Monthly Archives: September 2025

Google Really Hasn’t Changed

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On September 29, Issues & Insights posted an article about their recent experience with Google censorship.

The article reports:

In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, the tech colossus said that under pressure from the administration, it silenced voices that were challenging Joe Biden’s COVID-19 policies.

“Senior Biden administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies,” it said in a letter to Jordan.

And, as a supposed sign of good faith, Google said it would “provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”

That this admission comes amid the left’s screaming fits about President Donald Trump’s supposed efforts to silence dissent is interesting. But what’s more curious, and more troubling, is the fact that Google continues to violate what it claims to be its “unwavering” commitment to free speech.

The article includes the following:

The article concludes:

Opinion columns that point out peculiarities in the 2020 elections are routinely blacklisted. We’ve even had our “What We’re Reading” news roundups and articles reporting on our own I&I/TIPP Poll results demonetized by Google.

Is this what Google considers an “unwavering commitment” to free expression?

Our articles may be hard-hitting. People might disagree with them – as many of our readers do in the comments section. We make mistakes from time to time (which we acknowledge and correct).

But none of this comes anywhere close to being “dangerous” or “harmful.”

We also seriously doubt advertisers are clamoring for their ads not to appear on Issues & Insights. Which means that Google’s ad bans are nothing more than an attempt by this unrepentant left-wing behemoth to handicap content it doesn’t like by demonetizing it.

We aren’t cowed by this pressure. In fact, we are hoping to raise a relatively modest amount of money from our readers to permanently go ad-free. (See our Kill the Ads campaign here.)

But we are quite certain that many publishers simply won’t touch subjects that Google considers off limits for fear of a massive revenue hit.

Perhaps Rep. Jordan can follow up with Google and ask it what it is, exactly, that this company considers “free expression” and why it continues to demonetize content for purely political reasons.

Censorship isn’t dead. It’s up to the voters to look past the censorship and develop their own sources.

Please Use Common Sense When Protesting

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On September 29th, The New York Post posted an article about an anti-ICE protester in Massachusetts who was so wrapped up in what she was doing, she forgot a really basic item.

The article reports:

An anti-ICE protester in Massachusetts forgot to put her car in park while yelling at agents making an arrest of an illegal alien and her car rolled into a lake and sank, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement source tells Fox News.

It happened in Upton, Massachusetts, a small town in Worcester County, roughly 40 miles west of Boston.

Video and a photo, provided to Fox News by an ICE source, captured the incident.

In the clip, a voice can be heard saying, “Well that sucks. Look at that, Lucy. Her car got lost,” as the woman’s car drifts farther into the water.

Bill Melugin posted the video on X. Here is the link.

When protesting, please remember common sense.

Pulling An Ace Out Of A Hole

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The one thing that the Congressional Democrats are really great at doing is not understanding the consequences of their actions. They do not understand that many of today’s Republicans are not as willing to roll over and play dead as their former Congressional members. The attempt to blackmail Americans by planning to shut down the government if budget cuts are not restored may not work out the way Senator Schumer wants it to.

On Thursday, Ed Morrissey posted the following at Hot Air:

The deadline for a government shutdown is fast approaching, and Schumer tried to play hardball this week. He and Hakeem Jeffries demanded a meeting with Trump to negotiate, which Trump initially accepted, but canceled after the pair demanded a massive list of concessions before the meeting took place. Schumer then told the press that Trump was “chicken” and that any shutdown would be his fault — even though the House had already passed the clean CR that Schumer had demanded when Joe Biden was president-ish.

On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal reported:

The White House’s budget office directed federal agencies to draw up plans to permanently reduce their workforces if there is a government shutdown next week, raising the specter of mass firings on top of the customary furloughs during a lapse in funding. 

The new memo sent by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought sharply raises the stakes for funding talks and increases the pressure on Senate Democrats, who are demanding that Republicans restore hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending as a condition of their support for keeping the government funded.

…The OMB memo instructs agencies to design reduction-in-force plans for employees who work for programs that have no current funding and have no outside funding source, and that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” This would be in addition to any temporary furloughs that happen during a government shutdown. 

The memo from Vought says that any cuts made after the funding deadline would be permanent.

Never play checkers with someone who plays three-dimensional chess!

Trading Liberty For Security?

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On Sunday, The BBC reported that Swiss voters have approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic identity cards. Benjamin Franklin is credited to have said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” The Swiss may discover the wisdom of those words.

The article reports:

With all votes counted, 50.4% of those who voted said yes to the proposal, while 49.6% rejected it.

The closeness of the ballot is a surprise. Opinion polls had suggested up to 60% backed digital IDs, which also had the approval of the Swiss government, and both houses of parliament.

It was Switzerland’s second vote on digital IDs. An earlier proposal was rejected in 2021, amid concerns the data would be held centrally, and controlled largely by private providers.

Sunday’s revised proposal keeps the system in government hands. Data will be stored only on the smartphones of individual users, and digital IDs will be optional.

Citizens can continue to use national identity card if they choose, which has been standard for decades in Switzerland.

To further ease privacy concerns, a particular authority seeking information on a person – such as proof of age or nationality, for example – will only be able to check for those specific details.

It comes after the UK government announced plans earlier this week to introduce its own digital ID – which would be mandatory for employment – as part of efforts to curb the number of illegal migrants living and working in the country.

The proposed British digital ID would have fewer intended uses than the Swiss version, but has still raised concerns about privacy and data security.

Supporters of the Swiss system say it will make life much easier for everyone, allowing a range of bureaucratic procedures – from getting a telephone contract to proving you are old enough to buy a bottle of wine – to happen quickly online.

Opponents of digital ID cards, who gathered enough signatures to force another referendum on the issue, argue that the measure could still undermine individual privacy.

Note that the British digital ID would be necessary for employment. How far away is the social credits system the Chinese use to keep their population in line? Hopefully America will NOT follow this trend.

How You Vote For Governor In Virginia Will Have Major Impact On Your Energy Bill

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On September 20, The Daily Signal posted an article about the upcoming election for governor in Virginia.

