Pro-Life Americans Have the Opportunity of a Generation

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The American people have returned a pro-life majority to Congress and have elected a president committed to rolling back the Obama administration’s radical abortion policies and to appointing pro-life justices to the Supreme Court. This presents an incredible opportunity for defending innocent human life. Now is the time to act.

Executive Action

President-elect Donald Trump should act to defend life and conscience immediately after he takes the oath of office, and should:

Reinstate the Mexico City Policy to ensure that federally funded nongovernmental organizations do not perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in foreign nations.

Enforce the Weldon Amendment to stop states from unlawfully discriminating against health care entities that refuse to pay for or cover abortions.

Reject a proposed parting gift to Planned Parenthood through new Title X regulations designed to lock in the abortion giant’s cut of federal funds.

Nominate a Supreme Court justice that will respect the Constitution and the right to life.

Repeal the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring insurance coverage of certain contraceptives and abortifacients. Although the Supreme Court has protected the consciences of closely held businesses and religious institutions, consciences of individual consumers and employees are still vulnerable absent full repeal.

Reinstitute Bush administration conscience protections for health care providers.

Reaffirm states’ freedom to exclude abortion providers from state Medicaid programs.

Congressional Action

With a pro-life majority in both the House and the Senate, pursuing a life-affirming agenda is a must. Congress should:

Pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The United States is one of only seven countries in the world that allows elective abortion past 20 weeks (5 months), at which point the baby is capable of feeling excruciating pain during an abortion procedure.

Pass the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Instead of relying on a patchwork of policy riders attached to appropriation bills each year, Congress should permanently end taxpayer funding for abortion once and for all.

Defund Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers have disqualified themselves from federal funding due to their callous disregard for human life. The money should be redirected to comprehensive health centers not entangled with abortion.

Pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. The disturbing case of Kermit Gosnell has shown there must be criminal consequences for abortionists who violate the law and refuse to provide medical care to infants born alive after abortions.

Pass the Conscience Protection Act, which ensures that individuals get their day in court when their rights to conscience concerning abortion are violated by the government.

End funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). President Barack Obama sent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to the UNFPA despite evidence of its involvement in China’s coercive two-child policy. This funding should end.

Repeal Obamacare. Under Obamacare, tax subsidies are available for health plans that include coverage of elective abortion, and the HHS mandate requires coverage of certain abortion-inducing drugs and devices. Both anti-life policies would disappear with Obamacare’s repeal.

Promoting a Culture of Life

The success of pro-life candidates up and down the ballot is a victory for the pro-life movement. But more importantly, it is a victory for the most vulnerable and innocent among us. Since Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton effectively legalized abortion on demand, more than 56 million children have been denied the opportunity to live.

For over 40 years, the pro-life community has worked to counter the devastating impact abortion has had on mothers and their unborn babies, witnessing to the fundamental truth that from the moment of conception, a distinct human being with inherent worth and dignity has a right to life.

Congress and Trump have an opportunity to codify important policy riders, stop the flow of taxpayer dollars to organizations that perform or promote abortion, end the inhuman practice of late-term abortions on babies who are viable or capable of feeling pain, appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court, and much more.

They should take action with confidence, knowing that Americans have spoken for life at the ballot box. (For more from the author of “Pro-Life Americans Have the Opportunity of a Generation” please click HERE)

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How Left-Wing Billionaire George Soros Manipulated the 2016 Election

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He’s “the puppet master,” Glenn Beck says. He creates what The Washington Times calls an “echo chamber” in the mainstream media. The studies and messages he manufactured were “used verbatim hundreds of times in sources ranging from The New York Times to the Philadelphia Inquirer.”

While left-wing billionaire George Soros wasn’t able to tip the presidential election to Hillary Clinton, he made a significant difference in other ways this election season.

Soros Exposed — Through Hacks

In August, the site DCLeaks released over 2,500 hacked internal documents from Soros’s organizations, primarily his Open Society Foundations. Although the mainstream media has virtually ignored the documents, a handful of conservative sites have been picking through them. J. Christian Adams of PJ Media has put together the biggest exposé.

The leaked documents revealed not just run-of-the-mill leftwing donations, but the type of activism worthy of the title “puppet master.” For instance:

Soros tried to influence European elections in 2014, and is seeking to influence Malaysia’s elections in 2018.

He sought to influence Supreme Court justices on illegal immigration in the case U.S. v. Texas, “primarily via a sophisticated amicus briefs and media strategy.”

The Open Society Foundations funded opposition research on critics of radical Islam.

The Open Society Justice Initiative calls for international regulation of the internet, to determine “what information is taken off the Internet and what may remain.”

He provided $33 million to radical groups like Black Lives Matter to foment unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and around the country.

Manipulates Media Coverage

Soros has built up a conglomerate of political and media organizations, which he uses to influence public policy and the mainstream media. The leaked documents, Adams observes, “reveal deliberate and successful efforts to manipulate media coverage of election issues in mainstream media outlets like The New York Times.”

