Monthly Archives: April 2017

Does The Truth Matter?

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted an article about the reporting of the recent shooting in Fresno, California.

The article reports:

The Associated Press edited the words of a Muslim man who allegedly killed three white people in downtown Fresno Tuesday afternoon and shouted “Allahu Akbar!”

The suspect, 39-year-old Kori Ali Muhammad, holds fervent anti-Trump beliefs according to his social media profile, and he told police afterward that he hates white people.

Rather than reporting the gunman’s literal words, however, the AP reported the gunman as saying “God is great.”

If David Duke made a racist statement saying ‘n***s are inferior’, would the media report it as ‘white people are wonderful’? I don’t think so. Yet that is essentially what the Associated Press (AP) did. By translating the phrase into English, the report misleads the reader into believing that some sort of Christian fundamentalist with a grudge against President Trump killed these people. There is no way an ordinary person would interpret this as an act of domestic terrorism by a radical Muslim (which it was) from the AP report.

Interesting Information From An Unlikely Source

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Wikipedia defines the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) as a British intelligence and security organisation responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the British government and armed forces.This group played an interesting role in the 2016 presidential election in America. The American Spectator reported today on some aspects of that involvement. The article at The American Spectator refers back to an article in the U.K Guardian on April 13th. The perspective on the story in the two articles is very different, but both stories have valid points.

The article at the U.K. Guardian reports:

Britain’s spy agencies played a crucial role in alerting their counterparts in Washington to contacts between members of Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian intelligence operatives, the Guardian has been told.

GCHQ first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious “interactions” between figures connected to Trump and known or suspected Russian agents, a source close to UK intelligence said. This intelligence was passed to the US as part of a routine exchange of information, they added.

…Instead both US and UK intelligence sources acknowledge that GCHQ played an early, prominent role in kickstarting the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, which began in late July 2016.

One source called the British eavesdropping agency the “principal whistleblower”.

The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.

“It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’

I would like to point out that with all this electronic surveillance and all this investigating, there has not been one concrete, proven charge of the Trump campaign working with Russia to impact the election. I would also like to point out that the people in charge of this electronic surveillance in America (the Obama Administration) had a sincere interest in making sure Donald Trump was not elected President.

The article at The American Spectator has a different perspective:

An article in the Guardian last week provides more confirmation that John Brennan was the American progenitor of political espionage aimed at defeating Donald Trump. One side did collude with foreign powers to tip the election — Hillary’s.

Seeking to retain his position as CIA director under Hillary, Brennan teamed up with British spies and Estonian spies to cripple Trump’s candidacy. He used their phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-agency investigation into Trump, which led the FBI to probe a computer server connected to Trump Tower and gave cover to Susan Rice, among other Hillary supporters, to spy on Trump and his people.

John Brennan’s CIA operated like a branch office of the Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of this bogus investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting maximum political damage on Trump. An official in the intelligence community tells TAS that Brennan’s retinue of political radicals didn’t even bother to hide their activism, decorating offices with “Hillary for president cups” and other campaign paraphernalia.

A supporter of the American Communist Party at the height of the Cold War, Brennan brought into the CIA a raft of subversives and gave them plum positions from which to gather and leak political espionage on Trump. He bastardized standards so that these left-wing activists could burrow in and take career positions. Under the patina of that phony professionalism, they could then present their politicized judgments as “non-partisan.”

The article at The American Spectator concludes:

Were the media not so completely in the tank for Obama and Hillary, all of this political mischief would make for a compelling 2016 version of All the President’s Men. Instead, the public gets a steady stream of Orwellian propaganda about the sudden propriety of political espionage. The headline writers at Pravda couldn’t improve on this week’s official lie, tweeted out by the Maggie Habermans: “Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong, Say Both Dem and Republican House Aides.”

Liberals pompously quote the saying — “the bigger the lie, the more it will be believed” — even as their media enshrine it. Historians will look back on 2016 and marvel at the audacity of its big lie: whispers of an imaginary Trump-Russia collusion that wafted up from the fever swamps of a real collusion between John Brennan and foreign powers seeking Trump’s defeat.

I am convinced that collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia does not exist. I am also convinced that the relationship between Hillary Clinton and Russia should be much more scrutinized than it is.

As I reported here in December 2016:

Let’s look at some of the history between Hillary Clinton and the Russians. in April 2015, Breitbart.com reported that the chairman of the Russian Nuclear Agency-controlled Uranium One funneled $2.35 million to the Clinton Foundation. This was followed by the Uranium One deal that allowed the Russians to acquire control of one-fifth of America’s uranium. So the mainstream media is trying to tell me that Russia would rather do business with Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton. You can bribe Hillary Clinton. I’m not sure you can bribe Donald Trump.

The lesson learned in the contrast between the articles in The American Spectator and the U.K. Guardian is that the media can twist a story in any direction it chooses. It is up to the readers to do the research into the background of the story.

 

 

Understanding The Source Of What You Read

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On Sunday, The New York Times posted an op-ed piece by Marwan Barghouti who criticized Israel for their imprisonment of Palestinians terrorists. Yesterday CNS News posted an article explaining some of the background of Marwan Barghouti.

The article at CNS News explains:

Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five consecutive life sentences for the murder of five people in terror attacks, wrote the op-ed published Sunday to explain a decision by some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israel to begin a hunger strike.

The aim, he wrote, was to seek an end to Israeli “abuses” which he charged included torture, degrading treatment and medical negligence.

Barghouti, 57, referred to experiences in Israeli jails, beginning when he was a teenager, but made no reference to the trial and conviction that led to his incarceration today. Instead he portrayed himself as “pursuing this struggle for freedom along with thousands of prisoners, millions of Palestinians and the support of so many around the world.”

The New York Times initially informed readers only that “Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian.”

Needless to say, Israel quickly pointed out the history of the editorial writer.

