( Muslim do not assimilate, they infiltrate! )
Not the jihadis. Le Pen. This kind of suicidal thinking will lead France to ruin. And yes, that will involve civil war.
(Thanks to Samantha.)
The watchman on the wall sounding the ALARM
( Muslim do not assimilate, they infiltrate! And believe they do have to obey our laws only Sharia which does not have any authority in our country only law of the is our Constitution and its' Bill of Right )
FBI director James Comey said during testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week that one of his agency’s recent arrests include two Detroit-area doctors accused of performing genital mutilation on girls as young as six years old.
Female genital mutilation, a barbaric procedure, is typically an Islamic tradition.
Sharia in America.
From Townhall:
“‘This past week for the first time since Congress passed the statute making it a crime in the United States to engage in female genital mutilation, to mutilate little girls, it’s been a felony in the United States since 1996, we made the first case last week against doctors in Michigan for doing this terrifying thing to young girls,’ Comey said. ‘All across the country with our partners in the Department of Homeland Security, we brought a case against two doctors for doing this to children. This is among the most important work we do, protecting kids and it was done by great work that you don’t hear a whole lot about all across the country by the FBI.’
“The doctors, Jumana Nagarwala and Fakhruddin Attar, have been charged with performing the procedure, conspiracy and with lying to federal agents. Farida Attar, wife of Dr. Fakhruddin, was also arrested for conspiracy and aiding in the procedure.
‘”This investigation has identified other children who may have been cut by Nagarwala at Attar’s clinic, MBC, between 2005 and 2017, including children in Michigan. On April 10, 2017, child forensic interviews employed by the FBI and HSI interviewed several minor girls in Michigan. In these interviews, multiple minor girls informed forensic interviewers that procedures had been performed on their genitals by Nagarwala. One minor girl said that Farida was present during the procedure performed by Nagarwala,’ the criminal complaint states.
“The victims were driven by their parents across state lines for the extreme procedure, many coming from Minnesota. They will likely face a number of charges.”
The watchman on the wall sounding the ALARM
Public Prayer in America Facing Serious Threats
May 5, 2017/by Rachel Alexander
“Maybe,” says Liberty Council’s Jeremy Dys, “we will get through this year without receiving reports of city leaders going to their national day of prayer celebrations in their towns and being threatened with lawsuits as a result.”
Maybe Dys will get his wish this year. But even as America observes a National Day of Prayer, people’s right to pray in public is under attack across the country. In one case, police denied a person’s right to pray in her own home.
Today, President Donald Trump signed an executive order today protecting religious freedom. He said, “We will not allow people of faith to be bullied.” The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins says that “the open season on Christians and other people of faith is coming to a close in America.”
The Rundown
In the meantime, though, people across the country have to fight in the courts for their right to pray. Here are a few of the cases.
In 2015 in Seattle, a high school football coach was suspended and then fired for praying on the field after games. Coach Joe Kennedy merely said a silent prayer. He did not instruct the players to join him. Yet for merely saying a silent prayer as he’d done for many years, this beloved coach lost his position. A federal court will finally hear his case this summer.
In Kansas, a police officer threatened to arrest a woman for praying in her own home. Mary Ann Sause is a retired Catholic nurse on disability. The officers came to her home and demanded entry without telling her why. When she began praying, one of the officers told her he would arrest her if she didn’t stop.
First Liberty is representing her in a lawsuit against the police department. A federal district court ruled that being ordered by armed officers not to pray “may have offended her, it does not constitute a burden on her ability to exercise her religion.” The U.S. court of appeals for the 10th Circuit is now hearing the case.
And More Cases
In Texas, The Freedom From Religion Foundation filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County Justice of the Peace Wayne Mack. He is facing ethics charges for allowing a chaplain to open court sessions in prayer. Yet a sign clearly says people are not required to attend the prayer. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion stating the prayers are constitutional. The Supreme Court upheld the practice in Town of Greece v. Galloway, he argues.
Similarly, in Pennsylvania, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is suing the state legislature. The legislature permits religious leaders to say a prayer at the start of sessions.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation threatened to sue the Harrison School Board in Arkansas for saying prayer before meetings. So far, the board is defying its threat.
A Cherished Tradition of Public Prayer
The U.S. has a long, cherished tradition of prayer in the public sphere. There is a reason we enjoy an annual National Day of Prayer.
But many people disagree. They try to use the law and the courts to empty our public life of any recognition of God. State legislatures around the country already protect public prayer, and Congress should do the same. (For more from the author of “Public Prayer in America Facing Serious Threats” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/public-prayer-america-facing-serious-threats/
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill on Wednesday that would allow adoption agencies in the state to turn away gay couples who want to adopt a child. The law purports to support religious freedom by not forcing faith-based organizations to potentially close down or face penalties as a result of acting in accordance with religious beliefs. Like many religious freedom bills that have been passed in various states, House Bill 24‘s language frames the issue as preventing discrimination against religious people or institutions.
“This bill would prohibit the state from discriminating against child placing agencies on the basis that the provider declines to provide a child placement that conflicts with the religious beliefs of the provider,” the text of the bill says.
“The bill is not to discriminate against anyone,” Rep. Rich Wingo, who sponsored the bill, said to AL.com. “Nowhere in the bill does it say anything like that or lead you to believe that.” (Read more from “Bill Allowing Adopting Agencies to Refuse Gay Couples Becomes Law” HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/bill-allowing-adopting-agencies-refuse-gay-couples-becomes-law/
INSKEEP: You mentioned a number of groups there, one of them Vitezi Rend. That was reported by The Forward. And they talked with members of the group who said of course Sebastian Gorka is a member. But he's rejected these allegations as a hatchet job. Without getting too deeply into the historical details, do you have any evidence that he holds anti-Semitic views?LOWEY: Well, very often, you hire people - whether it's the White House or it's in my staff - you look at their past support, and you look at their actions. So I have never met the man. I haven't interrogated the man. But if you look at his past ties and the fact that he doesn't have the kind of credentials you would expect to see in a person at the White House - as one of the founders and a co-chair of the Bipartisan Task Force For Combating Anti-Semitism, I really was very shocked that he has achieved a position in the White House.
