Tesla: More Than Just A Car Company

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If you know anything about Tesla it’s probably the following two points:

  1. They make electric, semi-autonomous automobiles.
  2. The company is led by controversial billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

A deeper dive, however, reveals some additional information that many individuals may prove interesting, if not surprising, to many.

Humble, Yet Sporty Beginnings

While the South African born Musk (who also co-founded online payment processor PayPal and space technology firm SpaceX, the latter of which he still oversees) has served as the public face of Tesla since 2008, it was actually founded five years earlier by two American engineers – Martin Eberhard and Marc Terpenning.

Tesla’s first electric vehicle, the Tesla Roadster, debuted in 2008 and was far ahead of its time. A prototype of sorts in which Tesla only built 2,450 vehicles, the car achieved performance numbers once exclusively reserved for gasoline-powered sports cars.

0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds.

A top speed of 250 mph.

All with a range of 244 miles on a single charge – arguably the most impressive number.

A new version of the Roadster, due in 2020, looks to raise the bar even further on the capabilities of an electric sports car.

Its second vehicle, the Model S sedan, launched in 2012.

Although their main focus is cars, Tesla does have a burgeoning business in solar energy with residential solar roof tiles and panels and their residential home battery the Powerwall.

The company also offers a commercial and utility version of its solar energy and storage solutions.

Although Tesla is first and foremost an automaker, the company, much like its namesake, is just as much an innovator.

To understand where the US’s only fully electric car company has been and their plans for the future, we must answer two initial questions for where the company is staking its biggest claim – what is an electric car and what is automotive autonomy.

What is an Electric Car?

Electric cars come in two varieties – hybrids and battery electric vehicles or EVs. Hybrid electric cars, to varying degrees, utilize both gasoline and electricity to power their engines. EVs are fully electric.

No gas. No combustion engine. Just an electric engine powered by fully rechargeable batteries.

The primary selling point to EVs is zero emissions. It’s an important distinction for the lithium-ion battery-powered Teslas.

Although the company may deal exclusively in high-end, fully electric vehicles, its founding was less as an automaker and more on the principle of creating something that did not consume gasoline.

According to Martin Eberhard:

“I didn’t start as an electric car enthusiast but as a non-fossil fuel enthusiast.” 

In order to realize this early goal, Tesla’s ultimate plan is to control every aspect of production and become a fully vertical electric car company. This includes making its batteries in-house.

What is Automotive (or Vehicle) Autonomy?

Apart from producing wholly electric vehicles, Tesla aims to produce automobiles that one day will be fully autonomous.

What exactly does that mean? Here’s a quick lesson in the six levels of vehicle autonomy:

  • Level 0 – No Automation: Driver controls every aspect of the driving experience.
  • Level 1 – Driver Assistance: Vehicle features one automated system (such as cruise control).
  • Level 2 – Partial Automation: Autonomy includes regulation of speed and lane awareness in optimal conditions (interstate driving, for example), but the driver still monitors and controls vehicle
  • Level 3 – Conditional Automation: Huge leap in technology from level 2 to level 3 with the vehicle able to self-drive in most circumstances, but driver influence is required.
  • Level 4 – High Automation: Vehicle is fully autonomous in most conditions; a driver can still override in certain situations or emergencies.
  • Level 5 – Full Automation: No gas or brake pedals, no steering wheel, no physical driving skills necessary.

Tesla vehicles currently achieve around Level 2 autonomy.

However, the company states that its Tesla Computer chip is already installed on all of their latest car models, and all those due to come after. Significant because, as Elon Musk states:

“All cars being produced all have the hardware necessary – computer and otherwise – for full self-driving. All you need to do is improve the software.”

Translation: The hardware is installed, and the Tesla cars are designed and built to one day drive themselves, but the software, and, really the whole idea of a fully autonomous vehicle remains a work in progress.

Tesla’s First Generation of Automobiles

What isn’t a work in progress are the actual cars that Tesla produces.

We’ve already noted the groundbreaking Roadster, which piqued the curiosity of car enthusiasts everywhere. But the car that grabbed everyone’s attention was the Model S.

After Tesla’s initial public offering in 2010, which generated almost $230 million in capital, the Model S sedan was released in 2012. Running between 235 and 300 miles on a single charge based on the battery options purchased, the Model S represented a leap forward in mass production of electric cars.

In the years following its release, the Model S received accolades from both professionals and car enthusiasts. It was named car of the year by both Motor Trend (2013) and Car and Driver (2015), has been on Consumer Reports Recommended List since 2016.

Produced at an assembly plant in Fremont, California, the car topped the electric car sales charts in both 2015 and 2016. It ranks second only to the Nissan Leaf in total sales (although it’s worth noting the Leaf has been in production longer and is considerably cheaper).

As of today, the Model S has sold over 250,000 units, over half of which are in the US. On its Long Range version, the S can achieve a range of 370 miles on a single charge – the highest level of performance of any current electric car.

In 2015, Tesla launched the Model X crossover SUV. It’s a bit of a misnomer as the X is built on a car chassis, but its styling and function lend itself comparison to SUVs as opposed to sedans.

While not nearly as celebrated as the Model S, Tesla’s crossover still represented a considerable breakthrough for electric vehicles as it was the first commercially available, fully electric SUV on the road.

However, as groundbreaking as they may, both the Model S and the Model X remain out of reach and impractical for most consumers. The Model S ranges in price from $75,000 to near $96,000 and the Model X runs from $81,000 to over $102,000 (not counting electric car incentives or gas savings).

Tesla, though, is looking to expand its customer base.

The Model 3 and Model Y

The entry-level Model 3, which is already in production, and the mid-range Model Y, set to start production in 2020 (although it is available for order), look to bring Tesla into a crowded and highly competitive market segment.

Starting at $35,000, the Model 3 will be in direct competition with the aforementioned Nissan Leaf, as well as the Chevy Bolt, Hyundai Kona, and Kia Niro.

The Model Y will serve as Tesla’s company crossover – an increasingly popular segment within the car industry. The purchase price starts at $48,000.

Compared to the established line of Tesla autos, the Model 3 and Model Y, don’t offer anything remarkably new, except of course for the lower price points.

What they do signal though, is the beginning of a new business model for Tesla, and for the auto industry as a whole – online car purchasing. The move will pit Tesla against the more traditional dealership-driven car buying method, which has been protected by state laws for decades.

Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety president Rosemary Shahan elaborates on what the change would mean for future customers:

“What Tesla is proposing is actually consumer-friendly. It gives you more of an opportunity to take control of the action, and you’re not on the dealer’s turf.” 

Although it does mean lost jobs for some at Tesla, according to a memo Musk sent to employees, the ultimate goal is affordability:

“Unfortunately, this means that some jobs will be impacted or transitioned to other areas of the business. This is a hard decision, but it [store closings] is necessary to make our cars more affordable.”

Tesla’s Future

Much like the transition to online-only vehicle sales and bringing battery production in-house, there is only one word that aptly describes Tesla’s outlook for the future – ambitious.

For starters, Tesla has plans to increase its already expansive network of superchargers, the electric car equivalent of a gas station. In doubling its network, as well as releasing a next-gen version, the plans are to have superchargers close to 95% of the population in “active” markets – read: where a lot Tesla’s have been purchased.

Next up is the bold claim from Musk (which he has a habit of making) is that Tesla plans on having a full network of robotaxis available at some point in 2020. In Musk’s words:

“I feel very confident predicting that there will be autonomous robotaxis from Tesla next year — not in all jurisdictions because we won’t have regulatory approval everywhere. From our standpoint, if you fast forward a year, maybe a year and three months, but next year for sure, we’ll have over a million robotaxis on the road. The fleet wakes up with an over the air update; that’s all it takes.”

Finally, it’s worth noting that Tesla even has plans for its first truck, which would ultimately match its offerings with every other major manufacturer. Musk called the new vehicle a “cyberpunk truck” at a recent shareholders meetings.

From a sports car to a pick-up truck and all-electric points in between, Tesla has indeed made the transition from car maker to innovator.  Not too bad for a company that started merely as a means to save a few fossil fuels.

RELATED ARTICLE: PROMOTING DOMESTIC TERRORISM: The Antifa Bomber hated Elon Musk? Why?

RELATED WEBSITE: Axel & Chassis – We Make You The Expert On Every Facet Of You Car Ownership.

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

It’s about the content of Elijah Cummings’ character, not the color of his skin

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Before I begin to address the latest twitter storm focused on Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD District 7) let’s look at some data on Cummings’ district, which includes much of the City of Baltimore but reaches into Baltimore and Howard counties.

It is important to note that the Baltimore City Council Presidents since 1923 to today have all been Democrats. It is also important to know that all of the current members of the Baltimore City Council are Democrats.

