Rights Versus Wishes

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Sen. Bernie Sanders said: “I believe that health care is a right of all people.”

He’s not alone in that contention. That claim comes from Democrats and Republicans and liberals and conservatives.

It is not just a health care right that people claim. There are “rights” to decent housing, decent food, a decent job, and prescription drugs. In a free and moral society, do people have these rights? Let’s begin by asking ourselves: What is a right?

In the standard usage of the term, a “right” is something that exists simultaneously among people. In the case of our U.S. Constitutional decree, we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our individual right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness imposes no obligation upon another other than the duty of noninterference.

As such, a right imposes no obligation on another. For example, the right to free speech is something we all possess simultaneously. My right to free speech imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference. Similarly, I have a right to travel freely. Again, that right imposes no obligation upon another except that of noninterference.

Sanders’ claim that health care is a right does impose obligations upon others. We see that by recognizing that there is no Santa Claus or tooth fairy who gives resources to government to pay for medical services.

Moreover, the money does not come from congressmen and state legislators reaching into their own pockets to pay for the service. That means that in order for government to provide medical services to someone who cannot afford it, it must use intimidation, threats, and coercion to take the earnings of another American to provide that service.

Let’s apply this bogus concept of rights to my right to speak and travel freely. In the case of my right to free speech, it might impose obligations on others to supply me with an auditorium, microphone, and audience. It may require newspapers or television stations to allow me to use their property to express my views.

My right to travel freely might require that others provide me with resources to purchase airplane tickets and hotel accommodations.

What if I were to demand that others make sacrifices so that I can exercise my free speech and travel rights? I suspect that most Americans would say, “Williams, you have rights to free speech and you have a right to travel freely, but I’m not obligated to pay for them!”

A moral vision of rights does not mean that we should not help our fellow man in need. It means that helping with health care needs to be voluntary (i.e., free market decisions or voluntary donations to charities that provide health care.) The government’s role in health care is to protect this individual right to choose.

As Sen. Rand Paul was brave enough to say, “The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft.”

Statists go further to claim that people have a “right” to housing, to a job, to an education, to an affordable wage. These so-called rights impose burdens on others in the form of involuntary servitude. If one person has a right to something he did not earn, it means that another person does not have a right to something he did earn.

The provision by the U.S. Congress of a so-called right to health care should offend any sense of moral decency. If you’re a Christian or a Jew, you should be against the notion of one American living at the expense of another.

When God gave Moses the Eighth Commandment—”Thou shalt not steal”—I am sure that He did not mean, “Thou shalt not steal—unless there is a majority vote in the U.S. Congress.”

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COMMENTARY BY

Walter E. Williams

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. Twitter: .

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

4 Things to Know About Chinese Origins of Coronavirus

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Before MSNBC personalities were calling it “racist” and “astoundingly gross” to note the origin of the new coronavirus, NBC News reported in January on what it called the “Wuhan coronavirus.”

In recent days, the Chinese government has sought to cast doubt on whether the virus in fact originated in the city of Wuhan after initially acknowledging that the disease emerged from Wuhan, known as “South China Seafood City.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., prompted outrage from China’s communist government and the mainstream media in the U.S. for using the phrase “Wuhan virus.”

President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and top administration officials on the White House’s coronavirus task force met Tuesday with executives from the insurance industry, who Trump said were taking strong actions to address the challenge.

“The biggest companies in our country, probably the biggest companies in the world, I can’t imagine being much bigger,” Trump said of the businesses represented by his guests during the Roosevelt Room meeting at the White House.

“But these are … the great health insurance companies, and I think tremendous progress is being made. They’re willing to do things for the people and their customers and probably, in a true sense, beyond their customers that normally, I don’t think, they’d be doing.”

Trump didn’t address the issue of the disease’s Chinese origin, but here are what some other officials are saying about it.

1. What Chinese Officials Have Said in Denial

“Some in the media say this coronavirus is a China virus. This is extremely irresponsible and we firmly oppose that,” Zhao Lijian, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said March 4. “We are still tracing the origin of the virus and there is no conclusion yet.”

Zhao said the disease, which health officials call COVID-19, short for coronavirus disease 19, is a “global phenomenon with uncertain origins.”

“The COVID-19 first appeared in China. That doesn’t mean its origin is in China,” Zhao said.

Lin Songtian, China’s ambassador to South Africa, expressed a similar view in a tweet over the weekend.

“Although the epidemic first broke out in China, it did not necessarily mean that the virus is originated from China, let alone ‘made in China,’” Lin tweeted.

2. How the Chinese Blame America

More than just dodging responsibility, the Chinese government reportedly has pushed propaganda that the United States started the virus.

The Washington Post reported last week that China’s communist government was promoting conspiracy theories online about U.S. involvement.

“In recent days, run-of-the-mill mockery of the White House has taken a darker turn as the Chinese internet became inundated by the theory, subtly stoked by the Chinese government, that the coronavirus originated in the United States,” the newspaper said. “The U.S. government, one version of the theory goes, has been covering up mounting cases, and perhaps thousands of deaths, by classifying them as regular flu.”

There have been false internet rumors in the United States about China as well, but there is a clear difference, said Dean Cheng, senior research fellow for Asian studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“The problem here is that this seems to be echoes of Soviet information warfare,” Cheng told The Daily Signal. “America has a free press, from CNN to Alex Jones, The New York Times, and the National Enquirer. China’s press is state run. So these rumors are not random charges.”

The goal of the Chinese government is to define the virus as being as distant from government leaders and the Communist Party as possible, Cheng said.

Xiao Qiang, an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Information, studies China’s internet.

“Go on WeChat, go on Weibo, look on Baidu search, and it’s full of ‘look at all the other countries getting sick,’ or ‘the virus came from the United States,’ or all different levels of conspiracy theories,” Qiang told the Post.

NBC News reported March 6: “In recent weeks … Chinese officials have appeared eager to float the idea that the virus did not necessarily start in their country at all.”

 3. What Chinese Officials Used to Say

During a press briefing Friday, Pompeo sought to prevent China from escaping responsibility.

“The Wuhan virus that began at the end of last year is something that this administration is taking incredibly seriously,” Pompeo told reporters. “The State Department has been very involved from the beginning when we worked diligently to get hundreds of Americans out of Hubei province, out of Wuhan, and get them back to the United States safely.”

Wuhan is the capital of Hubei province, in central China.

A reporter later said to Pompeo: “You called it the Wuhan virus, and I haven’t—that’s an accurate way to depict where it’s coming from.”

The secretary of state responded: “The Chinese Communist Party has said that this is where the virus started. So don’t take my word for it; take theirs.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a Feb. 3 speech to the Politburo, talked about Wuhan.

“After the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, on Jan. 7, when I presided over a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, I made a request for the prevention and control of the new coronavirus pneumonia,” Xi said.

The Wuhan Municipal Health Commission said Dec. 31:

Recently, some medical institutions found that many of the pneumonia cases received were related to South China Seafood City. After receiving the report, the … commission immediately launched a case search and retrospective investigation related to South China Seafood City in the city’s medical health institutions.

Twenty-seven cases have been found, of which 7 are in serious condition, and the remaining cases are stable and controllable. Two patients are expected to be discharged in the near future.

The clinical manifestations of the cases were mainly fever, a few patients had difficulty breathing, and chest radiographs showed bilateral lung infiltrative lesions. At present, all cases have been isolated for treatment, follow-up investigations and medical observations of close contacts are ongoing, and hygiene investigations and environmental sanitation disposals for South China Seafood City are ongoing.

4. What the Media Has Said

Cheng noted the Chinese government doesn’t have 100% control of the internet in China, and citizen journalists have been able to report what is happening in the country with the virus, though the government typically cracks down within a number of days.

“The Chinese are savvy in their observation of U.S. media and how parts of the punditry react,” Cheng said.

MSNBC anchor David Gura tweeted March 8: “FYI: Calling #COVID19 the ‘Wuhan Virus’ is racist.”

In response to Gosar’s referring to the “Wuhan Virus” in a tweet about how he self-quarantined, MSNBC prime-time host Chris Hayes tweeted: “Just astoundingly gross to call it the Wuhan Virus.”

Several times in January, however, NBC News stories referred to the “Wuhan coronavirus.”

NBC wasn’t alone.

On Feb. 9, CNN posted a headline reading: “Wuhan coronavirus kills 97 more people in one day as death toll tops SARS.”

On Feb. 4, CNN posted a story headlined: “Confirmed Wuhan coronavirus cases top 20,000 as China marks deadliest day.”

The New York Times ran a Feb. 4 headline saying: “Even Without Symptoms, Wuhan Coronavirus May Spread, Experts Fear.” The Times also ran a Feb. 2 piece headlined, “Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say.”

