“Mass shooting at music festival on the Las Vegas strip,” by Chris Perez, New York Post, October 2, 2017:
A gunman opened fire during a country music festival in Las Vegas on Sunday night — shooting multiple people with a high-powered assault rifle before fleeing the scene, according to reports.
At least 24 people were shot, including two fatally, according to Reuters.
Las Vegas police responded to the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino at around 10 p.m. after receiving calls about an active shooter targeting concertgoers at the Route 91 country music fest.
About an hour later police confirmed at least one suspect is down.
“This is an active investigation,” they added.
Cops were urging people to avoid the area as SWAT teams searched for the gunman.
Witnesses reported seeing a police officer down, but authorities couldn’t immediately confirm this.
University Medical Center spokeswoman Danita Cohen said the local hospital had taken in “several” people with gunshot wounds. She didn’t offer any more details.
One Las Vegas hospital reported treating at least 20 victims with gunshot wounds, according to KABC.
Professional poker player and Instagram star Dan Bilzerian, who was at the concert, said on his IG story that he saw the shooting unfold and witnessed a girl getting shot right in front of him.
“Holy f–k this girl just got shot in the f–king head,” Bilzerian said. “So f–king crazy…So I had to go grab a gun, I’m f–king heading back…Some kind of mass shooting…Guy had a heavy caliber weapon for sure…Saw a girl f–king get shot in the face right next to me, her brains f–king hanging out.”
Another witness, who spoke to News3LV, recalled how “bullets were flying everywhere” and concertgoers were running….
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/las-vegas-shooting-e1507319469593.jpg288294Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2017-10-02 06:52:212017-10-02 07:30:49VIDEOS: Mass shooting at music festival on the Las Vegas strip
Brad Miner notes that Islamist rage about the Crusades is a Muslim fantasy that actually comes from Christian liberals.
Sixteen years after the attacks of September 11, it’s probably the case that the “excuse” of the Crusades as a motivating factor behind the violence of al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups has somewhat diminished in plausibility.
Of course, the Islamofascists may well aver that events of more than 900 years ago still burn in Muslim consciousness, but that doesn’t make it so. Osama bin Laden made reference to the Crusades as, no doubt, has Abū Bakr al-Baghdadi of ISIS. But the truth is they abhor the West because their understanding of Islam demands hatred of and war against the infidel: then, now, always. This is the only “root cause” that matters.
In any case, most of us will never have occasion to debate a terrorist on the matter. Indeed, we’re much more likely to go toe-to-toe with a jihadi liberal about the Crusades and their impact, which is what makes Thomas F. Madden’s new primer invaluable.
The Crusades Controversy: Setting the Record Straight is a 50-page broadside against the serial stupidities and half-truths of those who believe, in Professor Madden’s words, that the Crusades were “the epitome of self-righteousness and intolerance, a black stain on the history of the Catholic Church in particular and Western civilization in general.”
In fact, they were “a response to more than four centuries of conquests in which Muslim armies had already captured two-thirds of the old Christian world.” The armies that marched and sailed from Western Europe into the Byzantine Empire and on to the Holy Land came in response to pleas from Christians in the East to save them from the weaponized religion of Mohammed.
Those Christian warriors summoned by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095 were not a rabble of “lacklands and ne’er-do-wells” spoiling for a fight wherever they could find one. They were a cross section of European society that included many of the wealthiest, most powerful men in Europe, not a few of whom lost fortunes – and their lives – in the struggle to liberate the original homeland of Christianity, which had been established not by the sword, but through peaceful conversions half a millennium before the birth of Islam.
Brad Miner is senior editor of The Catholic Thing, senior fellow of the Faith & Reason Institute, and a board member of Aid to the Church In Need USA. He is a former Literary Editor of National Review. His new book, Sons of St. Patrick, written with George J. Marlin, is now on sale. The Compleat Gentleman, is available on audio and as an iPhone app.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/crusades-controversy.jpg361640The Catholic Thinghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Catholic Thing2017-10-02 06:23:302017-10-02 06:27:14Living by the Sword
Indeed, depending on who is doing the measuring, Finland ranks either slightly above or slightly below the United States when grading overall policy.
The Problem
Yet even the best welfare state faces a grim future because of demographic change. Simply stated, redistribution programs only work if there is a sufficiently large supply of new taxpayers to finance promised handouts.
And that supply is running dry in Finland. Bloombergreports that policymakers in that nation are waking up to the fact that there won’t be enough future taxpayers to finance the country’s extravagant welfare state.
Demographics are a concern across the developed world, of course. But they are particularly problematic for countries with a generous welfare state since they endanger its long-term survival.…the Aktia Bank chief economist said in a telephone interview in Helsinki. “We have a large public sector and the system needs taxpayers in the future.” …According to the OECD, Finland already has the lowest ratio of youths to the working-age population in the Nordics. …And it also has the highest rate of old-age dependency in the region. …The situation is only likely to get worse, according to OECD projections.
Here are a couple of charts showing dramatic demographic changes in Nordic nations. The first chart shows the ratio of children to working-age adults.
And the second chart shows the population of old people (i.e., those most likely to receive money from the government) compared to the number of working-age adults.
As you can see, the numbers are grim now (green bar) but will get far worse by the middle of the century (the red and black bars) because the small number of children today translates into a small number of working-age adults in the future.
To be blunt, these numbers suggest that it’s just a matter of time before the fiscal crisis in Southern Europe spreads to Scandinavia.
Though it’s important to understand that demographic changes don’t necessarily trigger fiscal and economic problems. Hong Kong and Singapore have extremely low fertility rates, yet they don’t face big problems since they are not burdened by Western-style welfare states.
By the way, the article also reveals that Finland’s government isn’t very effective at boosting birthrates, something that we already knew based on the failure of pro-natalist government schemes in nations such as Italy, Spain, Denmark, and Japan.
Though I’m amused that the reporter apparently thinks government handouts are a pro-parent policy and believes that more of the same will somehow have a positive effect.
Finland, a first-rate place in which to be a mother, has registered the lowest number of newborns in nearly 150 years. …the fertility rate should equal two per woman, Schauman says. It was projected at 1.57 in 2016, according to Statistics Finland. That’s a surprisingly low level, given the efforts made by the state to support parenthood. …Finland’s famous baby-boxes. Introduced in 1937, containers full of baby clothes and care products are delivered to expectant mothers, with the cardboard boxes doubling up as a makeshift cot. …Offering generous parental leave…doesn’t seem to be working either. …The government has been working with employers and trade unions to boost gender equality by making parental leave more flexible and the benefits system simpler.