According to the BALTIMORE CITY: 2017 NEIGHBORHOOD HEALTH PROFILE released by the Baltimore City Health Department:

  • The Baltimore population is Black or African American 62.8%.
  • The percentage of children living in single-parent household is 64.8%.
  • The of Baltimore citizens unemployed is 13.1%.
  • The percentage of Baltimore families in poverty is 28.8%.
  • Baltimore has a Hardship Index of 51. (The Hardship Index combines information from six socioeconomic indicators – housing, poverty, unemployment, education, income, and dependency.)
  • The rate of rat complaints in Baltimore is 408.8 per 10,000 households.
  • The City of Baltimore’s homicide rate is 3.9, with the youth homicide mortality rate at 31.3. (The homicide rate is based upon the number of homicides that occurred per 10,000 residents.)

U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings, and Maryland’s 7th District, are now the focus of President Trump. Why?

Here is House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) yelling at President Trump’s acting DHS chief.

After watching this exchange President Trump tweeted:

Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA……

….As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place

President went on tweeting:

Why is so much money sent to the Elijah Cummings district when it is considered the worst run and most dangerous anywhere in the United States. No human being would want to live there. Where is all this money going? How much is stolen? Investigate this corrupt mess immediately!

Elijah Cummings spends all of his time trying to hurt innocent people through “Oversight.” He does NOTHING for his very poor, very dangerous and very badly run district! Take a look…. #BlacksForTrump2020

So sad that Elijah Cummings has been able to do so little for the people of Baltimore. Statistically, Baltimore ranks last in almost every major category. Cummings has done nothing but milk Baltimore dry, but the public is getting wise to the bad job that he is doing!

Baltimore, under the leadership of Elijah Cummings, has the worst Crime Statistics in the Nation. 25 years of all talk, no action! So tired of listening to the same old Bull…Next, Reverend Al will show up to complain & protest. Nothing will get done for the people in need. Sad!

Representative Cummings has been in Congress since 1996. According to USASPENDING.gov in FY 2018 Maryland’s 7th Congressional District received approximately $15.7 billion in grants, benefits and other assistance from the federal government.

Money is not the problem in Rep. Cummings’ District. Single parent homes is the root cause of the poverty, unemployment, crime and dysfunction.

Dear Rep. Cummings, the people in your district are human beings too.

© All rights reserved.

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VIDEO: This Lawsuit Over ‘Sex’ and ‘Gender Identity’ Will Have Sweeping Implications

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“I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I was just gasping for air.”

That’s how Nancy Rost recalls the moments after her husband, Tom, walked through the door of their home six years ago this month.

In his hand, Tom held a letter from a longtime employee. On his face, the easy confidence Nancy had seen from Tom every day since they met each other as children was missing, replaced by a palpable sense of anxiety.

Immediately, Tom and Nancy knew that the contents of the letter had the potential to devastate R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, which Tom’s grandfather had established in 1910 to serve grieving families throughout Detroit.

As it stands now, Tom’s five-generation family business is in the hands of the Supreme Court, with oral arguments scheduled for Oct. 8.

No doubt, his case will have sweeping implications across American life.


So, what was in the letter?

Anthony Stephens, a biological male employee who had agreed to and followed the funeral home’s sex-specific dress code for more than six years, intended to show up to work—as well as to the homes of grieving families—dressed as a woman.

For years, Tom’s company had required employees to agree to and abide by a sex-specific dress code that aligned with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission requirements. The regulation-consistent policy ensured that family members of a deceased loved one could focus on processing their grief, not on the funeral home or its employees.

Over the next two weeks, Tom carefully considered his situation. Tom was concerned for Stephens—a longtime, valued employee—and for Stephens’ family. He also had to consider the rest of his staff, including an 80-year-old female employee, who would be sharing the women’s restroom facility with Stephens.

Finally, Tom pondered the impact on the funeral home’s clients.

In the end, Tom decided that he could not agree to Stephens’ proposal. That decision was fully in line with federal law. Yet, in a matter of months, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the funeral home.

Later, following the commission’s urging, a federal court of appeals effectively redefined the word “sex” in federal law to mean “gender identity.”

Enacted by Congress in 1964, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act has long protected women, along with racial and religious minorities, from unjust discrimination in the workplace.

Redefining the term “sex” in that law to mean “gender identity” would create chaotic, unworkable situations and unjustly punish business owners like Tom while destroying important gains women and girls have made over the past 50 years.

Indeed, Tom Rost’s case, in which Alliance Defending Freedom represents the funeral home, is just the tip of the iceberg.

Blurring the legal differences between male and female forces women and girls to endure unequal treatment because some men and boys believe that they are women.

In Connecticut, for instance, two boys competing as girls have set state records in 15 events over the past two years, while costing girls like Selina Soule over 50 chances at next-level races.

In Anchorage, Alaska, city officials have weaponized gender ideology to argue that a women’s shelter must allow a biological male to sleep 3 feet away from women who have been victimized by rape, sex trafficking, and domestic violence.

Refusing even to discuss these and other issues that result from redefining “sex” to mean “gender identity,” Democratic lawmakers have put forward the paradoxically named Equality Act that would institutionalize these harms under federal law.

While that bill has stalled in the Senate, federal courts like the one that ruled against Harris Funeral Homes have acted to effectively change the law on their own, imposing their own policy preferences and punishing business owners who were simply acting in compliance with the law Congress actually enacted.

Tom and Nancy Rost have the right to depend on what the law says—not what judges or bureaucrats want it to be.

In R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Supreme Court has a golden opportunity to affirm that changing the law is only something Congress can do, particularly in a context as complicated as changing the meaning of “sex” itself.

COMMENTARY BY

John Bursch

John Bursch is vice president of appellate advocacy and senior counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

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

Mueller Upshot: Legal Rights Denied To Trump Family

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Today’s hearings revealed again how two bedrock American legal principles have been terribly abused in the Mueller investigation’s final report on Russian election interference. The first principle is innocent until proven guilty, known in the legal profession as the presumption of innocence.

After being essentially cleared in the first half of the report on colluding with Russia (Democrats won’t let go of the dead horse, but Mueller did) the special counsel jumped tracks in the second half and took away Trump’s presumption of innocence.

Prosecutor Mueller and his team laid out in 200-plus pages of detailed evidence the supposed obstruction of justice. Yet Mueller declined to recommend charges, but then made the shockingly unprofessional statement that he could not “exonerate” Trump, and that if he could he would. That was just prosecutorial malfeasance of a very high order, and certainly gives the appearance of a political setup for Democrats to launch impeachment.

Now, some of you will say, but he’s the president! It’s different! That brings me to the second bedrock American legal principle under assault: equality under the law.

If everyone is equal under the law, which I should hope everyone on the left and right agrees with, then why is this President and his family members not presumed innocent? Why is this President and his family members left with the pall of “not exonerated” when in every other single instance of American prosecution, it is simply and rightly “not sufficient evidence” for prosecution?

If your answer is, he’s the president! Or, this is too important! Then you don’t believe everyone is equal under the law. You believe Trump and his family are *less* equal under the law.

Remember, in this special counsel arrangement (I still contend a bad law), there is no other side presented. This is just a prosecutor’s report. In a normal courtroom, a full defense team would be breaking down the prosecution’s case and, very importantly, would be cross-examining witnesses. None of that has happened or is allowed to happen.

But Trump did obstruct justice, you may say, because Mueller couldn’t exonerate him! As previously noted, a prosecutor does not have the authority in the American legal system to “exonerate” anyone specifically because everyone is presumed innocent until *proven* guilty.

But further, Mueller admitted during his testimony that he had not been in any way obstructed. Congressman John Ratcliffe asked Mueller whether his investigation been curtailed, stopped, or hindered at any point. Mueller answered, “No.” Not even hindered? So, there was no obstruction.

Ratcliff also asked Mueller on my main point:

“Can you give me an example other than Donald Trump where the Justice Department determined that an investigated person was not exonerated because their innocence was not conclusively determined?”

Mueller’s bone-chilling answer:

“I cannot, but this is a unique situation.”

No, it’s not if we’re all equal under the law. Trump has not been provided a presumption of innocence, nor has he had his “day in court” to go after the prosecutors and cross-examine their witnesses, which means he has not been treated equally under the law. I realize this means nothing to the Trump-haters. But it should matter to regular Americans.

As bad as foreign interference is in our elections (and Russia alone has been doing it since the 1930s, and aggressively since the 1950s) undermining our own jurisprudence for political gain is worse.

In the realm of stating what is un-American, that could hardly fit better.

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

Did Rep. Ilhan Omar Benefit from Massive Failure of US State Department’s Family Reunification Program?

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If you have been following the controversy swirling around the charge that Rep. Ilhan Omar might have committed fraud by marrying her brother, there might have been a fraud committed years before that even.

Back in 2008 I began a series of reports on the so-called P-3 program that permits already resettled refugees in the US to apply to bring in ‘family’ members.

All of that was chronicled at Refugee Resettlement Watch that WordPress suspended.

However, here John Binder writing at Breitbart sums up the State Department scandal and points to an important report by a former ICE attorney who says of the fraud that tens of thousands of Somalis got into the US and once the fraud was revealed there there were no repercussions for the cheaters.