The Washington Post ran an opinion piece Feb. 2 with the headline: “What the Iowa disaster and the Wuhan virus have in common.”

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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

Feminism’s Unexpected Cure

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Carrie Gress: To renew culture and restore families, women must embrace again the beautiful order that comes from valuing true, honest, and strong men.

Five decades ago, radical feminist Kate Millett and her eleven friends in New York City recited a type of litany, a feminist manifesto of sorts, that has proven to be remarkably effective:

“Why are we here today?” the chairwoman asked.

“To make revolution,” they answered.

“What kind of revolution?”

“The Cultural Revolution.”

“And how do we make Cultural Revolution?”

“By destroying the American family!”

“How do we destroy the family?”

“By destroying the American Patriarch.”

“And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?”

“By taking away his power!”

“How do we do that?”

“By destroying monogamy!”

“How can we destroy monogamy?”

“By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion, and homosexuality!”

I’ve always been struck by the last line. Did those 12 women ever dream that their tiny effort would be so wildly successful? We witness their success daily, from half-time shows to celebrities insisting their careers and awards are more important than their children, from royal tantrums even to the tragic gender confusion foisted upon children.

Recently, several female friends, old and new, gathered in a Virginia restaurant to celebrate the pending arrival of my fifth child. After opening gifts, I asked this remarkable group of souls if they would humor me.

Since writing The Anti-Mary Exposed, I have wanted to gather a group of women for a special purpose. Would they be willing to say with me a prayer to reclaim all that has been destroyed by radical feminism? Would they be willing to try to reverse the astronomical damage that had been unleashed through feminist ideology?

Although I didn’t plan it, there were exactly 12 women present, the same symbolic number of Millett’s anti-apostles, who had gathered five decades ago, intent on destroying our culture.

My friend Dawn and I took to rewriting the old script. I had never actually thought about how to rewrite their litany. It seemed straightforward enough – get rid of the Marxist overtones and reclaim all the things the radical feminists had claimed for themselves. What I didn’t expect from our quick rewriting, however, was a new insight.

Our litany, preceded by an impromptu prayer to Our Lord and His Mother, read:

“Why are we here today?” said Dawn.

“To reclaim our culture,” the 11 of us replied.

“What kind of culture?”

“A Christian culture.”

“How would we build that culture?”

“By restoring the American family.”

“How do we restore the family?”

“By restoring the American Patriarch.”

“How do we do that?”

“By restoring his power and authority.”

“How do we do that?”

“By reclaiming monogamy.”

“How do we reclaim monogamy?”

“By rejecting pornography, eroticism, prostitution, and homosexuality.”

Most feminism has been a relentless quest to help women figure out who we are, and what we can do to be happy. The problem, however, is that it takes our vices and uses them against us.

Feminism, by its nature, is a vain effort to look to ourselves for answers, at the cost of constant comparing of ourselves to others. Its first impulse is to have what men have. Starting with Eve, women have always sought that which we don’t have – from the forbidden fruit to the perfect job, partner, property, wardrobe, body, etc.

The feminist quest has left no stone unturned, no rule or duty un-flaunted, and no commandment sacred. The evidence shows that it continues to disappoint, leaving a trail of broken and wounded women, while leading to further confusion about what makes us women.

Our new litany claims that the answer to restoring the culture and the family doesn’t focus upon women at all, but starts with restoring what we deliberately called the “American Patriarch,” by which we mean the natural authority of men, real men. The old litany was effective because it started by destroying the authority of men.

In rewriting the litany, we realized that the restoration of manhood was required, and with it, what would follow was the restoring of the women, the family, the culture.

A wise priest has often reminded me that in the Old Testament, whenever the Israelites are disobedient, God takes away their leadership, which results in weak kings or corrupt rulers – at best – or at worst, slavery and widespread slaughter.

If you consider women over the last fifty years and the annihilation of every virtue, particularly with respect to our fertility, the question arises: Has our disobedience led to the decapitation of leadership in our families? Our Church? Our countries?

If we look around, we see profound evidence of weakness and corruption everywhere, in society and the Church. Human trafficking is now rampant, with women and children treated like sexual chattel. And we live daily with the slaughter of U.S. children, now well into 60 million. These are similar to what the Israelites suffered for their disobedience.

What if women start looking for answers beyond themselves and to start asking instead, What is God’s will? We have plenty of evidence of what it looks like when we flout His will. But history also shows that a return to obedience is powerful. Mary’s obedience produced more fruit than Eve’s disobedience.

Men, of course, carry their own share of guilt, but women’s continued efforts to look to ourselves as the answer hasn’t gotten us anywhere. We have instead enshrined a matriarchy that grasps at power, while neglecting the relationships that have so animated the lives of women since the beginning of time. We have grown comfortable with the lie that men and children are the obstacles to our happiness and not avenues to it.

The Israelites learned the hard way, over and over again; the way back requires a return to obedience, a return to faithfulness to God. To do that, women must surrender the desire for power and control that is so en vogue today. As the old and new litanies inform us, to renew the culture and restore the family, women must, once again, embrace the beautiful order that comes from valuing true, honest, and strong men.

COLUMN BY

Carrie Gress

Carrie Gress has a doctorate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America. She is the editor-in-chief of Theology of Home and the author of several books, including The Marian Option, The Anti-Mary Exposed, and co-author of Theology of Home. She is also a homeschooling mother of four and a homemaker.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

PODCAST: Understanding the Constitution

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The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land. Its importance cannot be overemphasized. It is what politicians, military personnel, law enforcement, judges, federal employees, and legal immigrants are sworn to uphold, e.g., “…and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. So help me God.” It was created in 1787, ratified in 1788, and made effective in 1789. Since then it has become the model by which other countries have re-invented their government.

The first three words of the Constitution are, “We the people,” to indicate it was written to serve the interests of the people of the country, not a monarch or dictator.

The Constitution was produced by the second Continental Congress, but was preceded in 1781 by the Articles of Confederation, the first true constitution of the country. The weakness in this document was the lack of a strong central government, giving more power to the states instead.

Construction

There are essentially two parts to the Constitution:

  • The Main Body – specifying the mechanisms of the government.
  • Amendments – specifying the rights and freedoms enjoyed by the people, and changes made to the Main Body. The first ten amendments are referred to as “The Bill of Rights.” This was a clean way to separate the two parts of the Constitution, thereby making it easier to ratify the overall document. Whereas there have been some changes made to the Main Body, the Amendments have changed more frequently over the years. There have been 27 Amendments made to the Constitution, with the 21st used to repeal prohibition (the 18th amendment).

The Main Body defines the responsibilities of the three “separate but equal” branches of government:

  • The Executive Branch – as represented by the office of the President, along with the various agencies and departments controlled by the President’s cabinet.
  • The Judicial Branch – representing the Supreme Court and lower federal courts.
  • The Legislative Branch – represented by the Congress and responsible for passing laws in conformance to the Constitution. Interestingly, the Congress is referred to as “bicameral,” meaning there are two separate chambers; the House of Representatives (the lower House), and the Senate (the Upper House). Whereas the House is generally regarded as lawmakers from all walks of life, the Senators are typically senior politicians who offer advice and confirm presidential appointments.

These three branches offer “Checks and balances” over each other so one branch doesn’t become stronger than the others. For example, The Executive Branch nominates judges for the Supreme Court and lower courts, but the nominees must be approved by the Senate. The Senate must also approve the President’s nominees for cabinet secretaries, ambassadors, military leaders, and other agency appointments. Without this approval, the people cannot serve.

The Congress may pass laws, but the Supreme Court ultimately determines if the legislation conforms to the Constitution. If it does not, it can be dismissed.

The Congress must secure the President’s signature to enact legislation. Without the signature, the legislation is “vetoed” from being placed into law. The Congress can overturn the President’s veto by securing a 2/3 percent vote in both chambers of Congress. This is difficult to do, but has been done.

This is but a small sampling of the “checks and balances” at play in the Constitution. There are many more. Nothing like these “checks and balances” had been tried before. All of this is a a testament to the brilliance of the founding fathers who devised the Constitution. It is hard to imagine a team of lawyers in today’s world who could produce such a document with such eloquence and conciseness.

Ratifying the Constitution became a problem as antagonists challenged many clauses within the document. To overcome this problem, a series of articles were produced and distributed by newspapers throughout the country explaining the virtues of the various parts of the document. This was referred to as “The Federalist Papers” and written by James Madison (later to become the 4th President of the United States), Alexander Hamilton (later to become the 1st U.S. Treasury Secretary), and John Jay (later to become 1st Chief Justice of the Supreme Court), all under the pseudonym “Publius.”

