A conservative legal organization is asking the full 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the May ruling of a three-judge panel against school privacy in upholding a Pennsylvania school’s opening of its locker rooms, showers, and restrooms to students of the opposite sex.
“The U.S. Supreme Court has already spoken: The real differences between men and women mean that privacy must be protected where it really counts, and that certainly includes high school locker rooms and restrooms,” Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement.
The alliance, a nonprofit, public interest law firm, and allied attorneys are spearheading the appeal of the May ruling.
During the the 2016-17 school year, Boyertown High School in Boyertown, Pennsylvania, opened its restroom facilities and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex without warning.
On May 24, three judges on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia heard oral arguments over the lawsuit, Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, and subsequently ruled 3-0 against student privacy.
The three were Judges Theodore McKee, appointed by President Bill Clinton; Patty Shwartz, named by President Barack Obama; and Richard Lowell Nygaard, appointed by President Ronald Reagan.
Holcomb said Alliance Defending Freedom is asking for a full-court review in hope that a wider panel of judges will rule in support of students’ privacy.
“The panel’s decision is out of step with long-standing legal protection for privacy,” she said. “That’s why we are asking the full 3rd Circuit to weigh in on the valid concerns of these young students.”
After the 3rd Circuit panel’s ruling, Alexis Lightcap, a senior at Boyertown Area Senior High School and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said the panel’s ruling was a personal affront on her privacy.
“Today’s ruling was very disappointing, and made me feel—again—like my voice was not heard,” Lightcap said. “Every student’s privacy should be protected.”
The American Civil Liberties Union is representing Aidan DeStefano, a transgender student at Boyertown Area Senior High and with the Pennsylvania Youth Congress, a coalition of LGBTQ youth leaders in the case.
“It’s important that trans students are given the opportunity to defend themselves against these shameful attempts to isolate and stigmatize them,” Leslie Cooper, senior staff attorney at the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project, said. “Schools can and should provide extra privacy protections or private restroom or changing areas for any student who requests it. But no student has a right to demand that transgender students be segregated from their peers.”
But Randall Wenger, an attorney allied with Alliance Defending Freedom who is chief counsel at the Independence Law Center, said the case is about protecting all students’ privacy rights.
“No student should be forced into an intimate setting—like a locker room or shower—with someone of the opposite sex,” Wenger said.
“The Boyertown District could have crafted policies that respect the privacy concerns of all students and are also sensitive to the needs of individual students. Instead, the district failed to fulfill its responsibility and harmed students rightfully concerned about their bodily privacy,” he said. “The district must correct its policy—not only for our clients, but for all students within the district.”
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.
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.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Alexis Lightcap who is a plaintiff in the student privacy lawsuit against the Boyertown Area School District. (Photo courtesy of Alliance Defending Freedom)
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Alexis-Lightcap-e1530618617108.jpg375640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-03 07:52:162018-07-03 07:52:16Legal Group Appeals Ruling That Backed Opening School’s Restrooms, Locker Rooms to Transgender Students
Mexico has lowered the legal age of sexual consent to just 12-years-old, becoming the latest nation to give in to pressure from an international liberal network of activists determined to normalize pedophilia and legalize sex with children across the world.
Federal law in Mexico now establishes the age of 12-years as the age of legal consent, while the age at which there are no restrictions for consensual sexual activities is 18-years (sex with someone as young as 12-years is legal, but can be open to prosecution if deceit, force, or an abuse of authority was used.)
The Age of Consent is the legal age at which an individual is considered mature enough to consent to sex. Sexual relations with someone under the Age of Consent are considered statutory rape, even (in some jurisdictions), if both partners are themselves younger than the Age of Consent. To learn more, choose a country from the list below or learn about the highest and lowest ages of consent worldwide.
Note: Those Muslim majority countries who list the age of consent as “must be married” allow underage children to marry to older men in accordance with Islamic (shariah) law.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/pedophelia-e1530545491407.jpg373640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2018-07-02 11:31:412021-07-16 17:56:10A Primary Goal of Leftists is to Lower the Age of Consent for Sex — Pedophilia in Mexico, the Middle East & the European Union
On June 21, 2018 ICE posted a news release, Honduran man pleads guilty to transporting illegal aliens. This successful prosecution was only possible because of the able assistance provided to ICE by a Fairfax County police officer.
Here is an excerpt from this news release:
According to court documents, Danny Josue Zelaya-Ortiz, aka “Jose Castro”, 29, was part of a conspiracy to charge illegal aliens in the United States a fee for transporting them from Texas to other states across the country. In April 2018, Zelaya-Ortiz picked up at least six alien passengers, all of whom had been smuggled into the United States from the Mexico border. Zelaya was driving the passengers towards Maryland and the New York area when his vehicle was stopped in Virginia by Fairfax County Police on April 25, 2018. He was cited for an improper vehicle tag display and driving without an operator’s license. Homeland Security Investigations special agents responded to the scene after it was determined Zelaya-Ortiz and the passengers had no lawful status in the United States. Zelaya-Ortiz admitted he knew the passengers were illegal aliens and that he received payments for his role in the scheme. At the time of the crime, Zelaya-Ortiz had been in the country illegally after having been twice removed by immigration officials.
Before criminals can be successfully prosecuted for their crimes, these law violators obviously must first be identified and evidence of their crimes must be accumulated.
The above-noted case illustrates the importance of routine and effective cooperation between local police and ICE to facilitating federal investigations into immigration law violations. In this instant case Danny Josue Zelaya-Ortiz, aka “Jose Castro,” an illegal alien from Honduras who had been arrested and deported on at least three previous occasions was taken into custody by ICE, along with several illegal aliens he was caught transporting. from the U.S./Mexican border to Maryland and ultimately to New York City.
This illustrates that illegal immigration impacts every state of the United States, from border to border and coast to coast.
Zelaya-Ortiz is also an apparent co-conspirator in an alien smuggling criminal organization. He is subject to prosecution for multiple federal immigration-related crimes including illegal re-entry, which, depending on his possible criminal history, may expose him to a maximum prison sentence of up to 20 years in prison under the provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1326.
Smuggling, transporting, harboring and shielding illegal aliens are felonies under the provisions of 8 U.S.C. § 1324.
The illegal aliens who were also taken into custody in this case, may also have committed various felonies but identifying those possible crimes will fall to the ICE agents who are pursuing this investigation.
Those illegal aliens, for reasons known only to them, had entered the United States surreptitiously without inspection. This in and of itself poses and obvious potential threat to national security and public safety.
The only reason that Zelaya-Ortiz was prosecuted is that a sharp-eyed police officer in Virginia took the initiative to contact ICE.
It is entirely possible that an ensuing investigation may also help ICE to identify the alien smuggling/human trafficking organization with which Zelay-Ortiz conspired.
It has been said that the longest voyage begins with the first step. Often the arrest of a member of a criminal conspiracy may well represent that first step along the path to the ultimate investigation into a massive criminal conspiracy.
To understand just how important this is, consider the following quote from the 9/11 Commission Staff Report 9/11 and Terrorist Travel found on page 61:
Exploring the Link between Human Smugglers and Terrorists
In July 2001, the CIA warned of a possible link between human smugglers and terrorist groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.149 Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that since 1999 human smugglers have facilitated the travel of terrorists associated with more than a dozen extremist groups.150 With their global reach and connections to fraudulent document vendors and corrupt government officials, human smugglers clearly have the “credentials” necessary to aid terrorist travel.
In this dangerous post-9/11 era we are frequently implored by our political leaders, “If you see something, say something.”
The idea is that because of a shortage of law enforcement officers, civilians must act as the “eyes and ears” of the police to augment the often sparse numbers of law enforcement officers.
This is an effective and obviously commonsense approach to law enforcement and public safety. However mayors of Sanctuary Cities prohibit law enforcement officers under their jurisdiction from applying that approach when they encounter those who violate our nation’s immigration laws, despite the fact that both the 9/11 Commission Reportand the official report prepared by the 9/11 Commission staff, 9/11 and Terrorist Travel repeatedly noted that multiple failures of the immigration system not only enabled the 9/11 hijacker-terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves, but was a major fact in other international terrorists found in the United States that the 9/11 Commission studied.
Additionally, in the years since the attacks of 9/11 a list of other foreign terrorists operating in the United States also exploited multiple failures of the immigration system.
Although mayors of Sanctuary Cities claim to be acting “compassionately” to protect “immigrants” from immigration law enforcement, in reality, lawful immigrants and nonimmigrant aliens such as tourists and foreign students need no “protection” from ICE as long as they abide by the terms of their respective admissions into the United States.
The only aliens who should be concerned about immigration law enforcement are those who violate those laws.
By prohibiting their police officers from cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement authorities mayors of Sanctuary Cities undermine the Constitution, the rule of law, public safety and national security. They place the law enforcement officers who operate under their command in the untenable position of having to violate their oaths of office.
By falsely, recklessly and maliciously portraying ICE agents and other law enforcement personnel who are engaged in the enforcement of our immigration laws, as “terrorists,” endangers the safety of those agents and their families as we have seen in recent news reports, and may compromise and obstruct their efforts to enforce our immigration laws- fundamental to national security and public safety.
The open hostility shown towards ICE agents by a laundry list of anarchist politicians on all levels of government, is also likely to have a chilling effect, inhibiting citizens and aliens alike from cooperating with ICE agents and reporting immigration crimes that result in the exploitation of aliens as well as the presence of foreign terrorists and transnational criminals.
This is certainly contrary to commonsense, morality and the well being of America and Americans.
