glorious career path to the man in the house, thereby placing her below him.

While there is certainly a place for voicing women’s needs when they are overlooked and fighting for their rights when they are violated, hyper-individualism and careerism do neither. They overshadow the reality that any kind of work is more fulfilling when it is done not for me but for you. And not you in a collective, abstract sense of community, but you as a real person within a relationship. In marriage, that means that whatever work is being done (inside or outside the home) has meaning when it is placed at the service of one’s spouse and the family that grows from that bond.

My husband, for instance, has always referred to his work not as “my career” but as “our career.” To him, the sole purpose of his profession is to give me and our children a happy life, and he works hard to excel at his job for that purpose.

The same logic of loving service applies to the work of the home. All of us have experienced its impact: When we walk into a dining room with the table set, napkins folded, and delicious food beautifully presented, we can’t help but feel loved. Someone not only took the time to prepare that meal but also invested effort to do it well, with attention to detail. Like any profession, doing something with precision and finesse leaves an impression. And when it is done for someone, it becomes more than an accomplishment. It becomes a gift.

This is what makes Pettitt and so many women (myself included) find deep fulfilment in homemaking. Some of us may have a better knack for housework than others, but for all of us, our work in the home is essentially about creating a bright and cheerful space for our families.

That total, loving dedication is not oppressing but empowering. It brings joy. It spreads love. That’s how humans are wired: when we give of ourselves in a full-hearted effort of love, we receive love abundantly in return. In Pettitt’s interview, one comment from a viewer captured this virtuous cycle of giving: “The more my wife puts me first, the more I put her first.”

With that outlook, life is no longer about “your career” versus “my career,” or about housework placed at the service of one spouse’s career advancement. Instead, it’s about “our home,” with each spouse’s work devoted to making that home flourish.

Such an outlook need not be confined to the #TradWife setup. A thriving marriage and family is possible whether or not both spouses work full time, and whether or not spouses share the work of the home. But regardless, the dedication to each other and the primacy of the family must remain constant.

Alena Pettitt’s approach has simply shone new light on the beauty of service within marriage, and for that, it is anything but a regression. It is a breath of fresh air in our individualistic culture, one that could rescue the happiness in homes of all shapes and sizes.

COLUMN BY

Sophia Martinson

Sophia Martinson is a writer with a primary focus on cultural and family topics. She lives with her husband in New York City.

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Islamic State Bride Justifies Slavery: ‘She said she really loved her slave-master, and she accepted Islam’

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Slavery is acceptable in Islam. The Qur’an has Allah telling Muhammad that he has given him girls as sex slaves: “Prophet, We have made lawful to you the wives to whom you have granted dowries and the slave girls whom God has given you as booty.” (Qur’an 33:50)

Muhammad bought slaves: “Jabir (Allah be pleased with him) reported: There came a slave and pledged allegiance to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) on migration; he (the Holy Prophet) did not know that he was a slave. Then there came his master and demanded him back, whereupon Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) said: Sell him to me. And he bought him for two black slaves, and he did not afterwards take allegiance from anyone until he had asked him whether he was a slave (or a free man).” (Muslim 3901)

Muhammad took female Infidel captives as slaves: “Narrated Anas: The Prophet offered the Fajr Prayer near Khaibar when it was still dark and then said, ‘Allahu-Akbar! Khaibar is destroyed, for whenever we approach a (hostile) nation (to fight), then evil will be the morning for those who have been warned.’ Then the inhabitants of Khaibar came out running on the roads. The Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives. Safiya was amongst the captives. She first came in the share of Dahya Alkali but later on she belonged to the Prophet. The Prophet made her manumission as her ‘Mahr.’” (Bukhari 5.59.512) Mahr is bride price: Muhammad freed her and married her. But he didn’t do this to all his slaves:

Muhammad owned slaves: “Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah’s Apostle was on a journey and he had a black slave called Anjasha, and he was driving the camels (very fast, and there were women riding on those camels). Allah’s Apostle said, ‘Waihaka (May Allah be merciful to you), O Anjasha! Drive slowly (the camels) with the glass vessels (women)!’” (Bukhari 8.73.182) There is no mention of Muhammad’s freeing Anjasha.