The article reports:

Virginia governor candidate Abigail Spanberger proved yet again she wants to make Virginians poor and financially struggling—endorsing a terrible state law that is projected to increase energy costs by $3,500 per customer. 

Spanberger embraced the poorly-named “Virginia Clean Economy Act,” signed into law in 2020 under former Gov. Ralph Northam, which will ban oil and gas production in Virginia, mandating that both of our state’s two utilities produce 100% renewable electricity by 2050.

This law is already having ruinous effects: Energy prices are higher, and Virginia now imports 40% of its electricity from out-of-state, up from 18% in 2020. The Act mandates Virginia transition from reliable power sources to expensive, unproven, unreliable “green energy” that has been demonstrated to be notoriously incapable of meeting the needed capacity for storage and distribution. 

Yet no energy transition is happening in the Commonwealth of Virginia, despite the Virginia Clean Economy Act being law. As of June 2025, 87% of Virginia’s net-electricity generation is primarily derived from natural gas, nuclear, and coal. Renewables—including solar and biomass—only accounted for 14.3%.

The article concludes:

California and Germany are two energy case studies of what Spanberger wants to do to Virginia. Despite massive government spending and strict “Green Energy” mandates, this state and country are failing to meet their climate change goals, all while expansively hiking up energy prices. This is an energy scarcity mindset that has no place in Virginia. 

This especially hits poor and middle-class families, who spend a much bigger proportion of their family budget on energy. California and Germany’s energy failure examples should be learned from—not duplicated and expanded.While in Congress, Spanberger voted lockstep with then-President Joe Biden for trillions in inflationary spending—including massive “Green Energy” boondoggles—that caused painful, generational inflation. She even bragged about voting for the deceptively-named “Inflation Reduction Act” in a January 2023 Fox News editorial. During the Biden-Harris administration, electricity prices soared 30%—largely due to the IRA passing. That’s not something to brag about.

Virginia doesn’t need to import Bidenomics to our beautiful Commonwealth.

On November 4th, Virginia voters will decide whether or not they want to see their energy bills increase to an average of $1,770 with economists estimating costs peaking at $3,500 per customer by 2045.

What Has Happened To Health Care Costs?

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Economist Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.” We have seen what the government takeover of the student loan program did to the cost of college tuition. Now we are seeing what the government takeover of healthcare has done to healthcare and healthcare insurance costs.

On September 29th, The American Thinker reported:

In 2009, when the average cost of an individual health policy was under $100 and family coverage was under $400, democrats decided that health insurance cost too much, and too many didn’t have coverage.

Therefore, without any Republican support, they wrote a 1,000-page bill. They called the bill the “Affordable Care Act,” a misnomer intended to mislead the American people into supporting the bill. The mostly compliant media went along and chastised those who dared question the bill.

…In fact, the bill took away freedom of choice and reduced competition. It got rid of lifetime and annual limits, so small and medium-sized companies couldn’t afford the risk. There was also no incentive for medical providers to control costs.

As prices soared, instead of limiting the scope of their promises about how the government would fix healthcare costs, the Democrats have instead worked to increase subsidies and increase the income levels of individuals and families who can get the subsidies. They needed more people to sign up to make it seem as if the ACA is popular and necessary. This just increased premiums even more and made insurance more unaffordable.

Something the Democrats intentionally left out of the bill that could have potentially reduced premiums and medical costs was any limits on punitive, not compensatory, damages in lawsuits. They left it out because Democrats receive significant sums of money from trial lawyers. Consider that Democrats put severe limits on profit margins for insurers, reducing the number of competitors, but they refuse to put any limits on lawsuits. The potential of unlimited lawsuit damages clearly raises prices.

The article notes the results of this law:

After 15 years of the ACA or Obamacare, the average cost of individual coverage is over $600 per month, up over 500% and family coverage is up to over $2,000 per month, which is up over 400%. Meanwhile, overall inflation was 41.60% for this time period, even including the disastrous Biden years.

Please follow the link to the article for further details. It’s time to get the government out of healthcare and let doctors do their jobs.

Solving the Crime Problem Part II

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Author: R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D. 

As I stated in Part I of this article, a society that fails to instill a law abiding conscience in its children will have to resort to extensive external controls to keep crime under control. Let’s take a look at what needs to be done given the reality that crime, especially violent crimes, are occurring at unacceptable levels, particularly in urban areas.

Socialization of children depends on, and is the responsibility of their parents. The high rate of children born out of wedlock (over 40%) and therefore lacking two effective parents needs to be reversed. Nowadays, adults living together before marriage has not only increased, but is seemingly totally acceptable. That was not always the case. In the 1950s and before, society reacted very unfavorable to cohabitation before marriage. This of course led to earlier marriage. The average age at first marriage has increased by almost ten years as has the number of people who never marry. One thing parents and grandparents can do is to encourage young people to marry instead of living together. Don’t be afraid to let them know what you believe. I remember one of my grandsons asking me what he should get for his girlfriend’s birthday. He had been dating her for several years. I suggested that he get her an engagement ring! Several months later they did get engaged. Encouraging going to church and setting an example by doing so yourself can also help return children to traditional values. Expounding on the benefits of marriage and having children is also something we can all do. This was one of the themes of Charlie Kirk’s message that he spoke about frequently in his talks with younger people, particularly young men. Relatedly, law makers can consider increasing tax benefits to families with children. We need to strengthen the traditional family.

As a psychologist who worked in the N.C. Department of Correction for thirty years, I had the opportunity to observe criminals first hand. Raising law-abiding citizens depends on a system of reward and punishment. Reward good behavior and you will get more of it; punish bad behavior and you will get less. That is the simple rule of all human and animal behavior. To be effective, the reward and/or punishment must be consistent and immediate. Our current criminal justice system as advocated by the Left does not punish criminal behavior as was once the case. Cashless bail, light sentences, and delayed prosecution send the wrong message. Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders. Sentences should escalate significantly for those committing repeat offences. There used to be a process called “Three strikes and you are out” which referred to the fact that someone who commits a third felony would receive the maximum sentence. Repeat offenders are clearly telling us that they have made crime their career and we should recognize that fact. I recently heard a leftist mayor of one of the high crime rate cities state that “You cannot arrest yourself out of a crime problem.” Actually, the opposite is the case–incarcerating career criminals is the most effective way to lower the crime rate.

