Tag Archive for: prison

EXCLUSIVE: Blue State Privately Admitted Men Lie About Being ‘Trans’ To Live In Women’s Prison

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Washington state prison officials privately acknowledged that “trans” men could have more sinister motives for wanting to be housed with females.

A group of “gender affirming” mental health specialists discussed how to prevent inmates from requesting sex-changes for “secondary gain” rather than gender dysphoria during an internal monthly meeting. Secondary gain is a psychiatric term that describes the benefits a person with a mental disorder gleans from their neurosis such as “extra attention, sympathy, avoidance of work, and domination of others,” according to the American Psychological Association.

“The topic was on secondary gain and how certain individuals want gender affirming services, but it is not due to gender dysphoria,” the September 2024 meeting notes show. “The question was asked how to prevent that,” the records state.

The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained the meeting notes through a series of public record requests submitted to the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) .

The topic of discussion among DOC staff materialized four years after Washington state opened the door for “trans” men in women’s prisons.

“Access to women and women’s spaces is the primary incentive, including sexual access and targeting emotionally vulnerable women,” Beth Parlato, senior legal counsel of Independent Women’s Law Center, told the DCNF.

“Another secondary gain is exploiting trauma as the majority of incarcerated women have histories of male sexual violence. Power, control and dominance is also at play,” Parlato said.

An agenda for an internal Washington Department of Corrections monthly meeting of Gender Affirming providers obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation through a public records request.

A public manual, last updated in August 2023, for Washington DOC employees provided a protocol for staff to follow if they felt a newly transgender identifying inmate was “not sincere in their gender identity” and was claiming the identity “for an improper purpose.”

“Suppose an Incarcerated Individual discloses to staff and WADOC believes that an individual is not sincere in their gender identity and asserting it for an improper purpose. In that case, they will be referred to an external agency Gender-Affirming Mental Health Community Consultant, to evaluate the sincerity of the individual’s transgender identity,” the manual says.

Transgender identifying inmates determined not to have a “sincere transgender identity” could have their requests to be housed with the opposite sex denied by the Washington DOC, according to a 2024 draft of a transgender custody program manual obtained by the DCNF. The draft manual also notes “trans” inmates cannot be denied a “gender-affirming housing placement” for “discriminatory” reasons such as sexual orientation, a history of being a sex offender or complaints from “cisgender” inmates who don’t want to be housed with a member of the opposite sex.

The Washington DOC did not respond to the DCNF’s request to know if the draft manual was finalized.

“There is no fully objective way for a government agency to determine whether an individual has a ‘sincere transgender identity,’” Parlato told the DCNF.

“Determinations will inevitably involve subjective judgment. DOC will claim they evaluate indicators such as past self-identification, consistency, mental health documentation, past social transition or prior statements and prior records. However, this involves subjective decisions that will always bring in personal biases,” Parlato said.

The DCNF asked the Washington DOC for more information on the criteria used to determine an individual did not have a sincere “transgender identity” and for further clarification on the secondary gain inmates might derive from sex-rejections interventions, but did not receive a comment.

Other topics of the monthly meeting included discussions on “big changes” that could result from the November 2024 election and outside groups who were contacting inmates about gender “affirming care” in the DOC, documents show.

The Trump administration has vowed to keep men out of women’s prisons and the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a memo on Dec. 2 reinforcing a January 2025 executive order requiring inmates to be housed according to sex, a policy that challenges Federal Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards published in 2012 allowing males to be housed in female prisons.

The meetings were led by psychologist Dr. Meg Manthos who founded Manthos Psychological Services, a psychology practice that specializes in evaluations and treatment planning for institutionalized “transgender” patients. The group’s primary service is providing readiness evaluations to those seeking sex-rejection surgeries, according to its website.

A signed contract between Manthos and the Washington DOC showed the state agreed to pay up to $3200 a day for consulting services and $450 an hour for courtroom testimony when requested by the DOC. Washington DOC has spent $1,184,889 on Manthos consulting services since the contract began in April 2020, according to the state’s fiscal transparency website. The contract was extended until April 2026, according to documents obtained by the DCNF.

Dr. Manthos did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

The DCNF obtained a public records document showing the Washington State DOC spent over $600,000 on transgender medical procedures from 2022 to 2024, with a sharp year-to-year increase. Washington state taxpayers footed the bill for $92,225 of transgender medical interventions in 2022, $203,651 in 2023 and $310,785 in 2024.

