2nd Vote #AnywhereButTARGET Campaign Website Back up After Being Shut Down for ‘Diversity’ and to Stop ‘Hate’

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A conservative corporate watchdog group’s effort to galvanize conservatives against Target’s restroom and changing-room policies was shut down on Thanksgiving Day by the server company hosting its website, because the campaign allegedly violated the company’s effort to “create an inclusive workplace” respectful of “diversity.”

In an e-mail, Leadpages Director of Operations Doug Storbeck ordered 2nd Vote to take down its #AnywhereButTARGET website. According to Storbeck, “at Leadpages, we strive to create an inclusive workplace that upholds the dignity of all people. We value, respect, and celebrate everyone’s individualities and honor their unique strengths from all different walks of life.”

2nd Vote’s campaign encouraged conservatives to shop #AnywhereButTARGET because of the company’s policy that allows males who identify as females to use the restroom and changing room of their choice. Conservatives have boycotted the retail giant, though Target executives said in August that a stock drop and an investment in single-sex restrooms was unrelated to the backlash.

Storbeck continued:

We believe that embracing diversity of thought and perspective encourages collaboration that leads to product innovation, diverse products and a successful business. Staying true to our core values is something we take very seriously and we feel this is reinforced in our Terms of Service. Specifically, and according to our Acceptable Use and Conduct policy (to which you have agreed), we prohibit any content which: “(g) is hateful or discriminatory based on race, color, sex, religion, nationality, ethnic or national origin, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or age or is otherwise objectionable, as reasonably determined by Ave. 81;”

For the reasons stated above, I am respectfully requesting that you to take down your #AnywhereButTarget landing page upon receipt of this notice, but no later than 8:00am CST on Thursday November 24, 2016.

Storbeck’s LinkedIn page says that he lives in the Minneapolis area, which is also where Target’s headquarters are located. The Stream was unable to determine whether this played a role in Leadpages’ decision.

The Campaign

Earlier this week, 2nd Vote Communications Director Robert Kuykendall told The Stream that his organization believes “Target is carrying the water for the liberal LGBT agenda that wants to undermine religious liberty protections for business owners, people of faith, and religious institutions.”

“We want conservatives to know that they have alternative choices for their Christmas shopping and to use the power of their shopping dollars to show Target that they don’t want to those dollars used to fund a radical political agenda,” Kuykendall added.

In an e-mail announcing the elimination of their #AnywhereButTARGET landing page, 2nd Vote Executive Director Lance Wray said, “Liberals who constantly tout tolerance and inclusion go out of their way to shut down ideas they disagree with. To say our campaign is about inequality, intolerance, hate, discrimination or devaluing anyone is flat wrong, it’s about common sense and safety. But, some of the truest hate and intolerance we’ve seen has come from the liberal responses to our campaign.”

Kuykendall told The Stream that he suspects Leadpages realized the campaign was having an effect on Target,

Leadpages must have sensed our campaign was gaining momentum, so they resorted to the typical liberal bully tactics of shutting down and censoring ideas they don’t agree with and calling them “hateful” or “discriminatory.” Apparently, Leadpages wanted to use the cover of Thanksgiving Day, thinking they could quietly make #AnywhereButTARGET disappear.

Kuykendall explained that the campaign “has reached over 3 million conservatives through several platforms. We’ve even added our Christmas Shopping Guide to the campaign, giving these conservatives better choices on where to spend their Christmas shopping dollars.”

Backlash Beginning

Less than 12 hours after Leadpages eliminated the #AnywhereButTARGET campaign page, LOGOS Identity Clothing’s Ryan O’Neil announced in an e-mail to Storbeck that he intended to boycott the company if it backed Target. O’Neil said that Storbeck and Leadpages’ executive team had “inserted your company into identity politics, and I can’t support a company like yours that doesn’t respect freedom of speech and expression.” O’Neil said that he is a “recent…user” who had been “considering upgrading my account.”

Leadpages did not respond to The Stream’s effort to clarify the company’s policy. The #AnywhereButTARGET campaign is directed at the company’s gender identity policy, which is not listed in Storbeck’s listing of company non-discrimination policies. Likewise, neither Storbeck nor Leadpages’ public relations manager responded to Wray’s accusation that the company’s actions consist of hypocrisy on the issue of diversity. (For more from the author of “2nd Vote #AnywhereButTARGET Campaign Website Back up After Being Shut Down for ‘Diversity’ and to Stop ‘Hate'” please click HERE)

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What Happens When False Gods Fail: The Christian Response to Political Idolatry

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The scene being played out by followers of Hillary Clinton across the country has been a spectacle of fury and despair such that calm, reasoned folks can only shake their heads in wonder. You really can’t make this stuff up.

Rioters have taken to the streets to destroy vehicles and property, set fires, block freeways, burn President-elect Donald Trump in effigy, raise signs calling for Melania Trump to be raped, and in general behaved like thugs having a colossal, violent temper tantrum.

College students have had cry-ins, asked to be excused from classes and tests, been provided with therapy dogs, Play-doh, crayons and coloring books, warm beverages to calm and comfort them in their fear, and in general have behaved like crybabies who should be grounded and made to do menial labor until they can grow up.

But this paean of homage takes the cake:

We don’t have to wait until she dies to act. Hillary Clinton’s name belongs on ships, and airports, and tattoos. She deserves straight-up hagiographies and a sold-out Broadway show called RODHAM … Maybe she is more than a president. Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical heroine, light itself. The presidency is too small for her.

This is probably the single best (and most unbelievable) encapsulation I’ve seen of the idol worship of Hillary Clinton and by extension, the progressive Left. No ordinary mortal, Hillary, but a transcendent figure whose power and mission reaches beyond any political office; a female Messiah who is “light itself.”

You really can’t make this stuff up. (Ms. Heffernan would be wise to recall what happened to the last creature named “Light.”)