The article includes the following comment which puts the whole incident into perspective:

“What’s next?” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s spokesman David Keyes wrote in a letter to the paper. “Op-eds written by famed doctors Ayman al-Zawahiri and Bashar al-Assad?”

“Printing Barghouti’s sham plea for justice while omitting the fact that he’s a convicted mass murderer is outrageous.”

Keyes noted that during his imprisonment Barghouti “has taught courses, gotten a PhD and received a monthly salary from the Palestinian Authority.”

The wives and children of his victims, meanwhile, “were left heartbroken every single day.”

When the mainstream media prints an editorial from an unrepentant terrorist without identifying who the writer is, they are betraying the public trust. At least In the world of alternative media, the public has a way of finding out who the author of the editorial is and what he has done.

Republicans May Be Learning To Fight Back

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about a lawsuit filed by the Watchdog group, Cause of Action (CoA) seeking records relating to the relationship between the FBI and Christopher Steele, a former British spy who was the lead author of the largely debunked Trump dossier.

The article reports:

Via Cause of Action:

According to a news report, Mr. Steele entered an agreement with the FBI a few weeks before the November 2016 election to investigate then-candidate Donald Trump while, at the same time, he was employed by an opposition research firm to collect information for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

CoA Institute President and CEO John Vecchione: “If a former spy who was being paid to do opposition research on a U.S. presidential nominee was also on the FBI’s payroll, there are serious concerns about the agency’s independence. We need to better understand this financial relationship to ensure the FBI was not misusing taxpayer money to interfere in a presidential election on behalf of one of the candidates.”

On March 7, 2017, CoA Institute sent a FOIA request to the FBI seeking access to records into whether the FBI paid money, or had plans to pay, Mr. Steele for any purpose. To date, the FBI has failed to produce any responsive records within the applicable FOIA timeframe.

The obvious questions is, “Exactly who was Mr. Steele working for–the FBI or the Clinton Campaign?”

The article concludes:

The amount of corruption in these government agencies is astounding. The FBI is damaged. Comey needs to go. Trump needs to gut these institutions! The Obama administration weaponized every agency to target his political opponents. Every person involved must be prosecuted and brought to justice.

It truly is time to drain the swamp!

The Timeline Shows The History

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Sharyl Attkisson was an investigative journalist who resigned from CBS News in 2014. She was unbiased and reported events as she saw them. In July 2012, Ms. Attkisson’s reporting on the Fast and Furious scandal received an Emmy Award. Ms. Attkisson has reported that her personal computer and work computer were illegally accessed beginning in 2012. She has posted an article on her website about some of the indications that government surveillance of Americans during the Obama Administration was not unusual.

The article includes a timeline. Here are some highlights:

 April 2009:

Someone leaks the unmasked name of Congresswoman Jane Harmon to the press. According to news reports, the Bush administration NSA incidentally recorded and saved Harmon’s phone conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage. The story is first broken by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein.

December 17, 2009:

The Obama administration prosecutes FBI contractor Shamai Leibowitz for leaking documents to the media in April 2009. Leibowitz says he leaked because he felt FBI practices were “an abuse of power and a violation of the law” which he reported to his superiors at the FBI “who did nothing about them.”  (According to the ACLU: “Amazingly, the sentencing judge said, ‘I don’t know what was divulged other than some documents, and how it compromised things, I have no idea’.”)

2010:

The IRS secretly begins “targeting” conservative groups that are seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status, by singling out ones that have “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names.

Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning begins illegally leaks classified information to WikiLeaks revealing, among other matters, that the U.S. is extensively spying on the United Nations.

Obama Attorney General Eric Holder renews a Bush-era subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen in a leak investigation.

Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (According to the ACLU: spy charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”)

May 28, 2010:

The government secretly applies for a warrant to obtain Google email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation, without telling Rosen.

September 21, 2010:

Internal email entitled “Obama Leak Investigations” at “global intelligence” company Stratfor claims Obama’s then-Homeland Security adviser John Brennan is targeting journalists.

“Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources,” writes one Stratfor official to another.

The email continues: “Note — There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…”

“The Wonder Boys” reportedly refers to the National Security Agency (NSA). Brennan later becomes President Obama’s CIA Director.

Early February 2011:

After receiving an anonymous tip, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson begins researching the Department of Justice “gunwalking” operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious” that secretly let thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels. One of the “walked” guns had been used by illegal aliens who murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.

February 22, 2011:

CBS’ Attkisson breaks news about “Fast and Furious” on The CBS Evening News.

After the story airs, the government issues an internal memo that seeks to “push positive stories” to contradict the news.

Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week…ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week, in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF.

March 4, 2011:

CBS News’ Attkisson exclusively interviews sitting ATF special agent John Dodson. He gives a firsthand account contradicting government denials re: Fast and Furious.

The article continues with the timeline continuing through April 11, 2017, citing actions by the Obama Administration and by the people who remained in government positions after the Obama Administration ended. I think we have a problem. The only possible solution is to find the guilty parties and hold them accountable to the law. One wonders if we are not in a situation similar to what happened when J. Edgar Hoover headed the FBI and collected enough damaging information on everyone in government so that no one ever challenged him when he overstepped the limits of his position. If we have a similar situation now, we may not be able to solve the problem of overactive government surveillance for political purposes, and voters are simply going to have to be smart about what they believe.

 

 

 

The Turkish Vote

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Bloomberg posted an article yesterday about the results of the referendum in Turkey. The results of the election are not good news for freedom-loving people in Turkey or in the Middle East.

The article reports:

Turkey voted to hand Recep Tayyip Erdogan sweeping authority in the most radical overhaul since the republic was founded 93 years ago on the expectation he’ll safeguard security amid regional wars and kickstart the economy.

