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The Left Observes Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend With A Vicious, Racially-Charged Assault on Catholic Students. [+Video]

January 22, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Science, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Julio Gonzalez

A most unpredictable series of events were set into motion on Friday in Washington, D.C., when a group of young men from Covington Catholic High School proceeded to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to wait for their bus.  The youngsters, high school students all, had been just engaged in peaceful activity, one that all of us should at least consider doing.  They were there to stand up for the lives of the most innocent and silent among us.  They were there representing the dignity and value of the lives of the unborn.  And they were there in the name of Christ.

That something would go dreadfully wrong, I’m sure, was never contemplated.  Of course, the students, faculty, and parents of Covington Catholic High School planned for all sorts of unexpected, but foreseeable, situations.  They, I’m sure, discussed what to do if one of them got lost or separated from the group. They planned for the unlikely event that one or more would get arrested, I’m sure.  And they likely spoke about handling medical emergencies.

But what to do when you’re minding your business and an American Indian Marine Veteran comes face to face with you while a radical, self-proclaimed Hebrew group is harassing you, I’m equally sure, was never addressed, nor were there instructions on how to handle the death threats that would follow.

I wondered if Covington Catholic High School was anything like my alma matter, Belen Jesuit Preparatory High School in Miami.  My school, also an all-boy institution, makes it its mission to create “men for others.”  My high school instills in each of us the realization that we are all created in God’s image and that it is, therefore, our duty to spend our lives devoted to the betterment of the human condition.

But tragically, I am unable to find Covington’s mission at this time because I can’t access its server; surely a result of precautionary actions taken by the school.

What could have happened that was so terrible?  What could have served as such a detriment to the school?

The answer is chilling: the mainstream media happened.

As the story goes and videos seem to confirm, the kids from Covington had finished participating in the March For Life Friday and had made their way to the Lincoln Memorial to await the arrival of their bus.  The wait was protracted so the kids began chanting school cheers.

Across from them stood another group called the Black Hebrew Israelites.  This group has a long history of problems, having earned the reputation of being black supremacists and racists.  Its conduct has been so hateful that even the Southern Poverty Law Center, a left-wing protectionist group, has called it out for its bigotry and scorn.

RELATED VIDEO:

As is now clear, the Black Hebrew Israelites began harassing the Covington students, likely because of their MAGA hats and other pro-Trump gear.  During the exchange, an American Indian Marine Veteran named Nathan Phillip accompanied by a small group of Native Americans slowly made his way between the two groups while rhythmically beating his drum.  Phillips approached one of the students, who did nothing but stand still in front of him, at one point coming “within centimeters of his face.”  Initially, the student smiled back at Phillips, a smile that has been called everything from authentic to smug and racist.

By all accounts, it appears that the students were confused by Phillip’s intention prompting one student to later recount, “We initially thought this was a cultural display since he was beating along to our cheers and so we clapped to the beat. (sic)

“He came to stand in front of one of my classmates who stood where he was, smiling and enjoying the experience.  However, after multiple minutes of Mr. Phillips beating his drum directly in the face of my friend (mere centimeters from his nose), we became confused and started wondering what was happening.

“It was not until later that we discovered they would incriminate us as a publicity stunt. As a result, my friend faces expulsion for simply standing still.”

Much later indeed.

Noticing that this was not a positive exchange, the chaperones cleared the approximately 200 students from the area.  A review of the videos seems to indicate that the kids never insulted Phillips and his group, nor were there any racial slurs launched at the members of the Black Hebrew Israelites.  Indeed, it appeared that the confrontation ended well and that the chaperones had successfully handled a situation that could have been much worse.

That is until the media got involved.

Hours later, in fact, as they were in the bus on their way back to Kentucky, the teachers began getting word of the full-fledged attack being launched against the kids.  CNN, of course, claimed the kids were racists and that they had physically prevented the passage of an American Indian Marine who was peacefully attending the Mall. The kids were falsely depicted as having affirmatively accosted the man and that they were slinging racial epithets at him.  Soon thereafter, the death threats flew.  National Reviewwrote a defamatory piece about the school where it was said the students “might as well have spit on the cross.”  The comment was so defamatory and inaccurate that it was later deleted.

And Bill Kristol, one who is never hesitant to demonstrate his ability to engage in buffoonery tweeted, “The contrast between the calm dignity and quiet strength of Mr. Phillips and the behavior of #MAGA brats who have absorbed the spirit of ———this spectacle is a lesson which all Americans can learn,” and ” If some kid wearing a McCain 2008 cap had been filmed behaving this way, McCain would have already called Mr. Phillips to express regret. And he would have used the occasion to remind his supporters they should treat others with respect. Will Trump do anything like this?”

Of course, about all we were reminded about is that Bill Krystol is an idiot.

Of course, this rancid behavior of gang violence against unsuspecting conservatives has come to be expected from the press and is yet another example of why Americans have lost all faith in that formerly indispensable institution.

Sadly, there is irony all over this story, from the attacks upon good by the forces of evil to the oppressive consequences upon those daring to support the unborn to the reverberations of the words of Jesus Christ himself who said in the beatitudes, “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me”

But to me, there is greater sadness that these racially charged events, events of vile and hatred launched against white males, took place on the same weekend we have designated to remember the acts of peace and love between the races undertaken by one Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clearly, King’s dream has not yet been realized.

CLICK HERE: to send an email showing support for the students to Covington High School officials and ask that such support be communicated to Diocese officials.

RELATED PODCAST: Update on the Covington Catholic High School story.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The High School Deplorables: MAGA hats, the March for Life, Covington Catholic—and the mob. – WSJ

Covington Catholic Forced to Close After Students and Staff Receive Death Threats

Trump Says Covington Catholic Students ‘Making Big Comeback’

The Smearing of Teens in MAGA Hats Shows Identity Politics’ Danger

The Full Story About the Kentucky Boys in MAGA Hats Emerges

Senate Adopts Resolution Saying Judicial Nominees Can Be in Knights of Columbus

It’s Been Over 24 Hours Since Kathy Griffin Wanted Covington Catholic School Boys Doxxed. Twitter Hasn’t Taken Down Her Tweets

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Federalist Pages. The featured image is courtesy of Covington Catholic High School, the video by Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News via YouTube.

Pelosi Shuns Trump Offer to Swap Amnesty for Wall

January 21, 2019/in Culture War, Featured, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

President Donald Trump offered to expand amnesty for certain young illegal immigrants in exchange for money to pay for a border barrier as a compromise to end the partial government shutdown.

“This is a commonsense compromise both parties should embrace,” Trump said Saturday in a nationally televised speech from the White House.

Democratic leaders have already said they would oppose the Trump compromise, so the partial shutdown of 25 percent of the federal government will likely continue for a while.

“The radical left can never control our borders. I will never let it happen. Walls are not immoral,” the president continued during the speech. “In fact, they are the opposite of immoral, because they will save many lives and stop drugs from pouring into our country.”

During the remarks, Trump laid out a plan that would include the $5.7 billion he requested for construction of additional 230 miles of a steel border wall.

His offer to Democrats is three years of relief for recipients of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and another three-year extension for those for whom DACA protection is about to expire. DACA recipients are illegal immigrants brought to the United States by their parents.

Trump talked about the crimes, murder, drugs, and rape that result from illegal immigration, as well as the humanitarian crisis among migrants traveling to reach the United States.

“It’s got to end now. These are not talking points, these are the heartbreaking realities that are hurting innocent, precious human beings every single day on both sides of the border,” Trump said. “As a candidate for president, I promised I would fix this crisis, and I intend to keep that promise.”

Trump’s remarks come as another migrant caravan from Central America is moving toward the U.S. southern border. It also came moments after he spoke to an Oval Office naturalization ceremony that was held for legal immigrants that became citizens on Saturday.

Trump said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will bring the proposal up for a vote next week.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., issued a statement opposing the Trump proposal before the president delivered the speech. However, she said the House would vote on its own counter proposal in the next week that did not include a wall—or DACA—to reopen the government.

Trump framed the wall as a reasonable project.