This irrational, slobbering idol worship illustrates in vivid color what happens when people misplace their deepest desire for the love of God, and pursue instead the gods of their choosing. The result is despair, anger, incoherence and total collapse when those gods fail, as they always will.

Hillary the Great lost the election she was supposed to have been handed as her due, merely because she is Hillary. The mighty Queen failed to ascend to the throne as her loyal servants had been promised she would. The golden calf turned out to be mere metal after all, and people are coming unhinged.

Jesus Christ: The Only Light, the Only Hope

What’s the Christian response to this? Let’s start at the beginning.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5

Neither Hillary Clinton, nor Barack Obama, nor Donald Trump, nor any other politician or world leader, celebrity, pastor, Pope, nor any man on earth is “light itself.” That power belongs only to Jesus Christ.

“I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12

Woe to us if we make saviors of those fashioned in our image. It’s all too easy to get swept up in the emotional current, and dance when our chosen hero wins the day, or wail and moan if he or she goes down in defeat. As if omnipotent power were held in mortal hands, and the earth turns at our command.

We will always falter when we put our trust in princes. “Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish.” Psalm 146:3-4

“Some boast of chariots, and some of horses; but we boast of the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall; but we shall rise and stand upright.” Psalm 20:7-8

If we rise as a nation or if we fall; if we know blessing or ruin, it will be for only one reason: we have either returned to the Lord with humble hearts, or we have forsaken Him and worshiped our idols. That is the message our culture needs to hear, whether it’s a welcome message or not.

True Peace is Found in The One True God

This is the Christian response: “Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or as his counselor has instructed him? Whom did he consult for his enlightenment, and who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding? Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales … All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.” Isaiah 40: 13-15,17

It is Almighty, Omnipotent God who holds our every breath in His hands. He alone is worthy of our worship.

The Season of Giving’s first gift to us is Advent itself. Advent provides a timely respite from our political noise and discontent. We are dust before the Lord, and all the universe is a speck in His hand, and yet, we are beloved to Him. He wrapped His glory in our human flesh, and then spilled His own blood to pay our ransom. Dust was bought back at an incalculable price.

Take advantage of the silence and expectation of Advent, the hope we are called to dwell on. If we raise our minds for a moment to something— Someone — higher; if we will be quiet for once, then perhaps peace will come to us. (For more from the author of “What Happens When False Gods Fail: The Christian Response to Political Idolatry” please click HERE)

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Donald Trump Shouldn’t Trust Anything Chuck Schumer Says on Supreme Court Nominees

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When it comes to loathsome political figures, there isn’t a person serving at any level of government than Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. (F, 2%). He’s just awful, and the Senate will be a better place now that he is leaving. That said, one of those most conniving, back-stabbing Senators will be taking his place.

New York Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. (F, 2%) is a career politician through and through. Schumer was elected to office in 1974, soon after graduating from Harvard Law School. Schumer passed the New York State Bar Exam but never practiced. He’s never worked a single day in the private sector. He is also fond of using the word “bipartisan” when he engages in some of the most partisan nonsense of anybody in the entire Congress.

Schumer was on Fox News Sunday this week. When asked by Chris Wallace about the Supreme Court and Donald Trump, Schumer said the following:

WALLACE: Let’s talk about an issue where you won’t agree and that is that Donald Trump intends to name a conservative, a real conservative, to the Supreme Court.

SCHUMER: Right.

WALLACE: If you think that it’s the wrong person, are you prepared — and will Democrats be prepared to filibuster that nomination, which has only happened once in the history of the Senate.

SCHUMER: I would hope first and foremost that President Trump nominates a mainstream nominee capable of getting bipartisan support.

If he does, then we’ll give it just a very, very thorough vetting, but we won’t ipso facto say no.

If it’s out of the mainstream, yes, we’re going to fight that nominee tooth and nail. And let’s remember two things. Let’s —

WALLACE: But wait. Fight — does that mean filibuster?

SCHUMER: Let me say two things.

First, we — when we had power, we changed the rules, but I argued with Harry Reid not to change it for Supreme Court, because it should get that bipartisan support.

So, it’s still 60 votes. We didn’t change the rules. If they, you know, I hope our Republicans won’t.

And second, when our Republican colleagues say, “Let’s do this quickly, without filibuster,” they don’t come here with clear, clean hands. After what they did to Merrick Garland and held him up for a whole year, a bipartisan nominee who Senator Hatch, conservative Republican, Utah, former head of Judiciary, said would be a very good nominee.

So, let’s — let’s try to get a mainstream nominee, but let’s not jump to conclusions, because what the Republicans did, past is sometimes prologue.

To get straight to the point: A “mainstream” nominee is one Schumer supports. In 2010, Schumer had the audacity to say about Sonia Sotomayor, “…no one questioned that she was out of the mainstream.” Not even Politifact bought this and rated the claim “false” showing some Republicans said she was out of the mainstream.

Schumer’s blather about bipartisanship and the treatment of Merrick Garland is ridiculous considering he gave a speech in 2007 imploring Democrats to reject any Supreme Court nominee by President George W. Bush in the wake of the confirmations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Schumer said:

We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts; or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.

Given the track record of this President and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least: I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.

There are a few things to consider. First, the Republicans did not engage in any poor treatment of Garland. When Justice Scalia died, the GOP immediately informed President Obama they would not consider a Supreme Court nominee during an election year. Obama went ahead and nominated Garland anyway, arguing the Senate had some constitutional obligation to consider him, even though no such legal edict exists.

Secondly, Schumer’s complaints about a one year wait for Garland are hypocritical given there were 543 days left in Bush’s administration when he gave this speech. Schumer was perfectly fine with filibustering a nominee for nearly 18 months.

