Texas Governor Pledges to Sign Anti-Sanctuary City Bill

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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says he expects the Legislature to pass an anti-sanctuary city bill this year, opening a new front in the battle over “local control.”

Weighing in on the intensifying national immigration debate, the Republican governor pledged to sign S.B. 4, which would require municipalities to enforce migrant detainers at local jails and withhold state grants if they don’t comply.

“I will work with the Legislature to compel government bodies and employees to live up to their oath of office,” Abbott declared.

Cities, counties, or universities that violate the law will face a “multitude of consequence, ranging from financial penalties to removal from office,” the former state attorney general said.

Abbott, who has clashed with Sheriff Lupe Valdez over sanctuary policies in Dallas County, took aim at newly elected Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who vowed to remove Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from the Austin jail.

“It’s erroneous to have an attitude that laws are like some big buffet where you can choose one item and ignore other items,” Abbott said, referring to sanctuary cities and campuses.

Federal law states: “A federal, state, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service [now ICE] information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any citizen.”

Responding to reports of crimes committed by illegal immigrants—some of them after multiple deportation—Hernandez told The Texas Tribune: “I just don’t think you solve the criminal justice process by deporting them. We talk about being progressive. I believe we need to lead the way.”

Larry Korkmas, president of Texans for Immigration Reduction and Enforcement, said sanctuary policies punish taxpayers while municipal and school officials complain about chronic funding shortages.

“If we enforced [immigration] laws, we would reduce our medical welfare and education costs,” Korkmas told Watchdog.org.

In introducing S.B. 4, state Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, cited the election of Donald Trump, saying, “The American people made it clear that solving our illegal immigration crisis must be a priority. We cannot sit idly by and allow local policies to undercut efforts made at the federal and state level.”

Bob Dane, executive director of the nonpartisan Federation for American Immigration Reform, said, “Local politicians who support sanctuary policies are, in effect, giving the middle finger to federal law enforcement and, in so doing, giving it to every law-abiding, taxpaying resident.”

“Those days are over,” Dane told Watchdog from his Washington, D.C., office. “Since there is no longer fear of recrimination by [President] Barack Obama’s iron-fisted Department of Justice, Texas should pass [S.B. 4] and Abbott should sign it. The rule of law will be restored and Texas will be a safer place.”

Jeff Judson, a policy fellow with the market-oriented Heartland Institute, agreed.

“I think Abbott is smart enough to know how [antithetical] sanctuary cities are to voters. It fits with his belief that cities have abused their home-rule ‘local control’ and are violating freedoms the state is pledged to uphold,” said Judson, a former councilman in the San Antonio suburb of Olmos Park. (For more from the author of “Texas Governor Pledges to Sign Anti-Sanctuary City Bill” please click HERE)

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Holding Obamacare Repeal Hostage for Replace Guarantees Its Defeat

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After six years of pushing for a repeal of Obamacare, some on the right are now critiquing Congress’ effort for a full repeal. Their arguments do more to confuse the issue than to present a viable path forward for eliminating the harmful effects of this law.

Congressional Republicans appear set to finally repeal Obamacare using reconciliation, a process that allows them to overcome a Democratic filibuster in the Senate and pass budget-related legislation with a simple majority of the chamber’s members.

The repeal bill would include a transition period to give Congress time to debate how best to replace Obamacare with a series of patient-centered reforms, each of which would address specific problems in the health care system.

But critics of this approach derisively dub it “repeal and delay” and assert that it is based on a fatally flawed strategy that inevitably presents the GOP with several insoluble problems.

They claim that repealing Obamacare in this way guarantees market instability, higher premiums, and ultimately the loss of coverage for millions of Americans. This is because the insurance regulations mandated by the law may not be included in the reconciliation bill.

As a consequence, the critics argue that so-called “repeal and delay” carries with it significant political risks that will come back to haunt the GOP.

If that weren’t enough, the critics also contend, counterintuitively, that repealing Obamacare first makes replacing it more difficult.

According to the American Enterprise Institute’s Joseph Antos and James Capretta, the effect of repealing Obamacare before replacing it makes “it much more difficult to build a broad political coalition for the replacement plan.”

Antos and Capretta say that under such an approach, Republicans would eventually be forced to “reverse course and take steps to provide some kind of emergency insurance” for those negatively impacted by repeal because of the political backlash that would result.

Similarly, Heather R. Higgins and Phil Kerpen argue in a separate piece that “Democrats would have little incentive to come to the table on a ‘replace’ bill” in such an environment. And Peter Suderman, writing at Reason, argues that the current approach would set up “a political and policy equilibrium that is likely to make more effective reforms even more difficult.”

The implicit assumption in each of these critiques is that Democrats are willing to repeal Obamacare now just so long as we replace it with market-based reforms that Republicans can support.

Given this, some Republicans have proposed their own repeal plans. And they all largely reflect this common belief that Obamacare can only be repealed and replaced if it’s done simultaneously.

But the fundamental problem with this approach is that it actually poses greater political risk for the GOP, makes repeal less likely, and ensures that the replace debate will occur in the context of the framework created by Obamacare.

Holding repeal hostage for replace perpetuates the current market instability, increasing premiums, and coverage losses that have been the result of Obamacare. This poses significant political risks for a GOP that has consistently promised its supporters it would repeal the law as soon as it was able.

