Monthly Archives: November 2016

The Price Of A Porous Border

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about the cost of young people illegally entering America every day.

The article quotes Center for Immigration Studies Policy Director Jessica Vaughan:

“An average of 255 illegal alien youths were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) every day this month, according to the latest figures the agency provided to Congress. This is the largest number of illegal alien children ever in the care of the federal government. To pay for it, the agency says it will need an additional one or two billion dollars for the next year – above and beyond the $1.2 billion spent in 2016 and proposed for 2017 – depending on how many more arrive. For now, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where ORR resides, is diverting $167 million from other programs to cover the cost of services for these new illegal arrivals through December 9, when the current continuing resolution expires.”

So, what are the other programs? A total of $167 million will be coming from other federal programs. This includes $14 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, including $4.5 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $2 million from the Maternal and Child Health program. I have a question. If (according to the Democrats in Congress) it is impossible to cut the federal budget, how can you cut these programs? Are you denying Americans what they need to accommodate people who entered the country illegally? Wouldn’t it be cheaper simply to send the youths home?

Let’s hope that the new Congress follows its obligation to approve a budget and stick to it. This is ridiculous.

This Is Not Really Bad News

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Bloomberg is reporting today that OPEC (organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) has agreed to cut oil production beginning in January. The market has already reacted, and crude prices have climbed to $50. That means that the price of a gallon of gasoline will be going up, heating oil will be going up, and the cost of electricity may also be affected. However, there is a bright side to this.

One of the things to expect in a Trump Administration is the development of America‘s gas and oil resources. The Obama Administration has blocked that development wherever possible. Theoretically, the price increase along with the end of some regulations could create energy independence for America. This would have a drastic impact on our foreign policy. There is, however, more to the picture. In the past when OPEC has seen America moving toward energy independence, they have dropped the price of oil so that development of America’s oil reserves did not make financial sense. It will be interesting to see if they do that again.

We also need to remember what the impact of American energy independence will do to the world market of oil. If America can reach a point where it exports oil, OPEC will no longer be important. It will be interesting to see at what point practicality on the part of OPEC overcomes immediate greed. Their immediate greed will encourage the growth of the American energy market. Practicality would keep prices low so that America had no incentive to develop its resources.

Something Your History Teachers Might Not Have Mentioned

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In 2012, Forbes Magazine ran an article titled, “How A Failed Commune Gave Us What Is Now Thanksgiving.” The article reminds us that America was settled by Pilgrims who sincerely believed that community ownership and total sharing were the way to prosper in the New World. Unfortunately, their idealism almost caused the loss of their colony.

The article reports:

As I’ve outlined in greater detail here before (Lessons From a Capitalist Thanksgiving), the original colony had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor. As William Bradford recorded in his Of Plymouth Plantation, a people who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Resources were squandered, vegetables were allowed to rot on the ground and mass starvation was the result. And where there is starvation, there is plague. After 2 1/2 years, the leaders of the colony decided to abandon their socialist mandate and create a system which honored private property. The colony survived and thrived and the abundance which resulted was what was celebrated at that iconic Thanksgiving feast.

After watching the success of Bernie Sanders as a Socialist candidate for President, I wonder if our children are being taught this.

The article concludes:

History is the story of the limitations of human power. But the limits of power is a topic for people who doubt themselves and their right to rule, not the self-anointed.

That’s how it is now, and that’s how it was in 1620. The charter of the Plymouth Colony reflected the most up-to-date economic, philosophical and religious thinking of the early 17th century. Plato was in vogue then, and Plato believed in central planning by intellectuals in the context of communal property, centralized state education, state centralized cultural offerings and communal family structure. For Plato, it literally did take a village to raise a child. This collectivist impulse reflected itself in various heretical offshoots of Protestant Christianity with names like The True Levelers, and the Diggers, mass movements of people who believed that property and income distinctions should be eliminated, that the wealthy should have their property expropriated and given to what we now call the 99%. This kind of thinking was rife in the 1600s and is perhaps why the Pilgrim settlers settled for a charter which did not create a private property system.

But the Pilgrims learned and prospered. And what they learned, we have forgotten and we fade.  Now, new waves of ignorant masses flood into parks and public squares. New Platonists demand control of other people’s property. New True Levelers legally occupy the prestige pulpits of our nation, secular and sacred. And now, as then, the productive class of our now gigantic, colony-turned-superpower, learn and teach again, the painful lessons of history. Collectivism violates the iron laws of human nature. It has always failed. It is always failing, and it will always fail. I thank God that it is failing now. Providence is teaching us once again.

This is one example of the reason we need to pay attention to what our children are learning about American history in our schools.

My, How Times Change

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A friend posted the following on Facebook. This is for all of you saying that Donald Trump’s ideas about protecting the flag were radical.

flagprotectionact2005I decided to check this. I discovered S.1911 from the 109th Congress,. Here are some screenshots from Thomas.gov:

flagprotectionfllagprotection2Any questions?