Finally, exactly what obfuscation is Schumer talking about? He not only voted against Roberts and Alito, but he also worked with then-Senator Obama to filibuster Alito’s nomination. Is Senator Schumer arguing his Democratic colleagues are not smart enough to see they were being hoodwinked? Also, if he’s so concerned about obfuscation, where was his denouncement of Elana Kagan who ruled to affirm same-sex marriage is a constitutionally protected right when she testified to the exact opposite during her confirmation hearings?

Donald Trump submitted a list of very well qualified people to nominate to the Supreme Court. Charles Schumer will no doubt argue all of them are out of the “mainstream.” It’s going to be up to President Trump to tell Schumer he doesn’t get to make a choice. His role is to take part in the hearings and then put it to an up or down vote. (For more from the author of “Donald Trump Shouldn’t Trust Anything Chuck Schumer Says on Supreme Court Nominees” please click HERE)

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11 Ways President Obama Absolutely Destroyed the Democratic Party

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Analysts argue that Trump won because Hillary didn’t win like Obama did, or something like that. Obama argues that he was a better campaigner than Hillary was. But across the nation, it was clear that many former Democratic voters backed Trump in key areas.

Hillary Clinton has been controversial since college, and nominating her certainly did the Democrats no good. Looking back, you can see that she didn’t promote outlandish things while on the stump. She sounded like an old-time Democrat, a God-fearing white pantsuit-wearing smiler of smilers.

It’s just, well, America wasn’t fooled.

But it wasn’t just that Hillary was so bad that Republicans won. It was that Obama was so bad, America couldn’t see how they would improve with four more years of numbskull policies that didn’t benefit regular Americans to begin with.

While Barack Obama has less than two months left in his failed presidency, let’s review why so many traditional Democratic voters have abandoned the Democratic Party.

1. Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers was a grand plan that was supposed to increase the number of cars on the road with higher fuel efficiency. To the Obama administration, this program — one of the first down the pike — was offered as a fix for the poor. The theory was these consumers could use the money they got for their clunker to buy a better, more fuel efficient car. This worked for some in the middle class, who buy new or close to new vehicles every few years. For the working poor, however, it didn’t fix anything. In fact, the program cost three times its estimate, and the unseen consequences hit them the hardest.

See, when a clunker was turned in, it was made inoperable by dealers, (per instructions from on high) by filling the engine with liquid glass — literally destroying the engine. From there, the car was parted out for up to six months and then had to be destroyed completely. The government had to be notified when each car was dead. I mean, looking back on this massive waste now it seems so ridiculous that there was ever such a program that hurt lower middle class and low income earners the most. Think of all the used cars that were removed from the market.

If you needed a car with high miles and a little rust to get to your $9.00 an hour job seven miles away, finding a cheap one after this stupid program became a lot more difficult. Clunkers still on the market were few and far in between. Thanks to Cash for Clunkers, they were also more expensive and not better in any way.

2. Made getting to our jobs harder

Gas prices during the Obama administration were so high that all the fuel-efficient cars they tried to put on the roads didn’t matter much to people’s pocketbooks. Gas prices spiked in 2008 then dropped to almost nothing the month after Obama was elected, then steadily increased and stayed high for four full years spanning both Obama’s terms. Between 2011 and 2015, Americans filled up their trucks at about $80 a tank for gas. Gas prices between $3.50 to $4.10 hurt the working men and women trying to get to their jobs.

Of course, this increase in gas prices increased the cost of shipping of food to grocery stores, thereby raising the cost of groceries. When you have bills to pay and a budget for gas and groceries as most families do — and you need gas to get to your job — there isn’t much stretch to that budget. As a result, food quality suffers.

3. He told us we didn’t build that

Part of Obama’s campaign slogan in 2012 included telling mom and pop entrepreneurs across the countryside that they would be nothing if not for the government. It was as much a slap in the face as Hillary’s “deplorables” line was, but perhaps much more.

When a president who accomplished nothing in his life, and never had to keep his business going in tough times, produces the tough times that these entrepreneurs had to react to and overcome, a slow-burning intense passion begins to fester for outlasting such a vile enemy to producers. Small businesses are the back-bone of this economy, and Obama acted a punk to people whose hands were calloused and had to scrimp and save all they had, and use creative ways to stay open during a terrible economy.

4. Claimed wind and solar power was the wave of the future

Working Americans know that wind and solar power cannot replace coal and oil. There is no possible way that using the sun and wind could produce as much energy as burning something. It’s just logic, or basic science, if you will.

But the Obama administration did one foolish and wasteful thing after another to try to prove they were right anyway, and ended up wasting billions of your tax dollars on Solyndra and other fiascos like it.

The Ivanpah Solar Plant in Nevada, for example, is the largest solar farm in the world and is producing no where near the promised amount of power. The power it is producing is on the market at about $200 a megawatt hour compared to about $35 for natural gas. Oh, and the plant and those like it are killing birds and causing airplane pilots glare issues. Recently, a computer failure at the plant caused part of the farm to burn itself up, because the mirrors were directed the wrong way.

At a solar plant, birds who fly between the mirrors and the energy towers get burnt to death, which is horrible. All the plant seems to have done is create heat in the desert. Leave it to limousine liberals to spend your money to create heat in the desert.

Wind power is a joke, but what is irritating is that they notoriously kill birds. Stories of windmills killing eagles are numerous, and your government has protected wind farms from prosecution for killing bald eagles for 30 years. If I were to kill one eagle, I’d get prison time.

5. Poisoned an entire river in Colorado

The Animas River in Colorado was turned a disgusting shade of orange-yellow when the Obama administration’s do-gooders caused a massive flood of toxic waste including arsenic and lead to enter the river flow and poison local water systems. The administration then forgave itself without penalty. It doesn’t take a genius to understand what would have happened to a group of citizens who did the same thing.