Sebastian Gorka, a man who has spent his life battling fascists and anti-Semites of all sorts and is serving in the administration of American President Donald Trump, is being subjected to heinous attacks accusing him of fascist and anti-Semitic sympathies by opponents of Trump.Politics can be a metaphorical “knife fight” at times, with the stakes often being very high. Nevertheless, when a man’s reputation is attacked purely for political gain in ways that pervert the broader historic record, then it is in all our interests to cry “Foul!” Otherwise the quality of our democracy will suffer in ways that hurt all of us.This is why I am compelled to respond to the false accusations against Sebastian Gorka.I first met Mr. Gorka shortly after Central Europe had liberated itself from under the yolk of 40 years of dictatorship. Raised in the West to parents who had escaped dictatorship in the glorious days of the Revolution of 1956, he had decided to move to post-communist Hungary to help politically rebuild the nation and re-anchor the country to the Western community of nations.After the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, gave Sebastian even greater prominence as one of the few people who could explain what 9/11 meant not only to America but her European allies, he once again stepped forward to help Hungary when the “D-209 scandal” broke a few months later.After the elections in 2002, it was revealed that the new Socialist prime minister, Péter Medgyessy, had in fact been an officer for the Secret Police. When asked to become a public expert on the parliamentary committee empaneled to investigate the sitting prime minister, a move which I know cost him personally in many ways, he did not refuse.In fact, he took a very public role, repeatedly expressing his conviction that whether it be former Nazis in Germany after the war or former communists in Central Europe after 1990, the future of democracy depended upon “lustration,” and on a truthful accounting with the past.That is why the recent media attacks accusing Mr. Gorka of anti-Semitism and ties to fascist groups are all the more disgusting.
A pro-life hero for exposing Planned Parenthood’s collusion in the baby-parts industry, Sandra Merritt appeared in criminal court Wednesday. Last month California brought a 15-count felony charge against her.
Merritt works with David Daleiden, founder of the Center for Medical Progress. Posing as employees of a fake company and sing fake names and IDs, they went to a conference with abortion providers in 2014 and met with Planned Parenthood executives. They secretly recorded 14 people.
Some videos show Planned Parenthood employees describing late-term abortion methods. Others show executives haggling over compensation for fetal tissue. The conversations appear in multiple videos released since 2015.
The Charges
California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra charged them in March. He brought one charge for each of the 14 people filmed. The 15th is for conspiring to invade privacy.
Becerra is a former Democratic congressman. He took the position when former Attorney General Kamala Harris left for the U.S. Senate this year. Harris began investigating Merritt and Daleiden in 2015. She had taken donations from Planned Parenthood.
California law makes it illegal to record someone without their knowledge when they reasonably expect privacy. However, other journalists have not been charged for similar investigative work in California.
An animal rights group filmed at California poultry farms in 2014 and 2015, National Review notes. It exposed mistreatment of ducks and chickens. State authorities didn’t charge the group. They did investigate the farms.
This isn’t the first time that Merritt and Daleiden have been charged for their undercover work. A Texas grand jury charged them with felonies for using fake identification. The charges were dismissed last year.
Planned Parenthood
Planned Parenthood claims it does nothing wrong. In March, it called the undercover videos “fraudulent.”
The organization has also claimed that the videos were “deceptively edited.” However, as LifeSiteNews noted, they released their full recordings. An independent analysis showed that the “Planned Parenthood executives caught on video clearly say what they said.”
Merritt and Daleiden’s undercover work sparked investigations of Planned Parenthood in several states. They’ve had effect.
Even though no states brought charges against Planned Parenthood, The Federalist noted, Planned Parenthood stopped receiving money for aborted fetal tissue. Two medical companies were recently charged with illegally profiting from fetal tissue. The companies are “top partners” of Planned Parenthood, The Free Beacon reported.
Committees in both the U.S. House and Senate have investigated Planned Parenthood for over a year. Rep. Diane Black of the House panel said the investigation “laid bare the grisly reality” that abortionists are “driven by profit.”
WTVB reports that Merritt and Daleiden will appear before a California court again on June 8. Liberty Counsel is seeking dismissal of the charges. (For more from the author of “Andra Merritt Answers Felony Charges for Secretly Recording Planned Parenthood Execs” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/andra-merritt-answers-felony-charges-secretly-recording-planned-pare
Protesters are Environmental Hypocrites
( Muslims do ,not assimilate, they infiltrate )
Video http://www.barenakedislam.com/2017/05/03/germany-islamic-cleric-shouting-in-the-town-sqaure-sharia
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqnH0RYdCBk
Subscribe to the Glazov Gang‘s YouTube Channel.
This special edition of The Glazov Gang presents The Sandra Solomon Moment, with Sandra Solomon, an ex-Muslim who grew up in Saudi Arabia who is now valiantly fighting against the Islamization of the West — and of her new home country of Canada in particular. (Support Sandra on her Facebook Page HERE.)
Sandra unveils The Hajj in Islam and Sexual Harassment, sharing the nightmare she experienced while circling around the Kaba.
Don’t miss it!
And make sure to watch Sandra discuss What Islam Taught Me About the Jews, where she shares how the life of Mohammed, the Koran and Hadith taught her a very clear message: CLICK HERE. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QvsSF-WH_c
Please donate through our Pay Pal account or GoFundMe campaign to help The Glazov Gang keep going. Thank you!
