53percenter's Blog

This week, socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) endorsed a plan that would allow felons serving time behind bars the right to vote from their prison cells.

“So, I believe people who commit crimes, they pay the price and they get out of jail, they certainly should have the right to vote,” Sanders said during a town hall. “But, I believe even if they are in jail, they’re paying the price to society, but that should not take away their inherent American right to participate in our democracy.”

Initially, Sen. Kamala Harris said, “I think we should have that conversation” when asked about allowing convicted criminals to vote from their cells, but she has since backtracked on that statement, declaring that she actually opposes giving felons in prison the right to vote.

“Do I think that people who commit murder and people who are terrorists should be deprived of their rights, yes I do,” Harris said.

During a rally in Houston, Texas, on Wednesday, Sanders doubled down on giving all incarcerated felons the right to vote from prison, comparing the plan to giving women and black Americans the right to vote.

“If you are a citizen, you have the right to vote. And that is a right we must protect because we know the history of this country, we know that women didn’t have the right to vote,” Sanders said. “We know that African-Americans didn’t have the right to vote.”

“Being an American citizen and having the right to vote is something that we must never, ever give up on,” Sanders said.

In total, the Sanders-endorsed plan would allow more than 1.6 million felons in federal, state, and local prisons the right to vote from their cells — including some 183,000 convicted murderers and 164,000 convicted rapists.

Here, Breitbart News details 15 famous serial killers, murderers, rapists, kidnappers, and child sex abusers who would be allowed to vote from their cells under Sanders’ plan:

Dylann Roof — Charleston Mass Murderer

This June 18, 2015, file photo, provided by the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office shows Dylann Roof. Court documents unsealed Friday, Nov. 11, 2016, in the federal death penalty trial of Dylann Roof indicate the judge believes it’s possible the white man charged with gunning down nine black parishioners may not be mentally competent to stand trial. (Charleston County Sheriff’s Office via AP, File)

White supremacist and mass murderer Dylann Roof, 25-years-old, was convicted in January 2017 and sentenced to death after being found guilty on 18 counts of murder for killing nine black Americans in the AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, on June 2015.

Roof is currently on death row at Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — Boston Marathon Bomber

This file photo released April 19, 2013, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted of carrying out the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing attack that killed three people and injured more than 260. Tsarnaev has been on federal death row since his 2015 conviction, and at age 24 is being held in 2018 at the supermax prison in Florence, Colo. Jurors approved death by lethal injection, but years of appeals await. (FBI via AP, File)

Terrorist Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a 25-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen, was convicted in May 2015 and sentenced to death after being found guilty of placing a pressure cooker bomb at the Boston Marathon in April 2013 to murder three Americans and injure more than 260 others.

Tsarnaev is currently on death row at a supermax federal prison in Florence, Colorado.

Larry Nassar — Child Molester of Olympic Athletes

In this Nov. 22, 2017, file photo, Larry Nassar, a sports doctor accused of molesting girls while working for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University appears in court in Lansing, Mich., where he pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sexual assault. Michigan lawmakers on Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2018, advanced more bills inspired by the Nassar sexual abuse case – voting to ease the prosecution of alleged abusers, stiffen child pornography penalties and let more people speak at sentencings under certain circumstances. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)

Serial child molester Dr. Larry Nassar, 55-years-old, was convicted in January 2018 and sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison after being found guilty of sexually molesting and abusing more than 150 young girls on the U.S. Olympic Gymnastic Team as well as other girls.

In many cases, victims described how Nassar would molest them while their parents were in the room. Nassar is currently serving his sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary Coleman II, a high-security federal prison.

