53percenter's Blog

The Florida state Senate approved legislation to ban sanctuary cities that shield criminal illegal aliens from being deported, a plan that is now likely headed to Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) desk.

On Friday, the Florida state Senate passed the sanctuary city ban on a 22 to 18 vote, with only one Republican, state Sen. Anitere Flores, voting against the measure along with every elected state Senate Democrat.

The sanctuary city ban, one of DeSantis’s leading initiatives since becoming governor, comes with strict enforcement mechanisms designed to prevent localities and counties from shielding criminal illegal aliens from being deported by federal immigration officials.

For example, the plan includes a fine of $5,000 that the state can impose on a jurisdiction for every day that they have a sanctuary policy in place.

The bill passed 22-18, Florida is going to ban sanctuary cities. Congrats to @JoeGruters and @GovRonDeSantis

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) April 26, 2019

The sanctuary city ban now heads back to the state House, where it was already approved, for passage with new amendments and is likely to soon head to the desk of DeSantis to be signed into law.

Should Florida implement a sanctuary city ban, they will be only the second state with one of the largest foreign-born populations in the country to do so. The first state with a significant foreign-born population to ban sanctuary cities was Texas last year.

Today, Florida has the fourth largest foreign-born population in the county, with more than 4.1 million illegal aliens, legal immigrants, and foreign-born naturalized citizens. California, Texas, and New York continue to have the largest foreign-born populations in the county. California, a sanctuary state, has almost as many foreign-born residents as New York, Texas, and Florida combined, with more than 10.5 million illegal aliens, legal residents, and foreign-born naturalized citizens living in the state.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder. 

April 27 marks the seven-year anniversary of the first op-ed piece that I had published. Not surprisingly, the platform willing to accept something from a conservative high school senior was Breitbart. Then as now, Breitbart was willing to provide a place for otherwise unheard voices to be expressed.

The headline for that 2012 column was “Liberal Bias Starts in High School Economics Textbooks.” 

I pointed out that Krugman’s Economics for AP, written by Margaret Ray and David A. Anderson, and adapted from Paul Krugman and Robin Wells’ Economics (Second Edition), was being used as the textbook to teach the principles of economics to our supposedly best and brightest young people.

In that text, Krugman, who never met a free market he wished to remain free, dismissed the success of Ronald Reagan’s economic policies without any presentation of arguments to the contrary.  In my 2012 editorial I wrote:

Throughout the entire textbook, there are historical, factual, and statistical distortions. For example, Chapter 36 (“The modern macroeconomic consensus”) contains 16 sweeping generalizations such as: “Nearly all macroeconomists now agree… There is now a broad consensus… Today, most macroeconomists believe… Almost all macroeconomists now accept…” (pp. 355-58). None of these assertions are backed up with even a single citation. If a student were to submit an essay with such disregard for basic evidence, it would ensure a failing grade.

I enjoyed looking back at that piece and reading the brief bio line at the end that identified me as a “…high school senior who will be attending Baylor University.” It also identified me as the co-founder of SOS Liberty. I could not have imagined then that Baylor and SOS were a dream and that Turning Point USA would become my reality. Much has changed in the past seven years.

And much hasn’t changed at all.

In an April 23 article on a Powerline blog titled, AP History Textbook Calls Trump “Racist,” Questions his Mental Stability, Paul Mirengoff reports that by 2020 AP high school students will be reading from a text that characterizes the President as someone whose opponents questioned his mental health, and as someone who ran a campaign that permitted racists to come out of the American shadows.

Mirengoff exposes the textbook author’s intent in citing “Clinton supporters’” concerns about Trump as opposed to citing objective facts as “a device to plant the idea that President Trump is mentally unstable, a proposition for which there is no basis other than raw hatred of the man.”

Mirengoff’s contention reads almost exactly the same as mine offered seven years ago.

This issue has been studied over time and across curricula. In 2017, Intellectual Takeout reported on a study of psychology texts that showed political bias in  favor of team left’s politically correct models of human behavior. Historian Dr. Burton Folsom, retired from Hillsdale College in 2016, has been pointing out examples of liberal bias in textbooks all the way down to the elementary level for decades.

It is one thing for a teacher to present a set of facts to a student and then attempt to persuade them as to how they should be interpreted. While it stands opposed to the goals of education, at least this practice allows someone else to counter the teacher’s efforts in indoctrination by pointing out different conclusions that could be drawn from the facts.