The Constitution has been with us for well over 200 years and has withstood the test of time. Is it perfect? Of course not, there are some items that should be revisited, such as term limits for politicians, a balanced budget, changing the length of our electoral process, and more. But overall, the Constitution has served us well.

It is genius. Sheer genius.

Keep the Faith!

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

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

A Day in the Senate with the Born-Alive Act

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Hadley Arkes: For Democrats, abortion is a “right” that extends beyond pregnancy and entails nothing less than the right to kill a child born alive. 

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act finally came before the Senate in the last days of February. This was the sequel to the Act passed in 2002, the Act that sought to cast the protections of the law on babies who survived abortions.

As the readers of this column know by now, that bill sprang from a proposal I had written for the debating kit of George H.W Bush in 1988.  By the time it was put in legislative form, the penalties were dropped, in part to avoid a veto from President Clinton (in 2000), but in part also to make the bill a pure “teaching” bill.”

The bill would break out to the public news that most people would find jolting.  Most people did not know that under Roe v. Wade and its companion case of Doe v. Bolton, the right to abortion would extend through the entire length of the pregnancy – and even when a child survived the abortion.

It turned out that there were far more of these babies surviving than we had known at the time.   But it was the mass of killings taking place in the abattoir of Dr. Kermit Gosnell in Philadelphia that brought a new attention to the problem – and offered the moment to act.

With the support of Trent Franks of the Judiciary Committee in the House, I joined with some accomplished friends to draft a new bill, to restore the penalties that had been dropped from the original bill.  That move has made the difference for the Democrats – and further illuminated the landscape.

People curiously forget that when the original bill was enacted in 2002, the Democrats were in control of the Senate.  They did not like the bill, but they were willing to vote for such a modest measure carrying no penalties, especially if they could do it with a voice vote, with no one going on the record.

That is what makes it disingenuous for Democrats now to say that the bill isn’t needed because we already have a law that forbids the killing of  a child who survives an abortion. What comes into play now is an old aphorism of Lord Bracknell, roughly translated in this way: that “it would be superfluous to make laws, unless those laws, when made, were to be enforced.”

To add serious penalties, civil and criminal, for the killing of the child is finally to take this legislation seriously as legislation.

And when that was done, the dramatic change in the Democrats could  then be read in a vote so startling that even the Republicans seem struck dumb in how to deal with it.  With Republicans in control of the House, the new Born-Alive Act was brought to the floor in September 2015, when it passed  248-177.  It was brought again in January 2018, when it passed 241-183.  Every voting Republican voted for these bills, and every Democrat but five or six, voted in opposition.

And now, with the bill in the Senate, every Republican voted for it, along with three Democrats, while every vote in opposition came from Democrats, holding the line.   The bill garnered 56 votes, but short of the 60 needed to overcome the Democratic filibuster.

The Democrats had arrived at the most radical position yet on the matter of abortion – so radical that the Republican managers of the bill, along with President Trump, still haven’t quite figured out how to express it.

The matter was blurted out, almost in passing, by Sen. Patty Murray from Washington. She remarked that “Republicans are peddling a ban that is blatantly unconstitutional.”  That is, this move to protect children born alive is incompatible with that “right” proclaimed in Roe v. Wade. For virtually all Democrats now in Congress and national politics, that right to abortion is a right that extends beyond pregnancy itself and entails nothing less than the right to kill a child born alive.

That is the ground now on which the question should be called and fought out in the presidential election.  But President Trump hasn’t apparently grasped this gift that has been given to him.

And yet, neither has the sponsor of the bill, Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, who persistently failed to draw out the meaning of what his colleagues on the other side were revealing. Twenty years ago Sen. Rick Santorum asked Sen. Barbara Boxer  to offer the earliest moment when a newborn child could be protected by the law, and she said “when you bring your baby home.”

That answer became a source of embarrassment, as Boxer could never explain her way out of the problem. At every turn Sen. Sasse has passed up the chance to draw his colleagues into colloquies of this kind.  That would not affect the vote, but the confrontation could draw the attention of a wider public.

Twenty years ago, the beloved Henry Hyde was astonished that the National Organization of Women would come out so strongly against this modest bill.  But the other side knew that we were asking what was different about that same child five minutes earlier, before it was born – but then five days, five months earlier.

Hyde’s happy bewilderment revealed a state of affairs that still holds:  the other side understands this bill better than some of our own allies, because it understands the principle that lies at the heart of the thing.

COLUMN BY

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. His most recent book is Constitutional Illusions & Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law. Volume II of his audio lectures from The Modern Scholar, First Principles and Natural Law is now available for download.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2020 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Most House Democrats Vote Against Amendment that Would Keep Convicted Terrorists from Working for the TSA

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What could possibly go wrong? Convicted terrorists are simply people who have acted upon their justifiable grievances against the U.S. and Israel, right? Don’t you stand against colonialism, imperialism, and racism, you greasy Islamophobe?

“174 Democrats Vote Against Amendment That Aims To Make It Harder To Hire TSA Employees With Terrorist Or Sexual Crime Record,” by David Krayden, Daily Caller, March 6, 2020:

House Republicans and 42 Democrats joined forces Thursday to pass an amendment to the Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act that would keep people convicted of sexual assault, terrorism and other violent crimes from working for the Transportation Security Agency (TSA).

But 174 House Democrats — including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — did not support the legislation.

The vast majority of Democrats voted against the amendment, which was authored by Democratic Illinois Rep. Lauren Underwood.

Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy was quick to criticize the Democratic leadership for rejecting the law.

“[The amendment] was pulled back by leadership because the socialist wing of the party did not want to have that amendment go forward on this bill,” the California representative said Thursday, according to the Washington Free Beacon. “When it was offered, overwhelmingly the majority of the House would like to see the TSA not hire terrorists or those who have been convicted of sexual misconduct with minors and others. But the socialist wing of the party, that controls now the Democratic Party, said that that could not be offered.”

Every member of the “squad” voted against the amendment. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not cast a vote….

Critics have also faulted TSA for being lax when it comes to identifying people on the terror watch list….

The Rights for Transportation Security Officers Act passed the House with a vote of 230-171….

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

This Week in the UK – Truth still being crucified.

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These are my views as a woman living in England, on how the culture and spirit of my country has changed over 50 years.   Why the country does not feel protected or strong any more, how it has lost, and is losing it values and decency, and how we are daily losing our free speech.

The local organization that I work for is constantly telling me that I have the freedom to speak up in the workplace.   An advocate for freedom of speech has also been appointed for staff to contact either openly, or anonymously, should they feel that there are issues which might need addressing which may compromise their position should they openly voice their complaint!

For some reason, despite this re-assurance, and my not even knowing this particular advocate, I unfortunately still don’t trust the process which may possibly be giving me the illusion that anyone may be interested in my own particular concerns which span the course of 50 plus years.

You see, during that time I have observed a massive cultural shift where the populace have been, in simple terms, ‘worked upon’, and from which I was once one of its victims in my outlook.

A collective rhetoric has been implemented which gives the impression that it cares for everyone.   In my opinion, if you don’t follow their particular script you are really an enemy and are viewed as someone to silence.   For this reason, in the UK you may have freedom of speech behind closed doors, but it certainly does not exist in the open without a level of persecution for constantly offending someone.

Just 20 years ago when I worked within the Church of England and I faced my own particular injustice and spoke up, I realized that the truth was even being crucified there, from within its very walls.

Standing alone and having your outlook and your world turned upside down is not a good place to be in.  For a mere mortal it is suffocating and can also be frightening.  The revelation of how this new and more loving humanity which continually preaches kindness, minus some facts, can damage those you love and care for,  can also be very confusing.

Friends and family can also shun you and label you extreme, despite your common-sense view.

The temptation to resent such situations and to be told you just aren’t loving enough to go along with the collective rhetoric, now labelled British Values, does however have a very ‘good side’ if you allow it………..

Climate Anxiety!

Driving home from the local supermarket the other evening, I decided to tune in to a radio station and listen to the local news from the Shires.   It was from here that I found myself listening to a conversation between two radio presenters and a psychologist discussing the anxiety that children are facing today in relation to the climate and how we could help them?

It was one of those moments when you decidedly wished there was a more balanced voice in the mix, outside the confines of your car, to say the least; but as you listened with a certain recognition of what made you anxious yourself as a child, the female radio presenter in the duo, then suddenly decided to take advantage of the situation and voice her disapproval of the image of Christ on the cross (the crucifixion) which she felt frightens many children in schools.   Really!

Fortunately for the presenter she was indeed free to make a weak attempt at strength for openly voicing her displeasure at Christianity, which in its purest form is a faith which has constantly been mocked.

