SCOTUS: Breaking the (Ultra)Sound Barrier

/in , , , , , /by

When Governor Matt Bevin walks out of his office for the last time tonight, it’s somewhat fitting that the U.S. Supreme Court picked today to uphold one of the most important laws he ever signed — the Kentucky ultrasound bill. The justices, who watched the ACLU appeal all the way to their doorstep, refused to even hear the case. Instead, they deferred to the Sixth Circuit, which didn’t see the harm in showing moms a picture of their babies before they abort. If it’s just “a clump of cells,” who cares? Liberals, that’s who.The last thing the abortion industry wants is for moms to come face-to-face with the personhood of their child. It’s why they’ve poured millions of dollars into fighting heartbeat bills, sonograms, even basic medical disclaimers. When it comes to abortion, technology is — and always has been — the single biggest enemy of the Left. Nothing comes between women and their business more than the truth about these tiny humans in the womb — humans that yawn, smile, suck their thumbs. The imaging is so advanced these days that doctors can track something as small as a baby’s hiccup. It’s a game-changer. Which is exactly why groups like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are trying to shut down laws like Kentucky’s. It’s hard enough to get moms to destroy their babies. But it’s near impossible once they see and hear how intensely human their children are.

For young moms like Lisa, who never wanted to be pregnant in the first place, it was a revelation. “I didn’t want to go through with having the baby,” she explained. “I didn’t want to face all of the challenges that a single mom would.” And besides, she said, “My life was just beginning,” and this, “makes you feel like your life is over.” She made three appointments to abort her little girl. But every time, she found a reason not to go. Something just wasn’t right. She went back to the pregnancy care center and they offered her a free sonogram. “I heard the heartbeat,” Lisa remembers, “and it made it all real. There was a real life inside of me.” It made her realize that “no matter what I was feeling or thinking at the time, I had a little one to worry about.”

As hard as it was to tell her parents, Lisa was overcome when they found her note and called her crying. “Through tears they told me they would help — no matter what.” It hasn’t always been easy, but her daughter, Selah, has been the joy of her life. A few years later, while her daughter played at the park, Lisa struck up a conversation with a woman sitting by her on the bench. Laura was her name. She said she worked at Life Network. Stunned, Lisa pointed to the blonde little girl on the swings. “The pregnancy center saved her life!” she exclaimed.

It’s a miraculous story — one the folks at Planned Parenthood don’t want to see repeated. In its challenge, the ACLU even argued that giving women these options was somehow a violation of doctors’ free speech. But the Supreme Court didn’t buy it. Just like they haven’t bought other lies about “informed consent” laws. Under Kentucky’s, all doctors are required to do is describe the ultrasound while moms listen to the heartbeat. If the women choose, they can shut their eyes and cover their ears. Even still, the ACLU calls it “unconstitutional and unethical.”

No, what’s unethical is misleading women about the personhood of their baby and the life-long consequences of aborting her. Even now, Laura says, she’s met other young moms who “couldn’t see past their circumstances — a child they’re not ready for, a relationship they’d rather escape.” But then they see their baby’s “heartbeat, fingers, and toes.” She says they see the impact of their ultrasound machine every day. Thanks to the Supreme Court, let’s hope Kentucky can say the same thing about their informed consent law.

Focus Impact Story – Lisa and Selah

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

RELATED ARTICLES:

Living as Light in a Divided Nation

Wrapping up the Year!

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

Terror Attack At Naval Air Station Highlights Immigration Catastrophe

/in , , , , , , , /by

Limitations in the vetting process endanger national security.

The nearly all-consuming fixation on the lack of border security along the U.S./Mexican border ignore the many other elements of what should be a cohesive and coordinated immigration system.

Contrary to the claims made by the open borders, immigration anarchists, the purpose of the border wall is not to prevent the entry of aliens and/or cargo into the United States, but to make certain that all who enter the United States are properly vetted and records of their entry are created.

However, not enough attention is paid to the vetting process itself upon which the integrity of the immigration system depends.

The issue of border security must include the process by which visas are issued and by which aliens are screened at ports of entry.

The great majority of foreign terrorists who have attacked our nation have actually entered the United States through ports of entry either with visas that were obtained by concealing the backgrounds and true identities of the aliens in question, or by making bogus claims to political asylum, getting released and then disappearing.

The issue of the vetting of aliens has made it to the front page of newspapers and the “A block” of television news program because of the deadly shooting at the Pensacola Air Naval Station by a 21 year old member of the Saudi military, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, a second lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force as reported in the New York Times on December 6, 2019, Trainee on Military Base Mounts Deadly Attack.

It has been reported that Alshamrani had posted virulently anti-American remarks in social media.  The immediate obvious question is whether or not the vetting process including appropriate searches of social media accounts that might have disclosed his hatred of America before he was granted his visa.

The ability to effectively vet applicants is limited.  Searches delve into possible criminal histories, but when applicants have no criminal histories and no known ties to criminal or terrorist organizations, such vetting process may fail.

Apparently there are two purposes behind the training of foreign pilots by the U.S. military: to protect U.S. national security interests and encourage the sale of military aircraft and other equipment by U.S. military suppliers.

Justifiably, a number of political leaders, and other have called for the suspension of this program so that the vetting process can be evaluated.  To this point, on December 8, 2019 the New York Post reported, Lindsey Graham wants training program suspended after Pensacola shooting.

That report included this excerpt:

US Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican who represents the base, said on ABC’s “This Week” that the incident “has to inform our ongoing relationship with Saudi Arabia.”

“We should not be taking new incoming Saudi students until we’re absolutely confident in our vetting process,” Gaetz said.

There are currently more than 850 Saudis in the US for various training activities — among about 5,000 foreigners from 153 countries in the country undergoing some form of military training.

There has been a string of incidents that include foreign military students going missing in the United States in the past. There have also been worrying reports about foreign students enrolled in other U.S. schools going missing, including some who are citizens of countries that have a nexus to terrorism.  Yet with only about 6,000 ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents for the entire United States and with more than half of them engaged in the investigation of non-immigration issues, there are precious few agents available to enforce the immigration laws.  “Sanctuary” policies of a growing number of cities and states exacerbate the crisis.

One of the most astonishing incidents involving a failure of the vetting process occurred six months after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 when it was discovered that two of the dead terrorists had been granted authorization to attend a civilian flight school in March 2002, six months after they participated in the terror attacks of 9/11.

On March 19, 2001 the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims conducted a hearing into that fiasco on the topic, INS’s March 2002 Notification Of Approval Of Change Of Status For Pilot Training For Terrorist Hijackers Mohammed Atta And Marwan Al-Shehhi.  The video of that hearing is worth watching.

I was called as an expert witness at that hearing.

For all of the beast-beating and complaints of the members of that subcommittee and other members of congress, measures to prevent such failures have been outweighed by the demands of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a veritable laundry list of corporations and special interest groups that our immigration laws not be enforced and our borders be allowed to remain wide open by those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing- even when lives and national security are on the line!

Today we are focused on aliens being given the best possible military flight training in America’s latest fighter planes.  The possibilities of what such a highly-trained pilot could do in the seat of such as aircraft is mind-numbing.

In the wake of the shooting at the Pensacola Air Naval Station information had been circulated that the alleged shooter had visited New York City days before the attack, possibly in the company of other classmates.  This immediately gave rise the concern that he, and possibly others, might have been scoping out potential targets for terror attacks.

The mainstream media, in a moment of rare candor raised that possibility.  Yet no one had thought to a Department of Justice press release published just days earlier.

On December 3, 2019 the DOJ reported, Hizballah Operative Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Covert Terrorist Activities on Behalf of Hizballah’s Islamic Jihad Organization; Ali Kourani Was Trained by Hizballah’s External Terrorist Operations Component and Gathered Intelligence in New York City in Support of Attack-Planning Efforts.