Illegal drugs are a major driver of crime. Legalizing marijuana is the wrong approach since it is clearly a gateway drug. Not only is the level of the intoxicating chemicals in marijuana increasing but some drug cartels infuse it with fentanyl to increase its addictive properties. President Trump’s actions like closing the border, declaring drug cartels as terrorist groups, and attacking drug smuggling ships from other countries are all useful efforts. Drug dealers are killing our youth and should be treated with punishments that fit the crime. In some cases, drug treatment can be effective; however, when it fails, incarceration may actually protect the life of the addict. Allowing addicts to freely live on the streets must be stopped. Vagrancy laws need to be re-instated with incarceration used as needed.

Mental illness can also influence criminal behavior, especially if not treated properly. Fortunately, most diagnosed mental illnesses do not increase the proclivity to commit crimes. However, in cases where the mental illness is related to severe emotional disturbances and aggressive behavior, it must be treated as a significant factor in predicting future criminal behavior. It should be noted that many of those with serious mental disorders related to criminal behavior resist treatment. Involuntary commitment is usually not very effective since it is usually temporary. The General Assembly should reconsider establishing a facility for the criminally insane that could hold and treat convicted felons with serious mental disorders. Clearly the current approach is not working.

Solving the crime problem will require a comprehensive effort which ensures that there is a police presence sufficient to ensure public safety as President Trump recently showed in Washington, DC. The North Carolina General Assembly’s passing of the Iryna Crime Act in response to the brutal murder on the Charlotte commuter train is also a step in the right direction. We will see if Governor Stein vetoes the bill as I expect.   Democrats have consistently shown that the safety of the public is not their concern.

When Conspiracies Turn Out To Be True

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On Thursday (updated Friday), Just the News posted an article about the number of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents who were involved in the Capitol riots of January 6th.

The article reports:

The FBI secretly deployed more than 250 plainclothes agents to the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, an operation so disorganized it unleashed searing frustrations among many of the FBI’s rank-and-file that the bureau had lost its core competencies to “wokeness” and allowed its employees to become “pawns in a political war,” according to an after-action report kept from the public for more than four years.

Scores of FBI agents and personnel – many from the bureau’s premier Washington field office (WFO) – sent anonymous complaints to the after-action team detailing how agents were sent into an unsafe scenario without proper safety equipment or the ability to identify themselves readily as armed officers to other police agencies, the report obtained by Just the News shows.

There is no way to know how many of these agents encouraged people to enter the Capitol. It should also be noted that the video from that day shows the police encouraging people to enter the Capitol. Many of the people who followed the directions of the police were later arrested.

The article notes:

The report also revealed agents strongly disagreed with how they were deployed and how cases were pursued after that day, seeing a double standard.

“The actions on January 6, 2021 were absolutely despicable and unacceptable in a civilized society. What is even more unacceptable was the hypocrisy displayed by the FBI and its leadership in their attempt to go after those involved in the Capitol Riots, while we as agents, watched cities burn across America during the summer of 2020,” one agent said. 

“The conspiracy to commit crimes at the Capitol on January 6th, were also committed by bad actors during the summer riots of 2020 leading up to the election on November 3, 2020. Agents stood by on the ground in Washington, D.C. and observed stores being looted, burned, and ripped of anything of value,” the agent wrote.

“Even worse, officers were assaulted in the streets in broad daylight with cameras rolling, and yet our response then was nothing like the Capitol Riots response on and after January 6, 2021. I do not recall a single instance where the FBI, specifically FBI WFO, made any attempt to put the resources behind the summer riots of 2020, as they did during the Capitol Riots,” the agent explained. 

I will never cease to be amazed at the deep state’s efforts to punish President Trump for being President Trump.

Once Corrupt, Always Corrupt

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Former President Obama has repeatedly bragged that there were no scandals during his presidency. He conveniently overlooks the IRS targeting of conservative groups, fast and furious, the New Black Panthers intimidating voters, etc. He created the most political justice department in history and played a major role in trying to undercut the administration that followed him. He really hasn’t changed–he is still working to “fundamentally transform America.” Oddly enough, some of us like a lot of the way America currently works and don’t want it transformed.

On Friday, The New York Post reported:

Millions of dollars sent to Barack Obama’s foundation has ended up being donated to a progressive fund that supported anti-Israel groups, accused of setting up encampments at Ivy League universities, according to public documents.

Donations to the Obama Foundation, set up by the former president to build a 19-acre campus including a museum, athletic facility and fruit and vegetable gardens in Chicago, totaling $2 million were instead sent on to Tides Foundation in 2022 and 2023, according to its latest available federal tax filings.

…The third-party grant-making group is under scrutiny by the House Ways and Means Committee for handling donations for anti-Israel groups such as the Adalah Justice Project, Samidoun and the People’s Forum. Such groups helped set up pro-Palestinian demonstrations and college encampments after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that left 1,200 Israelis dead.

After this story was published Friday, a spokeswoman for the Obama Foundation told The Post that the $2 million was granted to more than 50 organizations across the country to help reduce “surging summer violence” and provide “safe spaces”  for young people.

The article also notes:

Meanwhile, the foundation admitted it has so far spent more than $615 million building the Obama Presidential Center, which is scheduled to open in spring 2026, according to its website.

The group, which received just $129,320 in donations in 2022, spent more than $27 million on salaries.

Among the highest-paid board members are Valerie Jarrett, a former senior adviser to President Obama and CEO of the foundation, who raked in more than $750,000 in compensation in 2023.

Robbin Cohen, executive vice president of the Obama Presidential Center, took in nearly $650,000 in 2023, according to the tax filings. Cohen is a former president of the Pritzker Realty Group, founded by Penny Pritzker, a philanthropist who is also on the Obama Foundation board of directors. Pritzker, whose brother, JB Pritzker, is the governor of Illinois, does not draw a salary.

