March for Life to Celebrate the ‘Power of One’ in Annual Demonstration

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With the nation’s largest pro-life rally less than four months away, March for Life organizers announced the theme for the 43rd annual event will be “the power of one.”

The March for Life, an annual rally in the District of Columbia, protests the legalization of abortion in the United States with the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973. It occurs each January and attracts large numbers of pro-life marchers from across the nation.

LifeNews.com estimated that hundreds of thousands participated in the 2014 March for Life. The 2017 event is planned for Jan. 27.

“This year we sense that what our culture most needs is hope,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said. “Hope, and especially the impact that one person can have in building a culture of life. And so our theme this year is the power of one. The power of one person to build a culture of life in their local community, in their family, and in their world.”

In keeping with the “power of one” theme, Mancini said rally organizers will highlight the legacy of the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who she said embodied a message of hope and the difference a single individual can make in society.

Mancini said the March for Life provides a unique platform to educate society about what she calls the greatest issue of the day, namely building a culture of life.

With that goal in mind, Mancini said, she and her team “discern very carefully about what our theme should be, knowing that we’ll have the opportunity to reach grassroots pro-lifers, but also to reach Capitol Hill, to reach the White House, to reach the media on what we believe to be the most pressing issues of our time in terms of building a culture of life.”

As in years past, Mancini said her organization wanted to highlight a person who exemplifies how one individual can make a remarkable difference for the pro-life cause.

“One such person who exemplifies our theme, the power of one, is Congressman Henry Hyde,” Mancini said. “He was both a Democrat and a Republican in his life.”

Hyde, who represented the northwestern Chicago suburbs of Illinois from 1975 to 2007, “worked to pass what is arguably the most important and impactful pro-life legislation ever passed in the country,” Mancini said.

She said the 40th anniversary of a measure that bears Hyde’s name is a good time to educate others on the bipartisan nature of his pro-life witness.

“The Hyde Amendment is an appropriations rider that prohibits the use of federal funds for elective abortion or for health benefits coverage that includes elective abortion,” said Genevieve Plaster, senior policy analyst with the Charlotte Lozier Institute.

“As a rider,” Plaster said, “[the Hyde Amendment] is not a permanent law, but it has been included with bipartisan support in every annual federal funding bill, which had been signed into law by every president since 1976.”

Until this year, the Hyde Amendment enjoyed bipartisan support, Plaster said, but for the first time the Democratic Party’s new platform calls for its repeal.

“As far as we know,” explained Plaster, “every member of Congress has at some point in their career voted for the Hyde Amendment—whether it be through voice vote, unanimous consent, or otherwise.”

Because the Hyde Amendment is a rider, an attachment to a bill that modifies it in some way, it is less well-known to the American public. According to Michael New, a visiting associate professor at Ave Maria University, many do not realize that it has saved millions of lives from abortion.

“In my own research at the Guttmacher Institute, they did a literature review where they came up with about 20 studies or so. I found a few extra and I found that there’ve been probably 20-25 studies which show that public funding limits save lives,” New said. “And these are published in a range of peer-reviewed journals on economics, public health, and political science.”

The Guttmacher Institute is a policy organization that researches (reproductive health issues) in the United States and around the world.

New said that the best research that studies public funding of abortions shows that the Hyde Amendment has saved over 2 million lives in the past 40 years and about 60,000 lives per year. For those states that do not fund abortion through Medicaid, New said that one in nine people born to a mother on Medicaid owe their lives to the Hyde Amendment.

Plaster said that even though the majority of Americans may not understand the history behind the Hyde Amendment, most Americans support its policy.

“A national poll conducted by Marist in January found that taxpayer funding of abortion is opposed by nearly seven in 10 Americans,” Plaster said.

Plaster said she feels this to be the case because she believes many Americans have come to think that abortion is not health care.

“While we can’t know for certain each of the reasons that seven in 10 Americans oppose tax-funded abortion, perhaps we can safely say that Americans simply understand that it goes beyond simply access to health care,” Plaster said.

While Hyde didn’t accomplish all of his pro-life goals. Mancini said, he exemplifies what everyone should aspire to become, since building a legacy in “the power of one” will look different for each person:

My understanding is that [Hyde] had a dream of passing a constitutional amendment that would make abortion illegal and recognize the dignity of the the human person from conception. This was his dream and he felt like he was a failure because that did not successfully pass in the ’70s. And so what he did instead was he introduced a rider [that] has been the most impactful pro-life legislation, literally saving millions of lives.

Mancini said her goal is to begin celebrating Hyde’s legacy now so that by the time the 43rd annual March for Life arrives in January, attendees will be able to appreciate and aspire to replicate his witness.

“So what I would encourage as we’re celebrating ‘the power of one’ and beginning to think about that a little bit more as our theme this year, that we would take our cues from … Henry Hyde, who embodied this theme so beautifully,” Mancini said. “And so what we’re going to do is listen to him and his words.” (For more from the author of “March for Life to Celebrate the ‘Power of One’ in Annual Demonstration” please click HERE)

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7 Big Judicial Setbacks to Obama’s Executive Overreach

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Much of President Barack Obama’s executive action legacy will be decided by the courts after he leaves office, but he had a rough judicial record while serving.