James Alex Fields Jr. — Charlottesville Car Attacker 

This undated file photo provided by the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail shows James Alex Fields Jr., convicted of first-degree murder for driving his car into counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia. A sentencing hearing has been delayed for Fields. A sentencing hearing was originally scheduled for March 29. But an online court docket entry shows the hearing has been postponed until July 15. (Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail via AP, File)

White supremacist murderer James Alex Fields Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison after driving his car into a crowd of people at a counter-protest to the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally. Fields, the jury found, had revved up and driven his car into the crowd that ultimately left 32-year-old Heather Heyer dead and multiple others injured.

It is unclear which state prison Fields is serving his life sentence.

Jodi Arias — Murderous Ex-Girlfriend 

This undated file photo provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections shows Jodi Arias. Arias is asking an appeals court to overturn her murder conviction in the 2008 death of her former boyfriend, saying a prosecutor’s misconduct and a judge’s failure to control news coverage during the salacious case deprived her of the right to a fair trial. In the appeal released Friday, July 6, 2018, Arias’ lawyers said prosecutor Juan Martinez improperly questioned witnesses, ignored rulings on evidence and courted news coverage. (Arizona Department of Corrections via AP, File)

First-degree murderer Jodi Arias, 38 years old, was convicted in 2013 and sentenced in 2015 to life in prison for murdering her ex-boyfriend, 30-year-old Travis Alexander, in a brutal attack at his Mesa, Arizona, home. Arias, the jury concluded, had stabbed Alexander up to 30 times, slit his throat, and shot him in the head while he was in the shower.

Arias is currently serving her life sentence at the Arizona State Prison Complex.

Brian David Mitchell — Elizabeth Smart’s Kidnapper

This Feb. 17, 2005 file photo shows Brian David Mitchell entering court for a competency hearing in Salt Lake City. Prosecutors have asked a judge to dismiss state charges against Elizabeth Smart’s kidnapper, Mitchell, after the man was convicted in federal court and sentenced to life in prison. (AP Photo/Douglas C. Pizac, File)

Kidnapper and child rapist Brian David Mitchell was convicted in May 2011 and sentenced to life in prison for abducting, raping, and holding then-14-year-old Elizabeth Smart captive between 2002 and 2003. Mitchell kidnapped Smart in June 2002 from her Salt Lake City, Utah, home and held her against her will in wooded encampments and often raped her multiple times a day.

Mitchell is currently serving his life sentence at U.S. Penitentiary, Tucson in Tucson, Arizona.

Darren Deon Vann — The Gary, Indiana, Strangler 

This file photo provided by the Lake County, Ind., Sheriff’s Department shows Darren Vann, of Gary, Ind. Vann, a former Marine who admitted to killing seven women in a plea deal with Indiana prosecutors, was sentenced Friday, May 25, 2018, to seven life sentences. In entering the plea deal, Vann was spared a death sentence. (Lake County Sheriff’s Department via AP, File)

Serial killer Darren Deon Vann was convicted in May 2018 and sentenced to life in prison for murdering seven women across Indiana in the year 2014. Vann admitted in his plea deal that he strangled each of the women to death after having sex with them and left six of the seven women’s dead bodies in abandoned homes in Indiana.

Vann’s youngest victim, Afrikka Hardy, was just 19 years old. At the time of her murder, Vann left Hardy’s body in the bathtub of a Motel 6 in Hammond, Indiana. It is unclear where Vann is serving his life sentence.

Lyle and Erik Menendez — The Menendez Brothers

An Oct. 31, 2016 photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Erik Menendez, left, and a Feb. 22, 2018 photo provided by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shows Lyle Menendez. The Menendez brothers, who were convicted of killing their parents in their Beverly Hills mansion nearly three decades ago, have been reunited in the Southern California prison San Diego’s R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility. The brothers are serving life sentences for fatally shooting their parents, Jose, and Kitty Menendez, in 1989. (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation via AP)

Murderers Lyle and Erik Menendez, 50 and 47 years old, were convicted in 1989 and sentenced each to life in prison for murdering their wealthy parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez. In their famous murder trial, the jury ultimately found that Lyle and Erik had shot and killed their parents with a shotgun in their Beverly Hills, California, home.

