Are American Voters Helpless?

There is not a day that goes by that I read comments from all over the social media on major issues that threaten this land of the free. Many Americans know what the problems are, but they are helpless in solving them alone. Why? Because we are a Representative Republic and expect our elected Representatives to know the problems and solve them. Americans love courageous leaders like President Trump and Senator Ted Cruz and despise weak politicians whose only art is playing with nonsocial words.

When was the last time you witnessed a courageous and knowledgeable representative stand up in the US Congress to address the vital issue of Islam’s stealth jihad or Islamic subversion currently exploiting all aspects of American life? I do not remember.

Well, let’s ask a few questions. Aren’t these people elected to keep America safe? Don’t these elected officials work for their constituents? Haven’t they sworn that they “will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and that they “will bear true faith and allegiance to the same?”

They did, they promised and they lied. So, now what? We, the People, elect our leaders, and must hold them accountable. So, what happens when they refuse to stand by their oath of office and defend the Constitution they swore to? Fire them you might say!! That’s one way. How can we be sure the next guy isn’t any better or different than the former? Hard answer.

The reality is, We the People live in a fantasy world and are under the assumption that everything will be all right. But it won’t be. Who is right? We, individual Americans, often, are outmanned and outgunned against the powerful globalists who are in charge. Lone rangers win only in make-believe movies. In real life, governments, institutions and organizations are the ones who prevail. They have the funds to buy the services of the media; employ lawyers, politicians, and mercenaries of all stripes.

Let us keep in mind that there are not many differences among the D.C. Beltway elitist class politicians of either party. The elitists have crafted their own version of the universe and want you to see our world through their lenses, a political deception and tactic that they have prescribed for you to see. Political elitists despise patriotic Americans as they did the Tea Party Activists. They have carefully manufactured smoke and mirrors for their subjects where citizens think and act as though they have political choices, thus perpetuating the myth of democratic participation. Commentator Walter Lippmann on numerous occasions spoke of this type of control over the masses.

You may ask yourself, how do we know that? Well, it is obvious. Just ask yourself, why is the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliate like the Council on Islamic American Relations (CAIR) have not been placed on the list of terrorist organizations? Most of us know that Islamic law is practiced in some parts of the US and we know that Sharia law is incompatible with our laws and the U.S. Constitution. Again, nothing has been done to stop it in its tracks! Islam, like Communism, Nazism and other isms, is ideological to its core. It still retains its poisonous ideological connection with Nazism and the Arabic version of Hitler’s Mein Kampf and its fictitious propaganda.

We also know that the American educational system has been invaded by Saudi Arabia as well as other rich-oil Arab nations of the Persian Gulf region. Well, we know that Islam is a religion of war, not peace. Again, no elected official has made a single attempt to stop this. In many US States, schoolchildren are indoctrinated and taught propaganda that praises Islam, while Christianity, Judaism and other true religions are squelched. Once again, those who we elected into office are silent. Perhaps they do not like to rock the boat for fear of losing their chances of being reelected.

We are living in a “Soft Jihad” period and you do not even notice it because it is not “hard jihad.” Islam, with the help of leftist media and the Democrat Party are using our Constitution against us. America is in a state of Islamic subversion and it is far much more dangerous for us to defend America here than to go overseas and fight the enemy there. We are about to lose America’s identity and freedom without even noticing it and our own elected officials are either ignorant or play the political correctness game. We aren’t even allowed to name the enemy that is Islam.

The time will come when your children and grandchildren will ask: how did all this happen and nothing was done to stop it! Our representatives must represent the people of America rather than catering to Muslims and Muslim organizations.

In short, America the land of the free, is under assault by the deadly ideology of Islamic subversion and most of us are comatose.

© All rights reserved.

Democrats go full Marxist: Officially embrace the “religiously unaffiliated”

Democrats are now officially the party of the nonbelievers. Merriam-Webster defines a nonbeliever as “especially an atheist.”

How did this happen?

Karl Marx wrote in Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right:

Religious distress is at the same time the expression of real distress and the protest against real distress. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness. The demand to give up the illusion about its condition is the demand to give up a condition which needs illusions.

Democrats Come Full Circle on Going Godless

Remember that during the 2012 Democratic National Convention delegates opposed adding language on God and Israel’s capital to their platform. Watch this Fox News report:

On January 30, 2019 The Epoch Times  reported that a key House of Representatives committee has voted to remove the phrase “so help you God” in an oath used in its proceedings. Watch:

In a press release the Secular Coalition for America notes:

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) this past Saturday embraced American nonbelievers for the first time, adopting a resolution that recognizes their contributions to society and to the Democratic Party.

This move by the DNC, which was unanimous absent one abstention, demonstrates that they are living up to the big-tent inclusive values they regularly espouse, though it also shows they recognize the value of courting the largest, fastest growing religious demographic in the nation.  It was first passed in the DNC’s Resolutions Committee on Thursday [August 26, 2019]. [Emphasis added]

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Resolution Regarding the Religiously Unaffiliated Demographic states:

WHEREAS, nonreligious Americans made up 17% of the electorate in 2018 and have the potential to deliver millions more votes for Democrats in 2020 with targeted outreach to further increase turnout of nonreligious voters; and

WHEREAS, a record number of openly nonreligious candidates are running for public office;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE recognizes:

1. The value, ethical soundness, and importance of the religiously unaffiliated demographic, a group of Americans who contribute in innumerable ways to the arts, sciences, medicine, business, law, the military, their communities, the success
of the Party and prosperity of the Nation; and

2. That religiously unaffiliated Americans are a group that, as much as any other, advocates for rational public policy based on sound science and universal humanistic values and should be represented, included, and heard by the Party.