Though Obama has frequently touted his pen and phone policymaking, these actions on immigration, environmental policy, and presidential appointees have often been swatted away by the Supreme Court.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, issued a July 2014 report that found 20 instances in which a unanimous high court ruled against the administration. Not all of these cases were executive actions, but legal interpretations by an agency.

The Obama administration has fared worse before the Supreme Court than any other modern president’s administration, with a 45 percent win rate, according to an analysis by Ilya Shapiro, a fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, and editor of the Cato Supreme Court Review. Obama’s last five predecessors had a win rate of between 60-75 percent before the high court, according to Shapiro.

“Every president ratchets up executive power, it’s what Congress and the courts have allowed to happen over the years,” Shapiro told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “President Obama has pushed beyond that in pushing administratively what he failed to do legislatively.”

The overreach has less to do with Obama—or for that matter any other individual president—but the expansion of government, said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University.

“I would not be hugely surprised if he had the most actions overturned because as government gets larger, there are more targets for the courts to shoot at,” Somin told The Daily Signal in a phone interview. “In a sense, each president builds on the precedent of the last president. Presidents are incentivized to take actions like this.”

District and appellate level courts halted many of Obama’s executive actions. Some of Obama’s actions still await a ruling in court, such as his gun control initiative.

“The U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts have overturned Obama administration actions that went beyond constitutional and statutory limits at an unprecedented rate, as documented by statistical studies,” Alden Abbott, deputy director of legal and judicial studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email.

Abbott noted the unanimous rebukes by the high court came at a much higher rate than for previous presidents.

“This reflects an Obama administration pattern of ignoring the rule of law and usurping the role of Congress—as illustrated, for example, in its unauthorized efforts to rewrite the immigration laws and the Obamacare statute without congressional authorization,” Abbott said.

Here are some of Obama’s executive actions knocked down by the judiciary.

1. Executive Amnesty

In June, the Supreme Court had a tie vote on Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The 4-4 ruling resulted in upholding an appellate court ruling to strike down Obama’s executive amnesty.

Obama’s actions would have shielded 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation. The president took the action in December 2014, shortly after Republicans won control of the Senate.

The move expanded on a previous executive action in 2012 to shield childhood arrivals from deportation. The new edict would extend to the parents of those children.

Texas and 25 other states filed the lawsuit to halt it.

2. School Gender Identity Restrooms Mandate

In August, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas ruled that schools may keep restrooms, locker rooms, and showers separated based on biological gender.

The judge blocked the mandate one day before the first day of school in Texas. The preliminary injunction is in place while the lawsuit proceeds.

The judge determined the Obama administration overreached on its authority by mandating in May that public schools allow people to use restrooms based on their gender identity instead of biological gender. If the schools did not adhere to the rules, they would risk losing their federal education funding.

Texas filed the suit and was joined by 12 other states. This is only the first court hearing and the case will ultimately be decided after Obama leaves office.

3. Appointing Without Confirmation

In a stinging legal defeat for Obama, the Supreme Court ruled that the president cannot make recess appointments when the Senate is still in session. The liberal wing, including Obama nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, joined the majority for a 9-0 rebuke in June 2014.

Obama made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board at a time when the Senate was in pro forma session every three days for the express purpose of preventing recess appointments. The appointments were challenged in a labor dispute, in the case of NLRB v. Noel Canning.

4. Delayed Carbon Regulations

The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in February to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan from taking effect until the legal challenge is complete. But it’s a setback rather than a death blow to the regulation.

The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard oral arguments in the case, and will likely have the final say when it does rule, at least until the ninth slot on the court is filled.

Numerous industry groups, 25 states, and four state agencies sued the EPA over the rules.

The EPA finalized the plan in October 2015, requiring states to meet individual carbon dioxide emissions reduction goals for power plants by 2022, and again in 2030.

Under the rules, the EPA would offer incentives to states. The incentives include extra credits to meet carbon reduction if a state used more renewable energy sources. It would also offer states the option of imposing a carbon tax or a regional cap-and-trade.

5. Searching Cellphones

The Supreme Court ruled in another unanimous decision that the Obama administration could not search cellphone data without cause in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

In the case of Riley v. California in June 2014, the high court held that government must get a warrant before searching the contents. The Obama Justice Department contended that an arrest gives authorities the right to search the phone.

The majority opinion said:

Modern cellphones are not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life.’ The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.

6. Obamacare Judicial Setback

The Supreme Court has twice upheld Obamacare, either in whole or in part.

However, in a lawsuit brought by the House of Representatives, the law hit a snag in May when U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer in the District of Columbia ruled the administration has been improperly funding the Obamacare subsidy program.

Though Congress authorized the program, it didn’t appropriate funding for it, Collyer said in her opinion. Former House Speaker John Boehner launched the lawsuit. The House v. Burwell case was filed at a time of growing concerns about the Obama administration’s executive overreach on various matters.