In reality, the only individuals who are being protected by these insane and illegal policies are transnational criminals, international terrorists and international fugitives from justice. However, this creates a virtual “free fire zone” for innocent people, often the ethnic immigrants, who live in the various ethnic immigrant communities around the United States all too often fall victim to the predatory crimes of these pernicious aliens who infest those beleaguered communities because they were shielded from discovery by ICE although they should have been removed from the United States.
Where criminal aliens are concerned, the surest way of effectively dealing with recidivism is deportation!
Conversely, synergistic cooperation between local police with ICE agents and other immigration law enforcement personnel can be a highly effective force-multiplier to combat dangerous crimes that may well have far-reaching consequences.
This coming election the question that must be asked by the electorate is simple and straight-forward, “Does the candidate stand with Americans or with transnational gangs and international terrorists?”
President Donald Trump called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act an “economic miracle” as he marked the reform package’s six-month anniversary during a White House event Friday.
“At last, our country finally has a tax system that is pro-job, pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-American,” Trump said.
The $1.5 trillion tax reform law cut the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent, the highest in the world, to 21 percent, in line with other developed nations. It also lowered the top individual rate from 39.6 percent to 37 percent, eliminated brackets, and closed loopholes.
“It’s my great honor to welcome you back to the White House to celebrate six months of new jobs, bigger paychecks, and keeping more of your hard-earned money where it belongs: in your pocket or wherever else you want to spend it,” Trump said.
During his remarks, Trump recognized Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James and others in the audience for helping push what so far has been his signature legislative achievement through Congress in late 2017.
Trump pointed out not a single Democrat voted for the reform. He also said deregulation might have had as much to do with growing the economy $7 trillion.
“The typical family of four earning $75,000 will see an income tax cut of more than $2,000, and in some cases much more, slashing their tax bill in half,” Trump said. “We cut taxes for businesses of all sizes to make this the best place on earth to start a business, to invest. We have billions and billions of additional revenue coming in.”
Trump asserted more than 100 utility companies cut prices as a result of the tax cut, “saving Americans $3 billion on their utility bills.”
Trump again noted unemployment claims are at a more than four-decade low, and again cited historic low unemployment rates for blacks and Hispanics, a frequent theme in his speeches.
He added women are about to join that historic category.
“Unemployment for women, if you listened to my speech two weeks ago, you would have heard me say it’s the lowest in 21 years,” Trump said. “Now I’m saying it’s the lowest in 65 years and soon will be the lowest in history.”
The economy appears to be doing very well, said Adam Michel, tax policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, noting some of the same employment numbers as the president.
“Even more impressive is that in the first quarter of 2018, investment—the bedrock of economic growth—increased by more than 21 percent among companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index, compared with the same quarter in 2017,” Michel told The Daily Signal. “The good economic news only accounts for some small part of tax reform’s benefits, there is much more to come as businesses and individuals start to realize how the new law allows them to expand, hire, and invest even more.”
Trump also framed these changes as part of his larger reform agenda.
“Commonsense is being restored in Washington once again because hardworking Americans are in charge of their government once again. Washington tried to change us,” Trump said. “That’s not going to happen. Instead, we’re changing Washington and we are changing it quickly and for the better.”
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.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Toya Sarno Jordan/CNP/Newscom.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/6mo-taxReform-1250x650-e1530530839832.jpg375640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-07-02 07:27:312018-07-02 07:27:31Trump Celebrates 6 Months of ‘New Jobs, Bigger Paychecks, and Keeping More of Your Hard-Earned Money’
On Friday, President Donald Trump announced the addition of five individuals to his outstanding list of potential candidates for a future Supreme Court vacancy.
As was the case with the lists Trump put out during his presidential campaign, these new additions to the list are conservative men and women who are committed to interpreting the Constitution according to its original public meaning.
While there are currently no vacancies on the Supreme Court, rumors abound that Justice Anthony Kennedy may retire in the near future. Here’s a look at the new names.
Amy Barrett
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit Age: Approximately 45
Barrett, a former University of Notre Dame law professor, was recently confirmed to the 7th Circuit. After graduating from Rhodes College and Notre Dame Law School, Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman on the D.C. Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
She then worked in private practice (where she was part of the team that represented George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore) before starting her career in academia, teaching briefly at George Washington University and the University of Virginia before joining the Notre Dame Law faculty in 2002.
Barrett is a prolific writer, having published in leading law reviews across the country on topics including originalism, federal court jurisdiction, and the supervisory power of the Supreme Court.
In 2010, Chief Justice John Roberts appointed her to the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure, where she served for six years.
At her confirmation hearing in September, Senate Democrats chided her for her writings as a law student in 1998 and asked inappropriate questions about her Catholic faith. But Barrett received robust bipartisan support from the legal community, including from Neal Katyal, a prominent liberal who served as President Barack Obama’s acting solicitor general.
Britt Grant
Justice, Supreme Court of Georgia Age: Approximately 39
Appointed to Georgia’s highest court by Gov. Nathan Deal in 2016, Grant previously served as the state’s solicitor general and in other capacities in the state attorney general’s office. She also worked in the George W. Bush administration, serving on the Domestic Policy Council and the Office of Cabinet Affairs.
Grant began working at the White House weeks before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and after that horrific day, her mission became making government “as effective as it can be and as protective of liberty as it can be.”
Earlier in her career, she served as an aide to then-Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., on Capitol Hill, clerked for Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the D.C. Circuit, and worked in private practice at Kirkland & Ellis, one of the top appellate law firms in Washington, D.C.
She is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Wake Forest University.
In a letter recommending her appointment to the state’s high court, Kavanaugh praised Grant’s “superb” writing, which is “[o]ne of the most important duties” of judges. In her 11 months on the bench, she’s heard numerous cases and displayed her excellent writing abilities.
In a recent decision reinstating criminal charges against a woman who secretly filmed her boss in the nude, Grant wrote a special concurrence agreeing with the judgment but not the reasoning of the majority. The majority analogized a state law criminalizing “hostile intrusion or surveillance” by a private party with the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. She explained, “[t]he statute cannot bear the weight that the Fourth Amendment puts on it when addressing the behavior of private parties and not of the government” and that it “addresses a privacy interest quite different than the one that we all share against government search and seizure.”
Brett Kavanaugh
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Age: 52
A former clerk for Justice Anthony Kennedy and graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, Kavanaugh worked as a senior associate counsel and assistant to President George W. Bush and as an associate independent counsel.
He was nominated to the D.C. Circuit in 2003 but not confirmed until 2006.
Former Attorney General William Barr stated that Kavanaugh “quickly established himself as one of the key outside lawyers I went to on some of my toughest legal issues. He has a keen intellect, exceptional analytical skills, and sound judgment. His writing is fluid and precise. I found that he was able to see all sides of an issue and appreciate the strengths and weakness of competing approaches. He was particularly effective in dealing with novel issues which required some original thinking.”
Kavanaugh recently delivered the annual Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture at Heritage—joining the ranks of Justice Clarence Thomas and many other renowned federal judges. He spoke eloquently about the judiciary’s essential role in maintaining the separation of powers.
Judge, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit Age: Approximately 45
Kevin Newsom, former all-star appellate lawyer, was confirmed to the 11th Circuit in August. After graduating from Samford University and Harvard Law School, Newsom clerked for Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain on the 9th Circuit and Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court. He then worked in private practice before serving as Alabama’s solicitor general.
After five years of government service, Newsom went back to private practice where he became a partner at Birmingham’s Bradley Arant.
Before joining the bench, Newsom had an extensive Supreme Court practice, arguing four cases at the high court and authoring dozens of cert. petitions and amicus briefs. Newsom has won countless awards for his work, including the National Association of Attorneys General’s Best Brief Award four times.
He has argued more than 30 cases in federal appellate courts across the country as well as in Alabama’s appellate courts. In 2011, Roberts, the chief justice, appointed Newsom to the Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules.
Patrick Wyrick
Justice, Supreme Court of Oklahoma Age: 36
Patrick Wyrick is the youngest person on the Trump list, at 36 years old. Then again, Joseph Story was only 32 when he was nominated by President James Madison to serve as an associate justice to the Supreme Court, a position in which he served with great distinction for nearly 34 years.
Wyrick was appointed to the Oklahoma Supreme Court last February, after serving as the state’s solicitor general for six years.
As solicitor general, Wyrick argued cases before the Oklahoma Supreme Court, and also successfully argued Glossip v. Gross (a case challenging the constitutionality of lethal injection) before the U.S. Supreme Court.
A graduate of the University of Oklahoma and that school’s College of Law, Wyrick clerked for U.S. District Court Judge James Payne.
When Wyrick was nominated to the Oklahoma Supreme Court, then-State Attorney General Scott Pruitt described Wyrick as “a superb lawyer” and “a constitutional scholar well-versed in both state and federal law … ” He added that Wyrick’s “wisdom, compassion, and integrity are unparalleled among the many public servants with whom I’ve had the pleasure of working.”
In his short time on the bench, Wyrick has written some noteworthy opinions, including the majority opinion in a case striking down a fee that the Oklahoma Legislature imposed on cigarette companies for violating a provision in the Oklahoma Constitution that sets forth the procedures that must be followed before enacting a “revenue raising” measure.
Although young, Wyrick’s meteoric legal career could ultimately land him on the high court.
We commend the president for taking the utmost care in continuing to identify outstanding individuals to serve on all levels of the federal bench.
John G. Malcolm is the vice president of the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, overseeing The Heritage Foundation’s work to increase understanding of the Constitution and the rule of law. Read his research. Twitter: @malcolm_john.
Elizabeth Slattery writes about the proper role of the courts, judicial nominations, and the Constitution as a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. She co-hosts SCOTUS101, a podcast about everything that’s happening at the Supreme Court. Twitter: @EHSlattery.
