Powell: Clinton Should Have Admitted Email Practices up Front

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Former Secretary of State Colin Powell doesn’t like GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump — but he thinks Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton should have been more forthright about her e-mail practices.

In a number of e-mails released by DC Leaks, Powell pushed back against the way Clinton had attempted to drag him into her e-mail scandals. The Democratic nominee, one of his successors as secretary of state, claimed Powell had advised her on e-mail policy.

Clinton Tried to Pin It On Him

Powell, who most famously served under both Presidents Bush, accused Clinton of “trying to pin” her e-mail scandal on him. In fact, according to an e-mail released by House Democrats, what the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush said was far less about violating the law, and more about giving advice to a colleague.

“If it is public that you have a BlackBerry and it it [sic] government and you are using it, government or not, to do business, it may become an official record and subject to the law,” Powell wrote Clinton. “Be very careful. I got around it all by not saying much and not using systems that captured the data.”

After Clinton dragged him into the e-mail investigations by saying she got advice on her illegal practices from Powell, he denounced the effort. “I have told Hilleary’s [sic] minions repeatedly that they are making a mistake trying to drag me in, yet they still try,” he wrote earlier this year. “The media isn’t fooled and she is getting crucified. The differences are profound and they know it.”

Perhaps most importantly, according to Powell, “HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me to it.”

Powell also commented on Clinton looking unhealthy, and said her “hubris” would likely cause problems. He criticized her exorbitant speaking fees, saying one university was unable to bring him to speak because they had to spend so much to bring Clinton to campus.

Trump, Birtherism and Racism

The famously centrist Powell didn’t mince words about Trump, either. “Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote. “That’s what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn’t keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim.”

Powell called the GOP investigation into the security failures and the subsequent cover-up a witch hunt, as well.

Powell endorsed President Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, sending ripples through the GOP establishment. He has yet to endorse a presidential candidate in this election. (For more from the author of “Powell: Clinton Should Have Admitted Email Practices up Front” please click HERE)

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Syrian Christian Refugees to US Still in Line Behind Muslims, and Obama’s Just Fine With That

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Ten months ago, Syrian Christian refugees made up about 2.6 percent of the Syrian refugees being accepted into the United States. Today, they make up less than half of one percent.

According to the State Department’s Refugee Processing Center, in the last year the United States has admitted only 56 Christians out of 11,157 Syrian refugees granted asylum. But according to the CIA’s World Factbook, Christians make up about 10 percent of Syria’s population. And given how Syrian Christians are being persecuted by ISIS and other jihadist groups, surely they represent at least 10 percent if not more of the would-be refugees from Syria.

So, why don’t Christians make up at at least 10 percent of the refugees admitted? And why hasn’t the Obama administration, apparently so eager to welcome Syrian refugees to our shores, corrected the imbalance? There are at least two possible explanations.

Two Explanations for the Missing Syrian Christian Refugees

Some argue that the U.S. intentionally picks Syrian Muslim refugees over Syrian Christian refugees. Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer writes, “This is social engineering, not humanitarian relief.”

Others argue that there is another, more practical reason. The refugees admitted to the U.S. are taken from Syrian refugee camps, and these camps are deadly places for Christians. Christians are regularly kidnapped, tortured, raped and endure all manner of atrocities, so they avoid the camps, said Jonathan Witt, managing editor of The Stream.

Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom concurs. “The Christians don’t reside in those camps, because it is too dangerous,” she said. “They are preyed upon by other residents from the Sunni community and there is infiltration by ISIS and criminal gangs.”

Also, Kiri Kankhwende, senior press officer for the United Kingdom-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), said United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) workers routinely show favoritism to Muslims over those Christians who do choose to live in the refugee camps. “There are reports of UNHCR local staff discriminating against Christians and dissuading them from registering for resettlement,” she said in a statement to the Assyrian International News Agency, adding that her organization “interviewed many Christian refugees who described experiencing threats, intimidation and physical attacks from Muslim refugees.”

Ten months ago, Witt commented, “President Obama should act, but standing up to bullies takes courage and resources. Finding the truly helpless in a system rigged against the helpless takes effort and commitment. There’s still time for Obama, working with Congress, to make that effort and that commitment.”