The center, located in Jackson Park on the city’s South Side and taking up 20 acres, is still under construction, rising like a concrete monolith out of the ground. The privately funded project was started in 2021 but suffered many setbacks during its construction, including blowing through its original $500 million budget.

The corruption continues…

It Begins With One

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On Thursday, Breitbart posted an article about the indictment of James Comey. The former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director is indicted on two counts–one for making false statements and one for obstructing justice. I wouldn’t be in a hurry to celebrate this. This is the equivalent of charging Al Capone with tax evasion. There is also the possibility, considering the political climate where he is being charged, that he will walk away scot free.

The article reports:

Former FBI Director James Comey has been indicted on one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice.

The charges were brought after the Trump administration replaced the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, with White House aide Lindsey Halligan, who sought an immediate indictment from the grand jury before the statute of limitations could expire next Tuesday.

Without mentioning Comey by name, Attorney General Pam Bondi declared in a post on X that the indictment serves to prove “no one is above the law.”

“No one is above the law. Today’s indictment reflects this Department of Justice’s commitment to holding those who abuse positions of power accountable for misleading the American people. We will follow the facts in this case,” she said.

The article concludes:

“Comey’s deputy, Andrew McCabe, has said that Comey authorized him to leak information to the press, according to a 2018 Justice Department inspector general’s report. But the report also found that McCabe made multiple false or misleading statements,” it added.

In July, the FBI launched an investigation into former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey over their roles in the investigation surrounding President Donald Trump and Russia’s alleged collusion.

Although he played a major part in the politicization of the FBI, I believe that he acted in perfect harmony with the Department of Justice and the deep state. He was simply a pawn in a very illegal game.

The Health Care Heist

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On Wednesday, PJ Media posted an article about the biggest health care heist in American history. The heist was discovered thanks to the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), artificial intelligence (AI), and basic law enforcement techniques.

The article reports:

If you didn’t hear about the bust of 324 people; the U.S.-based cartel shell medical supply companies; the pill mills pushing opioids; the doctors on the take; or how law enforcement captured many of the bad guys at the U.S. border and airports as they rushed to escape, that’s understandable. The feds revealed this potential $14.6 billion “depth charge” planted inside the Medicaid, Medicare, and private insurance programs in June, while most people were away on summer vacation.

Why did transnational organizations go after these particular programs? “Criminals go where the money is,” Acting Health and Human Services Inspector General,Juliet Hodgkins said at a news conference about “the largest health care fraud takedown in American history.” There’s more than $1.4 trillion spent by these government programs per year, and the bad guys have tried, by hook or by crook, and even with the aid of AI, to set into motion plans to steal nearly $15 billion. They got away with just shy of $3 billion before they were caught, and their other frauds were frozen in their tracks.

If this bust looks to you like it had Elon Musk’s old Department of Government Efficiency fingerprints on it, you’d be right. Using AI and law enforcement tactics, the DOGE team worked with HHS, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, and an all-hands-on-deck array of federal agents from the DEA, FBI, and health care agencies to track down all fraud leads, according to Dr. Mehmet Oz, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). As a result, the feds are setting up a healthcare data fusion center to detect where fraud spikes are occurring in near real time.

The article concludes:

Other scams used a network of Phoenix-based sober living houses to demand government payments for people who never got addiction treatment at the facilities. The facilities, run by ProMD, received $560 million before the feds caught on to the scam.

In Atlanta, medical professionals ordered skin grafts for dying patients who didn’t need them. By the time the grift was discovered, they’d scammed Medicare out of $760 million.

People from as far away as Estonia have been arrested. Seven people were found trying to scuttle over the southern U.S. border but were stopped before they got away. Another bunch were caught trying to leave the country from U.S. airports.

The bad actors from Russia, Pakistan, and Eastern Europe used the American health care system like their “personal piggy bank,” the Department of Justice’s Acting Criminal Division leader, Matthew Galeotti, said. He said that “this was a staggering breach of trust” and they “will prosecute these criminals as aggressively as we would any drug dealer because that’s exactly what they are.”

Musk, who stepped away from the White House after a rift with President Donald Trump, is the one who conceived and executed the DOGE project, and he’s a damned American hero. Let’s give that guy a medal for saving American taxpayers yet another tranche of billions.

All of this fraud was paid for by the American taxpayers.

Solving the Crime Problem Part I

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Author R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D.  

Crime continues to be a major concern of the American people. This is understandable since one of the prime responsibilities of any government, local or federal, is to ensure that citizens are safe in their homes and in public. Recent horrific tragedies, like the knife killing of Iryna Zarutska on a commuter train in Charlotte and the assassination of freedom patriot Charlie Kirk,  show the urgency of the crime problem. When examining any issue, it is best to start off with the facts before addressing causes and potential solutions.

Below is a list of some of the basic facts about crime in this country. Violent crime rates are higher in urban than in rural areas. Democrat run cities have the highest crime rates. The cities with the highest crime rates include:  Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore, Chicago, and Milwaukee. All of these cities have had Democrat mayors for most of the past 30 years with few exceptions. Cities with the highest crime rates tend to have liberal district attorneys who favor no cash bail and other soft on crime policies. Most of the violent crimes are committed by a small proportion of the population. For example, over 60% of the violent crimes are committed by black males between the age of 18 and 45 which represent only 3% of the entire population. Most crimes are committed by repeat offenders who have multiple arrests and prior convictions. Longer incarceration terms for so-called career criminals keep the community safe by keeping criminals off the streets. Prison rehabilitation programs are not a reliable way of reducing recidivism rates since most repeat offenders return to a life of crime.

