The ‘Untold Threat’ Responsible for 40% of Illegal Aliens

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While the debate over illegal immigration tends to focus on how to control and treat those who make it across our nation’s borders, a more enduring challenge for the U.S. government has been what to do to stop legal entrants from overstaying their allotted time here.

The problem of so-called visa “overstays”—which make up about 40 percent of the 11 million people living illegally in the U.S.—will continue on past the Obama administration and follow the next president.

That’s partially because the government has not yet delivered on its long-promised—and congressionally mandated—plan to create a better checkout system to track who has left the country on time, and who hasn’t.

“It [visa overstays] is the most overlooked issue when it comes to immigration,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, said in an interview with The Daily Signal.

“It’s an untold threat,” McCaul added. “We are allowing millions of people to overstay visas and remain in this country who could potentially pose a threat to homeland security.”

The uncertainty around the scope of the problem comes at a time when a growing percentage of the illegal immigrant population is made up of visa overstays as opposed to people being apprehended at the border.

For more than 20 years, the U.S. government had struggled to quantify just how many people entered the country legally with a visa and stayed too long, making it impossible to prescribe policy fixes.

That finally changed in January, when the Department of Homeland Security released a first-of-its-kind study reporting that 527,127 people who traveled legally to the U.S. for business or leisure and were supposed to leave the country in fiscal year 2015 in fact overstayed their visas.

This figure is larger than the 337,117 people caught crossing the border illegally last year.

The long-awaited data from 2015 was not all-encompassing. It counted only visa holders who entered the U.S. by air and sea, not by land, and it did not include those who came as students or temporary workers.

Still, immigration and security experts as well as policymakers welcomed the new information because they thought it would force the government to move faster on methods to improve, most importantly in trying to assemble a system to obtain biometric data—such as fingerprints, facial recognition images, and eye scans—on those leaving the country.

‘A Top Issue’

The 9/11 Commission recommended the Department of Homeland Security complete an entry and exit system “as soon as possible,” viewing it as an important national security tool because two of the hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, had overstayed their visas.

Plagued by financial and logistical challenges, the government has introduced various pilot projects at some airports and land borders, but is still a few years off from implementing a biometric exit system on a large scale.

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has pledged to have biometric checks at major airports in 2018, and Congress in last year’s omnibus spending bill authorized $1 billion in visa fee increases over 10 years to pay for an exit system.

The struggle to install a biometric exit tracking system is well known.

Foreigners who apply to enter the U.S. on a visa are interviewed and photographed and have their fingerprints taken at a consulate overseas before arriving here. But collecting biometric data on those exiting the country is not as easy.

That’s because U.S. airports do not have exclusive terminals for domestic and international flights, which makes it hard for officers from Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Patrol to screen overseas travelers and get their information.

“Most countries have a designated checkout system built in airports,” Stewart Verdery, a senior Homeland Security official during George W. Bush’s administration, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. Verdery added:

We just didn’t build our airports this way. So the question is where do you collect the information in a way that doesn’t inconvenience travelers and is actually effective in making sure someone has left? None of the options are particularly great. And though the biometric equipment is very mature, there is also a manpower issue over who maintains the machines.

To satisfy these limitations, Verdery expects the government to pursue a facial recognition exit system that automatically would snap a traveler’s photograph—likely at the gate.

‘It Doesn’t Matter’

Even if the U.S. were to settle on a workable exit tracking method, some national security experts doubt that such a system would be an effective counterterrorism tool, especially when considering its cost.

David Inserra, a homeland security expert at The Heritage Foundation, says the government could just as well use already collected biographical information, such as a traveler’s name and date of birth, to track exits and collect overstay data. But other experts say bad actors could use fake passports and aliases to bypass a system that did not require biometrics such as fingerprints and facial recognition.

No matter the method used, Inserra and other experts note that an exit system simply reveals who has departed—and remained—in the country. It would not help discover where those that stayed are living, and whether they present a security risk.

“Even if you have the greatest biometric exit system, if someone doesn’t leave, it doesn’t matter,” Inserra said, adding:

You are now left with the problem of every other police officer looking for someone. They are a missing person who doesn’t want to be found. If you want to stop visa overstays, the solution isn’t to spend money on an exit system.

Inserra argues that policymakers instead should give more money to intelligence agencies such as Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement so they can go into communities and try to locate—and deport—people who overstayed their visas.

Yet other experts are doubtful that would happen. They say the government does not prioritize enforcing immigration law against those who’ve stayed past their visa expiration date because those travelers were screened before coming here.

“In terms of removing a garden variety illegal migrant, you aren’t going to search for somebody on that basis,” Edward Alden, an immigration and visa policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an interview with The Daily Signal. “The notion we will have some special dedicated effort to go find overstays I find completely implausible.”

Alden says the government can take simpler steps to deter visa overstays, by emailing reminders to foreigners of their expected departure date, specifying the consequences of not leaving on time.

Many who overstay their visas don’t intend to settle in America, Alden contends.

The Homeland Security report from earlier this year found that as of Jan. 4, a total of 416,500 of the 527,127 overstays in 2015 remained in the U.S. More have left the country since then, the government says.

The government also has taken diplomatic steps to better track foreign visitors, especially by improving information sharing with Canada, the country that had the most overstays in the U.S.

The U.S. and Canada exchange names and biographical information of those from third countries who enter on their shared border. Mexico, the second-largest source of visa overstays in the U.S., generally does not yet have the capacity to exchange information like that, Alden says.

‘Serious About Enforcement’

Despite these improvements, Congress is not backing off its demand for a biometric exit system.

McCaul, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, says he hopes for a vote next year on a broad border security bill he sponsored last year. It includes a provision requiring the government to establish an exit system at the 15 largest airports, seaports, and land ports within two years.

The legislation, which President Barack Obama promised to veto, would impose financial and other penalties on Department of Homeland Security political appointees if the government fails to meet the timeline.

Having the best data possible, supporters of the exit system say, will give the government incentive to more aggressively enforce the law against those who’ve overstayed visas.

“I think once the government gets an exit system up and running, they’ll be serious about enforcement,” Verdery said, adding:

We will never have a system where we will go out and find someone who overstays and just wants to do nothing on their buddy’s couch. But we will go out and find them when they try to get a job, draw the attention of law enforcement, or illegally try to claim benefits.

