Cyber Security: Your Business May Be Under Attack

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With the cost of cybercrimes reaching as much as $2.2 trillion a year, it’s clear that we are in a pitched battle when it comes to protecting our data against cybercriminals. And before you write yourself off as a target unworthy of a hacker’s attention, the statistics paint a very different picture.

We tend to think of cybercrime in terms of big breaches that are splashed across the media. However, it’s not these big breaches that actually make the most money for criminals.

Research suggests that the average cost of ransomware attacks is around $679. This, admittedly, seems quite low. But if you think about it, keeping the ransoms low makes good financial sense for the criminals.

If their demands were too high, people would be more likely to write off the infected computer as a lost cause and replace it with a new machine. By keeping the ransom affordable, it’s easier for the person just to pay it to regain access.

That doesn’t mean that it’s not profitable for the hacker, though. In the first quarter of 2016 only, criminals earned $209 million from these kinds of attacks. It’s estimated that the average ransomware attacker will earn around $90,000 per annum, which is nothing to sniff at, especially since there is very little work involved here.

We’ve gotten to a point where companies can now take out insurance to cover them in the event of a cyber attack.
What is a Business’s Highest Area of Risk?

When it comes to cybersecurity, your staff pose the highest risk for any organization, whether through plain carelessness, design, or malice.

Careless Employees

If your employees are careless with security aspects, you are heading for trouble. This is where regular security training will pay dividends.

Few people realize how simple it is for an experienced hacker to glean enough information about a person online and make an educated guess about the passwords she may be using.

Also, 70% of people use the same passwords on social media as they do for their corporate logins. And while your company’s servers might be secure, social media is certainly not.

Employees need to be educated about choosing a good password, keeping it safe, and how to recognize a potential threat or suspicious request.

Employees With a Design to Make Extra Money

Criminal syndicates will often look for a way to get someone on the inside. This might mean planting someone in the organization if it is large enough, but it can also mean turning someone who is already working there.

As a result, employees’ actions on the computer system should be monitored to ensure that they’re not accessing systems they shouldn’t.

Malicious Employees

These are more difficult, because you may not know that they have a grudge against the company straight away. It’s good practice to revoke access to the systems as soon as an employee leaves.

Overall, the key to guarding your data against criminals is always to be mindful of security and ensuring that it is well-maintained.

Infographic URL: https://techjury.net/blog/cyber-security-statistics/

RELATED ARTICLE: Cybersecurity Statistics for 2020 – Trends, Insights, & More!

Planned Parenthood’s Political Juggernaut Is Meeting Its Match

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By Peter B. Gemma

Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider and a powerful multi-million-dollar political machine. Hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding go for its non-profit “family planning services.” In truth, however, that facilitates Planned Parenthood’s political activities, underwritten by private donations, in support of politicians who keep the federal funding flowing.

Fortunately for the pro-life side, the Susan B. Anthony List has reached parity in political fundraising and organizational operations on the ground. Of course, it gets no tax dollars. And the Trump administration has been a great restrictor of the abortion giant with executive guidelines.

Recently, the Trump administration enacted a rule that would require family planning clinics to be housed in separate buildings from abortion clinics, a move that would cut off Planned Parenthood from some federal funding. The new guidelines apply to a $286 million-a-year grant, known as Title X, that pays for birth control and testing of sexually transmitted diseases for four million of its low-income clients. It requires the “physical and financial” separation of family planning services and abortion referrals. Planned Parenthood clinics will be able to talk to mothers about abortion, but not where they can go to get one. The organization receives between $50 million and $60 million from Title X.

Of course, the new federal rule is being challenged in court. Several state officials, including Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, and presidential candidate/Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, have announced an intent to sue over the new policy.

Legal battles may not be good news because right to life advocates have not fared well in the courts lately.

In June 2017, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Medicaid Act “authorizes a private right of action,” allowing Medicaid recipients to challenge the disqualification of a health care provider. Louisiana and Kansas, which had stripped Planned Parenthood of state Medicaid funds after evidence that the abortion provider was harvesting and selling fetal body parts, proceeded to appeal the ruling to the U. S. Supreme Court. On Dec. 10 2018, by a vote of six to three, the High Court declined to hear the appeal, letting the lower court ruling stand. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented. Instead of supplying the fourth vote needed just to allow for a hearing, Chief Justice Roberts and, in a surprise to many (not all) pro-lifers, Justice Kavanaugh, sided with the four liberals on the Court.

Meanwhile for Planned Parenthood, it’s business-as-usual and business is good as it is cashing in on the Trump era. In 2018, taxpayers were charged for a $20 million increase in federal funding according to the organization’s annual report – a total of $564.8 million in government subsidies. Planned Parenthood also received $100 million more from private contributions and bequests in 2018 than it did in 2017, with Warren Buffett, the investment guru, leading the way. He has donated $63.5 million to Planned Parenthood since 2014 through his family’s foundation. Planned Parenthood’s total net assets have increased from $1.6 billion last year to nearly $1.9 billion in 2018.

And Planned Parenthood has now ramped-up its abortion services. They are providing travel expenses and financial assistance for clients in states where abortion is restricted and regulated, to states where controls are loose to non-existent.

Curiously, despite receiving regular increases via taxpayer dollars and boosts in their private fund-raising efforts, Planned Parenthood’s services have declined. The organization’s 2015-2016 report revealed that Planned Parenthood served 100,000 fewer women in 2015-2016 as compared to 2014-2015. But their abortion machine is in high gear: 323,999 abortions performed two years ago, 328,348 last year, and 332,757 in 2018. Planned Parenthood has cornered 35 percent of the abortion market.

In 2015-2016, Planned Parenthood performed 83 abortions for every one adoption referral. The abortion giant referred about 3,000 women to adoption services during 2018, one thousand less than the year before.

Planned Parenthood’s new president, Dr. Leana Wen, has acknowledged that abortion isn’t just a service the organization provides, but the bottom line of their business: “First, our core mission is providing, protecting, and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care. We will never back down from that fight.”

What is the secret of Planned Parenthood’s success? The organization’s previous CEO, Cecile Richards, put it simply: “We have the potential to swing the vote and that’s a lot of power. The question is, what are we going to do with it? We’re going to be the largest kickass advocacy organization in the country!”

Planned Parenthood and its political arms are separate on paper (because taxpayers are forced to give the abortion chain over $500 million a year for health services). However, private and corporate donors direct their money into Planned Parenthood’s political agenda – and abortion business – rather than to fund the other services the organization provides. In 2018, donors invested $532.7 million dollars in Planned Parenthood, including $21 million from left-wing billionaire George Soros.

Planned Parenthood has some 40 corporate backers, including:

  • American Express
  • Levi Strauss
  • AT & T
  • Macy’s
  • Avon
  • Microsoft
  • Bank of America
  • Nike
  • Bath & Body Works
  • Pepsi-Co
  • Clorox
  • Starbucks
  • Johnson & Johnson
  • Verizon

Federal law prohibits government funding “to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion” (except in cases of rape, incest, or an amorphous ‘danger to the life of the mother’). That’s where Planned Parenthood’s private donors step in. Last year they bankrolled the organization’s $160 million expenditure on “public policy” (lobbying) and “movement building to engage communities” (grassroots organizing; there are more than 50,000 student members on 350 campuses.)

In addition, Planned Parenthood poured over $20 million directly into the 2018 midterm election. And there’s more. Because of its partnership with the Win Justice Coalition (which includes the Service Employees International Union, the Center for Community Change Action, and the Color of Change PAC), Planned Parenthood’s 2018 war chest actually topped $28 million.

In 2016, according to the Federal Election Commission, Planned Parenthood invested $12.6 million into independent expenditures – nearly all of it to support Democrats or oppose Republicans. That figure includes $2.8 million to attack Donald Trump and $2.4 million to back Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

George Soros and his family are major donors to Planned Parenthood Votes, giving a combined $4.75 million in two election cycles. Last year, Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire and former mayor of New York City, contributed $1 million to one of Planned Parenthood’s political operations.

