The Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act was passed on Sept. 30, 1996 under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. It states that “whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both.” An exception is made for health or medical reasons, but Congress also made it clear that anyone who transports a person to or from the United States or its territories for the purpose subjecting that person to FGM can also be fined or imprisoned, or both.
               At the time, former Senator Harry Reid explained Congress’s rationale, stating, “There is no medical reason for this procedure. … It is used as a method to keep girls chaste and to ensure their virginity until marriage, and to ensure that after marriage they do not engage in extramarital sex.”
               Friedman, a Ronald Reagan appointee, wasn’t buying it, and his ruling cited the Commerce Clause as the primary reason why. “That clause permits Congress to regulate activity that is commercial or economic in nature and that substantially affects interstate commerce either directly or as part of an interstate market that has such an effect,” Friedman wrote. “The government has not shown that either prong is met. … Nor has the government shown that FGM itself has any effect on interstate commerce or that a market exists for FGM beyond the mothers of the nine victims alleged in the third superseding indictment.”
               Friedman also questioned the federal government’s motive. “If there is an interstate market for FGM, why is this the first time the government has ever brought charges under this 1996 statute?” he asked.
               The judge is certainly correct regarding the latter assertion. The law wasn’t enforced once in 22 years prior to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions deciding to prosecute Dr. Jumana Nagarwala for performing the procedure, Dr. Fakhuruddin Attar for letting Nagarwala use his clinic to do so, Attar’s wife, Farida, for assisting Nagarwala in the examination room, and the parents for having their children’s genitals cut.
               Yet Friedman’s assertion that there was no market rings exceedingly hollow. Despite citing only nine specific victims in their case, prosecutors alleged that Nagarwala had performed the procedure on as many as 100 girls over a 12-year period.
               Moreover, five of the nine girls were transported from Minnesota and Illinois, both of which are among the 27 states that have enacted anti-FGM statutes of varying degrees. The other four girls were from Michigan, which passed its own anti-FGM statute last year because of this case, and while those accused could be prosecuted going forward, the law cannot be applied retroactively.
               And finally, the Centers for Disease Control estimate that up to 500,000 U.S. women and girls are at risk of being mutilated in the name of religion.
               In another line of attack, the feds asserted that FGM is an “illegal form of healthcare” that could thus be deregulated by Congress. Friedman countered that FGM is “a form of physical assault, not anything approaching a healthcare service.”
               The ruling should surprise no one attuned to a nation besieged by moral ambiguity and infatuated with multiculturalism. It is our moral ambiguity that abides the ultimate form of physical assault known as abortion, which is not only defined — and subsidized — as a “healthcare service,” but wholly immunized from states’ rights, courtesy of the Supreme Court’s 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling. It is our infatuation with multiculturalism that abides the partial or full removal of a child’s clitoris under auspices of religious freedom. The defendants are all members of an Indian Muslim sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra, a group that insists FGM is a “benign” procedure in keeping with their religious rituals.
               Benign? Court records indicate some of the victims cried, screamed, and bled during the procedure, and one was given Valium ground in liquid Tylenol to calm her down. Records also show that two of the victims — both seven years of age — were tricked by their mothers into thinking they were being taken to Detroit for a girls’ weekend, not a life-altering surgical procedure.
               One of Nagarwala’s attorneys was extremely pleased by the ruling. Shannon Smith, who also believes she will win on appeal if the feds take the next step, declared, “Dr. Nagarwala is just a wonderful human being. She was always known as a doctor with an excellent reputation. The whole community was shocked when this happened. She’s always been known to be a stellar doctor, mother, [and] person.”
               Regardless, this “stellar person” remains under indictment for conspiracy for traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct. The charge carries a maximum sentence of 30 years. She and the Attars are also facing obstruction of justice charges for allegedly telling members of their community not to cooperate with investigators. That charge carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The case is slated for trial in April 2019.
               In the meantime, one might assume the passage of anti-FGM laws in the 23 states where none currently exist would be a slam dunk. Think again. In 2017, when Maine attempted to create several new felonies attached to the procedure, the ACLU of Maine opposed it as “nothing more than an attempt to single out behavior that is commonly attributed to certain religious and ethnic communities as different from other forms of abuse.”
               The bill ultimately failed despite the presence of 10,000 Somali refugees in that state, who come from a nation that embraced the procedure when it adopted Sharia Law as the nation’s legal code in 2009. The ACLU opposes FGM, but further insisted it preferred working with Maine’s immigrant communities to find “evidence-based solutions that will truly protect these vulnerable populations.”
               Attorney Jerome Sabbota, who defended one of the women who abetted the procedure involving the Minnesota children, also defended her exoneration, saying, “These are deeply religious people, and a lot of people don’t understand that.”
               So were the Aztecs, who embraced human sacrifice, and Hindis, who, though it is outlawed, still engage in the practice of “sati,” which is the ritual burning of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre.
               Dr. Phyllis Chesler, fellow at the Middle East Forum and Emerita Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies insists that FGM “has no place in the West.”
               Unless Friedman’s ruling is overturned on appeal, and/or Congress fixes the law, it apparently does.  ~The Patriot Post  