When the facts themselves are misrepresented, we are dealing with a very different form of treachery. This masks the indoctrination. Consider the following two hypothetical examples, derived from my 2012 column on Krugman and Reganomics:

In the first case, a professor could make the following statement: Reagan implemented large tax cuts in the 1980s. The decade also experienced significant economic growth and an increase in tax revenue. However, neither of these events had anything to do with Regan’s tax cut and the positive economic developments happened despite Reagan.

That’s a teacher taking facts and indoctrinating his student by forcing his personal opinion on them.

Now consider this not-so-hard-to-imagine excerpt from a textbook: The 1980’s evidenced a significant growth in tax revenue and GDP despite an attempt by President Reagan to create the exact opposite effect by cutting taxes.

This is what the authors of textbooks are up to. They want to make it appear as though the teachers aren’t trying to influence the students.  They are just teaching them facts right out of the textbook! 

The best indicator that one is about to engage an intelligent mind is by finding a sign that says “open” hanging at its entrance. An open mind is one that is willing and able to accept and contemplate facts as they are presented. The surest way to trick an open mind and turn it into a closed one is to corrupt the input of facts.

This is the intent of liberal educators and textbook authors in the United States and elsewhere in Western nations today. It is the reason why all conservatives need to heed the warnings and whistle-blowing of people like Paul Mirengoff, Burt Folsom, and others.  We need to be involved in school boards and curriculum committees so that the education establishment can’t get away with the unchallenged alteration of history.

Dishonest curriculum being forced upon high school students is what motivated me to write my first op-ed piece seven years ago today. It is the reason I apparently need to keep writing.

Friday on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Harvard University law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz reiterated his position that there was no actionable obstruction of justice committed by President Donald Trump based on the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Dershowitz said Trump cannot be guilty of obstruction for performing duties allowed under his constitutional presidential powers.

“[I]n my introduction in the Mueller report, I go through the elements of obstruction of justice,” he said. “The act itself has to be illegal. It can’t be an act that is authorized under Article Two of the Constitution.”

That included the firing of then-FBI Director James Comey, he contended.

“It’s not even a close case,” Dershowitz explained. “The best analogy is president George H. W. Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger on the eve of his trial in order to stop the Iran-Contra investigation. The special prosecutor said he did it for that reason. Nobody suggested obstruction. It can’t be obstruction of justice if the president is acting within his authority. Nixon obstructed justice because he acted outside his authority, destroying evidence, paying hush money, telling his subordinates to lie to the FBI.”

Dershowitz warned Democrats, including Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), there would be consequences if Democrats continued to pursue impeachment.

“I am telling her all of the time,” he added. “She better start listening, because it’s going to come back to hurt the Democrats. I am a Democrat. I’m a liberal. I want to see the Constitution complied with, I want the Democrats to do the right thing, get back to the business of legislating.”

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

Sometimes, a few sentences tell you more about a person — and, more importantly, an ideology — than a learned thesis. That is the case with tweets from Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama two days ago in response to the mass murder of more than 300 Christians and others in Sri Lanka.

Their tweets are worth serious analysis because they reveal a great deal about the left. Of course, they reveal a great deal about Clinton and Obama, too, but that doesn’t interest me.

And that, too, is important. Many Americans — especially conservatives and “independents” — are more interested in individual politicians than in political ideologies.

Many conservatives have long been fixated on Clinton — so much so that probably any other Democrat would have defeated Donald Trump, as conservative anger specifically toward her propelled many people to the polls. Similarly, Republican Never-Trumpers are fixated on Trump rather than policy. They care more about Trump’s personal flaws than about the mortal dangers the left poses to America and the West or about the uniquely successful conservative policies Trump promulgates.

And independents all claim to vote “for the person, not the party.”

Only leftists understand that one must vote left no matter who the Democrat is, no matter who the Republican opponent is. Leftists are completely interchangeable: There is no ideological difference among the 20 or so Democrats running for president. Mayor Pete Buttigieg is not one degree to the right of Kamala Harris or Elizabeth Warren.

That is why it is important to understand Clinton and Obama’s tweets: to understand the left, not to understand her or him.

Here are the tweets:

Obama: “The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”

Three hours later, Clinton tweeted: “On this holy weekend for many faiths, we must stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attacks on Easter worshippers and travelers in Sri Lanka.”