Sigh, a bit of research would have shown that welfare states actually have a negative impact on fertility.
The bottom line is that entitlement reform is the only plausible way for Finland to solve this major economic threat.
Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/finland_mother_child_snow_mini.jpg372640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2017-10-02 05:57:192017-10-02 05:57:38Finns Aren’t Breeding Taxpayers Fast Enough for the State
Republicans are just getting started with their effort to reform individual and corporate taxes, but already it is possible to see warning signs ahead. Opponents of reform say the effort will mainly benefit high-income households, who don’t need the help. They ignore the effect lower marginal rates will have on economic growth and job creation.
Tax reform could falter if the public perceives it as a giveaway to the rich. Republicans can partially blunt the effectiveness of these attacks by including in their plan a reduction in payroll tax rates, which would directly help the middle class.
Why Payroll Taxes?
The payroll tax is a much heavier burden on the middle class than income taxes. According to the Tax Policy Center, 62 percent of all taxpaying households paid more in payroll taxes than income taxes in 2017; and 67 percent of households with incomes below $100,000 in annual income paid more in payroll taxes. The average effective payroll tax rate for households in the middle quintile of the income distribution was 8 percent in 2016, well above the average effective rate of 3.5 percent for income taxes.
In the past, policymakers have been wary of cutting payroll taxes because the revenue is used to pay for Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) benefits, and both programs are projected to run short of funds in the future. The current tax rate for Social Security is 12.4 percent of wages, split evenly between workers and their employers, up to a maximum of $127,200 in 2017. Social Security has an unfunded liability of $12.5 trillion over the next 75 years.Workers and employers also pay a combined 2.9 percent tax for Medicare, and there is no limit on the amount of wages subject to the tax. High earners — individuals who earn above $200,000 and couples who earn above $250,000 — pay an additional Medicare tax of 0.9 percent. The Medicare HI trust fund has an unfunded liability of $3.3 trillion over the next 75 years.
In 2011 and 2012, President Obama supported and Congress enacted a 2 percentage point reduction in the employee portion of the Social Security payroll tax, reducing revenue by about $100 billion in 2011 and slightly more in 2012. The law transferred an identical amount of funds from the general fund of the Treasury to Social Security to prevent depletion of the program’s trust funds.
Congress could enact another payroll tax rate cut of 1.5 to 2 percentage points without depleting the Social Security or Medicare trust funds and without relying on another transfer of funds from the Treasury. Tax reform is supposed to be about cutting tax rates as well as broadening the tax base by closing loopholes and limiting tax breaks. There are a number of tax breaks that reduce the amount of payroll tax revenue collected by the government that could be narrowed to help pay for a cut in the payroll tax rate.
How to Do It
For starters, the exclusion of employer-paid health-insurance premiums from taxation will reduce payroll taxes by $1.8 trillion over the period 2017 to 2026. Capping the amount that is tax-free at the 75th percentile of plan premiums would increase payroll tax revenue by about $72 billion over 10 years. In addition, employer-paid premiums for disability and other income-replacement programs are excluded from the taxable compensation of workers. Limiting that exclusion could provide at least another $100 billion in payroll tax revenue over 10 years. In a large tax reform package, there are likely to be additional opportunities to increase payroll tax collections by broadening the tax base.
Further, the full benefits of a payroll tax cut could be limited to households with incomes below a certain threshold, such as $75,000 per year. (The income tax system could gradually recapture lost payroll tax revenue from households with higher incomes.) The tax cut could also be time-limited in the initial legislation, so as to fit within available offsetting revenue increases, and then extended later as more offsets were identified.A cut in the payroll tax rate would be good for workers. A 2 percentage point reduction in the total tax would increase the after-tax income of a household with $50,000 in earned income by $1,000. Cutting payroll taxes would also boost economic growth by encouraging more work. A cut in the tax rate could, at least in theory, reduce the supply of labor by boosting the income of workers who could then substitute more time off for time at work. But there is substantial evidence that high marginal tax rates on labor generally have the opposite effect: discouraging work by reducing its value to workers with high taxes.
Some skeptics of cutting payroll taxes argue that because Social Security and Medicare benefits are partly based on what an individual earns while working, the economic value of such a cut is lessened, as workers equate payroll taxes with contributions toward their retirement. But the benefits owed to workers under Social Security are based on the amount of wages earned by the worker, not the taxes paid on those wages. Consequently, a cut in the payroll tax rate would in no way lessen future Social Security benefits. Further, the opaqueness and complexity of the Social Security benefit formula make it near impossible for the average worker to make a sensible connection between what he earns and what he will get in retirement. (There is often very little connection, anyway.) Medicare benefits are in no way tied to the amount of taxes paid or even to overall earnings. Instead, workers must meet a minimum threshold of wages over a 10-year period to become eligible for coverage at age 65.
By focusing tax reform on the individual and corporate income tax systems, Republicans have made their task more difficult than it should be. The federal income tax is already progressive; low and moderate wage households pay little in income taxes. But, in relative terms, they still pay a lot of payroll taxes. Cutting that tax is the best way to deliver real tax relief to families that need it most as well as to increase the value of their work effort.
James C. Capretta is a resident fellow and holds the Milton Friedman Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies health care, entitlement, and US budgetary policy, as well as global trends in aging, health, and retirement programs. In 2015 and 2016, he directed two major studies: one on reforming US health care according to market principles and consumer choice, and the second on reforming major federal entitlement programs to promote greater personal responsibility, focus limited resources on those most in need, and lower long-term federal expenditures.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/payroll-taxes.jpg356640Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2017-10-02 05:42:552017-10-02 05:43:17Give Everyone a Raise through Payroll Tax Cuts
Pardon the pun, but I would like to discuss the subject of “sunk costs” in the context of hurricane-induced flooding. Here’s the background, from a page one Wall Street Journal article on September 15, “Repeated Claims Flood Insurance Program”:
Brian Harmon had just finished spending over $300,000 to fix his home in Kingwood, Texas, when Hurricane Harvey sent floodwaters “completely over the roof.”
The six-bedroom house, which has an indoor swimming pool, sits along the San Jacinto River. It has flooded 22 times since 1979, making it one of the most flood-damaged properties in the country.
