Tag Archive for: Beijing Biden

Deported Eight Times, Migrant Sex Offender with Vast Criminal Record Enters U.S. Again

In a disturbing case that illustrates the gravity of the security lapses along the southwest border, an illegal immigrant sex offender with an extensive criminal record and previously deported eight times was caught entering the country yet again through Mexico. His name is Elvis Cristian Hernandez-Ayala and the U.S. Border Patrol recently caught him trying to bypass a checkpoint in Falfurrias, Texas. Agents arrested the 37-year-old criminal migrant and three others as they walked through a ranch not far from the border.

When Hernandez-Ayala was further vetted authorities confirmed he had been previously removed from the United States eight times following convictions for felony possession of a controlled substance, driving while intoxicated and sexual assault. A few days ago, a Trump appointed federal judge in Texas, David S. Morales, sentenced Hernandez-Ayala to 37 months in federal prison for returning to the U.S. without permission, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed in an announcement that says the migrant pleaded guilty. In the document the DOJ writes that Hernandez-Ayala was on supervised release for a prior illegal re-entry conviction and that he also got slapped with a 12-month prison sentence for that violation.

During the criminal migrant’s most recent court hearing, federal prosecutors presented evidence about Hernandez-Ayala’s frequent illegal re-entries and what the DOJ calls a “troubling criminal history,” that includes convictions for sexual assault involving the rape of another illegal alien in a stash house. Hernandez-Ayala is expected to be transferred to a yet to be determined federal prison to serve his sentence. As if it needs to be spelled out, the DOJ writes in its recent announcement that, because Hernandez-Ayala is “not a U.S. citizen, he is expected to face removal proceedings” following his imprisonment. Based on his history and the famously porous southern border, Hernandez-Ayala will likely return.

A growing number of illegal immigrants that enter the U.S. through Mexico have criminal records like Hernandez-Ayala. In fact, in the last few years the figure has surged dramatically. In 2021 the Border Patrol arrested twice as many criminal aliens during a six-month period alone than in all of the previous year. Among them were 982 convicted of possessing illegal drugs or trafficking, 576 convicted of assault, battery, and domestic violence, 832 guilty of driving under the influence, 381 convicted of burglary, robbery, larceny, theft, and fraud, 265 sex offenders and 162 guilty of Illegal weapons possession, transport, and trafficking. The government stats also reveal that thousands of the criminal aliens arrested in the first half of the fiscal year were previously deported after illegal entry or illegal reentry just like Hernandez-Ayala.

A few years earlier, federal authorities disclosed that over 90% of illegal aliens arrested in the U.S. had criminal convictions or pending charges. They included 56,000 assaults and thousands of sex crimes, robberies, homicides and kidnappings. Many had “extensive criminal histories with multiple convictions,” according to a report issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE). The 123,128 illegal aliens arrested by the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in 2019 had an alarming 489,063 criminal convictions and pending charges, according to agency records. That translates to an average of four crimes per alien, highlighting the “recidivist nature” of the arrested migrants, the agency points out, noting that sanctuary cities nationwide greatly impeded its public safety efforts by shielding even the most violent illegal aliens from deportation.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

America’s International Influence Wanes as Communist Nations Craft Partnerships

Economic weakness and radical policies are pushing nations away from the U.S. and into the arms of China and Russia, a well-known business school head stated Friday.

“The U.S. is clearly losing our authority on the world stage,” former Congressman Dave Brat said on August 25’s “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins.” Brat is dean of the Liberty University School of Business.

He noted that BRICS, a bloc of nations that already included China, Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, announced Thursday the group was adding Saudi Arabia, Iran, Ethiopia, Egypt, Argentina, and the United Arab Emirates as members in a concerted effort to overturn what has been a world order dominated by U.S. interests since the mid-20th century.

Russia pushed for the bloc’s formation in 2009. More recently, China has been the prime driver behind the group and its growth.

“This membership expansion is historic,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a Reuters report. “It shows the determination of BRICS countries for unity and cooperation with the broader developing countries.”

This shift in alliances is a reaction against the overreach of the United States, Brat told FRC’s guest host Jody Hice. “We’ve gone too far,” Brat continued, “We’re $50 trillion in debt.” He noted that the rest of the world is well aware of the United States’ economic woes, including higher interest rates and the likelihood the nation will never be able to pay off its debt. Brat, who served as the U.S. representative for Virginia’s 7th congressional district from 2014 to 2019, said many nations are holding American dollars which are losing value.

Referencing the Bretton Woods Agreement, an economic and monetary order established in 1944 after the United States victory in World War II, Brat explained the U.S. looked to rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence in building a world order aimed at blunting the spread of communism.

“We protected the world as long as they would help us fight against the Soviet Union back then,” he continued. “The world has changed significantly now. China is our biggest threat, and we are just ill-equipped,” Brat added.

Adding insult to injury, Hice noted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced an LGBTQ policy earlier this month. According to an agency press release, the first-ever policy “guides USAID’s commitment to advancing LGBTQI+ Inclusive Development and the human rights of LGBTQI+ people as part of a coordinated, whole-of-U.S. government effort with our partners on the ground.”

“So it’s not just the horrendous shape of our economy, but the United States keeps pushing this wokeness on other countries,” Hice continued. “These other countries don’t want our woke ideology, and we’re really pushing away countries that otherwise ought to be our allies.”

Citing “woke stuff” in the military, growing national debt, the nation’s “open” southern border, and the Federal Reserve’s ruinous policies, Brat said the U.S. is no longer in the world’s driver’s seat.

While BRICS members do not have much in common on the surface, Steve Tsang, director of London’s Soas China Institute, a center focused on research and teaching on China, said these nations share a common desire — they do not want to live in a “Western-dominated world.”

“What the Chinese are offering is an alternative world order for which autocrats can feel safe and secure in their own countries,” Tsang said in a BBC report.

Brat insisted the U.S. must take this expanding realignment seriously, suggesting the bloc of nations is planning to develop a common currency that will be backed by gold and that threatens to replace the U.S. dollar as the basis of international trade.

“The objective, irreversible process of de-dollarization of our economic ties, is gaining momentum,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told the BRICS summit Tuesday.

“It is a real threat,” Brat warned. “It’s a signal to the U.S. to get our act together.”