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.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Trump9-1250x650-e1530181972639.jpg364640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-06-28 06:38:572018-06-28 06:44:40Meet These 5 Stellar Conservatives Trump Just Added to His Supreme Court List
“California’s extending rights by becoming a sanctuary state to people who are not even legal residents of the United States. Who didn’t even enter the country legally. While your Second Amendment rights are being whittled away and police officers are being attacked.” —Dan Bongino
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/california-blue-flag.jpg338600NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2018-06-25 20:12:332018-06-25 20:12:33California Giving Rights to Illegals, Taking Them Away From Gun Owners
I was on an ABC panel last night debating President Trump’s tariff policies with a Democratic politician and a left-of-center university economist when something very interesting emerged: They both agreed that China is a bad player in trade and that it should be forced into more fair trade with the U.S.
All three of us agreed on a major Trump policy. That left the moderator a bit bewildered, and for good reason. It’s a pretty amazing development considering getting agreement on the sky being blue is nearly impossible in today’s environment. But just as surprising and largely uncovered, it is supported by a substantial majority of Americans, if you move past the media spin.
An April poll by Luntz Global Partners found that 62 percent of Americans agree with Trump’s attempt to use tariffs, believing that the risks are worth it to get better trade deals. That includes more than one-third of Democrats and a huge majority of Republicans.
“Voters don’t buy the ‘fear-factor’ that jobs are at-risk, instead agreeing that Trump’s tariffs are both ‘necessary,’ and in the words of Senator Sherrod Brown, ‘long overdue,’” said Alyssa Salvo, president of Luntz Global Partners. Brown is a Democrat from Ohio — a state that stands to gain a lot from better trade policies with China.
Showing a more shrewd understanding of tariffs than a lot in the media, the Luntz poll found that 56 percent of Americans expected that the tariffs would have some negative effects — because of course they will, short-term, at least on consumers on certain products.
The media insists that Trump’s tariffs are launching a terrible and dangerous trade war and wonder why Republicans no longer support free trade. As I mentioned at that point on the ABC panel, we do not have free trade with China and have not for decades. Too many presidents paid minimal lip service to the Chinese tariffing cars at 25 percent among most other products, blackmailing American companies to give up trade secrets to enter the Chinese market and just flat out stealing American technology.
They have not been a trade partner, but a trade enemy.
Trump has rightly identified this problem that a broad cross-section of Americans also identify, and is trying to fix it, of which Americans also largely approve. President Obama didn’t really give a fig about American industry; his attention was elsewhere focused on destructive identity politics and socialized health care.
What is surprising is that perhaps a growing number of Democrats (not in Washington, that’s a lost cause) are coming to see the problem with China. Only forceful actions will change it. Talk alone will not.
Tariffs are neither good or evil. They just are. If they are used to protect certain industries or companies in perpetuity, then they are bad. China does that as well as several European Union countries and Canada — just on much smaller scales than China. But if tariffs are used as a short-term leveraging tool — particularly when done by the bigger importing country — then they are good.
Of course, the U.S. can and likely will win any trade skirmish with China, or Europe, for that matter. Remember, the U.S. is not just the biggest economy, its the biggest shopper — by far. That means in every trade war with countries with which we have a trade deficit, we have the upper hand in a tariff war. The bigger the deficit, the bigger the upper hand.
The U.S. has the largest trade deficit with China, by far, and China cannot come close to matching us tariff for tariff because they already have high tariffs that have kept a lot of U.S. companies out. Which means, their companies and economies get hurt much more than ours, because they have largely been either gaming the system or downright cheating.
This emerging reality has one more meaning: It’s good politics. Tariffs on steel, cars can help heavy manufacturing states, particularly in those that Trump swung from the Democrat column, such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. There may be a mix of short-term pain and gain, but should be long-term gain. And it demonstrates he’s actually fighting for blue-collar American workers, voters that identity-poisoned Democrats have walked away from.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.The featured image is by Gage Skidmore / CC BY-SA 2.0.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Trump-China-trade-MGN-e1529840923174.jpg380640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-06-24 07:49:192018-06-24 07:49:19Is There Emerging Support For Trump Tariff Policies Toward China?
Little is as unnerving as trouble with the IRS, especially if you haven’t done anything wrong. That happened repeatedly during the Obama administration, as his IRS enthusiastically targeted conservative groups.
We’re now understanding why the Congress didn’t do much of anything about it.
We just released internal IRS documents revealing that Sen. John McCain’s Former Staff Director and Chief Counsel on the Senate Homeland Security Permanent Subcommittee, Henry Kerner, urged top IRS officials, including then-director of exempt organizations, Lois Lerner, to “audit so many that it becomes financially ruinous.” President Trump, presumably unaware of these new facts, appointed Kerner as Special Counsel for the United States Office of Special Counsel.
The explosive exchange was contained in notes taken by IRS employees at an April 30, 2013, meeting between Kerner, Lerner, and other high-ranking IRS officials. Just ten days following the meeting, Lois Lerner admitted that the IRS had a policy of improperly and deliberately delaying applications for tax-exempt status from conservative non-profit groups.
Lerner and other IRS officials met with select top staffers from the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee in a “marathon” meeting to discuss concerns raised by both Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) that the IRS was not reining in political advocacy groups in response to the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Senator McCain had been the chief sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act and called the Citizens United decision, which overturned portions of the Act, one of the “worst decisions I have ever seen.”
In the full notes of an April 30 meeting, McCain’s high-ranking staffer Kerner recommends harassing non-profit groups until they are unable to continue operating. Kerner tells Lerner, Steve Miller, Nikole Flax, then chief of staff to IRS commissioner, and other IRS officials, “Maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous.” In response, Lerner responded that “it is her job to oversee it all:”
Henry Kerner asked how to get to the abuse of organizations claiming section 501 (c)(4) but designed to be primarily political. Lois Lerner said the system works, but not in real time. Henry Kerner noted that these organizations don’t disclose donors. Lois Lerner said that if they don’t meet the requirements, we can come in and revoke, but it doesn’t happen in a timely manner. Nan Marks said if the concern is that organizations engaging in this activity don’t disclose donors, then the system doesn’t work. Henry Kerner said that maybe the solution is to audit so many that it is financially ruinous. Nikole noted that we have budget constraints. Elise Bean suggested using the list of organizations that made independent expenditures. Lois Lerner said that it is her job to oversee it all, not just political campaign activity.
We previously reported on the 2013 meeting. Senator McCain then issued a statement decrying “false reports claiming that his office was somehow involved in IRS targeting of conservative groups.” The IRS previously blacked out the notes of the meeting, but we found the notes among subsequent documents released by the agency.
We separately uncovered that Lerner was under significant pressure from both Democrats in Congress and the Obama DOJ and FBI to prosecute and jail the groups the IRS was already improperly targeting. In discussing pressure from Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Democrat-Rhode Island) to prosecute these “political groups,” Lerner admitted, “it is ALL about 501(c)(4) orgs and political activity.”
The April 30, 2013 meeting came just under two weeks prior to Lerner’s admission during an ABA meeting that the IRS had “inappropriately” targeted conservative groups. In her May 2013 answer to a planted question, in which she admitted to the “absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate” targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups, Lerner suggested the IRS targeting occurred due to an “uptick” in 501 (c)(4) applications to the IRS but in actuality, there had been a decrease in such applications in 2010.
On May 14, 2013, a report by Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration revealed: “Early in Calendar Year 2010, the IRS began using inappropriate criteria to identify organizations applying for tax-exempt status” (e.g., lists of past and future donors). The illegal IRS reviews continued “for more than 18 months” and “delayed processing of targeted groups’ applications” in advance of the 2012 presidential election.
All these documents were forced out of the IRS as a result of an October 2013 Judicial Watch Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the IRS after it failed to respond adequately to four FOIA requests sent in May 2013 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Internal Revenue Service (No. 1:13-cv-01559)). Judicial Watch is seeking:
All records related to the number of applications received or related to communications between the IRS and members of the U.S. House of Representatives or the U.S. Senate regarding the review process for organizations applying for tax exempt status under 501(c)(4);
All records concerning communications between the IRS and the Executive Branch or any other government agency regarding the review process for organizations applying for tax exempt status under 501(c)(4);
Copies of any questionnaires and all records related to the preparation of questionnaires sent to organizations applying for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status and;
All records related to Lois Lerner’s communication with other IRS employees, as well as government or private entity outside the IRS regarding the review and approval process for 501 (c)(4) applicant organizations.
The Obama IRS scandal is bipartisan – McCain and Democrats who wanted to regulate political speech lost at the Supreme Court, so they sought to use the IRS to harass innocent Americans. The Obama IRS scandal is not over. We continue to uncover smoking gun documents that raise questions about how the Obama administration weaponized the IRS, the FEC, FBI, and DOJ to target the First Amendment Rights of Americans.
JW Sues for Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissmann’s Text Messages
This week we learned that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein hid from Congress a text message by FBI official Peter Strzok declaring that Trump wouldn’t become President:
“No. No he’s not. We’ll stop it.”
The highly partisan Strzok became a lead player in Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation of Donald Trump. Also, and still, in the lead is Andrew Weissmann, a senior deputy for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and a former chief of the Justice Department criminal Fraud Division.
Now the question is: What was Weissmann saying about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton? We will find out.
Our legal team just filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit asking the court to compel the Department of Justice to produce “all text messages to or from DOJ official Andrew Weissmann” regarding President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-01356)).
We sued after the DOJ failed to respond to our December 15, 2017, FOIA request for:
All text messages sent to or from DOJ official Andrew Weissmann regarding Donald Trump and/or Hillary Clinton between August 8, 2016 and the present.
