53percenter's Blog

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It came to my attention last spring that
a man who identifies as a woman was using the women’s facilities for my local
indoor swimming pool.

As a woman and a mom, I naturally was concerned
that my children or I could be in the presence of a man while using the women’s
locker room at the Claude Moore Recreation and Community Center in Sterling,
Virginia.

So I reached out to the pool director and
division manager of this Loudoun County government building to ask what their
policies were regarding locker room access.

That was just the beginning.

After months of asking various
authorities, I have been unable to find a single straight answer about our
neighborhood pool’s policy.

Then a few days ago, an official police report surfaced: A naked
man walking around the women’s locker room was seen peeping at a girl inside
one of the shower stalls. When recreation center staff approached the man, he
fled, and investigators are still looking for him.

I have no idea how this person
identifies. I have no idea why no one asked questions when this man entered the
women’s facilities in the first place. Most importantly, I have no idea what
would have happened if this criminal had claimed to be a woman when confronted
by staff.

While I write about this, Congress is about to vote on the Equality Act, [which would make this policy the law of the land across all 50 states.

As we move into the summer months, I already
do not feel safe taking my children to my Loudoun County pool—not just because the
peeping Tom is still at large, but because of what I discovered about our local
community center.

If I cannot be confident that my children
and I will be safe in a female-only space, where else are we supposed to go?

When I approached the director and
division manager at the pool, I was told that as of 2010, the facility granted access to private facilities on the basis of self-identified
gender.

I was told that if a woman complains
about a man in the locker room, and the man identifies as a transgender woman,
then staff would have a conversation with that person. It was unclear what
would happen after that.

When I expressed my dismay about this
ambiguous policy, the director asked me point-blank: “How much privacy do you
need?”

I could only blink at him. I was
speechless.

As I paused, he told me there are “partitioned
areas” and each shower is curtained off individually.

That made my blood boil. So I told him:

“Have you ever been in a woman’s locker
room? No? Well, let me tell you how it works.

“Little kids are annoying—they will come
under the stall doors of the toilets and open the doors while you are using
them. They will pull open the shower curtains while you’re in there.

“And trying to get dressed in a slippery
shower or a bathroom stall—where there are not adequate shelves to keep your
stuff from falling onto the floor or into the toilet—is impractical. So my
family and I put our stuff on a bench in the open area where it’s much drier
with more room to move.

“I don’t like to undress in front of
everyone, so I will wrap myself in a towel and try to get dressed that way. But
I know that if the towel does slip, it’s not a big deal, because it’s only
other women and small children in there. Never mind that the shower curtains
and stall partitions often allow for glimpses of the people behind them anyway.

“But now you are telling me that my
children or I could have to share this sensitive space with a man?”

The director and division manager said
they would take my concerns to their boss. I never heard back.

When I sent a follow-up email, I was told
that staff were busy and would respond soon. I have not heard anything since.

So I took matters into my own hands. That
summer, I stood before the Loudoun County School Board and shared my concerns
about gender identity policies. Then I emailed the county government to ask for
clarification about the policy, but received no answer.

I hope that authorities find the man who victimized
that poor girl at our local pool. Regardless of whether he identifies as a man
or a woman, my search to find answers about what to do in situations like these
has taught me something.

Under a gender identity policy like the
one at our pool, I no longer can trust that authorities in my hometown will
prioritize my needs and those of my children when we are in supposed safe
spaces for women.

Before this policy took effect, I cannot
imagine having been asked by an authority figure how much privacy I needed from
men’s bodies and men’s glances, and then lectured on how much privacy ought to
be sufficient.

The way this gender identity policy has
changed my hometown is subtle, but comes with real consequences.

Now Congress is considering the Equality Act, [a dangerous bill that would make this policy the law of the land across all 50 states.

If the legislation passes, women across
the country will find themselves in the same situation as my family and
me—unable to trust that the responsible authorities will fight for our privacy
and safety.

Don’t be fooled by the rhetoric. This is
not equality; this is unfair to women.

Don’t be afraid to speak out.

