VIDEO: President of Venezuela Juan Guaidó — Names Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar As Moguls of Socialism

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The dealership that services my car has a number of young men working for them. One is named Christian, he is from Venezuela. Each time I see him I ask him about his family, who are still there. He explains to me how bad it is but he has hope that the dictator Nicolás Maduro will be gone and that the new government under President of Venezuela Juan Guaidó will take over soon.

On February 4, 2019 Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo wrote:

We welcome the decision today by Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Estonia, Finland, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom to recognize Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela. We are also heartened by the European Parliament’s January 31 resolution recognizing Juan Guaido as Interim President. They join the United States and more than 23 other countries in recognizing Juan Guaido as Interim President, in accordance with Venezuela’s constitution.

We encourage all countries, including other EU member states, to support the Venezuelan people by recognizing Interim President Guaido and supporting the National Assembly’s efforts to return constitutional democracy to Venezuela. We repeat our call to the Venezuelan military and security forces to support their country’s constitution and protect all Venezuelan citizens, including Interim President Guaido and his family, as well as U.S. and other foreign citizens in Venezuela.

To date the over fifty countries have recognized Juan Guaidó as the acting President of Venezuela.

Resistencia Venezuela posted the interview below with President Guaidó on its YouTube channel titled “Venezuela’s Guaidó mulls foreign military intervention for humanitarian aid“:

It is time to free the people of Venezuela from their socialist dictator. It is time for Americans to fully realize that socialism has never, and will never, work. It is the big lie.

Pro-Gun Senators Introduce Bill to Prohibit Discrimination in Financial Services

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On March 14, pro-gun Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) and John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced S. 821 the Freedom Financing Act, a bill to prohibit discrimination against the firearms industry in the provision of financial services.

We have long been reporting on how anti-gun activists are seeking to use access to financial services as a means to punish and suppress lawful firearm-related commerce.

First came Operation Choke Point, a supposed “anti-fraud” effort during the Obama administration that morphed into a campaign by federal regulators to intimidate banks and payment processers into refusing business with politically disfavored clients, including firearm-related businesses. That program was officially repudiated by the Trump Administration, but for some businesses, the damage had already been done.

Anti-gunners next turned directly to the financial service providers themselves, extorting them with “social justice” condemnation for “financing” mass shootings and insisting they drop their firearm industry clients or impose gun control-like conditions on doing business with them. Several national banks did just that.

Activist institutional investors in publicly-traded gun companies also tried to embarrass those companies with proxy actions designed to portray the businesses in a negative light. To date, those efforts have been largely unsuccessful.   The Freedom Financing Act aims to put a stop to this discrimination by ensuring that banks participating in certain federal programs – as well as credit card companies, credit unions, and users of the Automated Clearing House Network — cannot refuse business with law-abiding federal firearm licensees for political or “reputational” reasons.

More recently, anti-gun members of Congress have reverted to Choke Point-like tactics in a continuing effort to intimidate banks and marginalize law-abiding businesses in the firearm sector. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) went so far as to berate the president and CEO of Wells Fargo Bank during a public oversight hearing for refusing to buckle to the pressure of the anti-gun lobby’s demands.

“How bad does the mass shooting epidemic have to get before you will adopt common sense gun safety policies like other banks have done?” Maloney demanded to know.

To his credit, the Wells Fargo executive stood firm, replying, “We just don’t believe that it is a good idea to encourage banks to enforce legislation that doesn’t exist.”

The Freedom Financing Act aims to put a stop to this discrimination by ensuring that banks participating in certain federal programs – as well as credit card companies, credit unions, and users of the Automated Clearing House Network — cannot refuse business with law-abiding federal firearm licensees for political or “reputational” reasons.

It is important to keep in mind that the national banks targeted by this legislation owe their very existence in large part to government and taxpayer largesse. Among other things, they benefit from public bailouts and federally-subsidized loan programs, as well as from infrastructure financed or subsidized by the government.

Private businesses generally enjoy broad discretion in setting their own policies and objectives, as is appropriate in our free market system. But exclusionary politics in the financial services industries hearken back to some of the most shameful episodes in American history. They are rightfully condemned, and have long been rightfully prohibited in other contexts.

The NRA thanks Sens. Cramer and Kennedy for their leadership in this important effort and commends the bill for swift action by the Senate.

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NRA Praises Vermont Superior Court Decision on Magazine Bans

Grassroots Spotlight: NRA New Mexico FAL Couple — Fighting Bloomberg Gun Control

EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column is republished with permission.

Planned Parenthood’s Political Juggernaut Is Meeting Its Match

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By Peter B. Gemma

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planned Parenthood has some 40 corporate backers, including:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And the Trump administration has hired pro-life personnel.

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

ABOUT PETER B. GEMMA

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

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

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

Shame on Bob Moser and all the Others who Kept the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Secrets (until now)

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Who is Bob Moser you ask?

He is a writer at The New Yorker who tells us over a decade later what he learned about the frauds at the Southern Poverty Law Center when he worked there in the early 2000’s.

Moser told his story yesterday about how much of the staff (mostly former staff now!) was well aware of the hypocrisy of the organization that was driven more by a desire to make its leaders rich than doing good for the down and out.

I don’t know why he even wrote this article (clearing his conscious maybe), but I am glad he did.

What most outraged me was the fact that all of these employees he references knew what was going on, yet many stayed and worked there for a time with apparent total disregard for what their ‘good works’ could do to regular Americans who have opinions—people like me!

Frankly, the SPLC’s money-generating “hate-group list” puts my safety in jeopardy!

It is long, but the New Yorker story is a must-read and a must-send to everyone you know!

Here is how Moser begins,

The Reckoning of Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center

(How about a subtitle:  And the reckoning of all the gullible libs who worked there, saw the truth, and kept their mouths shut till now!)

