Does it matter which way you unload?
Where is the common sense to vote for more progressives that will allow more people like this one to legitimizes themselves as other then brain dead.
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Progressive Democrats Explained by Example : Mr Ogbjma In Over His Head
Does it matter which way you unload?
Where is the common sense to vote for more progressives that will allow more people like this one to legitimizes themselves as other then brain dead.
National Parks Bathrooms Opened to All : Women And Girls At Risk?
The question is now, why is it important at the point in time to demand a vast majority, 99.07% of the population, to relinquish their rights to privacy in favor of a significantly small minority, less then .03% of the population?
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religious jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religious jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
We welcome all visitors regardless of their race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity to visit public lands and waters in their back yard and beyond. … We remain committed to appropriately representing our nation’s diversity on our public lands, and continue to work alongside local communities and leaders to find meaningful ways to preserve and tell the stories that reflect the narrative of all Americans.
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
The Stonewall uprising is considered by many to be the catalyst that launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement. From this place and time, building on the work of many before, the nation started the march—not yet finished—toward securing equality and respect for LGBT people.
National Parks Bathrooms Opened to All : Women And Girls At Risk?
The question is now, why is it important at the point in time to demand a vast majority, 99.07% of the population, to relinquish their rights to privacy in favor of a significantly small minority, less then .03% of the population?
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religious jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religious jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
We welcome all visitors regardless of their race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity to visit public lands and waters in their back yard and beyond. … We remain committed to appropriately representing our nation’s diversity on our public lands, and continue to work alongside local communities and leaders to find meaningful ways to preserve and tell the stories that reflect the narrative of all Americans.
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
The Stonewall uprising is considered by many to be the catalyst that launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement. From this place and time, building on the work of many before, the nation started the march—not yet finished—toward securing equality and respect for LGBT people.
National Parks Bathrooms Opened to All : Women And Girls At Risk?
The question is now, why is it important at the point in time to demand a vast majority, 99.07% of the population, to relinquish their rights to privacy in favor of a significantly small minority, less then .03% of the population?
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religous jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
I wonder to just who is behind Mr Ogbjma's religous jihad that is instrumental in designing his the continued attacks on our social life in this country?
I believe this is about creating chaos in our society. It's division among the population, pitting one group against another, all the while Mr Ogbjma waits to take the next step for his ''fundamental transformation'' jihad to finally come full circle, the acceptance by the population that is so stressed by continued government threats to our way of life on a daily basses, progressive socialism will then be the 'new wave mentality'.
The population will just give up and kneel down? As days pass, it seems this is a possibility.
Restrooms at National Parks ‘Align’ With Gender Identity
Fred Lucas / @FredLucasWH /
Visitors to national parks are free to use whichever public restroom they believe matches their gender identity, the Department of Interior says. “As it relates to recently passed state laws relating to the transgender community, visitors to public lands and water sites are welcome to use restrooms that best align with their gender identity,” an Interior Department spokesperson told The Daily Signal in an email.
But a national policy expert says visitors to national parks should be concerned that others can enter the restroom of their choice regardless of their biological sex. “It is troubling because national parks have traditionally been family-friendly destinations,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Washington-based Family Research Council, which advocates conservative social values. “Now women and girls will have to worry about sharing a restroom with biological males.”
Public restrooms have become a national political issue in recent months after President Barack Obama’s administration took legal action against North Carolina for a state law that requires people to use public restrooms that correspond with their biological gender. Then, the administration threatened to withhold federal money from schools if students were not allowed to use the restroom they thought matched their gender identity.
No matter which state a national park is in, federal law and regulations govern activity there.
The Interior Department is charged with stewarding the nation’s public lands, waters, parks, and wildlife. The government maintains 58 national parks across the United States, visited by 307.2 million people in 2015. In an email responding to The Daily Signal’s question about transgender bathroom policy, the department spokesperson also said:
We welcome all visitors regardless of their race, sex, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or gender identity to visit public lands and waters in their back yard and beyond. … We remain committed to appropriately representing our nation’s diversity on our public lands, and continue to work alongside local communities and leaders to find meaningful ways to preserve and tell the stories that reflect the narrative of all Americans.
National Park Service spokesman Jeremy K. Barnum said this is not a new policy. “People have always been able to choose the public restroom within the national park system that aligns with their gender identity,” Barnum told The Daily Signal in an email. “The National Park Service has never had a rule that determined nor designated what restroom someone should use according to their gender identity.” Another department spokesperson also said restroom use by gender identity is not a new policy for national parks, but a continuation of existing nondiscrimination policy.
The Daily Signal sought comment from other federal agencies to determine whether a uniform bathroom policy exists for all federal buildings and federally maintained public restrooms, and whether the administration would hold these federal buildings to the same standard it applies to local schools.
The General Services Administration, responsible for overseeing federal property and procurement; the Justice Department, which enforces civil rights laws; and the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the federal workforce, did not respond to multiple phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal. Simply extending the Obama administration’s school bathroom policies to national parks is problematic, the Family Research Council’s Sprigg said.
“This is another illustration of how extreme the Obama administration is in pushing this radical agenda in the last few months in office,” he told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
In the North Carolina case and its transgender policy mandate for schools, Sprigg noted, the administration relied on provisions of U.S. law known as Title VII and Title IX. Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex, race, national origin, or religion. Title IX specifically prohibits education institutions from getting federal funding if they discriminate on the basis of sex.
The administration counts gender identity under sexual discrimination, reasoning that many scholars and lawyers reject. “I’m not sure how either apply to national parks,” Sprigg said. “It would be tragic if we have a sexual assault in a national park public restroom before the administration takes this seriously.”
On Friday, Obama declared federal land at Christopher Park, across the street from where the Stonewall Inn riot in New York took place in 1969, as the Stonewall National Monument in honor of an event that sparked the gay rights movement. Obama said in part, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans:
The Stonewall uprising is considered by many to be the catalyst that launched the modern LGBT civil rights movement. From this place and time, building on the work of many before, the nation started the march—not yet finished—toward securing equality and respect for LGBT people.
Supreme Court Finds Gov McDonald Innocent(8-0) : Clarifying the Rules
But I think some questions still remain after this ruling on McDonald case by the Supreme Court. This case seems to open the door for the interpretation of lower courts of just what an official can and cannot take as a gift for political support, and a gift for political and financial reward by the politician in the form of regulations and or a law that will benefit that constituent financially.
It is a surprise, that given the load of high profile cases on the docket of the Supreme Court they would take the time to rule on something a lower court had rules on but found it necessary to take and rule to override the lower courts. Puzzling?
Why the Supreme Court’s Decision on a Governor’s Corruption Conviction Matters
John G. Malcolm / @malcolm_john /
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in the case involving former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who—with his wife Maureen—had been convicted of public corruption charges. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned the conviction, holding that the government’s definition of what constitutes an “official act” for purposes of the bribery statute was too broad and would raise significant constitutional concerns. Whether the government chooses to retry the McDonnells remains to be seen, but it seems doubtful.
McDonnell’s Financial Trouble
When McDonnell became governor in January 2010, he and his wife Maureen were having financial difficulty. They had tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and he and his sister were losing about $40,000 a year on two rental properties that were heavily mortgaged.
In 2011 and 2012, McDonnell and his wife accepted more than $175,000 in cash, vacations, luxury goods, and undocumented loans from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of Star Scientific, a Virginia company that produced a nutritional supplement called Anatabloc—which was made from a compound found in tobacco. Williams wanted the Food and Drug Administration to approve Anatabloc as a pharmaceutical, which would obviously have been very profitable for him. The clinical trials the FDA requires are very expensive, and Williams was hoping that one or more of Virginia’s state medical schools would conduct these studies.
It is highly unlikely, of course, that Williams, who did not know the McDonnells prior to his becoming governor, would ever have given these things to McDonnell and his wife if McDonnell had not been governor. And there is little doubt that Williams was hoping—and probably expecting—that McDonnell would help him, which to some extent he did. In May 2011, McDonnell spoke to William Hazel, Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources, about Anatabloc and requested that Hazel send one of his deputies to meet with Williams to talk about Anatabloc.
On another occasion, he forwarded a letter to Hazel from Williams suggesting that the medical schools could use an attached protocol to initiate clinical trials of Anatabloc. McDonnell also hosted a couple of events with health researchers and allowed Williams to help set the guest list, which included researchers Williams was lobbying.
At one of those receptions, Williams gave the researchers checks totaling $200,000 to help defray the costs of preparing research grant applications. Several months later, after Williams complained to Maureen about the fact that the researchers had not applied for the grants, she sent an email to the governor’s chief counsel informing him that the governor wanted to know what was going on with these studies. And six days later, McDonnell sent an email to his chief counsel saying that he wanted to speak to him about the Anatabloc issue, although they never ended up doing so.
Finally, in March 2012, the governor met with the Virginia secretary of administration who oversaw the state’s health care plan. During the meeting, McDonnell told the secretary that Anatabloc worked well for him and that it might work well for state employees. He then asked the secretary to meet with Star Scientific personnel. Nothing ever came of this, however, because Virginia’s health care plan does not cover nutritional supplements. McDonnell and his wife were subsequently charged by federal prosecutors with violating public corruption laws.
McDonnell Conviction
The theory underlying the charges were that McDonnell had accepted bribes in the form of loans and gifts from Williams in exchange for committing or agreeing to commit an “official act,” which is defined under federal law as:
At the heart of every public corruption case is a quid pro quo arrangement. The “quid” refers to the thing of value that the person paying the bribe gives to the public official, and the “quo” is an “official act” that the public official agrees to provide in exchange for the bribe. Corrupt quid pro quo arrangements often take place behind closed doors, so establishing a clear link between a payment and some official action is rarely easy.
Was It Illegal?
There was no question that what McDonnell did was unseemly, but was it illegal?