On the positive side, the largest pro-life political action committee that is a muscular match for Planned Parenthood, the Susan B. Anthony List, has matched the abortion giant’s financial clout politically along with its organizational skills. The group raised and spent some $28 million in 2018, which matches Planned Parenthood and its partnership organizations combined. The Susan B. Anthony List also marshaled enough troops to knock on the doors of some 2.7 million pro-life households as part of its grassroots efforts to get out the vote.

The Susan B. Anthony List has become a force to be reckoned with and one that, while largely ignored by a medial that is slavish in producing pro-abortion puff pieces, is making its presence known in political elections.

Of course, the newest and biggest asset of the right to life movement is the Trump administration.

Scores of federal judges who, by-in-large, have pro-life records have been nominated and appointed and the impact is now being felt. This month, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Ohio’s right to defund Planned Parenthood, asserting that there is no “Fourteenth Amendment right to perform abortions.” It reversed a lower court’s decision by an 11–6 vote, with all four Trump appointees ruling against Planned Parenthood.

Many federal government agencies and departments are creating pro-life policies.

For example, President Trump has expanded policies to ensure American tax dollars are not used to fund the abortion industry in all global health programs. The new Trump policy protects over $8.8 billion overseas aid from funding abortion. Recently, the Department of Health and Human Services  established the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within the Office for Civil Rights that will work to protect health care professionals who do not want to participate in abortion.

And the Trump administration has hired pro-life personnel.

Bethany Kozma, senior adviser for the Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment at the U.S. Agency for International Development, told the annual U.N. Commission on the Status of Women meeting that the “U.S. is a pro-life nation.” An overstatement for certain, especially considering the strengthening political clout of Planned Parenthood, but it rings truer than it has in a long, long time.

ABOUT PETER B. GEMMA

Peter B. Gemma is a freelance writer whose articles and commentaries have appeared in USA Today, AmericanThinker.com, and the DailyCaller.com.

RELATED ARTICLE: Court Rules President Trump Can Defund Planned Parenthood, Will Cut Almost $60 Million in Taxpayer Funding

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

AUDIO: Tennessee and Government Lawyers Spar Over The Federal Refugee Resettlement Program

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The Federal Government’s “Unconstitutional Compulsion.”

In a case with critical constitutional implications for the principles of federalism and state sovereignty, a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Tuesday morning on Tennessee’s challenge to the federal refugee resettlement program.

Attorney John Bursch appearing for the Thomas More Law Center, argued on behalf of Tennessee’s General Assembly, while DOJ attorney Samantha Lee Chaifetz argued for the Federal Government. Each side had 15 minutes to present its case. Mr. Bursch took 10 minutes for his initial presentation and reserved 5 minutes for rebuttal.

Both lawyers were peppered with questions by Judge Boggs. By the end, it still remained unclear whether the judges were leaning towards one side or the other.

However, I have linked below to the court-provided audio of the entire oral argument, so you can judge for yourself.  Also, separately linked is Mr. Bursch’s 5-minute rebuttal which counters the arguments made by the Federal Government.

Listed below are some salient quotes from Mr. Bursch’s argument to the 3-judge panel:

  • “When the Federal Government implements an exclusively federal program, it cannot commandeer state funds to pay for it under a threat that the Federal Government will cut 20% of a state’s budget if it does not comply. That is unconstitutional compulsion.”
  • “The Tennessee General Assembly is the institutional plaintiff asserting an institutional injury. It can’t satisfy its State Constitutional obligations under Article 2 Section 24 of the State Constitution to have a balanced state budget because the Federal Government can simply syphon off state funds from the Tennessee general program whenever it wants to by placing more refugees.” 
  • “The question is whether the Federal Government’s pressure has turned into compulsion or coercion or duress.”
  • “The only one telling the Tennessee legislature that it can’t defend its own interest is the Federal Government. The same Federal Government which can yank those 20% of the Medicaid funds, the 20% of the State budget, if we don’t comply.”
  • “The language the Supreme Court uses when the Federal Government uses funding mechanisms where pressure turns into compulsion, coercion, pressure, duress that’s when it violates this 10th amendment federalism principle.”
  • “The Assembly members take an oath to uphold state and federal law at the time they go into office and if they would propose a statute with a plan that didn’t result in us paying for this federal program, we would be violating federal law.”

Click here to listen to the entire oral argument.
Click here to listen to John Bursch’s 5-minute rebuttal.

BREAKING NEW VIDEO: Voter Fraud Confession

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Project Veritas has released undercover footage unmasking one of the many faces of modern voter fraud.

The video features a confession from a New York Republican, Peter Gornicki,  who acknowledges that he voted in the federal election in both Florida and New York:

JOURNALIST: So you voted for Higgins for U.S. Congress in New York and Scott for Senate and Bilirakis in Florida in 2018, is that correct?

GORNICKI: Yes, I did.

The report also includes confirmations of voter registrations and electoral histories from bona fide election offices in both states.

When asked why he votes in both states, he passionately tells our investigators the following:

GORNICKI:  I vote for whatever affects my property over there in Erie county, I’ll vote, I’ll vote for the congressman out there, the senator if any.  I pay taxes, property taxes of $3000, I vote.  I pay property taxes here of $1800.  I vote.

That’s the way I look at it  . . .

I pay property taxes in both areas.  I pay property taxes in New York and I pay property taxes in Florida.  Now, if I pay property taxes in Florida, I should be eligible to vote in local election. Right?

You can view the full video HERE.

James O’Keefe, President and CEO of Project Veritas, said:

“When the topic of voter fraud comes up, people often say it doesn’t exist, or that it’s not even possible.  For the first time ever, Project Veritas brings you the proof.  We go to their front doors.  And with the release of this new investigation, Veritas has shown, voter fraud is real and it’s bipartisan.”

According to federal law, it is illegal to vote twice in federal elections:

52 USC 10307 (e)

(1)  Whoever votes more than once in an election referred to in paragraph (2) shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

(2) The prohibition of this subsection applies with respect to any general, special, or primary election held solely or in part for the purpose of selecting or electing any candidate for the office of President, Vice President, presidential elector, Member of the United States Senate, Member of the United States House of Representatives . . .

Mainstream news media outlets have long reported there is “no evidence” of widespread voter fraud.

However, Veritas plans to release more undercover video reports unmasking the faces behind voter fraud nationwide.

Stay tuned and Be Brave!

Project Veritas Team

P.S. >>  Elections insiders and poll workers with tips about election fraud and abuse contact Project Veritas HERE.  Please do it now!

EDITORS NOTE: This Project Veritas column with video is republished with permission.

Hatred For Trump Transcends Safeguarding Americans

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A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?  – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Politicians are not born; they are excreted. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The above quotes from Cicero were long ago, as is this quote from President George Washington, the Father of our Nation at his Farewell Address September 19, 1796, “However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

Today is no different than the days of Cicero who died 43 years BC, and Washington who died in 1799.  See the Book of Ecclesiastes.

The Twelve Betrayals

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer believe spending $5 billion for a wall is a waste of money, but $155 billion per year in support to illegals is a human right.  The twelve republicans who went against our President’s wishes to secure our border and protect American citizens from terrorists, drug pushers, child traffickers, MS-13 gangs, and criminal aliens have every excuse in the book, but none of them can withstand the scrutiny of Trump’s supporters.

How many outcries did we hear when past presidents proclaimed multiple national emergencies?  Very few!  Here’s the list all the way back to President Jimmy Carter.

The National Emergencies Act (NEA) (Pub.L. 94–412, 90 Stat. 1255, enacted September 14, 1976, and signed by Republican President Gerald Ford, (codified at 50 U.S.C. § 1601–1651) is a United States federal law passed to end all previous national emergencies and to formalize the emergency powers of the President.

The following twelve Senators who voted against our President’s National Emergency were NeverTrumpers.