Government records show that between 1979 and 2015 the federal flood insurance program paid out more than $1.8 million to rebuild the house—a property that Mr Harmon figured was worth $600,000 to $800,000 before Harvey hit late last month.
“It’s my investment,” the 49-year old said this summer, before the hurricane. “I can’t just throw it away.”
On a house worth maybe $800,000, the government expended a total of $1.8 million—spread over as many as 22 occasions. What Mr. Harmon has personally spent (to build or buy, and later to improve or fix the house) is not stated, other than the $300,000 for recent hurricane repairs. It’s conceivable that this one single-family structure has sucked up a sum equivalent to five times its value, or more. And since it’s flooded 22 times in 36 years, it’s probably not done sucking.
Mr. Harmon says he “can’t just throw it away” but I as a taxpayer sure wish he would.
Loss Aversion
The moral and economic issues raised by government flood insurance ought to be obvious. Since its creation by Congress in 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) has lost money every year—about $25 billion to date, with this year’s deficit in excess of a billion.
Mr. Harmon’s reluctance to give up on his house seems motivated by what economists call “loss aversion,” the uneasy feeling people often have about wasting something they’ve invested in.
You buy a ticket to a movie but at the last minute a friend invites you to a sumptuous dinner at your favorite restaurant. That would be an easy decision if you hadn’t already bought the theater ticket; you could always see the film next week. But darn it, you paid for it and if you don’t go, it’ll be wasted. You may still accept your friend’s invitation, but with a tinge of regret. (To lessen that regret, you might pass the ticket on to someone else).
Nonetheless, economists caution us to recognize that a cost you’ve incurred in the past and which is unrecoverable is, in a word, “sunk.” The sooner you can put a sunk cost behind you—perhaps learn from it but otherwise forget about it—the better your future decisions will be.
Many times I’ve caught myself allowing a sense of loss aversion to overwhelm my knowledge of sunk costs. Here’s an example I shared often with students when I taught at Northwood University: I once bought a half gallon of butter pecan ice cream on sale for a mere 99 cents. “Such a deal!” I thought. When I opened it at home, scoop in hand, I discovered it was almost all ice cream (lousy to the taste, no less) and virtually no pecans! I suppose I could have angrily returned it to the store for a refund (minus the two dollars in gasoline it would have taken to get there), but I’m an easygoing chap. I just stuck the whole thing in my tiny freezer. For weeks thereafter as I tried to make room for other things, I would jam that half gallon of bad ice cream into a different corner.
Fixating on sunk costs is a major reason why a lot of small investors stay small.
Then it hit me. I’m never going to eat that stuff! It’s just taking up room I could use for something better. That 99 cents ain’t comin’ back. What am I keeping this junk for? Pleased that I was finally allowing my economics knowledge to inform me, I tossed that bad investment into the garbage can.
Opportunity Cost
As the author of this article explains, another example of this “sunk cost fallacy” would be to assume, “I might as well continue dating someone bad for me because I’ve already invested so much in them.”
Fixating on sunk costs is a major reason why a lot of small investors stay small. They can’t bring themselves to admit a mistake when the market moves against them. Rather than cut their losses short and move on, they hang on. Loss aversion then becomes loss accumulation.
Obviously, some people are quicker than others to learn from the errors arising from their loss aversion and the sunk cost fallacy. But one general lesson proves itself time and again—if it’s your own investment you’re playing with, and losses associated with it are all internalized (that is, it’s you who pays them), you tend to learn sooner rather than later. Your behavior changes as a result, so that you act less to “avoid” past losses and more to avoid future ones—the ones that are actually avoidable.
In the case of Mr. Harmon and his flood-prone home, his endless commitment seems akin to forgoing the better invitation to go instead to an inferior movie, or stuffing the lousy ice cream back in the freezer, or getting engaged to a bad fit because of all the gifts and dinners he previously bought her. So why does he do it? Because his sunk costs are only partially internalized; most of them are paid by other parties (taxpayers). From his vantage point, his decision to throw your good money after his bad money doesn’t seem nearly as irrational as it might to you and me.
There’s another concept of cost that’s being overlooked in the Harmon example—opportunity cost. If the federal flood insurance program hadn’t given Mr. Harmon $1.8 million for his house, what might those from whom it was taken spend that money on? Perhaps three or four houses. Or a whole lot of things, big and small, according to the personal choices of those very people who earned the money in the first place. That unrealized cornucopia is what Frederic Bastiat referred to as “that which is not seen.”
Lots of lessons here, some very obvious and others more hidden or implied: Don’t cry over spilt milk. Don’t let a past, unrecoverable cost hobble your future decision-making or forgo a better opportunity.
Failure to internalize sunk costs results in a waste of resources by short-circuiting market signals and creating the wrong incentives. (Unless you live in an infinitely bountiful Garden of Eden, this latter point should concern you.)
So now that we’ve learned these lessons, tell me which of the following proposals makes the most sense:
Keep the federal flood insurance program in place. We’ve invested in it and can’t afford to kiss off those billions we’ve already spent.
Kill the federal flood insurance program (or at least price it so that those who build in flood-prone areas pay the full costs of it). Anything less is just a welfare program, not insurance.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/roof_mini-1.jpg381638Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2017-10-02 05:26:282017-10-02 05:29:41Your House Does Not Need a New Roof at My Expense
The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.
Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States for eight years by persuading America to accept his crippling politically correct sanctuary city policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed to destabilize and destroy civil society. His legacy, the Leftist Democratic Party and its “resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism.
The term “sanctuary city” originated in the 1980’s when San Francisco passed a city ordinance forbidding city police or city magistrates from assisting federal immigration officers in enforcing immigration policies that denied asylum to refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador. The mission of the sanctuary city was to protect innocent refugees from deportation – although these immigrants were in the U.S. illegally they had not committed any other crimes.
Today sanctuary cities are actually sanctuary jurisdictions because they include cities counties and states. Over 300 sanctuary jurisdictions exist in America today actively hindering federal authorities from seizing illegal criminal aliens, rapists, murderers, terrorists, and drug dealers for deportation.
The shocking murder of 21 year old Kate Steinle on July 1, 2015 publicized the danger of sanctuary jurisdictions. The shooter, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico with seven felony convictions had been deported five times and intentionally sought shelter in San Francisco. Yet officials in “sanctuary city” San Francisco refused to turn him over to federal authorities for deportation and instead released him into society enabling him to kill Kate Steinle.