The Menendez brothers alleged that they murdered their parents because their father had sexually abused Erik for years, and they worried that if the alleged abuse became public knowledge, their parents would have killed them.

The Menendez brothers are both serving their life sentences at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California.

Lonnie David Franklin Jr. — The Grim Sleeper 

In this Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 file photo Lonnie Franklin Jr. appears for an arraignment on multiple charges as the alleged “Grim Sleeper” killer, in Los Angeles Superior Court. Police investigators say eight more women may be linked to the “Grim Sleeper” serial killings of women and girls shot or strangled since 1985. A county grand jury last month indicted 58-year-old Lonnie Franklin Jr. for 10 killings. (AP Pool/Nick Ut)

Serial killer Lonnie David Franklin Jr., 66 years old, was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to death for murdering ten women, one of which was a teenage girl, between 1985 and 2007. Dubbed the “Grim Sleeper” because he allegedly did not commit any murders between 1988 and 2002, Franklin Jr. may have murdered at least 25 women, according to prosecutors.

In one of Franklin Jr.’s brutal killings, he murdered 25-year-old Janecia Peters on New Year’s Day in 2007 and put her body in a trash bag, then disposed of her remains by placing her in a garbage bin.

Franklin Jr. is now serving his death sentence at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, California.

Drew Peterson — Wife-Killer 

This undated file photo provided by the Illinois Department of Corrections shows former Bolingbrook, Ill., police officer Drew Peterson. The Bolingbrook Police Pension Board voted unanimously Wednesday, June 1, 2016 to end Peterson’s $79,000-a-year pension. Peterson was convicted of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio, and then convicted of trying to hire someone to kill the prosecutor in that case. His attorneys say the pension money supports two of his children. (Illinois Department of Corrections via AP, File)

Murderer Drew Peterson, 65 years old, was convicted and sentenced to 38 years in prison in 2013 after murdering his third wife, Kathleen Savio, in 2004. According to prosecutors, Peterson drowned Savio in her bathtub following their divorce. The case swept national headlines in 2007 when Peterson’s fourth wife, Stacy Peterson, went missing and has still never been found.

Peterson, most recently, was sentenced to an additional 40 years in prison for attempting to carry out a murder plot against Will County, Illinois, attorney James Glasgow who helped convict the wife-killer.

Peterson is currently serving his sentence at the Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana.

Phillip Greg Garrido and Nancy Garrido — Jaycee Dugard’s Captors

Phillip Garrido (left) and Nancy Garrido (right) were both convicted for abducting and holding Jaycee Dugard against her will at their home for 18 years. (AP Photos/Rich Pedroncelli)

Captors Phillip Greg Garrido and Nancy Garrido, 68 and 63 years old, were convicted in 2011 after holding Jaycee Dugard against her will in a tent in their backyard for nearly 20 years. Phillip Garrido, who kidnapped Dugard when she was 11 years old in 1991, was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and raping the girl.

Nancy Garrido received a sentence of 36 years to life in prison for aiding in Dugard’s kidnapping and rapes. California officials did not find Dugard until 2009 living the Garridos’ backyard with her two daughters whom she had by Phillip Garrido.

Phillip Garrido is serving his sentence at the California State Prison in Corcoran, California, and Nancy Garrido is serving her sentence at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, California.

Gary Ridgway — The Green River Killer

Green River Killer Gary Ridgway listens during his arraignment on charges of murder in the 1982 death of Rebecca “Becky” Marrero, Friday, Feb. 18, 2011, at the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent., Wash. Ridgway already confessed to killing Marrero as part of a 2003 plea deal that spared him the death penalty. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Serial killer Gary Ridgway, 70-years-old, was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to life in prison after murdering at least 49 women in a nearly 20-year span between 1982 and 2003. Ridgway became known as the “Green River Killer” because he would dump his victims’ bodies near the Green River in the Seattle area after strangling them to death.