For example, he funds organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice that claim there is no voter fraud. The idea of the “voter fraud myth” is then pushed out into the media through his own media operations, including “New America Media,” which caters to ethnic groups, and a “Media Consortium.”

In contrast, Adams notes, “Conservatives and Republicans have no opposing effort or source of funds that represents even a small fraction in opposition to level of the Soros-led manipulation contained in the leaked documents.”

Soros’s organizations include MoveOn.org, ACORN, and numerous pro-amnesty organizations. He has repeatedly referred to himself as a “god,” and wrote in his 1987 book, The Alchemy of Finance, “I admit that I have always harbored an exaggerated view of self-importance — to put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes or, even better, a scientist like Einstein.”

He amassed his fortune through risky currency trades. He was convicted in 2002 of insider trading by a French appeals court. The Malaysian Prime Minister said in 1997 that Soros’s risky trading was partially responsible for the collapse of several Asian currencies.

Poured Over $25 Million Into the 2016 Election

Soros contributed $8 million to the super PAC associated with Hillary Clinton this past year, and $2 million to American Bridge 21st Century, a PAC that targeted Trump. He donated $3 million to a PAC called Immigrant Voters Win, which seeks to get out Hispanic voters in key swing states. During the primary, he even contributed $488,375 to a PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, in the hopes it would prevent Trump from winning the GOP nomination.

He paid organizations to cause chaos at the Republican National Convention. He gave the left-wing activist race-related organization Color of Change $500,000 to collect signatures for a petition demanding that Coke and other sponsors withdraw their support from the convention. It worked, scaring off several corporate sponsors, and Coke only contributed $65,000, far less than the $660,000 it gave in 2012. Color of Change seeks to defund law enforcement agencies that don’t “defend black lives.”

Soros paid $500,000 to Brave New Films to create a fake petition requesting open carry at the GOP convention. He gave the ACLU $1.7 million for lawsuits that successfully gave protesters more access to Trump events.

As part of his effort to overhaul the U.S. justice system, Soros poured money into several law enforcement races around the country. He contributed a total of $9.6 million to defeat white Republican male DAs in particular, and replace them with minorities who favor a radical transformation of the justice system. He also injected money into Democratic primaries, to ensure the most radical Democrat won. He won all but two of the elections he funded.

He targeted Arizona county Sheriff Joe Arpaio due to Arpaio’s tough approach to combating illegal immigration, contributing a stunning $2.3 million to defeat him. This enabled unknown Democrat challenger Paul Penzone to win, even though he has a history of domestic violence involving his ex-wife. It is extremely rare for a Democrat to get elected to a countywide office in Maricopa County, and would almost certainly not have happened in 2016 but for Soros’ intervention.

Racism, Voting Fraud and Other Meddling

Soros funds organizations that hype up cries of racism, like Black Lives Matter, and others that claim Republicans want to disenfranchise minorities. The fear-mongering seeks to radicalize minorities, and incentivize them to work registering voters and supporting far left candidates.

Soros is the largest contributor to Democratic efforts to block election integrity laws. He committed $5 million to Voting Rights Trust, an organization which fights election integrity laws.

This election cycle, he bankrolled lawsuits challenging these laws in the swing states of Ohio, Wisconsin and North Carolina. The North Carolina law had a “strict photo-ID requirement, shaved a week off of early voting, and cut same-day registration, preregistration and out-of-precinct voting.” He successfully got it put on hold during the election. In Wisconsin, his efforts got a photo ID law reduced in scope.

Soros grants led to Oregon and California moving toward mandatory voter registration, where everyone who is on a government database is automatically put on the list of eligible voters.

At least George Soros is an equal-opportunity manipulator. The U.S. isn’t the only country he wants to change. Russia was so concerned about his influence that it banned the Soros Foundation as a “threat to national security and constitutional order.” (For more from the author of “How Left-Wing Billionaire George Soros Manipulated the 2016 Election” please click HERE)

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Obama Admits Defeat; Pacific Rim Trade Deal Trump Opposed Is Dead

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The Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, repeatedly denounced during the campaign by President-elect Donald Trump, is dead.

The Obama administration has admitted that it will not pursue its Pacific Rim trade deal, which President Barack Obama had wanted as part of his legacy, during the lame-duck session of Congress that will convene in December.

The 12-nation agreement already faced a rocky road in Congress, but Trump’s election sealed its fate.

“I am going to withdraw the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership,” Trump said in June as part of his denunciation of existing trade agreements. “I am going to tell our NAFTA partners that I intend to negotiate the terms of that agreement to get a better deal — by a lot, not just a little, by a lot — for our workers.”

The development is a massive turnaround in a short span of time.

Last week, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman expressed optimism that the administration and congressional Republican leaders could reach agreement on disputed parts of the deal.

“We have worked closely with Congress to resolve outstanding issues and are ready to move forward, but this is a legislative process and it’s up to congressional leaders as to whether and when this moves forward,” said Matt McAlvanah, a spokesman for the office of the U.S. trade representative.

However, after meeting with Trump on Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made the demise of TPP a foregone conclusion.

“It’s certainly not going to be brought up this year,” McConnell said.