All calendar entries, whether in physical or electronic form, for Weissmann from January 1, 2015 to the present.
We’re not at all surprised that the Justice Department didn’t respond, given its deplorable record of transparency.
Weissmann’s objectivity in Mueller’s investigation was called into question in December 2017 when a separate JW FOIA lawsuit uncovered an email Weissmann wrote praising former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for defying Trump on enforcement of the President’s so-called travel ban.
Weissmann wrote to Obama appointee Yates in the email: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects.” President Trump fired Yates over her refusal to defend the policy. Yates was appointed by President Obama and was serving in an acting capacity as Attorney General for President Trump.
Also in December 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported that Weissmann had been in attendance at Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election night party. According to the Washington Post, Weissman contributed more than $4,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008 and $2,300 to the Clinton campaign in 2007.
Weissmann, described by The New York Times as Mueller’s “pit bull,” is the lead prosecutor in the Mueller team’s case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort.
Weissmann is demonstrably an anti-Trump/pro-Clinton activist. And it is suspicious that the Justice Department refuses to turn over any Weissmann text messages, especially given the anti-Trump bias documented in the FBI”s Strzok-Page texts.
Judicial Watch Seeks Obama-Era Records on Refugee Resettlement Sites
While the professional Left has successfully diverted everyone’s attention to a manufactured crisis involving illegal alien children on our Southern border, we are investigating other ways people flow into our country.
In particular, we continue to look at the UN-sponsored refugee program that has brought dangerous people across our borders. During the Obama administration, pro-refugee officials in several places gamed this system to disguise their intent.
We have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for records on sites that were considered for the resettlement of refugees in the United States during the last two years of the Obama administration. (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:18-cv-01244))
We sued after the State Department failed to respond to our February 23, 2017, FOIA request for:
All records reflecting the locations within the United States that were considered as possible sites for refugee resettlement under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) in 2015 and 2016.
All records reflecting the criteria used to determine suitability of locations as refugee resettlement sites in 2015 and 2016.
All records reflecting the names of local organizations promoting any of the locations identified above for consideration as refugee resettlement sites.
In October 2016 we made public 128 pages of documents we obtained from the mayor of Rutland, Vermont, showing a concerted effort by the mayor and a number of private organizations to conceal from the public their plans to resettle 100 Syrian refugees into the small southern Vermont town. The mayor and resettlement organizations shrouded the plan in such secrecy that not even the town’s aldermen were informed of what was taking place behind closed doors. The aldermen eventually wrote to the U.S. Department of State protesting the plan and opened an investigation into the mayor’s actions.
The State Department says it currently works with nine nonprofit organizations to resettle refugees. Those nonprofits have about 315 affiliates in 180 communities throughout the U.S.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the U.S. admitted 84,994 refugees during fiscal year 2016, just short of the 85,000 target set by the Obama administration. The U.S. admitted 16,370 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 12,587 from Syria, 12,347 from Myanmar, 9,880 from Iraq and 9,020 from Somalia. Pew Research reports that nearly 39,000 Muslim refugees entered the U.S. in fiscal year 2016, the highest number on record, according to analysis of data from the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center.
In fiscal year 2015, the U.S. reportedly admitted 70,000 refugees. The Obama administration also proposed admitting 110,000 refugees for fiscal year 2017.
President Donald Trump on January 27, 2017 issued Executive Order 13769, which included a suspension of the USRAP for 120 days. There were 29,022 refugees reportedly admitted to the U.S. in 2017 – the lowest number since 2002.
In a July 2017 report on the refugee applicant screening process and associated fraud risks, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted that, “Increases in the number of USRAP applicants approved for resettlement in the United States from countries where terrorists operate have raised questions about the adequacy of applicant screening.”
We are suing to find out which towns across America were, without input and over the objections of residents, targeted for refugee settlements by the Obama administration.
And to make sure the Deep State isn’t up to its usual tricks, we are investigating to make sure now that the current State Department is being more transparent and honest in its placement of refugees.
The Strange Case of McAuliffe & McCabe — Another Clinton/FBI Scandal
You won’t hear from this from the liberal media, but the IG report is chock full of facts and scandal leads that go way beyond Clinton emails and the “get Trump” fever that overtook the FBI leadership. As our own Micah Morrison points out in his latest Investigative Bulletin piece, raises more questions about other players in the Clintons’ orbit:
Every student of American politics knows that Terry McAuliffe is that swampiest of swamp creatures, the cool cat with the big bucks. Al Gore called him “the greatest fundraiser in the history of the universe.” In 1996 alone, as national finance chairman of the Clinton-Gore re-election team, McAuliffe raised $50 million, but plunged the Democratic Party into a sweeping campaign-finance scandal involving the sale of sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom, coffee klatches at the White House, a vast cast of sketchy characters and rivers of money. The Clintons loved the ebullient money man and he loved them back. By 1999, McAuliffe claimed to have raised nearly $275 million for the Arkansas couple—and that’s before he joined forces with the Clinton’s 21st century money machine, the Clinton Foundation and Clinton Global Initiative. In 2000, he was named chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In 2008, he chaired Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In 2013, with enthusiastic support from the Clintons, he ran for governor of Virginia and won.
By 2015, Governor McAuliffe already was “shaping a significant role for himself” in Mrs. Clinton’s second try at the presidency, Politico reported. A “consummate political animal, [McAuliffe] just can’t keep his fingers away from the flame. Despite the daily demands of running the state…he’s emerging as Hillary’s informal liaison to governors and the party’s biggest donors, while also keeping a finger on the pulse of the camp’s central operations in Brooklyn.”
By contrast, even today, in the wake of hundreds of media stories and last week’s Office of Inspector General report on alleged wrongdoing in the 2016 election, few people will recognize the name Andrew McCabe. He’s a swamp inhabitant too, though many would put him on the right side of the swamp, on dry land, chasing the bad guys. Except that’s not quite how it turned out.
Many of the McCabe details in the OIG report will come as no surprise to Judicial Watch followers. We’ve been uncovering facts about the McCabe affair for over a year. Read about our efforts here, here, and here.
A useful timeline in the OIG report sketches the McCabe-McAuliffe saga—a swamp tale of a particular sort. In 2014, McCabe, a rising star at the FBI, is assistant director of the bureau’s Washington, DC, field office. His wife is a pediatrician in Virginia. Terry McAuliffe is governor.
In February 2015, Dr. McCabe receives a phone call from Virginia’s lieutenant governor. Would she consider running for a state senate seat?
Less than two weeks later, in March 2015, McCabe and his wife drive to Richmond for what they thought was a meeting with a Virginia state senator to discuss Dr. McCabe’s possible run for office.
In Richmond, according to the OIG report, they are told there had been “a change of plans” and that “Governor McAuliffe wanted to speak to Dr. McCabe at the Governor’s mansion.”
It’s around this time that a veteran FBI agent’s radar might start blinking.
McCabe and his wife meet with McAuliffe for 30 to 45 minutes, according to the OIG report. Fundraising was discussed. “Governor McAuliffe said that he and the Democratic Party would support Dr. McCabe’s candidacy.” McAuliffe asked McCabe about his occupation and “McCabe told him he worked for the FBI but they did not discuss McCabe’s work or any FBI business.” McCabe later described it to an FBI official as a “surreal meeting.”
After the meeting, the couple rode to a local event with the governor, then returned to the mansion with the governor to retrieve their car.
McCabe informed FBI ethics officials and lawyers about the meeting and consulted with them about his wife’s plans. No one raised strong objections. McCabe recused himself from all public corruption cases in Virginia and Dr. McCabe jumped into the race.
In July 2015, the FBI opened an investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s email practices.
Let’s pause to note here that while the official FBI investigation was opened in July 2015, Mrs. Clinton was known to be in hot water as far back as March 2015, when the State Department inspector general revealed her widespread use of a private, non-government email server.
Swamp cats will notice that March 2015 is also when Andrew and Jill McCabe got their surprise audience with McAuliffe, the longtime Clinton money man.
The McCabe fortunes rose in the autumn of 2015. Mr. McCabe was promoted to associate deputy director of the FBI. Dr. McCabe received $675,000 from two McAuliffe-connected entities for her state senate race. They were by far the biggest donations to her campaign.
In November 2015, Dr. McCabe lost her race.
In January 2016, the FBI opened an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.
On February 1, Mr. McCabe was promoted again, to deputy director of the FBI.
Despite the McAuliffe connection, the OIG report notes, there was no FBI re-evaluation of McCabe’s recusals following his promotions. Although recused from Virginia public corruption investigations, he retained a senior role in Clinton-related matters.
In May 2016, news broke that McAuliffe was under FBI investigation for campaign finance violations. CNN reported that investigators were scrutinizing “McAuliffe’s time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative” and Chinese businessman Wang Wenliang, a U.S. permanent resident who made large donations to both the McAuliffe 2013 gubernatorial campaign and to the Clinton Foundation.
On October 23, the Wall Street Journal revealed the McAuliffe-linked donations to Dr. McCabe’s campaign. At FBI headquarters, McCabe resists pressure from senior executives to recuse himself from all Clinton-related matters.
Finally, on November 1—a week before the presidential election — McCabe recused from the Clinton email and Clinton Foundation investigations.
Following James Comey’s dismissal in May 2017, McCabe was briefly acting director of the FBI—the most powerful law enforcement position in the land. Following the appointment of Chris Wray as director, McCabe returned to the deputy director position and, as controversy engulfed him and the FBI, he went on paid leave. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired him in March, 2018. The Justice Department inspector general has referred a possible criminal case against McCabe to federal prosecutors for lying to internal investigators in an earlier probe of the Wall Street Journal story and leaks.