Conclusion

The Democratic Party is no longer the party of Thomas Jefferson. It is now the party of Karl Marx.

Thomas Jefferson the founder of the Democratic Party wrote:

“Under the law of nature [God], all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the author of nature [God], because necessary for his own sustenance.”

The Democratic Party may have just signed its own death warrant.

According to Pew Research Center’s data on Religion & Public Life the five largest religious groups that are Democrat/lean Democrat are:

  1. Historically Black Protestant – 80%
  2. Buddhist – 69%
  3. Jewish  – 64%
  4. Muslim – 62%
  5. Hindu – 61%

Affiliated (religious “nones”) are 54%.

The denial of God, in order to garner votes and create a Socialist/Marxist state, is now the official policy of the Democratic National Committee. What is most interesting is that Muslims (62% of Democrat/lean Democrat) can never accept religious “nones.”

You can’t make this stuff up. We have truly entered the Democratic theatre of the absurd.

© All rights reserved.

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Second Holocaust or road to oblivion?

American Jews should acknowledge that they are mired in an existential crisis that is largely self-inflicted.


When Israeli Minister of Education Rabbi Rafi Peretz recently likened intermarriage in the US to a second Holocaust, he was roundly criticized by liberal Jews, including the ADL and representatives of the Conservative movement.  Some claimed his remark was contemptible or somehow constituted “Holocaust denial.” But despite the outrage and continuing controversy over his stark analogy, liberal and non-Orthodox organizations may really have been angered by the implicit indictment of their apparent inability to ensure Jewish continuity among their followers.  Their indignation was incongruous, moreover, considering how often progressives misapply Holocaust imagery to the US southern border crisis or falsely compare the Trump administration to Nazi Germany.

Instead of condemning Rabbi Peretz, American Jews should perhaps acknowledge that they are mired in an existential crisis that is largely self-inflicted.  Though assimilation and intermarriage are certainly not genocide, they could if unabated decimate Jewish culture just as surely. And no matter how strenuously Jewish liberals might disagree, they cannot alter the fact that the progressive philosophy they cherish so dearly has been enabling assimilation since the days of Voltaire – a confirmed anti-Semite – and subverting Jewish tradition and national aspirations to the present day.

Anger at the messenger should not negate the seriousness of his warning, which merely echoes the findings of the Pew Research Center survey showing a US intermarriage rate of 58% overall and 71% among the non-Orthodox.  The collective rate is significant in unaffiliated, Reform, and Conservative demographics, suggesting to many a correlation with lower or alternative standards of observance and education.

The real picture might even be worse given Pew’s finding that “intermarriage is much more common among Jewish respondents who are themselves the children of intermarriage” and that “among married Jews who report that only one of their parents was Jewish, fully 83% are married to a non-Jewish spouse.”  Specifically, because those who identify by patrilineal descent are not Jewish according to Halakha (Jewish law), their marriages to Halakhic Jews would also constitute intermarriage.  The situation has probably not improved since these data were first published in 2013, as Jewish literacy remains comparatively low in secular and nontraditional populations.

The likelihood of intermarriage clearly increases as observance and educational standards decline.  For Reform Jews, this may stem from their movement’s early rejection of the mitzvot (commandments) as binding, its ambivalence regarding the divinity of Torah, and the conflation of Judaism with progressive ideals.  Such themes distinguished the Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, which contained among others the following statements of principle:

“We recognize in the Bible the record of the consecration of the Jewish people to its mission as the priest of the one God…[and consider] the Bible [as] reflecting the primitive ideas of its own age, and at times clothing its conception of divine Providence and Justice dealing with men in miraculous narratives…

“We hold that all such Mosaic and rabbinical laws as regulate diet, priestly purity, and dress…fail to impress the modern Jew with a spirit of priestly holiness; their observance in our days is apt rather to obstruct than to further modern spiritual elevation…

“We recognize in Judaism a progressive religion, ever striving to be in accord with the postulates of reason…”

Though the movement tempered its initial radicalism somewhat over the years, its discomfort regarding traditional observance and Judeocentrism continued to mold Reform thought and practice – and influence assimilation.  Indeed, many in the Reform rabbinate acknowledged and attempted to address the problem twenty years ago by advocating greater observance; however, their recommendations were ineffective because they viewed the commandments as advisory rather than mandatory.  And while Reform clergy have continued to bemoan intermarriage within their congregations, they have little authority to discourage it now that 84% of them officiate at such unions, as reported by the JTA last year.

The Reform movement’s inability to assure Jewish continuity was perhaps inevitable given its heterodox educational standards, enforced primarily through part-time Hebrew schools and youth programs that teach little in the way of substantive Jewish language or traditional law and ritual.  Indeed, curricula often emphasize progressive political values (which frequently regard ethnocentric loyalty and attachment to homeland as antiquated or intolerant), but fail to impart traditional basics or the linguistic skills necessary for understanding sacred text.

