Did Anti-white, DEI Bias Steal a State Final Spot From a White Basketball Team? thumbnail

Did Anti-white, DEI Bias Steal a State Final Spot From a White Basketball Team?

By Selwyn Duke

Some say it was the worst call they’ve ever seen in high-school basketball.

The scene was the recent NJSIAA Group 2 state semifinal game between New Jersey team Camden — a powerhouse that hadn’t lost to another NJ public-school squad in five years — and underdog Manasquan. Down 46-45 after Camden player Alijah Curry sank a couple of free throws, Manasquan drove down the floor with 5.8 seconds left on the clock. One of its players took a long shot, which bounced off the rim — into the waiting hand of teammate Griffin Linstra, who laid the ball up through the hoop, releasing it with 0.6 seconds left on the clock.

The Central Regional High School gymnasium erupted in celebration, with Linstra’s shot being called good. But then it happened.

A Camden coach ran over and tapped one of the exiting officials, Kevin Torres, on the shoulder, and “a group of Camden coaches pleaded for the referees to meet,” reported NJ.com. The refs then consulted for a short time — and overturned the call. Incredulity among sober observers was the result.

Then there was a secondary result: accusations of anti-white bias.

You see, Camden appears an entirely black team, while Manasquan appears entirely white.

Know that subsequent video review left no question that the call was errant. “In an email to the NJSIAA [New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association], cited in the legal papers, Torres admitted his call was wrong after seeing videos of the play,” NJ.com also writes. The NJSIAA made the same admission and issued an apology.

So the whole situation was most odd, indeed. As NJ.com further related, the “sequence of events” that led to the reversed call “is not standard…,” and a veteran official “told NJ Advance Media on Tuesday morning, ‘That [ref group] conversation never should have happened.’”

Manasquan appealed the decision and even filed a lawsuit to delay the championship game, scheduled for four days later (3/9), until the matter could be settled. But despite its apology, the NJSIAA “pointed to its bylaws that say once the referees leave the court after a game, the final score is official and cannot be appealed,” NJ.com tells us. As for the lawsuit, a judge rejected Manasquan’s request.

The CBS News segment below includes the video evidence of the blown (biased?) call.

This may not be popular, but I understand NJSIAA’s decision. Rules are rules, and if they dictate that a game’s outcome is to be considered irreversible once the referees depart, this standard must be followed. The rules can be changed if they’re deemed insufficient, of course. But our society’s increasing disregard for rules and laws (as reflected in the ignoring of 2020-election ballot standards) is a sign of civilizational decline. I also accept the judge’s ruling: It’s not a good idea having courts make any and all societal decisions from the monumental to the mundane.

What I don’t accept is the racial double standard apparent here. Good luck finding mainstream media that even allude to it; anti-white prejudice is their Voldemort of biases. However, the blogosphere addressed it, as did Internet commenters.

“A DEI call if there ever was one,” wrote a YouTube poster here. (Another respondent then asked him what DEI was, proving that Rip Van Winkle wasn’t alone in being able to sleep 20 years straight.)

“Can’t let the white kids win,” opined a tweeter on X.

“-2pts for white privilege,” stated another.

And while we can’t read minds, five questions do suggest themselves. Were the situation reversed:

  1. Would the Manasquan coaches have similarly importuned the refs to reverse their call?
  2. If they had, would the officials have likewise complied?
  3. If so, would the story’s racial aspect be ignored by media?
  4. Would the NJSIAA have still adhered to their no-reversal ex post facto rule?
  5. Would the judge still have rejected an appeal?

My answers:

  1. This would’ve been less likely.
  2. No, the probability is vanishingly low.
  3. Not a chance.
  4. Probably, but it’s not a given.
  5. Most likely.

It’s hard to imagine the refs reversing such a call for the white team. And had they, the media would’ve made a federal case out of it, screaming “Racism!” all the way. The pressure on the NJSIAA would’ve consequently been extreme, too, which is why we can’t be sure they would’ve taken the same principled rules stance.

To be clear, I think it’s unlikely the refs were purposely biased. In all probability, however, politically correct conditioning and social pressure — fashionable prejudice — did cloud their judgment. (The Left calls this “unconscious bias.”) Remember that many today are programmed to respond to and be intimidated by black grievance; no one wants to be that guy who robs a dominant black team of a title with a possibly bad call (that’s a career-ender). I also suspect that the errant decision reflects our time’s emotionalism, where principle is subordinated to feelings.

After all, what could the Camden coaches have said when pleading their case that was so convincing? “The shot was after the buzzer!”? That they claimed to have seen it differently than the refs is unsurprising and is neither proof nor even an argument. I mean, if non-official feedback matters, why didn’t the refs then just take a poll of all the players and spectators present?

Of course, with all our country’s problems, this is small potatoes. Significant, however, is what this incident may be an example of — that very real phenomenon called “black privilege” (see Fani Willis et al.),

Oh, Camden would go on to “win” the championship game. It’s a victory that should forever be accompanied by history’s biggest asterisk.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X (formerly Twitter), MeWe or Gettr or log on to SelwynDuke.com

©2024. Selwyn Duke. All rights reserved.

EXCLUSIVE: Firm Tied To China’s Military Industrial Complex Plans To Roll Out Massive Battery Chemical Plants In U.S. thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Firm Tied To China’s Military Industrial Complex Plans To Roll Out Massive Battery Chemical Plants In U.S.

By The Daily Caller

The Chinese manufacturer of chemicals for electric vehicle batteries planning to build two U.S. factories has long-standing ties to China’s military industrial complex, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found.

Capchem Technology USA, the wholly-owned subsidiary of China-based Shenzhen Capchem Technology (Capchem), plans to build factories in both Ohio and Louisiana that would produce components for electric vehicle batteries. Chinese government documents reveal the Chinese chemical giant was selected over a decade ago to conduct aerospace research for China’s military industrial complex as part of a program overseen by a blacklisted Chinese government agency.

Corporate reports show the company, as recently as 2023, received payments from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology — a government agency spearheading the Chinese government’s so-called “Military-Civil Fusion” efforts.

“This network of [Chinese Communist Party] military-linked companies proliferating across the United States is a great example of why blind economic engagement with China is a national security threat,” Bryan Burack, senior policy advisor for China and the Indo-Pacific at the Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center, told the DCNF.

The DCNF’s investigation is based, in part, on information provided by the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action.

Capchem specializes in manufacturing chemicals for electric vehicle batteries, and for years, the firm has advertised its products’ military uses in annual reports and online. Indeed, until very recently, the firm’s website boldly stated its products were used in “high-end military equipment.”

Yet, Capchem denied supplying the Chinese military, and the reference to “high-end military equipment” was scrubbed from the firm’s website within 24 hours of the DCNF reaching out for comment.

Capchem “does not have products used by Chinese military, or any other military organizations,” a spokesperson told the DCNF.

“When the English/U.S. website was developed, the ‘military’ reference was inadvertently included,” the spokesperson said. “You brought it to the company’s attention, and it was removed just as it had been in the Chinese version in 2020.”

However, the military reference also appeared on Capchem’s Chinese-language website when the DCNF reached out for comment. The reference on Capchem’s Chinese-language site appears to have been removed around the same time as their English-language was being scrubbed.

Capchem business filings and corporate announcements from 2023, along with Chinese financial service research reports from as recent as January 2024, also note the firm’s products had military applications.

‘Military-Civil Fusion’

Capchem’s work with China’s military industrial complex extends back to at least 2012. That year, the Guangdong province Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced Capchem was one of 70 companies selected to serve as a “Guangdong Provincial National Defense Science And Technology Industry Military-Civil Fusion Superior Work Unit.”

The work unit focused on “critical components within the aerospace field,” including “space flight-grade, high-reliability and core electronic components, high-end general chips, base software, etcetera,” the 2012 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announcement reads.

The project was overseen by China’s Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, which is “under direct supervision of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,” and responsible for “nuclear weapons, aerospace technology, aviation, armament, watercraft and electronic industries,” according to China’s State Council.

China’s “Military-Civil Fusion strategy supports the modernization goals of the People’s Liberation Army by ensuring it can acquire advanced technologies and expertise developed by PRC companies, universities, and research programs that appear to be civilian entities,” according to the U.S. Defense Department.

Chairman of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi recently sent a letter to the Treasury and Defense departments noting the U.S. government’s blacklist of Chinese military companies extends to companies working with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

“Among other qualifying considerations, a company is a ‘military civil fusion contributor’ if such company is ‘affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, including research partnerships and projects,’” the lawmakers wrote in January 2024. “The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology was formed in 2008 and is key to the PRC’s military-civil fusion strategy.”

Capchem’s annual reports show the firm has received millions of dollars in payments from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology since 2017. The ministry paid the firm approximately $1.5 million for an “Industrial Foundation Project” in 2017, according to Capchem’s annual report for that year.

Capchem’s most recent annual report shows the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had a subsidy of just under $1 million earmarked for the firm at the end of the 2023 mid-term reporting period.

Despite this, Capchem initially denied getting any “money/subsidies/donations from the Chinese government” in an email to the DCNF, though a spokesperson did say the firm had received “economic development tax incentives.”

However, the spokesperson changed their tune when the DCNF pointed to the firm’s own annual reports.

“The last time the company received any Chinese government subsidies besides standard incentives or awards provided for all eligible companies was between 2016 and 2018,” the spokesperson said. “Any reference to subsidies in company reports apply to those received during that time. The company has received no such subsidies since 2018.”

Capchem’s corporate reports list $26 million in subsidies from various Chinese government entities. The company’s 2023 mid-term report lists roughly $10 million worth of new government subsidies in a section labeled “Programs Involving Government Subsidies.”

Heritage’s Burack said Capchem has been “subsidized by the Chinese government” and “manufactures for China’s military.”

“There’s no question who these companies really work for,” Burack said. “There’s no such thing as a private Chinese company.”

‘Aerospace And Military Industries’

Capchem has long advertised the dual military-civilian use for its products. For instance, Capchem’s 2009 annual report touted how the company’s products are used in “aerospace and military industries.”

The vice president of Capchem’s research institute, Liu Zhongbo, discussed the military application of the company’s sodium-ion batteries at a July 2023 battery forum in Jiangsu province.

“Lithium-ion batteries and sodium-ion batteries are representative of new battery types serving as an important foundation for supporting the wide application of new energy sources in the domains of electricity, transportation, communication, military, etcetera,” Liu said during the event, according to Capchem’s website.

“In the future, Capchem will closely follow the national strategy to support the mass production of sodium-ion batteries,” Liu said.

More recently, a January 2024 research report from Chinese financial service firm Huaan Securities identified Capchem’s “fluorinated polyimide” product as being used in the nuclear industry and by the military, and the firm’s “perfluoropolyether oil” product’s use in aerospace landing gear, rudders and aircraft control mechanisms.