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( Muslims do not assimilate, they infiltrate )...
There will be a huge protest against this sharia supporting hatemonger on June 1, Join us – RSVP here.
People have already taken to the streets.
Video “Questions for Linda Sarsour from Assemblyman Hikind”:
“DNC Quiet on Vice Chair’s Full-Throated Defense of Anti-Israel Activist,” by Brent Scher, Washington Free Beacon, May 2, 2017:
The Democratic National Committee has yet to comment on a statement from its recently elected vice chairman that he would “respond directly, consistently, and with all heart and soul” to any criticism of anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour.
Michael Blake, a New York state assemblyman who was elected DNC vice chair in February, spoke out in defense of Sarsour amid growing concern about the taxpayer-funded City University of New York’s (CUNY) decision to invite her to deliver its commencement speech later this month. Sarsour is a leading voice in the anti-Israel movement and has been accused of anti-Semitism.
“Making it real clear,” Blake warned on Twitter. “If you keep coming after @lsarsour, we’re going to respond directly, consistently, with all heart and soul. Fall back!”
It is unclear whether Blake’s intention was to make a statement of support for Sarsour on behalf of the DNC. Blake and representatives of the DNC did not respond to numerous requests for comment.
Sarsour has emerged as a leading activist for the party in recent months despite applauding violence against the Jewish state. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) celebrated her as one of the “suffragists of our time” in Time magazine last month.
Not mentioned by Gillibrand was that weeks earlier Sarsour had shared a stage with Rasmea Odeh, a fellow anti-Israel activist and convicted terrorist who is responsible for a bombing in Israel that killed two young students. Sarsour said she was “honored to be on the stage with Rasmea.”
Also unmentioned by Gillibrand was that Sarsour once said she felt “hurt” when Iraqi war criminal Saddam Hussein was captured by the United States, that Sarsour has called children throwing rocks at Jews “the definition of courage,” or that she recently said Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a victim of female genital mutilation as a child, doesn’t deserve to be a woman and should have her vagina taken away.
Sarsour also said this year that it is impossible to be both pro-Israel and a feminist.
New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat who serves alongside Blake in Albany, says he thinks his party is “committing suicide” by turning a blind eye to the radicalism of figures like Sarsour.
“Linda Sarsour has a soft spot for terrorists; it’s plain and simple,” Hikind said. “Her remark recently that you can’t be a feminist if you support Israel, why isn’t everybody yelling about this? That’s outrageous.”
“The Democratic Party, to a great extent, is committing suicide,” he said. “When you don’t do the right thing in reaction to the Linda Sarsours of the world, then you are no better than Linda Sarsour.”…
The watchman on the wall sounding the ALARM
( Muslims do not assimilate, they infiltrate )
Oh, the horror, the terror for non-Muslims living under the sharia. And it is getting worse (if that is possible) because Western governments, academic and media elites refuse to criticize or question Islam and Islamic law (such self-censorship is in accordance with sharia as well).
A hospital in Lahore is forcing Christian paramedics to recite verses from the Holy Quran
The Express Tribune, April 3, 2017 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):
LAHORE: Reports suggest that there is a hospital administration in the city that forces its non-Muslim staffers to either recite verses from the Holy Quran at morning assembly or be marked absent for the day.
The Mian Mir Hospital, run by the City District Government Lahore, was named after Sufi saint Hazrat Mian Mir who rose to prominence during the time of Mughal emperor Jehangir. The saint himself was a big proponent of interfaith harmony.
The matter came to light when Mian Mir Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Muhammad Sarfraz allegedly slapped a Christian paramedical staffer for not attending the assembly. Following the incident, all paramedical staff protested against the MS and other hospital administration by shutting down all functions of the medical facility. “This act of the MS is a violation of the Constitution of Pakistan,” commented a Christian paramedical staffer named Marshal.
Talking to the media, he asked religious scholars to sort out the issue as the administration of the hospital was pressurising them to leave their jobs.”
Another paramedical staff member of the medical facility, Fahad Ahmed, said both Muslims and Christians were working in harmony. “It is professional workplace; I don’t know why the administration is forcing our Christian brothers to do this. This is totally unacceptable.”
Center for Social Justice Chairman Peter Jacob told The Express Tribune that religious freedom is guaranteed to all under Article 20 of the Constitution of Pakistan. “This act goes against the constitution and should be dealt with accordingly,” he commented.
Celebrating Easter: Amid fears, Christians prefer indoor festivities
A paramedical staffer also agreed with this notion. He urged authorities to thoroughly investigate the matter and “question the MS over the incident”. Despite several attempts and text messages, MS Mian Mir Hospital Dr Muhammad Sarfraz was unavailable for comment.
However, CDGL Health CEO Dr Muhammad Saeed assured a high-level committee had been formed to look into the matter and a strict departmental inquiry would be initiated against anyone found guilty.
Experts said extremism was creeping into public hospitals and was a massive concern for law enforcement agencies. A senior law enforcement official, requesting anonymity, said the phenomena of extremism among doctors and other paramedical staff was nothing new. He urged the health department to frame a code of conduct to avoid any such incident in future. “The issue of Mian Mir hospital is just a small manifestation and also serves as an alarm bell,” he concluded.
The watchman on the wall sounding the ALARM
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"The sheer craziness of this obsession ..."
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No longer restrained by the formalities of network television, former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly launched a scathing attack on former CBS News anchor Dan Rather and the other “morons” on cable news for criticizing President Donald Trump’s claim that Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War.
“You may have seen a bunch of people on cable news, and that’s one of the reasons I don’t really miss it, saying that President Trump is a moron for saying that Andrew Jackson might have prevented the Civil War because of Jackson’s skills in running the country,” O’Reilly said Tuesday on his No Spin News podcast.