Yet the economist is not optimistic there will be any changes in the near future: “I don’t have much confidence that we are going to get our act together. This is the natural consequence of our [nation’s] dereliction of its fiscal duties over the decades.”

AUTHOR

K.D. Hastings

K.D. Hastings and his family live in the beautiful hills of Middle Tennessee. He has been engaged in the evangelical world as a communicator since 1994.

RELATED ARTICLE: BIDENOMICS: U.S. Federal Reserve Preparing ‘To Raise Rates Further’

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

THE SET-UP: Biden White House Counsel Met With Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Just Weeks Before Trump Indictment

The Democrat beadledom ordered Jack Smith to have Trump indicted and arrested. White House visitor logs show that special counsel Jack Smith’s top aide met with Biden staffers just weeks before Smith’s indictment of Trump. White House visitor logs show that Jack Smith’s special counsel quietly met with the White House Counsel’s office just weeks before President Donald Trump’s indictment. The Democrat power elite gave the order to have Trump indicted and arrested. Biden is a mere figurehead, he can’t go potty by himself, let alone orchestrate so diabolical a coup on the greatest nation in human history.

They’re scheming in broad daylight, and they don’t even care.

Biden staffers met with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s aides before Trump indictment

By Jon Levine, NY Post, August 26, 2023

The White House counsel’s office met with a top aide to Special Counsel Jack Smith just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents — raising serious concerns about coordinated legal efforts aimed at President Biden’s likely opponent in 2024.

Jay Bratt, who joined the special counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, took a meeting in the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, White House visitor logs show.

They were joined in the 10 a.m. meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office.

Nine weeks later, Trump was indicted by Smith’s office on June 8, 2023.

Bratt, 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was mired in negotiations with the National Archives, who were demanding the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate before a formal investigation had not yet been opened.

Saba, who is not an attorney, left the White House in May to attend law school.

Jay Bratt, a top aide to special counsel Jack Smith met with the White House counsel’s office just weeks before Trump was indicted. DOJ

Bratt had a third meeting in the White House in September 2021, this time with Katherine Reily, an advisor to the White House chief of staff’s office.

The logs offer no information about what was discussed at the meetings.

Critics and legal experts questioned why Bratt was taking meetings at all with the White House counsel’s office while part of an active investigation into President Biden’s likely 2024 Republican opponent.

“There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels,” said former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a one-time top federal prosecutor in the Southern District.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Regime is Doing Everything Possible to Open Up the Border

The invasion is coming from inside the White House.

The Biden administration and its media allies keep acting as if the massive southern border invasion is something out of their control. In reality, the administration has done everything possible to keep the border open.

The Biden administration has fought any state efforts at securing the border. Its EPA sued Arizona to dismantle a wall of shipping containers being used to keep out some of the alien invaders. Its DOJ sued Texas over floating barriers on the Rio Grande.

The common theme was to not only open the border as wide as possible to accommodate the invaders, but to suppress any efforts by states to secure their borders on their own.

Now it’s actively selling off parts of the border wall so they can never be used again.

The Biden administration is quietly auctioning off millions of dollars’ worth of unused parts from former President Trump’s border wall for peanuts – in an apparent end-run around pending legislation in Congress.

Since April, GovPlanet, an online auction house specializing in military surplus, has sold 81 lots of steel “square structural tubes” — intended for use as vertical bollards in the border barrier’s 30-foot-tall panels — hauling in about $2 million.

On Tuesday, GovPlanet netted $154,200 for 729 of the 28-foot-tall hollow beams, sold in five separate lots for an average $212 apiece.

Thirteen more lots are set to be auctioned on Aug. 23 and Aug. 30.

Up to $300 million worth of taxpayer-funded wall components have been left to rust since Biden came to office, Republicans have said.

The Finish It Act will make the feds use those materials on new wall construction — or hand the remaining stock over to states like Texas for use in their own border defense projects.

Now, the Biden administration is rushing to get rid of the wall leftovers before the GOP-led House can pass a matching version of the bill and make it law, critics told The Post.

None of this is accidental. Not the invasion or the concerted effort to eliminate all forms of border security.

All of this is deliberate.

The invasion is coming from inside the White House.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The 5 Worst Lies of the Biden Administration

For the Biden administration, pushing abortion and transgender ideology is a top priority at all levels of government. Sometimes, this priority even overshadows their commitment to the truth. And the Biden administration has told some real whoppers. But don’t take my word for it; consider the facts for yourself. Here are the top five lies of the Biden administration regarding abortion and transgender ideology.

1) Weakened safety standards for the abortion pill regimen does not pose a threat to women.

On January 3, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permanently removed a “requirement that mifepristone be dispensed only in certain health care settings, specifically clinics, medical offices, and hospitals (referred to as the ‘in-person dispensing requirement’).” At the same time, it created a new program under which pharmacies such as Walgreens and CVS can become licensed to distribute mifepristone.

Mifepristone is the first of two drugs taken to induce a chemical abortion. FDA in 2011 placed mifepristone under the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation System (REMS) due to reports of adverse events up to and including death. REMS is reserved “for certain medications with serious safety concerns.” By removing the in-person dispensing requirement from the REMS governing the use of mifepristone, FDA enabled abortion pill dispensaries to ship the pills to women without any oversight from a health care practitioner.

On December 16, 2021, the FDA had “determined that the data support modification of the REMS to reduce burden on patient access and the health care delivery system and to ensure the benefits of the product outweigh the risks.”

On January 22, 2023, President Biden issued a memorandum endorsing FDA’s action, saying that it was “evidence-based” and taken “after an independent and comprehensive review of the risks and benefits.” He directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work together to further advance distribution of the abortion pill regimen. In compliance with this directive, Attorney General Merrick Garland and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra both denounced an April court decision blocking the distribution of mifepristone (the decision is currently on hold).

In reality, the best available evidence shows that “chemical abortion has led to a surge in emergency room visits and higher rates of complications,” according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI). According to a peer-reviewed, 17-year longitudinal study of Medicaid claims data, in the 30 days following a chemical abortion, women have a 22% greater risk of visiting the emergency room for any reason, and a 53% greater risk of visiting the emergency room for an abortion-related reason, when compared with a surgical abortion.

