9th Circuit, once again, throws monkey wrench into U.S. Refugee Admissions Program

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Groups like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and International Refugee Assistance Project, with their lawsuits through friendly courts, have so perverted the legal process that has been in place since 1980 for admitting refugees that there is even more reason for President Donald Trump to simply suspend the USRAP for FY18 which begins in 22 days.

Here is the latest crowing at the New York Times about how the recent 9th Circuit decision will allow more refugees to be admitted to the US.

But, but, but….

No where does the NYT article mention that the Supreme Court did affirm the President’s legal right to set a CEILING for the fiscal year and that Trump did set it once he was sworn in at 50,000.  We are now at 51,726 (as of this writing).  This is the first time in the history of the program that the ceiling has been exceeded. 

Any day now Donald Trump could set the CEILING for Fiscal year 2018 that begins on October 1 making moot so much of this legal wrangling.

All of this language created out of thin air by the Supreme Court—this “bona fide relationship” BS—is not in refugee law.

My argument again is that since the courts (including the Supremes) have so mangled refugee law (with the help of these political agitators) that the program should be suspended beginning October 1 to give CONGRESS and the President time assess the program and to regain their Constitutional authority to write and administer law!

The Refugee Act of 1980 does not mandate any number that a President must admit.  He can set the level at zero! He can do that without any executive order via his September ‘determination’ required under the Act!

If he sets the level at zero at the outset, he also takes away any claim the contractors have to having been promised (via contract/agreement) by the Dept. of State that they will be getting a certain number of paying clients (aka refugees) in the coming year.

Here is the New York Times helping to further muddy the public’s understanding of how refugee admissions to the US are processed.

Rebecca Heller, director of the International Refugee Assistance Project.

LOS ANGELES — A federal appeals court on Thursday reopened the country’s door to thousands of refugees who had been temporarily blocked by President Trump’s travel ban, and also upheld a lower court decision that had exempted grandparents and other relatives from the ban. [Thousands in 22 days?—ed]

The ruling, from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Seattle, was cheered by refugee resettlement organizations,*** and clarified, for now, who was covered by the ban.

In June, the Supreme Court allowed parts of President Trump’s executive order temporarily barring all travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries, and all refugees, to take effect while the court considered arguments over whether such a ban was constitutional. But the court said the government should let in travelers and refugees with a “bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States,” without fully defining what that meant.  [There is no “bona fide” relationship standard in refugee law! Bona fide dies when the executive order dies unless Congress rewrites the law and the President signs it!—ed]

[….]

They also said that working with a resettlement agency*** meets the standard for a “bona fide” relationship with an entity in the United States.

[….]

The United States refugee resettlement program virtually ground to a halt at the end of June as a result of the travel ban. Since then, the government has frozen the applications of individuals already assigned to a resettlement agency, unless they could show ties to a close family member in the United States. Some 24,000 refugees were affected, the court noted in its opinion.

The court mandated that the government resume resettling refugees in the United States beginning in five days.

Becca Heller, director of International Refugee Assistance Project, an organization that provides free legal assistance to refugees abroad and has sued the government over the ban, said Thursday, “I am thrilled that two courts have now recognized the importance of the decades-old relationship between refugees and the American families, communities and organizations that help them resettle.”

More here.

The Dept. of Justice said they will appeal (to the Supreme Court) this latest legal overreach by the 9th Circuit.

If the Leftist resettlement agencies*** had never gotten involved, accepted the 120-day moratorium, it would be long over now and they would be back to their normal process.

And, so since this whole exercise will be moot shortly, what have the refugee advocacy and contracting agencies*** gained from these legal machinations?

They have gained an enormous anti-Trump media campaign, that’s what!

Tell the President and Congress that the US Refugee Admissions Program should be suspended for fiscal year 2018!

*** For new readers, these are the Federal contractors/middlemen/employment agencies/propagandists/lobbyists/community organizers? paid by you to place refugees in your towns and cities listed below.  Under the nine major contractors are hundreds of subcontractors.

The contractors income is largely dependent on taxpayer dollars based on the number of refugees admitted to the US, but they also receive myriad grants to service their “New Americans.”

If you are a good-hearted soul and think refugee resettlement is all about humanitarianism, think again! Big businesses/global corporations depend on the free flow of cheap (some call it slave) labor.  It is for this reason that Republican leaders of Congress are supportive of an uninterrupted flow of refugees into America.

The only way for real reform of how the US admits refugees is to remove these contractors/Leftwing activists/big business head hunters from the process.

As far as I know, all of the contractors below supported the lawsuits that Ms. Heller and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society filed.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

HIAS conference call informative; but appears to be in the dark about FY18 Presidential determination on refugees

Letter to media: “discredited” SPLC should be ignored

San Diego IRC office gets slap on wrist from U.S. State Department

The Top Three Arguments against a Universal Basic Income

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Unfortunately, a welfare state by any other name is still a welfare state. Brittany Hunter — by  Brittany Hunter

Every so often a new study is released, concluding that a universal basic income (UBI) is needed to fix this country’s welfare system. Most recently, the Roosevelt Institute claimed that switching to a UBI system could actually grow the economy by $2.5 trillion by the year 2025.

The study is full of hypothetical situations in which Americans receive a UBI of varying amounts. The research concludes that the higher the UBI, the more prosperous the economy. But like many UBI apologists, the study misses the major problems with such a system. Here are the three main ones:

1. It’s Expensive

Proponents claim that the UBI would be an efficient replacement for the country’s bloated welfare apparatus, and so would actually reduce overall costs.

Unfortunately, a welfare state by any other name is still a welfare state. And the UBI is just replacing one pricey system for another. And unlike the current welfare state, which has standards for determining who qualifies for certain aid, a UBI would be given to everyone. This would dramatically increase the pool of citizens receiving benefits from the state and inflict massive expenses across the board.

The Roosevelt Institute study posits two different ways to fund the UBI. But neither would benefit the national economy or the taxpayer. The study’s “positive” findings about economic stimulation are only applicable if the program is funded by increasing the federal deficit. So basically, in order to “grow” our economy, we must first plunge the American people even further into debt.

The second scenario presented in the report was a UBI funded through increased taxation. In this instance, the study found no net benefit to the overall national economy. In fact the report even went so far as to state:

When paying for the policy by increasing taxes on households rather than paying for the policy with debt, the policy is not expansionary. In effect, it is giving to households with one hand what it is taking away with the other. There is no net effect.”

There would be an effect, however, on the American taxpayer. When the Resolution Foundation, a think tank in the UK crunched the numbers to see what the cost would be to the taxpayer, they found that the amount paid would actually be much more than the amount received.

Commenting on the problems with the UBI as they related specifically for the UK, Robert Colvile writes:

…From the first pound you earned to the £43,001st, you’d pay a combined rate of income tax and National Insurance of around 35-40 per cent, after which the higher rate of tax would kick in as normal. In other words, to get that £3,692 from the Government, you’d pay thousands of pounds more.”

What this type of proposal really means is that a vast sum of people will be paying more in taxes than they already do. Colvile also notes that “In fact, it would represent a transfer of £120 billion of extra taxation into the welfare state – the equivalent of the entire budget of the NHS in England.”

If this is the case for the UK, it would most certainly be the case for the US.

This money has to come from somewhere. It will not appear out of thin air. And unfortunately, it is the American people who would be stuck with the bill for a grandiose UBI system.

2. Incentives Work, Handouts Don’t

Incentives are a powerful force. And there is no greater incentive than financial security and holding a job is essential to that end. When something comes easy, it is easily taken for granted. And while it would be nice to believe otherwise, giving cash handouts to every American incentivizes them to try that much less.

By removing the financial incentive to work, the state is encouraging idleness, something contrary to the entrepreneurial spirit so deeply woven throughout our country’s history.

During the Clinton era, the welfare state saw tremendous decreases. But that didn’t mean there were millions of Americans struggling to get by. Employment actually increased because individuals were incentivized to get jobs when there was no longer a guaranteed safety net.

3. The Welfare State Isn’t Going Anywhere

As previously mentioned, there are always claims that a UBI could decrease, reform, or even abolish our welfare system. But no one seems to have any idea as to how this transition would actually look.

This is because there is no transitory plan in place. And any such plan that came to fruition would surely be political suicide since you run the risk of angering someone. And for politicians who rely on the support and approval of their constituents, this is sure to bring some unwanted criticisms.

Anyone in the policy realm knows that there is no better way to alienate older constituents than threatening to take away their Social Security benefits. In fact, even the mere mention of decreases usually causes rooms of senior citizens to fear for their well being. Even if there is an alternative plan presented to them, it does not calm the fears of what might happen during the transitionary period. It is for this reason that Social Security is often called the “third rail” of politics.

Additionally, trying to get individuals transitioned off of one welfare plan, and into the next requires, at least temporarily, the funding of both programs. A decision to enact a UBI would not magically abolish the American welfare system. America’s welfare programs have been around for so long, it would take time to unroot it. Too many people have become reliant on our welfare state to have it simply wiped out overnight.

And who is going to pay for the process in the meantime? Well, the American taxpayer of course.

If anything, incorporating a UBI in America would most likely result in an additional layer of the welfare being added on top of our existing programs. This would, in effect, increase the state’s power rather than decrease it. Governments are rarely keen on relinquishing their power, and there is great power in controlling the welfare of the citizenry. It is therefore highly unlikely that the welfare state as we know it today would simply cease to exist.