In the days since the stunning dismissal of Morris Dees, the co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, on March 14th, I’ve been thinking about the jokes my S.P.L.C. colleagues and I used to tell to keep ourselves sane. Walking to lunch past the center’s Maya Lin–designed memorial to civil-rights martyrs, we’d cast a glance at the inscription from Martin Luther King, Jr., etched into the black marble—“Until justice rolls down like waters”—and intone, in our deepest voices, “Until justice rolls down like dollars.”The Law Center had a way of turning idealists into cynics; like most liberals, our view of the S.P.L.C. before we arrived had been shaped by its oft-cited listings of U.S. hate groups, its reputation for winning cases against the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nations, and its stream of direct-mail pleas for money to keep the good work going. The mailers, in particular, painted a vivid picture of a scrappy band of intrepid attorneys and hate-group monitors, working under constant threat of death to fight hatred and injustice in the deepest heart of Dixie. When the S.P.L.C. hired me as a writer, in 2001, I figured I knew what to expect: long hours working with humble resources and a highly diverse bunch of super-dedicated colleagues. I felt self-righteous about the work before I’d even begun it.

The first surprise was the office itself.

Continue here.

Hate-group list was a masterstroke by Dees!

Then this after a lengthy discussion about how it was more about raking in money especially from gullible northerners who would read about the “hate groups” in stories written by biased and uninformed reporters.

By the time I touched down in Montgomery, the center had increased its staff and branched out considerably—adding an educational component called Teaching Tolerance and expanding its legal and intelligence operations to target a broad range of right-wing groups and injustices—but the basic formula perfected in the eighties remained the same. The annual hate-group list, which in 2018 included a thousand and twenty organizations, both small and large, remains a valuable resource for journalists and a masterstroke of Dees’s marketing talents; every year, when the center publishes it, mainstream outlets write about the “rising tide of hate” discovered by the S.P.L.C.’s researchers, and reporters frequently refer to the list when they write about the groups.

Read the whole article.

Then send it to every local newspaper that uses the annual “hate-group list.”

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

Israel’s High Court–When Legality Loses its Legitimacy

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In overturning a previous decision of the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee, the High Court took another giant step towards further undermining the already dwindling public confidence in the Israeli judiciary.

In Israel, the negative impact of the judicialization of politics on the Supreme Court’s legitimacy is already beginning to show its mark. Over the past decade, the public image of the Supreme Court as an autonomous and impartial arbiter has been increasingly eroded… [T]he court and its judges are increasingly viewed by a considerable portion of the Israeli public as pushing forward their own political agenda… – Prof. Ran Hirschl, Towards Juristocracy, Harvard University Press, 2004.

The public is further losing its faith in…the legal system, with only 36 percent of the Jewish public expressing confidence in the courts…– “Public’s faith in Israel’s justice system continues to plummet,” Haaretz, August 15, 2013.

A candidates’ list shall not participate in elections to the Knesset, and a person shall not be a candidate for election to the Knesset, if the objects or actions of the list or the actions of the person, expressly or by implication, include one of the following: 

  1. negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state;
  2. incitement to racism;
  3. support of armed struggle, by a hostile state or a terrorist organization, against the State of Israel. – Basic Law Knesset– Article 7A

This week, the High Court took another giant step towards further undermining the already dwindling public confidence in the Israeli judiciary.

Eroding confidence in judiciary

On Sunday (March 17) it overturned a previous decision by the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee, and ruled to prohibit the participation in the upcoming elections of the hardline Right-wing candidate, Dr Michael Ben Ari, while permitting that of the undisguisedly anti-Zionist list “Balad” and the self-professed anti-Zionist candidate, Ofer Cassif. In doing so, High Court once again underscored the growing divergence between the average man-in-the-street’s perception of common-sense and sense of justice, on the one hand, and many judicial rulings, on the other. But more on that a little later

Over the last two decades, there has been a dramatic erosion of the public’s faith in the Israeli judiciary, in general, and in the High Court, in particular. Thus, according to an ongoing study at Haifa University, the confidence of the Jewish population in court system plunged from 61% in 2003 to a mere 36% in 2013.

A later study found that, overall, public confidence in the High Court plummeted from 80% in 2000, to 61% in 2014, to just 49% in 2017. Commenting on these findings, Einav Schiff, of the mass circulation daily Yedioth Aharonot, wrote “This isn’t a slip or a drop, it’s a collapse.”

He warned: “Needless to say, the High Court’s image among the public cannot remain as it is now. Eventually, there will be a political constellation that could enable another constitutional revolution.”

“…crass and misguided interference in Israeli democracy”

Schiff’s diagnosis proved a prescient prognosis of Justice Minister Ayalet Shaked’s outraged reaction to the High Court’s decision, which she labelled “a crass and misguided interference in the heart of Israeli democracy”, and pledged to revolutionize the method by which High Court judges are appointed. At the top of her list of planned measures was the elimination of the judicial appointments committee for the High Court, in which sitting justices have, in effect, veto power over new appointments to the High Court.

Instead, according to her proposed reform, justices would be appointed at the recommendation of the Minister of Justice, who would bring a candidate for approval by the cabinet and the Knesset, with a public hearing being conducted for High Court justices.

Clearly, if implemented, this measure could go some way towards addressing the kind of perceived disconnect, described by Prof. Hirschl in the introductory excerpt (see above), between the world views of the judiciary and the democratically elected bodies of government.

Elsewhere in his book, Hirschl articulates precisely the process of judicial override of decisions made by elected bodies, as reflected in the verdict to overrule the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee. He writes: “…political representatives of minority groups [such as the anti-Zionist Arab factions and their members – MS] have come to realize that political arrangements and public policies agreed upon in majoritarian decision-making arenas [such as the Knesset’s Central Election’s Committee—MS] are likely to be reviewed by an often hostile Supreme Court.

Clear contravention of the letter of the law

Clearly, the recent ruling of the High Court was the outcome of “minority political groups” inducing review—indeed, reversal—of “majoritarian decisions” by a contrary judicial body. But in several important aspects it was a particularly striking case of court intervention in the democratic process.

For while the rationale for barring the anti-Zionists candidates, Balad and Cassif, was, in effect, almost self-evident—and indeed un-denied by them, the rationale for barring the Right-wing candidate, Ben Ari,  was largely a matter of inferred interpretation, which was disputed by him.

Thus, the Balad platform openly rejects Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, explicitly declaring its aspirations to convert into it into a “state of all its citizens”—which, one might have thought—given stipulation of Article 7A (1) of the Basic Law: Knesset (see introductory excerpt above)—should, on its own, be enough to disqualify it from participation in the Knesset elections. Yet for some reason the Justices of the High Court chose to disregard the unequivocal letter of the law.