(For more from the author of “The ‘Untold Threat’ Responsible for 40% of Illegal Aliens” please click HERE)

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Americans Face Fewer Obamacare Choices, Higher Premiums in 2017

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As open season begins Tuesday for enrollment in Obamacare next year, most customers for health insurance in the individual market will face both fewer choices and higher premiums under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.

More than three-fifths of the states, 33 of them, will have fewer insurers offering coverage on the Obamacare exchanges than they did in 2016.

Arizona and Texas are each losing six insurers, while two other states—Kentucky and Ohio—are losing four each. Only one state, Virginia, will have more exchange insurers next year than this year.

Five states—Alabama, Alaska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming—will have only one insurer offering exchange coverage in 2017, while another 13 states will have only two.

Because many of the remaining insurers offer coverage only in part of a state, the reduction in choice is even more pronounced at the county level. One-third of all U.S. counties (32.8 percent) will have only one insurer offering exchange coverage in 2017, and another one-third (35.9 percent) will have only two competing insurers.

So exchange customers in two-thirds (68.7 percent) of U.S. counties will be faced with either a monopoly or a duopoly in health insurance.

At the same time, insurers also have increased premiums significantly. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Obamacare, had to admit that premiums are increasing by an average of 25 percent in the 39 states using the federally run insurance exchange.

Indeed, residents of 10 states using the federal exchange face average premium increases of 40 percent or more: Alabama (58 percent), Arizona (116 percent), Illinois (43 percent), Kansas (42 percent), Montana (44 percent), North Carolina (40 percent), Nebraska (51 percent), Oklahoma (69 percent), Pennsylvania (53 percent), and Tennessee (63 percent). In at least one state running its own exchange (Minnesota) premiums are increasing by a similar rate (56 percent).

The Obama administration has tried to spin this news by repeatedly stating that 85 percent of customers on one of the state insurance exchanges receive taxpayer-funded subsidies for their coverage, which will soften the blow to their wallets.

While that is technically true, it offers an incomplete and misleading picture.

The most recent comprehensive enrollment data show that 17.7 million Americans had health coverage from the individual market as of the end of 2015. Of that number, 7.4 million (42 percent) had coverage subsidized by taxpayers, while the remaining 10.3 million (58 percent) paid the full cost on their own.

Because the Affordable Care Act bars insurers from charging off-exchange customers a different premium than on-exchange customers for the same plan, nearly 60 percent of those with individual market coverage will face the full cost of any premium increases.

Want to understand why Obamacare remains persistently unpopular?

Consider the likely reactions of those 10 million Americans as they open letters from their insurers informing them of their premium increases—or, worse, that their health care coverage is being discontinued. (For more from the author of “Americans Face Fewer Obamacare Choices, Higher Premiums in 2017” please click HERE)

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After This State Blocked Online Eye Exams, a Health Care Startup Is Fighting Back

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A Chicago-based health care startup that allows customers to conduct eye exams from their homes and obtain a prescription is fighting back against a South Carolina law that prohibits the company from operating in the state.

Opternative, an online eye exam company, and the Institute for Justice, a public interest law firm, filed a lawsuit in South Carolina civil court last week arguing that a law passed in May violates the state constitution.

“Opternative wasn’t banned in South Carolina because there was anything wrong with their technology or because there was any public health or safety problem with their technology,” Robert McNamara, a lawyer with the Institute for Justice, told The Daily Signal. “They were banned because their technology interferes with the business model of established optometrists.”

Opternative, which was founded in 2012 and launched to the public in 2015, developed technology that allows customers to obtain a prescription for glasses and contacts without ever stepping foot in a doctor’s office.

Using Opternative’s technology, customers self-perform their own vision test for $40 using a smartphone and computer. The results of the exam, along with answers to a list of questions about the patient’s medical history, are then compiled and sent through Opternative’s platform to a state-licensed ophthalmologist, who reviews the information and writes a prescription.

Opternative currently operates in 39 states, but the company has been effectively banned in South Carolina.

There, state lawmakers passed the Eye Care Consumer Protection Law this year, which states that vision assessments “must not be based solely on objective refractive data or information generated by an automated testing device, including an autorefractor or other electronic refractive-only testing device, to provide a medical diagnosis or to establish a refractive error for a patient as part of an eye examination.”

The American Optometric Association pushed for the legislation, but Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, ultimately vetoed the bill and criticized it for using “health practice mandates to stifle competition for the benefit of a single industry.”

“If [the bill were] allowed to become law, South Carolina would become the eighth state to impose such a ban, putting us on the leading edge of protectionism, not innovation,” Haley continued.

The Republican-led state Legislature ultimately voted to override Haley’s veto, with the Senate voting 39-3 and the House voting 98-1.

“This bill is protectionist legislation at its worst,” Aaron Dallek, Opternative’s CEO, told The Daily Signal. “It protected the economic interest of one group of people over the interest of the citizens of the great state of South Carolina.”

According to a complaint filed with the state court, the lawsuit argues that the law keeps Opternative from exercising its right to “pursue an honest living free from arbitrary, irrational, and protectionist regulation.”

“The South Carolina Constitution protects people’s right to be free from arbitrary and unreasonable economic regulations, and it’s part of an ongoing trend we’ve seen in state courts of announcing that their state constitutions are going to give people stronger protections against this kind of arbitrary or protectionist economic regulation than you might see under the federal constitution,” McNamara said.

In response to the lawsuit, Barbara Horn, secretary-treasurer of the American Optometric Association and an optometrist in Conway, South Carolina, said Opternative and the Institute for Justice “are not concerned about the health care needs” of South Carolinians.

The American Optometric Association also filed a complaint with the Food and Drug Administration in April urging the agency to take action against Opternative.

“Having lost decisively in our state capital and still lacking any credible research or federal medical device approvals, they’ve come back to try to impose their profit-driven approach to health care on South Carolina,” Horn said on behalf of the organization regarding the lawsuit. “Their questionable legal tactics will cost the citizens of our state time and money—resources better invested in protecting the health of our patients.”

McNamara, meanwhile, said the South Carolina Legislature has carved out specific regulations and restrictions for eye care and optometrists, specifically.

In June—one month after the Legislature voted to override Haley’s veto of the Eye Care Consumer Protection Law—state lawmakers passed the South Carolina Telemedicine Act, which legalized telemedicine across the state.

The two laws, McNamara said, conflict with each other.