The Conservative movement has not fared much better, particularly as it has become more identified with progressive political causes since the 1960s.  Whatever its standards of practice may have been fifty years ago, most congregants today are nonobservant and lead ritual lives indistinguishable from their Reform contemporaries.  The majority do not keep kosher, observe Shabbat or speak Hebrew, and many identify as “social justice warriors” first and foremost. Moreover, congregational leaders are often neither observant nor well-versed in traditional rabbinics.  Conservative day schools are no match for traditional yeshivas, and twice-weekly Hebrew schools (where most education occurs) are ill-equipped to teach substantive Jewish law and text. Few students of such supplemental programs can read or understand Tanakh (Jewish Bible) in the original Hebrew.

The non-Orthodox movements tend to equate political activism with ritual observance and sanctify progressivism as innately Jewish despite its frequent conflict with normative tradition.  And many of their members praise unbalanced criticism of Israel while portraying Jewish nationalism as chauvinistic. Though Reform and Conservative stalwarts would disagree, the institutional embrace of liberal politics has not advanced Jewish thought or practice, but rather has alienated many followers from their roots.

Paradoxically, nontraditional Jews often seek acknowledgment of their movements’ legitimacy from Orthodox institutions, though it seems that genuine confidence in their rectitude would preclude their need for approval from a religious establishment whose standards they reject.  And while they demand recognition from the Orthodox, they do not regard Torah or Halakha with the same degree of reverence, but instead discount subject matter that offends their political sensibilities.

Their disregard for Torah content inconsistent with their partisan worldview is illustrative.  They are troubled by Parshat Zachor (Devarim, 25:19), for example, wherein Israel was commanded to obliterate the Amalekites for their surprise attack in Rephidim after the Exodus, because it defies the concept of progressive universalism.  Likewise, they minimize the significance of Parshat Acherei-Mot (Vayikra, 16:1–18:30), which prohibits certain sexual relationships, because it undermines their sanctification of such relationships today. However, they cannot selectively disclaim portions of Torah while claiming to affirm its eternal values or divinity.

The nontraditional movements seem to have traded normative Torah beliefs for political and temporal priorities that are extraneous to Judaism.  And they are abetted by secular communal organizations that emphasize political virtues over Torah values and by Democrats who attack conservatives while defending anti-Semites within their party.  However, those who promote progressivism as the sine qua nons of Jewish existence are often not familiar with classical Torah principles; for if they were, they would have to acknowledge that much of their partisan agenda contravenes traditional Judaism and enables assimilation.

Nevertheless, the tendency to intermarry does not necessarily signify self-rejection, but is often a passive outcome for people with weak Judaic backgrounds who never internalized the value of cultural self-preservation.  They may not consider intermarriage a goal, but neither do they view it as unacceptable or undesirable.

Distinct from such passive assimilationists are those who willfully renounce their heritage in favor of non-Jewish belief systems.  This demographic includes people raised with little connection to traditional practice or spirituality, who seek to fill the void with supernal substance of any kind.  Some are drawn to so-called “messianic Judaism,” which is nothing more than evangelical Christianity falsely portrayed as “Jewish” despite its fundamental incompatibility with Torah law and belief.  Others succumb to the blandishments of missionaries who target poorly-educated Jews for conversion.

Those who embrace other religions generally have limited Jewish education and possess neither the knowledge nor skills to withstand spiritual predation.  They typically do not understand Hebrew, are unfamiliar with Tanakh, and thus are incapable of countering evangelists who misrepresent, misquote, and mistranslate the Jewish Bible.  In particular, they are unable to compare original Hebrew text to supposed “fulfillment citations” frequently cited by Christian missionaries to see that none comport with what Hebrew Scripture actually says.  They are also unaware that theological concepts like trinitarianism and vicarious atonement are irreconcilable with Torah law.

Similar naivete characterizes secular progressives who claim that Jewish tradition validates leftist social policy, but who are unable to articulate why because they cannot read or understand Hebrew Scripture or Rabbinic literature.

The American Jewish community is clearly in crisis and Rabbi Peretz was correct about the danger, regardless of his choice of metaphor.  The risk of spiritual and cultural decline – whether through intermarriage or the adoption of heretical beliefs – is very real. Thus, rather than attacking him, US Jewish leaders should be heeding his admonition and reorganizing their educational and ritual priorities to prevent exile from turning into oblivion.

RELATED VIDEO: Bill Whittle on President Trump’s statement about Jewish people and the Democrat party.

EDITORS NOTE: This Israel National News column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

More on the Democratic Socialists of America [Videos]

Posted by Eeyore

Earlier this month, we posted a video which should be shaking foundations in Washington and across America about the real nature of the DSA. A Marxist-Leninist group which intends a total take over of America, and in true Marxist fashion, not just in the political sphere but a total and complete and probably never ending negation of Western culture in every aspect of American life, from culture to business.

Now, RAIR Foundation has released its second video on the DSA:


RAIR’s article on the contents of this video can be found at this link.

Earlier video on the DSA speaking at a gathering of European Communist organizations. (Comintern)

For anyone wishing to have an in-depth understanding of the communist groups now in ascendance in the West, at the strategic level, please consider committing time to reading this report, even if it is just a few pages a day.