Peer-reviewed studies of comprehensive datasets in Finland, Sweden, and California also show higher complication rates from chemical abortion. In Finland, a study of 42,619 abortions found that one fifth of all chemical abortions resulted in complications, a rate four times greater than for surgical abortions. In California, a study found the major complication rate for chemical abortions was four times greater than for surgical abortions. In Sweden, a study found complications of chemical abortions “increased significantly during 2008-2015 without any evident cause.”

Although President Biden called the FDA review “comprehensive” and “evidence-based,” the data they reviewed was far less robust than these peer-reviewed studies. “Starting in 2016, the FDA chose to only require reports of death associated with the abortion pill, making their dataset woefully incomplete,” said Dr. James Studnicki, CLI’s vice president of Data Analytics. The FDA review ignored this substantial evidence of high complication rates when it freed the distribution of chemical abortion pills from professional oversight.

2) Military readiness requires taxpayers to cover abortion-related expenses for servicemembers.

On October 20, 2022, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum titled, “Ensuring Access to Reproductive Health Care,” which directed the Department of Defense (DOD) “to ensure that our Service members and their families can access reproductive health care.” On February 16, 2023, the DOD finalized the policy, granting up to 21 days of “administrative absence to non-covered reproductive health care,” subsidizing “travel for non-covered reproductive health care services,” and loosening “command notification of pregnancy” to benefit abortion.

DOD has claimed the policy will “increase readiness.” After Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) announced he would block senior-level military promotions until DOD ended the policy, President Biden accused Tuberville of “jeopardizing our national security over domestic social issues. Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby was asked last month, “Why is the new DOD policy on abortion critical to military readiness?” He responded that paying for abortion-related travel was a “foundational, sacred obligation of military leaders.”

In reality, federal law prohibits the DOD from using taxpayer funds to promote abortion. Under 10 U.S. Code § 1093, DOD funds and facilities “may not be used to perform abortions except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or in a case in which the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” On December 15, 2022, 66 members of Congress wrote to Secretary Austin notifying him that “funding travel and transportation to obtain non-covered, elective abortions through the DOD would, in and of itself violate federal law. It also contradicts DOD’s past recognition, interpretation, and implementation of this law.”

3) Self-perceived gender identity always overrides biological distinctions between the sexes.

On January 20, 2021, President Biden issued an executive order directing federal agencies to interpret all “laws that prohibit sex discrimination” to “prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation,” extending the Supreme Court’s Title VII-specific reasoning in Bostock v. Clayton County to every federal law. A separate executive order on this date ordered the president’s Domestic Policy Council to “coordinate efforts to embed equity principles [including with ‘respect to … gender identity’], policies, and approaches across the Federal Government.”

In the months that followed, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the U.S. Department of Education, the DOJHHS, and other agencies have faithfully implemented this directive to expand the presence of biological males in women’s shelters, women’s locker rooms, and women’s sports, reinterpreting the Fair Housing Act, Title IX, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. FRC Action has compiled a full accounting of the dozens of actions taken by Biden administration in pursuit of this goal.

In reality, physical differences between men and women are too important to ignore. Biological males are, on average, taller, heavier, and stronger than females, which gives them an upper hand in many types of sports — not to mention a predatory advantage when they win admission into women’s-only spaces. Males have won over 30 championships in women’s-only sporting events dating back to 2003. These distinctions are so obvious that even pro-LGBT Democrats cannot entirely ignore them. Last month, a Democratic congressman suggested erecting “barriers” in women’s locker rooms to protect women who felt uncomfortable changing next to a biological male with fully intact anatomy. And a Democratic senator tweeted, “We cannot avoid the biological/evolutionary differences between men and women.”

4) Civically engaged American citizens are violent domestic terrorists.

On October 4, 2021, Garland directed the FBI to investigate a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” That directive came five days after the National School Boards Association asked President Biden to investigate parents who spoke out at school board meetings for “domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” in a letter prompted by Education Secretary Miguel Cardona. Earlier this year, the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government determined that the FBI had, in fact, used counterterrorism resources to investigate parents. Needless to say, the “spike” in violence was entirely fabricated.

On September 23, 2022, 25 heavily armed federal agents conducted a pre-dawn raid on the home of pro-life activist Mark Houck to arrest him in front of his wife and seven children. The DOJ indicted Houck under the FACE Act, alleging that two years ago he violently pushed an abortion facility escort to the ground, when he was only defending his 12-year-old son from an aggressive, profanity-laced tirade. Houck had offered to voluntarily surrender months earlier, but apparently the DOJ’s resources were better spent on a SWAT-style raid. This January, a jury acquitted Houck of the charges brought against him.

In February 2023, a leaked memo from the FBI field office in Richmond, Va. revealed the bureau was spying on “radical traditionalist” Catholic communities. After months of FBI stonewalling, the Weaponization Subcommittee finally obtained documents proving that the Richmond field office coordinated with at least two other field offices, and that the investigation had gone as far as seeking to embed undercover sources.

In reality, each of these episodes simply involved ordinary citizens peacefully living their lives, practicing their faith, and properly engaging in the democratic process. In contrast with the previous lies, once caught, the Biden administration could muster no defense against the obvious impropriety of their behavior except pretending it never happened, Nevertheless, the fact remains that the Biden administration has weaponized federal law enforcement resources to investigate private citizens for nothing more than being civically engaged.

5) Protecting minors from harmful, irreversible gender reassignment procedures is illegal discrimination and potentially fatal.

On July 25, 2022, HHS announced a proposed rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which would force health insurers to cover gender reassignment procedures for minors and could financially coerce doctors to perform them.

Far from an isolated affair, promoting gender reassignment procedures is official Biden administration policy — although the federal role is less direct than states. The DOJ has intervened in lawsuits to block laws protecting minors from gender reassignment procedures in Alabama and Tennessee. The DOJ also tried to force two Catholic hospital associations to provide and insure gender reassignment procedures, in violation of their religious beliefs.

State actions to protect minors from gender reassignment procedures “callously threaten to harm children and their families just to score political points,” alleged President Biden in a March 2022 statement. He appealed to the political conclusions of “respected medical organizations” to argue that “access to gender-affirming care for transgender children can benefit mental health, lower suicide rates, and improve other health outcomes.”

HHS Secretary Becerra agreed in a June 2022 press release, “This year, we have unfortunately seen an alarming rise in state laws and other actions that discriminate against our LGBTQI+ children and youth. … We as a Department recommit to ensuring every American can access health care — including gender-affirming care.” This remained the official White House position as of April 2023, when Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said gender reassignment procedures for minors is “something for a child and their parents to decide” and certainly “not something we believe should be decided by legislators.”

