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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Progressives Think They Can Alter Reality. They’re Wrong.

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We will never understand liberals and progressives until we recognize that they often see reality as a social construct subject to being challenged and changed.

For example, throughout the world, boys and girls have different toy preferences. Typically, boys like to play with cars and trucks, whereas girls prefer dolls.

Liberals explain this with the assertion that boys and girls are socialized and encouraged to play with different types of toys by their parents, peers, and “society.”

Growing scientific evidence suggests that toy preferences have a biological origin. Even studies of male and female primates find that they exhibit similar toy preferences.

Despite the growing evidence of biological determinism, liberals have managed to intimidate toy sellers into getting rid of the labels “toys for boys” and “toys for girls.”

Another reality issue that’s extremely annoying to liberals and progressives is chromosomal sex determination.

The XX/XY sex determination system is found in humans. Females have two of the same kind of sex chromosome (XX), whereas males have two distinct sex chromosomes (XY). This chromosomal reality is seen as limiting, annoying, and an artifact of a patriarchal, chauvinistic society.

So liberals and progressives want to change it. Say you are an XY (male) individual but would like to conduct your affairs in a facility designated for XX (female) individuals, such as a ladies’ room. You can satisfy your desire by claiming that you are transgender — that is, you’ve switched from one gender to another. Therefore, if one has XY chromosomes, he can behave as if he were an XXer.

Plus, there is the expectation of being addressed according to one’s chosen gender. The Minneapolis Police Department has a new rule that requires officers to address transgender people using their preferred names and pronouns. When an XYer is arrested but claims he is a woman, I wonder whether the police will place him in a cell with XXers.

Just how far the Minneapolis authorities will go is in question; maybe they, too, believe that reality is optional.

Another part of reality that liberals and progressives find difficult to accept is the fact that equality among humans is the exception and inequality the norm.

If one were to list the world’s top 30 violinists of the 20th century, at least 20 of them would be of Jewish ancestry. Jews constitute no more than 3 percent of the U.S. population but 35 percent of American Nobel Prize winners. One wonders what liberals would propose to promote equality in violin excellence and winning a Nobel Prize.

By the way, liberals and progressives love to attend classical concerts, where there is a virtual absence of racial diversity.

Year after year, blacks of West African descent walk away with all of the prizes in the Olympic 100-meter run. The probability of such an outcome by chance is all but zero.

It must be a reality — namely, genetic physiological and biomechanical characteristics — that causes blacks to excel in certain sports (e.g., basketball, football, and track) and spells disaster for those who have aspirations to be Olympic-class swimmers.

Somehow liberals and progressives manage to cope with some realities but go ballistic with others. They cope well with black domination of basketball, football, and track and with the near absence of black performers in classical concerts. They also accept the complete absence of women in the NFL and NBA.

They even accept geographical disparities. For example, not a single player in the NHL’s history can boast of having been born and raised in Hawaii, Louisiana, or Mississippi.

The reality that they go ballistic on is the reality that we are not all equally intelligent. There are many more male geniuses than female, and median male IQ is higher. Liberals might argue bias in the testing. Men are taller on average than women. If liberals don’t like that, would they accuse the height-measuring device of being biased?

The lesson liberals need to learn is that despite their arrogance, they do not have the power to alter reality. (For more from the author of “Progressives Think They Can Alter Reality. They’re Wrong.” please click HERE)

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4 Key Things to Know About Building Trump’s Border Wall

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President-elect Donald Trump has legal authorization to move forward on his core campaign promise of building a border wall; he just needs the money to do it.

Trump said he still intends to require Mexico to pay for the wall, but needs congressional appropriation to expedite the process.

Here are four things to know about the border wall.

1. Legal Authorization

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 authorized a 700-mile, double-layered border fence along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

The measure had broad bipartisan support and passed the House by a vote of 283 to 183 in September of that year. It then passed the Senate a couple of weeks later with a vote of 80-19. President George W. Bush signed the bill on Oct. 26.

A fence might seem short of Trump’s promise of a “big, beautiful, powerful wall.” However, Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation of Americans for Immigration Reform, a pro-border enforcement group, said he believes it is essentially in line with Trump’s pledge.

“Fence or wall or barrier, he called for securing the border,” Mehlman told The Daily Signal. “His campaign was about fulfilling the promise of the 2006 law.”

