The Real Reason Government Wastes So Much Money by Daniel J. Mitchell

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Why does government waste so much money? In so many ways? With such reckless abandon?

I suppose I could answer with mockery and say it’s because they have lots of experience squandering our tax dollars.

But let’s seriously contemplate that question and explore one of the reasons for waste. Simply stated, government programs are a magnet for scammers.

Let’s look at three case studies.

Example #1: Fraud is an inherent part of the big entitlement programs. Kevin Williamson has some unseemly details in an article for National Review.

…you know where there’s a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. …Medicare and Medicaid together account for about $1 trillion in federal spending annually, and estimates suggest that $1 out of ever $10 of that spending is fraud. Some estimates go much higher. We do not have a very good idea of exactly how extensive fraud in the system is, because the federal government has put a fair amount of effort into not knowing.

And what does that mean? How does the government try not to know?

…the government’s approach long has been backward…investigators are asking whether a certain treatment was in fact appropriate for what ails Mrs. Jones, not whether Mrs. Jones exists.

In other words, bureaucrats basically accept all claims as legitimate and simply judge from afar whether the right medical service is provided for the listed ailment.

Even if the ailment is fictional. Or the patient is fake.

As one might imagine, that kind of sloppy approach, combined with programs that dispense hundreds of billions of dollars, is a magnet for professional crooks.

It’s the work of organized crime. As Sparrow points out, when there is a criminal case filed against one of these fraud artists, then billing in a particular category – some years ago, it was HIV fusion treatments – falls off steeply, by as much as 90 percent. The implication here is that fraudulent billing may make up the majority of Medicaid and Medicare spending in some categories. …organized-crime syndicates are being permitted to use our medical entitlements to loot the Treasury, and that not very much is being done about that, which suggests the possibility – only a possibility – that there is political collusion in this at some level.

By the way, Kevin may be on to something when he speculates about collusion.

We already know about examples of politicians intervening to protect fraudsters

(who, conveniently, also happen to be campaign donors).

So is it really that much of a stretch to imagine them turning a blind eye (or worse) to industrial-level fraud by criminal enterprises?

Leads me to think this cartoon makes an unnecessary distinction.

Example #2: Welfare programs also are a magnet for fraud.

Here are excerpts from a recent news report.

Another six Lakewood, New Jersey couples were charged Wednesday with welfare fraud, bringing to 26 the number of people implicated since last week in the multimillion-dollar scandal. At the heart of the charges is the allegation that they all, in one way or another, failed to report or otherwise concealed significant income that would have made them ineligible for the assistance programs in which they enrolled. In total, state and federal prosecutors have said the families collected more than $2.4 million in benefits. …They allegedly obtained nearly $400,000 in Medicaid, food and heating benefits fraudulently. …Four other couples were arrested June 26 for allegedly defrauding public assistance programs of more than $1.3 million in benefits.

Welfare fraud must have been a major pastime for residents of the town.

Hundreds of these moochers are now trying to cover their tracks in hopes of avoiding legal trouble.

The specter of more charges has shaken Lakewood. Hundreds of residents have contacted authorities seeking amnesty or help avoiding arrest, the Asbury Park Press reported on June 29. In addition to the hundreds seeking amnesty, dozens more people have contacted social service agencies to cancel their benefits or declare income.

Example #3: And nobody should be surprised to learn that there’s plenty of fraud at the Pentagon.

Here’s an example that seems very representative.

The former owners of a Pittsburgh-area military supplier have been accused of defrauding the U.S. government of more than $6 million in defense contract work. …Prosecutors allege the Buckners inflated the cost of the work by falsifying invoices to make it appear as though they had spent $70 per window frame for the materials when in fact they had paid just $20 each for frames manufactured in China. The brothers are also alleged to have sold scrap aluminum collected in the manufacturing process without crediting that money to TACOM. The losses to TACOM are placed at $6,085,709 by the DOJ.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In 2014, a defense contractor responsible for providing food and water to troops in Afghanistan pleaded guilty to over-charging the U.S. government to the tune of $48 million. This week, two San Diego defense contractors pleaded guilty in a scheme that defrauded the Navy out of at least $1.4 million by over-billing for supplies that the military never ordered, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Similar stories have cropped up in Florida, California, Maryland, North Carolina and elsewhere in recent years, renewing calls for systemic reforms.

Maybe the reason fraud is so pervasive is that penalties are trivial or nonexistent.

A 2011 DOD report found hundreds of defense contractors that defrauded the U.S. military subsequently went on to receive more than $1.1 trillion in new Pentagon contracts between 2000 and 2010.

Shouldn’t criminal companies be barred from subsequent contracts? Shouldn’t crooked company officials be sent to prison?

Or do these things not happen because the same folks are also campaign contributors?

I don’t know the answer to these questions, but surely something is amiss. It’s almost as if government is simply a racket for the benefit of insiders.

Reprinted from International Liberty.

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute 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.

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10 Things You Never Knew About Orwell’s 1984 by Anna Mathews

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George Orwell’s novel 1984 was incredibly popular at the time it was published, and it remains incredibly popular to this day. With multiple stars citing the book as one of their favorites – including Stephen King, David Bowie, Mel Gibson, and Kit Harrington – 1984 has been growing in popularity in recent years. The book reappeared on best-seller lists in early 2017, as some argued Orwell’s dystopian vision had finally arrived.

Below are 10 facts you might not know about Orwell’s dark novel.

1. Before he wrote 1984, Orwell worked for the British government during World War II as a propagandist at the BBC. (Perhaps seeing the propaganda industry up close led to his critical portrait in 1984.)

2. Orwell initially named the novel 1980, and then 1982 before settling on 1984. Since it was written in 1948, some think that Orwell devised the title by inverting the year the book was written. Additionally, he thought about naming the novel The Last Man in Europe.

3. While writing the novel, Orwell fought tuberculosis. The disease ultimately consumed him and he died seven months after 1984 was published, with tuberculosis as the sole cause of death.

4. In addition to fighting tuberculosis, Orwell almost died while writing the novel. On a recreational boating trip with his children, he went overboard. Fortunately, neither this episode nor the tuberculosis prevented him from finishing his novel.

5. On an ironic note, Orwell himself was under government surveillance while writing his novel warning about government surveillance. The British government was watching Orwell because they believed he held socialist opinions. This surveillance started after he published The Road to Wigan Pier, a true story about poverty and the lower class in England.

6. The slogan “2 + 2 = 5” originated from Russia, where the Communist regime used it as a motto of sorts in an effort to help them accomplish the goals of their five-year plan in only four years. Though the slogan is still used to point out the ills of totalitarian brainwashing today, it was not coined by Orwell.

7. In addition to borrowing a piece of Russian propaganda, Orwell also borrowed some Japanese propaganda for his novel. The “Thought Police” are based on the Japanese wartime secret police who literally arrested Japanese citizens for having “unpatriotic thoughts.” Their official name was the Kempeitai, and they officially named their pursuit the “Thought War.”

8. When Orwell worked as a propagandist for the BBC, there was a conference room there numbered 101. This room was the room of which he based the location for some of his more horrifying scenes, making the scenes themselves all the more horrifying.

9. According to Orwell’s friends and families, his second wife Sonia Brownell was the model off of which he based the love interest (Julia) of the book’s main character, Winston Smith.

10. Though his book may be popular, Orwell’s novel also makes the list of the world’s top ten most frequently banned books. Some ban it for what they claim are pro-communist points of view, and others have banned it because it is anti-communist. Regardless, it is ironic that a book warning against totalitarianism is often an item for censorship.

Reprinted from Intellectual Takeout.

Anna Mathews

VIDEO: Donald Trump Jr. Exposes ‘Fake’ New York Times! Main Stream Media Death Spiral! Will Never Recover!

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So, Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer, BIG FREAKIN’ DEAL!

Well, for the unhinged New York Times, the nutso lefties and the News crazies, like CNN and MSNBC, this is a big deal. That’s why PROJECT CLARITY takes on the big guys and challenges them to put up or shut up! Watch this video expose’ and see how the LEFT hates America and the Trumps more than they care for TRUTH, Law and reality.