“Trini, Bajan woman on life with ISIS: We thought it was irie,” by Simon Cottee, Trinidad and Tobago Newsday, February 13, 2020:

Aliya Abdul Haqq, one of the hundred or so TT citizens currently stranded in the Al Hol camp in Syria, recently told two foreign journalists that life inside the ISIS caliphate was “irie” – a Jamaican expression for nice or cool. Abdul Haqq, 34, is the sister of Tariq Abdul Haqq, a former lawyer and Commonwealth Games boxing finalist who traded his enviable life in Trinidad for war and death in Syria.

Abdul Haqq was interviewed alongside Abbey Greene, 33, who is from Barbados and was married to Abdul Haqq’s brother Tariq….

Abdul Haqq and Greene travelled to Syria in November 2014 with their respective husbands, Osyaba Muhammad and Tariq Abdul Haqq. While 240 TT citizens travelled to Syria between 2013 and 2016, Greene, to my knowledge, is the only Bajan to have gone to join ISIS.

Abbey Greene, the Barbadian widow of Trinidadian Tariq Abdul Haqq, brother of Aliya Abdul Haqq. –

“We came (to Syria) with our husbands, we made hijrah (migrated) to live under the Islamic State, under the law of Islam, and we basically followed our husbands,” says Greene.

Miraculously, both women survived the slaughterhouse of Baghuz, the last sliver of the ISIS caliphate, which fell in March 2019.

Abdul Haqq says before leaving TT she was never radical.

“I was into makeup, piercings and all these crazy things, which I still like.” It wasn’t until after her father died – Yacoob Abdul Haqq was accidentally shot and killed in May 2013 – that she and her family “made this big turnaround.”

Tariq, in Abdul Haqq’s telling, spearheaded this metamorphosis: “My brother came home one day and he said he was going to Syria.

“I started laughing,” she recalls, but within months she had come round to his way of thinking, because in Syria, “it’s strict sharia, which is what I like, so I said, ‘Let me try and see what Syria is about.’”…

Asked what life was like when she first arrived in Syria, Abdul Haqq relays that she was based in Raqqa, then the de-facto capital of the caliphate.

Aliya Abdul Haqq –

“It matched pretty well (my expectation). There were airstrikes, but it was really mild, so it was still very much like my country (TT). But under sharia, it wasn’t extreme then…It was normal life, we had tea parties, pyjama parties, it was really irie…cool, calm.”

Apparently, she deliberately avoided seeing the public beheadings that were a regular feature in the city back in 2014, but admitted her son had been exposed to several and that it had a violent effect on him.

Do these women have any regret over following their husbands to Syria and for all that ISIS has done?

Not one bit, it seems.

In fact, at several points in the interview, when Abdul Haqq and Greene are questioned about ISIS’s extreme violence against civilians and the rape and sexual enslavement of Yazidis, their default response is either to dodge the question or to rationalise ISIS’s violence as a legitimate response to the violence meted out against ISIS….

What about the beheading of western hostages?

“I don’t know…The men deal with this,” says Abdul Haqq.

Did the brutality of ISIS cause them to rethink their commitment to the group? This question prompts a long pause.

Then this from Greene: “I really don’t think about that question.”

On the sexual enslavement of Yazidi girls and women, Abdul Haqq confides that she had met two Yazidi women in Raqqa: “They were slaves to a Bosnian guy…and from what (one of them) told me, she said she really loved her slave-master, and she accepted Islam.”

What about ISIS’s systematic killing of Yazidi men – what can justify that?

More silence. Then Greene repeats what has become a mantra for her: “For me, this war is never-ending, and it’s on both sides.”

When probed about slavery, Greene seemed reluctant to condemn it outright, insisting: “Slavery in Islam is not like slavery back in the day — there are certain rules you have to follow, you have to show rahma (mercy), you must feed them, take care of them.”…

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Delivering Truth to Secular Conservatives

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In the latest edition of “The Rubin Report” podcast, two people I adore, commentators Dave Rubin and Heather Mac Donald, dialogue about some of the great issues facing America. Interestingly, though both are secular, Rubin opened the interview by asking Mac Donald about God and religion.

She began by saying that she is not conservative because of religion but because of her commitment to empirical truth. It is empirical truth that leads her to affirm, for example, “the necessity of the two-parent family” and “most traditional values.”

Mac Donald is right that one cannot be committed to empirical truth and be a leftist (though one can be a conservative or a liberal).