The causes of criminal activity need to be understood before corrective action can be taken. Human beings are not born with a conscience or any knowledge of right or wrong. A person with a properly developed conscience controls their own behavior by judging and directing their behavior according to the rules of their learned conscience. A society that does not teach strong moral standards to their citizens is forced to rely on external controls, such as police presence and fear of apprehension instead of internal control of one’s behavior. Historically, western civilization has relied upon parental instruction and religion to ensure that children develop a law-abiding conscience. If a child learns to believe that stealing is a sin, they will not steal. Since the 1960s, the traditional family has been significantly weakened in our society. In 1960, 72% of adults were married. By 2017 that number was down to less than 50%. The average age for first marriage in 1960 was 20 yrs. for women and 23 yrs. for men; it is now 28 yrs. for women and 30 yrs. for men. Consequently, the birthrate has declined significantly. The birthrate is now 1.6 births per woman, which is not sufficient to maintain the population. Since 1960, the divorce rate has more than doubled. In 1960, only 5% of all births occurred out of wedlock. That number has now risen to over 40%. The diminishing of the traditional family has negatively impacted the socialization of children into law abiding citizens. Combine this with the dramatic decrease in church attendance, particularly among younger people, and the problem of raising children without a prosocial conscience is obvious. The diminishing of the role of the family is exactly what the Marxists have hoped for and is one of their prime goals. They want people to be dependent on the government–not their family. Speaking of Marxist influences, Marxists divide society into the oppressed and the oppressors. In so doing, they provide for some people the justification for criminal behavior towards those they deem to be oppressing them. It is certain that some of the criminals believe they are entitled to prey on the rich because they have been unfairly oppressed. The final factor that I want to mention that influences crime is mental illness. While mental illness in general does not substantially increase the likelihood of committing crimes, certain disorders that impact on misinterpreting the motives of others, such as paranoia, and loss of emotional control can be related. For example, depression can influence a person’s decision making, leading to suicide or in some cases blaming others for their problems. Mass shooters are examples of misdirected anger and blaming of others resulting in murder/suicides.

Part II of this article will address what society can do to control crime.      

There Need To Be Severe Consequences For Political Violence

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It’s been a tough few weeks. We had a church shot up with children in it. We had Charlie Kirk assassinated. Now we have a young person shooting up an ICE facility. Something is very wrong. For whatever reason, people are evidently forgetting their debating skills and resorting to violence.

On Wednesday, The Daily Caller reported:

A suspect who fired shots near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on Wednesday morning in Dallas, Texas, left “anti-ICE” messages on rounds, FBI officials said.

Police found the shooter dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after the suspect shot three victims, killing two, officials said at a Wednesday press conference. “Early evidence that we’ve seen from rounds that were found near the suspected shooter contain messages that are anti-ICE in nature,” said Joseph Rothrock, special agent in charge at the FBI’s Dallas field office.

The early reports say that the shooter fired from the rooftop of an adjacent building. FBI Director Kash Patel posted the following on X:

I did read a report that the shooter was a young man in his late 20’s. If that is true, I wonder what we are teaching our young people.

Remembering Some Not-So-Recent History

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There has been a lot of noise lately about the fact that Jimmy Kimmel was not on the air for a few days. There are still a few stations that have chosen not to air his late-night show. Considering the ratings of the show, I do wonder how long he will remain on the air. However, there has also been a lot said about the ‘tyranny’ of the Trump administration in wanting his show to go away. Hollywood has been very vocal about protecting their right to free speech. However, they have not been consistent.

On Wednesday, Jack Cashill posted an article at Substack reminding us of some of Hollywood’s not-so-recent history.

The article reports:

Those of us who know even a little recent history can only snicker at the CNN headline, “Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks join 400 artists to back Jimmy Kimmel against ‘government threats.’” To “back” here meant signing an ACLU letter. Such bravery!

The letter reads, “We the people must never accept government threats to our freedom of speech. Efforts by leaders to pressure artists, journalists, and companies with retaliation for their speech strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country.”

Although I agree with the sentiment, I am astonished anew at Hollywood’s selective outrage. They sat in silence these past four years while the Biden administration used every lever of power to silence critics on the internet, even to the point of imprisonment. Those offenses they could pretend not to notice, not so the hunt through the Hollywood Hills in 2012 for filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a hunt that the media gleefully joined.

Just three days after the September 11, 2012, disaster in Benghazi, the New York Times Ian Lovett reported that the feds were inquiring into whether Nakoula “had been the person who uploaded the video to YouTube.” The video was actually a 14-minute trailer for a proposed film titled, “The Innocence of Muslims.”

Nakoula was eventually arrested on September 15, just four days after the Benghazi attack, and held him in secret without charge or without access to an attorney.

The article notes:

Nakoula was vulnerable. He was on parole for his involvement in a check-kiting scheme. Even more worrisome, he had quietly cooperated with the feds and fingered the scheme’s ringleader.

Less than 48 hours after Secretary of State Clinton first alluded to Nakoula’s video, someone in the Obama administration had unsealed the indictment and exposed Nakoula to retaliation. “Why did the government release the deal?” Nakoula asked me when I first spoke to him after his release from prison. “Why did they put my life in danger?”

They put his life in danger because they knew they could get away with it. With Nakoula silenced, they could perpetuate the lie that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was not a result of the administration’s disastrous policies but of a spontaneous protest inspired by Nakoula’s “hateful” film trailer.

No one’s life was endangered by taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a few days. Spare me your outrage when you kept quiet while an American citizen’s civil rights were totally violated to protect a false narrative created by the Obama administration. That also happened on January 6th, 2021, but the truth on that has not totally been revealed. Stay tuned.

Confirming The Truth

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On Tuesday, Townhall posted an article about the censorship that was going on during the Biden administration.

The article reports:

Google just acknowledged that it censored right-leaning viewpoints on its platforms — especially YouTube. 

The House Judiciary Committee announced on Tuesday that “Google commits to offer all creators previously kicked off YouTube due to political speech violations on topics such as COVID-19 and elections an opportunity to return to the platform.”

Google made multiple admissions to the committee, according to a press release. It confessed that the Biden administration “pressured Google to censor Americans and remove content that did not violate YouTube’s policies.” The company further labeled the administration’s conduct as “unacceptable and wrong” and vowed to never use third-party “fact-checkers,” which have repeatedly shown bias against the right.

Now, after years of the left claiming that conservatives and libertarians were peddling conspiracy theories about the Biden administration collaborating with social media platforms to suppress speech, the world’s largest search engine has admitted that we were right all along.

Maybe President Trump and the Republican Party are not the fascists.