‘Security Risks’

Capchem’s plans to expand their U.S. footprint come as federal and state officials move to prohibit the ownership of U.S. land by Chinese entities. Missouri Gov. Mike Parson recently issued an executive order in January 2024 banning entities tied to China from purchasing agricultural land within 10 miles of any “critical military facilities” in the state.

Capchem USA is planning on building an approximately $120 million factory in Lawrence County, Ohio, Capchem announced in June 2023. County commissioners recently approved a 50% tax abatement for Capchem USA’s facility, the Herald Dispatch reported. The facility will serve as a “production facility for the manufacturing of battery chemicals,” according to Capchem.

Capchem USA is also considering a $350 million plant in Louisiana, according to Louisiana Economic Development, a government agency.

Ohio Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup’s congressional district includes Lawrence County. Barbara Boland, Wenstrup’s press secretary, told the DCNF that the congressman has “warned of the potential security risks to our supply chains, intellectual property and national security posed by Chinese-owned companies operating in the U.S.”

“Congressman Wenstrup recommends local governments and those pursuing economic development opportunities to fully vet any companies seeking to establish a footprint in their communities,” Boland said.

AUTHOR

PHILIP LENCZYCKI

Daily Caller News Foundation investigative reporter, political journalist, and China watcher. Twitter: @LenczyckiPhilip.

RELATED ARTICLE: EXCLUSIVE: Republican Attorney General Urges Biden Admin To Restrict Foreign Land Ownership Near Major Military Base

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden’s 2025 Budget Ignores the Border Crisis thumbnail

Biden’s 2025 Budget Ignores the Border Crisis

By Federation for American Immigration Reform

Last week, the Biden Administration released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget proposal. Unsurprisingly, the $7.3 trillion budget maintains status quo on the border, allocating billions in taxpayer dollars towards funding an open-borders, anti-enforcement agenda.

Of the $107.9 billion in proposed spending for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), $19.8 billion is allocated to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $9.7 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and $6.8 billion for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). However, instead of proposing any meaningful changes to secure our borders, the President chose to use the budget request to reinforce his failed policies and again call on Congress to enact a Senate border package that fails to reform our asylum system, end widespread abuse of parole, or stop the mass catch-and-release of illegal aliens.

A deeper dive into the funding proposal shows that the Biden Administration’s FY25 budget continues to focus on quickly processing and releasing illegal aliens into the country. The budget provides funding to hire 310 more “processing coordinators” and an additional 641 asylum and refugee officers, in part to support the unprecedented flow of illegal aliens claiming asylum when the vast majority are economic migrants.

In addition, $5 billion would be allocated to a new Southwest Border Contingency Fund to support surges at the border, a slush fund for Mayorkas, with very few details on how the funds would be spent. While ostensibly that fund is to help DHS respond to immigration surges along the southern border, in reality, it would serve as a replacement for the Shelter and Services Program by financially supporting non-governmental organizations (NGOs) facilitating illegal immigration. The budget request provides for tranches of the $4.7 billion fund to be made available at quarterly intervals, assuming that encounters at the southern border reach certain levels.

The creation of this $4.7 billion slush fund appears calculated to give the Biden administration as much flexibility as possible in spending taxpayer dollars while ensuring as little accountability as possible. With such broad guidelines as to the purposes for the money, the “contingency fund” would provide easy access to billions of taxpayer dollars for DHS Secretary Mayorkas to distribute as he sees fit. The first $1.4 billion would be released on January 1, 2025, three months into the fiscal year, if total encounters reach 165,000. Another $1.52 billion would be released on April 1, 2025, if total encounters reach 575,000. For context, illegal encounters through January 1 in FY23 reached over 715,000 and through April 1 reached 1.2 million. The third threshold represents a closer margin based on FY23 encounters – a 2.23 million encounter rate by July 1 as opposed to roughly 1.8 million in FY23. Even with a higher bar for the third batch of funding, though, the first two tranches, totaling nearly $3 billion, would almost certainly be dispersed.

In addition to the DHS slush fund, the President’s budget includes $652 million for an “emergency contingency fund” within Health and Human Services to handle the surge of unaccompanied alien children (UACs). The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), would be provided $9.3 billion, of which $5.5 billion would support the care and custody of UACs. This office would also use hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to support the resettlement of 125,000 new refugees from around the world as asylum seekers flood our borders.

Finally, for all of the billions in proposed spending, the President’s budget clearly conveys that removing and detaining illegal aliens is still not a priority. The proposed budget only proposes removing 125,000 aliens in FY25, a stark contrast from an average of over 400,000 per year in the first three years of the Trump Administration. Given that nearly 10 million have entered in the last three years, removing 125,000 each year would take 80 years to deport just those who entered under Biden’s watch.

The Biden administration’s failure to remove illegal aliens has also contributed to the explosion of the non-detained docket, which represents aliens who are in the country illegally, released into the interior and waiting for a court hearing. The President’s budget reveals that the non-detained docket has now exploded to over 6.3 million aliens. To make matters worse, many of the aliens on the non-detained docket have criminal backgrounds. A House Judiciary report released this January revealed there are 617,607 aliens on the non-detained docket – nearly 10 percent – who have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.

In short, President Biden’s budget shows that he has no interest in securing the border, as he continues to advocate for harmful policies, refuses to take any executive action to end the crisis, and shifts blame to Congress for his own administration’s shortfalls. As highlighted by FAIR, American taxpayers are already on the hook for $151 billion to offset the costs of illegal immigration every year. The President’s FY25 budget would only compound the costs imposed on Americans while doing nothing to ensure that their safety and security is protected.

To read more about actions that Biden can take to secure our borders today, click here.

AUTHOR

Kari joined FAIR in June 2023 after graduating from the College of the Holy Cross with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and a concentration in Peace and Conflict Studies. She has spent time working in local, state and federal politics, the most notable being her work on a gubernatorial campaign, and with a U.S. Senator. As FAIR’s Government Relations Associate, Kari uses her prior experience to establish and maintain effective working relationships with congressional offices, federal agency personnel, and coalition members. She also plays a role in complex research and writing assignments on immigration-related topics.

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RELATED VIDEO: This is Where Illegal Aliens Walk Right Into U.S.

EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column is republished with permission. © COPYRIGHT 2024 FEDERATION FOR AMERICAN IMMIGRATION REFORM, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

VIDEO: October Surprise Coming — Biden Executive Order to Allow Illegal Aliens to Vote thumbnail

VIDEO: October Surprise Coming — Biden Executive Order to Allow Illegal Aliens to Vote

By Conservative Commandos Radio Show

Michael Letts is the Founder, President, and CEO of InVest USA, a national grassroots non-profit organization that is helping hundreds of communities provide thousands of bulletproof vests for their police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience under his belt, hence his pro-police stance for his brothers and sisters in blue.

WATCH: Biden to issue Executive Order to allowing illegal aliens to vote before election day!

©2024. . All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Biden Moves to Erase Voter ID Requirements That Are Backed By 85% of Voters

HAWAII: Democrat’s Bill HB2079 Would Legalize Child Kidnapping for Sex Change thumbnail

HAWAII: Democrat’s Bill HB2079 Would Legalize Child Kidnapping for Sex Change

By Hawaii Free Press

by Austin Martin, Chair, Hawaii Libertarian Party

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill (HB2079, ‘Relating to Health’) is among the worst proposed laws of this legislative session.

Awaiting Senate action after passing the House, HB2079 grants a de-facto immunity and asylum in Hawaii for any kidnapper who claims to be helping a child receive so-called ‘gender-affirming’ treatments.

The bill’s intent to legalize interstate kidnapping is outlined in the text:

§583A-208 – Jurisdiction declined by reason of conduct:

(d)  In making a determination under this section, a court shall not consider as a factor weighing against the petitioner any taking of the child, or retention of the child after a visit or other temporary relinquishment of physical custody, from the person who has legal custody if there is evidence that the taking or retention of the child was for the purposes of obtaining gender-affirming health care services for the child and the law or policy of the other state limits the ability of a parent to obtain gender‑affirming health care services for the child.

Testimony in support of HB2079 comes from Oregon-based QueerDoc.com which describes itself as, “a telemedicine-based gender affirming clinic.”  QueerDoc arrogantly announces, “the medicine and science are not up for debate” and enthuses about 100s of mainland telehealth practitioners who “can issue a prescription for estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone blocking medications at that telehealth appointment.”

Far from unbiased, QueerDoc has an agenda for our children.  The clinic was founded by an MD who describes herself as “they” and on her website touts “lived experience as a nonbinary femme and are SUPER queer themself, enjoying queer burlesque, vintage fashion, and their queer, kinky, poly family!”

Most of this bill is a series of loopholes, redefinitions, and special opt-outs of legal norms all in service of making Hawaii a sanctuary for underage sex change surgery.  Amendments to deep and highly specialized areas of the law work together in the service of legalizing the truly unthinkable.

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill’s unique and unmistakable true intent is to allow legal protections for any non-parent with sufficient access and means to remove a child of any age from their home state, and to bring them to Hawaii in the name of receiving “Gender Affirming Care” – so long as they could not receive said ‘care’ in their home state.

The many sections of Hawaii Revised Statutes affected by the Hawaii Kidnapping Bill are designed to trigger a series of child-custody ‘loopholes’ that cause inter-state barriers to be systematically removed, so long as the instigator says the magic words: “Gender Affirming Care.”

The bill accomplishes its perverse ends by a ‘reinterpretation’ of a critical section of the Uniform Child-Custody Jurisdiction and Enforcement Act (UCCJEA) which governs interstate child-custody proceedings, and amending over a dozen other laws, to exempt any petitioner from the oversight offered by Hawaii’s Family Court system.

The bill’s proposed amendments to the UCCJEA redefine a family-court emergency, to allow any person “acting as a parent” to obtain emergency temporary custody against natural parents who decline to provide their children so-called “Gender Affirming Care.”   Natural parents’ refusal to provide sex-change procedures would be treated as being of the same legal weight and severity as actual physical abuse or child abandonment.

The bill reads:

§583A-204, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:

(a)  A court of this State [has] shall have temporary emergency jurisdiction if the child is present in this State and the child has been abandoned or it is necessary in an emergency to protect the child because [the]:

(1)  The child, or a sibling or parent of the child, is subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse[.]; or

(2)  The child has been unable to obtain gender‑affirming health care services.

This language plainly redefines a custody “emergency” to mean “unable to obtain gender‑affirming health care services.”

The rewriting of this uniform, nationwide custody law also undermines and threatens Hawaii’s participation in the UCCJEA.  The whole point of our Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Enforcement Act is uniformity.  If Hawaii passes HB2079 and stops returning children to other states, we risk being unable to secure the return of any Hawaii child who is taken out of state to pursue a custody battle.

The court that prevails in exercising jurisdiction first, usually maintains jurisdiction for the rest of the case, both practically and statistically speaking.  Under the proposed language from HB2079, once ‘emergency jurisdiction’ is sought and approved by the Hawaii Family Court, several critical timelines begin to toll for the legal residency of the child to determine which court will have the ultimate say in final custody determinations.