The post Men Already Enter the Women’s Locker Room at My Local Pool. Now Congress Could Make It Worse. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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For the media, particularly its rabid feminist cohort, Alabama’s near-total abortion ban on May 15 is a major step towards the death of democracy. In the eyes of rabid New York Times Feminist columnists like Jill Filipovic, forcing a woman to complete their pregnancy is an painful imposition, one that should require equal payment on the part of men: that is, having “a half inch cut off from your penis with every [pregnancy.]”
 

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First of all, what is this guy doing in the United States?

Uber and Lyft hired a Somali Muslim war criminal who is currently living in Virginia, to shuttle passengers around.

Yusuf Abdi Ali is accused of torture and directing mass executions and he was not only allowed to enter the US, but he’s listed on Uber’s app as an “Uber Pro Diamond” driver with a 4.89 rating, reported CNN.

Ali’s dangerous past is easy to find — all it takes is Googling his name, but apparently this was too much work for Uber and he worked as one of their ride-hailing drivers for 18 months.

Via CNN:

“I do this full time,” said Ali, who drives in suburban Virginia. He explained that he prefers to drive during weekends because “that’s where the money is.”

Ali said he has driven for Lyft, too, but he prefers working for Uber. His white Nissan Altima had only an Uber sticker on it. Asked if the application process was difficult, Ali replied that it was a breeze.

“They just want your background check, that’s it,” said Ali, who was unaware that undercover CNN reporters were riding with him and recording the trip on video. “If you apply tonight maybe after two days it will come, you know, everything.”

Ali’s work as a ride-share driver raises new questions about the thoroughness of Uber and Lyft’s background check process and the ease with which some people with controversial pasts can get approved to drive.

CNN previously reported that Uber and Lyft have approved thousands of people who should have been disqualified because of criminal records. Some of those Uber drivers have included a murderer on parole and a convicted felon who was later convicted for sexually assaulting an Uber passenger.

Both Uber and Lyft have since suspended Yusuf Abdi Ali as a driver.

What was Ali doing before he drove for Uber? He was working as a security agent at Dulles International Airport. Had enough yet, America?

Notice CNN is only concerned that Ali is driving for Uber and doesn’t ask how or why the US govt permitted this dangerous war criminal to enter the US.

WATCH:

Uber and Lyft approved alleged war criminal to drive

He’s accused of war crimes and torture, but he drove for more than 18 months, raising questions about the thoroughness of the background check process https://t.co/XDEa9eAvoI pic.twitter.com/y7zY17hAaq

— CNN (@CNN) May 14, 2019

The post Uber and Lyft Hire Somali Muslim Driver Accused of War Crimes, Torture and Attempted Murder appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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The Interior Department will publicly list attorneys’ fees paid out, often to environmental activist groups, for legal settlements, according to a recent memo from Principal Deputy Solicitor Daniel Jorjani.

Jorjani’s memo states the Interior Department will develop a webpage within 30 days to publicly list details of legal settlements and cases, which the agency says is a big step in bringing sunshine to a nontransparent practice that the public is largely unaware is happening.

“This is a big deal that will shed light on the millions of dollars the DOI pays out every year in attorneys’ fees” under federal laws, an Interior Department official said in an email.

“This is your tax money and only by shining a light on this process can you decide if it is being put to good use,” the official said.

The memo was signed May 10, but made public Wednesday. Jorjani issued the memo in response to a 2018 order from Interior Secretary David Bernhardt while he served former Secretary Ryan Zinke’s No. 2. Zinke resigned earlier this year and has since been replaced by Bernhardt as head of the Interior Department.

Environmental groups have been particularly successful using “citizen suits” to sue the federal government into taking an action, then getting taxpayers to pay their attorneys’ fees. A 2016 Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found federal agencies paid out $49 million for 512 citizen suits filed under three major environmental laws during the Obama administration.

Those laws—the Clean Air Act , the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act—allow certain groups to recoup attorneys’ fees, which can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per case.

There’s also the Equal Access to Justice Act, which was enacted in 1980 to help people, small businesses, and groups recoup the costs of defending their rights in court. Groups can get Equal Access to Justice Act attorneys’ fees awarded by suing under environmental laws.

The Equal Access to Justice Act caps what agencies can pay out for attorneys’ fees at roughly $200 per hour, and the law stipulates payments should only go to individuals or groups with a net worth under $7 million.