“That’s part of what makes the ban on Opternative’s technology unconstitutional,” he said. “What the state has essentially said is, ‘We don’t have a problem with telemedicine, and we trust doctors, as long as they’re meeting the standard of care, to choose what technology they want to use and choose how they want to incorporate the internet into their practice, except for ophthalmologists.’”

In addition to South Carolina, lawmakers in Georgia and Indiana passed bills this year prohibiting Opternative from operating in those states.

Dallek said the company “doesn’t make threats” regarding the potential for legal challenges to laws in those two states. However, he didn’t rule it out completely.

“We do believe that we have the right to defend our doctors’ right to offer affordable and convenient eye care services to their patients, and we’ll work with those states to try to correct any legislative restrictions on our services,” Dallek said. “If we have to, we’ll use the judicial system to defend our doctors’ constitutional right to their economic freedom.”

Challenges to Opternative’s technology underscore debates taking place in state legislatures nationwide and in the courts following the rise of technology companies like Uber and Airbnb.

In response to these new technologies, government officials at the local and state level have passed ordinances and laws regulating companies like Opternative.

McNamara said that no matter what the company or service is—be it eye care, ride-sharing, or mobile vending—the core issue remains the same.

“When you look at these fights, it’s always the same underlying phenomenon. Whatever the specific facts of the case are, it is always a legislature kowtowing to a powerful, private interest group at the expense of some new entrant, some entrepreneur, some innovator,” he said.

“I think a big solution to the problem is to persuade the courts to continue the growing trend of taking a serious look at regulations like this and standing up to the protectionists for protectionists sake,” McNamara continued. (For more from the author of “After This State Blocked Online Eye Exams, a Health Care Startup Is Fighting Back” please click HERE)

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Wall Street Journal: New FBI Investigation Could Include 650K Emails

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New information is coming out about the FBI’s new examination of emails that relate to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s email practices as U.S. Secretary of State. The Wall Street Journal reports that 650,000 emails may have been discovered in a computer previously unknown to investigators, and USA TODAY reports that investigators are negotiating with “representatives” of senior Clinton aide Huma Abedin for access to her computer.

FBI Director James Comey’s letter about a newly discovered trove of e-mails on a computer shared by Abedin and husband former Rep. Anthony Weiner has been slammed as partisan by Democrats and as an issue of transparency by Republicans. Comey’s letter came despite a DOJ recommendation that he not reveal the new information publicly, as it could affect the election. Weiner is reportedly cooperating with authorities.

The DOJ’s decision-making on the Clinton investigation has been under fire since Comey decided not to recommend charges against Clinton for her illegal practices. The July decision was predated by a meeting between U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton.

On Sunday morning, Fox News‘ Chris Wallace grilled Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook on the campaign’s false claim that Comey’s letter was sent solely to Republicans. Likewise, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked campaign chairman John Podesta if Clinton was to blame for the email controversies that have arisen thanks to Clinton’s use of a private server instead of a State Department server.

While criticism of Comey has mostly come from the left and the Clinton campaign, some voices on the right have also denounced Comey’s decision. GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump supporter and former prosecutor Jeanine Pirro said that “Comey’s actions violate” DOJ policy and “the most fundamental rules of fairness and impartiality.” Washington Post columnist and noted Trump opponent George Will called the letter a “contentless October surprise.”

Comey’s letter was publicized on Friday; it was later reported that the emails are on Weiner’s computer. Weiner used the computer as part of his effort to exchange sexually explicit messages with women, including a minor. The emails were discovered by accident as the FBI investigated Weiner. (For more from the author of “Wall Street Journal: New FBI Investigation Could Include 650K Emails” please click HERE)

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Obama, Clinton, DOJ and the IRS: Are We More Corrupt Than Russia?

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Imagine this scenario if you will. The government decides to crack down on a shady internet company, subpoenaing all their computer data. Within minutes, at the direction of the CEO, one employee begins deleting thousands of documents while other employees begin to destroy their computers, cell phones, and tablets, using hammers and fists and feet. Then, when called on to testify for their actions, the CEO responds dozens of times with, “I don’t remember,” while the employees who deleted data and destroyed their hardware are granted immunity and/or plead the fifth. Then, when a government official is suspected of being in collusion with this shady company, that official also pleads the fifth.

“What corruption!” you say, and rightly so. “What an outrageous cover-up! Obviously, this company is going to get nailed to the wall by the law. Their actions and words testify loudly to their guilt.”

Of course, I fully agree, but what makes this scenario even more outrageous is that the players involved are a presidential candidate (and former Secretary of State), Hillary Clinton, a number of her key employees, the current Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, and possibly even the President of the United States, Barack Obama.

And let’s not forget the corrupt activities of the IRS, also in apparent collusion with the Obama administration. (Remember that this deleted email syndrome, along with the custom of pleading the fifth, goes back to Lois Lerner of IRS infamy, she who stonewalled conservative organizations seeking IRS approval.)

Here’s a brief summary of the most glaring examples of corruption and cover-up in the Obama-Hillary era (and I won’t even get into Benghazi here, since that would take us too far afield):

When Lois Lerner was ordered to produce her emails, somehow, they had gone missing — mysteriously scrubbed — and when called on to answer direct questions by Congress, she refused, pleading the fifth Amendment. She was even held in contempt of Congress.

Not to be outdone, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen (and Lois Lerner’s boss) was almost impeached by Congress for his misdeeds and non-cooperation (can one be impeached for arrogance?), and the evidence against the IRS continues to mount, all in apparent collusion with the Obama administration.

Moving on to Hillary Clinton, her “extremely careless” actions (to quote FBI Director James Comey) occurred while she was Secretary of State, and it was only after her emails were subpoenaed by the FBI that she deleted 33,000 of them. (She claims they were deleted previously, but the evidence contradicts that.) This alone is unimaginable.

When interviewed by the FBI about using a private server for government emails, she repeatedly stated that she didn’t remember certain critical details, pointing to a head injury as the cause. (Why plead the fifth when your memory fails you, perhaps legitimately?)

In June, when Bryan Pagliano, a former Hillary staffer involved with her emails, was deposed to testify by a conservative advocacy group, he pleaded the fifth no less than 125 times. (And this was after he had been granted immunity!)

In September, when Hillary staffers Paul Combetta and Bill Thornton appeared before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to testify about their involvement in the email scandal, they too pleaded the fifth. (Why not? It seems to be the thing to do.)