The referendum won approval of 51.3 percent to 48.7 percent of Turks, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency, as opposition parties alleged fraud and the European Union branded it as unfair. Once implemented, Erdogan will have authority to appoint ministers and top judges at his discretion and call elections at any time. It will also give him much greater sway over fiscal policy and may deepen investors’ concerns about the independence of the central bank.

The win “represents a blow to the assumption that liberal or even in some cases hybrid democracies are structured to prevent authoritarian figures from hijacking the political system,” Anthony Skinner, a director with U.K.-based forecasting company Verisk Maplecroft, said before the results were declared.

Erdogan triumphed by appealing to voters in the small towns that dot the Anatolian heartland where he won overwhelmingly. These Turks want a firm hand at the helm to combat the resurgence of terrorism, fight Kurdish separatism and Islamic State in Syria and defend Turkey’s global interests. The result is a victory not only for him, but for type of authoritarian system exemplified by Vladimir Putin that has gained admirers around the world.

It helps when looking at this situation to look at some of the history of Turkey and some of its current friends. Turkey is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as well as a member of NATO. The OIC describes itself as “the collective voice of the Muslim world” and works to “safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony.” It’s important to note here that the definition of peace under Sharia Law is the subjugation of all countries and people of the world to Sharia Law. This is not a group that favors democracy.

Historically, Turkey was the heart of the Ottoman Empire, which was defeated in World War I.  In 1924, Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President from 1923 until his death in 1938) enacted a new constitution in Turkey. The new constitution instituted laws and jurisprudence much like European laws. There was also a thorough secularization of modernization of the administration. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the secularization of Turkey caused Hassan al Banna to found the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928 with the purpose of unifying the Islamic states under a new caliphate.

We need to remember that the Ottoman Empire was dissolved less than one hundred years ago. There are still many Muslims who want to bring back the caliphate. I suspect that in addition to his desire to obtain more power and more control, Recep Tayyip Erdogan may well be moving in the direction he feels will bring back the caliphate.

 

 

More California Insanity

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As I write this, California is still part of America. The U.S. Constitution protects the rights of Americans who live in California. The military troops of America would defend California if necessary. However, it seems as if some Californians have forgotten that they are Americans.

Yesterday Fox News reported that the University of California-Davis‘ student senate voted to allow the Stars & Stripes to be removed from its meetings. I wonder how much federal money supports the University of California-Davis. Would they notice if that money were gone?

The article reports:

Writing that “patriotism is different for every individual,” the student senate made the appearance of the flag optional.

Pete Hegseth pointed out that the senate appeared to say that there would be instances where the flag’s presence was inappropriate.

“We’ve got patriotism triggering people now,” Campus Reform reporter Cabot Phillips remarked.

In a statement, Student Senator Jose Antonio Meneses further clarified that the flag was not banned from meetings, but only had its mandated presence lifted.

Phillips said the vote was not an isolated incident, recalling a situation in New Mexico where a student was forced to remove a flag from his dormitory window.

What have we taught our children? Can America stand as a nation if its children are not even willing to tolerate or display its flag? Do the students realize that the flag was part of the freedom that allowed them to get an education and hold their meeting? It is time to start teaching the history and blessings of America in our schools. Obviously some of our students do not understand how fortunate they are to be here.

 

But What Are They For?

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about the activities of the Center for American Progress  The Center for American Progress has an Action Fund, which they are planning to use to fund anti-Trump activities around the country during the Congressional recess. Think about that for a minute. Why are they funding anti-Trump activities? Did anyone ever fund the Tea Party?

The article reports:

The Town Hall Project, a group that has served as the central hub for raucous town hall events against Republican lawmakers, announced the partnership with CAP Action to amplify their efforts.

“So today I’m excited to announce a partnership between Town Hall Project and the Center for American Progress Action Fund,” an email from Town Hall Project said. “With CAP Action amplifying our town hall event research, we can even better ensure that that all Americans have the tools needed to channel their organic energy to ensure their voices are heard and their elected representatives held accountable.”

“Let me emphasize that this is collaboration towards a common goal,” the email continued. “Town Hall Project is 100% independent and will never waiver [sic] from our core values of grassroots research and citizen engagement. While we stay true to ourselves—and to supporters like you—we know the way we win is to build a big coalition of progressive groups: big and small, new and old, online and offline, all working together to fight back.”

The email urges readers to visit ResistanceNearMe.org, a re-launched CAP Action website run in conjunction with the Town Hall Project.

“In partnership with Town Hall Project, Resistance Near Me is a hub for progressive local #resist actions, designed for you to find any public event, rally, town hall, protest, and more, near you, as well as the information you need to contact your member of Congress,” the website states. “It’s never been more important to raise our voices to resist Trump’s harmful agenda and the elected representatives who aren’t speaking for us.”

Jimmy Dahman, the founder of Town Hall Project, claimed on CNN in February that previous, explosive town hall events were “all organic and happening at the grassroots level.”

Wow. Funded grassroots. I think that’s called astroturf!

The concluding paragraph of the article explains who is behind this effort:

The Action Network’s board of directors includes Mark Fleischman, a former vice president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Jeffrey Dugas, who worked for Podesta’s Center for American Progress and Elizabeth Warren’s 2012 Senate campaign; and Brian Young, who worked for John Kerry and Howard Dean.

The Town Hall Project website now acknowledges a partnership with NextGen Climate, an environmentalist super PAC founded by liberal billionaire Tom Steyer.

In the email announcing the CAP partnership, the Town Hall Project took credit for “some incredible victories” with their progressive allies. The group linked to a Yahoo article on how activists organized to defeat the Republican health care reform bill.

The Town Hall Project did not return a request for comment on its partnership with CAP Action.

Donald Trump has made an effort to help the average American by rolling back regulations, cutting some government spending already, and planning to prevent the crash of ObamaCare. He is also planning to change the tax code to make it work for everyone. Which part of these things is the Center for American Progress against? What are they for? How many paid protesters does it take before people begin to see the game being played here by the political left?