2. How Much of the Wall Is Already Built?

The first layer of the planned double-layered wall is a little over half finished, as is much of the fence to stop vehicles, but the second layer still has a long way to go.

In May 2011, President Barack Obama asserted the border fence is “now basically complete” because the primary and vehicle fencing has been built. PolitiFact said this was “mostly false,” because the secondary fencing was such a key aspect of the fence. When finished, the complete wall is supposed to be wide enough to drive a truck between the two layers.

The Department of Homeland Security has completed 353 miles of primary pedestrian fencing, which runs directly along the border and is intended to prevent crossings on foot. The department also completed another 300 miles of vehicle fencing, which prevents motorized vehicles from crossing.

However, just 36 miles of secondary fencing is finished. This fencing runs behind the primary fencing, usually separated by a patrol road that allows the Border Patrol to monitor the area between fences. Another 14 miles of tertiary pedestrian fencing, which runs behind the secondary fencing, is intended to prevent attempts to cross the border on foot.

Mehlman said these May 2015 numbers on the wall are the most recent, and are about the same as the 2012 numbers regarding miles complete.

The cost of building that much of the existing fence was $2.3 billion, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

3. How Will Congress Pay for It?

Since Congress doesn’t have to pass a stand-alone bill for the wall, the Republican majority reportedly intends to make it part of an appropriations bill that must pass by the end of April. Most media reports are not putting a finite figure on the cost other than in the billions.

The most ambitious estimate was $11 billion, said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, a pro-border enforcement think tank.

She told The Daily Signal she expected it would be less, adding that number is small compared to the estimated $50 billion taxpayers spend each year on illegal immigration costs, from crime to welfare benefits.

Since so many Democrats, including Senate Democratic Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, voted for the Secure Fence Act, Republicans reportedly believe they will have a political advantage in pushing the appropriation through. Further, Democrats won’t likely want to shut down the government over stopping the wall, according to Vaughan.

“I don’t think it will be politically difficult for Schumer or others to change their position on border security because so many have already done a total reversal on border security,” Vaughan said. “But shutting down the government, that is something they were severely critical of the Republicans for doing and this would be a popular bill.”

4. Could Mexico Really Pay?

For now, the Trump transition team is not getting into specifics as to when the Mexican government would cover the cost of the wall.

“There will be ongoing discussions with Congress on how to fund and organize [the wall],” Trump transition team spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters Friday during a conference call.

The notion of getting some form of reimbursement from Mexico shouldn’t be outright dismissed, Vaughan said.

“It’s hard for me to see the Mexican government agreeing to write a check for the U.S. wall, but the Trump administration could find ways to extract revenue by withholding remittance, by seizing the assets of Mexican crime syndicates, or reducing foreign aid,” Vaughan said. “It’s not only Mexico. It could be other countries in Central America.” (For more from the author of “4 Key Things to Know About Building Trump’s Border Wall” please click HERE)

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Ryan: Reconciliation Bill Will Block Planned Parenthood Funding

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Stopping the stream of federal funding to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, will be part of the upcoming budget reconciliation package, House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a press briefing Friday.

This important announcement maintains the strong policy stance Congress took in the 2015 reconciliation bill that would have repealed Obamacare and stopped federal Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.

While that bill was vetoed by President Barack Obama, the outlook is much different now with the inauguration of a new president and the start of a new Congress committed to repealing Obamacare and defunding Planned Parenthood.

If the reconciliation bill is crafted as it was in 2015, it would make Planned Parenthood affiliates ineligible from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for one year after the enactment of the bill. Such federal reimbursements constitute a significant portion of the roughly $500 million in government funds sent to the nation’s largest abortion provider each year.

Federal funding could still flow to the many other qualified health care providers that offer the same services as Planned Parenthood affiliates, plus additional services, without entanglement in abortion. In fact, the last reconciliation bill increased funding for these community health centers.

Taxpayer money should not be used to fund elective abortion providers such as the Planned Parenthood Federation of America affiliates. Ending such tax funding has become even more urgent in light of serious and disturbing press coverage of Planned Parenthood representatives discussing the sale of body parts of aborted babies.

Of course, a reconciliation bill isn’t the only tool at Congress’s disposal with regard to defunding Planned Parenthood. To cut off all federal funding streams to Planned Parenthood, Congress should use the appropriations process to disqualify Planned Parenthood affiliates not only from receiving any federal Medicaid reimbursements, but also from receiving grants under specific discretionary programs, like Title X family planning.