McConnell said any decisions on trade agreements would be up to Trump, who has called the agreement a “disaster” and “a rape of our country.”

Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Alexander Gray touched on Trump’s reasoning in a guest column published in Foreign Policy magazine.

“Trump will never again sacrifice the U.S. economy on the altar of foreign policy by entering into bad trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement, allowing China into the World Trade Organization, and passing the proposed TPP,” they wrote.

“These deals only weaken our manufacturing base and ability to defend ourselves and our allies,” the writers added. (For more from the author of “Obama Admits Defeat; Pacific Rim Trade Deal Trump Opposed Is Dead” please click HERE)

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The Coddled Generation That Wasn’t Taught to Grow Up

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There are millions of fine young people across America today, people of character, people of principle, people of discipline, people of maturity. But there are millions of others who have been coddled all their lives, almost never taught to lose or be put in their place or take full responsibility for their actions. It is some of those young people who are protesting on the streets and being comforted by their professors as they cry on college campuses in the aftermath of the elections.

Just consider this scene from our campuses on the day after the elections, as reported by the Wall Street Journal: “At Tufts University, arts and crafts were on offer. And the University of Kansas reminded students via social media of the therapy dogs available for comfort every other Wednesday.”

Arts and crafts to comfort grieving college students? Therapy dogs?

And then this, from the University of Michigan: “There was a steady flow of students entering Ms. Boynton’s office Wednesday. They spent the day sprawled around the center, playing with Play-Doh and coloring in coloring books, as they sought comfort and distraction.”

Need I add the standard caveat: “I am not making this up!”?

To be sure, there were many things said and done by candidate (and now president-elect) Donald Trump that have caused concern, and I do understand why some Muslim or Mexican young people (or others) would be alarmed, fearing the worst. “Am I going to be deported? Will my family be kicked out of the country? Am I really welcome here?”

Again, I understand why they would be concerned, especially the way the media has portrayed Mr. Trump’s remarks, to the point of working people into a hysteria.

But it is the nature of the reaction to Trump’s shocking election that I’m focused on, along with the way these students are being treated.

Really now, even though millions of conservative Christians would have been terribly upset had Hillary won, do you think that students on Christian campuses would be sitting with therapy dogs and coloring books to comfort them in their grief?

But this should not surprise us in terms of the anti-Trump reaction on at these colleges and universities. These are the same campuses with “safe zones” and with guidelines against “microagressions.” And these are the same young people whose number one rule sometimes appears to be, “You shall not offend me or hurt my feelings!”

In her book Generation Me, author Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D., painted a picture of many of today’s young people using the description of a woman named Linda, who was born in the 50s, and whose “youngest child, Jessica, was born years after Whitney Houston’s No. 1 hit song “Greatest Love of All” declared that loving yourself was the greatest love.”

Prof. Twenge writes, “Jessica’s elementary school teachers believed that they should help Jessica feel good about herself. Jessica scribbled in a coloring book called We Are All Special, got a sticker on her worksheet just for filling it out, and did a sixth-grade project called ‘All About Me.’ . . . She dreams of being a model or a singer, takes numerous ‘selfies’ a day, and recently reached her personal goal of acquiring 5,000 followers on Instagram. She does not expect to marry until she is in her late 20s, and neither she nor her older sisters have any children yet. ‘You have to love yourself before you can love someone else,’ she says.”

Again, to repeat, there are many, fine young people today, and they are committed to helping others and making a positive difference in their world. Some of them put their elders to shame.

But the picture painted by Prof. Twenge is all too common, which is why there are elementary schools and middle schools across America that do not keep score in the children’s sports events, since everyone has to win (or, conversely, because no one can lose).

How does this prepare them for the realities of life, where every day, some people win and some people lose, where every day, there is disappointment and pain, where every day, some things go our way and some don’t, where every day, life is not always fair?

A friend of mine in the business world told me that it’s common now for college and university grads to have trouble on their jobs, but not because they lack intelligence or the necessary academic training. Instead, it’s because they can’t take correction, having been shielded from it during much of their upbringing and education. “You may be my boss, but you’re making me feel bad, which makes you a bad person, since I’m a good person and therefore a good employee.”

I may be exaggerating the sentiments, but not by much.

In the end, the problem is not with an age group as much as it is with a mindset, and it is a mindset that simply doesn’t work in real life — unless you want to be playing with Play-Doh to ease your pain when you’re married with kids and grandkids. (For more from the author of “The Coddled Generation That Wasn’t Taught to Grow Up” please click HERE)

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World Health Organization Is Wrong: No One Has the Right to a Child

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Would it surprise you to learn that two men are not able to make a baby together? Neither can two women. Did you know that? Does that mean they are infertile?

Some of the minds at the World Health Organization think so, and think it’s about time we acknowledged this disease/disability in homosexual couples and treated it accordingly.

We are fed so much irrationality these days that we are slow to spit it out, and worse, too many are developing a taste for it. But it is irrational — and ridiculous — to alter the definition of infertility to include homosexual couples, as WHO seems wont to do.