“This was staggering irresponsibility, possibly the biggest blunder in immigration history.”

Here is what Binder says at Breitbart:

A refugee program that allowed foreign relatives of already-arrived foreign refugees to the United States was halted, altogether, more than a decade ago due to mass fraud among applicants.

This week, Powerline blog’s David Steinberg suggested that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) entered the U.S. in the mid-1990s as a third-priority, known as P-3, refugee — that is, a refugee who is admitted to the country due to their ties to an already-resettled refugee.

Steinberg’s report also claims that Omar committed immigration fraud when she falsely entered the country as a member of the “Omar” family that had already resettled in the U.S.

In 2008, after thousands of foreign nationals had entered as P-3 refugees, the program was halted by the *Bush administration* due to mass fraud wherein the State Department, through DNA testing, was able to confirm family relations between the program’s applicants in less than 20 percent of cases.

Overall, about 87 percent of P-3 refugees’ family relation claims turned out to be fraudulent.

BTW, guess who opposed DNA testing for family reunification?

If you guessed the nine federal resettlement contractors—groups like the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and so forth, you would be correct!

Why? They claimed that the definition of ‘family’ is different in African culture and we should respect their ideas of family.

Binder continues….

Charles Thaddeus Fillinger, a former federal immigration official, has detailed the enormous fraud that has occurred among P-3 refugees in his 30-page policy paper, calling the program “the greatest refugee fraud crisis in modern times.”

More here.

Here is a link to Fillinger’s treatise on the massive fraud perpetrated mostly by Africans for possibly decades.

I am so glad to see that this era of fraud has not been swept under the rug.  Interesting that it would take a scandal swirling around a member of Congress to help bring it to light.

I had to laugh when I saw a guest on Fox News yesterday say that Rep. Ilhan Omar (or whatever her name is) did it right by entering the US legally!

Wonder if we can go back and identify the thousands of  immigration cheats.  Just dreaming!

See all of my previous posts on Rep. Ilhan Omar by clicking here.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Behind the chiffon curtain: Drag queen story hours and child endangerment

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Drag queen story hours (DQSHs) have quickly become one of the most divisive controversies in the 21st century culture war. Recent research revealed that these events are part of a much larger, intentional effort by the American Library Association to promote LGBTQ activism. New evidence from their recent annual conference shows how deep this promotion runs and how libraries are protecting themselves instead of protecting children. Communities are demanding to know: What’s really behind the values DQSHs are said to promote? Do DQSHs actually provide children with positive role models or expose them to dangerous men.

The initial exposure

In June, Personhood Alliance Education brought to light an intentional movement within the American Library Association (ALA) to bring DQSHs and other LGBTQ-promoting events into libraries across the country, even helping “secret librarian advocate operative[s]” sneak LGBTQ books and materials into current programs and use outside sponsors to host DQSHs in resistant communities. Over 43,000 people responded by signing our petition with LifeSite News. A similar petition partnership between CitizenGo and the Activist Mommy brought an additional 56,000 signatures. Both petitions were delivered to the ALA’s office in Washington, DC, on July 11th.

If you have not yet signed the petition to the ALA, which is now moving to Congress, click here to add your name.

Georgia Kijesky, leader of Personhood Maryland, was instrumental in bringing this issue to the forefront, as her local library in Lexington Park, Maryland is an active example of how larger forces are working to promote corrupted sexuality and gender to children. She also helped organize a well-attended prayer vigil on June 23rd during the DQSH and Drag 101 events at the library, which were led by a drag queen whose name was purposefully withheld from the public by the event sponsor.

The response to the research, the petition, and the vigil is one that has become familiar to Christian communities across the country. It’s a response shared by the ALA, LGBTQ advocacy groups, DQSH organizers and supporters, and even some churches:

  1. DQSHs reflect good values like inclusivity, acceptance, and freedom of expression.
  2. DQSHs are harmless and offer children positive role models.

Let’s examine what’s behind these claims.

The values beneath the veneer

At the 2019 ALA annual conference and exhibition, held in Washington, DC in June, intellectual freedom and inclusivity were front and center. Supported by the structures within the ALA that were created to normalize and promote the LGBTQ lifestyle, these rhetorical concepts—core values, according to the ALA—were woven throughout the workshops and exhibition hall. These core values were also worn proudly by ALA executives and attendees, even ALA president Loida Garcia-Febo, as they celebrated World Pride Month and the 50thanniversary of The Stonewall Riots. The Stonewall Uprising, as it’s also known, is a key milestone in the gay rights movement—six days of violent demonstrations started by drag queen Marsha P. Johnson against police who had raided a gay club in New York City in 1969.

More than 100 ALA conference workshops boasted an equality, diversity, and inclusivity theme; a reported one-third of the total workshop offerings. Sessions included:

Other workshops included, “A Child’s Room to Choose: Encouraging Gender Identity and Expression in School and Public Libraries” and “Are You Going to Tell My Parents?: The Minor’s Right to Privacy in the Library.”

It is important to note here that, under the guise of right-to-privacy, 1st Amendment protections, and anti-censorship, the ALA fought vigorously against requiring pornography blocking software on library computers in the early 2000s. This software was mandated for public libraries and schools through the federal Children’s Internet Protection Act. The ALA opposed porn filters all the way to the Supreme Court, but lost United States v. American Library Association in 2003. Today, the ALA is bypassing this decision, giving children access to pornography and age-inappropriate events and materials offline, in the form of DQSHs, Drag 101 events, explicit sex education workshops, and pornographic book displays.

The role models beneath the makeup

The ALA’s promotion of DQSHs legitimizes the idea that a man dressed as an exaggerated caricature of a woman promotes acceptance, inclusion, and children’s literacy. The DQSH website itself says that these events “capture the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and give kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.”

So what is a drag queen?

According to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD), “Drag queens are men, typically gay men, who dress like women for the purpose of entertainment.” Drag queens perform for gay audiences in adult nightclubs and at other homosexual- and transgender-themed events and venues. They are performers who live other lives outside of their drag characters and may or may not be transgender, notes the National Center for Transgender Equality.

What about the “other life” of a drag queen, and does it matter in terms of having access to children?

This drag queen, Dylan Pontiff (aka Santana Pilar Andrews) says he can filter himself for different audiences—the gay men who pay money to see him in sexually charged drag attire and the children who sit in front of him as he reads children’s books that introduce homosexuality and gender-fluid concepts. Yet, he makes a startling admission: “[The DQSH] is going to be the grooming of the next generation. We are trying to groom the next generation.”

And what of the drag queen whose identity was purposefully withheld from the public prior to the June 23rd events at the Lexington Park Library in Maryland?

According to Samantha McGuire, the spokesperson for the event sponsor Southern Maryland Area Secular Humanists (SMASH), her organization ran a background check on Stormy Vain before the DQSH occurred, yet chose to withhold his identity because drag queens “get viciously attacked by trolls”. Once Stormy Vain posted about the DQSH on Facebook a few days later, it took an activist about 10 minutes to discover who he is.

Meet Todd Musick (aka Stormy Vain), who runs a lurid sex business that features gay males called Stormy’s Angels of Entertainment, dba Eroticasy. Though Musick has now taken his website offline and made all of his social media accounts private, here are just a few screenshots of his work, which was captured in a 70-page exposé (credit: Mass Resistance, at the request of Personhood Maryland’s Georgia Kijesky).

During a July 9th St. Mary’s County Commissioners’ meeting, SMASH’s Samantha McGuire presented an indirect defense of Stormy Vain, without addressing the issue of the background check, by accusing Personhood Maryland’s Georgia Kijesky of “doxxing.” She also thanked the commissioners for “listening over and over again to the same bigoted comments by a misinformed public.” McGuire went on to address Kijesky again: “Some of the people in this room expose themselves to be those very bigots.” You can watch her 4-minute response here.

Here’s what Kijesky had presented to the commissioners earlier in the meeting, regarding what had been uncovered about Stormy Vain.

The Lexington Park Library’s meeting room policy absolves the St. Mary’s County Library Board of Trustees from the responsibility of vetting who has access to children, because to avoid the controversy of sponsoring a DQSH, it allows third parties to reserve a room to do so. This has left a gray area as to who does background checks and whether they are even required. The Board of Trustees had even addressed the DQSH controversy beforehand, during its June 12th board meeting, saying that “talking points will be developed for Board members…We will not be putting out a press release since we do not want to draw attention to the event.” Here again, there was no mention of a background check on the men who would have access to children.

Kijesky explains:

“This is just another loophole library officials have created to circumvent community objections to such events at the library. They’re passing the buck onto the event organizers who are not obliged to provide proof that the background check was even done!”

Who is responsible then?

Who is responsible for protecting children at public libraries? The libraries? The ALA? The groups that sponsor the events? The parents? The police? The community?

The answer is all of the above.