“This is not a 2,000-mile concrete structure from sea to sea,” the president said. “These are steel barriers in high-priority locations.”

Trump deserves credit for trying to security the border, but his proposed compromise is not the best way forward, said James Carafano, vice president for national security and foreign policy at The Heritage Foundation.

“Amnesty encourages further illegal immigration, incentivizes the tragedy of human trafficking, and undermines our citizens’ confidence in the rule of law,” Carafano said in a statement. “Amnesty should not be part of any border security deal, especially given that many who today oppose a wall have publicly supported and even voted for physical barriers in the recent past.”

Trump’s proposal also includes $800 million for humanitarian assistance at the border, $805 million for drug detection technology to help secure our ports of entry, 2,750 new border agents and law enforcement professionals, and 75 new immigration judges to handle the backlog of almost 900,000 cases.

“It is unlikely that any one of these provisions alone would pass the House, and taken together, they are a non-starter,” Pelosi said in her statement. “For one thing, this proposal does not include the permanent solution for the Dreamers and TPS [Temporary Protected Status] recipients that our country needs and supports.”

Pelosi said Democrats support increasing the number of immigration judges and new technology to stop drugs and weapons from coming across the border.

“Next week, Democrats will pass a package of six bills agreed to by House and Senate negotiators and other legislation to re-open government so that we can fully negotiate on border security proposals.” Pelosi said.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

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

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image by lovepixs on Pixabay.

JUDGES GONE ROGUE: Judge embraces ‘Lawfare’ to obstruct immigration law enforcement.

January 21, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Michael Cutler

With increasing frequency judges have issued rulings that run contrary to the laws and commonsense.

Nowhere has this become a more serious issue than where immigration law enforcement is concerned.

It has become fashionable for the radical left to bash our nation’s sovereignty, our borders and the notion of our immigration laws. Of course the initial desire to open our border to “free trade” began with Conservatives and Libertarians who saw in our borders barriers to their wealth to be acquired by importing goods and workers from outside the United States.

The increasingly radicalized Democratic Party has come completely unhinged where immigration law enforcement is concerned, creating so-called “Sanctuary Cities” which openly boast that they will shield “immigrants” from immigration law enforcement.

Of course, as I have written in numerous articles, lawful immigrants and temporary (non-immigrant) alien visitors need no shielding from ICE no more than licensed motorists who operate their motor vehicles in compliance with motor vehicle laws need no shielding from police officers.

New York State’s Governor Cuomo has endorsed sanctuary polities for New York State and has referred to valiant ICE agents as “Thugs.”

Shielding illegal aliens from ICE undermines the efforts of the DHS to deter aliens from entering the United States illegally and deter aliens who are lawfully admitted from subsequently violating our immigration laws by overstaying their lawful period of admission, accepting illegal employment or otherwise violating their terms of their admission.

In point of fact, under the provisions of a federal law that is comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), 8 U.S. Code § 1324, it is a felony to harbor or shield illegal aliens from detection.

While a growing number of cities and states have decided to adopt “sanctuary” polities, there are some cities that continue to cooperate with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) through the 287(g) program whereby their law enforcement officers are trained by ICE to assist that division of the DHS with the vital mission of immigration law enforcement from within the interior of the United States.

Apparently a federal district judge, Catherine Blake, decided that the “solution” to local sheriffs and police officers assisting ICE in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws, was to order the stay of an illegal alien who had been ordered deported by an Immigration Judge so that the alien could pursue a lawsuit against the Sheriff and his deputies who would dare assist in the enforcement of our immigration laws.

On January 17, 2019 the Conservative Review published an extensive article about this lunacy,

Judge creates right for illegal alien to block deportation … so she can sue law enforcement that provides the infuriating details of the case.

The tactic of launching lawsuits to intimidate law enforcement officers from doing their jobs and local municipalities from enacting laws contrary to their agenda has been the tactic of the ACLU under the concept that they refer to as “Lawfare.” This is similar to “warfare” but uses lawsuits in place of ammunition.

Here is an excerpt from the excellent article Conservative Review article:

Roxana Orellana Santos is an illegal alien from El Salvador who had no right to come to this country in 2005 and no right to remain in this country against the will of the people as expressed through long-standing statute. Pursuant to our laws, Santos was detained by Border Patrol when she broke into our country in Texas and then failed to appear for an immigration hearing. In 2007, an immigration judge issued an order to deport her.

A year into her fugitive life, Frederick cops informally questioned her outside a restaurant on October 7, 2008, after they thought she was running away from them. Upon receiving information from ICE through dispatch that she was here illegally, and then acting on an outstanding immigration warrant from ICE, Frederick sheriff’s deputies arrested Santos as part of their lawful cooperation with the federal government to help apprehend illegal aliens through the 287(g) program, under 8 U.S.C. § 1357(g). It’s part of a law that passed the Senate unanimously in 1996.

The report went on to note:

In a sane country, this would have been the end of the story. Santos should have been deported, pursuant to every statute on the books. But Santos, backed by an army of lawyers from the organization CASA de Maryland, sued the Frederick sheriff for what she felt was an illegal search and seizure and the county commissioners for agreeing to operate under 287(g). After endless motions while remained in the country, the district court rebuffed her claim in 2012, but the arch-liberal Fourth Circuit sided with her a year later. The court created a new right for illegals not to be apprehended by local law enforcement because of their immigration status. Last September, District Judge Catherine Blake ruled that Sheriff Jenkins could be held liable in a civil suit for the acts of his deputies. This allows Santos to proceed with a suit for civil damages. Her attorneys are seeking to milk this small county for $1 million in damages! None of us can sue her for sucking up our resources.

How many members of the law enforcement community will continue to enforce the laws when they know that they or their jurisdictions are never more than one decision away from a massive and debilitating lawsuit?

This is an outrageous example of extortion to coerce local jurisdiction to fall in line with the demands of the immigration anarchists.

There is a long standing question that asks, “Is the pen mightier than the sword.”

The answer to the question depends on who is wielding the pen. We certainly witnessed tremendous damage done to our nation by the President Obama’s pen (and phone). We are now witnessing the damage being done by judges who have decided that as Sylvester Stallone’s character, Judge Dredd intoned in the film by that name, “I am the law!”

The realm of immigration law enforcement now exists in a parallel universe where nothing that would exist anywhere else exists in this magical and treacherous kingdom.

It is a matter of routine that law enforcement agencies work in close cooperation to enforce broad spectrum of laws across the United States. When police departments encounter a person who is wanted for crimes in other jurisdictions or, perhaps, by federal agencies, that they notify the agency that has lodged a warrant in the NCIS database. In point of fact, a significant number of the FBI’s most wanted are initially arrested by local police.

Immigration law violations were treated similarly until recently with local police working closely with immigration law enforcement.

In the 1970’s as an INS agent, I was, involved in such case involving an arrest made by members of the NYPD Anti-Crime squad in Brooklyn. Police officers had stopped a car that ran a red light. The driver got out of the car and attacked the police officer who was at least twice the size of the belligerent motorist. The cop knocked the assailant to the ground and a gun, a 9mm Browning fell out of his waistband. Both men, who spoke with heavy West Indian accents were taken into custody.

In those days I worked in close cooperation with the NYPD and particularly with several of the police precincts, especially the precinct where this occurred. The sergeant who was in charge of that squad called me and asked if I could assist in figuring out who these two guys were. For whatever reason, when the NYPD ran their fingerprints no relating record could be found.

They both claimed to have been born in the U.S. In fact, the driver told me had been born “down south in Chicago.” This certainly called his claim of being a United States citizen into serious question.

I had developed a relationship with the DEA in NYC and although the INS lack the capability to electronically transmit fingerprints to the FBI in Washington, the DEA was able and willing to provide me with that capability. I ran the prints and in the middle of the night I received an urgent call from FBI Headquarters, they wanted to know where the two individuals were, it turned out that they were about to be placed on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted List” for their involvement in serious of deadly bank robberies where they were alleged to have shot and killed several people.