The next phase is the so-called ‘temporary orders’ hearing. This section of HB2079 creates another loophole that can be easily exploited by a motivated kidnapper to keep a stolen child for longer than the short-term ‘emergency jurisdiction’ alone would allow.

The loophole specifically reads:

(d) The presence of a child in this State for the purpose of obtaining gender-affirming health care services shall be sufficient to meet the requirements of subsection (a)(2).”

Subsection (a)(2) governs what a court must do when the child is not clearly a legal resident of the State.

The UCCJEA prohibits this kind of abuse of temporary placement – as the original language of (a)(2) along with requirements (A) & (B) below shows us:

§583A-201 Initial child-custody jurisdiction.

(a)  Except as otherwise provided in section 583A-204, a court of this State shall have jurisdiction to make an initial child-custody determination only if: …

(1)  This State is the home state of the child …or…

(2)  A court of another state does not have jurisdiction under paragraph (1), or a court of the home state of the child has declined to exercise jurisdiction on the ground that this State is the more appropriate forum under section 583A-207 or 583A-208, and:

(A)  The child and the child’s parents, or the child and at least one parent or a person acting as a parent, have a significant connection with this State other than mere physical presence; and

(B)  Substantial evidence is available in this State concerning the child’s care, protection, training, and personal relationships;…

Under the proposed language from HB2079, these UCCJEA requirements are magically deemed “satisfied” and replaced–by using three magic words: “Gender Affirming Care”, if the child is from a state that has sex-change laws deemed insufficient by Hawaii and/or the natural parents are not providing sex-change ‘treatments.’  The kidnapper–who may be a non-relative– is treated by the Hawaii Family Court like a good Samaritan who will be granted temporary custody of a child stolen from his or her biological parents.   No recourse nor due process is available for the affected victims and their families in their home state.

Local parents are also stripped of Hawaii Family Court recourse because HB2079 places their failure to provide access to so-called ‘Gender Affirming Care’ in the same category as child abuse, or more specifically, medical neglect.   There is no meaningful due process for any family that is accused of medical neglect.  There is no provision for legal representation or even notification of parents.

This bill goes to great lengths to enable outrageous practices across state lines.  It aims to build long-term and short-term cases against parents who are otherwise perfectly fit – solely based on their sex-change viewpoint and/or the laws of their state.  It allows any motivated adult to kidnap children with impunity from any state deemed insufficient in its sex-change laws.

In the recent Geanna Bradley torture-murder case , her legal guardians allegedly exploited telehealth for months or even years to hide their alleged torture of Geanna.  Yet HB2079 allows telehealth practitioners to prescribe sex-change hormones to juveniles:

§329-     Prescriptions; gender-affirming health care services.  (a)  Notwithstanding this chapter or any other law to the contrary, for the purposes of providing gender‑affirming health care services, a practitioner who is licensed in this State may prescribe schedule III and IV controlled substances, including testosterone:

(1)  While the practitioner is located outside the State; and

(2)  Without conducting an in‑person consultation with the patient; provided that the practitioner shall prescribe the controlled substances via a synchronous audio-visual telehealth interaction

According to the text, a single telehealth Zoom call is all it would take: after that, upon filing a petition to exercise emergency jurisdiction to a Hawaii court, instantly, the kidnapping of any child legally becomes a civil case and no longer open to prosecution as a criminal matter – denying victims and their families the help of federal or state law enforcement to return their children before permanent harm is done, and also forcing the out-of-state family to travel to Hawaii to be present for hearings. If the kidnapper has a long enough head-start and the family doesn’t suspect them, by the time they find out what is happening, it could already be too late.

If the home state claims the child was kidnapped and attempts to escalate a criminal case – the bill’s authors, disgustingly, have thought of that possibility too:

§323J-6  Denial of demands for surrender.  Notwithstanding any provision of chapter 832 to the contrary, the governor shall deny any demand made by the executive authority of any state for the surrender of any person charged with a crime under the laws of that state when the alleged crime involves [the provision or receipt of,]:

(1) Seeking, receiving, paying for, or [assistance with,] inquiring about reproductive health care services[,] or gender-affirming health care services;

(2) Providing or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care services or gender-affirming health care services;

(3) Assisting or aiding or abetting in any of the conduct described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(4) Attempting or intending to engage in or providing material support for (or any other theory of vicarious, attempt, joint, several, or conspiracy liability derived therefrom) conduct described in paragraphs (1) to (3),”

Laws contrary to the public policy of this State.

(a)  A law of another state authorizing a civil action or criminal prosecution based on any of the following [is] shall be declared to be contrary to the public policy of this State:

(1)  [Receiving, seeking, or] Seeking, receiving, paying for, or inquiring about reproductive health care services[;] or gender-affirming health care services that are lawful under the laws of this State;

(2)  Providing or responding to an inquiry about reproductive health care services[;] or gender‑affirming health care services that are lawful under the laws of this State;

(3)  [Engaging in conduct that assists or aids or abets the provision or receipt of reproductive health care services;] Assisting or aiding or abetting in any of the conduct described in paragraph (1) or (2); or

(4)  Attempting or intending to engage in or providing material support for (or any other theory of vicarious, attempt, joint, several, or conspiracy liability derived therefrom) conduct described in paragraphs (1) to (3)[,in accordance with the laws of this State].

HB2079 would forbid the entire State of Hawaii, including the Governor, from disclosing records or extraditing any kidnapper charged in another state, so long as the kidnapper alleges that the purpose of taking the child was to provide access to gender affirming care. It would forbid the courts from returning any child kidnapped from their home state under these auspices by nullifying any direct criminal charges. The authoritarian bill even forbids sending any information about whether the child has been subjected to life-changing procedures, like sex-change surgeries, even if the biological parents obtained help from the other states’ Governors, or if other authorities were to make formal legal demands.  It would leave out-of-state parents completely in the dark and at the mercy of distant kangaroo courts. It even forbids the extradition of anyone charged with a crime in connection with ‘helping a child to receive Gender Affirming Care’, granting effective immunity for the actions of interstate kidnappers, so long as those actions are claimed to be in service of helping the child access Gender Affirming Care, even if they are wanted fugitives for those acts in another state.

Please let that sink in for a moment.

The Hawaii Kidnapping Bill also makes it a crime to interfere with the kidnappers or to disclose any data about the ‘Gender Affirming Care’ with anyone other than the kidnapper-petitioner, even if ordered by another court.

All this is predicated on nothing more than a single telehealth Zoom call as ‘evidence’ for the life-changing decision of an interstate judicial child custody determination.

It mandates nondisclosure by every last ‘mandatory reporter’ professional and care provider that could conceivably influence such a proceeding, placing a permanent professional gag order on whatever is done to the abducted children, no matter what authority or expert is doing the questioning.

It would be a crime under State law to comply with any oversight or investigation into the kidnappings from outside of Hawaii. Inside Hawaii, the situation would only be different if the family consented to give their children sex-changes; if not, then the provisions, when taken together, may form a direct bar to anyone requesting this information for any purpose contrary to promoting access to Gender Affirming Care. (The most relevant sections on this inquiry include: §323J-2, §323J-3, §323J-4, §451J-12). It appears that any family in Hawaii who does not consent to such care would not have access to records.

The authors of the Hawaii Kidnapping Bill have made a very distinct legislative package designed to facilitate abusive behavior. If it passes, the odds of an out-of-state family ever getting their child back from Hawaii legally would be slim.  This law provides for atrocities against vulnerable, trafficked minors – with no legal protection or recourse for defendants and victims, and full protection for the perpetrators.

HB2079:  Text, Status –  Passed Third Reading in the House, March 5, 2024, with Representative(s) Chun, Souza voting aye with reservations; Representative(s) Aiu, Alcos, Garcia, Gates, Holt, Kila, Kong, La Chica, Lamosao, Martinez, Matsumoto, Pierick, Quinlan, Ward voting no (14) and Representative(s) Cochran, Woodson excused (2).

EDITORS NOTE: This Hawaii Free Press column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Moves to Erase Voter ID Requirements That Are Backed By 85% of Voters thumbnail

Biden Moves to Erase Voter ID Requirements That Are Backed By 85% of Voters

By Dr. Rich Swier

85% of people across all demographics support voter ID (the same 85% that didn’t vote for him.)

Biden pushing to erase voter ID requirements that are backed by 85% of voters

By: The Washington Times, March 15, 2024:

Recent comments from Biden administration officials have stirred a debate about the role of federal agencies in supporting citizen participation in elections and the validity of voter ID laws.

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Concerns have been raised by House Republicans over a lack of transparency regarding the implementation of an executive order by President Biden aimed at encouraging federal agencies to assist in voter registration efforts. This is in addition to statements made by Attorney General Merrick Garland questioning the effectiveness of voter ID laws.

Rep. Claudia Tenney, New York Republican and co-chairwoman of the Election Integrity Caucus, disputes claims that voter ID laws disenfranchise voters. “The statistics don’t bear that out. It’s like 85% of people across all demographics support voter ID,” she said, according to The Daily Signal.

Ms. Tenney’s comments were in response to Mr. Garland, who has criticized these laws as “discriminatory, burdensome and unnecessary.”

In a recent speech in Selma, Alabama, the attorney general said he’s committed to election access, noting that he has bolstered the legal team in the Civil Rights Division’s Voting Section to challenge what he calls restrictive measures enacted by various states, “including those related to mail-in voting, the use of drop boxes and voter ID requirements.”

Read the whole thing.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Senate Democrats UNANIMOUSLY VOTE AGAINST Proposal to Prohibit Illegals From Voting

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New Poll Finds Rampant Mail-In Voting Fraud in 2020 Election, Trump Calls it ‘Biggest Story Of The Year

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff Publicly Raising Money for Group Who Was Part of Oct. 7 Atrocities and Terrorist Attack on Israel thumbnail

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff Publicly Raising Money for Group Who Was Part of Oct. 7 Atrocities and Terrorist Attack on Israel

By The Geller Report

Of all the worthy causes for which one can raise money this is what the coprophagic Ella Emhoff comes up with!

However, this should not come as a surprise since her step-mother, Kalamity Harris, was urging people to contribute to a fund for bailing out Antifa and BLM rioters in 2020.

Supporting murderous scum has become something of a family tradition.

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff publicly raising money for relief group allegedly tied to Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel

By: Jon Levine, NY Post,  March 16, 2024

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The stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris is publicly raising cash for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — even as the United States has cut funding to the group over its members’ alleged participation in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel.

Ella Emhoff — whose father is second gentleman Doug Emhoff — posted a link to UNRWA’s English-language fundraising page on her personal Instagram, and only removed it after a Post inquiry to the White House.