The three young Muslim migrant boys who savagely raped and urinated in the mouth of an innocent five year old girl in Twin Falls, Idaho last year were protected as well. No jail, no deportation, in fact these monsters were shielded by the mainstream media and local city officials who tried to cover up the case and pretend that Twin Falls was a model for multiculturalism. Wendy Olson, Obama-appointed U.S. attorney for Idaho stunned the country by threatening to prosecute Idahoans who spoke out about the heinous crime in ways SHE considered “false or inflammatory.” Judge Thomas Borresen issued an equally stunning gag order that denied the right of anyone in the courtroom to speak about the sentencing even AFTER the case ended.
Twin Falls is one of two Muslim refugee relocation centers in Idaho. Rather than identifying themselves as a “sanctuary city” Twin Falls has chosen the equally disingenuous name of “welcoming city” and declared themselves to be a “neighborly community.” REALLY? Protecting rapists and censoring free speech is definitely not neighborly for the victims!
The word sanctuary implies safety from a threat – it does not mean shelter for immigrant criminal felons, rapists, murderers and terrorists who threaten the safety of law abiding citizens. Why would any law abiding citizen endorse the protection of these criminals whether they are illegal aliens or legal citizens? The answer lies in the active participation by the mainstream media in the humanitarian hoax of sanctuary cities. The media has deliberately romanticized sanctuary cities as humanitarian havens for the oppressed instead of honestly reporting them as despicable safety zones for criminal aliens. The colluding media has duped the trusting American public and exploited their compassion and good will.
The original mission of sanctuary cities has been perverted from the protection of innocent refugees into the protection of guilty criminal aliens at the expense of public safety. Sanctuary cities in America continue to flagrantly defy the law. Thirty years after San Francisco became the first sanctuary city California seeks to become the first sanctuary state.
The protection of illegal aliens from deportation incentivizes illegal entry into the U.S. which has enormous economic consequences as well. Illegal aliens overload our welfare system, cost American taxpayers a whopping $116 BILLION, and rob legal citizens of their jobs.
Obama gave sanctuary cities the freedom to ignore detention orders from ICE through his own Priority Enforcement Program which allowed local agencies to ignore ICE notifications of deportable aliens in their custody. Why? The Leftist Democrat Party under Obama supported sanctuary cities by ignoring the 1996 law 8 U.S.C. § 1373 that repealed sanctuary city policies? Why?
If you want to know the motive look at the result. Increasing the number of illegal aliens:
Secures more Democrat legal and illegal votes for the Leftist agenda through chain migration.
Creates social chaos by importing populations with hostile cultural norms.
Creates divisiveness by taking American jobs.
Alienates legal citizens who receive far fewer government benefits.
Eventually collapse the economy of sanctuary jurisdictions.
Finally, in July, 2016 Republican Representative John Culberson-TX, Chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and Science Committee on Appropriations took action against the danger and sent a letter to the DOJ demanding federal law enforcement grants be denied to cities not in compliance with the 1996 law 8 U.S.C. § 1373 that repealed sanctuary city policies.
During the five years from 2011-2016 local and state governments had received over $3.4 BILLION in federal law enforcement grants. The Culberson choice was between receiving billions of dollars in federal law enforcement grant money or protecting dangerous illegal criminal aliens. Sanctuary jurisdictions could no longer do both.
Sanctuary jurisdictions doubled down and continue to defy the law.
No-go zones are geographic areas within a country that flagrantly disregard the laws of the country. No-go zones establish a two-tier system of justice within a country because they observe a different set of laws. All across Europe Islamists have established religious no-go zones that recognize Islamic sharia law exclusively. All across America Leftists have created lawless sanctuary jurisdiction that flagrantly defy federal law.
People will stand quietly and peacefully in long lines until one person jumps the line. It is a fascinating social dynamic that as long as members of a group abide by the same rules the consequence is harmony. It is the unfairness of the line-jumper that creates anger and social chaos. Social chaos is the goal of the Leftist/Islamist axis that supports the two-tier system of justice created by secular sanctuary jurisdictions and religious no-go zones.
The goal and the underlying motive of the globalist elite’s campaign to destroy America from within is the imposition of one-world government. Obama is the primary globalist huckster. American democracy is the single greatest existential threat to one-world government and President Donald Trump is America’s leader. The globalist elite are desperate to stop Trump because if Obama’s Leftist/Islamist resistance movement is exposed as their deliberate political tactic to destabilize and destroy America it leaves the globalist elite without their primetime huckster to continue marching America toward anarchy and social chaos.
If the globalists are successful the world will be returned to the dystopian existence of masters and slaves because a willfully blind American public was seduced by the Humanitarian Hoax of sanctuary cities. The Humanitarian Hoax will have succeeded in killing America with “kindness.”