Incidentally, they were both were aliens- citizens of Trinidad and Tobago who had lied about their identities and citizenship.

My partner and I received letters of commendation from the NYPD/FBI Joint Bank Robbery Task Force for identifying these two fugitives enabling them to be taken into custody and prosecuted for their crimes. Today, they are probably still in jail, where they can no longer pose a threat to anyone.

We also lodged detainers to have them taken into immigration custody if they are ever released from prison.

This is but a single example of just how successful such cooperative teamwork can be to protect our communities but could never happen today, especially in New York City.

For the globalists, the bodies of innocent victims are nothing more than “collateral damage” or, perhaps, “speed bumps” on the road to globalism and anarchy.

In all professions those who make bad decision are likely to pay a serious price. Doctors who are guilty of malpractice can be sued, lose their licenses to practice medicine, and even be prosecuted. Law enforcement officers face similar consequences when they act inappropriately.

Judges and politicians must be made similarly accountable.

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Sebastian Pichler on Unsplash.

Rights and Non-Rights: A Simple Way to Distinguish the Two

January 20, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Despite the centrality of rights in American history, it’s readily apparent today that Americans are of widely different views on what a right is, how many we have, where rights come from, or why we have any in the first place.

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

George Mason, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

“Rights” are in the news these days perhaps as much as they were in George Mason’s time. As a score of politicians prepares to announce their 2020 campaigns for President of the United States, we can expect “rights” to be in the news every day, as they are promised to us one after another. “You have a right” to this or that and “If elected, I’ll make sure you get it” will soon be monotonous refrains.

America is a nation founded on the notion of rights. Our independence was declared in 1776 on a foundation of “unalienable” rights granted to us not by mortal authorities but by the Creator himself. Our ancestors rebelled against the British because they believed that such rights as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” were being thwarted by oppressors in London. Our founding documents were put forth specifically for the purposes of securing and protecting rights. Battles both intellectual and physical were fought in the ensuing decades to ensure that rights remained a priority of government or were extended to people not originally included.

So this business of rights is indistinguishable from the American experience; indeed, it is at the very core of that experience. Remove rights from the equation, and America is just one of countless countries—past and present—in which individuals possess nothing more than what those in power decide to give them or allow them to have.

Is a right the same thing as a wish? Why or why not? Or if you need something, does that mean you have a right to it? If I require a kidney, do I have a right to one of yours? Is a right something that can or should be granted or denied by majority vote? Does a document such as the Constitution or an executive order or a law of Congress create rights, or do such paper instruments simply acknowledge rights (by either defending or eroding them) that people inherently possess?

If you walked down Main Street America in 2019 and asked random citizens these very questions, I’ll bet you’d hear a plethora of different and conflicting answers. Read over those questions again and think about how you would respond.

This essay doesn’t provide all the answers, nor does it raise all the relevant questions. Its purpose is more limited than that. If it prompts the reader to think of rights in a deeper, more thoughtful way than heretofore and then contribute to the public discourse on the subject in a meaningful way, then it’ll achieve my purposes. I’ll even include a recommended reading list at the end.

I’ve given this subject some thought over the years and feel confident in providing the reader with a couple of lists to consider. The first one itemizes what I personally think you have a right to; the second is a partial roster of things I personally think you don’t have a right to (and I readily grant that you have every right to disagree with me).

You have a right to:

Your life (unless compromised by taking or attempting to take that of another person without a self-defense justification);
Your thoughts;
Your speech (which is really a verbal or written expression of #2) so long as you don’t steal it from another without permission or credit;
Material property you were freely given, that you created yourself, or that you freely traded for;
Raise and educate your children as you see fit;
Live in peace and freedom so long as you do not threaten the peace and freedom of others.

You do not have a right to:

High-speed broadband Internet access;
Cheeseburgers, cheap wine (or even expensive wine, for that matter), or an iPhone;
Somebody else’s house, car, boat, income, business, or bank account;
The labor of another person you’ve not freely contracted with (you can’t enslave somebody, in other words);
Medical care from a witch doctor or a skilled surgeon or anybody in between;
Taxpayer-funded (i.e., coercively-appropriated) child daycare, college education, contraceptives, colonoscopies, or sports stadiums;
Anything that’s not yours, even though you really want it and think you’re entitled to it;
Conscript other people’s children into schools you think they should attend;
Free stuff in general, unless the rightful owner chooses to offer it;
Anything a politician flattered you with by claiming you have a right to it.

Of course, gray areas and reasonable qualifications exist. For example, while I believe you do have a right to raise and educate your own children as you see fit, abuse and neglect are not defensible. But let’s keep our eyes on the big picture, the broad principles here.

Positive vs. Negative Rights

Now, look at those two lists again, carefully. How does the nature of the first list contrast with the nature of the second?

Answer: In the case of the first list, nothing is required of other people except that they leave you alone. For you to have a right to something in the second list, however, requires that other people be compelled to provide that something to you. That’s a monumental difference!

The first list comprises what are often called both “natural rights” and “negative rights”—natural because they derive from our essential nature as unique, sensate individuals and negative because they don’t impose obligations on others beyond a commitment to not violate them. The items in the second are called “positive rights” because others must give them to you or be coerced into doing so if they decline.

The late Tibor Machan, who wrote many articles for FEE in the 1970s and 1980s, elaborated on this distinction in “The Perils of Positive Rights”:

“Positive rights” trump freedom. According to this doctrine, human beings by nature owe, as a matter of enforceable obligation, part or even all of their lives to other persons. Generosity and charity thus cannot be left to individual conscience. If people have such positive rights, no one can be justified in refusing service to others; one may be conscripted to serve regardless of one’s own choices and goals.
If positive rights are valid, then negative rights cannot be, for the two are mutually contradictory.

The existence of “negative rights,” wrote Machan, “means that no one ought to enslave another, coerce another, or deprive another of his property; and that each of us may properly resist such conduct when others engage in it.”

So while I believe neither you nor I have a right to any of those disparate things in the second list, I hasten to add that we certainly have the right to seek them, to create them, to receive them as gifts from willing benefactors, or to trade for them. We just don’t have a right to compel anyone to give them to us or pay for them. If any of us did, then why wouldn’t another individual have a similar right to take them from us?

The Constitution’s Role in Rights

What about “constitutional rights,” a phrase we hear from people on all sides of the political spectrum? I like what Michael Badnarik said about them in his 2004 book, Good to be King:

People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase “constitutional rights.” I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution “grants” them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking, it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all […] The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the rights you’ve always had.

If you’re motivated to explore further the nature, origin, meaning, and extent of rights, then you’re on the right website. Over decades, FEE has published many articles by numerous authors on just this matter. I close with a recommendation of 10 of the best:

Let’s Think Clearly about “Rights” by Jeffrey Harding

Human Rights are Property Rights by Murray N. Rothbard

Of Rights: Natural and Arbitrary by Clarence Carson

Is Health Care a Human Right? by Trevor Burrus

No Rights Without Property Rights by Frank Chodorov

How FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights Changed American Politics by Burton W. Folsom

Rights by Henry Hazlitt

Freedom or Free-for-All? by Lawrence W. Reed

When Wishes Become Rights by Leonard E. Read

Rights Vs. Entitlements by Steven Yates

COLUMN BY

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is president of the Foundation for Economic Education and author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism. Follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column with images is republished with permission. Image credit: Flickr-Ted Mielczarek | CC BY 2.0

Cleveland: Suit against Catholic Charities in boy’s shocking death

January 20, 2019/in Courts & Law, Healthcare, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

A social worker, employed through a contract with Catholic Charities of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland was supposed to be checking on and protecting the nine children in the Rodriguez home, but instead she had cooked up a deal with the children’s mother to obtain the family’s food stamps.

In exchange she allegedly turned a blind eye to abuse and deplorable living conditions that resulted in the death of a five-year-old boy whose body was buried in the back yard.

The case became known to the police when someone called from PAKISTAN with a tip! WTH!