Moreover, with regard to Ofir Cassif, the candidate for the “non-Zionist” Hadash list, it is not only his blatant self-professed anti-Zionism that should have prevented his candidacy, but his support for armed conflict against Israel. Indeed, even the judges—or at least some of them—seem to acknowledge this.

Thus, when Justices Noam Sohlberg, David Mintz and Neal Hendel pressed Cassif’s attorney on Cassif’s statements approving attacks on IDF soldiers, he tried to rebut them by claiming his client was discussing the matter on an academic philosophical level and not on an operational one. In response, Justice Hendel retorted that it was unrealistic to expect average readers to understand Cassif’s articles as if he does not support armed conflict.

Arab enmity not Arab ethnicity

Yet despite these incontrovertible violations of Article 7A of Basic Law: Knesset, the High Court—almost inconceivably—overturned the Knesset Central Elections Committee decision, ruling that Cassif could participate in the upcoming elections.

However, when it came to the far Right candidate, Ben Ari, things were very different. Accused of racism because of his harsh denunciation of the Arab sector in Israel and his blanket allegation of pervasive lack of Arab loyalty to Israel as the nation-state of the Jews, Ben Ari explained that that his attitude was not determined by the Arabs’ ethnic origins but by the Arab’s political enmity to Israel. Indeed, this point was made by Ben-Ari’s representative who declared that his client had “no problem” with Arab Israelis who are loyal to the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

Without going in the debate of whether Ben-Ari—himself of Afghan-Iranian origins—were inappropriate or in poor taste, it does seem a bit of a stretch to brand them as racism—particularly as Ben-Ari has served in the Knesset previously (2009-13) without any charges of racist conduct being brought against him. Indeed, if charges of racism, a crime punishable by up to ten years imprisonment by Israeli law, could be substantiated, one can only wonder why Ben-Ari has not been prosecuted for them!

Yet, despite his denial of any racist intent in his recriminations against the Arab population, the High Court ruled to interpret Ben-Ari’s declarations as racism and to prohibit his participation in the elections, overturning the decision of the Knesset Central Elections Committee to permit it.

Saving the judiciary from itself

The High Court decision produced outrage among Right-wing Knesset members who vowed to take action to curtail judicial intervention in the decision-making process of elected bodies.

For example former Defense Minister of Yisrael Beitenu  fumed: “it is absurd that the court would intervene in decisions of the Central Election Committee, to allow Ben-Ari to run, and to ban those who hate Israel…I will propose a law in the next Knesset to ban the court from intervening in committee decisions. We will do everything we can to prevent the Arab fifth column from getting into the Knesset altogether.”

Echoing similar sentiments was the newly appointed head of the Jewish Home party, Rafi Peretz, who issued a statement saying: “In the State of Israel, there is democracy in appearance only. The judiciary has taken the  Right to choose for Israeli citizens in an unprecedented manner. Kassif and Tibi [who served for years as advisor to arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat] are in, but Ben Ari, a Zionist Jew whose sons serve in the IDF, is out.”

The judicial system will disregard these rumblings at its peril. For when judicial rulings are overwhelmingly at odds with public perception of common sense and justice, it cannot but lose the very credibility imperative for it to function

Indeed, two talkbacks, on a well-trafficked news-site, reflect this danger:

“Ahmed Tibi is a champion of Yasser Arafat, the worst mass murderer of Jews since Adolf Hitler. Disqualifying Ben-Ari and not Tibi exposes a very alarming anti-Jewish bias in the High Court.”—Jacob

“…by approving [C]assif but banning Ben Ari, our esteemed judges just ensured more votes for the Right. Are they on the payroll of Bennett/Shaked campaign?–Alexander

High Court justices would be well advised to heed the caveat that when legality loses its legitimacy, the entire edifice of the rule of law is imperiled.

VIDEO: Beto Gives His Unwanted and Unnecessary Permission for AR-15 Ownership

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“Dude, I don’t need your permission for that. I have a lot of AR-15s. And do you know why I have a lot of AR-15s? Because I’m a grown-ass woman, and I can.” —Dana Loesch

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IMMIGRATION: The Big Lies

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How the establishment media’s distortion of the truth undermines America.

The Third Reich’s principle of the “Big Lie” involved the frequent repetition of lies until they became perceived as the truth by the masses.

George Orwell noted, “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ”

In this era of “Fake News” those tactics are purposely wielded by “journalists” to mislead Americans.

On March 15, 2019, News Leader, a subsidiary of USA Today, published an infuriating opinion piece, “School owes apology for ICE agent talk at Kate Collins Middle: Our View.”

While the article noted that the ICE agent was invited to the school and limited his activities to simply addressing the students of that school to explain the mission of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the mere presence of that federal agent at a public school was enough to set off the editors who wrote their hit piece.

The editors of the publication then spewed utter lies and false “facts” from beginning to end to justify their vitriolic attack on the agency that is charged with enforcing federal immigration laws.

Here is the opening salvo they fired against ICE:

If you were born in 1968 or before, you’ve spent most of your adult life in American without any awareness of ICE. Because it didn’t exist. There was no entity called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was only created in 2003.

Before that time, we had immigrations officials who dealt with cases of people overstaying their visa or being in the country illegally. We had the FBI to investigate criminal issues related to terrorism as it relates to trade, travel and immigration.

ICE is a modern creation, an experiment. It’s one we should regret.

To begin with, ICE is not an “experiment” but was created as an element of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was itself created in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

Prior to the creation of the DHS, the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws was the domain of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), which was ultimately split into multiple components after 9/11. I have argued in my articles and in testimony I provided at several congressional hearings that breaking the former INS into multiple agencies actually impeded the effective enforcement of our immigration laws.

Nevertheless, arrests of illegal aliens were commonplace for INS agents long before DHS was created through the passage and enactment of the Homeland Security Act of 2002.

In fact, I began my career with the former INS in October 1971 as an Immigration Inspector and I became an INS agent in 1975. We frequently and routinely arrested illegal aliens for both administrative as well as for criminal law violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). Administrative law violations were addressed through the immigration hearings which could result in an alien being stripped of any lawful status they may have acquired and then deported from the United States.