What Happens When Government Interference Skews The Free Market

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America has been on a search for green energy for a long time. Historically man has been  on a quest for a perpetual motion machine. I am not sure the two searches are unrelated.

Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about the environmental impact of solar energy. Solar energy is not as environmentally friendly as one might assume.

The article cites the example of a 60-acre solar farm at the Minnesota National Guard’s facility at Camp Ripley, Minnesota.

The article reports:

If we devoted a fraction of that space to a natural gas, coal or nuclear facility we could produce 100 times the energy–even at night time, when people need to turn lights on.

It is sad to see military personnel who should know better, and probably do, mouthing the inane pieties of global warming:

“Camp Ripley is now capable of producing as much energy as it consumes,” said Maj. Gen. Richard C. Nash, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard. “We can make a better Minnesota and a better world by joining the worldwide initiative to address the serious challenge of climate change.”

Right. We’d prefer you address the serious military challenge of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and so on. Tom Steward (Tom Steward in a story at the American Experiment) points out the costly reality:

The project’s astonishing $25 million price tag has led to the utility taking fire from state regulators for overpaying for solar panels and long-term lease with the National Guard. The collateral damage includes the northern Minnesota utility’s residential ratepayers, whose bills will rise as a result of the costly solar farm.

The solar facility can provide electricity for only 1,700 homes, a ridiculously small number, at “full capacity.” But solar installations never reach full capacity, and if it is dark or cloudy, they are irrelevant. No one would argue for ugly 60-acre scars on the landscape based on a cost/benefit analysis.

In Duluth, the best proxy for Camp Ripley, there are an average of 77 sunny days per year. Hey, that is better than one in five! Of course, they don’t have any sunny nights in Duluth, so there’s that.

Solar energy is not perfect. In 2014 I wrote an article about the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert. The solar energy complex has the potential to kill as many as 28,000 birds annually. Last month I wrote an article about Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), a key chemical agent used to manufacture photovoltaic cells for solar panels. There has been a 1,057 percent in NF3 over the last 25 years. In comparison, U.S. carbon dioxide emissions only rose by about 5 percent during the same time period. There are also problems with wind energy. Spain attempted to move to green energy a few years ago and nearly wrecked its economy (article here).

If the free market is allowed to work, we may actually approach something like green energy at some point in the future. However, as long as the government subsidizes and encourages things that are not actually working, the progress will be delayed.

 

It’s Not The Income–It’s The Spending

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CNS News posted an article today about the tax revenue the government has received in the first six months of fiscal 2017 (Oct. 1, 2016 through the end of March). The government has collected $7,387,280,000 more in income tax revenue in the first six months of fiscal 2017 than were collected in the first six months of fiscal 2016.

The article reports:

The federal government also collected $547,491,000,000 in Social Security and other payroll taxes during the first six months of fiscal 2017. That is about $2,731,820,000 more than the $544,491,000,000 in Social Security and other payroll taxes (in constant 2017 dollars) that the government collected in the first six months of fiscal 2016.

Despite collecting record amounts of individual income taxes and payroll taxes, the Treasury still ran a deficit of $526,855,000,000 in the first six months of fiscal 2017. (The emphasis is mine)

No matter how much money we give them, it will never be enough. We need a budget (not continuing resolutions) that does the things that are constitutional for the federal government. All other functions need to be left for the states (as stated in the Tenth Amendment). Spending cuts are needed.

How Much Did It Cost?

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Yesterday The Daily Caller posted a story about the MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) recently used in Afghanistan.

The article reports:

The giant bomb U.S. forces dropped Thursday on an ISIS training camp in Afghanistan did not cost $314 million to develop, or $16 million per unit as reported by multiple news outlets.

Every news report about cost of the “Mother of All Bombs” relied on a misreading of a 2011 article or a dubious internet website that InfoWars once linked to with a “healthy bit of skepticism.”

The actual cost of the bomb is unknown. The actual cost of the program isn’t publicly available because the Mother of All Bombs, officially known as GBU-43 or the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), is manufactured by the military and not a private defense company.

The article goes on to explain that the cost estimates the news media is making are based on the cost of the cost of the Air Force’s biggest bunker busting bomb, the 5,300 pound Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), or GBU-57, which is built by private defense contractor Boeing Company.

The article further explains:

While the two bomb types are related, they serve different functions — the MOP is designed to destroy underground bunkers as deep as 200 feet below the surface, while the MOAP wipes out everything on the surface within a mile radius. The MOAB, like its Daisy Cutter predecessor, can only be dropped out of a C-130 built by Lockheed Martin, and the MOP is deployed from the B-2, a Boeing aircraft.

Many news organizations, including TIME and CNBC, also cited Deagel.com, a site with extensive lists of weapons assets owned by multiple countries, which claims the MOAB costs $16 million per unit, the same amount as the reported cost of the MOP.

Deagel links to no source to verify its information. The site’s IP is registered to an address in Spain, and the most press they’ve received was for a 2015 prediction that the U.S. population would drop by more than 80 percent by 2025 due to an economic and cultural collapse. “The American collapse is set to be far worse than the Soviet Union’s one [sic],” the forecast said.

Whatever the cost of the bomb, it effectively sent a strong message to those who seek to harm America or its soldiers. We will fight back.

Notre Dame Has Lost Its Way

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Yesterday Western Journalism posted an article about the commencement speaker at Notre Dame this year. The University has a long standing tradition of inviting the president to give the commencement address during his first year in office. However, this year, in order to avoid the predictable protest, the University invited Vice-President Mike Pence. Well, that didn’t go exactly as planned.

The article reports:

Notre Dame seniors Immane Mondane and Jourdyhn Williams started a “#NotMyCommencementSpeaker” white board campaign in protest of the vice president’s scheduled commencement speech.