This is the latest news from Cleveland.com:

Estate of Cleveland boy found buried in back yard sues Catholic Charities

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The estate of a 5-year-old Cleveland boy whose body was found in late 2017 buried behind his mother’s house has filed a lawsuit against the social services arm of the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland that employed the worker who was supposed to keep tabs on the family.

The survivorship of Jordan Rodriguez filed the wrongful death lawsuit Tuesday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court against Catholic Charities, its employee Nancy Caraballo, the boy’s mother Larissa Rodriguez and her boyfriend Christopher Rodriguez.

The suit accuses Catholic Charities and Caraballo of recklessness, negligence and failing to report abuse the boy suffered in the two years leading up to his death. The estate, administrated by Michelle Rodriguez, seeks to take the case before a jury.

“While we cannot at this time comment on what is alleged in the lawsuit, Catholic Charities protects and advocates for those who are most vulnerable,” the statement said. “All employees undergo thorough background checks and extensive training with regard to ethics and specifically their duties to report child abuse or neglect.”

Jordan’s body was discovered buried in the family’s backyard in December 2017, after Cleveland police received a call from Pakistan that said Christopher Rodriguez confessed to burying the child.

Investigators responding to the call found the home in deplorable condition, and it wasn’t long before they uncovered that Caraballo, a parent educator at an agency contracted with Catholic Charities who was assigned to the Rodriguez family, had been buying Larissa Rodriguez’s food stamps at discounted prices and lying in her reports of her visits.

Caraballo was supposed to conduct monthly home visits to check on Rodriguez’s children and living conditions and file a report each time. But investigators subpoenaed her cellphone records and compared text messages between Caraballo and Rodriguez to the reports and found that, on at least 12 occasions, Caraballo simply showed up to Rodriguez’s house to pick up the food stamp card. She filed false reports that said she inspected the home.

More here.

The case will make you sick!

In February Caraballo plead not guilty here.

Then here in April she was sentenced to 3 years for the food stamp fraud.

And, now get this, she reformed in jail and was out in six months, here.

As is usual there is no mention of the immigration status of either Caraballo or the Rodriquez duo.

But I am interested in why a call to police came from Pakistan. Were there Pakistani convenience store proprietors in on the food stamp fraud?

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EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Daiga Ellaby on Unsplash.

Congress Earns ‘Nero Award’ For Fiddling While America is Invaded: Why Democrats’ actions are especially egregious.

January 19, 2019/in Culture War, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Michael Cutler

President Trump has decided to not sign off on the federal budget until it includes money for a physical barrier to finally secure the dangerous and highly porous U.S./Mexican border from the un-inspected entry of aliens and cargo.

That tough decision has been a long time coming.

With no budget, nonessential sections of the government have been shut down and some federal employees deemed “essential” are working without pay.

As a former federal employee I can certainly empathize with those federal employees. I recall working without pay when prior partial government shutdowns occurred.

Many pundits and “political analysts” have said that the administration should compromise. As things now stand, there is nothing to compromise about. Any “compromise” with Pelosi and company would only compromise national security. That “compromise” has been ongoing for decades and we have all too many dead bodies that prove how dangerous open borders are.

The media is focused on how many days federal employees have gone without pay, but no one is keeping track of how many years our borders have failed to prevent the entry of narcotics, weapons, criminals, terrorists and foreign workers who displace hard-working Americans and drive down the wages of those who are fortunate to keep their jobs.

The mainstream media has reported, as part of coverage about the impact of the partial government shutdown, that some TSA employees have failed to report for duty, thereby causing delays at airports as long lines of travelers wait to be screened by the diminished workforce.

Certainly there is not much that can be done when TSA personnel don’t show up for work. After all, no one would want to board an airliner unless all passengers and their luggage are carefully screened.

However, isn’t it ironic that folks would never willingly fly on an airliner unless all of the passengers and cargo were carefully vetted, and yet because of our corrupt and globalist politicians, because of the multiple failures to secure our borders (including that perilous and porous one we share with Mexico), we are forced to live among millions of aliens who entered the United States without screening?

Yet that is precisely the situation we find ourselves in today and, if anyone complains about this, they are quickly tossed into Hillary’s “basket of deplorables”!

For the first two years of the Trump administration the House and Senate were both controlled by a Republican majority. Nevertheless the President’s call for funding for the border wall went unheeded and ignored.

Let’s be fair and honest: the “leadership” of both the Democrats and Republicans has never wanted secure borders or effective immigration law enforcement.

This was the underlying predication for my article, “Sanctuary Country – Immigration failures by design.”

It is not that America cannot secure its borders; it is that our political elites from both parties don’t want those borders to be made secure. They have come to see the immigration system as a delivery system for an unlimited supply of easily exploited foreign workers from Third World countries who come to America with Third World expectations of meager wages and unreasonable and hazardous working conditions.

Many of the politicians from both parties are attorneys. For them, particularly those who practice immigration law, a tsunami of illegal aliens provides an endless stream of clients for immigration law firms from coast to coast and border to border.

I discussed this on the “Breitbart News Tonight” radio show of which Breitbart posted a follow-up news article, “Exclusive–Michael Cutler: Immigration ‘Crisis’ a ‘Delivery System’ for Elites.”

This is why the political leaders from both the Democratic and Republican parties have been insisting that since we cannot deport all of the illegal aliens who are present in the United States, the best we can do is legalize them to “get them out of the shadows.”

This is a thinly disguised game of “bait and switch” with the ultimate goal of getting those millions of illegal aliens into the waiting rooms of immigration law firms around the United States.

The Democrats exclaim that we must be “compassionate” and provide these “immigrants” with a pathway to citizenship while the Republicans insist that they are going to stand strong and “only” provide millions of illegal aliens with permission to work.

Either way, aspiring illegal aliens from around the world are getting the message: enter the United States by any means possible and little will be done to remove (deport) you but eventually you will be granted permission to work in the United States and gain lawful status.

The Democrats have insisted that when illegal aliens enter the United States, if they utter the magic password “political asylum” they will immediately be swept into a massive program that will enable them to remain in the country for many years. This further entices millions more illegal aliens to head for the United States.

In essence, the starter’s pistol has thus been fired for aspiring illegal aliens from around the world and for these aliens the “finish line” is the border of the United States.

That imagery is certainly apparent as we witness yet another “migrant caravan” heading north from El Salvador to the U.S./Mexican border.

The Democratic Party is adamant about not “wasting money” on a border wall or other such “low tech” solution to border security. Instead they would spend hundreds of millions of dollars on drones and sensors that would alert the overwhelmed Border Patrol when aliens run the border.

I have written about this madness in several articles but am compelled once again to make note of what should be obvious but is never reported in the mainstream media: a succession of government reports have shown that drones, which cost hundreds of millions of dollars, have been involved in fewer than one-half of one percent of all Border Patrol arrests.

Drones and sensors should be thought of as a sort of national burglar alarm for America. Drones and burglar alarms cannot make any arrests. All that they do is notify the appropriate authorities that a break-in has occurred or that our borders have been violated and then it is up to law enforcement agencies to respond to that alarm.

Many homes have burglar alarms, but I have never seen a house that is equipped with one that not only did not have strong, secure locks on the front door, but no front door at all!

For decades Americans have been held hostage in their own homes as more drugs and gang members have flowed across our borders and committed violent crimes in towns and cities across the United States.

Now hapless federal employees are being held hostage to the outrageous demands of the Democrats that nothing of meaningful consequence be done to truly secure the dangerous Mexican border.

Even as Chuck Schumer insists that there is no crisis and that President Trump is simply having a “temper tantrum,” not far from Schumer’s own home in Brooklyn, New York, a trial is being conducted at the federal courthouse in downtown Brooklyn (Eastern District of New York).

The defendant in this case is a citizen of Mexico, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the alleged leader of the infamous Mexican Sinaloa Drug Cartel that purportedly smuggled more than 200 tons of cocaine into the United States along with tonnage of other drugs including cocaine, meth and marijuana across the U.S./Mexican border that President Trump is determined to finally secure.