Ten months later, the Syrian Christians are still waiting for Obama to so much as lift a finger.

Without Refuge

Those who choose to stay in their villages aren’t safe, either. Islamist militants took over Maaloula, Syria, in late 2013 and occupied the town for about six months, CNN reported. Even now Christians in the town are afraid for their lives, and some residents who were kidnapped by ISIS are still missing. One resident, a nun named Sister Antoinette, told The Telegraph that her brother-in-law had been killed by rebel fighters and his son kidnapped. Another villager said that his neighbor was slaughtered in his home and the rebels had tried to force another man to convert to Islam. Sister Antoinette said the Syrian army failed them, leaving the town even as residents begged them to help. “They sold us because we are a minority,” she said. “They abandoned us because we are Christians.”

In June, 2016, jihadists slit the throat of a Christian man in front of his wife and mocked her, saying “Your Jesus did not come to save him from us,” reported Christians in Pakistan. Militants arrived in Maaloula at dawn and shouted that they were from the Al-Nusra Front and aimed to make life miserable for the Christians. The persecution of Christians in Syria has resulted in the enormous refugee crisis, according to Christians in Pakistan.

A Still Declining Number

Overall, the number of Christian Syrian refugees admitted to the United States per month has declined, even after Secretary of State John Kerry’s announcement in March that ISIS was indeed committing genocide against minority groups, including Christians. “In my judgment, Daesh [ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in territory under its control, including Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims,” Kerry said, adding that ISIS had committed “crimes against humanity” and “ethnic cleansing.”

The State Department, however, has not changed how it is operating to actively seek out Christian Syrians and give them asylum, leading Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to introduce legislation that would give persecuted religious minority groups priority. “We must not only recognize what’s happening as genocide, but also take action to relieve it,” Cotton said, adding that Kerry’s words were “just lip service on the issue of the genocide.”

Shea told Fox News that it’s not just about helping Christian refugees safely escape Syria, but the survival of Christianity in Syria itself. “This Christian community is dying,” she said. “I fear that there will be no Christians left when the dust settles.” (For more from the author of “Syrian Christian Refugees to US Still in Line Behind Muslims, and Obama’s Just Fine With That” please click HERE)

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Will the Third Party Candidates Matter for Once? They Could This Year

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For the first time in a while, not one but two third-party candidates are getting traction in the U.S. presidential race. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson is polling from 7 to 12 points in general election polls, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein from 2 to 5 points — that’s at least one-tenth of the voters between them, and as much as one-sixth.

Although minor candidates tend to see their support shrink as the election nears, in a tight race each could take enough votes from one of the major candidates to give the election to the other.

The RealClearPolitics average gives Clinton a 2 point edge over Trump, with Johnson taking 9 points and Stein 3. If the election were held today, and Johnson’s voters went to Trump while Stein’s went to Clinton, Trump would win 49.9 to 44.8. But there are a lot of ifs.

What’s Happened Before?

In 1948, a divided Democratic party chose the unpopular Harry S. Truman, who had become president when Franklin Roosevelt died 82 days into his fourth term. One faction, upset with Truman’s support for civil rights, formed the States Rights Democratic party (the “Dixiecrats”) and nominated South Carolina senator Strom Thurmond. The other faction, upset with his Cold War policies, shifted to the recently formed Progressive party and its candidate, former vice president Henry Wallace.

Democrats worried that the two together would take enough votes from Truman to shift the electoral college to give Republican Thomas Dewey the presidency. They wouldn’t need to get many votes to tip some states to Dewey.

Thurmond drew only a little over one million votes (Truman got over 24 million and Dewey almost 22 million) and carried only four southern states and 39 electoral votes. Wallace got almost the same number of votes, but his support was spread across the country and he carried no state. Truman won with just under 50 percent of the vote and 303 electoral votes. Neither third-party candidate mattered at the end.

Most minor candidates have rarely cracked one percent of the vote, but at least a couple have tipped elections before. In 1968,the former governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who had been a lifelong Democrat, ran as the American Independent Party candidate and received 13.53 percent of the vote. It is believed he took enough votes away from Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey to allow Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon to win — by about 1 point.

In 1984, independent John Anderson took 6.6 percent and Libertarian Ed Clark 1.06 percent of the vote, not enough to stop Republican Ronald Reagan from winning the presidency.