The following comments about the Senators who betrayed our President match the order of the photos.  These Senators and more disavow the Republican party platform of pro-life and a border wall, both of which were secured at Republican conventions by Phyllis Schlafly, founder of Phyllis Schlafly Eagles.  These Senators are some of the “Kingmakers” Phyllis spoke about in her book, A Choice Not an Echo.  They are not Constitutional Conservatives.

Sen. Roger Wicker (Mississippi) Wicker said in a statement earlier this week: “The precedent we set this year might empower a future liberal President to declare emergencies to enact gun control or to address ‘climate emergencies,’ or even to tear down the wall we are building today.” Wicker, an Air Force veteran, won re-election comfortably last fall in a state Trump carried by nearly 20 points in 2016.

Sen. Marco Rubio (Florida) Marco used the same excuse as Wicker.  However, in 2011, Rubio hoped to polish his foreign policy credentials for an eventual presidential campaign, and so he thoroughly backed Hillary Clinton’s War on Libya. Following the murder of Gaddafi, Rubio, McCain and Graham celebrated with the rebels they helped to arm, just a year before these rebels attacked the embassy in Benghazi. We know the rest of the story.  And Rubio loved the H-1B Visas for foreign aliens who replaced American workers at Disney World, after they had to train them!  He actually has proposed that we triple the Visas.  Of course, Disney is one of Rubio’s biggest financial boosters.

Sen. Rob Portman (Ohio) Portman had worked with Mike Lee on the compromise resolution. The two-term senator said that while he supported Trump’s request for border wall funding, an emergency declaration is not necessary to secure those funds, and that the declaration would set a “dangerous precedent.”  Sure, protecting Americans from criminal illegals is beyond your understanding.  His association with Mike Lee lets us know Portman is another NeverTrumper.

Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) Ahhh yes, Susan Collins who voted for Justice Kavanaugh, and was applauded.  However, this pro-abort Senator has close ties to both of the Bush presidents.  And now, National Collins-mania reached a frenzy after a recent appearance on Maine Public Radio, in which she seemed to endorse the idea of the Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaing Trump’s tax returns as part of its investigation into ties with Russia.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) Lisa Murkowski is another pro-abort Senator.  The Republican platform is pro-life, but you’d never know it by some of the Republicans in the House and Senate.

Sen. Pat Toomey (Pennsylvania) Toomey replaced Arlen Spector in the Senate.  He is an anti-gunner, he wants laws tightened, as though the guns and the second amendment are the problems.  Democrat Joe Manchin and Toomey joined in a proposal for universal background checks for gun purchases, which failed. He has disagreed with Trump many times, and like the rest of these 12, he claims the National Emergency is a “separation of powers issue.”  It didn’t seem to bother him when used by previous presidents.

Sen. Roy Blunt (Missouri) Blunt claims he too is concerned about the precedent Trump’s National Emergency would set.  Apparently, it didn’t bother Blunt when Presidents Clinton, Bush or Obama used the National Emergency Act which was signed by President Gerald Ford in 1976.  Senator Blunt was a Congressional Representative from 1977 to 2011 when he became a Senator.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) Good old Lamar, the man who joined with our corrupt “Christian Conservative” Governor Bill Haslam, owner of the FBI raided Pilot Oil/Flying J to promote state internet sales taxes.  Senator Alexander agreed with Obama Education Czar Arne Duncan regarding common core standards, and Skinnerian behavioral training in our government schools.  For more information on Alexander, read my four-part article on this neo-con Trotskyite.

Sen. Mitt Romney (Utah) Willard Mitt Romney absolutely hates Donald Trump, despite the fact that Trump endorsed and funded Romney when he ran against Obama in 2012.  Romney’s running mate was former Speaker Paul Ryan, another NeverTrumper.  While Governor of Massachusetts, Romney was ahead of Obama in promoting government-controlled healthcare, which financed abortion with a $50 co-pay and funded abortion statewide through taxpayer monies.  He opposed a Massachusetts Defense of Marriage Constitutional amendment, and said homosexuals should be allowed in the boy scouts.  Governor Romney officially celebrated “Gay-Straight Youth Pride Day,” and sat on the board of directors for a leading purveyor of pornography without opposing the corporation’s exploitation of women.  As for Smart Growth and UN Agenda 21, Romney is all for it.  Link

Sen. Rand Paul (Kentucky) “What is underappreciated is their passion for freedom, and their commitment to ideas.  Unlike many crony capitalists who troll the halls of Congress looking for favors, the Kochs have consistently lobbied against special-interest politics.” The Senator said this right after he announced he was running for President in April of 2015.  I believe Rand’s comments stem from the fact that he may have received Koch funding for his presidential run.

Like the Kochs, Rand Paul is a libertarian, but Rand claims to be pro-life, yet he finds no problem with pro-aborts like the two brothers.  Koch-sponsored libertarianism means open borders, legal dope and prostitution, abortion and gay rights, extreme pornography, an American military withdrawal from the rest of the world, and “free trade” with Russia and China. Link

Senator Paul is promoting a Constitutional Convention as are the Kochs who massively fund American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization who has promoted a con-con for decades, and which was founded by the first President of Heritage Foundation. Link

Sen. Jerry Moran (Kansas) Moran is just like the rest of the neo-cons, he believes the law passed by Congress giving the President National Emergency powers is unconstitutional. Senator Moran voted against President Trump’s 2017 executive order imposing a temporary ban on entry to the U.S. to citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries.  Moran only announced his support for Trump after he became the presumptive nominee.

Sen. Mike Lee (Utah) Lee has never supported Trump and tried his best, along with Ken Cuccinelli, to derail him from becoming the nominee.  Now, Lee has introduced legislation to curb the president’s power to declare a national emergency.  Under Lee’s proposal, if a president were to declare a national emergency, Congress would have to approve it within 30 days or it would automatically expire.

The Senator loves free trade, loves H-1B Visas, and supported legislation that would bring more Muslims into America.  Link  Lee has joined with democrats like Durbin and Schumer to vote against mandatory prison sentences for deported illegal aliens who enter our country again. This bill was in response to the illegal who killed Kathryn Steinle and had re-entered the U.S. five times.

Not a single one of these Republicans are true Constitutional conservatives. Trump vetoed their vote, and this is what he said about his first veto.

Illegal Immigration

President Trump is fighting to protect American citizens from criminal illegal aliens, and from the destruction of this country via the Islamic refugee resettlement programs.  The Socialist Democrat Party fights him at every turn, and many Republicans join with them to derail the President’s promises to the American people.

There is nothing immoral about protecting America’s citizens although the Democrat Party claims it is.  Congress passed the National Emergencies Act during the Ford administration, and nothing in the law says the President can’t use his own judgment in declaring an emergency.

President Trump has publicly warned the governments of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala that if they don’t take steps to stop the latest caravan of bogus asylum invaders, he will cut off aid to the countries. While this is a good first step, it won’t deter the invasion unless we stop admitting the invaders and implementing catch-and-release under orders from illegitimate court rulings, as we did with the previous caravan and countless tens of thousands of others coming in with less pomp. And that would hold true even with a border wall. They just come to our points of entry, surrender themselves, get released into our communities, and never show up to their hearings until and unless they wind up committing crimes.

Our Sovereignty at Risk

Anyone who tells you that the president doesn’t have the authority to exclude anyone for any reason doesn’t deserve to live in a sovereign nation. Sovereignty trumps everything. There is nothing in our statutes that forces the president to admit anyone he feels is a problem. In fact, as Conservative Review has previously noted, he has inherent executive powers from Article II, as well as delegated authority from Congress under existing law, to stop taking in immigrants at the border or through visas for as much time as he deems necessary.

It all boils down to bogus asylum and catch-and-release. Either Trump ends those, or everything else is just talk. While Trump is right to ask Congress to step in, we’ve noted before that the statute is already clear that these people do not qualify as asylees and that the unaccompanied teenagers do not qualify as refugees

As the Supreme Court said in a landmark 1950 case, “The exclusion of aliens is a fundamental act of sovereignty. The right to do so stems not alone from legislative power but is inherent in the executive power to control the foreign affairs of the nation.”