Yet, evidence is mounting across the country, regarding the “other lives” of drag queens and how they are blurring the lines between adult sexual entertainment and children’s entertainment:

Drag queen culture is also pulling children into its world in other ways, like this video showing drag kid Nemis Quinn Mélançon-Golden (aka Queen Lactatia) getting his start on stage (caution, language warning). Nemis also recently posed with nude adult drag queen Violet Chachki. In another video, drag kid Desmond Napoles (aka Desmond is Amazing) is shown dancing provocatively at a gay nightclub in New York City. The mainstream media has been championing the drag kid phenomenon for some time, as shown in this recent clip of Good Morning America, where Desmond was praised for being a “trailblazer.”

Despite increasing evidence, supporters continue to claim that DQSHs and similar events, in general and as a concept, are harmless.

Are DQSHs harmless?

According to Jon K. Uhler, MS, LPC, who has worked for over 11 years with thousands of incarcerated sex offenders, DQSHs are not harmless. He took to Twitter to note that gay men who dress in drag give sufficient indication of being sexually deviant outside of DQSHs. Twitter has since screened and censored all of Uhler’s posts that suggest predators exist within the homosexual and transgender communities.

“Concerns about these men, who seem very interested in spending time up close and personal with other people’s kids, are not phobic. The issue is child safety…Keeping kids from sexual predators must become a priority. No longer is it acceptable for people to place children at risk to pacify or placate men who want to play dress-up and/or act sexualized in front of kids…Events such as [DQSHs] are the perfect invitation for predators to attend and access kids for ‘hands on’ interactions.”

Are communities singling out DQSHs in particular, and are those who oppose DQSHs “bigots,” as Samantha McGuire and many others charge? Uhler says, “Of course not!” and references recent pedophile scandals in the Boy Scouts and in Catholic and Southern Baptist churches as other venues where predators have gained access to children.

“The concern is to ensure that wherever men would want to access kids, there be close scrutiny, instead of ‘an open door’ policy. Protecting [kids] must take priority over men who desire access to them.”

American College of Pediatrics president, Dr. Michelle Cretella, recently spoke about the psychological dangers of DQSHs. Her organization has taken a bold stand against puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgeries for children diagnosed with gender dsyphoria.

“The idea of the permanence of biological sex doesn’t form in a child’s cognitive development until age 7… It takes up until age 7 for many children to think ‘I was born a boy, I am a boy. If I put on a dress that doesn’t make me a girl, it just makes me a boy in a dress.’ What is dangerous is that these young children are just developing the awareness of the fact that they are a boy or a girl… It’s dangerous because when you give young children fantasy picture books like this it indoctrinates them into thinking that their sex is all external. A preschool boy, for example, may think ‘The boy teddy bear became a girl when he turned his bow tie into a barrette. I can do that, too.’ Children will come to believe that their sex is whatever they think they want it to be. This is dangerous from a psychological point of view. It’s disrupting the natural process of gender identity formation.”

But that is precisely the point.

What about the parents?

Parents who bring their children to DQSHs genuinely believe they are teaching their children to love and accept everyone. Joelle Retener, author of Free to Be Incredible Me, a book on the ALA’s 2019 Rainbow List, wrote this in an Instagram post:

“Some people might wonder why we celebrate pride with our kids. To us it’s pretty simple. Because teaching them to not just accept but to love and embrace people that are different from them means actually exposing them to those very people… Because here amidst all these beautifully diverse people from all walks of life, sexual orientations, gender identities, races and religions, my son is no longer a boy in a dress. He is just, a kid.” [emphasis added]

Retener is shown below with Stormy Vain at the June 23rd DQSH in Lexington Park, Maryland, where Stormy read her book.

Parents who bring their children to DQSHs are adamant that the events do not promote homosexuality or transgenderism. But the question must be raised:

Why allow children to be exposed to books that do just that?

Airlie Andersen, the author of Neither, another ALA-promoted book read by Stormy Vain at the Maryland DQSH, said this on the website LGBTQ Reads:

“I try to make books for everyone, but particularly for very young readers, children who need a jumping-off place to start talking about being different, feeling awkward, finding a special spot in the world. Someday my son may experience exclusion or pressure to make a choice one way or the other, when it’s his in-betweenness that should be celebrated.”

What can be done?

Personhood Alliance Education’s initial research listed several things local communities can do to detect, prevent, and where necessary, protest “cancel-proof” DQSHs in their libraries (scroll to the end of the article for the list). But can there be a larger effort to stop children from being put in harm’s way?

The Personhood Alliance is working with other groups on model legislation at the state level to protect children from DQSHs and to prohibit public resources from being used for the promotion and delivery of pornography and other age-inappropriate materials and events at libraries. This model legislation will be based on existing child endangerment and child welfare laws, which vary widely across the country. According to Personhood Alliance president, Gualberto Garcia Jones, a plan to go after the taxpayer funding the ALA receives at the federal level is also in the works, as well as legislation that applies the federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act to the DQSH phenomenon. “We will no longer sit by and allow this to be pushed onto children who are at a vulnerable place in their development and cannot consent to being exposed,” says Jones.

The Personhood Alliance currently has 22 state affiliates, with seven more states in the application process. “We will be working through our affiliates in different ways to put an end to the exploitation of children and the corruption of God-designed sexuality and gender by the American Library Association and activist library boards throughout the country.”

For more information on how to get involved in your state, find a Personhood Alliance affiliate or contact info@personhood.org.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Democrats’ Equality Act Could See Repeat Of Canada’s Transgender Genital Waxing Dispute

Should you bother reading privacy policies? Yes, and here’s why

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

Guess who started the whole climate change debate? You guessed it UK PM Margaret Thatcher!

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What most people fail to remember is history. if you ask most American’s who began the entire debate on climate change you would probably get the answer former Vice President Al Gore. The truth is today’s “environmentalist” or “green” movement began with former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Thatcher was influenced in great part by environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell, UK’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1987-90.

On September 27, 1988 in a speech to the Royal Society, the independent scientific academy of the UK and the British Commonwealth, Mrs. Thatcher stated:

For generations, we have assumed that the efforts of mankind would leave the fundamental equilibrium of the world’s systems and atmosphere stable. But it is possible that with all these enormous changes (population, agricultural, use of fossil fuels) concentrated into such a short period of time, we have unwittingly begun a massive experiment with the system of this planet itself.

Recently three changes in atmospheric chemistry have become familiar subjects of concern. The first is the increase in the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, and chlorofluorocarbons—which has led some [end p4] to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instability. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat to cope. Such warming could cause accelerated melting of glacial ice and a consequent increase in the sea level of several feet over the next century. This was brought home to me at the Commonwealth Conference in Vancouver last year when the President of the Maldive Islands reminded us that the highest part of the Maldives is only six feet above sea level. The population is 177,000. It is noteworthy that the five warmest years in a century of records have all been in the 1980s—though we may not have seen much evidence in Britain! [Emphasis added]

Read Mrs. Thatcher’s entire speech.

Mrs. Thatcher then gave a speech on November 8, 1989 to the United Nations General Assembly on the “Global Environment.” Mrs. Thatcher noted:

We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.

At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Every year an area of forest equal to the whole surface of the United Kingdom is destroyed. At present rates of clearance we shall, by the year 2000, have removed 65 per cent of forests in the humid tropical zones. [end p3]

The consequences of this become clearer when one remembers that tropical forests fix more than ten times as much carbon as do forests in the temperate zones.

We now know, too, that great damage is being done to the Ozone Layer by the production of halons and chlorofluorocarbons. But at least we have recognised that reducing and eventually stopping the emission of CFCs is one positive thing we can do about the menacing accumulation of greenhouse gases.

It is of course true that none of us would be here but for the greenhouse effect. It gives us the moist atmosphere which sustains life on earth. We need the greenhouse effect—but only in the right proportions.

More than anything, our environment is threatened by the sheer numbers of people and the plants and animals which go with them. When I was born the world’s population was some 2 billion people. My [Michael Thatcher] grandson will grow up in a world of more than 6 billion people.

Put in its bluntest form: the main threat to our environment is more and more people, and their activities: The land they cultivate ever more intensively; The forests they cut down and burn; The mountain sides they lay bare; The fossil fuels they burn; The rivers and the seas they pollute.

The result is that change in future is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world’s climate, which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of all.

That prospect is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable in its implications to the discovery of how to split the atom. Indeed, its results could be even more far-reaching. [Emphasis added]

The intent of Mrs. Thatcher’s speeches was to push for an alternative means of energy – nuclear power.

How it All Went Bad

Margaret Thatcher wanted to reduce the UK’s dependence on Middle Easter oil after the oil shock of 1978-79. According to Laurel Graefe, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta:

Like its 1973–74 predecessor, the second oil shock of the 1970s was associated with events in the Middle East, but it was also driven by strong global oil demand. The Iranian Revolution began in early 1978 and ended a year later, when the royal reign of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi collapsed and Sheikh Khomeini took control as grand ayatollah of the Islamic republic. In conjunction with the revolution, Iranian oil output declined by 4.8 million barrels per day (7 percent of world production at the time) by January 1979. However, this supply disruption may not have been the most important factor pushing oil prices higher. Rather, the Iranian disruption may have prompted a fear of further disruptions and spurred widespread speculative hoarding.