As to the physical destruction of some of Hillary’s cell phones by her staff, “CNN anchor Brooke Baldwin was so surprised to learn that Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s aides destroyed her phones with a hammer, she literally couldn’t believe it.” This is saying a lot when a CNN correspondent is shocked by the actions of the Clintons.

When Congressman Trey Gowdy questioned James Comey over his failure to indict Hillary over the email scandal, Comey’s answers only exposed the absurdity of his failure to indict. Is it any surprise that agents within the FBI were allegedly “disgusted” over Comey’s decision not to indict? (Could it be that Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch were not just talking about grandchildren when they held their famous, clandestine meeting on the plane?)

And speaking of Loretta Lynch, when called on this past week to testify about America’s secret (ransom?) payments to Iran, she refused to comply, also pleading the fifth. In response, senators Marco Rubio and Mike Pompeo stated, “As the United States’ chief law enforcement officer, it is outrageous that you would essentially plead the fifth and refuse to respond to inquiries.”

Finally, returning to our president, there is growing evidence that he was aware that Hillary was using a private email server for government correspondence and that he himself wrote to her using her private e-address.

It is, then, little wonder that only 26 percent of my Twitter followers who responded to a poll felt that we were “way better” than Russia when it came to “government corruption and media collusion,” while a whopping 74 percent of those responding felt that America was “about the same” as or “even worse” than Russia in these ways (respectively, 51 percent and 23 percent).

Of course, the vast majority of those responding to my poll have, presumably, never lived in Russia, so we really don’t know how valid their viewpoints are. But in light of the most recent, shocking email developments, virtually forcing James Comey to re-open his Hillary investigation just days before the election, one senses that we have only seen the tip of the iceberg — and what a filthy iceberg it is.

May God bring everything to light, and may He grant us mercy and repentance. The mess seems ready to hit the fan. (For more from the author of “Obama, Clinton, DOJ and the IRS: Are We More Corrupt Than Russia?” please click HERE)

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The Baby Elephant in the Room: Pro Abortion Researchers Attack Abortion Stigma

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Abortion activists have removed the barriers to abortion across the West, with millions of women and men being part of abortion decisions and procedures.

Yet, despite the massive number of abortions, researchers and public health officials note the persistence of stigma associated with the procedure:

… abortion stigma can be observed at the individual level by measuring worries about the judgment by others, isolation, self-judgment (such as shame), and perceptions of community condemnation. (Cockrill et al., 2013)

Leila Hessini, writing in Rewire, takes it one step further and says that abortion stigma is a form of discrimination:

Abortion stigma occurs when people are labeled, dehumanized, or discriminated against due to their need for, or association with, abortion.

Students at Loyola University participated in a Student’s for Reproductive Choice activity with a papaya to help de-stigmatize abortion:

Students used a papaya to learn about vacuum aspiration abortions, claiming it’s similar to sucking out papaya seeds … a “teacher” tells a student how to insert the cannula into the papaya (uterus) and instructs her on how far to go and how to suck out the insides. … The purpose of the papaya workshop is for students to learn about aspiration abortions, and to destigmatize abortion in general.

Kate Cockrill, MPH is the co-founder of Sea Change, whose mission is to “transform the culture of reproductive stigma.”

The Sea Change website asks some questions about abortion stigma:

Why is abortion so hard to talk about?

Why does getting an abortion often feel illicit and shameful?

Why don’t we hear about the abortion experiences of our mothers, sisters, friends?

Cockrill and her colleagues talk about strategies to reduce and eliminate abortion stigma with the goal of lessening a woman’s isolation and building connection, social support and validation of their abortion decision:

We can imagine a world in which abortion stigma and shame do not taint the relationships of people with abortion experiences … People might talk regularly about their abortion experiences with co-workers, friends, and family members. …

Reduce the secrecy — remove the shame guilt and silence — and women are supported and empowered by their reproductive choices. Abortion is just another in a series of life events and transitions that women can share with friends and family.

Yet even here in the United States where abortion is displayed in media and television in a positive light, most of the women and men who experience this most common and intimate of medical procedures keep it a closely guarded secret.

The Lived Reality of Abortion — The Female Body is Not Pro-Choice

Pro-abortion researchers and public health officials look outside the individual for the source of stigma. The lens through which they look at a woman’s abortion experience is filtered through a narrative of abortion as an act of female autonomy and empowerment.

After all, abortion is as simple as sucking the seeds out of a papaya, right?

Women who have experienced the procedure have a different perspective*:

It was extremely painful, and I will never in my life forget the loud horrifying sound of the suction machine taking the life out of my body. — Cathy

Funny thing about the pro abortion language of bodily autonomy and choice — a woman’s body is not pro-choice.

Once conception occurs, and the pregnancy is developing normally, a woman’s body nurtures and protects the life in her womb. On an emotional and physiological level, a woman has to violate and sever an intimate communion between mother and developing child when that relationship and pregnancy is terminated.

The shame, guilt and unacknowledged loss called “disenfranchised grief” are common after the procedure. They are connected to a sense within a woman of violating something innate, deep within her identity and an intuitive sense that this intimate relationship has been severed.

The biggest impact abortion has had on me is that every time I look at my children I have now, I think about that little face I never saw and the child I have never known. — Aimee B.C., Canada

Women and also men may develop various addictions and become involved in abusive relationships and impulsive sex to dull their pain. Many others throw themselves into hyper-success drive to get far away from their guilt and grief.

I lost what I was trying to save with the abortion. I sacrificed my children on the altar of my ambition. Addictions came into my life as I tried to run from the pain. My misery drove me to my knees. — David

Pro-choice feminists Kate Michelman of NARAL and Gloria Steinem zealously promoted abortion rights after their abortions. Their natural post-abortion feelings of sadness, grief and guilt were channeled into abortion rights activism. Others become public health workers, researchers and volunteers spreading abortion rights around the globe.

Leslie shares about her pro-choice activism after an abortion:

I discovered I was pregnant and I had just landed my dream job as a TV Talk Show Host. A roommate drove me to an abortion clinic in Greensboro, N.C.

After graduation, I threw myself into the new job creating a façade of the perfect young career girl who had it all together … drinking, drugging and sleeping around … self destructing.

Trying to validate my choices, I became a strong pro-abortion supporter and at times militant with anyone who didn’t agree with my opinion.

Stigma as the Door to Recovery

Pro abortion public health officials imagine a world free of abortion stigma and shame.