AUTHOR

Megan Brock

Investigative Reporter

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Male ‘Transgender’ Inmate Who Allegedly Terrorized Female Cellmate Has Long History Of Prison Violence

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A male “transgender” inmate who allegedly sexually assaulted his female cellmate had a long history of violent behavior and serious infractions before Washington state correction officials transferred him to a women’s prison, according to documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In December 2024, Mozzy Clark filed a lawsuit against the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) alleging she was forced to share a cell with Christopher Scott Williams, whom the lawsuit describes as a “6 foot, 4 inch biological male who was known to be a violent, convicted sexual predator,” at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW).

Williams, who still uses a male name, was transferred from a male prison to a women’s prison in 2021, after he began identifying as female. The Washington DOC has a policy that allows inmates to be transferred to a prison that matches their gender identity — how they feel about their sex — rather than their biology.

Williams was convicted of first degree assault and has an earned release date of 2038, according to the Washington DOC.

The DCNF submitted a public records request asking for documentation of reports that Williams had violated correctional facility rules while in prison. The Washington DOC provided the DCNF with Williams’ 98-page prison infraction summary. The summary lists Williams’ infraction reports, the seriousness of the allegation, the outcome of the hearing addressing the allegations and any sanctions imposed for violating prison rules.

The document, which refers to Williams as “female,” spans more than a decade and reveals Williams had a long history of violence and serious violations in male prisons before being transferred to WCCW. The list of serious infractions includes fighting with another inmate, sexual harassment, possessing explicit materials, damaging property and providing false information during an investigation of sexual misconduct. The infractions lead to punishments such as being confined to his cell for days, according to public records.

The DCNF was unable to reach Williams for comment and it appears that he is currently without legal representation.

In July 2011, Williams was sanctioned for sexual harassment and possession of sexually explicit material. He incurred the same infractions in February 2022, the timeframe of Mozzy Clark’s allegations, after his transfer to a women’s prison, according to the infraction summary.

Williams’ final violation in male prison occurred in May 2021, when he was given a sanction of being confined to his cell for 20 days for tampering with a security device. By December 2021, Williams had been transferred to the women’s prison and earned his first infraction there, an unauthorized absence from a required appointment, according to the summary document.

The lawsuit describes how in January and February of 2022, Clark was terrorized by her “fully intact” male cellmate, alleging Williams repeatedly sexually harassed her in the prison cell they shared, said depraved things to her while she showered and sexually assaulted her multiple times, according to the lawsuit.

Clark alleges Williams harassed her with sex toys, stating in that lawsuit that “[a]t night, Mr. Williams would take out various sex toys kept in his cell, and talk at length about how he wanted to use them on Ms. Clark.” The lawsuits notes Williams had a “large bag of sex toys” which was confiscated by prison officials in February 2022.

In February 2022, Williams incurred three serious infractions which included possession of sexuality explicit materials, for which Williams was confined to his cell for 10 days. Williams was also accused of sexual harassment but was cleared of that accusation, according to the summary document.

According to the lawsuit, prison officials regularly ignored or minimized Clark’s reports of the harassment. It wasn’t until Clark filed a Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) complaint against Williams that he was finally removed from her cell, states the lawsuit.  

“Even from an outside perspective, the only logical conclusion here is that Mozzy’s complaints were trivialized because the state was more concerned with perpetuating its woke policies than protecting the rights and safety of the women in its custody,” David Pivtorak, Clark’s lawyer, told the DCNF. “It appears that they cared more about prioritizing the feelings of male predators claiming to be the opposite sex than the foreseeable risk of violence to the women who were forced into a confined space with them against their will.”

The Washington DOC told the DCNF that allegations of sexual harassment are a “paramount concern” which are taken very seriously. It also made it clear that its prison housing policies and cellmate assignments are made according to state and federal law.

“State and federal law prescribe where offenders are to be housed. Inside, most have a cellmate, unless placed in temporary administrative segregation or assigned to higher security levels based on a Custody Review Score,” a representative for the Washington DOC told the DCNF.

“We do not improvise our standards of treatment and care. We are an arm of the justice system. We carry out the law, and we also follow it,” said the Washington DOC representative.

Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor, recently stated the Trump administration is committed to protecting female inmates by keeping males out of female prisons.

“We are also making clear in our prison system, male prisoners will not be allowed into women’s prisons. The Biden administration promoted prison rape by putting men into female prisons. That is obviously insane, cruel and unacceptable,” stated Miller. “This administration will not allow that.”

Williams still resides in the women’s prison, according to the Washington DOC.

“Eradication Of ‘Female’ As A Legal Category”

Clark’s lawsuit claims the “cruel and unusual punishment of sexual violence” allegedly inflicted upon her in prison was a result of Washington DOC policies.