At the time, Virginia had very lax ethics rules, which allowed politicians to accept unlimited gifts and loans, although those rules have since been revised to place strict limits on gifts and loans to elected officials. An additional question was whether the instructions given to the jury that convicted McDonnell were overbroad, potentially subjecting politicians and those who support them to criminal prosecution for engaging in conduct that constitutes the warp and woof of everyday political activity.
What Constitutes an Official Act?
The government argued, and the trial court agreed and so instructed the jury, that an “official act” could constitute virtually any activity undertaken by a public official, including arranging meetings, contacting other public officials, or hosting events, concerning virtually any subject, including broad policy objectives such as a state’s economic development.
McDonnell’s attorneys argued that under previous case law, “official acts” were limited to instances in which the public official either exercised actual government power—by, say, voting on an issue, appropriating government funds, or awarding a government contract—or put a thumb on the scale by pressuring other decision-makers to exercise actual governmental power in a way that benefitted the person paying the bribe, and that in this case, there was no evidence that McDonnell made any governmental decisions that benefitted Williams or that he pressured other government decision-makers to compromise their independent judgment in order to benefit Williams.
“Taking into account the text of the statute, the precedents of this court, and the constitutional concerns raised by” McDonnell, the Supreme Court, without opining on whether a jury could have convicted McDonnell, had it been properly instructed, sided with the former governor and “adopt[ed] a more bounded interpretation of ‘official act.’” “Under that interpretation,” Roberts continued, “setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an ‘official act.’”
The Supreme Court’s Conclusion
The Supreme Court concluded that broad policy objectives—such as economic development—are not naturally described as the kinds of matters that are “pending” before a public official or something that may be brought “by law” before him, and that “the pertinent ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy’ must be more focused and concrete.”
Instead, federal law requires “that the public official must make a decision or take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so.” Setting up a meeting, hosting an event, contacting an official, or expressing support for a product would not qualify, the Supreme Court concluded, as an official act so long as the person engaging in such activity does not intend to exert pressure on or provide advice to another public official in a way that compromises that official’s independent judgment.
Most significantly, the Supreme Court concluded that adopting the government’s “expansive interpretation of ‘official act’ would raise significant constitutional concerns.” Federal law prohibits quid pro quo corruption; however, as Roberts noted, under the government’s view, “nearly anything a public official accepts—from a campaign contribution to lunch—counts as a quid; and nearly anything a public official does—from arranging a meeting to inviting a guest to an event—counts as a quo.”
Moreover, Roberts continued:
The Supreme Court concluded that the jury had not been properly instructed as to the law governing this case and that “it may have convicted Gove. McDonnell for conduct that is not unlawful.” It will now be up to the government to decide whether to retry McDonnell. It seems unlikely though.
Perhaps it will now be harder for the government to prove quid pro quo corruption, but the clarity that the Supreme Court has now provided, unanimously no less, should be welcome news for those who believe in representative government.
While it is certainly true that politicians are invariably grateful for gifts and contributions that they receive and that those who give them often get special access to decision-makers as a result, as the Supreme Court stated in 2013 in McCutcheon v. FEC, “government regulation may not target the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or his allies, or the political access such support may afford.”
Indeed, the Supreme Court continued, ingratiation and access “embody a central feature of democracy—that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be responsive to those concerns.”
It is a surprise, that given the load of high profile cases on the docket of the Supreme Court they would take the time to rule on something a lower court had rules on but found it necessary to take and rule to override the lower courts. Puzzling?
Why the Supreme Court’s Decision on a Governor’s Corruption Conviction Matters
John G. Malcolm / @malcolm_john /
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in the case involving former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who—with his wife Maureen—had been convicted of public corruption charges. The Supreme Court, in a unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, overturned the conviction, holding that the government’s definition of what constitutes an “official act” for purposes of the bribery statute was too broad and would raise significant constitutional concerns. Whether the government chooses to retry the McDonnells remains to be seen, but it seems doubtful.
McDonnell’s Financial Trouble
When McDonnell became governor in January 2010, he and his wife Maureen were having financial difficulty. They had tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and he and his sister were losing about $40,000 a year on two rental properties that were heavily mortgaged.
In 2011 and 2012, McDonnell and his wife accepted more than $175,000 in cash, vacations, luxury goods, and undocumented loans from Jonnie Williams, the CEO of Star Scientific, a Virginia company that produced a nutritional supplement called Anatabloc—which was made from a compound found in tobacco. Williams wanted the Food and Drug Administration to approve Anatabloc as a pharmaceutical, which would obviously have been very profitable for him. The clinical trials the FDA requires are very expensive, and Williams was hoping that one or more of Virginia’s state medical schools would conduct these studies.
It is highly unlikely, of course, that Williams, who did not know the McDonnells prior to his becoming governor, would ever have given these things to McDonnell and his wife if McDonnell had not been governor. And there is little doubt that Williams was hoping—and probably expecting—that McDonnell would help him, which to some extent he did. In May 2011, McDonnell spoke to William Hazel, Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources, about Anatabloc and requested that Hazel send one of his deputies to meet with Williams to talk about Anatabloc.
On another occasion, he forwarded a letter to Hazel from Williams suggesting that the medical schools could use an attached protocol to initiate clinical trials of Anatabloc. McDonnell also hosted a couple of events with health researchers and allowed Williams to help set the guest list, which included researchers Williams was lobbying.
At one of those receptions, Williams gave the researchers checks totaling $200,000 to help defray the costs of preparing research grant applications. Several months later, after Williams complained to Maureen about the fact that the researchers had not applied for the grants, she sent an email to the governor’s chief counsel informing him that the governor wanted to know what was going on with these studies. And six days later, McDonnell sent an email to his chief counsel saying that he wanted to speak to him about the Anatabloc issue, although they never ended up doing so.
Finally, in March 2012, the governor met with the Virginia secretary of administration who oversaw the state’s health care plan. During the meeting, McDonnell told the secretary that Anatabloc worked well for him and that it might work well for state employees. He then asked the secretary to meet with Star Scientific personnel. Nothing ever came of this, however, because Virginia’s health care plan does not cover nutritional supplements. McDonnell and his wife were subsequently charged by federal prosecutors with violating public corruption laws.
McDonnell Conviction
The theory underlying the charges were that McDonnell had accepted bribes in the form of loans and gifts from Williams in exchange for committing or agreeing to commit an “official act,” which is defined under federal law as:
Any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official’s official capacity, or in such official’s place of trust or profit.On Sept. 4, 2014, following a five-week trial, they were convicted. McDonnell was subsequently sentenced to two years in prison, and Maureen was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison. Their convictions were affirmed on appeal, but then the Supreme Court decided to hear the case.
At the heart of every public corruption case is a quid pro quo arrangement. The “quid” refers to the thing of value that the person paying the bribe gives to the public official, and the “quo” is an “official act” that the public official agrees to provide in exchange for the bribe. Corrupt quid pro quo arrangements often take place behind closed doors, so establishing a clear link between a payment and some official action is rarely easy.
Was It Illegal?
There was no question that what McDonnell did was unseemly, but was it illegal?
At the time, Virginia had very lax ethics rules, which allowed politicians to accept unlimited gifts and loans, although those rules have since been revised to place strict limits on gifts and loans to elected officials. An additional question was whether the instructions given to the jury that convicted McDonnell were overbroad, potentially subjecting politicians and those who support them to criminal prosecution for engaging in conduct that constitutes the warp and woof of everyday political activity.
What Constitutes an Official Act?
The government argued, and the trial court agreed and so instructed the jury, that an “official act” could constitute virtually any activity undertaken by a public official, including arranging meetings, contacting other public officials, or hosting events, concerning virtually any subject, including broad policy objectives such as a state’s economic development.
McDonnell’s attorneys argued that under previous case law, “official acts” were limited to instances in which the public official either exercised actual government power—by, say, voting on an issue, appropriating government funds, or awarding a government contract—or put a thumb on the scale by pressuring other decision-makers to exercise actual governmental power in a way that benefitted the person paying the bribe, and that in this case, there was no evidence that McDonnell made any governmental decisions that benefitted Williams or that he pressured other government decision-makers to compromise their independent judgment in order to benefit Williams.
“Taking into account the text of the statute, the precedents of this court, and the constitutional concerns raised by” McDonnell, the Supreme Court, without opining on whether a jury could have convicted McDonnell, had it been properly instructed, sided with the former governor and “adopt[ed] a more bounded interpretation of ‘official act.’” “Under that interpretation,” Roberts continued, “setting up a meeting, calling another public official, or hosting an event does not, standing alone, qualify as an ‘official act.’”
The Supreme Court’s Conclusion
The Supreme Court concluded that broad policy objectives—such as economic development—are not naturally described as the kinds of matters that are “pending” before a public official or something that may be brought “by law” before him, and that “the pertinent ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy’ must be more focused and concrete.”
Instead, federal law requires “that the public official must make a decision or take an action on that question or matter, or agree to do so.” Setting up a meeting, hosting an event, contacting an official, or expressing support for a product would not qualify, the Supreme Court concluded, as an official act so long as the person engaging in such activity does not intend to exert pressure on or provide advice to another public official in a way that compromises that official’s independent judgment.
Most significantly, the Supreme Court concluded that adopting the government’s “expansive interpretation of ‘official act’ would raise significant constitutional concerns.” Federal law prohibits quid pro quo corruption; however, as Roberts noted, under the government’s view, “nearly anything a public official accepts—from a campaign contribution to lunch—counts as a quid; and nearly anything a public official does—from arranging a meeting to inviting a guest to an event—counts as a quo.”