6. Made building anything or increasing our comfort more expensive

Environmental regulations increased the cost of everything needed to build, repair, or make improvement on homes, and a flood of new lower-cost pipes and compounds caused problems for homeowners. If the Obama administration had not clung to a foolish agenda of controlling how we build things, much of the headaches involved with implementing an environmental agenda could have been avoided. It seems everything involved with helping the environment, as implemented by the government, hurt the working man and woman.

7. Did not make a stand for Christians

In the lifetime of most Americans, it is hard to recall such antagonistic reproach toward Christians as President Obama and his administration has projected. From denying Christian refugees to turning a blind eye to the mass genocide in the Middle East and Africa of Christians, to the insistence of the president to downplay the role Christianity has with the founding of America, Obama has seemed to be the most anti-Christian president we’ve ever had.

8. Shut down coal production

Union members are told to vote Democrat to save their way of life. But that circle couldn’t be squared after the Obama administration systematically shut down coal production. By September, 2016, Obama had been able to shut down 400 mines and 83,000 jobs in the industry — an impossible thing to ignore for most union workers. Coal’s big sin was that it was cheap and “dirty.” But regular Americans prefer cheap energy to non-existent energy, and prefer smaller electric bills to larger ones.

9. Tried to demoralize our military

The Obama administration began an effort to use our military as a social experiment, and consistently worked to undermine its effectiveness, with insane rules of engagement. Similarly, the administration reversed the military’s main role as a force to be reckoned with simply because President Obama, as a leftist, despises it. We remember his “corpse-men” comment, and taking full credit for the death of Osama Bin Laden. This nation is proud of our military and all it has done to fight for our freedoms. Obama doesn’t know the people all over the nation whose families have sent loved ones, and his ideology showed.

After Obama was reelected in 2012, the facts swirled about Benghazi. To this day that incident remains as one huge, unforgivable sin in the minds and hearts of many Americans. The lies and cover-up it took to get Obama reelected — as well as the ongoing whiff from politicians in Congress — makes the American patriot royally ticked off. Americans just want to know just what happened, and — relying on their own powers of observation — hold both Hillary and Obama culpable for the deaths of four Americans that night.

10. Kept on golfing

President Obama didn’t work much. That is the impression he gave to millions of hardworking families all across the nation. Nobody who wishes to keep their job takes in 300 rounds of golf in eight years. That’s ten months a year, every year, every weekend. If the president worked a 9-5 job and got weekends off, it would be one thing. But he was golfing during some of the most important international and domestic crises we’ve had. Flooding in Louisiana, the beheading of James Foley, the funeral of a decorated war hero, the funeral of the Polish president and much of his government officials, are just some of the times when Obama seemed cavalier. But mostly, we are and have been at war, and President Obama didn’t seem to really care to make appearances that he was in charge of doing anything about it.

11. Obamacare

Obamacare is a fantastic and predictable failure, and Hillary would have doubled down on it if she had become president. There is no question that many American’s healthcare choices have diminished, doctor availability has dried up, and costs have skyrocketed. Even unions called out in outrage about it. Employers were put in a vice, and now, premiums and “shared responsibility” fees are going through the roof.

Obama, and all political leftists waste mountains of money and show little empathy toward the working men and women who make this country tick. All of these examples and more turned working Americans away from the Democratic Party, and the party seems to be doubling down on its losing ideology. As a regular American, it is wonderful to see that the anti-American sentiment that the Democrats insist upon holds so little political power.

The power the media had and utilized to continue promoting the Obama agenda without questioning really, any of it, has been exposed for all to see. But with a little less than two months left in his term, President Obama can still do a lot more damage. Let us make sure the Democratic Party is held responsible. (For more from the author of “11 Ways President Obama Absolutely Destroyed the Democratic Party” please click HERE)

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Road Trip! Check out What the Oil Industry Is ACTUALLY Doing to America

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The recent news of a large discovery of oil in Texas’ Permian Basin reminded me of how little everyday Americans know about the size and scope of the energy industry in this country. I certainly didn’t until I took a long trip across the country on backroads. What I learned is that there are working oil fields in places I never would have thought — all the way across this great land. Here is some of what I found.

But first, about that discovery. Earlier this month the U.S. Geological Survey announced that it had found 20 billion barrels of oil in the Wolfcamp Shale portion of the Permian Basin. The Permian Basin is where a young George W. Bush was an oilman. The discovery adds to the 264 billion barrels of oil that estimates place in the U.S. reserves. This means that because of recent advances in technology and discoveries the U.S. has more reserves than Saudi Arabia and Russia.

As I found out, much of those reserves are in places you never thought they would be, unless you are from those areas. While Alaska, North Dakota, and Texas are the states that immediately come to mind when thinking about oil and energy, the truth is oil is being pumped out of the ground in places most people wouldn’t even think of. Crude oil is being pumped out of the ground in 29 of the 50 states. I saw a lot of this production first hand.

To get a great idea of the history of oil production in America, a must see is the Drake Oil Well museum. This museum, located in Titusville, Pennsylvania, is a monument to the oil industry and American spirit. It tells the story of the early oil industry in Pennsylvania — something that is taught in school, but you think is a thing of the past. With new discoveries Pennsylvania currently pumps on average 500,000 barrels of oil per month out of the ground. Coupled with the gas shale boom in the area, the economy is booming again in that part of the country. It has people excited again.

Leaving northwestern Pennsylvania, I traveled through Cleveland down to the Ohio River valley straight through to Missouri. All along the way, I found a peculiar thing I had no idea about. Oil wells on farmland almost the whole way along that trip. Ohio alone pumps on average over two million barrels of oil per month out of the ground.

Most of this oil is located in those red counties that voted for Donald Trump back on November 8th. It represents some of the good jobs that are left in those areas. As I wrote shortly after the election, visiting the rest of the U.S. would do everyone good, especially coastal liberals who see the oil and energy industry as evil. Go visit and see the benefits the industry has on communities across the country. The oil industry is just one facet of daily life in vast swaths of the country.