“We urge Ms. Emhoff to go on the website of UN Watch and read our reports showing how UNRWA teachers and school principals systematically promote and encourage Jihadi terrorism and the slaughter of Jews,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the nonprofit United Nations watchdog.

UNRWA, the largest employer in Gaza, has long faced international criticism for its close ties to Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2006.

Kamala Harris’ stepdaughter Ella Emhoff makes another bizarre NYFW appearance
UNRWA, the largest employer in Gaza, has long faced international criticism for its close ties to Hamas, which has ruled the enclave since 2006.

President Trump cut US aid to the organization in 2018 — a decision President Biden initially reversed when he took office.

Under Biden’s leadership, at least $730 million found its way to UNRWA’s coffers.

The rapprochement ended, however, in January, when Israel presented evidence that UNRWA employees had been involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks that left at least 1,200 dead at a music festival near the Gaza Strip.

As many as 450 UNRWA workers are members of extremist groups in the Gaza Strip, Israel contends.

Hamas tunnels were uncovered under the agency headquarters in Gaza where they also siphoned off the building’s electricity, Israeli officials said.

One released Israeli hostage said they were held prisoner in the home of an UNRWA teacher, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Paul Schnee

RELATED ARTICLES:

UNRWA is a Terrorist Organization

UNRWA Staff Recordings Prove Hamas Treated Young Women ‘Like Animals’

Amid Evidence That UNRWA Employees Participated in Oct. 7 Jihad Massacre, UNRWA Gets Nobel Peace Prize Nomination

New Report Reveals the Extent to Which Hamas Has Infiltrated UN Agency

Biden Appointed Terror-Linked UNRWA Official to Senior Director for Intelligence on National Security Council

Wall Street Journal: At Least 1,200 UN Employees are Actual Hamas Terrorists, 12,000 UN Staff in Gaza have Links to Islamic Terrorists

UN EMPLOYEES TOOK PART IN OCTOBER 7 GENOCIDAL MASSACRE OF JEWS, ONLY 12 ARE FIRED

UN Staff Celebrating Hamas October 7th Atrocities

Report: UNRWA Teacher, Gaza Doctor Kept Israeli Child Hostages

Another UNRWA School That was Cover for a Hamas Underground Bunker

39 Republicans Sponsor Bill To Cut Off Funding of UNRWA

UNRWA inciting violence with U.S. funding , study shows

As Biden funds UNRWA, UNRWA teachers call for Jew-murder

UN bars Israel’s ambassador from displaying pro-Hitler posts by UNRWA teacher

Watchdog: Dozens of UNRWA Teachers Incite To Violence, Spread Jew-Hatred Online

UNRWA Caught Teaching Terrorism, Jew-Hatred as Biden Regime Resumes American Taxpayer Funding

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Islamic Terror State Wants to Buy James Bond thumbnail

Islamic Terror State Wants to Buy James Bond

By Jihad Watch

After buying The King, Qatar wants to buy Bond.

Is there anywhere that Qatar, the Islamic terror state which has its bloody fingers in everything from Hamas to the Afghanistan collapse to Al Jazeera to 9/11 isn’t?

What about Hollywood?

Daniel Craig is looking for money in the desert; the financiers in the desert want Bond.

It sounds like a half-baked pitch for the next 007 film. In fact, it’s the reality of the present-day film industry: The British movie star is trying to secure financing for a passion project, a version of Shakespeare’s Othello, set in an American barracks in Iraq, from Middle Eastern governments including Qatar, according to people briefed on discussions.

This seems to be a revival of a dumb idea that Craig had starred in back in 2016 in theaters in which he played Iago. By then the Iraq War was fading, but now the whole thing is completely senseless. But I imagine Qatari backing could give it a further anti-American twist.

And then, why not James Bond?

Regardless of who plays Bond… the Qatari government has expressed quiet interest in a connection to upcoming films, the people said.

King Charles III got caught taking Qatari money.

Prince Charles’ office has denied there was any wrongdoing in the heir to the British throne accepting bags full of cash as charity donations from a Qatari politician

After buying the King, Qatar wants to buy Bond.

AUTHOR

 DANIEL GREENFIELD

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

DAVID BLACKMON: The Energy Transition Has Become A Big Green Hot Mess thumbnail

DAVID BLACKMON: The Energy Transition Has Become A Big Green Hot Mess

By The Daily Caller

We spend a lot of time talking and writing about the green energy subsidies contained in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. That’s appropriate given that bill’s content of a raft of incentives and subsidies the CBO estimated would amount to $369 billion over 10 years, a number that some analysts have estimated will be a small fraction of the real final price tag of that bill.

Receiving less attention is the set of similar subsidy programs that were contained in 2021’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), one of which allocated the princely sum of $5 billion to the Departments of Energy (DOE) and Transportation (DOT) to serve as grant money to subsidize the installation of fast-charging EV charging stations around the country. In late February, Nick Pope reported at the Daily Caller that, more than two years after passage of the bill, this government program has resulted in the opening of just two locations – in Ohio and New York – that include only 8 such charging stations.

The slowness of this process should not come as a surprise to anyone, given that this subsidy program incorporates the massive bureaucracies at two federal departments. It is the nature of government agencies to find ways of slowing whatever process over which they have purview, not to speed them up. That’s not a slam on the people who staff those agencies, but a simple recognition of the realities they face in attempting to conform their actions to the complexities of the laws they are required to enforce, of which the IIJA is merely one.

This tension between the nature and complexity of western law and the need for speed the Biden White House hopes to achieve with the setting of hyper-aggressive goals and timelines related to the adoption and enforcement of its Green New Deal policies always has been and remains the central conundrum of the energy transition in the United States. The pace of the multi-faceted, $300 trillion transition is already drastically behind schedule, both in the US and across the rest of the world. There is little prospect for that pace to catch up to the desired timelines anytime in the future.

This reality is not unique to the world of electric vehicles and their associated infrastructure needs, which are massive and hugely expensive. There is also the need for dramatically expanding the electric grid, which provides power to every aspect of not only the transition but to society as a whole. The needs there were already unimaginably huge even before the rise of AI, a power hog of unprecedented proportions.

While the IRA and IIJA included incentives and subsidies that address a subset of the thousands of moving parts of an integrated energy transition, many major elements – such as the gigantic transmission expansion needed for the power grid – were left out entirely.

When the IRA was passed, I warned that the Biden White House viewed it as not a stand-alone subsidy bill, but merely as a down payment for what it viewed as a series of even larger subsidy efforts to come. If one accepts that the climate is really in an emergency condition – as the climate alarm lobby’s propaganda claims – then the passage of a perhaps unending series of debt-funded subsidy bills becomes a moral imperative, after all.

One of the big dangers there is that the momentum behind this fear-driven need for speed begins to be used as justification for the limitation or even abrogation of guaranteed rights of all stakeholders. We see this already starting to happen in states like California and Massachusetts, where Democrat Governors Gavin Newsom and Maura Healey are pushing efforts to overrule the rights of local governments to deny permits for new wind projects and other “green” energy priorities.

The slowness of federal bureaucracies only serves to heighten this sense of alarm, the worst possible motivation to justify the allocation of trillions of debt-funded dollars. It is the worst of all possible worlds, one in which policies motivated by politics promote investment decisions free markets would never create on their own and result in outcomes that do not begin to solve the problem allegedly at hand. It is, in a word, a mess.

The views and opinions express in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Muslims Understand Compassion Differently Than We Do thumbnail

Muslims Understand Compassion Differently Than We Do

By Harold Rhode

The idea that compassion is between man and man, not just God and man, barely exists.


The origins of Islam are twofold. It was a revealed religion, but grew out of pre-Islamic Arabian tribal—that is, Bedouin—culture. When Bedouin cultural values conflicted with Islam, Bedouin culture almost always won out. Over time, Islam and Bedouin culture melded into one. It is this combination that constitutes today’s Islamic culture.

The problem with Islam today is not a problem with Islam as a religion but rather Islamic culture. If Muslims choose to pray five or even 50 times a day, that is no concern of ours. But regarding Islamic culture and its view of non-Muslims, we do have a say.

Hebrew and Arabic share many common words and roots, but their meanings often diverge. For example, in both Arabic and Hebrew, the root R-Ḥ-M refers to the womb and signifies compassion. But the understanding of compassion in Judaism is very different from that of Islam.

The opening line of the Quran is: “In the name of Allah, the merciful and the compassionate.” We know what “merciful” and “compassionate” mean in English. It relates to the relationship between God and man, and between man and man.

In Islamic culture, by contrast, compassion is only between God and man. Compassion between man and man is almost absent. This does not mean that individual Muslims do not share our Western concept of compassion, but if they do, it is not derived from Islamic culture.

When a Jew asks God for compassion and forgiveness during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, he must first approach people he has wronged and ask for forgiveness. The person asked is required to have compassion and forgive. We believe that only by showing compassion to our fellow human beings will God be compassionate and forgiving towards us on Yom Kippur. Islamic culture is quite different.

On Oct. 7, we witnessed the results of this. Among those slaughtered by Gaza Muslims on that day were Bedouin Muslims who were Israeli citizens. They were killed along with Israeli Jews. Unlike the Nazis, who tried to hide their extermination program, the Muslims who slaughtered their fellow human beings—Muslims and non-Muslims—were proud of what they did, as demonstrated by the recordings of phone calls they made to the victims’ parents and friends as the murderers were terrorizing and murdering the recipients’ loved ones.

Why did the murderers also kill other Muslims? Because Muslims care first and foremost about their family, their clan and tribal associations, in that order. This has been true throughout Islamic history. Compassion towards one’s fellow human beings often barely exists.

There are many examples of this phenomenon:

When Hamas, the Iranian regime and Hezbollah send shahids—martyrs—to kill themselves in the name of Allah, they do not choose them from their own families. If they had compassion for others, why would they send other people’s children to their deaths? As we say, put your money where your mouth is.

In Arab culture, blood feuds continue for years without forgiveness or compassion. Perceived “wrongs” must be “righted” by deadly vengeance even if the original insult or crime might have happened generations ago.

Women suspected of dishonoring their families may be killed by family members. In some cases, the woman’s “transgression” is merely talking to a man who is not from the same family. It is not uncommon for fathers and even mothers to tell one of their sons to erase the blot on the family honor by killing his sister. We know of cases in which the son protested and his father told him that if he refused to kill his sister, he would be cast out of the family—which is the only security the son has.

Co-author Harold Rhode once taught a class in the Islamic world about Islamic culture. A female Muslim student wearing a hijab told him that she had to be very careful about talking to a non-relative. At the end of the day, when classes were over, her father personally escorted her home to her village. This student understood very well that if there were any rumors about her, she could end up dead. Moreover, her sisters pleaded with her not to do anything that might dishonor their family and thereby prevent them from being able to marry.