The students are inviting their classmates to take photos holding white boards with “direct quotes from Pence that are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, offensive, or ostracizing to members of our community.”

…“For me personally, [Pence] represents the larger Trump administration,” Mondane told Notre Dame’s student-run newspaper, the Observer. “ … his administration represents something, and for many people on our campus, it makes them feel unsafe to have someone who openly is offensive but also demeaning of their humanity and of their life and of their identity.”

Williams added that the presence of Pence on the grounds of Notre Dame’s campus is in direct violation of the University’s Catholic mission.

The Catholic Church used to be pro-marriage and pro-life. Has that changed? These are university students, why are they so opposed to hearing ideas that might not agree with their ideas? Who is teaching them this lack of tolerance? Are they typical of our university students? If they are, the country had better look elsewhere for its future leaders.

They are illustrating one of the principles of one of the best-known communist leaders in America.

Rule 13 of Saul Alinsky‘s Rules for Radicals:

“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.

If they can’t attack President Trump, they will go after his Vice-President instead. It is no wonder it is so difficult to find honest men to hold public office. Why would anyone put up with being accused of all sorts of awful things because he holds a Christian view of marriage? Isn’t it ironic that students at one of our leading Catholic Universities no longer support the Christian view of marriage.,

The Spin Numbers Just Don’t Add Up

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Yesterday The Chicago Tribune posted an article that seems to correct some of the charges made against President Trump about the cost of his travels to Florida. President Trump has visited Mar-a-Lago six times since he took office. I would like to note that he is not paying rent while he is there–he owns the place. As for arguments that the Secret Service is paying rent, I don’t know, but I do know the Secret Service paid rent to Joe Biden when they stayed on his property, so that is not anything new.

At any rate, the article reports:

With President Donald Trump making his seventh presidential trip this weekend to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, government watchdogs and Democrats are once again seeing dollar signs: namely, $3 million.

There are a few problems with the way this figure was reached. It was based on a trip President Obama made in 2013 to Palm Beach:

…Another problem with extrapolating from the October 2016 GAO report is that it included a leg from Washington to Chicago, where Obama gave an economic speech before heading to Palm Beach for a long weekend of golf.

Obama was only in Chicago for a few hours, but costs pile up because each destination triggers the need for the Secret Service to prepare and protect the site and the Defense Department to move the equipment involved.

Another significant cost-driver, GAO noted, is the per-hour cost of military aircraft, such as the president’s plane, Air Force One. So it’s not just a matter of slicing off a few hundred thousand dollars to come up with the $3 million estimate.

“If you take out Chicago, that just means the equipment is going to have to come from other bases,” Lepore said. Sometimes that means more money, sometimes less.

Judicial Watch arrives at its $1 million figure by estimating flight time and typical Secret Service costs, leaving out airlifting equipment such as the presidential limousines. Those costs also aren’t fully included in Judicial Watch’s $96 million total for Obama.

I would like to note that President Trump has been doing business while in Mar-a-Lago. Certainly it is an impressive place to meet with foreign leaders. I also wonder if it has less of a change of electronic surveillance than meetings in the White House. Considering all that we have learned about the surveillance of the Trump team, that might be a valid consideration.

Why The United Nations Is No Longer Relevant

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This is Article I of the United Nations Charter (from the U.N. website):

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

  1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
  2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
  3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
  4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Reuters reported yesterday:

Russia blocked a Western-led effort at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday to condemn last week’s deadly gas attack in Syria and push Moscow’s ally President Bashar al-Assad to cooperate with international inquiries into the incident.

It was the eighth time during Syria’s six-year-old civil war that Moscow has used its veto power on the Security Council to shield Assad’s government.

In the latest veto, Russia blocked a draft resolution backed by the United States, France and Britain to denounce the attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun and tell Assad’s government to provide access for investigators and information such as flight plans.

If the United Nations cannot even denounce a poison gas attack on civilians, what good is it?

Between 1955 and 2013, the United Nations issued at least 77 resolutions targeting Israel (statistics and list here), and the United Nations can’t even come up with a resolution condemning a poison gas attack on civilians? Wow.

American taxpayer dollars provide a major portion of the funding of the United Nations. I think the fact that the U.N. can’t even condemn a poison gas attack on civilians justifies the end of that funding. Until all members of the United Nations are willing to admit that it is wrong to use poison gas on civilians, I don’t think the U.N. has much relevance or credibility. Their moral authority no longer exists.

The Story vs. The Spin

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Yesterday The Washington Post reported some interesting information about the allegations that President Obama used electronic surveillance on President Trump’s campaign and transition team. I seriously wonder if anything will come of this, but I believe we have a smoking gun.

The article reports:

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

I would like someone to explain to me how the Russian government could swing the election in Trump’s favor. The investigation into any Russian involvement in the Trump campaign is nothing more than a smoke screen for the illegal surveillance done by the Obama Administration.

The New York Post reported yesterday:

In what the paper (The Washington Post) described as a lengthy declaration, the government said Page “engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow.”

The application was submitted in July and the ensuing 90-day warrant has been renewed at least once, the paper reported.

The government agencies are trying to determine whether Page or any other members of the Trump campaign had improper contacts Russian agents as the Kremlin sought to influence the presidential election.

Page told the paper that he was just a target in a political hit campaign.

“This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance,” Page told The Washington Post Tuesday. “I have nothing to hide.”

This makes Watergate look like amateur hour. People went to jail because of the Watergate break-in. People should go to jail for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team. What was done was unconstitutional and a violation of the civil rights of the people under surveillance. The leaking of this information with the names unmasked was also a violation of the law. If no one is held accountable, then the precedent is set that unwarranted surveillance of American citizens and releasing the information is acceptable.