“So Dan Rather, who knows very little about history, and others go out and they hammer Trump like he’s a moron.”
Trump told the Washington Examiner in an interview Monday that he believed Andrew Jackson could have prevented the Civil War. “He was a very tough person but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw with regard to the Civil War, he said ‘There’s no reason for this,'” Trump said of the nation’s seventh president.
Jackson, a staunch defender of keeping the country unified, had threatened South Carolina with a federal invasion during the Nullification Crisis during his presidency. However, Jackson died in 1845, sixteen years before the Civil War.
Rather blasted Trump in a Facebook post Monday for having a “grade schooler’s” understanding of American history.
“The sheer craziness of this obsession by Donald Trump with Andrew Jackson and the Civil War is a carnival act unlike anything I have ever seen at the White House,” the former CBS host wrote.
“These are the rantings of someone who really should be focused on the job of governing. Should we not conclude that he approaches policy decisions with the same half-baked conspiracies with which he apparently approaches history?” Rather asked.
“To be President of the United States is to part of the great American story. To not understand that story is to not understand the presidency.”
O’Reilly didn’t agree with Rather’s insinuation that Trump’s view on Jackson amounted to a “half-baked conspiracy.”
“Trump was right,” O’Reilly said Tuesday. “Andrew Jackson would not have tolerated any secession movement at all and would have moved federal troops much faster into the problem situations. James Buchanan, Old Buck, did nothing. He was afraid. And that emboldened the South. End of historical story.”
“These morons that you see on cable news, just turn them off. Just turn them off because you are never going to get an honest story.”
“They know nothing,” O’Reilly concluded.
It is only Neil M. Gorsuch’s first month as an associate justice on the Supreme Court, but he is already showing just how similar his judicial philosophy is to that of his predecessor, the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In several difficult criminal law cases, Gorsuch has asked sharp questions from the bench and cast one of his first votes to deny a stay of execution—moves that echo Scalia’s approach to the law.
The Death Penalty in Arkansas
First, in McGehee et al. v. Hutchinson, Gorsuch voted to deny several Arkansas death row inmates’ requests to halt their executions.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor would have granted their request. Breyer wrote a two-page dissent questioning “whether the death penalty is consistent with the Constitution” (he clearly believes it isn’t).
While the majority did not state their reasons for denying the inmates’ request, it seems clear that they relied, at least in part, on the reasoning set out by Scalia in his concurring opinion in Glossip v. Gross (2015), in which he wrote that “not once in the history of the American republic has this Court ever suggested the death penalty is categorically impermissible.”
“The reason is obvious: It is impossible to hold unconstitutional that which the Constitution explicitly contemplates.”
Scalia continued, “The Fifth Amendment provides that ‘[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital … crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury,’ and that no person shall be ‘deprived of life … without due process of law.’”
The Washington Post describes votes on stays of execution as “a time when the responsibility of the role crystallizes.” In McGehee, Gorsuch held firm, silently adopting Scalia’s constitutionalist reasoning.
No ‘Linguistic Somersaults’
Second, Gorsuch demonstrated his adherence to textualism through some of the questions he posed to the advocates during oral argument in Maslenjak v. U.S.
At issue in the case is whether the government was justified in removing the U.S. citizenship of Divna Maslenjak, an ethnic Serb from modern Bosnia.
Maslenjak, who came to the United States in 2000 and was subsequently naturalized as a citizen, was convicted of lying to a U.S. immigration official.
During an interview in 1998, she told the immigration officer that she and her husband were seeking asylum because they feared persecution in Bosnia because her husband had evaded conscription into the Serbian army.
In reality, he had served as an officer in a Serbian militia unit which was subsequently accused of war crimes.
In 2006, Maslenjak falsely stated on an immigration form that she had never lied to an immigration officer, and was subsequently convicted of making false statements on a government document.
A key issue before the Court is whether that lie was “material” enough to affect the original immigration decision, which would, in turn, be sufficient to uphold her conviction and her subsequent denaturalization.
As Amy Howe writes at SCOTUSblog, “ruling for the government” in this case “would give U.S. officials boundless discretion to take away citizenship based on even very minor lies.”
In the midst of this high stakes argument, Gorsuch’s questions focused on one issue in particular: The text of the law itself.
The statute, Gorsuch noted, “doesn’t contain an express materiality provision,” and Gorsuch was concerned about having to do “a lot of linguistic somersaults to add” such a provision into the law.
That harkens back to Scalia’s dissenting opinion in King v. Burwell (2015). There, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Affordable Care Act’s “tax credits are available to individuals in states that have a federal exchange.”
In signature prose, Scalia wrote that “[t]he somersaults of statutory interpretation” that the majority “performed (‘penalty’ means tax … ‘established by the state’ means not established by the state) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence.”
Gorsuch appears sympathetic to Scalia’s disapproval of “linguistic somersaults” and the idea that judges are empowered to rewrite laws that they may disagree with.
The Big Picture
Third, Gorsuch showed a keen awareness of how the Supreme Court’s rulings carry far-reaching implications for future cases in Weaver v. Massachusetts.
That case involved a man named Kentel Weaver, who in 2006 was convicted of unlicensed possession of a firearm and premeditated murder of 15-year-old Germaine Rucker. Weaver was 16 at the time of the murder.
In 2011, he sought a new trial, claiming that his counsel was ineffective because they did not object to the courtroom being closed during jury empanelment, when the defendant, judge, and jury first meet.
Weaver argued that this was a procedural irregularity that violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.
But as Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out at oral argument, the reason the courtroom was closed was that it was full. Ninety members of the public were in attendance as prospective jurors, and they all needed seats.