After leaving the Ohio Valley I travelled to the upper Midwest, and I wasn’t that far from oil production for very long periods of time. One of the highlights of the trip for me was a tour of the North Dakota Bakken oil fields. What you see when you visit is an industry truly cognizant of environmental stewardship. Where in the Ohio Valley there were small wells on individual farms for miles, in North Dakota, because of newer horizontal drilling techniques, the oil was pumped from super pads. That means a large pad with multiple pumps, brought oil out of the ground from wells scattered over a large area. With this, the oil industry is able to minimize the footprint of their drilling, and pumping sites. It saves them money, and gives a smaller environmental footprint.

When compared to the large wind farms scattered across the country, the North Dakota oil fields have a much less noticeable visual impact. It was truly surprising to see.

More important than seeing the individual wells, and production across the country, was talking to people that were involved in the industry or affected by the booming micro economies in oil producing areas. In northwest Pennsylvania for instance, the new shale finds have put many, in a formerly economically depressed area back to work. It is especially noticeable after driving through the central part of the state and seeing economic malaise and then driving through the shale-affected areas and see houses freshly painted, new cars in driveways, and other markers of a thriving economy.

There are countless stories to be uncovered by visiting the parts of this country off the beaten path. When you travel to these places you uncover things about your own country you can’t really grasp by reading about them. Boring data, from the Department of Energy, becomes real life, with real people.

Do yourself, and America a favor. Get in your car and drive, and don’t worry about the oil. We got plenty. (For more from the author of “Road Trip! Check out What the Oil Industry Is ACTUALLY Doing to America” please click HERE)

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How a Federal Judge’s Last-Minute Injunction Against the Overtime Rule Will Help Workers and Businesses

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Yesterday, U.S. District Judge Amos L. Mazzant, appointed by President Barack Obama, issued a nationwide injunction against the administration’s final overtime rule, which was scheduled to take effect on Dec. 1.

The temporary injunction came as the result of a consolidated legal challenge against the rule, brought by 21 states and more than 50 business groups.

The plaintiffs argued that the rule overstepped the Department of Labor’s statutory authority and that the automatic updating mechanism to the salary threshold violated the requirement that such actions undergo a formal rulemaking process.

In a 20-page ruling, Mazzant sided with the plaintiffs, stating that the Department of Labor overstepped its regulatory authority in issuing the rule, which would have doubled the salary threshold under which employees must be paid time-and-a-half for any hours over 40 that they work in a given week.

Mazzant wrote that “the department exceeds its delegated authority and ignores Congress’ intent,” which is to allow an exception to overtime pay for workers who perform executive, administrative, or professional duties.

By setting the threshold so high—at $47,476, or 40 percent of the median wage—Mazzant wrote that the final rule is “directly in conflict with Congress’ intent” because it “creates essentially a de facto salary-only test.”

Mazzant also stated that the final rule is “unlawful.”

In addressing the plaintiff’s argument that the automatic increase in the threshold violates the rulemaking procedure requirements, Mazzant wrote:

Because the final rule is unlawful, the court concludes the department also lacks the authority to implement the automatic updating mechanism. Thus, there is no need to address the state plaintiffs’ other arguments.

Mazzant’s statements suggest that a potential countermanding injunction or appeal will not succeed, meaning that anything resembling the final rule is unlikely to take effect.

That’s good news for President-elect Donald Trump because canceling a rule before it takes effect is far easier than attempting to roll it back after the fact—a process that could take years.

It’s also welcome news for businesses, workers, and families across the U.S.

According to a recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, over the first seven years, the overtime rule would cost businesses $6.9 billion in compliance costs, raise prices by $6.9 billion for consumers, and reduce family incomes (across all income groups) by $8.5 billion.

All these costs for only $2.7 billion in additional wages spread across less than 1 million workers (an average annual increase of $450 per affected worker).

And even those wage increases are questionable, as evidence suggests businesses would keep overall pay the same by reducing base salaries or shifting salaried workers into hourly ones.

Workers, families, and businesses should celebrate this temporary injunction, and hopefully permanent end to a rule that would create significant economic harm. (For more from the author of “How a Federal Judge’s Last-Minute Injunction Against the Overtime Rule Will Help Workers and Businesses” please click HERE)

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How Trump Can Reshape US Policy Toward Refugees

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As a candidate for president, Donald Trump advocated a restrictive U.S. policy toward refugee resettlement, and other forms of legal immigration.

In his speech accepting the Republican nomination for president, Trump said he would suspend immigration from countries that are “compromised by terrorism.”

Trump, when he assumes office in January, will find that he has significant authority to fulfill his pledge.

“He can decide how many refugees we take and from what regions of the world we take them,” said Kevin Appleby, senior director of international migration policy at the Center for Migration Studies in New York, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “He has a pretty broad brush to pick and choose who he thinks is worthy of admission to the United States.”

Trump has not clarified his position on refugees since becoming president-elect.

But throughout his campaign, Trump targeted the U.S. refugee resettlement program, arguing the government’s vetting system needed to be tougher, especially for Syrians fleeing war and terrorism.

The Obama administration says the current vetting process for Syrian refugees is the most stringent screening for any category of legal immigrant. The process can take up to two years and involves in-person interviews, health tests, and other security checks with multiple government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.

About 14,500 Syrians have been resettled in the U.S. since last October. There is no known case of a Syrian refugee being involved in a terror plot in the U.S. In January, the U.S. government arrested two men on terrorism-related charges who came to the U.S. as refugees from Iraq.

In September, the Obama administration announced that it wants to resettle 110,000 refugees from around the world—including a substantial number of Syrians—for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. That’s up from 85,000 refugees last year.

