New York City Experienced Worst Decline in Restaurant Jobs since 9/11 After $15 Minimum Wage Win

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The Big Apple’s fast-food industry, The New York Times recently reported, has long served as a laboratory for progressive politicians and the nation’s labor machine.

But new economic research suggests their latest experiment is not going as planned.

Data show that following the labor movement’s “Fight for $15” victory, which imposed steep annual increases in mandatory wages for workers, New York City experienced its sharpest decline in restaurant jobs in nearly 20 years.

Restaurants tend to operate on famously low profit margins, typically 2 to 6 percent. So a 40 percent mandatory wage increase over a two-year period is not trivial.

In response to the minimum wage hikes, New York City restaurants did what businesses tend to do when labor costs rise: they increased prices and reduced labor staff and hours.

For example, Lalito’s, a popular restaurant on Bayard Street, recently raised its menu prices 10-15 percent, Eater New York reports.

A New York City Hospitality Alliance survey also showed that three out of four full-service restaurants said they planned to reduce employee hours. Nearly half of those surveyed said they planned to eliminate some job positions in 2019.

In response, New York City council members are trying to shield restaurant employees from “unfair” firings. Labor lawyer Michael J. Lotito, whose firm represents the restaurant industry, told The Times that a “just cause” firing provision for fast food employers “would be a first in the country.”

Regardless of whether or not the firings are “fair,” the data are clear: restaurant workers are losing jobs.

Recently published data from the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning Washington, DC, think tank, show that full-service restaurant employment declined for the first time in a decade in 2018. That year also saw the sharpest month-to-month annual decline since the attacks of 9/11.

“December 2018 restaurant jobs were down by almost 3,000 (and by 1.64%) from the previous December,” wrote economist Mark Perry, “and the 2.5% annual decline in March 2018 was the worst annual decline since the sharp collapse in restaurant jobs following 9/11 in 2001.”

Perry says this “restaurant recession” is likely the result of the series of mandatory wage hikes that brought the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour.

New York’s experience is noteworthy since numerous states have passed or are in the process of passing a $15 pay floor. Illinois and New Jersey recently passed laws mandating a $15 minimum wage—they will be phased in over several years, similar to New York’s law—joining California, Massachusetts, and of course New York. The Maryland House of Delegates advanced a $15 pay floor by voice vote Wednesday. The District of Columbia and some cities, including Seattle and Minneapolis, have also passed $15 minimum wage laws.

Considering the latest results of New York’s $15 minimum wage experiment, lawmakers and activists should consider Mary Shelley’s great moral lesson: beware the monsters we create ourselves.

COLUMN BY

Jon Miltimore

Jonathan Miltimore is the Managing Editor of FEE.org. His writing/reporting has appeared in TIME magazine, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Forbes, and Fox News. 

RELATED ARTICLE: What Streaming Services Teach Us about Economics

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

VIDEO: How Washington Wastes Your Tax Dollars on Art

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Should your tax dollars be spent on art of Che Guevara? Watch this video to learn more about how Washington is funding “art” with your money.

COMMENTARY BY

Sen. Rick Scott

Rick Scott is a U.S. senator from Florida. Twitter: .

Romina Boccia

Romina Boccia focuses on federal spending and the national debt as director of the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. Twitter: .

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The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>

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

Netflix Adds Phony Jesus to Your Watchlist

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We’ve seen stranger things during the Christmas season, but Netflix’s latest stunt isn’t turning out to be a blockbuster with Christians. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but most Brazilians — where the show originated — aren’t laughing. “The First Temptation of Christ” is about a Jesus who identifies as gay, “has relations,” and refuses to preach the Bible — a not-so-side-splitting plot to a predominately Catholic nation. In fact, the idea is so controversial that more than 1.8 million people have signed a Portuguese petition calling on Netflix to pull this “clear attack on Christianity” and issue an apology.

Frankly, the site’s decision to air such an offensive show isn’t surprising. This is what the world does. We can’t expect a business that’s not based in the truths of the Bible to give a fair representation of Jesus. But what Netflix has done has gone far beyond giving an alternate explanation. The choice to put this on their platform is a deliberate choice to make a mockery not only of Christians, but of the Christ they follow.

The wisdom of offering a show that would trample underfoot the object of worship of millions of people — not just in America but worldwide — shows that the decision to run the show isn’t one based in business principles. There’s no way that the monetary value of a show like this will outweigh what they’ll lose in terms of their viewers’ trust. It’s been said before, you don’t see Netflix offering a similar scenario featuring Muhammad, or Buddha, or any other religious figure. They’ll attack Jesus because they think it won’t cause them any problems with Christians.

Christians need to see this for what it really is: Netflix is pushing the boundaries hoping to normalize the notion that God is created in our own image, instead of the other way around. This is an age-old lie that’s been around since the beginning of time. It’s time Christians wake up to the fact that corporations like Netflix will keep moving in this direction (after all, it’s their natural inclination.) Our voices will be trampled along with everything that’s holy if we don’t speak up and when necessary turnover a few tables.

No one is saying that Netflix doesn’t have the right to feature this show. As far as offering the film in the United States is concerned, the First Amendment applies. Government censorship only transfers the burden of responsibility to someone else. They have the right, but that doesn’t mean it is right. As consumers the world over, we have a stewardship responsibility to speak up and take a stand. It’s good to see so many people in Brazil calling on Netflix to reconsider. I hope they’ll listen to their viewers (or at least, former viewers).

Will American Christians continue to keep Netflix in their watchlist? I pray we don’t have to wait until next season to find out.

Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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

3 Democrats Defect as House Votes to Impeach Trump

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The Democrat-controlled House voted Wednesday night to approve two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump after about 10 hours of debate.

In two historic votes largely along party lines, the House charged Trump with abusing his power by a vote of 229 to 197 and obstructing Congress by a vote of 228 to 198.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, elected as a Republican but recently turned independent, voted for both articles of impeachment.

Two Democrats, Reps. Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, voted “no” on both articles of impeachment. Van Drew indicated over the weekend that he plans to become a Republican.

The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>

A third Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted “no” on the charge of obstructing Congress.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, voted “present” on both charges.

“Taken together, the two articles charge that President Trump placed his private, political interest above our national security, above our elections, and above our system of checks and balances,” Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said.

The outcome makes Trump the third president in American history to be impeached by the House of Representatives. President Andrew Johnson was the first in 1868 and President Bill Clinton became the second on Dec. 19, 1998, almost exactly 21 years ago.