Weaver objected to this reasoning, saying that while prospective jurors were seated, his mother and his other supporters weren’t able to enter the courtroom during the early stage of the proceedings.
At this point, Gorsuch entered the fray with a big picture question.
He asked whether a “triviality exception” might apply here, or whether the Court should consider the potential unintended consequences that can arise when it tries to prevent every injustice—no matter how small—by imposing new procedural requirements across the entire criminal justice system.
Gorsuch asked whether ruling for Weaver would create a “Professor Stuntz” problem, whereby in “perfecting procedure, we actually result in its denial…”
This reference was to the late Harvard criminal law professor, William J. Stuntz, who argued that by following the Warren Court’s “fetishization of so many formalistic procedures,” the criminal justice system is now overburdened by an excess of procedural technicalities at play.
Berkeley law professor Andrea Roth summed up Stuntz’s argument, saying that these rules “at best indirectly ensure fairness of trial and sentencing outcomes” but have “rendered trials too expensive” and complex for anyone but elite lawyers to tackle.
In turn, writes Roth, this “has driven prosecutors and lawmakers to seek ways to avoid trial and force pleas through draconian sentencing schemes, a skewed focus on easily detected urban drug crimes mostly committed by racial minorities, and ever-expanding substantive criminal law.”
Scalia worked to constrain some of the Warren Court’s excesses in this regard during his time on the Court.
In Hudson v. Michigan (2006), for example, Scalia, writing for the majority, refused to extend the “exclusionary rule” (which requires the suppression of incriminating evidence, notwithstanding the fact that a defendant may be guilty) to technical violations of “the knock-and-announce rule,” which establishes that, absent extenuating circumstances, police officers must knock on the door and announce their presence before entering a suspect’s home.
He also asserted, in a noteworthy University of Chicago Law Review article, that there is a “dichotomy between ‘general rule of law’ and ‘personal discretion to do justice’”—that is, to rule as a judge personally desires rather than as the law instructs—and that the latter may lead to “unfortunate practical consequences.”
So far, Gorsuch is modeling this Scalia-esque approach and honoring the rule of law.
This is the exact approach he espoused in a dissent in A.M. v. Holmes (2016) while sitting on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. There, he wrote, “[a] judge who likes every result he reaches is very likely a bad judge, reaching for results he prefers rather than those the law compels.”
A Fitting Successor to Scalia
Throughout his nomination and confirmation process, Heritage Foundation legal scholars noted Gorsuch’s striking similarities to Scalia, which include a shared sensitivity to overcriminalization, textualism, and the separation of powers.
In these first few cases, Gorsuch is showing just how well he fits the Scalia mold of being a committed constitutionalist and textualist on the High Court. (For more from the author of “In His First Criminal Cases, Neil Gorsuch Already Mirroring Scalia” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/first-criminal-cases-neil-gorsuch-already-mirroring-scalia/
While President Trump has had a strong first 100 days in office, critics point to his low approval ratings. An AOL headline blares, “Trump has lowest approval rating in history after 100 days in office.” Trump denounces his approval polls as fake news, citing bias.
According to the left-leaning political and elections site FiveThirtyEight, Trump’s approval ratings averaged 42 percent at the end of his first 100 days in office. His disapproval ratings averaged 52 percent.
Mind you, these polls wrongly predicted Hillary Clinton would win the election. FiveThirtyEight’s averaging of polls gave Trump only a 1-in-3 chance of winning. He beat his polling averages by 2 to 3 points in swing states. He beat them by even more in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
So how can we trust the polls now that say the president’s so unpopular?
Most Polling Companies Lean to the Left
Let’s look at the most accurate polling company today, one that is not biased to the left. Rasmussen consistently shows Trump with the highest approval ratings. In fact, in one snapshot of polls from February, Rasmussen showed Trump 6 points higher than the next closest poll, 55 percent to 49 percent.
The former is the same approval rating former President Bill Clinton had after 100 days in office. Yet no one is talking about this. Instead, they cite Gallup far more often.
Larger Sampling of Democrats Polled
Since most of the polling companies lean to the left, it is not surprising to find they often include more Democrats than Republicans in samplings.
Last June, a Reuters presidential poll surveyed 52 percent Democrats and 35 percent Republicans. The rest were Independents or other. Reuters polled almost 33 percent more Democrats than Republicans. Naturally, the poll results showed Clinton far ahead, 47 percent to 33 percent.
Clever Wording
Reuters/IPSOS was caught last July changing a poll’s wording to favor Clinton. After Trump pulled ahead of her in a July poll, Reuters/IPSOS eliminated the word “Neither” from the Neither/Other choice. That change gave Clinton a 7-point bounce.
Just a Snapshot
While Trump’s approval rating may have dipped in late April, that is just one snapshot in time. It was much higher in prior months. Rasmussen conducted several polls since Trump entered office. Several showed over 50 percent approval.
Likely Voters v. Registered Voters v. Adults
Trump generally had the lowest approval ratings in polls of adults. In polls that interviewed registered voters or likely voters, he tended to have the highest approval ratings. Since likely voters decide elections, why would a polling company choose to interview adults? Some suspect this is done on purpose to skew the results against the GOP.
In fact, if polling companies wanted to be really accurate, they would survey “likely likely voters.” These are voters who have not just voted in one election in recent years, but several in a row. That demographic tends to favor the GOP even more.
Devil’s Advocate: What if the Low Approval Ratings are Valid?
If there is some truth to Trump’s low approval ratings, it may be due to — ironically — his high level of success. He’s cracked down on illegal immigration, the travel ban, intervening in Syria and repealing Obamacare — all fairly controversial positions.
The low ratings could also be due to the spread of social media. It has made it easy to broadcast biased mainstream media articles everywhere. People who normally wouldn’t read The New York Times can’t help but see its articles in their Facebook news feed.