In many cases, prosecutors said Ridgway would return to his victims’ bodies after killing them and rape them. Ridgway has confessed to murdering at least 70 women — more victims than any other serial killer in American history.

Ridgway is currently serving his life sentence at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla County, Washington.

Bill Cosby — Hollywood’s Serial Sexual Assaulter

This Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, photo provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections shows Bill Cosby after he was sentenced to three to 10-years for sexual assault. (Pennsylvania Department of Corrections via AP)

Serial sexual assaulter Bill Cosby, the famed 81-year-old actor and comedian, was convicted and sentenced to three to ten years in prison last year after drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, home in 2004.

In total, more than 60 women have said they were sexually assaulted by Cosby throughout the course of his career. His alleged victims have called him a “serial rapist” who led a “double life as a sexual predator.”

Cosby is currently serving his sentence at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Pennsylvania.

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

Nearly 100,000 illegal alien teenagers are graduating from American high schools every year, new research concludes.

The latest study from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) reveals the growing number of illegal alien teenagers who are enrolled and graduating from U.S. high schools. Researchers find that about 98,000 illegal aliens every year graduate from high schools across the country.

Close to 30,000 of those illegal aliens, annually, are graduating from high schools in the sanctuary state of California which has the largest illegal alien population, totaling at least 2.2 million. About 27 percent of all illegal aliens graduating high school every year are doing so in California, researchers found.

(Migration Policy Institute)

Similarly, in Texas and Florida, each with significant foreign-born and illegal populations, have thousands of illegal alien high school graduates every year. In Texas, about 17,000 illegal aliens graduate from high school every year while Florida graduates about 5,000 illegal alien high schoolers annually.

New York, New Jersey, and Illinois each graduate about 4,000 illegal aliens from high school every year. Overall, 15 states are home to more than 80 percent of all illegal alien high school graduates.

As Breitbart News recently reported, current illegal immigration levels could bring more than one million child border crossers to the United States before the 2020 presidential election, researcher Steven Kopits has detailed.

Every year, the U.S. admits more than 1.5 million illegal and legal immigrants, with more than 70 percent arriving through the process known as “chain migration,” where newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the country. In 2017, the foreign-born population reached a record high of 44.5 million.

By 2023, the Center for Immigration Studies estimates that the legal and illegal immigrant population of the U.S. will make up nearly 15 percent of the entire U.S. population.

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

Immigration to the United States is now driving nearly half of all population growth in the country instead of increased birth rates, the U.S. Census Bureau finds.

The latest Census Bureau estimates on the U.S. population reveal that about 48.5 percent of all population growth is driven by the country’s mass illegal and legal immigration policy, where more than 1.5 million foreign nationals are admitted to the country every year.

Axios analysis by Stef Knight details the growing share to which immigration is increasingly driving population growth across the U.S. Since 2011, for example, the level to which immigration has accounted for overall population growth has increased more than 13 percent.

According to the Wall Street Journal analysis, about nine percent of U.S. counties are growing solely because of immigration. This concludes that about nine percent of counties have regional birth rates that do not exceed the annual number of deaths in the area.

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal notes, more than half of all population growth in states like Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Kansas, and Michigan, among others, is because of immigration.

Though pundits have claimed that the country’s admittance of 1.2 million legal immigrants a year is necessary to increase birth rates, researchers have found that the growth of the immigrant population has little impact on birth rates.

Center for Immigration Studies Director of Research Steven Camarota discovered in his latest study this year that “immigrant fertility has only a small impact on the nation’s overall birth rate,” citing that immigrants in the U.S. raise the nation’s birth rate for all women by two births per 1,000 women.

“Immigration has a minor impact because the difference between immigrant and native fertility is too small to significantly change the nation’s overall birth rate,” Camarota noted in the study.