Any sane person understands that two men or two women together will never be able to achieve pregnancy. Human biology guarantees it. The requirements of procreation cannot be met by two males or two females. That is by design, and there’s no defect in the design. There is, however, a defect in the modern expectation.

The natural laws governing the human person are not persuaded by our unnatural demands. So, what to do? Change the meanings of words. We cannot change reality, so we try to alter the meaning of things instead. If we say fertility has nothing to do with male/female sexual intercourse, then infertility becomes a problem shared and experienced by absolutely anyone, and any combination of anyones. Even if it’s absurd.

All that matters anymore is that we get what we want, through whatever means necessary. “I want it, therefore I have a right to it” is the anthem of our time. On the flip side of this coin is, “I don’t want this, therefore I shouldn’t have to suffer it.”

This is the mindset that has led us to treating children as commodities to buy, sell, manufacture, and destroy at will.

A New Definition of ‘Infertility’

Right now, WHO calls infertility a disease of the reproductive system, made evident through a lack of pregnancy after more than a year of unprotected sex. The organization also considers infertility a disability, on the grounds that it seriously impairs infertile people from a major life activity.

The new definition nixes the idea of infertility as just a medical condition. It expands the right to reproduce to be one that goes beyond biological means.

Fertility physician David Adamson, one of the new definition’s authors, told the Telegraph that these standards strengthen the idea that everyone should be able to start a family.

“It puts a stake in the ground and says an individual’s got a right to reproduce whether or not they have a partner. It’s a big change,” Adamson says. “It fundamentally alters who should be included in this group and who should have access to healthcare. It sets an international legal standard. Countries are bound by it.”

There it is. “an individual’s got a right to reproduce whether or not they have a partner.” Not only are same-sex couples “infertile,” but every individual has the right to reproduce with or without a partner.

Adamson could not be more wrong. No one has the right to a child. Individual people do not have a right to reproduce. The gift of new life is the prerogative of God, and children are the blessing and fruit of marriage. Nobody has any inviolate claim on another human being.

The Genuine Rights of Children

Completely ignored in all of this are the genuine rights of the child. This philosophy turns the child into a thing to be acquired; an accessory to be chosen; a commodity to be purchased. The individual’s got a right, after all. The child has no rights because he’s not considered an individual.

We’ve stopped seeing children as a gift from God, respecting His authority to give. Now we see them as a product that is within our power to both create and destroy as we wish. Four decades of legal abortion has proven it beyond any doubt.

But the madness we’re seeing today didn’t start with legal abortion. It started when society first separated sex and procreation. It began with the demand for contraception. Once sexual intercourse is severed from its intended purpose and natural result, the crack has been made in the human foundation.

We demanded sex without babies. Then we demanded the “right” to destroy the babies who came anyway, despite our contraception, and the crack grew wider. Now we demand babies without sex at all, without even a “partner,” and the foundation is crumbling into total irrationality.

We’ve denied our babies the legal right to life. Now we want to enshrine in our laws and practice, through a convoluted perversion of words, that our babies have no right to a mother and a father — their mother and father. They must accept being the products of donors, surrogates, and laboratories, ordered up by any one, two, or more people, because the “individual’s got a right to reproduce.”

A Violation of Human Dignity and the Human Family

This is a violation of human dignity and the human family. God didn’t grant us the right to reproduce. He created the human family: father, mother and child. He established the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, and He blessed their physical union with new life. This is the only plan that protects the human dignity and the rights of the child and preserves the integrity of our sexuality.

This is why the Catholic Church has always condemned artificial contraception as immoral. The Church foresaw the inevitable damage that would be done to marriage, to children, to the family, and to our very understanding of the human person by tearing asunder the marital sexual act and the child.

Can anyone seriously deny that we are now witnessing that damage in full, terrible bloom? The obsessive, all-consuming demand for sexual “freedom” and the arrogant desire to control life itself has caused us to forget what it means to love and be human; and to trample our children’s dignity and rights even before they exist.

WHO’s redefinition of infertility puts a stake in the ground, alright. The crack in the human foundation has widened to a great chasm, and we’re falling in. (For more from the author of “World Health Organization Is Wrong: No One Has the Right to a Child” please click HERE)

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1.4 Million Obama Amnesty Applicants on Deportation Hit List

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Some 1.4 million illegals who followed President Obama’s request to sign up for two controversial amnesty programs could be among the first to face deportation under the new administration.

The reason: In exchange for getting into the two programs, they handed over their identities, home addresses, and admitted to being in the United States illegally, making them the easiest to find and legally deport.

“I was surprised anyone would be stupid enough to sign up for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and DAPA (Deferred Action for Parents of Americans). Yet apparently hundreds of thousands of people did so anyway,” said John Miano of the Center for Immigration Studies.

He said in a blog post that the programs are dead under a Trump administration and those who signed up “created a list of prime candidates for deportation with names, addresses, and an admission of illegal alien status.”

Secrets has already received reports that illegals are already starting to leave the country. One source said that some in Virginia left for the border on Wednesday, the day Donald Trump was declared the winner. (Read more from “1.4 Million Obama Amnesty Applicants on Deportation Hit List” HERE)

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Congress Never Debates Matter of War Anymore. Is It Because There Are Fewer Veterans in Congress?