However, in view of her comments I wondered how many media outlets would daily report on the persecution and the death of Christian’s world wide (in very horrific ways) and if she really knew of the very real ‘anxiety’ that adults and children face daily across the world for their faith.   For a detailed account of numbers world wide please see the link below which reports the facts.  The persecution of Christian’s world wide has sometimes been called a silent epidemic.

Those Vicious Politicians

This week it has also been reported that the UK’s Human Rights watchdog is under pressure to investigate our Conservative party with accusations of Islamophobia.

In an initial document submitted in May 2019 in which 150 people connected to the party were accused of anti-Islam remarks, a new document now accusing 300 individuals, including Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has been presented to the Equality and Human Rights Commission by the Muslim Council of Britain.

From the 300 allegations, just three of them are as follows:

The allegations made against Boris Johnson were that he used dehumanizing and offensive remarks against Muslim women who wear a veil likening them to ‘bank robbers’ and ‘letterboxes’.

I imagine he might thinks nuns look like penguins as well.

Were any of the above people exercising their right to freedom of speech or were they inciting hatred?

  • Dominic Cummings suggested weirdoes and misfits with odd skills were needed in government.
  • Karl McCartney stated that boys were disadvantaged because of over-feminized schools. Something I agree with.
  • Mr Andrew Sabisky also allegedly made remarks in favour of eugenics and compulsory contraception. Something I find sickening.

In all of the above commentaries, offence can be taken by many different people in society and whether we like someone’s comments or not silencing someone is evil, but today much of the truth is being silenced and pushed underground by various groups.

In the UK, there is now a massive divide between groups of people who most certainly have freedom to speak up, and between people who are being ostracized for minor comments, or for even voicing their concerns, most especially in terms of immigration, abortion or gender issues.

This polarization of society has not come about by chance.   At its core this spirit hates humanity.   It is not kind or loving or considerate.  Persuasion, coercion and brainwashing has been taking place over a period of time to kill truth.  We know it.  This is a problem we should all be shouting about and be advocates for.

Silencing the truth may see many innocent people die from injustice.

What do you believe about freedom of speech, and have you followed the most popular rhetoric of the day in order to go along with the crowds?   This part you play is important.

But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitudes that they should ask for Barabbas and destroy Jesus.

21 The governor answered and said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release to you?”

They said, “Barabbas!”

22 Pilate said to them, “What then shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

They all said to him, “Let Him be crucified!”

23 Then the governor said, “Why, what evil has He done?”

But they cried out all the more, saying, “Let Him be crucified!”

Matthew 27:20 -23

Israeli Politics: Fickle, Faithless and Feckless

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This week, Israeli politics plumbed appalling new lows with reports that, Blue& White, which, as the major rival to PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud, emerged as the second largest party in last week’s Knesset elections, was actively planning to violate its solemn pledges to the voters, made only days previously.

In a breathtaking display of unprincipled cynicism, Blue &Whites leadership, which comprises three former commanders of the IDF, appears poised to renege on its explicit campaign pledges. Thus, despite repeated—and seemingly resolute—vows that they would not seek to establish a coalition dependent on the anti-Zionist Joint List, a motley amalgam of Communists, Islamists and radical Arab nationalists, Blue & White is doing precisely that!

Worse, beyond making a covenant with a party that not only undisguisedly supports Israel’s most vehement enemies but openly denies its status as a Jewish state, the Blue & White leadership has castigated party members who insist on honoring its election pledges–even demanding their resignation for their display of public integrity .  This is particularly the case with Yoaz Hendel and Zvi Hauser, two prominent Right-of-Center members of Blue & White.

Ironically, during the election campaign, both Hendel and Hauser played a crucial role in presenting Blue & White’s professed views to the public and particularly in establishing its Right-of-Center credentials, designed to distance itself from Israel’s floundering Left.

There seems no rational explanation for this manifestly irrational behavior other than that Netanyahu’s rivals’ seemingly pathological ad hominem hatred for him has totally unhinged them from any reasonable and responsible political action.

This is clearly a scandalous and unacceptable breach of public trust. It must be met with correspondingly appropriate public outrage.  All fair-minded men and women, both inside and outside Israel’s political system, must express their righteous anger at this intolerable deception and duplicity and make sure it will not succeed. For the future of the entire Zionist enterprise may literally hang in the balance.

© All rights reserved.

Trump Administration Aims to Calm Coronavirus Fears on Economic, Health Fronts

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President Donald Trump announced Monday evening that he will push Congress for a payroll tax cut to stem concerns about the coronavirus that sent the stock market into a spiral earlier in the day.

Trump also pledged he would push for hourly wage earners to be able to take off work without fear of losing their jobs, as the number of related U.S. deaths rose to 26, all but four in Washington state.

The president said he would give more details Tuesday after meeting with members of Congress.

“We are going to be seeing the Senate and meeting with House Republicans and discussing possible payroll tax relief,” Trump said at the White House, flanked by members of the administration’s coronavirus task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence.

“We are also going to be talking about hourly wage earners getting help so that they can be in a position where they are not going to miss a paycheck,” Trump said. “We are going to be working with small companies, large companies, so that they don’t get penalized for something that’s not their fault.”

The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. jumped to 600, spanning 30 states and the District of Columbia. California and Florida each confirmed two deaths, USA Today reported.

Around the world, the coronavirus has infected more than 108,000, killing more than 3,800, CNN reported.

Trump said his administration is handling the health crisis “very well,” noting travel restrictions he said never were imposed before.

“We’ve never done that in our country before. We could have had a situation a lot more dire,” the president said.

Trump said the administration would work with the airline, cruise ship, and hotel industries, which are being hit hard by the spread of the disease.

“Also, we are going to see the Small Business Administration creating loans for small businesses,” Trump said.

Pence said the task force held a conference call earlier Monday with 47 governors. He said 1 million test kits would be sent out this week, and that another 4 million test kits will go out next week.

Pence, speaking after Trump had left the briefing, said that nether he nor the president had been tested for the virus.

Administration officials sought to confront the coronavirus on both the economic and public health fronts.

“President Trump has delivered a historically strong economy,” Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters earlier Monday at the White House. “The fundamentals of this economy are unbelievable, whether it’s employment, or wage growth, or productivity, or international trade deals. The fundamentals remain what they are.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed Monday with a decline of 2,000 points, a fall that also came during a shake-up in the oil industry that added to market woes.

The World Health Organization said the spread of the virus is close to a pandemic, citing escalating cases in China and Italy.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is spearheading research for a vaccine as well as public information efforts.

Trump administration officials were readying to present options for policy changes to respond to the economic disruption and public health fears caused by the new coronavirus disease, which health officials call COVID-19.

After Azar’s remarks outside the White House, HHS announced a diagnostic test for coronavirus designed for use in a system that can process up to 1,000 tests in 24 hours. The test will get financial support from HHS.

The molecular diagnostic test from Hologic Inc. will be the first product to combat COVID-19 selected for development through the department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. The HHS division is contributing $699,000 in federal tax dollars to accelerate Hologic’s development.

“President Trump is leading a whole-of-government response, with the vice president helping him on the public health issues we are facing on the novel coronavirus,” Azar said. “That is his No. 1 concern.”

Congress last week approved a $8.3 billion emergency spending package for coronavirus. However, House Democrats are pushing for another bill to mandate paid leave as a response to the disease, something party leaders advocated before the virus surfaced.

Ideas to prevent panic include deferring taxes for certain industries hit by coronavirus, including the hospitality and travel industries, and directing federal funds to specific areas of the country that are most affected, The Washington Post reported.

The Treasury Department and the National Economic Council have worked on the proposals for the past 10 days, the Post reported.

“In terms of the economy, he and his economic team have the tools to keep this economy going strong,” Azar said of the president. “They delivered that historic fundamentals. They’ve got tools to deal with that.”

“But the public health and protecting the American people is the No. 1 priority for all of us,” he said.

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report, which was updated to include the president’s remarks.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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In Massachusetts, Resistance to Marijuana Dispensaries

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Although recreational marijuana has been legal in Massachusetts since voters approved it in 2016, the pot industry has experienced some serious pushback against dispensaries at the local level.

More than 90 municipalities in the state have opted out or prohibited commercial cannabis establishments.

The development is the result of a grassroots effort coordinated by local churches partnering with the Massachusetts Family Institute, a group affiliated with Family Policy Alliance and Focus on the Family.

One such church is the Lynn Spanish Seventh-Day Adventist Church, located in Lynn, Massachusetts, a city about 10 miles northeast of Boston.

When the congregation received word that the City Council was voting to give the city’s final marijuana permit to Oregon-based Diem Cannabis for a dispensary directly across the street from their church, they took action.

“We as a church are against this business, because it brings more violence, crime, and addiction to the area, and the pot shop they want to bring in would be 30 feet from our building,” Pastor Ervin Ochoa said. “We don’t want a business selling pot, because we already have a problem with drugs in our community.”