Before the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the country’s population was as high as 22 million. Since then, millions of Syrians have been killed, expelled or displaced to other countries. We have no idea what the population of Syria is today. It could be as little as 6-10 million. We wonder how Syrian dictator Bashar Assad could do this to his “own” people. But Assad doesn’t see most of them as his “own” people. He is a member of the Alawite sect. He is not a Sunni Muslim like approximately 72% of Syria’s pre-war population. To him, these Sunnis are expendable because their existence threatens his regime. Compassion does not enter into the equation.

When Kurdish citizens of Turkey refuse to call themselves “Turks,” the Turkish government has often labeled them “terrorists” to justify imprisoning or killing them. Not for nothing do the Kurds have a proverb: “No friends but the mountains,” expressing their feelings of loneliness, betrayal and abandonment.

When Islam conquers, it conquers by the sword. That is why there is a sword on the Saudi flag. Saudi Arabia’s ruling creed is an extreme form of Sunni Islam. Its flag symbolizes this creed. Beautiful calligraphy on the flag reads: “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger.” This simple statement, called the Shahada, is the central principle of the Islamic creed. The sword symbolizes their prophet’s conquest of pagans. The message: Either convert to Islam or die.

When shahids capture enemies, they do not just kill them. They usually make them suffer. Only then does the shahid kill his victim.

In 1947-1948, when Palestinian Arabs fled then-Palestine, their fellow Arabs responded by putting them into refugee camps, where many of them and their descendants still languish. Their “fellow Arabs” never had compassion on them and assimilated them. By contrast, when Jews fled from the surrounding Arab countries, Israel welcomed them, and the fledgling state helped to establish them as full citizens.

In Persian, the closest equivalent to the English phrase “it doesn’t matter” is “it doesn’t bring shame” (eib na-dareh). This means that what you have done will not shame or humiliate you and your family. We rarely think about shame and humiliation, but Muslims almost always have them in the back of their minds. If someone does something shameful or humiliating, others have no compassion for them.

These are just a few examples of how differently we Westerners and the Muslim world understand compassion. Our concepts of compassion and mercy are very different from those of Islamic culture. This, in short, is why so much of the Muslim world is so violent not only towards others, but towards other Muslims as well.

This article originally appeared in the Jewish News Syndicate.

AUTHORS

HAROLD RHODE

Harold Rhode received in Ph.D. in Islamic history and later served as the Turkish Desk Officer at the U.S. Department of Defense. He is now a distinguished senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

BENNETT RUDA

Bennett Ruda is a freelance journalist for The Jewish Press and a contributor to the popular Elder of Ziyon blog.

©2024. . All rights reserved.

What to Make of the Confusing and (Mostly) Incorrect Federal Court Ruling on Arizona’s Proof of Citizenship Election Law thumbnail

What to Make of the Confusing and (Mostly) Incorrect Federal Court Ruling on Arizona’s Proof of Citizenship Election Law

By Arizona Free Enterprise Club

It is no secret that an overwhelming number of Americans believe that only U.S. citizens should be allowed to vote in our elections. It arguably is and ought to be the first and primary qualification to vote. But what good is that requirement if it isn’t verified? In other words, without proof of citizenship, we are relying on a simple stroke of a pen or pencil on a registration form, checking a small box attesting to citizenship.

That’s why in 2004 Arizona voters approved a measure to require proof of citizenship before registering to vote. But, in the 20 years since, that requirement has been whittled away and now there are tens of thousands of people voting in Arizona elections (often referred to as “Federal only” voters) without ever having provided evidence of their citizenship.

In response to this explosion of ‘Federal Only’ voters, the Arizona legislature passed two landmark bills, HB2492 and HB2243, to require proof of citizenship and regular, enhanced voter roll maintenance to ensure only eligible individuals are registering and voting in our elections.

What happened next shouldn’t surprise anyone that has watched the left fight every reasonable voter integrity measure around the country. As soon as both bills were signed into law, a dozen liberal organizations and the Biden Justice Department sued in federal court, claiming that the measures were unconstitutional, illegal, and (of course) racist.

The case was given to Bill Clinton appointed judge Susan Bolton, and after a year of litigation, she issued a confusing, disjointed two-part ruling that is destined for appeal. And while a few positives can be gleaned from the decision, the bad and ugly from the liberal opinion far outweighed the good.

The Bad

Bolton had already ruled against many of the provisions last September, including, most importantly, blocking Arizona from rejecting state voter registration forms not accompanied with proof of citizenship (even though the U.S. Supreme Court clearly stated that we could) and from preventing “Federal Only Voters” from voting in presidential elections and by mail.

In this new ruling, Bolton also ruled that the requirement that a registrant include their place of birth on their voter registration form (currently optional), which would have helped verify the citizenship status of voters, violates the materiality provision of the Civil Rights Act. In other words, although the U.S. Supreme Court just a decade ago said we are free to design our own form and request the information we determine is necessary, Bolton decided for us, preventing us from collecting critical information from registrants to verify citizenship status.

Residency might be second only to citizenship as a qualification to vote: you have to be a citizen, and you must live here to vote in our elections. Pretty basic. But Bolton also decided that requiring registrants using the state form to prove their residency violates the National Voter Registration Act, requiring them to be registered as Federal Only Voters.

The Ugly

After the liberal group plaintiffs tried to go on a fishing expedition last year, serving the Club with subpoenas to access years of our communications, Bolton spent six pages determining whether the laws were passed with discriminatory intent. Three of those pages were spent on the Club’s involvement in getting these bills passed, where she described us as a “conservative lobbying group” (without identifying the nonprofit plaintiffs likewise as “liberal lobbying groups”). Even worse, she wrote that our previous articles amounted to racial animosity. Her evidence? In some of them we argued the bills would help stop “illegals” from voting. And, according to Bolton, the word “illegals” is a “code word” that “may demonstrate discriminatory intent.”

Her evidence for that? The testimony of one individual, former state senator Martín Quezada, whose nomination by Hobbs to head the Registrar of Contractors was rejected by the Arizona Senate last year. That was enough for a federal judge, in a federal court order, to allege our advocacy for the security of elections was fueled, at least in part, with coded racist language.

This claim is even more absurd now given that just last week President Biden (whose DOJ is a lead plaintiff against these bills) used the “coded word” “illegals” during his State of the Union address to Congress. Would Judge Bolton say that President Biden was using “coded” racist language too?

The Good

Even though Bolton thinks our advocacy was rooted in racism, it wasn’t enough to find that the legislature acted with discriminatory intent, because we didn’t, and they didn’t. And that alone is a huge win as this case moves to an appeal, because it was the bulk of the argument from the “liberal lobbying” group plaintiffs.

Additionally, many of the voter list maintenance provisions were upheld, meaning Arizona counties will be checking the voter rolls against several databases regularly and removing those not eligible to vote in our elections. Individuals who obtain a driver’s license in another state, those who attest on a jury questionnaire that they are not a U.S. citizen or are not a resident, SAVE (the federal immigration database), and more, will begin to clean up our voter list.

Finally, before the case moved to trial, the RNC intervened, as did Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma on behalf of the legislature, allowing for an appeal all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary to uphold these commonsense laws before the 2024 election. And we will stand with them as it does.

*****

This article was published by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club and is reproduced with permission.

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Military Recruitment Crisis: What If It *Is* The Product? thumbnail

Military Recruitment Crisis: What If It *Is* The Product?

By Rebecca Burgess

Any phenomenon manifesting in a large, complex, multipart institution whose dynamics are downwind of society at large is bound to have not just one cause, but many. Current institutional case in point: the U.S. Armed Forces and the military recruitment crisis.

For the two-plus years that the military’s branches (outside of the U.S. Marines) have faced a significant (Navy) to severe (Army) shortage of incoming recruits, analysts have invoked many now familiar arguments for the causes why: economic considerations (low unemployment); societal considerations (Covid; fitness unfitness/obesity epidemic); public misperceptions (“broken veteran” narrative; civil-military divide related to the All-Volunteer Force); historical considerations (twenty continuous years of the Global War on Terror; disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan; overreliance on the military family pipeline); culture war considerations (“wokeness”; overhyped accusations of “right-wing extremism” among those who’ve served; over-recruitment from the South/West “smile”); and finally, generational considerations (not meeting the digitally native Gen Z where it’s at).

While an over-generalization, these “reasons why” can be more or less classified as marketing problems, and the Pentagon seems to be treating them as such. But what if there are more tangible, and more fundamental reasons, for the crisis tied to the “product” itself—the military as it functions today—and to the less fundamental but no less consequential institutional barriers to join that it inflicts on itself?

In terms of barriers, some keen-eyed observers have begun drawing attention to the military’s recent medical records modernization effort, the Military Health System Genesis (MHS Genesis), which went into effect in March 2022. MHS Genesis is an automated and integrated medical information system that is meant to enable a thorough medical screening of applicants and boost efficiency with the same. While a fantastic concept for those already in the military and those transitioning into the VA health care system (no more having to keep track of physical paper records!), it’s proving a nightmare for potential recruits. Simply put, it requires a person’s full prescription medication history, as National Review’s Luther Ray Abel recently explained. “If someone has had painkillers prescribed by a doctor working at a hospital, more than likely they got surgery. We then need all the documents explaining why a prescription was made.” Moms everywhere know what this means—endless calls and visits with doctors’ offices to try to track down a growing list of paperwork explanations for care prescribed and received, and further documentation of why. The delay this is creating in terms of time has been profound.

But the military “doesn’t like a medicated recruit unless he’s a Motrin devotee,” and can pretty much use any prescription (whether actually used or not) as grounds for rejecting the recruit. This hits especially the high-performing, athletic recruits particularly hard—if they’ve participated in competitive sports, they’re likely to have been injured at some or several point(s). And it also hits today’s youth hard with what is increasingly just another aspect of their life—a mental health diagnosis of ADHA or something similar. A 2022 survey found that 42% of Gen Z have a mental health diagnosis; a 2023 report claims that 60% have a “medically diagnosed anxiety condition.” The military has not adjusted to this fact or determined new standards to differentiate between, say, chronic severe depression and psychotic behavior versus middle school ADHD. And, as Abel notes—“White kids are treated for mental health at twice the rate of others, and boys (9.8 percent) were medicated more often than girls (7 percent).” Not surprisingly, the Army is experiencing a sharp decline in white recruits.

Another institutional barrier that’s worth revisiting: Currently, single parents with a dependent under 18 years old cannot join the Army, for instance. They have to have given up guardianship of any children prior to the duration of at least the first enlistment (two to six years) to be eligible to join. But with 119,186 single parents serving in the U.S. military in 2021, it seems clear that the military has figured out how to work with this population. Furthermore, considering that only around 10% of the Armed Forces are currently even classified as combat arms, especially outside a time of war it seems like there are thousands of military jobs that a single parent with a dependent could qualify for that would not undercut the effectiveness or efficiency of the institution as a whole. And considering that there are roughly 11 million single-parent households currently in the United States, now seems a rational time to reassess this policy barrier.