But it Doesn’t Matter Anyway
FiveThirtyEight admits that approval ratings “do a relatively poor job of forecasting the election results.” Based on previous presidents’ experiences, it is too early to predict how Trump’s presidency will go.
Trump’s approval ratings at the beginning of his first 100 days in office started out almost the same as former presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Reagan went on to become a very popular president. Both won reelection. FiveThirtyEight points out, “Trump is not very popular, but he’s also no more unpopular than Barack Obama was for much of his presidency.”
Democrats can gloat all they want about Trump’s low approval ratings, but not only are they probably meaningless, they could fool the party into thinking it’ll easily beat Trump in 2020. They could find themselves repeating last year’s surprise loss. (For more from the author of “Fact Check: Trump’s 100-Day Low Approval Ratings” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/fact-check-trumps-100-day-low-approval-ratings/
by Joel Kotkin and Wendell Cox
{city-journal.org} ~ In this era of anti-Trump resistance, many progressives see California as a model of enlightenment. The Golden State’s post-2010 recovery has won plaudits in the progressive press from the New York Times’s Paul Krugman, among others. Yet if one looks at the effects of the state’s policies on key Democratic constituencies— millennials, minorities, and the poor—the picture is dismal. A recent United Way study found that close to one-third of state residents can barely pay their bills, largely due to housing costs. When adjusted for these costs, California leads all states—even historically poor Mississippi—in the percentage of its people living in poverty.
California is home to 77 of the country’s 297 most “economically challenged” cities, based on poverty and unemployment levels. The population of these cities totals more than 12 million. In his new book on the nation’s urban crisis, author Richard Florida ranks three California metropolitan areas—Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego— among the five most unequal in the nation. California, with housing prices 230 percent above the national average, is home to many of the nation’s most unaffordable urban areas, including not only the predictably expensive large metros but also smaller cities such as Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Luis Obispo. Unsurprisingly, the state’s middle class is disappearing the fastest of any state.
California’s young population is particularly challenged. As we spell out in our new report from Chapman University and the California Association of Realtors, California has the third-lowest percentage of people aged 25 to 34 who own their own homes—only New York and Hawaii’s are lower. In San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, the 25-to-34 homeownership rates range from 19.6 percent to 22.6 percent—40 percent or more below the national average.
No big surprise, then, that California’s millennials are more likely to stay at home with Mom and Dad into their thirties. Approximately 47 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 lived with parents or other relatives in 2015, according to the American Community Survey—but in California, the figure is 54 percent. California’s younger generation, particularly in the cities, seems increasingly destined to live as renters.
The biggest losers from California’s housing crisis are, ironically, the very people whom progressives claim to care about most: the poor and minorities, who also constitute most millennials. Hispanics, now approaching a majority of the state’s population, account for 43 percent of the 25-to-34 cohort. Rates of homeownership for African-American and Hispanic Californians have dropped at four times the rate of Asians and non-Hispanic whites in the last 10 years, while minority homeownership in the Golden State now lags most of the country, notably Texas and the southeast.
Much of this can be traced to California’s long-standing bias against suburban development. Reducing greenhouse-gas emissions remains an obsession. But unless the rest of the country or the world adopts California’s strict emissions rules, the state’s regulations are likely to have little or no impact on climate change. Recently passed legislation will make things worse by imposing even more stringent regulations on greenhouse gases, mandating a 40 percent cut from 1990 levels by 2030. This represents the ratcheting up of a regulatory regime that will slow California’s already-torpid rate of issuing building permits, which is well below the national average.
California’s housing policies pose a profound long-term threat to the state’s social stability and economic viability. The state has seen a net loss of about 1.7 million domestic migrants since 2000. After slowing during the Great Recession and its aftermath, out-migration is again growing, even in the booming Bay Area. Some 29,000 more people left the Bay Area than arrived in 2016. The San Francisco metropolitan area saw net migration plunge from plus-15,000 in 2013 to minus-12,000 three years later.
Contrary to some reports, the people leaving California are not predominantly poor and uneducated. IRS data show that California’s outmigration between 2013 and 2014 was concentrated among middle-aged people with higher average incomes than households that stayed in California or moved there. This trend contrasts dramatically with Texas, arguably the state’s strongest economic competitor.
Here again, new policies will only make things worse. The Bay Area’s 2040 regional plan calls for concentrating 75 percent of new housing development on barely 5 percent of the region’s developed land mass. One alternative plan assumes that 78 percent of new housing in the Bay Area would be multi-family and 22 percent single-family (detached and attached). The regional Air Quality Agency has drawn up intrusive plans, seeking to levy tolls on all freeways, ban gas stoves, and urge less meat consumption.
Young people overwhelmingly prefer single-family houses, which represent 80 percent of home purchases nationwide for people under 35. If millennials continue their current rate of savings, notes one study, they would need 28 years to qualify for a median-priced house in San Francisco—but only five years in Charlotte and just three in Atlanta. This may be one reason, notes a recent ULI report, why 74 percent of Bay Area millennials are considering moving out in the next five years.
Regional planners and commercial chambers should indeed look to California as a model—of exactly what not to do. The state’s large metro areas are no longer hot growth spots for millennials, who are flocking to suburbs and exurbs elsewhere. Since 2010, the biggest gains in millennial residents have been in low-density, comparatively affordable cities such as Orlando, Austin, and Nashville. Ultimately, the battle for California’s future—and much of Blue America’s—will turn on how these regions meet the challenge of providing housing and opportunities to a new generation of workers and young families. A California that works only for the wealthy and well-established is not sustainable.