There Is No Welfare Utopia

Bastiat famously said, “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” This is exactly why any form of welfare state is bound to fail. You cannot take from one, give to another and expect everyone’s hardships to be solved.

The UBI creates the illusion of decreasing the welfare state when the facts of the matter all point to the contrary. Everyone would like to live in a society where no one wanted for anything and everyone was provided for. But we live in a society of individuals with individual aspirations and goals. Pretending that we can centrally plan a welfare system with so many distinct wants and needs is unrealistic and unobtainable.

Our current system cannot be maintained because it’s too expensive. Period. Already programs like Social Security are projected to run out of money within the next decade and there is no plan for how to approach this coming storm. Why would anyone think broader welfare state situation would be any different?

If we cannot financially maintain our current system, it would be an unwise to believe we could somehow afford a UBI. As Colvile says when comparing one welfare system with the other, “It’s old wine in new bottles – redistributive, seventies-style taxation under a trendy new branding.”

Brittany Hunter

Brittany Hunter

Brittany Hunter is an associate editor at FEE. Brittany studied political science at Utah Valley University with a minor in Constitutional studies.

Even by Its Own Standards, Communism Has Failed Miserably

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For all its dreams of abolishing class, communism ended in highly stratified societies. Marian L. Tupy — by  Marian L. Tupy

Recently, I came across a letter that Estonian Justice Minister Urmas Reinsalu sent to his Greek counterpart, Stavros Kontonis. The letter was prompted by the Greek politician’s refusal to attend a conference on the crimes of communism that Reinsalu had organized and by his observation that communist rule had some “positive aspects.”

After thanking Kontonis, a communist deputy for the island of Zakynthos, for responding to the invite, Reinsalu’s letter recounts the crimes of communism, especially those committed by the Soviets in Estonia.

He notes that, as Justice Ministers, the two share a duty to defend human rights and asserts that it “makes no difference to a victim if he is murdered in the name of a better future for the Aryan race or because he belongs to a social class that has no place in a communist society.” While I agree with much in Reinsalu’s letter and assume that it will convince most people, I wonder if those kinds of arguments are convincing to self-declared communists, like Stavros Kontonis.

Why, for example, should Reinsalu expect a communist to agree that capitalists ought to enjoy the same rights as everyone else? It is a central part of Marxist thought that capitalists are parasitic oppressors of the working class and, as such, the main cause of social problems. Their very existence, therefore, is incompatible with the ideals of a communist society.

How Can We Evaluate Different Systems?

Lenin, who was the first man to succeed in implementing Marx’s ideas in practice, saw the need for extermination of the enemies of communism clearly. The French revolutionaries, he wrote of the Communards in 1908, were guilty of excessive generosity. They should have “exterminated” their enemies. In “Lessons of the Commune”, he committed himself to “cleansing of Russia’s soil of all harmful insects, of scoundrel fleas, of bedbugs.” Hitler would echo those sentiments in Mein Kampf two decades later.

We can evaluate political and economic systems on the basis of their declared objectives and on the basis of opportunity costs.

Being a libertarian, I abhor violence and put a high value on liberty. Furthermore, having spent my childhood in Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia, I am instinctively drawn to Reinsalu’s side. Unfortunately, evaluating communism from liberal precepts, like Reinsalu does, is insufficient, because people’s ethics differ. The British Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm was attracted to equality. He felt that the killing of 20 million people in the pursuit of a classless society was a price worth paying. Put differently, arguing about communism from first principles does not get us very far.

To make matters even more complicated, it is difficult to think of any political and economic system that did not, in the words of the Greek Justice Minister, also have some “positive aspects”. European imperialism, for example, introduced modern technologies and medicines to sub-Saharan Africa. Italian fascism is often credited with making the trains run on time. German National Socialists tackled high unemployment and built fabulous motorways. Soviet communism industrialised a peasant society.

To be crystal clear, I am not suggesting that the “positive aspects” of imperialism, fascism, National Socialism and communism justify human suffering. I am merely recognizing that such “positive aspects” exist.

So, again, how do we evaluate political and economic systems in the absence of agreement on the principles that should underpin an ideal human society? I am not sure that it can be done, but two intellectual exercises can, perhaps, help us to think these issues through. We can evaluate political and economic systems on the basis of their declared objectives and on the basis of opportunity costs.

Failing Their Objectives

One of the chief goals of communism, for example, was the creation of a classless society. It was to that end that Soviets killed millions of industrialists, financiers, shop owners, successful peasants and other “parasites.” But, as the New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith observed in his, in my view unsurpassed, examination of the Soviet Union, Russia under communism was a highly stratified society.

In his 1974 bestseller The Russians, Smith noted that members of the Soviet politburo and their families occupied the highest perch in the Soviet society, enjoying access to special shops, schools and hospitals, as well as virtual immunity from persecution, unsupervised trips abroad and free access to Western publications. Other high-value citizens, including, by his own admission, the nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov, enjoyed perks that ordinary Russians could only dream about.

The old class divisions may have been eliminated, but a new class structure – one based on the perceived usefulness of the individual to the survival of the communist regime – replaced it. Thus, communism was a failure not only according to the moral precept of non-violence and respect for human rights that Reinsalu and I share, but also according to the objectives that communists had set for themselves.

(Incidentally, the social stratification that Smith observed in the USSR emerged in all communist societies. Milovan Djilas found it in Tito’s Yugoslavia and Vaclav Havel described it in Husak’s Czechoslovakia. Today, social stratification can be observed first hand in Castro’s Cuba and, in its most extreme form, in Kim’s North Korea.)

Communism can also be evaluated on the basis of opportunity costs or actual outcomes of competing political and economic arrangements in divided societies, such as East and West Germany, North and South Korea, and, to a large extent, Hong Kong and China.

Income Equality

In all those cases, people of the same ethnicity, culture and history found themselves living under two diametrically opposed systems – capitalism and communism. To my knowledge, there is not a single indicator of human well-being where communism achieved superior outcomes to capitalism.

Put differently, had communist societies not been communist, but capitalist, they would have been further ahead on such measures of human well-being as life expectancy, advanced medical care, personal income, nutrition, tertiary education, etc. Ah, but I can hear Stavros Kontonis and his fellow travelers object, what about income inequality?

Let us, for the sake of argument, grant that income equality is a desirable social goal – even if it leads to stunted growth and, consequently, lower incomes in the long run. That still does not mean that communism succeeded, where capitalism had failed.

Related to my point about stratification of communist societies, top members of the communist party in all communist countries enjoyed salaries, perks and privileges that ordinary people did not. Again, one only needs to look at the vastly differing lifestyles of Kim Jong-Un and his acolytes, as opposed to the vast multitude of ordinary North Koreans, to see that.

In conclusion, in the absence of a shared moral framework, evaluation of differing political and economic systems is more complex than it may first appear. That said, communism was a failure even by the standards that communists set for themselves.

Reprinted from CapX.

Marian L. Tupy

Marian L. Tupy

Marian L. Tupy is the editor of HumanProgress.org and a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.

Yes, the Alt-Left Exists and It’s Terrifying by Keri Smith

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For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading. — Keri Smith Keri Smith

When writing this piece, a quote kept rattling around in the back of my head. It was the title of the opening chapter of “The Feminine Mystique,” Betty Friedan’s seminal 1963 feminist manifesto: The Problem That Has No Name. Apologies in advance, for appropriating and altering three of the quotes I find most meaningful from that chapter, for my own purposes here:

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American liberals…

Even so, most liberals still did not know that this problem was real. But those who had faced it honestly knew that all the media dismissals, the academic justifications, the intellectualized double speak and the manufactured outrage were somehow drowning the problem in unreality…

How can any person see the whole truth within the bounds of one’s own life? How can she believe that voice inside herself, when it denies the conventional, accepted truths by which she has been living? And yet the liberals I have talked to, who are finally listening to that inner voice, seem in some incredible way to be groping through to a truth that has defied the media.”

How can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

The Alt-Left Is Real

There is an effort underfoot, in the media and in academia, to declare the Alt-Left a myth, to sweep it back under the rug, to reduce it, in effect, back to being a sickness not spoken of, a problem that has no name. I have had well-meaning friends tell me I should not use the term Alt-Left (or any of its synonyms: Regressive Left, CTRL-Left, SJWism) because they are ‘pejoratives’ used only by the right to attack the left.

In my experience, this is not true. Like canaries in the coal mine, liberals who do not (or no longer) subscribe to the Alt-Left ideology have been sounding the alarm about this creeping plague of repressive groupthink for quite a while now. I believe this attempt to dissuade our use of the term Alt-Left is purposeful (even if not consciously recognized by individuals who are doing it) — for how can we discuss something we cannot refer to by name?

When asked to define Alt-Left, I would describe it as a leftist but illiberal authoritarian ideology rooted in postmodernism and neo-Marxism that supports censorship, condones violence in response to speech, is obsessed with identity politics (much like the Alt-Right), and functions like a secular religion that gives its believers a sense of moral self-worth.

It masquerades as a form of liberalism, but it has more in common with authoritarianism than its true believers can (or want to?) admit. It claims to speak for the marginalized, but it either ignores or attempts to hatefully shame members of marginalized groups who do not subscribe to the ideology.