             The dividing line is not so clear-cut: You can have very conservative people who worked for Ted Cruz (like Amanda Carpenter) be firmly Never Trump, while moderate Republicans like Rudy Giuliani are going full MAGA. In a number of cases, it is more a matter of attitude, tone, and political combativeness rather than policy differences. The MAGA wing has justifiable beefs with establishment Republicans and conservatives like Nicolle Wallace for failing to call out abusive language (and worse) from the Left, and in some cases, joining the attacks. Many establishment types have grown sick of President Trump’s tone. The two sides are digging in, neither willing to consider a truce.
               It’s more than that, though. Some of the last two years’ policy changes didn’t help the GOP and contributed to the drubbing in the House. For example, consider tax reform. Sure, it did a lot of good things, including the repatriation of money that American companies were keeping overseas, but the cap on the deductions for state and local taxes (SALT) hammered the suburbs in high-tax states.
               Democrats in some deep-blue states even moved to reduce the tax hit from the federal government due to that change. Granted, the reason they had to act was they had high taxes in the first place, but the GOP never made that case effectively, and as a result, people who were taking a hit saw Democrats moving to help taxpayers. That didn’t help the GOP when many suburban women were already turned off by Trump’s tone, and while the GOP failed to deliver even a “skinny” scumbag/liar-nObamaCare repeal.
               Add the bias from the mainstream media and a Democrat base fueled by anger over the 2016 election, and the GOP not only suffered its biggest shellacking in the House since 1974, but it lost Senate seats it should have won or held in Ohio, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, and West Virginia, as well as governorships it should have held in Kansas, Nevada, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Much of this was the suburbs flipping.
               So what can the Trump wing of the GOP do to win back the suburbs? We’re not likely to see Trump’s tone change — it’s far more likely that you’ll find oceanfront property in Utah. But aside from that, there are some things that can be done.
               One thing may be to restore the SALT deduction — or at least double the cap before it hits. The next step is to do what should have been done in 2010: Come up with a free-market approach to health care that can protect those with preexisting conditions. After that, the GOP needs to look at other issues of concern to the suburbs and come up with good free-market solutions.
               The GOP also needs to improve its marketing of these policies — not just on the theoretical principles but to also explain the benefits in real-world terms. A more free-market approach to health insurance that allows a family to buy a policy that meets their needs and that doesn’t have unnecessary bells and whistles could help them save for a vacation. Lower gas prices from reforming EPA regulations could help a family not have to choose between kids’ activities.
               For the MAGA wing of the GOP, making inroads in the suburbs is essential. They may not get back all those who have defected from the GOP, but they really don’t need to. They just need to get enough suburban votes to go with those who Trump added to the GOP’s winning coalition in 2016.  ~The Patriot Post  

             According to The Washington Times, “As many as 9,300 more people could die each year because of extreme heat or cold related to climate change by the end of this century. … The range of disease-spreading mosquitoes and ticks will expand, as will extreme weather events — all of which will bring additional mental health problems such as depression and even suicidal tendencies, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, made up of 13 federal agencies, said in the ‘Fourth National Climate Assessment.’”
               The Washington Post adds, “The report finds that the continental United States already is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was 100 years ago, surrounded by seas that are on average nine inches higher and being racked by far worse heat waves than the nation experienced only 50 years ago.”
               The assessment concluded that it’s all man-made: “Both human and natural factors influence Earth’s climate, but the long-term global warming trend observed over the past century can only be explained by the effect that human activities have had on the climate.” And the report came with the requisite warnings that the poor and minorities will be hardest hit.
               Specific policy recommendations are not included in the report, though it took a New York second for climate alarmists to renew their calls for draconian regulations to combat the problem. Given the massive expense of such regulation, it struck us that a repeated theme in the new report is how expensive inaction would be. Lost productivity, coastal property damage, and more deaths would indeed be expensive — if predictions are accurate. And the emphasis on human activities as the cause leads to the logical conclusion that human activities must be restricted if we are to slow the trend. We know how expensive that will be, not just in terms of the economy but of Liberty.
               Meanwhile, there’s an inconvenient truth: The U.S. is leading the world in reducing carbon emissions while President Donald Trump eases regulations, exits the Paris Agreement, and encourages fossil-fuel development.
               Speaking of Trump, he quipped last week, “Brutal and extended cold blast could shatter all records — whatever happened to global warming?” He’s joking, of course, because climate alarmists routinely point to weather events to prove that they’re correct, even while lecturing “deniers” who dare to make those obvious jokes.
               Exhibit A: One climate researcher pointing to the deadly California wildfire and saying, “Looking at the smoke, I could not help but think: ‘This is climate change. This is what climate change looks like.’” No, it’s what irresponsible environmental policies look like. Whether more policies designed by the same extreme leftists can reduce earth’s temperature in the future is the open question, isn’t it?  