There have been many articles written about the trial but one in particular has managed to capture some of the trial’s “highlights” (lowlights?). That article, “Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán’s trial: Nine crazy moments,” was published on January 10, 2019 by the BBC.

Here is a particularly disturbing excerpt from that news report:

Hi-tech murder room

A trusted hitman for El Chapo kept a “murder room” in his mansion on the US border, which featured a drain on the floor to more easily clean up after slayings.

Edgar Galvan testified in January that Antonio “Jaguar” Marrufo had a room with white tiles that was sound-proofed “so no noise comes out”.

“In that house, no one comes out,” Galvan told jurors.

Galvan said his role in the organisation was to smuggle weapons into the US, so that Marrufo could use them to “clear” the region of rivals.

At the time, he was living in El Paso, Texas, while Marrufo was living in Ciudad Juarez, just across the US-Mexico border.

But both men are now in jail on firearms and gun charges.

Perhaps someone should send Mr. Schumer and his radical cohorts a copy of the article.

During his administration Bill Clinton attempted to redefine the term “is.”

Now Schumer and the Democrats would like to redefine the term “crisis”; however, as John Adams sagely noted, “Facts are stubborn things.”

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EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash.

VIDEO: It’s All Related — The Filth. And your damnation is the goal.

January 18, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Church Militant

TRANSCRIPT

The operational word to describe things in the Church these days, to borrow from Pope Benedict, is filth.

And while the filth all comes in a number of different varieties, it is all related. And for the record, we should understand filth in the broad sense of that which leads people either away from the Faith or into sin, or both, but especially away from the Faith, thus essentially destroying their supernatural defense against the diabolical. So let’s examine the various types of filth, remembering that, at the end of the day, it’s still all filth.

There is, of course, the headline filth of homosexual predation on both adults as well as minors. But that’s not the only filth.

There is the theological filth of the past 50 years, and this has many facets to it. From the insanity that we have a reasonable hope all men are saved, to what amounts to a universalism that all religions are essentially the same and lead to God, to the demonic notion that your conscience, even uninformed or even malformed, is the final arbiter of truth.

All these individual pieces of theological filth are interrelated, each one feeding and feeding off the other. Then there is the liturgical filth manifest in nearly every parish: the lack of reverence in Mass; the failure to understand the Mass as a sacrifice, not a mere meal; the emasculation of many priests; the horrible, childish preaching; the non-stop emphasis on emotionalism; the focus on the community as opposed to the worship of God.

Moving down the filth list, we come across the particular filth of the acceptance of heresy. Many converts from Protestantism will tell you that more and more they don’t see that much of a difference between what they converted from and the Church.

That’s been intentional. Whatever the motives, and that depends on who you are looking at, there was and continues to be an intentional push to make the Church appear and sound more and more Protestant.

Protestantism is a heresy, with its emphasis on personal relationship with Christ outside of the Church, the sacraments, devotions, etc. Yet more and more, Church leaders continue to peddle these heretical beliefs as somehow able to be interpreted as Catholic, the Alpha program being the most notable, but by no means the only one.

The distinctions between Catholicism — the one true faith — and the 40,000 different heretical sects which comprise Protestantism are simply downplayed in classrooms, pulpits, writings, you name it.

Wherever a Catholic lives, you will find a Catholic priest short-changing the Faith and handing over spiritual poison to the faithful.

The failure to preach on the need for confession, the need to be properly disposed to receive Holy Communion, the need for a vigilant prayer life, a spirituality modeled on the saints and so forth. The majority of Catholics hear none of this the majority of the time. That’s filthy because the lack of this knowledge leaves them defenseless against the attacks of the devil.

But the underlying point is straightforward, all this filth is related, all from the same source, just expressed differently at different times in differing ways.

Be it moral, theological, liturgical, catechetical, it’s all the same filth. And it’s all accomplishing the same end: the destruction of souls.

Ask ourselves why would a Catholic have the slightest idea that the Mass is a sacrifice, a representation of the oblation of the Son to the Father.

How would he draw that conclusion when all he hears is “we are family” and “turn around and greet your neighbor” and lay people run around all over the altar handing out the bread to the community?

Ask yourselves why a Catholic would see any essential difference between the Church and heretical set of beliefs when all he sees and hears in the parish are those same heretical beliefs and notions, just with a thin Catholic veneer. The list goes on and on.

The Catholic faithful have been assaulted from every side and in every way from Catholic leaders for the past half-century, and now, they have been reduced to a remnant, the authentic believers.

Those who still go to Mass but do not either understand or believe the Faith will disappear soon enough as they die off, their parishes continue to close and their children and grandchildren never come into a Catholic parish.

All that will be left from that crowd is some vague memory that “grandma, I think, used to be Catholic, didn’t she? Whatever.”

This has been a master plan to repackage the Faith, to break from Tradition, for the past half-century and give the devil his due — he has been wildly successful. For any Catholics out there who are perhaps coming around to this reality but still aren’t sold on it, who think clapping in Mass and girl altar boys and so-called eucharistic ministers are okay, consider this.

Even if those things — and many others — were well-intentioned — and they weren’t — you have to admit they have been a colossal failure.

There are now fewer parishes in the United States then there were when all this began in 1965. And while owing strictly to overall population increases the raw number of Catholics has increased, there are fewer going to Mass and receiving the sacraments than, again, back in 1965.

Open your eyes, just like we had to here at Church Militant when all this became undeniable to us as well. Do you believe the Church is the means to salvation? Do you believe there is no salvation apart from the Church?

Then, if those doctrines of the Church are correct — notice the word “doctrines” — then wouldn’t Satan want to destroy the Church? If he wanted to destroy the Church, what would he do?

How about introducing, little by little at first, a level of filth and poison so as to corrupt the clergy who are the bearers of the sacred. He went after them at the Last Supper in the upper room and hasn’t stopped since.

All this filth has one goal: your damnation and the same for your families.

Karen Pence: The Teacher and the Religious Test

January 18, 2019/in Culture War, Education, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

It was supposed to be a day celebrating religious freedom in America. Instead, liberals decided to show everyone just how much our First Freedom is at risk. For Christians, who’ve tried to warn people that these last several years were about a lot more than marriage, the attacks on Second Lady Karen Pence certainly seem to prove their point. Three years after Obergefell, all of the lies about “love” and “tolerance” have been eclipsed by the court cases, articles, and editorial demonizing people of faith. What Americans see now is the truth: the Left is coming for our freedom. And they have no intention of letting up.

Like Joe Biden’s wife, Karen Pence spent years in the classroom. When Mike was in Congress, she taught art at Immanuel Christian School in Virginia — and no one batted an eye. Of course, that was back in the early 2000s, when the Left’s charm offensive on same-sex marriage was still in full swing. We’ll be accommodating, they said. We just want to co-exist, they said. Our relationships won’t affect you, they said. A handful of years later, “affected” doesn’t begin to describe to what happens to conservatives who think differently than the totalitarian Left.

Of course, the Pences are not strangers to the other side’s viciousness. Every time the media is reminded about the family’s faith, they become hysterical all over again — a scene that played out this week when Karen announced she’d be volunteering at Immanuel Christian this spring. “I am excited to be back in the classroom and doing what I love to do,” she said in a statement. “I have missed teaching art, and it’s great to return to the school where I taught art for 12 years.”

She can’t go back there, LGBT activists raged! They reject homosexuality! Yes, well, that’s what orthodox Christian schools do. (Not to mention Jewish and Muslim ones too.) Would it have been headline news if Jill Biden taught at a Roman Catholic school? Probably not. Yet, the Left and their media chums are hurling profanity at the Pences for something that, even five years ago, wouldn’t have been controversial. Frankly, the only thing that would have been shocking is if Karen worked at a Christian school that didn’t act like a Christian school.

CNN’s Kate Bennett was just one of the talking heads who doesn’t get it. “So, lemme get this straight,” she tweeted, “the second lady of the United States has chosen to work at a school that openly discriminates against LGBT adults and children?” “So, lemme get this straight,” Ben Shapiro fired back. “You’re a reporter but you’ve never heard of religious people before? ‘BREAKING: Pence’s wife is working for a Christian school that requires that Christian students pledge to abide by Christian standards of sin that have not changed in 2,000 years.'”