The funding program was set up to reimburse insurance companies and provide cost-sharing for low-income patients.

In October 2015, an appeals court similarly ruled on a stay for the EPA’s water rules. The case is on appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, which again, could have the final say if the Supreme Court remains divided 4-4.

7. Regulating Water

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Cincinnati, ruled that the Obama administration’s Waters of the United States rule wasn’t legal, asserting that it clashed with Supreme Court precedent. The EPA unsuccessfully argued that bodies of water could be under federal control because of their connection to larger bodies of water.

The court determined:

A stay allows for a more deliberate determination whether this exercise of executive power, enabled by Congress and explicated by the Supreme Court, is proper under the dictates of federal law …

A stay temporarily silences the whirlwind of confusion that springs from uncertainty about the requirements of the new rule and whether they will survive legal testing. A stay honors the policy of cooperative federalism that informs the Clean Water Act and must attend the shared responsibility for safeguarding the nation’s waters.

Again, this could also be the final say in the matter in lieu of a ninth justice. (For more from the author of “7 Big Judicial Setbacks to Obama’s Executive Overreach” please click HERE)

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Utah Republican Urges Paul Ryan to File Lawsuit Over Obama Administration’s Use of Obscure Fund to Settle With Insurers

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Republican Rep. Chris Stewart of Utah has mounted a campaign urging House Speaker Paul Ryan to initiate a lawsuit against the Obama administration over the potential use of a fund the Treasury Department oversees to pay federal legal claims to settle with insurance companies suing the government.

Stewart is circulating a letter to his Republican colleagues that would push Ryan to intervene to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund, an indefinite appropriation created by Congress, to pay billions to insurers who are suing over Obamacare’s risk corridor program.

So far, at least 10 members have signed on to his letter to Ryan.

“Such an egregious misuse of taxpayer funds is not only a violation of the law but also represents an institutional challenge to the legislative branch, and should be met with the fullest opposition from the House of Representatives,” the letter states. “If such a payment is not met with a challenge from Congress, there is no limit to any administration’s ability to decide which of its priorities it funds.”

AshLee Strong, spokeswoman for Ryan, said they are looking at options.

“By passing the [Sen. Marco] Rubio amendment, Congress has been clear that no taxpayer dollars are to go to failing insurance companies under Obamacare,” she said in an email to The Daily Signal.

Insurance companies filed lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year over the risk corridor program, which was written into the Affordable Care Act and designed to provide insurers with stability during the first few years of the law’s implementation.

Under the risk corridor program, insurers that had excess profits paid into a fund operated by the federal government. Those that incurred excess losses received money from the fund.

Because many insurers experienced significant losses during the 2014 benefit year, insurance companies received just 12.6 percent of the payments they expected to receive from the risk corridor program and are now arguing they’re entitled to the remaining money.

The Obama administration has signaled it is open to discussing settlements with those companies, and if it decided to do so, it would tap into the Judgment Fund to pay out billions of dollars to insurers.

“They hoped this thing would slide under the radar and no one would notice,” Stewart told The Daily Signal. “The Judgment Fund has been abused in the past, but never anything like this, for heaven’s sake. It was a few $10 million a year that the Judgment Fund was paying out, not something more than $1 billion, which is what this administration is inviting the insurers to do: Sue us, and we’ll settle. We’ll settle before we leave office.”

“It’s crony capitalism at its worst,” he continued.

In his letter, Stewart urges Ryan to “initiate a civil action” on behalf of the lower chamber in federal court. Authority to do so, the letter states, would be granted under a House resolution passed in 2014.

That resolution authorized the cost-sharing reductions lawsuit filed against the Obama administration.

Because the House resolution approved the initiation of or intervention in any civil action “with respect to implementation of any provision” of Obamacare, legal experts told The Daily Signal in March that it gives Congress the authority to intervene in the risk corridor case.

Stewart said he prefers lawmakers find a “legislative fix” to prevent the Obama administration from using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurers in the risk corridor lawsuits when they return from an extended recess in November.

However, he views legal action as a “backstop” and said the White House has already found ways to ignore legislation passed by Congress regarding the risk corridor program.

“We thought we dealt with this legislatively already, and the language is very, very clear on this,” he said. “The administration continues to find creative ways to circumvent obvious legislative language.”

Late last month, the Justice Department filed motions to dismiss lawsuits filed by two insurers—Moda Health Plan and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina—on the grounds that there is no deadline by which risk corridor payments must be paid.

This contradicts statements from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its top officials, which have said the government would explore the option to settle.

In addition to Stewart’s letter, which was first sent to GOP lawmakers Thursday, Republicans in both chambers have expressed concern about use of the Judgment Fund in additional letters to Sylvia Mathews Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; Andy Slavitt, acting administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; and Loretta Lynch, U.S. attorney general.

More than 40 House members, Stewart included, sent Burwell a letter late last month warning that any attempt to settle with insurance companies through the Judgment Fund “will be met with the strictest scrutiny” from Congress.

Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Mike Lee of Utah, Marco Rubio of Florida, and Ben Sasse of Nebraska sent a separate letter to Burwell, Slavitt and Lynch asking for additional information on whether the Obama administration plans to settle with insurers.

Before working at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Slavitt worked for OptumInsight/QSSI, the sister company of UnitedHealthcare and a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group.

UnitedHealthcare is the nation’s largest insurance company, and Slavitt received an ethics waiver from the White House in 2014 that allowed him to begin working on matters involving his former employer immediately.

Slavitt’s history with UnitedHealth Group is raising questions for Stewart.

“He shouldn’t be sitting in a position to make this decision,” Stewart said of Slavitt. “That’s an example of why my Republican colleagues and I hope others are going to be interested in this.”

“Once [Republicans are] aware of what CMS is recommending, that the administration is trying to sue and settle and do it very quickly with an enormous amount of money, when the obvious conflict between the person who’s advocating this and his own personal interest in the industry that he worked with, we’re going to have a lot of interest,” he continued.

Slavitt’s predecessor at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Marilyn Tavenner, left the Obama administration to lead America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group that represents insurance companies.

Stewart called the revolving door of administration officials to and from the insurance industry an example of crony capitalism.

“We’re seeing it here,” he said of the risk corridor lawsuit, “but it’s not the first time that we’ve seen it. The Affordable Care Act is rife with examples of this, and they do it at the expense of the American taxpayer.”

Insurance companies filed lawsuits earlier this year after learning they would receive a fraction of the money requested from the risk corridor program.

The shortfall in risk corridor payments was the result of an amendment added to 2015 and 2016 government spending bills prohibiting the administration from using taxpayer dollars to fund the payments requested by insurers through the program.

Because of those restrictions, insurance companies participating in Obamacare’s exchanges received a collective $2.5 billion less than originally anticipated. Many smaller insurers, including several of 23 consumer operated and oriented plans, or co-ops, closed their doors because of the lower-than-expected risk corridor payments.

After three separate insurers filed lawsuits, congressional Republicans began to issue warnings about the Obama administration using the Judgment Fund to settle with insurance companies.

Settling with insurers would provide the White House with a way to give insurers their full risk corridor payments, effectively circumventing Congress. (For more from the author of “Utah Republican Urges Paul Ryan to File Lawsuit Over Obama Administration’s Use of Obscure Fund to Settle With Insurers” please click HERE)

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Strangers in Our Own Land: The Non-Citizen Voter Fraud Disaster

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Several weeks after a court ordered Ohio to stop cleaning its voter rolls from dead voters, likely raising the specter of voter fraud in the key battleground state, a new report reveals how Virginia and Pennsylvania — two other critical states — have seen hundreds of cases of non-citizens voting. That raises the question: Is the foundation of our democratic republic and national sovereignty no longer secure?

Earlier this week, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), headed by former Justice Department Attorney J. Christian Adams, released a pair of damning reports showing how the voting rolls in parts of Virginia and Pennsylvania are compromised with ineligible voters and that some of those voters have actually cast ballots in recent elections. What is more disquieting about this analysis is that it covered only a handful of counties via public record requests made through the National Voter Registration Act. Thanks to stonewalling from local election officials, a story Conservative Review first broke, PILF could not obtain comprehensive data on these two battleground states, which makes it all the more likely the number of registered voters who are non-citizens or otherwise ineligible to vote is much higher.

Virginia

The Virginia report, which was the first to be released this week, found 1,046 non-citizens registered to vote in eight counties, who “cast a total of 186 votes between 2005 and 2015.” But here’s the kicker: This was a mere sample from 133 election jurisdictions in the state. And as PILF’s Adams noted in an article at PJ Media, this report does not cover “the behemoths of Arlington and Fairfax Counties.”

Moreover, Adams made it clear that this sample only covered self-reported aliens. “These are just the aliens who were accidentally caught because when they renewed their driver’s license, they told the truth that they were a non-citizen,” wrote Adams in the PJ Media article [emphasis in original quote]. Thanks to the Motor-Voter laws there is no way to require that states and localities use the federal SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database to check for non-citizens voting. Thus, most of the illegal votes actually reported are by those who legitimately didn’t realize they were ineligible to vote and checked off the box indicating they were not citizens when renewing their driver’s licenses. That is how easy it is for non-citizens to vote and debase the entire value of citizenship and the sovereignty of our people.

Now imagine the total number of non-citizens registered in theses eight counties. Then, add another 125 localities, including the largest population centers in Northern Virginia with huge numbers of non-citizens. Consider the following reality: Virginia is home to a large and fast-growing immigrant population. According to Pew, there were over 1 million immigrants in Virginia as of 2014. In 2013, according to the Census, the number of non-citizens in the state was 427,535, but given the fast pace of new immigration to the region, that number has likely grown. If a random sampling from just eight counties showed over 1,000 non-citizens registered to vote, one can easily speculate that thousands more are registered statewide.