Just this week, the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives issued its final report, which recommended that Congress defund Planned Parenthood. The Daily Signal’s Kelsey Harkness has highlighted six other disturbing findings in the panel’s report, which further underscores why Planned Parenthood should not receive taxpayer funding.

A reconciliation bill that makes Planned Parenthood affiliates ineligible to receive Medicaid reimbursements is an encouraging step toward ending federal funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider. (For more from the author of “Ryan: Reconciliation Bill Will Block Planned Parenthood Funding” please click HERE)

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New Legislation Could Open up Health Care Options After an Obamacare Repeal

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Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., has introduced a bill in the House that, if passed, will allow individuals to decide how they want their health care funds to be spent, without the influence of the government or health insurance providers.

Brat said that the health savings account legislation is a way for lawmakers to prove to the American people that they have a plan to replace Obamacare after repealing it.

“First and foremost, we are putting through one of the biggest public policy initiatives of the decade with an Obamacare repeal,” Brat told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “And so that has become very important to people, what you are going to replace it with. People want assurances that they are going to be better off.”

Labeled the Health Savings Account Expansion Act, or H.R. 247, “this bill equalizes the tax treatment for health insurance and care between different ways of paying for it,” according to a statement from Brat.

Mia Heck, the director of the health and human services task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, told The Daily Signal that health savings accounts help individuals plan for their future.

“A health savings account (HSA) is a pre-tax medical savings account available for taxpayers who are enrolled in a high-deductible health plan,” Heck said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “The high-deductible health plan serves as catastrophic coverage, while encouraging individuals and families to save money to use toward future medical expenses. Funds deposited into an HSA are not subject to federal income tax.”

According to Brat, health insurance accounts enable consumers to shop around for plans that best suit their needs.

“Instead of having to get coverage approved from the government, an employer, or an insurance company, people will be able to use their [health savings account] funds directly for the products and services that they value,” Brat said.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., has reintroduced a companion bill in the Senate.

Flake said that the Health Savings Account Expansion Act puts individuals in charge of their health care decisions without penalty from the government or their insurance provider.

“[Health savings accounts] give consumers greater control over their health care dollars by providing them with a tax-advantaged savings option for their medical expenses,” Flake said in a speech Wednesday on the Senate floor. “This means that the dollars they work so hard to save can grow over time, tax-free, and be withdrawn, tax-free, for qualified medical expenses.

The Health Savings Account Expansion Act includes several reforms, according to Brat’s website.

First, it enlarges contribution limits to $9,000 to $18,000 per year for people who file single or jointly.

Second, it removes restrictions imposed by Obamacare for items that are purchased over the counter.

Third, it permits users to allocate health savings account funds to pay their health insurance premiums and other health care costs, such as doctor visits.

Fourth, it simplifies regulations “by eliminating the high-deductible health plan mandate.”

This legislation, according to Brat, is a free-market solution to the health care crisis.

“People are going to be very rational when it comes to allocating your own dollars that the doctor or whatever service you are going for,” Brat told The Daily Signal.

Brat sees his proposed legislation as a way to plan for the future and address the problems Obamacare has created.

“The reason Obamacare policy is so important is because it is right in the middle of Social Security and the Medicare crisis,” Brat said. “Both of those programs are insolvent in 12 years. And the kids won’t get any of those programs if we don’t do something about this.”

The campaign of President-elect Donald Trump has also spoken favorably of health savings accounts.

His presidential campaign website stated that they would be of “great benefit” to individuals. (For more from the author of “New Legislation Could Open up Health Care Options After an Obamacare Repeal” please click HERE)

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How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry

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President-elect Donald Trump’s public campaign to push U.S. companies to make their products in America is already having an impact, especially on one of his favorite targets: the auto industry.

On Tuesday, Ford Motor Co., the nation’s second-largest automaker, said it will cancel a plan to build a small-car assembly plant in Mexico that Trump has criticized, and instead expand a Michigan plant, creating 700 local jobs.

A few hours earlier, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs on cars built by General Motors Co. in Mexico, writing on Twitter: “Make in the U.S.A. or pay big border tax!”