To be honest, the Left’s real problem isn’t that Mike Pence’s wife is working at an evangelical school — but that evangelical schools exist at all. Since they do, the last thing liberals want is for anyone in public office to be associated with them. And despite what you’ve heard from the forces of intolerance, Immanuel Christian doesn’t “ban” anyone from their school. What they do, Chad Greene, points out, “is require a specific set of behavioral and religious belief standards equally applied to everyone. Many in the Christian world make a distinction regarding LGBT people that the left typically refuses to consider, between a person and his actions.” As Christians, our behavior doesn’t define us — we define our behavior.

Immanuel is in the business of teaching Christianity. What would be the point of a religious school if it didn’t? This “immediate, visceral reaction” shows just how far the Left will go to shame people of faith into silence. Worse, it proves the day they told us was coming is finally here. Back in 2015, during the Obergefell arguments, President Obama’s top lawyer, Donald Verrilli pulled back the curtain on the Left’s real goal in one surprisingly candid moment. When Justice Samuel Alito pressed the solicitor general on whether same-sex marriage would give the government a weapon to threaten Christian schools, Verrilli seemed uncomfortable but admitted, “It’s certainly going to be an issue. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.”

We haven’t seen the Left fully implement their plans, because they haven’t had the benefit of another radical president in the White House to build on the liberal legacy of Barack Obama. But we don’t have to guess what they’ll do if they get one. It’s all spelled out in the most recent Democratic National Platform. Religious freedom, as Americans have known it for 233 years, will not be safe in the hands of a movement that is surgically targeting people of faith.

When I talked to the vice president on “Washington Watch” earlier today, he didn’t mince words. “Karen and I have been in and around public life for almost two decades, and so — to be honest — we’re used to the criticism. But the attacks on Christian education by the mainstream media have got to stop. We cherish the freedom of religion in this country. This administration stands four-square for the freedom of religion of people of all faiths. And to see the mainstream media to criticize my wife because she’s choosing to return to the classroom of an elementary Christian school is wrong.”

There used to be a consensus in this country that religious liberty was for everyone. When the Religious Freedom Restoration Act came before Congress, only three members voted against it. Over time, some liberals tried to isolate faith — to churches, Christian schools, or family rooms. You’ve heard me say before that the Left’s hope is to quarantine religion within the four walls of the church. Now, it’s becoming clear — even that won’t satisfy them.

“I have always had a problem with the idea that religion is something we must keep to ourselves,” Matt Walsh writes in the Daily Wire. “Indeed, the Christian faith requires exactly the opposite. But in the case of Karen Pence and her new employer, they are doing exactly what the Left demanded. This school is merely trying to operate by biblical principles within its own walls and on its own property. It is a Christian school simply being a Christian school. It isn’t bothering anyone. It isn’t invading anyone’s home and lecturing them about their sexual behavior. It isn’t preventing anyone from working or living or enjoying their lives. It is just saying, very reasonably, very unobtrusively, ‘We are going to conduct ourselves according to Christian moral tradition. If you don’t want to accept that moral tradition, then by all means go somewhere else.'”
“This is exactly, precisely, the approach that the Left for years endorsed and insisted upon. But suddenly it’s a problem. Suddenly, even Christianity behind closed doors, on private property, in a private school, is a target of outrage and scorn. It was a lie all along. They were never planning to stop outside the walls of our homes and our churches and our schools. That’s just what they said to lull us to sleep.”
“Now the next phase begins.”

Sign the pledge to pray for Karen Pence openly lives her faith by biblical truth.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Podcast: A Former Planned Parenthood Employee Shares Why She Changed

January 18, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Healthcare, Policy, Politics, Religion, Science, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

Today is the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and we’re joined by Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood employee who had a change of heart and is now a pro-life advocate. Plus: Rachel del Guidice shares why she’s been attending the march for the past 13 years.

We also cover these stories:

A day after Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged the president to delay his State of the Union speech, President Donald Trump delayed Pelosi’s trip overseas.
A measure pushed by House Republicans that would keep the government closed but would provide pay to affected government employees failed, with only six Democrats voting for it.
Sen. Lindsey Graham re-introduced a bill that would ban abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at letters@dailysignal.com. Enjoy the show!

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

PODCAST BY

Rachel del Guidice

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.

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also a member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors. Send an email to Katrina. Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko.

Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis is the commentary editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. Send an email to Daniel. Twitter: @JDaniel_Davis.

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images and podcast is republished with permission. Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images

Americans ripping off Americans too! NY State Charity Questioned

January 17, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

A commenter here at Frauds and Crooks tells me I’m not writing any stories about born and bred American frauds, crooks and criminals while focusing on “new Americans.”

I have written about several American crooks, maybe more than I know because the media and law enforcement never tell us the immigration status of the likes of Mumtaz Rauf, orHaytham “Tom” Fakih. Maybe they were born here?

That whole bunch of propagandists at Welcoming America are Americans.

And, of course there are American deceivers at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

So here is a story from late last month first reported by the New York Post and then embellished by the Daily Caller (hat tip: Cathy):

Black Lawmakers’ Charity Didn’t Give Out A Single Scholarship, Top Pols Hide Financials

The caucus of black New York state lawmakers runs a charity whose stated mission is to empower “African American and Latino youth through education and leadership initiatives” by “providing opportunity to higher education” — but it hasn’t given a single scholarship to needy youth in two years, according to a New York Post investigation.
The group collects money from companies like AT&T, the Real Estate Board of New York, Time Warner Cable and CableVision, telling them in promotional materials that they are “changing lives, one scholarship at a time.”
The group — called the Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators, Inc. — instead spent $500,000 in the 2015 – 2016 fiscal year on items like food, limousines and rap music, the Post found.
The politicians refused to divulge the charity’s 2017 tax filing to the Post despite federal requirements that charities do so upon request.
Its main activity is holding and selling tickets to an elaborate party each year intended to raise money for its stated mission of providing scholarships for youth. But year after year, essentially all the money simply seems to go to festivities.

Continue reading here, or go to the New York Post for more of the gory details.

Just realizing what an abundance of stories I might be able to develop in my category on ‘Charity fraud.’

If you have a local charity fraud story (a published story!) send me a link and I’ll see if it fits with my objectives here at Frauds and Crooks.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Rye Jessen on Unsplash.

New Years Wish: No More Morally Superior Phonies

January 16, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Marilyn Singleton

My new year’s resolution is to expose the hypocrisy of the morally superior politicians whose election strategy was to pretend they cared about crafting policies in the country’s best interest.
Multimillionaire Nancy (“We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it” and if you disagree with me you are sexist) Pelosi is safe in her Napa Wine Country or San Francisco home, far from the drug addicts, dirty needles, feces, gang members and homeless lining the streets of San Francisco. Her voters may be too uninformed or willfully blind to see what she and her ilk have done to this formerly beautiful city. Sadly, the nation will be forced to suffer from her policies that reward scofflaws, patronize the poor, create dependency, and are designed to hustle votes.
Because their lives are so much more precious than ours, the power brokers have their private security and the medical care of their choice. They also have no shame.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

My new year’s resolution is to expose the hypocrisy of the morally superior politicians whose election strategy was to pretend they cared about crafting policies in the country’s best interest.

Take “the wall” on our southern border. Ignoring the opinion of the border patrol agents (51 percent of whom are Hispanic) that it would “without a doubt” be a helpful tool, Nancy Pelosi and her people claimed it would be ineffective in stopping everybody. That’s like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopping its flu vaccination campaign because the vaccine is only 40-60 percent effective.

And sanctuary state California Senator Kamala Harris was quick to the gun control microphone when some people were shot in a brawl but not a peep out of her when a community is in mourning after its brown-skinned legal immigrant policeman is gunned down at a traffic stop by a twice arrested illegal immigrant.