Sometimes You Just Have To Wonder What Motivates People

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In the 2016 Presidential Election, the third party candidates received about 4 percent of the votes. That is a combined total. Most estimates say that Jill Stein received about 1 percent of the vote. So why is Jill Stein demanding a recount? What does she have to gain?

Fox News posted an article today pointing out that Jill Stein’s call for a recount in several states has received twelve times more news coverage from ABC, NBC, and CBS than her campaign.

The article reports:

When Jill Stein was the Green Party’s candidate for U.S. president, the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) only gave her 36 seconds of coverage. However, as soon as she launched a campaign to contest the presidential election and demand a recount of ballots in several key states, the evening news shows on ABC, CBS and NBC managed to find 7 minutes and 26 seconds of coverage for her in just four days.

On November 26’s NBC “Nightly News,” anchor Lester Holt began a story on the recount by implying that the election may not be over yet, “if you thought the presidential election was behind us, word came today from the Hillary Clinton campaign that it will back the state-wide election recount effort put on by third party candidate Jill Stein in three key battle ground states.”

So what is going on? We all remember how the media treated Donald Trump. We all remember that the media did not want Donald Trump elected or his policies to be put in place. Why? Because the news media and the Democrats have a working system that pays well and provides access. Donald Trump is a threat to that system. Any doubt that can be thrown into the election results can be used to de-legitimize the Trump Presidency and the Trump Administration. That is part of the story. But there is even more. Jill Stein ended her campaign with serious campaign debt. She has already raised more money for the recount than she did for her campaign. (It would be interesting to know where the recount money is coming from.) The excess money raised for the recount can be used to pay off her campaign debt. Hillary Clinton has signed on to the effort because it keeps her in the spotlight in the hopes of running again in 2020. That is the only way foreign governments will continue paying large amounts of money to hear Bill Clinton speak or donate large amounts to the Clinton Foundation. There is no chance that the election results will be overturned (and a strong possibility that voter fraud on the part of the Democrats in Wisconsin may be discovered–The Gateway Pundit).

Get out the popcorn–this is going to be interesting.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

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CBN News posted a story today detailing some of the ways the U.S. government spends money. It’s not a pretty picture.

Some examples cited in the article:

They include “things like the NIH study of about $2 million to study how children perceive food, including testing to see when food is sneezed on, if 5-year-olds will still eat the food.” Lankford (Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla.) said.  ” Now, I think we could have answered that question for less than $2 million.”

“Doing grave digging in Iceland which we had paid for recently to be able to study the cultures in the 8th century to the 12th century in Iceland,” Lankford said.  “I’m not sure what the connection to the American economy is to that and how that helps us long term to do grave digging in Iceland, but that’s one of the things we paid for.” 

The article reminds us that the federal debt is almost $20 trillion. The article also mentions that Sen. Lankford believes in setting an example–during each of the last couple of years, he and his office have returned $230,000 of the money given to him to run his office to the U.S. Treasury. We need more Senators like this.

The Media Is Not Fond Of The Truth

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On November 27th, Donald Trump tweeted the following:

trumptweetThe media was outraged. How could he say such a thing? Maybe because it was true? Yesterday The Gateway Pundit posted an article about the illegal alien vote in America.

The article reports:

True the Vote, a group dedicated to rooting out vote fraud, issued a statement supporting the charge by President-Elect Donald Trump that millions of illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election.

And there’s this…
A 2014 study found that 25% of illegal aliens polled were registered to vote. The study found that 6.4 percent of non-citizens voted in 2008 and 2.2 percent voted in the off-year 2010. The vast majority of non-citizen votes went to Democratic candidates, according Earnest and Richman.

If only 2% of non-citizens voted in a population of 20 million non-citizens in the US we are talking about 400,000 illegal alien voters. And that is on the low side.

Illegals are already deciding elections.

We not only need voter ID, we need to make sure that those voters with identification are American citizens. Just as an aside, True the Vote and its founder were targeted by the IRS during the Obama Administration in an effort to intimidate them and discourage them from investigating voter fraud.

How Do You Identify A Terrorist?

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The DC Caller posted an article today about the attack on students at Ohio State University this morning. The attacker was Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Somali refugee who came to America (after fleeing to Pakistan from Somalia in 2007) in 2014. As a refugee, he was granted legal permanent status. This morning he drove a car into a group of people and exited the car, attacking people with a knife. He was killed by a police officer during his attack.

The article reports:

Furthermore, “The Lantern” — OSU’s campus newspaper — ran an interview with Artan just a few months ago, in which he criticized the school for not having Muslim prayer rooms on campus.

“I wanted to pray in the open, but I was kind of scared with everything going on in the media,” he stated. “I’m a Muslim, it’s not what the media portrays me to be.”

“I don’t blame them,” he cotinued. “It’s the media that put that picture in their heads so they’re just going to have it, and it’s going to make them feel uncomfortable.”