This random sampling on non-citizens voting dovetails well with a 2014 study from three prominent political scientists who found that up to 6.4% of all non-citizens participated in the 2008 elections and up to 14.7% voted. Given the population of non-citizens in the state, that is potentially a very impactful number for any close election.

Worse, unlike fraudulent voters, non-citizen voters cannot be stopped with voter ID requirements. As Adams notes, once states fail to screen out citizenship verification on the application, “the aliens are getting registered to vote when they are getting their photo ID cards!” Making matters worse, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals prevented a number of states from verifying citizenship on the federal voter registration forms used through the Motor-Voter process. This is on top of court rulings barring states from requesting a photo ID to vote.

Pennsylvania

Another must-win state for Republicans this fall is Pennsylvania. In a separate report released Tuesday, PILF discovered 86 registrants in Philadelphia who had their voter registration terminated between 2013 and 2015 due to non-citizen status. Among those illegally registered to vote, 40 ballots were cast. Again, these were only registrants who voluntarily asked to be stricken from the voter rolls. “That means the aliens who don’t want to admit they committed a federal felony when they registered to vote remain on the rolls because Philadelphia election officials do nothing to detect them,” said Adams in an email correspondence. I can only speculate that this is an infinitesimal percentage of the total number of non-citizens registered to vote.

What is so sad here is that preserving the franchise for citizens and eligible voters should not be a partisan issue. In a sane world, a discovery of this magnitude from such a tiny sample of registration lists should spark an immediate bipartisan push to verify every name in every country to ensure non-citizens are not voting. The absence of such an urgent response can lead to no other conclusion than a willingness on the part of Democrats to steal the sovereignty of the citizenry.

As Adams observed, most of the counties in Virginia took active steps to prevent PILF from examining the voter rolls. In a world without ubiquitous malfeasance in government, public officials would welcome every opportunity to ensure that not a single non-citizen is registered to vote, especially after so many discoveries were made.

To be clear, if Donald Trump continues down the current path, the margin of victory for the Democrats will be large enough to overshadow voter fraud. But so many down-the-ballot races in recent years have been decided by tiny margins. Moreover, any path to 270 electoral votes for Republicans this year, or in future elections, will likely encounter slim margins of victory in states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

As Professors Richman, Chattha, and Earnest concluded in the 2014 study, “non-citizen votes have also led to Democratic victories in congressional races including a critical 2008 Senate race that delivered for Democrats a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.”

The consequences of inaction are unconscionable. Here is an observation I made in “Stolen Sovereignty”:

Consider the following agonizing thought for conservatives. Obamacare is the seminal issue and the most consequential legislative victory of the Left this past decade. The bill passed the House 220-210 and garnered sixty votes in the Senate, the bare minimum needed to overcome a filibuster. During the 2008 elections, Democrats won two Senate seats by less than 2 percent. In 2006, they won three Senate seats by 2 percent or less. Some of these elections were decided by a few thousand votes. It is hard to imagine that there were not more than enough noncitizens to account for the entirety of the margin of victory in at least one of these races, thereby rendering Obamacare null and void.

Now, couple non-citizens voting with general voter fraud and the number of House seats Democrats gain thanks to illegal aliens being counted in the Census (states like California gain an extra five seats), and we are strangers in our own land! The average American citizen who wants to continue following our own system of governance, history, and traditions is left helpless while federal and state executives refuse to follow the statutes passed by legislatures to preserve the franchise. Meanwhile, the courts are preventing the people from reclaiming their sovereignty. We are suffering from a collective social transformation without representation.

Those like Judge Roy Moore in Alabama who adhere to existing state law are punished for upholding state powers regarding marriage, the most foundational tradition of all civilization. At the same time, public officials who do nothing about voter fraud and disenfranchise the citizens are free to do what they want while the courts stop the few patriots actually engaging in public service and protecting the integrity of our elections.

Fundamental transformation, indeed! (For more from the author of “Strangers in Our Own Land: The Non-Citizen Voter Fraud Disaster” please click HERE)

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A Great Awakening or a Rude Awakening: What Will It Be?

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Isn’t it a shame that, at a time when America desperately needs to hear the prophetic voice of the church, what America hears instead is partisan politics in the name of Jesus?

Isn’t it a shame that, instead of the church leading the way and politicians following, it is politicians leading the way and Christian leaders following?

Of course, there are exceptions to what I’m saying — fine, godly, exceptions — but they are the distinct minority, since, the truth be told, we are guilty of putting our trust in political leaders more than in the power of the gospel.

For Too Long, We’ve Depended on Political ‘Saviors’

We still flock around presidential candidates as if they were savior figures, with some pastors proclaiming Hillary as “anointed” to lead and others proclaiming Trump as God’s man for the hour, as if these candidates had the power to bless or curse the nation, as if the church was beholden to them rather than them being beholden to the church.

Four years ago, in June, 2012, I wrote that the indifference of many conservative Christians towards Mitt Romney could be a positive if: “1) we don’t get caught up in the typical election year fever; 2) if we do vote for Romney, we do so remembering that he is not the answer; 3) we realize instead that the answer to America’s greatest problems is looking at us in the mirror if we align ourselves properly with God and with our neighbor.”