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In 1971, military veterans composed 73 percent of Congress. By 2014, when the 114th Congress began, the number of veterans had diminished to its lowest number ever — just 18.7 percent.

Why?

One reason, the WWII draft. Overall, 16.1 million Americans served during WWII. According to the latest numbers at the Department of Defense, 1.3 million Americans are serving in the military right now. The proportion of veterans in Congress to the general population, therefore, isn’t out of whack. But nevertheless: Does the shrinking number of veterans in Congress affect debates about foreign policy and defense?

According to Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. (F, 20%), the only female Republican veteran in the House of Representatives, yes. “I am very concerned,” she told Conservative Review. McSally served in the Air Force for 26 years, and has the distinguished title of being the first female combat pilot.

In Congress, Rep. McSally is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, which is responsible for Department of Defense oversight, debates about war, as well as the drafting of the National Defense Authorization Act to establish the yearly Pentagon budget. McSally said people “can’t imagine how hard it is to be on these [House] committees if you don’t have any background in the military.”

Congressman Joe Wilson, R-S.C. (D, 65%) who famously shouted “You lie!” at President Obama during a 2009 address on his signature health care law, told Conservative Review: “My service in the Army reserves and the South Carolina Army National Guard has shaped my foreign policy experience by understanding the importance of having our allies trust us and our enemies respect us. It has also shown me firsthand the value of peace through strength.”

It makes total sense that military experience gained on the ground, especially in places like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, where McSally was deployed, would give a member of Congress valuable insight into what the American military is doing in the respective theaters, and what is or isn’t working.

“I think [veterans] are going to be more thoughtful and strategic, and ask questions like, ‘What’s our objective here?’” said Rep. McSally. “That’s our mindset.”

But Rep. Joe Wilson thinks that even if a member didn’t serve in the military, having a family relation who did also has an effect on one’s thinking. “While I think that veterans provide excellent firsthand perspective, I believe that many members of Congress who did not serve rely on their strong connections to the military — the service of a parent, child, other family member, or constituents they speak with when in their district — an equally valuable perspective.”

“An excellent example of this,” he added, “is chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, Jeff Miller, R-Fla. (C, 73%). Though Chairman Miller never personally served, he is a strong advocate for our troops, veterans, and military families throughout his distinguished career in Congress.”

There is still some firsthand war insight in Congress, even if the number of veterans has declined from its post-WWII and Cold War heyday. That’s the good news.

Here’s the bad news: Congress rarely debates what military action we need to take—or not take. Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to debate and declare matters of war when necessary. Is it because the number of veterans in Congress is declining, or has the internal structure within Congress changed?

ISIS has been a force of evil in the Middle East for three years. The United States has already been at war against Islamist extremists in the Middle East for 15 years, and with no end in sight. When the Obama administration was considering military intervention in Syria to fight ISIS, it claimed it didn’t need congressional authorization to engage in airstrikes because the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force in Afghanistan gave it authority.

Per the War Powers Act, the president only has 60 days (with a 30-day withdrawal period) to engage American troops in a conflict without congressional authorization. According to the Constitution and federal statute, the White House has no authority after that window to keep troops in a conflict without congressional authorization. The War Powers Act was introduced to reiterate the constitutional check on the president’s authority, and Congress absolutely could have stopped President Obama’s actions in the Middle East. But they have not.

Apart from a few dissenting voices, most of Congress didn’t want to touch the issue. Debates over sending American men and women in harm’s way is never a fun one, and it’s always politically charged. Some members want to grant the president broad authority to fight ISIS indefinitely, and some members think his authority should be limited and only exerted within a time frame. For former Speaker John Boehner and now Speaker Paul Ryan, the easy route has been to avoid the issue entirely.

So to this day, over two years after President Obama initiated airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, there hasn’t been a real debate in Congress about how to combat ISIS, and whether the president’s power should be limited or expanded in his efforts there. The Obama administration has put 5,000 troops on the ground in Iraq — without congressional authorization. And there’s been barely a peep about it in Congress.

President Obama also put troops on the ground in Libya in 2011 without congressional authorization. As The Atlantic reported this year, “In recent interviews with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg on the ‘Obama Doctrine,’ the president bluntly said that the mission in Libya ‘didn’t work.’ Behind closed doors, according to Goldberg, he calls the situation there a ‘shit show.’”

Where was Congress?

To constitutional scholar Lou Fisher, Congress’ lack of action is nothing new. In his book, “Presidential War Power,” Fisher points out it has been happening since President Harry Truman sent troops to Korea in 1950. “Truman in Korea, Bush in Iraq, Clinton in Haiti and Bosnia — in each instance a president circumvented Congress by relying on either the UN or NATO,” for approval.