How do we vet refugees so that this does not happen again? How many ‘lone wolf’ incidents do we need before we see a pattern? What role should the government play in keeping American citizens safe?

We Might Have To Stand Up To This Bully

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Reuters is reporting today that an Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard vessel pointed its weapon at a U.S. military helicopter in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday. Recently there have been a series of similar incidents, but this is the first such incident since the election of Donald Trump.

The article reports:

The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the incident took place when a Navy MH-60 helicopter flew within half a mile (0.8 km) of two Iranian vessels in international waters. One of the vessels pointed a weapon at the helicopter, the U.S. officials said.

“The behavior by our standards is provocative and could be seen as an escalation,” the officials said. At no point did the crew of the helicopter feel threatened, they added.

Years of mutual animosity eased when Washington lifted sanctions on Tehran in January after a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But serious differences still remain over Iran’s ballistic missile program, and over conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

President Obama has chosen to overlook bad behavior on the part of the Iranians–even thanking them for the return of sailors they took prisoner. President Obama has even loosened the economic sanctions on Iran, something I am hoping President Trump will undo.

Ronald Reagan got it right when he advocated for ‘peace through strength.’ Weakness invites war–it does not prevent it.

 

Disturbing Statistics

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When the Supreme Court made abortion legal in the United States, they had no idea that they were opening a Pandora’s Box. Aside from the fact that the issue was settled by the courts rather than left to the states was probably unconstitutional, there are also the medical advances that show us how early a baby in the womb feels pain. Also, disturbing are the statistics showing who is getting abortions in America.

CNS News posted an article today listing the abortion statistics for America in 2013.

The article reports:

Although black Americans make up 13.3% of the U.S. population, they comprised 35% of the total abortions “reported” – 128,682 babies killed — in 2013, according to the latest Abortion Surveillance report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

That number, 128,682 black abortions, comes from only 29 reporting areas, according to the CDC. It does not include black abortions from the following states: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Those states “did not report, did not report by race/ethnicity, or did not meet reporting standards,” said the CDC in Table 12 of its report. The header for Table 12 reads, “Reported abortions, by known race/ethnicity of women who obtained an abortion and reporting area of occurrence — selected reporting areas, United States, 2013.”

…For those abortions known by race, in addition to the 128,682 black babies killed, there were 134,814 white babies, or 37.3% of the total reporting. Whites make up 77.1% of the population, according to the Census Bureau.

For Hispanics, who comprise 17.6% of the U.S. population, there were 68,761 abortions reported, which was 19% of the total.

I am not in favor of making abortion illegal–I am in favor of ending abortion as a million dollar industry. Abortion needs to be available when it is a medical necessity. It should not be available as a method of birth control. The acceptability of abortion in America has had a negative impact on the way our culture views life. Life is no longer precious–it is something that can be ended for convenience. Unless we eliminate abortion as a million dollar industry, we can expect the value of life to continue to diminish.

Would You Put This Man In A Leadership Position?

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about Representative Keith Ellison, currently being considered to lead the Democratic Party. The article cites a number of articles written by Ellison while he was a law student at the University of Minnesota. He wrote the articles under the name of Keith E. Hakim.

In one article Representative Ellison wrote:

“Racism means conspiracy to subjugate and actual subjugation. That means planned social, economic, military, religious and political subjugation of whites. It cannot be intelligently argued that the Nation of Islam is doing this. In fact, blacks have no history of harming or subjecting whites as a class. On the other hand, whites have it written into their very Constitution that blacks shall be considered three-fifths of a person for purposes of taxation and representation of their white owners. Their Constitution also makes provisions for the return of runaway slaves. Their constitution is the bedrock of American law; it’s the best evidence of a white racist conspiracy to subjugate other peoples.”

Obviously, counting slaves as 3/5 a person was not the right thing to do. However, you need to look at that decision in its proper frame of reference. First of all, slavery was an accepted world-wide practice. Generally it was Muslims who captured the slaves and brought them to America. Muslims also enslaved white sailors taken from boats they captured. England and America were the countries that worked to end slavery. Slavery is still legal today in some Muslim countries. Second of all, the 3/5 provision was a result of the northern states fearing that if the slaves in the south were properly counted, the south would be over-represented in Congress. Ironically, had the 3/5 rule not been in place, it might have been much more difficult to make the small inroads against slavery that Congress made. Thirdly, that rule was superseded by the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.The Constitution is not racist–in its time, it was the first document to declare that man had certain inalienable rights that came from God. For a law student, Representative Ellison sure has a jaded view of American history.
The article includes another excerpt from another article by Keith E. Hakim:

“Since no one but the WASP elite really appreciates affirmative action, I have a challenge for all fair-minded middle- and working-class white people: I will urge black people to abandon white-dominated, integration-oriented, give-away programs, if you urge white people to justly compensate black people for 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow and 25 years of neo-Jim Crow.