At current legal immigration levels, the U.S. population is set to hit an unprecedented 404 million residents by 2060 — including a foreign-born population of 69 million.

The U.S. does not have to rapidly increase its total resident population and foreign-born population, as legal immigration moratoriums have been implemented in the past to give time for new arrivals to properly assimilate to American life. Halting all immigration to the country would stabilize the population to a comfortable 329 million residents in the next four decades.

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

The 3.2% economic growth rate for the first quarter, reported as the “advanced estimate” by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday, caught everyone by surprise. During both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the average quarterly economic growth rate was only 1.9% per year. But during the nine quarters that Trump has been president, the economic growth rate has averaged 2.8% per year, almost a full percentage point higher. 

Anybody who wants to know how the American economy would look today if someone espousing policies like Obama’s were still president only need peek over our northern border. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stayed in Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and in Obama’s Paris Climate Accord, despite Trump pulling the U.S. out of both agreements. And, how has Canada been doing? Just 1.6% GDP growth over the latest year and 0.1% growth during the latest quarter!

Middle Class Income

Whenever GDP grows, American income grows at about the same rate. But income growth is not evenly distributed. At the end of the Bush presidency, median household income (after subtracting for inflation) was at about the same level as before Bush took office.

When running for office in 2008, Obama correctly claimed that the rich were getting richer, but those in the middle class were not benefiting. So how did the middle class do under Obama? Again, median household income failed to grow.

In January 2017, after the presidencies of both Bush and Obama, median household income (after subtracting for inflation) was actually 1.3% lower than it had been in January 2000. (Our statistics for median household income come from Sentier Research, which has been calculating and graphing household income as it unfolds.)

How is Trump doing with middle class income? Very well! Median household income has risen at a 2.5% annual clip since Trump became president, approximately the same rate that GDP has been growing. In fact, median household income is now higher than ever before. How is Trump doing it?

Trade and Climate Policies

Trump’s success is largely due to reversing the lousy trade and climate policies of his predecessors. Economists have estimated that the impact of Bill Clinton’s decision to let China into the World Trade Organization alone cost millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

When other countries adopted tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and manipulated exchange rates, Bush and Obama let them. As a result, many well-paying middle-class manufacturing jobs moved abroad, hurting middle-income wage earners.

In contrast, President Trump has applied tariffs, threatened tariffs, and renegotiated trade agreements to balance trade and bring factories to the U.S. As a result, factories have been springing up and expanding, employing middle-income wage earners with good-paying jobs.

Take South Korea, for example. Bush and Obama negotiated a “free trade agreement” with South Korea which went into effect in 2012. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services with South Korea tripled from $5.4 billion in 2011 to $16.6 billion in 2016. In 2018, Trump renegotiated that agreement. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services with South Korea went down to $5.3 billion in 2018.

To his credit, Bush kept the United States out of international climate agreements. Not so with Obama. He was the chief negotiator behind the “Paris Climate Accord” which required that developed countries severely reduce their carbon emissions, but let “undeveloped” countries (including China) continue to increase their carbon emissions. The easily extrapolated consequence would be the movement of even more American factories abroad.

Presidents Bush and Obama proved to the American people that unilateral free trade and unbalanced climate agreements don’t help the middle class. Together, they presided over slow GDP growth and a slight decline in median household income (after subtracting for inflation). In contrast, President Trump’s policies are producing rapid GDP growth and making the American middle class more prosperous than ever before.

The Richmans co-authored the 2014 book Balanced Trade published by Lexington Books, and the 2008 book Trading Away Our Future published by Ideal Taxes Association.

The 3.2% economic growth rate for the first quarter, reported as the “advanced estimate” by the Bureau of Economic Analysis on Friday, caught everyone by surprise. During both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, the average quarterly economic growth rate was only 1.9% per year. But during the nine quarters that Trump has been president, the economic growth rate has averaged 2.8% per year, almost a full percentage point higher. 