Moreover, Roberts continued:
Conscientious public officials arrange meetings for constituents, contact other officials on their behalf, and include them in events all the time. The basic compact underlying representative government assumes that public officials will hear from their constituents and act appropriately on their concerns—whether it is the union official worried about a plant closing or the homeowners who wonder why it took five days to restore power to their neighborhood after a storm. The government’s position could cast a pall of potential prosecution over these relationships if the union had given a campaign contribution in the past or the homeowners invited the official to join them on their annual outing to the ballgame. Officials might wonder whether they could respond to even the most commonplace requests for assistance, and citizens with legitimate concerns might shrink from participating in democratic discourse.Roberts noted, of course, that the facts of the McDonnell case did not involve your typical politician-constituent interaction, but added the government’s “legal interpretation is not confined to cases involving extravagant gifts or large sums of money, and we cannot construe a criminal statute on the assumption that the government will use it responsibly.”
The Supreme Court concluded that the jury had not been properly instructed as to the law governing this case and that “it may have convicted Gove. McDonnell for conduct that is not unlawful.” It will now be up to the government to decide whether to retry McDonnell. It seems unlikely though.
Perhaps it will now be harder for the government to prove quid pro quo corruption, but the clarity that the Supreme Court has now provided, unanimously no less, should be welcome news for those who believe in representative government.
While it is certainly true that politicians are invariably grateful for gifts and contributions that they receive and that those who give them often get special access to decision-makers as a result, as the Supreme Court stated in 2013 in McCutcheon v. FEC, “government regulation may not target the general gratitude a candidate may feel toward those who support him or his allies, or the political access such support may afford.”
Indeed, the Supreme Court continued, ingratiation and access “embody a central feature of democracy—that constituents support candidates who share their beliefs and interests, and candidates who are elected can be expected to be responsive to those concerns.”
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Mrs Clinton for President : Bags of Cash And lots A Laughs
Hey, she's a Clinton, a progressive socialist liberal democrat and she deserves better then what she got with Bill.
She stole as much as she could from domestic and foreign corporations, and now the voters must give her the chance to relieve the taxpayers of what little money they have left after Mr Ogbjma did his best to drive the country into the financial dumpster.
True, it isn't much, but if any one can wring blood from a dry turnip, this woman is the one that can do it. She'll leave 'em suckin' air.
Look out national treasury, here come the Clintons.
Animal Askes Questions Hard to Answer Quickly Enough
''Hey bud, how do you like that magazine? I for one, ate it up.''
British Citizen Gets Life Sentence for Self Protection : Gun Control
I'm not sure this store is a fact of life in Great Britain, but none the less, given the current atmosphere in America, it could easily happen here as the progressive socialist liberal democrats have as one of their most important agenda items to gain total power is to disarm the population.
Take away the people's pitch forks, how will the people effectively remove tyranny from the government?
With the population disarmed, the progressive socialists believe they can control the criminals that will still have guns after the entire law abiding population is disarmed as those that commit gun crimes effect only private citizens in small numbers, isolated local crimes that will never be reported in the control media, and therefore will not impact the political elites.
The real problems arise if the political elites have to deal with an entire population that is armed, their chances of achieving a society transformation to socialism are greatly reduced.
Scary thoughts. Could it happen in the USA
You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way.
With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside.
As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble.
In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered.
Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years," he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven."
The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can't find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters.
As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he'll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars.
A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you.
Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison.
Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison.
This case really happened. On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk , England , killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April, 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term.
How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire? It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license.
The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but all firearms except
> Shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns. Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerfordmass shooting in 1987.
> Shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns. Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hungerfordmass shooting in 1987.
Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked down the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.)
Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school. For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners.
Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few side arms still owned by private citizens.
Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few side arms still owned by private citizens.
During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released.
Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands." All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars.
When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens.
How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kind of like cars. Sound familiar?
WAKE UP AMERICA ; THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION.
"...It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."--Samuel Adams - You had better wake up, because this very same thing is happening here and. Hillary has stated she would take away our 2nd Amendment rights.
And know this, there are people in Congress on both sides of the aisle that will go right along with them.
Hollywood Star Speakes About Politics & Her Conserative Life (Video)
I guess maybe there is some reason for hope in Hollywood as a few actors are stepping out of the shadows and speaking their minds, taking their Conservative views on life in general and current politics seriously enough to go on the record in a public forum.
Good news for bringing some light to the darkness of progressive socialism that prevails now among the Hollywood elites.
‘Clueless’ Star Stacey Dash Talks About Being Pro-Life and Pro-Gun in Hollywood
Genevieve Wood / @genevievewood /
Hollywood is not friendly territory for conservatives, something actress Stacey Dash found out in 2012 when she tweeted out her support for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The “Clueless” star sat down with The Daily Signal to talk about her experience stepping into the political fray. Dash also speaks about her new book, “There Goes My Social Life,” where she explains how her conservative beliefs come from a very personal place.
https://youtu.be/zK_KnzicY_g
Good news for bringing some light to the darkness of progressive socialism that prevails now among the Hollywood elites.
‘Clueless’ Star Stacey Dash Talks About Being Pro-Life and Pro-Gun in Hollywood
Genevieve Wood / @genevievewood /
Hollywood is not friendly territory for conservatives, something actress Stacey Dash found out in 2012 when she tweeted out her support for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The “Clueless” star sat down with The Daily Signal to talk about her experience stepping into the political fray. Dash also speaks about her new book, “There Goes My Social Life,” where she explains how her conservative beliefs come from a very personal place.
https://youtu.be/zK_KnzicY_g
North Carolina Law Mandates Lessons In History : Knowing Who We Are
I believe there is truth in the saying, 'if you are ignorant of history, you will make the same mistakes over and over again'. Also, having an understand of what has gone before that has secured our most basic and fundamentally important freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution is imperative to build moral character. Having pride in ones heritage also builds self confidence, an absolute for success.
And it's moral character that sustains us when situations arise that require decisions based on knowledge acquired from those that had been through similar difficulties and not just conventional solutions based primarily on what feels like the right thing to do. That is, what's politically correct.
This New Law Ensures South Carolina Students Will Study the Founding Documents
Faith Vander Voort /
Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, signed a South Carolina House bill into law that implements the study of U.S. founding documents into the state’s public high schools.
The South Carolina Founding Principles Act requires the study of the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and “the structure of the government and the role of separation of powers and the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights” to be added into statewide social studies programs. This bill, signed June 1, reinforces South Carolina’s Section 59-29-120 that required all public education students, both in high school and in college, to pass a test after a year-long class on the founding documents and principles.
The Founding Principles Act bolsters the existing law by adding an accountability clause requiring the State Department of Education to report to the House and Senate Education Committees as well as the Public Works Committee every two years. This report will outline how South Carolina educators are teaching the documents in their classrooms.
State Rep. Chip Huggins, R-Lexington, told The Daily Signal, “I was just so worried about the erosion away from our foundation, and when I say that, I think it’s time we get back to the basics. The basics in which this country was founded. That’s exactly what we wanted to accomplish with this bill.” Furthermore, teachers will be provided with “professional development opportunities” to ensure the subject is being properly taught.
“A major part of forming future citizens capable of self-government is ensuring that they are properly educated in the founding documents of our nation,” Arthur Milikh, associate director for principles and politics at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email. “This was once common sense throughout America, but now we are forced to fight to ensure that even the most basic text, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence—are taught.” “These works tell us about the nature of our country, the principles for which we stand, and the way to preserve our constitutional order. Should these texts be lost to students, the next generation will be ruled entirely by popular culture and public opinion,” Milikh wrote.
Huggins, the main sponsor of the bill, said the legislation “ensures that when the standards are rewritten, the founding principles will still be included.” The Founding Principles Act, however, does not force South Carolina public colleges to do the same.
Section 59-29-120 states that “no student in any such school, college, or university may receive a certificate of graduation without previously passing a satisfactory examination upon the provisions and principles,” but does not hold either public high schools or colleges to that standard. The accountability aspect of The Founding Principles Act only applies to South Carolina public high schools.
Even though Huggins didn’t win the battle with mandating the founding principles into state college curriculums, he believes he won the war with high schools. He stated that the important thing is “we now have the assurance that the founding principles will be taught.”
And it's moral character that sustains us when situations arise that require decisions based on knowledge acquired from those that had been through similar difficulties and not just conventional solutions based primarily on what feels like the right thing to do. That is, what's politically correct.
This New Law Ensures South Carolina Students Will Study the Founding Documents
Faith Vander Voort /
Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican, signed a South Carolina House bill into law that implements the study of U.S. founding documents into the state’s public high schools.
The South Carolina Founding Principles Act requires the study of the United States Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and “the structure of the government and the role of separation of powers and the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights” to be added into statewide social studies programs. This bill, signed June 1, reinforces South Carolina’s Section 59-29-120 that required all public education students, both in high school and in college, to pass a test after a year-long class on the founding documents and principles.
The Founding Principles Act bolsters the existing law by adding an accountability clause requiring the State Department of Education to report to the House and Senate Education Committees as well as the Public Works Committee every two years. This report will outline how South Carolina educators are teaching the documents in their classrooms.
State Rep. Chip Huggins, R-Lexington, told The Daily Signal, “I was just so worried about the erosion away from our foundation, and when I say that, I think it’s time we get back to the basics. The basics in which this country was founded. That’s exactly what we wanted to accomplish with this bill.” Furthermore, teachers will be provided with “professional development opportunities” to ensure the subject is being properly taught.
“A major part of forming future citizens capable of self-government is ensuring that they are properly educated in the founding documents of our nation,” Arthur Milikh, associate director for principles and politics at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal in an email. “This was once common sense throughout America, but now we are forced to fight to ensure that even the most basic text, the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, the Declaration of Independence—are taught.” “These works tell us about the nature of our country, the principles for which we stand, and the way to preserve our constitutional order. Should these texts be lost to students, the next generation will be ruled entirely by popular culture and public opinion,” Milikh wrote.
Huggins, the main sponsor of the bill, said the legislation “ensures that when the standards are rewritten, the founding principles will still be included.” The Founding Principles Act, however, does not force South Carolina public colleges to do the same.