In reality, confused children are often “given no choice” about pursuing gender reassignment procedures, according to detransitioner Prisha Mosley. “They said it was transition or suicide. … I was told, ‘You will kill yourself if you don’t go through with these treatments.’” A whistleblower account from one transgender center said the providers even disregarded the refusal of the custodial parent and proceeded with gender reassignment procedures anyways.

The physical reality of gender transitioning is even more brutal. One young detransitioner said the reassignment procedures performed on him did not make him a woman, but they did make him a “patient for life.” Young people who begin puberty blockers almost universally proceed to cross-sex hormones and often mutilating surgery. Cross-sex hormones can cause “irreversible infertility, while surgeries cause irreversible loss of healthy, functioning organs. Yet Biden said those opposing these gruesome procedures are the ones harming children.

On each of these five points, the Biden administration is driven more by ideology than by the truth. Abortion-by-mail is not safe for women. Taxpayer-funded abortion travel is not necessary for military readiness. Biological sex does matter more than gender identity in many contexts. Citizens aren’t domestic extremists just because they advocate policies the Biden administration doesn’t like. And gender reassignment procedures are good for nobody, especially not minors. With the constant drumbeat of fiction to the contrary, we must keep telling the truth — and saying it loud.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

VIDEOS: What Really Happened on Maui and President Trump’s Response

While in the U.S. Army I was stationed on the island or Oahu, Hawaii for five years.

As the Deputy Inspector General of the U.S. Army Pacific Command I had the opportunity to travel to all of the Hawaiian islands, including Maui, to meet with their National Guard men and women who served our nation.

My heart goes out to the Hawaiian people and those families who lost loved ones during these horrific fires on Maui.

The below videos tell the story and point out who really cares about Hawaiians, Maui and its citizens.

WATCH:

Biden Has “No Comment” On Devastating Maui Fire Death Toll!

‘Not now’: Biden skirts questions on Maui disaster, walks away from press

President Donald J. Trump Gives Message to the People of Maui

In a Public News article titled Renewables Mania And Woke Dogma Behind Hawaii Fire, Not Climate Change MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER wrote,

New York Times spreads disinformation about climate change and fires

Climate change caused the fire that ravaged Hawaii, according to the New York Times. “Climate Change Turned Lush Hawaii Into A Tinderbox,” it reported. “The explanation is as straightforward as it is sobering: As the planet heats up, no place is protected from disasters.”

But the cause of the strong winds, which pushed the wildfires into the city of Lahaina, was Hurricane Dora, and the best available science shows no increase in hurricanes at global or national levels.

It’s true that there’s been a 31% decline in average yearly rainfall in Hawaii since 1990, according to researchers. The La Niña weather pattern, which usually leads to significant rainfall, has brought less precipitation over the last 40 years.

But other changes are more difficult to tie to rising global temperatures, such as the fact that larger storms have been moving northward, resulting in less rainfall. And only 16% of Maui County, where most of the wildfires were burning, has been in severe drought, with another 20% in moderate drought.

What’s more, it’s been human-made changes to the landscape, including the reversion of former sugar cane farms, which had been irrigated, to invasive grasses, which are quick to ignite. “The landscape is just covered with flammable stuff,” one expert told the Times. “All of the conditions just came together.”

Read full article.

WATCH: What Really Happened in Maui?

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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Biden Admin Urges Colleges To Continue To Racially Discriminate Following SCOTUS Ruling On Affirmative Action

The Biden administration urged colleges and universities on Monday to continue to racially discriminate in an effort to make their student body diverse, following the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina’s use of race-based admissions policies were unconstitutional, halting the practice across higher education institutions. The U.S. Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division released guidance encouraging universities to skirt the decision by weighing “ways a student’s background, including experiences linked to their race, have shaped their lives and the unique contributions they can make to campus.”

“For higher education to be an engine for equal opportunity, upward mobility, and global competitiveness, we need campus communities that reflect the beautiful diversity of our country,” U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The resources issued by the Biden-Harris Administration today will provide college leaders with much-needed clarity on how they can lawfully promote and support diversity, and expand access to educational opportunity for all following the Supreme Court’s disappointing ruling on affirmative action.”

The guidance notes that through the admissions process, schools can consider how applicants’ backgrounds, such as their experiences with racial discrimination or the racial composition of their neighborhoods, can “position them to contribute to campus in unique ways.”

“For example, a university could consider an applicant’s explanation about what it means to him to be the first Black violinist in his city’s youth orchestra or an applicant’s account of overcoming prejudice when she transferred to a rural high school where she was the only student of South Asian descent,” the guidance states.

Institutions are encouraged to partner with K-12 schools to create pathway programs, and may give preferential treatment to students in the program during the admissions process if they were admitted to the program based on non-racial criteria, the guidance states.

Colleges and universities are able to target programs and areas in an effort to recruit students to contribute to a diverse student body, the guidance states. The guidance explains that schools can reach out directly to schools that predominately serve students of color and those by limited financial means in an effort to recruit applicants.

“By ensuring that the group of applicants they ultimately consider for admission includes a robust pool of talented students from underrepresented groups, institutions better position themselves to attain the student body diversity and related educational benefits they seek,” the guidance states.

The guidance also encourages universities to create race-affiliated groups, such as clubs or activities, to encourage students to “celebrate their shared identities, interests, and experiences.” If clubs, seminars or activities have a race-related theme, it must be open to all regardless of race, the guidance states.

“We stand ready to support institutions that recognize that such diversity is core to their commitment to excellence, and that pursue lawful steps to promote diversity and full inclusion,” the guidance states.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Official Casts Doubt On Ending Legacy Admissions After SCOTUS Ruling

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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House Oversight Releases Bank Records Showing Hunter Biden Took Millions From Russian And Ukrainian Oligarchs

The House Oversight Committee released bank records Wednesday showing Hunter Biden took millions of dollars worth of payments from Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh oligarchs.

Hunter Biden received millions from Russian oligarch Elena Baturina, Ukrainian energy firm Burisma and Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev when his father was vice president, the committee found. The committee has identified over $20 million in payments from foreign partners to the Biden family and their associates. 