When asked why Congress has become inert on issues of war in the past few decades, Fisher (a former researcher at the Library of Congress) told Conservative Review, “In working with members of Congress and their staff from 1970 to 1994, it was a pleasant experience to be in close touch with lawmakers and their staff who fully appreciated the checks and balances and were proud to defend their institution. To me, that commitment declined when the House decided to shift power away from the independent committees and subcommittees and place it with the Speaker. The commitment was now not to the institution but to a single individual, who could use that power of the Speaker’s office to decide who were placed on committees and subcommittees.”

Basically, Fisher sees Congress’ inertia as a result of a restructuring of how Congress works, and not so much the decline of the number of veterans in Congress. The historical timeline he lays out in “Presidential War Powers” buttresses his argument — presidents were going to war without congressional authorization before the drastic decline of veterans in Congress.

All things considered, Fisher said, “It’s a complicated subject.”

But to veterans like Rep. Martha McSally, who is currently serving in Congress, “We need as many veterans as possible at the table.” (For more from the author of “Congress Never Debates Matter of War Anymore. Is It Because There Are Fewer Veterans in Congress?” please click HERE)

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After Leaving Obama’s Navy, This Former Chaplain Finally Feels ‘Free’ to Live His Faith

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For the first time in a long time, recently-retired Wes Modder – a former enlisted Marine turned Navy Chaplain – feels like he finally has his religious liberty back from what has become Obama’s military.

Modder, now a pastor in the Chicago area, has been going hunting in rural Minnesota every year for the past quarter century with a group of Christian men. Two years ago he started taking his now-15-year-old son with him on the trip, which he described as a rite of passage.

In a phone interview with Conservative Review as he drove into the woods for this year’s annual retreat, Modder talked about his last years in the Navy, what has happened to the military during the Obama administration, and the need for a moral revival in America’s fighting force in the future.

Modder was nearly dismissed from the United States Navy in 2014 after sailors complained that his religious views were “intolerant,” because he counseled a lesbian sailor against having premarital sex and engaging in a same-sex relationship.

The former Marine of 16 years and father of four felt betrayed. “After so many years serving honorably and then to be dishonored and disrespected,” Modder told Conservative Review in a phone interview. “Betrayal was the first thing I felt.”

What really stung, however, was being abandoned by his fellow chaplains and officers.

“I really was surprised at all the people that ran away,” Modder, a veteran of Desert Storm and Desert Shield during his 16 years of service, said. “They treated me like a criminal or like I had leprosy or something, because the topic was so hot.”

Following the months-long legal battle, aided by Texas-based First Liberty Institute, Modder was eventually exonerated and returned to full duty in September 2015.

But while his name was cleared and his pension and benefits were no longer in danger from the P.C. police, Modder’s test of faith was far from over. His experience returning to the fleet was far from what he expected, quickly realizing he’d been placed in dead-end career purgatory.

“After that, I was given a really unproductive assignment in San Diego,” he said. “I eventually realized that there was nothing for me to do there, and no chance of any further promotion. There was no more future for me in the Navy after all that.”

Being put through the administrative ringer and stuck with no hope for advancement left him “feeling ashamed for the first time to wear the uniform.”

So he decided to get out earlier this year. “It took me about a year to see the writing on the wall,” he chuckled. “I’m a bit slow.” Signing DD Form 214 for retirement “felt like I was divorcing a whore,” he joked.

“I really had no idea where I was going to go. It was really a step of faith and it was kind of unnerving,” Modder recalled. “I was applying all over the country; I was in the final stages of applying to work at a local ministry in San Diego. I just decided in my heart that God was going to write the next chapter of my life.”

“That was a big step, not having the answers.”

Modder eventually landed at Stone Church, an evangelical congregation in Orland Park, Ill. After just a month of pursuing his calling in ministry, his outlook on life turned a big corner from his last embattled years in the military.

“I may not have gotten promoted to commander, but I got promoted right to the pulpit,” he told CR.

He never pictured that he would ever be in his current position as a senior pastor in a Chicago suburb. But Modder said that he now feels “free” for the first time in years.

“The freedom to worship God and to not have to worry about someone telling me how I have to do things, whether it’s about a bulletin insert or if I end a prayer in Jesus’ name, or if I tell someone that something is a sin,” said Modder. “Now I can preach the way I want to. Now I have the freedom to be a minister.”

That freedom, however, is fleeting and fading for those who still wear the uniform. “Whether it’s about what you have posted on your computer or how you pray as a chaplain, or what you say, everyone’s walking around on eggshells,” Modder lamented on the state of religious liberty in the military today.

This creates a bleak future for other pastors in the service, said the pastor, stating chaplains these days shouldn’t expect to get promoted or be able to fully retire, “unless you’re a liberal or a coward.”

Pastor Modder said the only thing that can save the military from the sin, moral decay, and political correctness that have plagued the Obama-era Pentagon — a trajectory he fears will make the military “unrecognizable in 20 years” — is courageous, moral leadership.

“The military now leads the way in a lot of immoral behavior, where five years ago it led the way in honor, courage, and commitment,” he said. “We need a moral fighting force.”

“I was asked during the investigation what I would do when Navy policy is contrary to scripture,” he said. “Well, for me there is no choice; I have to err on the side of scripture.”