Section 59-29-120 states that “no student in any such school, college, or university may receive a certificate of graduation without previously passing a satisfactory examination upon the provisions and principles,” but does not hold either public high schools or colleges to that standard. The accountability aspect of The Founding Principles Act only applies to South Carolina public high schools.
Even though Huggins didn’t win the battle with mandating the founding principles into state college curriculums, he believes he won the war with high schools. He stated that the important thing is “we now have the assurance that the founding principles will be taught.”
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
Boeing Sells to Iran : National Securtiy At Risk - Who Cares!
The duplicity is staggering between big business and the government when it comes to billions of dollars changing hands. It is especially bad when it evolves tax dollars assisting in this debacle of cronyism with the Export/Import bank that subsidizes much of Boeing business dealings.
As if 'crony capitalism' didn't already have a bad name, this only makes it all that much worse when it puts our national security at risk. But who cares, right? It's just business as usual for the business of like minded people that understand how to use the tools for success no matter the consequence. Let the little people worry about making to the shelters in time.
Iran’s Unfriendly Skies
Diane Katz / @Dianeskatz /
With the blessing of the Obama administration, Boeing Co. has negotiated the sale of a fleet of new jets to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. The $17.6 billion deal between the aviation giant and the Islamic Republic of Iran was made possible by the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran in January. It is a reckless piece of business that Congress must address. Under terms of the memorandum of agreement, Boeing reportedly will supply 80 planes—including intercontinental jumbo jets—to state-owned Iran Air.
The carrier, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury, has been routinely commandeered by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics to transport rockets, missiles, and other military equipment, including materials and technologies with ballistic missile applications.
Iran Air flights have also transported military components to Syria (another state sponsor of terrorism). None of which concerns President Barack Obama, evidently. His nuclear deal with the ayatollahs, including $150 billion in sequestered funds, specifically lifted restrictions on the sale of commercial aircraft. Indeed, enabling Iran to modernize its timeworn fleet was “essential” to striking agreement with Tehran to (supposedly) restrict its nuclear operations in return for easing economic sanctions, according to Boeing executives.
To complete the sale, Boeing still must obtain an export license from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control. Should a U.S. bank or investment firm wish to finance the purchase, it, too, would have to obtain a license from the Office of Foreign Asset Control. (Officials of the U.S. Export-Import Bank have said the bank charter prohibits financing for Iran, but they aren’t the most credible bunch.)
This “licensing” procedure seems downright silly considering that Iran has been designated for years by the U.S. Department of State as “the leading state sponsor of terrorism globally.” As noted in the 2015 edition of the Country Reports on Terrorism, “Iran continues to provide support to Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.”
There is little reason to think that U.S. engagement with Iran is now moderating the regime, according to James Phillips, The Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs. Despite the agreement, he reports, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly challenged U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf.
For example, the Guard Corps vessels launched rockets within 1,500 yards of the carrier Harry S. Truman near the Strait of Hormuz in late December, and in January flew drones over U.S. warships and detained and humiliated 10 American sailors. In March, the Guard Corps launched a series of missiles, including two that were emblazoned with the message “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew.
To their credit, Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Peter Roskam, R-Ill., aren’t quite as trusting of Iran as the Obama administration. In a June 16 letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, the lawmakers said they “strongly oppose the potential sale of militarily-fungible products to terrorism’s central supplier,” and sought assurances that the company would repossess or remotely disable aircraft if Iran violated the nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, Roskam has introduced the No Dollars for Ayatollahs Act, which would impose an excise tax of 100 percent on any transaction that involves Iran conducting a financial transaction in U.S. currency. According to Roskam, “It’s tragic to watch such an iconic American company make such a terribly short-sighted decision. If Boeing goes through with this deal, the company will forever be associated with Iran’s chief export: radical Islamic terrorism.” In addition, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., has introduced the Preventing Investment in Terrorist Regimes Act, which would deny U.S. tax credit to Boeing for the foreign taxes it would pay on the income derived from the Iranian deal.
Both measures are co-sponsored by all six subcommittee chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee. But whether either measure would prove effective in halting the sale, using the tax code to steer the actions of a multinational corporation is a lousy way to set policy.
Besides, Boeing generated more than $96 billion in revenue last year, and its market cap exceeds $86 billion. It also paid a lot of money to lobby in favor of the nuclear deal, including hiring Thomas Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel and the United Nations, to testify before Congress, write letters to high-level officials, and submit op-eds in support of lifting the sanctions. All of which is perfectly acceptable—except that he systematically failed to disclose his relationship with Boeing.
Boeing executives say the proposed sale is necessary to remain competitive against Airbus, the European aviation manufacturer that has struck a $27 billion deal with Iran for 118 planes. But that’s the same lame argument Boeing made in lobbying for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank—from which Boeing was the top beneficiary of export subsidies.
The fact is, projected demand for commercial planes is forecast to rise for years to come, and both manufacturers are carrying huge backlogs that will take years to fulfill.
Rather than tweak the tax code, Congress should, at the very least, explicitly prohibit financing from the Export-Import Bank for the sale of Boeing planes (or any other product) to Iran. Additional actions are needed as well. The administration has already increased the risk of yet more death and destruction by the terrorist state. Lawmakers should ensure that Boeing and other U.S. companies don’t become tools of Tehran.
As if 'crony capitalism' didn't already have a bad name, this only makes it all that much worse when it puts our national security at risk. But who cares, right? It's just business as usual for the business of like minded people that understand how to use the tools for success no matter the consequence. Let the little people worry about making to the shelters in time.
Iran’s Unfriendly Skies
Diane Katz / @Dianeskatz /
With the blessing of the Obama administration, Boeing Co. has negotiated the sale of a fleet of new jets to the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. The $17.6 billion deal between the aviation giant and the Islamic Republic of Iran was made possible by the lifting of economic sanctions against Tehran in January. It is a reckless piece of business that Congress must address. Under terms of the memorandum of agreement, Boeing reportedly will supply 80 planes—including intercontinental jumbo jets—to state-owned Iran Air.
The carrier, according to the U.S. Department of Treasury, has been routinely commandeered by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran’s Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics to transport rockets, missiles, and other military equipment, including materials and technologies with ballistic missile applications.
Iran Air flights have also transported military components to Syria (another state sponsor of terrorism). None of which concerns President Barack Obama, evidently. His nuclear deal with the ayatollahs, including $150 billion in sequestered funds, specifically lifted restrictions on the sale of commercial aircraft. Indeed, enabling Iran to modernize its timeworn fleet was “essential” to striking agreement with Tehran to (supposedly) restrict its nuclear operations in return for easing economic sanctions, according to Boeing executives.
To complete the sale, Boeing still must obtain an export license from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control. Should a U.S. bank or investment firm wish to finance the purchase, it, too, would have to obtain a license from the Office of Foreign Asset Control. (Officials of the U.S. Export-Import Bank have said the bank charter prohibits financing for Iran, but they aren’t the most credible bunch.)
This “licensing” procedure seems downright silly considering that Iran has been designated for years by the U.S. Department of State as “the leading state sponsor of terrorism globally.” As noted in the 2015 edition of the Country Reports on Terrorism, “Iran continues to provide support to Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.”
There is little reason to think that U.S. engagement with Iran is now moderating the regime, according to James Phillips, The Heritage Foundation’s senior research fellow for Middle Eastern affairs. Despite the agreement, he reports, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has repeatedly challenged U.S. naval forces in the Persian Gulf.
For example, the Guard Corps vessels launched rockets within 1,500 yards of the carrier Harry S. Truman near the Strait of Hormuz in late December, and in January flew drones over U.S. warships and detained and humiliated 10 American sailors. In March, the Guard Corps launched a series of missiles, including two that were emblazoned with the message “Israel must be wiped out” in Hebrew.
To their credit, Reps. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, and Peter Roskam, R-Ill., aren’t quite as trusting of Iran as the Obama administration. In a June 16 letter to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, the lawmakers said they “strongly oppose the potential sale of militarily-fungible products to terrorism’s central supplier,” and sought assurances that the company would repossess or remotely disable aircraft if Iran violated the nuclear deal.
Meanwhile, Roskam has introduced the No Dollars for Ayatollahs Act, which would impose an excise tax of 100 percent on any transaction that involves Iran conducting a financial transaction in U.S. currency. According to Roskam, “It’s tragic to watch such an iconic American company make such a terribly short-sighted decision. If Boeing goes through with this deal, the company will forever be associated with Iran’s chief export: radical Islamic terrorism.” In addition, Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., has introduced the Preventing Investment in Terrorist Regimes Act, which would deny U.S. tax credit to Boeing for the foreign taxes it would pay on the income derived from the Iranian deal.
Both measures are co-sponsored by all six subcommittee chairs of the House Ways and Means Committee. But whether either measure would prove effective in halting the sale, using the tax code to steer the actions of a multinational corporation is a lousy way to set policy.
Besides, Boeing generated more than $96 billion in revenue last year, and its market cap exceeds $86 billion. It also paid a lot of money to lobby in favor of the nuclear deal, including hiring Thomas Pickering, a former ambassador to Israel and the United Nations, to testify before Congress, write letters to high-level officials, and submit op-eds in support of lifting the sanctions. All of which is perfectly acceptable—except that he systematically failed to disclose his relationship with Boeing.
Boeing executives say the proposed sale is necessary to remain competitive against Airbus, the European aviation manufacturer that has struck a $27 billion deal with Iran for 118 planes. But that’s the same lame argument Boeing made in lobbying for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank—from which Boeing was the top beneficiary of export subsidies.
The fact is, projected demand for commercial planes is forecast to rise for years to come, and both manufacturers are carrying huge backlogs that will take years to fulfill.