It is not simply Antifa; it is the ideology that undergirds Antifa, and it has swallowed much of BLM and intersectional third wave feminism. It wishes to swallow the whole of the left, the country, the world. It is rooted in nihilism, resentfulness, and arrogance, though it presents itself as being rooted in equality, justice, and morality. It favors collectivism over individualism, statism over liberty, forced equality of outcome over freedom.

Now…imagine if I had to say that mouthful every time I wished to talk about the Alt-Left because I bought into the notion that to give it a name it would be insulting to fellow liberals. No, to speak of it by name is to out it for what it is and to reduce some of its power.

What’s in a Name?

I can’t tell you how good it felt when I first discovered the work of Dave Rubin, a reasonable liberal, and realized I wasn’t alone in seeing this pernicious belief system for what it really is.In his video, Rubin offers that it doesn’t matter which term we use, what’s important is that we are allowed to identify the problem. “Whatever name you use for this well-meaning yet painfully misguided set of ideas is largely irrelevant. We needed this phrase to identify this backward ideology which puts groups before people. And sometimes you need a label to get people to understand an idea.”

Reasonable liberal Maajid Nawaz, widely credited with coining the term Regressive Left, also made the following observation last year:

Today’s active, organized left is no longer liberal. A liberal will always prioritize free speech over offense. This behavior, censorship on the organized left, post factual behavior, violence being seen as an option and prioritizing group identity over individual rights. That isn’t liberal.”

Do yourself a favor and watch the whole video:

Yet another reasonable liberal, Tim Pool, points out that one of the few things Politico gets right about the Alt-Left is that it is a term used by centrist liberals. Pool says, “Yes, I use the term Alt-Left because I want to make sure everybody knows when I say I’m left-leaning, I’m not the kind of person that’s gonna go out and punch somebody in the face or take away their rights because I think mine are more important.”

I’m also a liberal who’s been using the term Alt-Left since I first learned to trust that voice within myself, that voice that denies the conventional, accepted Alt-Left “truths” by which I had been living.

The first time I used it in a public piece of writing was back in May while attempting to articulate my transformation in belief systems in an essay called On Leaving the SJW Cult and Finding Myself. The essay itself was a long time coming. I started to wake up to the creeping authoritarianism and endless internal hypocrisies of the accepted Alt-Left ideology over a year ago. But leaving behind a belief system to which you’ve subscribed for twenty years is a bit like razing your house to the ground and rebuilding from the ground up.

Suddenly you are starting with nothing; everything you thought you knew is suspect. It takes a long time to evaluate each previously held belief and try to discern which ones hold substance. Where before my house had foolishly been built on the shifting sands of postmodernism, this time I want to ensure that, as Dr. Jordan Peterson might say, my house is built on rock.

It makes me think of George Lakoff’s “Don’t Think of an Elephant,” my first introduction to the concept of framing. Lackoff said “Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world….Neuroscience tells us that each of the concepts we have — the long-term concepts that structure how we think — is instantiated in the synapses of our brains…If a strongly held frame doesn’t fit the facts, the facts will be ignored and the frame will be kept.”

I devoured this book when a young SJW. It helped me understand how people could vote Republican and why my right-wing Aunt didn’t seem to be swayed to my point of view no matter how many facts I threw at her. What I didn’t think too much about was how this human tendency is just as prevalent on the left as it is on the right.

The Frog and the Pot

I am of the opinion that a lot of well-meaning people have become converts to the Alt-Left ideology without even realizing it. Like the parable of the slow boiling frog, if you had told me at the beginning that one day I’d be expected to perform mental gymnastics in order to defend censorship and violence in response to speech, I would have leaped from the pot.

Instead, I was conditioned to accept as gospel each new tenet of SJWism over a period of twenty years. I believed in the essential goodness of the ideology, and in my own essential goodness in preaching it. When facts about the direction it was taking me made themselves known to me, I rejected them because they did not fit the frame. As the ideology became more noticeably toxic, hypocritical, and authoritarian, so too did the tactics of the true believers. Whether in academia, in the media, at Google, or online — the message is clear: dare to step out of line or express an independent thought, and a mob of zealous SJW zombies will come for you. The fear of losing one’s job, status, friends or personal safety is a strong motivator in forcing reasonable people to remain silent.

I have received a lot of positive feedback about the sentiments expressed in my writing about SJWism from people all over the political spectrum. Most meaningful to me of these might be the messages I get from fellow liberals who are going through the same realization, confusion, and fear.

In addition to the public responses you can read yourself, I have received private messages from people in academia, journalism, and entertainment — many of them liberals — expressing that the piece resonated with them and that they were afraid to share it (or presumably in some cases, to express themselves about anything at all). Excerpts from a handful of these are below:

I honestly was scared to tweet that…that’s how bad things have gotten. I’ve nearly lost work…The world has gone mad.”

“I have definitely taken notice of so many of my friends on the left going to a dark place.”

“It is totally wild. These people are my friends — my community….They’re so angry.”

“…your piece on the social justice cult affected me more than words can say. After being called ‘violent’…because I used a word that someone decided was offensive…I had a bit of an existential crisis about my life and self-worth. Thus, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit… I remain committed to the idea that privilege exists and it should be combated through both self-reflection and system action. I also am a proud liberal, and that hasn’t lessened. That said, I can’t get behind the individual scapegoating, shouting and intimidation in the name of fighting hate, or defining sharing a point of view as “educating” and “labor.” Ultimately, the world needs more compassion….I’m trying to get there on talking and writing about some of this a little more publicly, but I don’t think I’m quite there yet (also, the fact that I’m on the academic job market makes me a bit hesitant).” 

“I saw your posts and they were refreshing. I hate politics but free speech is so important to me….but then I remember I work in TV and Music and I can’t say anything that’s going to make me lose my job. It’s crazy what’s going on right now.”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m one of those people who greatly appreciates your voice on social media, but am too afraid of the thought police to voice my support.”

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves?

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

If the Alt-Left doesn’t exist, why are so many liberals and centrists afraid of expressing themselves? Why are so many people self-censoring for their own sense of safety? I was fascinated by the James Damore story, not because I have an opinion on the legality of his dismissal, but because his online stoning and subsequent firing confirmed for me what I already suspected: Google, like most of the tech space, the entertainment space, the academic space and the media space has become a panopticon of Alt-Left groupthink, self-censorship, and fear.

I know this fear intimately. As I started waking up to the illiberal nature of the growing Alt-Left ideology, I held my tongue for a long time out of fear of losing job opportunities, the safety of anonymity, and friends. After all, I built my career, and by proxy a lot of my friendships, from this SJW frame. I don’t judge anyone for subscribing to this ideology out of misplaced idealism and a desire to do good; I did for twenty years. Likewise, I don’t judge anyone who is currently waking up from it but is constrained by fear. As I tell folks who write me about it: I don’t know the exact way to get over it. I suspect it’s different for every person. But trust me when I tell you, it is so liberating on the other side.

For those self-identified liberals who may have been seduced by this belief system, by its propaganda, and are fuming at this piece, thank you for reading this far. I believe a part of you is struggling to wake up if you stuck it out this long. I encourage you to start listening to that small voice inside yourself, the one that tells you when something doesn’t seem quite right or reasonable, no matter if it’s accepted by all of your peers.

Take a look at who was really at the Free Speech Rally in Boston for starters. This, for example, is Shiva Ayyadurai. You may decide you don’t like him because he’s conservative, but to call him a “white supremacist” is a dangerous Alt-Left falsehood.

Take the time to listen to Will Johnson and Joey Gibson, two of the organizers of the Patriot Prayer Rally in SF this past weekend. Their rally was canceled after successful media (and political) attempts to smear them as “white supremacists” caused subsequent threats of violence from the Alt-Left. Ask yourself if it’s not odd that so many so-called liberals are now smearing people of color with whom they don’t agree as “white supremacists” (Charles Barkley is apparently one now too, so Johnson, Gibson, and Ayyadurai are not alone).

Then ask yourself if these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people or these people, or these people, or these people, or these people, or these students, or these students, or these students, or these students are really fighting fascism, or if they are acting as footsoldiers (some witting, some unwitting) for a pro-censorship and pro-violence ideology. These facts may not fit your frame, but — do the actions depicted here reflect your liberal values?

I read a C.S. Lewis quote some time ago, that has stuck with me during my transformation in thought. Perhaps it will stick with you:

“Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, ‘Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that,’ or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.”

Keri Smith

Keri Smith

Keri is Co-Founder of Whitesmith Entertainment.

Black American Says Antifa Must Not Be Tolerated

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Moving to a tiny town in the hills of West Virginia took me out of the loop for about a month; no TV or internet with horrible cell phone service and too much static on the radio to listen to Rush. Upon finally getting back on line, I learned that the airways have been dominated by a bunch of scumbag haters calling themselves Antifa.

I’m a black original member of the Tea Party movement, singer/songwriter of the “American Tea Party Anthem.” Outrageously, fake news media grants respect to Antifa which is boldly and arrogantly inciting hate and engaging in violence which fake news media falsely accused the Tea Party of doing. Fake news media’s insidious deception is the epitome of evil.

Antifa terrorists throw Molotov cocktails, urinate on police cars, burn our flag, destroy public property and physically assault anyone who disagrees with them. In my history of speaking and performing at over 500 Tea Party rallies, rally sites were left cleaner than we found them. Grandmothers typically brought cookies to share with our team. And yet, fake news media insultingly gives Antifa moral high ground over the Tea Party.