But Modder is shocked by how quickly Naval chaplains have fallen in line with the Obama-era culture and policies: “I have never seen an organization able to ruin clergy faster than the military with its current climate. You give an insecure minister a uniform, a rank, and some ribbons and they start acting it out.”

“I want to be proud of America. I want to be proud of the Navy and Marine Corps, but I cannot be proud of a moral decay in them that has to be eradicated,” Wes Modder stated. “I miss the moral fiber that the military once had. We need that back, and we needed it yesterday.” (For more from the author of “After Leaving Obama’s Navy, This Former Chaplain Finally Feels ‘Free’ to Live His Faith” please click HERE)

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Is There Anything More Heartwarming Than a Soldier Returning Early to Surprise His Kids?

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The men and women who serve the United States in uniform make tremendous sacrifices for their country. They volunteer to go overseas to strange, dangerous lands. The call of duty keeps them away from their wives and husbands, their sons and daughters, their mothers and fathers.

But when the soldier returns home, the long waits are worth it. This Veterans Day, we’ve found some of the most touching videos of soldiers returning home to surprise their loved ones.

These creative surprise returns are sure to make you tear up, so grab some tissues.

This big brother drove over 20 hours to make it to his little brother’s pep rally for his football team’s first playoff game. You can see No. 70 rush off the stands to greet his big brother.

And this Army soldier’s mother could barely contain herself when he surprised her at a restaurant. The pure joy on his father’s face is pretty great, too.

Returning from his deployment, the first words this soldier heard were, “It’s a boy!”

Airman First Class Corey Schreffler surprised his gradeschool-aged brother and sister after being stationed in New Mexico for 14 months.

And when this girl was called down to the office, she had no idea her father was waiting for her.

This girl’s Air Force father is a “superhero.” The dramatic reveal of the returning father behind the screen was a nice touch.

Then there were was this soldier who had a pressing question on his mind upon his return. Now this was one heck of a cheer.

US Army soldier Josh McCallum has known his girlfriend Lexi since junior high. She thought he was still in South Korea when he showed up at her beauty school with a ring.

There are far too many happy reunions to tell, but here are some of the best from 2016:

But wait! Don’t forget the furry friends. These pets are just as happy to see their masters:

We should all rejoice with these families and celebrate the return of their beloved service members [on] Veterans Day. (For more from the author of “Is There Anything More Heartwarming Than a Soldier Returning Early to Surprise His Kids?” please click HERE)

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‘Not Over’: 4 Legal Probes Hillary Clinton Still Faces

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Hillary Clinton would have been a bigger target for investigators if the presidential election had gone differently, but that doesn’t mean the Democratic nominee and former secretary of state can put such legal questions behind her.

The FBI is conducting an ongoing investigation into potential “pay to play” at the Clinton Foundation, although it appears to have closed its investigation of Clinton’s official email.

During the presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump vowed to name a special prosecutor to continue the investigation into Clinton for her use of a private email server while conducting government business as secretary of state.

Immediately after his stunning victory over Clinton, the president-elect had only praise for Clinton’s campaign and public service.

In response to questions about prosecuting Clinton in the next administration, two Trump campaign surrogates rumored to be under consideration to be the next attorney general seemed to suggest turning the page on the matter in TV interviews Thursday.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, also a former U.S. attorney, told CNN:

It’s been a tradition in our politics to put things behind us. On the other hand, you have to look at how bad was it? Because suppose somebody comes along a year from now and is alleged to have stolen $50,000 from a charity—and [Clinton] was never investigated for hundreds of millions.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another former U.S. attorney, said of Trump and Clinton on NBC:

I will tell you they had an enormously gracious conversation with each other Tuesday night. Again, politics are over now, people have spoken, time to move on.

While FBI Director James Comey opted against recommending charges against Clinton in July, he said she acted recklessly in sending and receiving classified information on the nonsecure system.

Congress also will continue inquiries it began into the Clinton Foundation, the email matter, and questions about potential political interference in the FBI’s investigation of the private server.

“The House Judiciary Committee will continue to press for answers to questions about whether the investigation was thorough and whether there was special treatment given to the political elite,” a House Republican Judiciary Committee aide told The Daily Signal on Thursday.

One poll taken just before the election found that just more than one-third of Americans saw Clinton as honest, while another poll found an overwhelming majority believed she did something illegal or unethical with her private email server.

Such findings could make it difficult to rationalize dropping the investigations.

Judicial Watch, a leading conservative watchdog group, plans to continue its own investigations into Clinton through the use of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits. That’s because it isn’t relying on the Trump administration’s Justice Department or Congress to hold anyone accountable.

“The Trump administration and new Congress must focus on restoring the rule of law and accountability after the eight years of a lawless Obama administration,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said in a statement, adding:

Corruption in government is an overwhelming problem. We expect, but won’t rely on, D.C. politicians to do the right thing. Judicial Watch will continue its independent investigations and lawsuits in order to hold politicians of both political parties accountable to the rule of law.

After Judicial Watch asked a D.C. court to compel the State Department to answer more questions about Clinton emails, Fitton tweeted Wednesday: “No, it’s not over.”