But if you want a basic hint on some of the chief machinery being used by communist groups to enforce the replacement of law and order with a Hegelian-Marxist narrative, you can watch this short speech from earlier this year with the Secretary General of the United Nations:

Direct link.

Of Workers and Wealth

Pope Leo XIII: Whether we have wealth or lack it makes no difference. What matters is to justly use what we have, especially if we are rich.


The great mistake made in regard to the matter now under consideration is to take up with the notion that class is naturally hostile to class, and that the wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict. So irrational and so false is this view that the direct contrary is the truth.

Just as the symmetry of the human frame is the result of the suitable arrangement of the different parts of the body, so in a State is it ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic. Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital. Mutual agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces confusion and savage barbarity.

Now, in preventing such strife as this, and in uprooting it, the efficacy of Christian institutions is marvellous and manifold. First of all, there is no intermediary more powerful than religion (whereof the Church is the interpreter and guardian) in drawing the rich and the working class together, by reminding each of its duties to the other, and especially of the obligations of justice.

Of these duties, the following bind the proletarian and the worker: fully and faithfully to perform the work which has been freely and equitably agreed upon; never to injure the property, nor to outrage the person, of an employer; never to resort to violence in defending their own cause, nor to engage in riot or disorder; and to have nothing to do with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful promises of great results, and excite foolish hopes which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss.

The following duties bind the wealthy owner and the employer: not to look upon their work people as their bondsmen, but to respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character. They are reminded that, according to natural reason and Christian philosophy, working for gain is creditable, not shameful, to a man, since it enables him to earn an honorable livelihood; but to misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain, or to value them solely for their physical powers – that is truly shameful and inhuman.

Again justice demands that, in dealing with the working man, religion and the good of his soul must be kept in mind. Hence, the employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his religious duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family, or to squander his earnings.

Furthermore, the employer must never tax his work people beyond their strength, or employ them in work unsuited to their sex and age. His great and principal duty is to give every one what is just. Doubtless, before deciding whether wages are fair, many things have to be considered; but wealthy owners and all masters of labor should be mindful of this – that to exercise pressure upon the indigent and the destitute for the sake of gain, and to gather one’s profit out of the need of another, is condemned by all laws, human and divine.

To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven. “Behold, the hire of the laborers. . .which by fraud has been kept back by you, crieth; and the cry of them hath entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.”

Lastly, the rich must religiously refrain from cutting down the workmen’s earnings, whether by force, by fraud, or by usurious dealing; and with all the greater reason because the laboring man is, as a rule, weak and unprotected, and because his slender means should in proportion to their scantiness be accounted sacred. Were these precepts carefully obeyed and followed out, would they not be sufficient of themselves to keep under all strife and all its causes?

But the Church, with Jesus Christ as her Master and Guide, aims higher still. She lays down precepts yet more perfect, and tries to bind class to class in friendliness and good feeling. The things of earth cannot be understood or valued aright without taking into consideration the life to come, the life that will know no death.

Exclude the idea of futurity, and forthwith the very notion of what is good and right would perish; nay, the whole scheme of the universe would become a dark and unfathomable mystery.

The great truth which we learn from nature herself is also the grand Christian dogma on which religion rests as on its foundation – that, when we have given up this present life, then shall we really begin to live. God has not created us for the perishable and transitory things of earth, but for things heavenly and everlasting; He has given us this world as a place of exile, and not as our abiding place.

As for riches and the other things which men call good and desirable, whether we have them in abundance, or are lacking in them-so far as eternal happiness is concerned – it makes no difference; the only important thing is to use them aright. . . .

Therefore, those whom fortune favors are warned that riches do not bring freedom from sorrow and are of no avail for eternal happiness, but rather are obstacles; that the rich should tremble at the threatenings of Jesus Christ – threatenings so unwonted in the mouth of our Lord – and that a most strict account must be given to the Supreme Judge for all we possess.

– from Rerum Novarum (1891)

The NFL is flailing as its racial strife strategy backfires

The NFL just can’t seem to get out of its own way. After years of inaction on racial strife caused by the Colin Kaepernick-led protests, it delayed a rule requiring players to stand for the National Anthem while sending $90 million to organizations with left-wing social agendas. It let players claim America is a racist nation without consequences, but muzzled Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones because he wanted players to stand for the Anthem.

We at 2ndVote thought the NFL might have gotten its act together after the racial strife protests dribbled to almost nothing in the 2018-2019 season. We were wrong. Instead, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and rapper Jay-Z buddied it up at a press conference earlier this month. They announced a social justice partnership which will give credence to Kaepernick’s racial strife and have Jay-Z perform at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Talk about a nice two-fer – Jay-Z gets to justify race-baiting while getting on the most-watched stage in the country. He’s clearly a savvy businessman. Meanwhile, the average NFL fan gets to be lectured yet again that America is allegedly a racist nation where police routinely target black men for death.

Jay-Z clearly got the long straw while fans got the shaft. But the NFL hasn’t exactly gotten itself out of the race hole it has dug. It is under attack from both sides of the political spectrum. First, it was Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren. Then it was Carolina Panthers safety Eric Reid – a Kaepernick supporterformer ESPN host and race-baiter Jemele Hill, and NBC’s Monte Pool who blasted the NFL from the left. Reid, Hill, and Pool say the NFL isn’t doing enough to stand up for Kaepernick and the racial strife he supports.