The Washington DOC published its first transgender policy in February 2020, which allows inmates to be housed according to feelings about their sex, which activists call “gender identity,” rather than their biology.

Policies allowing men to transfer into women’s prison based on their feelings about their sex paves the way for the eradication of “female” as a legal category, Pivtorak explained to the DCNF.

“Taking this to its logical conclusion really means the complete erasure not only of women’s private spaces but the annihilation of ‘female’ as a discernible legal and biological category entirely,” said Pivtorak.

Washington DOC significantly expanded its gender ideology policies in October 2023 when Disability Rights Washington (DRW), a federally-funded nonprofit, announced it had successfully negotiated a settlement with the Washington DOC.

The activist group claimed Washington DOC had violated the rights of disabled transgender inmates by failing to provide them access to medical sex-change procedures and “gender affirming” mental healthcare, according to a press release.

The groundbreaking settlement required Washington DOC to provide inmates with cross-sex surgery, hire additional staff to provide sex-change medical interventions and provide additional gender ideology training for staff. In 2024, the Washington DOC published a toolkit to help gender confused inmates obtain cross-sex hormones, genital surgery and housing.

The DCNF obtained a public records document showing the Washington State DOC spent over $600,000 on transgender medical procedures from 2022 to 2024, with a sharp year-to-year increase. Washington state taxpayers footed the bill for $92,225 of transgender medical interventions in 2022, $203,651 in 2023 and $310,785 in 2024.

The transgender inmate medical claims paid for by the state included anesthesia for genital surgery, anesthesia for the amputation of a penis and silicone breast implants.

Costs of “gender affirming” medical services provided to inmates in the Washington State Department of Corrections.

The settlement requires Washington DOC to designate a “gender-affirming mental health specialist” at each of the state’s eleven major prisons. It also requires DOC to contract with a “gender-affirming mental health community consultant,” described as “a community expert in gender-affirming mental health care,” and hire a “gender-affirming medical specialist” to provide transgender medical interventions to patients at any “Department facility in person or via telehealth services.”

The Washington DOC has a job post for a “gender affirming medical specialist”, stating they will be expected to coordinate “medical care provided to transgender and gender diverse incarcerated individuals statewide, both in person and through telehealth.” The job comes with an annual salary range of $198,648 to $267,228, 25 paid vacation days a year and a requirement to become certified by the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH). 

The Washington DOC told the DCNF its agreement with DRW “prescribed new standards for gender-affirming care” for the many sex-change interventions that meet the “standards of medical necessity” for inmates who are insured through the state’s version of Medicaid, Apple Health.

“[Department of Corrections] is a medical provider. We intend to be a high-caliber one,” a representative for the Washington DOC told the DCNF.

“State and federal law govern the services we offer, and our professional staff offer them to the highest standard. It improves the lives of incarcerated individuals to receive comprehensive care, and it serves them to be treated in accordance with the law.”

DRW, which had been in negotiations over the settlement with Washington DOC since 2019, was given $1,500,000 to cover legal fees and costs incurred during the settlement negotiations. It was also given $300,000 annually to ensure the Washington DOC complied with the settlement terms, while the agreement is in effect.

DRW, which has received more than $37 million in federal funds since 1996, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, states on its website that federal funding makes up “a significant portion” of its overall funding.

DRW did not provide the DCNF with a comment regarding the settlement, but did tell the DCNF it did not use federal dollars to fund its work on the Washington DOC settlement.

It’s received multiple grants from the U.S. Department of Education, including a $370,000 grant under the Biden administration which was used to publish a guide instructing transgender Washington DOC inmates on how to legally change their name as part of their “Trans in Prison Justice Project.”

Public records obtained by the DCNF show Washington DOC has been holding monthly “GA” meetings with staff from jails throughout the state, where they discussed how to better provide inmates with “gender affirming services.”

AUTHOR

Megan Brock

Contributor.

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

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Migrant Convicted Of Sexually Assaulting, Attempting To Murder Two Preteen Girls

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A Texas court sentenced a Honduran migrant to life in prison this week for repeatedly sexually assaulting two girls and then attempting to murder them in 2020, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office announced Friday.

Jose Orbin Martinez-Lopez, 46, was put away for life for sexually assaulting the girls, aged 11 and 12, and then breaking into their home in September 2020 where he tried to kill them and burn down their house, the announcement stated.

After Martinez-Lopez slashed one of the girl’s throats with a box cutter, he locked both girls in a room and set fire to the house before fleeing, according to the announcement.