~The Patriot Post  

             Following the migrants’ attempted illegal crossing, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen explained the situation, stating, “After being prevented from entering the Port of Entry, some of these migrants attempted to breach legacy fence infrastructure along the border and sought to harm CBP personnel by throwing projectiles at them. As I have continually stated, DHS will not tolerate this type of lawlessness and will not hesitate to shut down ports of entry for security and public safety reasons. We will also seek to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law anyone who destroys federal property, endangers our frontline operators, or violates our nation’s sovereignty.”
               President Donald Trump then warned he would “permanently” close the border if more was not done to prevent illegal crossings. “Mexico should move the flag waving Migrants, many of whom are stone cold criminals, back to their countries,” he declared. “Do it by plane, do it by bus, do it anyway you want, but they are NOT coming into the U.S.A. We will close the Border permanently if need be. Congress, fund the WALL!”
               Mexico announced that it will be deporting nearly 500 of the migrants. But if Mexico doesn’t want to have to deal with a population of illegal aliens living within its borders, then it too needs to stop them from illegally crossing its own southern border. Indeed, The idea that the U.S. should be responsible for having to house and care for these illegals simply because they mob the border demanding asylum is nonsense. Legally and orderly processing the asylum requests is the only way to properly and effectively handle the issue and prevent abuse. As National Review’s Jim Geraghty astutely observed, “If you’re trying to run across the border and away from the border patrol, you’re not here to apply for asylum.”
               Meanwhile, Democrats and leftists were quick to condemn the Trump administration over the U.S. Border Patrol agents’ use of tear gas to repel the violent illegals, suggesting the response was unnecessary and inhumane. In reality, the actions by U.S. law enforcement in confronting this type of violent and lawless activity is standard procedure for dealing with mobs. In 2013, under the scumbag/liar-nObama administration, U.S. Border Patrol agents used the same tactics, including tear gas, to repel a similar attempt by migrants to violently rush the border.
               On a final note, soon-to-be House Speaker sick-Nancy Pulosi (D-CA) went so far as to call illegal aliens “patriotic.” That’s an insult not only to American citizens but to immigrants who came here via legal channels. But she’ll do anything to evoke sympathy and woo future Democrat votes.  ~The Patriot Post  

             Out with the old: “USCIS secures America’s promise as a nation of immigrants by providing accurate and useful information to our customers, granting immigration and citizenship benefits, promoting an awareness and understanding of citizenship, and ensuring the integrity of our immigration system.”
               And in with the new: “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services administers the nation’s lawful immigration system, safeguarding its integrity and promise by efficiently and fairly adjudicating requests for immigration benefits while protecting Americans, securing the homeland, and honoring our values.”
               In a memo explaining the change, USCIS Director Lee Cissna wrote, “We are … responsible for ensuring that those who naturalize are dedicated to this country, share our values, assimilate into our communities, and understand their responsibility to help preserve our freedom and liberty.” That’s  what U.S. immigration policy should be all about. Americans, by and large, have always welcomed immigrants who love this country and want to make it and themselves better. The problematic ones come in illegally, commit other crimes and create an economic drain by demanding services they don’t pay for. How hard is it to tell the difference when discussing policy? Impossible if you’re a demagoguing Democrat.
               In related news, as we reported in January, California is now a “sanctuary” state because Democrats there put illegal aliens first. Trump fired a shot across the bow yesterday, saying the situation is “a disgrace” and that he’d even consider pulling Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) out of the state. “If we ever pulled our ICE out, if we ever said, ‘Hey, let California alone, let them figure it out for themselves,' in two months they’d be begging for us to come back,” the president said. “And you know what? I’m thinking about doing it.” To be sure, this is far more likely Trumpian hyperbole meant to make a point than it is his actual policy recommendation. But it sure does make that point, does it not?
               It’s pretty simple, really. Trump puts America first and Democrats don’t.  ~The Patriot Post  