Rather than tweak the tax code, Congress should, at the very least, explicitly prohibit financing from the Export-Import Bank for the sale of Boeing planes (or any other product) to Iran. Additional actions are needed as well. The administration has already increased the risk of yet more death and destruction by the terrorist state. Lawmakers should ensure that Boeing and other U.S. companies don’t become tools of Tehran.
Maine Governor LePage (R) Wants Food Stamp Changes : Ogbjma ADM. Says No! Waste Is Good
Governor of Maine, LePage talks the talk and then walks the walk of Conservative principles!!! Fantastic ideological actions that actually are designed to help the population rather then to destroy the people and the country at the same time as the Ogbjma progressive social liberals are doing now just for political gain.
To the progressive, anyone and anything is a potential tool to take control and power.
What a breath of fresh air in a current atmosphere of toxic rhetoric from the Ogbjma and his compliant hangers on that will do his bidding, the collective democrats.
Governor to Obama in Food Stamp Fight: ‘Wake Up and Smell the Energy Drinks’
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 /
Maine Gov. Paul LePage may have considered a proposal to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy candy and sodas to be a sweet one, but the Obama administration disagrees. The friction between the Republican governor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reignited a debate after the Obama administration denied LePage’s request to put restrictions on what can be purchased with food stamps.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, LePage said: “It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks.” In an interview with The Daily Signal, LePage’s health and human services chief explained what’s at stake.
“Certainly as a safety net program where the second word of the program’s name is nutrition, it is imperative that we are supporting what constitutes nutritional food and restricting those items that are not nutritional,” Mary Mayhew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said. “There should be no debate that candy and soda are not nutritional, and we should not be funding with taxpayer dollars the purchase of candy and soda with the SNAP program,” she said.
SNAP is short for the the Agriculture Department’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.
Last week, the Agriculture Department rejected LePage’s plan to prohibit Maine’s food stamp recipients from using them to buy candy and soft drinks. The rejection letter prompted a fiery response from LePage, who criticized the Obama administration for being hypocritical regarding its commitment to healthy eating in schools. In a response to Vilsack, the Republican governor wrote:
“It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks,” LePage wrote. “Doubtful that it will, I will be pursuing options to implement reform unilaterally or cease Maine’s administration of the food stamp program altogether. You maintain such a broken program that I do not want my name attached to it.”
After LePage sent his letter to Vilsack, critics pounced. “The vast majority of people who rely on the SNAP program are seniors and kids and people with disabilities,” Robyn Merrill, executive director of Maine Equal Justice Partners, told The Daily Signal. “We’re talking about thousands of people who rely on this to stay fed. That’s just concerning.” Merrill stressed that state law requires the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to administer a statewide food supplement program in accordance with the Agriculture Department’s requirements. “We work with people who rely on this food assistance to eat and feed their families,” she said. “I think just having put that threat [to leave the program] out there has created a lot of fear and anxiety around losing this critical help.”
Mayhew, who heads the agency, said any suggestion that Maine no longer is participating in the food stamp program is wrong:
According to her agency, Maine’s obesity rate doubled from 14 percent to 28 percent in the past two decades. The state’s incidence of diabetes also doubled from 3.9 percent to 9.5 percent. About 15 percent of Maine’s population is on food stamps, and of those, 88 percent are also on Medicaid. Mayhew sees a connection between the food purchased with food stamps and the strain on the state Medicaid budget.
“It is frustrating to have two federal agencies failing to connect the dots between the decisions of one to allow the purchase of these terribly unhealthy items, and you have the other federal agency paying for the health care costs associated with obesity and diabetes,” Mayhew said.
So far, nine states—New York, Illinois, Minnesota, California, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Vermont, and Texas—have requested such waivers from the federal government or called on policymakers in Washington to give states permission to prohibit junk food purchases with food stamps.
Merrill, the head of Maine Equal Justice Partners, said her organization agrees with LePage and Mayhew regarding the need to address public health. However, how to do so and whether placing constraints on the food stamp program will accomplish that goal remains a point of disagreement.
“From our point of view, eliminating access to this program won’t do anything to promote public health,” Merrill said, adding:
To the progressive, anyone and anything is a potential tool to take control and power.
What a breath of fresh air in a current atmosphere of toxic rhetoric from the Ogbjma and his compliant hangers on that will do his bidding, the collective democrats.
Governor to Obama in Food Stamp Fight: ‘Wake Up and Smell the Energy Drinks’
Melissa Quinn / @MelissaQuinn97 /
Maine Gov. Paul LePage may have considered a proposal to prohibit food stamp recipients from using their benefits to buy candy and sodas to be a sweet one, but the Obama administration disagrees. The friction between the Republican governor and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has reignited a debate after the Obama administration denied LePage’s request to put restrictions on what can be purchased with food stamps.
In a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, LePage said: “It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks.” In an interview with The Daily Signal, LePage’s health and human services chief explained what’s at stake.
“Certainly as a safety net program where the second word of the program’s name is nutrition, it is imperative that we are supporting what constitutes nutritional food and restricting those items that are not nutritional,” Mary Mayhew, commissioner of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services, said. “There should be no debate that candy and soda are not nutritional, and we should not be funding with taxpayer dollars the purchase of candy and soda with the SNAP program,” she said.
SNAP is short for the the Agriculture Department’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps.
Last week, the Agriculture Department rejected LePage’s plan to prohibit Maine’s food stamp recipients from using them to buy candy and soft drinks. The rejection letter prompted a fiery response from LePage, who criticized the Obama administration for being hypocritical regarding its commitment to healthy eating in schools. In a response to Vilsack, the Republican governor wrote:
The Obama administration goes to great lengths to police the menus of K-12 cafeterias but looks the other way as billions of taxpayer dollars finance a steady diet of Mars bars and Mountain Dew.LePage, who made welfare reform a centerpiece of his platform when he first ran for governor in 2010, went on to threaten to “cease Maine’s administration” of the food stamp program.
“It’s time for the federal government to wake up and smell the energy drinks,” LePage wrote. “Doubtful that it will, I will be pursuing options to implement reform unilaterally or cease Maine’s administration of the food stamp program altogether. You maintain such a broken program that I do not want my name attached to it.”
After LePage sent his letter to Vilsack, critics pounced. “The vast majority of people who rely on the SNAP program are seniors and kids and people with disabilities,” Robyn Merrill, executive director of Maine Equal Justice Partners, told The Daily Signal. “We’re talking about thousands of people who rely on this to stay fed. That’s just concerning.” Merrill stressed that state law requires the Maine Department of Health and Human Services to administer a statewide food supplement program in accordance with the Agriculture Department’s requirements. “We work with people who rely on this food assistance to eat and feed their families,” she said. “I think just having put that threat [to leave the program] out there has created a lot of fear and anxiety around losing this critical help.”
Mayhew, who heads the agency, said any suggestion that Maine no longer is participating in the food stamp program is wrong:
What the governor has said is that he’s tired of defending this program that’s not really focused on nutrition and that is intended to meet the needs of young families, and if [the government] doesn’t like how Maine is seeking to administer the program, then it needs to come up with a way to administer it themselves.Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services asked the federal government late last year for permission to initiate the junk food ban. The LePage administration viewed the proposal as a way to curb what the state agency said was an obesity-related health crisis driving up both Medicaid and private insurance costs. Maine government officials also said the request was in line with LePage’s goal of ensuring welfare helps those who need it most. “What we allow and restrict in a taxpayer-funded nutrition program should be of concern to the federal government and certainly is of concern to the state and this administration,” Mayhew said.
According to her agency, Maine’s obesity rate doubled from 14 percent to 28 percent in the past two decades. The state’s incidence of diabetes also doubled from 3.9 percent to 9.5 percent. About 15 percent of Maine’s population is on food stamps, and of those, 88 percent are also on Medicaid. Mayhew sees a connection between the food purchased with food stamps and the strain on the state Medicaid budget.
“It is frustrating to have two federal agencies failing to connect the dots between the decisions of one to allow the purchase of these terribly unhealthy items, and you have the other federal agency paying for the health care costs associated with obesity and diabetes,” Mayhew said.
So far, nine states—New York, Illinois, Minnesota, California, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Vermont, and Texas—have requested such waivers from the federal government or called on policymakers in Washington to give states permission to prohibit junk food purchases with food stamps.
Merrill, the head of Maine Equal Justice Partners, said her organization agrees with LePage and Mayhew regarding the need to address public health. However, how to do so and whether placing constraints on the food stamp program will accomplish that goal remains a point of disagreement.
“From our point of view, eliminating access to this program won’t do anything to promote public health,” Merrill said, adding:
If that’s truly the concern here, that’s going to deny access of all food to people, including healthy choices. There are a lot of things we can do to incentivize healthy choices in the program, and there are a lot of things we can do to address health concerns and child obesity for all Maine people, not just people with lower incomes.The state’s Mayhew countered:
We have vulnerable individuals and families who depend on this program. We need to tighten it up to make sure it’s used as intended. These items never should have been involved. There’s an opportunity to reform it, and it’s apparent the USDA won’t do it on its own.
Progressives Move Out of The Shadows : Hate Rules Their Agenda
Here's a question - why is it that when hateful situations and organizations are identified, those finger pointers always seem to be associated with progressive democrats? Who exactly are the hate groups that find it necessary, an imperative obligation, to drive others to kill in the name of their own hate?
Evil is that evil does.
When was the last time a Christian organization pointed out certain institutions that needed for it's members to be killed, and then to be destroyed because they have a different view point or philosophy?
What is apparent to anyone that isn't insolated from reality by ones inability to accept our Constitution as the law of the land, and if you want to find the source of unbridled hate for the freedom to chose, look no further then the dark reaches of the diseased rhetoric of the progressive socialist liberal democrats.
Again, it's who they are and always have been. Nothing has changed accept now they no longer hide their intent, as they have in past decades, to destroy our civil society.