This is why for the first 100 years of our country, immigration was entirely controlled by diplomatic correspondence through the State Department. The president was clearly using this authority when communicating with the leader of the country of origin of this caravan.

Trump can simply shut the door and demand that any legitimate asylum claims be processed through our 10 or so consulates in Mexico.  The president needs to threaten not just Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, but Mexico with diplomatic sanctions.

As Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Daniel Horowitz in an email, “The president should be leaning on Mexico and the sending nations that their facilitation of this problem is immoral, shameful, and will adversely affect our bilateral relationship.”  Link

In declaring a state of emergency pursuant to the NEA, President Trump is using pre-existing statutory authority to address a legitimate crisis created by lawless conduct at and beyond our southern border. Our president is protecting our country’s borders through means contemplated by Congress and used many times by past presidents for matters less directly threatening than those present on the southern border.  Link

Let the Congress critters know what you think and that you support our President!

Global Warming — Science vs Political Science

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Since you have an interest in the Global Warming issue, I’m sending along a current public exchange I’m having with a well-known climatologist. As he publicly disparaged my qualifications to even discuss the AGW matter (!), it should be no problem for a person of such elevated expertise, to win this debate. You decide…

[FYI, if you’re pressed for time, or only have a passing interest in the Global Warming issue, then just look at #7 and #8.]

Here’s a brief chronological history:

1) the Adirondack Park (in upstate NY) is the largest park on the continental US (6 million acres). It is an extraordinary place that has unparalleled natural beauty. I’ve been a lifetime resident of the Park, so I have plenty of first-hand experiences with most of it. As an environmentalist, I’m a Park protector.

2) The Park is overseen by a powerful NYS agency, called the Adirondack Park Agency (APA). They establish a wide assortment of zoning rules, etc. that cover the entire Park. In general these are beneficial. For example, to date, industrial wind energy and solar are both prohibited. Excellent!

3) Political activists are pushing the APA to change their renewable energy restrictions. Their ultimate goal is to get industrial wind energy into the Park. As a feeler, in November the APA proposed this Renewable Energy Policy.

4) I then immediately sent the APA a 12-point objection to their proposal. (I have yet to hear any response back from them.)

5) In addition, to make citizens aware of this profoundly anti-environmental plan, I wrote a layman overview of the situation, which was published in some Adirondack newspapers.

6) After that was seen, I was asked by the editor of the well-respected bi-monthly Adirondack Explorer magazine to submit commentary for a feature they have, where major issues are debated. I submitted the con-piece about the APA’s proposed renewable energy policy. It came out a few weeks ago.

7) A NYS paleoclimatologist, Dr. Curt Stager, took issue with my Adirondack Explorer commentary, and last week got a lengthy op-ed published (attacking my competence, etc.).

8) I just finished a response to Curt’s polemic— and submitted it for publication, today. I’m sharing a slightly longer version with you, as I thought you might like to see a rather impassioned exchange between scientists about some of the key Global Warming issues.

There are multiple things to learn from this exchange. Although this is a moderate amount of reading, it’s an interesting, informative discussion of the Global Warming matter — making some points rarely seen.

Global Warming is THE issue of our times. After reading this you’ll have a much better understanding of this whole matter, and what’s really going on.

Let me know any questions.

As usual, please forward this information to any other open-minded parties you think might profit from it.

RELATED ARTICLE: Media Touts ‘Clear Sign of Human-Caused Climate Change.’ Here Are the Facts.

Fascism: Socialism with a Capitalist Veneer

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As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.)

Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.

Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission.

Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.

Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.

To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing, and fiat money creation. While many of these projects were domestic—roads, buildings, stadiums—the largest project of all was militarism, with huge armies and arms production.

The fascist leaders’ antagonism to communism has been misinterpreted as an affinity for capitalism. In fact, fascists’ anticommunism was motivated by a belief that in the collectivist milieu of early-twentieth-century Europe, communism was its closest rival for people’s allegiance. As with communism, under fascism, every citizen was regarded as an employee and tenant of the totalitarian, party-dominated state. Consequently, it was the state’s prerogative to use force, or the threat of it, to suppress even peaceful opposition.

If a formal architect of fascism can be identified, it is Benito Mussolini, the onetime Marxist editor who, caught up in nationalist fervor, broke with the left as World War I approached and became Italy’s leader in 1922. Mussolini distinguished fascism from liberal capitalism in his 1928 autobiography:

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)

Before his foray into imperialism in 1935, Mussolini was often praised by prominent Americans and Britons, including Winston Churchill, for his economic program.

Similarly, Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist (Nazi) Party adapted fascism to Germany beginning in 1933, said:

The state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property. (Barkai 1990, pp. 26–27)

Both nations exhibited elaborate planning schemes for their economies in order to carry out the state’s objectives. Mussolini’s corporate state “consider[ed] private initiative in production the most effective instrument to protect national interests” (Basch 1937, p. 97). But the meaning of “initiative” differed significantly from its meaning in a market economy. Labor and management were organized into twenty-two industry and trade “corporations,” each with Fascist Party members as senior participants. The corporations were consolidated into a National Council of Corporations; however, the real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Instituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, which held shares in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises, and the Instituto Mobiliare, which controlled the nation’s credit.

Hitler’s regime eliminated small corporations and made membership in cartels mandatory. The Reich Economic Chamber was at the top of a complicated bureaucracy comprising nearly two hundred organizations organized along industry, commercial, and craft lines, as well as several national councils. The Labor Front, an extension of the Nazi Party, directed all labor matters, including wages and assignment of workers to particular jobs. Labor conscription was inaugurated in 1938. Two years earlier, Hitler had imposed a four-year plan to shift the nation’s economy to a war footing. In Europe during this era, Spain, Portugal, and Greece also instituted fascist economies.

In the United States, beginning in 1933, the constellation of government interventions known as the New Deal had features suggestive of the corporate state.

The National Industrial Recovery Act created code authorities and codes of practice that governed all aspects of manufacturing and commerce. The National Labor Relations Act made the federal government the final arbiter in labor issues. The Agricultural Adjustment Act introduced central planning to farming. The object was to reduce competition and output in order to keep prices and incomes of particular groups from falling during the Great Depression.It is a matter of controversy whether President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and, on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.

This article was reprinted with permission from the Library of Economics and Liberty.

COLUMN BY

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the former editor of The Freeman and a contributor to The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. He is the author of Separating School and State: How to Liberate America’s Families and thousands of articles.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission.

Florida: First Generation Pakistani Heart Doctor Defrauded Medicare to the Tune of $2.2 Million

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And, the same newspaper that reported the news from Davenport, Florida had praised him to the heavens just a couple years before in a glowing article about how much the first generation Pakistani doctor was giving back to the community.

Editor: I haven’t written a Medicare fraud story for two weeks, not since this story about the Colorado fugitive Pharmacist! But, I’m glad to focus on one this morning.  Maybe I like these stories because I’m a senior and see around me friends and acquaintances getting all sorts of tests and procedures that strike me as unnecessary and possibly harmful.

I’m also writing it because I like the fact that a 75-year-old patient tipped-off the feds and will be getting a big reward for turning him in!

You don’t often see a photo of the doctor in stories like this, but because The Ledger featured him in a glowing “giving to the community” story in 2016, they had a picture.

So here is the story titled,

Davenport doctor settles health care fraud lawsuit for $2.2M

From The Ledger,

DAVENPORT — A Davenport doctor and his vascular surgery practice paid more than $2.2 million to settle allegations of health care fraud for filing false claims to federal health programs.

According to U.S. Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez in a media release issued by the United States Attorney’s Office Middle District of Florida, Dr. Irfan Siddiqui and the Heart & Vascular Institute of Florida in Davenport violated the False Claims Act by submitting claims from Jan. 2, 2011 to June 30, 2018 for medically unnecessary and non-Medicare reimbursable vein ablations that were up-coded to reflect they were medically necessary so the doctor and the practice would profit.