I probably sound like a broken record repeating myself. Time after time, fake news media has shown us that they have no intention of being honest, fair or balanced. Their sole purpose is to further their Leftists’ homey’s anti-American and anti-Christian socialist/progressive agenda. Being blatantly hypocritical does not deter fake news media in the least. They will do or say whatever necessary to defeat us everyday Americans; remove Trump from office to block the implementation of his make America great again agenda. Given this truth, why on earth would anyone on our side attempt to work with or please fake news media? It is insane.

Antifa poster advocating violence against Trump supporters.

It is not surprising that despicable fake news media is secretly cheering on Antifa’s violence. Meanwhile, media slime-balls are aggressively selling their lie that white supremacists represent mainstream conservatives (cookie-baking Tea Party grandmothers at rallies with their grandkids who wave American flags while singing “God Bless America”).

As I stated, I have been actively involved in the Tea Party from its beginning. Never have I witnessed any of the violence, rapes, hate-mongering racism and disrespect for private and public property we have witnessed from left-wing hate groups like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and Antifa.

It blows my mind that these spoiled brat hate groups are given respect and a pass to break the law; politicians ordering cops to stand down. Folks, why is our country tolerating such evil?

Morally bankrupt fake news media demands selective law enforcement. They believe minorities, women and illegal aliens should be allowed to break the law at will. And yet, fake news media acts as though simply disagreeing with their agenda is illegal and seek to prosecute all white, Republican and conservative offenders. As the kids say, the whole situation is “wacked” (crazy and nonsensical).

But for some reason, far too many public voices and wimpy politicians are putting up with fake news media’s dictates and their minions breaking our laws. When will someone in government have the courage to say, enough is enough? If you break the law (physically attack people, destroy property and so on) your derriere will be thrown into jail regardless of your political affiliation. I get a bit weary hearing my wife Mary angrily rant that these Leftist bullies pull their lawless stunts because they know they can; confident they will get away with it.

Remarkably, high profile Leftists who support violence against Trump supporters are treated like paragons of virtue by fake news media. This is the same media that branded the Tea Party a violent mob in the minds of millions for peacefully protesting Obama using our Constitution as toilet paper.

Due to him being a faithful viewer and fan of CNN’s Don Lemon, I had a heck of a time convincing my 80 something year old black dad that the Tea Party was not a bunch of redneck racists. “Dad, I travel the country on the Tea Party Express tour bus. I sit in the back of the bus only because there is a huge flat screen TV for me to enjoy watching football.”

During Obama’s reign of terror, fake news media promoted the lie that everything in America was sweetness and light. Time prevents me from listing all the pain, suffering and tyranny Americans experienced under king Obama. 

We have seen this tactic before of the American left organizing to wreck national havoc whenever a Republican is in the White House. Leftists’ goal is to deceive a majority of Americans into believing Republicans implementing their America-first agenda is racist, evil and causing great suffering. This is why suddenly, all of these supposed victimized hate groups are emerging from their caverns of darkness. It is all a scam to lay a bogus guilt-trip on decent Americans. Please do not fall for it.

Pressure your representatives to lock up Leftist bullies whenever they break the law. Stand firm in support of the change we voted for last November.

God bless.

Geert Wilders: ‘We want a Europe without the EU’

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Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders was invited to speak at the Ambrosetti Conference in Italy. The purpose of the conference titled “Intelligence on the World, Europe, and Italy” was to “to discuss current issues of major impact for the world economy and society as a whole.”

If anything MP Wilders is an outlier and his remarks show him to be a truth teller among those who wish to ignore the truth about what is truly happening across Europe. As MP Wilders put it:

I appreciate inviting someone who does not share your enthusiasm for the European Union. Whether your European dream, like Euro Commissioner Frans Timmermans, just mentioned it. To be honest: His dream is my nightmare.

MP Wilders made it clear that the biggest issues facing the European Union are:

  • The European elite in our midst.
  • The mistake of European nations transferring more and more power to the EU.
  • [L]egislation has been outsourced to Brussels.
  • The lack of a “clear European identity.”
  • A EU that “is characterized by cultural relativism and hostility to patriotism.”
  • The “bitter fruits” of the EU immigration policy.
  • The EU resembling “a cartel of governments dominated by Germany and France.”
  • [T]he EU does not care for the preservation of Jewish Christian culture.

MP Wilders warned, “The problems facing Europe are existential. Non-economics, but Islamization, terrorism and mass immigration are our main problems. Existential, indeed, because it determines who we are, what we are and whether we will still exist as a free people in the future.”

Please read MP Wilder’s entire speech. His words are prophetic and sound familiar. His words are much like those of President Trump in that MP Wilders wants to make Holland Great Again.

National sovereignty, secured borders, controlled immigration, draining the swamp in Brussels and dealing with the growing threats to his culture and Judeo/Christian world view.

MP Wilders is one of a handful of leaders willing to speak out in order to save his country. The forces arrayed against him are like the forces arrayed against President Trump. But MP Wilders knows that we shall overcome those obstacles and restore our virtue and dignity as unique Western cultures and societies.

RELATED ARTICLE: Towards A Definition Of Islam And Islamism

Transcript of Speech by Geert Wilders
Ambrosetti Conference, Italy, Villa d’Este, September 2, 2017

Ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you for being here today. I appreciate inviting someone who does not share your enthusiasm for the European Union. Whether your European dream, like Euro Commissioner Frans Timmermans, just mentioned it. To be honest: His dream is my nightmare.

I realize that my opinion differs from that of many members of the European elite in our midst, but I am an optimist.

I believe in a positive future for Europe as a community of independent, sovereign and democratic countries – collaborating without a supranational political union – a Europe without the European Union.

I believe that true democracy can only exist and flourish within a nation state. The national sovereignty combined with the domestic culture gives us our identity. As well as control over our own limits and budget and the right to decide how we use it ourselves as a nation.

Unfortunately, most of our governments have transferred more powers to the EU, which undermines many important things we have achieved over the past centuries.

Our ancestors fought for a democratic Netherlands. That is a Netherlands where Dutch voters and nobody else decide on Dutch matters. Democracy means that a people can decide on his own legislation.

Democracy is equal to self-government. But by the transfer of our powers to Brussels, the EU institutions and other countries decide on matters that are essential to our nation: our immigration policy, our monetary policy, our trade policy and many other issues.

A large part of our legislation has been outsourced to Brussels. Our national parliaments have become EU executive agencies. Many people object to this.

In the 2005 referendum, the Dutch voted against the European constitution, but a few years later, a slightly modified version was pushed under a new name.

Last year, a large majority of the Dutch voted in a referendum against the EU Association Treaty with Ukraine, but the treaty was still pushed. Very few people can still take the EU as a democratic institution after they have seen this happen.

Another very important thing that the Dutch have acquired over the past centuries were clear and demarcated boundaries. Boundaries are important. Because they protect us and determine who and what we are. Due to our governments that have transferred sovereignty, we are now no longer responsible for our immigration policy and even our own borders.
And the result is terrible.

If you give away the keys of your own home to someone who does not lock the doors, do not be surprised when unwelcome guests find their way in. I believe every nation is in charge of its own boundaries and must be able to decide who is welcome and who not. The Netherlands is the home of the Dutch. It’s the only house we have. And we should have control over our borders and our own immigration policy.

One of these things we also attach Dutch is our national identity. The Dutch have their own identity. And so also the other nations of Europe.

But there is no clear European identity.

The EU is characterized by cultural relativism and hostility to patriotism. But patriotism is not a dangerous threat, it’s something to be proud of.

It means defending the sovereignty and independence of the nation states, and not selling these values ​​in slight compromises to the EU and its bureaucrats.

As the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said – I quote – “Europe is a community of Christian, free and independent nations. The greatest danger to Europe’s future is the fanatics of internationalism in Brussels. We will not allow them to bitter the fruits of to invoke our cosmopolitan immigration policy. ” End quote.

I totally agree with that.

The European Commission has recently initiated proceedings against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic because they refuse to include immigrants. Two years ago, Mrs Merkel invited millions of immigrants to come to Germany.

An historical error. She not only released millions, her policy encouraged them.

Her “Wir buck tie – we can call it” call was one of the biggest suction factors in the European migrant crisis. It is impossible to maintain your identity if you are flooded by millions of newcomers with a completely different culture. A culture that – as is the case with Islamic culture – aims to dominate and refuse[s] to assimilate.

The EU resembles a cartel of governments dominated by Germany and France. These two mighty nations decide almost everything.

But the Poland, the Hungarians, the Dutch, the Italians did not choose Mr Merkel or Mr Macron.

They did not choose Mr Juncker, and we, Dutch, have decimated in the last parliamentary elections of last March, the most pro-EU and pro-ice party in the Netherlands: the social democratic party of my countryman, Mr Timmermans, next to this tomorrow I sit, lost 75% of her seats. My party, the EU’s most anti-EU and anti-icing party, won 33% more seats.

In the 13-party parliament in the Netherlands we are for the first time ever the second party, and next time we will be the biggest.

Another important issue that the Dutch is at heart is our safety. In our streets today, as in many other European cities, we can see daily that the EU and the pro-EU leaders of the national states have saddled us. In our inner cities we are faced with whole neighborhoods that no longer seem to be Dutch, and where Dutch are no longer safe. We have people in our country who are born in our country but who do not share our basic values ​​and it’s even worse.

Parts of Europe even seem to be in war zones. The EU has no war. There have been terrible murderous attacks in Barcelona, ​​London, Manchester, Berlin, Brussels, Nice, Paris, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Madrid, Amsterdam.