The Refugee Act of 1980 gives the U.S. president unilateral power over how many refugees the country admits each fiscal year, and where they come from.

Congress is only consulted in the process and does not get an up or down vote on the numbers.

Traditionally, the refugee resettlement gets broad bipartisan support, but this year, many Republicans protested President Barack Obama’s pledge to raise the number admitted to the U.S.

“This has become a politically correct program where we are led to believe that we have to take refugees from all over the world no matter how dangerous the threat is,” said Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “We are out here trying to keep Americans safe. That is our No. 1 duty we have as elected officials.”

Babin has sponsored legislation pausing refugee resettlement from “terrorism hot spots” to the U.S.

He was among 37 Republicans who tried, but failed, to attach language to a must-pass spending bill passed in September that would have blocked federal funding to refugees from Syria, other countries in the Middle East, and North Africa until national security officials could guarantee that terrorists cannot infiltrate the screening process.

“Trump has the authority to do what we in Congress could not do, and suspend this program immediately, particularly from Islamic terrorist hot spots,” Babin said. “I urge him to follow through on his campaign promise.”

Refugee and immigration experts say Trump can indeed use his executive powers immediately to keep Obama’s 110,000 refugee target number for this fiscal year, or reduce it. He can even pause the program completely, or restrict refugees from specific countries.

“Trump has the authority to resettle 110,000 like Obama or zero refugees,” said Matthew La Corte, an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center. “That is his decision with consultation with Congress and the State Department.”

Trump can also limit other forms of legal immigration to the U.S., as he and his incoming administration have hinted they may try and do.

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” this weekend, Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, said, “We’re going to temporarily suspend immigration from [certain countries or regions] until a better vetting system is put in place.”

Under U.S. law, the president has authority to use a proclamation to suspend the entry of “any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States [who] would be detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

Over six decades ago, Congress, worried that communists would try and enter the U.S., authorized this executive authority as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

Obama used this power in 2011 when he issued a presidential proclamation suspending the entry of “any alien who planned, ordered, assisted, aided, and abetted, committed or otherwise participated in” war crimes or other violations of humanitarian law.

But immigration experts say the power has not been applied as broadly as Trump has proposed.

For example, early in his campaign, Trump called for “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.” He later removed the reference to religion and instead proposed barring people from regions of the world with a “proven history of terrorism” against the U.S. and the West.

“The statutory authority is clearly there for Trump to do what he said he would do,” said William Stock, the president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, in an interview with The Daily Signal. “But the power under the law has usually been used in a case-by-case manner, impacting narrow classes of people. The broader the assertion of the authority, the more likely a successful court challenge against it.”

Opponents of Trump’s proposals, including refugee advocates and national security experts, say that limiting U.S. assistance to the most vulnerable of immigrants is detrimental to the fight against terrorism.

They say that such a withdrawal from the world makes the case for terrorist groups such as the Islamic State that seek to turn Muslims against the West.

“We are at a pivotal moment in our country,” Appleby said. “If we start closing our doors, pulling up the drawbridge will undermine our national interests. It gives the extremists more power to demonize us and use it as a propaganda tool. We are looked at as an humanitarian leader, and if withdraw that commitment, the rest of world will follow and then we will really have a crisis on our hands.” (For more from the author of “How Trump Can Reshape US Policy Toward Refugees” please click HERE)

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Trump to Follow Reagan Model in Federal Hiring Freeze

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President-elect Donald Trump won’t be saying you’re fired, but he will be saying you’re froze as a one means of shrinking the bureaucracy.

Trump has pledged to reduce the federal workforce through attrition, and leaving positions unfilled through a hiring freeze.

It’s part of his first 100-day plan that he first laid out during his Oct. 22 speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He said the freeze would exempt military, public safety, and public health personnel.

The hiring freeze doesn’t offer many details, but would likely be similar to a hiring freeze by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

“It’s smart for the Trump administration to do this in the first 100 days to let the bureaucracy know you’re there,” Donald Devine, who served as Reagan’s director of the Office of Personnel Management, told The Daily Signal. “Reagan did it and it lasted for a couple of months.”

Reagan’s first act after he was sworn in was signing a memorandum telling heads of executive departments to enforce a “strict freeze” on civilian federal employees. He reportedly was so eager, that he signed it before leaving the Capitol grounds.

“The purpose under Reagan was to reduce the workforce by 100,000 nondefense employees,” Devine said. “There were some firings, but it was 90 percent through attrition.”

President Jimmy Carter also had three hiring freezes, but were smaller in scale than Reagan’s freeze.

The hiring freeze is part of Trump’s six-point plan to reform Washington that includes initiatives to amend the Constitution to limit congressional terms, curbing regulation, and limiting the influence of lobbyists, all of which Trump said he would propose on his first day in office.

Some of these measures would require congressional action. However, a hiring freeze can be done through executive action.

The Daily Signal reached out to two federal unions, the American Federation of Government Employees and the National Federation of Federal Employees. Neither responded by the time of this posting.

Federal Managers Association President Renee Johnson expressed her opposition to the freeze in a post-election statement congratulating Trump. The organization represents 200,000 supervisors in the federal government.

“As a candidate, President-elect Trump proposed a government-wide hiring freeze on his first day on the job, as well as attrition,” Johnson said. “[Federal Managers Association] has opposed arbitrary attrition policies in the past and notes the severe negative impact that a reduction of resources has had on services at agencies across the federal government.”

A 1982 audit by the Government Accountability Office (then the General Accounting Office) asserted the Carter and Reagan hiring freezes failed to save money.

“Any potential savings produced by these freezes would be partially or completely offset by increasing overtime, contracting with private firms, or using other than full-time permanent employees,” the 1982 GAO report said. “Decreased debt and revenue collections also occurred as a result of hiring freezes.”