Yet when a woman or man participates in the death of their unborn child, they naturally experience feelings of sadness, fear of judgment, and isolation in their secret shame. Even when there is a sense of relief after the procedure there are still feelings of grief, anxiety and emptiness.

The path to recovery, and the reduction and elimination of the feelings associated with abortion stigma, requires an affirmation of what was lost and the healing of the broken relationship between parent and child. This is best accomplished in a faith-based abortion recovery program with others who have experienced this loss.

Pro abortion ideology blinds abortion researchers like Kate Cockrill to the true source of abortion stigma and the effective remedy for women and men’s post abortion suffering.

It’s the baby elephant in the room of the pro abortion movement. (For more from the author of “The Baby Elephant in the Room: Pro Abortion Researchers Attack Abortion Stigma” please click HERE)

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Mark Levin Demands ‘Serious’ FBI Investigation of ‘Dishonest and Dirty’ Hillary Clinton

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Conservative Review Editor-in-Chief Mark Levin blasted Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in response to Friday’s shocking news that FBI Director James Comey is reopening the investigation into the former secretary of state’s email server.

“It’s beyond obvious that Hillary is so dishonest and dirty even Comey couldn’t ignore it any longer. Let’s hope this is a serious investigation unencumbered by political partisans,” Levin said.

The news broke Friday afternoon.

In a letter addressed to Congress, FBI Director James Comey announced his decision to go forward with the case.

“In connection with an unrelated case,” Comey wrote, “the FBI has learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the investigation. I am writing to inform you that the investigative team briefed me on this yesterday, and I agreed that the GI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as wel as to assess their importance to our investigation.”

“Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before,” GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said of the breaking news at a rally in Manchester, N.H. “We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.” The statement was met by loud chants of “Lock her up!”

Trump’s campaign team greeted the news with glee.

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wisc. (F, 51%) renewed his call for Hillary Clinton’s security clearance to be revoked following the FBI’s decision.

House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. (D, 64%) echoed Speaker Ryan’s call.

What, if anything, will come from this renewed investigation with just a week-and-a-half until Election Day? Is this the October surprise that will keep the White House out of Hillary Clinton’s clutches?

Tune in to “The Mark Levin Show” tonight at 6 p.m. ET for Mark’s full analysis of this bombshell development. (For more from the author of “Mark Levin Demands ‘Serious’ FBI Investigation of ‘Dishonest and Dirty’ Hillary Clinton” please click HERE)

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Hillary Clinton’s Continuing Email Saga Reminds Us That God Is God, and We Are Not

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While we await the political fallout of Friday’s bombshell that FBI director James Comey is re-opening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, there is an angle to this story that will likely be ignored. However, it is arguably the most important angle of them all.

God is God, and we are not.

He gives us rules for a reason, and there’s a reason why He calls them commandments and not mere suggestions. Regardless of what pretend “law” wayward human institutions may conjure, there really is only one law on this planet and it is His. And if we persist in breaking His law, it will ultimately break us.

This presidential election is a painful reminder of this truth. For it is being driven not by substantive issues that will really determine the future of our nation for the next four years, but by this very principle. Three men — Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and now Anthony Weiner — and their unrestrained sexual appetites are going to play the biggest roles in the outcome on November 8th. Not the candidates’ positions on real issues.

Because try as we might, and pretend as we so often do, the real issue has always been character. It counts most of all. Public policy doesn’t trump (no pun intended) personal integrity, despite all the sweet nothings we tell ourselves so we can justify wallowing in our sin all the more.

Whether it’s the predatory and/or boorish actions of Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, or now the tawdry creepiness of Anthony Weiner, exposing yourself to those you’re not married to at the time exposes you to more trouble than you can possibly imagine. As well as to those around you, and often at the least opportune times. Our sins have a way of finding us out.

This election is nothing more than that age-old story. Wars have been fought over the unrestrained sexual appetites of men. Like when a face once launched a thousand ships. Kingdoms have been threatened by the unrestrained sexual appetites of men, like we see with David and his son Solomon in the Bible. Families are often ended in this culture by the unrestrained sexual appetites of our men, which is constantly fed and fomented by the perpetual red light district that exists online.

Though we want to tell ourselves what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms is nobody else’s business, or flaunt on a hot mic is just harmless “locker room talk,” the exact opposite is true. For now what Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Anthony Weiner were doing in these circumstances is everyone’s business.

It even impacts America’s ability to do business. Like when the stock market plunged in reaction to the news the FBI was re-opening the Clinton investigation thanks to Weiner’s sexting scandal. Weiner was too far gone to contemplate how he was endangering himself with his sins, let alone the amount of money lost in one day on Wall Street thanks to his lack of restraint.

Similarly, Bill Clinton never bothered to consider he could bring down his whole presidency for turning the word “humidor” into a verb with an intern in the White House. And it’s obvious Donald Trump’s entire life — from the divorces, to the bankruptcies, to the way he’s campaigned on the biggest stage of all — has been an exercise in escaping any accountability whatsoever.

Yet, here we are in the final days before another important election. Caught in the Bermuda Triangle of three men’s genitals, with literally the immediate future of the country at stake.

I say these provocative things not because I’m self-righteous, but because of my own lack of righteousness. Like so many of the men in my generation, I was literally discipled into and marinated by today’s porn chic that is all the rage. I know who Ron Jeremy is. Who John Holmes was. Who Jenna Jameson is. In fact, I’ve got carnal knowledge of all three, if you know what I mean. I wasn’t a virgin on my wedding night. My wife and I lived together before we were married, and we didn’t sleep in separate rooms.

In short, I did everything God said not to do. The only difference between me and these three men is the power they had at their disposal to act out in ways my limited means did not permit me to.

On second thought, there’s another difference between me and them. I agreed to let God go about changing my life, and consented to the painstaking work of transforming me into the person He made to be. Not the person my sin was turning me into.

That work is not complete yet by any means, and my flaws are still there. Sometimes I still succumb to them, too. However, I’m also not the same person I used to be by any means, either, as my wife will attest.

These three men need accountability for their actions, for sure, including being nowhere near the most powerful office in all the world in an ideal situation. Although at least one of them likely will be come January.

But even more than they need accountability, they need forgiveness. Not from us, but from God. The forgiveness they must seek for themselves. We should pray they will seek it, so they can learn as I have that mercy triumphs over judgment. That God’s grace doesn’t mean we escape accountability, but gives us the character to accept it and then the strength to overcome our weaknesses. To be better than we are, and we ever could be on our own.