In response to Trump’s attack against GM for selling Chevrolet Cruzes assembled in Mexico to U.S. car dealers, America’s largest automaker quickly defended itself. GM noted that almost all of the 190,000 Cruzes sold here last year actually were made at a factory in Lordstown, Ohio.

Experts say these actions, even if not directly attributable to Trump, showcase potential changes ahead for the auto industry, a sector that is ascendant after selling a record 17.55 million new cars in the U.S. last year.

“It’s bullying, and I don’t think it’s a sustainable way to do business, but Trump’s approach is being reinforced,” Dan Ikenson, who researches international trade and investment policy at the Cato Institute, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “He hasn’t taken the oath of office yet, and he has affected hundreds of millions — if not billions — of dollars in investment decisions, and thousands of jobs.”

Observers of the auto industry contend that investment decisions made by companies such as Ford reflect long-term business goals more than influence from the incoming administration.

Ford Chief Executive Mark Fields said “the primary reason” his company scrapped a $1.6 billion factory slated for San Luis Potosi, shifting production to an existing plant in Mexico, “is just [that] demand has gone down for small cars.”

The new jobs in the Michigan plant, meanwhile, mostly will support Ford’s production of self-driving and electric cars, which the company expects to be popular in the future.

“The U.S. auto industry is clearly at the top of the best cycle we’ve ever had, and even before the presidential election, the industry is acting differently in response to that,” Bernard Swiecki, an analyst at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told The Daily Signal in an interview. “We are now plateauing, meaning the building boom in Mexico will slow because the boom was designed to fill the need for capacity.”

Swiecki added:

I don’t think in any of these decisions Trump’s advocacy will be the main driver. The real driver will always be the business case. In the Ford decision, the business case lined up this way, and if at the same time you can curry some political favor with the president, you will take that.

No matter the motive, Swiecki and other experts say, the increasingly globalized auto industry is paying attention and taking the president-elect’s statements seriously.

Trump has vowed repeatedly to impose tariffs on vehicles imported into the United States from Mexico.

Trade experts agree that presidents have wide latitude to impose penalties on imports, at least temporarily, including restricting imports if they pose a national security risk under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

Edward Alden, who studies trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that targeting a single company with a tariff would be more controversial, and unprecedented.

“There is nothing that prevents the president from claiming that Ford’s investing in Mexico constitutes a national industrial emergency and to move forward with sanctions,” Alden told The Daily Signal in an interview. “It would be a gross distortion of emergency power, but Trump has indicated he is not terribly constrained by norms and expectations.”

Trump also has frequently criticized and promised to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal that went into force in 1994 under which the United States does not impose tariffs on products imported from Mexico and Canada.

Alden said that since the mid-1960s, the auto industry has been integrated across North American borders, starting with the Auto Pact of 1965, a trade agreement between the U.S. and Canada that allowed for tariff-free imports and exports.

“If you really try to create a build-it-in-America auto industry, you have to undo more than 50 years of history,” Alden said, adding:

The auto supply chain operates on a continental basis. If Trump blows that up by increasing the price of an imported vehicle with tariffs, it could reduce overall vehicle sales and cause manufacturers’ costs to increase substantially. This would force a massive restructuring of the industry.

Imported vehicles have become central to the American market, equaling more than 40 percent of annual volume.

Since the U.S. recession, automakers have committed big investments to new plants in Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor.

According to the Center for Automotive Research, of the 11 assembly plants announced to be built in North America since 2009, nine were planned for Mexico.

The nonprofit, independent research center reported that from 2013 to late 2016, carmakers invested $68.5 billion in North America, a total that includes new plants as well as expansions and updates to existing facilities.

Seventy-two percent, or $49.4 billion, of that investment went to the U.S.

While American car companies say they have moved jobs to Mexico to remain competitive, they also invested in the U.S., creating jobs in design and engineering or in plants making parts for Mexican factories.

“The idea that something is made in the U.S. or made in Mexico is an outdated notion,” Bryan Riley, a trade policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “With cars, whether final assembly is in the U.S., Mexico, or somewhere else, you have components from all over the world.”

Riley added:

That is something that benefits Americans. You don’t want to go on a path that we are better off if we make everything in the U.S. We are much better off to say Americans have the freedom to spend and invest money where they want, and no one in Washington, D.C., should be interfering with those decisions.

(For more from the author of “How Trump’s Presidency Could Retool the Auto Industry” please click HERE)

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