Left-wing assertions that are false include that men give birth; that America was founded in 1619 (when the first enslaved black was brought to the American colonies); that people can be lifted from poverty on a mass scale without capitalism; that there are no innate differences between men and women; that America is a racist nation; that women are paid less than men for the same type and amount of work because they are women; and innumerable others.

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

But although a secular conservative may be committed to the two-parent family because of empirical truth, marriage and family are not “empirical truths” nearly as much as they are religious values.

Few secular arguments to get married and/or have children are as compelling as religious ones. That’s why religious people are so much more likely to get married and have children.

Mac Donald said: “People who I respect enormously … whether it’s Dennis Prager or Michael Medved … are making the argument that you cannot have a moral society without a foundation of religious belief.”

That is precisely the argument nearly every founder of America made. Not all were Christ-centered Christians, but virtually every one believed that inalienable rights come from the Creator, and only from the Creator. And none (except perhaps Thomas Paine) believed that America could endure if it were to become a godless society.

Mac Donald said:

Part of my resistance to this is simply I don’t find claims of petitionary prayer and the idea of a personal loving God consistent with what I see—what I call the daily massacre of the innocents.

To me it’s a very hard claim to make that I should expect God to pay attention to my well-being when he’s willing to allow horrific things to happen to people far more deserving and innocent than I am.

So, for me, it’s partly just a truth value. I cannot stomach what appears to me to be a patently false claim about a personal, loving God.

I agree with her premises, but not with her conclusion.

I have never believed that God has any reason to pay more attention to me than to any other innocent human being. And I, too, “cannot stomach” the “daily massacre of the innocents”—so much so that I have written how I find the commandment to love God the hardest commandment in the Bible.

But what I also cannot stomach is the thought of a universe in which the horrible suffering of innocents is never compensated by a good and just God: The good and the evil all die; the former receive no reward and the latter no punishment.

The problem of unjust suffering troubles every thinking believer. But the Jewish theologian Milton Steinberg offered a powerful response: “The believer in God has to account for unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for everything else.”

Between the two, I would argue that the atheist’s burden is infinitely greater. And insurmountable.

Mac Donald said: “The idea of what started the universe—we can’t really answer that. I think to say, ‘God’—that’s just a placeholder for ignorance. That doesn’t help.”

Maybe we really can’t answer what started the universe. But as Charles Krauthammer, a great secular conservative, said, “The idea that this universe always existed, that it created itself ex nihilo—I mean, talk about the violation of human rationality. That, to me, is off the charts.”

God, therefore, is not “just a placeholder for ignorance.” Since science can never and will never answer the question “Why is there anything?” attributing the origins of the universe to an intelligent force (which we call “God”) strikes me as the most rational explanation.

Rubin: “I might have to get you in here with Prager.”

Mac Donald: “I’d love to.”

I’d love to, too.

Mac Donald asked: “Where are we all headed? What is the meaning of life? To me, anybody who claims … he doesn’t find meaning in life when there is Mozart and Haydn—to invoke a Dennis Prager favorite—or Beethoven or John Milton or Aeschylus or Anthony Trollope—”

Rubin: “Or just waking up with purpose for whatever you do.”

Mac Donald: “Exactly … trying to do the best you can do. I don’t find life meaningless for one second.”

Joseph Haydn began every manuscript with the Latin words “in nomine Domini”—”in the name of the Lord”—and ended each with the words “Lauds Deo”—”Praise be to God.”

I would ask Mac Donald and other secular conservatives: Do you or don’t you identify the steep deterioration of the arts with the death of God and religion? Is a secular society capable of achieving artistic achievement equal to that which was accomplished in tribute to God?

As for meaning, you—and I—may find meaning every day in trying to do the best we can do, or in great works of art. But, as I know you will agree, that does not mean life has any ultimate meaning. If there is no God, we are nothing more than self-conscious stellar dust. And stellar dust has no meaning.

We really need to continue this dialogue. In the meantime, for what it’s worth, I want to say to both Dave Rubin and Heather Mac Donald, who do so much for our country: God bless you.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU. Twitter: .

A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Parents Ask Court to Stop Schools From Helping Children Make Gender Transitions

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A group of Wisconsin parents is asking a state court to halt a public school district’s policy that they say instructs teachers to assist and encourage children in adopting transgender identities without notifying—and possibly while deceiving—parents.