Terrorists have entered Europe between immigrant flows that have allowed the EU and national governments. While home grown terrorists are already one of the biggest problems facing our countries today. Thousands of them, throughout Europe, are able to travel freely and wherever they want.

This morning, European anti-terrorism coordinator Gilles de Kerckhove said in a Belgian newspaper that there are now 50,000 radical Muslims in Europe. They can commit a terrorist attack any time, as has happened so often lately.

Brussels, together with the pro-EU leaders in the national capitals, created the conditions that allowed these horrendous events and attacks by allowing millions of immigrants to enter Europe – often uncontrolled, by not requiring assimilation by refusing a ” search culture ‘, a dominant culture, through political correctness and total lack of leadership.

At my office in The Hague is a huge portrait of Sir Winston Churchill. In 1946 he held a speech in which he pleaded for what he called – I quote – “a kind of United States of Europe.” But he did not mean what the Eurofiles mean. He called the British Commonwealth as an example: a loose federation of nations, economically cooperative and bound to a number of principles.

But when he became prime minister in the 50’s, Churchill did not ask for membership of the EU’s forerunner. He found the idea of ​​giving up national sovereignty horrendously. Because he knew that this would lead to the end of democracy, identity and security for his people.

And the EU does not care for the preservation of Jewish Christian culture.

On the contrary, it facilitates Islamization.

Our European civilization, based on the cultural legacy of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome, is the best civilization on earth. It gave us democracy, freedom, equality before the law, the separation of church and state, and the view that sovereign states are there to protect all this. The remedy against all misery and terror is clear: we need to re-emphasize what we are. Only then can we ensure our children a future in a safe, strong and free Europe.

The problems facing Europe are existential. Non-economics, but Islamization, terrorism and mass immigration are our main problems. Existential, indeed, because it determines who we are, what we are and whether we will still exist as a free people in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I believe in freedom of expression. I pay a heavy price for that. I’m on killing lists of Al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic groups. I live in a safehouse of the Dutch state and I have been under the 24/7 police protection for 13 years. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. I have that too.

And I think Islamization is the biggest threat to our European future. I’m not talking about all Muslims, many of whom are moderate, but I am talking about Islamic ideology that is incompatible with freedom and democracy and we import massively.

The European Commission expresses its concern about the so-called threat to democracy in countries like Poland and Hungary, but it ignores the destructive effect that Islam has on security and freedom of Europe.

For all these reasons – protecting our democracy, our borders, our identity, our security and our freedom – we want a Europe without the EU. Sovereign democratic countries are perfectly able to work together where there are common interests – without the need for a supranational political institution like the EU.

But despite all the bad news, I’m, as I said at the beginning, an optimist. Everywhere in Europe, more and more people become proud patriots.

And know that the patriots will win. And also the nation state.

Nations who are naturally willing to work together where they see a common interest. There is nothing wrong with economic cooperation, on the contrary. We can also work together to fight terrorism. But everything on a voluntary basis, as sovereign nations.

And without a political union. Without the EU.

The future belongs to the Europe of sovereign nations.

Thank you.

Now or Never for Rebuilding Christianity in Iraq

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Brad Miner reports on the return of Christians to the Nineveh plains in Iraq. This “Dunkirk in reverse” is the result of the efforts of international aid agencies . . . and the grace of God.

The day after Labor Day marks the return to school of millions of American kids. This year, God be praised, it will also mark the return to school of Iraqi Christian children, who with their families are returning to the Nineveh plains to reclaim their homes and lives that were so brutally uprooted by terrorism and war. Aid to the Church in Need USA, the American division of the international papal agency, has been instrumental in helping to make this possible. I serve on the board of directors of ACNUSA. Our TCT colleague and contributor George Marlin is chairman of the board.

In an earlier column, I wrote about a speech Mr. Marlin gave in which he called for a new Marshall Plan for the Middle East. I’m happy to report that the first steps in implementing such a plan are underway in Iraq.

We’re truly thrilled that this month ACN hopes to repatriate 15,000 people in Qaraqosh, Iraq – that’s 3,000 families.

This plat, with damaged homes over-lined in yellow, shows how extensive the destruction was:

Overall in the Nineveh Plain, more than 1200 homes were totally destroyed by ISIS, more than 3000 were damaged due to fire, and another 8000-plus were damaged and now need repairs of some kind. Of churches, the numbers are, respectively, 34, 132, and 197. It’s what you might call an unnatural disaster.

But as I also wrote earlier, the repatriation of Christians in the Church’s original homeland depends upon peace. And although ISIS has been pushed out of Nineveh, it remains to be seen if the safety and security of Iraqis – in Nineveh and elsewhere – can be guaranteed.

Here’s the story:

When the world’s recent refugee problem first became news, it was usually in terms of fighting between ISIS and various domestic armies and militias – mostly in Iraq and Syria. Most of us have seen photographs of long lines of internally displaced persons (IDPs) fleeing either from the fighting or from the ultimatums ISIS made to Christians: convert to Islam, leave your homelands, or die. Very few Christians chose to convert and some were put to the sword. But most – along with many, many Muslims – simply fled: either to foreign countries or to refugee camps.

Click here to read the rest of Mr. Miner’s column . . .

Brad Miner

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.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured drawing is returning of the roots Christian of Nineveh in 2017. Iraqi children of the Mariana School drawings about it.

Ad Council still running ‘Embrace Refugees’ ad to indoctrinate Christian children

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A reader alerted us to an ad (from the Ad Council) running repeatedly on their children’s TV programming, specifically Veggie Tales a show created to convey “Christian moral themes and [teach] Biblical values and lessons.”

We looked for more information on the ad directing viewers to something called Embrace Refugees and found that the public service ad was a joint venture between the Ad Council and the US State Department released on World Refugee Day 2016.

Readers may recall that during this period, Obama was headed toward his big refugee pow-wow in the UN scheduled for September of 2016 and was setting the groundwork for Hillary to step in and continue a refugee flood to America.

See this news report at something called The Ralph Retort when the ad was released.

The ad directs viewers to Embrace Refugees  making it appear to be just one more private project by good-hearted charities instead of a U.S. State Department engineered project.

Screenshot (819)

Many of the usual cast of characters are here.  Six federal refugee contractors are involved. Interestingly 3 Christian ones are absent from the Embrace campaign: US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and World Relief.

See how much of your money is redistributed to these contractors.

This is the sort of project taxpayers should question and frankly someone with investigative skills should attempt to follow the money and figure out how much of our money (I bet all of it is our money) was used to produce and distribute the propaganda.

You gotta hand it to the Left, they are working every day to change America by getting to your kids (and using your money to do it)!

Here is the ad:

A reader suggested I give you the White House contact page every day.  Ask the President why this Obama ad is still running!

Dreamers and Their Dreams

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Civil rights dreamer Martin Luther King Jr. had a 20th century dream. He dreamed that one day all children would be judged by the content of their character not the color of their skin. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed an American dream that embraced our country’s racial ideals of freedom and equality.

Patriotic dreamer President John F. Kennedy had a 20th century dream. He dreamed that Americans would ask what they could do for their country not what their country could do for them. John F. Kennedy dreamed an American dream that embraced our country’s patriotic ideals of freedom and equality.

JFK was alive to hear King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Both men were assassinated – their dreams shattered by bullets.

President Donald J. Trump has a dream. He dreams that America can fulfill the dreams of MLK and JFK. He dreams that American civilians can be unified like the American military as one cohesive American family regardless of race and make America great again through patriotism.

What unifies the military is patriotism, equality, common cause and an infrastructure of observed rules of conduct. We can become a unified society with a parallel commitment to patriotism, equality, common cause and an infrastructure of observed laws that keep order.

Americans do not bow to power – we enjoy a three-part government structured with checks and balances on executive power. Laws are designed to be changed peacefully through open debate and votes by elected representatives of the people. The current trend of divisiveness and anarchy fomented by Obama’s Leftist “resistance” movement is designed to collapse American democracy and our balanced three-branch system.

What is the purpose of relabeling illegal immigrant children with the romanticized term “Dreamers?” Are the dreams of legal American children less valuable? These are important questions to consider because they define our national priorities. President Trump prioritizes American children and American workers. His America-first promises and policies are designed to preserve and protect American sovereignty, American democracy, and the legitimacy of American territorial borders.

President Trump has a 21st century challenge of reaffirming America’s nationhood and national priorities. The relabeled “Dreamer” movement is an insidious political ploy designed to legitimize illegal immigration in an effort to tip elections toward the Democrat Party. Obama overstepped his constitutional authority with the presidential order that created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA). Deceitfully advertised as humanitarian, DACA prioritizes illegal immigrants over Americans. The “Dreamer” movement is an end-run around our legislative branch that sidesteps existing immigration laws.

The 21st century globalist elite have a dream too. They dream that the Leftist/Islamist axis they support will create enough social chaos to destabilize America sufficiently to enact martial law. Social chaos is so frightening to people that they will willingly surrender their freedoms for the safety and protection the militarized government provides. Then like vultures the globalist elite will swoop down to control the military and internationalize the country for membership in their global collective. Global collectivism is the structure of one-world government. It is the 21st century dystopian dream of the globalist elite – they intend to rule the world.