The settlement could be a straight cash transfer for all the black exploitation. This means just compensation for all the labor hours put in by the slaves and just compensation for all the intellectual and artistic property ripped off by all the Elvis Presleys and Pat Boones. It means compensation for all the money ripped off through sharecropping and just compensation owing to all the black athletes of yesterday, such as Jack Jefferson and Joe Louis. It means back payment of the ‘black tax,’ which is the price hike that ghetto merchants and pawnbrokers charge black consumers.”

I have no problem going after the people who profited by exploitation–regardless of the race of the person exploited. However, most of the people walking around today had nothing to do with the complaints this man is making. I believe there have been successful lawsuits involving the intellectual and artistic property he mentions. Therefore it has been settled legally. As far as the ‘black tax’ referred to, wouldn’t it make sense to seek compensation from those merchants who are imposing the tax?

The sort of thinking represented in these articles does not bring people together and does not solve problems–it creates division and class envy. Is this the man you want leading the Democratic Party?

The Politics Of Personal Destruction May Not Always Work

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In 1971 Saul Alinksy published Rules for Radicals. Rule Number 13 states, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

This policy has been used by the Democrats since Robert Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court. Most of the time it works. The Democrats are planning to use that tactic on Senator Jeff Sessions who has been nominated for the position of Attorney General under President Donald Trump. This time it may not work.

Yesterday Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article with a few thoughts on what we can expect from the Senate Confirmation hearings on Jeff Sessions.

The article states:

It has become clear that, at least until Donald Trump nominates a Supreme Court Justice (and quite possibly beyond that point), congressional Democrats intend to make opposition to Sen. Jeff Sessions’ nomination as Attorney General the centerpiece of their early resistance to the new president. The talking point you will hear and read about the most is alleged racism by Sen. Sessions. However, the true reasons for the opposition are (1) his desire to enforce, rather than ignore and revamp, U.S. immigration law and (2) his color blind vision of civil rights law.

The article at Power Line includes comments from Donald Watkins, a prominent African-American attorney from Alabama. Attorney Watkins states:

Donald V. Watkins said he first encountered Mr. Sessions during their days at law school, when the future senator was the first white student to ask him to join a campus organization — the Young Republicans.

Mr. Watkins declined, but said his interactions with Mr. Sessions throughout the years have convinced him the man President-elect Donald Trump wants to make the next U.S. attorney general is a good man.
“Jeff was a conservative then, as he is now, but he was NOT a racist,” Mr. Watkins wrote in a Facebook post in May, which he reposted Friday afternoon, just hours after Mr. Trump announced Mr. Sessions as his pick.

Mr. Watkins said he wished he’d come forward in 1986, when Mr. Sessions had been nominated to be a federal judge. His appointment was derailed by Senate Democrats, including then-Sen. Joseph R. Biden and current Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary, who said Mr. Sessions had shown racist tendencies. The late Sen. Arlen Specter, who at the time was a Republican but later switched parties, also joined in opposing Mr. Sessions.

A few years later, Mr. Watkins said he ran into Mr. Sessions in Birmingham and said he was surprised Mr. Sessions didn’t call him as a witness.

“At the end of our conversation, I told Jeff that I had failed him and myself. I should have volunteered to stand by his side and tell the story of his true character at his confirmation hearing. The fact that I did not rise on my own to defend Jeff’s good name and character haunted me for years. I promised Jeff that I would never stand idly by and allow another good and decent person endure a similar character assassination if it was within my power to stop it,” Mr. Watkins writes.

If the Democrats involved in the Senate want to have any credibility in the future, they should be very careful how they handle these confirmation hearings. Senator Sessions has a reputation as a fair and honest man. The Senate Democrats are in serious danger of losing any remaining reputation for integrity that they may have.

We Need To Secure Our Borders Quickly

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On Wednesday, Pamela Geller posted a story on her website reporting that three Pakistani Muslims were arrested at the Arizona border.

The article reports:

U.S. Border Patrol agents in Nogales, AZ, apprehended three Pakistani nationals on Nov. 11. As a standard procedure, agents processed the individuals and checked their identities against numerous law enforcement and national security related databases. Record checks revealed no derogatory information about the individuals. The individuals are currently in Federal custody while they await the outcome of their immigration cases.

Additional information on the individuals was obtained by federal agents working under the umbrella of CBP, but it is important to note that the additional details were not confirmed by CBP.

“One of them had a shit load of hits from a bunch of places he’s been. He had entered and exited numerous countries that were not in his route to the U.S. This raises red flags because people leaving a foreign country to come here usually take the quickest route, but one of them did not,” said one of the sources.

The source continued, “One of the men had his hair died [sic] blonde to disguise his appearance and all of the men spoke perfect English.”…

It is possible (although unlikely) that these men were simply refugees fleeing Pakistan. However, the fact that one of the men had a list of various countries he had visited before coming here is a concern. Where did he get his travel money? Who were his contacts in those countries?