In this piece I explain how Don Jr. has all his media enemies in the metaphorical “Kill Box,” and they don’t even know it!

Don is so deep in their heads that they can’t see past Moscow. In this video you will see, maybe for the first time, the actual Federal statute upon which the unhinged New York Times and unbalanced Democrats politicians base their case that Don Jr. is a TRAITOR! I carefully go through the law and show that Don Jr. broke no laws and will be fully vindicated. This media attack is beyond insane but exactly what happens when the fourth estate abandons the intellectual process of truthful, analytical thinking and uses hate and vitriol to try and take down President Trump.

Please watch this powerful video and share it with your friends, together we must expose lies and tell the truth!

RELATED ARTICLES:

OPINION | Forget Don Jr.’s email — it’s Hillary Clinton who ‘colluded’ with Russia – The Hill

The Media’s Endless Anti-Trump Show Trial – The American Spectator

Kremlin back channels worked just fine for JFK – Why is Donald Trump being roasted for using a key Kennedy tactic?

Eco-dystopia

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Ask any attendee at the ECOCITY World Summit in Melbourne, Australia, and they will tell you “diversity” is the key to sustainable development.

They certainly don’t mean “diversity of opinion.”

The activists and bureaucrats here for this three-day eco-shindig are so far in the closet for the Left they’ve probably popped out in Narnia.

Their mission?  To bring their command-and-control agenda to YOUR community.

Debbie Bacigalupi is a property-rights activist and a member of CFACT’s “mission Australia” team.  She reports at CFACT.org that the folks attending the ECOCITY World Summit include “city planners, architects, local authorities, elected officials, universities, renewable energy grant recipients” and of course, the big man … Al Gore, himself.

They are hearing from 80 different speakers in 100 different sessions about how to craftily impose UN-style “sustainable development” upon the masses they regulate.
                              
They want to “retrofit” the suburbs for an inefficient “renewable energy future,” use financial instruments and the courts to “drive change,” and transform our communities into “sustainable and resilient cities,” which with them in charge will be nothing of the sort.

If left unchecked, the dystopia they seek to create won’t be good news for those of us who value freedom.

The ECOCITY speakers come from a hodgepodge of liberal Green outfits – a number of whom CFACT has taken on in the past.  These extremist organizations include the likes of the Climate Action Network, ICLEI, the C40 crowd, and many others.

As Debbie notes,

“If Al Gore and his EcoCity 2017 friends have their way, a Brave New World ‘ECOCITY’ will be coming to a place near you.  It’ll be a place where you can ‘harmonize’ with Mother Earth, change your consumer behavior to conform to that of the eco-enthusiasts, and happily live in a pre-ordained ‘human habitat’ (or ‘human settlement’ as some call it) and say good-by to your carbon emitting cars and life as you know it.”

You can read the rest of Bacigalupi’s troubling report at CFACT.org.

CFACT is fighting back against these radical social planners.   Marc Morano has appeared on Australia’s Sky News network and been invited to speak on several more radio and print news outlets.

The spin-off from the confrontation with Al Gore yesterday is also drawing significant media attention to CFACT’s activities here in Australia, as it was picked up and covered in the Drudge Report, UK Daily Mail, Fox News and more.

CFACT employed our secret weapon, Climate Hustle, to great effect.  In addition to holding a sold-out showing at the prestigious Victoria State Library in downtown Melbourne, copies of the movie were handed out with our compliments to a large number of ECOCITY participants.

Surprisingly, a few were happy to receive it!  Let’s hope they learn something.

There is much work still to do.  The eco-Left is mobilizing as never before and fully intent on implementing its radical plans on unsuspecting cities and communities in America and around the world.

Rest assured CFACT is mobilizing as well and (thanks to you) will be there dogging them every step of the way!

For nature and people too.

Humanitarian Hoax in the Military: Killing America With Kindness

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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 military for eight years presenting his crippling policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democratic Party with its “resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism.

In a stunning reversal of military protocols and procedures Barack Obama perpetrated the Humanitarian Hoax on the military. Scheduled to take effect July 1, 2017 Obama’s “Tier Three Transgender Training” materials were presented as compassionate and deeply respectful of the minuscule population of transgender soldiers. In fact these protocols and procedures were designed to weaken the military by making the feelings of a few soldiers more important than combat-readiness, and by placing the needs of individuals over the well-being of their units. Obama’s policies were not misguided they were deliberate.

The mission of the military is unequivocally national defense – the protection of America and her people. The military is one of the only appropriate collectives in a democracy. It is a unique culture with unique rules where collective units, not individuals, are prioritized and where the mission supersedes the men/women who serve. Police departments are another form of appropriate collective in a democracy whose similar mission is national defense at a local and state level. Obama and his leftist Democratic Party are deliberately trying to weaken and undermine American police departments as well.

Obama’s long-term plan for socialism and its cradle-to-grave government control is a political power grab that steals individual rights and replaces them with national government rights. Like any predator the Democratic Party focuses its prey on the short game and disguises its long term objective. Sexual predators do not lure children with vegetables – they offer candy. Political predators do not lure their voters with hard work – they offer them free college, free healthcare, free food, free housing, free everything – and then the windows close, the doors lock, and the prey is captured and exploited.

Socialism is political candy for Americans who have been indoctrinated to believe that it will provide social justice and income equality. There are no individual rights in socialism – all rights belong to the national government. There are no property rights in socialism – all property belongs to the national government. The only social justice or income equality provided by socialism is that everyone is equally poor and equally exploited.

The appropriate place for a collective in a democracy is the military which is only effective when the mission takes priority over the individual. The leftist Democratic Party is attempting to invert American life by democratizing the military and socializing the society. The Leftist Democratic Party presents itself as America’s advocate but is in fact America’s enemy.

The irony of the entire Leftist Humanitarian Hoax designed to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism is that the Leftist Democratic Party is too arrogant to understand that they are the useful idiots in the larger and more sinister plan of the globalist elite. Socialism with its complete government control is the prerequisite social structure for the globalist elite to internationalize the socialist countries and impose one-world government.

One-world government is the new world order that the globalist elite intend to rule themselves. It is unapologetically described in chilling detail in Lord Bertrand Russell’s 1952 book “The Impact of Science on Society.” One-world government is a binary socio-political system of masters and slaves. There is no social justice in one-world government, there is no income equality in one-world government, there are no Leftists or political agitators of any kind in one-world government – only a docile, compliant population of slaves and their rulers.

One-world government is the goal and the underlying motive of the campaign to destroy America from within. American democracy is the single greatest existential threat to one-world government and President Donald Trump is its leader. If the globalist elite are successful in their efforts to weaken the US military, overthrow the US government of President Donald Trump, and transform America into socialism the next step is globalist conquest and the imposition of one-world government.

After 241 years of American freedom the world will be returned to the dystopian existence of masters and slaves because a willfully blind American public were seduced by political candy and followed the Leftists into the awaiting socialist sedan – the windows close, the doors lock, and the prey is captured and enslaved. Game over.

RELATED ARTICLE: New Army Training Tells Female Soldiers To ‘Accept’ Naked Men In Their Showers

Ideological Tribalism: Graduating Stepford Students

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Freedom of speech is foundational. Without freedom of speech there are no other freedoms.

In a stunning new guide to colleges that ranks “a diversity of viewpoints and a culture of free and open discussion” New England colleges and universities are exposed as the most close-minded in a comparison of diversity of political and cultural points of view. Considering that the New England colleges and universities are some of the most prestigious in America and that they graduate future leaders and “authorities,” the study results are particularly disturbing.

Report: New England Colleges Worst in Country for ‘Viewpoint Diversity’

The silencing of Conservative voices on campus is a deliberate strategy to expand the widening echo chamber of left-wing liberal tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. Parochial schools are very clear in their mission to educate students in the particular tenets, customs, and ceremonies of their chosen religion. Religious schools freely and unapologetically attempt to perpetuate their religions through education. There is informed consent – the parents and students being fully aware of the purpose of their education.