In February 2014, Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, a shell company affiliated with Hunter Biden and his business associate Devon Archer, House Oversight showed. The payment was also identified in a September 2020 Senate report laying out Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

Nearly $1 million of the money was transferred to Archer and the rest was placed in Rosemont Seneca Bohai, another shell company Archer and Biden used to take foreign payments, House Oversight found. Archer testified House Oversight on July 31 that he and Biden were co-owners of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and the company was opened in Delaware the day before Baturina’s payment.

Rosemont Seneca Thornton did not have any other money come into its account after Baturina’s payment, House Oversight records show.

Shortly thereafter, Biden and Archer joined the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma and worked on behalf of Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. Each made more than $1 million annually and took approximately $83,000 per month from Burisma.

The Burisma payments were wired to Rosemont Seneca Bohai until late 2015, when Biden began having the payments sent into his shell company Owasco P.C. due to Archer’s legal troubles.

In addition, Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev wired $142,300 to Rosemont Seneca Bohai in April 2014, two months after Hunter Biden met with Rakishev at a Washington, D.C. hotel. Rosemont Seneca Bohai paid $142,300 for a sportscar for Hunter Biden the next day, House Oversight discovered.

Archer and Biden scheduled a meeting in June 2014 for Burisma executives, Chinese business associates and the Kazakh government to discuss a three-way business deal, House Oversight said. Rakishev maintained close ties to then-Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov who was sentenced to 18 years in prison for treason, abuse of power and attempting a coup in April 2023.

Biden and Archer made approximately $3.32 million from Burisma in 2014 and 2015, according to bank records produced by House Oversight.

Joe Biden dined with Baturina at Washington D.C’s Cafe Milano in 2014, Archer testified. On April 16, 2015, Joe Biden dined with Massimov, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and Burisma executive Vadim Pozharsyi at Cafe Milano, House Oversight stated.

“During Joe Biden’s vice presidency, Hunter Biden sold him as ‘the brand’ to reap millions from oligarchs in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine. It appears no real services were provided other than access to the Biden network, including Joe Biden himself. And Hunter Biden seems to have delivered,” Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, Chair of the House Oversight Committee said in a press release.

“It’s clear Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings and allowed himself to be ‘the brand’ sold to enrich the Biden family while he was Vice President of the United States.”

AUTHOR

JAMES LYNCH

Investigative reporter.

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Meet Kenes Rakishev, The Newest Foreign Oligarch In The Hunter Biden Saga

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden DOJ Imports Ukrainian-Style Corruption

A third felony indictment targeted former President Donald Trump Tuesday, as U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith persuaded a D.C.-based grand jury to indict Trump on four felony counts for his actions to contest the results of the 2020 election. Trump already faces felony indictments from Smith in a Florida federal court for retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for buying a former mistress’s silence. Both the process of indicting a former president and the charges themselves savor more of Ukrainian-style corruption than they do of American-style peaceful transition of power.

In the third indictment, Trump has been charged with four crimes: “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States,” “Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding,” “Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding,” and “Conspiracy against Rights.” But not everyone is convinced by the evidence presented. “I felt that the Mar-a-Lago indictment was strong. This is the inverse,” said law professor Jonathan Turley. “It’s 45 pages of First Amendment protected activity broken up by four captions listing conspiracy statutes that do not apply,” summarized lawyer and retired colonel Kurt Schlichter.

In fact, “It is far from clear that any law was broken,” agreed National Review’s (NR) Dan McLaughlin (who said in the same paragraph that “the Senate should have convicted him in his impeachment trial”). “But crimes,” he added, “are supposed to be about the law — which has to be plain enough to govern us all.” Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, also no Trump fanboy, said Smith “extravagantly stretched these statutes” to try and cover Trump’s behavior, and he tellingly stopped short of charging Trump with inciting a riot on January 6, 2021. “If you’ve got evidence that Trump committed incitement, then charge him with incitement,” McCarthy said. To dive deeper into the faults of the indictment, the NR editors compiled an excellent though lengthy analysis.

As many wiser heads have already noted, the exercise of jailing political opponents is a trademark of oppressive regimes with little respect for the rule of law — not an ordinary feature of American political life. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to Ukraine’s recent history — a history which relatively few Americans know.

Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union as the autocratic federation dissolved in 1991. However, Ukraine inherited its culture of corruption and maintained close economic and political ties to Moscow for years. Had history unfolded differently, Ukraine could have resembled the neighboring Russian puppet state of Belarus. That began to change with what is known as the Orange Revolution of 2004.

In Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election, the pro-West opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko challenged the pro-Russia incumbent prime minister Viktor Yanukovich (like many parliamentary systems, Ukraine has both a popularly elected president and a prime minster chosen by the largest parliamentary coalition). At first, Yanukovich narrowly won in a run-off election, amid allegations of vote rigging and intimidation. After massive street protests, the country’s Supreme Court vacated the election results, and Yushchenko won the second run-off election. Yushchenko and Yanukovich remained the two most important figures in Ukrainian politics for the next decade.

Yanukovich won back the job of prime minister in 2006 after a minor party switched coalitions, and in 2007 President Yushchenko dissolved the parliament to stem his waning influence there. Naturally, his opponents challenged this move as unconstitutional, but when the matter came before the Constitutional Court, Yushchenko charged three of the judges with corruption and had them dismissed. This only served to drive his popularity even lower. By the 2010 presidential election, Yushchenko’s coalition had split, and his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko jumped in to make it a three-way race, and Yushchenko finished in a distant third place, while Yanukovich won.

Newly elected President Yanukovich then had his new rival, Tymoshenko, arrested in 2011 and sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, behavior loudly condemned by Western powers. The European Union foreign office said “justice was being applied selectively in Ukraine under political motivation,” while the Obama White House responded, “The charges against Mrs. Tymoshenko and the conduct of her trial … have raised serious concerns about the government of Ukraine’s commitment to democracy and rule of law.”

In 2014, Yanukovich’s efforts to steer Ukraine away from the West and back towards Russia sparked widespread protests, leading him to flee the country (his successor as president, Petro Poroshenko, continued the pattern of corruption). Moscow then invaded and annexed Crimea and supported irregular forces in the eastern Donbas region, eight years before its attempt to invade the rest of Ukraine — and that brings us up to the present.