Christian leaders like Billy Graham used to deliver this message to our politicians, which is why they were often friends to those in power regardless of party. Unfortunately, in this election, it seems as if Christian leaders have delivered every message but this one. How many Christian leaders do you believe are hoping to politically capitalize on the failings of these three men rather than do anything to help them sincerely repent and be truly restored?

That’s the real Gospel, not some seat at the table. Sadly, though, it is a Gospel mostly being silenced in exchange for the false gospel of partisanship. Which means we are likely to continue suffering as a result of the sins of our unrepentant politicians no matter who wins in November. (For more from the author of “Hillary Clinton’s Continuing Email Saga Reminds Us That God Is God, and We Are Not” please click HERE)

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The 240 Reagan Alumni Are Supporting Donald Trump

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As the 2016 presidential election enters the home stretch, Donald Trump is gaining support from a group of people that have — up to now — stayed silent: members of Ronald Reagan’s administration. Throughout the campaign, many Republicans have been on the sidelines, and some have openly gone over to Hillary Clinton’s team. The weekend’s announcement by the Trump campaign could go a long way toward convincing on-the-fence conservatives to vote for the Trump-Pence ticket on Nov. 8.

The list of alumni is headlined by former U.S. Attorney General Ed Meese III.

“Many of us remember 1980, a time when, as today, America suffered from high unemployment and even higher interest rates, a military that needed to be strengthened and rebuilt, and diminished stature in the world of nations,” said Meese, per DonaldJTrump.com.

“Ronald Reagan turned that around with resolute policies, such as the most significant tax cut in American history, which stimulated the national economy and created 20 million jobs, and a visionary foreign policy of ‘peace through strength,’ whereby he rebuilt our military and won the Cold War without firing a shot.”

Meese continued, “We need a Trump-Pence Administration to change the direction of our country. We all know that Hillary Clinton will continue Obama’s failed policies, growing the size, scope and cost of the federal government, and endangering our national security.”

[Click HERE for the] full list of those Reagan administration alumni supporting Trump.

With narrowing polls, and Hillary Clinton’s renewed legal troubles, this endorsement list may be just what Trump needs to get wavering conservatives to pull the ballot for him. (For more from the author of “The 240 Reagan Alumni Are Supporting Donald Trump” please click HERE)

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‘Hope Is Not Enough’: Ukrainian University Students Prepare for War

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The young man never told anyone he was going to war.

The 20-year-old student at Kyiv’s Taras Shevchenko National University slipped away in June 2014 to join a civilian paramilitary group fighting in eastern Ukraine.

The young man, whose name was Sviatoslav Horbenko, was a star pupil at the university’s Institute of Philology, where he studied Japanese. When he transferred from a university in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, during his third year, he had to retake 17 exams.

He aced them all.

“There was no bellicose air about him,” said Serhiy Yanchuk, an associate professor at Taras Shevchenko University and coordinator of the university’s Students Guard, a volunteer militia comprising students and faculty.

“He never acted or behaved aggressively for his personal cause,” Yanchuk said. “He was friendly, warm hearted, and an easy-going person. One would surely want to be a friend of such a guy.”

“He was an exceptional student,” said Ivan Bondarenko, a professor who heads the university’s Institute of Philology. “And he was an inspiration to all of us.”

Horbenko’s angular features and piercing eyes distinguished him physically, reflecting the intensity of his inner convictions. His work ethic and natural intelligence set him apart from his peers academically, inspiring high hopes for the future among those who knew him well.

Horbenko’s father, Olexander Horbenko, is a surgeon. He volunteered to treat wounded protesters in Kyiv during the 2014 revolution.

The younger Horbenko was active in pro-revolution groups in Kharkiv, where he was studying at the time. As the revolution became violent in February 2014, Olexander Horbenko encouraged his son to transfer to Kyiv to continue his studies due to the threat of reprisals against protesters by authorities in Kharkiv.

At his father’s behest, the younger Horbenko moved to Kyiv and settled into life and his studies at Taras Shevchenko National University.

And then, a few months after the war began in the summer of 2014, Sviatoslav Horbenko disappeared. Without telling his friends, family, or teachers, he joined Right Sector, a civilian volunteer battalion, to fight at the battle for the Donetsk airport.

Olexander Horbenko ultimately was able to track Sviatoslav down at boot camp. The father tried to dissuade his son from going to war. But Sviatoslav was determined.

“That was my last meeting with him alive, our unforgettable conversation,” Olexander Horbenko later said. “Sviatoslav considered defending his fatherland as his duty, and he developed the strong bonds of military comradeship.”

At their parting, the elder Horbenko placed a necklace with an icon and a cross around his son’s neck. It was the same necklace worn by his own father—Sviatoslav’s grandfather—during World War II when he fought the Nazis. And Olexander had worn it as he weathered sniper fire on the Maidan during the revolution.

“And I let him go,” Olexander Horbenko said. It was the last time he saw his son alive.

In September 2014, Sviatoslav Horbenko stepped onto the battlefield for the first time. One month later, on Oct. 3, 2014, he ran into the line of fire to rescue a wounded comrade.

While Horbenko dragged the man to safety, a tank shot at them. A piece of shrapnel from the round went into Horbenko’s neck, slicing his carotid artery. He was dead within minutes. As for the soldier he had run out to save—he survived.

“Death takes the best of us,” said Denys Antipov, an instructor at Taras Shevchenko University and a veteran of the war in eastern Ukraine.

Because Horbenko served in a civilian volunteer battalion, he is not officially recognized as a combatant by the Ukrainian government. He has not received any posthumous decorations, and his family has not received the compensation of about $23,000 that typically is given to the families of fallen soldiers.

“His family feels really humiliated by such ignorance,” said Yanchuk, the professor who coordinates the university’s Students Guard.

Hell and Cyborgs

The second battle for the Donetsk airport, for which Horbenko volunteered, was fought at close quarters, and it was brutal.

Opposing troops sometimes holed up on different floors of the same building. For months, soldiers on both sides endured near constant shelling, tank shots, rocket attacks, close-quarters gunfights, and even hand-to-hand fighting, according to some Ukrainian soldiers who fought in the battle.

Ukrainian soldiers had taken control of the airport in May 2014, during the opening weeks of the war. That September, weeks after the conflict’s first cease-fire, combined Russian-separatist forces launched an offensive—comprising heavy armor, artillery, and rocket attacks—to take back the airport.