Criminal law violations of the INA would lead to those defendants being charged with crimes the same way that drug traffickers, tax evaders, counterfeiters and bank robbers would be charged in federal court. While most of the defendants in the immigration prosecutions were aliens, United States citizens who violated those laws by smuggling aliens, engaging in fraud conspiracies or otherwise violated criminal provisions of the INA could and were also charged criminally.

The notion that prior to the creation of ICE that there was no immigration law enforcement is a huge, flaming lie. The article complains about how ICE agents raid factories. I cannot remember how many such factory raids I participated in back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

The article then went on to detail several arrests by ICE agents of illegal aliens who were found with family members or in other such circumstances creating a false image to discredit and vilify the agents and turning criminal aliens into victims.

Those aliens were, in fact, wanted for involvement in felonies in the U.S. and Mexico.

Consider the case of Perla Morales-Luna, whose arrest by the Border Patrol was included in the editorial. The Washington Examiner posted an article about that arrest, “The ‘scandal’ of Perla Morales-Luna’s arrest is fake news” and included this tweet by the Border Patrol:

Perla Morales-Luna was identified as an organizer for a transnational criminal smuggling organization operating in East County, San Diego.  She was arrested as a result of a targeted operation on March 3, 2018, in National City for being in the country illegally.

The editorial also included a breathless account of the arrest of Joel Arrona-Lara by ICE agents. At the time of his arrest he was purportedly driving his pregnant wife to the hospital.

What the editorial failed to disclose is that Arrona-Lara is wanted in Mexico for his involvement in a homicide. Information about his situation was reported upon in a Los Angeles Times report, “Warrant confirms man detained while on way to hospital with pregnant wife is wanted for murder in Mexico.”

The editorial also referred to an outrageous ACLU piece, “Citizenship service conspired with ICE to ‘trap’ immigrants at visa interviews, ACLU says.”

This is yet another example of the application of “The Big Lie.” USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) is the division of the DHS charged with adjudicating more than 6 million applications for various immigration benefits. Prior to the creation of the DHS it was a component of the former INS.

Aliens who have criminal convictions or who enter the United States illegally after deportation are not eligible for immigration benefits but may be subject to criminal prosecution for concealing material facts in their applications and/or for other crimes such as unlawful reentry which carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. These aliens are also subject to deportation from the United States.

The best and safest place to take criminals into custody is at a federal building where they are not likely to be carrying firearms or other weapons.

In 1973 I was given a one-year temporary assignment to the unit that adjudicated applications for residency based on marriage to U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants. I worked closely with INS agents to develop fraud cases and, in fact, one of those cases led to the arrest and conviction of an immigration lawyer for arranging sham marriages between citizens of China who had jumped ship and married American women who, for the most part, were of Puerto Rican ancestry and engaged in prostitution.

A wide variety of government agencies on all levels seek the arrest and prosecution of those who file false applications.

It is important to note that  the official report 9/11 and Terrorist Travel warned, “Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud.”

The title of my recent article will serve as the summation for my commentary today: “The Truth About Immigration Can Unite All Americans.”

RELATED VIDEO: Over $100 Billion Sent To Other Countries In Remittances Not Taxed, Tucker Carlson Commentary.

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission.

Public University Suspends Prof. for Advising Foreign Student to Learn English

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In a bothersome case of political correctness gone amok, a professor at a highly ranked public university in the United States has been suspended for suggesting a foreign student “learn English.”

The egregious incident occurred this month at the University of Kansas (UK), a taxpayer-funded institution with an enrollment of 28,500 that ranks among the nation’s top public universities. Situated in the northeast Kansas town of Lawrence, the school is the state’s flagship university and a premier research institution.

The “offending” professor, Gary Minden, teaches electrical engineering and computer science in the highly regarded school of engineering. Minden, an acclaimed academic, is a UK alum who received undergraduate and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering at the school.

In the 1990s he served as information technology program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a Pentagon agency with a $3 billion budget dedicated to developing technologies for the military. “DARPA goes to great lengths to identify, recruit and support excellent program managers—extraordinary individuals who are at the top of their fields and are hungry for the opportunity to push the limits of their disciplines,” according to the agency’s website. “These leaders, who are at the very heart of DARPA’s history of success, come from academia, industry and government agencies for limited stints, generally three to five years.”

During a recent class, Minden told a foreign student who was using an online translation system on a cell phone that the student should “learn English,” according to a local newspaper report. The unidentified student evidently was not bothered over the suggestion, but others in the class were offended and an “hourlong discussion” ensued in the engineering class which focuses on embedded systems.

During the discussion things apparently got heated and many students in the class became very upset. The professor told the local newspaper that he’s “frustrated” over the incident but refused to comment further for obvious reasons. In the article a university spokeswoman said “a number of students have raised concerns about events that occurred in their engineering class. In response to these concerns, the university has assigned a different instructor to teach the course while the matter is reviewed.”

This is hardly an isolated case of political correctness at taxpayer-funded schools in the United States. Public elementary, middle and high schools as well as colleges have taken an extreme leftist turn on several issues over the years and Judicial Watch has reported or taken legal action in several of the cases.

This includes exposing a Mexican separatist school that pushes Marxism and Anti-Americanism in Los Angeles, pervasive corruption in Chicago public schools and an after school Satan club in Washington State that received speedy tax-exempt approval from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Judicial Watch is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the Berkeley Unified School District in California to obtain the records of a middle school teacher who is a national organizer for a radical leftist group.

The teacher, Yvette Felarca, works at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School and is a prominent figure in By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), an organized militant group founded by the Marxist Revolutionary Workers League that uses raucous militant tactics to protest conservative speaking engagements. Felarca has been charged with several crimes, including felony assault, for inciting a riot in Sacramento.

A few years ago, Judicial Watch wrote about professors at a 54,000-student public university in south Florida that demanded the school protect illegal aliens by creating a “sanctuary campus.” The professors compared immigration enforcement to “fugitive slave laws.”

At the time students at colleges around the nation requested their undocumented classmates be protected, but the Florida professors blazed the trail as the first faculty members of an American taxpayer-funded establishment to officially call for campus-wide sanctuary in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s presidential election.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission.

BREAKING NEW VIDEO: Voter Fraud Confession

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

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

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

GORNICKI: Yes, I did.