America’s “youth culture” was invented, more or less, in California in the 1960s, from the surfing spots of L.A. and Orange County to the countercultural hotbeds of the Bay Area. But today, California is turning on its young, with policies that ensure that most millennials will never fully “launch,” leaving many destined either to move elsewhere or become wards of an ever-expanding welfare state. The Golden State can still create an environment for growth and family formation—but only if it reclaims its historical role as the nation’s beacon of opportunity and youthful enthusiasm.
https://www.city-journal.org/html/california-squashes-its-young-15167.html
The 2016 elections have passed, but courts still have plenty of work to do sorting out cases of voter fraud throughout the country.
Convictions have continued to roll in this spring, and The Heritage Foundation’s voter fraud database is growing longer by the day.
This week, we are adding 19 convictions, including cases from Texas, Colorado, and Illinois. These are just the latest convictions. Yet despite the overwhelming evidence, the left prefers to bury its head in the sand and refuses to acknowledge the reality of Voter fraud.
Take one example from Kansas. When Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach claimed his first conviction in a voter fraud case against a non-U.S. citizen, opponents of the conviction had no interest in dealing with the facts.
Instead, some groups on the left—like the liberal news site Think Progress—accused Kobach of “voter suppression.” Another Salon article completely dismissed Kobach without addressing the evidence he found, saying, “Someday he’ll have evidence of a problem that doesn’t exist.”
In many states, voter registration requires proof of citizenship. The left calls such policies anti-American. But is that really such a radical idea, that voters in a U.S. election would have to be U.S. citizens?
If liberals want evidence, then Heritage has it. To date, we have documented 773 confirmed criminal convictions in 492 voter fraud cases spanning 44 states.
Here are a few of the newest entries to the database:
Toni Lee Newbill, of Colorado, pleaded guilty to voting twice for her deceased father, once in the 2013 general election and again in the Republican Primary of 2016. Newbill was sentenced to 18 months of unsupervised probation, 30 hours of community service, and was ordered to pay a $500 fine and additional court fees.
Noe Olvera, of Texas, pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge. Olvera, a postman, admitted to taking a $1,000 bribe from a paid campaign worker in exchange for a list of the names and addresses of mail-in ballot recipients on his postal route.
After a two-year investigation into local voting fraud, hidden camera footage surfaced revealing a uniformed and on-the-job Olvera “negotiating an exchange of money for mail-in voter lists.” Olvera is scheduled to be sentenced on May 25.
Steveland Kidd, of Illinois, pleaded guilty to two counts of absentee ballot abuse during a municipal election in April 2013. Kidd took possession of, and delivered, an absentee ballot to election authorities despite being legally barred from doing so.
The crime is a Class 3 felony. Kidd was sentenced to 12 days in the St. Clair County Jail and is now barred from engaging in campaign-related activities or electioneering.
Brian McDouglar, a resident of Cahokia, Illinois, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of falsifying or tampering with an absentee ballot—a class 3 felony. McDouglar illegally took an absentee ballot from a voter he was not related to, and then placed it in the mail.
Clearly, absentee voting remains particularly vulnerable to fraud.
Simply put, in most states there are few measures in place to sufficiently verify the identity of those casting absentee ballots. Signatures can be forged—a problem that can be addressed by requiring the voter to include a photocopied valid ID along with the absentee ballot.
But more robust identification requirements would only solve part of the problem. They cannot defend against the pernicious targeting of absentee voters by pressuring, coercing, or “assisting” them in filling out their ballots in order to assure that particular candidates or causes prevail.
So long as states continue to allow the names of deceased voters and residents who have moved away to remain on their voter rolls, they are leaving the door wide open to fraudsters who are willing to take advantage of the system by voting in their names.
The Heritage Foundation published “Does Your Vote Count?,” a guide to help voters and policymakers understand the issue of election fraud. That report provides policy recommendations that states should adopt to help thwart illegal activity and ensure that the election process remains free and fair for all.
Procedures that can be implemented include requiring a photographic, government-issued ID and proof of citizenship to register to vote. In addition, participating in an interstate voter registration crosscheck program will help guarantee that people are not voting twice.
Secretaries of state should verify voter registration data with other state and federal agencies, such as the state Department of Motor Vehicles and the Social Security Administration. Such measures will offer a barrier of protection not only to eligible voters, but also to the electoral process in general.
A single fraudulent vote does more than just cancel out the vote of another American. It puts a stain on the results of the entire election.
If voters are discouraged to participate in what they perceive as a tainted process, it only empowers those who would seek to steal elections.
Instead of vilifying those who fulfill their duties to protect the electoral process, the left should embrace the facts. Voter fraud is real, and we must take seriously the task of securing the integrity of our elections. (For more from the author of “While the Left Ignores Voter Fraud, More Evidence Mounts to Prove Them Wrong” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/left-ignores-voter-fraud-evidence-mounts-prove-wrong/
There is no more room in the Democratic party for pro-life Americans. The chairman of the Democratic National Committee has made that clear. As clear as the water Pontius Pilate used to wash his hands. Townhall reports:
Top Democrats recently told their party to get in line with their radical abortion agenda or step aside. As a way to bury the controversy over the Democrat National Committee campaigning with a Democratic mayoral candidate, Heath Mello, who once voted for pro-life legislation, DNC Chair Tom Perez and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) insisted that it was a mistake and that Roe v. Wade is non-negotiable.
The magazine America, whose liberal Jesuit editors are at least pro-life, pointed out what this really means:
Abortion is now the single issue defining the Democrats, and Ilyse Hogue, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, is the de facto head of the party. … NARAL is at least as powerful within the Democratic Party as the National Rifle Association is within the Republican Party.
Bad News? Or Just Reality Emerging?
It’s hard to know precisely how to feel about this development.
We are Christians, pro-lifers and conservatives — in that order. There’s no conflict among those things. In fact they go together. But each is a different angle from which to view political questions.