The lawsuit is being brought by 14 parents, representing eight families, who allege the Madison Metropolitan School District’s policy violates constitutionally protected parental rights.

The lawsuit, filed in Dane County Circuit Court, includes an affidavit from Dr. Stephen B. Levine, a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, in which he asserts that gender transitions for minors expose vulnerable children to dangerous, lifelong physical, social, and mental health risks.

“For a child to live radically different identities at home and at school, and to conceal what he or she perceives to be his or her true identity from parents, is psychologically unhealthy in itself, and could readily lead to additional psychological problems,” Levine writes in the affidavit. “Extended secrecy and a ‘double life’ concealed from the parents is rarely the path to psychological health. For this reason at least, schools should not support deceit of parents.”

In these trying times, we must turn to the greatest document in the history of the world to promise freedom and opportunity to its citizens for guidance. Find out more now >>

Levine’s affidavit continues:

 Most children are both legally and developmentally incapable of giving informed consent to such a life-altering intervention. And parents, of course, cannot give informed consent if the fact of their child’s wish to assume a transgender identity is concealed from them.

The 14 parents are represented by lawyers with Alliance Defending Freedom and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, both nonprofit, public interest legal organizations.

“This is a life-altering decision that educators have no business making,” Roger Brooks, ADF senior counsel, said. “As Dr. Levine explains based on decades of experience and extensive scientific literature, putting children on a pathway to puberty-blockers and cross-sex hormones can have devastating effects across a lifetime. That should serve as a wake-up call to parents and all Americans: When schools cast aside biological reality in favor of gender-identity ideology, it’s children who are hurt the most.”

The legal motion formally requests the court to impose a temporary injunction against the school district’s policy.

The school district hadn’t been served with the lawsuit as of late Wednesday, said Tim LeMonds, public information officer for Madison Metropolitan School District. LeMonds said the district wouldn’t comment without reviewing the claims.

The school district “prioritizes working in collaboration with families to support our students and it is always our preferred method of support,” LeMonds said in a formal statement, adding:

MMSD must also prioritize the safety and well-being of every individual student who walks through its doors each day. It is with this focus [that] the district stands by its guidance document on transgender and non-binary students, and recognizes its tremendous responsibility to uphold the right of every child to be educated in a safe, all-inclusive, and nondiscriminatory learning environment.

The lawsuit calls for school officials to be transparent and honest when dealing with parents, and to meet standards of informed consent.

The 50-page affidavit from Levine says that multiple studies show that among children who experience gender dysphoria or transgender identification but do not socially transition, 80% to 98% “desisted,” or became comfortable with their biological sex, by young adulthood, according to Alliance Defending Freedom.

The affidavit also says that among boys “who engaged in a partial or complete social transition before puberty,” according to other data, fewer than 20% had desisted when surveyed at age 15 or older.

“It is profoundly unethical to reinforce a male child in his belief that he is not a boy (or a female child in her belief that she is not a girl), and it is particularly unethical to intervene in the normal physical development of a child to ‘affirm’ a ‘gender identity’ that is at odds with bodily sex,” Ryan T. Anderson, a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email, adding:

To do any of this without parental involvement not only harms children but violates parental authority. Childhood and adolescence are difficult enough as it is. Adults should not corrupt the social ecology in which children develop a mature understanding of themselves as boys or girls on the pathway to becoming men or women.

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. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLES:

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A Note for our Readers:

This is a critical year in the history of our country. With the country polarized and divided on a number of issues and with roughly half of the country clamoring for increased government control—over health care, socialism, increased regulations, and open borders—we must turn to America’s founding for the answers on how best to proceed into the future.

The Heritage Foundation has compiled input from more than 100 constitutional scholars and legal experts into the country’s most thorough and compelling review of the freedoms promised to us within the United States Constitution into a free digital guide called Heritage’s Guide to the Constitution.

They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

GET ACCESS NOW! >>

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Israel’s “greatest feat is being the first nation-state in history to illegally occupy their own territory”

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Indeed. Find out the truth and cut through the Leftist and Islamic disinformation and propaganda in The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process.