One of the strangest claims in the OIG report is that the senior leadership of the FBI was not aware of — or perhaps simply did not care about — McAuliffe’s long history with the Clintons. “We were troubled,” the OIG report notes, “by the fact that the FBI ethics officials and attorneys did not fully appreciate the potential significant implications to McCabe and the FBI from campaign contributions to Dr. McCabe’s campaign and did not implement any review of those campaign donations. Thus, while the same factual circumstances that led to McCabe’s recusal on November 1, 2016, were present at the time McCabe became deputy director on February 1, 2016, the FBI ethics officials, McCabe, and Comey only learned of them as a result of the October 23 WSJ article.”
It seems likely now that the McCabe chapter of the larger battle in Washington will end with a whimper, not a bang. The beasts—investigative, media, political—move on. But what are we to make of Terry McAuliffe’s role in the episode?
Swamp aficionados will note the sudden “change of plans” that elevated the trip to Richmond from a meeting with a low-level political operative to an encounter with the governor. McAuliffe is charming and charismatic. Money is (vaguely) discussed, and oh by the way, McAuliffe asks McCabe, what is your occupation?
Now, Terry McAuliffe’s connections are legendary. His devotion to the Clinton ambitions is unswerving. He knows everybody, particularly anybody who has any business with the Clintons (remember, the email controversy is about to metastasize) and certainly he knew that Andrew McCabe worked for the FBI before he asked that question. But now McCabe knows that the governor knows. Next, money—a lot of it—flows to Dr. McCabe’s campaign.
Things might have turned out differently, after all. Jill McCabe might have been in the state senate. Hillary Clinton might have been in the White House. And Andrew McCabe was in line to be the next director of the FBI. Some of the best swamp plays are not about greed but ambition.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bush-mccain-e1531389356176.jpg361428Judicial Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJudicial Watch2018-06-23 06:52:022018-06-23 06:53:21VIDEO: McCain’s Subcommittee Staff Director Urged IRS to Target Conservative Groups
The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.
Children are the future of every nation and culture on earth which makes them the most valuable natural resource in the world. Water, air, land, coal, natural gas, phosphorus, oil, minerals, iron, soil, forests and timber are all subjects of worldwide conservation efforts. What about the children?
Wars are fought over natural resources in competition for power and dominance. So it is with the children. The leftist exploitation of illegal immigrant children is a political dirty trick being played for the hearts and minds of the compassionate American electorate. This is how it works.
President Trump’s America-first policies are demonstrably positive for America and threaten the narrative of Obama’s leftist collectivist destruction. President Trump’s insistence on our national sovereignty is an existential threat to Obama’s battle for internationalized globalism. Obama’s promise to transform America has been exposed as a promise to destroy America from within and replace our infrastructure with socialism in preparation for the mother of all collectivism – planetary governance.
The left is exploiting ILLEGAL immigrant children in a desperate attempt to delegitimize President Trump before the midterm elections. A midterm victory is necessary for leftist Democrats to start impeachment proceedings against the President. Tear-jerking appeals for reunification of ILLEGAL immigrant families are completely disingenuous. They are pure political theater – a humanitarian hoax designed to engage compassionate voters and insure a midterm election victory because:
Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion fell apart and only served to expose serious malfeasance of Obama’s FBI, DOJ, CIA, and State Department.
sensationalized news is a weapon designed to stigmatize Trump and offset his stunning economic victories before the midterm elections
reunification of families deflect attention away from the damning 6.14.18 IG report recommending more investigations into FBI improprieties during the Clinton email scandal which will ultimately expose Obama’s participation.
The colluding leftist mainstream media deliberately refuses to include the essential word ILLEGAL into its reports. There would be no issue of separated families if the families came to the United States LEGALLY! President Trump is in favor of LEGAL immigration and leftist attempts to deny that reality and present POTUS as anti-immigration are typical of the deceit that has come to characterize the leftist Democrats under Obama.
In a stunning 6.22.18 article Carolyn Glick exposes the deceitfulness of the media outcry over US government policy of separating illegal immigrant minors from their illegal parents:
“The policy is cruel. Indeed, recognizing its cruelty, Trump signed an executive order banning the practice.
But the policy isn’t new. This was the Obama administration’s policy following a court order prohibiting children from joining their parents in detention.
Rather than soberly acknowledge that law enforcement, including immigration law is often a cruel business and recognize that to remain a state of laws sometimes authorities undertake difficult and harsh actions, the anti-Trump media ignored reality and went straight for the kill. David Remnick, Frank Bruni and countless others didn’t care that the Obama administration separated children from their parents, placed them in cages and wrapped them in aluminum foil. As far as they are concerned, the continuation of the same cruel policy under Trump is proof that Trump is a Nazi.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the NSA and the CIA posted a photo of the entrance to Auschwitz on his Twitter feed with a caption ‘Other governments have separated mothers and children.’”
“In other words, it is the 9th Circuit’s misinterpretation of the Clinton administration’s settlement agreement that doesn’t allow juvenile aliens to stay with their parents who have been detained for unlawful entry into the country.”
“The Obama administration provided a huge incentive for illegal aliens to smuggle children across the border, since a child acted as a get-out-of-jail-free card for avoiding detention and prosecution for the adult accompanying the child. As the Department of Homeland Security correctly says, this policy ‘incited smugglers to place children into the hands of adult strangers so they can pose as families and be released from immigration custody after crossing the border, creating another safety issue for these children.’”
War makes strange bedfellows and the current culture war on America lead by Obama’s anti-American “resistance” movement has allies in its attempt to delegitimize and overthrow President Donald Trump. The economy is booming under President Trump. Unemployment for black Americans is the lowest in history. Optimism of small businesses is skyrocketing. Negotiations over fair trade are in America’s favor. President Trump is making America great again and the leftist Democrat predators in collusion with the mainstream media including Internet giants Google, Facebook, and Twitter are desperate to stop him from winning the 2018 midterm elections.
It is abusive for illegal immigrant parents to subject their children to separation at the US borders and equally abusive for leftist political predators to support the practice in a vile attempt to swing the midterm elections. It is time for the leftist/media/Internet alliance to stop abusing and exploiting the children they are entrusted to protect. Photographs of crying children tug at American hearts BUT the photographs are fraudulent and are pure political theater – it is a seismic humanitarian hoax!
Americans must understand the malfeasance, purpose, and value of politicizing illegal immigrant children at the border. Leftist child abuse and exploitation is the sinister leftist humanitarian hoax that misrepresents the facts of illegal immigrant family separation begun under Clinton, continued under Obama, and blamed on President Trump in a deceitful campaign to delegitimize POTUS before the midterm elections.
The mainstream media and Internet behemoths are deliberately colluding to misrepresent Clinton and Obama’s abusive family separation policies as belonging to President Trump. Americans believe in fairness. They do not appreciate being manipulated by the colluding mainstream and Internet media into believing leftist political propaganda masquerading as truth. If the humanitarian hoax of illegal immigrant family separation at the border is successful then leftist Democrats will have duped America into blaming President Trump for the abusive policies of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/border-agent-with-illegal-family.jpg360640Linda Goudsmithttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngLinda Goudsmit2018-06-22 17:34:242018-06-22 19:38:37The Humanitarian Hoax of Illegal Immigrant Family Separation at the U.S. Border
The Trump administration proposes to reform and reorganize government by streamlining food regulation, merging two Cabinet departments, and consolidating housing programs.
Combining the Education and Labor departments is among 32 proposals in a plan released Thursday by the Office of Management and Budget in response to a charge President Donald Trump issued 14 months ago.
“We wanted to change the dialogue in Washington, to say it’s not acceptable to have things that just don’t make sense,” Margaret Weichert, OMB’s deputy director for management, told The Daily Signal.
Weichert did not provide an estimate of savings, but said it would be clear in the administration’s next budget proposal.
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, lauded the report’s recommendations Thursday during a Cabinet meeting convened by the president.
The OMB’s 132-page plan also would merge the food component of the Food and Drug Administration, now part of the Department of Health and Human Services, into a Department of Agriculture entity to be known as the Food Safety Agency.
The report notes that the USDA regulates chicken, but the FDA oversees eggs—if the eggs are in shells. If the eggs are processed and in a carton for pouring, then it’s the USDA’s job.
What’s more, the FDA regulates cheese pizza but the USDA regulates pepperoni pizza.
“Our favorite one is an open-face roast beef sandwich is regulated by the Department of Agriculture,” Weichert said. “If you stick a layer of bread on top of it, and you add new bureaucracy, it switches to FDA. That just doesn’t make sense.”
Since the Labor Department and the Education Department both are responsible for learning and skills for Americans, the Trump administration wants to create a single Department of Education and the Workforce.
“When it comes to education and labor, most OECD countries managed education and labor missions in an integrated fashion. It’s actually part of the kind of competitive advantage dialogue that you can see in Europe and China,” Weichert told The Daily Signal, adding:
Lifetime learning and whatever form of education is needed to both drive the needs of society broadly, but also to drive the economy, is integrated. The House committee itself that has jurisdiction over these two agencies is a single committee.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chairwoman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, called the proposed change a long overdue recognition of the connection between the two missions.
“We welcome the administration’s focus on education and workforce issues together, and as we continue our oversight over the Department of Education and the Department of Labor, we look forward to working with the administration on the proposal and how the new department could function to best serve American students, workers, job creators, and families,” Foxx said in a public statement.
The merger idea already is getting pushback, though, including from unions.
“The proposed merger of the departments of Labor and Education is yet another attempt by the Trump administration to weaken programs that serve and protect working families and to concentrate even more power in the hands of large corporations,” Chris Shelton, president of the Communication Workers of America, said in a formal statement.