Oil prices began to rise rapidly in mid-1979, more than doubling between April 1979 and April 1980. According to one estimate, surging oil demand—coming both from a booming global economy and a sharp increase in precautionary demand—was responsible for much of the increase in the cost of oil during the crisis.

Mrs. Thatcher wanted to shift the world toward nuclear power. Her efforts failed due to the 1979 Three Mile Island and the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power plant incidents. While Mrs. Thatcher’s nuclear power efforts failed the “green” movement in Great Britain exploded.

Nuclear power became the problem and not the solution to many.

In 1998 the United Nations first introduced the “Kyoto Protocol.”

Along Comes Al Gore

Between 1980 and 2006 the green movement was quietly but increasingly gaining political clout. The breakout came when former Vice President Al Gore released his film “Inconvenient Truth” on May 24, 2006. From this point on global warming and climate change became an issue of those seeking to control the means of producing oil, natural gas and coal. The alternative no longer was clean energy via nuclear power. Rather clean energy was anything but nuclear and fossil fuel driven power. It became solar and wind power, heavily subsidized by governments globally.

Along Comes Donald J. Trump

On June 1, 2017 President Trump formally removed the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. In a Rose Garden event President Trump stated:

Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord — (applause) — thank you, thank you — but begin negotiations to reenter either the Paris Accord or a really entirely new transaction on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers.  So we’re getting out.  But we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that’s fair.  And if we can, that’s great.  And if we can’t, that’s fine.  (Applause.)

As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens.  The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers — who I love — and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.

Thus, as of today, the United States will cease all implementation of the non-binding Paris Accord and the draconian financial and economic burdens the agreement imposes on our country.  This includes ending the implementation of the nationally determined contribution and, very importantly, the Green Climate Fund which is costing the United States a vast fortune. [Emphasis added]

Read the full statement here.

It was the conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who started all of this climate change discussion. It was President Trump who ended it at least for the United States of America. Now you know the real story.

RELATED ARTICLE: EPA Administrator Explains What’s Changed at the Agency Since the Obama Years

Michelle Malkin Calls Out Lutheran Refugee Contractor as Anti-Trump Political Agitator

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“Will a single American elected official please stand up and challenge the continued public funding of this subversive religious racket?” – Michelle Malkin

Refugee Resettlement Watch may be down temporarily, but thankfully patriots with bigger megaphones have taken up the call to educate Americans about the supposedly ‘religious’ charities that live off of us—taxpayers—in order to promote an Open Borders agenda.

Thanks to reader Richard for tipping me off to Michelle Malkin’s recent column about Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service‘s leading role as an anti-Trump community agitation group (while they collect millions in federal grants and contracts from the Trump Administration)!

Krishanti Vignarajah leads the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service following the controversy that saw its previous CEO ousted in 2017.

From VDARE,

Michelle Malkin: Defund Lutherans For Open Borders Now!

If you were shocked by the images of the Mexican flag flying over an Aurora, Colorado, immigration detention center this weekend, you’ll be appalled at an even more disgusting spectacle:

One of the top promoters of the so-called Lights for Liberty nationwide protests by Trump-hating, ICE-bashing radicals was a nonprofit religious organization known as the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

As a designated “host,” LIRS played a key role in publicizing, organizing and participating in demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s deportation enforcement actions targeting some 2,000 illegal immigrants and their families who have ignored removal orders or skipped out on court hearings.

Brazen hatred of cops, Border Patrol and ICE agents were on full display at the open borders protests fronted by LIRS and other left-wing groups, including Code Pink, CASA and CAIR.

[….]

The president and CEO of LIRS, Krishanti Vignarajah, is a Sri Lankan refugee and former Michelle Obama policy director who led the Lights for Liberty event in Washington, D.C. She argues that Americans are obligated to open the floodgates at the southern border (since she turned out so great) and vehemently opposes what she calls “militant border enforcement.” To these border-sabotaging radicals, of course, any border enforcement is “militant.”

LIRS sounds like just the kind of extremist group you’d expect to be kept afloat by billionaire George Soros’ big bucks. But hold on to your wallets and your American flags, folks: In 2016, LIRS relied on $64.7 million in government subsidies from taxpayers—that’s you and me—to fund a whopping 96.2% of its budget.

[….]

Disguised as compassion and Christian morality, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service’s activism is a profit-seeking machine—even as the agency has been plagued by allegations of mismanagement that prompted an external probe two years ago.

These ‘Christian’ groups aren’t passing the plate in their churches, but have latched on to the money stream coming out of your wallets via Washington’s redistributors of your wealth.

Please visit VDARE for more of Malkin’s excellent summary of why this is so outrageous.

Photo is from Birchbox, here.

Endnote:  At least one of the nine federal refugee contractors isn’t doing so well and has announced this week that it will close its Florida offices, see World Relief running out of your money.

Big fat lie in that story!

World Relief, which opened its Jacksonville office in 1990, is one of nine agencies nationally that collaborates with the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees.

The nonprofits typically help refugees set up their apartments, get their children into school, and go to doctors’ appointments. But the refugees are expected to pay back all the costs. 

That is not true!

This post is filed in my ‘Charity fraud’ category.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

These Are The Cities And States Helping Women Obtain Abortions

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  • As more states pass restrictive abortion legislation, other cities and states push back with pro-abortion legislation.
  •  New York, Illinois, Maine, Vermont, and Nevada have each taken steps to protect abortion access.
  • New York City and Illinois have made it clear that women can travel to those areas from other states to obtain abortions.

Several cities and states have passed legislation or taken steps to help women obtain abortions despite a variety of restrictive abortion legislation passed in 2019.

Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Georgia, and Louisiana have all passed bills banning abortions after a heartbeat can be detected. Republican Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey signed a bill into law in May criminalizing abortion procedures for doctors. Meanwhile, Missouri’s last abortion clinic may close due to failure to comply with the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services requirements.

In response to this restrictive abortion legislation, both New York City and Illinois have taken steps to make abortion more accessible for women traveling from other states. Maine, Vermont and Nevada have also passed laws that enable abortion access on a smaller scale, NBC News reported.

New York City

The New York City Council allocated $250,000 to the New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) in June to help women travel to New York City and obtain abortions.

Pro-abortion activists claim this allocation was the first time that a city allocated money specifically designated for abortions, The New York Times reported.

Officials said that the allocated money would enable about 500 women to obtain abortions, the Times reported.

NYAAF board member Janna Oberdorf told NBC that the funds can be used by any women in or traveling to New York City and is intended to cover the abortion procedure rather than travel or lodging costs.

Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo also signed the Reproductive Health Act in January, allowing non-doctors to perform abortions according to the Times. The bill also allows women to obtain late-term abortions — after 24 weeks — if their health is in danger or if the fetus is not viable.

Cuomo did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Illinois

Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the Reproductive Health Actinto law in June, a law that makes abortion “a fundamental right” in the state of Illinois.

The law is designed to alert women in surrounding states that they can travel to Illinois to receive abortions if they cannot receive them at home, according to NBC.

The Reproductive Health Act allows non-doctors to perform abortions, abolishes Illinois’ parental notification law, forces religious and private health care organizations to provide abortions, and eliminates required investigations into deaths of mothers.

The law also eliminates requirements to publicly report abortion data, including “the number of abortions performed on out-of-state women or underage girls” according to a press release from the Susan B. Anthony List. (RELATED: Lawmakers Repeal Abortion Safeguards To Build ‘A Firewall Around Illinois To Protect Access’ To Abortion)

“Should you live in a state that has restricted your right to a safe and legal abortion, we want to make sure you know that Illinois is a place where it is safe and legal,” Democratic state Sen. Melinda Bush said to NBC News. The publication reports that Bush sponsored the bill.

“We want it to be clear that Illinois is a beacon for women’s reproductive rights,” Bush added.

Guttmacher Institute state policy analyst Elizabeth Nash told NBC that protecting abortion access in Illinois “means you’re protecting access not just in Illinois” but also in the surrounding conservative states.

Pritzker did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Maine

Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed “An Act To Authorize Certain Health Care Professionals To Perform Abortions” into law in June, a law that permits non-doctors to perform abortions in Maine.

The law will allow physician assistants and advanced practice registered nurses to perform abortions, according to a press release from Mills’ office, and is set to go into effect in September. (RELATED: Maine Will Allow Non-Doctors To Perform Abortions)

“Allowing qualified and licensed medical professionals to perform abortions will ensure that Maine women, especially those in rural areas, are able to access critical reproductive health care services when and where they need them from qualified providers they know and trust,” Mills said in a statement.

“Expanding who is allowed to perform an abortion does not expand the safety of the procedure,” Republican state Sen. Stacey Guerin of Maine said in June, according to the New York Post.