The Reagan hiring freeze was successful, as a package with other efforts, in reigning in the federal workforce, contends Robert Moffit, senior fellow for health policy studies at The Heritage Foundation and a former assistant director of congressional relations at OPM during the Reagan administration.

“The hiring freeze was successful under Reagan,” Moffit told The Daily Signal. “If the president’s priority is really to drain the swamp, personnel is the place to start. Inspectors general can be a tremendous asset to a new administration as they were during the Reagan administration.”

He said that after the Obama administration, there should be an investigation into personnel matters at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Internal Revenue Service, the Justice Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services. He noted that the Reagan administration launched some department probes.

Moffit stressed an effective OPM will be key to reforming Washington.

“He will need a very strong OPM director that will hold civil service bureaucrats accountable, but will also protect the career bureaucrats from political appointees,” Moffit said.

Trump hasn’t announced an OPM director. However, he named Paul T. Conway, who worked in the George W. Bush administrations, to head up his OPM landing team as part of the transition. Conway served as chief of staff for Bush OPM Director Kay Coles James and was chief of staff to Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao.

Moffit had no predictions or preference for the next OPM director.

“Trump needs to make sure the civil servants obey the new leaders on implementing policy. But there is a big threat to the civil service when the big thick red line is crossed,” Moffit said. “There has to be a clear division between political appointees and civil service employees.” (For more from the author of “Trump to Follow Reagan Model in Federal Hiring Freeze” please click HERE)

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This Thanksgiving, Thank God for Little Things — Even the Fact That You Can Breathe

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Have you ever thanked God that you can breathe? I have. Lots of times. No, I haven’t been water-boarded — not yet anyway. Last March, I came down with a nasty case of pneumonia, mostly in my left lung. I’d had it before, and thought I knew the ropes: three weeks of hack, cough, spit, sleep, repeat. And powerful antibiotics.

A trip to Urgent Care confirmed the diagnosis, but unlike my earlier experience, the antibiotics didn’t make any difference. My symptoms got worse. The ribs on my left side started to hurt like crazy. I thought that maybe I’d fractured my ribs from all the coughing. Another trip to Urgent Care and another chest x-ray ruled that out, so I tried another antibiotic.

Still, nothing. I kept getting worse. After almost a week of this, I couldn’t walk up a flight of stairs without stopping every few steps. Then, I could hardly walk at all without losing my breath. Finally, I started to hear choir music, which no one else could hear.

For my wife Ginny, this was one symptom too many. She dragged me to the emergency room, where a doctor ordered a CAT scan and discovered something much worse than pneumonia. I had pleural effusion (I’d never heard of it either), in which sticky, fibrous fluid fills the chest cavity outside the lung, causing the lung to stick to your insides. That’s not supposed to happen.

Thus began a two-month ordeal, including two-weeks in the hospital, ICU, surgery and ten hours under general anesthesia, a harrowing thirty-minute ordeal after surgery when I thought I was suffocating, more needles than my grandmother kept in her pin cushion, three, centimeter-thick tubes sticking out of my left side and draining blood and clear fluid into clear plastic containers, and heavy opiates that took more time to quit than I’d spent in the hospital. And a Foley catheter.

Each one of us is about three minutes from death every moment of our lives. One misplaced piece of popcorn shrimp or an allergic reaction that seals up your throat and you’re dead before the ambulance arrives. Yet few of us ever to stop and thank God that we can breathe. I do, but only because I know so acutely what it’s like not to be able to, and because I’m reminded it of it every time I yawn and feel residual pain in my left side. Nothing too bad. Just enough to remember.

In our fallen human state, gratitude doesn’t come naturally. Unless we have near-death experiences that remind us of our fragility, we’re more inclined to ingratitude. Sure, most of us have bouts of thankfulness. when something great happens — we graduate from college, get married, get a new house or a big raise. But these are rare events, not nearly common enough to turn gratitude into an automatic habit that can eventually become a virtue.

I’m glad that, as a country, we set aside a day to thank God for His manifold blessings to us. But habits don’t form with one celebration a year. We all need repetition. I need it, and you need it too. The details aren’t complicated. We must bring our blessings to mind, consider the alternatives, and focus on the blessings rather than the alternatives. Unfortunately, our fallenness discourages such mindfulness.

Here’s one suggestion that doesn’t require a deadly disease: make a list of the ordinary things you should be grateful for — health, freedom, shelter, family, friends, pets, breathing — stick it on the side of your computer screen, and thank God every day for these blessings that would otherwise recede into the background.

If you thank God for the small things every day, gratitude will eventually become not merely something you do on special occasions, but a filter that colors every moment of your life. (For more from the author of “This Thanksgiving, Thank God for Little Things — Even the Fact That You Can Breathe” please click HERE)

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Trump, the Alt-Right and White Racialism: A Mainstream Media Myth

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There’s a national hissy fit at the moment about the threat of white racialism. D.C.-based reporters who somehow miss the 200,000-plus citizens each year that make the March for Life right past their offices have discovered … a room full of marginal losers in second-hand blazers who rented a room at a bistro and made Hitler salutes, claiming to “honor” Donald Trump. And these journos know a story when they see one!

No, none of the moral midgets in that room had anything to do with the Trump campaign. None of them wrote for Breitbart. None of them, in fact, had any national platform until these reporters gave them one, and catapulted the small-souled Richard Spencer into the highlight. (Like the producers of Springtime for Hitler, something tells me they’ll regret it.)

So what’s the proper journalistic response? For the leftwing media, it’s obvious. You need to cover this obscure gathering as if you’d infiltrated the Wannsee Conference, then demand that Donald Trump denounce these cranks (as he rightly did), and that he fire his strategist Steven Bannon (which he didn’t, shouldn’t, and won’t).