Ochoa said the community was not informed of the Feb. 11 meeting of the City Council. When word got out that the church’s new neighbor would be a pot shop, nearly 200 concerned residents and church members descended on City Hall.

Although council representatives said the permit could not be revoked, Ochoa said he and other community leaders will discuss the issue further with the city’s mayor.

“We are just asking that they relocate, not leave all together,” Ochoa said. “When you make a vote like this, you need to let the neighborhood know.”

That follows a wider pattern of minority communities that oppose marijuana in their neighborhoods. In Lawrence, a city about 30 miles northwest of Boston, the churches that serve the large Hispanic population successfully banded together to oppose allowing retail marijuana into their community.

Michael King, the Massachusetts Family Institute’s director of community alliances, said that this kind of grassroots activism counters the narrative pushed by proponents of recreational marijuana, who contend that minority communities benefit from those kinds of establishments.

“The other side will say that it is a form of social justice to allow minorities to open cannabis shops because they’ll benefit from the income,” King said. “But huge minority communities say they didn’t want this in their neighborhood.”

The opposition stems from a fear of increased crime and addiction as the result of increased pot use.

According to statistics compiled by Americans Against Legalizing Marijuana, an anti-pot activist group, there is a strong correlation between marijuana use and crime. Fifty percent of men and 30% of women arrested for a crime test positive for marijuana use.

Ochoa said his church has suffered from crimes that he believes were fueled by an increase in drug use. He said his church was broken into and lost several televisions and a laptop.

“These towns have bought into the farce that towns will get rich off retail marijuana, but the social costs are too high,” Massachusetts Family Institute’s King said. “But some money is just not worth taking.”

The statewide goal, he said, is eventually to have churches included in a 500-foot protected radius that prevents retail marijuana dispensaries from opening near K-12 schools.

“This shop [in Lynn] would be literally right across the street from the church, and would be the first thing young families see when they walk out the doors,” King said.

“Since churches are similar to schools, in that they are places where young families congregate, the same protections should be afforded to them.”

COLUMN BY

Virginia Aabram

Virginia Aabram is part of the Young Leader’s Program at the Heritage Foundation and interns at The Daily Signal.

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PODCAST: ‘Open Borders Are Absolutely … the Greatest Threat This Country Faces,’ Texas Lawmaker Says

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Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, joins me on The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss illegal immigration, sanctuary cities, and some possible fixes to the U.S. immigration system.

We also cover these stories:

  • In a Monday tweet, President Donald Trump urges Americans to put coronavirus in perspective.
  • Monday turns out to be another bad day for the stock market, which has been affected by coronavirus concerns.
  • To avoid coronavirus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asks older Americans and those with compromised immune systems to stock up on essentials, stay away from crowds, and hold off on unnecessary travel.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, Apple Podcasts, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

Rachel del Guidice: We’re joined today on The Daily Signal Podcast by Congressman Brian Babin of Texas. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us today.

Rep. Brian Babin: Great to be with you, Rachel.

Del Guidice: You’re here at CPAC [the Conservative Political Action Conference] and you’re talking about sanctuary cities and our open borders and how they reward law-breakers. Can you talk a little bit about this and how this is happening?

Babin: It’s incredible. The open borders are absolutely, in my opinion, they’re the greatest threat this country faces. And in order for us to really do something about it and fix it on a permanent basis, we’ve got to have Congress to be helping our great president in securing our border. And yet we can’t get the Democrats to do that.

We’ve got over a million illegal aliens in this country who have already had their day in court, adjudicated cases, been given orders to be removed from the country, and you have the Democrats [who] don’t want to carry out the law.

They’re so hypocritical that they say no one’s above the law in this country, especially Donald J. Trump, and that’s what they use during the impeachment proceedings. And yet they’re putting millions of illegal aliens above the law.

If you want to have a nation that’s successful and with freedom and liberties, you’ve got to have a nation of laws. And then you can’t just obey the ones you like and ignore the ones you don’t like.

You ask about sanctuary cities. This is probably the most ludicrous, insane policy that I’ve ever seen in my life where you have elected officials—whether they’re in cities, counties, or whole states—that absolutely are putting criminal aliens ahead of their own voting, tax-paying citizens.

And let me tell you, criminal activity, crimes that are committed by criminal aliens, those are preventable crimes. These people shouldn’t be here to begin with. And then when they are deported and they reenter it’s supposed to be a felony, and yet they’re being shielded.

They, sanctuary leadership, the elected officials are telling their law enforcement agencies, “Do not cooperate with the federal immigration.” So they get turned loose.

New York City, just a few weeks ago, had a 92-year-old woman murdered, raped by a criminal alien who had been released in a sanctuary operation and she would be alive today had they not had the sanctuary policy.

So I think the American people are going to be really, really interested in seeing these types of policies abolished. And I’m so happy to report, Rachel, that the courts have just ruled at the president wanting to withhold funding to these sanctuary cities to keep them from getting federal funds because of their violation of immigration law, that it has been upheld in the court.

So the president has been right. We’ve been right there with him the entire time. I’ve been a very staunch supporter of our borders but the Democrats simply don’t want to do that. But you know what? It’s happening and it’s because we have a strong president that knows what to do and does the right thing.

Del Guidice: Speaking of sanctuary cities, I just recently took a trip to the border in Arizona and the city of Tucson. They recently, I believe it was in November, rejected becoming a sanctuary city. How in Texas are you seeing results or issues from sanctuary cities spill into your state? Do you see that at all in Texas?

Babin: Yes, ma’am. We see it. We see it very frequently. And you know, just a few short years ago, Rachel, the Democrats had a totally different line that they were telling. They wanted to secure the border. The labor unions did not want workers coming in, foreign illegals … taking American jobs.

Yet now it’s been a complete flip-flop. The Democrats don’t want to stop. In fact, they want to legitimize illegal crossings and they want an open border. There’s no question about it. This is what the sanctuaries are all about.

The reason they do is the very bottom line, the bottom line of having open borders is that they want people coming into this country being dependent upon the government from the very get-go and then when they do become enfranchised to vote, they will vote Democrat.

If they thought these [illegal aliens] were going to vote Republican, I can tell you they’d be singing a whole different tune already and [in] several sanctuary areas, especially the state of California, illegal aliens are already voting in local and state elections. Did you know that? And, incredibly, they offered a bill just a few weeks back to allow them to vote throughout the country in federal elections.

Unfortunately, we’re in the minority, the Republicans in the House of Representatives now, but, fortunately, the Senate is still in Republican hands so that is not going anywhere.

Del Guidice: You mentioned how you are seeing effects of sanctuary cities in Texas. If there is one result from illegal immigration that you see most often, most widespread in Texas, what would that be?

Babin: I can tell you, in my district, in my district alone, and one of my counties, we have a school district there [whose] student population has grown almost 400% in about five years. And it’s simply due to illegal aliens coming into the area and the open borders down south. My district is probably 250 miles from the border and we’re being impacted by it.

And we have to educate these people. We’ve got to medicate these people. Every single one of the Democrat candidates for president have said they want to give free medical care to people who are here illegally.

And so I think the sanctuary cities—and they’re in Texas to Houston, Austin, there’s a number of them—the criminal activity, the people who are being impacted negatively due to crimes and also the overwhelming numbers and the costs of treating these people medically and educating them in our school districts and this one school district is being overwhelmed, overwhelmed.

Del Guidice: How are you seeing and are you seeing effects of drug trafficking in Texas? When I was in Arizona, one of the sheriffs in Pinal County talked a lot about the huge influx of illegal drugs they see coming across the border and how those are funneled into the country from the desert in Arizona where illegal immigrants come up from Mexico and come into Arizona. Are you seeing that in Texas?

Babin: Ah, yes. We are definitely seeing the results of an open border where we have an enormous number of illegal drugs coming in.

I voted repeatedly for anti-opioid, anti-drug smuggling legislation, and when we see that the percentage of these drugs coming in across our border and 75,000 Americans dying of opioid overdoses and drug overdoses each year, it’s just an incredible thought. So that is another really visible aspect and result of our open borders.

Del Guidice: The Democrats have a piece of immigration legislation called the New Way Forward Act. I know that you have a lot of thoughts on this. What do you think about this piece of legislation?

Babin: It’s the worst piece of legislation I’ve ever seen in my life. … I can’t understand how anybody who is a United States congressman representing a district of the United States of America can offer a bill with a straight face that’s this bad. …

We would go from having sanctuary cities and sanctuary states to a sanctuary nation if this thing passes. And I think at last count they had 44 to 50 Democrats already on this thing.