The problem today is in non-parochial schools because parents believe their children are receiving a secular American education not a parochial education. The reality is that American students from pre-school through college are being indoctrinated in left-wing liberalism by their Leftist teachers. Leftism is the new religious orthodoxy of the Democratic Party and the Democrats are busy proselytizing their religion in the classroom. There is no informed consent and no consumer protections. There is only buyer beware.

Slowly parents are beginning to examine the content of the curricula their children are being exposed to and are rightfully alarmed by the anti-American, anti-establishment, anti-democracy lessons being taught. Their children are being propagandized toward anti-American collectivism and socialism every day all day.

Whoever controls the curriculum controls the future. Indoctrination presented as education is an abuse of power.

When liberal professors outnumber their conservative colleagues 28:1 a culture of ideological tribalism is created and freedom of speech ceases to exist. Conservative voices are silenced because the academic and social tyranny of the Left demands conformity. It is an ideological war that demands submission.

Tyranny cannot tolerate freedom of speech because in ideological wars words are the weapons. The Left is engaged in a very undemocratic effort to silence any voices of opposition. The tribal mind focuses on membership in the tribe as the absolute value which explains the malicious shunning and disparaging of anyone who disagrees. To be in the tribe one must demonstrate loyalty to the tribe and adhere to its cultural norms.

Instead of participating in the proud American tradition of open debate the Leftist leadership of the Democratic Party has adopted the tyranny of censorship, intimidation, and intolerance. Instead of encouraging respectful discourse for the merits of ideas to be debated the Left silences its opponents with its tyrannical demand for compliance to its tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. The Leftist orthodoxy silences any heterodoxy. The Democratic Party has devolved into ideological tribalism where membership in the group is determined by adherence to its orthodoxy.

Outside the classroom the left-wing activists organize campus protests where academic cry-bullies shut down buildings and intimidate speakers to silence opposing voices. They demand safe spaces and Play-doh to calm and “protect” them from opposing ideas. These protesters are not burning books because the curriculum has already been censored and manipulated to eliminate opposing ideas. Instead of an education the students are being indoctrinated in the left-wing liberal orthodoxy of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism designed to produce another generation of Stepford students to join the widening echo chamber of orthodox Leftists who reject any heterodoxy.

Whoever controls the information controls the present. Indoctrination presented as news and information is an abuse of power.

The general public is being similarly indoctrinated because their news and information has been censored to eliminate opposing ideas and to silence opposing voices. The colluding mainstream media moguls of television, movies, print media, and the Internet, all have common cause to participate in the echo chamber of manipulative information designed to indoctrinate the public into accepting their left-wing liberal orthodoxy.

What is the purpose of the ideological tribalism of the Democratic Party? Just like the student curricula the public indoctrination by the leftist Democratic Party is part of the widening echo chamber designed to transform American democracy into socialism.

The Left organizes content designed to break down traditional American cultural norms that encourage individualism, achievement, the meritocracy, and critical thinking skills. The Leftist narrative promotes collectivism and passivity to produce an unaware and compliant public. The Leftist Democratic Party in America supports or is an apologist for Linda Sarsour, BDS, FGM, open-borders, illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, and the fiction that Islam is a religion like any other.

Instead of news and information the general public is being indoctrinated in the left-wing liberal orthodoxy of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism designed to produce an unthinking Stepford population who will join the ever-widening echo chamber of orthodox Leftists who reject any heterodoxy.

Consider the long term effects of their echo chamber that begins in kindergarten, continues throughout college, graduates Stepford students who become leaders and “authorities” in government, politics, academia, Internet, media, statistics, books, art, medicine, law, theater, movies, every sphere that influences American life. WHY?

Because the globalist elite mega-moguls and their mega-corporations have a long term plan. They are using the echo chamber of Leftists as useful idiots to create the social chaos and divisiveness necessary to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism. Socialism’s complete cradle-to-grave government control is the prerequisite for the globalist elite’s own one-world government that features an unrestricted world market for their goods and a binary socio-political system of masters (the globalist elite) and their enslaved population (everyone else).

The ideological tribalism of the Leftist Democrat Party that graduates Stepford students and disinforms the public to become Stepford voters is a boomerang. Ideological tribalism will be used against the useful idiots by the globalist elite who will ultimately impose one-world government and enslave them all. There is no place for Leftist agitators in one-world government – there is only room for Stepford slaves.

The Church is being transformed into the Church of Gay

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Given the nature of this Vortex, we do not like to say we told you so, but we told you so. For years, Church Militant has been warning Catholics about the homosexual mafia in the Church. There are psychologically disturbed men who pose all kinds of threats to the faithful. Sodomite priests are pouring out of the closet, seizing control of the Church, and their list of their abominations is manifold and increasing every day.

TRANSCRIPT

Given the nature of this Vortex, we do not like to say we told you so, but we told you so. For years, Church Militant has been warning Catholics about the homosexual mafia in the Church. There are psychologically disturbed men who pose all kinds of threats to the faithful. Sodomite priests are pouring out of the closet, seizing control of the Church, and their list of their abominations is manifold and increasing every day.

We have been mocked and accused of anything and everything by so-called Catholic media for reporting these stories. Those same Catholic media get paid by and take their marching orders from various bishops, many of whom are supportive of or ignoring this gay crisis in their own ranks. We saw the eruption of their sinister doings with the sex-abuse scandal where huge numbers, of mostly altar boys, were sexually abused by a portion of these disordered individuals. But most recently, we are witnessing a virtual takeover of the Church by gay clergy and their equally mentally disturbed allies in the clergy, posing as though they care about the downtrodden.

The latest example, the widely reported story, shocking by even Roman standards, of the priest who was arrested a week or so ago for a drug-fueled, homosexual orgy in the Vatican apartment of Cdl. Francesco Coccopalmerio — a few hundred yards away from Pope Francis. The priest was Coccopalmerio’s secretary. He has since been sent on “retreat.”

Neighbors complained about the noise and visitors coming and going at all hours and their strange behaviors, and Vatican police responded, coming across the evil scene. The Vatican is refusing to respond to questions, neither confirming nor denying, which pretty much tells you all you need to know. The details may not be all fleshed out, but the story is there. And according to one senior curial member, “[H]omosexual practice in the Vatican has never been worse.” But truly, as sordid as all this is, no one can reasonably expect anything different.

Homosexuality is based around promiscuous sex, looking for acceptance from other men but always giving way to lust, which is oftentimes acted on. This is why this evil must be stamped out in the Church and confronted at every turn. This round of abuse is now spiritual, although no doubt, some physical abuse is still going on somewhere with younger men because that is the nature of pederasty. Some years from now, this too will be revealed.

Leading the pack today of spiritual abusers is Jesuit homosexualist Fr. James Martin, who still refuses to admit publicly if he is sexually attracted to other men or even engages in sexual acts with them — a question, that in justice, he should answer publicly. He is currently operating under the cloak of just caring about people he says are marginalized in the Church. Holy Hades, gays and effeminate men run large portions of the Church! How exactly are they marginalized? There is hardly a soul who keeps up on all this who doesn’t think that Martin is gay. So just for the sake of clearing his name, you’d think he would want to answer.

This past weekend, CNN’s religion editor, Dan Burke, penned a story, which was in reality much more of a promotional piece for Martin’s latest book, Building Bridges, in which the heretical priest goes all out to normalize sodomy. He says the Church and gays need to sit down and better understand each other and respect each other more, which is, of course, Church-gay-speak for “the Church needs to marry sodomites and forget all that God, Heaven and Hell nonsense.” Ah, but that’s just Martin. He’s joined by various other clergy, higher ranking than his overblown self.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, a large presence at the recently concluded Orlando Church of Nice convention, actually held a pilgrimage for active homosexuals in his Newark cathedral. Did anyone at the Church of Nice convention challenge him on that? It is unlikely. Challenging heretics was not on the agenda. Tobin welcomed them and their sin, open armed, and never mentioned a word about repentance, salvation, damnation. Nothing.