Trump was speaking at a rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the vote on the first article of impeachment occurred, and cable news networks used a split screen to show both the president and the unfolding votes.

The rally was held in Amash’s congressional district.

“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” Trump told the cheering crowd. “The country is doing better than ever before, [and] we did nothing wrong.”

The floor debate began after 9 a.m. and, as day turned into evening, House members from each side howled or applauded, depending on who was speaking. The votes concluded around 8:45 p.m.

Democrats based the charge of abuse of power on Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which they allege Trump pressured Ukraine’s new leader to open an investigation into a political rival at a time when Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in congressionally approved military aid. Trump released the aid in September.

According to an official White House transcript, Trump expressed concern that Ukraine, years before Zelenskyy took office, meddled in the 2016 presidential election in the United States.

The two leaders also talked briefly about Trump’s interest in Ukraine’s investigating the activities of former Vice President Joe Biden’s son as a highly paid board member at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma while the senior Biden was President Barack Obama’s point man for Ukraine policy.

“President Trump should have been focused on the interest of the American people in that call,” Nadler said. “Instead, he prioritized his private, political interests.”

Democrats based their charge of obstruction of Congress on Trump’s direction that administration officials not respond to subpoenas for documents and testimony during the House impeachment inquiry.

“Many presidents, including President Trump, have asserted privilege and other objections to specific subpoenas,” Nadler said. “But only President Trump has ordered the categorical defiance of a congressional investigation, the automatic rejection of all subpoenas.”

The two articles of impeachment likely will go nowhere in a Senate trial, noted John Malcolm, director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

“It is the culmination of an impeachment effort by House Democrats that began within days of Trump’s inauguration nearly three years ago. It all seems so anti-climactic,” Malcolm said in a written statement, adding of the coming Senate trial:

Assuming that all 45 Democrats and both independents vote to convict, they will still need at least 20 Republican senators to join them in order to remove Trump from office. This will not happen. … President Trump will not be unseated by this partisan ploy. While [the] vote in the House will, no doubt, anger the president, the ultimate verdict will be rendered by the people when they vote in November 2020.

It requires 67 senators, an unlikely two-thirds majority, to convict and remove a president after a Senate impeachment trial. Republicans hold 53 seats.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters earlier in the day that the House would consider withholding the articles of impeachment from the Senate. This move could stall the trial, providing some leverage to House Democrats on setting the rules.

During the House floor debate, Republican lawmakers argued that the articles of impeachment were vague and did not allege a specific crime.

“I not only serve on the Judiciary Committee, I also serve on the Rules Committee,” Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., said. “I have spent hours and hours and hours reading transcripts, looking at documents, hearing testimony. I can tell you one thing: I believe this is the most unfair, politically biased, rigged process that I have seen in my entire life.”

“There is no proof, none, that the president has committed an impeachable offense,” Lesko added. “Not one of the Democrat witnesses, not one, was able to establish that the president committed bribery, treason, or high crimes and misdemeanors as required [for impeachment] in the U.S. Constitution.”

Lesko noted that 17 of the 24 Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee already had voted to back an impeachment resolution against Trump before the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call.

Five of the nine Democrats on the House Rules Committee also already had voted to impeach Trump, she said.

The Arizona Republican was referring to Reps. Al Green, D-Texas, and Brad Sherman, D-Calif., who used procedures to force three earlier votes on the House floor on whether to table Green’s resolution to impeach Trump. The most recent such resolution was in July.

Van Drew, Peterson, and Golden were the only Democrats to defect among the 31 who won election in 2018 in congressional districts won by Trump in 2016.

Rep. Elaine Luria of Virginia is among the “Trump district” Democrats. She invoked her military background, which helped her win election, in arguing for impeachment.

“I rise today in support of the oath I first took at 17 upon entering the Naval Academy and took five more times in my 20-year Navy career, an oath that comforted me in the years that I spent away from my family deployed around the globe,” Luria said, adding:  “And today, an oath that gives me resolve, resolve to do today what is right and not what is politically expedient, resolve to stand with the president at the White House last week and resolve to stand up to the president today.”

Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C., the No. 3 Democrat in the House, appeared to use the words “domestic enemies” to refer to Trump and invoked religion in describing his vote.

“I rise today feeling the full weight of my duty as a member of this august body, reflecting upon our oath of office to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” Clyburn said.

Clyburn, quoting Founding Father Thomas Paine, said: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered.”

“Today, we have a president who seems to believe he is a king or above the law,” Clyburn said. “Paine warned us that so unlimited a power can belong only to God Almighty. My faith leads me to take very seriously the final words of our oath, ‘to faithfully discharge the duties of the office, so help me God.’”

Pelosi had resisted impeachment for months, but said Wednesday that she had no choice. As she spoke, Pelosi stood by a prop, a sign that quoted from the Pledge of Allegiance: “And to the Republic for which it stands.”

“If we do not act now, we will be derelict in our duty,” Pelosi said. “It is tragic the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., gained applause from his caucus when he asserted about 7:45 p.m. that Trump easily would survive impeachment following a Senate trial.

“Donald J. Trump is president of the United States. He is president today. He will be president tomorrow. And he will be president when this impeachment is over,” McCarthy said, prefacing his remarks by saying he knew they would upset Democrats.

Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, noted the previous attempts to impeach Trump and referred to Green’s widely reported comment that Democrats needed to impeach Trump to keep him from getting reelected.

“That is probably the most prescient thing said by the majority in the last year, is, ‘We can’t beat him if we don’t impeach him.’ There is a reason behind this impeachment, and even Speaker Pelosi said it would be dangerous to leave it to voters to determine whether President Trump stays in office. Really?” Collins said, adding:

After we just said the Pledge of Allegiance, we go back to the speaker’s own words, who said it would be dangerous to leave it [Trump’s fate] to the voters. I will tell you right now, Madam Speaker, we on the Republican side have no problem taking our side to the [House] majority and to the people of this country because they elected Donald Trump, and it is a matter for the voters, not this House, not in this way, not in the way this is being done. It has trampled everything this House believes in.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who started what she called the “Impeach 45” movement in 2017, appeared to boast of a mission accomplished.