It’s essentially open borders. … If you commit a crime in the country today as an illegal [alien], you’re supposed to be deported. If you’re sentenced to a one-year prison sentence, then … you’re eligible for deportation. This would make it five years. Basically, you can hardly commit any kind of a crime that would have an automatic deportation.

It’s going to give an enormous amount of jurisdiction and authority to immigration judges. They can overrule deportation orders. The whole thing is just insane and it’s a prescription for disaster for the United States. And, you know, it’s the “New Way Forward,” I think even many of the Democrats know that this really is a bridge too far. …

Who wants “Medicare for All,” to spend $3.2 trillion a year, almost the amount of our whole budget, just for health care? Who wants the Green New Deal, which would eliminate fracking and oil and gas production, cattle raising? Unbelievably, this would destroy a number of states, including the great state of Texas.

If you get rid of fracking, you’re going to put about 7 million people out of a job across this country. You’re going to cost the gross domestic product at least $7 trillion to $8 trillion, and it’s just not going to work. This is just another way for our comrade [Sen.] Bernie [Sanders] and the rest of these socialists to ruin America.

Del Guidice: There’s a county in your state, Harris County, and they recently approved a legal fund for [illegal aliens] to give them the defense funds.

Babin: That’s right.

Del Guidice: What is your thought on that development?

Babin: [It’s] another insane plan. … This was come up by our county judge down there, Judge [Lina] Hidalgo, and basically what she’s going to do is have the citizen taxpayers of Harris County, Texas, that’s Houston, basically pay for legal representation for illegal aliens if they get in trouble with the law, deportation, immigration, anything. She’s going to load that cost onto the backs of her own voting citizens to pay for. It’s insane.

I’m hoping that the people of Harris County will certainly not appreciate what that is intended to do in [the] great county of Harris County and in my district, as I represent part of Harris County.

Del Guidice: The Trump administration had recently announced that they’ve reached 100 miles of border wall construction along the southern border with Mexico. What other measures, along with building a wall, do you think [are] necessary to really secure our border and reform our immigration system?

Babin: There’s a number of things we can do. Certainly the barrier. We’ve already seen some of the walls been completed near El Paso. Illegal crossings are down 80% where these barriers are.

We’ve got to have more personnel. They’ve got to have more resources. … We have to start taking care of our Border Patrol and our CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and all the federal agencies that are involved. We’ve got to start funding them like we do our military.

This essentially is an invasion. We saw it in May of last year. We had 144,000 [illegal aliens] that just walked across the border, gave themselves up, and were turned loose into the interior of the country.

So, … I mentioned this at the beginning of our conversation today, you’ve got well over a million illegal aliens, many of them criminals who have already had their … day in court, the federal government has adjudicated their cases and given them orders to be removed from the country. That’s called interior enforcement.

If we would start deporting these people—the Democrats don’t want a single one of them out here, even the criminals, it’s incredible. But if we don’t start carrying these deportations out of these criminals and these people that have already had their day in court, we will continue the green light, the welcome sign to come in, incentivizing people from all over the world to come into our nation.

We can help. I can tell you on the refugee program—not the immigration, but on the refugee program—that we bring in a number of refugees each year. It’s a United Nations operation, basically. We can actually help 12 refugees in their own countries for the price of bringing one into the United States of America.

Del Guidice: Crazy we don’t talk about that.

Babin: They need to be talking about it because, in fact, … Rep. [Ilhan] Omar, she came in from Somalia. She was one of these refugees. Now she’s sitting in the United States House of Representatives and disparaging her adopted country, which is an amazing thing to me. We opened our arms to her.

But this is exactly what we have to start remedying. We’ve got to have some common sense. Our elected leaders are going to have to start doing things for the benefit of their own people.

We want to continue to be a compassionate Judeo-Christian country to help those that are downtrodden, that want, that need help or [are] oppressed. And we can do a much better job to help them in their own countries—and we have for many, many decades—than to bring them in here and have them loaded onto the backs of our local state, tax-paying citizens, the federal citizen taxpayers as well.

We got to be smart. We want to be a sovereign nation and we want to be a nation that is not broke.

Del Guidice: That is very true. … You were talking about Customs and Border [Protection] and the work that they do, and when I was in Arizona with the sheriff of Pinal County, he was mentioning that a lot of times Border Patrol ends up—and other law enforcement agencies—being a humanitarian response to people that are out caught in the desert and illegal immigrants that don’t have enough water or food, and then they had been called out to help those people.

Babin: Right.

Del Guidice: What is your perspective of how the work of the CBP is portrayed in media? A lot of times I think it’s not news, that it’s not favorable. What is your thought on that?

Babin: They’re constantly criticized, demonized by the left. They even want to abolish ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. I mean, that’d be like saying, “Let’s get rid of your police, your local police department. You don’t need those people. They just do bad things.” You got to have law enforcement. We have to be a nation of laws, as I’ve already said, absolutely. And the left just constantly criticizes them.

I feel sorry for these people. I’ve met and worked with some of them. I’ve been on the border a number of times. I’m the co-chairman of the House Border Security Caucus. I’ve been to that border probably five or six times and it’s been from … San Diego, California, all the way back to McAllen, Texas. So I’ve been all up and down that border.

As I said in the beginning, I think this is probably the most serious thing that this country faces, [it] could lead to our demise, our bankruptcy, loss of sovereignty. And the Democrats simply want open borders and pushing socialist programs. It’s a prescription for the demise of our nation.

Del Guidice: You mentioned socialism and we’re here talking live at CPAC. And the theme this year for CPAC is socialism vs. the American dream. So as we wrap up, why is the American dream … the fix to socialism?

Babin: Well, I think the American dream has always been alive and well. … I have 16 grandchildren, Rachel. And that’s one reason I ran for office. I want to see this country continue to give the opportunity for the American dream to all young people, in fact, young and old, that are entering our country.

Our family were immigrants at one time as well. And so we have absolutely nothing but love for immigrants, but they have to do it the right way. And they also have to be immigrants that are willing to pay their way and not come up here and get on public assistance, and that will do a day’s work and will love America, not come up here and fly their former nations’ flags. So, good, don’t fly their flag, fly the American flag.

And I think this is what a lot of people … have a problem with. And it’s nothing against [legal] immigration. … We want people to come in here and make America a better country, to love this nation and appreciate its history and what it has meant to the rest of the world. …

As [President Ronald] Reagan said, we have been a shining city on a hill, a beacon of freedom, and we need to continue that. And if we go socialist and we have open borders, that won’t last.

Del Guidice: Congressman Babin, thank you so much for being with us on The Daily Signal Podcast.

Babin: Great to be with you, Rachel. See ya.

COLUMN BY

Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.

RELATED ARTICLE: Virginia Lawmakers Pass Bill Giving Driving Privilege Cards to Illegal Aliens

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Teacher Takes Union to Court for Ignoring Supreme Court Ruling on Dues

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“Everything the union does is inherently political, and I could see that in the mailings I received,” says art teacher Greg Hartnett, who sued the Pennsylvania State Education Association over fees imposed on nonunion employees.

Pennsylvania’s largest public employee union needs to stop evading a landmark Supreme Court ruling, an art teacher argues in a lawsuit that could undo key provisions of state labor laws.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association continues to negotiate provisions to give it “fair share fees” in collective bargaining agreements, despite the fact that the highest court in the land ruled those fees unconstitutional, a lawyer who represents the art teacher told The Daily Signal in an interview.

“PSEA specifically has a history of thumbing its nose at Supreme Court precedent, and it has sometimes required litigation to make them comply with the court’s rulings,” Nathan McGrath, litigation director at the Fairness Center, said of the teachers union.

The Fairness Center, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, represents art teacher Greg Hartnett and three other public school teachers who sued the Pennsylvania State Education Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association.

Hartnett and the others argue the teachers union shows “a willingness to challenge or ignore Supreme Court precedent,” and that the teachers should not be forced to pay the union’s fair share fees.

The case, Hartnett v. PSEA, is with the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is expected to rule in a few months. The Fairness Center teamed with the National Right to Work Foundation to represent the four complaining teachers.

The brief filed in August argues that the teachers union has a long history of undermining and violating Supreme Court rulings. It cites several examples that occurred after the high court’s June 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which invalidated fair share fees, as being the latest in a series.

Related: A Year After the Supreme Court Rules Against Unions, What’s Changed 

“PSEA specifically has a history of thumbing its nose at Supreme Court precedent, and it has sometimes required litigation to make them comply with the court’s rulings,” McGrath said of the teachers union, adding:

Because of that, the fact that the PSEA and its affiliates are still negotiating fair share fees provisions into collective bargaining agreements after Janus is not actually very shocking to us. This seems to be par for the course for how [the unions] operate, and it’s required federal court cases in the past, and in some cases a very lengthy period of time, to get them to comply with what the Supreme Court has said.