Reform Party candidate Ross Perot fared the best of minor candidates in recent years, achieving 18.9 percent of the vote in 1992. He was widely perceived as having taken enough votes away from George H.W. Bush to tip the election to Bill Clinton. Perot ran again in 1996, but only received only 8.4 percent of the vote, not thought to have had an effect on the outcome.

What Will Happen This Year?

The question this year is whether come election day enough voters will be so turned off by Clinton and Trump that they’ll vote for a third-party candidate in high enough numbers to turn the election. The two major candidates have record high combined negatives.

Johnson is a somewhat conservative Libertarian, so if he were not in the race, it is possible most of his votes would go to Trump. However, he’s socially liberal on some issues, so Johnson voters are far from the GOP’s for the taking if Johnson’s support tanks in the runup to election day. Stein is a progressive, so if she were not in the race, most of her votes would probably go to Clinton. It’s also possible that if Johnson and Stein were out of the picture, many of their voters would either vote for another minor candidate or not vote at all.

The polls give different answers — and the answers are confusing. A recent Quinnipiac poll of voters in the battleground state of Florida found that including Johnson and Stein in the list of candidates did not affect the results. Without them, each of the two leading candidates got 47 percent of the vote, with only 2 percent saying they’d vote for someone else. With the two third-party candidates included in the poll, Trump and Hillary each got 43 percent.

But here’s part of what’s confusing: While only 2 percent had said they’d vote for someone else when only Trump and Clinton were included, 10% said they’d vote for someone other than Trump or Hillary when Johnson (8 percent) and Stein (2 percent) were included in the poll question. They’ll both be on the Florida ballot, but will voters consider them or focus on the two major candidates?

The same is true in two other battleground states, North Carolina and Ohio, according to the same poll. In both states Clinton wins by 4 points whether or not the other two candidates are included. In Ohio, however, the inclusion of Johnson and Stein increases Trump’s lead from one point to four — even though Johnson takes 14 percent of the vote and Stein six.

In at least one state, the two candidates may tip the balance, according to the latest polls. In normally Republican-voting Arizona, a Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll found that Clinton edges out Trump by 46 percent to 45 percent in a two-way race. But with Johnson and Stein in the race, Trump takes the lead by two points, while Johnson comes in at 13 percent and Stein at four percent.

But The Electoral College

But the most important reality, as Cliston Brown notes in The Observer, a New York City weekly published by Trump’s nephew, is that Johnson and Stein probably won’t affect the electoral college numbers, and those are the numbers that elect presidents. Speaking of the fourteen states thought to be in play, the candidate who leads in the head-to-head vote is also leading when the two third-party candidates are included. Brown estimates that “On average, across the 14 competitive states, the third-party effect is benefitting Trump by about 0.25 percent.”

Yet that could change. A significant stumble by either major candidate could send some of their supporters to Johnson or Stein, enough to shift the vote in one of the close battleground states. Their presence allows disaffected Clinton or Trump supporters to participate in the election while feeling they’re voting on their principles, rather than just voting for the major candidate because they have to.

The third-party candidates could affect the race in another way: by changing the debate and forcing the major candidates to deal with their issues. If either minor candidate can reach 15 percent support in polling, he or she will be eligible to participate in the presidential debates. If Johnson is invited to the debates, he could become as significant a third-party candidate as Ross Perot was in 1992, due to the heightened publicity. (For more from the author of “Will the Third Party Candidates Matter for Once? They Could This Year” please click HERE)

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JUST LIKE ANY OTHER FAITH… Where the Rivers Run Red With Blood

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There’s no violence here against anyone except animals. It’s a surreal sight. Shocking in some ways. And another reminder of just how different Islamic culture is from our civilization.

Huge swathes of animal sacrifices marking the Islamic festival Eid al-Adha turned the streets of Bangladesh’s capital into rivers of blood.

Authorities in Dhaka had designated areas in the city where residents could slaughter animals, but heavy downpours Tuesday rendered them out of action.

Instead, Muslims took to car parks, garages and alleyways to traditionally mark Eid al-Adha – or the Feast of Sacrifice – by slaughtering livestock and when the blood flowed into the streets, it turned them red.