Breitbart posted this story on November 17th, but included the following additional information:

Breitbart Texas previously broke the news that five men from Pakistan and one from Afghanistan were caught within 17 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border in the same vicinity as the current apprehensions of Pakistani men. In that case, the FBI later confirmed to other news outlets that the details from Breitbart Texas sources were correct.

Sealing the border is about national security. A wall is a really good step to take in keeping Americans safe from terrorism. It won’t solve the entire problem, but it would be a step forward.

Science vs. Hype

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WattsUpWithThat posted an article this week about a recent study, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere..

The article reports:

The study, published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere, suggests Antarctic sea ice is much less sensitive to the effects of climate change than that of the Arctic, which in stark contrast has experienced a dramatic decline during the 20th century.

The research, by climate scientists at the University of Reading, estimates the extent of Antarctic summer sea ice is at most 14% smaller now than during the early 1900s.

Jonathan Day, who led the study, said: “The missions of Scott and Shackleton are remembered in history as heroic failures, yet the data collected by these and other explorers could profoundly change the way we view the ebb and flow of Antarctic sea ice.

“We know that sea ice in the Antarctic has increased slightly over the past 30 years, since satellite observations began. Scientists have been grappling to understand this trend in the context of global warming, but these new findings suggest it may not be anything new.

“If ice levels were as low a century ago as estimated in this research, then a similar increase may have occurred between then and the middle of the century, when previous studies suggest ice levels were far higher.”

The new study published in The Cryosphere is the first to shed light on sea ice extent in the period prior to the 1930s, and suggests the levels in the early 1900s were in fact similar to today, at between 5.3 and 7.4 million square kilometres. Although one region, the Weddell Sea, did have a significantly larger ice cover.

There are a few things to learn from this. First of all, we are not as smart as we think we are and really have no idea what man’s impact on climate is or if man has any impact on climate. Second of all, the global warming industry is about money and control–it really has little to do with global warming. Do you really believe that if the people claiming that global warming was going to kill us all tomorrow believed that global warming was catastrophic,  they would be traveling to their global warming meetings in private jets and living in houses with carbon footprints bigger than that of a small nation?

If you need proof that global warming is hype related to money and control, please read this story. It illustrates one way that Congressmen come to Washington as middle-class citizens and leave as millionaires. The story is a beautiful example of one time the plan to gain instant wealth through legislation didn’t work!

How Do Federal Regulations Affect You?

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On Wednesday, The Daily Signal posted an article entitled, “The Federal Regulations That Affect Your Thanksgiving Foods.” Federal regulations seem like a remote concept (unless you are trying to run a small business and adhere to them), so I thought this article needed to be shared.

The article reports:

Let us also give thanks that the Obama administration will soon cease, albeit leaving behind more than 21,000 regulations that President Barack Obama’s regulators issued, and which increased regulatory costs by more than $100 billion annually.

The burden of this vast administrative state is crushing America’s entrepreneurial spirit, productivity, and economic growth.

Independent estimates find that total regulatory costs are exceeding $2 trillion annually—more than is collected in income taxes each year.

So what are some of the regulations that impact Thanksgiving?

Turkey. Title 9, Part 381.76, of the Code of Federal Regulations directs turkey inspectors on the proper method of examining a frozen bird, to wit: “If a carcass is frozen, it shall be thoroughly thawed before being opened for examination by the inspector. Each carcass, or all parts comprising such carcass, shall be examined by the inspector, except for parts that are not needed for inspection.”

Cranberries. Title 7, Part 929, establishes a “marketing committee” overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to set quotas on the volume of cranberries shipped to handlers from growers in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Washington, and Long Island, New York. The grower “allotments” help to ensure that the price of cranberries remains artificially high.

Bread/Rolls. Title 21, Part 136, requires anything labeled as “bread” in a bakery to weigh one-half pound or more after cooling. To be legally called a “roll,” each unit must weigh less than one-half pound after cooling.

Potatoes. Title 7, Part 51.1546, dictates the proportion of allowable defects among specific grades of spuds. Potatoes graded as “U.S. No. 1” may not exceed the following tolerances at the point of shipping: 5 percent for external defects, 5 percent for internal defects, and not more than a total of 1 percent for potatoes that are frozen or affected by soft rot or wet breakdown. An entirely different set of tolerances apply to U.S. No. 1 potatoes while en route or upon reaching the destination, while similar standards are also set for “commercial” grade potatoes, “U.S. No. 2” potatoes, and “off-size” potatoes.

The list goes on to include green beans, cornmeal (used in stuffing) and pecans. How did we ever exist when we simply bought produce from local farmers that they grew in the ground and sold? Incidentally, I am on my way to the Farmers’ Market this morning!

We can be thankful that this insanity will be coming to an end.

How The Federal Government Interferes In Local Matters

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about a Justice Department lawsuit against two New Jersey towns that had turned down building permits for mosques.

The article reports:

In a new court filing, the DOJ alleges that the Bernards Township Planning Board discriminated against the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge (ISBR) and violated the federal Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act during a lengthy application process that ultimately resulted in the town’s denial of the proposed project.