The Interior Department is a frequent target of environmental litigation. Groups often sue under the Endangered Species Act to get the agency to, for example, consider listing a species. When litigation ends, environmentalists can get their attorneys’ fees paid at taxpayer expense.

The group Earthjustice, for example, raked in more than $2.3 million from taxpayers suing the Interior Department under the Endangered Species Act, The Daily Caller News Foundation found in 2016. Earthjustice is also financially well-endowed—the group’s net assets totaled $68 million in 2015.

Another group, the Center for Biological Diversity, has sued the Trump administration alone more than 100 times, including to stop the building of a southern border wall. The center has also won attorneys’ fees from the Interior Department despite having $19 million in net assets as of 2016.

Often “citizen suits” result in federal agencies, like the Interior Department, taking more regulatory actions favored by environmental activists. Critics say such lawsuits allow activists to profit off pushing their agenda in the courts.

“EAJA was never intended to be used to make a profit from suing the federal government, but only as an attorneys’ fees reimbursement for small businesses and individuals who have to sue the federal government to protect their rights,” the Interior official said.

The Department of Treasury’s Judgment Fund database tracks what federal agencies pay out in attorneys’ fees for legal settlements, but it suffers from many shortcomings.

For example, The Daily Caller News Foundation found the database doesn’t always record the plaintiffs’ names or their legal counsel. Half the payments made to plaintiffs under the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws between 2009 and 2015 went to unnamed law firms, The Daily Caller News Foundation found.

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post Trump Admin Will ‘Shed Light’ on a Secretive Practice That Costs Taxpayers Millions of Dollars appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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FBI Headquarters, D.C.
(Getty Images, Mark Wilson)

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President Trump on Thursday will lay out a new immigration plan that would push the United States toward the kind of merit-based system many other nations use to control who comes into their countries.

The proposal wouldn’t change the number of immigrants who come into America or illegal immigration, but would seek to change who comes into the U.S. Trump will announce the new plan at 2:30 p.m. today in the White House Rose garden.

Under the new proposal, the number of immigrants admitted into the country based on job skills would rise from 12% to 57%. In order to make room for more merit-based immigrants, the percentage of people allowed entry because they have family here would drop from 66% to 33%. In addition, the number allowed in via claims of asylum would also be cut, from 22% to 10%.

“During the last couple years I’ve heard a lot of people try to explain the president’s immigration policy,” a senior White House official told reprtoers at the White House, Politico reported. “And a lot of what people say is not reflective of what he says to his team and to us. What we have put together is the president’s immigration policy.”

The number of legal immigrants, though, would stay the same at about 1.1 million every year.

“If you look at our immigration system, it’s basically a coat of paint on top of a coat of paint on top of a coat of paint — what we want to do is sand it down,” a senior administration official told about two dozen reporters at the White House on Wednesday, The Washington Examiner reported.

The plan calls for elimination of the diversity lottery system, that currently admits about 55,000 people a year from underrepresented countries, and the streamlining of the asylum system. Family unification will prioritize spousal and parental relationships, another long-held Trump priority.

The proposal calls for three high-skilled immigrant categories, recognizing extraordinary talent, professional and specialized vocations, and exceptional students. Applicants in each category would gain points if they achieve certain benchmarks, such as passing U.S. civics and English proficiency tests, a health screen, and a criminal background check.

The points system would also reward offers of employment, youth, and educational and vocational certifications. There additionally would be points awarded for “diversity” to those from countries with historically low rates of immigration, though that qualification alone would not allow for entry.

“We think this is all very pro-immigrant, moving away from the Byzantine bureaucratic system that we have today and instead laying out very clear objectives and metrics as a country. You want to come to the U.S.? Here are the markers you have to hit, and we think they are all pretty attainable,” one official told reporters.

Another official said Trump has been personally involved in the planning, the Washington Post reported. “‘This is his proposal,’ said a senior administration official who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. ‘He’s been intimately involved in crafting it. We’ve shown him kind of where some of the criticism might come from on the right, and his response is, ‘I’m happy to talk to them and I’ll convince them of why this is the right thing.’ ”

While Democrats control the House and some political pundits say the new plan will be dead on arrival, Rep. Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican and House Minority Whip, said the proposal may find some moderate Democratic supporters. And he said the system now is highly flawed.