The Left Endangers the Rest of Us When It Uses Terms Like ‘Haters’ and ‘Bigots’
Mary Eberstadt /
In August 2012, a gunman entered the office building in downtown Washington, D.C., that houses the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian organization dedicated to traditional moral teaching. By his own account, available on video, he was alerted by secular progressive “watchdog” groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, that painted the FRC as a “hate group.”
The shooter explained that this made him intend to kill as many of its members as he could, as he later told the FBI. In the event, he fired at and hit a security guard, who disarmed him before his dream of mass murder could be fulfilled.
As was noted at the trial, where the gunman was given a twenty-five-year sentence, without that guard’s quick action, in all likelihood the result would have been a bloodbath. Moreover, the would-be killer intended to move on to attack another Christian group, the Traditional Values Coalition, that had been similarly designated by progressive watchdogs for “hating.”
Yet social media and other denigrations of religious believers as “haters” and “bigots” and the rest by so-called watchdog groups roll on—exactly as if words mean nothing.
To Read Mary Eberstadt’s New Book: “It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies.”
The 2012 shooting at the FRC and its aftermath reveal, first, that Christians may have a point in thinking that they are held in lower regard by many progressive Americans than are others. Imagine the near miss in this case had the shooting happened in one of the repositories of secularist progressivism in downtown Washington, D.C.
Publicity would have unfurled nonstop; the websites listing individuals and groups as “haters” would have been called out across the country; and no doubt a national moment of “soul-searching” would have been demanded, as often follows public tragedies in this country—and rightly so, because many citizens would have been shocked by the idea that just having convictions that differ from other people’s can be a dangerous thing. In fact, readers do not have to imagine such a comparison. One is already at hand.
In November 2015, a gunman in Colorado killed a police officer and injured several other people at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Secularists and progressives across the media immediately connected dots between that gunman’s motivation on the one hand, and undercover sting videos of the abortion industry released by the Center for Medical Progress throughout the preceding months.
Writing in The Guardian after those shootings, for example, and calling attention to extremist rhetoric by some pro-lifers, one writer stated, “Words matter. When we dehumanize people—when we call them demons, monsters, and murderers—we make it easier for others to do them harm. Let’s not pretend that we don’t know that.” Another observed similarly in The Washington Post that, “Leaders incite and inflame with fiery speeches and threatening words. … They use violent language. And they unleash the worst impulses of the unstable and the unmoored.”
Another in Slate also criticized pro-lifers for inflammatory rhetoric, adding that “it defies common sense to insist that there is no connection between political rhetoric and political violence—to insist, essentially, that there is no such thing as incitement.” But if words do count, and if the power of the internet, especially, means that everyone needs to be more careful about what they say, it’s fair to ask for consistency. The enforcement wing of today’s anti-religious alliance bristles with opposition researchers, self-appointed watchdog groups, and other activists who work to stigmatize religious believers in the public square. Examples abound.
One such watchdog group, for example—“Right Wing Watch,” a “project” of People for the American Way—is “dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities of the right-wing movement.” Its website posts a long list of congressmen, journalists, authors, and other individuals named and sometimes pictured as well. These miscreants are charged with “hatred,” “bigotry,” “viciousness,” “lies,” and other inflammatory accusations.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), another band of enforcers—“dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry”—similarly posts “Extremist Files” of individuals and groups. These “files” indiscriminately list, for example, independent-minded social scientist Charles Murray and Christians like those at the Family Research Council alongside neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan leaders, Holocaust deniers, and other people motivated by racial and other animosity.
Using blood-red graphics and repeated blaring of the categories HATE & EXTREMISM and THE YEAR IN HATE, as well as features like a HATE MAP and HATE BLOG and other repetitions of the word HATE, the SPLC website seethes with animosity of its own. The SPLC, Right Wing Watch, and other watchdog groups also single out for vituperation certain legal organizations that aid plaintiffs in religious liberty cases.
If liberal attorneys who defended, say, inmates at Guantanamo Bay were being reviled as bigots and extremists, “clever” and “cynical,” that would be wrong. If organizations that typically represent the handicapped, or unions, or pro-abortion groups were being targeted and called inflammatory names, that too would be wrong. Consistency demands that when the legal groups representing clients in religious liberty cases are attacked in these ways, this is wrong as well.
To repeat: Attempts to discredit lawyers siding with plaintiffs whose views other people disagree with have no parallel anywhere else on the political spectrum. Child molesters, mafiosi and serial killers are allowed representation not only without retribution, but on the shared understanding that it’s constitutionally destructive to undermine the rule of law by trying to discredit or intimidate legal representatives. In 2000, for example, when the ACLU defended the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which advocates sex between adults and children, Harvey Silverglate, an ACLU Board member, explained that decision by noting, “The Constitution is for everybody. But there are some people who just don’t understand that and never will.” Yet treating Christian lawyers or lawyers aligned with Christians as if they were subversives has become routine…
In the United States and other open societies, citizens are supposed to welcome full-throated debate in legal and political matters, and to let the most persuasive side win. What does not comport with traditional ideas of fair play is an attempt to win the debate by stigmatizing one side as “haters,” questioning the legitimacy of their legal representation, threatening their jobs, and otherwise trying to force them into silence.
The trouble isn’t only that cyber-mobs are in control. Treating opinions other than one’s own not as differences to be tolerated, but rather as treason to be punished: this is not a legacy of the civil rights movement. At best, it is a descent into rule of the strong, enshrinement of the notion that might makes right. If Christians were trying to make it harder for legal representatives of abortion rights groups to help their clients, that would be national news. If they were pouring into people’s neighborhoods and harassing academics who testify in court, every civil rights organization in America would be denouncing them.
Revisionism did eventually come to Salem … If history is any guide, revisionism will one day come for today’s latter-day inquisitors too—leaving future generations to hear of “watchdog groups” and “hate speech” with the same queasiness that many adults today hear the toxic phrase “enemies list.” But we are not there yet.
This piece has been adapted from Mary Eberstadt’s new book,“It’s Dangerous
Evil is that evil does.
When was the last time a Christian organization pointed out certain institutions that needed for it's members to be killed, and then to be destroyed because they have a different view point or philosophy?
What is apparent to anyone that isn't insolated from reality by ones inability to accept our Constitution as the law of the land, and if you want to find the source of unbridled hate for the freedom to chose, look no further then the dark reaches of the diseased rhetoric of the progressive socialist liberal democrats.
Again, it's who they are and always have been. Nothing has changed accept now they no longer hide their intent, as they have in past decades, to destroy our civil society.
The Left Endangers the Rest of Us When It Uses Terms Like ‘Haters’ and ‘Bigots’
Mary Eberstadt /
In August 2012, a gunman entered the office building in downtown Washington, D.C., that houses the Family Research Council (FRC), a Christian organization dedicated to traditional moral teaching. By his own account, available on video, he was alerted by secular progressive “watchdog” groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, that painted the FRC as a “hate group.”
The shooter explained that this made him intend to kill as many of its members as he could, as he later told the FBI. In the event, he fired at and hit a security guard, who disarmed him before his dream of mass murder could be fulfilled.
As was noted at the trial, where the gunman was given a twenty-five-year sentence, without that guard’s quick action, in all likelihood the result would have been a bloodbath. Moreover, the would-be killer intended to move on to attack another Christian group, the Traditional Values Coalition, that had been similarly designated by progressive watchdogs for “hating.”
Yet social media and other denigrations of religious believers as “haters” and “bigots” and the rest by so-called watchdog groups roll on—exactly as if words mean nothing.
To Read Mary Eberstadt’s New Book: “It’s Dangerous to Believe: Religious Freedom and Its Enemies.”
The 2012 shooting at the FRC and its aftermath reveal, first, that Christians may have a point in thinking that they are held in lower regard by many progressive Americans than are others. Imagine the near miss in this case had the shooting happened in one of the repositories of secularist progressivism in downtown Washington, D.C.
Publicity would have unfurled nonstop; the websites listing individuals and groups as “haters” would have been called out across the country; and no doubt a national moment of “soul-searching” would have been demanded, as often follows public tragedies in this country—and rightly so, because many citizens would have been shocked by the idea that just having convictions that differ from other people’s can be a dangerous thing. In fact, readers do not have to imagine such a comparison. One is already at hand.
In November 2015, a gunman in Colorado killed a police officer and injured several other people at a Planned Parenthood clinic. Secularists and progressives across the media immediately connected dots between that gunman’s motivation on the one hand, and undercover sting videos of the abortion industry released by the Center for Medical Progress throughout the preceding months.
Writing in The Guardian after those shootings, for example, and calling attention to extremist rhetoric by some pro-lifers, one writer stated, “Words matter. When we dehumanize people—when we call them demons, monsters, and murderers—we make it easier for others to do them harm. Let’s not pretend that we don’t know that.” Another observed similarly in The Washington Post that, “Leaders incite and inflame with fiery speeches and threatening words. … They use violent language. And they unleash the worst impulses of the unstable and the unmoored.”
Another in Slate also criticized pro-lifers for inflammatory rhetoric, adding that “it defies common sense to insist that there is no connection between political rhetoric and political violence—to insist, essentially, that there is no such thing as incitement.” But if words do count, and if the power of the internet, especially, means that everyone needs to be more careful about what they say, it’s fair to ask for consistency. The enforcement wing of today’s anti-religious alliance bristles with opposition researchers, self-appointed watchdog groups, and other activists who work to stigmatize religious believers in the public square. Examples abound.
One such watchdog group, for example—“Right Wing Watch,” a “project” of People for the American Way—is “dedicated to monitoring and exposing the activities of the right-wing movement.” Its website posts a long list of congressmen, journalists, authors, and other individuals named and sometimes pictured as well. These miscreants are charged with “hatred,” “bigotry,” “viciousness,” “lies,” and other inflammatory accusations.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), another band of enforcers—“dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry”—similarly posts “Extremist Files” of individuals and groups. These “files” indiscriminately list, for example, independent-minded social scientist Charles Murray and Christians like those at the Family Research Council alongside neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan leaders, Holocaust deniers, and other people motivated by racial and other animosity.