Sanctuary List
States
California
Connecticut
New Mexico
Colorado
Cities and Counties
California
Alameda County
Berkley
Contra Costa County
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles
Monterey County
Napa County
Orange County
Orange County
Riverside County
Sacramento County
San Bernardino County
San Diego County
San Francisco County
San Mateo County
Santa Ana
Santa Clara County
Santa Cruz County
Sonoma County
Colorado
Arapahoe County
Aurora
Boulder County
Denver County
Garfield County
Grand County
Jefferson County
Larimer County
Mesa County
Pitkin County
Pueblo County
Routt County
San Miguel County
Weld County
Connecticut
East Haven
Hartford
District Of Columbia
Washington
Florida
Alachua County
Clay County
Hernando County
Georgia
Clayton County
DeKalb County
Iowa
Benton County
Cass County
Franklin County
Fremont County
Greene County
Ida County
Iowa City
Iowa City, Johnson County
Jefferson County
Marion County
Monona County
Montgomery County
Pottawattamie County
Sioux County
Illinois
Chicago
Cook County
Kansas
Butler County
Harvey County
Sedgwick County
Shawnee County
Louisiana
New Orleans
Massachusetts
Amherst
Boston
Cambridge
Lawrence
Northhampton
Somerville
Maryland
Baltimore
Montgomery County
Prince George’s County
Minnesota
Hennepin County
Nebraska
Hall County
Sarpy County
New Jersey
Middlesex County
Newark
Ocean County
Union County
New Mexico
Benalillo
New Mexico County Jails
San Miguel
Nevada
Washoe County
New York
Franklin County
Ithaca
Nassau County
New York City
Omondaga County
St. Lawrence County
Wayne County
Oregon
Baker County
Clackamas County
Clatsop County
Coos County
Crook County
Curry County
Deschutes County
Douglas County
Gilliam County
Grant County
Hood River County
Jackson County
Jefferson County
Josephine County
Lane Countyn
Lincoln County
Linn County
Malheur County
Marion County
Marlon County
Multnomah County
Polk County
Sherman County
Springfield
Tillamok County
Umatilla County
Union County
Wallowa County
Wasco County
Washington County
Wheeler County
Yamhill County
Pennsylvania
Bradford County
Bucks County
Butler County
Chester County
Clarion County
Delaware County
Eerie County
Franklin County
Lebanon County
Lehigh County
Lycoming County
Montgomery County
Montour County
Perry County
Philadelphia
Pike County
Westmoreland County
Rhode Island
Providence, Rhode Island
Rhode Island Department of Corrections
Texas
Dallas County
Travis County
Virginia
Arlington County
Chesterfield County
Vermont
Monteplier
Winooski
Washington
Chelan County
Clallam County
Clark County
Cowlitz County
Franklin County
Jefferson County
King County
Kitsap County
Pierce County
San Juan County
Skagit County
Snohomish County
Spokane County
Thurston County
Walla Walla County
Wallowa County
Whatcom County
Yakima County
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Sanctuarycities3.jpg360640Linda Goudsmithttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLinda Goudsmit2017-10-01 16:20:082017-10-02 06:43:24The Humanitarian Hoax of Sanctuary Cities: Killing America With Kindness
The average time between [NFL player] arrests is just seven days, while the recorded without an arrest is slightly more than two months, at 65 days.
NFLarrest.com provides an interactive database of National Football League player arrests and charges. NOTE: Due to a spike in visits the website is now down and is asking for “donations will be put into development and server upkeep.”
The NFL appears to embrace players who abuse women.
In the first round, the Oakland Raiders drafted Gareon Conley, who has been accused of rape. In the second round, the Cincinnati Bengals selected Joe Mixon, who in a much-viewed video punches a woman so hard that she falls down unconscious. In the sixth round, the Cleveland Brownsselected Caleb Brantley, who was accused of doing pretty much what Mixon did. And they are not the only drafted players who face or have faced such charges.
The below chart from NFLarrest.com shows the past 5 years data on crimes/arrests by NFL team:
NFLarrest.com notes that the top team for arrests is the Minnesota Vikings with the top 5 teams for arrests are: Denver Broncos, Cincinnati Bengals, Tennessee Titans and Jacksonville Jaguars.
In 2006 there were 71 arrests of NFL players, 2013 had 62 arrests, while the lowest in the NFLarrest.com data base is 28 arrests. The player with the most arrests is Adam Jones who has played for both the Tennessee Titans and Cincinnati Bengals.
One week after the start of the National Football League (NFL)’s 2014-15 season, TMZ.com publicly released a video showing the Baltimore Ravens’ star running back, Ray Rice, knocking his fiancée Janay Rice unconscious in an
Atlantic City casino elevator. The couple is seen arguing in the casino lobby as they walk towards a waiting elevator. Less than ten seconds after entering the elevator, the grainy surveillance video shows Ray Rice slap Janay across the head. Less than ten seconds after entering the elevator, the grainy surveillance video shows Ray Rice slap Janay across the head. She immediately lunges towards him in the elevator to confront him and he punches her in the temple. Her head hits the metal safety rail in the elevator as she falls, rendering her unconscious. When the elevator doors reopen, Ray Rice, who has been described as a 212-pound “fire hydrant of muscle and speed” 1 drags the unconscious body of his fiancée halfway out of the elevator as her small black dress gathers around her waist.
[ … ]
The video shocked and horrified the nation.
Today the nation is shocked and horrified by players disrespecting the American flag and the National Anthem. Perhaps the National Football League should look inward.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/NFL-Worst-Criminals.jpg360640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-10-01 08:22:232017-10-03 08:54:19On Average an NFL Player is Arrested Every Seven Days for a Violent Crime
NFL football is the most popular American sport, so popular that only two days separate the end of one weekend on Monday Night Football and the beginning of the next on Thursday Night Football. The extension from formerly just a Sunday afternoon sport has meant the National Football League has become a giant money machine for players, owners and commissioners.
But the NFL has made what may ultimately become the fatal error of becoming an outward political entity. The NFL is now a full-bore politically liberal organization that — literally — bans dissent it disagrees with but allows protests its fan base disagrees with. It’s the classic modern liberal misreading of the American people.
The media establishment laughingly now wants to blame President Trump for the division in the country regarding the NFL, as though this all started last week. Trump certainly threw some gas on a fire, but all of us football fans have been watching with frustration the existing fire that was burning a divide in America.
The NFL, led by Commissioner Roger Goodell, could have doused the initial flames with a tiny tea cup of water. But it did not because it is now driven by a clearly manifested liberal ideology — and there is no better way to divide Americans and destroy a popular pastime than to do what it is doing.
Here are four reasons the NFL — from players to Commissioner Goodell — is dead wrong to be kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police killing black men.
1. NFL is overtly hypocritical in speech it bans
Remember, protesting is political speech. It is protected by 1st Amendment from government control and everyone cherishes that right. But it is not protected by private enterprises, such as sports leagues or businesses. The hypocrisy is clearly seen in what the NFL actually has stopped.
The NFL banned the Dallas Cowboys from wearing a decal last year on their helmets honoring the murdered Dallas police officers.
The NFL banned players from wearing socks with Sept. 11 on them in memorial of those killed in the 9-11 Islamist terrorist attacks.
The NFL forced Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III to turn his Christian T-Shirt inside out for a press conference.
Let’s not pretend this is free speech or protest. This is some free speech and protest. The NFL is more than happy to come down like a sledgehammer on speech that might, in the most general way, be considered right of center politically. But it then allows speech that might broadly be considered left of center.
This makes the NFL leadership a classic modern liberal organization acting in political ways to further an agenda with no adherence whatsoever to principles. They are closer to the anti-free speech codes on college campuses than they are to their fan base. This represents an ongoing problem for the League.
2. NFL is killing its ratings
Viewership and attendance at NFL games continues to decline as the protests continue to escalate. In fact, they cratered this past weekend in a way that ought to be shocking to League leadership.
“Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday. Nielsen said the games averaged 17.63 million viewers for the first three weeks of last season, and have dipped to 15.65 million this year.”
That is a drop of two million viewers year over year. The hugely popular Sunday Night Football game dropped 8 percent compared to just the previous week, when it was already down from last year.
3. NFL is killing its loyal fan base
Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow prays after the Broncos defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in overtime in the NFL AFC wildcard playoff football game in Denver, Colorado, January 8, 2012. REUTERS/Marc Piscotty
In response to the entire Pittsburgh Steelers’ team (minus one Army Ranger veteran) staying off the field for the National Anthem, a wave of long-time, hardcore Steelers fans have been burning Steelers jackets, hats and other gear. One fan since 1966 burned all of his Steelers’ stuff.
Season-ticket holders around the country burned their expensive and once-beloved tickets.
And somewhat eye-openingly, New England Patriots’ fans loudly booed players kneeling for the National Anthem. The boos just cascaded down onto the field in waves.
It’s one thing for fans from a blue-collar, rust-belt flyover city like Pittsburgh to do this. But in elite, liberal coastal Boston? Yes. Because football fans are on average to the right of center politically, and certainly when it comes to patriotism and national symbols.
The NFL seems unaware of this.
One Steelers player now famously stood in the tunnel with his hand over his heart during the National Anthem. Starting offensive lineman Alejandro Villanueva was an Army Ranger before entering the NFL, serving three tours of duty in Afghanistan.
Last season, he made comments critical of San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose anthem protest lit the fire for other players to follow suit. “I don’t know if the most effective way is to sit down during the national anthem with a country that’s providing you freedom, providing you $16 million a year … when there are black minorities that are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan for less than $20,000 a year,” Villanueva told ESPN.
By last Monday afternoon, the largely unknown offensive lineman’s jersey was the best-selling jersey in the NFL, beating out Tom Brady and other household names.
That is fans openly communicating in clear terms to the League that they do not support what it is allowing. The NFL apparently has forgotten that there is no NFL without the fans. But the fans have not forgotten. And they are putting the League on notice.
4. Last but not least, the actual issue being protested is a myth
We are told that there is an epidemic of cops killing unarmed black men. This storyline is the genesis for Black Lives Matter, but more to the point, it is the initial issue driving the kneeling or sitting during the National Anthem.
But it’s not true.
The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Riley, a black columnist, explains through facts and data — not anecdotes and perceptions — what most of the media refuses to.
“In New York City, home to the nation’s largest police force, officer-involved shootings have fallen by more than 90% since the early 1970s, and national trends have been similarly dramatic.
“A Justice Department report published in 2001 noted that between 1976 and 1998, the teen and adult population grew by 47 million people, and the number of police officers increased by more than 200,000, yet the number of people killed by police “did not generally rise” over this period. Moreover, a ‘growing percentage of felons killed by police are white, and a declining percentage are black.” A separate Justice study released in 2011 also reported a decline in killings by police, between 1980 and 2008. And according to figures from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the rate at which police kill blacks has fallen by 70% since the late 1960s.”
Heather MacDonald, of the Manhattan Institute, is a foremost researcher on the issue and reports stunning facts opposite of the media/Democrat narrative. For instance, 12 percent of white and Hispanic homicide victims are killed by cops. But only 4 percent of black homicide victims are killed by cops. A police officer is 18 times more likely to be killed by an armed black male than an unarmed black male is to be killed by a police officer. You can see many more of her stats at this Prager U video:
These are facts, not emotions or perceptions or Youtube videos. It’s understood that Democrats do not use contextual facts that actually tell the full truth because dividing by race has been a political ploy for three generations now. The media, essentially Democrats with press credentials, also doesn’t report contextual facts. Social media is social media.
So here’s another fun fact that can be used even on Twitter: A black person is more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed by a cop in the United States of America. That’s how rare it is.
Yet because of social media and unconscionable hyper media coverage of individual events, blacks now think that if they are pulled over by a cop there’s a good chance they will be shot. This is the alleged “social injustice” that has brought NFL players to disrespect the flag, the National Anthem and the country that has given them freedom and wealth and hope.
NFL fans understand this, at least at the gut level. If the NFL doesn’t get its act in line with its fan base — which represents an awful lot of Americans — it will stop being the most popular sport in the nation. And it will do so for no sound reason but partisan politics.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/stand-for-the-flag-kneel-for-the-cross-e1506855206602.jpg359640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2017-10-01 06:53:512017-10-01 13:03:10Four Reasons the NFL is Dead Wrong on Protests [+Video]
As former Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy stupid!” For the Cuban people it truly is the economy, stupid.
Perhaps a few of my first hand experiences during my visit to Cuba will help those who favor big government understand where “socialismo” leads.
One of the things some people, many of whom have never visited Cuba, tout is their “excellent” healthcare system. Let me explain about the Cuban single payer government healthcare system. First, every visitor to Cuba must purchase health insurance from the Cuban government. For example, the cost of my health insurance was automatically included in the price of my plane ticket. So how much does the Cuban government pay its doctors to provide universal healthcare? The salary of a doctor is $30 a month.
In 2013 Brazil hired 4,000 doctors from Cuba to “work in areas where medical services and physicians are scarce.” These Cuban doctors were to be paid approximately $30,000 a year to provide medical services to remote areas of Brazil. According to U.S. News & World Report, “Analysts say the export of medical services adds about $6 billion a year to Cuba’s economy.”
How does this work? Brazil paid the Cuban government the $30,000 annual salaries of the Cuban doctors and the Cuban government then paid the doctors $30 a month or $360 a year. This equates to an 83% profit for the Cuban government. Not surprisingly many of these Cuban doctors sought asylum in Brazil to be paid what they actually earned, $30,000.
In socialist governments the “minimum wage” inextricably becomes the prevailing wage.
RIO DE JANEIRO — In a rare act of collective defiance, scores of Cuban doctors working overseas to make money for their families and their country are suing to break ranks with the Cuban government, demanding to be released from what one judge called a “form of slave labor.”
Thousands of Cuban doctors work abroad under contracts with the Cuban authorities. Countries like Brazil pay the island’s Communist government millions of dollars every month to provide the medical services, effectively making the doctors Cuba’s most valuable export.