First responders were able to provide aid to the girls and both survived, the announcement stated.

Muslims’ Entrapment by Islam

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“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful, fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and property insecurity exist wherever the Prophet’s followers rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law, every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.” — Sir Winston Churchill, The River War 1899.

Let’s face it. Islam is like a deadly, contagious disease. Once it invades its victim’s mind, it can transform him into a helpless pawn with no choice but to execute what he is directed to do. The vast majority of the victims of communism were indeed people living in communist states. Some 38 million Soviets were killed because of communism. Tens of millions of Chinese citizens were killed because of communism. That the victims of communism were primarily members of socialist societies says a great deal about the ideology itself.

It is also true with Islam. Muslims are the primary victims of Islamic ideology. The political system of Islam, just like fascism and communism, is a dysfunctional ideology that needs to be abandoned. Islam’s charter Quran is the root cause of Islamic terrorism, just as Marxism was the root cause of international communist totalitarianism.

Of the reported 1.2 billion Muslims in the world, millions are already trapped in the terminal stages of this affliction, while millions of others are rapidly joining them. The people enslaved with the extreme cases of Islamic mental disease are highly infectious. They actively work to transmit the disease to others. At the same time, they themselves engage in horrific acts of mayhem and violence to demonstrate their unconditional obedience to the dictates of the Islamic cult.

A true Muslim does not and cannot believe in freedom of choice. In Islam, “submission” leads everything to Allah, as clearly and repeatedly stipulated in the Quran. The raison d’être for the Muslim is unconditional submission to the will and dictates of Allah. Everything that a “good” Muslim does is contingent upon the will and decree of Allah, in which the Muslim has been indoctrinated.

Islam, by its very nature, is patriarchal and authoritarian. Once liberty is surrendered for submission, serious consequences present themselves. The individual becomes little more than a passive, obedient vessel of Allah, drastically changing his perspective of himself and life. Once he submits to the all-powerful, all-knowing, he is absolved of the responsibility of having to chart his own way of life.

Acts of horrors committed in Islamic lands aside, it is disturbing to see Muslims dissimulate, sweet-talk, and use any and all means in free non-Islamic societies to convert people to their cult. Yet, if a Muslim, on his own free will, decides to leave Islam, he is condemned as an apostate and automatically sentenced to death. And right here in America, the suffocating tentacles of Islamic bigotry are beginning to reach out to people. In the recent past, for instance, a teenage girl had to run away from her Muslim family, fearing her own father would kill her for becoming a Christian.

Consider the boys. Millions of young boys are enrolled in madrasahs—religious boarding schools—learning little besides memorizing and reciting the Quran. This is a case of total submission: Islam at its best, as championed by the oil-money-flushed Saudi patrons of the Wahhabi sect.

Slaveholder Islam is not content to limit its inhuman, barbaric system to its traditional homelands. It has penetrated millions of adherents throughout Europe, America, and the world. Many of the new arrivals from the failed Islamic states do not realize that it is Islam that is the root cause of their centuries of backwardness and misery. These imprinted-from-birth Muslims are robots who are programmed to do all they can in obedience to the dictates of Muhammad’s Mein Kampf, the Quran (My Ummah).

It is a sad fact that generation after generation of Sunni Muftis—highest-ranking Sunni clerics—and Ayatollahs—highest-ranking Shiite clerics, over the years have indoctrinated their underlying clergy as well as the masses with selective teachings that promote intolerance, exclusion, and hostility toward non-Muslims—people labeled as heathens, infidels, unbelievers, and apostates. Selective choice of the scripture, combined with a siege mentality endemic to the cradle of Islam, the Middle East, generates a fury of hatred that has the potential of devouring the world. If only Muslims could purge the negative aspects of its scripture and practice its positive teachings, the world would become a diverse community of humanity at peace with one another. The question is: Is that ever possible?

The fact that Islam is a splintered house complicates matters considerably. The faith is divided into Sunni and Shiite sects with numerous sub-sects. The divisions and contentiousness are so profound that members of one sect consider the other Muslims as apostates worthy of death. The division goes back to the time of the Prophet himself. Shiites believe that the enemies of true faith subverted its chain of authority at Muhammad’s death. While on his deathbed, they claim that the Prophet asked for a parchment to dictate his will and appoint Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his successor.

The Shiites claim that Umar, an influential disciple and commander of the faith, declined the request to the Prophet: hasbena ketab-ul-llāh—sufficient unto us is the book of God. Before long, division and infighting started in earnest and continues to this day. Oppression of Shiite minorities in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are only two glaring instances of this longstanding and irreconcilable intra-faith hostility. The Shiite majorities in other lands return the favor to the Sunni minorities, as is the case in Iran. The recent horrific sectarian killings in Iraq represent glaring instances of irreconcilable differences among the various claimants to the mantle of faithful Islam.