 

A Republican Victory In The Kansas Special Election

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Fox News is reporting today that Kansas state Treasurer Ron Estes has won the special election in Kansas to fill the House seat vacated by CIA Director Mike Pompeo. Why does this matter? Because it is an indication that other than in the northeast and California, Americans are happy with the leadership of President Trump.

The article reports:

The race had been closely watched nationally for signs of a backlash against Republicans or waning support from Trump voters in a reliably GOP district. Trump won 60 percent of the votes cast in the 17-county congressional district this past November.

The president himself entered the fray Monday with a recorded get-out-the-vote call on Estes’ behalf and tweeted his support on Tuesday morning.

Other nationally known Republicans pitched in over the final days of the race. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas campaigned for Estes Monday in Wichita, while Vice President Mike Pence also recorded a get-out-the-vote call. The National Republican Congressional Committee spent roughly $90,000 in last-minute TV and digital ads.

Thompson (Democratic civil rights attorney James Thompson) reckoned that the high-profile support for Estes helped push him over the top, and claimed he could have won had national Democrats rallied to him sooner. Readers of the liberal blog Daily Kos donated more than $200,000 to Thompson in the final days of the race. Thompson was also backed by Our Revolution, the group that grew out of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ 2016 presidential campaign.

The Our Revolution backing of Attorney Thompson is interesting. If you remember, Bernie Sanders ran as an outsider and definitely leaned to the left side of the political spectrum. In 2016, Bernie Sanders won the Kansas Democratic Primary with 67 percent of the votes.

The article includes some comments by voters:

All those GOP calls prompted Charlene Health, a 52-year-old homemaker and Republican in Belle Plaine, to cast a ballot for Estes.

“I wasn’t even going to vote,” she said as she left her polling site Tuesday morning. “I finally did. I realized this was important.”

Alan Branum, 64, a retired construction worker is a Wichita Democrat who voted for Estes and plans to change his party affiliation to Republican since he leans more conservative. He thinks Trump has been been doing fine so far.

“I don’t think it is fair people condemn him,” he said of the president. “He hasn’t been in long enough to make a judgment. People need to give him some time.”

Estes supported Trump last year and backs the president’s policies. He supports the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act, backs funding for a wall on the border with Mexico, opposes funding for Planned Parenthood, and does not believe an independent investigation into Russian hacking of the election is needed.

Lucy Jones-Phillips, a 31-year-old insurance representative and Democrat, acknowledged she doesn’t vote in every election, but said she voted for Thompson because she wanted to ensure supporters of Gov. Sam Brownback are not in office. She was especially upset when the Republican governor recently vetoed Medicaid expansion.

There are upcoming special elections in Georgia, Montana, South Carolina, and California. California is the only special election this year for a seat formerly held by a Democrat.

This Might Be A Place Where We Need To Increase Spending

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CNS News posted an article today about the role of the Coast Guard in fighting drug trafficking.

These are a few highlights from the article;

On Feb. 16, U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Joseph Napier, assisted by the coast guards of Trinidad and Tobago, seized 4.2 tons of cocaine with an estimated value of $125 million from a fishing boat off the coast of Suriname.

This is the largest single seizure of cocaine by the Coast Guard in nearly 20 years.

More recently, the crew of U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Spencer worked with the Costa Rican coast guard to successfully intercept 2,900 pounds of marijuana. Both interdictions were made possible through persistent U.S. Coast Guard presence and broad international cooperation.

…In the last 25 years, the task force’s efforts have led to the arrest of over 4,600 traffickers, the capture of over 1,100 vessels, and deprived drug cartels of hundreds of billions of dollars in profits.

However, the Coast Guard does not currently have the budget to do its job effectively:

Despite the Coast Guard’s increased interdictions in recent years, the size of its fleet and extent of its resources remain insufficient to meet the even higher rate of cocaine shipments.

Commandant of the Coast Guard Paul Zukunft stated that while the Coast Guard has “80 percent awareness” of all illegal operations, “we can only act on about 20 percent of that because of the resource constraints we have. We’re giving 60 percent of what we know, literally, a free pass.”

Programs such as the Offshore Patrol Cutter and unmanned aerial vehicle programs would be wise investments in the fight against drug trafficking.

The Coast Guard, in cooperation with other federal agencies and international partners, plays a critical role in mitigating the flow of illegal drugs from Latin America to the United States.

American leadership in both the White House and Congress should ensure the Coast Guard and other entities receive the resources they need to meet the growing demands of maritime security, while also facilitating strong relationships that mutually benefit the security of the U.S. and its partner nations.

There are many places where Congress can cut wasteful government spending if they are willing. At the same time, Congress needs to increase the money going to the Coast Guard to fight the drug war. Drugs are killing our children and ruining their future. It is in our best interests to do everything we can to stop illegal drugs from coming into America.

Opposing Honest Elections

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It kind of makes me wonder what in the world is going on when I see someone opposing a voter integrity group. Does the group oppose the idea of honest elections?

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about group that is opposing voter integrity lawsuits. Oddly enough, one of the leaders of the group is Senator Elizabeth Warren‘s daughter. The group is funded by George Soros.

The article reports:

Demos, a New York City-based progressive public policy organization, is assisting unions in pushing back against election lawsuits filed in North Carolina and Florida. The group is also writing letters of interest in another lawsuit in Pennsylvania. Amelia Warren Tyagi, Warren’s daughter, chairs the board of Demos.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based legal group that litigates to protect election integrity, filed a lawsuit against Wake County, N.C., on behalf of Voter Integrity Project NC, a research organization dedicated to fair elections, after the county had failed to accurately maintain their voter rolls.

…”According to publicly-available data, Wake County has more registered voters on the rolls eligible to cast a ballot than it has citizens who are alive,” PILF wrote. “The complaint states that ‘voter rolls maintained by the Defendant for Wake County contain or have contained more registrants than eligible voting-age citizens. The number of registrants in Wake County, North Carolina has been over 100 percent of eligible voting-age citizens.”