The town is accused of discriminating against ISBR on the basis of its religion, applying standards of review to the ISBR it had not applied to other congregations and assemblies, and imposing a burden on members of the ISBR for practicing their religion.

“RLUIPA ensures that municipalities must treat religious land use applications like any other land use application,” U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman said in a statement. “But here, township officials kept moving the goalposts by using ever-changing local requirements to effectively deny this religious community the same access as other faiths.”

The article points out some interesting facts about the case:

The township also calls into question the propriety of a relationship between a member of the ISBR and a lead DOJ investigator. Attorneys for the township also confirm that a lawyer representing the mosque was in contact with DOJ investigators well before the planning board reached any decision regarding the ISBR’s application. “These communications, unknown by the Township at the time, suggest an inappropriate collusion with Plaintiffs rather than an unbiased review.”

The ISBR planned to buy four acres of land to construct a mosque approximately 4,200 square feet. It would be interesting to know who is paying for the mosque. The leader of the ISBR is a Pakistani immigrant named Mohammad Ali Chaudry. The other part of this issue is whether or not the residents of the town have the right to say that they don’t want the mosque located where it is planned. Leaders of the town claim it is a land use issue and not a religious issue, but in battling the Justice Department, that may not matter.

Again, we are back at the issue of state’s rights and local control. Many American mosques are funded by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in The Holy Land Foundation Trial. As much as I don’t approve of religious discrimination, all religions are not equal. There are mosques in America that are encouraging terrorism. The Justice Department would be better off spending its time and money to find out which mosques are preaching terrorism and dealing with that issue rather than getting involved in a local zoning issue. It should be up to the town to decide whether or not to allow the mosque to be built.

The Impact Of President Obama On The Democratic Party

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On November 10, The Washington Post posted an article about the impact of the Obama Administration on the Democratic Party.

This is a graph from that article:

democraticpartyWow.

The article states:

We tend to focus on the loss of the presidency as the example of Democratic failure. That’s blinkered. Since 2008, by our estimates, the party has shed 870 legislators and leaders at the state and federal levels — and that estimate may be on the low side. As Donald Trump might put it, that’s decimation times 50.

So what happened? The Democrats lost the Presidential race this year for many reasons. Hillary Clinton was a seriously flawed candidate. It became obvious that the Democratic primary was rigged to make sure she won. That was the first mistake. The history of scandal that follows the Clinton family was also a problem. I suspect that had Jim Webb been the candidate, the Democrats would have won the Presidency, but he was far too conservative for today’s Democratic party bosses. The Democratic Party has moved to the left. People like John Kennedy would be out of step with the current Democratic Party. The move left became obvious in 1992 when Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey was denied a speaking slot at the Democratic Convention because he wanted to represent the pro-life minority. The leftward progress has accelerated since then.

America is a Representative Republic–not a Democracy. President Obama’s Administration has not brought America prosperity, peace, or security. Most Americans are not as well off as they were when President Obama took office. It has become very obvious that many of the lofty Democratic Party ideas do not work. ObamaCare is a prime example. It is time to go back to common sense–lower taxes, less government, encouraging a work ethic and the free market. These are principles that are totally alien to most of the Democratic party. Actually, they are alien to many Americans. However, Americans know when they are safe and prosperous and when they are not. I believe that is why the Democratic Party, at least temporarily, has collapsed in the past eight years.

 

A Much-Needed Policy Change

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Approximately seven years ago, Major Nidal Hasan killed thirteen people and wounded more than thirty others at Fort Hood, Texas. Because our military was banned from carrying their weapons at government facilities, none of the soldiers at the base were armed. That situation rule has now changed.

On Monday, The Military Times reported:

U.S. military personnel can now request to carry concealed handguns for protection at government facilities, according to new Defense Department directive issued last week in response to a series of deadly shootings over the last seven years.

While service members already were authorized to carry weapons as part of specific job responsibilities, the new policy allows them to apply to carry their privately owned firearms “for personal protection not associated with the performance of official duties,” the directive says.

It also clarifies when military recruiters can be armed, said Army Maj. Jamie Davis, a Defense Department spokesman.

“Commanders have always had that authority to arm recruiters,” Davis told Military Times on Monday. “Some of the wording wasn’t very clear, so they’ve gone through and cleaned it up so it is very clear now that the commanders have that authority to use at their discretion.”

Effective Nov. 18, the directive culminates years of work, Davis said.

There are some procedures that have to be followed in order to legally carry a handgun on Defense Department property:

Those wishing to carry a concealed personal firearm on Defense Department property must apply for permission. They have to be at least 21 years old and meet all federal, state and local laws and host-nation requirements the directive says.

The individual military services will determine requirements for those who will grant conceal-carry requests, the directive says. Those officials must have a minimum rank of lieutenant colonel, commander or the civilian equivalent.

“These authorizations will be for a maximum of 90-calendar-day increments and may be renewed for as long as the threat or circumstance necessitating arming exists,” according to the directive.