Mills did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Vermont

Republican Vermont Gov. Phil Scott intends to allow bill H.57 to become law, his communications director told CNN.

The bill would “recognize as a fundamental right the freedom of reproductive choice” and “prohibit public entities from interfering with or restricting the right of an individual to terminate the individual’s pregnancy,” according to CNN.

The bill also would protect women’s “rights to choose or refuse contraception or sterilization or to choose to carry a pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child, or to obtain an abortion.”

“The Governor is and has been pro-choice and believes in a woman’s right to choose, so he has ruled out vetoing the bill — it will become law,” Scott’s communication director, Rebecca Kelley, wrote in an email to CNN.

Kelley also told CNN the governor has not received the bill and has not received notice of when he will be given it.

Scott did not yet respond to a request for comment from the DCNF, and his office did not respond to questions as to the bill’s status.

Nevada

The Nevada Assembly passed a bill in May that would no longer require doctors to inform women about the “emotional implications” involved in abortions according to CNN. Democratic Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak signed the bill into law on May 31.

The bill, SB179, “removes the requirement that a physician certify a pregnant woman’s marital status and age before performing an abortion” and “also removes the requirement that a physician certify in writing that a woman gave her informed written consent.”

Democratic Nevada Rep. Dina Titus praised the bill in May, calling restrictive abortion legislation “dangerous anti-choice agenda.”

Sisolak did not yet respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Congressman Andy Biggs Makes the Case Against a new Constitutional Convention

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“Some conservatives assume that a constitutional convention would propose only conservative ideas like a balanced budget. It never occurs to them that Bernie Sanders supporters would show up to demand constitutional amendments requiring the taxpayers to pay for free college and other free stuff for everyone.” – Phyllis Schlafly, Founder of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles

“Article V of the Constitution has only 22 words about a convention for proposing amendments, but the most important is the word ‘call.’  Since only Congress can “call” the convention, it means that states have no control over who can be a delegate, who makes the rules, who sets the agenda or who wields the gavel.”  – Phyllis Schlafly

“As early as 1970, Council on Foreign Relations member and outspoken globalist Zbigniew Brzezinski said that the U.S. Constitution should be altered via a constitution convention to bring about globalization, and today CFR members such as former governor and secretary of health and human services Tommy Thompson are still providing the impetus for such a convention.” –  Mitchell Shaw for the John Birch Society

To many conservatives who are tired of seeing the federal government overstep its constitutional boundaries and expand its reach into areas it has no business being in, nothing seems more “grassroots” than the idea of asking Congress to call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution and rein in federal government.  The erroneous argument from the self-appointed leaders of a new con-con is that this is the only way to rein in out-of-control government.  However, the devil is in the details and Representative Andy Biggs knows the dangers and a con-con is not the answer.

Congressman Biggs has made a compelling case in his book, The Con of the Con-Con, that the procedure for changing the Constitution is fraught with hazards that will likely leave Americans far worse off than they are now.  When Mr. Biggs was a member of the Arizona Senate, he was castigated every time he tried to stop the legislature from passing an application for a con-con.

Andy Biggs at PS Eagle Council

Congressman Biggs with three of the Schlafly brothers, John, Bruce and Andy.

Andy Biggs was a guest speaker at last year’s Phyllis Schlafly Eagle Council.  Both he and Andy Schlafly spoke against the various applications for a Constitutional Convention (con-con) under the guise of proposing amendments for a Balanced Budget Amendment, Term Limits, etc. via the fraudulent Convention of States Project (COSP).

Rep. Biggs is a distinguished conservative legislator and he and his wife Cindy are such a joy to see every year at the council meetings.  It was my pleasure to chat with the Congressman on the massive push by the many fraudulent organizations for an Article V Convention.

Congressman Biggs and his wife, Cindy

I asked Rep. Biggs how he became aware of the dangers of a constitutional convention (con-con).  He said he started seeing a movement to amend the U.S. Constitution initiating the second part of Article V and petitioning Congress while he was in the Arizona State House, and decided he had to stop it.

“Having served in a legislative body and having understood what a self-governing legislative body can and can’t do, either they didn’t understand it, or they were being disingenuous and would have the doors blown off our Constitution.  There were people coming up with these crazy ideas about what they thought they could do to control a new convention.  So, as a lawyer, I went back and read the minutes of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and everything about the founders that I could find and I realized what their intention was.”

The Congressman actually attended the 2012 con-con conference at Harvard with Lawrence Lessig and Mark Meckler, then co-leader of Tea Party Patriots. Phyllis Schlafly Eagles and the John Birch Society were not invited.  At the time, I wrote extensively on what happened with the coordinated effort between Mark Meckler and Harvard’s Professor Lawrence Lessig.  Link and Link

Right and Left Work Together

Rep. Biggs commented that people believe the new push for a con-con is a rightwing promotion.  “It is not just the right; the socialist group Code Pink which has ties to Castro’s Communist regime, Hugo Chavez and Venezuela’s Maduro are behind a new Article V Convention.” They were founding members of the “Move to Amend” coalition which includes Alliance for Democracy, Center for Media and Democracy, Independent Progressive Politics Network, Progressive Democrats of America, Sierra Club, Vermont for Single Payer and hundreds more.  They want to put “their man” in as a delegate to urge their amendments and constitutional changes upon the deliberations of the convention.

George Soros funds nearly every major left-wing media source in the US. Forty-five of those are financed through his support of the Media Consortium. Yes, the financier of global fascism is pumping millions of dollars into the same Article V convention campaign that is being promoted by Levin, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Farris, Meckler, Barton, Coburn, Palin and dozens more.

The deceptive Left-Right coalition to rewrite the Constitution by means of an Article V convention threatens our personal rights and freedoms.

Convention of States Project (COSP)

The COSP was co-founded by Mark Meckler, formerly of Tea Party Patriots, and Michael Farris who in 2017 left the leadership to Meckler. The misinformed and manipulative leaders of a COS refuse to call this an Article V convention and they claim the states can control it.

They are misleading the gullible and uneducated public.  State legislatures apply for a convention, but it is Congress who calls, convenes or opens a convention.  In Mitchell Shaw’s New American article, Who’s Behind a Constitutional Convention, he said, “Of course that means that Congress, a branch of the same federal government the advocates of a convention claim the convention would rein in, has the power (according to Article 1, Section 8, last clause) to ‘make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution’ the convention.”

The Money Behind the Con

Too few Americans are even aware that a constitutional convention can be called, let alone that there would be no checks on its scope and further that the process to call one is well underway and being underwritten by some of the nation’s richest individuals.

Applications for a convention are coming from the “right” and the left, but with more money, a stronger campaign structure, and national coordination on the “right.” A number of major so-called “conservative” organizations and donors, including the Mercer family and Koch-funded groups such as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), have renewed and intensified efforts to thrust this issue into the spotlight after years of inactivity.  The Koch brothers are funding many organizations as well as politicians who will promote a new con-con.  Socialists and George Soros are fighting for an Article V convention, and Soros heavily funds the “Move to Amend Coalition” mentioned above along with hundreds of others.

Billionaires Charles Koch and George Soros have formed an alliance to advocate for pacifist foreign policy, teaming up to create an anti-war think tank known as The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.  But their big joint issue is a new Constitution Convention.

Nothing Defines the Call

When the Framers got together in 1787, there were only 50 of them at one time in the room and it was closed to the public and media. They believed in and trusted each other not to speak out of turn to anyone as to what was going on inside, (unlike today’s leaks to the media about everything).

Congressman Biggs said, “A new convention is going to be absolutely out of control with the people involved from both sides.  It wouldn’t surprise me if it was held in Las Vegas as they have convention halls that are big enough and it could easily be televised.

This will not be the case in a new convention.  The world will be there…every special interest, every monied interest, every social media…all trying to get some kind of benefit into the constitution.  Virtually, every state constitution is larger than the federal constitution and the reason is that our federal constitution created a federal government to which we delegated only a handful of enumerated powers; whereas the state constitutions create governments of almost unlimited powers, and that’s what will happen at a new convention.”  (Some folks believe a new convention would be closed to the public – for the likely purpose of having the Delegates propose a new constitution which moves the U.S. into the North American Union.)

“The promoters say, ‘Well it will be limited to a Balanced Budget Amendment,’ but it’s not going to be limited.  Let me tell you I can get around every one of them, and second of all there won’t even be a nod to the enumerated powers in the Constitution.”

The Congressmen said that people have told him that Congress doesn’t have a say in the con-con, but we know they do.

Mark Levin is an aggressive promoter of an Article V convention and actually called Congressman Biggs swear words on the air because as Arizona Senate President, he had held up the vote on an application for an Article V convention in his state.  Many other legislators actually thanked Senator Biggs for holding it up.  They told him they’d have to vote for it if it had come to the floor.  Rep. Biggs told me they had no courage and they were grateful he held it up.

Everyone wants to do something to fix the out of control federal government, but as Rep. Biggs stated, “We must elect people who love our 1787 Constitution.”