Expanding on the racist meme, the new talking point is that a wall is “immoral.” Where is the morality in enabling 1.5 million pounds of drugs to enter our country through Mexico contributing to the 70,237 drug overdose deaths — over 200 deaths per day—in the U.S. in 2017? Or in turning a blind eye to MS-13 gang members and criminals entering the country? I imagine the Costa Ricans and Panamanians are racist for securing their borders from the flood of illegal immigrants, and the El Salvadorians are immoral for putting razor wire walls around entire neighborhoods.

There is no morality in exploiting the deaths of two children who had endured a trek through an unfriendly landscape to score anti-Trump political points. (Some parents have admitted that their child was “their passport” to a better chance of getting in the United States.).

It is heartbreaking when any child dies. It is frustrating when there is no obvious cause. The CDC reports that in 2015 in the U.S., 393 children in good health between the ages of 1-18 years died suddenly without a clear cause of death, known as Sudden Unexplained Death in Childhood (SUDC). One migrant child reportedly died of sepsis. Sepsis and septic shock can result from an infection anywhere in the body, including an open cut or scrape. In the United States, more than 75,000 children develop severe sepsis each year. Almost 7,000 of these children from all socioeconomic groups die – this is more than those who die of pediatric cancers. These families also deserve compassion. I didn’t see these outraged, compassionate legislators listed as co-sponsors to the bipartisan House Resolution to increase awareness of sepsis.

Where are the tears for the children of Chiraq? At about 24 deaths a year, children in Chicago’s deteriorating black neighborhoods are being killed 24 times the rate that Chicago soldiers are being killed in Iraq. From September 2011 to 2016, at least 174 children under the age of 17 have been killed in shootings. I’m still waiting for the Obamas to mention the problem, much less solutions to their hometown tragedy.

Multimillionaire Nancy (“We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it” and if you disagree with me you are sexist) Pelosi is safe in her Napa Wine Country or San Francisco home, far from the drug addicts, dirty needles, feces, gang members and homeless lining the streets of San Francisco. Her voters may be too uninformed or willfully blind to see what she and her ilk have done to this formerly beautiful city. Sadly, the nation will be forced to suffer from her policies that reward scofflaws, patronize the poor, create dependency, and are designed to hustle votes.

Many of the morally superior advocates of government-run healthcare frame the issue as a matter of compassion and social justice for all. The opposite is true. The program will rob every worker of their hard-earned income by doubling their taxes to fully fund Medicare-for-All’s $32 trillion 10-year price tag.

Worse yet, everyone’s liberty will be curtailed. With Medicare-for-All, private insurance is prohibited, doctors will still have to prove that their desired treatment is “medically necessary,” and patients will have longer wait times for services and still get a 7 minute visit with a “provider.” The 63,000 Canadians who left for healthcare in 2017 will have to rely heavily on other medical tourist destinations.

It is highly unlikely that the political elite will be forced to go to the retail clinic at the local drug store or Walmart—certainly not the same southern Virginia Walmart where FBI higher-up Peter Strzok “could SMELL [sic] the Trump support.”

Barely a nanosecond had passed after Speaker Pelosi promised less divisiveness when the newest identity politician shouted from the rooftops (in front of her child), that “we’re going to go in and impeach the mother f—–!”

Because their lives are so much more precious than ours, the power brokers have their private security and the medical care of their choice. They also have no shame.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Conservative Pundit column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by NordWood Themes on Unsplash.

The facts on Immigrant Crime Published in NJ Newspaper

January 15, 2019/in Commentary, Courts & Law, Immigration, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Ann Corcoran

And, not only that! The Trentonian, via an opinion piece by David Neese, reminds its readers in blue New Jersey about statements from politicians past that should have earned them (at least) a wrist slap from the Southern Poverty Law Center.

bernie and barack — So where was the Southern Poverty Law Center when we needed them?

You have heard the comments repeatedly lately, but I will bet a buck most Dems outside of the DC beltway have no idea both Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders were so vocal in their demands for border security!

Maybe I’m too hard on the mainstream media! Sometimes they come through with the truth!

The Trentonian:

Provocation: Documented facts about ‘undocumented’

Using at least two words that are now verboten in proper Washington circles, writer Neese begins with a little provocation about the hypocrisy that is driving us nuts these days! (Emphasis is mine)

Surely it was a white supremacist — or at a minimum a xenophobic bigot — who brazenly uttered these words: “We simply can’t allow people to pour into the United States undetected, unchecked, circumventing the people who are waiting patiently, diligently, lawfully to become immigrants in the country.”
But, lo and behold, these were not the words of some slope-browed yahoo driving around in a pickup with a confederate decal on the rear window right by the gun rack.
These were the words of none other than Barack Obama, spoken in 2005.
Okay, but surely the following words, spoken in 2007, were the sentiments of a Klan rabble-rouser:
“I don’t know why we need millions of people to be coming into the country who will work for lower wages than America works and drive down wages even lower than they are now.”
Nope, not Klan words. Those were the words of Bernie Sanders, socialist tribune for the toiling proletariat.

Then he gets to the numbers that no one should ignore:

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) puts out a report called “Criminal Alien Statistics.” The 2018 edition notes 208,800 criminal aliens in state and federal prisons, doing time for an assortment of felonies at a taxpayer cost of $1.4 billion annually.
That seems like a lot of offenders behind bars if immigrant crime is merely, as frequently asserted, a “dog-whistle” term the Know Nothings employ to incite resentment of brown people.
Looking at a sample of 197,000 criminal aliens, the GAO reports an average 10 criminal offenses per alien among this group. Ten!
For the period roughly 2011-2016, the GAO reports the following number of offenses by illegal aliens:
— Drugs: 761,200 state, 336,600 federal.
— Assaults: 397,000 state, 108,400 federal.
— Weapons: 124,709 state, 44,500 federal.
— Sex offenses: 120,300 state, 13,600 federal.
— Robberies: 54,700 state, 13,500 federal.
— Homicides: 50,300 state, 6,000 federal.
— Kidnappings: 18,600 state, 5,000 federal.

Go here to read it all.

Thank you Mr. Neese and The Trentonian. (If you are wondering, I don’t know David Neese.)

Looking for something to do? Get Neese’s piece circulating on social media. Not my post, but his original (here) and consider contacting The Trentonian to thank them for publishing it.

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by David von Diemar on Unsplash.

TAKE ACTION: Americans Demand Border Security Petition

January 15, 2019/in Culture War, Immigration, National Security, Policy, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Heritage Action

The border crisis is real—and inaction by Congressional Democrats is irresponsible. To protect our communities, the Trump Administration is requesting funds for common sense border security funding.

We must have a secure border in order to:

Reduce illegal immigration.
Protect American lives.
Combat the opioid epidemic.
Protect vulnerable individuals from exploitation by human traffickers.

Background

Insufficient border security is creating a crisis in communities across America and at the southern border. For instance, 90 percent of the heroin in America comes through our southern border, fueling the opioid epidemic and destroying our communities.

America welcomes more than one million legal immigrants every year who go through a long vetting process. However, the current immigration system is broken due to a combination of outdated legal immigration rules and lax enforcement that exacerbates lawlessness.

In 2017 and 2018, roughly 235,000 illegal immigrants were arrested on various criminal charges or convictions within the interior of the United States—including roughly 100,000 for assault, 30,000 for sex crimes, and 4,000 for homicides.

Insufficient border security is creating a crisis in communities throughout America. 90 percent of the heroin in America comes through our southern border, fueling the opioid epidemic, destroying families, and killing thousands of our fellow citizens. In the past two years, more Americans have died from opioid overdoses than died in the Vietnam war.

Furthermore, human smugglers are exploiting our immigration system for profit and putting innocent lives at risk. One in three migrant women are sexually assaulted on the dangerous trek to the border.