And I added, “Yes, Barack Hussein Obama has done great harm to our country, but he is not the primary cause of America’s current malaise, we are. And if we have messed things up, then by God’s grace, we can turn them around.”

Now, four years later, with even more stark choices than we had in 2012, will the church wake up and learn? Will we finally realize that we do not have a political savior? Will we finally realize that, as important as the office of the president is, the fate of the nation is dependent on the state of the church more than on the occupant of the White House?

Making the Church Our Priority

On the morning of Election Day, four years ago, I wrote (in the event that Romney was elected), “No more looking to the White House to transform America!”

How much more does this apply today?

“And,” I added on November 6, 2012, “what if Barack Obama is reelected? Then we would do well to avoid the trap of putting most of our energies into rebuking the president’s latest transgressions. Instead, we will have to focus our efforts like never before on fomenting a moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Come to think of it, that would be a sound course of action if Mitt Romney is our next president too …”

Unfortunately, many of us fell into the trap of spending much of the last four years bashing President Obama (who gave us many reasons to oppose his policies and words) and advocating for a conservative candidate to take his place, investing our energies and our passions and our finances in the heated political battle more than in the work of the gospel.

And while there is absolutely a place for our political involvement — I would even say that God has given us a stewardship to be involved politically here in America — our energies would have been much better spent in praying for revival, turning away from our own sin, reaching out to the lost, standing up for justice, and caring for the poor and needy.

Can we do all these things and get involved politically as well? Absolutely. But the question is one of priorities, of emphasis, of devotion, and it is all too easy for us to sell our souls to a political party or candidate, giving ourselves to their cause as if they were the hope of America.

Not so! There is only one hope for America, and He is not running for office.

All this being said, I actually see a silver lining in the 2016 presidential election.

What if Hillary? What if Trump?

If Hillary Clinton is elected, it could well be that our worst fears are realized and that she not only appoints disastrous judges to the courts but that she openly opposes our religious liberties, telling us that our pro-life, pro-marriage beliefs will have to change — or else.

If that’s the case, then I say bring the battle on. As distasteful as this prospect is and as painful as it could be for our kids and grandkids, it might just be the very thing that wakes up the still-sleeping church our nation.

Perhaps a Hillary victory will finally awaken us from our complacency and lethargy.

And if Donald Trump is elected, even if he appoints fine justices to the courts and stands up for our religious liberties, his flaws and shortcomings are so evident and he has been such a volatile and divisive candidate that it would be very hard to look to him as the savior of the nation.

A Trump presidency, therefore, would also be a call to prayer, a call for the church to rise up and make a difference, a call to make America great by making America dependent on the Lord.

The Church Has a Choice

The good news, then, is that having such unpopular candidates could be a blessing in disguise, forcing us to put our trust in God, not people.

The bad news is that if this election season doesn’t help us get our priorities right, almost nothing will — meaning, that we could be in for a very rude awakening.

So, what will it be, a great awakening or a rude awakening? The choice is ours to make. (For more from the author of “A Great Awakening or a Rude Awakening: What Will It Be?” please click HERE)

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Did the Clinton Foundation Raise ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’ for a Hospital in Haiti That Was Never Built?

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“Hillary Clinton … took in hundreds of millions of dollars for a hospital in Haiti that went to the Clinton Foundation, that was never built — that was years ago. Where is that money?” . . .

Michael Cohen, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization and special counsel to Donald Trump, made this accusation while answering questions about Trump’s donations to veterans’ groups. He blamed the news media for asking questions about Trump’s donations, yet letting Hillary Clinton’s allegedly squandered hospital promise go unquestioned.

Although Cohen made the comment in passing, it was picked up by Diamond and Silk, a pro-Trump duo with a Twitter following of more than 80,600. They cited Cohen’s claim and doubled-down on the question in a video, which was retweeted or liked at least 4,600 times: . . .

There’s real frustration among Haitians over failures in progress promised to them, not just by the Clintons but from the international community at large. In 2015, Haitian activists protested outside the Clinton Foundation in New York, claiming the Clintons mismanaged hundreds of millions in taxpayer money through the Interim Haiti Reconstruction Commission. (Read more from “Did the Clinton Foundation Raise ‘Hundreds of Millions of Dollars’ for a Hospital in Haiti That Was Never Built?” HERE)

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Pentagon Officials Admit Afghan Soldiers Have Disappeared From US Military Bases

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It is no secret that thousands of Afghan troops have come to the United States for training by the military.

What has just been revealed, however, is that since January 2015, 44 Afghan soldiers have disappeared from U.S. bases, Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told Reuters.

Eight men disappeared in September alone.

Some of the missing troops have ended up in Canada with the help of an illegal pipeline, while others have presumably attempted to go unnoticed in the United States.

At a briefing Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said 32 of the missing soldiers had been located.

Since 2007, the United States has trained approximately 2,200 Afghan troops on various American military bases.