A motion to dismiss the lawsuit was filed February 21 by the Wake County Board of Elections and three attorneys. Senior U.S. Judge W. Earl Britt ruled in favor of the Voter Integrity Project and denied the request.

Cameron Bell, a legal fellow at Demos, is assisting the attorneys on the case. One of the main goals of Demos is to reduce the role of money in politics and to guarantee “the freedom to vote,” according to its website. Demos received hundreds of thousands in funding from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

Individuals from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, a progressive nonprofit in North Carolina, are also assisting on the lawsuit. The Southern Coalition for Social Justice has also received funding from Soros.

I will admit to being a fairly simple person, but it seems to me that if a county has more registered voters than it has live citizens, there might be a problem with the voter rolls. It would also be interesting to know what the percentage of actual voters was. I would like to note that in the 2016 presidential election, the early voting turnout in Wake County broke all previous records (story here). Since most voter fraud occurs in early voting and same-day registration, that is an interesting statistic.

The article further reports:

Broward County (Florida), like Wake County, has more registered voters on their rolls than the number of eligible citizens who can vote in 2014, PILF said.

Cameron Bell, the Demos attorney who is involved in North Carolina, also interjected in Broward County. In addition to Bell, Scott Novakowski and Stuart C. Naifeh, counsel from Demos, are involved in Florida.

Individuals from Project Vote, a nonprofit that formerly teamed up with the scandal-plagued and now defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), are also in Broward County.

Demos and Project Vote additionally wrote amici in a Philadelphia lawsuit but has not intervened.

“Just like when leftist financiers tried and failed to block voter ID laws from coast to coast, the checkbooks are open again to preserve the status quo were poor record maintenance is concerned,” Logan Churchwell, PILF’s spokesman, told the Washington Free Beacon. “When you view vulnerability as currency, it must come natural to want to protect not only the weaknesses in a system, but the actors who exacerbate them.”

Democrats have scrambled to build up a massive network to counter voter integrity efforts after Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

Voters are disenfranchised when there is voter fraud. It is time for Americans to take action to protect the integrity of their elections. Voter ID laws are needed. When an area reports 105 percent turnout, there is a problem.

Bad Laws Have Consequences

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There has been much made of North Carolina’s recent law that asked people to use the public restrooms and public locker rooms corresponding to their sex at birth. The law has since been replaced by a similar law. However, those in favor or making every bathroom or locker room open to anyone according to what sex they identify with at that particular moment have overlooked a few possible negative consequences.

On April 6th, WBTV posted an article about a recent incident at Central Piedmont Community College. The incident itself is disturbing, but the school’s response to the incident is even more disturbing.

The article reports:

A Central Piedmont Community College student was shocked to find a man in the women’s bathroom allegedly trying to take her picture under a stall door. She was equally shocked, she said, when she reported the incident to police and they told her what happened was not a crime.

Catherine Barker said she was in a stall in the first-floor women’s bathroom in the Belk Building on CPCC’s Central Campus when she suddenly noticed something that didn’t feel right.

“I noticed a person come through the vertical crack in the bathroom stall and then bend down, so I jumped up and went out the door and they were headed out the bathroom and I said ‘you look for somebody?’ and the guy started fumbling and mumbling with his phone and trying to get his phone away so I blocked him from the door so he wouldn’t get out,” Barker recalled days later in an interview with WBTV.

Barker said she grabbed the man’s phone and, eventually, led him to a campus security officer to report the incident.

But she said campus security officers told her there was nothing they could do.

“They said that there’s no proof that he has any pictures so they can’t do anything to him,” she said she was told by campus security officers.

The article goes on to describe the lack of action by the college:

Federal law requires colleges and universities to keep a daily log of all crimes—or incidents that could potentially be crimes—that are reported on campus. The requirement is part of a federal law known as the Clery Act, which is aimed at alerting those on colleges campuses about crimes that occur nearby.

Documents provided by CPCC security show Barker reported Monday’s incident in the bathroom to authorities as soon as it happened.  But a review of the school’s crime log the next day found campus security had failed to list the incident in its daily crime log. 

WBTV obtained access to the crime log after multiple security officials first refused to provide the log and, later, demanded to know why a reporter wanted to see it. The Clery Act requires a crime log be made available upon request to anyone who asks to review it.

Instead, the page for Monday’s crime log was blank with a message that said “no data for daily crime log.”

The article concludes:

Catherine Barker, the student who reported the man she thought was trying to take a picture of her while she was in a bathroom stall, said she no longer feels safe on campus.

“It’s just a really uncomfortable feeling to have somebody take that away – one of the most private parts of the day. And he’s not welcome there,” she said.

Barker said she tried to report this incident to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department but was told CPCC’s contracted police agency, Allied Universal, has primary jurisdiction over the incident.

She said she has one message for college administrators.

“The administrators, first and foremost, made me feel unsafe,” she said.

We have heard a lot of ruckus from various sports groups about not being willing to come to North Carolina because North Carolina wants men in the men’s room and women in the women’s room (and locker rooms). What about the parents who don’t want to send their daughters to college in North Carolina because their daughters may not be protected on campus? The way the college handled this incident is a disgrace. There should have been a warrant to search the man’s phone, and he should have been arrested if the phone had incriminating pictures on it. Does anyone actually believe that this was the first or last time that the person attempting to take pictures in the ladies’ room had done that? Who will protect the students if he decides to go further than pictures? Would you send your daughter to college there?

 

 

The Cost Of Not Defending Your Culture

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Generally speaking, western countries practice freedom of religion. Unfortunately, that is not part of the culture in many Muslim countries. As more Muslims immigrate to western countries, many of these immigrants tend to bring their lack of respect for other religions with them. A recent event in Australia illustrates the problem.