What followed was an apocalyptic showdown that lasted until January 2015.

The Ukrainians gave the nickname “cyborgs” to their soldiers who fought at the Donetsk airport—a reference to the science fiction beings that are a fusion of man and machine. It alluded to the superhuman grit required to endure such intense and brutal fighting, and a mechanical ability to endure endless fear and suffering.

Donetsk’s Sergey Prokofiev International Airport was rebuilt in 2011 for the Euro 2012 soccer championships. More than 1 million passengers passed through the facility in 2013, the year before the war started, on airlines including Lufthansa and Aeroflot.

The new terminal was stylish and modern. It featured manicured landscaping, polished floors, and chic metal detailing. A bellwether, many hoped, for Ukraine’s more prosperous future.

As the war in Ukraine evolved from skirmishes to artillery and tank battles in 2014, the Donetsk airport became a key prize. The opposing sides fought savagely for its control. Artillery and rocket attacks reduced the modern buildings to gutted ruins of crumbling concrete and twisted rebar.

Runways and the surrounding open spaces were churned into a cratered lunarscape, reminiscent of images of no man’s land from World War I battles like the Somme or Verdun.

The charred skeletons of planes littered the tarmac. The physical destruction evidenced the intensity of the battle, and the hellish conditions soldiers on both sides endured.

Surrounding villages like Pisky, about 1 mile from the airport perimeter, where Ukrainian troops staged for battle and fired artillery, also were reduced to demolished ghost towns by reciprocal separatist artillery, rockets, and tanks.

Yet, even amid the bloodletting, the opposing sides were able to demonstrate fleeting acts of humanity. Soldiers who fought at the airport described short truces, during which officers ventured out to collect the dead. Enemies walked among each other, their desire to kill undimmed, but held in check to honor the fallen men under their command.

Pro-Russian separatists, commanded and supported by Russian regulars and armed with Russian weapons, ultimately won control of the airport in January 2015. Ukrainian forces pulled back to nearby villages where they dug in for a protracted, static, long-range battle.

Two years later, Ukrainian forces still are entrenched on the periphery of the airport. Both sides fight from trenches and abandoned, artillery-blasted homes and buildings in a daily, tit-for-tat exchange of artillery and sniper fire.

The fighting has de-escalated from the death spiral of the winter of 2014-2015, but it hasn’t ended.

‘We Shouldn’t Give Up’

The students filled the hallway at the appointed hour. They squeezed, shoulder to shoulder, leaving a pocket of empty space in front of the table with the flowers, which was next to a poster with a picture of Sviatoslav Horbenko and some details about his life.

Behind the table and the poster was the entrance to the room at Taras Shevchenko University’s Institute of Philology that was named in Horbenko’s honor.

It was the second anniversary of Horbenko’s death. Some students held flowers. Others stood quietly, with their hands clasped in front of them.

“He would have made a good professor, a good husband,” Antipov, a 27-year-old teacher and war veteran, told the students gathered at the memorial ceremony.

“Do whatever you can to help our country,” Antipov told them. “But the most important thing you can do is to study, so that his death wasn’t in vain.”

Down the hall from the ceremony was a wall display featuring pictures of students and faculty who served in past military conflicts, including Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a Ukrainian sniper for the Red Army credited with 309 kills in World War II.

Horbenko’s picture is now among the others.

“History constantly repeats,” Antipov said.

Grassroots Defense

About 200 students and faculty from Taras Shevchenko National University died fighting in World War II. The history of students volunteering for war dates back to the Battle of Kruty in 1918, during the Russian Civil War.

About 300 students, along with about 100 free Cossacks, mobilized to defend Kyiv against a force of about 5,000 Bolsheviks. The students holed up at the Kruty railway station on the outskirts of the city, but eventually were overwhelmed.

More than half of the combined force of students and Cossacks died in the battle. Kyiv ultimately fell to the Bolsheviks and, along with the rest of Ukraine, was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

The legacy of the students who fought at the Battle of Kruty inspired the formation in 2014 of the group called the Students Guard. Under the direction of Yanchuk, approximately 200 students and faculty members have received military training as part of an auxiliary guerrilla force dedicated to Kyiv’s defense.

“Our goal is to train students to take up arms in the event of an emergency,” Yanchuk, the coordinator, said.

Life in Kyiv is moving on from the war, even though it hasn’t ended yet and the front lines are only a six-hour train ride from Ukraine’s capital city.

There is a film festival in Kyiv this week. The hip underground speakeasies in the city center are filled every night with patrons sipping on craft cocktails while jazz bands play covers of American songs.

At the Art-Zavod Platforma on the left bank, a former Soviet industrial space is now an art flea market and a venue for food festivals and concerts nearly every weekend.

The coffee bars in central Kyiv perpetually are filled with hipsters and students. The foreign journalists who used to be an ubiquitous presence largely have left. Only a few stalwart holdouts remain, convinced that the forgotten conflict in the east still holds the potential to spiral into something much worse.

“Here in Kyiv, the mass media, the political leadership tries to make the war look far away,” said Vasyl Yutovets, a student at Taras Shevchenko University and commander of the Students Guard. “We try to remember that the war is far from over. The threat is growing day by day.”

Yet, despite the distractions of youth, and many Ukrainians’ blind eye to the ongoing combat in the east, some students haven’t forgotten about the war.

“The hardest part is not going to the front line,” said Yutovets, who served in Ukraine’s National Guard and is a veteran of the war.

“But returning is hard, too,” Yutovets said, adding:

I can’t imagine doing nothing while our country is suffering. We are still hopeful for our future. When the war began, it was very easy to get to the front lines. We realized, then, it was our duty to support the war.

Civilian defense battalions like the Students Guard are also a hedge against further Russian aggression, Yanchuk said.

“When [Russian President Vladimir] Putin encounters the possibility of fighting territorial defense battalions, militias, or even students, it acts as a deterrent,” Yanchuk said.

Yanchuk served in Ukraine’s armed forces for three years and took part in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo. He also participated in joint training events with the U.S. military at bases in Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas.

Yanchuk leverages his military experience and his personal connections with Ukrainian military instructors to organize training events for the Students Guard.

The group conducts weekend training events, including first-aid courses, field training exercises, and weapons training. The group also runs specialty courses, including training on mines and booby traps, tactical mountaineering, and a basic sniper course.