You will notice in this excerpt from the earlier DOJ press release that announced Kourani’s  conviction that immigration law violations were among the crimes that he committed:

Yesterday, a jury returned a guilty verdict against Ali Kourani, a.k.a. “Ali Mohamad Kourani,” a.k.a. “Jacob Lewis,” a.k.a. “Daniel,” on all eight counts in the Indictment, which charged him with terrorism, sanctions and immigration offenses for his illicit work as an operative for Hizballah’s external attack-planning component.  Kourani is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 27, 2019…

My recent article, Alleged Hezbollah “Sleeper” Arrested In NYC By Joint Terrorism Task Force included this paragraph:

On September 19, 2019 the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York issued a press release that announced, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces Indictment Of New Jersey Man For Terrorist Activities On Behalf Of Hizballah’s Islamic Jihad Organization. The subtitle of that press release provides more disturbing information, Alexei Saab Allegedly Was Trained by Hizballah’s External Terrorist Operations Component in Bomb-Making and Conducted Intelligence-Gathering in New York City and Washington, D.C., and Elsewhere in Support of Hizballah’s Attack-Planning Efforts.

On August 2, 2019 the Justice Department posted thus extremely this worrying news release, Afghanistan National and Former U.S. Military Interpreter Charged for Role in Human Smuggling Conspiracy.

On August 20, 2018 the Department of Justice issued a press release, Two Individuals Charged for Acting as Illegal Agents of the Government of Iran. 

My piece written in February 2018, Saudi Graduate Of Al Qaeda Terror Training Camp Arrested In Oklahoma –  Alleged classmate of 9/11 hijackers attended US flight school in 2016 included a link to the DOJ press release, Saudi Citizen Charged in Oklahoma With Concealing Attendance at Al Qaeda Training Camp.

There is a clear nexus between immigration and national security yet, for decades, the immigration system has abjectly lacked the resources it needs to imbue this important mission with the resources essential to enhancing the integrity of this vital system.  Furthermore, the radical Left have demanded the dismantling of immigration law enforcement altogether, in essence ordering “Shields down” in a truly perilous era.

How many more innocent victims must be slaughtered before our nation comes to its senses?

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Catch and Release Is Over’: Border Apprehensions Drop for Sixth Month in a Row

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

Not All Findings of Religious Freedom Index Are Encouraging

/in , , , , /by

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a leading nonprofit law firm defending religious freedom, is taking an innovative approach to evaluate the current state of religious freedom in America.

Most assessments in this area focus on government actions such as laws, regulations, or court decisions that affect religious freedom. Becket’s first-ever Religious Freedom Index instead focuses on public opinion, using a national poll to examine six dimensions of religious freedom. The results are generally positive, with a few caveats.

At least formally, religious freedom in America long has been defined broadly. The First Amendment, for example, refers to the “free exercise of religion,” which obviously extends beyond speech or religious worship. In fact, colonial laws protected the exercise of religion for more than a century before the United States was born.

In the mid-20th century, following World War II, the U.S. was an original supporter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 18 of that document says that religious freedom includes both belief and behavior, in private and in public, individually and collectively.

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

But rights, even such fundamental and comprehensive ones, are more than statements or ideas. To be real, they must be experienced and that, in turn, depends a great deal on people’s understanding, perception, support, or opposition to religious freedom. This is why, for example, the Pew Research Center’s evaluation of religious freedom around the world looks at social, as well as government, hostilities involving religion.

Becket’s Religious Freedom Index asked about the degree of acceptance/support or challenge/opposition to six dimensions of religious freedom.

The index, for example, asked five questions about religious pluralism, such as practicing religion in daily life without fear of discrimination or harm. Overall, it shows an average of 80% support for religious pluralism.

Although there was little difference between Democrats and Republicans regarding religious pluralism, the largest gap was about the freedom to practice one’s religious beliefs “even if they are contrary to accepted majority practices.”

Significantly, however, Democrats led Republicans by 10 points (85% to 75%). Future indexes will show whether this continues as the category of “accepted majority practices” changes over time.

The Religious Freedom Index also explored “how Americans value religion and its role in society.” The results were not as encouraging.

“When it comes to issues and what happens today in our country,” for example, 56% said that religion is “part of the solution” while 44% said it is “part of the problem.” The division about “people of faith” was 59% to 41%.

Problems, of course, need solutions. This perception by many (thankfully, not a majority) that not only religion in general, but people of faith in particular, are part of the problem may weaken support for the freedom to practice one’s religious beliefs even when those beliefs are contrary to majority practices.

The index also examined the familiar area of church and state. Here, even though the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits any “religious test for public office,” one-quarter of Americans say that candidates “should be disqualified or blocked from holding public offices” based on their religious beliefs.

They also say that “[s]ociety should not tolerate public officials who might allow their religious beliefs to influence their decisions.” It will surprise many that the percent of religious people who say they believe this is exactly the same as the percent of agnostics and atheists.

The Religious Freedom Index is based on an online poll surveying a representative sample of 1,000 Americans age 18 and older. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.1%, and Heart and Mind Strategies constructed  the index.

Becket’s conclusion from this first Religious Freedom Index is that “there is evidence for broad support of robust religious freedom protections, discomfort with government interfering in religious practice, and positive attitudes toward a culture of accommodation of religious practice.”

The caveat, however, is this: “Within each dimension the composition of support and opposition varies depending on political parties, age, ethnicity and many other factors.”

This means that the consensus supporting religious freedom in America might be broad, but it also may not be very deep.

COMMENTARY BY

Thomas Jipping

Thomas Jipping is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLES:

Warren Buffet Foundation Spent $77 Million on Abortion, Enough to Kill 220,000 Babies in Abortions

In a Blow to Political Correctness, Trump Praises Salvation Army

From a Hallmark Movie, a Powerful Pro-Life Message

RELATED VIDEO: Wisdom Begins With The Fear of God.

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!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

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

6 Takeaways From the IG Report on FBI’s Spying on Trump Campaign

/in , , , , , /by

The Justice Department’s in-house watchdog released a 476-page report Monday that criticizes some of the FBI’s actions in beginning an investigation of the Trump campaign’s connection with Russian election meddling, but does not concludes that political bias drove the agency’s probe.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report does answer many questions and verifies some suspicions about the initial FBI investigation, dubbed Crossfire Hurricane.

Attorney General William Barr, Horowitz’s boss, issued a statement Monday saying that the report shows the FBI’s “clear abuse” of the process for obtaining warrants to spy on Americans.

Horowitz is scheduled to take questions Wednesday from the Senate Judiciary Committee on his report, which arrives as the House Judiciary Committee drafts articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.

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

Here are six key takeaways from Horowitz’s report.

1. Surveillance Broader Than Initially Thought

Americans already knew the FBI used surveillance to keep tabs on two Trump campaign advisers. Initially, news reports made it clear that foreign policy advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos were under surveillance.

The IG report states that two others also were subject to FBI spying: retired Army Lt. General Michael Flynn, a high-level campaign adviser who would serve less than a month as Trump’s first White House national security adviser, and onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

The IG report concludes that “the quantum of information articulated by the FBI to open the individual investigations on Papadopoulos, Page, Flynn, and Manafort in August 2016 was sufficient to satisfy the low threshold established by the [Justice] Department and the FBI.”

In May 2017, about four months after Trump became president, then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to complete the investigation.

Mueller determined in his final report released in April 2019 that there was no evidence either Trump or his campaign conspired with the Russian government or Russian operatives to influence the 2016 election.

2. FBI ‘Far Short’ on Facts in Applying for Warrant

On one key matter, the IG report scolds the FBI for “falling far short” on standards.

The report identifies 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” by the FBI, which it subsequently refers to as “errors,” in obtaining a warrant to surveil Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as FISA.

“Our review found that FBI personnel fell far short of the requirement in FBI policy that they ensure that all factual statements in a FISA application are ‘scrupulously accurate,’” the report says. “We identified multiple instances in which factual assertions relied upon in the first FISA application were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.”

The inspector general also “determined that the inaccuracies and omissions we identified in the applications resulted from case agents providing wrong or incomplete information to Department attorneys and failing to identify important issues for discussion.”

The report continues:

Moreover, we concluded that case agents and SSAs [supervisory special agents] did not give appropriate attention to facts that cut against probable cause, and that as the investigation progressed and more information tended to undermine or weaken the assertions in the FISA applications, the agents and SSAs did not reassess the information supporting probable cause.

Further, the report notes that “among the most serious” errors committed by the FBI on FISA was the “failure to advise OI [the Office of Intelligence] or the court of the inconsistencies.”

The Office of Intelligence is part of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.