But the doctors get a small cut of that money, and a growing number of them in Brazil have begun to rebel. In the last year, at least 150 Cuban doctors have filed lawsuits in Brazilian courts to challenge the arrangement, demanding to be treated as independent contractors who earn full salaries, not agents of the Cuban state.
“When you leave Cuba for the first time, you discover many things that you had been blind to,” said Yaili Jiménez Gutierrez, one of the doctors who filed suit. “There comes a time when you get tired of being a slave.”
What I observed is that the Cuban people have great potential if they are unleashed and allowed to earn what they are truly worth.
As one Cuban man put it to me, “the people have no love for their work.” They have no love for their work because Cuba needs a change in direction. This change in direction will only come when there is a change of the socialist regime.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/socialismincuba.jpg407638Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-09-30 20:06:192017-11-26 20:48:21Cuban doctors tired of ‘being slaves’ sue Cuban Government
The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is a labor union affiliated with the AFL-CIO that represents football players in the NFL.
In recent weeks, the NFLPA has defended the players engaged in the controversial national anthem protests and their political statements made using the NFL as a platform.
The player’s union is sponsored by several major corporations and most of those companies are scored in 2ndVote’s database. Follow the links below to the company scorepages where you can find contact buttons that will allow you to reach out to their leadership and voice your displeasure with the players’ conduct:
Remember, a family of four will save $757 by NOT going to a game this weekend. Isn’t it time to tell these companies to use their influence to put a stop to the disrespectful anthem protests and get the players to take their politics out of football?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/nfl-logo.jpg3556392ndvote .comhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png2ndvote .com2017-09-30 15:51:412017-10-01 13:02:42Which Companies Sponsor the NFL Players Association? Here’s a List
UN short-circuiting the flow from Libya to Europe by sending migrants to the good ol’ welcoming USA?
Hillary, along with her gal pals Susan Rice and Samantha Power, are the leading culpritsin the Obama Administration’s disastrous involvement in the overthrow of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the creation of a failed state that has become a primary route for the migrant invasion of Europe.
Now we learn that the UN, partially in hopes of saving the present Italian government (Italians are pretty angry about the Libya to Italy express), is planning to open up a refugee holding facility in Tripoli where migrants will be detained until they can be moved to transit centers.
But, guess what! Most in the transit centers will go to Canada, Norway, and drum roll—the United States.
Hillary gloats about knocking off Gaddafi turning Libya into a completely unstable hell hole, and America gets more refugees!
ROME (Reuters) – The U.N. refugee agency is seeking to open a refugee transit center in Tripoli early next year to resettle or evacuate as many as 5,000 of the most vulnerable refugees out of Libya each year, a senior U.N. official said on Friday.
It is a small fraction of the total number of Libya’s migrant population, estimated at as many as 1 million, but would be a welcome outlet for the 43,000 refugees that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates are now trapped in Libya.
“We hope to have the (written) authorization soon,” Roberto Mignone, the UNHCR’s representative in Libya, told Reuters in Rome. The U.N.-backed Tripoli government has already approved the project verbally, he said.
[….]
Italy has become the main migrant route to Europe since an agreement between the EU and Turkey shut down smuggling through Greece last year, but arrivals have fallen sharply since July, when an armed group clamped down on departures.
With the backing of the European Union, Italy has financed, trained and equipped by the Tripoli-based coast guard. With a national election due early next year, Italy is also promising tens of millions of euros to Prime Minister Fayez al-Seraj and municipal governments to put a stop to smuggling.
[.…]
Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti has said he is depending on the U.N. refugee and migration agencies to improve conditions for refugees and migrants now trapped in Libya.
“We can’t be the only solution,” Mignone said, also because Libya remains very dangerous and international staff still have very limited access to the country.
[….]
While the UNHCR hopes to resettle many of them, it is a lengthy process. Many countries do not have a permanent diplomatic presence in Tripoli, further complicating matters.
So the agency will seek to evacuate most of them, Mignone said, to emergency transit centers in Romania, Slovakia or even Costa Rica, where they will have more time to apply for resettlement.The agency is currently working to open another emergency transit center in Niger, he said.
Here is one articleI found telling us that ‘refugees’ in a transit center in Slovakia are destined for Canada, Norway and the US. And, I had previously written a post on the Costa Ricatransit center with our old friend HIAS being paid by the US State Department to work there. I better start paying more attention to these transit centers!
So, if the scheme goes through, illegal aliens in Libya will be moved to a transit center and ultimately Anytown, USA instead of pushing on to Europe.
Reports arose recently that the White House is planning to approve changes to rules governing the export of U.S. firearms and ammunition. Predictably, before the planned regulations were even released for public review and comment, the Washington Postswiftly activated its fake news division to breathlessly warn America of the horrible outcomes the changes “could” provoke. The basic thrust of the article was that President Trump would risk putting American firearms into the hands of terrorists and human rights abusers to favor the gun industry.
Not even close.
Only after 10 paragraphs of scare tactics and hyperventilating did the Post article admit that the plan the Trump administration seeks to finalize actually originated under the Obama administration. “President Barack Obama,” the article stated, “moved oversight of many weapons exports from State to Commerce — but not small arms.” The writer seemed to imply that small arms were somehow uniquely dangerous and so required extra special consideration.
That’s laughable.
Small arms were actually among the first of the planned moves, which makes perfect sense. They are the least sophisticated, most readily-available of the systems involved in the long-standing reforms and ones with obvious and legitimate applications in the commercial sector. The writer was correct, however, when he notes that including them in the plan “became politically unpalatable” when Obama decided to make gun control a major agenda item during his second term. But to be clear, the hold-up has always been about anti-gun politics, not serious concerns about national security or firearms falling into the wrong hands.
Only after 10 paragraphs of scare tactics and hyperventilating did the Post article admit that the plan the Trump administration seeks to finalize actually originated under the Obama administration.
The types of materiel that have been transferred from the oversight of the State Department to that of the Commerce Department make this abundantly clear. These include highly-sophisticated and proprietary technologies that would be much more devastating than guns “in the wrong hands,” including categories encompassing spacecraft, toxicological agents, “nuclear weapons related articles,” and “directed energy weapons.” It’s ridiculous on its face to suggest that the .22s, bolt-action rifles, .38 special revolvers, and AR-15s, whose export is still regulated by the State Department – and which can easily be produced anywhere in the world – are somehow of greater concern. The U.S. government clearly does not want any of these things to wind up in the wrong hands and just as clearly will maintain protocols to ensure that they don’t, no matter which agency controls their export.