The article concludes:

Google was not the only company that functioned as a censorship tool for the Biden regime. The White House also pressured Facebook to ensure that only Democrat-approved narratives about COVID-19 and vaccines were allowed on the platform. Former President Joe Biden even went so far as to accuse Facebook of killing people by not doing enough to suppress contradictory content.

Biden’s White House used its leverage to coerce Google and other companies into compliance. Internal messages showed that executives feared retaliation. 

The question now centers on whether YouTube will actually follow through on its promises. Now that Biden is no longer in office, they have no reason to continue their censorship efforts — unless they always agreed with them in the first place and they were not actually being forced to go along with the authoritarian left.

Given that Trump is in office, YouTube might just read the writing on the wall and roll back its censorious practices. But there is another important question: Will the federal officials involved in this scandal face accountability or will this situation show once again that we live in a two-tiered justice system?

I for one would really appreciate some accountability!

Avoiding A Potentially Really Ugly Telecom Threat

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On Tuesday, The Gateway Pundit posted an article about a potential telecom threat in New York City while President Trump was there.

The article reports:

The US Secret Service announced Tuesday they had disrupted an illicit telecom threat near the United Nations.

The illicit network could have blacked out cell service, shut down cell towers, and jammed 911 calls in New York City and the surrounding area.

According to FOX News the seizure is the largest of its kind.

The investigation has been ongoing for months by the Secret Service made the announcement this morning before President Trump is scheduled to speak at UN headquarters in New York City.

I don’t know what was planned for this threat, but I am glad it was never carried out. Jamming 911 calls in a city the size of New York City could create horrible confusion and possible deaths.

The article notes:

The US Secret Service released this video on Tuesday morning.

Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office Matt McCool announced that the Secret Service has uncovered and dismantled a large network of fraudulent cellular devices in the New York Tri-State area capable of enabling encrypted communications and threatening local infrastructure.

The article contains Agent McCool’s statement. Below is the conclusion of that statement:

Given the timing, location, and proximity and potential for significant disruptions to the New York telecom system, we move quickly to disrupt this network. To be clear, these recovered devices no longer pose a threat to the New York Tri-state area.

We will continue working identifying those responsible in their intent, including whether their plan was to disrupt the UN General Assembly and communications of government and emergency personnel during the official visit of world leaders in and around New York City.

Forensic examinations of the equivalent of 100,000 cell phones worth of data is underway. Early analysis indicates cellular communications between foreign actors and individuals that are known to federal law enforcement. Given the sensitivity and complexity of this investigation, we are not able to go into specifics at this time. This is an open and active investigation, and we have no arrest to announce today. Rather, this announcement is designed to safeguard critical infrastructure and responsibly provide the public what we can at this time.

A disaster was avoided due to the great work of the Secret Service.

Helping With The Drug War

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On Monday, Legal Insurrection posted an article about the recent seizure of over a ton of cocaine.

The article reports:

The Dominican Republic and U.S. Navy managed “to recover 13 bales containing the 377 packages, wrapped in adhesive tape and with different logos.”

The Dominican Republic government announced that the National Drug Control Directorate (DNCD) and the Navy of the Dominican Republic (ARD) seized over a ton of cocaine on a boat targeted by the U.S. Navy.

President Donald Trump’s administration has been destroying boats from Venezuela suspected of carrying drugs to America.

The administration has struck three boats. The Dominican Republic did not confirm which boat had the cocaine, but it looks like it could be the third one that Trump announced on Saturday.

The Dominican Republic said the government worked with the United States Southern Command (Southcom) and the Southern Interagency Joint Task Force (JIATF-South) when it detected a speedboat that intelligence reports said carried narcotics.

The reports also claimed the boat was headed “to Dominican territory, with the intention of using the country as a bridge to take it to US territory.”

The Dominican Republic and America joined forces for the first time in history to combat narcoterrorism:

After the destruction of the boat, Navy divers recovered the cocaine. It is becoming more risky to transport drugs across the Caribbean. Hopefully the sinking of these boats will discourage some of the drug smugglers. Combined with the closing of the southern border, these actions should begin to limit the amount of drugs flowing into America.

Changing Something That Was Not Being Used For Its Original Purpose

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On Tuesday, The American Thinker posted an article about the Executive Order by President Trump to impose a $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas. This is a step toward protecting American workers. Originally the H-1B visa was intended to help U.S. companies fill rare, high-skilled roles when American expertise was unavailable. Instead, it has become a way for corporations to import cheap labor rather than pay |Americans fair wages.

The article reports:

President Donald Trump’s two recent executive orders, one imposing a $100,000 annual fee on H-1B visas and the other launching the “Gold Card” fast-track residency program, represent the most significant immigration reforms in decades.

They flip the incentive structure that has for years favored multinational corporations and global outsourcing firms over American workers, while also tackling long-ignored national security risks.

As a policy, open borders is one area where Democrats and many Republicans agree. Democrats want new voters, while the Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street Journal Republicans want cheap labor. President George W. Bush, backed by Senator John McCain, in 2007, pushed for “comprehensive immigration reform,” a euphemism for amnesty, for millions of illegal aliens, which fortunately failed a US Senate vote.

Enter President Trump, the only president in my lifetime who has recognized that America has a sovereign border. Even President Reagan failed to repair our dysfunctional immigration system. He signed an amnesty bill into law, which NPR heralded as “a Reagan legacy,” and it unsurprisingly turned California from a red to a blue state. No wonder NPR loved it.

The Chamber of Commerce is no longer a friend of the American worker. They support corporate profit margins over American workers. They were also supporters of the Common Core curriculum that has helped lower the test scores of American students.

The article notes:

This approach addresses two issues simultaneously. First, it monetizes efficiency by having applicants pay for expedited processing instead of taxpayers funding an overcrowded immigration system. Second, it makes sure that those who skip ahead are likely to be job creators and investors, not liabilities. As CBS News reported, Trump explained: “We’re going to have great people coming in, and they’re going to be paying.”

Such programs are common. Portugal offers a Golden Visa program that requires a five-year investment in monetary assets for residency, which is less direct and efficient compared to Trump’s proposal.

For conservatives cautious about unrestricted immigration, this presents a strong bargain: America gains capital instead of bearing costs.