Breitbart is reporting today that an Australian named Mike, of Greek heritage, was assaulted while riding the train through “Muslim enclaves” in south-west Sydney.

The article reports:

Christians in Sydney, Australia, are being advised to hide their crosses after an Arabic-speaking gang shouting “F*** Jesus!” attacked a couple on a train while transport officers looked on from a “safe space” and did nothing.

That is a disgrace–both the attack and the lack of action on the part of the transport officers.

The article explains:

Mike, who asked for his surname to be withheld for fear he might be targeted, said that four men of Middle Eastern appearance ripped his cross from his neck, stomped on it, and rained kicks and punches on his face, back, and shoulders. Two women attacked his girlfriend when she tried to protect him.

Five uniformed transport officers watched the attack take place but failed to intervene, Mike claimed, leaving the police to meet the train at a later station.

“I was born in Australia of Greek heritage,” Mike told the Telegraph. “I’ve always worn my cross. For [them] to rip it off and step on it has to be a religious crime … It’s not on to feel unsafe in your own country.”

Mike went to Greek community leader and former Sutherland Shire Council deputy mayor Reverend George Capsis, who believes Christians in Sydney face growing persecution at the hands of Muslim gangs, about the attack.

“This is not an isolated incident,” said Rev Capsis, who explained that Mike was the fourth Christian to have come to him about a religiously-motivated attack in just the last six months.

An explanation was given for the behavior of the transport officers:

Sydney Trains defended the transports officers who stood by as the attack took place, telling the Telegraph their main responsibility is tackling fare evasion and that they are trained to observe from a “safe space” if passengers are assaulted.

“Why are ticket inspections deemed more important than passenger safety?” commented Telegraph journalist Miranda Devine.

“Surely, if taxpayers fund dedicated Transport Officers to ride the trains all day, they should be authorised to do more than just observe crimes and call police. Anyone can do that.”

Rev Capsis believes that, “If this keeps up, someone will be hurt.”

Wow. Just wow.

Why Policy Matters

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The Los Angeles Times posted an article today about the stretch of wild brushland between the Rio Grande and the sprawling Texas border cities of Hidalgo and McAllen. That deserted piece of land was one a bustling crossing point for illegals coming into the United States. It is now very quiet.

The article reports:

Across the Southwest border, the number of immigrants caught crossing illegally into the United States has dropped dramatically. Fewer than 12,200 people were apprehended in March, a 64% decrease from the same time last year, and the lowest monthly number in at least 17 years.

…”We don’t really have a normal anymore,” said Castro, who has worked for Customs and Border Protection for nearly 20 years. She insists agents are not doing anything differently; the Trump administration’s executive orders are simply enforcing laws already on the books.

“Are you going to risk a 1,000-mile journey and pay $8,000 to be smuggled if you’re not sure you’ll get to stay?” Castro said, offering a reason she thinks fewer asylum seekers are crossing over. “I wouldn’t.”

Some of the reasons people are fleeing Mexico and countries south of there are the drug cartels and the gangs. It would make sense to work with some of the governments involved to clean up the drug cartels and the gangs. Unfortunately, that is very dangerous work, and the corruption runs deep. South American politicians who take on either the drug cartels or the gangs tend not to live very long. However, that is the answer. Ultimately, we need a wall to stop illegal immigration, but we also need a way to help stop the drug cartels and the gangs and to help the economies of our southern neighbors. We also need to understand that by not securing our borders, we are encouraging the drug cartels and the gangs to invade our country.

 

Forgetting Why You Were Originally Formed

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Unions in America were formed to give working people a voice in their negotiations with their sometimes unyielding employers. Most of the demands unions were created to pursue are now covered by government regulations, and the role of unions in the life of the everyday worker is not what it originally was. Union workers pay their dues, and union officials live very well. Somehow I don’t think that was what the original intention was.

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story today about how the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) spends its money. For those of you who believe that big corporations provide the money in politics, some of this may come as a surprise.

The article reports:

Labor giant Service Employees International Union spent $60 million on politics and lobbying as well as $19 million on the Fight for 15 movement in 2016, and now finds itself laying off headquarters staff.

The union’s federal filing to the Department of Labor reveal that it experienced marginal growth in 2016, adding about 15,000 members from 2015. However, that increase did not correlate with financial growth as revenue fell by $17 million, fueling a $10 million budget deficit.

The union, which represents healthcare and public sector workers, spent $61.6 million on political activities and lobbying in 2016, roughly 20 percent of its $314.6 million budget, according to the filing.

However, those figures may underestimate its political spending. The union spent $19 million on activist groups and public relations consultants to assist with the Fight for 15 campaign, which has successfully pushed for dramatic minimum wage increases in New York, California, and Washington, D.C., according to an analysis from the Center for Union Facts.

Who represents those union members who don’t support the causes and candidates that the union leaders decide to support? Do union members ever get a chance to vote on the causes or candidates the union will support?

The article further reports:

“The SEIU has transformed from a labor union into a subsidiary of the Left, spending millions of dues dollars on left-wing causes unrelated to collective bargaining,” Berman (Richard Berman, executive director of the Center for Union Facts) said. “Instead of fighting for workplace benefits, the union is going behind their members’ backs to bankroll Democrats and liberal advocacy groups.”

The International Franchising Association, a trade industry group whose members have been targeted by the Fight for 15 movement, said that political agitation and the expansion of membership ranks among fast food workers does little to benefit dues-paying members.

“Perhaps SEIU should spend more money helping workers it represents and less money attacking corporations and a business model like franchising that actually successfully lifts people out of poverty and gives them a ladder of opportunity to advance in their career,” spokesman Matthew Haller said.

I have no problem with unions spending money on political activities as long as the members of the union have a vote in which activities to support. Also, as long as unions are free to spend the kind of money they spend on political action, corporations should be equally free to do so, again at the discretion of their stockholders.