The globalist dream of one-world government requires the shattering of the American dreams of MLK and JFK. The globalist dream is a world without America. The globalists dream of a new world order without sovereign nations that merges countries into a collective that the Globalist Party elites control. The globalist dream requires the chaos of racial divisiveness, economic divisiveness, social divisiveness, and religious divisiveness. It requires that American democracy be destroyed by the seditious Obama “resistance” movement and replaced with socialism to become part of the global population that will be ruled by the globalist dreamers.

President Donald Trump is also a dreamer. He is an American dreamer. President Trump dreams of making America great again. He dreams that all children will be judged by the content of their character and that America will return to the patriotism that unified and empowered America. President Trump dreams an American dream not the divisive dreams of the globalists advisors surrounding him or the divisive dreams of the globalist media lying about him. President Trump has an America-first dream. The globalists have a global-first dream.

Americans must decide their future. Do they want to destroy the American democracy that preserved and protected their individual freedoms, rights, and upward mobility and surrender the freedom and control of their lives to the Globalist Party elite? Or do they want to protect American sovereignty and their individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by our extraordinary Constitution?

On the night that Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated he spoke at a church in Memphis and said:

“I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

America must decide what their promised land will be – will it be an independent America of freedom and equality? Or will it be a land of masters and slaves promised by the Globalist Party? You decide.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Goudsmit Pundicity website.

Southern Poverty Law Center Distorts the Legacy of Confederate Statues

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In the wake of the ongoing controversy over Confederate monuments, many who would like to see them removed immediately have pointed to one chart that shows when the statues were put up, presumably to prove they are inherently hateful.

A widely cited study, created by the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, claims that most of the Confederate statues were constructed specifically in the period under “Jim Crow” laws that targeted black Americans, or in opposition to civil rights.

The fact that they were erected during these two time periods supposedly proves the case that they were meant to intimidate or to “remind” Southern blacks of continuing white supremacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center then further implies that defending these statues amounts to buoying hate groups, like the one that caused a riot in Charlottesville. The far-left group then one-upped itself by warning that the continued existence of Confederate monuments and symbols could “unleash more turmoil and bloodshed.”

This is an astoundingly paranoid claim given how few people even noticed or cared about the existence of the statues until about a month ago.

Moreover, by making unverified claims about the reasons the statues were built, the Southern Poverty Law Center simplifies the meaning of thousands of monuments that were actually built for a variety of reasons, simply to impugn the motives of a majority of Americans who don’t want to see them removed.

According to a Marist poll, a large majority of Americans (62 percent) favor keeping the Confederate statues, while only 27 percent said they want to take them down. Even a plurality of black Americans also believe the statues should stay.

It would likely shock the 44 percent of black Americans who support keeping the statues to learn that they are supporting white supremacy.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has been careless in the past about the way it labels “hate groups,” lumping in mainstream conservative organizations with neo-Nazis, which at least in one case has led to actual violence.

The broad brush with which it treats these statues is yet another example of how it muddles reasonable differences of opinion. While some monuments were undoubtedly built for sordid and ugly reasons, many others were not, or leave a more complicated legacy than the Southern Poverty Law Center wants to portray.

Rebuilding Civilization

The Confederacy died when Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse.

Nevertheless, the story of the Americans who fought on both sides of that conflict did not begin or end in the horrible four years of war that nearly destroyed our nation and killed 1 in 4 fighting-age men in the country.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, the global consensus was that America was finished. Even after the Union triumph in 1865, there were extreme doubts that the country could reunite.

It’s a miracle that it did.

In the years immediately after the war, the period when the Southern Poverty Law Center seems to suggest erecting monuments made the most “sense,” most Americans had bigger priorities than statue building.

But as time went by, many in both the North and the South wanted to pay tribute to the generation that went through perhaps the most defining moment in our nation’s history.

Much of the bitterness toward old foes began to dissipate, and many tried to rebuild an American consensus.

The anger that existed between the North and South cooled, and the wisdom of President Abraham Lincoln’s famous second inaugural address—“with malice toward none and charity for all”—began to take hold in earnest as decades passed.

As the country began to truly heal from the scars of the Civil War, the monuments and memorials it built varied, and in spite of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s insinuations, were not all created as symbols of white supremacy or to glorify the cause of the Confederacy.

For instance, Charles Francis Adams Jr., a direct descendent of Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams, was born in Massachusetts and fought for the Union Army.

Adams was an anti-slavery man who had put his life on the line to destroy the Confederacy, but in a powerful speech delivered at Harvard University in 1903, he argued that it would be reasonable and positive to build a statue of Lee in the nation’s capital.

He noted that Lee was not the one-dimensional bogeyman that he and many in the North thought of when they fought his Army of Northern Virginia.

Though the war had, thankfully, banished the twin evils of slavery and secession, Adams argued that it was important to remember that good men often fought for bad causes, and to give dignity even to the defeated.

Ultimately, in the end, Lee and the boys who fought in grey “were our countrymen.” Adams argued that depicting Lee atop his steed in Confederate uniform would be educational, and show a once “dreaded and respected” opponent accepting the consequences of defeat.

Rather than a glorification of the Confederacy, some monuments are rightly understood as tributes to the greatness and endurance of the United States, which had come through a bloody trial still capable of reuniting Americans on the same side once more.

A statue to Confederate Gen. Joe Wheeler stands in the Capitol Building and was recently targeted by former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as one of the monuments that needs to go.

But, like many of the targeted monuments’ subjects, Wheeler’s legacy is complicated. After the Civil War, he rejoined the United States military and fought for our country with distinction in the Spanish-American War. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Shall Americans destroy a statue to a man buried in our most hallowed ground?

The Atlanta monument attacked by protestors in the days after the Charlottesville incident is yet another good example of how extremism and dehumanization of history leads to misdirected rage and destruction.

The monument, constructed in 1911, depicts a Confederate soldier being guided by an angel to lay down his arms in a sign of peace and unity, not glorification of the Confederate cause. The construction had been spearheaded by former Southern soldiers who had toured the North and wanted to create a symbol of healing.

It was among the many monuments built during the supposedly racist spike that the Southern Poverty Law Center pinpointed, which, by the way, also coincides with the 50th anniversary of the war. Americans wanted to pay tribute to their parents and grandparents in much the same way modern generations do for the World War II generation that is now passing on.

Is this a symbol that deserves destruction?

Adams and many others who erected or supported the statues across the battlefields and once war-ravaged cities that dot the South hoped they would stand for more unity, not less.

They knew the price of fraternal feud more than we, hopefully, ever will. But still, they chose forgiveness.

Once Confederate, Now American

The legacy of many Civil War monuments, both Northern and Southern, extends far beyond the four years of the Civil War.

Unionist regions, which recovered faster from the war, began building monuments within several decades. The massive statues to Union generals that rise over the streets and squares of New York City and Washington, D.C., are the legacy of this movement.

The South rode the coattails of Northern industrial monument construction, relying on its new and cheaper mass-production techniques to construct the monuments themselves at a more affordable expense to small groups and towns. This explains the curious fact that statues to soldiers in the North and South often look identical.

Southerners were buying statues mass-produced in Northern factories—an almost comical symbol of how the regions were rebuilding a national consensus.

It’s clear from the opinion of most Americans that our society still sees value in keeping Confederate monuments. Whether honoring fallen ancestors, seeing the humanity in foes, or in remembering the evils of slavery, they can serve many purposes to our generation, and future ones who will undoubtedly interpret the statues in different ways than we will.

A few heinous extremists don’t deserve to define the debate for the rest of the country, and the Southern Poverty Law Center does a disservice to paint Americans—of many generations—with such sweeping and one-dimensional strokes.

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Jarrett Stepman

Jarrett Stepman is an editor for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Jarrett. Twitter: 

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EDITORS NOTE: Many statues of Confederate soldiers and generals were constructed out of a renewed spirit of national unity after the Civil War. The featured image of a Statue of Robert E. Leew is by Billy Tompkins/Cover Images/Newscom. Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can’t be done alone. Find out more >>

Why I and Other Lawmakers Should Live Under Obamacare by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL)

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For seven years, Republican candidates running for every office from president to dogcatcher campaigned on the need to repeal and replace Obamacare.

The spectacular collapse of the repeal effort in the Senate revealed that these promises were, at least for some senators, hollow.

As disappointing as the effort in the Senate was to witness, Congress cannot simply walk away from the promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. One surefire way to restart the repeal effort is simple: Make Congress live under Obamacare.

The actual text of Obamacare cancels the congressional health plans utilized by members of Congress and refers members to the Obamacare exchanges for their insurance needs.

The idea was that members should eat their own cooking. No special subsidies were provided. Indeed, traditional employer contributions are prohibited for anyone enrolled in an exchange.

However, in 2013, after consultation with congressional leaders, the Obama administration issued a legally dubious administrative rule that put Congress onto the D.C. small business exchange (which is meant for businesses with less than 50 employees) and conferred upon members a generous taxpayer subsidy.

This is contrary to the text of Obamacare and reeks of insider favoritism. The arrangement has protected Congress from the high cost of Obamacare while millions of Americans continue to struggle under the financial burdens of the law.

Currently, there are two sets of health care laws in the United States: one for the taxpayers, and one for the insider class.

Under current practice, the American people alone are expected to shoulder the costs of health care. Members of Congress are shielded from the costs of their own law by placing—contrary to law—the burden of subsidizing congressional insurance plans on the backs of taxpayers.

Requiring Congress to experience the burden of Obamacare as the rest of America has would provide the greatest incentive to quickly return to the effort to repeal this failed law.