One of the issues Muslims worldwide are in general agreement on is the status of women. It places women squarely under the thumb of men. It says in the Quran: Alrejaalo qawaamoon al-alnesa—men are rulers over women. Women of the non-Islamic world have valiantly worked to attain a degree of equality with men. They are not likely to barter their hard-earned rights for the privilege of becoming head-to-toe covered second-class citizens, deprived of education and opportunities. We, non-Muslim men, are not going to leave our emancipated, fully participating, and contributing members of our society behind and subjugate ourselves to a brutal set of Sharia laws that were enacted by a stone-age mentality.

Achievements thrive in a marketplace of free ideas, where beliefs and viewpoints, not people, clash. The best decisions and actions are reached through the unimpeded clash of ideas. Political Islam is anathema to this invaluable principle. Islam violated this vital principle, and it aims to continue to do so to this day. Islam’s inflexible and intolerant dogmatism is at the heart of the Islamic world’s stagnation and backwardness.

The best yet difficult resolution of the conflict is to do what hundreds of thousands of Iranian Muslims have already done. They have abandoned the slaveholder Islam: they broke loose from the yoke of the exploitive clergy, renounced Islamofascism, purged the discriminatory and bizarre teachings in the Quran and the Hadith, and left the suffocating tent of dogmatic Islam for the life-giving expanse of liberty.

Reforming Islam requires discarding Sharia but also purging the Quran itself from enormous suras that are not only patently false but totally repugnant to civilized humanity. This line of thinking, to sanitize Islam, is explicitly forbidden in the Quran; however, within the emancipating and accommodating haven of liberty, those who wish to remain Muslim by name only can retain and practice the sound teachings of Islam but renounce intolerance, hatred, and violence. It takes tremendous vision, effort, and courage to ascend from the degrading pit of slavery to the mount of emancipation. Yet, I’d like to remain hopeful that it is both possible and exhilarating to do it since many Iranians have already done so successfully and happily.

As more and more people leave the shackles of Islamic slavery, more and more will follow, and the long-suffering Muslims, victimized by Islam itself for far too long, will be free people in charge of their own lives and destinies. It is a painful yet worthy process of growing up, asserting one’s coming of age, and marching lockstep with the free members of the human race.

©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

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POLICE STATE: Staunch Republican Douglas Mackey Sentenced To Prison For Posting Memes Mocking Hillary Clinton

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We no longer have a country when a highly partisan, corrupt judicial system sends people to prison for posting jokes.

Freedom of speech is worth fighting for, worth dying for. Our once-great nation was founded on it, and it’s the hill we must die on.

Freedom of speech is the foundation of a free society. Without it, a tyrant can wreak havoc unopposed, while his opponents are silenced.

Putting up with being offended is essential in a pluralistic society in which people differ on basic truths. If a group will not bear being offended without resorting to violence, that group will rule unopposed while everyone else lives in fear, while other groups curtail their activities to appease the violent group. This results in the violent group being able to tyrannize the others.

Social Media Influencer Sentenced for Election Interference in 2016 Presidential Race

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Office of Public Affairs

Defendant Attempted to Trick Voters into Believing They Could Vote by Text Message

A social media influencer was sentenced today to seven months in prison and fined $15,000 for his role in a conspiracy to interfere with potential voters’ right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.

According to court documents, by 2016, Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, had established an audience on Twitter with approximately 58,000 followers. A February 2016 analysis by the MIT Media Lab ranked Mackey as one of the most significant influencers of the then-upcoming presidential election. Between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media, which was legally invalid.

For example, on Nov. 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,” Mackey tweeted an image depicting an African American woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. The ad stated: “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” and “Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.” The fine print at the bottom of the deceptive image stated: “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary For President 2016.” The tweet included the typed hashtag “#ImWithHer,” a slogan frequently used by then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. On or about and before Election Day 2016, at least 4,900 unique telephone numbers texted “Hillary” or some derivative to the 59925 text number, which had been used in multiple deceptive campaign images that Mackey and his co-conspirators tweeted.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

What Father’s Day Means to the Fatherless

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Fatherlessness is a root cause of many of our social ills.

Father’s Day reminds me that I haven’t spoken to my father in four years.

It actually feels like even longer, as my experience with fatherlessness goes back much further than the final conversation I had with the man who sired me. When my father dropped me off on my grandmother’s doorstep at age 18 and told me not to come home, it had already been many years since I truly had a dad.