The NFL could have avoided all of this had it just stuck to business – putting great games in front of millions of fans. As it is, the league will continue to alienate much of its fan base, many of its corporate sponsors, and some players. 2ndVote Americans should let the league know that you want them to stick to football – or you’ll stick it to the NFL.

Contact Roger Goodell by clicking here.

EDITORS NOTE: This 2nd Vote column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: How to destroy women’s sports

In his book, “Make Anger Your Ally” , clinical psychologist Neil Clark Warren says that the initial anger response is a physiological reaction that involves a shot of adrenalin and a heightened state of awareness. He underscores with, “You are never more alert than when you are angry”.

Warren goes on to explain that this physiological reaction occurs, almost instantly, when we are faced with fear and/or pain (physical or emotional) and/or frustration.

All that said, I have a question for you:

How do you prevent ANY one from trying to do ANY thing?

Answer: Just set it up so they know they cannot succeed, no matter what. Simply show them it is a no-win situation.

The young lady in this video was bumped from her regional championship by 2 transgendered “women” taking the two top spots and she is risking her athletic career and her social safety by doing only so much as speaking out against the disparity.

These young women are so concerned about the backlash that the others who spoke were nameless, not on camera AND their voices were altered so that they would be unrecognizable but they all speak of anger and frustration.

As this young and accomplished athlete says, as regards biological men competing in women’s sports, “… no matter what, your best is never going to be enough.” [to compete with an equivalently aged/trained/healthy/motivated biological man]

After all, when winning is no longer even on the table, why bother to even try? Why would ANY one, knowingly and willingly, put themselves or, more importantly, their daughter, into a position of fear, pain or frustration?

If you want to find out how most people handle that “shot of adrenalin and a heightened state of awareness”, that these young women face daily, you’ll have to read Dr. Warren’s book. I can tell you this much. For most of us, it’s not pretty.

You want talk about a “social construct” and gender???… Forcing biological women to physically compete against biological men is one totally and ridiculously foolish, to the point of insanity, actual social construct and doing so will destroy women’s sports, from the ground up.

© All rights reserved.

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How the Sexual Revolution Gave Us Identity Politics

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Video: ‘Miss NY Earth USA’ couldn’t be more wrong about climate

CFACT’s Undercover operative recently interviewed Nicolette Templier, aka “Miss New York Earth USA”, at the United Nations’ Civil Society Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to Templier, the “Miss Earth USA” organization is “a beauty pageant organization that focuses solely on environmental action.”

Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to focus on environmental “facts.”

Our investigative reporter asked Templier’s opinion on climate skeptics and climate change in general. Her answers are simply a regurgitation of UN climate change alarmist talking points on everything from polar ice to polar bears, that fall to pieces when confronted with the facts.

You can watch Templier’s comments here:

Author

CFACT Undercover

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

The College Decision Needs Stronger Price Signals

Money cost saving for goal and success in school, education concept : US dollar bills / cash in burlap bags, a black graduation cap or hat, a certificate / diploma and a book on basic balance scale.


Last week, I compared the risk of a college football bet against the odds of an “investment” in a college degree paying off. Multiplying the following data points together yields just a 35 percent chance a student will both graduate and find a job that justifies the investment:

  1. A March 2019 NPR report showing only 58 percent of new students in 2012 had earned a degree six years later.
  2. An August 9 Wall Street Journal story revealing 40 percent of recent college graduates were working “jobs that typically don’t require a degree.”

After reading this, Congressman Paul Mitchell (R—Michigan) called to tell me of a bi-partisan idea that—if implemented—might put a serious dent in this national problem.

Obviously, some students in some programs win their bet on the college investment. But choosing between different colleges and different academic disciplines is currently too much like a wager and not enough like an investment, because we don’t know precisely where the college degree bet is failing.

That’s a costly failure, as Americans currently spend $559 billion per year on higher education. If spending in the higher education sector were a country it would be one of the world’s 25 largest economies. As I wrote last week, this can give colleges and their staffs influence in excess of their value to our culture:

Where all that money goes should already be a cause for concern. According to the American Association of University Professors, the average, full-time faculty member enjoys a six-figure-salary. Don’t forget that these professors also enjoy tenure and are all but secure in their positions for life.

Spending that $559 billion more wisely is the idea behind the “College Transparency Act” (HR 1766). Introduced by Mitchell, plus fellow U.S. Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), and Josh Harder (D-CA), it has 49 co-sponsors. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana introduced the U.S. Senate companion (S 800) which was cosigned by a large bi-partisan team that includes left-leaning Democrats such as Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

The College Transparency Act requires the U.S. Department of Education to share individual student data collected from colleges with the U.S. Department of Treasury, which already has all the income and career data for all of us filing a tax return. This will allow Treasury to merge the data, compile aggregate statistics regarding graduation rates and income for every school and every major, and return the aggregated data to the Department of Education. (Importantly, of course, Treasury will retain all individual and personal data regarding tax returns, so this would not be an additional privacy violation in excess of what the IRS already gets away with.)