“History will remember those who were willing to speak truth to power. Yes, I called for Trump’s impeachment early,” Waters said, adding:

This is our country. Our foremothers and our forefathers shed their blood to build and defend this democracy. I refuse to have it undermined. I wholeheartedly support this resolution. I’m proud that in the final analysis, justice will have been served in America and Donald Trump will have been impeached.

Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.

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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A Note for our Readers:With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:

Is socialism really morally sound?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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

America spoke. House Democrats never listened.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are about to go down in history. Their legacy will be sealed tonight with an unfair, hyper-partisan impeachment vote that is unprecedented for all the wrong reasons.

  • President Donald J. Trump committed no crime. House Democrats agree: Their Articles of Impeachment against him do not claim a single criminal violation. For the first time in history, a President will be impeached for solely political reasons.
  • Also for the first time ever, an American President will be impeached without any votes from the minority party. A couple Democrats may join in opposing it, too.
  • The Pelosi-Schiff blitz will go down as the fastest impeachment in U.S. history. Why the rush? Because public support has dropped steadily throughout the process. Most Americans are against it. Democrats can’t afford to let it continue.

If House Democrats are remembered for anything else, it will be their rank hypocrisy. Obvious political double standards tend to get lost in the moment—especially with a Democrat-friendly media helping the cause—but history judges them harshly.

During the Clinton impeachment, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY)—now chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee—warned that a partisan impeachment would be illegitimate. Such a ploy would “call into question the very legitimacy of our political institutions,” he said. He went so far as to lambast an impeachment attempt that didn’t have the “legitimacy of a national consensus” as a “partisan coup d’etat.”

The amazing irony, of course, is that the Clinton impeachment was bipartisan, with five Democrats voting in favor of 3 of the 4 articles introduced. The Pelosi-Schiff impeachment of President Trump, however, is only bipartisan in the opposition to it.

Americans have delivered their verdict. A new poll from Gallup finds that support for impeachment and removal has dropped 6 points. Other polls corroborate it: Recent ones from USA Today and Quinnipiac show that a majority of Americans oppose impeaching and removing President Trump from office.

At town halls across America, constituents are demanding that House Democrats stop with impeachment and focus on the real issues facing our country.

It should be obvious, and it is to everyone outside the Beltway Swamp: Americans are sick of Washington’s never-ending partisan circus. They’re tired of the excuses for obstructionism and inaction. They aren’t buying the phony, sanctimonious lip service to our Constitution and Founding Ideals from career politicians who never bother to defend either when it counts.

Americans know House Democrats will go silent the moment they’re confronted with the Swamp’s own corruption, whether it be from FBI officials who used false information to spy on the Trump campaign or from Democrats’ own family members who got rich off conflicts of interest in Ukraine.

Our citizens simply want their Government to work for them, not against them. Under President Trump, it finally is. The working-class boom is lifting wages for blue-collar workers, dropping the unemployment rate to a 50-year low, and slashing income inequality. On trade, this President renegotiated NAFTA and held China accountable for years of unfair and abusive practices that Washington ignored.

Beyond that, illegal immigration is down, crime rates are down, and American service members are finally coming home while our NATO allies step up and contribute their fair share to the Alliance.

But instead of listening to Americans and helping make Washington better, Democrats ignored them. The left sought impeachment from day one. They chased conspiracy theories to discredit the voices of 63 million Americans. They’ve called President Trump “illegitimate” and “not my President.” They’ve turned the most sacred power of Congress into a political weapon. They’ve made it clear democracy only counts if they win.

The message of the 2016 election was straightforward for anyone who listened: Put the American people first. Tonight, House Democrats will prove they never heard a word of it.

In case you missed it: Read President Trump’s letter to Speaker Pelosi.

Watch: “This has been rigged from the start.”

“Unconstitutional Abuse of Power,” US Senate Candidate Praises President Trump’s Scathing Letter to Speaker Pelosi that Condemned House’s Fraudulent, Illegal Impeachment

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ARLINGTON, Va., Dec. 18, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — US Senate Candidate Victor Williams today praised Donald Trump’s six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi which condemned the House’s impeachment vote as an “unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power.”

Williams, running to defeat Virginia’s Mark Warner, stated:

“Speaker Pelosi and the House Democrats are not above the law.

Even holding her so-called impeachment inquiry umbrella, Nancy Pelosi may not float above the US Constitution like some desiccated Mary Poppins.”

Williams, who is a Washington, DC law professor, stated:

“President Trump is absolutely right.  He has done nothing wrong. The 116th House of Representatives’ harassments against Donald Trump –  done in concert with swamp  perfidy and deep state treachery – now metastasize into fraudulent, illegal impeachment.

The legal definition of fraud is ‘an intentional perversion of truth in order to induce another to surrender a legal right.’ A determination of fraud has constitutional consequences.”

Worse than being a fraud against Trump, however, Professor Williams explains why the partisan vote is a travesty against our Republic’s constitutional history:

“Under English law, officials could be removed from office by either of two ways. The first was by a formal parliamentary impeachment removal process that required proof that the official had committed a high crime.

The second was by a simple majority vote of ‘attainder’ – a direct legislative punishment that included removing the targeted individual from and forever blackening his reputation.

English jurist William Blackstone described how a legislature’s attainder is fundamentally intended to effect an ‘attintus’ to taint and blacken the targeted individual’s reputation.

Such an attainder punishment was accomplished through a simple majority vote.

Removing an ideological or personal opponent from his political office while also permanently damaging his reputation was an effective but reprehensible legislative practice.”

Williams continues,

“Our Constitution’s Framers were intent on eliminating the abusive legislative process of attainder in America.

So they explicitly banned such legislative punishment and defamation.  Article I’s Sections 9 and 10 forbids all legislative harassment, defamation, and punishment: ‘No ex post facto law or bill of attainder shall be passed.’

The House vote comes with remote prospect of Senate conviction. It is purposed only to punish and damage Donald Trump’s reputation and harm Senate confirmation prospects for his future executive and judicial nominations.”

Williams states: “It is not an impeachment vote – it is a vote of attainder.”

Professor Williams further explained:

“In 1891, Justice Joseph Story damned a legislature’s attainder process as ‘governed solely by what is deems political necessity or expedience, and too often under the influence of unreasonable fears or unfounded suspicions.’

According to Justice Story, legislative attainder is done without “‘proofs conformable to the rules of evidence.’

DC swamp greybeards are wrong.  The House impeachment is not immune from constitutional inspection.  The defamatory ordeal suffered by Trump begs for a de facto (‘by practice’) attainder analysis.