3. No ‘Documentary or Testimonial Evidence’ of Political Bias, but …

On the question of political bias by FBI agents and officials, Horowtiz’s report appears to throw a bone to both sides by making a scathing assessment but asserting on each evaluation that his investigators didn’t find “documentary or testimonial evidence” of impropriety.

“We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced the decisions to open the four individual investigations,” the IG report says.

Later, when describing the process of obtaining a surveillance warrant under FISA, the report uses the same phrase:

Although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct on the part of the case agents who assisted NSD’s Office of Intelligence … we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or missing information. We found that the offered explanations for these serious errors did not excuse them, or the repeated failures to ensure the accuracy of information presented to the FISC [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court].

The report says a protocol known as the Woods Procedures, adopted in 2001, requires the FBI to verify facts presented in a FISA application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, whose proceedings are secret.

“As described above, given that certain factual misstatements were repeated in all four applications, across three different investigative teams, we also concluded that agents and supervisors failed to appropriately perform the Woods Procedures on the renewal applications by not giving much, if any, attention to re-verifying ‘old facts.’”

This section of the IG report is mostly consistent with a memo released in early 2018 by then-House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., which said the FBI did not comply with the Woods Procedures.

4. Why the FBI Says It Didn’t Notify Trump

Horowitz’s report says that an FBI counterintelligence official, E.W. “Bill” Priestap, told investigators that the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers created an obligation to investigate members of the Trump campaign who had potential ties to Russia.

Priestap had an explanation for why the FBI never notified the Trump campaign that it was looking into potential wrongdoing, the report says:

Priestap stated that he considered whether the FBI should conduct defensive briefings for the Trump campaign but ultimately decided that providing such briefings created the risk that ‘if someone on the campaign was engaged with the Russians, he/she would very likely change his/her tactics and/or otherwise seek to cover up his/her activities, thereby preventing us from finding the truth.’

5. Comey, McCabe, and the Steele Dossier

The IG report says that top FBI leadership approved use of unverified information in a so-called dossier assembled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to apply for the warrants.

However, a lower-level FBI official raised red flags that Steele’s document was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

“We further determined that FBI officials at every level concurred with this judgment, [including] then-General Counsel James Baker, then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and then-Director James Comey,” the report says, referring to basing the warrant application on the unverified information:

FBI leadership supported relying on Steele’s reporting to seek a FISA order on Page after being advised of, and giving consideration to concerns expressed by Stuart Evans, then [the National Security Division’s] Deputy Assistant Attorney General with oversight responsibility over [the Office of Intelligence], that Steele may have been hired by someone associated with presidential candidate Clinton or the DNC, and that the foreign intelligence to be collected through the FISA order would probably not be worth the ‘risk’ of being criticized later for collecting communications of someone (Carter Page) who was ‘politically sensitive.’

According to McCabe, the FBI ‘felt strongly’ that the FISA application should move forward because the team believed they had to get to the bottom of what they considered to be a potentially serious threat to national security, even if the FBI would later be criticized for taking such action.

6. Next Step in John Durham’s Criminal Probe

In a statement also released Monday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham, who is conducting a criminal investigation of the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, disagreed with some of the IG report’s findings.

“I have the utmost respect for the mission of the Office of Inspector General and the comprehensive work that went into the report prepared by Mr. Horowitz and his staff,” Durham said. “However, our investigation is not limited to developing information from within component parts of the Justice Department.”

Durham continued:

Our investigation has included developing information from other persons and entities, both in the U.S. and outside of the U.S. Based on the evidence collected to date, and while our investigation is ongoing, last month we advised the Inspector General that we do not agree with some of the report’s conclusions as to predication and how the FBI case was opened.

Indeed, questions about what the FBI predicated its case on include actions by officials with the CIA, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The IG report, however, says that nearly all of its information came from sources within the FBI, as it is not authorized to investigate matters outside the Justice Department:

The question we considered was not whether a particular investigative decision was ideal or could have been handled more effectively, but rather whether the [Justice] Department and the FBI complied with applicable legal requirements, policies, and procedures in taking the actions we reviewed or, alternatively, whether the circumstances surrounding the decision indicated that it was based on inaccurate or incomplete information, or considerations other than the merits of the investigation.

If the explanations we were given for a particular decision were consistent with legal requirements, policies, procedures, and not unreasonable, we did not conclude that the decision was based on improper considerations in the absence of documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary.

Barr, who as attorney general is the boss of both Horowitz and Durham, issued a statement saying the report reveals “clear abuse” of the FISA process.

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken,” Barr said in the statement, adding:

It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation [of Trump campaign ties to Russia] was consistently exculpatory.  Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into Preisident Trump’s administration.

In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source.

The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory.  While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.

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.

RELATED ARTICLES:

DOJ Watchdog Finds ‘Significant Inaccuracies’ in Surveillance Warrants Against Trump Aide

Let’s Have Some Historical Perspective on Presidential Misconduct

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!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

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

The Democrats Hate ICE Because They Hate Americans

/in , , , , , , , /by

On February 15, 2019, President Donald J. Trump declared a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States (Proclamation 9844), citing the National Emergencies Act, and ordered the diversion of billions of dollars of funds that had been appropriated to the U.S. Department of Defense for military construction. This construction is ongoing. Watch this video titled DOD lists where it will build new border wall:

According to Wikipedia:

A national emergency is a situation in which a government is empowered to perform actions not normally permitted. The 1976 National Emergencies Act implemented various legal requirements regarding emergencies declared by the President of the United States.

Proclamation 9844 states in part:

The current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency. The southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics. The problem of large-scale unlawful migration through the southern border is long-standing, and despite the executive branch’s exercise of existing statutory authorities, the situation has worsened in certain respects in recent years.

President Trump took this action because Democrats in Congress have:

  1. Failed to recognize that there is a crisis on the Southern border and
  2. Failed to fund the border wall during the normal budgetary process.

The building of a border wall was a campaign promise made by candidate Trump and remains a major goal of the Trump administration.

On December 9th, 2019 the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus sent out an email titled “Sign on to cut funding for border detentions.” The email states:

Earleir [sic] this year, The White House declared a phony “national emergency” at the border in an attempt to get funding for his wall.

Then months later, they requested $4.5 BILLION from Congress to fund ICE, expand family detention, and lock up more vulnerable migrants.

Now, they’re trying to get an ADDITIONAL $1.4 billion to double down on their cruel immigration policies!

This is a DISASTER. But thankfully, Progressives around the country are already proposing needed cuts to The White House’s ICE budget.

Are you with us? Please, sign on today to tell Congress to CUT funding for ICE:

The Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus

What is the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus and who are its members?

According to their website:

The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) consists of one United States Senator and seventy eight members of the United States House of Representatives, and is the largest caucus within the House Democratic Caucus.  Established in 1991, the CPC reflects the diversity and strength of the American people and seeks to give voice to the needs and aspirations of all Americans and to build a more just and humane society.

[ … ]

Our Caucus members promote a strong, progressive agenda, what we call “The Progressive Promise–Fairness for All”.  The Progressive Promise is rooted in four core principles that embody national priorities and are consistent with the values, needs and aspirations of all the American people, not just the powerful and the privileged.  They reflect a fundamental belief in government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

The four, core principles of the Progressive Promise:

1. Fighting for economic justice and security for all;
2. Protecting and preserving our civil rights and civil liberties;
3. Promoting global peace and security; and
4. Advancing environmental protection and energy independence

Members of the Democrat Congressional Caucus include Senator Bernie Sanders and all four members of The Squad, made up of Reps. Ilhan Omar (whip), Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It is the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus that is driving the policies and politics of the Democrat Party.

Is there a National Emergency on our Southern Border?

The Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to their email, truly believes that there is no “national emergency” on our Southern border. They call President Trump’s February 15, 2019 declaration “phony.” Yet the last two Presidents have used this Executive privilage under law to declare a national emergency.

Multiple presidents have declared national emergencies during their terms in office.

Former President Clinton issued 17 national emergency proclamations of which 6 are still current.

Former President George W. Bush declared 13 national emergencies including one after the September 11th, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Former President Barack Obama declare 12 national emergencies during his presidency including one to respond to the “swine flu epidemic in 2009.” President Trump to date has issued 3 national emergency proclamation.

If swine flu is permissible why aren’t the illegal flow of aliens, including the diseases they bring with them, across our borders a crisis?