With Treasury’s help, the National Center for Education Statistics (an agency within the Department of Education) would be able to report accurate statistics regarding the graduation rates and salary outcomes specific to every major at every college in the nation. Prospective students would be able compare the exact historical return on investment between similar programs at different schools (i.e.: “Which history programs offer me the highest graduation rates and best average salaries?”) and different programs within the same school (“Wow, I love the journalism program here at Central Nowhere University, but it looks like I’ll eat better if I switch to nursing”).

The proposal is supported by organizations such as the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and the American Association of Community Colleges. Like their prospective students, schools apparently don’t want to be in the dark regarding both their failures/redundancies and their successes.

Collecting the data for all individual student outcomes is a potentially revolutionary change. At present, colleges must try to collect the info themselves through such methods as alumni surveys. In addition to being costly and difficult for the schools to do, this method is open to severe selection bias and other statistical flaws. The journalism graduate who became an anchor for CNN is much more likely to keep in touch with the school and report her earnings and job title than a fellow classmate who never got a media job and is now selling sodas at 7-11. The result is a false perception of success for a new student trying to weigh her options.

Mitchell wrote in an April 2019 Detroit News commentary: “College classes should be challenging, determining the best college options should not be.”

What he’s talking about is a price signal, an essential component of every functioning market. But government has grossly distorted that signal for higher education by flooding the market with subsidized student loans and grants. This problem has been compounded by misleading data regarding college outcomes. The result is a severely malfunctioning price signal telling us all college is inherently and generally valuable while obscuring the truth that some degrees for certain students are valuable, even though others are not. The College Transparency Act—though far from a total solution—will at least empower millions of students to help solve the problem and personally dodge the worst of it.

COLUMN BY

Ken Braun

Ken Braun is CRC’s senior investigative researcher and authors profiles for InfluenceWatch.org and the Capital Research magazine. He previously worked for several free market policy organizations, spent six…+ MORE BY KEN BRAUN


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EDITORS NOTE: This CRC article is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Comey and the De-class According to Plan

When you look up in the dictionary the words “Bad Cop” you see a picture of James Comey. I believe that Comey will be indicted, prosecuted, charged and justice will be served. Do not be swayed by the former FBI Director’s smug comments or by the fact that AG Barr has not YET, indicted Comey. I believe it is coming in the next phase of the de-class and all according to plan.

The DOJ and the President have barely begun. Remember, please, we are at war to resurrect America and restore power back to the people. This is an intelligence battle of which we are winning. The pendulum has now shifted. They have gone from being the hunters to the hunted. Team Trump is creating the awareness with the release of the IG report, that James Comey is as corrupt as they come. His behavior indicates that he believes he is above the law. Comey continues to further bury himself. He and others, are falling for the trap. FISA brings down the house. Get ready.

The IG Report

In this 79 page IG report, you will find that Comey violated FBI policies 25 times. This shows in part, that this was not an oversight nor an error, nor a coincidence. What it does indeed show is a series of premeditated and calculated moves, (violation of FBI policy), of a political agenda to remove a duly elected and most popular President in what turned out to be a failed illegal and treasonous coup d’ etatattempt which has come to be known as the Mueller witch hunt. And what is the punishment for treason? Have a look and listen here from President Trump. When you get to the video of the President got to marker 42:19 for the biggest news story of the century that never really made the news. It’s an intel battle. Timing and optics. Remember that. We are now winning this battle.

And remember, there are three things that cannot long be hidden. The sun, the moon, and the truth. This is the age of Trump transparency. We are winning. Stay the course. Trust the plan and remember, freedom, it’s up to us.

7 Quotes That Reveal the Racist Origins of Minimum Wage Laws

Progressive economists and intellectuals saw these job losses as a eugenic service to the larger population.


Minimum wage laws are suddenly vogue. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 18 states began 2019 with a new minimum wage. Three states have since passed legislation to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, a wage floor the House of Representatives is seeking to make the law of the land.

The age-old lesson of Econ 101, that, to quote Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman in 1998, “the higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment,” is no longer considered rock solid.

In a 2017 article in The Atlantic titled “The Curse of Econ 101,” James Kwak cited basic economic theory as an example of “economism”—what he called the “misleading application of basic lessons from Economics 101.”

Kwak, a professor of law at the University of Connecticut, said the historical record suggests there is “no obvious relationship between the minimum wage and unemployment.”

Even if most economists disagree with Kwak, it’s worth noting that the word “most” wouldn’t have been necessary in this sentence a few decades ago. Today it is.

Many progressive economists, like Kwak, are skeptical of the link between a high minimum wage and unemployment. In this, they differ from their progressive forefathers. As Princeton scholar Thomas C. Leonard noted in a 2005 paper “Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era,” early progressives understood quite well that minimum wage laws cause job losses. They simply saw it as a social benefit, not a social ill.

Leonard, author of Illiberal Reformers, notes that progressive economists and intellectuals saw these job losses as a eugenic service to the larger population. Low-wage workers, particularly those of color, are described in subhuman terms, a reflection of the social Darwinism of the day. Those denied work by minimum wage laws could at least more easily be segregated, sterilized, and put in asylums—since administrators lacked the resources to “chloroform them once and for all.”

Here are seven quotes that reveal how early social reformers viewed the minimum wage and the “unemployable.”