In 1993, I first described the wide dimension of the attainder ban in context of the impeachment removal process challenged in the Walter Nixon v. United States adjudication.

The US Supreme Court just last week agreed to review the D.C. Circuit’s wrongheaded ruling in  Trump v. Mazars in which dissenting Judge Naomi Roa details how the attainder ban protects civil rights and the separation of powers.

Shamefully, a partisan House today votes attainder.”

EDITORS NOTE: Victor Williams is the 2016 founder and present chair of “Law Professors for Trump.”  Just as he predicted he would be in 2016, Williams predicts that Donald John Trump will be elected President in 2020.  And working to help Trump, Williams is an insurgent candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia.  www.vw4v.com. 571-309-8249.

House Democrats and Republicans Collude on Dangerous Immigration Bill

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Legislation ignores findings of the 9/11 Commission.

Virtually all news organizations, and not just within the dreaded mainstream media, frequently lament that the Republicans and Democrats will never work cooperatively, particularly where the supposedly contentious issue of immigration is concerned.

The ongoing efforts by the radical Left to impeach President Trump has sucked the air out of the (news)rooms so that while there is now a laser-like focus on those impeachment proceedings in the House of Representatives, not much else in Washington receives coverage.

However, on December 11, 2019, CNN reported, “House votes to provide a pathway to citizenship for thousands of undocumented farmworkers.”

Here is an excerpt from that article:

While previous legislative efforts seeking to legalize a larger number of undocumented immigrants have failed, Wednesday’s vote is significant both for what it tries to achieve and for the Republican support it received. The bill passed with a bipartisan vote of 260-165, though it faces an uncertain future in the Senate.

Just as magicians distract their audiences with smoke, mirrors, lighting and a scantily-clad attractive assistant or two prancing around the stage, America is being distracted by the impeachment circus that should probably be accompanied by circus calliope music to complete the effect!

An integral element of the disastrous 1986 amnesty program that was part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act enacted by the Reagan administration was the inclusion of amnesty for Seasonal Agricultural Workers (also referred to as Special Agricultural workers or “SAW” for short).

In order to qualify, illegal aliens simply had to claim that they had worked on a farm for a specified period of time.

Fraud permeated that program. As an INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) special agent, I participated in investigations of farms that had provided, for a fee, bogus employment records that enabled many illegal aliens to game this element of the amnesty program.

One of the investigations in which I participated focused on a relatively small farm that had provided thousands of illegal aliens with false documentation. In fact, if all of those supposed farm workers had shown up at the time their paperwork claimed they were employed, they all could not have stood on the farm simultaneously. The farm would have been more crowded than a NYC subway car during the rush hour. There would have been no room to grow anything.

Among those aliens who were granted amnesty under the SAW amnesty program were illegal aliens who were criminals and even terrorists.

Consider this excerpt from the official report, 9/11 and  Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States:

Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States.

Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.”

Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.

This gaping hole in the immigration system became well-known around the world during the Reagan administration, that any alien who could enter the U.S. by any means, could easily secure bogus documentation to qualify for lawful status as supposed “agricultural workers.”

I will never forget a particularly personally infuriating situation. A television studio had sent a limo to drive me to the studio for an on-air interview. My driver was pleasant and proficient. We chatted during the drive and I could not help but notice his Middle Eastern accent. He told me he had come to the U.S. from his native Lebanon during the administration of, as he put it, “idiot Reagan.” (He did not know I was a retired INS agent.) I asked him why he had so low an opinion of President Reagan and he told me that he came to the U.S. illegally and once here claimed to have worked on a farm and was quickly granted amnesty. He subsequently petitioned for his entire family. Furthermore, he told me that his neighbors from his village in Lebanon had all availed themselves of that opportunity provided by that amnesty even though he had never set foot on a farm.

How dumb, he asked, was our former president and our immigration officials?

How dumb, indeed! What a dangerous message to send to people around the world including the citizens of countries that are associated with terrorism!

If the goal in seeking amnesty is to provide farms with adequate numbers of workers, members of Congress should be happy to hire many more ICE agents to make certain that farm workers actually show up on farms to do the work.

In the late 1970’s we found that many supposed farm workers from the Caribbean had obtained visas to work in the citrus groves of Florida and the apple orchards of New York. They either quit after a couple of short weeks or never showed up at all. They had gone on to sell another agricultural product, however: marijuana and then cocaine. They formed violent gangs that were notorious for their murderous rampages.

Meanwhile, the farmers who had applied for their visas did not get the workers they needed and we wound up with violent criminals we certainly don’t need.

More ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents could imbue this system with badly need integrity — but there is never any effort to hire more desperately-needed ICE agents.

This is not, however, the first time this year that the Democrats and Republicans joined forces to pass dangerous immigration bills that would undermine national security, public safety and/or the jobs and wages of Americans. On  July 22nd, FrontPage Magazine published my article, “Democrats and Republicans Passed An Immigration Bill” that focused on the passage of a previous bill that betrays hardworking, highly-educated, experienced and talented American workers, that went largely unreported.

My article noted, however:

Yet this bill went largely ignored by the mainstream media that even on July 10, 2019 when that legislative disaster was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 365-65, 57 Republicans voting against the bill.

Furthermore, the bill was voted on without a single hearing and without any amendments being added.

However, the Western Free Press certainly took note of this legislative betrayal in an article entitled, GOP Legislators Back Bill to Replace American Workers.  The subtitle completed the infuriating picture, H.R. 1044 would flood the country with Indian tech workers and Chinese investors.

That July 22nd CNN article included a link to a June 4, 2019 CNN article, “House passes bill that would provide a pathway to citizenship for many undocumented immigrants.” This article that focused on legislation to legalize so-called “DREAMERS” began with the following:

(CNN) The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill Tuesday that would provide a pathway to citizenship for more than one million undocumented immigrants, a move that comes amid a fierce debate over illegal immigration.

It passed 237-187. The chamber erupted in cheers of, “Sí se puede,” translated to, “Yes, we can.”

So here we have three concrete examples of Republicans and Democrats, colluding to pass laws that would create massive amnesty programs for illegal aliens and/or permit many more high-tech workers to enter the United States to the detriment of American workers’ jobs and wages.

None of these bills call for the hiring of a single additional ICE agent to conduct investigations into the aliens’ backgrounds or their applications for immigration benefits and/or visas.