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

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

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

That’s the way I look at it  . . .

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

You can view the full video HERE.

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

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

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

52 USC 10307 (e)

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned and Be Brave!

Project Veritas Team

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

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

How Long Will Media Use SPLC’s Garbage Hate List To Smear People?

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Now about 60 organizations have either sued or are considering suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for its fraudulent smears. It’s about time.

Like other mainstream publications, Roll Call regularly stoops to citing the thoroughly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center as a credible source for labeling “hate” groups. One recent such article was titled “Among the ‘Jewish groups’ Trump cites, one with neo-Nazi ties.” The author had worked for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and this was clearly part of Democrats’ effort to cover Pelosi and derail criticisms of Ilhan Omar for anti-Semitism.

I work with both of the “hate” groups named in the article, the Center for Security Policy and ACT for America. SPLC’s characterization of them is fraudulent, like most of what it does. It is thus little surprise to anyone who knows anything that SPLC recently jettisoned founder Morris Dees over accusations of racism and sexual assault.

Despite years of takedowns of SPLC’s business model from both sides of the aisle, major media companies such as Amazon, PayPal, Twitter, the Washington Post, Facebook, Google, The New York Times, and more cite them and use their determinations for business decisions such as Amazon’s nonprofit donations program. When will this ever end? How many lawsuits and lies will it take?

The SPLC’s Hate Group Definitions Are Garbage

ACT does not now, nor did it ever have, ties to any “neo-Nazi.” Both ACT and the Center are long-established organizations whose leaders and scholars seek to inform and warn America about the subversive goals of Islamic radical groups in the United States, not everyday Muslims. Everyday Muslims are often as much the victims as others.

Most of the prominent Islamic organizations in the United States are either Muslim Brotherhood (MB) fronts or tied to the Deobandi movement of South Asia (which also has ties to MB). Both are aggressive, subversive organizations that engage in terrorism throughout the world.

In the United States they generally use subversion as a more effective strategy, and have insinuated their allies and agendas into the U.S. government, media, Hollywood, public schools and universities. This is helping encourage the recent rise of anti-Semitism in the United States.

They also engage in terrorism. The 2015 San Bernardino, California attack that killed 14 and wounded 22 was carried out by followers of Deobandi. Terrorists of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas attack and murder Israeli Jews and even Arabs on an almost daily basis in the West Bank, and—note to border wall opponents—in Israel proper before Israel built its wall.

Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose U.S. front is the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Why doesn’t SPLC mention CAIR?

CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, and only avoided trouble because the Obama Justice Department under Eric Holder discontinued prosecutions of organizations named in the case. CAIR is also a subversive wrecking bar against the U.S. Constitution, conducting nonstop lawfare against America. CAIR’s Chicago branch—one of 27 in the United States—brags a tally of more than 5,200 lawsuits against U.S. governments.

Smearing People Is Big Business

Many of the “hate” groups on SPLC’s list are simply those it disagrees with politically. Rather than engage in legitimate debate, the SPLC seeks to destroy its political enemies with defamatory smear tactics. The Russian Communist Vladimir Lenin advocated this strategy, saying, “We must write in a language that inspires hate, revulsion and scorn among the working class toward those who disagree with us.”

Frankfurt School Communist Herbert Marcuse developed that idea into what came to be known as “partisan tolerance”: tolerance only of leftist ideas, individuals, and groups, and a wholesale effort to discredit and silence opponents. Marcuse and other Communists worked closely for years with SPLC co-founder Julian Bond.

The SPLC regularly consorts with Communist organizations. In his pamphlet, “Rules for Radicals,” Saul Alinsky advocated the tactic of accusing opponents of hate, but SPLC was the first to institutionalize it. It has since spread far and wide, in media, universities, Hollywood, and in mindless chants of leftist protesters. Apparently now it reaches even into the editorial staff of Roll Call.

The SPLC never criticizes even the vilest leftist groups. For example, Antifa, which uses violence and increasingly expresses vitriolic, obscenity-laced hate and anti-Semitism, earns no criticism or “hate” designation from SPLC. Instead, the SPLC defends groups like Antifa against the big, bad Proud Boys!

When Occupy Wall Street Black Bloc activists attempted to bomb a bridge in Ohio and blow up the GOP convention in 2012, SPLC was asked why Black Bloc was not listed among its “hate” groups. “We’re not really set up to cover the extreme Left” was the lame response.

The oldest Muslim Brotherhood front is the Muslim Students Association. It is responsible (along with the left) for the rise of anti-Semitism on college campuses. It never gets a mention by the SPLC.

There are countless other examples. The SPLC has singled out and destroyed numerous individuals and organizations using these smear tactics. It is a form of political terrorism.

SPLC’s Targets Have Begun to Fight Back

SPLC lost a $3.5 million lawsuit last year against Maajid Nawaz, a moderate Muslim the SPLC labeled an “extremist,” because he spoke out against Islamic extremism and terrorism. You literally can’t make this stuff up.

Now about 60 organizations have either sued or are considered suing the SPLC for its fraudulent smears. It’s about time. Thousands more could join in. It should be stripped of its 501(c)3 “nonpartisan” tax-exempt status and sued into penury. A dedicated prosecutor could easily make a claim that they are a continuing criminal enterprise and seize their assets under racketeering statutes.

The SPLC shows its extreme partisanship every day. Even liberals like Dana Milbank, Alexander Cockburn, and Stephen Bright have labeled the SPLC a fraud. It spends more than 20 percent of its income on fundraising and has amassed almost half a billion dollars in assets, some of which is squirreled away in overseas accounts.

Less than half of its revenues last year were needed to cover expenses, while its overtly socialist executives earn very capitalist salaries, and live like kings. Must be nice to be such conscious-free hypocrites.

Media Act as Megaphones for SPLC Smears

The Roll Call article cast both ACT and the Center as “hawks” on national defense, as if that were somehow further evidence of bigotry or some other evil. That is idiotic, but “hawks” isn’t even applicable.

The Center for Security Policy staff, for example, includes former CIA officers, military and law enforcement specialists, and other national defense experts. These people take positions based on a careful evaluation of each situation, not some knee jerk “hawk” response to everything. The only knee-jerk reactions seem to be coming from the pages of Roll Call and other mainstream outlets that continue to give the SPLC credibility, like Facebook and The New York Times.