In general, the OMB report calls for combining the functions of several departments and agencies and largely eliminating duplication.
Between a quarter and a third of the recommendations may be done through executive action, but the bulk of them would require congressional action, Weichert said.
In April 2017, Trump signed Executive Order 13781, which directed the Office of Management and Budget to propose a plan that would reorganize governmental functions to limit duplication.
The resulting plan contains solid ideas, said Paul Winfree, who was director of budget policy at the White House when Trump asked for the reorganization plan. Winfree since has returned to his position as director of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
“The Heritage research team started thinking through a reorganization proposal more than three years ago,” Winfree said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “Early in the administration, I drafted the executive order that established the plan for assembling the proposal, which the president signed.”
“OMB worked closely with the Heritage team,” Winfree said, “and it’s obvious from reading the administration’s proposal that everyone is moving in the same direction.”
The federal government spends about $250 million a year for education programs on financial literacy across more than 20 agencies. The report recommends consolidating programs to save time and taxpayer resources.
The plan also calls for moving programs providing rural housing loan guarantees and rental assistance out of the Agriculture Department and into the Department of Housing and Urban Development, locating all federal housing programs in a single Cabinet department.
“To be sure, there’s going to be a lot of good public-sector drama around some of these proposals,” Weichert said, adding:
But I hope underneath all of that, we can find a spirit of willingness to actually do the right thing for the American people. Frankly, all of us know we need to do something. That’s why this president was elected. That’s why the American people wanted a businessman to come to Washington, was the fact that so much business as usual in Washington doesn’t make sense.
Past presidents, going back decades, have tried to reorganize and reform government but haven’t reached the desired effect, said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan research group.
“No one can reasonably dispute that our government needs reform, but structural reorganizations are rarely the most effective way to improve service to our citizens,” Stier said in a public statement.
The OMB report notes that President Warren Harding created the Bureau of the Budget in 1921 in one of the earlier reorganization attempts of the 20th century.
President Jimmy Carter carried out a personnel reform agenda that was fully implemented under President Ronald Reagan. And Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama all pushed efforts to reduce duplication and increase public-private sector cooperation.
“For the administration’s reorganization plans to succeed, the president and members of his administration must articulate a government-wide vision for reform, the rationale for each proposal, and how the administration will implement changes and measure progress,” Stier said. “The White House also must get congressional buy-in and bipartisan support, make substantial, upfront investments, and plan for sustained attention over many years.”
Still, Weichert contends now is a time for action.
“Our system was designed after World War II, addressing legacy problems that in many cases are not problems today, and, we are 20 years into the 21st century, fundamentally. We have no time to waste,” she said.
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.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney presenting proposals to consolidate the work of executive agencies during a meeting Thursday of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet. (Photo: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters/Newscom)
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Reorg-Photo-1250x650-e1529676984662.jpg378640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-06-22 10:16:402018-06-22 10:16:40Here’s How Trump Wants to Streamline Government
On June 11, 2018 the Washington Times published an article, U.S. launching office to identify citizenship cheaters, reporting that the Trump administration is opening an office to identify aliens who defrauded the naturalization process by concealing material facts in filing for U.S. citizenship and seek their denaturalization.
This is an important measure and one that enhances the enforcement of immigration laws from within the interior of the United States that will plug yet another gap in the highly porous immigration system.
This, as you will see, also has serious implication for national security.
However, generally most aliens who commit naturalization fraud also committed fraud in their applications for various immigration benefits that subsequently enabled the to apply for U.S. citizenship.
Because of the huge number of applications for various immigration benefits, more than six million applications for various benefits are processed each year by the beleaguered adjudication officers employed by USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services), many applications are adjudicated without so much as an in-person interview, let alone a field investigation conducted to verify the information contained in the applications.
This creates an invitation for fraud on a massive scale.
The Wasington Times article draws the parallel with this new effort to uncover aliens who lie on application for U.S. citizenship to previous efforts to identify Nazi war criminals who also gamed the naturalization process in order to secure U.S. citizenship to evade prosecution for their heinous crimes against humanity.
Naturalization fraud is of particular concern because U.S. citizenship provide the aliens with the veritable “Keys to the kingdom” as I have described in a series of previous articles and in my testimony before several Congressional hearings.
Here are a few reasons why citizenship is of particular concern and how some of the vulnerabilities must be addressed.
As the Washington Times article noted, aliens who acquire U.S. citizenship may be granted security clearances. I recently wrote an article about an April 2018 Congressional hearing on how Iranian Sleeper Cells Threaten U.S.
Immigration fraud, including naturalization fraud, enables sleeper agents from foreign countries to embed themselves in the United States in furtherance of their nefarious and often deadly goals.
Additionally, aliens who naturalize may legally change their names. In such instances, their U.S. passports only reflect their new names.
Criminals and terrorists can thus put themselves into their own “Witness Protection Program” concealing their original identities and gaining entry into countries around the world that might be aware of their original names and would never admit them if they knew who they really were.
However, when such an individual seeks entry with a new name, a name not known to border officials in that country it is likely that he/she will be permitted to enter that country.
The solution to this problem is simple and inexpensive- have U.S. passports reflect both names.
I raised this issue when I appeared at a Congressional hearing but no action was taken.
This is further exacerbated because many of these naturalized citizens have dual citizenship, they retain the citizenship and passports of their countries of birth.
Dual citizen terrorists and fugitives who defraud the naturalization process can travel easily around the world by using their U.S. passport to travel to an intermediate foreign country, let’s say Germany. They then conceal their U.S. passport and travel on the passport issued to them by their county of birth to travel to another country, perhaps to engage in terror-related activities. They return to Germany. In Germany they conceal the passport from their country of birth and return to the United States on their U.S. passport.
A review of entry stamps in their U.S. passport will make it appear that they spent several weeks in Germany when, in reality, Germany was just an intermediate destination on their way to other countries.
Alternating passports covers their tracks the way a smuggler drags branches behind him to cover his tracks in the sand in the desert.
The Trump administration must finally require that the U.S. passports issued to naturalized citizens reflects all names that these individuals have used, to thwart the tactic I have described above.
While it is encouraging that for the first time in decades we have an administration that is determined to not only secure our borders against illegal immigration but restore integrity to the immigration system to protect America and Americans.
The administration would do well to do more than simply attempt to identify aliens who secured U.S. citizenship via fraud. Denaturalization may be an involved process. It would be far better to uncover fraud in applications for immigration benefits that precede U.S. citizenship.
In order to qualify for citizenship, an alien must first become a lawful immigrant. In order to become a lawful immigrant an alien may have been granted political asylum or married a U.S. citizen or lawful immigrant.
Although there is evidence that some land and sea border entries (of terrorists) without inspection occurred, these conspirators mainly subverted the legal entry system by entering at airports.
In doing so, they relied on a wide variety of fraudulent documents, on aliases, and on government corruption. Because terrorist operations were not suicide missions in the early to mid-1990s, once in the United States terrorists and their supporters tried to get legal immigration status that would permit them to remain here, primarily by committing serial, or repeated, immigration fraud, by claiming political asylum, and by marrying Americans. Many of these tactics would remain largely unchanged and undetected throughout the 1990s and up to the 9/11 attack.
Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.
My recently published booklet, Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill also focused on the threat posed to national security by various forms of immigration fraud, including but not limited to naturalization fraud.
Let’s consider a few specific examples of terror suspects who engaged in immigration fraud.
The infamous Tsarnaev brothers Dzhokhar and his older brother Tamerlan carried out the deadly terror attack at the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. They and other members of their family were granted political asylum when their authorized temporary period of admission into the United States expired, and they claimed to have “credible fear” that if they were to return to their native Russia, they would face persecution or worse.
Shortly after being granted political asylum in the United States, members of the family voluntarily returned to Russia. There had been no regime change and therefore, it must logically be presumed that they committed immigration fraud by making a false claim to “credible fear” upon which their application for political asylum rested.
However, no such investigation was launched into this obvious fraud.
Members of the Tsarnaev family were subsequently granted lawful immigrant status making them eligible to apply for United States citizenship.
Tamarlan was killed during the terror attack. Although he had applied for U.S. citizenship his application was held up when information was provided by the Russian government linking him possibly to Chechen terrorists.
Dzhokhar, however became a naturalized citizen. He is now on death row awaiting execution.
On January 23, 2018 the Justice Department issued a press release, Ohio Man Sentenced for Providing Material Support to Terrorists, Making False Statements to Authorities.
That “Ohio man” was Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, a native of Somalia who had become a naturalized U.S. citizen as part of his strategy to facilitate his travel to Syria.
I wrote about this case in two previous articles, A Terrorist and Naturalization Fraud and How DHS Ineptitude Facilitates Terrorist Operations. As I noted in the first of those two commentaries, Mohamud committed fraud when he lied on his application for his U.S. passport by claiming he intended to travel to Greece when, in reality, he traveled to Syria.
Finally, on January 16, 2018 the DOJ and DHS jointly issued a press release, DOJ, DHS Report: Three Out of Four Individuals Convicted of International Terrorism and Terrorism-Related Offenses were Foreign-Born.
That press release noted that:
The report reveals that at least 549 individuals were convicted of international terrorism-related charges in U.S. federal courts between September 11, 2001, and December 31, 2016. An analysis conducted by DHS determined that approximately 73 percent (402 of these 549 individuals) were foreign-born. Breaking down the 549 individuals by citizenship status at the time of their respective convictions reveals that:
254 were not U.S. citizens;
148 were foreign-born, naturalized and received U.S. citizenship; and,
147 were U.S. citizens by birth.
According to information available to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), since September 11, 2001, there were approximately 1,716 removals of aliens with national security concerns.