The first issue raised in the wake of the shooting at Pensacola as I noted in my earlier article, “Terror Attack At Naval Air Station Highlights Immigration Catastrophe” was the limitations in the vetting process that endanger national security.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same things the same way and expecting a different outcome. The question is, who is crazier, our elected “representatives” or We the People for reelecting them — repeatedly?

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

Marijuana vaping nearly triples among 12th graders in 2 years

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Marijuana vaping nearly triples in two years among 12th graders

Past-month marijuana vaping among high school seniors nearly tripled (from 5 percent to 14 percent) between 2017 and 2019, the new Monitoring the Future reveals. It nearly doubled in just one year (from 7.5 percent to 14 percent), the largest one-year jump of any drug in the history of the survey.

Seniors’ past-year marijuana vaping more than doubled in two years (from 9.5 percent in 2017 to 20.8 percent in 2019), and their lifetime marijuana vaping nearly doubled (from 11.9 percent to 23.7 percent).

This year – for the first time – the survey monitored near daily marijuana vaping (more than 20 days a month). Some 3.5 percent of 12th graders vape marijuana that often.

Marijuana vaping doubled in two years among 10th and 8th grade students as well:

Among 10th grade students

  • Past-month use rose from 4.3 percent in 2017 to 12.6 percent in 2019
  • Past-year use: 8.1 percent to 19.4 percent
  • Lifetime use: 9.8 percent to 21.8 percent

Among 8th grade students

  • Past-month use rose from 1.6 percent in 2017 to 3.9 percent in 2019
  • Past-year use: 3 percent to 7 percent
  • Lifetime use ; 4 percent to 9 percent

Such dramatic increases in such a short amount of time are worrisome on two counts. Little is known about the impact on the body of vaping anything, including high THC levels or nicotine, into the lungs. The upsurge in severe lung injuries and deaths identified only last August makes the point (see next story). Also, because adolescence is a time of intense brain development, young people are particularly vulnerable to becoming addicted to any drug if they begin using while they are still teenagers.

Nicotine vaping among adolescents presents the same hazard and threatens to undo the significant gains in reducing cigarette smoking among youth. The 2019 survey finds that 35 percent of 12th graders vaped nicotine in the past year, as did 31 percent of 10th graders and 17 percent of 8th graders.

Read NIDA’s release of the 2019 Monitoring the Future here.
Read JAMA research letter here.

Vaping-related lung injury cases from all 50 states continue to be reported to CDC, although they may be slowing down. Thus far, 52 deaths in 26 states have been linked to these injuries. More deaths are being investigated.

All 2,409 patients report a history of vaping. THC is present in most samples FDA has tested, and most patients report a history of THC use.

While Vitamin E acetate is a chemical of interest, patients have used some 152 different THC brands, including Dank Vapes in the Northeast and South, TKO and Smart Carts in the West, and Rove in the Midwest.

There may be more than one cause of the illness.

Read the December 12 CDC Update here.

This week’s podcast: Mahmoud ElSohly – Is marijuana the same as Epidiolex?

Mahmoud A. ElSohly, PhD, is a pharmacologist known for his work on marijuana. He is professor of pharmaceutics in the school of pharmacy at the University of Mississippi where he directs the Marijuana Project which grows pharmaceutical-grade marijuana for research. He is an expert in the processing, testing, and detection of drugs of abuse.

Key Points

  • Epidiolex is a very well-defined pharmaceutical preparation of CBD
  • Difference between it and other CBD is like night and day.
  • Difference between Epidiolex and CBD on the Internet and in stores
  • What is the OTC process?
  • What is biphasic activity?
  • What is low bioavailability?
  • Is there an entourage effect?

Listen to Dr. ElSohly’s podcast here.

Up next week? Marilyn Huestis – How marijuana affects kids

Is marijuana linked to psychosis, schizophrenia? It’s contentious, but doctors, feds say yes

USA Today writes that doctors, federal officials, parents, and young adult marijuana users who have experienced psychosis while using the drug agree that marijuana does indeed cause psychosis, including schizophrenia.

Elinore McCance-Katz, MD, PhD, the US Department of Health and Human Services top mental health official and head of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, says hospitalizations for serious mental-health disorders among 18- to 25-year-olds more than doubled between 2012 and 2018. Colorado and Washington State were the first two states to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2012.

She also cites a July study that shows a 77 percent increase in suicide deaths from 2010 to 2015 among Colorado 10- to 19-year-olds with marijuana in their systems.

“Among people who use marijuana, 10 percent to 20 percent will develop a marijuana use disorder and be at risk for these other kinds of mental and physical adverse events,” Dr. McCance-Katz adds.

Sally Schindel tells the story of her son, who was diagnosed with severe cannabis use disorder, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder with auditory hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety. He committed suicide, leaving his mother a note explaining why: “I want to die. My soul is already dead. Marijuana killed my soul + ruined my brain.”

Read USA Today article here.

Visit The Marijuana Report’s Facebook page

In addition to current issues of The Marijuana Report, we post several more marijuana messages each month on our Facebook page. Search Facebook for nationalfamilies to access it.

Looking for a past issue of The Marijuana Report?

  Find it here.
Did you know

that in addition to The Marijuana Report e-newsletter, National Families in Action also publishes The Marijuana Report website? There you can find summaries of (and access to) scientific marijuana studies, the growth of the commercial marijuana industry, and what families and communities are doing to restrain it. Begin at our Welcome Page to access all the resources The Marijuana Report website offers.

The Marijuana Report is a weekly e-newsletter published by National Families in Action in partnership with SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana).

Visit National Families in Action’s website, The Marijuana Report.Org, to learn more about the marijuana story unfolding across the nation.

Subscribe to The Marijuana Report e-newsletter.

The Democrats’ One-night Stand with the Founders [+Video]

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“I’ll respect you in the morning” is what I half expect to hear. Of course, the Democrats now invoking the Founding Fathers’ memory in their effort to impeach President Trump won’t respect our colonial progenitors at the next dawn anymore than they did at the last one.

Nonetheless, the Left has interrupted its regularly scheduled programming of trying to tear down the Founders’ reputations and life’s work — the Electoral College, the First and Second Amendments, and the Constitution generally — to claim that those Enlightenment men are on their side.