I moved in with him at age 13, shortly after my parents’ divorce. Over the course of the following five years, my father failed me.

He failed as a dad, failed as a man, and failed to fulfill even the most minimal moral obligations of any parent. During that half-decade of my life, I was verbally, emotionally, and psychologically abused by my homophobic and hateful stepmother. My father watched in apathy—then, when push truly came to shove, cast me aside rather than stand up for his son.

What I needed in that dark time was a parent, a role model, an advocate—a dad. But the one thing I needed was the one thing I never had.

My father never taught me how to be a man. He never showed me more than fleeting moments of kindness and affection. Instead, he convinced me that the abuse I suffered was my own fault—if I could just stop provoking my stepmother, stop asking for it, the firestorm burning through our household would be extinguished. I believed him.

My father’s failures led to years of tumult in my teenage life. Even afterward, he left a gaping hole in my own development as a person and as a man that has taken me years to overcome—and I’m far luckier than most who have experienced fatherlessness. I had a supportive and loving mother, access to a good high school and a college education, the resources of a middle-class family, and more. I turned out just fine.

Suffice it to say many are not so fortunate.

More than 25 percent of children in the United States, 20 million, grow up in a home without a father. Beyond that, untold millions more have fathers who are abusive, neglectful, inattentive, or otherwise inadequate. In all its forms, fatherlessness takes a serious toll on young people, particularly young men and boys, that can quite literally ruin lives.

As noted by the National Fatherhood Initiative, fatherlessness strongly corresponds to higher poverty rates, increased rates of teenage pregnancy, behavioral problems, abuse, and neglect. Children without fathers are much more likely to end up incarcerated, get addicted to drugs, commit suicide, or drop out of high school.

Fatherlessness is a sickness of our culture. It’s hard to imagine a more glaring indication of this cultural failing than the fact that when a man who grew up with no father and now has kids started a YouTube channel named “Dad, how do I?” he quickly amassed more than 2 million followers. His videos, such as “How to change a tire” and “I’m proud of you,” have been viewed millions of times.

This deep hole in the soul of our culture has no easy answer. One way we can begin healing is through initiatives such as fatherhood involvement programs, community-level programs in place across the country where stepfathers, neighbors, and other men in the community step up and provide father-like role models for fatherless kids.

But the government has also caused fatherlessness and enshrined it as a perennial problem in our society through structural flaws in public policy.

A generation of children has had to grow up without fathers because of the failures of our criminal justice system. We have locked up millions of men (disproportionately African-American men) over nonviolent and victimless crimes through the failed War on Drugs, with no thought for the consequences this had on families and children left with no man in the home.

There’s another problem with our legal system that contributes to fatherlessness as well. In family court divorce proceedings, courts are overwhelmingly biased in custodial decision-making in favor of mothers over fathers. Of course, in cases where truly only the mother is capable of providing a safe home, giving her primary or sole custody is entirely warranted. But it’s sadly quite common for family courts to limit even a loving and capable father to seeing his children every other weekend—leaving those kids with a gaping hole in their day-to-day lives.

Moreover, our welfare system has long encouraged, enabled, and exacerbated single motherhood because the benefit levels of various government programs skew higher when no male is present in the household. As Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley wrote of the welfare state,

“The government paid mothers to keep fathers out of the home—and paid them well.”

Unfortunately, it worked.

These areas offer fertile ground for reform, but they are by no means the only cause of this problem. Repairing this crisis will take time and long-term efforts. But even just raising awareness of the issue is an important place to start, and Father’s Day offers an opportunity to do just that.

People should certainly celebrate Father’s Day and recognize the dads who have played such an important role in their lives. Yet no one should forget that for millions of people like me, Father’s Day is a holiday filled with emptiness and regret—and that as a country, we still have much to do to remedy this crisis.

This article was reprinted from the Washington Examiner.

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

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

Wanted: ‘Infuriated young men’ to join ISIS

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While the mainstream media will likely report this as a sign that ISIS is not truly Islamic, one can only wonder what is actually being discussed in Europe’s prisons, given the shocking numbers of how many Muslims are imprisoned in Europe.