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar to you? Contested elections thrown to the courts, allegations of vote rigging, mass street protests, and a political opponent imprisoned due to political, selective application of justice — these are symptoms of innate Ukrainian corruption, but they also appear in the U.S.

In fact, the Ukrainian people got so fed up with the endless corruption of their political class that in 2019 they elected as president a TV star with no political experience. (I could have sworn I’ve read this script somewhere before.)

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fledgling, corrupt business world offered an enticing prospect to unscrupulous foreigners looking to make a quick buck (or rather millions of bucks). In 2014, Hunter Biden, who has no experience in energy business, joined the board of a Ukrainian oil company called Burisma and collected a monthly income of up to $50,000, nearly equal to the U.S. median annual salary.

At the time Biden joined Burisma’s board, his father, Vice President Joe, led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and Burisma was under investigation for corruption. Soon after, then-Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, the official investigating Burisma was fired. Joe Biden boasted in 2018 that the Poroshenko administration fired Shokin because he threatened to withhold $1 billion in foreign aid unless they did so.

As Joe Biden told the story, “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in’ — I think it was, what, six hours? — I looked, and I said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a —–, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid.”

Shokin was succeeded as Ukraine’s Prosecutor General by Yuriy Lutsenko, who had been convicted of embezzlement and abuse of office in 2012 and implicated in a poisoning attempt against Yushchenko. During his tenure as prosecutor general, he obstructed the investigation into Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman who failed to register as a foreign agent while working for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and was later convicted on money laundering charges. It’s good to know the sort of character President Biden described as “solid.”

In an ironic twist, President Trump was impeached (the first time) for a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he made as part of an effort to uncover evidence of the Biden family’s corrupt dealings in that country. The notion that a sitting president would use his official position to dig up evidence of crimes by his chief political rival seemed beyond the pale to a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives at the time. By contrast, no member of the Biden family has yet suffered any consequences for their corrupt dealings in Ukraine or any other foreign nation.

Corruption in American politics has ebbed and flowed throughout her 247-year-long history, and election tampering has too. Yet few observers would dispute that both are currently at a high tide. What other conclusion is there when, recent events in American politics mimic those of a fledgling democracy still struggling to wriggle free of Soviet-era corruption?

Fortunately, by construction and longstanding tradition, the U.S. legal system is stronger than that of Ukraine’s. There are still officials willing to stand up to defend equal justice before the law, due process, the peaceful transfer of power, and fundamental human rights. The public still, by and large, values and expects government officials to abide by these principles. So, it’s conceivable that a political prosecution that would succeed in Ukraine’s judicial system will fail — or even backfire — in the U.S. But no free and open system of government can withstand the constant abuse of those who wield power in it forever. Sooner or later, the abuse must cease, or freedom will.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Tucker Sits Down With Hunter Biden’s Business Associate Devon Archer

Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson sat down one-on-one with Devon Archer about his former business associate, Hunter Biden.

Archer testified before the House Oversight Committee Monday where he detailed Hunter’s business deals, most notably the alleged personal phone calls with his father, President Joe Biden, on speaker phone in front of foreign business executives on over twenty occasions. Archer detailed Biden’s involvement with his son’s business dealings in the sit-down with Carlson.

Archer confirmed the nearly twenty phone calls made by Hunter to his father while surrounded by business associates within a ten-year span.

“So Joe Biden, who is very much a product of Washington, of course must have known that he was calling into effectively a business meeting,” Carlson said. “Something’s happening. He must have understood that that was kind of what his son was selling.”

“Well that’s hard for me to speculate,” Archer answered.

“But like, just to keep it to the facts, Joe Biden, then the sitting Vice President knew that there were Hunter’s business associates in the room,” Carlson pressed.

“Yeah, I think I can definitively say at particular dinners and meetings, he knew there were business associates and he, or if I was there, I was a business associate too. So I think, you know, any of the other colleagues from the DC office or New York were there,” Archer said.

Carlson also confronted Archer on a letter from January 20, 2011, addressed to him from Biden. The then-Vice President wrote to apologize for not being able to speak with him while hosting former Chinese President Hu, and said, “I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter,” according to Archer.

Archer said Biden thanked him for his idea to bring a government regulatory strategic advisory business into the private equity sector. The letter indicated that Biden worked with foreign governments while serving as Vice President.

Archer said Hunter joined the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, because he brought the benefits of the “Biden brand.” He and Carlson agreed it is “disingenuous” to act unsure as to the reason Burisma hired Hunter, who served on the board from 2014 to 2019.

AUTHOR

NICOLE SILVERIO

Media reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Regime Demanded Facebook Ban Humor

“The Biden administration was working every possible angle to keep people alive”

First Amendment? What First Amendment?

The Biden administration’s internet censorship regime seemed to have a special hatred for humor. Maybe that’s because its boss is a walking joke.

We have learned that the administration unconstitutionally pressured internet platforms to remove a video mocking Jill Biden and a Twitter account impersonating Biden’s granddaughter.

Facebook reported Biden officials demanding that humor be banned if it made jokes about the vaccine.

“There is likely a significant gap between what the WH would like us to remove and what we are comfortable removing,” the Facebook vice president said.

As one example, the executive listed the White House’s desire that the company take action against humorous or satirical content that suggested the vaccines aren’t safe.

“The WH has previously indicated that it thinks humor should be removed if it is premised on the vaccine having side effects, so we expect it would similarly want to see humor about vaccine hesitancy removed,” the vice president wrote.

The future must not belong to those who mock the prophet Fauci.

Ponder for a moment that the Biden regime was pushing past what a billionaire leftist kid and a former liberal British politician from a country where censorship is routine were comfortable with.

“I can’t see Mark in a million years being comfortable with removing that—and I wouldn’t recommend it,” Clegg wrote in a subsequent email, an apparent reference to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Democrats are doubling down on “We had to ban comedy or everyone would die”.

“In 2021, in the darkest days of the pandemic, of course the Biden administration was working every possible angle to keep people alive,” a spokesman for Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee said in a statement.

If banning humor didn’t work, the Democrats were going to keep us alive by abolishing the Constitution and sending everyone to labor camps. Every possible angle had to be explored to keep everyone alive and under the watch of guard towers at every moment of the day until the time came to turn them into mulch.

Whether or not that’s humor, the Biden administration’s Office of Comedy and Censorship will have to decide.