If 9/11 is permissible why are the terrorist activities of the drug cartels crossing our borders not a crisis?

If even a single American is killed by someone here illegally then why isn’t that a border crisis?

In a TownHall.com column titled Part III: Like in Europe, America’s Broken Asylum System Enables Terrorist Infiltration Over the U.S.-Mexico Border Todd Bensman writes:

New research establishes the extent to which violent Islamic jihadists infiltrated over land borders as a new method to clandestinely reach targets in Europe, a first in contemporary terrorism history. This series explores the implications of Europe’s experience for U.S. border security.

On September 30, 2017, a Somali immigrant who initially had himself smuggled over the Mexico-California border conducted a double vehicle ramming and stabbing attack, carrying an ISIS flag, that left a police officer and four others gravely injured in Edmonton, Alberta.

But Abdulahi Hasan Sharif arguably would never have been present in Canada for his melee had he not been able to claim one of America’s most indulgent and abused immigration benefits: political asylum. Simply asking a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer at the border for asylum sets in motion a process that guarantees most foreign strangers legal entry into the United States for as long as processing takes, which can amount to years.

Read more.

Conclusion

It is clear that the Democrats care more about illegal aliens than they do about protecting the American people.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

An All-Out Immigration Moratorium, The Left’s Worst Nightmare

House To Vote On Amnesty Bill This Week

Part III: Like in Europe, America’s Broken Asylum System Enables Terrorist Infiltration Over the U.S.-Mexico Border

A New Terror Travel Tactic is Born

New Study Explains Why Islamic Terrorists Have Not Attacked Through America’s Southern Border

2020 Democrat Primary: Off to The Racists

/in , , , , , , /by

As grandma used to say, “Boy, the more I talk to you, the dumber I get.”

I am reminded of this every time I read about the 2020 Democrat presidential primary race. The more I read, the dumber I get!

For many, many years the base of the Democrat Party screamed that their presidential primaries lacked diversity of candidates; meaning, racial diversity.

Of course, liberals are never satisfied and no solution is ever good enough for them. So, they forced the issue of diversity to now include, gender, sexual preference, transsexual, geographic, height, weight, skin color, favorite cartoons, hair color, etc., etc., etc. The last few I am being somewhat facetious about, though not totally.

I have never supported diversity simply for the sake of diversity. I don’t think many would argue against racial diversity on your police force, in the military, and within your foreign service; but there is absolutely no place for sexual preferences, transsexual and other foolish criteria being included in their definition of diversity.

Political campaigns, whether for local, state, or federal offices, are the ultimate in free market expression. There is one man, one vote. Michael Bloomberg has the same number of votes as Pookie or LaQueesha in the hood.

Isn’t that the ultimate form of equality? In a Democracy, markets don’t lie. If the public likes your food, then they will patronize your restaurant. If the public likes your music, they will buy your CD. If the public likes your campaign platform, they will vote for you.

IF they don’t support any of the above endeavors, then the people have spoken. Even if they don’t support you based on your race. That is their right and that is their choice.

When Democrats claim, with no evidence, that not having a Black in the Democrat primary is racist; do they not realize that they are saying that their own party is racist? I thought only Republicans could be racist.

At least that’s what radical liberals like Roland Martin, Joy Reid, Joe Madison, Richard Princess and Whoopie Goldberg would argue.

Remember, when liberals talk about diversity; they don’t mean it in terms of equal opportunity, they mean it in terms of equal outcome.

When New Jersey Senator Corey Booker or California Senator Kamala Harris entered the presidential race, according to this perverted logic; they MUST win because if they don’t the reason MUST be because of their race or gender. It couldn’t possibly be that the American people simply where not buying what they were selling.

WTF? Wait a minute, I thought ONLY Republicans and the Republican Party and Trump supporters could be racists? Hmmmmm.

If South Bend Indiana mayor, Pete Buttigieg, doesn’t win it must be because Democrat voters are homophobic. Again, I thought ONLY Republicans and the Republican Party and Trump supporters could be homophobic?

How many times must I say to Democrats, NEVER blame your customers, i.e., voters.

Booker and Harris had absolutely no relationship with the Black community until they caught the presidential bug. Name me one piece of legislation either ever championed that was to the direct benefit of the Black community.

They spent all of their time pushing legislation on issues promoting homosexuality and amnesty for illegals rather than anything of relevance to the Black community.

The voters are speaking with their votes and money and they are saying they don’t like what either is offering.

Former Secretary of HUD, Julian Castro, had this insightful statement regarding this issue of diversity, “What we’re staring at is a DNC debate stage in a few days with no people of color on it, that does not reflect the diversity of our party or our country.” Yes, it does!!!!!

The Democrat Party voters are saying that the candidates offered up does NOT reflect the type of diversity they want, duhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

And Sen. Booker had this deep thought to add to the conversation, “There are more billionaires than Black people who’ve made the December debate stage—that’s a problem.” And his point is what?

Is he proposing voting until he gets the result he wants?

Dr. King fought for equal opportunity, NOT equal outcome. The Civil Rights movement was about making sure that any and everyone who met the criteria to seek public office was not denied the opportunity to do so. Nowhere in the movement was a condition that every Black who ran must be guaranteed victory.

According to this perverted liberal logic, hockey, cricket, and soccer are racist sports simply because most teams have no Blacks. Or could it be that most Blacks have shown little to no interest in these sports?

Or can we use the inverse of this logic?

Can we say that Hip-Hop and rap music are racist since there are few to any whites involved?

This push for diversity was indeed needed and justified back in the day because whites were unwilling to give Blacks what the U.S Constitution had already guaranteed us—full citizenship, with all the rights and privileges thereof.

But as usual, liberals keep expanding the definition of diversity to the point that it has because unrecognizable and silly. That is why there is such a backlash to the 21st century incarnation of “diversity.” It has little to do with race. For example, there is a push to have one’s choice of hair style “protected” under the Civil Rights statute. I am not joking.

Again, diversity for the sake of diversity is bad. Everything and everyone cannot be legally codified as a protected class. There is absolutely no need for any new discrimination laws to be added to the books. If we simply enforced existing laws, new laws are not necessary.

But it is nice to finally see the Democrats publicly admit to what we have known all along; that they indeed are the party of racists.

© All rights reserved.

India continues to struggle with surrogacy

/in , , , , , /by

The Prime Minister should walk his talk about empowering women and confront the powerful IVF industry.

Indian author and activist Pinki Virani has been given a national award for her book Bitter Chocolate: Child Sexual Abuse in India, which ripped the lid off the extent of this secretive crime in Indian homes across class and gender (40 percent of girls and 25 percent of boys under 18 are sexually abused, 50 percent of this horror being perpetrated upon them in their own homes or by adults in position of the child’s trust). She has assisted on the laws against sexual abuse.

Her fifth book, Politics of the Womb: The Perils of IVF, Surrogacy & Modified Babies, is a meticulously detailed work on the hormonal-medical violence being benignly showered on women the world over by “fertility fairies, even though their failure rate is 75 percent”.

This “worldwide onslaught on the woman’s womb in the name of a child” is “reducing good men to not even realising that they are condoning reproductive slavery”. For “Politics of the Womb”, Pinki Virani also sought out answers from global experts in the field – from Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Europe, India, Israel, Sweden, United Kingdom, and the United States – who share information which could be used to make informed choices, but which is being hidden from those seeking artificial assistance to further their bloodline — that there is risk of deadly diseases, deformities and disorders.

MercatorNet interviewed Ms Virani about recent development with surrogacy in India.

MercatorNet: India banned commercial surrogacy for foreigners and then started work on a bill banning commercial surrogacy completely. The currently-concluding session of India’s Parliament was to pass this bill into law. What went wrong?

Pinki Virani: Work started on the bill to ban commercial surrogacy in India in 2016. It passed the house of elected representatives (Lok Sabha) and went to the house of elders (Rajya Sabha). The RS recommended the bill to a Parliamentary Standing Committee to which stakeholders were invited.

I was among them, and it was fascinating to watch several people make the case for wanting to continue to plunder a woman’s body and pump her up with hormones and then cut her open and sell this birth-mother’s baby to another set of people who lay claim only on the basis of their genetic greed.