A Dangerous Outcome

In light of the lists of leftist groups provided above, the results of the convention could be an outright scrapping of the constitution written by the founders in favor of one more in line with the progressive ideologies of Cenk Uygur’s Wolf-Pac, the Sierra Club, Code Pink, and others.

Remember, according to our history of the “amendments” convention of 1787,  regardless of any state or congressional legislation requiring Delegates to consider only one amendment (a balanced budget amendment, for example), the delegates would possess unlimited, though not unprecedented, power to propose revisions to the existing Constitution, based on the inherent right of the People in convention to alter, abolish, or revise their government.  This is exactly what they did in 1787 with the Articles of Confederation.

It boggles the mind to think of the potential proposals that could come out of a convention composed of such radical representatives.  George Soros’s billions are funding these fringe groups and politicians aren’t known for their ability to resist hefty campaign contributions.

The only prior constitutional convention we have had, in 1787, almost immediately disregarded their instructions to merely propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation and scrapped the Articles’ ratification requirement as well. It turned out OK; the Articles were replaced with the vastly superior U.S. Constitution. But here’s the point, no one, not Congress, not the Supreme Court and certainly not the president, has any authority to rein in a runaway constitutional convention. And all the promises made by those promoting this destruction of our Framers’ document cannot guarantee it will be controlled.  Link

Given today’s socialist and yes communist politics, who could be sure that nothing crazy would be successfully proposed, and ratified – since a new Constitution will have its own new mode of ratification?

James Madison, Father of our Constitution and fourth President of the United States said, “Having witnessed the difficulties and dangers experienced by the first Convention, I would tremble for the result of the second.”

Conclusion

Andy Biggs was elected as Representative of Arizona’s 5th District and took office in January of 2017.  In March of that same year, Arizona passed an application for a con-con because Andy wasn’t there to stop it.  At PS Eagle Council last year, he spoke for over two hours to a huge room full of people about this threat.

I would urge readers to register for this amazing three-day conference held yearly in St. Louis.  Conservative leaders and speakers are there to educate us, to answer our questions and to help us fight to Make America Great Again.

Did the Founding Father’s write the First Amendment because they understood the mistakes of King Nebuchadnezzar?

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United States Constitution, the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

President Trump just concluded a summit at the White House on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is the bedrock of our Constitutional Republican form of government. To speak freely is tantamount to creating and maintaining a civil society. Carolyn J. Lukensmeyer, Ph.D., executive director emerita of the National Institute for Civil Discourse found:

  • 75% believe America is in a crisis.
  • 83% say incivility leads to intolerance of free speech.
  • 79% say incivility is leading to less political engagement.

I attend a weekly prayer fellowship group. We meet to discuss and learn from the Bible’s lessons. I have always said that there is nothing you will see, read or hear that has not been told or foretold in the Bible. By coincidence, or divine providence, this week’s lesson was from Daniel 3 (NKJV).

As we read Daniel 3 out loud I wondered if our Founding Father’s took the lessons of the Image of Gold from it when they wrote the First Amendment to the Constitution. The ideas contained in the First Amendment are being discussed today in Washington, D.C. just as they were during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon and leader of the Chaldean Dynasty, from 605 BC – c. 562 BC.

Daniel 3 is all about the First Amendment.

There are three lessons from Daniel 3 that are fundamental to understanding why we have a First Amendment.

  1. The idea of The Image of Gold.
  2. The idea of Disobeying the King.
  3. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Let me explain further what I took from reading Daniel 3 with my fellowship.

First: he idea of creating images of gold. Daniel (NKJV):

3 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its width six cubits.

We have seen men worship images of gold either by consensus or by force. Nebuchadnezzar used force to have his people worship his image of gold:

“To you it is commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, 5 that at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up; 6 and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”

The fiery furnace reminded me of the Holocaust, where Adolf Hitler and the Nazis cast millions into the burning fiery furnaces of Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald.

Second: Disobeying the king.

In every society there are those who stand up and defy a King. So it was for the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.  The signers of the Declaration of Independence concluded with this, “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

So too it happened in ancient Babylon:

12 There are certain Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego; these men, O king, have not paid due regard to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the gold image which you have set up.”

When Nebuchadnezzar heard this he:

[G]ave the command to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. So they brought these men before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I have set up? 15 Now if you are ready at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music, and you fall down and worship the image which I have made, good! But if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you from my hands?”

16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Third: Two wrongs do not make a right.

King Nebuchadnezzar made two mistakes as outlined in Daniel 3. The first was creating the golden image, making government God. The second mistake was not learning from his first mistake and ordaining one monotheistic religion superior to all other religions.

After Nebuchadnezzar cast Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego into his fiery furnace something amazing happened, the three were not burned. Then Daniel 3 tells us:

29 Therefore I [Nebuchadnezzar] make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.” 

Nebuchadnezzar created a new “state religion.” The King went from worshiping his golden image to worshiping the God of Abraham. Creating a state religion violates the First Amendment’s Establishment clause, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

I believe that our Founding Fathers understood the lessons of Daniel 3. They understood that none of the three branches of the newly created federal government must have the power to create either golden images or a single religion that is superior to all others.

This is why freedom of religion is the foundation from which is built the house that contains freedom of speech, the right to assemble and the right to petition government.

Without freedom of religion nothing else matters.

Please sign the White House petition to Protect Free Speech in the Digital Public Square

Catching Runaway Unborn Babies

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David Carlin: The new politics of abortion is a lot like the old politics of slavery, as pro-life sentiment rises, the Left seeks laws to make us all complicit.

One of the important elements of the so-called Compromise of 1850, a late-in-the-day attempt to avoid the pending Civil War, was the Fugitive Slave Act, which required Northern states, even the most anti-slavery of Northern states, to capture runaway slaves and return them to their owners.

Massachusetts was, of course, one of these states, and when its famous U.S. senator, Daniel Webster, supported the Act in a desperate attempt to save his beloved Union, many of its most distinguished citizens (e.g., Ralph Waldo Emerson: see his lecture on the Fugitive Slave Act) withdrew the tremendous admiration they had hitherto given the great man.

Did the Fugitive Slave Act result in the capture and return of many runaway slaves who would otherwise have found their way to a life of freedom?  Probably not.  For despite the Act, slaves would still run away, the Underground Railroad would still operate, and northerners unsympathetic to slavery would still be reluctant to report runaways to the police.

What, then, was the point of the Fugitive Slave Act?  To rub the noses of anti-slavery people in slavery.  The pro-slavery South was saying to the anti-slavery North: “You don’t like slavery?  You think it is wicked?  You think we are great sinners for maintaining this, our peculiar institution? Well, we’ll show you.  By the Fugitive Slave Act we’ll make you co-operators in our system.  We’ll make you assist us in maintaining slavery.  If we are guilty, we’ll make you share our guilt.”

What does this remind you of?  In any case, what does it remind me of?

It reminds me of the policy position now taken by virtually every Democrat on the national scene – the policy position now taken, for instance, by that famous Catholic politician, Joe Biden.  It reminds me, in other words, of their position that the Hyde Amendment must be done away with and the federal government must pay for abortions.  Which means of course that taxpayers should pay for abortions, even those taxpayers (me, for example) who believe that abortion is an act of unjustifiable homicide.

Will it greatly increase the number of abortions if we make them free of charge for women who wish to kill their unborn babies?  Probably not.  What, then, is the point of getting rid of the Hyde Amendment?  The point is to rub our noses in abortion.  The point is to make all of us, even the most anti-abortion among us, collaborators in the great abortion machine.  “You don’t like abortion?  You think it wicked?  You think we are great sinners for maintaining this our splendid institution? Well, we’ll show you.  By getting rid of the Hyde Amendment we’ll make you co-operators in our system.  We’ll make you assist us in maintaining abortion.  If we are guilty, we’ll make you share our guilt.”

The pro-abortion people profess to be great believers in choice – just as the pro-slavery people professed to be great believers in state rights.  But, in fact, the pro-slavery people were not true believers in state rights.  They believed that their state had the right to choose slavery, but they didn’t believe that Massachusetts (for example) had the right to reject slavery.  They didn’t believe that Massachusetts had the right to decree that a slave who set foot on Massachusetts soil automatically became a free man or woman.

A few years later (1857) the U.S. Supreme Court ratified this view with its Dred Scott ruling, which Abraham Lincoln (along with others who were as clear-minded as he) understood to imply not just that Congress could not ban slavery from the territories but that, sooner or later, state legislatures could not ban slavery from their states.

Just as pro-slavery Southerners did not honestly believe in state rights, so pro-abortion Democrats (and others) do not honestly believe in free choice.  For if they did, they would believe in our choice not to pay for abortions.  They would believe in our choice not to become collaborators in homicide.

Let’s suppose you’re in a situation in which you are doing something that you know, deep down, to be wrong; but you don’t want to admit it to yourself; on the contrary, you want to persuade yourself that your wickedness is virtuous.  In a situation like this, your conscience will be greatly eased if you find that everybody around you believes that the wrong thing is right.