Nancy Pelosi (D-Fruits and Nuts) has proclaimed that Trump’s actions “are in defiance of the vision of our Founders.” Democrat Jerrold Nadler, from the state (NY) that allows prenatal infanticide up to birth and that’s giving driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, asked a shill college professor of an impeachment “witness,” “[I]f Washington were here today, if he were joined by Madison, Hamilton and other Framers, what do you believe they would say if presented with the evidence before us about President Trump’s conduct?”

My, my, as Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson put it Tuesday evening, “Democrats care deeply and passionately about the Founding Fathers.” For sure. Just watch a selection of them in Carlson’s segment below, if you have a strong stomach and high tolerance for shameless sanctimony.

Now, Nadler’s hypothetical is interesting because I’ve occasionally indulged the thought exercise of what would transpire if a Founder — let’s say, George Washington — could be resurrected from the dead. After he recovered from the shock of our technological advancement and moral debasement, I imagine he’d have lots to say.

How much of it, though, would be in praise of the Democrat program? What would he say about sex as social construct, personal pronoun tyranny, putting boys masquerading as girls in female spaces and the Sexual Devolution generally? Widespread prenatal infanticide? Open-borders cultural genocide? Rule by judicial and bureaucratic fiat? Proposals to eliminate the Electoral College and Senate? Feminism? Multiculturalism? Attacks on Christianity? The exalting of Islam? Hate crime law? High taxation? Federal overreach? The redistribution of wealth?

Speaking of which, how about socialism? Note that Founder Samuel Adams spoke for many of his comrades in warning of the “Utopian schemes of levelling, and a community of goods.” So is there one aspect of the modern Democrat agenda — just one — of which Washington or any other Founder would approve? Help me out here.

The notion is ridiculous, of course. The Founders would have an earful for most of us, don’t get me wrong, but they’d absolutely view today’s leftists as aliens.

That’s how the Left views them, too. Leftists don’t hide their disdain for “old white men,” whom they despise at least partially because that demographic most opposes their agenda. They also loathe the Founder fruit that is the Constitution — which Barack Obama bemoaned was merely “a charter of negative liberties” — basically because it’s a conservative document.

By this I don’t mean just the obvious, which is that it prescribes limited government. It’s also that conservatism is about conserving the status quo — standing “athwart history, yelling Stop,” as William F. Buckley put it — while liberalism is about changing the status quo. Yet since the Constitution’s Amendment Process makes it painfully hard to change, the document does (when adhered to) conserve a status quo.

So it’s no surprise that lawyer and CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called the Constitution “broken” in 2013 and stated that outside “Washington, discontent with the founding document is bipartisan and widespread” (among pseudo-elites, yes).

Toobin pointed to a University of Texas law professor, Sanford Levinson, who, when asked if he would have signed the Constitution, reluctantly said yes in 1987 but no in 2003. Toobin was making his case for how a positive evolution of thought takes us beyond constitutional limitations, but he only demonstrated how Levinson managed to get not only older, but dumber in 16 years’ time.

But since the Democrats are now romancing the Founders, here’s another thought exercise: Imagine we could resurrect all those men and let them take the place of our current president, congressmen and senators for some years so that they could restore our government to founding principles. Would you agree? I’d sign on that dotted line.

No matter what the Democrats would say hypothetically, though, this would be their worst nightmare. Their feelings toward the Founders range from indifference to contempt to hostility, which is why they demean them in history books and propose removing monuments to Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

Oh, don’t think it’s really about slavery, either. Islam’s Mohammed was not only a warlord, caravan-raider thief, mass murderer and user of torture, but a slave owner and trader. Yet no leftist would dare besmirch his memory. Nor do our liberals trouble much over Muslims’ enslavement of blacks in Africa today. No, leftists hate the Founders because they hate Americanism.

If the Founders could live again and run for office in 2019, the Left would be vicious in its vitriol, calling them racists, bigots, homophobes, sexists, xenophobes, white supremacists and, well, you know the wash-rinse-repeat pattern.

Worse still, though, is what leftists are doing to the Founders right now: associating them with themselves. Why, if the Founders weren’t in a place beyond the reach of worldly defilement, they’d likely feel in need of a Silkwood-intensity shower.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

NY Muslim Patrol Bullies Get Bullied Back by the Bloods

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Members of New York’s Muslim Patrol recently became embroiled in a near-explosive altercation outside the Masjid Taqwa in Brooklyn with members of the Bloods, a notoriously violent gang.

The Muslim Patrol gained international attention in the fall of 2018 after several of its patrol cars — which look like New York Police Department (NYPD) cars –were spotted in Brooklyn and Staten Island.

See Clarion Project’s Special Report on New York’s Sharia Patrol

The Bloods are a violent African-American street gang known for trafficking drugs and guns. This criminal organization has made national headlines with targeted assassinations, drive-by shootings and deadly gun battles with law enforcement.

On December 10, a verbal altercation began in the evening when a teenage boy allegedly “disrespected” a Muslim woman outside the Brooklyn mosque on Fulton Street. The boy did not touch the woman, bystanders say, but did speak to her.

A Muslim Patrol member grabbed the teen by the collar and threw him against the gate of the Masjid Taqwa, a local mosque. While the boy was pressed firmly against the fence, the Muslim Patrol member held him by the neck and lectured him.

“That MCP [Muslim Community Patrol] officer snatched that boy up,” one witness said. “He grabbed him by the collar and threw him up against the gate and held onto him by the neck area.”

After the rebuke, the boy complained to his father, who happens to be a senior member of the local Bloods. The father rallied six other Blood members to join him and went to Masjid Taqwa, where at least one Blood member brandished a weapon.

“One of them was strapped,” a witness said of a Blood member who had a firearm. “He raised his jacket and flashed that gun. Those dudes came out there to shoot up that Masjid. The father, he wanted to mess that MCP officer up.”

According to the witness, the father said to the Muslim Patrol officer, “Dude, I’m going to bust in your f—— mouth if you ever put your hands on my child again.”

The situation escalated after the Muslim Patrol member called for backup. Soon, several Muslim Patrol cars arrived with sirens screaming and lights flashing.

Witnesses reported mutual shouting as the Bloods confronted the original Muslim Patrol member, who was quickly shoved into the mosque by his comrades to protect him.

“It was going to be something big out there,” one witness said. “The Bloods were shouting, ‘You all are running around here playing like you’re the real police. You all want to put your hands on these little kids. We don’t give a f— about your Masjid.  F— your Masjid.”

Some bystanders also reportedly taunted the Muslim Patrol, shouting, “Put your hands on me! Come on, put your hands on me!”