I understand people wanting to have babies of their own with their own genes; what is baffling is why they feel they should exploit others in third-party reproduction. It really can’t be about the money; how much money would they be willing to give women whom they don’t see as the “other”? Their own mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters, for instance?

And this is what commercial surrogacy is all about the world over, right? The woman has to be the “other”, even though she is birth-mother. Oftentimes egg-mother too; which means this is a mother being forced to sell her baby in a market, to another set of persons buying that baby, and an entire fertility industry in the middle brokering this baby-bazaar.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee made its recommendations; the Bill went through some changes, it was re-passed in the Lok Sabha. All that had to be done was move it to the Rajya Sabha since general elections had been announced. It’s a matter of picking up a file from one place and entering it officially into the records of another. Mysteriously, that short distance was not travelled and the bill was allowed to lapse.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government came back to power, a new bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha and passed by it. Most unfortunately, a flawed clause – that “close relatives” could be availed upon to be altruistic surrogates — was not amended and the Bill looked as though it was all set for another round of failure. It took very long to get to the Rajya Sabha where this clause has, justifiably, been brought up as there is no definition of it.

Interestingly, the patriarchy prevailing in the ruling party itself had members standing up to want “the woman to have more than one child” and “those who are also Indian origin, living abroad, should be allowed” . (Another matter that the countries these people of Indian origin live in and hold passports of, might not allow surrogacy, thereby encouraging them to break that law.)

The Opposition had some other points in the Rajya Sabha; again interesting in that some of them viewed “infertility” as a “disease”.

When did infertility become a disease? Is it communicable? Does anyone die of it? For this I squarely blame the United Nations and the World Health Organization, and then Big Pharma of which Big Fert is a part.

Now the Bill has been sent off to Parliament’s Select Committee. A report has to be given by them by end-February. Let’s see what happens after this, if Prime Minister Modi and his health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan are supported by their own party.

Let’s see if the Prime Minister is able to walk his talk when it comes to empowering women; it takes a strong man, with the courage of his convictions, to be able to stand against such an organised, well-heeled industry which uses science as a shield.

The IVF and surrogacy industries seem to have a lot of influence with politicians.

This would be true for wherever in the world surrogacy flourishes, wouldn’t it? After all, this repro-fert tech reaches developing countries in the same manner that bad medicine is dumped upon the Third World, right?

Doesn’t surrogacy help lift women out of poverty?

Define “lift”, define “poverty”, and then quantify how much money. For example, in the UK and also Canada – which have public healthcare systems – if I am not wrong (I repeat, if I am not wrong) British and Canadian women are becoming surrogates and delivering babies for all-sorts — who aren’t citizens of that country — at the expense of the British and Canadian taxpayer. Note, their countries don’t allow commercial surrogacy but hide under the fig leaf of “altruistic” surrogacy where “expenses” are paid to the women.

Baffling how “altruistic” and “expenses paid” come in the same sentence when it comes to surrogacy and also other forms of third-party reproduction. It should be “sold sperm”, not the factually incorrect “donated sperm” whenever sperm has been paid for, no matter the amount.

Do these “expenses” lift these obviously un-rich British and Canadian women out of the circumstance which makes them agree to sign on the dotted line to be human guinea pigs for more than nine months?

What about the commissioning parents? Many of them have tragic stories of multiple miscarriages.

Please read Politics of the Womb where experts talk about how “miscarriages” can happen because the man’s sperm is the factor and what can be done to make it more of a baby-maker.

Please also read the same book for how many cycles of IVF are required by any kind of mother – the genetic, the birth, the both as in the biological package of what most of our mothers are – and how many “miscarriages” take place.

I honestly think it’s unfair on the part of society to make those who want to be parents carry the burden of the social construct of “tragic” in the same phrase as “miscarriage” because they didn’t or couldn’t or were not programmed to, make a baby. And let’s not forget, such terms wind up making women feel very bad about themselves; such guilt even destroys their marriages.

Some feminists argue that surrogacy is actually an expression of a woman’s autonomy and that they should be allowed to use their bodies as they like. As a feminist, how would you respond to that?

I am not a feminist, I am a fe-men-ist because I believe that if men are going to be branded as part of the problem then they are also part of the solution. I, actually, agree with those who say a woman should be able to use her body as she likes though I doubt if they mean baby-trafficking.

There are also those – women and men, bless the latter especially! – who feel that if a couple cannot have a baby for whatever reason, it’s not the end of anything and therefore surrogacy – commercial, altruistic, “compensated” – should simply be banned from the world. I wonder if the UN or any politician of any Western country (because this is where the demand rises and it expects a supply) has the guts to stand up and say s/he agrees with these people from Europe.

Pinki Virani’s latest book, released internationally, is “Politics Of The Womb: The Perils Of IVF, Surrogacy & Modified Babies” in which she presents global proof, backed by world experts, on the real risks of artificial reproduction and the dangers of aggressive IVF on both the intending mother and her baby. 

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

VIDEO: The Vortex — Taking Down Bad Bishops

/in , , , , , , /by

TRANSCRIPT

As you more than likely know, the lying, cheating former bishop of Buffalo, Richard Malone, is now off the scene.

Malone, you might recall, is who Church Militant tried questioning in the Detroit airport a year ago, just as his corruption and cover-up were coming into the full light of day and the media spotlight. What we were specifically querying him about, and that he lied to us about, was the case of Anthony Ravarini, whom Church Militant had interviewed a few months before.

Anthony was forced to perform oral sex on a Buffalo priest when he was six years old. There were two witnesses to the event.

But when we asked about justice for Anthony — specifically why Malone had left the offending priest, Fr. Denis Riter, not only in active ministry, but actually a pastor at a Buffalo diocesan parish — Malone lied to us and said the case had been fully examined by his sex abuse review board. Then, the lying, cheating bishop turned around and accused us of lying — because that’s what liars do.

He lied when he said his review board had thoroughly investigated the case. No, they did not, and still haven’t. Anthony was never questioned. Neither of the witnesses was ever questioned. That obviously leaves open the question of just who was questioned.

The abusive priest was (and he denied it), even claiming that the young Anthony had caused the genetic material to be on his face, hair and clothing by his own effort. That ludicrous claim was apparently enough for Malone and his “review board.”

Cases like that are why Bp. Malone is now former Bp. Malone.

But note: The arrogance this man displayed and still continues to display is breathtaking. He had the gall to issue a statement the day the Pope fired him, saying he was planning on sticking around the diocese to help with the healing — his word — and said that his leaving was his choice. Liar! Just incredible!

But don’t think Malone is alone in his arrogance among the bishops. He just got caught — something they had better get used to in the coming months. Hundreds of lawsuits have flooded the courts, and the truth of this decades-long evil of sex abuse (most of it homosexual, power, ambition, financial malfeasance and so forth) is going to all be revealed.

In the case of Buffalo, the Pope appointed nearby Albany Bp. Edward Scharfenberger to step in and administer the diocese until a new bishop is appointed. He said, rather straightforward, that we have to look these affairs straight in the face, as they are. But perhaps most importantly, he made this comment to the assembled media: “We are here; thank you for your work.”

That is a very important point. Without the intense media coverage — non-stop pounding on this rotten, cover-up bishop — he would still be running the show. That coverage first came when his former secretary, Siobhhan O’Connor, went to the local media with documents proving his lies and corruption. She and her story were even on 60 Minutes.

Meanwhile, Church Militant had already been working on the other angle of victims like Anthony being denied justice, as Malone just lied to and ignored them.

A week back, secular media did a story on how untrustworthy these diocesan review boards actually are. Their goal is to protect and insulate the institution from financial or legal damages, not to get at the truth. That scenario is playing out here in the archdiocese of Detroit, where the corrupt Abp. Allen Vigneron keeps losing court hearing after court hearing in his attempt to railroad innocent priest Fr. Eduard Perrone.

Likewise, over in the diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, Bp. Michael Hoeppner — who ordered his priests and cautioned his laity to stay away from a Church Militant talk sponsored by a local group — was caught on videotape deposition lying and evading and twisting himself in knots trying to prevent the truth from coming out.

The truth was his track record in dealing with abuse allegations and threatening victims with reprisals if they went public. Hoeppner eventually settled — because they had to — for millions of dollars to multiple victims. But his case was so bad, it became the very first instance in the world of a bishop running afoul of the Pope’s new guidelines for dealing with cover-up bishops.

The archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, Bernard Hebda, was charged by the Vatican to investigate Hoeppner and send his report back to Rome. And for the record, it was once again intense media scrutiny that brought all this out.

When Church Militant spoke with Hebda’s communication guy and asked what the status of the report was, he responded, “After having submitted the preliminary investigation to the Vatican, we have not been instructed to do anything further at this point.”

Hoeppner deserves the Malone treatment, and he’s not the only one. These rotten men live in darkness and operate in darkness, terrified of being dragged into the light. Until the spotlight swings around to them, too many of them are arrogant, power-hungry dictators who feel their office gives them permission to skip over the Ten Commandments and the Gospel.

Being dragged into the light is precisely how you take down a bad bishop. Church Militant intends to keep up the dragging.

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

More Evidence Emerges That Federal Government Is Funding Worthless College Degrees

/in , , , , , /by

Americans have long suspected that, for many, a college degree simply isn’t worth the price.

American taxpayers—two-thirds of whom do not have a college degree—are likewise increasingly skeptical of the notion that they should pay off loans that someone else made the decision to take out.

With recently published College Scorecard data, American students and taxpayers have more reason than ever to reject the left’s “college for all” agenda.

The College Scorecard recently released program-level data on individual schools. Students can now go online and see how much debt the average student graduates with in a certain degree program, along with expected starting salaries.

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

The results indicate that choosing a major matters immensely, especially when relying on federal student loans to finance one’s education.

According to The Wall Street Journal, 15% of programs graduate students who carry more federal student loan debt than their annual income.

Interestingly, graduate programs—which are generally perceived to be good investments—are some of the worst offenders.

Students who graduate from the University of Miami Law School, for example, hold a median total debt of $150,896, but earn a starting salary of just $52,100. Even more problematic, students who obtain a master’s degree from New York University in film/video and photographic arts graduate with a median total debt of a whopping $168,568, but earn a median starting salary of $29,600.

Those findings are particularly concerning, considering that there is virtually no cap on how much students can borrow for graduate school under the PLUS loan program.

There is simply no reason that American taxpayers should be footing the entire cost of the bill upfront for degrees with such a low return on investment.

The new College Scorecard data provides not only valuable insights into the debt burden of college students, but also underscores the deep-rooted inefficiencies in our federal student loan programs.

Holders of bachelor’s degrees hold an average of $31,172 in student loan debt. However, depending on where a student goes to school and what their major is, earnings potential can be quite different.

For example, at the University of Miami, students who study mechanical engineering graduate with a median total debt of $20,500 and earn a median starting salary of $66,400. However, political science majors graduate with similar debt, $18,269, but earn a median starting salary of $37,500.

Providing the same loan to both of those student populations paints an inaccurate picture of their earnings potential. The private sector, by contrast, would take into account earnings potential before providing a loan to a student who may not be able to pay it back.

Unfortunately, American taxpayers are on the hook for students who are not able to make loan payments.

It is simply poor public policy for Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars to go toward degrees of such questionable value.

Indeed, a privately funded student loan market would have identified such programs early on and either ceased to provide loans for students who want to pursue, for example, a film degree at NYU, or simply charged higher interest rates commensurate with the likelihood of repayment.

Instead, our accreditation system, which accredits institutions in their entirety, shields students from seeing the true value of individual courses of study at a college or university.

Today, Americans are debating whether or not a college education should be tuition-free, with the cost of education transferred to all taxpayers. With overwhelming evidence that many colleges and universities are saddling students with significant debt, the debate should shift to whether or not federal policies are enabling a system that is failing students.

At the very least, policymakers should reform the federal student loan programs so that taxpayers are no longer financing programs that leave students worse off.

COMMENTARY BY

Mary Clare Amselem

Mary Clare Amselem is a policy analyst in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: .

RELATED ARTICLE: Historian Sir Michael Howard Spearheaded the Field of War Studies

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!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

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

MIDDLE EAST INTEL REPORT: Iraq/ISIS, Turkey/Libya and Analysis

/in , , , , , /by

IRAQ/ISIS

An entity calling itself “The Iraqi Media Security Cell” has announced on twitter that it has just arrested a major lieutenant of the late ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.  This fellow called himself Abu Khaldun, though his real name is Hamid Shakir Saba’ al-Badri.  According to a report on al-arabiyya he was caught by Iraqi police in an apartment in Kirkuk, in the northern part of Iraq.  He was a paternal nephew of al-Baghdadi’s and headed the Islamic State’s intelligence unit.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Iraq, the anti-government and anti-Iranian demonstration are continuing without let-up, particularly in the southern, Shi’a-dominated parts of the country.  This is in spite of the Iranian-backed Shi’a heshd sh’abi (popular militias), and some elements of the regular Iraqi security forces, using live rounds against demonstrators.

In another matter, Iraqi authorities have also reported that 5 rockets have landed inside an American base in Iraq’s western, Sunni-dominated, province of Anbar.  There were no casualties from this attack.  The missiles allegedly came “from a desert area east of the American base.”  A group calling itself “the al-Jazeera and desert operations” claimed responsibility.

COMMENT:  The term “al-jazeera” in Arabic usually means “Island,” but can also have other nuances.  In this case it refers to an area in Northern Syria just south of the Euphrates.  Also, north of the Euphrates is a vast desert region extending into Iraq’s Anbar province which, in the past, was often called “al-Jazeera.”

The above-mentioned group is probably an offshoot of ISIS just trying to prove that they are still around, and still active in the Iraq/Syria theater.

TURKEY/LIBYA

Turkey has just signed a maritime “boundaries” treaty with the Fayez Sirraaj government in Tripoli, Libya.  According to this treaty, both countries “agree” where their “mutual” maritime boundary is, and that both countries have the right to “share” in the economic exploitation (meaning drilling for oil) in each other’s claimed maritime “territory.”

Other agreements were also reportedly signing whereby Turkey promised to step up its already vigorous economic and military aid to the Sirraaj government.

This treaty has been reported on by virtually every Arab and international news entity on the planet, some favorably, others not so favorably.

For example, the headlines for a recent essay on the Saudi-owned www.alarabiyya.net

screamed:  LIBYAN ARMY OFFICIAL TO AL-ARABIYYA NET:  WE WILL NEVER LEAVE LIBYA TO THE TURKS!

Brigadier General Khalid Mahjoub, the director of “moral guidance” in the Libyan national army stressed that no matter how much military support Ankara gives to the armed militias serving the Tripoli side and the latest political leader of the Muslim Brotherhood organization (an off-handed reference to Fayez Sirraaj), the Libyan army will never leave Libya to the Turks.

Gen. Mahjoub added that these recent agreements between Ankara and Tripoli reveal Turkey’s ambitions to expand in Africa and the Mediterranean.  In this regard he warned that Turkey, once it has a foothold, will never withdraw and will try as much as possible to penetrate these areas.

The unnamed author of the al-arabiyya article added that these agreements will open the door for Turkey to send more support to the armed militias allied with it and to enflame the Libyan struggle as well as serving as the doorway for Turkey to exploit Libya’s energy sources and gain control of them.

ANALYSIS

This treaty essentially gives Turkey the right to drill for oil anywhere within Libyan territorial waters–and in the minds of the Turks, anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean.

Needless to say, virtually every Arab country not currently allied to Turkey (as well as Greece) has condemned the treaty.

While the above-mentioned Gen. Mahjoub seemed to believe that Turkey’s main interest in Libya and the rest of Africa has to do with economics and the lust for energy and other resources, any close examination of Turkey’s president Erdogan reveals much more than economic interests in these regions.  This is nothing less than the physical expansion of Turkey and one more step taken in its desire to resurrect the Ottoman Empire, a new caliphate, with Turkey as its head.  Erdogan, in his head, already believes that he is the consecrated Caliph, the successor to Muhammad.  Therefore, all the countries around the Mediterranean basin which were once a part of the old Ottoman Empire, are, by definition, nothing more than provinces of Turkey.  They just haven’t realized that fact yet.

Therefore Turkey believes that it has the right to drill for oil anywhere in the eastern Mediterranean because it believes that it is the re-incarnation of the Ottoman Empire during which time the entire eastern Mediterranean (and most of the western Med. as well) was an Ottoman lake.  Therefore, Turkey is only laying claim to what it believes is its natural right.