             Chicago led the way with 650 murders last year, and while Baltimore was second with 343, its per capita total of 55.8 per 100,000 residents was the highest in the nation among its 50 most populous cities. As Baltimore partisans were quick to point out, though, St. Louis, whose steady population decline has put it outside that top 50, had an even higher murder rate of 65 per 100,000. It matters little — the vast majority of the cities on the list have been run by Democrats for decades. So where’s the outrage?
               Bear in mind that many of these cities have stringent gun laws. But while the Left’s answer is to blame guns, there’s truly much more to the story. One key element is the issue of gangs: “Some young men take precautions appropriate to Beirut, circling their home block three or four times in search of any person or car that is out of place, before they will park,” writes Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson. “Others must be smuggled out of the city to avoid revenge killings.” A lucrative drug trade and a lack of respect for human life are clearly fertilizing these killing fields.
               Yet too often among these “war zones within the borders of America,” young men grow up without a dad. Whether that’s because the father has left the mother voluntarily (or was never really “with” her in the first place), has since been imprisoned, or was a victim of violence himself doesn’t necessarily matter — the issue is the lack of positive male influence in the these children’s lives.
               As marriage and family expert Suzanne Venker points out about divorce, “More often than not, children lose contact with their fathers — for two reasons. One, mothers remain the default custodial parent in the average American divorce and thus retain most of the control. Second, it is usually women who consider themselves the aggrieved party, as evidenced by the fact that wives initiate 70 percent of divorces.” She continues, “The unfortunate result is that some divorced mothers use any opportunity to undermine their children’s relationship with their father or, if not that, dismiss the significance of a father’s role.”
               Government fosters this behavior with its longtime financial encouragement of single motherhood through generous welfare programs — some “Great Society” that’s turned out to be. Popular culture has done likewise with the “girl power” theory that men aren’t even necessary to raise children. If your male role model is the drug dealer on the corner or the violent protagonist of a hardcore video game, it’s likely that your disagreements are being settled with bullets, not banter. These kids will get the guns, by hook or by crook.
               Democrat-run urban poverty plantations are the petri dishes of this lab experiment to create a society where life is disposable. But those who prosper from this politically would rather blame the NRA and tell us how its money and influence won’t allow for “common sense” gun legislation that invariably includes restrictions on the purchase and possession of firearms. It doesn’t matter that the NRA badly trails a number of left-wing groups in terms of annual spending on political activism — the Left needs a convenient scapegoat.
               As Mark Alexander wrote Thursday, Democrat “common sense” is a non sequitur.
               The kids at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have been omnipresent in the media since the day of the shooting, and their plight is inspiring them to march and protest for gun control — which leftists are more than happy to exploit. That, however, is not the issue. As we find out more about the perpetrator and his story, we find out there were many missed opportunities for intervention from school officials and law enforcement that could have prevented this. But there are thousands of shooters and victims in America’s inner cities, most of whom you’ll never hear about from the 24/7 crisis media. Media reporting or no, we can’t address the problem unless we reverse the policies that created it.  

~The Patriot Post  

             This latest revelation only adds to the growing list of failures by school administrators, federal and state government officials and law enforcement. Not only was the killer a known problem to local law enforcement, but the sheriff admitted his agency had received no less than 23 calls on him since 2008, and the FBI had been warned twice about this teenager and his talk of wanting to be a school shooter. Now we’ve learned that a law enforcement officer already on the scene failed to aggressively respond to the attack. The gross incompetence displayed by public officials is staggering.
               Nothing is worse than the loss of life permitted to happen by this inaction. But his failure will also be exploited by anti-Second Amendment activists, who will now claim that having armed security at schools still fails to stop the attacks. Indeed, in its reporting on the story, The Washington Post made that very point:
               Israel’s description of [School Resource Deputy Scot] Peterson as an armed, trained officer who was present for a mass killing but did not confront the shooter also comes as President Trump, in response to the Parkland massacre, has suggested arming teachers as a way to deter possible threats, while the National Rifle Association has also pushed for more armed guards in schools.
               Trump has frequently suggested in response to mass shootings that more law-abiding people with firearms could help stop a shooter and the head of the NRA has repeatedly suggested the same. However, Israel’s announcement Thursday suggested that even if a person is armed, trained and available to help, that may not stop a mass killing that unfolds in a matter of minutes.
               Meanwhile, the Leftmedia and the gun control crowd (but we repeat ourselves) continue banging the drums in calling for more limits on Americans’ Second Amendment rights in the name of protecting children. The irony here is that the Left is calling for more power and trust to be given to those very government leaders who so abysmally failed in their duties. This is a classic example of the leftist mindset, which always entrusts the government with power over and against the rights of the individual. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that limiting law-abiding citizens’ access to firearms will do nothing to stop criminal behavior, especially when those entrusted to enforce the laws and protect citizens fail so abysmally.  ~The Patriot Post