1. “It is much better to enact a minimum-wage law even if it deprives these unfortunates of work. Better that the state should support the inefficient wholly and prevent the multiplication of the breed than subsidize incompetence and unthrift, enabling them to bring forth more of their kind.” – Royal Meeker, Princeton scholar and labor commissioner to Woodrow Wilson, as quoted in Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 25

2. “How to deal with the unemployable?” asked economist Frank Taussig. They “should simply be stamped out.” “We have not reached the stage where we can proceed to chloroform them once and for all; but at least they can be segregated, shut up in refuges and asylums, and prevented from propagating their kind…” – F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, Vol. 1

3. “If the inefficient entrepreneurs would be eliminated [by minimum wages,] so would the ineffective workers. I am not disposed to waste much sympathy upon either class. The elimination of the inefficient is in line with our traditional emphasis on free competition, and also with the spirit and trend of modern social economics. There is no panacea that can ‘save’ the incompetents except at the expense of the normal people. They are a burden on society and on the producers wherever they are.” – A.B. Wolfe, American Economic Review, 1917

4. “Imbecility breeds imbecility as certainly as white hens breed white chickens; and under laissez-faire imbecility is given full chance to breed, and does so in fact at a rate far superior to that of able stocks.” –New Republic editorial, 1916 (most likely written by Herbert Croly)

5. Henry Rogers Seager, a leading progressive economist from Columbia University, argued that worthy workers deserve protection from the “competition of the casual worker and the drifter.” “The operation of the minimum wage requirement would merely extend the definition of defectives to embrace all individuals, who even after having received special training, remain incapable of adequate self-support…..If we are to maintain a race that is to be made up of capable, efficient and independent individuals and family groups we must courageously cut off lines of heredity that have been proved to be undesirable by isolation or sterilization . . . .” – Henry Rogers Seager, Columbia University scholar and future American Economic Association president, in 1913 (quoted from “Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era”)

6. “[Wage] competition has no respect for the superior races,” said University of Wisconsin economist John R. Commons in his 1907 book Races and Immigrants ( p. 151). “The race with lowest necessities displaces others.”

7. “[The minimum wage will] protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese.” – Arthur Holcombe of Harvard University, a member of the Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commission, speaking approvingly of Australia’s minimum wage legislation in 1912 (quoted from “Eugenics and Economics in the Progressive Era”)

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, Fox News, and the Washington Times. 

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

Guns Prevent Thousands of Crimes Every Day, Research Shows

It never fails. A split-second after a mass shooting occurs, grandstanders and ideologues issue statements demanding new gun controls—even if the laws already on the books failed or the laws they want would have made no difference. Case in point: the tragic incidents in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, in early August 2019.

The message is clear: Guns cause violence. Tax them, take them, ban them, regulate them. Do something, maybe anything! Such knee-jerk, emotional responses are dangerous, writes Charles W. Cooke in National Review, “for when a nation sets up a direct pipeline between its emotions and its laws, it does not keep its liberty for long.”

Liberty isn’t the only thing likely to be lost when gun laws are passed to appease emotions over reason, evidence, logic, and rights. Lives will most assuredly be lost, too. Lots of them.

This raises a point amplified in another context almost two centuries ago by Frederic Bastiat in his famous essay with a title that sums it up, “That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen.”

How many lives are actually saved by gun ownership? This is a supremely important question that the grandstanders and ideologues usually—and conveniently—ignore. It’s a matter that came immediately to my mind when I learned of an incident here in my own town of Newnan, Georgia, a few days ago. The headline in the Newnan Times-Herald read, “Man Hospitalized After Being Shot Outside Bar.”

A little after 1:00 a.m. on Saturday morning, August 17, police arrived at Fat Boys Bar & Grill to respond to a shooting. A customer had threatened other patrons, prompting the establishment’s security to forcibly remove him. Enraged at being kicked out, he declared he was going to get a gun “and shoot the place up.”

This very angry (and possibly intoxicated) man then busted the window out of a friend’s car in the parking lot, grabbed a .40 caliber handgun from inside the car, and began firing in the air. In the meantime, Ben McCoy, a man who witnessed all of this from inside his own vehicle, happened to have his rifle with him. Before he could use it, he was shot four times by the man wielding the .40 caliber handgun, who then fled into the woods.

Fortunately, despite being hit in the chest, stomach, left arm and right thigh, McCoy is recuperating, and the assailant was quickly apprehended. No one was killed, but the situation would likely have been tragically different if Ben McCoy and his rifle hadn’t distracted the gunman.

Of course, in this particular incident it’s most unfortunate that an innocent man was shot. Don’t lose sight of the fact that his very presence, with a rifle, still prevented what could have been a bloodbath that might have even killed him too. What’s far more common is innocent gun owners using or brandishing a weapon and saving lives without any injuries at all except sometimes for the assailant. I chose this example because it was local and I wanted to express appreciation to Mr. McCoy.

I checked online and found some fascinating numbers. A good website with footnotes and references to authoritative sources is GunFacts.info. There I learned the following:

  • Guns prevent an estimated 2.5 million crimes a year, or 6,849 every day. Most often, the gun is never fired, and no blood (including the criminal’s) is shed.
  • Every year, 400,000 life-threatening violent crimes are prevented using firearms.
  • 60 percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they knew the victim was armed. Forty percent of convicted felons admitted that they avoided committing crimes when they thought the victim might be armed.
  • Felons report that they avoid entering houses where people are at home because they fear being shot.
  • Fewer than 1 percent of firearms are used in the commission of a crime.