As they both spelled “worshipers” the same idiosyncratic way and used the term “Easter worshippers,” it is likely they either had the same writers or Clinton copied Obama.

Here’s what’s critical: Neither used the word “Christians.” And in order to avoid doing so, they went so far as to make up a new term — “Easter worshippers” — heretofore unknown to any Christian.

When Jews were murdered at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Clinton mentioned the synagogue in a tweet. But in her post-Sri Lanka tweet, despite the bombing of three churches filled with Christians, Clinton made no mention of church or churches. In a tweet after the massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, she wrote that her heart broke for “the global Muslim community.” But in her latest tweet, not a word about Christians or the global Christian community.

Obama similarly wrote in his tweet about New Zealand that he was grieving with “the Muslim community” over the “horrible massacre in the Mosques.” But in his tweet about Sri Lanka, there is no mention of Christians or churches.

The reason neither of them mentioned Christians or churches is that the left has essentially forbidden mention of all the anti-Christian murders perpetrated by Muslims in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and of all the Muslim desecration of churches in Europe, Africa and anywhere else. This is part of the same phenomenon — that I and others have documented — of British police and politicians covering up six years of rape of 1,400 of English girls by Muslim “grooming gangs” in Rotherham and elsewhere in England.

Essentially, the left’s rule is that nothing bad — no matter how true — may be said about Muslims or Islam and nothing good — no matter how true — may be said of Christians or Christianity.

Clinton’s post-New Zealand tweet also included these words: “We must continue to fight the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all its forms. White supremacist terrorists must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped.”

She made sure to condemn “Islamophobia,” but she wrote not a word about the far more destructive and widespread hatred of Christians in the Muslim world, seen in Muslims’ virtual elimination of the Christian communities in the Middle East, the regular murder and kidnappings of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the murder of Christians in Nigeria. She calls on “leaders everywhere” to condemn “white supremacist terrorists,” one of the smallest hate groups on Earth, but never calls on leaders everywhere to condemn Islamist terrorists, the largest hate group on Earth.

These two tweets tell you a lot about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But far more importantly, they tell you a lot about the left.

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk show host and columnist. His latest book, published by Regnery in April 2018, is “The Rational Bible,” a commentary on the book of Exodus. He is the founder of Prager University and may be contacted at dennisprager.com.

In California, the water wars are continuing to boil.

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of … five … salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California’s farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That’s some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:

In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.

In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.

Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.

Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.

And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.

I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif), who represents some of the agricultural districts that got stiffed on the water, tweeted this:

 

Green Leftists take over California. Congratulations America you just spent $178 Million per fish and flushed millions of gallons of precious water out to the Pacific Ocean.  https://t.co/WUWKltEIU8

— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) April 27, 2019

 

$178 million per fish and that’s on the low end, not the $2 billion end.

It certainly is in line with California’s bullet train boondoggle, which saw Californians shelling out $82 million per rail mile before the entire money-eating nightmare was scrapped por ahora. But the amount spent per salmon more than double the amount spent per rail mile figure.

Salmon fishing is a rich man’s sport, well beloved of the Northern California Pacific Heights set. If they wanted salmon streams, by golly, they would get salmon streams, and cost was no object, so they did. Balancing interests was never a part of this equation. Never mind the farmers stiffed on their water or the agricultural ruin that has followed, they wanted that riffraff gone anyway, the better to make the Central Valley their rich-people recreational ground.

The history of the ill-begotten project had its roots in the machinations of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as Western notes in his piece here:

Yet a stonewall from the United States Senate blocked the flow of water to our communities. The Senate’s only offering, courtesy of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, produced zero acre-feet of water for the San Joaquin Valley.

Environmental groups have been ruthlessly effective in working to diminish Valley agriculture and, by extension, the people of the region.

Those efforts extend to the State of California, with groundwater legislation that will deliver a double dose of consequences in January 2020.

In light of that, the Public Policy Institute of California has publicly said that at least 500,000 acres must be retired from growing food and fiber.

 By a creepy coincidence, Feinstein’s water-policy man, T.J. Cox, managed to ballot-harvest his way into a congressional seat in Central Valley’s worst-hit water district, the lower western San Joaquin valley, taking the slot from the GOP’s David Valadao by less than 1,000 votes after the Republican showed a commanding 5,000-vote lead on election night. Cox, who was born in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, hasn’t condemned the boondoggle of course, and his congressional website doesn’t offer anything in the way of water to farmers (he says he’s hired a staffer connected to Feinstein who will work on it, which doesn’t sound promising, given Feinstein’s record). As for the water-starved farmers. he’s introduced for them a bill to offer easier bankruptcy proceedings, the better to get them out of there.