It’s a scene out of a horror movie. And yet it’s life in the Muslim world. (For more from the author of “JUST LIKE ANY OTHER FAITH… Where the Rivers Run Red With Blood” please click HERE)

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How Hispanics, Blacks Have Fared in Obama Economy

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President Barack Obama will be speaking this week for the last time during his presidency to annual dinners for black and Hispanic members of Congress, even as his record for the two largest minority groups in the country is at best questionable, based on government numbers.

A Census Bureau report this week found wages have climbed back to pre-recession levels in 2015, including for blacks and Hispanics. However, throughout Obama’s two terms, the highest unemployment rates continue to be among African-Americans and Hispanics, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The president’s policies haven’t helped either group, said Horace Cooper, co-chairman of Project 21, a black conservative group.

“The black community has suffered tremendously under the president’s policies,” Cooper told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.

“The president seems to be so proud that wages are back, but that just means the misery has endured until his last year in office,” Cooper added. “He has turned the Great Recession that should have been two to three years into five to seven years. We haven’t had full job growth for almost eight years.”

The president, not surprisingly, had a different perspective, touting the Census numbers in a White House video Tuesday. Obama said:

Incomes actually went up 5.2 percent. This is actually the biggest jump year over year since 1968. The good news is, it went up for everybody, all income groups, except those at the very, very top, all races, genders … It paints a picture of an economy that is improving, that is reducing poverty and increasing incomes. This is all a consequence of some of the smart economic policies we’ve been putting in place over the last several years.

The White House noted that Hispanics saw the largest gain in median income at 6.1 percent, while seeing a 2.2 percent drop in poverty. Further, blacks had a 2.1 percent drop in poverty.

However, the recovery has been too weak to celebrate, said James Sherk, a research fellow for labor economics at The Heritage Foundation.

“This has been the slowest recovery of the post-war era,” Sherk told The Daily Signal. “All racial groups suffered losses in the downturn that are only now being recovered.”

On Thursday, Obama is speaking to the 39th Annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute Public Policy Conference and Annual Awards Gala. Then, on Saturday, he will speak at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s 46th Annual Legislative Conference Phoenix Awards Dinner. Both events are in Washington.

Based on the new Census report, the estimated median income for blacks in 2015 was $37,211. That’s up from the previous year, when it was $35,694. But it’s only nominally higher than when Obama came into office at $36,179. The year before Obama ran, the estimated median income for blacks was $37,809. Pre-recession, 2007, the median income for black Americans was $38,970.

However, the wages picture is better for Hispanics, whose estimated median income for 2015 was $45,148, up about $2,600 from the previous year. It marks the only significant increase for Hispanics during Obama’s tenure. In 2009, the median income was $42,022, then leveled to $40,000 or $41,000 until a slight increase in 2014. In 2007, before the recession, the median income was $44,215.

However, a year-to-year comparison could lack precision based on a redesigned survey from the Census Bureau in 2014, which is intended to capture more income than the old survey.

The employment situation for the two demographics is more cloudy, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. African-Americans are hit hard on both fronts. Hispanics have one of the highest labor force participation rates of any demographic, but also lag in employment. Labor force participation has actually declined slightly for both groups, going from 63 percent in 2008 to 61 percent for blacks during most of Obama’s time in office. Hispanics had a 68 percent workforce participation rate in 2008, but after 2010 fell to 66 percent and remained there.

Pre-recession, the unemployment rates were 8.3 percent for blacks and 5.6 percent for Hispanics in 2007. This climbed in 2008 during when the recession hit. During Obama’s first year in office, according to the statistics bureau, blacks had an unemployment rate of 14.8 percent. Hispanics had a 12.1 percent unemployment rate. They remained mostly steady the next two years.

By 2012, the unemployment rate dropped for both groups, but was still much higher than the national average. It dropped slightly during the first year of Obama’s second term. However, in 2014, overall unemployment had decreased to 6.2 percent, but actually increased to 11.3 percent for blacks. Hispanics, that year, were on a par with the national average.

Obama and progressives in general would prefer to identify various voting blocs instead of boosting economic advancement, said Michael Gonzalez, a senior fellow in foreign policy for The Heritage Foundation and author of “Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans.”