Anybody who wants to know how the American economy would look today if someone espousing policies like Obama’s were still president only need peek over our northern border. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stayed in Obama’s Trans Pacific Partnership trade agreement and in Obama’s Paris Climate Accord, despite Trump pulling the U.S. out of both agreements. And, how has Canada been doing? Just 1.6% GDP growth over the latest year and 0.1% growth during the latest quarter!

Middle Class Income

Whenever GDP grows, American income grows at about the same rate. But income growth is not evenly distributed. At the end of the Bush presidency, median household income (after subtracting for inflation) was at about the same level as before Bush took office.

When running for office in 2008, Obama correctly claimed that the rich were getting richer, but those in the middle class were not benefiting. So how did the middle class do under Obama? Again, median household income failed to grow.

In January 2017, after the presidencies of both Bush and Obama, median household income (after subtracting for inflation) was actually 1.3% lower than it had been in January 2000. (Our statistics for median household income come from Sentier Research, which has been calculating and graphing household income as it unfolds.)

How is Trump doing with middle class income? Very well! Median household income has risen at a 2.5% annual clip since Trump became president, approximately the same rate that GDP has been growing. In fact, median household income is now higher than ever before. How is Trump doing it?

Trade and Climate Policies

Trump’s success is largely due to reversing the lousy trade and climate policies of his predecessors. Economists have estimated that the impact of Bill Clinton’s decision to let China into the World Trade Organization alone cost millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

When other countries adopted tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and manipulated exchange rates, Bush and Obama let them. As a result, many well-paying middle-class manufacturing jobs moved abroad, hurting middle-income wage earners.

In contrast, President Trump has applied tariffs, threatened tariffs, and renegotiated trade agreements to balance trade and bring factories to the U.S. As a result, factories have been springing up and expanding, employing middle-income wage earners with good-paying jobs.

Take South Korea, for example. Bush and Obama negotiated a “free trade agreement” with South Korea which went into effect in 2012. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services with South Korea tripled from $5.4 billion in 2011 to $16.6 billion in 2016. In 2018, Trump renegotiated that agreement. As a result, the U.S. trade deficit in goods and services with South Korea went down to $5.3 billion in 2018.

To his credit, Bush kept the United States out of international climate agreements. Not so with Obama. He was the chief negotiator behind the “Paris Climate Accord” which required that developed countries severely reduce their carbon emissions, but let “undeveloped” countries (including China) continue to increase their carbon emissions. The easily extrapolated consequence would be the movement of even more American factories abroad.

Presidents Bush and Obama proved to the American people that unilateral free trade and unbalanced climate agreements don’t help the middle class. Together, they presided over slow GDP growth and a slight decline in median household income (after subtracting for inflation). In contrast, President Trump’s policies are producing rapid GDP growth and making the American middle class more prosperous than ever before.

The Richmans co-authored the 2014 book Balanced Trade published by Lexington Books, and the 2008 book Trading Away Our Future published by Ideal Taxes Association.

The recent fire in Notre Dame Cathedral has highlighted the attempts of the powerful to control the news.

The Paris prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, has decided the fire was “likely accident, not arson.”  When reporting his decision, it is easy to eliminate the word “likely” for the sake of brevity. (Please excuse the sarcasm.)  Luke Baker, Reuters’s Paris bureau chief, tweeted, “Fire at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral was started by accident and is related to ongoing work, according to France 2, citing police.”  There it is, the orthodox truth.  If you don’t accept the “orthodox” story you are a “conspiracy theorist,” an Islamophobe and a racist.

Deviance from the orthodox view must be silenced.  Fox News’s Shepard Smith invited the French media analyst Philippe Karsenty for an eyewitness interview while the fire was still raging.  Karsenty said, “Of course you will hear the political correctness, that it’s probably an accident, but … ”  Before he could finish Smith interrupted, “Sir, sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate here of the cause of something that we don’t know,”  Karsenty continued: “I’m just telling you, you need to be ready …”  Smith cut him off with, “No, sir. We’re not doing that here,” Smith declared. “Not now. Not on my watch! Philippe Karsenty, it’s very good of you to be here.”