Clearly the Trump administration is on the right path, but more and bigger steps need to follow and follow quickly.
A five-justice majority of the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s voter purge system, finding the process by which the state removes inactive voters from the rolls does not violate federal law.
Although critics of Ohio’s practice charge the state’s true purpose is the removal of left-leaning voters from the registry, the high court found the process is consistent with federal law.
“Today’s decision is a victory for election integrity, and a defeat for those who use the federal court system to make election law across the country,” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted said. “This decision is validation of Ohio’s efforts to clean up the voter rolls and now with the blessing nation’s highest court, it can serve as a model for other states to use.”
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the court’s opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch. Justice Stephen Breyer led the liberal bloc in dissent, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.
Ohio’s maintenance process is fairly straightforward. Voters who do not cast a ballot during a full federal election cycle (which runs two years) are sent a mailer confirming they are still residents of Ohio who wish to remain registered voters. If the mailer is not returned, and if the individual does not vote for the next four years, they are removed from state rolls.
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires all states to adopt policies providing for the removal of ineligible voters from state rolls. In his opinion for the court, Alito claimed 24 million voter registrations are currently “invalid or significantly inaccurate,” according to a 2012 study from the Pew Center on the States. However, the National Voter Registration Act forbids removal “by reason of the person’s failure to vote.”
Civil rights and good government groups challenged the Ohio procedure, arguing it targets and prunes voters on the basis of their inactivity. Nonvoting, the challengers point out, is used twice by the state’s process: once as the trigger for the mailer, and again as a condition for final removal. But Alito explained that the National Voter Registration Act only prohibits the use of nonvoting as the sole cause for deregistration.
“We reject this argument because the Failure-to-Vote Clause, as originally enacted in the NVRA … simply forbids the use of nonvoting as the sole criterion for removing a registrant, and Ohio does not use it that way,” he wrote.
Sotomayor wrote her own dissent connecting Ohio’s procedure to “concerted state efforts to prevent minorities from voting and to undermine the efficacy of their votes,” which the National Voter Registration Act sought to curtail. Progressive organizers hit a similar tenor speaking after the ruling.
“Countless voters, including homeless and housing-insecure Ohioans, have already been stripped of their rights as a result of Ohio’s unjust and illogical purge process,” said Chris Knestrick, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless. “By green-lighting Ohio’s purge process, the court allowed states to shut out the voices of these voters.”
Defenders of the process say it ensures the states maintain accurate voter rolls, which are not often updated to reflect forms of attrition like death or relocation. Opponents charge it is yet another iteration of GOP voter-suppression tactics, particularly because nonvoting is a poor proxy change in residence.
The civil rights groups challenging Ohio’s policy seized on this point, citing another provision of the National Voter Registration Act that permits states to use U.S. Postal Service data when sending confirmation mailers of the sort Ohio uses. This, the plaintiffs said, indicates that states may only use data points with a high degree of correlation to relocation as a trigger for the mailer, like USPS information or tax records.
But Alito rejected that arguments as well, stressing that their role was not to scrutinize the good faith policy judgements of Ohio’s state Legislature.
“What matters for present purposes is not whether the Ohio legislature overestimated the correlation between nonvoting and moving or whether it reached a wise policy judgment about when return cards should be sent,” he wrote. “For us, all that matters is that no provision of the NVRA prohibits the legislature from implementing that judgment.”
For all intents and purposes, people are being paid not to be productive.
Guided by the spirit of Calvin Coolidge, we need to reform the welfare state.
Professor Dorfman of the University of Georgia, in a column for Forbes, pinpoints the core problem.
The first failure of government welfare programs is to favor help with current consumption while placing almost no emphasis on job training or anything else that might allow today’s poor people to become self-sufficient in the future. …It is the classic story of giving a man a fish or teaching him how to fish. Government welfare programs hand out lots of fish, but never seem to teach people how to fish for themselves. The problem is not a lack of job training programs, but rather the fact that the job training programs fail to help people. In a study for ProPublica, Amy Goldstein documents that people who lost their jobs and participated in a federal job training program were less likely to be employed afterward than those who lost their jobs and did not receive any job training. That is, the job training made people worse off instead of better. …Right now, the government cannot teach anyone how to find a fish, let alone catch one.
And Peter Cove opines on the issue for the Wall Street Journal.
…the labor-force participation rate for men 25 to 54 is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression. The welfare state is largely to blame. More than a fifth of American men of prime working age are on Medicaid. According to the Census Bureau, nearly three-fifths of nonworking men receive federal disability benefits. The good news is that the 1996 welfare reform taught us how to reduce government dependency and get idle Americans back to work. …Within 10 years of the 1996 reform, the number of Americans in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program fell 60%.
Interestingly, European nations seem to be more interested in fixing the problem, perhaps because they’ve reached the point where reform is a fiscal necessity.
Let’s look at what happened when the Dutch tightened benefit rules.
A fascinating new study from economists in California and the Netherlands sheds light on how welfare dependency is passed from one generation to the next—and how to save children from lives of idleness.
A snowball effect across generations could arise if welfare dependency is transmitted from parents to their children, with potentially serious consequences for the future economic situation of children. …there is little evidence on whether this relationship is causal. Testing for the existence of a behavioural response, where children become benefit recipients because their parents were, is difficult… Our work overcomes these identification challenges by exploiting a 1993 reform in the Dutch Disability Insurance (DI) programme… The 1993 reform tightened DI eligibility for existing and future claimants, but exempted older cohorts currently on DI (age 45+) from the new rules. This reform generates quasi-experimental variation in DI use… Intuitively, the idea is to compare the children of parents who are just over 45 years of age to children whose parents are just under 45. .
Here’s the methodology of their research.
The first step is to understand the impact of the 1993 reform on parents. Figure 1 shows that parents who were just under the age 45 cut-off, and therefore subject to the harsher DI rules, are 5.5 percentage points more likely to exit DI by the year 1999 compared to parents just over the age 45 cut-off. These treated parents saw a 1,300 euro drop in payments on average. …the reform changed other outcomes as well. There is a strong rebound in labour earnings.
This chart from their research captures the discontinuity.
Here are the main results.
The second step is to see how children’s DI use changed based on whether the reform affected their parents. We measure a child’s cumulative use of DI as of 2014, by which time they are 37 years old on average. Figure 2 reveals a noticeable jump in child DI participation at the parental age cut-off of 45. There is an economically significant 1.1 percentage point drop for children if their parent was exposed to the reform, which translates into an 11% effect relative to the mean child participation rate of 10%. …welfare cultures, defined as a causal intergenerational link, exist.
This second chart illustrates the positive impact.
But here’s the most important part of the research.
Reducing access to redistribution to parents is a good way of boosting income and education for children.
…we examine whether a child’s taxable earnings and participation in other social support programmes change. Cumulative earnings up to 2014 rise by approximately €7,200 euros, or a little less than 2%, for children of parents subject to the less generous DI rules. In contrast, we find no detectable change in cumulative unemployment insurance receipt, general assistance (i.e. traditional cash welfare), or other miscellaneous safety net programs. Looking at a child’s educational attainment, there is intriguing evidence for anticipatory investments. When a parent is subject to the reform which tightened DI benefits, their child invests in 0.12 extra years of education relative to an overall mean of 11.5 years. …these findings provide suggestive evidence that children of treated parents plan for a future with less reliance on DI in part by investing in their labour market skills.
And it’s also worth noting that taxpayers benefit when welfare eligibility is restricted.
These strong intergenerational links between parents and children have sizable fiscal consequences for the government’s long term budget. Cumulative DI payments to children of the targeted parents are 16% lower. This is a substantial additional saving for the government’s budget, especially since there is no evidence that children substitute these reductions in DI income for additional income from other social assistance programmes. Furthermore, there is a fiscal gain resulting from the increased taxes these children pay due to their increased labour market earnings. Overall, we calculate that through the year 2013, children account for 21% of the net fiscal savings of the 1993 Dutch reform in present discounted value terms. This share is projected to increase to 40% over time.
Ryan Streeter of American Enterprise Institute explains that other European nations also are reforming.
Welfare reformers might draw some lessons from unlikely places, such as Scandinavia. While progressives like to uphold Nordic democratic socialism as a model for America, the Scandinavian welfare systems are arguably more pro-work than ours… For instance, to deal with declining labor force participation, Denmark eliminated permanent disability benefits for people under 40 and refashioned its system to make employment central. Sweden reformed its welfare system to focus on rapid transitions from unemployment to work. Their program lowers jobless assistance the longer one is on welfare. The Nordic model is more focused on eliminating reasons not to work such as caregiving or lack of proper training than providing income replacement. Similarly, the British government combined six welfare programs with varying requirements into a single “universal credit.” The benefit is based on a sliding scale and decreases as a recipient’s earnings increase, replacing several differing formulas for phasing out of welfare programs with one. An evaluation of the new program, which encourages work, found that 86 percent of claimants were trying to increase their work hours and 77 percent were trying to earn more, compared to 38 percent and 55 percent, respectively, under the previous system. …Scandinavia and Britain learned a while ago that successful welfare reform is not just about how much money a country spends on people who earn too little. It’s really about how to help them find and keep a good job. It’s time for America to catch up.
In effect, block grant all means-tested programs to the states and then phase out the federal funding. That would give states the ability to experiment and they could learn from each other about the best way of helping the truly needy while minimizing incentives for idleness.
P.S. This Wizard-of-Id parody is a very good explanation of why handouts discourage productive work.
Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.
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The untold story — the story the media refuses to tell — is that American small businesses are just banging it under the tax reform package the GOP Congress passed, every Democrat voted against, and Trump signed into law.