And so it was with Southern slaveholders.  The slaveholders were comforted by the fact that all the “best people” in their society were slaveholders.  But that wasn’t enough.  And so they worked hard to persuade non-slaveholding Southern whites that slavery was a fine institution; and they largely succeeded in this effort of persuasion, as was demonstrated when the Civil War came, and poor and almost-poor whites were willing to fight and die to protect the South’s “peculiar institution.”  This persuasion succeeded even among many slaves.

But in the North there remained millions and millions of Americans who were not persuaded – some of them abolitionists, far more of them anti-slavery in sentiment while not going so far as to be abolitionists.

As long as these people were denouncing slavery as wicked (and their voices of denunciation were getting louder and louder every year), the consciences of slaveholders could not be totally silenced.  What could be done?  Make these anti-slavery people co-operate in catching runaway slaves (the Fugitive Slave Act).  Better still, make them tolerate the presence of slavery in their midst (the Dred Scott ruling).  Make them share our guilt.

So it is with the pro-abortion people. They need to silence us if they are to silence their own consciences.  They can do this by making us share their guilt.  How?  By making us pay for their abortions.  If we quietly pay, if we make little or no fuss about this, we will have become part of the great abortion machine.  The consciences of pro-abortionists will be able to sleep in peace.

COLUMN BY

David Carlin

David Carlin is a professor of sociology and philosophy at the Community College of Rhode Island, and the author of The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America.

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

The Trump Stealth Engine Fueling The Economic Boom

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Deregulation is about the most wonky, least click-baity topic there is. It also may be the single biggest reason for the ongoing economic successes of the Trump administration — probably even more than the tax reform package, valuable as that was.

But almost nobody knows about this stealth economic engine and only a few of us continually mention it when referring to the economic powerhouse. Everything else, everything else gets coverage in the Trump administration whether it should or not. But not deregulation. It’s both boring and effective — which combine to make it totally un-newsy.

Which is a shame, because this is an area that Trump can take total credit for and is good for virtually every American — from homeowner, to middle class working stiff to small business owner to exporter. Everyone benefits from a lighter boot on the throat.

In the big picture, regulatory costs either force businesses to pass the costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices or, if the business is an exporter, to squeeze down wages to stay competitive. It also sucks money out of innovation possibilities, costing an unknown and unknowable amount in new products and higher qualities of life.

Generally, environmentalists and environmental journalists around the country (who are basically as much activists as the environmental activists they cover) portray every regulatory rollback as destroying the environment, polluting the air and water and causing the extinction of wildlife. And, of course, the great unknown boogeyman, climate change. Further, they also impugn the motive as giving in to lobbyists.

The White House’s Council of Economic Advisers recently studied 20 regulations that were either repealed by the administration, or are opposed and may be repealed. These generally dealt with labor rules and internet access and were piled on by the Obama administration.

In a straightforward (sort of) cost-benefit analysis, the study concluded that these 20 regulations came to a net cost to the economy of $235 billion — or just more than 1 percent of the national GDP. When impacts can be seen in the gigantic national GDP number, even in a small way, then we have something meaningful.

The report also found that if all 20 regulations are dumped, the average annual gains per American household five years out would be about $3,100.

Now, a major caveat. Any study like this necessarily needs to make some assumptions, and those assumptions are going to drive the final numbers. When assumptions are made by politically motivated players in Washington, D.C., it is not unreasonable for critics to question them. And they do.

Not much, because of course there has been virtually no coverage of this report.

But probably most telling is that the critics — generally people from the Obama administration — do not deny there are net beneficial numbers for the national economy and for individual wage-earners. They just question these specific numbers.

Fair enough. But let’s recall one point. These are only 20 regulations. Presumably these are impact regulations, but the Trump administration bounced 124 “significant” regulations off the books in its first two years, while adding 17. There were hundreds more that are not considered “significant” but can add up. This report measured just 20.

The impacts on the economy, wages and consumer prices is very difficult to estimate, but they are undoubtedly substantial and playing a huge role in 224,000 new jobs created in June, more than 10 years into a now-record recovery, increasing wages, keeping inflation low and maintaining an absolutely rocking economy.

Just don’t expect to read much about this huge stealth effect in the media.

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

VIDEO: 1958 Speech by Robert Welch Predicting How ‘Insiders’ Plan to Destroy America

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Robert Henry Winborne Welch Jr. was an American businessman, political activist, and author. He was independently wealthy following his retirement and used that wealth to sponsor anti-Communist causes.

He co-founded the conservative group the John Birch Society in 1958 and tightly controlled it until his death.

John Birch Society Mission

To bring about less government, more responsibility, and — with God’s help — a better world by providing leadership, education, and organized volunteer action in accordance with moral and Constitutional principles.

Preserving Individual Rights & National Independence

“These United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States … We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” — Declaration of Independence, 1776

The Declaration of Independence established the independence of both the original 13 American colonies and the United States of America that they together formed a decade later.

The Declaration proclaimed that our personal rights come from God, not from government.

The John Birch Society endorses the timeless principles of the Declaration of Independence. The Society also labors to warn against and expose the forces that seek to abolish U.S. independence, build a world government, or otherwise undermine our personal liberties and national independence.

Restoring the Constitution

“That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” — Declaration of Independence, 1776

The Constitution of the United States of America instituted the government that secures our God-given rights.

The John Birch Society endorses the U.S. Constitution as the foundation of our national government, and works toward educating and activating Americans to abide by the original intent of the Founding Fathers. We seek to awaken a sleeping and apathetic people concerning the designs of those who are working to destroy our constitutional Republic.

The Democrats’ Positions on Immigration Are Starting to Worry a Lot of Democrats

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The death of the so-called Gang of Eight bill in the House of Representatives in 2014 marks the point at which the Democratic establishment dropped any pretense of support for immigration enforcement. The last week in June 2019 will almost certainly mark the point at which the party’s leaders declared not only their unconcealed hostility to immigration enforcement, but their rejection of the very notion that the United States should even have immigration laws.

The week began with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the party’s highest ranking elected federal official, declaring “A violation of status is not a reason for deportation. That’s just not so.” 8 U.S. Code Section 1325 says otherwise, but why let a little thing like a federal statute stand in the way of a political agenda? Pelosi went on to tout a House supplemental appropriation to deal with the humanitarian fallout from the border crisis, “We have legislation to go forward to address those needs,” and also stated clearly her view that anyone who makes it into the country, however they got here, should be allowed to remain. “[I]n terms of interior enforcement, what is – what’s the point?”

But Pelosi’s musings were just the Democratic locomotive approaching the sharp curve at high speed. Just a few days later, the two dozen or so presidential contenders who hope to supplant her as the nation’s highest ranking elected Democrat held their first debate over two nights. That’s where their positions on immigration really went off the rails in the opinion of some high profile opinion columnists whose opinions tend to lean toward the Democrats’ world view.

Andrew Sullivan, writing in New York Magazine, and Jeff Greenfield in Politico, were both left wondering whether the Democrats had lost all touch, not just with reality, but with voters outside of the bubble of the party’s increasingly radical base. “I suspect that the Democrats’ new position — everyone in the world can become an American if they walk over the border and never commit a crime — is political suicide,” wrote Sullivan. Similarly, Greenfield noted, “These candidates aren’t explicitly advocating open borders, but taken together, the policies advocated amount to almost the same thing.” And not just advocating for open borders, observed Greenfield, but also all manner of “’free stuff’ to millions of people who broke the law to get here in the first place.”

Former Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, Julian Castro, who apparently is familiar with Section 1325 openly called for its repeal. He also conceded that many of the people who are now violating Section 1325 are really economic migrants. “A lot of folks that are coming are not seeking asylum — a lot of them are undocumented immigrants,” who should be allowed to remain here anyway, Castro said.

While there was some disagreement among the presidential wannabes about whether we should care if people cross our borders without permission, there was none when it came to the question about what expensive benefit programs illegal aliens should be entitled to. All. When the debate moderator asked the candidates on stage if they agreed with South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttitieg’s suggestion that illegal aliens be made eligible for federal health insurance benefits, every hand went up. The cost of such a plan? Apparently it would be crass to even calculate the cost of allowing everyone who shows up here to exercise their “right” to health care at the American taxpayer’s expense.

Whether last week’s assertions by the Democratic leadership amount to “political suicide,” as Sullivan suggests, will be determined by the voters in 16 months. What is clear is that the week was a definitive turning point. As Greenfield conclude, “Right now, it seems clear that if either of the past two Democratic presidents had shown up Thursday and advocated their positions from five or 20 years ago—the ones that helped them win a general election—they would have been booed off their own party’s stage.”

 COLUMN BY

IRA MEHLMAN

Ira joined the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1986 with experience as a journalist, professor of journalism, special assistant to Gov. Richard Lamm (Colorado), and press secretary of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee. His columns have appeared in National Review, LA Times, NY Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, and more. He is an experienced TV and radio commentator.

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