[….]

In federal case documents filed with the U.S. District Court Middle District of Tampa, the lawsuit said the claims filed by Siddiqui and the medical practice also contained false diagnoses and symptoms, and notes the vein ablation procedures were performed by unqualified personnel, such as ultrasound technologists and therapists, and not the doctor himself.

According to court documents, Lois Hawks, 75, a former patient from Winter Haven, was the plaintiff in the case, represented by Nicholson & Eastin, LLP in Fort Lauderdale. Attorney Robert N. Nicholson said Hawks “is very grateful that the United States Attorney’s Office aggressively pursued her allegations, and that a significant recovery resulted from their efforts.”

Siddiqui’s attorney, Saqib Ishaq, did not respond to emails from The Ledger.

[….]

Civil court documents filed say that Hawks went to Siddiqui with pain and redness in her left ankle. She first visited Siddiqui on Oct. 14, 2014, on a referral from her podiatrist for evaluation and treatment.

Go to The Ledger for an account of what she experienced over the next several months.

The Ledger then wraps with this line,

Hawks received $446,000 as a statutory relator’s share in the recovery.

A press release from the US Justice Department explains that Ms. Hawks received the reward under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.

I wrote about qui tam here.

As a loving friend and family member, keep an eye on those doctors. And, if you suspect fraud involving medicare or medicaid help them report it!  

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

Thought Police (Oops, Medicare) For All

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Preview:  

  • The new Medicare for All bill (H.R. 1384) has come and hopefully will go the way of the pet rock.
  • But as usual, bills contain hidden gems
  • The focus on palliative care and lowering costs by reducing “aggressive” end-of-life treatment is one more incremental under-the-radar step along the road to government control over life and death. A culture of hastening death has gradually evolved, disguised as “death with dignity.”
  • Subtly devaluing life primes the pump for rationing of medical care at all stages by a government-run program that is the exclusive purveyor of medical “benefits.”
  • This year, legislators were not so subtle. It is bad enough that our elderly are pushed into hospice, but now the compassionate legislators have set their sights on newborns. New York passed, and Virginia floated laws that permit the killing of babies after birth.
  • Starting in the 1970s, the federal government clearly saw a need to protect medical personnel from the tyranny of the government mandates that could violate religious or moral convictions.
  • We must not let the government bury our conscience and beliefs under layers of bureaucracy. Medicare for All may mean independent thought for none.

The new Medicare for All bill (H.R. 1384) has come and hopefully will go the way of the pet rock. Everybody now knows the basics: the government will take care of all medical, dental, vision, pharmacy, and long-term care services with no out-of-pocket expenses. The bill prohibits parallel private insurance, and has the glaring absence of a financing mechanism.

But as usual, bills contain hidden gems. Section 104 of the bill tracks the Affordable Care Act’s “anti-discrimination” rule, making it clear that no person can be denied benefits, specifically including abortion and treatment of gender identity issues “by any participating provider.” The bill does not correspondingly reaffirm the federal laws protecting conscience and First Amendment religious freedom rights of medical personnel. Such protections relate to participation in abortion, sterilization, assisted suicide, and other ethical dilemmas.

Most sane individuals agree that we do not want our government to control any aspect of our individual lives—particularly not our religious beliefs and moral codes. When the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sought to clarify such conscience protections, thousands of commenters offered evidence of discrimination and coercion to violate the tenets of the Oath of Hippocrates and their own ethics. Some left their jobs or left the medical profession entirely when their conscientious objections were not honored.

Conscience protections are vital in this time of unabashed devaluing of life. Last year, the Palliative Care and Hospice Education Training Act (PCHETA), passed the House but died in the Senate. This bill would have dedicated $100 million in additional taxpayer dollars to persuade patients to forgo treatment that might prolong life in exchange for a steady stream of increasing doses of narcotics. Already some families feel they are not merely offered hospice as a choice but are steered toward it when their older relatives fall ill, even when the medical prognosis is uncertain.

The focus on palliative care and lowering costs by reducing “aggressive” end-of-life treatment is one more incremental under-the-radar step along the road to government control over life and death. A culture of hastening death has gradually evolved, disguised as “death with dignity.” California, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Montana, Vermont have legalized physician-assisted suicide with 20 other states considering implementing such laws.

Subtly devaluing life primes the pump for rationing of medical care at all stages by a government-run program that is the exclusive purveyor of medical “benefits.” Our western counterparts with single payer have discovered that offering fewer benefits is the simplest way to control costs. The “Complete Lives System”—the brainchild of ObamaCare physician architect Ezekiel Emanuel—includes worrisome determinants of who should receive care. The system prioritizes adolescents and persons with “instrumental value,” i.e., individuals with “future usefulness.”

This year, legislators were not so subtle. It is bad enough that our elderly are pushed into hospice, but now the compassionate legislators have set their sights on newborns. New York passed, and Virginia floated laws that permit the killing of babies after birth. The U.S. Senate garnered only 53 of the 60 votes needed to pass the Born Alive Survivors Protection Act which would mandate medical care and legal protections to infants born alive after an attempted abortion.

Starting in the 1970s, the federal government clearly saw a need to protect medical personnel from the tyranny of the government mandates that could violate religious or moral convictions. Personal liberty is an integral part of our democratic republic. While a physician’s calling is to render treatment to all patients, this is balanced with an individual physician’s moral beliefs. This is no more apparent than in legislation permitting physician assisted suicide and post-delivery “abortions.” Sadly, under threat of discrimination lawsuits, some physicians have acquiesced to patients’ requests for medications and surgical procedures that conflict with their moral code.

As anthropologist, Margaret Mead so brilliantly wrote, “One profession, the followers of [Hippocrates], were to be dedicated completely to life under all circumstances…This is a priceless possession which we cannot afford to tarnish, but society always is attempting to make the physician into a killer—to kill the defective child at birth, to leave the sleeping pills beside the bed of the cancer patient. … It is the duty of society to protect the physician from such requests.”

We must not let the government bury our conscience and beliefs under layers of bureaucracy. Medicare for All may mean independent thought for none.

Trump’s 2020 Budget Seeks More Border Wall Funding, Work Requirements for Welfare

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President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal would eliminate the federal deficit in 15 years, add new work requirements for welfare recipients, and fund additional construction of a border wall.

The reaction to the spending blueprint by Democrats was predictably negative.

The $4.7 trillion proposal, which projects a $1.1 trillion deficit, also asks Congress to cut discretionary spending, something it hasn’t done in recent years, even when under Republican control.

“You mention mandatory spending. It is a driver. We have more reforms than any other president’s budget in history, but, look, what has happened for far too long is that Congress has blamed mandatory spending and then increased discretionary spending, which they have a vote on every single year by large degrees,” Office of Management and Budget acting Director Russ Vought told The Daily Signal on Monday.

The fiscal 2020 spending blueprint cuts non-defense discretionary spending by 5 percent across the board, for a total of $2.7 trillion in savings for taxpayers over 10 years.

The OMB projects a balanced budget by 2034. Deficit spending, now 5 percent of the gross domestic product, would fall to 1 percent by 2029, according to the projections.

“They continue to let a paradigm exist in this country that says for every dollar in defense spending, we’re going to increase nondefense spending by a dollar,” Vought said at a press briefing. “We think we need to break that paradigm. We don’t think that paradigm allows us to get our fiscal house in order.”

Presidents are constitutionally required to present a budget proposal, but such proposals are never enacted as delivered. The document stands as an outline of administration priorities and represents what each department is requesting from Congress.

The budget requests seek $8.6 billion for an additional 722 miles of border wall construction, with $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $3.6 billion for the Defense Department construction budget to go toward the wall.

The budget proposes $478 million to hire and support 1,750 additional law enforcement officers and agents for Customs and Border Protection and for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The budget also would implement a requirement of at least 20 hours a week for work or job training for certain welfare benefits, such as food stamps. Work requirements for recipients in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program was core to the welfare-reform legislation passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, in 1996.