This policy change is overdue. Until this policy went into effect, military bases and recruiting stations were soft targets. Now the military personnel at those places will be able to defend themselves if necessary. Terrorists are less likely to attack a target if they know it will be defended.

The Insanity Will Be Over Shortly

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The Daily Caller reported yesterday that the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) has fined the Denver County’s sheriff office because it refused to hire non-citizens as deputies.

The article reports:

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, employers are required to give equal treatment to non-citizens with valid work permits, unless state, local, or federal law explicitly requires certain jobs be open only to citizens. More than 40 U.S. states currently have laws that in some capacity restrict non-citizens from being police, but Colorado is not one of them. The department says it was simply unaware that limiting employment to citizens was a violation of federal law.

In a report released last October, the Department of Justice blasted citizenship requirements for officers as a “barrier” to creating more racially diverse police forces.

“While Federal law allows law enforcement agencies to impose a citizenship requirement where it is authorized by state or local law, this requirement may prevent a considerable number of racial and ethnic minorities – many of whom have valuable foreign language skills – from being hired by law enforcement agencies,” the report said.

First of all, doesn’t Denver have the right to decide who they hire as deputies? Second of all, do non-citizens have the same respect for Constitutional rights as citizens? This is another example of federal government overreach.

The Governor’s Race In North Carolina Continues

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NC Civitas released the following on its website today:

RALEIGH – The Civitas Center for Law and Freedom (CLF) has filed a federal lawsuit requesting a restraining order against including ballots cast via same-day registration in the 2016 election, pending further investigation.

You can read the lawsuit that was filed in Eastern District federal court here.

You can read the complaint sent to the NC State Board of Elections here.

A press conference will be held later today to relay more details. Civitas President Francis De Luca will be available to the press for questions at that time. To arrange an interview, please contact Demi Dowdy at demi.dowdy@nccivitas.org or 919-747-8064.

Civitas President Francis De Luca said, “To count ballots without verification of same-day registration information discriminates by treating one class of voters differently from another. Furthermore, this calls into question the outcome of close elections such as the one we are still in the middle of in North Carolina. Legitimate voters should never have their votes cancelled by illegitimate voters. The State Board of Elections should examine every ballot cast via same-day registration to verify that every vote cast is genuine and legitimate.”

There are some serious questions about the validity of the election for governor in North Carolina. There are also questions about some of the ballots in other statewide offices. Same-day registration needs to end. There is sufficient time before an election to register. There are also various ways to register that make registration very easy.

I previously posted an article about specific instances of fraud in North Carolina during this election. Although the incidents I cited would not change the outcome, it is quite possible that those incidents are only the tip of the iceberg. We need to find a way to make our elections more secure. Voter ID might be a good start.

Law Enforcement Is A Problem For Some Congressmen

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about Donald Trump’s nomination of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. The nomination is not welcomed by the Democrats, and they are trying to derail it before it gets anywhere near confirmation. The race card is coming out again–they’re now using the Alabama senator’s full name, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. This links the Senator to the South and its past history of racism. The efforts are somewhat pathetic, and we need to examine what is behind them.

The article reports:

Democrats are particularly anxious about immigration because of the unusually tenuous nature of President Obama‘s policies on the issue. Those policies can be undone unilaterally, by the new president in some cases, and by the attorney general and head of homeland security in other cases. There’s no need for congressional action — and no way for House or Senate Democrats to slow or stop it.

There are extensive, and in some cases, strict immigration laws on the books, passed by bipartisan majorities of Congress. Obama wanted Congress to change those laws. Congress declined. So Obama stopped enforcing provisions of the law that he did not like. A new administration could simply resume enforcement of the law — a move that by itself would bring a huge change to immigration practices in the United States. No congressional approval needed.

Part of a President’s Oath of Office is to uphold the Constitution–that includes enforcing the laws. Unfortunately Congress did not force him to keep his Oath. Now the Democrats in Congress are trying to block the appointment of someone who would enforce the laws that are currently on the books.

The article lists a number of current immigration policies that could be changed without any action by Congress.

Here are some of those policies:

1) End the embargo on worksite enforcement. “Experience has shown that employers respond very quickly and voluntarily implement compliance measures when there is an uptick in enforcement,” Vaughan notes, “because they see the potential damage to their operations and public image for being caught and prosecuted.”

2) Restore ICE’s authority to make expedited removals of illegal immigrants who are felons or who have recently crossed into the United States.

3) Tighten requirements for H-1B visas, including banning such visas for low-salary, low-skill jobs, revoking visas that are followed by layoffs of American workers, and other measures.

4) Stop suing states that take action to support immigration enforcement, and instead support such enforcement. After Arizona’s famous SB 1070 law, Obama cracked down, arguing that the federal government has the sole authority to enforce immigration law, and also to not enforce immigration law. President Trump could choose to enforce the law.