It is tragic that large outlets like these have joined the ranks of leftist smear merchants who have reduced political discourse in the United States to little more than infantile name-calling. The SPLC is one of the nastiest hate groups on the planet. It deliberately provokes division and anger in America on a daily basis to advance its extreme left agenda and rake in millions in donations.

Roll Call, Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, Google and all the others need to drop the SPLC as a consultant on “hate” groups, but since they are all of the same stripe, they probably won’t.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist. It is republished with permission.

The Ghost of Soviet KGB Disinformation Within American Politics

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After losing the 2016 Presidential Election, the inner circle of the United States government known as ‘Deep State’ has been pursuing a disinformation campaign at the highest level in order to take down, at any cost, the current duly elected President of the United States.

The premise is built around the allegation that Trump, and those surrounding him, colluded with Russia to win the election.

At an estimated cost of $25 million, the Special Prosecutor has mulled over millions of pages of documents, investigated hundreds of key people and is about to wind up its investigation.  There is much speculation that Robert Mueller’s team will come up empty handed on Russian collusion, unless they look at the Democratic side of the political divide in America.

But undoubtedly the Russians, or more precisely the former Soviet Union, have impacted the American psyche and are winning the disinformation campaign they launched over fifty years ago against both the United States and Israel.

Unfortunately, this disinformation campaign is being conducted by Americans against Americans.  In doing so, they are doing the Soviet’s bidding.

When you hear the new radicals of the Democratic Party bang on against their own country and its leaders, when they adopt the propaganda of radical regimes, when we hear allegations against Israel couched in anti-Semitic terms, you can be sure that they are ideologically colluding with the ghost of the old Soviet KGB.

To quote former KGB chairman, Yuri Andropov, in a conversation he had with General Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking defector from the former Soviet Union to the United States in 1978.

“We could nurture a virulent strain of American-hatred, grown from the bacteria of Marxist-Leninist thought…We have only to keep repeating our themes that the United States and Israel were ‘fascist, Imperial-Zionist countries bankrolled by rich Jews.”

Andropov went on to say, “Islam was obsessed with preventing the infidel’s occupation of its territory, and it would be highly receptive to our characterization of the US Congress as a rapacious Zionist body aiming to turn the world into a Jewish fiefdom.”

Who can say that what we are hearing from Ilhan Omar and others do not accurately reflect the KGB playbook from way back in the 1960’s?

This is the emerging dialogue being heard in the US Congress.

This is the indoctrination coming out of American campuses. It is the language we are beginning to hear from the new graduates of the campus industry of Soviet-style indoctrination, graduates that are emerging as the new generation influence and opinion makers.

It began in the early 1960’s after the Arab armies failed to destroy Israel. The Communist Soviet Union entrusted the KGB to embark on a global campaign to destabilize the United States and Israel through propaganda and terrorism.

The KGB was heavily involved in support of wars of national liberation in the Third World in order to disrupt the influence of the United States. The KGB relied heavily of their intelligence service not only to spy on their adversaries, but also to train their selected candidates in the arts of destabilization through disinformation and the skills of terrorism.

Many leading Cuban, African, and Palestinian revolutionaries were brought to the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. This ivy league campus was the finishing school for top terrorists, including Arabs who would promote the Palestinian agenda to chip away at the legitimacy of Israel and eventually replace it. Yasser Arafat was there. He came as an Egyptian from Cairo and left as a Palestinian revolutionary. Mahmoud Abbas was trained in Moscow and left as a KGB spy, known as ‘Krotov” in Damascus. The notorious Ali Hassan Salameh graduated from the KGB school at Patrice Lumumba University as head of the Black September Palestinian terror group to supervise the Olympic Games massacre of the Israeli athletes. Overly ambitious, Salameh, with the strategic help of the KGB, almost succeeded in bringing down the plane carrying Israeli Prime Minister, Golda Meir, over Rome Airport. He was eventually tracked down and killed by the Israeli Mossad in Beirut.

An integral part of the Soviet disinformation campaign in support of the Palestinian cause was to use language against Israel that we are familiar with today.

As part of the Cold War between the United States and Russia, the Soviet Union brought a 1965 United Nations resolution condemning Zionism as “colonialist and racist” to deflect from the international attention it was getting over the plight of Soviet Jews who wished to leave for Israel.  At that time, the Soviet Union was under pressure from the United States in the UN Security Council over their support for Syrian border clashes with Israel.

The Soviet resolution failed, but the KGB persisted and, with the help of the Arab and Islamic bloc then under the Soviet influence, the United Nations General Assembly proposed a second anti-Israel resolution condemning Zionism as a form of racism and racial discrimination. UN Resolution 3379 was passed in November 1975.  It took until December 1991 for this fraudulent resolution to be revoked.

The Palestinians were well trained by the Soviet KGB. In every conflict, the Palestinians have sided with America’s enemies.

In the early 70’s, the KGB launched Operation SIG, an international smearing campaign to fan the flames of Arab resentment against the United States and Jews represented by Israel.  It was launched in the Arab world to falsely portray America as an imperialist Jewish fiefdom financed by Jewish money and run by Jewish politicians with the aim of America and the Zionists subordinating the Islamic world. The KGB sent four thousand agents into Middle East to spread their anti-American and anti-Israel propaganda campaign.

All this was disclosed by Ion Mihai Pacepa.  Pacepa recalls a conversation in which the KGB chief, Andropov, said,

“We need to instill a Nazi-style hatred for the Jews throughout the Islamic world and turn this weapon of emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter, the United States. No one within the American-Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe”

Surely the echoes of this threat are alive and growing on the campuses of America, on the streets of America in pro-Palestinian (read ‘anti-Israel’) rallies, and, more worryingly, in the halls of Congress where CAIR, the NGO with strong ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, have been emboldened by the introduction of their candidates to positions of power as high as the US Foreign Affairs Committee.

You can hear it in statements such as “Israel has hypnotized the world. May Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

The old Soviet KGB campaign is alive and revived in the current US Congress.