The bishop of San Jose, Patrick McGrath, issued a letter a few days back, saying active gays can receive the sacraments and funerals in his diocese. Another heretic bishop. Of course, San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy is all in for the whole gay agenda, publicly praising a “gay parish” in his diocese. He is another heretic bishop. Cardinal Cupich of Chicago sees nothing wrong with active sodomites approaching for Holy Communion if they have thought about it, and it’s okay with their consciences. Of course, approaching for Holy Communion if you’re okay with your own sin is a system set in place by Washington D.C. Cdl. Donald Wuerl over the question of pro-abortion Catholic politicians. Wuerl was the last bishop in America to shut down “gay Masses” on diocesan property while he was bishop of Pittsburgh. In Pittsburgh, he was even labeled “Wuerl the Girl” by the friendly homosexual community.

Before Wuerl arrived in D.C., there was now-retired Cdl. Theodore McCarrick, around whom also swirled dozens of rumors of homosexuality. McCarrick flat out lied to his brother bishops about a note written by then Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger, denying Holy Communion to pro-abort politicians. Is there no end to the heretic cardinals and bishops? And while this may all look relatively recent, consider what is now coming to the surface has just been lying hidden from the view of the laity for decades.

Dead Cdl. Joseph Bernardin had constant rumors swirling around him about his own sexuality, rumors which seemed confirmed by his decision to have the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus sing at his wake. Bernardin was essentially responsible for getting dozens and dozens and dozens of U.S. bishops named, many of whom proved to be gay supportive or gay themselves. Again nothing new here, just the fruit of the evil that has been going on for years and years by Catholic clergy who are gay and have been slowly seizing control of every level of Catholic life. Pope Benedict said in a recent book interview that he had to deal with homosexual cardinals.

Catholic seminaries have been hotbeds for decades for homosexual men, who then go on to get ordained and rise in the ranks through the efforts of their fellow sodomites, who protect and promote each other. A recent TIME magazine article on seminarians featured a quote from the current rector of the nation’s largest seminary, Mundelein in Chicago, saying some of the men studying for priesthood are still working out their sexual orientation.

We have the case of N.Y. Cdl. Timothy Dolan promoting open homosexuality in the St. Patrick’s Day parade in New York two years ago. There was the case of the homosexual priest Fr. Krystof Charamsa, working in the CDF in Rome, who came out publicly about his long-term relationship with his sodomite partner and making the announcement the day before the second synod began in 2015.

And these are just the more high profile cases. There are hundreds and hundreds of cases of homosexual priests and bishops and cardinals that don’t get anywhere near the notoriety, but they are very real. The Church has been attacked from the inside, and one of the leading attacks squads are these psychologically disturbed men who are allowed to push their evil and disturbed thoughts on the faithful. These men and their intrinsic disorders, as well as the other men who are bishops who will not confront this evil for fear of their own careers or whatever, are all heretics and need to resign their positions immediately.

They have polluted the minds, hearts and souls of millions of Catholics, which was the plan all along and have created the “Gay Catholic Church.” No wonder a few years back, The New York Times could correctly announce that the Catholic priesthood had essentially become a gay profession.

Good, holy, dedicated priests are smashed down under this homosexualist tyranny; and it is tyranny. You try challenging this homosexual superstructure if you are a priest, and you’re done. You will be shipped off to nowhere faster than you can say homosexual mafia.

Catholic laity need to know this, all of it, right down to the last sordid incident because they need to understand that these sick individuals, psychologically wicked men, are destroying your chance at salvation by their lies and conniving. You are not hearing Catholic truth from them. They work for their father, the devil, and they do their father’s will.

The heterodox revolution that took place in the Church in the 1960s has given way to the pink revolution where everything has been engineered to become feminized and sissified. The engineers are men who want to have sex with other men, and oftentimes do and use their collars to hide behind their office while they sponge off the Church, taking your money to live and eat and engage in their perversions.

And on top of that, they lie to you about Divine truths, stealing not only your money but your souls or the souls of your children. The whole lot of them are tools of Satan, and they must be stopped. Do not listen to them. Listen to the Church.

Progressives Should Look to Their Own Troublesome History by Donald J. Boudreaux

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I’m sure that the irony has struck others whose wits are sharper and quicker than mine.

This morning my eyes happened upon my copy of Thomas Leonard’s excellent 2016 volume, Illiberal Reformers. It sat innocently on one of my bookshelves.

In that book, Princeton economist Leonard documents the overt racism of “Progressivism’s” founders. Leonard documents the overt belief by early “Progressives” that genetically caused differences in ability justify repressive government measures to protect the better-abled from the less-abled – and especially from the economic competition that these less-abled posed. (Minimum-wage statutes, for example, were originally designed – and promoted by “Progressive” scholars – as a fine mechanism for protecting white workers from having to suffer the competition of black and other non-white workers.)

Human society was to progress as it is engineered by the state to improve the gene pool.

And now, a century or so later, “Progressives” are patting themselves on the back for having had nothing to do with the late Nobel laureate economist James Buchanan (1919-2013). The cause of this self-celebration, of course, is the recent publication of Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains, in which Buchanan is portrayed as a closet racist whose lifelong exploration of the nature of constitutional rules (and of democratic governance under such rules) was used by greedy plutocrats as ideological cover for their rapacious policies.

The trouble with MacLean’s story, however, is that – in the words of Phil Magness – “it appears to be completely made up.”

Whether MacLean believes her narrative or not, everyone with any genuine knowledge of Buchanan’s works understands that her narrative is complete bunk. It is, as they say, “not supported by the facts.”

Put differently, MacLean’s books appears to have about as much truth-content as any randomly selected 2:00am tweet from the current president of the United States. There is zero evidence, either overt or hidden, that Buchanan was a racist. He was anything but.

So if an ideology is to be damned because of its racist origins and uses, it is not the classical liberalism, or libertarianism, of Jim Buchanan – for as Jim’s (and my) long-time colleague David Levy (and Sandy Peart) point out, that ideology has an honorable history of opposing racism when opposing racism wasn’t cool.

The ideology that we should damn – were we to follow the implied counsel of all of the “Progressives” who are praising MacLean’s book – is none other than “Progressivism.” That ideology, as Thomas Leonard documents with evidence (rather than innuendo), truly is rooted in racism.

Reprinted from Cafe Hayek.

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald J. Boudreaux

Donald Boudreaux is a senior fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, a Mercatus Center Board Member, a professor of economics and former economics-department chair at George Mason University, and a former FEE president.

RELATED ARTICLE: As a Teen Cashier Seeing Food Stamp Use, I Changed My Mind About the Democrat Party

This WWI History Podcast Is Better Than Any Textbook by James Walpole

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Morbid fascination is a strong motivator for me. Recently it’s brought me around to a renewed study of the first world war.

For me, the study of this war (and other terrible things in human history) is about far more than military maneuvers or victories or defeats. I want to understand how and why people behave the way they do. I want to know them so I can know myself, and I want to avoid making the mistakes and judgment calls that led to an early demise for so many of my ancestors.

For this “war to end all wars” that resulted in more than 17 million deaths and 20 million injuries, I particularly want to understand how people can bring themselves and their societies to such lows of death and destruction. I want to understand how they survived those lows, how they resisted those lows, and how they showed humanity in the face of them.

It seems I’ve found a (mostly) kindred spirit in Dan Carlin, host of the long-form award-winning podcast Hardcore History and creator of the recent six-part World War One series “A Blueprint for Armageddon.”

360 Degree View

In this series, Carlin helps to solve one of my main problems as a student of history: namely, that I don’t have any idea what it’s actually like to experience a society-reshaping war.

History textbooks rarely help us understand experiences, and most people only give lip service to “the horrors of war” as a result. Fortunately, Carlin has done his homework. Along with providing detailed commentary on the major geopolitical shifts which accompany this war, Carlin reflects on the vivid individual memories of its participants.

He makes extensive use of primary sources, including accounts from civilians, diplomats, generals, and the lowliest recruits – and later major players like Adolf Hitler, who came of age in this conflict. “Blueprint” draws on all the scholarship of early historical works like Tuchman’s The Guns of August with all of the drama with which someone like Winston Churchill viewed the war in his memoirs.