Keep in mind:

Belgium – 35% of inmates are Muslim
UK – 44% of high-security inmates are Muslim
France – 70% of inmates are Muslim
Spain – 70% of inmates are Muslim
Germany – 30% of inmates “foreign”

“Studie: IS wirft ein Auge auf Europas Gefängnisse”, Krone.at , October 11, 2016:

Study: ISIS is using Europe’s prisons to recruit future jihadists

In Europe’s prisons, radical Islam is becoming more and more of a threat. The prisons have evolved into recruiting centers for jihadists, according to a study by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (UK). The study looked into the developments of 79 jihadists from Belgium, the UK, Denmark, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. 57 percent of those investigated were imprisoned before radicalization. A minimum of 27 percent became radicalized in prison.

The Islamic State’s recruitment is not as focused on colleges or mosques as it is on criminals and those who are from lower economic backgrounds. In prisons it is easy to find “infuriated young men” who are “ripe” for radicalization. Jihadists can fall back on their reliable skills in weapons training and criminal fundraising.

Since 2011, approximately 5000 people from Western Europe traveled to the Middle East to join jihadist groups.

RELATED ARTICLE: Germany: Manhunt on for Muslim migrant who plotted airport jihad massacre

Bernie Sanders Is Wrong on College and Jail by Kevin Currie-Knight

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In a December 15 tweet, Senator Bernie Sanders intimated that graduating from college decreases the likelihood that you will go to jail:

Sanders has long supported dubious measures for making college more affordable and hence accessible to all, and this may be why: he believes that “no college” is a path to jail.

Mike Rowe, the former TV host of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs and a longtime opponent of the “college for all” message, responded to Sanders with outrage. Rowe challenged Sanders’s idea that the most viable option without a college degree is jail. He also brought home a favorite point of his, to throw into question whether a cost-benefit analysis of college really shows that college is the best path to a successful career.

I’ve written before against the “academic training for all” mentality that Sanders and so many others seems set in, but Rowe, unfortunately, also gets a few things wrong.

Upcredentialing and Downvaluing

While Sanders is right that college degrees significantly increase one’s job prospects, he’s wrong to think that “college for all” will increase job prospects for everyone. Rowe is right to note that there are viable career options that don’t require college degrees, but he overlooks that they are vanishing by the year.

We all strive to “outcredential” each other, and in short order, the college degree is the new high school diploma. 

As a recent study documents, more employers are demanding a college degree as a qualification for careers that never used to require one — from positions at an IT help desk to positions as a receptionist, office manager, or file clerk. What is behind this “upcredentialing” phenomenon?

College degrees and other certificates of learning are what economists call positional goods: their value partly hinges on how they stack up relative to what others have. If I live in an area where few have finished college, my degree will be of great value and probably open many doors. But if I live where college degrees are commonplace, mine will do little more than put me on an even footing with my equally credentialed peers. In that case, distinguishing myself from others may require me to get still more education than my peers.

The Education Arms Race

We can think of higher education as a game of chicken, where each person’s strategy is to outdo others without completely breaking their bank. Since I want to compete in the job market, and I have reason to think that many other people are getting college degrees, my strategy should be to get one, too, and perhaps one more impressive than theirs. But my competitors are probably thinking the same thing, and each of us knows what the other is thinking. We all strive to “outcredential” each other, and in short order, the college degree is the new high school diploma.

This is basically what Americans have done for the last several decades, at least since the GI Bill expanded college accessibility.

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, college enrollment in 1983 was 10.6 million, and, after a small dip between 1984 and 1985, it has steadily increased each year. In 2012, the number stood at 17.7 million. Data also show that more Americans than ever have college degrees, though the percentage of people with college degrees (20 percent to 40 percent) varies by state.

Upcredentialing occurs because it can. Employers want ways to differentiate candidates. When college degrees were scarce, the candidate with the college degree distinguished himself from everyone else right off the bat. But when more and more people have a college degree, employers can afford to make having one a requirement.

If this process looks circular, that’s because it is. Bachelor’s degrees are a pathway to many more career options because many careers now require bachelor’s degrees. But the reason many careers now require bachelor’s degrees is because people en masse get bachelor’s degrees because they are a path to a better future.

Trapped in a Vicious Circle

While I generally support Rowe’s “college isn’t the only way” message, I am more pessimistic than he is because I don’t see the circle breaking easily.

If the best way to have the best career prospects is to outdo my competition, how likely is it that I will decide not to go to college if I suspect that others are better satisfying employers’ expectations by going? I could take a chance, but it’d be a big chance; if I’m right, I save a lot of tuition money, still get a decent job, and accumulate four extra years of earnings and experience, but if I’m wrong, my career prospects are slim. Rowe might point out that many careers don’t require a college degree, but I’d remind him that the pool of such jobs is shrinking. Fifteen years ago, those jobs included file clerks and construction supervisors, both of which now require degrees.

If this process looks circular, that’s because it is.