American economic strength as measured by unemployment, employment growth, GDP growth and other common measures is perhaps as hot as it has ever been. Even without knowing the exact numbers, Americans recognize this reality and that explains part of the reason President Trump’s approval ratings continue to rise and the generic Congressional ballot continues to narrow.
At the same time, and acting in tandem, small business confidence has hit an all-time high. This matters because businesses make investment, expansion and hiring decisions based on their confidence in the economy going forward, all of which suggests that the economic growth we are seeing has real, lasting legs — barring an unforeseen catastrophic event.
Small businesses are the heart and soul of the American economy. They always have been, and they always will be if the American economy is to retain is global leadership and strength. Apple, Google, Exxon-Mobil, Microsoft, General Motors, may be great companies. But huge companies are not what built and sustain the American economy. Small businesses that blanket every community are that.
And the Trump GOP tax cuts, along with ongoing deregulation, are playing a major role infusing them.
John Horne is a small businessman on the Gulf Coast of Florida and his story is exemplar of hundreds of thousands of small businesses. He owns four restaurants in Manatee County, just south of Tampa, and employs 333 people — 300 of whom are hourly employees with an annual payroll of $2.5 million; 33 are managers who earned $1.5 million in salary and bonuses in the past year.
He recently wrote in SRQ magazine how the tax cuts are affecting his business.
“I met with my CPA after tax season this year when he brought me my returns. What he explained to me was one of the parts of the new Tax Cut and Jobs Act where I get a 20 percent Business Income Deduction this year. He showed me what my taxes were in ’17 and if the new code were in effect what they would have been. I’ve already planned 2018, plugging my adjusted gross income for this year with the 20-percent deduction. We’ve been very consistent in our stores over the last 10 years as far as bottom lines go.”
Like most small businesses — and unlike the caricature created by Democrats and the media — Horne saw a great opportunity arising from the 20-percent reduction that the Trump GOP tax cuts gave him. He is taking that money and reinvesting most of it in his company and people, just like most American small businesses will:
“There are so many options, one I’ve already taken. Back in April after I met with my accountant, I bonused $60,000 to some of my staff. I purchased two new two-sided LED signs at $20,000 each for two of my locations to attract new customers. I heard my accountant say we’d probably realize $100,000 in savings/benefits from the new plan.”
Horne is in the restaurant business, which too many people deride is minimum wage. But that’s not really true. Of his 300 hourly staff members, no one is paid minimum wage; 113 earn $10 and $12.50 per hour; 39 earn between $12.50 and $15; 40 between $15 and $20; and 64 over $20. And about 47 percent of the hourly staff earn more than $15 dollars per hour.
Expect those wages to move up. The suddenly strong economy undergirded by the tax cuts and deregulation is now driving wage growth at small businesses. “The low unemployment rate is contributing to steady increases in wage growth,” according to Martin Mucci, president and CEO of Paychex. That means Horne and everyone else will have to pay more to keep and get employees.
Further, the CBO now reports that the tax cuts may pay for themselves, eliminating the “scary” $1.5 trillion deficit issue. That’s because of the economic growth roaring through the economy based on thousands of reinvestment decisions such as Horne’s.
Last June, the CBO said GDP growth for 2018 would be just 2 percent. Now it estimates growth will be a robust 3.3% — a significant boost. It also cranked up its forecast for 2019 from a paltry 1.5 percent to 2.4 percent. The CBO now expects GDP to be $6.1 trillion bigger by 2027 than it did before the tax cuts.
All of those trillions in GDP will be taxed and that will go a long way toward erasing the deficit — unless Congress continues to spend like drunken sailors, which unfortunately is a safe bet.
Horne’s small business is a down-to-earth illustration of this, also. In the last 12 months, FICA payments at his four stores were $552,544. Matched with the employees’ payments, that means his small business contributed more than $1.1 million in taxes just to support Social Security.
All of this is the undeniable reality of lifting high tax and regulatory burdens off small businesses. When the weight of government on the backs of small businesses is lessened, those businesses take off.
Unfortunately, that is a story most Americans are not being told.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/small-business-owner-e1454664524819.jpg355640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2018-06-07 16:09:522018-06-07 16:09:52The Unreported Story Of America’s Booming Small Businesses
With June being celebrated as Gay Pride month, every year around this time we seem to experience an increase in conversations and media attention regarding the fight against inequality. Across the country, massive celebrations are held, often meant to highlight the differences human beings can have with one another while maintaining a peaceful coexistence, as equals. And while I applaud this mindset of peace and tolerance towards others, there is a growing miscalculation in this fight against inequality.
The Largest Purveyor of Inequality
More and more people have begun to buy into the notion that the current societal problems ailing us are a direct consequence of inequality. Now, whether you believe this to be the case, these problems, we’re told, “require” the all-too-eager hand of government to resolve. But, as we’ll see, if fighting inequality is your goal, applying a bit of an objective lens to your campaign will uncover that government, as it turns out, is the largest purveyor of inequality that has ever existed; and fighting inequality means fighting government.
Let’s start by highlighting the fact that government itself is inequality, in that it falsely grants some individuals the authority to rule over others, essentially creating two classes of individuals; rulers and the ruled. For obvious reasons, they have tried to blur these lines over time by creating alternative forms of governance like democracy, whereby they repeat nonsensical idioms like “we’re all the government” until the ruled class begins to believe it.
To prove this isn’t true, you could simply walk up to your local police officer and proceed to order them around by telling them you’re the government or try walking into your state representative’s office and tell them you’d like to speak on the floor today using the same line. You’ll either quickly learn which class you belong to, or chances are, end up in a jail cell if you persist long enough.
Throughout history, the most successful groups who’ve pushed for inequality (such as the Ku Klux Klan, slaveholders, etc.) all used government institutions to further this unequal divide, oftentimes under the guise of pushing for equality—think Jim Crow’s “separate but equal.” It’s important to recognize this division if you wish to quash inequality. Because too often, solutions put forth to combat this inherent flaw in government are met with opposition from those ignorant of the facts; usually making outrageous claims to keep government programs in place because private solutions could possibly yield inequality.
Private Solutions to Government Inequality
A good example is when we’re told we can’t privatize the police because it will result in two tiers of policing, with rich neighborhoods receiving exceptional service from their ability to pay, and poor neighborhoods getting none at all. Except that two-tiered policing already exists and is arguably much worse due to government’s monopoly control of it.
We continuously see those with money and governmental connections getting away with crimes, often involving a multitude of victims unable to shoulder the cost to fight back. Meanwhile, those in low-income neighborhoods are routinely profiled and preyed upon by police for victimless crimes, which regularly carry draconian sentences due to mandatory minimums and the War on Drugs; all because they can’t afford to endure the arduous court battles. And when it is pointed out that police do make a mistake, it’s nearly impossible to ensure they are held accountable—unless paid leave is to be considered punishment enough for wrongful deaths.
This one-size-fits-all, governmental approach to policing leaves those worst off among us the least represented. And, thanks to government regulation, it’s difficult for private alternatives to easily enter the market. Even so, we’re still seeing people opt out of using police, instead choosing private security companies wherever possible. So much, in fact, that private security officers now outnumber police in many countries around the world. And that’s not the only place we see government fostering inequality.
The same arguments used to defend the monopoly on police are also used—even more aggressively—against those who wish to end public schools. Rich neighborhoods, we’re told, would hire all the good teachers, have the best equipment, etc., while poor neighborhoods would be left with sub-par teaching staff and a shortage of necessities. Resulting in poor students being uncompetitive after graduation and ultimately ending up in an inter-generational cycle of poverty. Which is absolutely terrible, until you realize that’s already the exact system we have today.
With public schools, students in low-income neighborhoods are forced to attend the poorly-run schools within their city’s borders, while state-mandated accreditation and licensing restrictions keep cheaper, alternative schools from coming in and alleviating part of this problem. It’s so bad in fact, that the inter-generational poverty gap exists in large part thanks to government. Whereby kids in inner-city, public schools are more likely to go to prison than college due to gangs and other criminal activities that have crept into these mismanaged government schools; effectively turning them into a “lack of” concentration camp.
Neither of those two examples comes close to the worst one on our list, though. Healthcare in the United States is a blatant example of the government granting itself a monopoly over an entire industry in the all-too-logical hopes of avoiding the problems associated with a monopoly.
With Obamacare adding more than 20,000 pages of regulation to our healthcare system alone, they have effectively created the same, unequal system we’ve shown already exists in police and education. Prices have sky-rocketed for insurance and simple medicines like Epi-pens, while the “free” market is blamed, rather than the labyrinth of red-tape mandated from the FDA. Which, as of 2014, resulted in the cost of bringing new drugs to market to hit more than $2 billion dollars. This leaves the poorest among us unable to get the medical care they need, while simultaneously making it harder for free-market oriented hospitals to enter the market and alleviate this crisis. When we couple all that with the infuriating notion that those who passed the ACA made sure they could opt-out if they’d like, and the Orwellian tactic of naming it “The Affordable Care Act,” it becomes almost indefensible to say that government is not a nefarious source of inequality today.
What we need is a wake-up call to these egregious scenarios we find ourselves in when we defend the government as it tramples on the rights of individuals. We need to highlight the blatant hypocrisy of asking them to fix this manufactured inequality in our society. But most of all, if we ever hope to improve the well-being of those most vulnerable and poorest among us, we need to realize that inequality isn’t the cause of our problems, but rather a clever symptom distracting from of a much larger disorder: The State.
Thomas J. Eckert is a Copy Editor for Being Libertarian. With a passion for politics, he studies economics and history and writes in his spare time on political and economic current events. He is a self-described voluntarist.
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