Through all of his extensive research and notes, we get a view of the war from 360 degrees, and it’s hardly necessary for Carlin to provide any additional color or opinion. What’s great is that he mostly doesn’t, except to wonder – like me – at how people lived through years of trench warfare, chemical attacks, near-certain death, and body-choked battlefields.

Most powerful is how Carlin’s series positions the war as the turning point of European culture and history. You get a very good picture of how developed societies change when they engage in major land warfare for the first time in a century. It’s surreal, a change from Napoleonic-era militaries to militaries built for mass destruction. No one is prepared for wars with machine guns, tanks, airplanes, and gas. As a result (and as Carlin shows) no one is prepared for Bolshevism, total war, the emergence of “the home front,” the bombing of civilians.

The death of liberal political philosophy and the birth of totalitarian and authoritarian 20th-century thought is a theme woven throughout the podcast series, but the listener is left to connect the dots and see everything which was lost to a generation in the Great War.

An Epic Narrative

“Blueprint for Armageddon” brings the history of this time period to life in a way that no book or movie could. It’s epic narrative storytelling at its best. The medium of audio (and the audio production is a delight) lets Carlin range all over the many fronts of this war and the many small sub-stories of this war without interruption and in perfect narrative harmony. Yet it never forgets that it is a narrative.

Carlin is refreshingly self-aware about his own odd fandom of military history, the ease with which deaths become mere statistics in hindsight, and the impossibility of grasping or relating the full story of an event like this.

If you share my same odd historical bent toward the morbid, and if you share a hope that we can avoid another world war in our lifetime, this series is both a valuable resource and a valuable call to action to learn.

You may not come away from this series as an enemy of war, but you will leave it far less naive about what goes into and what comes out of warfare between nations. And you’ll leave with dozens of memoirs and books to start you down the rabbit trail of research on this turning point in history.

You can download the series on your favorite podcasting app or watch the first part of the series below:

Reprinted from James Walpole.

James Walpole

James Walpole

James Walpole is a writer, startup marketer, intellectual explorer, and perpetual apprentice. He writes regularly at jameswalpole.com.

A murder that France dares not name

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Dismay, frustration, exasperation. Three months after Sarah Halimi was savagely murdered by Kobili Traoré, the suspect is still out of reach in a psychiatric hospital, leaving the criminal investigation at a standstill. An update and action plan were presented at a July 4th press conference organized by the Comité de soutien / Vérité et Justice pour Sarah Halimi, under the auspices of the CJFAI (Conféderation des Juifs de France et des Amis d’Israël) at a restaurant in the heart of the Invalides station. Mr. Gilles William Goldnadel, counsel for the victim’s brother William Attal, Samy Ghozlan former police commissioner and president of the BNVCA (Bureau National de vigilance contre l’antisémitisme), and MP Meyer Habib presented the facts as known to date.

Despite the horrors of the case, the presentation, moderated by Richard Abitbol and André Added, was respectful, dignified, and determined. No whining, no wild accusations. The support committee counts 7,000 members, including distinguished thinkers Georges Bensoussan, Pascal Bruckner, Luc Ferry, Alain Finkielkraut, Eric Marty and more.

I was in Israel on the 22nd of May when lawyers representing Sarah Halimi’s adult children – attorneys Jean-Alexandre Buchinger and David-Olivier Kaminski – presented their position at a press conference. Without stoking controversy, let it be understood that they favor a prudent “loyalist” approach, whereas Maître Goldnadel, a mince-no-words editorialist and former president of the France-Israel Association, is more forthrightly combative. At issue: the failure of law enforcement to intervene while Traoré was beating and torturing Sarah Halimi. The autopsy concludes that the victim was still alive when she was pushed off her 3rd floor balcony. At least six policemen were in the building, waiting for reinforcements before attempting to apprehend the assailant. Too late.

A brief review of the facts as corroborated by the police report

Twenty-seven-year-old Kobili Traoré, of Malian origin, a repeat offender with at least twenty convictions for theft, violence, and drugs, has no psychiatric history. As far as can be known at this stage of the investigation, no defense of mental instability has ever been presented in the various criminal proceedings and/or prison sentences. On the 3rd of April, after allegedly spending the afternoon smoking marijuana with friends, he came home in an agitated state and made so much trouble that his mother threw him out in the middle of the night. Apparently she did not seek medical help or police protection. No interviews with or statement by the family have been made public to date. Traoré sought refuge with Malian neighbors, the Diara family, that took him in unsuspectingly. But he was so aggressive that they barricaded themselves in a room and called the police. Three agents arrived within minutes and stood outside the door of the Diara apartment. Traoré was pacing around, loudly reciting koranic verses. Three more policemen arrived but did not enter the apartment because, according to the police report, they suspected they were dealing with a terrorist (the koranic verses).

While they waited for reinforcements, Traoré climbed from the Diara balcony to the next balcony, smashed the window, and fell upon his orthodox Jewish neighbor Sarah Halimi, a 65 year-old retired M.D. Shouting allahu akhbar, shietan (devil), he battered and tortured her, interjecting koranic verses with unspeakable barbaric acts. A neighbor across the courtyard called the police and recorded several minutes of the incident. But the police were already there and still did not intervene.

No matter how many times this fact is stated, repeated, corroborated, I cannot report it without a feeling of utter dismay. By the time the elite forces arrived, 50 minutes after the first response to the Diara’s call, Sarah Halimi lay dead in the courtyard and Kobili Traoré was back in the Diara apartment, calmly reciting koranic verses and boasting “I killed the neighborhood shietan.” He was arrested and placed in psychiatric confinement. To date, the court-appointed psychiatrist has not turned over his report to police or judicial authorities, and Traoré has not been questioned by police investigators. The anti-Semitic motive has not been included as an aggravating circumstance of the charges he faces.

Two elements of incomprehension

Goldnadel, expressing his extreme reluctance to take action against the police, themselves targets of the Islamic violence that massacred Sarah Halimi, nevertheless respected his client’s instructions to file a complaint for dereliction of duty. Why didn’t the police come to the rescue of a woman whose screams resounded in the courtyard, whose interminable agony stretched out for an eternity, who could have been saved in a matter of minutes? An internal police report concluded that law enforcement had followed accepted procedures and there is no need for further investigation.

MP Meyer Habib, who represents French citizens in Israel, Greece, Cyprus, and Italy, pointed out that it takes little more than a minute and a half to terminate a terrorist attack in Israel; the Bataclan massacre that left 90 dead lasted three hours before the appropriate forces received the appropriate orders and neutralized the killers. Why did the police stand down during the interminable ordeal of Sarah Halimi? Were they obeying orders? From what level of the hierarchy? Why would they wait for orders when in fact failure to rescue is a criminal offense? One question leads to another and we cannot even be sure that the investigation will provide clear answers. Why does the judge stand down instead of qualifying the crime as anti-Semitic? Why did the media remain silent when this atrocious crime was committed between the first and second round of the presidential elections? As if safety from jihad massacre were not a legitimate campaign issue!

If the respective counsels differ on strategy and tactics, they are united in the determination to establish the anti-Semitic nature of the murder and to bring the killer from his refuge in a mental asylum to face his responsibilities in criminal court and, finally, to bring to light the obvious failure of the police to intervene on the spot and protect the victim’s life. Will their strategy change with the addition, announced Tuesday – of attorney Francis Szpiner to the legal team? Szpiner represented Ilan Halimi’s family in the case against the Gang of Barbarians. He also acted as counsel to France 2 in its lawsuit against Philippe Karsenty (the al Dura affair).

Is there a media blackout on the Sarah Halimi case?

Yes there is. In the immediate aftermath, the brutal assassination of a Jewish woman by her Muslim neighbor in Paris was barely reported. As for the far-fetched notion advanced by some mean-spirited commentators that an ordinary “neighborly murder” was too commonplace to deserve media attention in the middle of a hotly contested presidential race, it is patently dishonest. But what should we make of the suggestion, raised elsewhere, of a deliberate choice to withhold the information on the grounds that it could favor one candidate, Marine Le Pen, to the detriment of another, Emmanuel Macron? Whatever the twisted reasons for the de facto censorship, it is gradually breaking down, and even if the case doesn’t get the attention it deserves, it will not be kept out of the public eye and the judicial arena.