Unsurprisingly, Big Tech is unhappy. Venture capitalists argue that the $100,000 H-1B fee could hurt America’s competitiveness, but this overlooks how the current system has suppressed domestic innovation by discouraging Americans from pursuing STEM careers. Genuine innovation thrives when American students and workers believe they can compete fairly.

Foreign governments have also expressed concern, especially India, which depends heavily on exporting workers to the U.S.

Not everyone in America wants to ‘put America first.’

Charlie Kirk:  Death of a Freedom Warrior

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Author:  R. Alan Harrop, Ph.D. 

When asked what type of government was created by the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin replied “A republic, if you can keep it.” This well- known comment, could not be more relevant than it is today. While threats from other countries have occurred and are still occurring, the threat Franklin was referring to was from within. For our country to survive as founded, it must have people who not only recognize threats, but are willing to stand up and fight for freedom. Charlie Kirk, was one such prominent freedom warrior.

Marxism, since its founding in the 1800s, has been a continuing threat to all freedom loving people. Essentially, Marxism encourages people to group themselves into the oppressors and the oppressed and also, importantly, sanctions the use of whatever means necessary to overthrow the so-called oppressors. The fact that all Marxist countries are notorious for taking away individual freedoms and establishing oppressive regimes (e.g. Russia, China, North Korea, etc.) is ignored by those who follow Marxist principles. The largest mass killings of their own people were committed by Marxist governments such as Russia and China. After WWII, the people in this country recognized and resisted the threat of communism. Increasingly, many of the people in our country are leaning more to the left, as can be seen by the support for an avowed Marxists Zohran Mamdani in NYC, Congresswoman Cortez, and Bernie Sanders. Charlie Kirk recognized this threat and created Turning Point USA to defeat it. He appealed to the rational side of human nature–not the emotional side as the Marxists do. He was willing to debate all-comers and did so in a non-defensive manner. His slogan was “Prove me wrong!” Unfortunately, most of those on the left do not want rational debate which they cannot win, so they hurl insults and use hateful labels against their political opponents. Recent polling shows that left leaning people are much more likely to accept violence as a way of dealing with their opponents. This is especially troubling since it occurs on college campuses where one would hope that rational debate would be the ideal.

Charlie Kirk was also not afraid to state and defend his religious beliefs. In fact, he acknowledged that his Christian faith was the basis for his political stance and the motivation behind is effort to challenge destructive Marxist indoctrination. It must be remembered that Marxism is anti-religion in any form. In fact, Marxists endorse what is called nihilism, which essentially states that life has no meaning and that there are no absolute morals. Basically, one is free to do whatever one wants without guilt. It is impossible to imagine a law abiding, successful culture without any guidelines on behavior and no accepted right or wrong. One can see this thinking in those who believe in unrestricted abortion and especially in transgenderism where not even one’s sex is predetermined. This philosophy leads to hopelessness, depression, and lack of conscience, which we are seeing in the senseless killings, many of which are by transgenders and other disturbed individuals. Charlie Kirk fought against this destructive philosophy by including Christianity in his appeal to younger people.

Another traditional value that Charlie Kirk emphasized was the importance of the nuclear family and the raising of children. Marxism discourages the traditional family, since they want people to rely on the government not family. This enables them to more easily control people. Charlie challenged men to get married and assume the traditional role of a man as the breadwinner, leader and protector of wife and children. He realized that the declining birthrate in America would eventually be its undoing, as has happened to many earlier civilizations such as Rome. Marriage and raising a family are the natural order of things that is rejected by the Left, leading many people to live lonely, disconnected, and unfulfilled lives.  The Bible also supports the idea of being fruitful and multiplying.

The Left is always accusing the conservative right of being dangerous because of their affinity for guns and the Second Amendment. The truth is that the Leftists are the actual fomenters of violence. Not only with actual or attempted assassinations, but as one can see, by comparing the reactions to the death of George Floyd and Charlie Kirk. George Floyd was a multiple offender who refused to obey the legitimate command of law enforcement officers responding to the commission of a crime. The result was months of riots, burnings, robberies and taking over parts of cities. Many deaths and injuries, as well as billions of dollars in property damage, were the result. Charlie Kirk, a law-abiding father of two who was engaging in rational debate on a college campus, did nothing wrong except hold beliefs opposed to by the left. The reaction by conservatives has been vigils, prayer services, and memorials to a true patriot. Actually, this comparison is all one needs to know about the true threat to our republic. Over 50,000 media posts have celebrated the assassination of someone who did nothing but stand up for American principles and his religious faith. Things the Left cannot stand.

To respect the legacy of Charlie Kirk, we conservatives must show the same courage and convictions that he did. We cannot allow ourselves to be silenced. We must speak out as well as take action to rid ourselves of the Leftist ideology that is destroying our country. Getting involved and staying active in conservative organizations like the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association, supporting Turning Point USA, and attending school board meetings are some ways we can fight back against the Left. Because many of our universities are controlled by Leftist administrators and professors, I would like to see the Trump administration require all institutions receiving federal money, to balance the percentage of staff that are Left leaning with equal numbers of conservatives. Although extreme, it is going to take innovative action to reclaim the universities that are indoctrinating our children to hate America. Patriotism and love of country must be restored.

American Ingenuity At Work

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China has worked for years to obtain a monopoly on the rare earth minerals used in our technological society. They have been pretty successful in reaching a monopoly, but American ingenuity has thrown a wrench in their plans.

On Monday, Red State posted an article quoting Fox News:

In April, China imposed export restrictions on seven rare earth elements, crippling American manufacturing across dozens of critical sectors. Ford temporarily shuttered production lines while European suppliers closed entire factories. In one calculated move, Beijing demonstrated its power to hobble the West. 

This economic warfare represents decades of strategic planning. While America slept, China cornered the market on materials essential to modern civilization. By controlling 90% of rare-earth processing capacity, it dictates prices and decides who receives supplies. The periodic table became their ultimate economic weapon. 

But weapons can be rendered obsolete through superior innovation. American scientists discovered that combining iron, the planet’s fourth-most abundant element, with atmospheric nitrogen makes a compound more magnetic than anything produced by China. This breakthrough doesn’t just match Chinese materials; it surpasses them. 