AUTHOR

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Energy Industry Fears White House Will Declare COVID-Like ‘Climate Emergency’

 

They promoted lie after lie on Covid and got away with murder, literally. Why wouldn’t work for the fetish hoax on climate?

“Every single prediction they’ve ever made has been wrong… They still haven’t, after 30 years, shown us that human emissions of CO2 drive global warming.”

Energy Industry Fears White House Will Declare COVID-Like ‘Climate Emergency’

By Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, July 30, 2023:

Some energy industry groups are expressing concern that the White House will declare a COVID-19-like emergency—but for the climate instead.”They’re leaning to that direction,” U.S. Oil and Gas Association President Tim Stewart told Just the News in an article published on July 30. “If you grant the president’s emergency powers to declare a climate emergency, it’s just like COVID.”

An emergency declaration on the climate could give the president “vast and unchecked authority to shut down everything from communications to infrastructure,” said Mr. Stewart, who has been a critic of the Biden administration.

Infrastructure around water and electricity could be affected by such a decision, he said.

“They can literally do exactly what they did in COVID,” Mr. Stewart said. “If you disagree with the climate emergency, [speech] can be shut down. We really need to be paying attention to that because that power could be extended indefinitely until the ‘climate emergency’ is over. Who knows how long that would last.”

The White House press office didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment about whether the administration might be preparing such a declaration.

President Joe Biden and other administration officials have said that the United States and the world are in the midst of a “climate crisis” and have used language describing it as an emergency. So far, Mr. Biden has stopped short of declaring an emergency, although some Democrats and environmental groups have pushed the idea.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

JOE LIED: Hunter Biden Put Dad on Phone With Biz Associates at Least 24 Times

Remember when Joe Biden bald faced lied? President Biden and his White House aides have frequently maintained that the president has never discussed business dealings with his son, Hunter, despite evidence emerging proves otherwise.

‘It’s time for impeachment’

Hunter Biden put then-VP dad on phone with biz associates at least 24 times: Ex-partner’s testimony

Hunter Biden put then-VP dad Joe on the phone with business associates at least 2 dozen times, ex-partner Devon Archer to testify

By Miranda Devine, July 23, 2023:

The Joe Biden bribe allegations need a special counsel, now.

Hunter Biden would dial in his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speakerphone into meetings with his overseas business partners, according to testimony expected before Congress this week from Devon Archer, the first son’s former best friend.

Archer, 48, who is facing jail for his role in a $60 million bond fraud, is scheduled to testify to the House Oversight Committee about meetings he witnessed that were attended by Joe Biden either in person or via speakerphone when Hunter would call his father and introduce him to foreign business partners or prospective investors.

“We are looking forward very much to hearing from Devon Archer about all the times he has witnessed Joe Biden meeting with Hunter Biden’s overseas business partners when he was vice president, including on speakerphone,” said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the committee chairman.

One such meeting was in Dubai late in the evening of Friday, Dec. 4, 2015, after a board meeting of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which was paying Hunter $83,000 a month as a director.

Archer, who also was a director, is expected to testify that, after dinner with the Burisma board at the Burj Al Arab Hotel, he and Hunter traveled six miles north to the Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach to have a drink with one of Hunter’s friends.

While they were sitting outside at the bar, Vadym Pozharskyi, a senior Burisma executive, phoned to ask where they were because Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, needed to speak to Hunter urgently.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer is expected to testify to Congress this week about how Hunter would call then-Vice President Joe Biden during meetings with foreign business associates. Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer is expected to testify to Congress this week about how Hunter would call then-Vice President Joe Biden during meetings with foreign business associates. Alec Tabak ‘Can you ring your dad?’

Soon afterward, the two Ukrainians joined Hunter and Archer at the Four Seasons bar and Pozharskyi asked Hunter: “Can you ring your dad?” At the time it was early afternoon Friday in Washington, DC.

Hunter then called his father, put him on speaker, placed the phone on the table, and introduced the Ukrainians to Joe Biden by name as “Nikolai and Vadym.”…..

Read more.

AUTHOR

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EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

5 Things You Should Know about Human Trafficking

Released in theaters last week, “Sound of Freedom” tells the true story of Tim Ballard, a Homeland Security agent who quits his job and joins forces with local Latin American law enforcement and underground contacts to rescue children caught in human trafficking. The film portrays Ballard as he sets up a sting operation that successfully frees a young Honduran boy and reunites him with his father. When the boy tells him about his sister who is still in captivity, Ballard becomes determined to find her. The heartfelt thriller has proven surprisingly successful, beating “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” at the box office on July 4.

Despite the heavy subject matter, “Sound of Freedom” leaves viewers feeling hopeful and motivated to make a difference. In the film, Ballard’s character expresses understandable frustration that more is not being done to free enslaved children, saying, “And every day, ordinary people don’t want to hear it. It’s too ugly for polite conversation.” The film’s early success will hopefully prove that thinking false.

Human trafficking — both sex trafficking and labor trafficking, including of children — remains a widespread global problem, and America is not left untouched. Here is what you should know about human trafficking.

1. Human Trafficking Is More Prevalent Than You Think

The U.S. Department of Justice defines human trafficking as “a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts.” This coercion can be presented as “subtle or overt, physical or psychological.” The breadth of the issue creates a complex web of victims with different experiences, the majority of which never receive justice for the evil committed against them.

It is estimated that nearly 28 million individuals are trafficked globally at any given time. Human trafficking creates a global profit of $150 billion each year, making it “the most lucrative crime after drug trafficking.” Even so, only a fraction of traffickers are punished for their crimes. In 2022, there were 15,159 prosecutions worldwide for trafficking, yet these culminated in only 5,577 convictions. In the United States specifically, the National Human Trafficking Hotline received over 10,000 reports regarding 16,554 victims throughout 2021.

While human trafficking is not limited just to sex crimes, statistics reveal that the U.S. is a top consumer of child sex in the world. In the U.S. alone, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 17,200 reports of child sex trafficking in the United States in 2021. Geoff Rogers, co-founder of the United States Against Human Trafficking, reports how the “United States is the No. 1 consumer of sex worldwide,” and demand is often being driven with children. Rogers asserts there are “a multitude of kids that are being sold as sex slaves today in America,” over half of which come from the foster care system. These statistics confirm the somber reality of this evil; child sex trafficking not only exists in foreign nations, but it thrives here in our communities.