If you doubt the objectivity of the site above, it’s worth pointing out that the Center for Disease Control, in a report ordered by President Obama in 2012 following the Sandy Hook Massacre, estimated that the number of crimes prevented by guns could be even higher—as many as 3 million annually, or some 8,200 every day.

Another excellent source of information on this topic (and many more current issues) is the Gun Control page at JustFacts.org. (Full disclosure: I serve on the board of directors of JustFacts because I believe in the organization’s objectiveness, accuracy, and integrity.)

In “Defensive Gun Use is More Than Shooting Bad Guys,” James Agresti, founder and president of JustFacts, provided overwhelming evidence from multiple sources showing that defensive gun use is more common and effective than anti-gun fanatics like The New York Times suggest or will admit. Agresti says that “people who use a gun for defense rarely harm (much less kill) criminals. This is because criminals often back off when they discover their targets are armed.”

John Lott, author of the book, “More Guns, Less Crime,” is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, another outstanding source for info on this subject. He writes:

By 66 percent to 32 percent, economists and criminologists answer that gun-free zones are “more likely to attract criminals than they are to deter them.” A 60 percent to 40 percent margin thinks that guns in the home do not increase suicides. And a 62 percent to 35 percent spread says that guns are used in self-defense to stop crime more often than in the commission of crime.

This may explain why even The New York Times hasn’t yet put a billboard up by its offices that screams, “This is a Gun-Free Zone. There are No Guns Here.”

If we can just confiscate the estimated 350 million guns in the country, you might ask, then won’t we eliminate the offensive use of firearms, so we won’t need any of those many defensive uses? Good luck with that. Is there any reason to believe that such a war on guns would be any more successful than the government’s war on drugs? Even a fifth-grader could tell you that it would be largely the innocent who would be disarmed. Criminals would have no problem keeping their guns or getting replacements on a thriving black market.

So that leaves me with gratitude for the Ben McCoys of the world, the law-abiding gun owners who are every bit as important as the cops—and likely even more so—in the effort to keep the innocent safe and sound.

COLUMN BY

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Ambassador for Global Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of ProgressivismFollow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

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

FLORIDA: Top 3 counties with the highest number of Red Flag Law gun confiscations — Polk, Pinellas, Broward

Since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act went into effect, 2,380 risk protection orders have been issued across the state of Florida, according to data from the Florida Clerks of Court Operations Corporation. Polk County has issued the most of any county at 378, with Pinellas County close behind with 350. Broward County, home to Parkland, has issued 327, Volusia County has issued the next most with 173, then Miami-Dade County with 127 and Hillsborough County with 116.

In the Tampa Bay Times article ’Red flag’ laws all the rage after shootings. So what are they? reports:

In Florida, new gun restrictions were passed and signed into law in March 2018 that included a red flag provision. Florida’s red flag law can be used to prevent people who have been deemed a danger to themselves or others from having a firearm.

[ … ]
Law enforcement agencies can petition a court for a risk protection order if a person poses a significant threat to themselves or others by having a gun or ammunition.

The court must have a hearing on the petition within 14 days, during which the court can issue a temporary risk protection order. The temporary order would require the person to surrender all firearms and ammunition and ban them from buying or possessing guns.

If the court gives out a full risk protection order at the hearing, it can require people to surrender their guns and ammunition and prevent them from buying or possessing guns for a year. At the end of the order, the person appeals to a judge to determine whether the order should be extended in one year increments, according to Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office Cpl. Jessica Mackesy.

If the order is dropped and the person wants their guns back, they can get them from the law enforcement agency that took them.

Read more.

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Lindsey Graham Is Wrong: It’s Long Past Time to Get Out of Afghanistan

My latest in PJ Media:

The occasionally courageous and insightful Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) predicted Tuesday that if President Trump withdraws American troops from Afghanistan, “there will be another 9/11.” Sounding as tough as he ever does, Graham warned: “You may be tired of fighting radical Islam, but they’re not tired of fighting you.” But that’s not what getting out of Afghanistan would mean. If leaving American troops in Afghanistan until the end of time is the only way we can fight the global jihad, we’re done for.

Graham is ignoring the fact that we’re not really fighting “radical Islam” in Afghanistan as it is, and another 9/11 could happen while we are there. The former chief of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, was asked late last year what the U.S. should do in Afghanistan now. Here is McChrystal’s response:

I don’t know. I wish I did … If we pull out and people like al-Qaeda go back, it’s unacceptable for any political administration in the [United States]. It would just be disastrous, and it would be a pain for us. If we put more troops in there and we fight forever, that’s not a good outcome either. I’m not sure what [is] the right answer. My best suggestion is to keep a limited number of forces there and just kind of muddle along and see what we can do.

McChrystal is not alone. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford, said much the same thing:

Were we not to put the pressure on Al-Qaeda, ISIS and other groups in the region we are putting on today, it is our assessment that, in a period of time their capability would reconstitute, and they have today the intent, and in the future, they would have the capability to do what we saw on 9/11.

Right. But the fact is that al-Qaeda and the Taliban and the Islamic State are in Afghanistan now, just biding their time until we leave. Are we going to stay there until the end of time, Senator Graham? Make Afghanistan the 51st state?

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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