But then there’s the matter of the military “product” itself. While the American public is increasingly unfamiliar with who and what its military is and does and how, breaking stories about the military’s inability to house service members in safe, sanitary, non-mold-infested barracks and homes can only further already-imbibed prejudices about the military being a last-resort option for desperate individuals at the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. Or how about its inability to feed a whole installation-worth of junior enlisted for several months? This summer, one of the Army’s largest bases, Fort Cavazos (formerly Hood), Texas, could barely operate two out of a total of ten major dining options, and did not advertise to soldiers which would be open and when. Conditions at this summer’s ROTC Cadet Summer Training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, might possibly have been even worse, with cadets having to eat sometimes even expired MREs when dining services were suspended. Fort Knox is supposed to be the nation’s “Gold Standard Army Installation.”

This isn’t even to touch on problems of scandal among officers and of morale within each of the military’s service branches. The Navy—or Coast Guard, for that matter—can’t seem to shake itself free from scandals involving its officers, whether with defense contractors (“Fat Leonard” scandal) or otherwise. The Army followed its familiar pattern of behavior when it recently opted merely to slap the wrist of a male lieutenant colonel rather than severely discipline him, for having hid a video recording device in a teen-centric clothing store dressing room in California. Just last year more than a handful of Special Operators at Fort Liberty (Bragg) found themselves under questioning in relation to drug trafficking and even possible sex trafficking of underage girls. In 2022, the Air Force Academy had to expel 22 cadets and put on probation 210 more for cheating and plagiarism. Accounts of “toxic leadership” and the need for reform within the senior officer ranks have been proliferating for close to a decade now. And who among us willingly rushes to join a toxic workplace culture?

None of this presents a novel or unprecedented situation for the U.S. military. It has been here before—most recently, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the Armed Forces struggled and learned its way through the transition from being a conscript military to the All-Volunteer Force. The military emerged stronger and better—and more attractive to a diverse cadre of potential recruits—after undergoing that baptism by fire. But it only did so by its senior leaders being honest with themselves about the true sources of its problems, having the courage to swim upstream against entrenched modes of thinking and behavior, and knowing when and how to adapt to new circumstances. It fixed its product even while it was working on its marketing. Our military can do the same again, today.

*****

This article was published by The Independent Women’s Forum and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

High School Apologizes For Asking Student To Remove American Flag From Truck thumbnail

High School Apologizes For Asking Student To Remove American Flag From Truck

By John Oyewale

Authorities at a rural high school in southeastern Indiana apologized after a social media post about them asking a student to take down the U.S. national flag from his truck last Thursday on the campus went viral, according to reports.

The counselor and vice-principal of East Central High School in St. Leon summoned the student, Cameron Blasek, over the matter, and threatened him with insubordination if he did not remove the flag from his truck, local outlet The 765 reported. Principal Thomas Black reportedly also told him the school had the right to request him to take down the flag.

“I kind of just told them straight up from the get-go, I said, ‘It’s not gonna happen,’” Blasek recalled, FOX News reported. “I read them their own handbook and I read them all the guidelines and I read them Indiana State laws and everything that shows them that I’m perfectly legal and fine to fly that flag.”

The only mention of the word “flag” in the school’s handbook was the flag twirling section, WKRC reported.

The school claimed to have the right to the request since Blasek’s truck was on the school’s premises, and the school can enforce a rule, even if unwritten, on a case-by-case basis, the school authorities reportedly replied to Blasek.

“‘You’re right,’ I said, ‘…but since it’s just a request, a request means that you’re not demanding or telling me that I have to. So, I’m going to decline your request,’” Blasek recalled replying to the authorities, according to WKRC.

Blasek said he did not know what prompted the complaint, WKRC reported. The authorities’ concern was that some other students could then display other flags that could be offensive, local outlet The 765 reported. (RELATED: College Professor Says American Flag Makes Him ‘Anxious’)

The principal said there was neither a complaint about the American flag at the school nor any insinuation that the flag was offensive, according to WKRC. Nonetheless, posts emerged on social media, including one by Blasek’s mother which garnered over 6.5 million views on Libs of Tiktok as of the time of this report.

“People were sending me messages throughout the night and everything of everybody going out and buying flags left and right. I was getting messages. My phone was blowing up,” Blasek told WKRC.

Nearly 24 students of the school reportedly flew the flag on their vehicles Friday. The school authorities relented.

“After careful consideration and in recognition of the importance of the U.S. flag as a symbol of unity and national identity, I am pleased to inform you that we are allowing the display of the U.S. flag by students in the East Central High School parking lot,” read a copy of Black’s signed letter shared by Eagle Country 99.3, which indicated that the community raised concerns with the authorities regarding their handling of the situation.

“I would like to extend my sincere apologies for any confusion that may have arisen due to the initial lack of clarity on this matter,” Black reportedly wrote.

Blasek, 17, has veterans in his family and intends to join the military upon graduation, WCPO 9 News reported.

“I was always taught never to back down on a situation that you believe in,” Blasek told FOX News. “That’s just the way I was raised — my family raised me that way — and I’m very grateful for it.”

*****

This article was published by The Daily Caller News Foundation and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot

TAKE ACTION

The Prickly Pear’s TAKE ACTION focus this year is to help achieve a winning 2024 national and state November 5th election with the removal of the Biden/Obama leftist executive branch disaster, win one U.S. Senate seat, maintain and win strong majorities in all Arizona state offices on the ballot and to insure that unrestricted abortion is not constitutionally embedded in our laws and culture.

Please click the TAKE ACTION link to learn to do’s and don’ts for voting in 2024. Our state and national elections are at great risk from the very aggressive and radical leftist Democrat operatives with documented rigging, mail-in voter fraud and illegals voting across the country (yes, with illegals voting across the country) in the last several election cycles.

Read Part 1 and Part 2 of The Prickly Pear essays entitled How NOT to Vote in the November 5, 2024 Election in Arizona to be well informed of the above issues and to vote in a way to ensure the most likely chance your vote will be counted and counted as you intend.

Please click the following link to learn more.

Artificial Intelligence in Political Campaigns: Benefits, Risks, and Ethical Considerations thumbnail

Artificial Intelligence in Political Campaigns: Benefits, Risks, and Ethical Considerations

By Amil Imani

Have you ever wondered how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping the world of politics? The topic is as fascinating as it is potentially concerning. AI influences political campaigns in many ways, from analyzing voter sentiment to tracking campaign costs and conducting opposition research.

AI’s impact on politics is far-reaching. Imagine understanding voter preferences and outreach strategies in real-time, thanks to AI’s ability to analyze social media trends and sentiment. By examining influencers, trends, and public sentiment, campaigns can better tailor their messages to connect with voters. It’s like having a real-time pulse on the electorate.

Not only can AI help campaigns understand voters, but it can also assist in measuring the effectiveness of various campaign activities. AI can track everything from advertising to canvassing and events, providing insights into what’s working and what’s not. Campaigns can make data-driven decisions to optimize their strategies and maximize their impact.

But that’s not all. AI isn’t just about understanding voters; it’s also about understanding the money. It can track campaign spending by identifying discrepancies and patterns in politicians’ spending habits. This is crucial for maintaining transparency and accountability in the political process. AI-powered auditing tools can streamline the financial oversight process, making it more efficient and accurate.

Let’s remember the advantage it gives political parties in opposition research. AI can dig deep into opponents’ voting records and past statements, providing valuable insights to gain a competitive edge.

However, there’s a darker side to AI in politics. Privacy and ethical concerns loom large. For instance, using AI to gather and analyze personal voter data raises serious privacy and data protection issues. We’re talking about your personal information, and the potential for misusing it should not be underestimated.

Moreover, there’s the unsettling prospect of AI making political campaigns more deceptive. AI can be used to create fake images and audio. I am sure you know about deepfakes, which are synthetic media that appear to be real but are actually manipulated. Such powerful methods can be employed to launch misleading campaign ads targeting other candidates. AI can be used to spread disinformation and propaganda. Governments and powerful elites can use AI to standardize, control, or repress political discourse, undermining the fairness and quality of political discourse.

AI algorithms can inadvertently perpetuate existing biases. For instance, if the data used to train the AI is biased, the AI’s outputs can also be unfair. This can lead to unjust targeting of specific demographics or communities. Indeed, it’s a digital battleground where authenticity can be blurred, and the line between fact and fiction becomes hazy.

But then, AI can bring several benefits to political campaigns beyond tracking costs and conducting opposition research.

Here are some potential benefits:

  • Enhancing Communication: AI can improve communication by providing personalized messages to voters. It can analyze the preferences and behaviors of individual voters and tailor the communication accordingly. This can lead to more effective campaigns and better engagement with voters.
  • Improving Campaign Strategy: AI can analyze large amounts of data to identify trends and patterns that can inform campaign strategy. This can help campaigns anticipate potential challenges and develop effective responses.
  • Facilitating Transparency: AI can help campaigns maintain transparency by objectively analyzing their activities. This can help campaigns manage their reputation and respond to criticisms effectively.
  • Generating Political Messaging: AI can generate political messaging based on public discourse, campaign rhetoric, and political reporting. This can help campaigns develop effective messaging strategies and reach a wider audience.
  • Creating Political Parties: AI could be used to develop political parties with their platforms, attracting human candidates who win elections. This could revolutionize the political landscape by creating new political parties based on AI-generated platforms.
  • Fundraising: AI is capable of fundraising for political campaigns. It could take a seed investment from a human controlling the AI and invest it to yield a return. It could start a business that generates revenue or political messaging to convince humans to spend their own money on a defined campaign or cause.

It’s intriguing, isn’t it? The world of AI in politics is both a boon and a minefield. It can empower campaigns and voters but also carries risks of manipulation and deception. As we continue to explore the vast landscape of AI in politics, it’s crucial to tread carefully, adhere to ethical guidelines, and protect personal data from unauthorized access.

So, the next time you follow a political campaign, remember that behind the scenes, AI might be at work, shaping the discourse, analyzing voter sentiment, and, in some cases, creating an illusion of reality. How AI and politics interact is a complex and evolving story, and it’s up to all of us to stay informed, vigilant, and engaged in this digital age of politics. The journey is far from over, and the questions are still unfolding. What will we discover next?

©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

POST ON X:

Artificial Intelligence (#AI) presents immense potential for improving our lives, yet its unchecked advancement raises valid concerns. As we harness its power, we must tread carefully to ensure AI remains a tool for human benefit, not a force that overcome us. pic.twitter.com/kEuHF7H7dG

— Aiman Fatima (@aiman_malik00) March 17, 2024

Let’s Focus On Islam, Again thumbnail

Let’s Focus On Islam, Again

By Matthys van Raalten

Elections are coming up in the U.S., but an important topic is left off the table.

This topic is Islam, a dangerous religion, that contradicts everything that Christian civilization stands for.