Nothing effective has been done to counter this surge of anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic ideology which is wrapped up and protected under the brand of intersectionality politics making it impenetrable to any form of criticism by intimidation campaigns that carry the same Soviet-style accusations of racism and oppression of minorities.

One thing is certain. The enemies of traditional American values and Israel feel they have the tailwind to progress their agenda and to fundamentally change political thinking and policy within the United States government.

And it will be done by following the old Soviet-KGB propaganda playbook.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The View From Israel. It is republished with permission.

VIDEO: West Virginia AG Sues Disgraced Bishop, Diocese Over Sex Abuse Cover-up

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Suit alleges Bp. Michael Bransfield knowingly employed ‘credibly accused pedophiles’

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (ChurchMilitant.com) – In an unprecedented legal move, the state of West Virginia has filed suit against Catholic authorities over sex abuse cover-up.

On Tuesday, state Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced a civil action against the diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and its disgraced former bishop, Michael J. Bransfield, for allegedly “deceiving consumers and claiming their schools were safe when they were employing credibly accused pedophiles.”

Diocesan officials are accused of violating West Virginia consumer protection laws by marketing Catholic schools as safe for children even as they “chose to cover up and conceal arguably criminal behavior of child sexual abuse.”

The announcement follows six months of investigation into whether “Catholic priests who were active or had been employed in West Virginia had been accused of sexually abusing children.”

Morrisey launched the inquiry in September after the Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed that 301 priests — including one who had worked in Wheeling-Charleston — were responsible for abusing more than 1,000 children across the Keystone State.

The suit notes that “although the state has not fully completed its investigation” — which it blamed in part on “the lack of cooperation from the Diocese” — justice officials have learned that Wheeling-Charleston “has engaged in unfair or deceptive acts or practices by failing to disclose to consumers of its educational and recreational services that it employed priests and laity who have sexually abused children, including an admitted abuser who the Diocese nevertheless allowed to work in a Catholic elementary school.”

According to the lawsuit, Wheeling-Charleston officials “knew of sexual abuse complaints against priests of the Diocese, but, did not disclose the conduct to criminal law authorities or to parents paying for educational or recreational services.”

The complaint alleges, for example, that after confessing to homosexually abusing a student at St. Joseph Preparatory Seminary High School in Vienna, Fr. Patrick Condron was sent away for “evaluation and treatment” at two different facilities. After these stints away, without notifying parents, the diocese reassigned Fr. Condron to Wheeling Catholic Elementary School, where he worked from 1998 to 2001.

“Parents who pay and entrust the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese and its schools to educate and care for their children deserve full transparency,” Morrisey said Tuesday. “Our investigation reveals a serious need for the diocese to enact policy changes that will better protect children, just as this lawsuit demonstrates our resolve to pursue every avenue to effectuate change as no one is above the law.”

Observers are suggesting West Virginia’s action could set a new precedent for combating clerical sex abuse.

“This is the most that we’ve seen so far in terms of prosecution, in terms of someone in the higher levels of the hierarchy,” said Marci Hamilton of CHILD USA. “This is the first time we’ve seen a comprehensive claim against a whole diocese and a bishop.”

Tuesday’s announcement is the latest in a barrage of bad news for Bp. Bransfield, who in September resigned in disgrace amid credible allegations he sexually harassed adult males.

After investigating the accusations, last week, Baltimore Abp. William Lori, apostolic administrator of Wheeling-Charleston, declared that Bransfield can no longer exercise his priestly function.

Bransfield is also being scrutinized over his close association with serial sexual predator Theodore McCarrick. The former West Virginia bishop was consecrated by McCarrick in 2005 and later served as president of the board of trustees for the Papal Foundation, a multi-million-dollar enterprise co-founded by McCarrick and wracked by scandal over its questionable grant making practices.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column with video is republished with permission.

Questions on Two Abuse Cases – and a Good Development

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Fr. Gerald E. Murray: With more work needed, accountability and transparency about sexual offenses by bishops seem to be the new order of the day.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore recently announced the finding of credible accusations of sexual abuse of adults committed by two bishops: Michael Bransfield, former bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, WV; and Gordon D. Bennett, retired bishop of Mandeville, Jamaica (and earlier, auxiliary bishop of Baltimore).

Bransfield was investigated regarding “multiple allegations of sexual harassment of adults and financial improprieties.” The final determination of guilt or innocence lies with the Holy See. Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, who was appointed the Apostolic Administrator of Wheeling-Charleston by Pope Francis when Bransfield retired last September, stipulated: “Bishop Bransfield is not authorized to exercise any priestly or episcopal ministry either within the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston or within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.” (Pope Francis had asked Lori to investigate when he accepted Bransfield’s request for retirement at age 75.)

What first strikes me here is Lori’s provision that Bransfield may not exercise episcopal or priestly ministry in the Baltimore or Wheeling-Charleston. I can only guess that this provision was imposed or consented to, in some way, by the Holy See.

Lori does not have authority in canon law to prohibit a fellow bishop, who is not subject to a canonical penalty or to restrictive disciplinary provisions publicly imposed by the Holy See, from exercising his priestly and episcopal ministry.

The Holy See and the Baltimore Archdiocese should clarify this. I am not opposed to restrictions being placed on Bransfield. But Archbishop Lori’s authority does not extend that far. Only the pope can place such restrictions on a bishop.

Lori could have prohibited Catholic institutions in his two dioceses from inviting Bransfield to exercise any public functions. But he does not have the authority, for instance, to prohibit, in a universal way, Bransfield from hearing confessions or anointing the sick in Wheeling if such priestly ministrations are requested.

The announcement also revealed that “[a]s part of recently announced protocols governing the conduct of bishops in the Archdiocese, Archbishop Lori determined that similar restrictions were warranted in the case of former Auxiliary Bishop of Baltimore, Gordon Bennett, S.J. . . .In May 2006, the Archdiocese learned of an allegation of sexual harassment of a young adult by Bishop Bennett. . . .the Archdiocese immediately reported it to the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, D.C. . . .As a result of these restrictions, which the Holy See recently gave permission to the Archbishop to announce, Bishop Bennett is prohibited from exercising any priestly or episcopal ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.”

In this case, the Holy See has imposed these restrictions on the bishop and allowed Lori to announce it publicly. But questions remain about what happened back in 2006, and why we are only learning about this now.