“My main beef with progressives is blocs rather than individuals,” Gonzalez told The Daily Signal. “They want to drive a narrative that you have no power to change things and must depend on the government for help. We shouldn’t look at Hispanics as a group, that’s their mistake.”

Cooper, of Project 21, said that African-Americans did fare better during the Ronald Reagan years, and even during the 1990s with Bill Clinton, along with every other demographic, before Obamacare, the stimulus spending, and other regulation crowded out the private sector.

“There was an increase in black Americans owning homes, in high school graduations, and attending college,” Cooper said. “Today, it’s harder for entrepreneurs. If not for the digital economy, all opportunities might be eliminated. Barriers for entry into the economy are artificially higher because of the federal government.” (For more from the author of “How Hispanics, Blacks Have Fared in Obama Economy” please click HERE)

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Ahead of Vote on Impeachment of IRS Commissioner, Freedom Caucus Pushes Republicans

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Conservatives who belong to the House Freedom Caucus are trying to corner any Republicans thinking twice about impeaching the head of the Internal Revenue Service. They’ve framed the debate as a strict binary, telling fellow members of the GOP that they either can be with conservatives or with the IRS.

Skipping the regular committee process, the Freedom Caucus took their case directly to the House floor.

Reps. John Fleming, R-La., and Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., introduced a “privileged resolution” Tuesday to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

The House has scheduled a roll call vote Thursday. It’s the closest conservatives have come in their effort to remove the top taxman, who they accuse of obstructing a congressional investigation into IRS targeting of conservative groups.

And conservatives interpret any parliamentary tactic to delay a vote as part of a strategy to scuttle impeachment.

“Any motion to table or refer to a committee is meant to kill the impeachment,” Fleming wrote in a statement, “and should be viewed as a vote against impeachment by that member.”

That notice is born from a well-founded fear.

House Democrats already warn that they will vote in unison in support of Koskinen and against impeachment. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Tuesday that “every Democrat is going to vote against this.”

And if liberals poach enough conservatives, they could spoil the effort. Lawmakers wouldn’t need to vote against impeachment Thursday: They either could vote to table the resolution or refer it to committee.

Centrist Republicans—among them Tuesday Group Chairman Charlie Dent, R-Pa.—are pushing for the second option.

“There has got to be some level of due process afforded here,” Dent told The Daily Signal on Tuesday. “If there’s going to be an impeachment vote, it should go through a regular order process and you shouldn’t try to sneak something this important through.”

Conservatives balk at that characterization. They argue that ongoing reluctance to impeach from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., has soured the process.

Rep. Mick Mulvaney, R-S.C., described the Freedom Caucus strategy as an emergency valve.

“This privileged resolution is regular order,” Mulvaney, a founder of the Freedom Caucus, told The Daily Signal. “It’s regular order when the other parts of the process break down.”

The conservative push to impeach is nothing new. They’ve been calling for the IRS commissioner’s retirement since October, arguing that he obstructed the congressional investigation into the agency’s treatment of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

The White House has decried that targeting but remained unwavering in its defense of Koskinen, who was brought in to reform the agency.

Koskinen, who has hired a personal defense lawyer, has described allegations of wrongdoing as “unwarranted” and the articles of impeachment lodged against him as “without merit.”

To the chagrin of conservatives, the tax chief met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill last Wednesday to make his case for why he should keep his job.

Republicans will huddle in a closed-door conference meeting Thursday morning to discuss their party’s official position.

Though there hasn’t been an official GOP vote count, the Freedom Caucus backs the privileged resolution to impeach, as do Republican Study Committee Chairman Bill Flores, R-Texas, and Oversight Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

The Freedom Caucus received a boost from conservative columnist George Will over the weekend. Will lent their cause intellectual firepower, writing that “Congress should fulfill its constitutional duty to police executive branch lawlessness.”

“What we have in the houses of Congress are agents of our own obsolescence,” Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said Tuesday, referring to Will’s article. “And it’s because of the leadership of the Republican Party.” (For more from the author of “Ahead of Vote on Impeachment of IRS Commissioner, Freedom Caucus Pushes Republicans” please click HERE)

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The Numbers That Show Planned Parenthood’s About Abortion, Not Women’s Health

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As Planned Parenthood looks to spend a record $30 million this fall to influence the November elections and keep its taxpayer funding flowing, Live Action has released a new online tool pro-lifers can use to help counter the kind of propaganda $30 million can buy.