You would think that such a grave threat as the Rise of Islam in the World would be an important talking point among presidential candidates. But they shy away from discussing it. Or, as in the case of Joe Biden, they even embrace this dangerous religion, and wrongly think of it as a religion of peace.

The reason that not one famous American politician these days dares to talk about Islam, is fear for the consequences. There is great fear that one gets death threats from Muslims, or that the media will portray one as a racist and hater, or that one becomes a target of an assassinations.

Many years ago, I had a mentor in Bloemendaal, a village to the North of the town of Harlem. The name of my mentor was Mr. Spaanderman. He was more than 70 years old and his profession was psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

Mr. Spaanderman taught me lessons about fear. He said that fear is a bad counselor. In fact, he entrusted me that fear is the worst counselor.

If you listen to your fears, you are in the end not superior to the animals.

I hope that the situation in America changes for the better. That means that the difficult topics are being talked about by politicians.

I personally consider Islam the gravest threat to Western civilization. And I have good reason to do so, as I have studied this religion in-depth. Let’s focus on Islam again.

©2024. Matthys van Raalten. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: Sen. Chuck “Brute” Schumer empowers HAMAS, attacks Israel, throws Bibi into a tunnel and endangers Jews in America!

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Haiti: Here We Go Again—The BorderLine

By The Daily Signal

Haiti, a Maryland-sized country sharing half the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic, won independence from France in 1804 and since then has been beset by political strife and poverty.

Today, Haiti has descended into a Hobbesian state of nature, in which gang leaders like Jimmy Chérizier, aka “Barbecue,” will fight for control until someone stops them or one of them wins.

This month, gangs ransacked police stations, the airport, and public buildings and released hundreds of prisoners from jails. Just last weekend, what’s left of Haiti’s government declared an emergency in what seems to be more of a cry for help than notification of any change in circumstances.

At the same time, the U.S. Embassy evacuated nonessential staff in the dead of night, and the unelected prime minister resigned, unable to return from a trip abroad.

On March 13, U.S. Southern Command deployed a Marine Fleet-Anti-terrorism Security Team to support the Marine Security Guard unit permanently assigned to protect U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince. These Marines will protect U.S. facilities and personnel but won’t attempt to restore order outside.

While the U.S. has pledged financial support for a U.N. mission to help stabilize security in Haiti, the American people are reluctant to lead yet another foreign intervention. Although the effort might keep the peace and temporarily earn the gratitude of the Haitian people, it would quickly be resented by the U.S. and global Left as neocolonialism. And it might fail outright and result in the loss of American lives and treasure.

Haiti’s last president was assassinated in July 2021. After that, Ariel Henry was sworn in as interim prime minister with U.S. support. He agreed to hold elections in 2023 and form a new government in February 2024. When he didn’t, riots erupted.

Meanwhile, Guy Philippe, a former police chief who helped force out President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, completed a nine-year sentence in U.S. prison for helping Colombian drug smugglers, only to return home to contend for power with the likes of Barbecue.

As the situation in Haiti unraveled, the Biden administration proposed “an inclusive, Haitian-intensive-led process to find a broader political consensus around a new transitional government,” according to the State Department.

After a meeting in Jamaica with regional leaders, the U.S. supported a “transitional council” to set up elections. This would require not only pacifying or co-opting Haiti’s 300 gangs and various warlords, but also finding countries willing to send soldiers and police to do the work.

In less squeamish times, the U.S. simply took Haiti over. In 1915, after Haiti went through seven presidents in five years, President Woodrow Wilson sent in the Marines, who remained until 1934.

From 1957-1986, Haiti was under the dictatorship of François “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. After a popular uprising overthrew the regime, a brief period of democracy followed, but things fell apart again in 1991. Back went the U.S. in the 1994 Operation Restore Democracy. That restoration didn’t last long.

From 2004 to 2017, the United Nations had a stabilization and security mission in Haiti that kept things from boiling over. In 2011, there were 12,500 soldiers and police in Haiti from 50 U.N. member countries. U.S. troops were not there, but we paid nearly half of the tab.

What did that get us?

At minimum, it avoided the current lawlessness, economic collapse, and potentially massive outflows of “boat people” to the U.S. that we saw in the 1980s and 1990s. But it was not a recipe for lasting stability.

The U.N. provided security, but it could not supply the country or prevent brain drain, nor could it cure the corruption, endemic poverty, and entrenched oligarchy that have kept Haiti stuck in the early stage of development. The U.N.’s reputation was also tarnished with allegations of sexual assault and a cholera outbreak linked to U.N. peacekeepers who killed thousands of Haitians.

Now, Haiti is back to square one. In 2023, gangs killed more than 4,700 people. Kidnappings for ransom by gangs such as the Kraze Baryè are common. In early 2023, a vigilante movement called “bwa kale” (peeled wood) briefly tamped down the gangs by being equally brutal, but a few months later, the chaos returned.

Busy with war in Ukraine, Chinese expansionism, and the war Hamas started with Israel, no one wants to deal with Haiti yet again.

So, what’s the world to do?

Like other presidents before him, Joe Biden’s approach so far has been to prop up a weak and unpopular Haitian leader and hope for the best. Former U.S. Special Envoy to Haiti Daniel Foote described backing Henry as “arrogance and the hubris.” Now, with Henry resigning in favor of a “transitional council,” U.S. options are shrinking, and are all bad.

In 1969, a CIA estimate concluded that should Haiti destabilize after the fall of François Duvalier, “the United States would stand to gain nothing through intervention.” That was before the massive migrant outflows of the 1980s and 1990s. This threat looms yet again, and the Biden administration, given its generally lax approach to immigration, seems to be wholly unprepared.

Undeterred by past failures, last October, the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution to authorize a Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti. The Biden administration pledged $200 million to fund it. Kenya offered to send up to 1,000 police officers to train and assist Haitian police and “protect strategic installations,” but it put a hold on this after Henry resigned. Even if they eventually agree to go, 1,000 Kenyan cops alone won’t do it.

In fiscal year 2021, over 46,000 Haitians were caught trying to cross U.S. borders illegally. Most of these were “asylum shoppers,” Haitians who had already been living safely elsewhere outside of Haiti but saw the chance under Biden to move to the United States instead.

In 2023, the official number trying to cross the border was down to 2,430, but they had not really stopped coming.

The Biden administration, partly to avoid more media nightmares of Haitians huddling under bridges at the border, invented a program to let Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans in the U.S. by abusing immigration parole.

Customs and Border Protection data indicates that nearly 160,000 Haitians came in through parole programs last year and another 80,000 have come in fiscal year 2024 so far. Many Haitians already in the U.S. illegally benefit from “temporary protected status,” which shields them from deportation.

The White House is reportedly dusting off plans to use the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base detention camp for Haitians caught attempting to enter the U.S. by boat.

When Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton used Guantanamo for initial asylum screenings in the early 1990s, the camp’s capacity was about 12,000 people, though now it could hold 60,000.

Under the George W. Bush administration in 2004, thousands of Haitians attempted to use a “shark visa” to get to America, meaning they would leave on tiny, unseaworthy boats and hope to make it outside Haiti’s 12-mile territorial waters to be rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Among the hundreds of thousands of Haitians who crossed into the U.S. under Biden’s parole program or over the open southern border, there would surely have been some corrupt government officials, criminals, and gang members. We don’t know how many, because the Department of Homeland Security can’t check all their criminal records back in Haiti or elsewhere.

But the exodus also contained a considerable portion of Haiti’s middle class. Up to 40% of health care workers have left in the last few years, and more than 1,600 Haitian police officers left just last year. Putting Haiti-Dumpty back together again without educated professionals will be nearly impossible.

The best-case scenario for a new international mission to Haiti would be to reestablish law and order enough to hold an election, then hand over power and leave.

The whole cycle of political collapse could then repeat itself in a decade. But in the meantime, the U.S. could repatriate asylum-seekers, end temporary protected status, and discontinue the mass parole program benefiting Haiti. That way, thousands of educated, skilled Haitians could assist in rebuilding their own country.

AUTHOR

Simon Hankinson

Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation.

POSTS ON X:

ABANDONED!

Biden Administration announces ONE chartered flight to evacuate Americans stuck in Haiti amid the brutal and catastrophic fall of the country’s government – U.S. citizens told they have to make it to an extraction point “at their own risk” in order to be air flighted… pic.twitter.com/2g3FkI43Wf

— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) March 17, 2024

Absolutely based. DeSantis has confirmed that the state of Florida is mounting rescue operations of American missionaries in Haiti, rescuing them from cannibal gangs.

“I have authorized rescue flights like we did in Israel after the October 7th because we’ve got a lot of folks… pic.twitter.com/c8NBq2pySG

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 17, 2024

Y’all wanna get an understanding of why there’s poverty and chaos in Haiti?

WATCH THIS!!👇🏼

The Clintons are just plain evil to the core!!! pic.twitter.com/Rr1fT76zf0

— SaltyGoat (@SaltyGoat17) March 16, 2024

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


The BorderLine is a weekly Daily Signal feature examining everything from the unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the border to immigration’s impact on cities and states throughout the land. We will also shed light on other critical border-related issues like human trafficking, drug smuggling, terrorism, and more.

Joe Biden Backs Schumer After Senator Calls For New Elections In Israel — And now the crisis begins! thumbnail

Joe Biden Backs Schumer After Senator Calls For New Elections In Israel — And now the crisis begins!

By Jihad Watch

According to the Associated Press:

Schumer, a Jewish Democrat from New York, sent tremors through both countries this week when he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” and warned that “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah” as the Palestinian death toll continues to grow.

Biden is backing Schumer, signifying a new low in American-Israeli relations during this administration.

“He made a good speech,” Biden said in the Oval Office during a meeting with Ireland’s prime minister. “I think he expressed serious concerns shared not only by him but by many Americans.”

The full text of Schumer’s speech is published by the Times of Israel.

The speech and the subsequent support of it from Biden as he and Schumer hope to see the current Israeli government fall during a war for its very survival was recently reported on here. The speech and Biden’s approval represent a strategy to make Netanyahu the fall guy and install a government more to the left’s liking. As I recently wrote on Jihad Watch: Biden reportedly attempting to collapse Netanyahu government mid-war:

Here is one key reason why Biden is now reportedly attempting to force the collapse of Netanyahu’s government in the middle of a war:

Netanyahu has been a frequent obstacle to Democrats’ policies in the Middle East, starting with his opposition to President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, and continuing into his opposition to Biden’s Palestinian state ideas.

Another reason is the dilemma Biden faces in light of the upcoming elections, given his dependence on the Muslim vote and the pressure he has been receiving from Muslim communities. By shifting attention to Israel and the Netanyahu government, Biden diverts scrutiny away from himself, and creates an excuse for evading his responsibility to ally with Israel against jihad terror. He also gets to shift blame away from his administration for pouring money into the coffers of Iran. Under Obama, Iran — a main funder of Hamas — received $33.3 billion dollars in backroom deals. Under Biden, billions more have flowed into Iran.