An AP story posted at the America magazine website comments: “Bennett was cleared of the sexual harassment allegation in 2009 and reinstated to limited episcopal ministry subject to oversight, the Jesuits’ USA West province said in a statement Monday. But amid ongoing questions about how misconduct allegations were handled in the past, Bennett’s case was re-examined last year and the Congregation for Bishops in Rome recently determined he shouldn’t exercise episcopal ministry, the province said. The future of his priestly ministry is up to his Jesuit superiors.”

So Bennett was cleared in 2009, but nevertheless was at the same time put under some form of restriction and supervision. Why was he subject to this provision if he was found not to be guilty? And then last year his case was re-examined and he was found to be unsuitable for the exercise of episcopal ministry, presumably because he was now found guilty of the serious canonical offense of sexual harassment of a young adult.

Yet, his further exercise of priestly ministry, as opposed to strictly episcopal ministry, is an open question to be decided upon by “his Jesuit superiors”? This is puzzling for two reasons.

First, Gordon Bennett is a bishop, thus he is not under the authority of the Jesuit superiors of the province to which he formerly belonged. He is under the authority of the Holy See alone. If he has, in fact, been deprived of the exercise of his episcopate, then the Holy See should state that and indicate that he has been placed under the authority of the Jesuits.

Second, why would he even be considered eligible for the further exercise of priestly ministry if his past actions have led the Holy See to prohibit him from exercising his role as bishop? Why would the Holy See make this split decision? A clarification is very much needed.

This double announcement marks an important step in the ongoing abuse crisis, even given the canonical questions that remain. A bishop (Bransfield) was subject to a thorough investigation by lay experts assisting the archbishop (Lori) who had been asked by the Holy See to look into serious allegations of sexual harassment of adults.

The Holy See is clearly responding to the widespread dissatisfaction with the way similar charges were dealt with in the past, as was the case of a bishop (Bennett) who was allowed to resign quietly in 2006 after the papal nuncio was informed of an allegation of sexual harassment of an adult.

The bishop was allowed in 2009 to continue his episcopal ministry in a new location under some form of private, unpublicized restriction and oversight, even though the Holy See, according to the Jesuit provincial, had “cleared” him of the charge of sexual harassment. That decision has now been set aside by the Holy See, presumably because it could not be defended – if it came to light publicly.

The bottom line here is: accountability and transparency regarding episcopal sexual canonical offenses with adults are the new order of the day. The grave injustice of the protection of sexual predator bishops by the Holy See when the victims were above the age of 18 years has been acknowledged. This is a very positive development. Let’s hope we see many more.

COLUMN BY

Fr. Gerald E. Murray

The Rev. Gerald E. Murray, J.C.D. is a canon lawyer and the pastor of Holy Family Church in New York City.

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

Democrat Party meeting about anti-Semitism features anti-Semitic jokes, Omar won’t affirm Israel’s right to exist

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This meeting makes it clear that the Democrats are not going to be able to remove anti-Semitism from the party. Hatred of Jews and Israel, and uncritical acceptance of “Palestinian” jihad propaganda, is shared among too much of their base. And whenever they’re challenged, Omar and Tlaib claim victim status and cry “Islamophobia.” It has worked well for them so far, so expect much more of it.

“Dem Lawmakers Admit During Private Meeting They Don’t Know What Anti-Semitism Looks Like,” by Mikhael Smits, Washington Free Beacon, March 18, 2019:

A meeting of Democratic lawmakers about anti-Semitism in the party included anti-Semitic jokes and unapologetic members of Congress, the Washington Post reports.

In the wake of anti-Semitic comments from Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and several closed-door conferences by Democrats to discuss related issues within the party, Rep. Andy Levin (D., Mich.), a former synagogue president, organized a meeting as “a more formal event that would focus on anti-Semitism.” The March 5 meeting of Muslim and Jewish lawmakers was a “moment meant to be about listening and learning” about the “raw experiences” of the elected officials, according to the Post….

During the meeting, some Democratic members “admitted they didn’t know what anti-Semitism looks like,” according to the Post.

To help manage the conversation, which was previously unreported, Levin invited Bend the Arc, a left-wing organization deeply critical of Israel and Republicans. In a recent tweet, the group called for Americans to “reject the Islamophobic policies our government is built on.”

When a Bend the Arc organizer in the room made a joke “about Jews and money,” Rep. Jahana Hayes (D., Conn.) questioned why the facilitator could talk like that when someone like Hayes could not. She later told the Post no one should be making comments of the sort.

“It’s not okay,” Hayes said when asked about the specific exchange. “These [sorts of jokes] are off-limits. It’s confusing for someone like me who is trying to learn.”

It took nearly two hours before a Democrat brought up the repeated anti-Semitism of Omar, the impetus for the entire conversation. The congresswoman, a member of the Progressive Caucus, has drawn scrutiny and condemnation since taking office in January for a series of anti-Semitic remarks.

Rep. Dean Phillips (D., Minn.), a Jew who represents a district neighboring Omar’s, told the room he considered her comments to be “tips of the arrow” of Jew hatred in America. According to “several participants” who spoke to the Post on the condition of anonymity, Phillips asked Omar to apologize and “publicly affirm Israel’s right to exist and protect itself.”

Phillips’s request that Omar support the right of Jews to exist in the Jewish state and in the United States “stunned the three Muslim Democrats in the room.”

Omar did not reply to the Jewish member’s request. Instead, one of her allies responded by changing the subject to the Palestinians. Tlaib “grew emotional and started to cry as she spoke of her grandmother’s suffering in the West Bank at the hands of Israelis,” according to the Post….

Tlaib defended Omar then, too. She claimed calls for Omar to leave the House Foreign Affairs Committee were a form of “Islamophobia,” not a proper response to anti-Semitism. Likewise, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) defended Omar, claiming the outrage, much of it voiced by American Jews, was really a scheme “designed to prevent us from taking on the question of our foreign policy toward Israel.”…

RELATED ARTICLE: Too Many Are Ignoring the Rise of Anti-Semitism on the Left

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission.

Hatred For Trump Transcends Safeguarding Americans

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

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

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

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

The Twelve Betrayals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Illegal Immigration

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

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

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

Our Sovereignty at Risk

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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