Live Action’s new “3 Percent Abortion Myth” video dispels one of Planned Parenthood’s greatest myths—that abortion only makes up 3 percent of its services.

In order to justify its half-billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding, Planned Parenthood downplays its abortion numbers by falsely claiming that abortion only makes up three percent of its business—and instead plays up its cancer screenings and so-called “women’s health care.”

However, Planned Parenthood’s own numbers prove that it’s an abortion corporation, focused on abortion, not on women’s health care. The fact is, Planned Parenthood doesn’t perform a single mammogram and performs less than 2 percent of all women’s cancer screenings in the United States. Yet, as America’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood commits over 30 percent of America’s abortions—887 abortions a day, one abortion every 97 seconds, and over 320,000 abortions last year alone.

In fact, Planned Parenthood is so focused on abortion that it aborts 160 children for every one child it refers out for adoption (it doesn’t do adoptions itself). If a woman with an unwanted pregnancy goes to Planned Parenthood, that child is 160 times more likely to be poisoned or dismembered than to be put up for adoption to a waiting family.

Live Action’s new motion graphics video not only shows that Planned Parenthood’s market share of abortions dwarfs its share of cancer screenings, it also illustrates how Planned Parenthood calculates its ridiculous 3 percent statistic to deliberately mislead the public and downplay its abortion business. The figure is derived by dividing the number of abortions it does by the total number of services it provides, counting a $10 pregnancy test or a pack of condoms the same as a $500 abortion.

Even The Washington Post and Slate have called out the abortion corporation for its deception.

Three percent is a hugely important figure to understand, because Planned Parenthood and its allies in Washington, Hollywood, and the media often use it to dismiss its critics as well as taxpayers who object to being forced to support the abortion chain with hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Three percent is not a real number, but over 320,000 abortions a year and a 30 percent market share of all U.S. abortions are.

Planned Parenthood by the numbers:

Planned Parenthood’s U.S. market share for Pap tests is 0.97 percent. It performed 271,539 tests in fiscal year 2014-15, out of 28.1 million tests nationwide.

Planned Parenthood’s U.S. market share for clinical breast exams is 1.8 percent. It performed 363,803 exams in fiscal year 2014-15, out of 20 million exams nationwide.

Planned Parenthood’s U.S. market share for abortions is 30.6 percent. It committed 323,999 abortions in fiscal year 2014-15, out of approximately 1.06 million abortions nationwide.

Planned Parenthood aborts 160 children for every one child it refers out for adoption.

Planned Parenthood is spending more than it ever has — and double what it spent in 2012 – to influence this November’s election. Citizens have a right to know the truth about an organization that has a hold on the media, our elected leaders, and our wallets.

You can share this video to help counter one of Planned Parenthood’s biggest lies and help educate other voters. Planned Parenthood’s millions of dollars are no match for the millions of voices speaking up for the most vulnerable among us — our precious preborn children. (For more from the author of “The Numbers That Show Planned Parenthood’s About Abortion, Not Women’s Health” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Key Internet Giveaway Advocate Can’t Give a Straight Answer on Free Speech Concerns

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A key player of the Obama administration’s internet giveaway was unable to offer a straight answer about how the organization that handles the system’s road map would be run, or whether or not it would be moved outside of the United States.

At a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing about the proposed internet giveaway at the end of the month, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%) confronted Goran Marby, president and CEO of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which is responsible for maintaining the internet’s address systems.

In a particularly tense exchange with Marby, the ICANN chief could not seem to find a straight answer on whether or not the organization — which currently operates as a nonprofit under California law — could see its bylaws altered by a multi-stakeholder body, or whether the organization could be moved to countries under oppressive regimes.

Under the structure of the proposed giveaway, ICANN would be no longer be tied to the United States government, which opponents of the move argue would remove free speech protections from the government’s overall administration.

During the exchange, in which Goran repeatedly dodged the chair’s questions, the nonprofit leader could not even answer the question regarding whether or not he agreed with Reporters Without Borders’ assertion that the People’s Republic of China is an “enemy of the internet” due to its repeated free speech violations.