“In terms of work requirements, it’s something that has been viewed as a success since the 1990s. We expand on it,” Vought said. “It is something we have long viewed as important with the same principles of reducing dependency that we saw in TANF and apply them to housing and to food stamps and to Medicaid. … There will be many workforce-development programs that will be funded as part of this budget.”

The Trump budget proposes spending $750 billion for the Defense Department. Of that, $718 billion is for the National Defense Strategy’s efforts to rebuilding readiness and for improving performance and affordability through reform. It also focuses on strategic competition with China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.

It includes $4.8 billion in the Department of Health and Human Services for prevention and treatment programs for opioid abuse.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement Monday the administration’s proposal benefits the “wealthiest 1 percent.”

“After adding $2 trillion to the deficit with the GOP tax scam for the rich, President Trump wants to ransack as much as $2 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid,” she said. “While demanding billions more for his wasteful, ineffective wall, President Trump will steal from students and hungry families, from rural communities and American farmers, from clean air and clean water, and from vital, job-creating investments nationwide.”

The proposal would also limit what Medicare recipients have to pay for prescription drugs. Currently, Medicare has a 5 percent co-pay for high-priced medicines that could cost as much as $1,000 per pill. The dollar amount wasn’t specified.

Vought responded to one question about whether that constituted “cutting Medicare.”

“He’s not cutting Medicare in this budget,” Vought explained. “What we are doing is putting forward reforms that lower drug prices. Because Medicare pays such a very large share of drug prices in this country, this has the impact of finding savings.

“We’re also finding waste, fraud, and abuse. But Medicare spending will go up every single year by healthy margins, and there are no structural changes,” he said.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

Trump’s Budget Reaffirms Commitment to Work-Based Welfare

The Trump Budget: Falling by the Waste Side

Administration Presents President Trump’s Fiscal Year 2020 Budget Request

A Budget for a Better America – whitehouse.gov

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

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez ‘Cheap Seats’ Tweet Reminiscent of Racist ‘Sit At The Back Of The Bus’?

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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democratic Socialist-NY) tweeted the following:

Everyone Who's Never Read A History Book Shocked As Socialist Turns Into Authoritarian At First Whiff Of Power

This tweet is reminiscent of a time when blacks were required to sit at the back of the bus, the cheap seats. This tweet is divisive and hurtful to those who remember Democrats preventing Ruby Nell Bridges Hall a black girl from attending the all white William Frantz Elementary School in Tylertown, Mississippi in 1960, cheap seats. At the time Ross Robert Barnett (Democrat) was the Governor of Mississippi. In a South where Democrats were “in charge.”

It was Dr. Martin Luther King who began shouting from the “cheap seats” to end racial discrimination in America. To end the we versus them mentality that hurt so very many. To judge one another based upon the “content of our character, not the color of our skin.” Today we have a new color – GREEN!

The Green New Deal

Let’s address directly Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s “come up with your own ambitious, on-scale proposal” comment.

America already has a solution. It’s called American ingenuity. It’s called freedom of choice in where we live, what we eat, who is our doctor, how we travel, which house we buy and who we choose to support in our community, state and nationally. It’s called the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. Those guarantees of unalienable rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness come from God, not government.

The Green New Deal is the polar opposite of “cheap seats” because if implemented in its entirety no seats in America will be cheap. They will all be very expensive to the tune of an estimated $70 trillion.

Conclusion

The so called “cheap seats” is a slap in the face of every American, not just those who fought for their rightful seat on a public bus or in a public school. It is Marxism on steroids. It is totalitarian in scope. It allows the federal government to regulate, and thereby control, every aspect of our lives including what seats we sit in.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is now driving the Democratic party’s agenda. She and her Justice Democrat allies are determined to silence any Democrat who disagrees with them.

Ocasio-Cortez even has a black list of any Democrat who votes with the Republicans.

The 2020 elections will be between the ideology of Karl Marx verses the U.S. Constitution. President Trump will be running against Karl Marx in Democratic Party drag.

RELATED ARTICLE: AOC’s List Sees Her Chasing Down Something That Doesn’t Exist: “Moderate” Democrats

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Free-Photos on Pixabay.

The Truth About Immigration Can Unite All Americans

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America has become dangerously polarized and immigration has become one of the most divisive issues.

In this climate of strident and aggressive confrontations, Americans are reluctant to engage in an open discussion. They have been intimidated by the radical left.

Who could ever forget Congresswoman Maxine Waters exhorting her followers to confront members of the Trump administration in public, or New York’s Governor Cuomo vilifying ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents, calling them thugs, inciting attacks on ICE agents.

Providing the truth about immigration would unite all Americans irrespective of their political orientations, in the understanding that border security and fair but effective immigration law enforcement are vital for national security, public safety, the livelihoods and wages of American workers, and a host of other issues.

The acrimonious arguments about immigration are not based on facts but on a fiction created by globalists whose tactics and use of deceptive language come directly from George Orwell’s “1984,” blurring the distinction between illegal aliens and lawful immigrants. This is damaging and insulting to lawful immigrants.

To provide a bit of clarity, the difference between an illegal alien and a lawful immigrant is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar.

We often refer to America as a “nation of immigrants” and, in point of fact, last year the United States, even under the Trump administration that has been falsely accused of being “anti-immigrant,” admitted more than one million lawful immigrants — that is more than the rest of the world combined.

President Jimmy Carter cynically mandated that INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) employees substitute the bogus term “Undocumented Immigrants” for the term “Illegal Aliens.”

The term “Alien” is not a pejorative. It is a legal term that simply means, “Any person, not a citizen or national of the United States.”

Over time Carter’s deceptive language profoundly skewed public perceptions about immigration law enforcement.

I addressed these tactics “sleight of tongue” in my article, “Language Wars: The Road to Tyranny Is Paved with Language Censorship.”

The immigration system has become a highly efficient delivery system that delivers an unlimited supply of cheap and exploitable labor, an unlimited supply of foreign tourists, a nearly unlimited supply of foreign students, and a limitless supply of clients for immigration lawyers.

Consider that a massive amnesty program would not get the illegal aliens “out of the shadows” but into the waiting rooms of immigration law firms across America.

This why both the Democrats and the Republicans claim that since we cannot arrest and deport 11 million illegal aliens, ostensibly, the best “solution” is to provide them with lawful status.

This is a “bait and switch” tactic that takes immigration law enforcement off the table as a means of countering massive levels of immigration law violations, replacing it with a debate about whether to place these heretofore illegal aliens on pathways to citizenship or “only” provide illegal aliens with lawful status, permission to work, and the right to bring their families to the United States.

The Democrats have created Sanctuary Cities and called for dismantling of ICE. However, neither party has ever proposed hiring more ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents to address the immigration crisis. Currently there are about 6,000 ICE agents for the entire United States of America and more than half of ICE’s resources are focused on customs law enforcement and other law violations that have nothing to do with immigration.

Contrast that ridiculous number with the 45,000 employees of the TSA and the NYPD’s more than 37,000 police officers to protect New York City.

Mandatory E-Verify has been proposed but never approved. However, even with mandatory E-Verify, without ICE agents to conduct field investigation, unscrupulous employers could simply successfully hire their illegal workforce “off the books.”

As Americans we all share common goals. We must emphasize those common goals in discussions with our fellow Americans to combat the “divide and conquer” strategies of the globalists of both parties.

All Americans, irrespective of superficial factors such as race, religion, or ethnicity, want our military to keep our enemies as far from our shores as possible, our police to keep our communities safe, and our schools to effectively educate our children so that any child willing to study hard, work hard, and benefit from a bit of luck can write the next success story.

Many decent and compassionate Americans have been conned into believing that those who support secure borders and effective but fair immigration law enforcement are bigots, xenophobes, and racists when nothing could be further from the truth.

Our fellow Americans are not our adversaries but our allies, if we can win them over. The truth, the facts, laws, commonsense, and morality are all on our side.