While the number of missing Afghan soldiers is relatively small compared with the number to successfully complete their military training, a U.S. defense official called the incidents concerning and “out of the ordinary.”

The disappearances could prove to be an embarrassment to the Obama administration, which has spent billions of dollars training Afghan soldiers so that they can return home and protect their country.

“The Defense Department is assessing ways to strengthen eligibility criteria for training in ways that will reduce the likelihood of an individual Afghan willingly absconding from training in the U.S. and going AWOL,” Stump said.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has been vocal in his criticism of President Obama and his inability to vet immigrants arriving in the U.S. from countries with a Muslim majority.

Throughout his campaign, Trump has promised to crack down on illegal immigration when he becomes president.

Some experts blame low morale, improper military training and lack of opportunities in Afghanistan for the soldiers’ decisions to abandon their positions.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia specialist at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, explained why he believed the troops have gone AWOL.

“They face a formidable enemy, with very limited resources and many Afghan troops aren’t getting paid on time,” he said. (For more from the author of “Pentagon Officials Admit Afghan Soldiers Have Disappeared From US Military Bases” please click HERE)

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Ex-Kaine Staff Member Shocked at Former Boss’s Debate Performance

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On the question of who won the vice presidential debate Tuesday night, the answer you get is largely determined by whom you ask.

One person who feels Republican Mike Pence clearly emerged the winner over Democrat Tim Kaine is former Kaine staff member Christian Rickers.

Following the debate, Rickers spoke with Breitbart News and commented on the performance of Hillary Clinton’s running mate.

“Kaine should have been himself. I don’t know what the Clintons have done to him. I thought Pence won the debate,” Rickers said.

He continued, “It made me very sad. I’ve never seen him like that. It’s not the Tim Kaine I know. I can’t believe it. Is that what we have been reduced to? Win at all cost and bring out the hatchet?”

Rickers, a lifelong Democrat, is now the executive director of the Trumpocrats PAC.

Prior to the debate, he said, “Tim Kaine is one of the finest public servants I have ever known and he’s a great guy. But he’s not running for president … she is.”

Rickers accused the Clintons of placing blame on the American work force for the increasing rise in unemployment, while they are the ones responsible.

“The fact is the Clintons caused all of this with aggressively pursuing globalist policies that shipped our jobs overseas and on top of that they got rich,” Rickers remarked. “From zero to a quarter of a billion dollars by selling influence all over the world. Shame on them!”

Rickers appeared on Fox News in August and was asked what pushed him to leave his lifelong party and support GOP nominee Donald Trump.

“I came from a very small town, where we had 25 manufacturing plants 20 years ago and now there’s only one, and he is speaking to that. He’s got a plan. He’s talked about that. He’s the only one talking about rebuilding infrastructure and manufacturing,” Rickers said.

He also said that while the media are focused on the 50 or so Washington insider Republicans who support Clinton, there are hundreds of thousands of Democrats across the nation who support Trump.

The Trumpocrat PAC gives those people a base of operation.

Rickers was a delegate for President Obama in 2012, and supported Sen. Bernie Sanders until he dropped out of the 2016 Democratic primary race. (For more from the author of “Ex-Kaine Staff Member Shocked at Former Boss’s Debate Performance” please click HERE)

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Trump Earns Three Big Endorsements in a Key Battleground State

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Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has picked up three more endorsements from the law enforcement community, and all three come from a critical swing state in next month’s presidential election.

The three largest police unions in Colorado — the Denver Police Protective Association, the Aurora Police Association and the Colorado Springs Police Protective Association — have all endorsed Trump for president.

The union leaders have assured that the “law and order” candidate will keep Colorado’s cities “safe and secure.”

“The Aurora Police Association believes that Donald Trump’s strong support for law enforcement will ensure safer communities in Colorado and across our country,” Sgt. Bob Wesner, president of the APA said, according to the Aurora Sentinel.

“We just like what he has to say about law enforcement and he is very supportive of law enforcement so we wanted to support him,” he added.

Wesner noted the endorsement wasn’t sparked by a particular stance that Trump had taken, but by the candidate’s overall support for law enforcement.

Combined, the three police unions represent about 2,700 members of law enforcement in Colorado.

The endorsement could be an important boost to Trump since recent polls place his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in a slight lead in the state. However, Trump sees the battleground state as attainable, with his most recent visit being Monday.

“After thoughtful consideration, we wholeheartedly believe Mr. Trump is the only candidate that will protect law-abiding citizens from those who choose to break the law,” Nick Rogers, president of the DPPA said, according to the Denver Post.

Last month, Trump also earned support from the national Fraternal Order of Police after completing a required questionnaire. The organization represents 330,000 officers nationwide.

“Mr. Trump has seriously looked at the issues facing law enforcement today,” Chris Canterbury, national president of the union said in a statement. “He understands and supports our priorities and our members believe he will make America safe again.”

The Fraternal Order of Police has a history of supporting Republicans for president. It endorsed the GOP nominees in the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections, but refrained from endorsing Mitt Romney in 2012 because of his negative stance on unions.