Using blood-red graphics and repeated blaring of the categories HATE & EXTREMISM and THE YEAR IN HATE, as well as features like a HATE MAP and HATE BLOG and other repetitions of the word HATE, the SPLC website seethes with animosity of its own. The SPLC, Right Wing Watch, and other watchdog groups also single out for vituperation certain legal organizations that aid plaintiffs in religious liberty cases.
If liberal attorneys who defended, say, inmates at Guantanamo Bay were being reviled as bigots and extremists, “clever” and “cynical,” that would be wrong. If organizations that typically represent the handicapped, or unions, or pro-abortion groups were being targeted and called inflammatory names, that too would be wrong. Consistency demands that when the legal groups representing clients in religious liberty cases are attacked in these ways, this is wrong as well.
To repeat: Attempts to discredit lawyers siding with plaintiffs whose views other people disagree with have no parallel anywhere else on the political spectrum. Child molesters, mafiosi and serial killers are allowed representation not only without retribution, but on the shared understanding that it’s constitutionally destructive to undermine the rule of law by trying to discredit or intimidate legal representatives. In 2000, for example, when the ACLU defended the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which advocates sex between adults and children, Harvey Silverglate, an ACLU Board member, explained that decision by noting, “The Constitution is for everybody. But there are some people who just don’t understand that and never will.” Yet treating Christian lawyers or lawyers aligned with Christians as if they were subversives has become routine…
In the United States and other open societies, citizens are supposed to welcome full-throated debate in legal and political matters, and to let the most persuasive side win. What does not comport with traditional ideas of fair play is an attempt to win the debate by stigmatizing one side as “haters,” questioning the legitimacy of their legal representation, threatening their jobs, and otherwise trying to force them into silence.
The trouble isn’t only that cyber-mobs are in control. Treating opinions other than one’s own not as differences to be tolerated, but rather as treason to be punished: this is not a legacy of the civil rights movement. At best, it is a descent into rule of the strong, enshrinement of the notion that might makes right. If Christians were trying to make it harder for legal representatives of abortion rights groups to help their clients, that would be national news. If they were pouring into people’s neighborhoods and harassing academics who testify in court, every civil rights organization in America would be denouncing them.
Revisionism did eventually come to Salem … If history is any guide, revisionism will one day come for today’s latter-day inquisitors too—leaving future generations to hear of “watchdog groups” and “hate speech” with the same queasiness that many adults today hear the toxic phrase “enemies list.” But we are not there yet.
This piece has been adapted from Mary Eberstadt’s new book,“It’s Dangerous
United Way Affiliates Funding Planned Parenthood : $Millions In Support
The never ending news of just how deep and infested the progressives are in all aspects of our society. But no matter how many times we read about their activates in just about every institution in the country, there seems to more bad news every day of how they have gutted moral common sense from once promising instructions .
Bottom line, know and understand who you give money to that claim to be in the best interest of your community and the larger population in general. Understand as well why you give to a charity and just who will benefit from your donation.
United Way Affiliates Give $3 Million a Year to Planned Parenthood
Leah Jessen / @_LeahKay_ /
United Way affiliates provide almost $3 million a year to Planned Parenthood, according to a money-tracking website that examines consumer and political causes. 2nd Vote, a conservative, nonprofit watchdog that tracks corporate spending, conducted what it calls “exhaustive” research of United Way affiliates and their giving to Planned Parenthood.
“Last year, 2nd Vote compiled an exhaustive list of United Way affiliates that helped fund the world’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood,” 2nd Vote spokesman Robert Kuykendall said in a formal statement. “The latest available financial documentation for each of these affiliates indicates that United Way funnels almost $3 million to Planned Parenthood every year.” United Way Worldwide, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is a nonprofit that focuses on community-based charity.
2nd Vote said it conducted research on Internal Revenue Service Form 990 filings for United Way affiliates in tax years 2013 and 2014. The group found that almost 6 percent of the affiliates, 76, donated to Planned Parenthood based on the latest 990s available for each chapter.
“Financial support for Planned Parenthood from nonprofits like United Way helps fund an organization that engages in repulsive practices and is an advocate for policies that allow the destruction of innocent lives,” Kuykendall said.
After the pro-life Center for Medical Progress released a string of undercover videos that showed officials of Planned Parenthood clinics discussing the sale of body parts and other tissue from aborted babies, Congress started investigating the abortion provider. Planned Parenthood Foundation of America has denied any illegal conduct.
2nd Vote created the “Pro-Life Guide to United Way” last year. The organization updated the information for 2016 on June 17, including the most recent information on United Way chapters that contribute to Planned Parenthood. “In addition to providing abortion services, Planned Parenthood also has an extremely effective, extremely liberal political arm, and the money funneled by United Way essentially helps support all of Planned Parenthood’s operations,” Kuykendall told The Daily Signal in an email. In 2013, United Way affiliates donated $3 million to Planned Parenthood, up from $2.6 million in 2014, according to 2nd Vote.
United Way affiliates in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin gave over $170,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2013 and 2014. Some of these states are considered swing states, or battleground states, in the presidential election.
“2nd Vote’s research found that United Way donations to Planned Parenthood in certain swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, [and] Virginia appeared significantly higher than others, in some cases around $100,000-$200,000 more a year,” Kuykendall said in the email to The Daily Signal, adding:
A spokesman for United Way Worldwide said United Way has no comment beyond what the organization told The Daily Signal last summer:
United Way says it focuses on education, financial stability, and health in more than 1,800 communities and 40 countries around the world. The charity carries out its mission “by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good,” according to its website.
“Our work is fueled by the passion of 2.9 million volunteers and 10.3 million donors who give their time, their money and their voice to improve the lives of others,” the website says.
A United Way CEO, William Aramony, brought scandal to the organization in the 1990s when he was convicted on federal charges of embezzling more than $1 million during his 20 years leading the organization.
Affiliates Respond
“Does United Way really expect us to believe that its network of affiliates sends around $3 million every year to the world’s largest abortion provider and then, magically, those dollars have nothing to do with United Way or abortion?” 2nd Vote’s Kuykendall said, adding:
Of them, four—United Way of Greater Atlanta, United Way of Merced County Inc. in California, United Way of York County in Maine, and Aloha United Way in Hawaii—specifically confirmed making donations to Planned Parenthood.
“United Way of Greater Atlanta (UWGA) funds a number of women’s health programs that are focused on delivering quality medical care, preventive services, and health education to reduce health disparities in our community,” Shana Wood Davis, the affiliate’s senior director of corporate communications, told The Daily Signal in an email.
A spokesman for the Merced County affiliate said it funded a small, local program that worked with young men in 2013-14, but has not funded Planned Parenthood since then. The spokesman said:
Defining ‘Donate’
Other United Way affiliates responded with what they see as clarifications.
“We don’t ‘donate’ funds; we manage and distribute donations sent by donors to specific health and human services agencies across the region and the state,” Deborah Bowie, president and CEO of United Way of North Central Florida, said in an email to The Daily Signal. “All funds, in fact, are donor-directed via either workplace campaigns or direct donations to a specific United Way.”
United Way of Long Island in New York said none of its unrestricted funds went to support reproductive choices. United Way of Metropolitan Nashville’s president and CEO, Eric Dewey, gave this statement to The Daily Signal:
The affiliate said it does not give Planned Parenthood general operating support. It has, however, funded specific community health programs centered on education for responsible behaviors. Individual donors also gave to Planned Parenthood through United Way’s administration of gifts through a donor choice program.
“A core guiding principle to United Way’s policy is to honor the donor’s intent based on IRS tax exempt eligibility,” Karen Mathison, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Toledo in Ohio, said in a statement to The Daily Signal.
Donor Designations
United Way of Greater Toledo and 19 other affiliates told The Daily Signal that they don’t directly fund Planned Parenthood but individual donors designate gifts to Planned Parenthood.
“Every year, a few donors specifically designate some of their giving to Planned Parenthood, and we honor all donor designations and serve as a ‘pass through’ for those funds,” a spokesman with United Way of Greater Portland in Maine said.
The affiliates that said they do not donate directly to Planned Parenthood include: Mile High United Way in Colorado; United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut; United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc.; United Way of East Central Iowa Inc.; United Way of Greater Kansas City in Missouri; United Way of Central Maryland Inc.; United Way of the Midlands in Nebraska; United Way of Central New Mexico; United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra; United Way of Central Oklahoma Inc.; United Way of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania; United Way of Greater Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania; United Way of Williamson County in Tennessee; United Way of South Hampton Roads in Virginia; United Way of Pierce County in Washington; and United Way of Greater Milwaukee.
“United Way of Delaware does not direct any organizational funds to Planned Parenthood,” Michelle A. Taylor, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “All donations are from individual donors who designate their contributions to Planned Parenthood.”
United Way of Delaware made combined contributions of $172,092 to Planned Parenthood in tax years 2013-14, according to 2nd Vote. “Because Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) charity, we do have donors in our area who choose to give to Planned Parenthood through their paycheck. But the money Planned Parenthood receives is directly from the donor—United Way just processes it,” Stephanie R. M. Bray, president and CEO at United Way California Capital Region, told The Daily Signal in an email.
No Comment
The Daily Signal received no comment from United Way of Wayne and Holmes Counties in Ohio, which 2nd Vote says donated a total of $65,000 to Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio in 2013-14, and United Way of Greater Greensboro Inc. in North Carolina, which 2nd Vote says donated a total of $20,473 to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic in 2013-14.
United Way of Summit County in Ohio, 2nd Vote found, donated $147,632 to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio in 2013 and $129,802 in 2014. The chapter had no comment, but said the affiliate “supports medical care services, family planning, communicable disease prevention, and health education largely aimed at very low-income, uninsured women.” The Summit County affiliate added that funds “are not currently used, or have ever been used, to support abortion services.”