Here’s an overview of investigations likely to continue even as Clinton moves out of the political arena.

Email Investigation

Comey told congressional leaders just 11 days before Election Day that the FBI would reopen its probe into the private email server Clinton maintained while secretary of state. Then, two days before the election, he said the FBI concluded nothing would change the original decision not to recommend charges.

This won’t deter Congress.

“Because Secretary Clinton was not forthcoming about her use of a private email server to send and receive classified information, a number of questions still remain and have not been answered by the Obama administration,” the same House Judiciary Committee aide told The Daily Signal ahead of the election. “The House Judiciary Committee will continue to seek answers about Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server.”

Based on the FBI’s initial findings, House Judiciary Chairman Robert Goodlatte, R-Va., and House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said in August that Clinton may have lied under oath to the House Select Committee on Benghazi in October 2015. They asked the Justice Department to investigate.

The Clinton Foundation

Reports surfaced days before the election that the FBI had made the Clinton Foundation a “very high priority” investigation, one that it has conducted for more than a year.

Throughout the course of Clinton’s campaign, she dealt with “pay to play” charges based on what some alleged was direct State Department action after larger foreign donations to her family foundation.

In May, 52 House members asked IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to investigate the Clinton Foundation to determine if it was abiding by the rules of a legitimate tax-exempt charity. In July, 64 House members asked the IRS, FBI, and Federal Trade Commission to look into the foundation. The FTC has some regulatory authority over nonprofits.

WikiLeaks exposed numerous emails related to the Clinton Foundation, including one from 2015 in which Clinton staffers were debating whether it would look proper for her to go to Morocco to collect a $12 million donation for the foundation.

Among the most noteworthy cases, Uranium One Chairman Ian Telfer gave $2.35 million to the foundation. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, collected $500,000 to give a speech in Moscow at an event promoting Uranium One stock. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton was among U.S. officials who approved the Uranium One sale to Russian investors.

Members of Congress also noted that Bill Clinton accepted $16.5 million to serve as the honorary chancellor of Laureate International Universities, a company founded by businessman Douglas Becker that gave between $1 million and $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, an appendage of the State Department, reportedly gave $55 million to Becker’s International Youth Foundation. Laureate denied any quid pro quo, noting the International Youth Foundation is a separate entity that has received State Department funding since 1999.

Investigating a Cover-Up?

Beyond the underlying matters, the committees could seek to find out more about how the Justice Department, the FBI, and the State Department reacted in the course of the investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server to conduct official business.

“We’ve seen the politicization of federal agencies and possible felonies by government officials in the course of the FBI investigation, with possible obstruction, destruction of evidence, and perjury,” Peter Flaherty, president of the National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“The DOJ itself should be investigated,” Flaherty said of the Justice Department.

Multiple congressional committee chairmen wrote Attorney General Loretta Lynch to ask about the unusual restrictions placed on the FBI during the initial probe of Clinton’s use of email, such as orders to destroy laptops after the investigation concludes.

Fox News, citing House Judiciary Committee sources, reported that Clinton aides with immunity deals had a side arrangement with the FBI to destroy their laptops after a review.

Chaffetz, Goodlatte, Senate Judiciary Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., signed the letter to Lynch.

Goodlatte also asked the Justice Department to investigate emails from Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who in one message appeared to offer to place FBI agents in additional overseas locations if the bureau would agree to declassify some documents related to the terrorist attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012, that left four Americans dead.

While members of Congress made these inquiries before the election, Justice Department officials generally are obligated to respond to their questions.

Further, news accounts raised questions about FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and his connection to longtime Clinton fundraiser and campaign adviser Terry McAuliffe, now the Democratic governor of Virginia.

Before he became deputy director of the FBI, McCabe’s wife, Jill McCabe, ran for the Virginia state Senate in 2015. During her campaign, McAuliffe’s political action committee, Common Good VA, gave $467,000 to her campaign.

Chaffetz sent an article to committee members about McAuliffe’s campaign donation to the wife of someone who would go on to become a top FBI official, The Washington Post reported.

“It seems like an obscene amount of money for a losing race,” Chaffetz told the newspaper. “The ties between the governor and the Clintons are well known. He raises money for a lot of people, but why so much for this one person?”

Campaign Dirty Tricks

Aside from the Justice Department and Congress, the Federal Election Commission could investigate Clinton’s campaign. The agency delves into credible allegations of campaign finance violations regardless of whether the campaign was victorious.

Investigative filmmaker James O’Keefe made the FEC complaint against the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

O’Keefe’s Project Veritas Action Fund released videos that appeared to show evidence of coordination among the Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and three super PACs. In one video, an Americans United for Change director is seen saying the organization paid mentally ill people to disrupt Trump rallies. Direct coordination between a campaign and independent groups is not permitted by law.

Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., chairman of the oversight and investigations subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in an October tweet that he was “stunned” by O’Keefe’s recent undercover videos.

(For more from the author of “‘Not Over’: 4 Legal Probes Hillary Clinton Still Faces” please click HERE)

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