Imagine if a White Racist Organization Captured a Presidential Candidate

Like Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood, Spencer runs a national organization founded to advance white racial dominance. Unlike Richards’ group, Spencer’s has never succeeded in killing anyone, much less 300,000 a year, focused in poor and non-white neighborhoods. Spencer has not helped to pass mandatory sterilization laws of the genetically “unfit.” He has not helped a totalitarian government (China’s) enforce a brutal policy of forced abortions. No, compared with Planned Parenthood, Spencer and all his crew are about as important as the Bronies.

Hillary Clinton campaigned with Cecile Richards on behalf of her eugenics organization. Clinton accepted the Margaret Sanger Award, named for its Nazi-linked founder. How many mainstream reporters demanded that Clinton renounce the racist legacy of that group which she openly, proudly supported? Not one. But let’s make Donald Trump answer for total strangers whom he has never heard of. That’s journalism, folks.

There are deeper issues here than brain-bleedingly obvious bias. While Spencer represents almost no one, there has been a shift inside the Republican party and the American electorate, and it is in fact important.

Jacksonian Nationalism Comes in from the Cold

There are many intellectual movements represented within the big tent that is the Republican party. Libertarians, religious conservatives, Jacksonian nationalists, and pro-business incrementalists all co-existed for decades. Back when the fear of Communism united them, these movements largely cooperated, making trade-offs where appropriate that compromised their ideological “purity.” The collapse of Communism provoked a widely noted “crack-up” within the broad conservative movement. The balance among these competing forces shifted, and major elements within this coalition began to feel less and less represented.

One of the most important “outsider” factions — and the one that Trump and Bannon speak for — is Jacksonian nationalism. This brand of politics values the interests of the nation viewed as one vast community over the promotion of abstract, intellectual projects, however appealing, such as promoting social justice, shrinking government, or spreading democracy abroad.

Jacksonians hold citizenship precious, akin to membership in a family. They view with suspicion international agreements, mass immigration from starkly different cultures, multinational coalitions, and promises that cooperation with other nations will prove as “win/win” as internationalists and libertarians insist. In fact, Jacksonians suspect that such promises are political cover for policies that benefit elites at the expense of the common man and the common good. There is nothing essentially racial about the Jacksonian worldview, so long as membership in the nation is open to all who are willing to assimilate to its culture and play by its rules.

For a fascinating (if lengthy) account of the conflict between Jacksonian nationalism and various forms of globalism, see Steve Bannon’s own essay contrasting Ted Cruz’s foreign policy with Marco Rubio’s, published at Breitbart during primary season.

We’ve Got Spam, Eggs, Sausage and Spam …

On the Jacksonian view, starting around 1992, the Republican party began to freeze out its concerns, in favor of a more ideologically coherent program that was dubbed neoconservatism. Jacksonians such as Patrick Buchanan described this newly dominant worldview concisely as “Invade the world, invite the world.” I noted in 2003 that for leading neocons, it seems that America is not actually an historic country in a fallen world, with both gifts and limits. Instead, it is a kind of ideological virus, which our military can spread around the world, and which every immigrant catches upon arrival. Jacksonians see our culture of freedom, hard work, ordered liberty and religious tolerance as the precious and fragile fruit of centuries’ struggle in England and America. For neoconservatives, that culture is the inevitable outcome of our creed, which could flourish equally among 319 million people from any other heritage. America is an abstraction.

For Jacksonians, from 1992 until the rise of Donald Trump, the GOP was like that Monty Python restaurant where, whatever you ordered, what you were actually getting was Spam. Supposedly “hardline” conservative leader Paul Ryan was working with radical left-wing Democrats to pass immigration amnesty. Republican president George W. Bush was inviting thousands of “refugees” from Central America, to compete for jobs that Bush’s big business allies were outsourcing to foreign countries, or else to subsist on American welfare. Bush also pretended that the intolerant dictates of the Quran itself were “perversions” of Islam, which in his mind was apparently Unitarianism, plus hummus. None of these policies were acceptable to Jacksonians. But none of their objections had anything to do with crank theories of race.

Are Human Beings Interchangeable Parts?

Racialism is evil, and if actually put into practice would devastate America, as tribalism shattered Yugoslavia. But globalism as practiced by leftist internationalists and blithe neoconservatives is equally destructive. It pretends that human beings are interchangeable, or instantly malleable to economic or government incentives — that they can be controlled by the kinds of levers that smart, prosperous people with prestigious college degrees learn to manipulate. The geniuses who ran the European Union decided that a million Muslim colonists would fit right in to Germany, Sweden and Denmark — and accused the terrified citizens who objected of being — you guessed it — racists!

Both racialism and globalism are toxic and destructive. Which one is more powerful in America? Which one is respectable, from the U.N., the EU, and the Vatican to every major university? Which one gets people attaboys and cushy jobs? Answer those questions, and you know which heresy is more dangerous right now.

Cheap Grace Isn’t Worth its Price

It doesn’t take much courage to read the transcripts of the Nuremburg Trials and tell the world, “I am against this!” Of course, you should be against it, along with dog-fighting and kiddie porn. But you don’t deserve any laurels for “taking a stand” on such issues. Sorry, snowflakes. You’ll have to find another way to win those merit badges.

C.S. Lewis wrote (in the voice of Screwtape) about the danger of picking up “cheap grace” by following moral fashions, instead of seeking and serving the truth:

The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there’s a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under.

It’s much tougher, and therefore more important, to ignore fashion and instead question the ideologues who are currently in power, from worldwide bureaucracies and federal agencies to posh colleges and self-serving church hierarchies. Jacksonians are right to fear the globalism which these elites are promoting, especially in the form of mass colonization of Western countries by newcomers with alien values. But to fight this globalism, you’ll pay a price. Part of that might be that you’re slandered as a racist, as Steve Bannon and Donald Trump have been. If you care for the common good, you will just have to soldier on. (For more from the author of “Trump, the Alt-Right and White Racialism: A Mainstream Media Myth” please click HERE)

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