As tensions rose, a New York Police Department (NYPD) patrol unit arrived and used its loudspeaker to tell the two arguing factions to “disperse” and to “keep it moving.”

One witness familiar with the Bloods said, “These Blood dudes are from 8th Avenue in Brooklyn, and they are one of the harder core Bloods over there. So those MCP officers are going to get some beef.”

As the Bloods dispersed, one Blood member turned and told the Muslim Patrol members, “This is not over. It’s just begun.”

The Muslim Patrol originally said its purpose was to serve as a liaison between Muslims and the NYPD. But after the mosque shootings in New Zealand last March, in which a gunman live-streamed his murder of 51 Muslims on Facebook, the Muslim Patrol publicly altered its purpose.

It now describes itself as a law enforcement organization, claiming its goal is to “protect members of the local community from escalating quality-of-life nuisance crimes.”

Yet, “bullying” and “gangster-like” tactics have been reported by locals in areas where the patrol operates, creating a backlash against the self-described “civilian patrol organization.”

RELATED STORIES

Clarion Special Report: NY’s Sharia Patrol

NYC Muslim Patrol: Bullying, Gangster Tactics Reported

Muslim Community Patrol Opens in NYC — Good Idea?

Film ‘Richard Jewell’ highlights FBI Corruption and Media Bias. Sound familiar?

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“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana

“It’s been my experience, Langford, that the past always has a way of returning. Those who don’t learn, or can’t remember it, are doomed to repeat it.” ― Steve Berry, The Charlemagne Pursuit

I went to see the Warner Brothers film “Richard Jewell” produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. The film is a docudrama about the July 27, 1996 bombing in Centennial Olympic Park during the 1996 Olympics. Here is a video about the film:

Here is the official Warner Brothers trailer:

Warner Brothers issued the following after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution took issue with the portrayal of Kathy Scruggs as a woman journalist who traded sex for stories. It was Scruggs who initially broke the story of the FBI’s targeting Richard Jewell as a terrorist:

The film is based on a wide range of highly credible source material. There is no disputing that Richard Jewell was an innocent man whose reputation and life were shredded by a miscarriage of justice. It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast. ‘Richard Jewell’ focuses on the real victim, seeks to tell his story, confirm his innocence and restore his name. [Emphasis added]

History has indeed repeated itself but in a much more nefarious way.

The Two Most Powerful Forces in The World – The United States Government and The Media

In the film Richard Jewell’s lawyer Watson Bryant, played by Sam Roswell, says:

His accusers are two of the most powerful forces in the world. The United States Government, and the media.

As I watched the film I could not help but think about how the FBI and media attacked an innocent man named Richard Jewell in 1996. Fast forward to today and we find that the FBI was once again used to attack people involved in the 2016 Trump presidential campaign and even the President of the United States himself.

Oh, the irony of history.

After the release of the Department of Justice report on FISA abuses by the FBI, we see that history has repeated itself, but with a twist.

Richard Jewell was an innocent man who was falsely accused of a crime he did not commit. Today we learn that innocent members of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign were falsely accused by the FBI of colluding with Russia. The twist is that today the FBI has become a weapon to be used against one’s political opponents. This is whole a new, and frightening, level of corruption. Why? Because no American is immune, not one.

In the end Richard Jewell was exonerated when on October 26, 1996 the US Justice Department announced that Richard Jewell was no longer a suspect in the Olympic Park bombing. February 2, 1998 Eric Robert Rudolph was named as a suspect in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing. 

The FBI and Fake News

We have also learned, as was the case with Richard Jewell, that the President of the United States, members of his campaign and members of his administration have been falsely accused of collusion with the Russians. In the case of Roger Stone, who has been convicted and imprisoned, the story is ongoing. The lives of many individuals, like General Mike Flynn, have been ruined.

This is a who new level of corruption. This is a new level of hate. This is something that our Constitutional Republican form of government has never seen.

The FBI and fake news media have been the fuel that has driven the engine of impeachment of President Donald J. Trump.

Conclusion

As I write this on Wednesday, December 18th, 2019 it is expected that the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on the Articles of Impeachment against President Donald J. Trump.

As President Trump wrote in a letter to Speaker Pelosi:

I write to express my strongest and most powerful protest against the partisan impeachment crusade being pursued by the Democrats in the House of Representatives.  This impeachment represents an unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power by Democrat Lawmakers, unequaled in nearly two and a half centuries of American legislative history.

The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence.  They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.  You have cheapened the importance of the very ugly word, impeachment!

By proceeding with your invalid impeachment, you are violating your oaths of office, you are breaking your allegiance to the Constitution, and you are declaring open war on American Democracy. [Emphasis added]

Every American is under siege. Every American is at risk.

Every American is a Richard Jewell.

© All rights reserved.

White Liberals’ Little Black Box

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I had a surprisingly emotional reaction watching “The Sound of Music” movie recently on TV. It reminded me of the wisdom of my late dad, Dr Rev Lloyd E. Marcus.

Our black family of Mom, Dad, three younger siblings and me lived in the Baltimore projects. The atmosphere of our neighborhood was tough and violent. Our apartment was on the 6th floor. We were only allowed to play in the courtyard on our floor, rather than down on the street level playground infected with drugs and thugs.

When Dad broke the racist color-barrier to become a Baltimore City firefighter, we moved out of the projects.

In 1965, Dad took us four kids to see a movie we had not heard of, “The Sound of Music”. I believe he wanted to broaden our horizons. I don’t remember my sister or two brothers being particularly impressed.

I was blown away. The wonderful music and elegant production impacted me greatly. Mother Abbess singing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” was one of my favorite scenes. I remembered every song after leaving the theater, probably the only kid from the projects overheard singing, “Edelweiss.” Puzzled kids in our black neighborhood routinely asked, “What are you singing?”

White liberals, while claiming to be advocates for black empowerment, are obsessed with trying to keep blacks in a little black box. White liberals deem certain behaviors impermissible for blacks while whites are free to have varying interests and tastes. God forbid that a black prefer sushi over fried chicken, country music over rap or vote Republican rather than Democrat.

White sports media trashed black NFL quarterbacks Robert Griffin III and Russell Wilson for not behaving black enough. Who died and made arrogant racist white liberals the final authority to dictate authentic acceptable black behavior?