Why does it matter, beyond the individual tragedy of a fine woman who had spent her whole life in service to her community, brutally murdered by an enraged neighbor? It matters because it is not an isolated incident. It is one more in a 17 year series of attacks on Jews in France. It matters because this violence is an expression of genocidal hatred widely disseminated within the Arab-Muslim population in France. It matters because this hatred is so widespread that Sarah Halimi did not even file a complaint against Kobili Traoré or his sister when they snarled “dirty Jew” at her and her daughters. It matters because every attempt to discern, reveal and eventually deal with this murderous hatred is confronted with denial, hostility, derision, legal pursuits, and pathological skepticism. Witness the dogged prosecution of Georges Bensoussan for “Islamophobia,” and the stubborn refusal to accept statistics on Muslim antisemitism in France (the Fondapol survey).

Only Black lives matter?

The contrast is striking. In an attempt to mobilize a French equivalent of Black Lives Matter, that same Afro-Arab-Muslim community is repeatedly mobilized to defend alleged victims of police brutality. Whatever the circumstances that led to injury or death, the victim is always innocent. Whatever the version of the police or the judgment of the courts, it is unacceptable unless the policemen are declared guilty and punished. This is not limited to media debates and petitions. It’s in the streets and it’s extremely destructive. The 2005 Paris riots were triggered by the death of two youths electrocuted while hiding from the police in an electric substation.

French Jews do not riot, they tread a fine line between demanding justice and preserving the necessary access to authorities that ensure protection of synagogues and community centers, celebrate the Jewish contribution to French culture, defend the oft contested rights to circumcision and kosher slaughter. But the willful neglect of the Sarah Halimi case is a shocking throwback to the disgraceful practices of the early 2000s when anti-Jewish violence was misrepresented as petty delinquency and chalked up to inter-community conflict. The excuse back then was “we don’t want to add fuel to the fire,” a conscious or unconscious admission that if you say the perpetrators are Muslim, they’ll become even more violent. And Jews won’t be the only target. Seventeen years later it is obvious that throwing the Jews on the fire doesn’t appease the genocidal hatred that has now turned against the police, Christians, whites, teachers, medical personnel, Frenchmen in general, disrespectful journalists in particular, wayward Muslims, people enjoying concerts, 14th of July fireworks and outdoor cafés.

Genocidal Jew hatred is not an abstract concept

The unavoidable generalized use of the term “anti-Semitism” fuels a misunderstanding of the contemporary phenomenon. Anti-Semitism – old-fashioned and comically ideological, associated with defeated Nazism and its far right leftovers, frozen in a shameful past that can be atoned for at no cost – has become a mysterious element in the atmosphere for which no reliable barometer can be found. What is the exact dose of antisemitism that would correctly qualify as an act of violence? As Gilles Goldnadel declared at the press conference, a killer, Kobili Traoré in this case, can be motivated by anti-Semitism while in the grips of a mental crisis. A blood-spattered Adel Amastibou, after Islamically slaughtering his neighbor Sébastien Selam (November 2003), boasted “I killed my Jew, I’ll go to paradise.” He spent a few years in a mental hospital and, despite heroic efforts by attorney Alex Metzger, was never tried for the crime. Every Islamic attack or attempted attack committed in France over the past 17 years has been justified by the perpetrator in recognizable jihad terms. The folly lies in searching blindly for motivations when they stare us in the face. Who knows better than the killer what motivated the crime? Traoré said he killed the “neighborhood shietan.”

Lofty declarations and lowly copouts

The truth and justice for Sarah Halimi press conference was held a week after newly elected President Emmanuel Macron convened the Senate and the Assembly for a solemn Congress at the Versailles Chateau, where he pronounced the lofty principles of his administration, re-embroidering his campaign themes of Liberté, égalité, fraternité. The president left the ground-floor promises to his prime minister who, as it happens, made his speech at the Assembly right after the press conference and a few steps away from the venue. President Macron promised to make France a model for humanity, humanism, humanitarianism. He glorified French culture (having made the awkward error of denying its existence in a notable multicultural campaign speech) and praised the noble fiber in every French man and woman.

A few days later, presiding over a national tribute to Simone Veil [née Jacob] at les Invalides, the president announced that she would be buried, along with her husband, in the Pantheon. In a condolence tweet to Simone Veil’s family he wrote: “…may she be an inspiration to our fellow citizens who will find in her the best of France.” But Simone Jacob was defenseless when the French police arrested her and her family in Nice and delivered them to the Nazis to be exterminated. She survived Auschwitz. They did not survive. This kind of “never again” as a comforting flashback is unacceptable. When a thousand people marched to 26 rue des Vaucouleurs in the Belleville quarter of Paris to denounce the massacre of Sarah Halimi, they were met with insults from neighbors and threats from “youths” bragging that they will kill the Jews with their Kalashnikovs.

Sarah Halimi was savagely beaten, tortured, mutilated and thrown to her death because she was Jewish, but the genocidal hatred that motivated her murder is more than a Jewish problem. Beyond the personal tragedy that bereaves us, Sarah Halimi is an image of our civilization – defenseless because law enforcement stands down, the authorities mislead, the media are struck dumb, and those who tell the truth are persecuted and prosecuted.

Postscript

The French Communist Party protests the presence of Benyamin Netanyahu at the commemoration of the July 16th 1942 Vel d’hiv roundup of Jews. “The commemoration,” reads the PCF communiqué “should carry a strong message of peace. The notoriously far right Israeli prime minister is a man of war and violence who is an obstacle to the construction of a just and lasting peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Breaking news

A 54-year-old Tunisian resident of Linz, Austria, turned himself in to police last week after brutally murdering an elderly couple and setting fire to their home. He slit the throat of the 85 year-old woman, stabbed and battered her 87-year-old husband to death. He knew the couple because he regularly delivered groceries they bought at his wife’s store. Though the murderer is a Daesh sympathizer, the police are not classifying the crime as terrorist because there is no evidence that he was acting on orders from Daesh.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image of Sarah Halimi is courtesy of the Confédération des Juifs de France et des amis d’Israël.

Marriage and Divorce in American Politics

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CNN White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny described President Trump’s Warsaw speech: “This is a white America, America first kind of speech.”

Bobblehead Jeff Zeleny got it half right which is a record these days at CNN – it was an America first kind of speech. The Leftist Democratic Party of America has divorced itself from American democracy and found a new partner in Leftist-style globalism. Most marriages in America begin with love, respect, commitment, and shared values. When the marriage ends there are usually acrimonious arguments over assets and children – so it is with the Left and America.

American politics began its life married to traditional Judeo-Cristian values of family, church, limited government, and cultural norms defined by the 10 commandments and a deep respect for the sovereignty and independence of America and its citizens.

Marriages that continue to flourish are those where the deepest convictions of the loved ones remain intact or evolve in harmony together. America was founded on the deep convictions of equality, justice, love of country, upward mobility and a Constitution guaranteeing individual freedoms unheard of anywhere else in the world.

Generations of immigrants from all over the world have immigrated LEGALLY to the United States in search of freedom and the opportunity to build a better life for their families. They came to America to assimilate. They learned the English language, pledged allegiance to the flag, the Constitution, and the American way of life. They worked hard and sacrificed for their families to educate their children and participate in the extraordinary American dream of freedom and upward mobility. These immigrants came to America with a mature adult perspective that embraced the responsibilities that accompany the rights of American citizenship and insure the privileges of American democracy.

They married into America and their children grandchildren and great-grancdchildren were the beneficiaries of their optimism, hopes, dreams, and work ethic. Immigrant youth have been distinguished by their extraordinary academic accomplishments and consequent contributions and success of their upward mobility. They are the descendants of legal immigration and successful multiculturalism who came to an America that was the golden land of opportunity not the land of equal outcome.