Obamacare continues to crumble. Just last month, it was reported that over 800,000 Americans will lose their current coverage in 2018 due to health care companies pulling out of the exchanges.

Some counties only have one insurance provider in their exchange, wholly eliminating the potential for competition in the market to reduce prices. And, in some areas, there is no insurance provider participating in the exchanges at all.

Health care premiums are rising, and soaring deductibles have put affordable health insurance out of reach for many middle-class Americans.

Our constituents deserve meaningful reform that lowers premiums and expands care options. Yet, Congress has failed to deliver on these promises, all while continuing to reap unlawful taxpayer subsidies.

Everyday Americans do not have the same luxury of simply not complying with the law.

President Donald Trump can singlehandedly put an end to these illegal subsidies. Earlier this year, I sent a letter to the president explaining that blowing the whistle on this special deal will make members of Congress better understand the burdens of Obamacare and incentivize them to get to work on a good repeal and replace plan.

While I am encouraged that the president has indicated that revoking the 2013 rule is a negotiating option that remains on the table, I believe that these illegal subsidies should be eliminated immediately.

This is why I have submitted an amendment to the House’s upcoming spending bills that would defund the Obama administration’s special rule for Congress.

The American people should demand that members of Congress honor their promises to repeal Obamacare and insist that they live under the same laws as the rest of the people.

Portrait of Rep. Ron DeSantis

Rep. Ron DeSantis

Ron DeSantis, a Republican, represents Florida’s 6th District. Twitter: 

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EDITORS NOTE: Under a legally dubious administrative rule from 2013, members of Congress and their staff are currently shielded from Obamacare by a taxpayer subsidy. The featured image is courtesy of iStock Photos. Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. But this can’t be done alone. Find out more >>

U.S. leaflet calls Taliban ‘dogs’ — Muslims outraged

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Yes, of course, they’re not enraged at jihad terrorism, they’re enraged that the leaflet calls the Taliban dogs. Why? Because Islam hates dogs:

“Once Gabriel promised the Prophet (that he would visit him, but Gabriel did not come) and later on he said, ‘We, angels, do not enter a house which contains a picture or a dog.’” — Sahih Bukhari 4.54.50

“Abdullah (b. Umar) (Allah be pleased with them) reported: Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) ordered the killing of dogs and we would send (men) in Medina and its corners and we did not spare any dog that we did not kill, so much so that we killed the dog that accompanied the wet she-camel belonging to the people of the desert.” — Sahih Muslim 3811

“Ibn Mughaffal reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) ordered killing of the dogs, and then said: What about them, i. e. about other dogs? and then granted concession (to keep) the dog for hunting and the dog for (the security) of the herd, and said: When the dog licks the utensil, wash it seven times, and rub it with earth the eighth time.” — Sahih Muslim 551

And the leaflet also had the shahada, the Islamic confession of faith, which is not actually a single Qur’an verse as AFP claims, but a combination of elements of two verses (37:35 and 48:29), written on the dog’s body. Taliban, let’s remember, means “students.” Students of what? Islam. Afghans have never protested against the Taliban’s avowed Islamic motivations and goals. But when Americans notice them, watch out. This is how the “Islamophobia” smear always works: Muslims saying “Kill them wherever you find them is fine.” Non-Muslims noticing Muslims saying “Kill them wherever you find them is fine” is “Islamophobic.”

A leaflet distributed September 5th, 2017 by U.S. forces in Afghanistan shows a dog bearing the Islamic Shahada, or profession of faith, being chased by a lion. Photo by Sultan Faizy.

“US angers Afghans with ‘offensive’ leaflet drop,” AFP, September 6, 2017:

US forces apologised Wednesday for dropping leaflets in northern Afghanistan depicting a dog with a Koranic verse written across its body – an image highly offensive to Muslims.

A photo of the alleged leaflet circulating on social media shows a lion chasing a white dog — the same colour as the Taliban’s flag – with the holy verse “there is no God but Allah, and Mohammad is the messenger of Allah” superimposed on its body.

Dogs are seen as unclean creatures by some Muslims and the association of Islam with a canine in deeply religious Afghanistan has angered many people.

“Take back your freedom from these dogs. Help the security forces eliminate these enemies. Take back your freedom and ensure your security,” the leaflet says.

NATO forces frequently drop leaflets over large swathes of Afghanistan in an effort to persuade locals against supporting insurgents.

Social media users condemned the disrespectful design on the leaflets, which were dropped in Parwan province.

“Death to infidels, death to their servants,” one user posted on Facebook.

Another wrote: “They do this in a country with a 99.9% Muslim population. We will see how the (insurgents)… react.”

Major General James Linder, who heads the US and NATO special operations forces in Afghanistan, apologised for the leaflet design which he said was an “error”.

“The design of the leaflets mistakenly contained an image highly offensive to both Muslims and the religion of Islam,” Linder said in a statement.

“I sincerely apologize. We have the deepest respect for Islam and our Muslim partners worldwide.”

An investigation into the incident is under way, said a spokesman for the special operations forces at Bagram Airbase in Parwan, America’s largest base in Afghanistan.

He refused to release a copy of the leaflet.

Hassiba Efat, a member of the Parwan provincial council, told AFP: “The leaflets are very offensive to Islam”.

“The people in the villages are angry about it but so far we have had no reports of any demonstrations.

“They (foreign forces) have apologised and promised to collect as many of the leaflets as possible.”…

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After Iran occupies Syria, it will destroy Europe and North America

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There is a long term plan at work here aimed at destroying the West and it can work.

Iran and Russia plan to destroy Western Europe, the U.S. and Canada by means of a new wave of millions of Syrian Sunnis fleeing to the West to escape the Shiite takeover of Syria.

In my weekly column two months ago, I claimed that Iran is the real victor in the Syrian civil war. Using the war against ISIS as a smokescreen, it is taking over large swathes of Syrian territory, mainly in the scarcely populated middle and eastern parts of the country. In the more fertile and densely populated west of Syria, there are Iraqi, Afghan, and Iranian Shiite militias augmenting Lebanese Hezbollah fighters who were given carte blanche to do whatever Hassan Nasrallah decides to do there.

Assad’s strength continues to increase as ISIS and the other rebel forces lose ground. The brutality of Russian involvement and the cruelty of Shiite militias overcame the anti-Assad forces, the turning point occurring when in 2015, Turkey’ s Erdogan was forced by Russia to cease his aid to the rebels and ISIS. Today, although Erdogan is an unwilling ally of Russia, Alawite Assad still sees him, justifiably, as an Islamist enemy.

The Kurds of northeast Syria, treated as below third class citizens until 2011, will never agree to live under Arab mercy once again and it is reasonable to assume that should Syria remain an undivided country under Assad’s rule, the Kurds will preserve relative autonomy in their region – or fight the regime for their rights.

That is certainly a problem, but the main issue facing a united Syria is going to be the drastic demographic changes the country is going to face.

First of all, about half of Syria’s citizens – close to 10 million – are refugees, half located in Syria and the other half in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, other Arab countries, Europe, North and South America, Australia and even Israel. Syrian refugees who reached points outside the Arab world will in all probability stay put, benefiting from the secure and orderly lives they can now lead. On the other hand, the 3.5 million now in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are awaiting the end of hostilities in order to return to their homes.

Those expectations may be dashed, however, because Syrian reality is totally changed, and large parts of its cities are in ruins after six and a half years of a cruel and bloody war. Countless bombs dropped from planes and helicopters, artillery and tank barrages, mines and explosives planted by both sides have made much of urban Syria, where most of the fighting took place, unsafe to live in. In Homs, Aleppo, Adlib, Hamat and many other cities, entire neighborhoods will have to be razed and their infrastructure rebuilt from scratch.

Decades and billions of dollars are needed to rebuild the country and I, for one, do not see the world’s nations standing on line to donate the necessary funds. Refugees will not agree to switch their tents in Jordan for ruined buildings lacking basic infrastructure in a desolate and destroyed Syria.

The other reason the refugees will not return is their justified fear of the new lords of the land – the Shiites. Iran has been moving Shiites from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan to Syria for a long time in a clear attempt to change the demographic makeup of the country from the Sunni majority it had before the civil war broke out in 2011. The issue could not be more clear because it is no secret that the pre-civil war Sunni majority considered the Alawite rulers heretic idol worshippers who had no right to live in Syria, much less rule over it.

The Alawites know well that the Sunnis rebelled against them twice: The first time was from 1976 to 1982, a rebellion that took the lives of 50,000 citizens. The second time, slowly drawing to an end, has cost the lives of half a million men, women, children and aged citizens of Syria. The Alawites intend to prevent a third rebellion and the best way to do that is to change the majority of the population to Shiites instead of Sunnis. They will not allow the Sunni refugees to return to their homes, leaving them eternal refugees whose lands have been taken over by the enemy. Iran, meanwhile, will populate Syria with Shiites from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.

This ethnic cleansing is the Ayatollah’s dream come true, the dream that sees a Shiite crescent drawn from Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea. This will cover the eastern Arab world from the north, while the war in Yemen is being fought in order to create a parallel southern crescent, entrapping Saudi Arabia and Jordan between the two. With the help of Allah, both those countries and Israel, the Small Satan, will soon fall into the hands of the Shiites, while Europe and America do nothing because who cares when Muslims fight other Muslims?