As pointed out by The Wall Street Journal, “affordability, choice and competition are due for another tumble next year under the status quo.” The health insurance market is getting worse day by day, and the American people expect Congress to stop the situation from deteriorating further.

In this environment, it will be difficult for Republicans to persuade their constituents that they are truly committed to repealing Obamacare when they now control the House, Senate, and presidency, and still can’t bring themselves to fully repeal it.

In addition, tying replace to repeal by voting on them simultaneously makes success in either effort unlikely. Congressional Democrats are unlikely to negotiate when the price of doing so is to facilitate Obamacare’s demise.

Their participation in efforts to replace the health care law while it is still on the books would acknowledge that it has been a failure, something rank-and-file Democrats have been unwilling to concede up until now despite all of the mounting evidence to the contrary.

Some critics concede that the absence of significant bipartisan support for the current replace plan means that almost every elected Republican will have to support it. Barring unified GOP support, it is unlikely that the legislation can pass the House or Senate.

Moreover, the partisan nature of this replace effort requires it to be accomplished through the same reconciliation process that critics are currently attacking, since Senate Republicans are unlikely to overcome a Democratic filibuster.

At best, such a process ensures that the GOP replacement plan can pass only by using the same controversial process that Democrats used to ram Obamacare through the Congress in the first place. That process, just as much as Obamacare’s substance, has been responsible for poisoning the debate ever since.

Legislation that combines repeal with a comprehensive package of reforms would inevitably be an enormous thousand-plus-page bill that will have been written in secret. And it will ultimately need to be quickly forced through the House and Senate, giving members and their constituents little time to read, much less understand, its numerous complicated provisions.

While the editors at National Review are correct in their assessment that building near-unanimous Republican support around such a replace plan will take time, they are wrong to assume that the end result will be “a real win.”

Instead, the most likely outcome is that Obamacare will continue to be the law of the land and any changes to it will be considered in the context of that baseline. As a consequence, efforts to enact the fundamental reforms that are needed to fix our health care system will be seriously disadvantaged.

The process to fully repeal Obamacare must begin now. The current plan to do so using budget reconciliation is a necessary first step in that process. The House and Senate did just that in the last Congress when they repealed the guts of Obamacare, and they should do at least that much again this year. Only then can the real effort begin to replace it.

Political risk, real or imagined, should not be used as an excuse for members of Congress to avoid doing the job they signed up for in November. No one said it was going to be easy. But a promise is a promise.

It’s time to repeal Obamacare. (For more from the author of “Holding Obamacare Repeal Hostage for Replace Guarantees Its Defeat” please click HERE)

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Federal Worker Union Is Blocking Republican VA Reforms

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President-elect Donald Trump promised to fire incompetent and dishonest Department of Veterans Affairs employees, but he will have to fight the American Federation of Government Employees—the largest federal worker union—every step of the way.

During the 115th Congress, Trump—along with Republican majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives—can enact sweeping reforms to improve every department and agency in the federal workplace.

Republicans controlled the 114th Congress, too, but outgoing Democratic President Barack Obama routinely threatened to veto GOP proposals.

Trump and AFGE already share some history. When the GOP presidential candidate proposed expanding a VA program that lets veterans get private medical care, AFGE quickly blasted the idea.

“Donald Trump wants to throw veterans to the wolves. Private health care for veterans would be an expensive disaster, and no one should be fooled into believing otherwise,” said AFGE National President J. David Cox Sr. (Read more from “Federal Worker Union Is Blocking Republican va Reforms” HERE)

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Ghana Is Leading the Way for Democracy in Africa

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Ghana, a West African country, has experienced peaceful transitions of power each time there has been a change in government since the country ended military rule in 1992.

Solidifying its notable status as one of Africa’s most stable democracies, Ghana is about to embark on another handover of power from the sitting head of state to the candidate of a longtime opposition party who won the recent presidential poll.

In a testament to Ghana’s functioning democracy, the country’s outgoing president, John Mahama, who fought hard for re-election, said during his farewell state of the nation address:

I stand here today, Mr. Speaker, holding the baton of leadership prepared to pass it on with pride, goodwill, and determination to Nana Akufo-Addo and to ask all Ghanaians to cheer him on as he runs his portion of this important relay for Ghana.

The president-elect, Akufo-Addo, former attorney general and foreign minister of the county who emerged victorious in his third presidential attempt, will be sworn in as Ghana’s new president on Jan. 7.

In fact, The Heritage Foundation had a unique opportunity to welcome then-presidential candidate Akufo-Addo to Washington and hear about his vision for Ghana in October 2015.

Akufo-Addo remarked in his speech,

I thank The Heritage Foundation for inviting me to speak at one of Washington’s most celebrated centers of thought and intellectual endeavor. It is an honor to be here in such company and to see so many people eager to discuss the future of my country, Ghana, and Africa more broadly … I remain staunchly optimistic about our future. I am proud to be a Ghanaian, the people who were the first in sub-Saharan Africa to free themselves from colonial rule, and who remain the pace-setters in the development of the principles of democratic accountability, respect for human rights, and the rule of law on the African continent. And as we move toward another election, I am reminded—and proud—of how hard we have fought for our democracy.

During his presidential campaign, Akufo-Addo highlighted the damaging effects of government corruption in Ghana and plans to tackle the issue by strengthening the judiciary and enacting constitutional reforms to decentralize power from the executive branch.

At The Heritage Foundation event last year, Akufo-Addo also emphasized that “[t]here is a connection between poor democracy and poor economic performance. Short-termism and political expediency in regard to elections tend to correlate with a lack of vision and incompetence in the economic field.”

In addition to strengthening the rule of law, Akufo-Addo’s vision for Ghana includes reforms in three key areas to transform the economy and set out a path to growth: pursuing economic diversification, unleashing the private sector from burdensome regulation and excessive taxation, and reining in the national debt.

As Ghanaians welcome and embrace this new presidency, Akufo-Addo should follow through with these reforms to enhance Ghana’s economic freedom and advance opportunities for all Ghanaians. (For more from the author of “Ghana Is Leading the Way for Democracy in Africa” please click HERE)

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Shut Down America’s Refugee Programs Before They Turn Us Into Germany

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On the first day of the new year, Islamic terrorists claimed another 39 victims, including Americans, in an attack at a popular nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. The Christmas truck attack in Berlin recalls the similar July attack in Nice, France. The suspect, Tunisian asylum seeker Anis Amri, was killed in a shootout with Italian police on December 23.

Amri had been denied asylum in Germany due to his terror risk, but was not deported because Tunisia would not accept him since he lacked a passport. Amri carried six different aliases from three nations and had been monitored by German authorities. He was not a “lone jihadist” but part of an ISIS cell, and traveled covertly, like some of the Paris killers, with the refugee flow from the Mediterranean.

On the same day as the Berlin attack, there was a knife attack at a Virginia Metro station by an African Muslim, Ali Ahmed Mohamound. A similar knife attack occurred in New York City the day before, with the suspect still at large.

All this followed on the heels of November’s Ohio State knife attack by Somali Muslim refugee Abdul Artan. These attacks typify the kinds recommended in ISIS literature, and ISIS claims credit for most of them. With Berlin, Brussels, Orlando, and so many other horrific attacks this year, San Bernardino and Paris almost seem like old news.

Although we view these events with horror and growing alarm, the outgoing Obama administration is literally importing terrorists through our nation’s refugee programs. Because private contractors are paid by the head to resettle refugees and other needy populations, the resettlement program has built-in incentives for uncontrolled growth. This harmonizes with the Left’s open borders agenda, which seeks to swell the rolls of new Democrat voters while weakening the influence of traditional (read conservative) America.

Big business shares this agenda in seeking cheap, subsidized labor. The resulting bipartisan alliance has long subsidized a resettlement industry that is expensive, secretive, duplicitous, and unconcerned about the Americans who pay for it with hard-earned tax dollars. The refugee resettlement program must be abolished in its current form before it puts us on the path toward today’s turbulent France and Germany.

The Real Risk of Increasing Terrorism

The most important risk the current refugee program creates is terrorism. Since 9/11 there have been 580 convictions for terrorism in the United States. At least 40 of these were refugees. Just this year, in addition to the knife attacks by Abdul Artan and Ali Mohamound, four other refugees have committed or attempted to commit acts of terrorism.

Since March 2014 there have been 111 ISIS-related arrests and 60 convictions. There have been nine indictments and six convictions of ISIS supporters in the metropolitan DC area alone. ISIS openly encourages “lone jihadi” attacks, and the State Department now admits ISIS is trying to penetrate the U.S. refugee flow. Some 250 U.S. Muslims from 19 states have either joined or attempted to join ISIS overseas. Many have since returned with little or no oversight.

Let’s be clear: these are not Mennonite terrorists. They are not Episcopalian suicide bombers. Virtually all 580 convictions since 9/11 were Muslim immigrants or American Muslim converts, and the Somali community consistently supplies such malefactors. Yet the Department of Homeland Security has provided tours of airport facilities to groups of Somalis, including explanations of airport inner workings, security protocols, and databases. DHS redacted some of this information as too sensitive to share with the public.

The Refugee Program Is Home to Major Fraud

Virginia knife attacker Ali Mohamound was carrying multiple identities when arrested. The Ohio State terrorist and his family lived in Pakistan for seven years before being resettled to the United States. Why were they not simply resettled in Pakistan? Afghani refugee Ahmad Rahami, the terrorist bomber of New York and New Jersey, originally entered the United States through the asylum program, but then traveled back to Afghanistan, where he apparently became radicalized. How can someone who is supposedly fleeing his home country for his life go back for a visit?

Virtually all U.S. Somalis originally arrived as refugees or asylum seekers or are their children. Many now take months-long trips back to Somalia, contradicting their purported reason for seeking asylum: fleeing Somalia for their lives. Minneapolis actually grants rent relief because Somalis complained about the cost of overdue rent upon their return. The home country visits so many “refugees” make undercut the program’s integrity.

The entire refugee resettlement program has systematic fraud, creating both national security risks and undue fiscal burdens. Refugee advocates claim the vetting process for Syrians is airtight, but U.S. security officials say exactly the opposite. An internal Immigrations, Customs, and Enforcement memo states, “[The] refugee program is particularly vulnerable to fraud due to loose evidentiary requirements where at times the testimony of an applicant alone is sufficient for approval.” The memo goes on to say that “the immigration system is a constant target for exploitation” by terrorists. An Immigration and Naturalization Services assistant commissioner said 95 percent of refugee and asylee applications are fraudulent.

The Obama administration has knowingly and routinely allowed illegal aliens falsely claiming asylum to remain in the United States. A September 2016 DHS Inspector General report found that 1,982 aliens from countries known for immigration fraud or terror-links who were scheduled for deportation were instead granted citizenship using false identities because fingerprint records were missing.

The United Nations selects almost all refugees, and the United States takes more refugees than all other resettlement nations combined. Yet many of the tens of thousands of unvettable Syrians who are accepted don’t meet the refugee definition.

Syrian Christians are facing genocide, and certainly do meet the definition, but represent less than 1 percent of those Syrians resettled so far. Syrian Muslims are more than 98 percent of the total. In the interest of diplomacy we are also resettling populations other countries refuse to take. Most recently, the Obama administration offered to accept 2,465 asylum seekers now being detained by Australia which that country refuses to accept because of their possible ties to terrorism. In response to congressional inquiries, the administration has declared information about this agreement classified.

Heavy Costs for Taxpayers Besides Terrorism Risks

Refugee resettlement is administered by three agencies: the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM), the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS). It has grown and metastasized over the years.

In fiscal year 2016, the program cost $2.4 billion, an increase of 205.4 percent since FY 2009. At the last minute Obama boosted ORR’s request to $3.9 billion for FY 2017 to handle the unprecedented flow of minors now being apprehended at the Southwest border. That’s 14,128 in the past two months alone and a 106 percent increase for the year.

Congress provided a pro-rata share of $500 million of this request in the short-term continuing resolution passed on December 9. It cannot be expended until the new Health and Human Services secretary has been installed. He can withhold some or all of those funds, if he chooses.

Since FY 2009, approximately 1 million migrants have arrived through these programs. Program costs average about $10,000 per head in the first year, and refugee welfare use is off the charts, even after five years (see table below). In fact, refugees resettled in the 1980s still receive welfare at rates well in excess of Americans and other immigrants.

The Center for Immigration Studies has estimated the annual cost of resettling Muslim refugees during the first five years at $12,874 per head. Muslim refugees use welfare at higher rates than average. I have estimated a somewhat lower average of $11,574 per head for the entire group. Cumulatively for the years 2009 through 2015, this cohort alone has cost U.S. taxpayers a staggering $48 billion. Since 1980, 3 million have been resettled.

Migrants Create a Heavy Toll on Communities

State and local costs are significant. When the Refugee Act was first passed, the federal government promised to cover 36 months of states’ share of food stamps, Medicaid, Refugee Cash Assistance (RCA), and Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) for refugees—a huge subsidy. Today it covers no state costs. Refugees rely heavily on local assistance, and school budgets, costs for translation, and other services have exploded. Following is a sampling of problems in many U.S. communities:

Amarillo, TX: 911 calls taken in 36 languages

Amarillo, TX: English tutoring $1,300/student/month, while feds provide $100/student/year

Buffalo, NY: 42 languages spoken in high school

Lynn, MA: 49 languages spoken, some in unknown dialects

Lynn, MA: 200 percent increase in vaccinations, straining public health budgets; foreign student K-12 admissions doubled

Manchester, NH: 82 languages spoken in high school, among lowest school ratings in NH

Minneapolis, MN: Somalis are a heavy ISIS recruitment target

Minnesota: more than one-half of the Somali population is in poverty

Rochester, NY: refugees and inner-city minorities clash

Nationwide: 20 to 49 percent of refugees test positive for latent tuberculosis (TB)

Nebraska: 82 percent of active TB cases are among foreign-born

Major Conflicts of Interest Among Refugee Resettlers

Nine private contractors, called “Voluntary Agencies” or VOLAGs, resettle refugees with the assistance of 320 “affiliates.” VOLAGs are supposed to consult communities before resettling refugees, but almost never do. They secretly resettle refugees and leave communities to deal with the resulting problems. They regularly withhold information from community leaders and concerned citizens and ignore local complaints.

Refugee resettlement has big effects for small communities throughout the United States, which is a major reason for growing resistance to the program. In one example, a federal agent contacted me in November to describe numerous problems in northern Michigan. He said citizens and public officials from Traverse City and elsewhere expressed concerns over the indiscriminate “dumping” of refugees and illegal aliens in small towns, including the Upper Peninsula, under cover of darkness, without any prior coordination with appropriate public officials (i.e. mayors, town councils, etc.).

Refugees are often employed in the resettlement industry, giving refugees a stake its growth. Many VOLAG leaders who receive federal resettlement grants are former directors of the agencies that administer those grants, and vice versa. Like a revolving door, they cycle in and out of government. For example, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Assistant Secretary Ann Richard is a former vice president for one of the nine VOLAGs. She helped found the International Crisis Group, a leftist organization funded by George Soros.

VOLAGs receive a total of about $1 billion per year from taxpayers and are paid by the head, receiving anywhere from $2,025 to more than $5,000 per refugee. The Government Accountability Office has noted that this creates a strong incentive for VOLAGs to constantly resettle more refugees, regardless of whether it is in the interest of the refugee or the target community.

David M. Robinson, who would later lead PRM, said of the refugee industry: “The solution its members offer to every refugee crisis is simplistic and the same: increase the number of admissions to the United States without regard to budgets or competing foreign policy considerations. On the other hand, it is politically well connected, includes major party donors at the local and national levels, and owns the moral high ground on an extremely emotional issue.”

VOLAGs have not faced any kind of meaningful oversight since the program was established in 1980. None have ever faced a public financial audit despite many calls to do so. The program is biased toward continual growth, and security concerns must be addressed.

Prioritizing Refugees Above American Citizens

The Refugee Act of 1980 dictates benefits that refugees must receive. They go to the front of the line for welfare and public housing, jumping ahead of all Americans, including veterans and the disabled. VOLAGs provide:

Housing

Essential furnishings

Food, food allowance

Seasonal clothing

Pocket money

Assistance in applying for public benefits, Social Security cards, language translation, employment services, non-employment services, Medicaid

Assistance with health screenings and medical care

Assistance with registering children in school

Transportation to job interviews and job training

Home visits

Additionally, ORR and other agencies provide numerous special grants available only to refugees. This is supposedly to enable refugees to rapidly become economically self-sufficient. However, ORR’s definition of “economic self-sufficiency” allows refugees to continue to receive every kind of welfare except cash assistance from food stamps or RCA. Refugees thus have a strong incentive to seek U.S. resettlement to obtain benefits.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage told me that elderly autistic residents of Portland, Maine are swelling the rolls of the homeless as their primary caretakers, usually their parents, die, or become unable to care for them, because public housing is taken by refugees.

What Americans and Our Leaders Should Do

The resettlement program is dangerous, expensive, and unfair to Americans. Its structure encourages endless growth, systemic corruption, cronyism, secrecy, and duplicity. The refugee program must be put on hold. Members of Congress have called for a moratorium, and such legislation is circulating. H.R. 3314, the Resettlement Accountability National Security Act, has 86 co-sponsors.

But legislation isn’t needed. On his first day in office, Trump can pause the entire program by simply resetting the annual refugee targets to whatever number has already been reached this fiscal year. The 1980 Refugee Act gives him authority to do this, and subsequent court decisions have declared Congress’s refugee resettlement oversight authority as advisory only.

Trump has stated his desire to halt resettlement from nations of terrorism concern. It would be wiser to pause the entire program.

It costs 12 times as much to resettle refugees as to assist them in place. Almost all refugeeswould prefer to return home than be resettled to a third country. President-Elect Trump’s idea to create “safe zones” in or near countries of conflict is a much more compassionate and cost-effective method of dealing with the refugee crisis. Trump’s State Department should encourage the Gulf States to participate in resettlement, since they currently offer little help.

The VOLAG system needs to be abolished. Asylum and other alternative forms of resettlement should operate case-by-case. Resettlement should be returned to the private act of charity it was before 1980. That structure would be naturally self-limiting, and those financing resettlement would have a much stronger incentive to see that their charitable dollars were not wasted on frauds or potential terrorists. Refugees should be required to become truly economically self-sufficient.

With such restrictions, other nations would have to confront and resolve conflicts they now offload onto America. The U.S. government role should be limited to security: helping create safe zones, identifying other countries that might help more, designating those populations suitable for resettlement, setting numerical limits, and vetting all refugees, asylum seekers, and others seeking U.S. entry. With new leadership, policies and management, Trump’s administration can reinvent the resettlement program to serve America’s interests again. (For more from the author of “Shut Down America’s Refugee Programs Before They Turn Us Into Germany” please click HERE)

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The Unbearable Global Elites Enslaving America, the World; Time to Revolt?

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Perhaps the worst thing in the world of American politics is the liberal elite composed of Utopian wannabe philosopher kings who believe their vision is better or superior to those of us mere mortals. They hide behind what they believe to be rationality and an Enlightenment mode of thinking. As Mark Levin accurately noted, “Utopianism is regressive, irrational and pre-Enlightenment.”

As far back as the Greeks, Plato- who actually advocated for the notion of the philosopher-king- said Utopians believe that the individual must subordinate his will to the state. That is, individuality and its accompanying liberty stand in opposition to the demands of the Utopian vision.

The author Thomas Wolfe updated this notion by coining the phrase “radical chic.” This is when liberals use their ideology as a marker to tell the world that they know better and they are superior to low lives that occupy those vast expanses of America that regularly show up red on an electoral map. To them, we of the vast red wasteland live in a false world where we are blinded to the oppression and injustice of the America in which we live. And lest anyone believe the liberal elite can be beat, it was one of their own who ascended to the Presidency in 2008 denouncing those who clung to Bibles and guns. It was one of their own whose presidential campaign team in 2016 denigrated the fact that Rupert Murdoch raised his kids Catholic.

The presence of the liberal elite is a good reason to have an Electoral College in the first place. That vast red wasteland offsets the locus of power of the liberal elite: the Boston-to-DC corridor, and the state of California. There are stops in between and elsewhere like Madison, Wisconsin, Chicago and Seattle, but chances are the elite will live and work in those first two areas.

Celebrity and education count, although billionaires are usually absent from the mix. They do not want to pontificate too much lest they kill the goose that laid their golden eggs (capitalism), although there are a few of the self-flagellating type. They usually emerge from elite liberal arts colleges that happen to have Ivy on their walls and are located on the East coast, or other “top notch” schools such as Stanford. (Read more from “The Unbearable Global Elites Enslaving America, the World; Time to Revolt?” HERE)

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Cop Draws on Divine Backup in Anchorage Streets

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Luke Bowe can’t guarantee that you’ll sleep at night, but, Lord willing, he does his best to keep you and your neighbors safe as an officer with the Anchorage Police Department. Unfortunately, there’s plenty of work for Bowe, 37, and the nightlives of others often take him to the ragged edges of humanity during the course of his 12-hour shift.

The tall, lean officer — married with three young children — is on duty the night of Anchorage’s first appreciable snowfall. He pulls away from the APD headquarters and leaves the brightly lit parking lot behind. An array of electronics hangs from his headliner, and his armrest is crowded with a locking vertical rack that holds his AR-15 rifle and a shotgun at the ready.

OUTSIDE THE SAFE ZONE

The screen of his laptop refreshes every few seconds with updated information, as the radio blares incessantly with the voice of a dispatcher and officers responding to calls of sexual assault, violations to restraining orders, domestic violence, gunshots to a vehicle, people lying on the highway.

By any measure there is a lot going down. But most Anchorage residents live in a protected sphere, rarely if ever encountering what Bowe and his fellow officers face as they drive through residential areas in response to calls.

“It’s our job to make it so people can go to bed and not see all of that,” he said.

In his nine years with the APD, he has had to break up countless domestic and public disturbances, haul inebriates to the warmth of shelters, discover dead bodies and everything else under the rubric of keeping the law. He has been shot at twice, been spit upon, threatened with every imaginable weapon. More than a few times he has had to tighten down on the trigger of his own gun in the sober task of taking down a gunman who’s threatening harm to fellow officers.

‘SPIRITUAL READINESS’

Night after night Bowe shoulders the duel task of enforcing the law and offering compassion, the demands of which often find him using words of consolation and handcuffs during the same household visit.

The most severe crimes demand drawing from within himself to treat hardened criminals with the same respect as any other citizen. That’s where his Catholic faith provides perspective.

“Were it not for my faith,” Bowe said, “this would be a pretty bad job.”

He and 380 other officers sworn into duty with APD have committed to protecting the safety of Anchorage’s civilians. In upholding the law, several of his colleagues and a first cousin have paid the ultimate price through the years.

That the possibility of death lurks but a radio call away provides impetus for “maintaining a spiritual readiness,” said Bowe, a cradle Catholic. In addition to keeping his spiritual life aimed at eternity he said he embraces a strong sense of resignation to God’s will. So far that arrangement has worked out well and he returns each morning to his wife Lisa, 36, son Leo, 4, and daughters Regina, 2, and Yvette, 8 months.

“God knows when it’s my time to go,” Bowe reflected.

Equally daunting in the spiritual health of a Catholic cop is the split-second decision to use deadly force to take the life of another. Involved in more than one shootout during his tenure with APD, he has not had to pull the trigger on a killing shot. Still, he well remembers his first time being among officers who did.

“The first thought that went through my mind was for the repose of his soul,” Bowe recalled, adding that he prays for perpetrators in crimes of all kinds.

DIVINE GRACE AMID EXCRUCIATING PAIN

“When you respond to a sexual assault call and (the perpetrator) turns out to be a relative (of the victim), seeing Jesus in any way, shape or form can be difficult,” he said. “Or when somebody with an alcohol addiction hits the bottom of the bottle, and I pick them up and they’re cursing me and urinating all over themselves in the back seat of my patrol car it can be hard to find Jesus.”

“They’re not Jesus in their actions,” Bowe observed, “but they are the image and likeness of Christ.”

He has responded to much worse: “I think across the board most of us would agree that a baby not breathing is the most difficult call,” he said. “We deal with the loss of life all the time; that’s a natural occurrence on the job, but when you arrive and it’s a baby there isn’t going to be anything optimistic to come out of that.”

He explained that in cases where caregivers or parents are not perpetrators and there has been no crime, the line of questioning can be excruciatingly painful.

“It’s bad enough that these poor people have just lost their baby, and then I have to ask a bunch of questions that makes it sound like they are suspects in a homicide.”

While it’s no secret that the night-to-night intensity of the work causes some police officers and other emergency workers to burn out and quit their jobs — or find less-than-healthy ways to cope with stress — Bowe relies on his connections with God and the saints to provide courage, wisdom and strength on his patrols.

“It’s God’s support that I get from him,” he said. “I think that there are definitely graces we get from those who are interceding for us in heaven.”

As for Bowe’s days off, you’ll find him singing in Holy Family Cathedral’s schola choir or serving as lector, attending eucharistic adoration, participating in a Catholic men’s group and spending time with his young family.

At 5 a.m. the calls coming from the dispatcher diminish in frequency, and at one point there is an eerie silence of several minutes. Bowe explains that Anchorage’s nightlife is winding down and that the majority of dispatcher calls will involve motor vehicle accidents with the coming of commuters in the new day.

He parks the cruiser, flips open his notepad and finishes typing up the night’s reports. It will be daylight soon. He will park the cruiser, head home for some rest and patrol the same streets the next night. (For more from the author of “Cop Draws on Divine Backup in Anchorage Streets” please click HERE)

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French Catholics Wake up to Islamist Threat, Despite Their Bishops

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The searing novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq is a profane but powerful snapshot of the likely near-future of Europe: Mainstream political parties going through the motions of trying to govern spiritually exhausted and nearly childless Western countries, whose only growing demographic consists of Islamists seeking sharia. In the course of the novel, the godless and bloodless socialists finally give way to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose sole opponent is the angry, right-wing National Front.

Until now, the only real opposition to the Islamic colonization of France has found its home in that party, whose founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, had dabbled in anti-Semitism. While the party’s current leader, his daughter Marine, has firmly rebuked extremists within its ranks, that party still carries for millions of Catholic voters in France a whiff of neo-paganism, and the ultra-nationalism which in the past led right-wing ideologues like Charles Maurras to call themselves “Catholic atheists.” In other words, they didn’t believe in God, but considered Catholicism a part of the French culture worth fighting to preserve.

Church Leaders Clash with the National Front

Such attitudes, real or suspected, repelled the believing Catholics who still make up a fair swathe of the potential conservative vote in France. It didn’t help that French bishops marched well in advance of Pope Francis in discarding the church’s balanced teaching on immigration, for a reckless open-borders stance that helped invite 2016’s wave of Syrian Muslim colonists.

The open hostility between France’s pastors and the National Front was on full display this week, as The Tablet (U.K.) reports:

Three leaders of France’s far-right Front National (FN) have used post-Christmas interviews on leading radio stations to criticise French bishops for urging Catholics to support refugees. They argue that the clergy should focus on filling up their churches rather than interfering in politics.

FN vice-president Louis Aliot said a “large majority of bishops” had “spit in the face” of the party by “systematically denigrating the FN, its leaders and its policies.”

Gilbert Collard, one of the Front’s two MPs in the National Assembly, said the Church was “disconnected from reality — in the name of welcoming others, they reject us.”

Party secretary general Nicolas Bay denied the interviews were a “declaration of war” but said the Front “didn’t need to hear any lessons from the clergy about migration.”

A New Choice for Faithful Frenchmen

However, French voters concerned about the overwhelming influx of sharia-believing Islamists into their country now have another option. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Bataclan massacre, a conservative movement has arisen with no links to the old, extremist right, with solid Christian credentials. Sens Commun (Common Sense) is a pro-life, pro-family Catholic grass roots group that spans the country, and its members are willing to question the wisdom of their bishops on crucial issues of border control and national identity.

The leading rival Marine Le Pen faces on the right is François Fillon, who has ties to Sens Commun. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

In France, the strict separation between personal faith and public life, known as laïcité, is a pillar of national identity. However, a confluence of events — from the legalization of gay marriage to the more recent string of Islamist terror attacks — has many conservative voters looking to the country’s Christian heritage as a bulwark.

Mr. Fillon’s candidacy is seizing on that impulse. In publicly embracing his faith, the 62-year-old is tapping a wellspring of Catholic voters who have begun coalescing into a potentially decisive voting bloc.

His performance during the country’s first-ever conservative primaries provided the clearest sign yet of the revived Catholic vote.

…

The Catholic vote is shaping up to play an unusually prominent role in the general election in May, when polls predict Mr. Fillon will face-off against Marine Le Pen , leader of the far-right anti-immigrant and anti-euro National Front party.

Many conservative Catholics shifted to the National Front during recent regional elections, feeling more at home with its call for revived nationalism than with the pro-EU principles — free movement of people and goods — espoused by other parties.

A quarter of self-described practicing Catholics voted for the National Front in December 2015 regional elections, up from 16% in local races in March of that year, according to polling firm IFOP.

Mr. Fillon’s Catholicism reassures voters who want to show support for French traditions. “The National Front has made a lot of progress with this group,” said Jerome Fourquet, director of IFOP. “They could come back to the center-right with Fillon.”

The rise of a Catholic vote in France is a measure of how deeply the continent has been shaken by a series of crises, from the arrival of migrant waves from the Middle East to the surge in political parties questioning the future of the European Union itself. …

[Fillon] voted against the gay-marriage bill and criticized the government for not doing more to protect Christian minorities in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, organizing a rally in June 2015 to support them.

“We are all Eastern Christians!” Mr. Fillon told the crowd.

Denial Across the Rhine

Meanwhile, in neighboring Germany Angela Merkel — the architect of the Syrian “refugee” invasion — was granted a prestigious Catholic humanitarian award by that country’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, specifically for her handling of Muslim immigration. However, in Austria, the prominent Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has recently questioned the wisdom of accepting so many Muslim immigrants, and even called for Europeans to give U.S. President-elect Donald Trump a second look, pointing out that Ronald Reagan was also widely dismissed when he took office. (For more from the author of “French Catholics Wake up to Islamist Threat, Despite Their Bishops” please click HERE)

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How Trump Can Rally Three Factions in Congress for a Historic First Year

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Even those repulsed by the recent campaign will focus on Congress and the new President as “gridlock” gives way to — what? The political-science notion of “unified control by one Party” doesn’t begin to explain it.

If the U.S. had a parliamentary system, President Donald Trump’s coalition in Congress would consist of three distinct parties: (1) Economic Nationalists fed up with porous borders and sweeping trade pacts; (2) Conservatives and Christians who favor limited government, military strength, and religious freedom; and (3) Corporate-oriented Republicans ready to compromise on social issues and immigration.

Since all three wear a Republican label, we’ll call them factions. To win legislatively, the Trump Administration will need very strong support from at least two of those three — and no serious resistance from the one whose priorities are being diluted, delayed or denied.

Start with where all three factions are in-sync. Big changes in health insurance. Conservative judicial nominees and support for the police. Energy independence via more fracking and new pipelines. And major business tax relief including repatriation of profits from Fortune 500 subsidiaries. If Trump and the GOP-led Congress concentrated on these four zones, 2017 would be a historic year and the economy would rally.

Beyond that, critical differences take hold. Let’s move beyond “favor versus oppose.” The more enlightening question is: Which faction is excited about delivering on what issues and themes?

1. What drove the Trump Army? Evict the violent illegals, induce a lot of others to depart, and keep out undocumented saboteurs; along with “Buy American and Hire Americans,” all the better with hefty infrastructure spending. Top Republican legislators are not keen on any of that.

2. Conservatives remain solid: Reduce or contain spending on everything while also replenishing a hollowed-out military. Restore local control of K-12 governance while promoting school choice and religious freedoms. On tax changes, remember that families and small businesses have claims at least as strong as those of Silicon Valley, Boeing, and agribusinesses seeking cheap labor.

3. And the Establishment Republicans? For this faction, “excitement” is the wrong term. They measure success by moderating whatever can’t be avoided. Not just the lifestyle and moral issues, but pushing China on trade and currency issues, new spending commitments, and restricting the global autonomy of large U.S. companies. Especially in the Senate, key conservative as well as Trumpian priorities have senior Republican legislators jittery.

Social Decay — and How to Smoke Out the Federal Enablers

Readers of The Stream might also wonder: What about the underlying deterioration not addressed by the measures being talked about?

Since the Crash of 2008, 14 million Americans have left the labor force. That’s mostly aging Boomers, according to Mr. Obama’s Labor Department. Others know that the costs of a job — for the hirers as well as the hirees — are up against government transfer payments, quotas, mandates, and very liberal “disability” rules.

With traditional marriage under assault, America is turning into a tribal society, where millions of kids are everyone’s responsibility even as they have no respected source of authority to turn to. Meanwhile heroin-smuggling, addiction to pain-deadening medications, and the so-called recreational use of marijuana are at levels not seen in 40 to 50 years.

It’s true: Permissive policies and relativistic attitudes are sapping America’s vitals in ways that more pipelines and lower corporate taxes can’t touch.

But there’s one strategy that, using minimal resources, can thwart one of the most insidious threats to family cohesion and social resilience.

Describing belligerents in battle, Carl von Clausewitz wrote that “a certain center of gravity develops, the hub of all power and movement, on which everything depends. That is the point against which all our energies should be directed.” Well, not “all” — 2017 is too top-heavy for that — but enough.

Where does “politics meet culture” in ways that inflame moral as well as economic ills? It’s the Administrative State — law made by lawyers and bureaucrats never elected and relieved to be hidden. These folks are animated by secular materialism and sustained by social polarization. All of us got to sample their daily thinking in the Wikileaks e-mail mound.

Congress won’t eliminate the Energy or Education Departments. But tough GOP legislators can partner with the Trump White House and its Departmental heads to identify and defund economic and moral nihilism in federal departments and agencies.

To block the pollution of children’s minds? Identify the parts of the Dept. of Education that manipulate local content and block objective and effective teacher evaluations. Defund them.

To bolster family autonomy, rights and responsibilities? Haul up the lawyer-bureaucrats from HHS and the Justice Department; make them explain each and every regulation or locally-targeted lawsuit; and then defund the enforcement strategy and the offices from which it sprang.

Though energy is not a family issue as such, the same “search and defund” method will work for Secretary Rick Perry and his hardier congressional allies.

A governing majority of three distinct factions and agendas can deliver on some great things this year. But they’ll need to be evocative and compelling in their public case-making — and highly explicit behind closed doors. “Who does what when? Who’ll need to wait until 2018? And how do we not play games that could blow it up for all of us? After all, we’ve just seen what the other side can do with power. …”

Oh yes, the Democrats! Why did we say so little about them? Mainly because no one expects them to govern. They won’t be able to issue executive orders or set the House and Senate schedule.

Yet the Democratic Party, much better than their GOP rivals, understands Clausewitz’s point about “the hub of all power and movement.” They have a knack for applying force in ways that preserves ground — or blows up the train tracks — regardless of what public opinion favors. They’ll also be trying to make their own deals — with the new Republican President. The Republicans in Congress should remember that. (For more from the author of “How Trump Can Rally Three Factions in Congress for a Historic First Year” please click HERE)

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North Korea: Cold War Relic, Present Day Threat

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You can kick the can down the road, but when Kim Jong Un announces, as he did last Sunday, that “we have reached the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket,” you are reaching the end of that road.

Since the early 1990s, we have offered every kind of inducement to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program. All failed miserably. Pyongyang managed to extort money, food, oil and commercial nuclear reactors in exchange. But it was all a swindle. North Korea was never going to give up its nukes because it sees them as the ultimate guarantee of regime survival.

The North Koreans believe that nukes confer inviolability. Saddam Hussein was invaded and deposed before he could acquire them. Kim won’t let that happen to him. That’s why Thae Yong Ho, a recent high-level defector, insisted, “As long as Kim Jong Un is in power, North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, even if it’s offered $1 trillion or $10 trillion in rewards.”

Meanwhile, they have advanced. They’ve already exploded a handful of nuclear bombs. And they’ve twice successfully launched satellites, which means they have the ICBM essentials. If they can miniaturize their weapons to fit on top of the rocket and control re-entry, they’ll be able to push a button in Pyongyang and wipe out an American city. (Read more from “North Korea: Cold War Relic, Present Day Threat” HERE)

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