The shift from America “the land of opportunity” to America “the land of equal outcome” frayed the relationship between the Democratic Party and America. The Democratic Party platform of the 2016 presidential election exposed the unraveling marriage between Leftist Democrats and American democracy. The Left had adopted a deliberate strategy to destroy American democracy and replace it with a new romance – globalism.

The Leftists claim they “outgrew” their partner, they are “progressive” and want globalism and an internationalized new world order not an old outdated democracy. There were irreconcilable differences. The New America that the Leftists envision is an internationalized collective with open borders that provides cradle-to-grave government care and guarantees equal outcome. The Left mislabels itself as “progressive” when in fact it is entirely regressive in its infantile demands for rights without responsibility, goods and services without work, and a redistribution of wealth to guarantee equal outcome for workers and non-workers. The love affair was over – the divorce was final.

The Leftist Democratic Party was certain that Americans supported their shift to globalism and collectivism represented by their legacy candidate Hillary Clinton. The bobbleheads of the mainstream media were intoxicated by their inaccurate polling that assured them of victory. The globalist elite who own the mega-corporations that own the mainstream media and employ bobbleheads like Jeff Zeleny continued to disinform the American public in an effort to dupe the public into accepting a globalized unrestricted internationalized market for their goods.

And then came Donald Trump – a patriotic American still in love with America and committed to her ideals.

President Trump believes in fair global trade but unequivocally rejects globalism, internationalism, and its incremental march toward socialism and ultimate goal of one-world government. President Donald Trump is an unapologetic America-first patriot who believes in American sovereignty, American democracy, and American multiculturalism through legal immigration and assimilation. President Trump brings a mature love of country back to American politics – a return to the emotionally adult perspective of the early immigrants who embraced the responsibilities that accompany the rights and freedoms of American citizenship and insure its privileges.

President Donald Trump is diametrically opposed to the childish escape from freedom that is socialism. He understands the deceitful trade-off in socialism: the government trades “free stuff” for complete control of the population who have unwittingly surrendered their individual freedoms guaranteed by the “old” democracy. Socialism is not fair trade. President Trump has exposed the staggering corruption in politics that seeks absolute control over the American population disguised as altruism.

CNN White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny would have gotten it 100% correct had he described President Trump’s speech in Warsaw as a contemporary expression of President Kennedy’s famous inaugural speech. JFK lead the Old Democratic Party still married to American ideals and American democracy. JFK inspired a mature love of country requiring the responsibilities that accompany the rights of American citizenship and insure the privileges of American democracy:

“And so my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country.” And then Kennedy addressing his international audience continued, “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.”

President Donald Trump’s Warsaw speech was an affirmation of American democracy and love of country – an America first kind of speech from an American President still married to America and American democracy.

History the World Chooses to Forget

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The Second World War is over and much of Europe is a wasteland. Millions of displaced persons roam the ravaged landscape in the wake of German Nazi devastation. Millions more are dead but none of the citizens of Europe have suffered disproportionally more than its Jewish remnant.

At the beginning of 1933, when Hitler assumed power by exploiting the democratic process, which he then castoff with the acquiescence of the German populace and the industrial, military, government complex, there were in the world some 18,000,000 members of the Jewish faith.

By the war’s end in 1945, there were barely 12 million Jews left. The one third who had fallen under German occupation and their European fascist allies had been beaten, starved, gassed and systematically exterminated; including one and half million children.

Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, might have been saved and allowed to find refuge in their ancestral and biblical homeland of Israel, but for a document known as the White Paper.

This unilateral act was created by the British government in 1939 under the premiership of the arch appeaser and self-righteous Neville Chamberlain – he who had come back from meeting Hitler with a piece of paper fluttering in the wind, announcing “peace in our time.”

The Land in which Jews had established their biblical and post-biblical patrimony since time immemorial was then known by its geographical term, Palestine; a name resurrected by the British Mandatory government, which had been awarded the Mandate over the territory by the League of Nations in 1922.

This was the name imposed upon ancient Jewish Judea by the Roman emperor, Hadrian, after he had defeated the second Jewish revolt against Rome’s pitiless occupation in the year 135 AD.

Hadrian chose to rename Judea (the name from which the word Jew derives) – Philistia after the Jews’ hated biblical enemy the Philistines – a sea people originating from Crete who became extinct over a thousand years earlier.

And here it is vital to understand that at no time throughout recorded history has there ever been an independent sovereign state called Palestine: Certainly never an Arab state.

That 1939 White Paper was produced by the Chamberlain government in an act of capitulation to the pro-Nazi Arabs who demanded that Jewish immigration into the Jews’ ancestral homeland be prevented. The White Paper was never submitted for approval to the Council of the League of Nations.

Thus Britain limited Jewish immigration to 75,000 people for five years, after which it would cease altogether. The pernicious influence of Arab oil also played a part in Britain’s decision.

World War Two broke out in September, 1939 and lasted five years. This was the five year death sentence for 6,000,000 Jews in German occupied Europe who were barred by Britain from rescue in Palestine.

The British Mandatory government controlling Palestine shut the gates of the territory for the duration of the war and after to Jews attempting to flee the German Nazi juggernaut of death.

Britain, which rose in anger at the use of brute German force in Poland, alas did not hesitate to use force against Jewish refugees clamoring to escape from the horrors of the German Reich.

It is interesting to note that the lie to Chamberlain’s fear of Arab hostility and oil blackmail was given earlier by British Secretary of State for the Colonies, Malcolm McDonald.

In a House of Commons debate on November 24, 1938 he was obliged to admit the advantages to the local Arabs of any additional Jewish immigration to the long established existing Jewish community in the territory. He said:

“The Arabs cannot say that the Jews are driving them out of the country. If not a single Jew had come to Palestine after 1918, I believe that the Arab population would still have been around 600,000 at which it had been stable under Turkish rule.

It is because the Jews who have come to Palestine bring with them modern health services and other advances that Arabs who would have been dead are alive today and that Arab children who would have never drawn breath have been born and grown strong.”

The League of Nations grant to Britain of the Palestine Mandate was given with the express purpose of incorporating into it the earlier British government’s 1917 Balfour Declaration facilitating the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.

Furthermore, the British were instructed to “use their best endeavors to facilitate Jewish immigration.” Tragically the White Paper and the subsequent British blockade against Jews fleeing the Holocaust in whatever ships they could find – usually unseaworthy hulks – was a betrayal of all such earlier commitments.

In November, 1941, two ships – the Pacific and the Milos – arrived in Haifa with 1,771 Jewish refugees. The human cargo was forcibly herded aboard another ship, the S.S. Patria and ordered to sail by the British authorities to the then unhealthy tropical island of Mauritius where the hapless refugees would be interned.

While still docked in Haifa, a mysterious explosion ripped through the ship and 250 passengers were killed. Interestingly of the Jewish survivors, 82 young men immediately volunteered for service in the British army despite the suffering they had endured.

Similarly, another ship, the Darien arrived also at Haifa carrying some 793 Jews from Rumania and Bulgaria fleeing the Nazi death machine. Half were skilled workers and farmers eager to contribute to defeating civilization’s nemesis: Hitler. The British Command in Palestine placed them in a prison camp where five of them went insane.

And then there was the searing tragedy of the Struma. Writing in her powerful blog, Sarah Honig recounts the appalling treatment meted out to the Jewish refugees on the unseaworthy craft by Britain, Turkey and an unfeeling world. She writes about the floating coffin as follows:

“The Struma was a 115 year old leaking Danube River cattle barge. Some 769 Jewish refugees, including many young men fit for work or army service, were on board. So were some two hundred women and 70 children.”

Ms. Honig continues:

“The ordeal of these hapless refugees began in December, 1941 and ended on February 23, 1942 in front of a watching but unfeeling world. On December 12, the unseaworthy hulk entered the harbor at Istanbul, Turkey. It had no fuel or water left on board. Britain pressed the Turkish officials NOT to let any of the Jews leave the crippled hulk. A sign with the word “Help” was suspended over the ship’s side but in vain.”