The border crisis is real—and inaction is irresponsible. To protect our communities, the Trump Administration is requesting funds for common sense border security. This ask inclu d es:

$5.7 billion for construction of approximately 234 miles of steel barrier along the Southern Border
$675 million to deter and detect dangerous materials crossing our borders like narcotics and weapons
$563 million that would provide for 75 additional immigration judges and support staff who are necessary to reduce the backlog of immigration cases that are sitting right now at the border
$211 million for 750 additional border patrol agents, who DHS officials have deemed paramount to this fight
$571 million for additional ICE personnel
$4.2 billion for detention center materials and personnel

As a first step to combat this crisis, Congress must pass a spending bill that provides the funding that the President has requested. In addition to obtaining increased border security funding today, we must continue to push for real reforms to our legal immigration system. Necessary reforms include ending chain migration, adopting a skills-based immigration system, and closing loopholes in the asylum claim process.

TAKE ACTION: Sign the petition to tell Democrats in Congress to stop holding our safety hostage!

EDITORS NOTE: This Heritage Action column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Roman Koester on Unsplash.

I’m A Senior Trump Official, And I Hope A Long Shutdown Smokes Out The Resistance

January 14, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Elections, Featured, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

The Daily Caller is taking the rare step of publishing this anonymous op-ed at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose career would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here.

As one of the senior officials working without a paycheck, a few words of advice for the president’s next move at shuttered government agencies: lock the doors, sell the furniture, and cut them down.

Federal employees are starting to feel the strain of the shutdown. I am one of them. But for the sake of our nation, I hope it lasts a very long time, till the government is changed and can never return to its previous form.

The lapse in appropriations is more than a battle over a wall. It is an opportunity to strip wasteful government agencies for good.

On an average day, roughly 15 percent of the employees around me are exceptional patriots serving their country. I wish I could give competitive salaries to them and no one else. But 80 percent feel no pressure to produce results. If they don’t feel like doing what they are told, they don’t.

Why would they? We can’t fire them. They avoid attention, plan their weekend, schedule vacation, their second job, their next position — some do this in the same position for more than a decade.

They do nothing that warrants punishment and nothing of external value. That is their workday: errands for the sake of errands — administering, refining, following and collaborating on process. “Process is your friend” is what delusional civil servants tell themselves. Even senior officials must gain approval from every rank across their department, other agencies and work units for basic administrative chores.

Process is what we serve, process keeps us safe, process is our core value. It takes a lot of people to maintain the process. Process provides jobs. In fact, there are process experts and certified process managers who protect the process. Then there are the 5 percent with moxy (career managers). At any given time they can change, clarify or add to the process — even to distort or block policy counsel for the president.

Saboteurs peddling opinion as research, tasking their staff on pet projects or pitching wasteful grants to their friends. Most of my career colleagues actively work against the president’s agenda. This means I typically spend about 15 percent of my time on the president’s agenda and 85 percent of my time trying to stop sabotage, and we have no power to get rid of them. Until the shutdown.

Due to the lack of funding, many federal agencies are now operating more effectively from the top down on a fraction of their workforce, with only select essential personnel serving national security tasks. One might think this is how government should function, but bureaucracies operate from the bottom up — a collective of self-generated ideas. Ideas become initiatives, formalize into offices, they seek funds from Congress and become bureaus or sub-agencies, and maybe one day grow to be their own independent agency, like ours. The nature of a big administrative bureaucracy is to grow to serve itself. I watch it and fight it daily.

When the agency is full, employees held liable for poor performance respond with threats, lawsuits, complaints and process in at least a dozen offices, taking years of mounting paperwork with no fear of accountability, extending their careers, while no real work is done. Do we succumb to such extortion? Yes. We pay them settlements, we waive bad reviews, and we promote them.

Many government agencies have adopted the position that more complaints are good because it shows inclusion in, you guessed it, the process. When complaints come, it is cheaper to pay them off than to hold public servants accountable. The result: People accused of serious offenses are not charged, and self-proclaimed victims are paid by you, the American taxpayer.

The message to federal supervisors is clear. Maintain the status quo, or face allegations. Many federal employees truly believe that doing tasks more efficiently and cutting out waste, by closing troubled programs instead of expanding them, “is morally wrong,” as one cried to me.

I get it. These are their pets. It is tough to put them down and let go, and many resist. This phenomenon was best summed up by a colleague who said, “The goal in government is to do nothing. If you try to get things done, that’s when you will run into trouble.”

But President Trump can end this abuse. Senior officials can reprioritize during an extended shutdown, focus on valuable results and weed out the saboteurs. We do not want most employees to return, because we are working better without them. Sure, we empathize with families making tough financial decisions, like mine, and just like private citizens who have to find other work and bring competitive value every day, while paying more than a third of their salary in federal taxes.

President Trump has created more jobs in the private sector than the furloughed federal workforce. Now that we are shut down, not only are we identifying and eliminating much of the sabotage and waste, but we are finally working on the president’s agenda.

President Trump does not need Congress to address the border emergency, and yes, it is an emergency. Billions upon billions of hard-earned tax dollars are still being dumped into foreign aid programs every year that do nothing for America’s interest or national security. The president does not need congressional funding to deconstruct abusive agencies who work against his agenda. This is a chance to effect real change, and his leverage grows stronger every day the shutdown lasts.

The president should add to his demands, including a vote on all of his political nominees in the Senate. Send the career appointees back. Many are in the 5 percent of saboteurs and resistance leaders.

A word of caution: To be a victory, this shutdown must be different than those of the past and should achieve lasting disruption with two major changes, or it will hurt the president.

The first thing we need out of this is better security, particularly at the southern border. Our founders envisioned a free market night watchman state, not the bungled bloated bureaucracy our government has become. But we have to keep the uniformed officers paid, which is an emergency. Ideally, continue a resolution to pay the essential employees only, if they are truly working on national security. Furloughed employees should find other work, never return and not be paid.

Secondly, we need savings for taxpayers. If this fight is merely rhetorical bickering with Nancy Pelosi, we all lose, especially the president. But if it proves that government is better when smaller, focusing only on essential functions that serve Americans, then President Trump will achieve something great that Reagan was only bold enough to dream.

The president’s instincts are right. Most Americans will not miss non-essential government functions. A referendum to end government plunder must happen. Wasteful government agencies are fighting for relevance but they will lose. Now is the time to deliver historic change by cutting them down forever.

The author is a senior official in the Trump administration.

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EPA Employees Who Watched Porn, Harassed Women And Got Promoted

Trump’s Shutdown Differs Greatly From Obama’s

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column with images is republished with permission. The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.

190,000 sign petition to impeach Muslim Rep. Rashida Tlaib who called Trump “motherf**er”

January 14, 2019/in Culture War, Must Read, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

This is unlikely to succeed, but it shows widespread dissatisfaction not just with Tlaib, but with the direction the Left is taking.

“This woman is an anti-Semite, a war mongering hate filled Palestinian who has vowed to try and destroy our constitutional rights, hates America, hates American citizens.”

Can those charges reasonably be disputed?

“150,000 Sign Petition to Impeach Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib,” by Anthony Gockowski, Tennessee Star, January 12, 2019 (thanks to the Geller Report):

A Change.org petition calling for the impeachment of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI-13) already has close to 160,000 signatures.

“This woman is an anti-Semite, a war mongering hate filled Palestinian who has vowed to try and destroy our constitutional rights, hates America, hates American citizens,” the petition states. “She’s a danger to our sovereignty, a detriment to society, and to this country, and is unfit to serve in any capacity within our government.”

The petition also takes issue with Tlaib’s election, claiming that she “lied about living in Detroit” by “using her father’s house address.”

Tlaib made headlines earlier this week when she vowed to “impeach the motherf—” during a party in celebration of her being sworn in to Congress.

“I stand by impeaching the president of the United States. I ran on that,” she said in an interview discussing her comments. She called her promise to impeach President Donald Trump something she “very much” holds “dearly.”

“They love that I’m real, and that I am very much focused on getting the government back up and running, but also making sure we’ve held the president of the United States accountable,” she said.

Tlaib later apologized that her comments caused a “distraction,” but refused to apologize for the explicit remarks….

SIGN THE IMPEACH RASHIDA TLAIB PETITION

RELATED VIDEO: Rashida Tlaib’s brother praises terrorists.

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is from Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib’s Facebook page.