“If United Way portrays itself as a ‘pass-through’ for multiple charities, shouldn’t individuals just make direct contributions to their charity of choice in the first place?” 2nd Vote’s Kuykendall said.
At the time of publication, 45 United Way affiliates had not responded to The Daily Signal.
Bottom line, know and understand who you give money to that claim to be in the best interest of your community and the larger population in general. Understand as well why you give to a charity and just who will benefit from your donation.
United Way Affiliates Give $3 Million a Year to Planned Parenthood
Leah Jessen / @_LeahKay_ /
United Way affiliates provide almost $3 million a year to Planned Parenthood, according to a money-tracking website that examines consumer and political causes. 2nd Vote, a conservative, nonprofit watchdog that tracks corporate spending, conducted what it calls “exhaustive” research of United Way affiliates and their giving to Planned Parenthood.
“Last year, 2nd Vote compiled an exhaustive list of United Way affiliates that helped fund the world’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood,” 2nd Vote spokesman Robert Kuykendall said in a formal statement. “The latest available financial documentation for each of these affiliates indicates that United Way funnels almost $3 million to Planned Parenthood every year.” United Way Worldwide, based in Alexandria, Virginia, is a nonprofit that focuses on community-based charity.
2nd Vote said it conducted research on Internal Revenue Service Form 990 filings for United Way affiliates in tax years 2013 and 2014. The group found that almost 6 percent of the affiliates, 76, donated to Planned Parenthood based on the latest 990s available for each chapter.
“Financial support for Planned Parenthood from nonprofits like United Way helps fund an organization that engages in repulsive practices and is an advocate for policies that allow the destruction of innocent lives,” Kuykendall said.
After the pro-life Center for Medical Progress released a string of undercover videos that showed officials of Planned Parenthood clinics discussing the sale of body parts and other tissue from aborted babies, Congress started investigating the abortion provider. Planned Parenthood Foundation of America has denied any illegal conduct.
2nd Vote created the “Pro-Life Guide to United Way” last year. The organization updated the information for 2016 on June 17, including the most recent information on United Way chapters that contribute to Planned Parenthood. “In addition to providing abortion services, Planned Parenthood also has an extremely effective, extremely liberal political arm, and the money funneled by United Way essentially helps support all of Planned Parenthood’s operations,” Kuykendall told The Daily Signal in an email. In 2013, United Way affiliates donated $3 million to Planned Parenthood, up from $2.6 million in 2014, according to 2nd Vote.
United Way affiliates in Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin gave over $170,000 to Planned Parenthood in 2013 and 2014. Some of these states are considered swing states, or battleground states, in the presidential election.
“2nd Vote’s research found that United Way donations to Planned Parenthood in certain swing states such as Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, [and] Virginia appeared significantly higher than others, in some cases around $100,000-$200,000 more a year,” Kuykendall said in the email to The Daily Signal, adding:
Independent expenditure reports from the FEC [Federal Election Commission] show that Planned Parenthood has funded get-out-the-vote telephone calls and mailings in opposition to Republicans and in support of Democratic candidates in these states in the past. 2nd Vote believes that donors to United Way should understand that their charitable contributions could be helping fund Planned Parenthood’s public profile in critical swing states.Last July, 2nd Vote compiled a list of companies and other organizations that directly donate to Planned Parenthood. Adobe, Avon, Exxon Mobil, and Starbucks were on the list, along with United Way.
A spokesman for United Way Worldwide said United Way has no comment beyond what the organization told The Daily Signal last summer:
United Way Worldwide, the leadership and support organization for the network of local United Ways, does not provide financial support to Planned Parenthood. All funding decisions by local United Ways are made by individual United Ways based on an assessment of local needs. United Way Worldwide does not dictate funding decisions to local United Way.“No United Way funds are currently used, or have ever been used, to support abortion services,” the United Way spokesman told The Daily Signal. “Several local United Way partners provide professional family and individual counseling services, which include professional counseling on pregnancy-related problems.”
United Way says it focuses on education, financial stability, and health in more than 1,800 communities and 40 countries around the world. The charity carries out its mission “by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good,” according to its website.
“Our work is fueled by the passion of 2.9 million volunteers and 10.3 million donors who give their time, their money and their voice to improve the lives of others,” the website says.
A United Way CEO, William Aramony, brought scandal to the organization in the 1990s when he was convicted on federal charges of embezzling more than $1 million during his 20 years leading the organization.
Affiliates Respond
“Does United Way really expect us to believe that its network of affiliates sends around $3 million every year to the world’s largest abortion provider and then, magically, those dollars have nothing to do with United Way or abortion?” 2nd Vote’s Kuykendall said, adding:
We will continue to hold United Way accountable, especially the United Way affiliates that fund Planned Parenthood, for helping to support an organization that not only performs over 300,000 abortions a year, but also advocates for an extremely liberal, anti-life political agenda.The Daily Signal sought comment from the 76 United Way affiliates that 2nd Vote found to have donated to Planned Parenthood in tax years 2013 and 2014. A total of 31 affiliates responded.
Of them, four—United Way of Greater Atlanta, United Way of Merced County Inc. in California, United Way of York County in Maine, and Aloha United Way in Hawaii—specifically confirmed making donations to Planned Parenthood.
“United Way of Greater Atlanta (UWGA) funds a number of women’s health programs that are focused on delivering quality medical care, preventive services, and health education to reduce health disparities in our community,” Shana Wood Davis, the affiliate’s senior director of corporate communications, told The Daily Signal in an email.
A spokesman for the Merced County affiliate said it funded a small, local program that worked with young men in 2013-14, but has not funded Planned Parenthood since then. The spokesman said:
However, there are instances when a donor who makes a donation to United Way will specify that their donation be directed to a specific nonprofit organization, and occasionally that organization has been Planned Parenthood. When that happens, we are obligated to honor that donor’s request and will send a check to Planned Parenthood.The York County affiliate said it gave to Planned Parenthood to support health care for men and women. Aloha United Way said its donations went toward community education and individual counseling for youth.
Defining ‘Donate’
Other United Way affiliates responded with what they see as clarifications.
“We don’t ‘donate’ funds; we manage and distribute donations sent by donors to specific health and human services agencies across the region and the state,” Deborah Bowie, president and CEO of United Way of North Central Florida, said in an email to The Daily Signal. “All funds, in fact, are donor-directed via either workplace campaigns or direct donations to a specific United Way.”
United Way of Long Island in New York said none of its unrestricted funds went to support reproductive choices. United Way of Metropolitan Nashville’s president and CEO, Eric Dewey, gave this statement to The Daily Signal:
When you donate to United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, your donation will not go to Planned Parenthood unless you specify otherwise through a donor-directed designation.2nd Vote found that United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey, located in Pennsylvania, donated over $435,000 to Planned Parenthood in tax years 2013-14.
The affiliate said it does not give Planned Parenthood general operating support. It has, however, funded specific community health programs centered on education for responsible behaviors. Individual donors also gave to Planned Parenthood through United Way’s administration of gifts through a donor choice program.
“A core guiding principle to United Way’s policy is to honor the donor’s intent based on IRS tax exempt eligibility,” Karen Mathison, president and CEO of United Way of Greater Toledo in Ohio, said in a statement to The Daily Signal.
Donor Designations
United Way of Greater Toledo and 19 other affiliates told The Daily Signal that they don’t directly fund Planned Parenthood but individual donors designate gifts to Planned Parenthood.
“Every year, a few donors specifically designate some of their giving to Planned Parenthood, and we honor all donor designations and serve as a ‘pass through’ for those funds,” a spokesman with United Way of Greater Portland in Maine said.
The affiliates that said they do not donate directly to Planned Parenthood include: Mile High United Way in Colorado; United Way of Central and Northeastern Connecticut; United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc.; United Way of East Central Iowa Inc.; United Way of Greater Kansas City in Missouri; United Way of Central Maryland Inc.; United Way of the Midlands in Nebraska; United Way of Central New Mexico; United Way of Northern Nevada and the Sierra; United Way of Central Oklahoma Inc.; United Way of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania; United Way of Greater Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania; United Way of Williamson County in Tennessee; United Way of South Hampton Roads in Virginia; United Way of Pierce County in Washington; and United Way of Greater Milwaukee.
“United Way of Delaware does not direct any organizational funds to Planned Parenthood,” Michelle A. Taylor, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement to The Daily Signal. “All donations are from individual donors who designate their contributions to Planned Parenthood.”
United Way of Delaware made combined contributions of $172,092 to Planned Parenthood in tax years 2013-14, according to 2nd Vote. “Because Planned Parenthood is a 501(c)(3) charity, we do have donors in our area who choose to give to Planned Parenthood through their paycheck. But the money Planned Parenthood receives is directly from the donor—United Way just processes it,” Stephanie R. M. Bray, president and CEO at United Way California Capital Region, told The Daily Signal in an email.
No Comment
The Daily Signal received no comment from United Way of Wayne and Holmes Counties in Ohio, which 2nd Vote says donated a total of $65,000 to Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio in 2013-14, and United Way of Greater Greensboro Inc. in North Carolina, which 2nd Vote says donated a total of $20,473 to Planned Parenthood South Atlantic in 2013-14.
United Way of Summit County in Ohio, 2nd Vote found, donated $147,632 to Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio in 2013 and $129,802 in 2014. The chapter had no comment, but said the affiliate “supports medical care services, family planning, communicable disease prevention, and health education largely aimed at very low-income, uninsured women.” The Summit County affiliate added that funds “are not currently used, or have ever been used, to support abortion services.”
“If United Way portrays itself as a ‘pass-through’ for multiple charities, shouldn’t individuals just make direct contributions to their charity of choice in the first place?” 2nd Vote’s Kuykendall said.
At the time of publication, 45 United Way affiliates had not responded to The Daily Signal.
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