On February 15, the British announced they’d make an exception in the case of Struma children aged 11 to 16, but the British authorities denied entry to the other children, including babies. All could have been allowed into Mandatory Palestine.

No doubt Hitler and the Nazi High Command, watching intently at a world caring nothing for the Jews on the Struma, were encouraged to pursue with even greater ferocity their extermination of European Jewry. The same demonic attitude that much of the world displayed towards the friendless Jews on that floating coffin is repeated today as it shrugs off the never ending Arab and Muslim aggression the embattled Jewish state endures day after day.

Only when Israel, goaded beyond endurance, fights back to defend its people does much of the world suddenly take notice and display its endemic anti-Israel hostility.

Ms. Honig continues:

“On February 23, the Turks ordered the Struma to leave the port and head out into the open sea but not before truncheon wielding Turkish policeman had viciously clubbed the frightened and desperate passengers. Despite resistance from the refugees, the anchor was cut, the Struma was towed out and was left paralyzed, to drift precariously without supplies or a drop of fuel.”

Finally the following day an explosion tore the ship apart. While the surviving passengers struggled to hold onto anything that still floated, a Soviet submarine torpedoed the stricken barge and it sank immediately in the Black Sea. As Sarah Honig writes:

“It is estimated that as many as 500 were killed outright by the blast. The rest flailed feebly in the waves, till they expired of wounds, fatigue and hypothermia.”

Tragically the British nation, which had risked its life to prevent the triumph of Nazi Germany, chose to deny refuge and sovereignty to the Nazis’ first victims.

Contrast the horrific manner in which those true Jewish refugees were treated with that of  the millions of Muslims welcomed into Europe who then wreak violence and rapine upon their European rescuers.

VIDEO: Russian Hacking in 3 Minutes by Stefan Molyneux

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In this video Stefan Molyneux  addresses the issue of Russian hacking in just 3 minuted.

Molyneux states:

Many Democrats believe that Russian hackers targeted the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta, providing private information about Hillary Clinton to Wikileaks which ultimately swung the U.S. Presidential election to Donald Trump. If we accept this theory as true, Stefan Molyneux puts it into the proper perspective and highlights it’s outright absurdity.

RELATED ARTICLE: A Russia collusion story worth pursuing

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Run, Hide, Perish – Survival Do’s and Don’ts from Across the Pond

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The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) advises persons at risk of harm from an active shooter to “Run, Hide, Fight” (in that order), recommending “fight” – incapacitating or “attempt[ing] to take the active shooter down” – if all else fails.

In the United Kingdom, police and counter-terrorism authorities like the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the London Metropolitan Police promote a different version for surviving a firearms or weapons attack at home (and recently, abroad). The last step in their “Run, Hide, Tell” directs victims to turn off their cell phones and only call the police once it’s safe to do so.

This is peculiar advice even in a jurisdiction that gives its subjects almost no legal options for arming and defending themselves (here, here, here and here). What if running or hiding aren’t safe or even available alternatives? How will a person in hiding know when it’s safe to call the police? What if law enforcement doesn’t arrive quickly or find the victims in time?

The London Bridge attack last month offers a real-life example of how such violence may unfold. The attack began when terrorists drove their van at high speed into unsuspecting pedestrians on the pavement along the bridge. After mowing down several people, the three van occupants embarked on a stabbing spree through bars and restaurants in the heart of London. News reports confirm that police officers arrived within eight minutes or so of the first call to emergency services and eventually shot dead the three attackers, but not before the assailants had killed eight people and injured 48 others.

In the interim, several individuals fought back. In one restaurant, Roy Larner, armed with just his bare hands and his resolve, fended off all three attackers, a tactic that allowed the other patrons to escape. (Perhaps mindful of the official security directive, Larner’s friends brought him a jogging magazine captioned “Learn to run” to enjoy while recuperating in hospital.) Construction worker Gerard Vowls, who intervened when he saw the terrorist trio stabbing a young woman, described how he “pick[ed] up bottles, threw a chair at them, [bar] stools, [pint] glasses, anything I could get my hands on.” Although his desperate actions didn’t save that young woman, two other women claim his actions enabled them to get safely away.

Even as violent crime rates in England and Wales climb upward – with “double digit” increases in murder, sexual offense, robbery, and knife crimes reported in 2016 – local politicians reacted in horror to the mere suggestion that it was worth examining the possibility of registered firearms licensees using their guns to defend themselves or to assist the police during a terrorist attack.  On the same day that the Devon and Cornwall Police and Crime Commissioner offhandedly commented that this could be something to explore officially – without actually approving or endorsing the notion – the Devon and Cornwall Police released an official statement denouncing the remarks. “Under no circumstances would we want members of the public to arm themselves with firearms… Our message to the public is a simple one: to run, to hide and to tell.”

Interestingly, the statement adds the qualification that British police services “will require an uplift in resources in response to the unprecedented threats we are currently facing.” In much the same vein, earlier this year the then Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, warned that the surge in crime, along with resource constraints, meant law enforcement would be forced to prioritize service delivery, with “rationing” of police responses and officer deployments.

Unfortunately, with no legal recourse to self-defense products, there’s not much except the police to keep ordinary individuals from becoming potential victims of violent crime. “Run, Hide, Tell” is pointless if there’s no one to “tell” and the police are busy dealing with other emergencies.

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Court to Texas College Professors: Your Irrational Fear of Gun Owners Is Not Legally Addressable

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Last Thursday, a federal judge in Austin, Texas, dismissed a lawsuit by several professors who sought to block the University of Texas from implementing a state law that provides for the lawful carrying of concealed handguns on campus. The case is Glass v. Paxton.

In a filing with the court, one of the professors claimed that the presence of armed students in their classrooms would impede their “ability to create a daring, intellectually active, mutually supportive, and engaged community of thinkers.” The court, however, noted the plaintiffs did not specify what subject matter or point of view they expected to be suppressed. Instead, the judge wrote, they appeared to claim that they would censor their own opinions for fear that an armed student would harm someone.

Yet the judge stated that the professors’ “subjective fear” that an unnamed, unknown student would be moved to future violence because of a differing opinion was based on “mere conjecture.” The judge accordingly ruled that the plaintiffs had not articulated enough of an injury for the court to have standing to hear the case.  Stripped of its legal jargon, Thursday’s ruling basically states that the professors’ own rank biases against law-abiding concealed carriers does not constitute a legally addressable injury. 

Because the judge ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing, he did not opine on the substance of their novel First and Second Amendment claims. We had discussed the implausibility of those claims at length in a prior article on the case. It’s particularly notable that the learned professors hoped to convince the court that the Second Amendment itself REQUIRES the university to BAN law-abiding students from possessing firearms on campus.

Stripped of its legal jargon, Thursday’s ruling basically states that the professors’ own rank biases against law-abiding concealed carriers does not constitute a legally addressable injury. The UT professors bootstrapped their claims essentially by insisting that their own irrational prejudice of lawful concealed carriers was so acute that it would cause the professors to avoid expressing opinions they themselves believed would be offensive. The court in this case wisely chose not to entertain or dignify this self-delusion.

This makes sense. Campus carry is hardly a new or isolated phenomenon, and there is no evidence (or intuitive force) to support the idea that differences of academic opinions will lead otherwise law-abiding carriers to suddenly become violent toward classmates or instructors. Indeed, as economist and former university instructor John Lott recently reiterated, concealed carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding of Americans. It’s ironic that a group of professors supposedly taking a stand for academic freedom did so with such a paucity of empirical or evidentiary support and on such highly emotional grounds.

Unfortunately for the Constitution and for whatever legitimacy remains in higher education, Thursday’s ruling may not be the end of the case. The plaintiffs could still ask the judge to clarify or reconsider his decision or appeal it to a higher court. Considering their unique legal claims, we don’t expect the professors will be deterred from doing so by the sound legal reasoning of the judgement against them.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Run, Hide, Perish – Survival Do’s and Don’ts from Across the Pond

Gun Control Groups: Good at Gloating, Bad at Counting on Advancing National Reciprocity Effort

Commerce Subcommittee Chairman John Culberson Steers Pro-Gun Spending Bill to House Floor