Cruz: So, just to clarify your testimony is the community – the U.S. businesses – who have had a questionable record of protecting free speech in the past have the authority to change the bylaws in the future. Is that correct.

Marby: As I stated earlier, if someone really wants to change this setting, it’s easier to start an alternative ICANN … outside the U.S.

Cruz: I’m not asking you which is easier. I’m asking if the bylaws can be changed.

Marby: There are so many checks and balances within the system, I would say that it’s hardly possible to do.

Cruz: Sir, this isn’t a complicated question. Can the bylaws be changed? You’re saying, ‘gosh, it would be easier to do something else.’ Either the bylaws can be changed, or they can’t.

Marby: I think I’ve answered this to the best of my ability. I cannot do it, the community can after all checks and balances, but the whole bylaws are built on California law.

Cruz: And under California law, the bylaws can be changed under what you referred to as the stakeholders community, is that correct?

Marby finally gave a stilted answer assuring that the bylaws could indeed be changed by the parties mentioned, but only after satisfying ICANN’s “checks and balances,” which also represent internet users and other stakeholders outside of large tech companies.

Earlier in the hearing, Sen. Cruz also voiced his concerns about the role that private corporations would play in the governance of the internet under the terms of the transition, given the reputation that many have earned for suppressing free speech on their own platforms.

“Under the guardianship of the United States and the First Amendment, the internet has truly become an oasis of freedom,” said Cruz in his opening statement, but warned that severing that role could lead to infringement of free speech due to powerful corporations and oppressive regimes.

“Imagine an internet run like one of our large, private universities today, with speech codes and safe zones — an Internet that determines some terms are too scary … microaggressions are too troubling … we will not allow them to be spoken on the Internet.

“Imagine an internet run like far too many European countries that punish so-called ‘hate speech’ — a notoriously malleable concept that has often been used to suppress views disfavored by those in power,” Cruz continued. “Or imagine an internet run like many Middle Eastern countries that punish what they deem to be blasphemy. Or imagine an internet run like China or Russia that punish and incarcerate those who engage in political dissent.”

Cruz referred to ICANN as a “corporation with a Byzantine governing structure designed to blur lines of accountability that is run by global bureaucrats who are supposedly accountable to the technocrats, to multinational corporations, to governments, including some of the most oppressive regimes in the world like China, Iran, and Russia.”

In his opening statement, Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa (D, 68%) also voiced concerns about the constitutionality of the proposed handoff, which rests on whether or not America’s “historic role” as steward of the internet also means that the information system counts as U.S. government property.

“We’ve continued to engage with the administration about this transition and to date the answers we’ve received have been inadequate,” reads a statement from Grassely. “It’s clear that the administration hasn’t conducted a thorough legal analysis of the many issues outstanding.”

Proponents of the handoff argue that the handoff is somewhere between a good thing and an irrelevant thing, like Techdirt’s Mike Masnick, who calls the government’s role in internet governance “flimsy” and near-nonexistent.

During the hearing, pro-giveaway testimonies attempted to cast the handoff in terms of decentralization and free markets, quoting reports from center-right organizations and urging those distrustful of the move to trust market forces and privatization in the matter.

“The best way to preserve Internet freedom is to depend on the community of stakeholders who own, operate, and transact business and exchange information over the myriad of networks that comprise the Internet,” said National Telecommunications and Information Administration Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling, who also said that the U.S. government’s current internet infrastructure framework “is too limited in scope” to effectively protect freedom of expression on the Web.

Sen. Cruz took issue with this sentiment, pointing to the fact that many of the tech companies who have come out in support of the giveaway have a spotty record on internet censorship themselves. In May, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube partnered with the European Union to promote a code of conduct that would crack down on what the international body considers “hate speech.”

“That’s not what I would call a fine record of free speech,” said Cruz, who accused proponents of “asking the American people to trust private companies with control of their free speech.”

NTIA’s Strickling contested the assertion, saying that the government’s role is at the highest level and has no control over content on websites at the “second and third level.”

During the second panel, Tech Freedom president Berin Szoka also urged congress to assert the power of the purse on the issue — alleging that the NTIA had already violated previous congressional mandates to not use public funds to work on the transition — and block the transition via appropriations riders at the end of the month.