“The UN should be ashamed of its anti-Israel boycott list,” by Stephen Daisley, Spectator, February 17, 2020:

I knew if we waited long enough, the United Nations would make itself useful. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has produced a handy catalogue of companies that supporters of Israel can give their business to. Of course, this was not Michelle Bachelet’s intention. Bachelet is the commissioner and before that she was an exquisitely unpopular Chilean politician and head of UN Women, the all-girl Ghostbusters of UN agencies that fights global mistreatment of women by putting out hashtags and putting Saudi Arabia on its executive board.

Now Bachelet has released ‘a database of all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’. She does not mean to celebrate their commitment to serving customers and clients in sometimes dangerous environments. No, her roster was compiled at the request of the UN Human Rights Council. This is a body in which countries whose idea of human rights is gender-neutral torture and equal-opportunity ballot-rigging get together and pass reams of vexatious resolutions against Israel.

Bachelet’s list doesn’t explicitly encourage the blackballing of companies mentioned. But it is a nod and a wink to the methods of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement. It’s too obvious to be clever but it’s still sly: a coycott, rather than a boycott.

BDS’s economic warfare against the Jewish state has had little success but that’s not the point: a UN body is tacitly legitimising its agenda and even doing the research for it. The UN’s obsession with this tiny strip of land on the shores of the Mediterranean has nothing to do with human rights. If Vlad the Impaler were around today he’d be a special rapporteur on exsanguination and no one in Geneva would see anything untoward about it. What OHCHR’s list is about is the UN’s institutional hostility towards Israel and support for ‘de-judaising’ Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.

Jerusalem is Israel’s capital; before that it was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah (Israel 1.0). However hard the UN strives to erase the Jewish character of the city, its historical record isn’t going anywhere. Judea and Samaria are what Turtle Bay calls ‘the Occupied Palestinian Territories’, though when Israel captured them in 1967, they did so not from any state called Palestine (no such state has ever existed), but from Jordan. Jordan, in turn, had captured them in 1948, during the Israeli War of Independence (and renamed them ‘the West Bank’ in the process). Jordan’s annexation was almost universally unrecognised — it was…what’s the phrase…an illegal occupation…and prior to this these lands had been part of Mandatory Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was created by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine to ‘secure the establishment of the Jewish national home’. The Israelis have innovations – agrarian, medical and technological – to their name but perhaps their greatest feat is being the first nation-state in history to illegally occupy their own territory….

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

What Exactly Is Wrong With A President Putting America First?

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My latest in PJ Media:

Today is the day we ostensibly remember the American presidents, and as it comes around this year we all know that to say “America First” is racist, anti-Semitic, and evil in all kinds of other ways, and that the best U.S. presidents have been those who were most respected around the world, in places such as Communist China, the socialist European Union, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Don’t we?

Well, there are still a few dissenters among us. While roughly half of the American population today thinks that the current occupant of the White House is one of the worst presidents in history, an active danger to the nation, there is still that pesky other half, which refuses to bow to our socialist, internationalist moral superiors and regards president Trump as an unparalleled champion of the American people, a true defender of the common man in a way that has not been seen in Washington for many, many decades.

On this President’s Day, it’s worthwhile to ask the question: what exactly is wrong with being America First? If the president of the United States doesn’t put America first, exactly which country should he put first? Or should he put some nebulous idea of “global interests” first, with those interests being defined not by Americans, but by the likes of China, the EU, and Iran?

In Donald Trump’s Inaugural Address on January 20, 2017, he declared: “From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. From this moment on, it’s going to be America First…. We will seek friendship and goodwill with the nations of the world — but we do so with the understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first.” In response, neoconservative (and now Democrat) elitist William Kristol tweeted: “I’ll be unembarrassedly old-fashioned here: It is profoundly depressing and vulgar to hear an American president proclaim ‘America First.’”

Profoundly depressing and vulgar for the chief executive of a nation to put the interests of that nation before other considerations? Really? Throughout the history of the United States, most Americans would have found Kristol’s statement somewhere between baffling and treasonous. Yet Trump’s statement that “it is the right of all nations to put their own interests first” primarily, rather than those of the world at large, has been out of fashion since World War II, and in many ways since World War I. It has been mislabeled, derided, and dismissed as “Isolationism,” a fear or unwillingness to engage with the wider world, even as it is becoming increasingly interconnected and interdependent.