We live in a democracy. We bear a solemn responsibility under God: making just laws for ourselves. So abortion is a political question. It isn’t in China, Cuba or other totalitarian states. There the people’s masters simply impose the practice on them. (You know, the way liberals want the Supreme Court to keep on doing.)
It’s key to keep our priorities in order. So let’s scrutinize this news about the Democrats under each of those three categories.
As Christians, We’re Saddened
From a spiritual perspective, this is tragic. One of our nation’s two political parties is now completely dedicated to a fundamental evil. Abortion is even worse than segregation. (Democrats defended that for 100 years). It’s on the level of slavery. To be an active Democrat, going forward, is now to participate in evil. If you raise money for Democratic candidates, give to Democratic causes, or in any way participate in that party’s bid for power. … You are implicated.
Our hearts go out to lifelong Democrats who care about unborn life. And to candidates like Heath Mello who tried to save their party from plunging over the cliff. But it has taken the plunge.
And that is something to mourn. It should lead us to prayer. It should lead pro-lifers who’ve belonged to the Democratic party to take a good hard look at leaving. Maybe they should start a third party that’s clearly pro-life, which also represents their views on other issues, where morality is not so black and white: such as poverty programs, immigration policy and other liberal priorities.
But they can’t go on cooperating with the party of NARAL — any more than pro-life Republicans could stay in that party if it endorsed euthanasia to cut back on Medicare costs.
As Pro-Lifers, We’re Conflicted
As citizens committed to protecting the vulnerable from violence, we’re deeply saddened. We honor pro-life Democrats of the past, like the great Ellen McCormack and Robert Casey. They championed the human rights of unborn children in a party that was being hijacked by hedonism and feminism. They fought the good fight. And failed.
Strategically, it’s a bad thing for a cause to be trapped in just one party. Defenders of Israel are glad that pro-Israel candidates exist in both political parties. The National Rifle Association cultivates pro-Second Amendment Democrats. So have pro-lifers, as long as that party made room for differences of conviction. The danger is that Republicans will take our votes for granted, and continue to shove the life issue to the back burner.
But the two-party strategy might be falling apart for other causes too. The anger and intolerance of leftist activists is driving the Democratic party away from a true defense of Israel. Ever more liberal organizations are backing the bigoted “Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions” movement that targets Israel and even American Jews for open discrimination.
On the gun issue, Democratic leadership still prudently allows candidates in selected regions to dissent from the overwhelming party consensus against private handgun ownership. But how long that will last, in our current atmosphere of a rush to extremes? Of hooded leftist demonstrators silencing campus speakers with impunity? Ten years, max, we predict. Sooner rather than later, there will be no more room for Jim Webbs in the Democratic party.
Now the Stakes Are Obvious
On the positive side, the Democrats’ decision to side as a party with baby-parts merchants like Planned Parenthood does … clarify matters. It shreds for once and all the phony “Seamless Garment” that leftists within the churches have used to bury the unborn under a pile of other, more popular priorities.
As we wrote here last summer, members of Democrats for Life were essentially giving political cover to rabid pro-choicers like Hillary Clinton. How? By pretending that issues where people of good will can differ over the wisest policy for enhancing human life were somehow comparable to abortion. No, health insurance, welfare, wages or even gun violence cannot be classed with abortion. Like genocide or unjust wars of conquest, it’s a practice that’s purely evil which no just government should enable. Period.
As Conservatives, We’re Hopeful
Of course, as citizens with strong, clear convictions about the sanctity of human life, we don’t like to see the party that represents half the country oppose us. It pushes the common good a little further out of reach. We wish that Democrats would come around on a whole range of issues. In an ideal world, both parties would accept core conservative principles — as both parties did on many issues, back in 1960 or so. Then elections could be about competency, honesty and character.
Just as slavery and segregation denied the founding principles of our country, so does abortion. It is profoundly toxic to have one of our two major political parties aligned against the nation’s very founding. The Democratic party at first clung to slavery, then to segregation. Now it clings to abortion. How long will it take political reality to peel its white knuckles off its latest fetish of evil? Only time will tell.
That said, from the point of view of accomplishing things: The Democrats’ move is wicked, vicious and helpful. To us. It demonstrates in flesh and blood the left’s commitment to an ideology of suicide.
The left in America has increasingly embraced a whole set of convictions that fit together like a puzzle. What holds the pieces in place is a dark, insidious view of human beings.
We Represent Different Species
Conservatives (especially Christians) believe that human beings are free, responsible creatures — the image of God. We only enjoy our freedoms as part of a compact; each one comes paired with a solemn responsibility. We don’t expect to “get away” with enjoying our rights while abandoning our duties. We don’t want to be paid for work we didn’t do. Nor to fund other people’s willful idleness. We don’t expect to enjoy all the pleasures of life and evade the consequences.
What better example could we find of a reckless abuse of freedom and disregard of duty than the practice of legal abortion? Everyone knows that sex is connected to having children, as eating is to nutrition. But the Sexual Revolution came along and offered us all the “benefits” of bulimia. Contemporary hedonism wants to totally sever that connection — to change the very nature of sex itself. God made it to be the glue that holds two people together in love for life, and generates new lives. Modern man wants it to be a low-investment, low-commitment (but much more enjoyable) game of Twister.
No real conservative can support that. Few liberals today have the stomach to oppose it. So of course the Democratic party is monolithically pro-abortion. It’s the logical consequence of the secular leftist view of man: a lumpy featherless biped who seeks out pleasure. We can win his votes, the Democrats reckon, by offering him a bigger pile of bananas. (For more from the author of “Democrats Are Now Officially the Party of Death” please click HERE) http://joemiller.us/2017/05/democrats-now-officially-party-death/