Ownership

The Students Guard at Taras Shevchenko University is another instance of Ukrainians’ enterprising solutions to their country’s myriad problems independent of official government channels.

“Civil society is two, or three, or five steps ahead of the government,” Yanchuk said. “Civil society is winning the war, despite all efforts from Ukrainian and Russian politicians.”

In eastern Ukraine, grassroots humanitarian groups have popped up to address the needs of Ukraine’s 1.7 million internally displaced persons as a result of the war. Across the country, veterans’ groups have formed to help returning soldiers reintegrate into civilian life and deal with the psychological consequences of combat.

And as fighting in the Donbas continues, volunteer civilian territorial defense battalions remain ready to defend their respective cities in the event of a Russian invasion.

Harkening back to the legacy of partisan groups of World War II, Ukrainians took their country’s defense largely into their own hands in the opening months of the war in 2014.

As the pro-Russian separatists and their Russian military handlers seized town after town in eastern Ukraine, some feared a march on Kyiv, which could have split the country in two. In the eyes of many Ukrainians who volunteered to fight, the war in the Donbas had become an existential battle for the country’s survival.

The Ukrainian military was at that point a ragtag force. Its soldiers were a motley mix of draftees and recruits; equipment reserves had been depleted by decades of plundering by corrupt oligarchs and arms dealers.

With the regular army on its back foot, civilian volunteer battalions formed out of the remnants of protest groups active during the revolution. These paramilitary groups mainly comprised young men with no military experience, although some veterans from the Red Army, including Afghanistan veterans, also were in the ranks.

“There was a real chance the front could have collapsed in 2014,” Antipov said. “Nobody knew what was going to happen. So, many young people wanted to train for guerrilla warfare.”

Initially armed with hand-me-down weapons from local police forces, or collected from the enemy dead, the volunteer battalions stalled the combined Russian-separatist march across eastern Ukraine.

“There was no army in 2014,” Antipov said. “In my opinion, the volunteer battalions were the only reason we kept our independence. Why else would the Russian tanks have stopped in 2014?”

Then, in August 2014, thousands of Russian regulars streamed into eastern Ukraine to reverse the Ukrainian offensive. At the time, it looked like Ukraine was facing a full-scale Russian invasion.

“We were concerned in the summer of 2014 of how far Putin was willing to go,” former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt told The Daily Signal in an earlier interview.

“If the Russians broke through, there was no stopping them,” Pyatt said. “We were concerned that Putin was deploying enough force to mass an invasion.”

Although hundreds of miles from the front lines, some in Kyiv began to prepare for a partisan, guerrilla defense of the city.

Spray painted signs indicating the nearest bomb shelter became ubiquitous—they still are. City authorities issued instructions on how to use the metro as a bomb shelter.

Officials across the country made similar preparations for war. The Ukrainian military built anti-tank trenches around Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine, the country’s second-largest city. And local officials and civilian groups built a network of fortified checkpoints around Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrovsk), Ukraine’s fourth-largest city.

Ultimately, Ukraine’s cobbled-together military was able to thwart the combined Russian-separatist advance at several key places, including the battle for Mariupol. Today, many credit the civilian volunteer battalions with turning the tide of war and fundamentally reshaping the Kremlin’s strategic objectives in Ukraine.

“It was Ukraine’s improvised army that held it all together [in 2014],” Pyatt, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said.

Scars

Later, after the ceremony to honor Horbenko, members of the Students Guard gathered in a nearby lecture hall to speak with this foreign correspondent.

Yanchuk was among the students and faculty members. He wore a pressed suit and tie and carried himself with military bearing as he explained the history and the mission of the Students Guard by giving a PowerPoint presentation that would make any U.S. military officer proud.

Yanchuk never met Sviatoslav Horbenko, yet he spoke reverently about the young man, explaining how the courage and sacrifice of Ukrainian millennials could finally put an end to Ukraine’s generational cycle of war and revolution.

Yanchuk posthumously enlisted Horbenko in the Students Guard in 2015.

“The war leaves scars,” Yanchuk said. “Both physical and moral.”

The 39-year-old teacher and Ukrainian army veteran then beamed with pride as he talked about the students who volunteered for the Students Guard, and their willingness to spend weekends training for their country’s defense.

“In the U.S., college life is associated with fraternities and parties,” Yanchuk said. “For these students, they have to seriously consider the possibility of fighting to defend their homes from a Russian invasion.”

The students were initially reluctant to speak openly about their fears and hopes. But they began to speak freely (and mostly in English), revealing a resilient hope that life will get better.

“My hope is very strong,” said Olga Makhinya, a student at Taras Shevchenko University and a member of the Students Guard. “I want to live in a united Ukraine. My native country, without war, without problems.”

But there was also a pervasive sense that the struggle is far from over. Their youthful, romantic vision of the future was moderated by a sober cynicism born from a collective exposure to violence.

“The time of idealistic and romantic people is over,” Yutovets said. “Now is the time to be pragmatic. We shouldn’t give up.”

Many of the young people gathered in the lecture hall that day had witnessed lethal violence, whether on the front lines in the Donbas, as the veterans had, or during the 2014 revolution. They shared a common bond and a collective sense of sacrifice.

“We don’t have faith,” said Viacheslav Masniy, a 24-year-old Ph.D. student and a veteran of the war in the Donbas. “Faith is to pray and wait. We are willing to struggle. We are tired of hiding our identity, like our parents did in the Soviet Union.”

These students and faculty considered the conflict in the Donbas to be a fight for their country’s independence from Russia and freedom to foster closer ties with Western Europe.

“Our enemies are not fighting for their freedom,” Masniy said. “They are fighting to destroy our country. They don’t believe we are a nation, or that we are a state.”

But Ukraine’s better future will not happen automatically. The students and faculty, mostly in their early and mid-20s, repeated a commonly held opinion among Ukraine’s millennials—that the “Homo Sovieticus” mindset of the older generations is beyond fixing, and real change in Ukraine will be possible only when the younger generations, for whom the Soviet Union is not a living memory, take power.

“I think that the future of our country depends on our generation,” said Olga Svysiuk, a student at Taras Shevchenko University and a member of the Students Guard.

“Our example shows other people that we can change the situation for the better,” Svysiuk said. “We can change everything, if we want to do it.”

“We don’t just need heroes,” Masniy said. “We need to build a country.” (For more from the author of “‘Hope Is Not Enough’: Ukrainian University Students Prepare for War” please click HERE)

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