Dad nurtured our gifts, attending every sports or performance event, always encouraging his kids to be all they could be. After my family went to bed, I painted pictures using leftover house paints. Dad carted my paintings to art galleries, seeking their critic. The consensus was, “He has talent. Send him to art school.”

Dad drove me through upscale white neighborhoods, instructing, “If you go to college and develop your talent, you can live like this.” I became an award winning graphic designer at WJZ-TV, ABC affiliate in Baltimore. Dad was awesome! My siblings and I were blessed to have a real man in our lives.

I feel like singing,“The hills are alive with the sound of music…”

© All rights reserved.

Dear Madam Speaker

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President Donald J. Trump sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today, exposing Democrats’ partisan impeachment crusade for the unprecedented, unconstitutional sham that it is.

A few important excerpts from the President’s letter:

  • “The Articles of Impeachment introduced by the House Judiciary Committee are not recognizable under any standard of Constitutional theory, interpretation, or jurisprudence. They include no crimes, no misdemeanors, and no offenses whatsoever.”
  • “Speaker Pelosi, you admitted just last week at a public forum that your party’s impeachment effort has been going on for ‘two and a half years,’ long before you ever heard about a phone call with Ukraine.”
  • “Before the Impeachment Hoax, it was the Russian Witch Hunt.”
  • “You are the ones interfering in America’s elections. You are the ones subverting America’s Democracy. You are the ones Obstructing Justice. You are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain.”
  • “You and your party are desperate to distract from America’s extraordinary economy, incredible jobs boom, record stock market, soaring confidence, and flourishing citizens. Your party simply cannot compete with our record.”
  • “Our Founders feared the tribalization of partisan politics, and you are bringing their worst fears to life.”

Read the full letter from President Trump.

SHARE: Democrats’ unprecedented and unconstitutional abuse of power

President Trump’s next big move to help American students

In the United States, every student should have the chance to earn a high-quality education, regardless of background. This week, President Trump is signing a bill that will make that promise closer to reality than ever before.

The FUTURE Act, which stands for Fostering Undergraduate Talent by Unlocking Resources for Education, accomplishes two major objectives. First, it permanently reauthorizes funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), as well as other minority-serving institutions to the tune of $255 million. Second, it will simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and the loan repayment process for all, significantly reducing the paperwork burden placed on borrowers.

President Trump has made fighting for struggling, historically forgotten communities a hallmark of his Administration. Support for HBCUs has been a key piece of that agenda. Barely a month after taking office, he signed an executive order to move the Federal HBCU initiative back within White House purview. This September, he spoke at the 2019 National Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week Conference.

“Every day of my presidency, we’ll strive to give every child, of every background and every race, religion, color, and creed, the best chance to reach that beautiful American Dream,” he said. “We will never let you down, and we will never stop fighting for you.”

© All rights reserved.

New Biden Ad ‘One of the Worst Political Slogans’ Ever

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A panel of political experts on Fox Nation’s Deep Dive slammed a new political ad released by White House hopeful Joe Biden‘s campaign on Tuesday as “one of the worst political slogans ever.”

“If Donald Trump is reelected, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation,” Biden narrated over video of men marching with torches and Confederate flags. “We can’t. And I will not let this man be reelected president of the United States of America,” said Biden at the end of the ad.

“One of the worst slogans I’ve ever heard in a commercial is ‘I will not let Donald Trump be president,’” said panelist Brad Blakeman, a former member of President George W. Bush’s senior staff. “That’s not the way our country works. We will decide — the people — as to who our president’s going to be.

“Hating somebody? That’s not the way you win the presidency,” he added. “You win the presidency by being hopeful. And there’s always a future and something to aspire to. You can’t hate Donald Trump out of office.”

Joe Biden

44 Known Connections

During a Black History Month event on February 25, 2014, Biden expressed frustration with a recent Supreme Court ruling that had struck down a provision of the Voting Rights Act that required certain (mostly Southern) jurisdictions with a pre-1965 history of voting suppression to pre-clear any changes in their voting laws (such as the implementation of Voter ID requirements, or changes to early-voting or same-day-voting regulations — with the Justice Department. Biden also claimed that new voter ID laws in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas were evidence of “hatred” and “zealotry.” Said the Vice President:

“At least 11 states have introduced legislation recently requiring voters to show ID at the polls, making existing voting laws more restrictive. Lawslike in North Carolina which imposed a new photo ID requirement, shortening early voting, and eliminating same-day registration and early voting. These guys never go away…. You guys [African Americans] know it, but it’s an important lesson for me. Hatred never, never ultimately goes away…. The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason…. This fight has been too long, this fight has been too hard, to do anything other than win — not on the margins, but flat-out win.”

To learn more, click on the profile link here.

RELATED ARTICLE: President Donald Trump’s Full Letter to Nancy Pelosi on Eve of Impeachment Vote! | Politics

RELATED VIDEO: Devastating 30-Year-Old Video Shows Biden Being Caught Repeatedly Lying for 5 Minutes Straight

https://twitter.com/shaunking/status/1222850114441633794?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1222850114441633794&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fdevastating-30-year-old-video-shows-biden-caught-repeatedly-lying-5-minutes-straight%2F

EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Border Security and National Economic Strength.

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GUESTS AND TOPICS

George Landrith’s interview will actually be his recent speech at the Western Conservative Leadership Summit in Denver. He discussed an issue that is at the intersection of national security, homeland security, border security and national economic strength. The Merchant Marine Act of 1920, also known as the Jones Act, has been criticized for being almost 100 years old and out dated, but the Constitution is more than 200 years old and has served us well. The Jones Act supports our military and our ship building and ship repairing capacity, while also making us safer from terrorism. And now we find that the Jones Act is a virtual border wall that prevents the 25,000 miles of navagable waters from becoming an open border. The bottom line is that the Jones Act provides America and its citizens with a number of important benefits — national security, homeland security and support of our military.

Carrie Severino is chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network. In that capacity she has testified before Congress on assorted constitutional issues and briefed Senators on judicial nominations. Mrs. Severino has been extensively quoted in the media and regularly appeared on television, including MSNBC, FOX, CNN, C-SPAN and ABC’s This Week. She has written and spoken on a wide range of judicial issues, particularly the constitutional limits on government, the federal nomination process, and state judicial selection. Mrs. Severino regularly files briefs in high-profile Supreme Court cases. She was previously a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and to Judge David B. Sentelle of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

© All rights reserved.