And the Post also failed to mention that exports of many American-made shotguns and shotgun ammunition are already regulated by the Commerce Department, without any of the adverse outcomes the article suggests that regime would have.
So why is the Post and its anti-gun fellow travelers so dead set against including guns in the same regulatory reforms that have already safely benefitted American aerospace, biotechnological, and electronics companies, among others?
Simply put, leaving ordinary firearms and ammunition under the regulatory purview of the State Department subjects the mostly small businesses that produce or work on these items or their components to the same rules that apply to manufacturers of nuclear submarines. This means reams of red tape and expensive fees that don’t apply to other common consumer products that you can buy at many big box stores and strip malls. It’s also means that it’s more difficult for hunters or sportsmen who are traveling overseas with their guns to make lawful temporary “exports.”
We’ve long chronicled the problems inherent in the State Department’s regulations of firearms exports, including here, here, and here. Those aren’t glitches or unintended consequences to gun control advocates, however, but “features” they fear would be lost under the planned reforms. These “features” shut down law-abiding manufacturing and gunsmithing right here in the U.S. and even interfere with efforts to teach foreign nationals residing in the U.S. how to safely use and handle firearms.
And because the regulatory reforms mentioned in the Post article also contemplate tougher oversight of the items left under the State Department’s jurisdiction, these problems are only likely to get worse.
Unlike the Washington Post, we will wait until the regulations are actually released before undertaking a detailed critique of their merits. But the planned reforms have always been about making American businesses, manufacturing, and technology more competitive, while ensuring the heavy-handed oversight of the State Department can focus where it’s most needed to protect U.S. and international peace. Second Amendment advocates should, as usual, take what the Washington Post says about the planned changes with a heavy dose of salt.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/fake-news-key-board.jpg360640NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2017-09-30 06:49:462017-09-30 06:49:46Washington Post Falsely Suggests Trump Will Arm Foreign Tyrants With American Guns
District of Columbia—In the latest victory for the Second Amendment rights of residents of the District of Columbia, the full federal court of appeals that sits in the District declined, on Thursday, to rehear an earlier decision by three judges of that court striking down provisions of the City’s code that barred most D.C. residents from carrying firearms for self-protection. The law at issue requires law-abiding citizens who wish to carry a firearm in public to obtain a license to do so, but restricts the issuance of licenses to those citizens who can show a specific, documented need for self-defense—for example, by proving that they had been previously attacked or were receiving death threats. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an opinion in July invalidating that restriction as fundamentally incompatible with Second Amendment. The District then asked the full circuit court to hear the case, arguing that allowing ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry firearms—the regime that prevails in 42 of the 50 States and in major cities including Chicago, Houston, Miami, and Philadelphia—would “increase crime and cost lives.” On Thursday, the full court issued a short order turning away the District’s plea to reconsider the case.
“We applaud the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for reaffirming the rights of ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry firearms to protect themselves and their families in the District of Columbia,” said Chris Cox, Executive Director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action. “The District’s draconian restrictions on core Second-Amendment rights are out of step with the mainstream protections in the rest of the country, and as the D.C. Circuit’s opinion shows, they are equally out of step with our Nation’s traditions and fundamental law.”
EDITORS NOTE: Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. More than five million members strong, NRA continues to uphold the Second Amendment and advocates enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the armed services. Be sure to follow the NRA on Facebook at NRA on Facebook and Twitter @NRA.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/DISTRICT-OF-COLUMBIA.jpg360640NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2017-09-30 06:41:092017-09-30 06:41:31Federal Court of Appeals Declines to Reconsider Opinion Striking Down District of Columbia Concealed Carry Ban
One of the things conservatives love about Donald Trump is that, unlike some Republicans, he doesn’t tiptoe through the tough issues. When the GOP didn’t have the spine to tackle Obama’s transgender military policy, he did it himself. When legislation protecting religious freedom never made onto the House or Senate floor, the White House issued its own executive order. If Trump could repeal Obamacare himself, he would. But that’s also why some people are left wondering — why hasn’t the White House dealt with the HHS contraceptive mandate with the same grit?
It’s not as if the president hasn’t staked out his position on the issue. Since the early days of the campaign, Trump made himself an ally of pro-lifers, living up to that promise almost every day of his eight months in office. Now, National Review wants to know, where is the follow-through voters are so used to seeing on something as fundamental as our freedom to believe?
“In June,” write Melanie Israel and Elizabeth Slattery, “a draft of the interim final rule regarding exemptions to the contraception mandate leaked to media. It indicated that the Trump administration intended to provide a definitive exemption for individuals, employers, and insurers with religious or moral objections to all or some of the onerous mandate. Overall, it seemed to offer an effective defense of religious liberty.”
“But then… nothing happened. The interim final rule was never published in the Federal Register. And the Trump administration has continued to defend the HHS mandate in court.”
“Every day that individuals, employers, and religious organizations are forced to choose between complying with the mandate or violating their sincere moral or religious beliefs is an affront to the religious liberty of all Americans.”
“You don’t have to share the Little Sisters’ beliefs to recognize that the government should not be able to force Americans to set aside their conscience when they step outside the four walls of a church to serve the poor, heal the sick, or educate the next generation.”
Donald Trump has given conservatives very little to complain about where his agenda is concerned. The president’s base understands, like we do, how the Left is blocking his initiatives and nominees, and how the GOP’s weak-kneed leaders are failing to move his priorities through the Senate. But where their patience is wearing thin is in areas like the HHS mandate and the DOJ’s guidance on religious liberty, which fall to the White House — and the White House alone. The president has made good on so many promises. We hope his streak continues on issues as fundamental as these.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/092917_president_770x400-e1506731863914.jpg360640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2017-09-29 20:38:012017-09-29 20:38:01Voters Ask White House to Man up on Mandate
Sixteen years after the attacks of September 11, it’s probably the case that the “excuse” of the Crusades as a motivating factor behind the violence of al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups has somewhat diminished in plausibility.
…the Aktia Bank chief economist said in a telephone interview in Helsinki. “We have a large public sector and the system needs taxpayers in the future.” …According to the OECD, Finland already has the lowest ratio of youths to the working-age population in the Nordics. …And it also has the highest rate of old-age dependency in the region. …The situation is only likely to get worse, according to OECD projections.