Creating a crisis to avert attention and responsibility has become a signature ploy of Democrats.

And now the crisis begins.

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

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No, Queen Rania, It is Not Israel, But the Palestinians Who are the Obstacle to Peace

Iran: Senior Khamenei advisor says ‘We must increase our strategic depth’ to be able to strike US with missiles

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Florida man says he’s with ‘Islam Nation’ after starting fire inside Miami business

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The Truth about Van Raalten Import thumbnail

The Truth about Van Raalten Import

By Matthys van Raalten

When I was a student at the University of Amsterdam, I needed an income. I had work at the flower auction in Aalsmeer, but I wanted more in life. That’s why I decided to start my own company. I soon knew that I wanted to import good olive oil from Umbria (central Italy). This olive oil made simple dishes delicious and healthy.

I started looking for a supplier. It became the Del Sero company. They still made olive oil according to an old process. This way you get an olive oil with structure, unlike olive oil made with modern techniques.

I bought a first quantity of bottles from my savings, about 2000 guilders. I personally collected them in a passenger car.

I soon had success with sales. I therefore stopped studying at university.

Many famous chefs and shopkeepers became my customers. I also started importing other products, such as the underground growing mushrooms called truffles.

Because the company was growing I needed help. A well-known DJ from Hoofddorp wanted to assist me with cash and advice. I also received help from a friend from Abcoude, who also invested in my business. When everything was back on track, I continued without these gentlemen.

The peak of Van Raalten Import was reached around the turn of the century. At that time there were 300 renowned companies in the Benelux client base, and distribution ran smoothly through a forwarding and warehouse company from Amsterdam.

After this major problems arose. A number of suppliers lowered the quality of their products. The Dutch government started to work against me enormously. This all had to do with my political activities: I had become a member of the VVD Amsterdam, and wrote every day on their public website about the multicultural society, which I did not believe in.

For example, in 2002 I lost my most important suppliers, which left me on the street.

I started again in 2003 with the import of olive oil from Bari. This olive oil was also very good, but less refined in taste.

Once again Van Raalten Import was a success. However, this came to an end in 2007. Then the obstruction by the Dutch government was so enormous that I could no longer continue. I lost everything, and ended up in the Valerius clinic.
Of course I am not mentally disturbed, but I am a thorn in the side of the Dutch government.

My father, Mr. P.H. Van Raalten outsourced my company to Mr Jesse Keus in 2016. I had to watch helplessly as this happened, without receiving a single cent for my life’s work.

Mr. Jesse Keus manages the company at his own discretion. He doesn’t want any contact with me.

Van Raalten Import is still a household name in haute cuisine.

©2024. All rights reserved.

VIDEOS: ‘The Great Setup’ Parts 1 & 2 with Dr. David Martin thumbnail

VIDEOS: ‘The Great Setup’ Parts 1 & 2 with Dr. David Martin

By Vlad Tepes Blog

Each detail he mentions in the timeline, this site remembers well.

This is recommended by Conservative Tree House.

The Great Setup With Dr. David Martin Full Part 1

Part 2.

ABOUT DR. DAVID MARTIN

Dr. David Martin is the founder and owner of the company M-CAM International which has provided research and corporate advisory services to over 160 countries and he has personally served as an advisor to the World Bank and many governments. Dr Martin first came to the attention of the world when he featured in the August 2020 documentary by Mikki Willis called Planandemic Indoctornation.

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with videos posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 10: Objective Reality Is Required for a Free Society thumbnail

CHAPTER 10: Objective Reality Is Required for a Free Society

By Linda Goudsmit

Space Is No Longer the Final Frontier—Reality Is [upcoming release April 2024]


Globalism is a replacement ideology that seeks to reorder the world into one singular, planetary Unistate, ruled by the globalist elite. The globalist war on nation-states cannot succeed without collapsing the United States of America. The long-term strategic attack plan moves America incrementally from constitutional republic to socialism to globalism to feudalism. The tactical attack plan uses asymmetric psychological and informational warfare to destabilize Americans and drive society out of objective reality into the madness of subjective reality. America’s children are the primary target of the globalist predators.

The globalist War on America, documented in the Dodd Report, is a culture war fought without bullets that has targeted America’s children for over 100 years. The classroom is the globalists’ chosen battlefield, because whoever controls the educational curriculum controls the future. Why is this true?

Because children live what they learn. Education is an industry, and like all industries, it produces a product. The goal of America’s enemies is to produce an unaware, compliant citizenry groomed for life in the planned globalist Unistate. The War on America’s Children utilizes both informational and psychological warfare to achieve that goal.

The globalist social engineers are skilled strategists applying subversive wartime psychological tactics to “change the hearts and minds” of American children. The strategic goals are to replace parental authority with governmental authority, and to move society from objective reality, the adult world of facts, to subjective reality, the childish world of feelings.

Interfering with a child’s developing ability to reality-test is a staggering deceit and a monstrous abuse of power. Education reformer Deborah DeGroff’s 2019 handbook Between the Covers: What’s Inside a Children’s Book?[i]exposes the deceit and documents the sad reality of illiteracy in America today.

In the past, when children were told that every student was a butterfly, the children knew it wasn’t true because they could see for themselves that some students were extremely smart and others weren’t–––no matter what the teacher said. At that time, children were still learning to read with phonics. It was a time before sight-words and whole-word instruction became ubiquitous, and well before “hi-lo” reading even existed.

I had never heard of hi-lo reading before reading Deborah DeGroff’s book. Basically, instead of teaching children to actually read, a deceitful system was developed to address and adapt to the alarmingly low reading levels across the country. Hi-lo is a reference to the fact that the book content is considered upper-grade (high school interest), but the actual reading level is lower grade—sometimes as low as second- or third-grade level!!

In a 2012 article directed at the American Library Association, “ALA 2012: What’s Up with Hi-Lo?,”[ii] Publishers Weekly journalist Shannon Maughan wrote:

Many librarians, teachers, parents—and even students—are aware of the grim, oft-cited statistic: only one-third of eighth-grade students in the U.S. read at or above the proficient level (source: the Nation’s Report Card/National Assessment of Educational Progress 2009).[iii] While solutions to the problem are always being debated, those who work with struggling and reluctant readers every day want tools they can use right now. Hi-lo books frequently fit the bill….

Schools, by far, remain the biggest market for hi-lo books, largely because it is the setting where intervention for struggling readers is most likely to occur. In addition to searching for compelling general fiction and nonfiction, publishers are always on the lookout for ways they can create appealing curriculum-related titles. A number of companies offer such ancillary materials as workbooks and teacher guides to support their hi-lo series, as well….

Most encouraging about the hi-lo market is that librarians, educators, and publishers are seeing the books fill an important need. Becky Williams, a literacy consultant in Iowa who works with teachers, notes, “It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s something. They are a wonderful resource for kids that never ‘got it.’ Having these books has truly made a difference for these kids.”

So, instead of improving reading skills by teaching phonics, the education industry dumbed down the books. They moved the goalpost, disingenuously marketing hi-lo in glowing terms as an attempt to encourage “reluctant readers.”

In her book, DeGroff quotes Andrew Wooldridge of Orca Book Publishers, one of the largest suppliers of hi-lo books, saying, “We don’t use the term hi-lo because it has a bad connotation; we call the books fiction for reluctant readers or struggling readers.”

In reality, hi-lo reading is a system that presents great literature as summaries, like Cliffs Notes, or even as comic books deceitfully labeled “graphic novels.” Students today who are functionally illiterate because they never learned to read are offered summaries and comic books to read instead of original text.

For me, the horror of hi-lo reading goes far beyond the deliberate illiteracy it supports. The most devastating impact is that students actually BELIEVE they have read great literature. They feel the pride of achievement without the achievement. They have entered the realm of subjective reality where facts and feelings merge.

Moving the goalpost and changing the name of a thing does not change the objective reality of that thing, but it can change the hearts and minds of individuals responding to that thing. So, telling children they are all butterflies does not change the fact that some students are extremely smart, some are not; some can read, and some cannot. But it can change the children’s response to that fact, which means that in subjective reality it no longer matters whether you can read or not, whether you are reading a classic text or a comic book. In subjective reality, literacy and illiteracy are equivalent.

The American education industry has replaced meritocracy with educational indoctrination, facilitating deliberate dumbing down of our children. The industry’s informational warfare is facilitated by its psychological warfare, because parents and students alike BELIEVE the student has read the novel Moby-Dick, not the dumbed-down comic-book version!

Deborah DeGroff’s exploration of the content of children’s books also exposes the staggering, pervasive, inappropriate, pornographic, and confusing sexual content of books in classrooms K–12 and school libraries. Her research documents how weaponized education targets children’s most primary identity, their sexual identity.

The campaign to destabilize and destroy a child’s sexual identity is a particularly insidious effort to destroy the child’s individual identity. It is catastrophic to the child, and to freedom in a society of ordered liberty.

In every society anywhere in the world, the first words spoken when a baby is born are “It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!”

The globalist social engineers are trying to redefine what it means to be human by attacking the biology of maleness and femaleness, and insisting that gender is a choice––a child’s choice. Globalism’s War on Children is a long-term, well-planned, well-funded, well-executed mass-casualty campaign. The attack on a child’s sexual identity is a catastrophic assault on humanity itself.

In schools, libraries, movies, games, churches, and synagogues, transgender role models are presented as normal human beings. The most bizarre aspect of this particular assault on biology and objective reality is that so many parents actually believe that supporting this false, destructive, and confusing sexual narrative is being inclusive and compassionate!

Our nation’s children are being groomed to become compliant, submissive wards of the globalist Unistate, where they will have no individual rights, no freedoms, and no personal or sexual identity. They will be fodder for technocracy and transhumanism without the need of armies or policemen.

America’s weaponized education industry is not teaching Johnny to read or to write. It is teaching Johnny that he is a butterfly—and a boy who can become a girl if he so chooses. Take a moment to try to imagine a society of Johnnys, and then you will understand how destroying a child’s ability to reality-test is a weapon of mass societal destruction.

Without the ability to reality-test, Johnny remains frozen psychologically in the subjective reality of childhood. He never develops into an independent autonomous psychological adult capable of living in the world of objective reality. Freedom is an adult enterprise, and objective reality is the requirement for a free society.

Pleas visit my Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com and website: lindagoudsmit.com

©2024. Linda Goudsmit. All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO: IN FOCUS: Protecting Children Against Indoctrination with Alex Newman – OAN


[i] Between the Covers: What’s Inside a Children’s Book?, Deborah DeGroff, 48 Hour Books, 2021; https://www.whatsinsidechildrensbooks.com/about-the-book/

[ii] ALA 2012: What’s Up with Hi-Lo?https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/52124-what-s-up-with-hi-lo-ala-2012.html

[iii] National Assessment of Educational Progresshttps://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pdf/main2009/2010458.pdf