But to be America First does not necessarily mean that America will withdraw from the world; it only means that in dealing with the world, American presidents will be looking out primarily for the good of Americans. The term America First has also been associated, quite unfairly, with racism and anti-Semitism. The founding principles of the Republic, notably the proposition that, as the Declaration of Independence puts it, “all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,” shows that putting America First has nothing to do with such petty and irrational hatreds.

In fact, the Founding Fathers and every president up until Woodrow Wilson took for granted that the president of the United States should put his nation first and would have thought it strange in the extreme that this idea should even be controversial.

Indeed, this is the oldest criterion of all for judging the success and failure of various presidents: were they good for America and Americans, or were they not? This should still be the primary way that the success or failure of presidents is judged. It is the guiding criterion that George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Founding Fathers who were not presidents such as Alexander Hamilton would likely use when judging the occupants of the White House up to the present day.

The president’s most important job is clear from the oath that every president recites in order to assume office, and it isn’t to provide health care for illegal aliens, or to make sure that Somalia isn’t riven by civil war, or to make sure America is “diverse.” It is simply this: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

So what makes a great president? One who preserved, protected, and defended the Constitution of the United States. Or to put it even more simply, a great president is one who puts America first. That’s the criterion I used in my forthcoming book, Rating America’s Presidents: An America-First Look at Who Is Best, Who Is Overrated, and Who Was An Absolute Disaster.

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

PODCAST: In Which Direction Are the Democrats Heading?

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It is not much of a secret the Democrats have a divided party. One side consists of “moderates,” representing traditional party values, and the other consisting of “extreme-Leftists,” representing radical politics, such as Socialism, the New Green Deal, and a plethora of entitlements. The question is, which side is winning? In 2019, and for the first time ever, a Gallup Poll noted the majority of the party classified themselves as “liberals.” This is to be expected as the Democrats began to turn extreme-left in 2016 when Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, began preaching his far-left dogma on the campaign trail to the Democrats. This opened the door in 2018 allowing extremist Democrats to be voted into the House of Representatives, e.g., Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) (aka, “AOC”), Rep. Ilhan Omar (MN-5), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (MA-7), and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (MI-13).

We are now in the early stages of the political primary season, and already we are learning more about Democrat inclinations from the voters. Between the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (MA), both generally acknowledged as representatives of the extreme-Left, pulled approximately 40% of the votes cast. This leaves approximately 60% for the other Democrat candidates. Some would claim Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former VP Joe Biden, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar are “moderates,” but their background suggests otherwise as they subscribe to liberal doctrine. None could possibly be accused of being a conservative. All support abortion, open borders, health care, and additional entitlements. So much so, the Democrats are now referred to as the party of “giveaways.”

The fact there is a 60/40 split in the party suggests the majority of Democrats are traditionalists and do not necessarily embrace radical concepts like Socialism. Yet, if front-runner Sen. Bernie Sanders lands the nomination, this is precisely what the party will ask Democrats to accept.

News reports claim voter turnout was down in both Iowa and New Hampshire. I could not verify this, but if it is true, why? Three possible reasons: general voter apathy, people believe there isn’t a candidate who can beat President Trump, or more likely, the extreme-Left leanings are turning off traditional Democrats. Apathetic voters do not bode well for the party as we approach the elections.

The perspective of the party split is still a bit hazy, but will become clearer following the primaries of Nevada, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday. After this, we should have a complete picture of who is leading the party, “moderates” or the “extreme-Left.”

As an aside, the New Hampshire primary also had a Republican contest. At this time, President Trump received approximately 128K votes, representing the largest voter approval by an incumbent President in history, easily trouncing the last three incumbent Presidents:

2020 – Donald Trump – 128,781
2012 – Barack Obama – 49,080
2004 – George W. Bush – 53,962
1996 – Bill Clinton – 76,797

The President received strong support as he has energized his base through a solid economy and anti-extreme-Left policies. It appears the more he is attacked by the Democrats, the stronger he becomes politically.

So, are the Democrats prepared to accept extreme-Left doctrine? Maybe, but the American people overall are not. Either way, this will be an awkward election for the Democrats.

Keep the Faith!

P.S. – Also do not forget my books, “How to Run a Nonprofit” and “Tim’s Senior Moments”, both available in Printed and eBook form.

EDITORS NOTE: This Bryce is Right podcast is republished with permission. © All rights reserved. All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.