2. Porn Creates Demand for Sex trafficking, Including for Child Sex Trafficking

Studies have shown the consumption of pornography contributes to the objectification of human beings and an “acceptance of sexual mistreatment.” In a lecture on the link between pornography and sex trafficking conducted by the Family Research Council, Arina Grossu emphasized the addictive nature of pornography, which fuels the demand for more pornographic material and sex acts. Many of these commodities are provided by individuals who are sex trafficked.

Specifically, research shows that those who observe pornography most often were also the ones to purchase women in prostitution for sex acts. Journalist John-Henry Westen asserts that viewership creates increased acceptance for violent, disturbing pornography, ultimately culminating in a clientele for the sex trafficking industry. With desensitization — and even broad acceptance — of porn consumption and engaging in pornographic activity, sex trafficking victims are used to meet the demand and produce content without the opportunity to express true consent. With the worldwide pornography industry worth $97 billion — its success largely attributed to its addictive nature — traffickers have an incentive to continue using victims for continued economic profit.

Even more startling is the growing success of online child pornography consumption. Of those who view child pornography, between 40-80% have in fact molested a minor themselves. Further research concludes 66-90% of women used to create pornographic material were victims of sexual abuse at some point during their childhood. This connection between childhood abuse and increased likelihood of being sex trafficked for pornographic material in the future draws attention to the crisis our society faces in protecting children from this evil.

3. Current U.S. Border Policy Is Enabling Human Traffickers

It is estimated upwards of 72% of all human trafficking victims in the U.S. are immigrants, many of which are transported across the border between the U.S. and Mexico. With the current status of the border, many girls, some as young as 14, are abducted prior to their arrival at the border then smuggled across to perform sex acts at a price. Approximately 60% of children who enter the U.S. illegally and unaccompanied are caught by cartel members and used in the production of child pornography.

In terms of the legislative process, the issues of illegal immigration and human trafficking are generally dealt with separately to pass bipartisan legislation more easily. The recently passed version of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act grants unaccompanied minors “special accommodations, such as expedited processing and benefits.” Unfortunately, these opportunities provided to unaccompanied minors incentivize minors to cross the border, ultimately creating minimal restrictions and increased opportunities for cartels to seize these children. To effectively address human trafficking in the U.S., we must also take measures to address rampant illegal border crossings, especially when unaccompanied minors are involved.

4. God Cares Deeply about Those Trapped in Slavery

In “Sound of Freedom,” Tim Ballard’s character successfully catches a pedophile attempting to traffic a child in a sting operation. The film’s representation of these real-world scenarios rightfully creates a stomach-churning reaction. Witnessing the cruelty of humanity in this way draws us to John 3:19: “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” It’s a verse that naturally comes to mind when confronted with the evil of child exploitation. In this industry that so overtly disregards the value of human life — especially that of a child — let us remember that they reside in the darkness. For our fight is not against earthly foes, but it is “against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). That is why we should make every effort to administer justice to those in need and to deliver them from the wickedness of this fallen world (Psalm 82:3-4).

Human trafficking of those of any age is an assault on the human dignity of women and men and girls and boys made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). We are right to be grieved by news of human trafficking and to seek justice for those who are oppressed (Isaiah 1:17).

5. You Can Be a Part of the Solution

If you feel a burden to make a difference on behalf of victims of human trafficking, a first step you can take is learning more about what the current challenges are. Then pray about what God might be calling you to do in your daily life. That may be donating to an organization that fights human trafficking, researching your states’ anti-trafficking laws and encouraging local leaders to make them stronger if needed, or praying with your small group from church.

For more on what you can do to fight trafficking, visit the National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s resources page. It includes action steps like how you can report suspected trafficking, how to upload images of your hotel room to a national database, and more.

Elected representatives at the state or federal level will often not prioritize an issue unless they think that their constituents are prioritizing it. Sharing information about human trafficking on social media, encouraging friends to see the “Sound of Freedom” movie, and telling your representatives you want to see more action done on fight human trafficking can all go a long way towards calling attention to human trafficking.

A quote often attributed to Mother Teresa reminds us, “I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things.” We all can play a part in building momentum to address this evil.

AUTHORS

Arielle Del Turco 

Arielle Del Turco is Director of the Center for Religious Liberty at Family Research Council, and co-author of “Heroic Faith: Hope Amid Global Persecution.”

Alaina Cothran

RELATED ARTICLE: NIH Grants $3.3 Million for Boston Children’s Hospital to Promote Gender Transitions to Out-of-State Minors

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2023 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Federal Judge Denies Biden Admin’s Request To Keep Coordinating With Big Tech To Censor Americans

A federal judge denied the Biden administration’s attempt to pause an injunction that bars federal officials from communicating with social media companies for the purposes of censoring protected speech on Monday.

The Biden administration appealed Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty’s July 4 injunction on Wednesday, also requesting an emergency order to pause the injunction while the appeal is pending on Thursday night. Doughty denied the administration’s emergency order Monday, finding that plaintiffs would likely succeed in proving the government colluded with social media companies “to engage in viewpoint-based suppression of protected free speech.”

“Although this Preliminary Injunction involves numerous agencies, it is not as broad as it appears,” Doughty wrote. “It only prohibits something the Defendants have no legal right to do—contacting social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner, the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms. It also contains numerous exceptions.”

Doughty highlighted multiple examples of alleged censorship, such as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials providing examples of misinformation topics to Facebook, the FBI’s refusal to tell Facebook whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) holding recurring meetings with social media platforms on “misinformation, disinformation, and/or censorship of protected free speech on social media.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey and Louisiana Attorney General Jeffrey Landry opposed the Biden administration’s attempt to stop the injunction in a court filing Sunday, writing the administration was essentially asking to “continue violating the First Amendment.”

“In essence, Defendants argue that the injunction should be stayed because it might interfere with the Government’s ability to continue working with social-media companies to censor Americans’ core political speech on the basis of viewpoint,” they wrote in the court filing. “In other words, the Government seeks a stay of the injunction so that it can continue violating the First Amendment.”

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

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Unpopularity Behind Elite Demands For Warrantless Spying And Censorship

JOSH HAMMER: Democrats Cry Crocodile Tears About ‘Our Democracy’ While Trying To Tear It Down

Biden AI Chair Champions Regulation And Mandated Gov Intervention For ‘Inclusivity’

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