5) Force sanctuary cities to observe the law. Trump campaigned extensively on the subject of sanctuary cities, mentioning San Francisco murder victim Kate Steinle in many speeches. Attorney General Sessions could enforce an existing law, 8 USC 1373, which prohibits local communities from banning their officials from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

All of these are simply corrections to Presidential overreach that occurred during the Obama Administration. Since they were never approved by Congress, they don’t have to be undone by Congress.

Immigration is one of many reasons Senator Sessions will make a fantastic Attorney General. It is safe to assume that under Senator Sessions the politicization of the Justice Department will end. The Senator is quite capable of draining the swamp that has been created during the last eight years–from bogus investigations of the New Black Panther intimidation case, Fast and Furious, the Internal Revenue Service‘s targeting of conservative groups, etc.

Senator Sessions will bring America back to equal justice under the law. Any Congressman who does not support that concept does not belong in Congress.

The Election Is Already Making A Difference In How We Deal With Iran

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According to The Daily Signal, on Thursday the House Republicans passed a bill blocking the sale of aircraft to Iran.

The article reports:

The House voted 243 to 174 to pass legislation sponsored by Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., prohibiting the secretary of the Treasury from authorizing a transaction from a U.S. bank or financial institution related to the export of aircraft to Iran.

The White House said it would veto the bill, as it could be viewed as a violation of the Iran nuclear deal.

In September, the Treasury issued licenses to aviation giants Airbus and Boeing that permitted the sale of planes to Iran Air, the country’s state-owned airline. The agency also allowed U.S. banks to finance the sale of those aircraft to Tehran.

“This bill would keep Americans’ deposits away from a country that the president’s own State Department calls ‘the foremost state sponsor of terrorism,’ and which Treasury has designed as a ‘jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern,’” Huizenga said today on the House floor.

The legislation also prohibits the Export-Import Bank, or Ex-Im, from providing any assistance either directly or indirectly to Iran and associated entities, including its state-run airline.

Ex-Im provides taxpayer-backed loans and loan guarantees to foreign countries and companies for the purchase of U.S. products.

“We need to make sure that the American financial system is not complicit in this [Iran nuclear] deal,” Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said on the House floor Thursday. “We need to make sure American taxpayers are not subsidizing this deal.”

The article explains why selling aircraft to Iran is not a good idea:

The company’s deal marked the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 that American aircraft were sold to Tehran.

The Obama administration previously sanctioned Iran Air after the airline used passenger and cargo planes to fly rockets and missiles to Syria and other nations. The weapons were sometimes disguised as medicine or spare parts, according to past reports.

Under the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration dropped economic sanctions against Tehran.

I believe that the Iran treaty will be one of the first things to go under a Trump Administration. The treaty is not a good deal for anyone–it simply allows Iran to develop nuclear weapons a few years later than the Iranian government originally had in mind. It is also obvious by the behavior of Iran since the treaty that their hostility toward America has not decreased. I suspect that one of the reasons the House of Representative allowed the treaty to stand was that the airline manufacturers made large campaign contributions to key Representatives. That is the kind of behavior that needs to go away as soon as possible.

Irony?

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Diversity?

hamiltonIn case you are wondering what this is all about, Vice-President-elect Mike Pence took his family to see “Hamilton” Friday night. He and his family were booed as they entered the theater and lectured on diversity by the cast of Hamilton as they left. The whole episode was inappropriate and classless. The man wanted to take his family to a play–he did not need to be harassed.

There is a bit of irony in this situation. In March of this year, CBS News posted the following headline:

Broadway Union Takes Issue With ‘Hamilton’ Casting Call For ‘Non-White’ Performers

The article reports:

One critic said “Hamilton” takes a story that “valorizes dead white guys” and replaces it with black, Latino and multi-ethnic performers playing America’s founding fathers.

But as the blockbuster musical looks to expand to other cities, the casting notice with its call for “non-white” performers looks problematic to civil rights attorney Randolph McLaughlin.

“What if they put an ad out that said, ‘Whites only need apply?’” said McLaughlin, of the Newman Ferrara Law Firm. “Why, African-Americans, Latinos, Asians would be outraged.”

McLaughlin believes the ad violates the New York City Human Rights Law, which makes it unlawful “for an employer… because of the actual written or perceived… race of any person, to discriminate.”

“You cannot advertise showing that you have a preference for one racial group over another,” McLaughlin said. “As an artistic question – sure, he can cast whomever he wants to cast, but he has to give every actor eligible for the role an opportunity to try.”

That is also the policy of Actors Equity, the Broadway union, which says, “…producers agree that auditions for all productions… will be conducted in such a manner as to provide full and fair consideration to actors of all ethnicities.”

…The city Commission on Human Rights said it has not received a complaint about the ad, and would not say if it is investigating.

In recent years, the city has fined restaurants for advertising for “busboys” and “waitresses” instead of “bus help” and “wait staff.” In this case, a source told CBS2’s Aiello the commission would likely work with the “Hamilton” production team to help it comply with city law if it takes issue with the ad.

People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones!