Los Angeles Voters Right to Reject Anti-Housing Ballot Measure

/0 Comments/in , /by

The cost of living in Southern California dodged a bullet on Tuesday when Los Angeles voters rejected ballot measure “S.”

The measure would have made it much more difficult to build any new housing in America’s second-largest city.

Zoning laws and building restrictions rarely make national headlines, but they impose a substantial barrier to new investment, and new investment has been the missing link in the slow-growth economy of the 2010s.

Housing in California is already so expensive that tens of thousands of low-income residents leave the state annually for cheaper climes.

Heritage Foundation research on the costs of local land use regulation estimated that average Angelenos would save $94 a month on rent if the city adopted less restrictive housing regulations. Instead, they were tempted to go in the opposite direction.

The “Yes on S” campaign, which favored extreme restrictions on new construction, used the motto “Save our Neighborhoods.” Strangely, the campaign received most of its financial support from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Labor unions and property developers opposed the measure.

Given the persistently high demand for living in sunny L.A., restricting supply in that way would have raised prices substantially.

The neighborhoods might have been “saved” in the sense that they would look cosmetically similar, but the restriction of supply would have pushed prices up rapidly in previously working-class neighborhoods. Low-income renters and retirees would be priced out.

San Francisco has already gone down the anti-building path. The result is that more than half of homes in the Bay Area now cost over $1 million.

Tokyo, by contrast, has shown how to maintain affordability, even in a big city. By maintaining strong individual property rights, Tokyo’s policymakers have kept housing costs basically constant despite strong demand.

The defeat of Measure S is also good news for wages and job creation. Without new investment, jobs cannot be created nor wages increased.

Since half of business investment is in buildings—those factories and offices need to go somewhere, after all—Measure S would have made it more difficult to create jobs in L.A.

Free marketers and affordability advocates worked together to defeat Measure S. Perhaps they can go further next time and roll back some of the restrictions that have made L.A. so expensive in the last 30 years. (For more from the author of “Los Angeles Voters Right to Reject Anti-Housing Ballot Measure” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Conservatives Find Willing Negotiating Partner in Trump, Not in Speaker Paul Ryan, on Obamacare Repeal

/0 Comments/in , /by

Conservatives in the House and Senate may have come out swinging against the House GOP’s plan to replace Obamacare, but the skeptical lawmakers have stressed that on the future of Obamacare, they’re willing to negotiate.

So far, conservatives seem to have found a willing negotiating partner in President Donald Trump, though the president and his administration have endorsed the House Republican leadership’s Obamacare replacement bill.

But the House’s most powerful Republican, Speaker Paul Ryan, and his deputies appear less willing to play ball with the lower chamber’s right flank.

Soon after two House committees on Monday evening released the text of the highly anticipated health care plan, the American Health Care Act, Trump and top administration officials began courting support from conservative lawmakers and outside groups.

Their target: the members of the roughly 40-member House Freedom Caucus and conservative organizations such as The Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity.

The charm offensive has been ongoing and swift.

Vice President Mike Pence met Tuesday with House Republicans, including members of the conservative Freedom Caucus, to discuss the legislation.

Then, Wednesday afternoon, Trump summoned leaders of key conservative groups who strongly oppose the bill—The Heritage Foundation, its sister organization Heritage Action for America, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Americans for Prosperity, and Tea Party Patriots—to talk about the Obamacare replacement plan.

And in a further attempt to gin up support for the proposal, Trump invited skeptical Freedom Caucus members to a night of bowling at the White House next week.

The efforts are part of the White House’s full-court press to get legislation that both repeals and replaces Obamacare, at least in large part, across the finish line.

And the Freedom Caucus is the key faction for the White House to sway.

The lawmakers oppose the timeline for phasing out Obamacare’s expanded eligibility for Medicaid, which the leadership proposal rolls back in 2020, and also creation of advanceable, refundable tax credits based on age to help Americans buy health insurance.

“The first thing Republicans are bringing forward is a piece of legislation that we’re going to put on a Republican president’s desk that says repeal [Obamacare], but keeps Medicaid expansion and actually expands it, that keeps some of the tax increases,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told reporters Tuesday at a press conference.

“That is not what we promised the American people we were going to do,” the former Freedom Caucus chairman said.

Instead, Jordan, along with Sens. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, and other conservative lawmakers have stressed that the vehicle for Obamacare’s repeal already exists: the 2015 bill to dismantle the health care law’s key provisions that passed both chambers of Congress but was vetoed by President Barack Obama.

Though conservatives ideally would like to see GOP leaders bring up the 2015 bill once again—Jordan and Paul actually introduced that same legislation this week in their respective chambers—they’re not opposed to negotiating.

“This is the beginning of the negotiation,” Paul said at the press conference Tuesday. “The House Freedom Caucus’ power and the power of several conservatives in the Senate is to withhold our support and to make it better. If they have 218 votes, we won’t get any change.”

In the House, the Obamacare replacement plan needs 218 votes, a majority, to pass. So Ryan can’t afford to lose more than 19 votes.

Conservatives already have attempted to use the legislative process to tweak the bill’s phaseout of the Medicaid expansion.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a Freedom Caucus member, and Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., introduced amendments in the House Energy and Commerce Committee to freeze new enrollment in Medicaid expansion at the enhanced federal matching rate—95 percent for 2017, with a decrease to 90 percent for 2020 and beyond—at the end of this year.

The current plan phases out the Medicaid expansion in 2020. Until then, states would still be able to enroll residents with a federal matching rate of 90 percent.

Beginning in 2020, new Medicaid enrollees would receive the traditional federal matching rate, an average of 57 percent.

Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., also a Freedom Caucus member, introduced an amendment instituting a work requirement for childless adults who are on Medicaid.

Both amendments received the support of the 170-member Republican Study Committee, a group of lawmakers who tend not to be as conservative as those in the small Freedom Caucus.

But Barton withdrew his amendment from the Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, after the panel held a 27-hour markup of the Obamacare replacement plan.

So far, it’s not only conservatives who are willing to negotiate. Leaders of conservative groups who met Wednesday with Trump said he, too, seems willing to play ball.

“I’m encouraged because the president is listening to those of us who have concerns about the American Health Care Act, and because he understands that we want to help him keep his promise to repeal Obamacare and to prevent health insurance prices from skyrocketing further,” Jenny Beth Martin, president of Tea Party Patriots, told The Daily Signal.

Martin was one of the conservative leaders who met with Trump and other aides in the Oval Office.

The Tea Party Patriots leader said Trump didn’t make any commitments to changing parts of the bill that conservatives dislike, such as the Medicaid expansion or tax credits, but instead listened to what they had to say.

Instead, Martin said Trump outlined a three-pronged approach to repealing and replacing Obamacare: pass the American Health Care Act, take administrative action through Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, then pass more legislation to complete reform of the health care system.

Trump told the conservative leaders that many of their concerns could be addressed in step three. Ryan has been saying much the same.

Conservative groups have come out in fierce opposition to the House GOP leadership’s Obamacare replacement plan.

But after meeting with Trump, Martin and other leaders, among them FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon, struck a more positive note on the direction of the bill.

“Republicans right now have a tremendous opportunity,” Martin said. “I’m going to keep a little bit of a hopeful, optimistic spirit that they will take advantage of the opportunity the American people have given them.”

In a statement released Wednesday, Brandon called the conversation with Trump “constructive.”

“The concerns that have been raised by Sen. Paul, Sen. Lee, and members of the House Freedom Caucus are real, and we believe that we can negotiate on these provisions, address them in a substantive way, and get to ‘yes’ on this bill and throw Obamacare into the dustbin of history,” Brandon said.

Though conservatives may have a willing negotiator in Trump, Ryan appears to be digging in.

The House speaker has maintained the position that lawmakers constructed the replacement plan over a year’s time, and with ample input from his fellow Republicans.

“This bill was worked on from January to June last year so we could offer our constituents and the American people in our Better Way agenda what we could replace Obamacare with,” Ryan, referencing House Republicans’ reform agenda, told reporters Wednesday. “We ran on it all through the election, and now we’ve translated it through legislation.”

The speaker questioned whether any of the changes conservatives want to see now would pass muster in the Senate.

Republicans are using a budget tool called reconciliation to fast-track Obamacare repeal and replacement through the Senate, where it can pass with 51 votes rather than the 60 normally needed to end debate.

But strict rules govern the budget reconciliation process, and the tool can be used only on bills that change taxes, spending, or the deficit.

Because reconciliation is limited to legislation addressing fiscal policy, Democrats will be ready to challenge any provision of the bill they can argue runs afoul of the Byrd rule.

The Byrd rule was adopted in 1985 to ensure reconciliation is only being used to adjust the budget or reduce the deficit.

Ryan argued that any changes to the bill—including those conservatives urge—could jeopardize its fast-track or “privileged” status and make it subject to a filibuster by Democrats.

“The reconciliation tool is pretty tight,” the speaker said. “That’s why you see a lot of confusion and frustration, understandably so.

“If we put things in this bill that take that privilege off of it, so it’s not reconciliation, [the Senate] won’t even vote on it,” the Wisconsin Republican said. “They will filibuster it, and they won’t even vote on it.”

The House’s No. 2 Republican, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, also cast doubt on whether GOP leaders were willing to negotiate.

“I think everybody should get on board,” McCarthy said on “Fox and Friends” on Thursday morning. “This is one of three phases. If you want to see Obamacare replaced, this is the best opportunity to do it. If you want to see replacement that lowers the premiums and actually gives greater quality of care, this is the only option we have going forward.”

But in its current form, the GOP’s proposal is already dead on arrival in the Senate.

Just after it was released, Paul and Lee announced their opposition to the bill.

And pushback from other Republican senators has begun to trickle out since then, including Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who took to Twitter to urge Republican leaders to “start over.”

If more than two senators oppose the legislation in the upper chamber, the Obamacare replacement plan fails.

Despite the growing opposition from Senate Republicans, Ryan has continued to make a hard sell for the replacement plan.

“We have been waiting seven years to do this. The time is now,” the speaker said. “This is the closest we’ll ever get to repealing and replacing Obamacare.” (For more from the author of “Conservatives Find Willing Negotiating Partner in Trump, Not in Speaker Paul Ryan, on Obamacare Repeal” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

TSA’s New Groping Process So Invasive, They’re Warning Police to Prepare for Complaints

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Something ominous is taking place at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) right now, having to do with a more aggressive version of the already invasive pat-down method. The TSA is so certain their new groping method will offend that they have taken action to warn police ahead of time that they will undoubtedly be receiving complaints.

The TSA — one of America’s most corrupt and incompetent agencies whose ostensible job is fighting terrorism — is apparently so unsatisfied with the mere ability to strip search babies, remove colostomy bags, beat up blind cancer patients, and fondle your genitalia, that this week they announced a more invasive physical pat-down.

Taking note of their increased ability to grope anyone who wishes to fly on an airplane, the agency expects passengers to consider the examination unusual.

In fact, as Bloomberg reports,the TSA decided to inform local police in case anyone calls to report an “abnormal” federal frisking, according to a memo from an airport trade association obtained by Bloomberg News. The physical search, for those selected to have one, is what the agency described as a more “comprehensive” screening, replacing five separate kinds of pat-downs it previously used.

“Passengers who have not previously experienced the now standardized pat-down screening may not realize that they did in fact receive the correct procedure, and may ask our partners, including law enforcement at the airport, about the procedure,” TSA spokesman Bruce Anderson wrote March 3 in an email, describing why the agency notified police.

The fact that the TSA is alerting police to the fact that there will likely be an increase in complaints is bad enough. However, their vague details about the newly enhanced sexual assault with the fronts of their hands leave the imagination open for the worst.

On its website, the TSA says employees “use the back of the hands for pat-downs over sensitive areas of the body. In limited cases, additional screening involving a sensitive area pat-down with the front of the hand may be needed to determine that a threat does not exist.”

“Due to this change, TSA asked FSDs [field security directors] to contact airport law enforcement and brief them on the procedures in case they are notified that a passenger believes a [TSA employee] has subjected them to an abnormal screening practice,” Airports Council International-North America (ACI-NA) wrote

As the Free Thought Project has pointed out countless times, the TSA has been caught in a myriad of criminal activities — including everything from massive drug trafficking conspiracies to brutal beat downs. Granting this already despicable group of cronies the ability to further dehumanize Americans for the facade of safety is nothing short of irresponsible and tyrannical.

Laughably, the ACI-NA is justifying these enhanced pat-downs by claiming TSA agents aren’t intelligent enough to remember all the procedures.

The pat-down change is “intended to reduce the cognitive burden on [employees] who previously had to choose from various pat-down procedures depending on the type of screening lane,” the ACI-NA wrote in its notice, as reported by Bloomberg.

Now, instead of a dimwitted TSA agent fumbling to remember what pat-down to do in which lane, they can just pull the person off to a secret room and have their way with the front of their hands. Thanks, America!

Of course, when they were pressed with questions in regards to their new molestation techniques, the TSA said they couldn’t comment because “knowing our specific procedures could aid those who wish to do travelers harm in evading our measures.”

To the average American who buys into the ‘terrorists hate our freedom’ propaganda, this move by the TSA to grant them the legal ability to grope themselves and their children, will be mostly accepted. However, to those of us who pay attention and realize that the TSA has a 95% failure rate at stopping anything from coming through, as well as being a massively corrupt and predatory organization, this move is seen for what it actually is — conditioning for the police state. (For more from the author of “TSA’s New Groping Process So Invasive, They’re Warning Police to Prepare for Complaints” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

5 Facts You Need to Know About Hawaii’s Unhinged Lawsuit Against Trump

/0 Comments/in , /by

Here we go again. In response to President Trump’s rewritten travel moratorium, the state of Hawaii is suing to block it.

Here are some key takeaways from the Aloha State’s complaint:

1. They’re still going after Trump’s campaign promises

Literally the first allegations against President Trump have to do with the things he said on the campaign trail, rather than the executive order itself, which the 9th Circuit dangerously invoked in its ruling on the previous executive order.

“President Trump repeatedly campaigned on the promise that he would ban Muslim immigrants and refugees from entering the United States,” reads the document, before listing specific instances, “particularly from Syria, and maintained the same rhetoric after he was elected.”

It goes on to allege: “Within a week of being sworn in, President Trump acted upon his ominous campaign promises to restrict Muslim immigration, curb refugee admissions, and prioritize non-Muslim refugees.”

Once again, even if an executive order contains nothing about banning Muslims, it apparently becomes a ‘Muslim ban’ when someone says mean things.

2. It deceptively sources and presents its information

In an attempt to show a supposedly-negligible effect of the moratorium, the complaint cites a report from the Cato Institute, deceptively alleging that “not a single fatal terrorist attack has been perpetrated in the United States by a national of one of these seven countries since at least 1975.”

The operative word here is “fatal.” Luckily, nobody was killed by the 72 individuals from the original seven (now six) countries convicted on terrorism charges since the September 11 attacks alone.

3. The personal injuries listed in the case include someone’s mother-in-law

One of the named plaintiffs, Ismail Elshikh, PhD — the Imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii — is claiming injury because his non-citizen mother-in-law can’t come from Egypt to visit.

“The new Executive Order will prevent Dr. Elshikh’s mother-in-law from obtaining a visa to visit or reunite with her family in Hawai‘I,” reads the document. “Under the new Executive Order, however, Dr. Elshikh fears that his mother-in-law will, once again, be unable to “enter” the country under Section 2(c) of the Executive Order. The family is devastated.”

Since when does even a U.S. citizen have a Constitutional right to get a visit from his non-citizen mother-in-law?

The complaint also makes the same claims about members of Elsikh’s mosque, who now supposedly “live in forced separation from those family and friends.” Apparently, in Elshikh’s mind, the travel moratorium also precludes people from leaving the country as well.

4. There’s a lot about feelings going on here

Even though the moratorium very clearly isn’t a Muslim ban by its language, one of the reasons Hawaii is suing is because Elsshikh’s family and mosque feels like it is.

So things become Establishment Clause violations when someone’s feelings get hurt? When did that happen?

Dr. Elshikh feels that, as a result of the new executive order, there is now a favored and disfavored religion the state, He also claims that members of his family here in the U.S. are “deeply affected” by the order, which allegedly “conveys to them a message that their own country would discriminate against individuals who share their ethnicity.”

Wait, is this supposed to be a Muslim ban or an Egyptian Arab ban? Religion isn’t race, folks.

5. Hawaii is affected because … reasons?

Citing many of the same arguments as the last go-round, Hawaii’s lawyers also argued that the order has “profound effects on the State as a whole.”

The claims of injury against the state of Hawaii are especially laughable. According to the document, the injuries include not being able to accept students from the zones into the University of Hawaii and, “More broadly, the new Executive Order means that Hawai‘i will be unable to honor the commitments to nondiscrimination and diversity embodied in Case the State’s Constitution, laws, and policies.”

Let’s just forget for a moment that the Constitution sets Congress as the sole arbiter of U.S. immigration policy and that Congress has passed federal statute granting the president the ability to shut down immigration for national security reasons; Hawaii’s feelings are hurt, so their public university and legislature should set immigration policy instead?

So here we are again. The fact that the exercise executive power is backed up by 200 years of law, precedent, and the Constitution goes out the window apparently doesn’t matter if you hurt someone’s feelings.

But this should come as no surprise. As admirable as the intention was to rewrite the order to stand up to scrutiny (albeit with the mistake of taking Iraq off the list), there was no way to write this to avoid a situation like this. And Hawaii is in the (surprise!) 9th federal circuit, meaning the same backflip-cutting court that produced last month pile of jurisprudential drivel will have yet another chance to rule on the same and similar nonsense arguments.

Even in situations where the president has clear authority — as he does in this one — he will have to scale a wall of black robes and activist decisions at nearly every turn. Unless Congress does as it has before and limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts on issues like these, the administration should expect 3.75 more years of similar rewrites. (For more from the author of “5 Facts You Need to Know About Hawaii’s Unhinged Lawsuit Against Trump” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

BACKLASH: This Is How to Kill RyanCare, Says One Conservative Group

/0 Comments/in , /by

Conservative groups are now campaigning for the defeat of the American Health Care Act, the bill introduced by House Republican leadership to allegedly repeal and replace Obamacare.

Heritage Action labeled the bill “bad policy.” FreedomWorks called it “Obamacare-lite.” And the Club for Growth said it is a “warmed over substitute for government-run healthcare.”

Senate Conservatives Action, the political arm of the Senate Conservatives Fund, is urging voters to contact their representatives to oppose “RyanCare” (or, “Obamacare 2.0”) and demand full repeal of Obamacare.

“The truth is that RyanCare keeps Obamacare’s most expensive coverage mandates,” SCF President Ken Cuccinelli writes. “[I]t keeps much of Obamacare’s costly Medicaid expansion, it continues to impose penalties on people who don’t keep their coverage, and it continues to provide government subsidies using a new entitlement program.”

After campaigning on full ACA overhaul for years, and noting that Congress managed to place a full repeal bill on President Obama’s desk in 2015, SCA notes GOP leadership could only come up with “minor changes” to the ACA.

Conservatives such as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%) and certain members of the House Freedom Caucus are urging Congress to, first, pass the 2015 repeal bill, and then move forward with a replacement bill from there.

“The sad, but unavoidable, fact is that RyanCare will not lower costs and improve access to health coverage, but it will cause Republicans to own the disaster that follows,” Cuccinelli writes, calling voters to action:

According to Senate Conservatives Action, only 20 to 25 Republicans in the House of Representatives and three to five Republicans in the Senate are needed to scrap RINOcare and send GOP leadership back to the drawing board on a true Obamacare repeal conservatives can get behind.

SCA provided the contact information for the following 20 members of Congress and urged voters to call and “insist on full repeal of Obamacare.”

GOP REPRESENTATIVES

Jim Banks (R-Ind.)

Ted Budd (R-N.C.)

Bill Flores (R-Texas)

Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas)

Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.)

Tom McClintock (R-Calif.)

Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.)

John Ratcliffe (R-Texas)

Mark Walker (R-N.C.)

Roger Williams (R-Texas)

GOP SENATORS

Tom Cotton (R-Ark.)

Ted Cruz (R-Texas)

Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)

Deb Fischer (R-Neb.)

Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)

Mike Lee (R-Utah)

Rand Paul (R-Ky.)

Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)

Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)

Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)

(For more from the author of “BACKLASH: This Is How to Kill RyanCare, Says One Conservative Group” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

North Korea, Malaysia Ban Each Other’s Citizens From Leaving

/0 Comments/in , /by

North Korea barred Malaysians from exiting its borders and Malaysia followed suit Tuesday, turning ordinary citizens into pawns in the diplomatic battle surrounding the investigation into the bizarre death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s half brother.

The tit-for-tat directives come as relations between the two countries disintegrate over the poisoning of Kim Jong Nam in a crowded airport terminal in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13.

“This is way out of normal diplomatic practice,” Lalit Mansingh, a New Delhi-based scholar and longtime top Indian diplomat, said of North Korea’s decision. He could not recall anything similar in recent years, where so many everyday citizens were pulled into a diplomatic standoff. (Read more from “North Korea, Malaysia Ban Each Other’s Citizens From Leaving” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

WikiLeaks Docs May ‘Kill’ CIA’s Ability to Operate

/0 Comments/in , /by

WikiLeaks latest trove of documents, which allegedly show technical details of the Central Intelligence Agency’s hacking arsenal, may neuter U.S. abilities to conduct cyber-offensive operations.

The CIA would not officially comment on the matter, but an intelligence source confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that at least some of the documents appear to be accurate. The source continued that the revelation has the potential to be more damaging than the 2013 leaks by Edward Snowden.

Snowden himself characterized the new release as appearing “genuine” and a “big deal.”

This tranche of WikiLeaks documents contains highly technical details, which can be used by an expert adversary against future CIA hacking. WikiLeaks say they will not publish the source code until a “consensus emerges on the technical and political nature of the CIA’s program and how such ‘weapons’ should analyzed, disarmed and published.”

Cybersecurity expert David Kennedy took to twitter to note that the revelations severely damage potential U.S. cyber operations.

(Read more from “WikiLeaks Docs May ‘Kill’ CIA’s Ability to Operate” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

ISIS Attacks Military Hospital in Afghan Capital

/0 Comments/in , /by

Gunmen wearing white lab coats stormed a military hospital in Afghanistan’s capital on Wednesday, killing at least four people, wounding dozens and setting off clashes with security forces that were still underway hours later.

An Islamic State affiliate claimed the attack on the 400-bed military hospital, which is located near two civilian hospitals in Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul’s heavily-guarded diplomatic quarter.

Health Ministry spokesman Ismail Kawasi said at least three bodies of civilians and more than 60 wounded people had been brought to nearby hospitals, adding that the toll was likely to rise as ambulances were still at the scene. (Read more from “ISIS Attacks Military Hospital in Afghan Capital” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The 5 Stages of a Trump Scandal

/0 Comments/in , /by

Another week, another “nothing burger” Trump scandal.

This week, President Trump took to Twitter to accuse former President Obama of ordering him to be wiretapped at Trump Tower. That accusation, of course, had no evidence to support it. But instead of merely stating that the accusation was false, the media responded with volcanic rage, declaring that it was outrageous to suggest that Obama would ever have done such a thing. To this, conservatives rightly responded saying that Obama has a long history of targeting enemies through bureaucratic surrogates, and that multiple media reports stated that the Obama Department of Justice sought FISA warrants against Trump associates. To this, leftists responded by accusing conservatives of covering for Trump’s lies.
And so it goes.

This is the typical Trump scandal. It has five stages:

Stage one: A media outlet of Trump’s liking reports something.

Stage two: Trump simplifies that report into an incorrect headline.

Stage three: The media jump on the incorrect headline, tacitly suggesting that there is no relationship between Trump’s headline and the truth.

Stage four: The right fires by pointing out that while Trump may be getting the headline wrong, there’s underlying truth to the narrative.

Stage five: The left seethes that anyone would defend Trump’s falsehoods.

And then we repeat this routine over and over, further ensconcing ourselves in our partisan bubbles.

We saw this exact pattern just two weeks ago, when Trump saw a piece on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” during which video journalist Ami Horowitz traveled to Sweden and talked about rising crime rates related to increased Muslim immigration. Trump took that in, processed it and then blurted out that something awful had happened “last night in Sweden.” The media quickly declared that not only had nothing bad happened in Sweden the prior night but that there was also no evidence of a serious crime problem in Sweden due to Muslim immigration. To this, the right responded with statistics showing that Sweden did indeed have a rising crime problem, and that lack of statistics did not denote lack of crime but rather politically driven lack of reporting. The media then asked incredulously whether the right would continue to defend Trump’s nonsense.

Now, note that nothing here is actually scandalous. Trump will always play fast and loose with the truth; the media will always split hairs in order to declare Trump’s entire program out of bounds; and the right will generally defend Trump’s larger program. But it does point out a lack of truth telling on all sides because at any stage of this process, the scandal could die. Trump could simply speak accurately. The left could point out Trump’s inaccuracies while telling the whole story. The right could do the same.

But because Trump has become such a controversial litmus test, everyone’s reacting to Trump rather than to the truth. That means truth becomes secondary, which actually helps Trump, since his commitment to the truth is less than strict.

It’s time to get beyond this cycle of stupidity. Next time Trump tweets something silly, everybody ought to simply take a deep breath — both left and right. Instead of letting Trump’s Twitter feed choose the battleground over facts, Americans on both sides ought to decipher facts and then fight over narrative. That’s what decent politics would look like. (For more from the author of “The 5 Stages of a Trump Scandal” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

While Women ‘Strike,’ Victim of Chinese Forced Abortion Shares Her Story

/0 Comments/in , /by

Many women in the United States and other parts of the world are commemorating International Women’s Day by striking under the hashtag battle cry #ADayWithoutAWoman. The organizers declared that during the strike, arguably replete with problems, “women and our allies will act together creatively to withdraw from the corporations that harm us and find ways to support the businesses, organizations and communities that sustain us.”

But while elitist feminists took a day off work (even forcing some schools to shut down), Yue Zhang, a Chinese immigrant and victim of forced abortion, participated on a panel at the Heritage Foundation about the gross human rights violations intertwined with China’s family planning policy.

Zhang’s Story

“Today I understand that the victim must be grave enough to share the truth,” Zhang began Wednesday afternoon.

In August 2013, she found she was pregnant. Her initial reaction of surprise and happiness was quickly followed by worry. Zhang, 28 at the time, was not married. In China, giving birth out of wedlock is illegal. “I was worried for the future of my child,” she said.

If a woman does give birth out of wedlock, her child will not receive registration, or hukou —meaning they can never attend school, receive healthcare or even be officially married. “They are illegal persons for their entire lives in China,” Reggie Littlejohn, president of Women’s Rights Without Frontiers and a fellow panelist, explained.

Nevertheless, Zhang wanted her child. But five months into her pregnancy, she found government officials waiting outside her home. They’d discovered she was pregnant, and informed her that she would need to have an abortion or pay a social maintenance fee. The next month they returned, this time breaking into Zhang’s house. Again, family planning officers told Zhang that she would have to have an abortion or pay a fee. They also threatened to call her bank, have her house confiscated and tell her employer to fire her.

Zhang inquired about the family planning policy and social maintenance policy of her province. “I learned that with my annual income and in order for my child to get hukou, I needed to pay over $60,000 U.S. dollars of social maintenance fee, a penalty I simply couldn’t afford,” she said. “But I never wanted to give up [my child’s] innocent little life.”

To the Chinese government, what Zhang wanted didn’t matter. For a third time, government officials came to Zhang’s home, pulling her into a vehicle outside. At the hospital she was placed on an operation table. “I kept shouting and struggling,” Zhang said. The doctor administered an injection into her abdomen.

“After a few hours of stomach pain, I started to see blood,” Zhang, struggling through visibly painful emotion, recalled before the panel. Hours later she gave birth to her lifeless baby.

“I dared not open my eyes to see the child. … I cried when the doctor and the nurse took away the little life. I wanted to beg them to leave this with me, but I couldn’t speak. After a while the doctor gave me another shot saying it was to stop the pain, but the pain did not stop. … Lying on that bed, I felt my body was cut open and broken.”

Zhang’s pain continued long after the abortion as she experienced nightmares, hallucinations and feelings of guilt. “Sometimes I believed it was my fault,” Zhang confessed. “I hated myself for getting pregnant without getting married and causing my child to die.”

The Continued Abuse and Extermination of Chinese Women

Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ 4th District) is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and Congressional Executive Commission on China. Even though in 2016, China adopted a two-child policy to replace their one-child policy, Smith said nothing has changed.

“There has been no change in the basic structure of coercive population control in China,” he said, pointing out that women’s menstrual cycles are still monitored, and that women are required to get regular ultrasounds to ensure that they are not pregnant without permission.

“When a woman is so maltreated by her own government … that has psychological impacts on her that are lifelong,” Smith said, noting that between 25 and 40 percent more women than men kill themselves in China. “The cruelty is just unimaginable.”

Olivia Enos, a research associated at Heritage, said during the panel that China’s child limitation and anti-female policies are leading to a future shortage of workers in the labor force and an increasingly older society. “On average China has 114 boys for every 100 girls,” Enos said, adding that in some provinces, as many as 126 boys are born for every 100 girls.

As Smith pointed out, it’s estimated that by 2020, 40 million men will be unable to find wives “because they have been exterminated” through sex-selective abortion.

So why does China continue to maintain child limitation policies? Littlejohn suggested that “terror is the purpose of the policy. … I believe this is social control masquerading as population control.”

What the United States Should Do

Even though “it’s easy to think that there’s nothing more that can be done,” Enos said, the U.S. government could do three things to help end China’s child limitation policies and human rights violations.

The first thing, Enos said, is to create working groups in China to work with Chinese officials to roll back and eventually eliminate the coercive family planning policies. Secondly, Enos said the new presidential administration should engage on human rights issues in any forum possible. Third, the U.S. should stop sending contributions to UNFPA — the United Nations Population Fund.

Federal taxpayer contributions to UNFPA have funded coercive family planning in China, Enos said. Smith added that rather than condemning human rights violation in China, the UNFPA actively encourages other nations to adopt child limitation policies. “When you whitewash crimes against humanity, you become complicit,” he said.

The Rest of Zhang’s Story

With her mother’s help, Zhang came to the United States at the end of 2014.

“As a stranger in this country, I feel the culture of open society. I feel the air of freedom, democracy and human rights,” she said.

One day during a class at a language school in the U.S., a classmate asked Zhang whether it was true that China enforced child limitation policies. When Zhang explained the policy to them and witnessed their indignation, she realized she was blameless for what happened in that hospital.

“It was at that time I realized it was not my fault,” she said. “In fact, my children always had the rights to come into this world. On the contrary, it was the Chinese government’s fault. China’s family planning policy prosecuted me and violated my legal rights. It is the government that represents Chinese Communist party that should feel ashamed.”

Watch the entire panel discussion below.

(For more from the author of “While Women ‘Strike,’ Victim of Chinese Forced Abortion Shares Her Story” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.