The Shiite majority in Syria will play along with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, their natural allies, and it is possible that some form of federation might be created between the two in order to push the Lebanese Christians out of the picture, “persuading” them to flee to other countries, leaving Lebanon to its “rightful” Shiite masters. This explains Nasrallah’s eager willingness to fight on Syrian soil as well as the opposition of those against Nasrallah to his involvement there.

The new demographic situation in Syria will convince the Sunni refugees that they have no place to which to return. They will try their best to be allowed to leave Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey for any country, preferably North America and Europe, willing to allow them entry. I predict a process that is the exact opposite of the one the world expects to take place when “peace” breaks out in Syria: Instead of refugees returning to their birthplace, expect the mass flight of Sunni refugees from the region, and expect a heightened incidence of Islamist terror in the countries that allow them in.

The reasons are obvious:

1. Former ISIS and rebel forces will infiltrate along with the refugees, because they, too, are Sunni. They are filled with fury and hatred for the Western countries who were part of the coalition that fought ISIS or stood by without aiding the rebels. Some of them will continue their Jihad on European and North American soil. Expect shootings, explosives and ramming attacks against citizens of these countries.

2. Some of the refugees will not find work and live on the economic and social fringes of society, in poverty-stricken Islamist neighborhoods which have already existed for years in many European cities, and where the local police fear to tread. Poverty and life on the fringe of society will turn some of the Muslim young people into easy prey for terrorist organization recruiters who arouse the desire for Jihad by describing the accepting host countries as decadent societies infected with permissiveness, prostitution, alcohol, drugs, materialism and corruption. They present the countries that allowed the immigrants entry as having done so to take advantage of them as industrial slaves, garage hands, cashiers and other degrading occupations, while the privileged citizens are lawyers, accountant, businessmen and homeowners w ho take advantage of the migrants in humiliating ways. It is only a matter of time until young Muslims, especially those who were taught that “everyone is equal” in Western schools, enlist in terrorist organizations.

3. Countries which allow in refugees will suffer a higher crime rate as a result, including violence in public places, sexual attacks and harassment, housebreaking, car theft, substance abuse, unreported work to avoid paying taxes and illegal construction. This will all occur at the same time these countries expend a larger part of their budgets on social services for the refugees, from child allowances to unemployment, health and old age benefits. At this point in time, the percentage of second and third generation immigrants populating the prisons in Western Europe is significantly larger than their percentage in the general population.

4. Increased economic, social and security problems in Europe and North America as a result of the rise in the number of migrants will lead to a rise in the strength of the right and the extreme right. This will in turn lead to more social tensions in the West. Members of Parliament whose only wish is to be re-elected will adapt their parliamentary activity – especially the laws they promote – to the expectations of the rapidly Islamizing constituencies, sacrificing their own people’s interests on the altar of their political careers. Many Europeans, aware of their elected leaders’ betrayal, will despair and leave those socially and economically deteriorating countries. This will increase the rate at which Europe turns into an Islamic region.

And that is how the agreements Iran and Russia will soon coerce Syria into accepting are going to start a chain reaction increasing the number of refugees and pulling Europe down to a point of no return, without the world understanding what is going on. The Atlantic Ocean is not wide enough to protect North America from this debacle crossing the sea.

This is how the Iranian Ayatollahs intend to destroy the heretic, permissive, drunk and materialistic West. More of the unfortunate Syrian millions will find themselves exiled to the heretic countries hated by the Ayatollahs, and Iran will operate from Syrian soil to vanquish Europe and America.

Written in Hebrew for Arutz Sheva, translated by Rochel Sylvetsky, Senior Consultant and op-ed editor of Arutz Sheva English site.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is a of Iran’s national flags are seen on a square in Tehran February 10, 2012, a day before the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo.

Media Conspicuously Omits D.C. Metro Shooter’s Immigration Status

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A disturbing incident involving a shooting inside a busy Washington D.C. metro station has received a lot of media attention, but all the reports conspicuously fail to mention if the suspect is an illegal immigrant. A man was captured on camera firing a gun down the escalator of the Columbia Heights Metro station in Northwest Washington in the middle of the afternoon on August 25. He eluded police for days and authorities needed help capturing him so they revealed he had an extensive criminal history and identified him as 22-year-old Cesar Morales, Hispanic with brown eyes, black hair and facial and neck tattoos common among members of violent street gangs.

Law enforcement bulletins warned that Morales was armed and dangerous and local media outlets included screenshots of the Metro D.C. Police Department’s social media alert asking for the public’s help in apprehending Morales. It includes a mug shot of the suspect, who has four tattoos on his face and a large one across his neck. It turns out that Morales had just served a five-year sentence after getting convicted of several gun charges involving the 2013 shooting of a D.C. man. Washington D.C.’s mainstream newspaper reported that the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Morales walked away form a halfway house overseen by the Baltimore Residential Reentry Management Office, which supervises facilities in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware and D.C. Morales was moved to the halfway house as part of a system to help inmates transition back into society. If Morales is in the U.S. illegally, he should have been deported not transitioned back into society.

“Witnesses were unnerved at that brazenness of a man opening fire at 12:15 p.m. in what normally is a bustling transit stop adjacent to a shopping center,” the article states. Another local news report describes “alarming video” that shows two men chasing someone in the station. The shooter left behind a gun, the report says, and the intended target fled. Other coverage mentions a brief foot pursuit before police lost Morales on the day of the shooting and detailed physical descriptions of the suspect, between 5-foot-2 and 5-foot-5, around 150 pounds. This information is just at pertinent as the suspect’s legal status yet no media outlet bothered to include it. Why is it being completely left out of all the news coverage? Even the local Fox news affiliate left it out of a follow-up piece about Morales getting apprehended by Montgomery County Police in Maryland days after the metro station shooting. The information is attributed to Montgomery Police Captain Paul Starks, who offered no further details. Judicial Watch reached out to the D.C. and Montgomery police departments to inquire about Morales’s legal status but neither returned calls.

Montgomery and D.C. protect illegal immigrants from federal authorities by offering them sanctuary. Earlier this year, local government in the nation’s capital took it a step further by launching a defense fund to help illegal aliens facing deportation. D.C.’s new taxpayer-funded initiative is called Immigrant Justice Legal Services (IJLS) and it pays organizations and law firms to help illegal aliens apply for asylum, represent them in deportation proceedings and conduct “know your rights” briefings and workshops, among other things. “In Washington, DC we embrace our diversity and strive to be more inclusive,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said in an announcement when she launched the new defense fund, adding that months earlier she “reaffirmed” Washington D.C.’s status as a sanctuary city. “We must ensure that all District residents can take advantage of their federal and constitutional rights,” Bowser said. “Through the Immigrant Justice Legal Services grant program, we are ensuring that if immigration enforcement changes and problems arise, DC’s immigrant population will have our support and the support of DC’s legal community.”

In Montgomery, an affluent Maryland county, a longtime sanctuary policy led to a series of high-profile murders and other heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants who had been arrested by local police and released. Under the county’s sanctuary policy, the offenders were not reported to federal authorities for deportation despite their criminal histories. In one year alone, illegal aliens who had been previously arrested in the area committed four murders, including that of a high school honor student and an elderly woman. Two of the killings involved members of the notoriously violent MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha gang, whose crime sprees have been enabled by the Montgomery County Police Department’s don’t-ask-don’t-tell immigration policy. This hasn’t stopped Montgomery, where this latest metro shooter was captured, from helping illegal immigrants. Even after the illegal alien crime spree, the county dedicated $100,000 to provide “application assistance” to illegal immigrants spared from deportation under President Obama’s backdoor amnesty plan.

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In Ending DACA, Trump Displays His Political Acumen

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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has announced that President Trump would be rescinding an unconstitutional Presidential Order granting amnesty to children of undocumented immigrants who are still living in the United States; the so called Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, or DACA.

My reaction, as an Hispanic?

Good riddance!

Of course, I’m ecstatic that the President of the United States, with a swipe of his pen, undid what a former President did in a like manner, offensive to the Constitution of the United States. In the words of Attorney General Sessions, by this action the President has restored “constitutional order” to a process that was supposed to involve all people living in the United States, not just President Obama and his cronies.

But there’s a catch.

The President’s order has a six-month delay provision so that nothing can happen for half a year. This delay represents an absolutely brilliant move on President Trump’s part who, by all accounts, favors some continuation of DACA. Now, the President has effectively placed the burden of solving this colossal Obama-created societal problem squarely on Congress — where it belongs. Additionally, his action has struck a massive cord of outrage throughout America with one predominant theme: “Congress has got to do something!”

Americans are right.

Congress (and only Congress) must do something on this if anything is to be done, which is exactly what the Framers intended — not the president acting imperially.

Listen to Dr. Gonzalez’s Podcast!

One of the great weaknesses of our legislative process is the legislature’s inability to address problems that are not considered to be in crisis. This is why Congress never addressed a solution to health care until the Democrats took advantage of their numerical superiority and rammed theirsolution down America’s throat. It is also why Congress failed to repeal Obamacare and why they are now at the precipice of not passing a comprehensive reform package for our nation’s taxation system.

Well, now, President Trump has just unleashed a massive humanitarian, political crisis equipped with a time certain. Congress knows the magnitude of the problem. It know the raw humanity of it, and it knows the consequences of not acting. Yes, it is time for Congress to act, and woe to all incumbents obstruct the passage of a solution.

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EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act. The feature image is an AP Photo by Alex Brandon.