“The power of the purse is not an auxiliary power, to be used sparingly and construed narrowly, it is the ultimate power of Congress,” he concluded.

The giveaway will take place on September 30 unless congress passes legislation specifically blocking it. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Key Internet Giveaway Advocate Can’t Give a Straight Answer on Free Speech Concerns” please click HERE)

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We Did the Sexual Revolution Once Before. It Didn’t Go Well.

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How often have you heard sexual progressives claim that those of us who hold to traditional sexual morality and marriage are “on the wrong side of history?”

But as one new book points out, it’s the proponents of the sexual revolution who are embracing a sexual morality that history left behind millennia ago—in the dusty ruins of the Roman Forum.

Yes, today Western civilization is undergoing a dramatic cultural shift. In just a few short years our society has fundamentally altered the meaning of marriage, embraced the notion that men can become women, and is now promoting the idea that grown men should be welcome to share a bathroom with women and young girls. Not unexpectedly, we’re also seeing movement toward the normalization of polygamy, pedophilia, and incest.

It’s precisely in times like this that we need some historical perspective. Which is why Lutheran pastor Matthew Rueger’s new book, “Sexual Morality in a Christless World,” is a timely godsend. In it, Rueger shows how Christian sexual morality rocked the pagan world of ancient Rome. The notions of self-giving love, sexual chastity, and marital fidelity were foreign, even shocking to the people of that time.

Citing existing scholarship, Rueger details the Roman sexual worldview that prevailed for hundreds of years. Women and children were viewed as sexual objects; slaves—male and female–could expect to be raped; there was widespread prostitution; and predatory homosexuality was common. Christian sexual morality might have been seen as repressive by the licentious, but it was a gift from God for their victims. (Read more from “We Did the Sexual Revolution Once Before. It Didn’t Go Well.” HERE)

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Your Tax Dollars Are Going to Fund This Army Prisoner’s Sex Reassignment Surgery

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The government is footing the bill for Army Pvt. Chelsea Manning, who is currently serving a 35-year sentence for participating in a national security secrets leak, to undergo gender reassignment surgery while in prison.

According to Manning’s lawyers, Manning ended a hunger strike that began last week after the Army said it would provide the surgery, USA Today reports. Previously, Manning sued the Army for not providing hormone treatment, causing the Army to initiate hormone therapy.

When Manning’s gender reassignment surgery will transpire is still in question, but Manning is meeting with doctors this month.

To be clear, this surgery isn’t cheap and American taxpayers could be picking up the tab, as they are with Manning. Estimates for male-to-female transitions range from $7,000 to $24,000 and female-to-male reassignment can exceed $50,000. Even so, efforts to include gender-transition healthcare services to military members is gaining momentum.

Tricare, the military’s healthcare program, is forging ahead in paying for some gender-transition health care services to military family members and retirees, despite the fact the official policy — scheduled for finalization in October — hasn’t been authorized yet.

“It is no longer justifiable to categorically exclude and not cover currently accepted medically and psychologically necessary treatments for gender dysphoria (such as psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy, and hormone replacement therapy) that are not otherwise excluded by statute,” the proposed regulation states.

Raquel Bono, Navy Vice Admiral and head of the Defense Health Agency, said last month she will not wait for the final policy and, instead, is having Tricare proceed in administering these services.

Although Tricare and the Veterans Health Department are explicitly prohibited from covering sex-change surgeries, Democratic lawmakers are requesting the Department of Veterans Affairs to include covering gender reassignment surgery for transgender veterans.

Just this week, a group of six House members submitted a letter asking for sex-reassignment surgeries to be covered.

“We write to you today as members of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus Transgender Equality Task Force to urge the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to move swiftly to ensure access to medically necessary surgical care for transgender veterans,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Robert McDonald. “We urge you to move forward with publishing a proposed rule to remove the arbitrary and outdated restriction that prohibits VA from providing medical services to treat gender dysphoria.”

In June 2016, Defense Secretary Ash Carter eliminated the ban prohibiting transgender individuals from openly serving in the military. (For more from the author of “Your Tax Dollars Are Going to Fund This Army Prisoner’s Sex Reassignment Surgery” please click HERE)

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