U.S. Department of Labor records show the Pennsylvania State Education Association has about 180,000 members, more than any other government union in the state.

The Daily Signal sought comment from the teachers union on the Hartnett case and on the allegations that the union has a history of violating Supreme Court rulings, including the Janus decision. At the time of publication, the union had not responded.

Targeting Pennsylvania Law

Referring to the 3rd Circuit, McGrath said: “At the end of the day, we would like them to bring Janus to Pennsylvania and say that Pennsylvania’s fair share fee law, which is currently on the books, runs counter to what the Supreme Court has said and to declare the Pennsylvania fair share fee law unconstitutional.”

In the Janus ruling, the Supreme Court said state laws requiring nonunion government workers to pay fair share fees to a union violate the First Amendment rights of employees who do not support the political agenda of public employee unions.

In a press release, the Fairness Center estimates that in more than 70% of Pennsylvania’s 500 school districts, public school teachers who opted out of joining the union were required to pay fair share fees to teachers unions to cover collective bargaining costs.

In the 2016-2017 school year, the fees were only 26% less than full membership dues, the center says.

Hartnett, who teaches art teacher in Homer-Center School District in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, and is the lead plaintiff in the case, previously was a member of the teachers union.

Hartnett, the father of five and an avid hunter, has taught since 1999.

He says that when it became apparent that the union’s political positions were in conflict with his own, he decided to go through the formal process of opting out of membership, which he described as “arduous and complicated.”

After the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling, Hartnett opted out of paying nonmember fair share fees.

“I came to see that the union’s platforms and positions were very liberal and very different from mine and I did not want to contribute to someone else’s politics,” Hartnett said in an interview with The Daily Signal, adding:

The collective bargaining process itself is very political, and when they say political funds are separated from fair share fees, I don’t believe it. Everything the union does is inherently political, and I could see that in the mailings I received. I believe in the freedom of choice for each individual to represent themselves.

Teachers who prefer not to be in the union but need liability insurance and legal protection have alternatives, Hartnett said.

“There are free-market alternatives to the problem of the PSEA,” he said. “It is possible for teachers to go out and get a better product for less money, but I’m not sure many teachers are aware of these options.”

Paycheck Protection

On the day of the Janus ruling, Rebecca Friedrichs, a former California public school teacher, made a prescient observation near the steps leading up to the Supreme Court.

Friedrichs told supporters that the high court’s decision to strike down mandatory union dues and fees was “just the beginning, not the end, of a very long fight.” Friedrichs told The Daily Signal.

In an interview, she said she “she ardently supports the Hartnett case,” which closely mirrors her own litigation.

Related: The Christian Educator Behind Teachers’ Fight for Free Speech at the Supreme Court 

Friedrichs, who taught elementary school students for 28 years in the Savanna School District in Anaheim, California, was the lead plaintiff in a suit opposing mandatory union dues and fees.

She joined with nine other teachers and the Christian Educators Association International to sue the California Teachers Association, the National Education Association, and several local unions. Like Janus, Friedrichs and the other teachers argued that the union mandates violated their First Amendment rights.

Friedrichs’ case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, where oral arguments were held Jan. 11, 2016. With the death of Justice Antonin Scalia just a few weeks later, the court deadlocked in a 4-4 ruling that left California’s “agency shop” law in place until it was overturned in the Janus ruling.

But unlike Janus, the Friedrichs case explicitly asked the court to address the need for “paycheck protection” rules to prevent school districts from automatically deducting union dues from employees’ paychecks without their permission.

The former schoolteacher submitted an amicus brief in the Janus case, explaining why it was necessary for government employers and unions to obtain “affirmative consent” from employees before deducting dues or fees from their paychecks.

“We need paycheck protection, otherwise taxpayers will continue to pay for the collection of union dues,” Friedrichs told The Daily Signal, adding:

I submitted an amicus brief in the Janus case where I addressed the need for an opt-in rather than an opt-out arrangement where an employee needed to make a conscious decision to opt in to joining a union rather than going through the cumbersome process of opting out. This is not something Janus specifically asked for, but the court did deliver on this and said that employees must give their affirmative consent and consciously opt in to joining a union and paying union dues. But the other part of this is paycheck protection.

The Commonwealth Foundation, a free-market think tank based in Harrisburg, published a timeline of legislative efforts to implement paycheck protection, which would prohibit state and local government agencies (including school districts) from collecting union dues from the paychecks of government employees at taxpayers’ expense.

“Janus is the first domino and many others need to fall,” Friedrichs said. “Teachers unions are out of control. They’re not unions in the traditional sense and they are not representing teachers.”

The union label is misleading, she argues, because it is used as “a mask to advance a far-left agenda.”

“The unions are using the public schools to spread propaganda to undermine constitutional limited government,” Friedrichs said:

Unions are the root cause of the failure in our schools. They are also still finding ways to collect fair share fees, but they just don’t call them that. The Hartnett case is very important to help ensure the law is being followed and free speech rights are being protected. God bless them.

Friedrichs is the founder of For Kids and Country, a grassroots group of parents, teachers, students, faith leaders, and citizens who support education reform.

Legislative Reforms

Although his clients no longer pay fair share fees, McGrath said, he finds that teachers unions continue to make a concerted effort to undermine the Supreme Court’s Janus ruling.

“PSEA continues to work with their locals to negotiate fair share fee provisions into their collective bargaining arrangements that are being negotiated and signed after Janus,” the Fairness Center lawyer said. “It’s illegal language that’s being negotiated into these contracts. For the most part, PSEA controls negotiations for the locals on their behalf. They are largely dictating what goes into these collective bargaining agreements.”

While the Fairness Center continues to press its case, some Pennsylvania lawmakers have stepped up in an effort to reform the state’s labor laws.

Related: With Millions in Dues at Stake Across US, One Man Fights His Union for a Refund

State Rep. Kate Klunk, a York County Republican, introduced a measure (HB 785) that would require government employers to notify workers of their rights.

State Rep. Greg Rothman, a Cumberland County Republican, introduced a bill (HB 506) to allow government employees to resign from a union anytime they like, without a window to do so or any other restrictions.

“The aim of House Bill 785 is rather simple,” Klunk said in an email to The Daily Signal, adding:

It ensures workers who were once forced to pay into a public sector union know their rights, namely that they do not have to pay so-called fair share fees.

Though the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the ruling in the Janus v. AFSCME decision, not all workers know that they no longer have to pay these fees. My bill would make sure they are alerted to the change. My bill would also alert those who apply for public sector jobs that being a member of the union is not a condition of employment, and that as a nonmember they have no obligation to make any payments.

COLUMN BY

Kevin Mooney

Kevin Mooney is an investigative reporter for The Daily Signal. Send an email to Kevin. Twitter: @KevinMooneyDC.

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

VIDEO: Marine Le Pen Demands a Real Immigration Policy, Not a Fake One to Anesthetize the Public

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Marine Le Pen, French National Front political party leader and candidate for the National Front. Marine demands a real immigration policy, not a fake one to anesthetize the public.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog video posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Vatican Blasts United Nations Push for Abortion, LGBT, Gender Ideology

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GENEVA (ChurchMilitant.com) – The Holy See has condemned the “ideological colonization” of a United Nations report which is demanding the submission of religious-based morality to progressive laws and policies supporting abortion, LGBT rights and gender ideology.

In a strongly-worded statement, Abp. Ivan Jurkovič, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the U.N., reiterated that “the Holy See has always understood ‘gender’ and related terms according to the ordinary, generally accepted usage of the word ‘gender,’ based on the biological identity that is male and female.”

“Particularly unacceptable and offensive are the numerous references that recommend that freedom of religion or belief and conscientious objection must be surrendered for the promotion of other so-called ‘human rights,’ which certainly do not enjoy consensus,” Jurkovič told the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council, Monday in Geneva.

UN Seeks Repeal of Laws Preserving Faith, Family

Speaking Monday in Geneva, the Slovenian prelate slammed the U.N. for failing to address the religious persecution of “millions of persons worldwide” and, instead,  “pushing a vision of human society that is not shared by all and does not reflect the social, cultural and religious reality of many peoples.”

The Holy See notes “the growing influence within the international organizations of powers and interest groups that impose their own visions and ideas, sparking new forms of ideological colonization, often in disregard for the identity, dignity and sensitivities of peoples,” Jurkovič stated.

The Vatican’s criticism has been provoked by the annual report presented by Ahmed Shaheed, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, which is calling for laws based on religious or traditional morality to be repealed if they conflict with liberal human rights, ideologies and trends, chiefly in the area of gender, sexuality and reproductive rights.