Effective but fair immigration law enforcement is essential for all of those goals noted above.

Let the fact-based discussions begin!

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images originally appeared on NewsMax. It is republished with permission. The featured image is by Capri23auto on Pixabay.

WARNING: CBD is everywhere, but scientists still don’t know much about it

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Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of roughly 100 chemicals contained in marijuana called cannabinoids, meaning they are unique to the cannabis plant (which contains several hundred more chemicals in addition to cannabinoids). Unlike THC, the psychoactive marijuana component primarily responsible for producing the “high,” CBD is not psychoactive.

Manufacturers tout CBD as a magic bullet that cures or relieves symptoms of a multitude of diseases and conditions and as a “wellness” product that improves health. Hundreds of CBD products — oils, salves, sprays, tinctures, even gummies – are available. But little science supports CBD’s medical claims.

“It is a kind of a new snake oil in the sense that there are a lot of claims and not so much evidence,” says Dustin Lee, an assistant professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. He is planning a clinical trial to see if CBD can help smokers quit.

Last summer. the FDA approved Epidiolex, the only form of pharmaceutical CBD that has met FDA standards of safety and efficacy, to treat two rare forms of epilepsy. Because CBD is a drug, it cannot be sold in food or drinks, and several states and cities have ordered restaurants to stop adding it to “lattes, smoothies, muffins, and other foods.”

That hasn’t stopped producers from selling CBD gummies, lollipops, and peanut butter, however. Google “CBD,” click on “Images,” and scroll sideways to “edibles” to see the wide array of commercial food products available.

Dr. Yasmin Hurd, who directs the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai and is professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, has studied CBD extensively. She says there is potential for CBD to reduce heroin cravings in those recovering from addiction. But “let’s do the research,” she says. “It’s crazy that this substance is being consumed by everybody, yet we still don’t know the mechanism of action.”

Dr. Lee adds that procuring high quality, uncontaminated CBD for research remains a daunting task. “It might be available at the local 7-11 in Pennsylvania, but any product you get on the market is not federally regulated by the FDA, so the purity and safety and quality are questionable.”

A recent study of CBD products ordered online found that nearly 70 percent were inaccurately labeled and contained either higher or lower amounts of CBD than indicated on the label.

Says Dr. Hurd, “People are making it out to be a nirvana kind of drug, and that’s a problem. One compound cannot cure everything.”

Read the New York Times article here.

Limited access marijuana laws for medical use

Here is a table compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Network for Public Health Law that lists the states that have legalized limited access to CBD oils and the amounts of THC they permit them to contain.

CBD can be extracted from both marijuana and hemp. Hemp is the marijuana plant but contains only a minute amount of THC (0.3% — three-tenths of one percent). Any amount of THC over 0.3% is marijuana.

Access Table here.

EDITORS NOTE: The Marijuana Report is a weekly e-newsletter published by National Families in Action in partnership with SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana). Visit National Families in Action’s website, The Marijuana Report.Org, to learn more about the marijuana story unfolding across the nation. Subscribe to The Marijuana Report e-newsletter. The featured images is courtesy of Marijuana Break.

The Income Tax: Still the Root of All Evil

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February 25 is a momentous day in American history. It is the day in 1913 the 16th Amendment took effect.

February 25 is a momentous day in American history. It is the day in 1913 the 16th Amendment, authorizing a federal income tax, took effect with the certification of Secretary of State Philander C. Knox.

Because of the crucial effects the income tax has had on America, one would hope that there would be some serious discussion of it in the media. But that hope is routinely disappointed.

But serious consideration of the effects of the income tax has occurred. For example, in his 1954 book, The Income Tax: Root of All Evil, Frank Chodorov showed how the abrogation of citizens’ property rights by the income tax leads to the expansion of government far beyond reason and corrupts Americans and America’s experiment in liberty in the process. And because Chodorov’s analysis brings us back to first principles, it is worth remembering his understanding of the Constitutional revolution it caused.

“A government is as strong as its income. Contrariwise, the independence of the people is in direct proportion to the amount of their wealth they can enjoy. We cannot restore traditional American freedom unless we limit the government’s power to tax.”

“Trace this wholesale infringement of our rights to the power acquired by the federal government in 1913 to tax our incomes—the Sixteenth Amendment…where the doctrine of natural rights has been all but abrogated in fact, if not in theory.”

“Getting something-for-nothing from government… this trade is often made, and… government is able to enter into it because of its income-tax revenues.”

“The government says to the citizen: ‘Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.'”

“The right of decision as to the disposition of your property rests in the government by virtue of the Sixteenth Amendment…it gives the government a prior lien on all the property produced by its subjects.”

“When the Sixteenth Amendment became part of the Constitution, the American political order, which rested on the axiom of inalienable rights, underwent a major operation.”

“The Constitution of 1789 barred the income tax. The Founding Fathers could not have put it in, even if they had a mind to, and there is no evidence that they had… They had come by freedom the hard way and they meant to hold on to it.”

“A people who remonstrated so vigorously over a measly tea tax could hardly have understood the idea of letting their pockets be picked. The suggestion would have sounded preposterous.”

“In the important matter of taxation, the Constitution quite definitely granted the new government very limited powers: import tariffs and excise taxes… As a consequence, it was a weak government, in the sense that it could not become bothersome; and the freedom of the people made them strong, so that wealth multiplied and the country flourished.”

“On the whole, previous to the Civil War the government of the United States confined itself to the business for which it was created, that of protecting people in the enjoyment of their God-given rights. It should not be forgotten that the Founding Fathers, agreeing with John Locke… thought of government principally as an instrument for safeguarding private property; and that was considered the prime business of the United States government until 1860. The dictum that “all men are created free and equal” held in the matter of taxes… No one, and no group, could be singled out by the government for special spoliation.”

“[The Sixteenth Amendment] was a revolution… every activity of government turned Santa Claus by the income tax.”

“Thus, the immunities of property, body and mind have been undermined by the Sixteenth Amendment. The freedoms won by Americans in 1776 were lost in the revolution of 1913.”

“The Sixteenth Amendment changed our country economically, politically, and morally… the Sixteenth Amendment has widened the area of government power, and as a consequence has reduced the area of liberty.”

“The Internal Revenue Bureau quite sensibly takes the view that every one of us is a potential lawbreaker, as far as the income-tax law is concerned… It has a war against society on its hands, and to win that war it must make use of the artifices of war, such as espionage, deception, and force… If this setting produces corruption, we must look to the law, not to the human beings involved, for cause.”

“Corruption… is simply the inevitable consequence incident to the operation of an immoral law. Of far greater concern is the use of income taxation to undermine the principles of republican government and to make a mockery of our tradition of freedom.”

“The income tax, by transferring the property of earners to the State, has disintegrated the moral fiber of Americans to such a degree that they do not even recognize the fact.”

“The income tax, by attacking the dignity of the individual at the very base, has led to the practice of perjury, fraud, deception, and bribery.”

“With the advent of income taxation, socialism was unavoidable…The more power the government exercises the less freedom will the people enjoy.”

“From the very beginning of the Union it has been customary for Congressmen to try to wangle out of the federal government some special privilege for their more influential supporters, or some appropriation of federal funds for spending in their states… However, before 1913…[but] The manna that fell from Washington was hardly enough to buy up the independence of the states or the votes of their citizens. No candidate for Congress could offer his constituents gifts paid for by the citizens of other states.”

“The ink was hardly dry on the Sixteenth Amendment before the heretofore picayune federal patronage began to blossom… The laws multiplied and the appropriations grew bigger… buying votes with political favors.”

“However, this weakness of democracy is only as dangerous as the amount of the citizens’ wealth the government has at its disposal. Before 1913 the American government was comparatively poor and political jobbery was correspondingly limited in scope. When the government acquired this power of confiscating the national wealth, the corruption was limited only by the amount that expediency would permit it to confiscate.”