According to the Daily Caller, Clinton has now shown interest in winning over the police unions, but at times, her tone has irritated some members of the law enforcement community. Instead, her campaign has chosen to embrace Black Lives Matter and other activists groups which seek to curb police brutality.

Patrick Davis, an adviser for Trump’s campaign in Colorado, released a statement saying the endorsements were an honor.

“Donald Trump stands for tougher law enforcement and safer communities, and these endorsements demonstrate that the brave policemen and women in Colorado agree with Mr. Trump’s goal of making America safe again,” Davis said. “We are honored to have their support and will work with them to get Mr. Trump’s message of protecting our communities out to Colorado voters in the coming weeks.” (For more from the author of “Trump Earns Three Big Endorsements in a Key Battleground State” please click HERE)

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Violent Pipeline Protesters Are Obama-Approved. Peaceful Ranchers? Not So Much

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According to the U.S. Constitution, Americans are guaranteed equal treatment under the law. According to the Obama administration, the word “equal” has no bearing on its treatment of protesters — just their politics.

Last week, the administration said it would allow protesters of the Dakota Access oil pipeline to stay on federal lands. This decision was made despite clashes between armed activists and police authorities, and a request for assistance by a sheriff. Notably, the clashes and protests are taking place two years after the Army Corps of Engineers held nearly 400 meetings about the pipeline, and made nine requests for meetings with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe that were not attended by the Tribe.

This is the Tribe that is now protesting the pipeline, along with various environmental activists.

Compare this to another recent protest on federal land — the 2015 rancher protest in Oregon. Armed like many of the pipeline protesters, ranchers took over federal land in order to make a statement against increasing federal land grabs, in support of Cliven Bundy, who regularly trespassed on federal land laws in protest. In contrast to today’s protests, the ranchers engaged in no violence. Yet law enforcement agents began arresting them after just 24 days. The crackdown resulted in the death of one rancher, Lavoy Finicum, when he left the wildlife refuge to drive to a nearby town. Although the ranchers were armed, they were peaceful, and Finicum was killed after police fired on him despite no dangerous actions by the rancher.

Enabling Pipeline Protesters

In stark contrast to the small, low-key rancher protest, hundreds of members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and armed environmental activists have been camping out for two months on federal lands in North Dakota and Iowa, protesting the construction of the four-state Dakota Access oil pipeline. The protests have resulted in violence, with both sides blaming the other.

Members of the tribe say the pipeline endangers sacred sites near its reservation and endangers the tribe’s water supply, and that the construction company has already destroyed sacred sites. (The tribe’s “media backgrounder” can be found here.) However, according to The Daily Caller News Foundation, “Archaeologists inspected the 1.3-mile section along the route of the Dakota Access pipeline in southern North Dakota, and found no signs Native American tribal artifacts are present, despite what protesters argue.”

Mercer County Sheriff Dean Danzeisen of North Dakota sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch expressing his concerns about their guns. “They are armed, hostile, and engaged in training exercises which can only be intended to promote violence, whether on Corps property or elsewhere.” Dealing with the protesters also costs law enforcement extra money for overtime.

Yet federal agents say they have no intention of removing the trespassers, declaring they have a free speech right to be on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ land. The Corps has encouraged the protesters to move to adjacent land where they have a permit to stay, but they refuse.

North Dakota’s sole US representative, Republican Kevin Cramer, says the encampment is illegal and accuses the feds of looking the other way. “If that camp was full of people advocating for fossil fuels, they would have been removed by now,” he said. “There is some discretionary enforcement going on.”

Violent and Non-Violent Actions by Pipeline Protesters is the Norm

The protests have blocked work from progressing on parts of the pipeline. The construction in Iowa was forced to shut down briefly when protesters dismantled part of the fence around the construction site. In Missouri, twelve protesters chained themselves to construction equipment there, resulting in multiple arrests for criminal trespass.

Each weekend, more protesters arrive at the encampments. In Iowa, they are organized by the group Mississippi Stand. So far, more than 130 protesters have been arrested in Iowa and North Dakota, mostly for trespassing. Many volunteer to be arrested, knowing there will be few ramifications; law enforcement merely places the activists in plastic handcuffs, books them, then releases them immediately to go back and protest some more.

The Obama administration has stopped any building of the pipeline on federal lands, so developers are continuing the construction on private, state or local government land. The pipeline will carry oil 1,200 miles from North Dakota to Illinois, crossing South Dakota and Iowa. Pipeline officials say it will reduce energy dependence on foreign oil, and will generate $55 million annually in property taxes. There are up to 7.4 billion barrels of oil in North Dakota’s Bakken region.

The pipeline was supposed to be completed by the end of the year, but a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put a halt on part of the construction while considering a lawsuit filed by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

The lengths to which the government has gone to appease the environmental protesters is astounding. If Native Americans can care about the land, why not ranchers? (For more from the author of “Violent Pipeline Protesters Are Obama-Approved. Peaceful Ranchers? Not So Much” please click HERE)

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