Egypt and its Arab allies (including the Haftar movement and its allied parliament in Tabruk) have complained that this “treaty” is illegal because the Sirraaj government of Tripoli controls only the city of Tripoli and therefore has no authority to sign away the rest of Libya’s coastal waters to a foreign power.  Egypt and other countries around the Mediterranean basin also fear that Turkey’s moves threaten their own territorial waters.

Greece has scoffed at the treaty because Turkey and Libya have no geographic justification to sign such a treaty because in between both countries is a huge geographical land mass called Crete which is part of Greece’s national territory–Meaning that the existence of Crete has to be ignored before one can imagine the territorial waters of Turkey and Libya to meet.

But what Greece is forgetting, is that according to Turkish sentiments, Crete, and in fact all of Greece, are nothing more that provinces of Turkey’s Ottoman Empire.

I do believe, also, that NATO, and the pro-West leaders of the Arab world (such as they are), better take a closer look at these Tripoli/Ankara treaties–particularly the clauses stipulating increased Turkish support for the militias fighting on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood Sirraaj government.  These militias, as reported on this site numerous times over the past several months, are essentially left-over ISIS, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood, and Ansar ash-Shari’a personnel.

In Turkey’s current invasion and occupation of portions of Syria Erdogan has utilized militias composed of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Muslim Brotherhood members which Turkey “captures” then recycles into new militias with different names and then inserts them into what it is now calling “The Syrian National Army.”  These units are currently in the process of conquering Syria for Erdogan’s new Ottoman empire.

Many of the thousands of left-over ISIS fighters in the Syria/Iraq region are currently being rounded up by Turkey, while others are seeking refuge in the territory of their former patron, Turkey.  My fear is that while many of these fighters will be recycled into Erdogan’s “Syrian National Army” for the continued conquest of Syria, others will be sent to Libya as part of the above-mentioned treaty promises of “increased Turkish military aid for the militias serving Tripoli.”

In this regard, I will leave readers with one final note.  Rumors are seeping out of the Turkish prisons where former ISIS fighters are being held saying that “it will start again.”

We will report more on this in future installments.  Stay tuned.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Hungarian TV on renewed migrant invasion via the Balkans: The Bosnian connection

The Guilty Accuse The Innocent Of That Which They Are Guilty Of

/in , , , , , /by

“Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.” –  Thomas Jefferson

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.” –  General Douglas MacArthur

“History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.” –  General Douglas MacArthur

“The two enemies of the people are criminal and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.” –  Thomas Jefferson

Whitewashing the Criminals and Destroying the Innocent

I watched Speaker Pelosi’s announcement regarding impeachment of our duly elected President who has not committed an impeachable offense.  When I listened to her, I wanted to take a baseball bat to the TV…  She starts out saying, “Let us begin where our founders began in 1776.”  What?  Who the hell wrote this speech for this Socialist Democrat?  She hasn’t a clue of our Declaration of Independence, neither has she a clue of our amazing Constitution and the founders who wrote it.  Watch her! Start at about 2:50 in this video of the six-minute speech.

And then she quotes the Declaration, which personally damns her and all her Democratic Socialist brethren for accusing our President of the very impeachable laws they themselves are breaking!  She calls our President a Monarch with whom we need to break our bonds!  Nancy, you’ve gone into Lala land because we need to break the bonds with you and your entire socialist commie ilk who are still so pissed off that you lost the election of your globalist elitist establishment insider, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to outsider Donald J. Trump who wanted to save our Republic from the likes of you.

Foreign Influence

Nancy Pelosi claims in her speech that our founders, having just fought a war for Independence, specifically feared the prospects of a “King President” who could be corrupted by foreign influence.

Psychological projection Nancy! You have learned well Saul Alinsky’s tactics of blaming your opponent for that of which you are guilty.  Oh yes Nancy Pelosi, you and your son are guilty of foreign influence, as are John Kerry and his son, and Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Vice President Joe Biden should have been impeached long ago for committing the crimes the left is blaming our President of doing.  And don’t forget that your Democratic President Clinton had good reason to be impeached; it was his Vice President, Al Gore, who sold military secrets to the Chinese communists to get funds to ensure the second term of Democratic President Clinton.

Pelosi goes on to state that the Father of our Constitution, James Madison, warned that a President might betray his trust to foreign powers which might prove fatal to the Republic.  I can think of plenty of previous presidents who have done just that, and they were mostly of the Democratic Party.  And Nancy, you’ve never called us a Republic, you’ve continually called us a Democracy which is mob rule and which you embrace.  A Republic is the Rule of Law, which you obviously detest.

The real fatality to the Republic is the Democratic Socialist Party.  Nancy, you’ve caved to the 2018 elected millennials and Islamists who hate our duly elected President so much that they’ve moved you to cow to their desires and you’re willing to risk your own party’s re-election to destroy our innocent President.  You, Nancy are a traitor to the oath you took to our Constitution and to the Republic.  You have willingly committed sedition.

Speaker Pelosi goes on to say that founder Gouverneur Morris feared that a President may be bribed by a greater interest to betray his trust.  Morris emphasized that the President is not the King, that the people are those in charge, but Nancy, you and your ilk have removed that very premise of our Constitution from the people!  You are the ones who wish to be in charge, not the American people who elected President Trump. You and your filthy socialist democrats are willing to destroy the Constitution, the Republic and America to gain the power you feel you lost because the people rejected your party and your corrupt candidate in 2016.

Pelosi goes on to say that the founders created a remedy to protect the people from a dangerous or corrupt leader.  Well Nancy, it didn’t help us much with FDR, two Bushes, Clinton or Obama, did it!  All of them were dangerous, and every one of them was corrupt and their administrations infiltrated with communists and Islamists.

Conclusion

Corruption still reigns in the intelligence community.  Attorney General Bill Barr, U.S. Attorney John Durham and Inspector General Michael Horowitz are telling us they’ve found little corruption in the intelligence community spying apparatus and the Democratic Party set up of Hillary Clinton’s opponent, Donald J. Trump.

Only a month ago Lou Dobbs of Fox Business Network told us that IG Horowitz had found no reason to charge Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, et al.  (He didn’t even mention Bruce and Nellie Ohr).  Tonight, December 5th, 2019, Lou Dobbs tells us that the Washington Post reported that U.S. Attorney John Durham told IG Horowitz’s office that he could not find any evidence that the Russia investigation was a U.S. intelligence enterprise.  Now we hear that John Durham just won’t comment.

Corruption continues against the Republic and the American people who elected Donald J. Trump.  Justice still eludes the innocent and Trump supporters.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Impeachment Charade, Faculty Lounge Edition

Adam Schiff’s Release of Phone Records Invites Legal, Ethics Scrutiny

Hamilton Silences Impeachment Fools

/in , , , /by

America’s media stream has been saturated by politicians, pundits, and law professors pontificating on what America’s founders’ believed about presidential impeachment.  The most oft used argument today is a misapplication and misleading representation of what founder Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist #65.

The claim is that Alexander Hamilton establishes in Federalist #65 that presidents should be “impeached for political reasons.”  This is completely and obviously false to anyone who has read the essay and possesses a smidgen of reading comprehension skills.

I believe the people asserting this fake claim are confident that the American people won’t actually read this essay and call them out for their deceptions.  My goal is to show how simple and plainly written this text is and how blatantly deceptive these people are in their lie-driven agenda.

The overall assertion of these prevaricators is that Hamilton uses Federalist #65 to explain to the people what the Constitution says about the grounds for impeachment of presidents.  The very title of this document declares this to be false. The document is titled, “The Powers of the Senate Continued.”

As the Federalist Papers are compiled by a series of topics, Federalist #65 falls in the set of essays explaining the powers delegated to the Senate.  What is interesting, in the very first paragraph Hamilton explains that this essay is NOT about the president, but the Senate, and a presidential series would be forthcoming.

“As in the business of appointments the executive will be the principal agent, the provisions relating to it will most properly be discussed in the examination of that department.”