“This centralization of power, which the Founding Fathers feared and sought to prevent by constitutional safeguards, is made possible only by income taxation… the atomic bomb that has virtually destroyed the Union.”

“Somehow, a Mississippian sees no immorality in forcing a Pennsylvanian to support his local economy…[but] the immediate beneficiary of federal grants to local projects is the politician who solicits it, and the ultimate beneficiary is the federal bureaucracy. Everybody else pays.”

“The American Revolution was unique in history… because it made possible the establishment of a government based on a new and untried principle, namely, that the government has no power except what the governed have granted it. That was a shift in power that had never occurred before.”

“A new American revolution was initiated in 1913, when the government was invested with the power to confiscate private property… that this power over the economy of the country put into the hands of the American government a means of liquidating the sovereignty of the citizenry.”

“As a result of income taxation, we now have a government with far more power than George III ever exercised… an inevitable consequence of income taxation. The citizen is sovereign only when he can retain and enjoy the fruits of his labor. If the government has first claim on his property he must learn to genuflect before it. When the right of property is abrogated, all the other rights of the individual are undermined, and to speak of the sovereign citizen who has no absolute right of property is to talk nonsense. It is like saying that the slave is free because he is allowed to do anything he wants to do except to own what he produces.”

Those who want others’ money for their purposes meet such complaints with the argument that “taxes are the price we pay for civilized society.” But as Frank Chodorov knew, Oliver Wendell Holmes said that over a century ago, before the income tax could dramatically increase citizens’ burdens, and give us less civilization in exchange.

Certainly, no tax on incomes got into the Constitution. That was unthinkable. A people that had but recently kicked over the traces because of taxes far less onerous would hardly have countenanced an income tax. They knew their freedom.

The general welfare is not improved by the increasing load of taxation. On the contrary, the upward climb of civilization is retarded in exact proportion to the levies.

COLUMN BY

Gary M. Galles

Gary M. Galles

Gary M. Galles is a professor of economics at Pepperdine University. His recent books include Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014) and Apostle of Peace (2013). He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column with images is republished with permission.

Behold, A Green Horse

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“Behold, a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” – Revelation 6:8

The original New Deal (1933-’36) was a series of programs, public works projects, financial reforms and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, designed to rescue the U.S. from the Great Depression.  The artfully-name Green New Deal, proposed by Democrat-socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), is a series of drastic changes designed to divert the US from the path of improvement and greatness set by President Donald J. Trump, and propagate Obama’s disastrous and divisive policies.  

President Trump’s focus on energy has been removing the Obama era’s burdensome energy regulations so that we are now experiencing an unprecedented boom in domestic oil production and energy independence.  We are exporting more oil than importing for the first time in 75 years.   Trump has been so successful, in fact, that Obama has tried to assume the credit in the hope of salvaging his eight years of failure.  The unscientific, childish Ocasio-Cortez endorses the climate change hoax, blaming every winter storm and summer hot spell on corporate America and on cattle with normal gastrointestinal activity.  As clearly clarified by Paul Driessen on cfact, “AOC wants to lead the world in economic suicide, environmental degradation, plummeting living standards, shorter life spans and societal upheaval.“

Her desire to raze, rebuild, and refurbish every building with, allegedly, non-polluting solar or wind-power equipment, would create an insurmountable debt.  Considering the revelation that she is supported by anti-American, globalist and Nazi-sympathizer, George Soros, it may be that she hopes to erase all remnants of our national history, a common aspiration for every tyrannical regime that has not the ability to improve on what others have achieved.  Alexandra has described herself in divisive intersectional terms, as a Puerto Rican descendant of African slaves, Indigenous people, and Spanish colonizers.  She does not call herself an American and seems to have no affinity for the welfare of our country and our fellow-Americans.

It is not uncommon for a conquering power to burn (or replace) books and destroy historic sites and monuments, and to erase their essential cultural knowledge and evidence of existence.  Today we have leftist instructors who have stopped teaching America’s history and Antifa groups and students tearing down our memorial statues, recalling the disposal of artifacts under the Temple Mount, the ruination of the Buddhas of Bamyan, and the damage done to Christopher Columbus images. Every edifice has an architectural style and history that, serving as a memorial to the earlier generations and an inspiration to succeeding ones, we have the duty to protect.  But under the ruse of energy replacement, O-C would demolish all and replace with communist-style, regulated, mean living quarters – if, indeed, she would rebuild anything at all. 

Her plan could well be more sinister. 

Her program calls for the complete cessation of all methods of transportation that rely on fossil fuels, leaving many millions of people jobless in manufacture, warehousing, sales, and product shipments, thereby returning us to the backwardness of previous centuries.  Without air travel, international business becomes virtually impossible.  Without shipping, we could not manufacture or trade with the world.  Without trucks, we would have few internal shipments, including food stuffs.  Without cars, our ability to travel within our own country would come to a standstill, save bicycles, among the most vulnerable in road accidents in China.  O-C proposes a high-speed rail, such as the disastrous Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world-record setting – hair-brained or intentionally meant for financial collapse.

Following O-C’s destruction of cattle, junior Senator Cory Booker (D) would impose his vegan food choices on the rest of the country.  Therefore, in addition to losing cows (beef, milk and all dairy products, and foods that require those ingredients), he opposes chicken and eggs with a misplaced sense of morality, since he clearly does not consider the health and welfare of his fellow citizens.  Neither is he concerned about the inevitable burgeoning prices for other foods that must replace what had been our necessities.  

With O-C’s destruction of the transportation, beef and dairy industries, and Booker’s destruction of the poultry industry, and the various feeds grown for their animals, the number of unemployed would reach an insuperable level.  The burden of feeding the populace would fall on low-wage, labor-intensive grain, vegetable and fruit growers, and be subject to the variations of climate and weather. 

Despite our current all-time low employment achieved under Trump, the better educated, highly skilled might not be employable if O-C’s madness were implemented.  She assures that everyone would be an employee of the government, as pharaoh’s monarchy employed its slave labor.   O-C’s proposed 70- to 90-percent tax rate might also be reasoned as the citizens’ paying themselves.  Our country would become a Welfare State.  

Elizabeth Harrington, in The Washington Free Beacon, assures us that each federal (or monarchial) job comes with:

  • a salary (befitting what lifestyle?)
  • paid vacation (to go where and how?)
  • retirement benefits (at what age, amount, and nature and extent of services?)
  • adequate housing for all (surely not the equal of the elites’ mansions), and
  • access to nature (the land overrun with wild fruit, weeds and garbage, now a food source in Venezuela, and queueing up to obtain necessities with the hope that there will be enough for those strong enough to endure the wait.  Bernie Sanders thinks bread lines are a good thing.)
  • healthy food (barely adequate or generous?  Without the master’s obligation to feed the worker, we would be heading toward the starvation of Stalin’s peasants, or Hitler’s untermenschen, or Pol Pot’s agrarian workforce.)

Again displaying her intersectionality biases, in case life is not Utopian, her plan calls for “reparations for all but white men.”

A review of the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) indicates that Russians rate their housing at 4.8, compared to the US at 8.7; their income at 0.9, compared to the US at 10.0; and their life satisfaction at 4.2, compared to the US at 7.8.  I cannot help but wonder, with some trepidation, where O-C’s Green New Deal would place us.

Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration (WPA) employed millions of unskilled people for construction of public buildings and roads – a storm of great activity and inventiveness.  By grim contrast, O-C’s administration would engage low and unskilled laborers to systematically raze our architectural achievements – edifices designed with the charm of Baroque, Colonial, Neoclassical styles, and more – and replace them with a depressing energy-efficient sameness in every town and city.  The streets would have to be an unimaginable grid of steel tracks to support the massive public transportation system, and a blight of charging stations everywhere for State-approved electric vehicles.

As a set design of the bleakest futuristic Science Fiction films spring to mind, we are being herded to the ever-closer socialist dream of a controlled society, where individual choice is disallowed by the State, and our lives lead unwaveringly to a predetermined destination. 

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EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by christels on Pixabay.