As for the salmon, whose interests he does represent, $178 million per fish doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.

In California, the water wars are continuing to boil.

Leftie greenies recently hailed the return of … five … salmon, swimming upstream to the San Joaquin river to spawn. Paradise restored! In water-starved California, that was quite an achievement, given that each salmon required 50,000 gallons of water to get the job done, coming at a price tag of $890 million at the low end and $2 billion at the high. And that water came out of the hides of California’s farmers, who got very little of the water they were promised, and paid for, as a result. That’s some use of resources to get those five salmon to swim upstream.

Wayne Western, Jr., at The Sun, writes how this clown show spend-fest came to be:

In 1988, then-Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) developed the first version of the Central Valley Improvement Act (CVPIA). That same year, the Natural Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit claiming that Friant Dam violated environmental laws.

In 1992, Congress pushes through the CVPIA. This action single-handedly shifted water and money from Valley farmers by driving money to environmental organizations and sending water to the ocean.

In 2006, a Settlement is reached and by 2009, the Democrat-led Congress and President Obama enact the Settlement.

Cost estimates of this effort range from $890 million to $2 billion to restore 153 miles of the river from Friant Dam to the confluence of the Merced River.

Between 250,000 and 360,000 acre-feet of water are specifically dedicated to fish habitat on the San Joaquin. Based on this week’s news, it appears to be working.

Taking the conservative cost estimate, each of the five fish caught cost taxpayers and water users $178,000,000.

And each of those fish needed 50,000 acre-feet of water per year.

I won’t even stress the cost of pumping, aquifer consequences, fallowed land, and – lest we forget – lost jobs. Many politicians aren’t either.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif), who represents some of the agricultural districts that got stiffed on the water, tweeted this:

 

Green Leftists take over California. Congratulations America you just spent $178 Million per fish and flushed millions of gallons of precious water out to the Pacific Ocean.  https://t.co/WUWKltEIU8

— Devin Nunes (@DevinNunes) April 27, 2019

 

$178 million per fish and that’s on the low end, not the $2 billion end.

It certainly is in line with California’s bullet train boondoggle, which saw Californians shelling out $82 million per rail mile before the entire money-eating nightmare was scrapped por ahora. But the amount spent per salmon more than double the amount spent per rail mile figure.

Salmon fishing is a rich man’s sport, well beloved of the Northern California Pacific Heights set. If they wanted salmon streams, by golly, they would get salmon streams, and cost was no object, so they did. Balancing interests was never a part of this equation. Never mind the farmers stiffed on their water or the agricultural ruin that has followed, they wanted that riffraff gone anyway, the better to make the Central Valley their rich-people recreational ground.

The history of the ill-begotten project had its roots in the machinations of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, as Western notes in his piece here:

Yet a stonewall from the United States Senate blocked the flow of water to our communities. The Senate’s only offering, courtesy of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, produced zero acre-feet of water for the San Joaquin Valley.

Environmental groups have been ruthlessly effective in working to diminish Valley agriculture and, by extension, the people of the region.

Those efforts extend to the State of California, with groundwater legislation that will deliver a double dose of consequences in January 2020.

In light of that, the Public Policy Institute of California has publicly said that at least 500,000 acres must be retired from growing food and fiber.

 By a creepy coincidence, Feinstein’s water-policy man, T.J. Cox, managed to ballot-harvest his way into a congressional seat in Central Valley’s worst-hit water district, the lower western San Joaquin valley, taking the slot from the GOP’s David Valadao by less than 1,000 votes after the Republican showed a commanding 5,000-vote lead on election night. Cox, who was born in the wealthy San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, hasn’t condemned the boondoggle of course, and his congressional website doesn’t offer anything in the way of water to farmers (he says he’s hired a staffer connected to Feinstein who will work on it, which doesn’t sound promising, given Feinstein’s record). As for the water-starved farmers. he’s introduced for them a bill to offer easier bankruptcy proceedings, the better to get them out of there.

As for the salmon, whose interests he does represent, $178 million per fish doesn’t seem to bother him a bit.