In his 19-page report, titled “Freedom of Religion or Belief,” Shaheed uses the term “LGBT+” 62 times and “abortion” 23 times, insisting that “freedom of religion or belief must not be used for ends that are inconsistent with the United Nations Charter or relevant human rights instruments.”

“It is rather unfortunate, yet increasingly less surprising given its frequency, that a U.N. report, which should defend the fundamental and universal human right of freedom of religion or belief as well as the right to conscientious objection, is now attacking the very reality it is called to defend,” Jurkovič remarked.

The U.N. report deconstructs the definition of gender “as narrowly focused, physiologically based interpretations” and claims a pre-eminence for “international law” which “has further evolved” beyond the traditional and biological basis for “sex.”

Shaheed’s report castigates religious interest groups for characterizing LGBT+ rights advocates as “immoral actors” who are “seeking to undermine society by espousing ‘a gender ideology’ that is harmful to children, families, tradition and religion.”

Countries Singled Out

It excoriates countries which prohibit homosexuality “on the grounds that it upholds the tenets of Islam or Christianity” and censures four Catholic-dominated countries in Latin America for “complete bans on abortion.”

Catholic Poland is singled out for “a campaign by interest groups … against ‘gender ideology,'” for attempting “to change the constitution to define ‘the family’ according to religiously grounded heterosexual norms” and for “misusing freedom of religion or belief to oppose self-determination rights for gender diverse persons.”

Another predominantly Catholic country slated for censure is the Philippines where, according to the report, “the criminalization of abortion and lack of access to contraception is often justified by reference to religious postulates.”

“In countries that do not criminalize homosexuality, some religious groups have successfully campaigned against the introduction of schoolbooks on sex education by arguing that the books promoted homosexuality,” the report states.

Religious Objections Denied

A particular area of concern is the report’s repudiation for “conscientious objection by healthcare providers and institutions unwilling to perform abortions or provide access to contraception on religious grounds.”

In Uruguay, where nearly half the population identify as Catholic, “women can elect to have an abortion, but in certain regions, up to 87% of medical providers refuse to perform abortions,” the report disapprovingly notes, also criticizing Poland, the United States and Kenya for legal “conscience clauses” which make “access to legal abortion effectively unavailable to women in significant parts of the country.”

Shaheed’s report dovetails “religious tenets” with “pseudoscience” and “traditional values rooted in interpretations of religious teachings about the social roles for men and women in accordance with their alleged naturally different physical and mental capacities.”

Biased Sources, Flawed Methodology

The U.N. Special Rapporteur uses primary sources from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute (Planned Parenthood’s former research arm) to support the proposals in his report. It also openly states its preferential option for “feminist and human rights scholars” who argue that “deference” to the “autonomy and traditions of religious institutions is problematic” and, instead, hails pro-abortion groups like the U.S.-based Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and Poland’s #IamLGBT.

Critics have slammed the report for its flawed methodology and disingenuous conflation of concerns from female genital mutilation (FGM), polygamy, marital rape, modesty dress codes, forced veiling, early and forced marriage, treatment of religious, discrimination against religious minorities converts — practiced mostly in exclusively Muslim-dominated countries — with the promotion of abortion, contraception, the LGBT+ agenda, gender reassignment surgery and gender ideology, which seeks to erase the biological categories of male and female.

Conflict With Vatican’s View

In 2019, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education categorically rejected “gender theory,” which “denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences, thereby eliminating the anthropological basis of the family.”

Gender theory creates “a cultural and ideological revolution driven by relativism” and such ideologies “assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised,” the document “Male and Female He Created them,” affirmed, quoting Pope Francis’ unequivocal position on gender ideology.

COLUMN BY

JULES GOMES

Dr. Jules Gomes, B.A., B.D., M.Th., Ph.D. (Cantab) is Rome Correspondent for Church Militant. He is a journalist, academic and editor of Rebel Priest.

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

NORTH CAROLINA: First Muslim Woman to Win Elected Office in the State Flaunted Hijab as Campaign Logo

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Nida Allam has been elected to office in North Carolina, and her campaign has prioritized the significance of her Democratic primary win in Durham county:

The campaign told CNN that officials looked back at previous North Carolina election data, county by county, and found no previous Muslim American women who had won elections to hold office in the state. “That’s when you realize — this hasn’t been done,” Allam told CNN.

Allam celebrates and promotes the hijab — an Islamic symbol of female oppression — and deems it bigotry to oppose it:

“My silhouette on my campaign logo is of my hijab because I wanted to be very unapologetic about that. These little girls were so excited. They said, ‘That’s you? Is that really a hijab? Is that a hijab that you use?’ They were so excited to see that kind of representation,” Allam said. “And it really solidified for me how important it was to for me to be running for office.”

This is what Nida Allam beams with pride over and wants Americans to accept:

(Quran 24:31) And tell the believing women to reduce of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands’ fathers, their sons, their husbands’ sons, their brothers, their brothers’ sons, their sisters’ sons, their women, that which their right hands possess, or those male attendants having no physical desire, or children who are not yet aware of the private aspects of women. And let them not stamp their feet to make known what they conceal of their adornment. And turn to Allah in repentance, all of you, O believers, that you might succeed.

If a woman does not cover, she is fair game to be assaulted:

(Quran 33:59) O Prophet, tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to bring down over themselves of their outer garments. That is more suitable that they will be known and not be abused.

Allam was a signatory to a Muslim Affairs Council petition entitled We stand with Rep. Ilhan Omar and subtitled Community leaders from all over the US are supporting Rep. Ilhan Omar against bigotry.

Allam wants to see “better” education in schools, since in her view, opposing the hijab is rooted in “hatred” and “bigotry”:

“Allam said she wanted to run for commissioner because of the significant role the board has in allocating funding for schools. ‘This type of hatred and bigotry that my friends were lost to, I feel like there’s a lack of education, that also leads to that type of environment,’ she said.”

CAIR, which has been increasingly influential in North Carolina, not surprisingly supported Allam’s candidacy. Back in September, CAIR called on North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Dan Forest to “withdraw from headlining an event featuring several controversial anti-Islamic speakers.” According to North Carolina Policy Watch, the roster of speakers for the “private conservative Christian event” included:

  • A pastor who calls the notion of a separation between church and state “cowardice” and those in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality “militant homofascists” bent on turning the U.S. into Sodom.
  • An author who has railed against Muslims as would-be conquerors and rapists and LGBTQ rights as a first step to America living under Sharia law.
  • A pastor and Republican politician who has asserted anyone not committed to the U.S. as an explicitly Judeo-Christian nation should leave.

No names were given and no fair coverage was provided about what message these individuals have actually delivered.

CAIR’s national communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, stated that “such ‘comments’ once regarded as limited to the political fringe – have sadly become more mainstream in American politics.” Then Hooper proceeded to blame (who else?) Donald Trump:

“Unfortunately with the election of Donald Trump we’ve seen the empowerment of white supremacy, xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-immigrant extremism around the country,” Hooper said. “That includes among lower level public officials who perhaps had these beliefs in the past but kept them private.”

North Carolina Policy Watch featured more “Muslim rights activists in North Carolina,” who stated that they were “pushing back….after the U.S. Education Department ordered the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies to revise its curriculum, saying it is advancing ‘ideological priorities’ and promoting ‘the positive aspects of Islam’ and is in danger of losing its federal grant funding.”

The alliance between Nida Allam, CAIR, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and her unwavering support for Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib should be matters of concern.

“North Carolina woman says she’s first Muslim American woman to win elected office in the state,” by Jessica Campisi, CNN, March 5, 2020:

(CNN)Nida Allam made history on Tuesday night when she became the first Muslim American woman to be elected to office in North Carolina, her campaign says.

Allam, who ran as a Democrat, was one of five women to win the party’s primary for the Durham County Board of Commissioners’ five seats, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections. She finished fourth with 39,523 votes.

Since there are no Republican candidates running in the general election, Allam and the four other candidates will presumptively take office in November.

“People of Durham you made history last night by electing me as the FIRST Muslim Woman to serve the state of North Carolina,” Allam tweeted Wednesday morning. “I can’t even express how grateful I am to have earned your trust and support.”

The campaign told CNN that officials looked back at previous North Carolina election data, county by county, and found no previous Muslim American women who had won elections to hold office in the state.

“That’s when you realize — this hasn’t been done,” Allam told CNN.

Muslim advocacy groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and Muslim Advocates, celebrated the win.
“She succeeded where others weren’t able to break through that glass ceiling,” Robert McCaw, the council’s Government Affairs Department director, told CNN.

Allam’s campaign priorities include a $15 minimum wage for county workers, boosting mental health services in schools and investing in businesses run by women and people of color, according to her website….

RELATED VIDEO: High School Teacher Reprimanded for Insulting Islam on Facebook.

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

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