Some companies are bucking the upcredentialing trend and recognizing that there is little reason for them to require college degrees for certain positions. I hope that as those companies find success with that model, others will follow suit and we will reach a tipping point. Rowe probably shares that hope.

None of this lets Sanders off the hook. Not only is his tweet horribly oversimplified (and to be fair, one can’t be terribly nuanced in a tweet). But “college for all” ceases to look so good when you understand that education is a positional good. Increasing college access to all will do little more than deflate the value of a college degree for everyone by fueling the very upcredentialing that is already making the degree ever less meaningful.

“At the end of the day,” some future tweet may opine, “a second PhD is a helluva lot cheaper than prison.”

Kevin Currie-KnightKevin Currie-Knight

Kevin Currie-Knight teaches in East Carolina University’s Department of Special Education, Foundations, and Research. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

The Prison Called Cuba

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President Obama’s handshake with Cuban President Raul Castro, at a memorial service for former South African President Nelson Mandela in 2013. REUTERS TV/REUTERS

We are told we need to feel sympathy for the Cuban people who have suffered from a U.S. embargo and lack of diplomatic recognition. That ignores a long history of oppression in Cuba no matter who was in charge.

Prior to Fidel Castro, Cubans were in the grip of Flugencio Batista who overthrew the existing government in September 1933 and then dominated Cuban politics for the next 25 years until Castro’s revolutionary movement took control of the capitol in January 1959.

Fifty-six years ago in 1959, I was about to graduate from the University of Miami and among my friends were young Cubans sent there to get a degree. I have often wondered which among them returned to Cuba and which, like those who could afford it, were joined by their family who fled Cuba.

The U.S. had been involved with Cuba from the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 when Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam for $20 million. We stayed in Cuba until it was granted independence in 1902 as the Republic of Cuba. Its first president faced an armed revolt in 1906 so we returned to briefly occupy Cuba to restore some stability, but they never really got the hand of being a democratic self-governing nation.

How much better it would have been for the Cubans if the U.S. had decided to make the island a territory like Puerto Rico. Then we could have let the island prosper without having to end up with becoming a Communist nation closely allied, first with the Soviet Union and after its collapse in 1991, with others like China and Venezuela.

The lesson we might be expected to draw from this is that Communism does not work. It is an utterly failed economic and social system that can only stay in power by jailing or executing anyone who resists. That is exactly what the brothers, Fidel and Raul Castro, have done since seizing power. One consistency of the past five decades has been the anti-America policies they have pursued.

The reason given by Obama was that U.S. policies toward Cuba “have not worked” and that it is time for a change. There is some truth in this and it should be noted that Canada has long had good relations with Cuba as have European and, of course, Latin and South American nations.

Even so, what are we to conclude from the report that Russia plans to join military drills with Cuba and North Korea that may also include Vietnam and Brazil? Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has left it sanctioned and isolated, so the military drills send a message that it still has nations friendly to it, but what nations!

Cuba was caught not long ago when it attempted to ship weapons to North Korea, so we are talking about two dedicated Communist nations. Over the years, it has more than demonstrated its anti-American hostility.

Generally, there is little to be gained by exchanging embassies or relieving Cuba. Lifting our embargo and other sanctions leaves the U.S. with even less leverage, if any.

What has been largely overlooked since Obama’s announcement is the fact that Cuba is still ruled by a Castro and is likely to remain so because Raul’s son, Alejandro Castro Espin, a colonel in Cuba’s intelligence apparatus is likely being groomed to take over after becoming a general and a member of the Communist Party Politburo, Cuba’s ruling body. As noted in an article in The Atlantic, it is the Cuban military not only that plays a major role in the Politburo, it also controls at least sixty percent of the island nation’s economy.

I have no doubt that reaching out to Cuba ranks just below reaching out to Iran as Obama contemplates his “legacy.” Both are notorious enemies of the U.S. Nor would it surprise me if Obama would try to unilaterally shut down Guantanamo. Failing that, he will do everything he can to empty it by the time he leaves office.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba has had to struggle to survive economically. Its earlier behavior got it banned from the Organization of American States that was not lifted until 2009, but which did not confer full membership until it was deemed to be “in conformity with the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS.” At the time, Fidel said he was not interested in joining.

Not much has changed in terms of the enmity the Castro brothers have expressed toward the U.S. but practical considerations to keep unrest among elements of Cuba’s population under control require them to ease some of the earlier control over being able to travel and likely who Cubans can do business with would improve whatever commerce will be permitted.

At this point, the only “winner” is Cuba.

© Alan Caruba, 2015