“Right now, we’ve got some of the dumbest laws on the books. If we educate somebody in America to be a computer scientist or engineer … we force them to leave the country to compete against us, while we’ve got the ‘visa lottery’…” Scalise said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”

“Why don’t we flip that narrative?” Scalise said.

 

 

The post Trump To Unveil New Merit-Based Immigration Plan Today appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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The New York attorney general’s office is trying to use a whistleblower defense to keep emails between their office and a third-party attorney sealed and out of public view, despite the person at issue’s active efforts to persuade governments across the country to sue large energy producers.

Last October, then-New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood filed suit against Exxon alleging the company had misled its investors by not disclosing future risks the company might face due to climate change.

Exxon is hoping emails can be made public between the attorney general’s office (OAG) and outside attorney Matt Pawa, who has been a leading figure in the effort to convince government agencies to pursue lawsuits against companies like ExxonMobil, BP, and Chevron.

"As ExxonMobil is well aware, the publication of such documents [from Pawa] will discourage other third parties and potential whistleblowers from communicating information about potential wrongdoing or illegality," lawyers with the New York OAG wrote in a court filing.

However, media reports and filings from other court cases show Pawa is an eager and willing participant in efforts to initiate legal action against energy producers, as has happened now with cities such as San Francisco, and states like Rhode Island.

A judge "signed off on findings of fact that document the role Matt Pawa, an attorney at Hagens Berman, had in pushing a strategy unveiled in 2012 at a conference in California," a Forbes report from last year noted.

During the 2012 conference just mentioned, "participants discussed strategies to ‘[w]in [a]cess to [i]nternal [d]ocuments’ of energy companies, like ExxonMobil, that could be used to obtain leverage over these companies," the judge determined.

The emails in question have been turned over to Exxon as a part of discovery, but under seal. The company is asking the judge to remove the seal so it would be able to refile the documents and thereby put them into the public domain.

Apart from the strategy of suing energy producers, Pawa has also been a force behind the broader #ExxonKnew campaign, which has tried to undermine the company’s reputation by alleging that its corporate scientists knew as early as the late 1970s and early 1980s about climate change and engaged in a cover-up and propaganda effort to hide culpability.

Wonderful gathering of legal & NGO folks at #COP21 side event on #ExxonKnew. Thanks to all who attended. Huge mo! pic.twitter.com/P20xpBguU3

— Matt Pawa (@MattPawa) December 9, 2015

Further evidence that Pawa has collaborated with state attorneys general stems from a March 2016 meeting in which 17 AGs, as well as former vice president Al Gore, were briefed on legal strategies the state top lawyers could use based on the notion that Exxon misled the public about climate change.

After the meeting, then-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Gore, and others conducted a lengthy press conference announcing their intentions.

"I thank you for joining us here today for what we believe and hope will mark a significant milestone in our collective efforts to deal with the problem of climate change, and put our heads together and put our offices together to try and take the most coordinated approach yet undertaken by states to deal with this most pressing issue of our time," Schneiderman said.

Emails later revealed that Pawa was a presenter to the AGs behind closed doors at that meeting in New York prior to the press conference, something Pawa later tried to keep from being discovered.

One of those emails shows a Wall Street Journal reporter contacted Pawa the next day and inquired about his attendance.

"I may not even talk to her at all but if I do I obviously will have no comment on anything discussed at the meeting," Pawa wrote to someone inside the New York attorney general’s office as he sought guidance on the matter. "What should I say if she asks if I attended? No comment? Let me know."

"My ask is if you speak to a reporter, to not confirm that you attended or otherwise discuss the event," the lawyer replied to Pawa.

Other emails obtained via open records requests by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in D.C. show a wealthy Democratic donor reaching out to the Illinois attorney general’s office to arrange a presentation by Pawa in the spring of 2016.

Requests for comment to the New York attorney general’s office as well as to Pawa were not returned.

The post NY AG’s Office Hiding Climate Activist’s Emails Behind Whistleblower Defense appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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On Wednesday’s MTP Daily, host Chuck Todd cited two polls suggesting the public was mostly supportive of abortion. By contrast, a couple of days earlier when Steve Kornacki was fill in host for the same show, he was more accurate in admitting that polling can also be found that suggests most Americans oppose abortion.

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