The second paragraph of this essay is the fertile ground used to harvest the agenda-driven propaganda of this present hour.  It is in this paragraph that we glean our best understanding of what Hamilton believed to be the greatest complications to a valid impeachment.  What Hamilton does NOT do in this paragraph, or in any paragraph in this essay, is define the terms of impeachment nor the unlimited power of the House to impeach a president for whatever allegation the majority can motivate their moiling mob to support.  What is interesting is, that Hamilton actually defeats that claim in the very paragraph these fabulists violently plunder.

Hamilton begins paragraph two by explaining that history proves it will be very difficult to pull together a fit body for the trying of impeachment.  Once you read Hamilton’s argument, not only does his logic become very clear, but it also shows itself to be very familiar in the present day impeachment display.  The reason it will be difficult to pull together a fit body for impeachment, Hamilton explains, is because impeachment is a process that involves people who are solely contained in the realm of politics and politics are ruled by emotions and not reason.

“The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.” 

These tricksters claim that because Hamilton used the word “political” he must have meant that political reasoning was sufficient for impeachment; i.e. if the majority in the House doesn’t like a president’s policies, mannerisms, or politics then impeachment is the solution.  However, Hamilton’s use of the term “political” is descriptive of the universe in which impeachment exists, not of the terms upon which impeachment may take place. Because impeachment is applied to elected people who are tried for crimes that violate a position given by the entire society as opposed to a single person and the accused is tried by politicians it is properly classified as political.  It seems that politicians, pundits, and professors may be better at cherry picking than George Washington.

If that was all Hamilton said on the topic, a matter of interpretation could be claimed.  However, what Hamilton says after this statement makes all the difference in the world.

“The prosecution of them, for this reason, will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties more or less friendly or inimical to the accused.”

Because politicians are the accused in impeachment and because they are tried by politicians, it will be difficult to put together an unbiased body to impeach, and because politics are products of division people and politicians will naturally take sides.

Watch out, listen up, Hamilton is going to give us a bold warning of what will go wrong when impeachment is used for political punishments instead of strictly holding to the terms of impeachment outlined in Article 2 section 4.

“In many cases it will connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other; and in such cases there will always be the greatest danger that the decision will be regulated more by the comparative strength of parties, than by the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.”

Because politicians are always the products of elections where one person wins and one person loses, there will always be one group of people unhappy with the other.  Hamilton considered it to be dangerous for impeachment to become a tool used to punish people for political reasons.

So when members of Congress, political pundits, or partisan professors claim that the Constitution supports using the institution for impeachment as a political punishment, they are not only wrong but aiding and abetting the “greatest danger” to the political system; they create impeachments not concerned with due process, not concerned with crimes, their elements, reliable evidence, or truth and qualified witnesses.  Under the propagandists presumed terms, guilt or innocence is not the standard as established by the founders, but the standard becomes whether you like an elected official or not.

It is here that I am reminded of a story in history where a man named Haman built gallows to hang his political enemy Mordechai to eliminate one he felt was his competitor for the King’s affections.  After Haman attempted to sow his lies, the King upon discovering the truth ordered Haman to be hung on his own gallows.

Article 2 section 4 of the Constitution is not written solely for the impeachment of presidents.  The text reads, “president, vice president, and all civil officers.” That term “civil officers” includes every single person employed in federal government whether elected or hired by an elected person.  These political fornicators ought to be careful of the standards they create, for what is good for the goose is good for the Haman.

COLUMN BY

KrisAnne Hall, JD

KrisAnne Hall is a former biochemist, Russian linguist for the US Army, and former prosecutor for the State of Florida. KrisAnne also practiced First Amendment Law for a prominent Florida non-profit Law firm. KrisAnne now travels the country teaching the foundational principles of Liberty and our Constitutional Republic. KrisAnne is the author of 6 books on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, she also has an internationally popular radio and television show and her books and classes have been featured on C-SPAN TV. KrisAnne can be found at www.KrisAnneHall.com.

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

Salvation Army Gets Ringing Endorsement from Trump

/in , , , , , , /by

America isn’t the only thing making a comeback under President Trump — so is Christmas! The candidate who vowed, “We’re gonna be saying Merry Christmas again,” delivered on that promise again in a big way Thursday night. Thirty-feet of big, to be exact. In front of the giant spruce, the president made it very clear that this event wasn’t about illuminating the tree — but shining a light on the real reason for the season.

In a speech that no one would mistake for Barack Obama’s, the president talked about the wise men coming to worship Jesus. “Christians give thanks that the Son of God came into the world to save humanity. Jesus Christ inspires us to love one another with hearts full of generosity and grace… As one grateful nation, we praise the joy of family, the blessings of freedom, and the miracle of Christmas.”

His words were a breathtaking departure from Christmases past, which were full of nothing but the pageant of political correctness. To millions of Americans, Donald Trump hasn’t just tapped into the frustration they feel about Christmas, but the mockery of the values they hold dear. And he took another moment to prove it, intentionally recognizing the Salvation Army for its important work—despite the Left’s latest attacks over its Christian roots.

“Joining us today are David and Sharron Hudson of the Salvation Army. Each year, through their Angel Tree program, the Salvation Army brings new gifts to more than 600,000 children. David and Sharron are an inspiration to us all. And, David and Sharron, thank you very much for being with us. Thank you.” After Chick-fil-A walked away from the group and the Cowboys almost lost their halftime show over the Red Kettle campaign, it matters that this president made a point of standing alongside the nonprofit. The message was subtle but clear: he isn’t caving to the cultural bullies, and Americans shouldn’t either.

For the Salvation Army, the support couldn’t come at a better time. As Rich Lowry points out, the red kettles that used to be a sign of charity and goodwill are suddenly a symbol of liberal controversy. “It takes a perverse worldview not to have fond feelings about this tradition, which is spectacularly successful on its own terms, raising almost $150 million a year.” But then, the Left has never let “sentimentality interfere with their dictates.”

“If you think that volunteering for an organization that is raising funds to provide food and housing, among many other services, for the needy is an inherently praiseworthy act, you haven’t been following the woke Left-wing activists cutting a swath through American culture. Any institution, no matter how storied or how generous, is subject to a punitive campaign of social ostracism that is often highly effective. In today’s environment, what seems preposterous one moment is inevitable the next, and after one target is ground into submission, another is quickly found.”

Fortunately, President Trump doesn’t believe in surrender. And he’ll go to the mat to guarantee that Christian organizations like this one can continue serving Americans — for the same reason he’ll keep fighting the war on Christmas: because no one should ever have to compromise their faith in a country like ours.

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

RELATED ARTICLES:

It Came upon an Indict Clear…

Judges: Wise Men Still Seek Them

RELATED VIDEO: President Trump Delivers Remarks at the National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony

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

Tommy Robinson previews a new documentary film on antisemitism in modern UK

/in , , , , , , /by

Posted by Eeyore

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

LTC Allen West: Comments on Pearl Harbor Day 2019

/in , , , /by

Garland, TX, December 7, 2019 — Today is a day that shall live in infamy. Those were the hallowed words of our President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as he addressed a joint session of Congress after the Imperial Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Today we should reflect upon the men and women, Americans, who mobilized and answered the call to arms . . . like my dad did. We are losing that Greatest Generation and we owe them a debt of gratitude that can truly, never be repaid. In our house here in Garland, Texas, there is an artist rendition of the Doolittle Raiders, signed by LTC Doolittle’s co-pilot, Dick Cole, who recently passed.We can honor this day and those heroes, such as Waco, Texas, native Doris “Dorie” Miller, by earning their service, sacrifice, commitment, and loss by pledging to never surrender the last great hope for mankind on earth, these United States of America. Just as then, we still face enemies, foreign and domestic and we must answer the call to defend our land, our Constitutional Republic, and do so with Honor. Sir Edmund Burke once stated, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

On this Pearl Harbor Day of 2019, let us all find our courage, seek out our duty, and commit ourselves to the preservation of individual liberty, freedom, and never allow the triumph of evil, personified in ideologies that undermine and threaten our blessed way of life. Tell the story to our children and grandchildren so these men who lost their lives this day December 7, 1941, shall not grow old, nor be forgotten. Let us walk a little taller and speak in a stentorian voice as we cherish the blessing of living in America . . . the Land of the Free, because we are the Home of the Brave.

Learn more about Allen West, his campaign, and how to keep Texas Red by visiting WestForTexas.com

© All rights reserved.