Red State reports:

That’s a great way to stick a metaphorical thumb in the eye of not only Chairman Xi, but in the eyes of all of the members of the Chinese Communist Party.

The key? Magnets. This whole thing started in the 1980s. China was producing cheap magnets and exporting them around the world, shutting down a lot of domestic manufacturing in its customer nations. Magnets have countless industrial applications, used in everything from electric motors to windmills to electronics. 

On Monday, Fox News reported:

Yet, while China was tightening its grip, American researchers at the University of Minnesota had been solving a puzzle that had frustrated scientists since the 1950s. Professor Jian-Ping Wang spent nearly a decade perfecting techniques to synthesize iron nitride magnets from the most abundant elements on Earth. His breakthrough, published in 2010, finally explained how combining iron with nitrogen can create a material with magnetization exceeding anything China produces from rare earths. 

The physics is remarkable. Iron nitride retains full magnetization at 200 degrees Celsius, exceeding the temperature capability of all magnet compounds except those made from the scarcest and most expensive critical elements. Most importantly, the raw materials come from sources no nation can monopolize: Minnesota’s iron ore deposits and atmospheric nitrogen. Iron nitride represents something China cannot replicate — American innovation driven by scientific curiosity rather than state industrial policy — and reduces our national security and economic vulnerabilities while strengthening domestic manufacturing capacity. 

Please realize that I understand none of the physics involved in this. What I do know is that American scientists have learned how to overcome the Chinese monopoly.

Ending Government Shutdowns (And The Threat Of Government Shutdowns)

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On Sunday, Senator Ron Johnson posted an article at The Wall Street Journal that included a proposal that would end government shutdowns and end the threat of government shutdowns.

The article reports:

The U.S. has experienced three government shutdowns since I entered the Senate in 2011. During that time Congress has passed 55 continuing resolutions and increased or suspended the debt ceiling 12 times. The national debt has grown during those 14 years from $14 trillion to $37 trillion. In 2019 I supported a bill that would have done away with government shutdowns forever. It passed the committee I chaired 12-2, but never passed either chamber of Congress.

With another shutdown looming, I’ve introduced an even simpler bill, the Eliminate Shutdowns Act, that could end the drama and uncertainty of Congress’s budgetary dysfunction. Some argued the 2019 bill would lead to higher spending and prohibit consideration of other measures until appropriations bills were passed. Those were legitimate concerns. My new bill simply provides for automatic two-week rolling continuing resolutions for any department for which an appropriation bill or longer-term continuing resolution hasn’t been passed. This would keep spending flat by prorating the previous year’s spending level.

North Carolina has a similar method in place–until a budget is passed for the current two-year period, the budget for the previous two-year period remains in place.

The article concludes:

The fighting over funding fiscal 2025 lasted six months. No one can predict how long we will be at loggerheads trying to fund 2026. With Democrats demanding spending that increases 10-year deficits by $1.5 trillion as their price for a four-week continuing resolution, a shutdown seems all but certain. At least this time a Republican administration will manage the shutdown in a way that minimizes harm to the nation. Democrats take the opposite approach, looking for ways to inflict as much pain as possible for political advantage.

Fortunately, this turmoil can be avoided permanently by passing the Eliminate Shutdowns Act. Anyone voting “no” is voting to continue budgetary chaos and should be held accountable by the American people.

S.2806 – Eliminate Shutdowns Act was introduced in the Senate on September 15th.

Evil, But Not Surprising

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On Sunday, The Daily Signal posted an article about the sponsorship of unaccompanied children coming across America’s southern border.

The article reports:

Aaron Stevenson began to notice a disturbing trend early on in the Biden administration. As an intelligence analyst for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, it was his job to identify bad guys as well as emerging and novel threats to the U.S.  

In February 2021, a profile of an alien from Honduras with ties to the 18th Street Gang come across Stevenson’s desk. The profile of the man included language noting that he had applied to be an “unaccompanied child sponsor.” At the time, Stevenson told The Daily Signal he had no idea what that was.  

A month later, he saw the same language on another file, this time for a woman from El Salvador with ties to MS-13. And in April, he again saw reference to an “unaccompanied child sponsor” on a profile for a Romanian man with ties to a Balkan crime group. 

…In April 2021, Stevenson began calling the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to find out if anyone was tracking human-trafficking threats within the Unaccompanied Alien Children Program. 

“No” was essentially the answer Stevenson received. There was no formal tracking of child-trafficking threats within the U.S. program designed to place a child who crossed the border unaccompanied in the care of sponsor in the U.S., according to the analyst.  

…The analyst did an interview with Project Veritas in 2021, explaining what he was seeing and expressing the concerns he had over sponsor vetting. Deborah White, an employee of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, the office responsible for placing unaccompanied migrant children in the care of a sponsor, saw the interview, and it confirmed the trafficking patterns she was already seeing.

“In June 2021, I discovered the first case of trafficking and, along with my counterpart, Tara Rodas, reported it, but children continued to be sent to dangerous locations with improperly vetted sponsors,” White told lawmakers during a Senate Roundtable in July 2024 after she also blew the whistle on what she was seeing related to the program.  

“One case in Florida had over 12 children linked to one sponsor at multiple addresses,” according to White. “Children were sent to addresses that were abandoned houses or nonexistent in some cases.”  

The article concludes:

Among the 448,000 minors to enter the U.S. in recent years, ICE failed to issue more than 233,000 notices to appear in immigration court and more than 43,000 migrant children who were given a notice to appear in immigration court failed to do so, Joseph Cuffari, DHS inspector general, told members of Congress in July.  

“The Biden administration lost 450,000 unaccompanied children who were placed with unvetted sponsors or released into the country,” Tricia McLaughlin, assistant DHS secretary, told The Daily Signal.

Since Trump’s return to the White House, the administration has located 13,000 missing migrant children.  

Under the leadership of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, McLaughlin says the department is “leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited.”

These children need to be found as soon as possible and either reunited with their families or put in the hands of someone who will properly care for them.