Fox’s Neil Cavuto had a similar experience in his interview with William Donohue, president of the Catholic League.  Donohue was skeptical about the accident claim.  He commented, “forgive me for being suspicious. Just last month, a 17th-century church was set on fire in Paris. We’ve seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues.”  Cavuto responded, “We don’t know that. So if we can avoid what your suspicions might be.”  Dohohue then stated, “When I find out that the Eucharist is being destroyed and excrement is being smeared on crosses. . .”  At that point Cavuto decided to terminate the interview, “Wait a minute.  I love you, Bill, but we cannot make conjectures about this. So, thank you. Bill, I’m sorry. Thanks very much. I do want to let people know, and again we’re not trying to be rude to our guests here.”

Muslim desecration of Christian churches has a long history.  In her book, ”The Rage and the Pride,” Oriana Fallaci relates how Somali Muslims desecrate Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence.  “The yellow streaks of urine that profaned the millenary marbles of the Baptistery as well as the golden doors.  With the yellow streaks of urine, the stench of the excrements that blocked the main entrance of San Salvatore al Vescovo.”  French churches have experienced nearly 2,000 attacks in the past two years. The was an arson attack on Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, feces smeared on a wall in Notre-Dame-des-Enfants in Nimes and the vandalization of the organ at Saint-Denis basilica. 

In light of the large number of attacks on Christian churches it should not be unreasonable to suspect that the fire was an act of arson.  There are also credible people who believe the accident theory makes no sense. Among them is Benjamin Mouton, former Notre Dame Cathedral architect (2000 to 2013). Mouton explained that the oak timbers that made up the cathedral’s roof had become hardened after more than 800 years and wouldn’t burn easily.  Mouton also claimed the theory of an electrical source for the fire was unlikely.  One possible source of the fire is a short-circuit by electrified bells near the spire.  Nicolas Gueury, who electrified a set of bells in the cathedral in 2007, thought about that possibility but has ruled it out.

Investigators were allowed inside the cathedral for the first time on Thursday.  They will determine what kind of accident took place. It certainly must be determined to be an accident.  This was the decision arrived at by the politicians and the media while the fire was still raging.  If the investigators were to determine that the fire was indeed arson, the media and politicians would be further discredited.  They cannot afford that.

Photo credit: LeLaisserPasserA38

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

The recent fire in Notre Dame Cathedral has highlighted the attempts of the powerful to control the news.

The Paris prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, has decided the fire was “likely accident, not arson.”  When reporting his decision, it is easy to eliminate the word “likely” for the sake of brevity. (Please excuse the sarcasm.)  Luke Baker, Reuters’s Paris bureau chief, tweeted, “Fire at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral was started by accident and is related to ongoing work, according to France 2, citing police.”  There it is, the orthodox truth.  If you don’t accept the “orthodox” story you are a “conspiracy theorist,” an Islamophobe and a racist.

Deviance from the orthodox view must be silenced.  Fox News’s Shepard Smith invited the French media analyst Philippe Karsenty for an eyewitness interview while the fire was still raging.  Karsenty said, “Of course you will hear the political correctness, that it’s probably an accident, but … ”  Before he could finish Smith interrupted, “Sir, sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate here of the cause of something that we don’t know,”  Karsenty continued: “I’m just telling you, you need to be ready …”  Smith cut him off with, “No, sir. We’re not doing that here,” Smith declared. “Not now. Not on my watch! Philippe Karsenty, it’s very good of you to be here.”

Fox’s Neil Cavuto had a similar experience in his interview with William Donohue, president of the Catholic League.  Donohue was skeptical about the accident claim.  He commented, “forgive me for being suspicious. Just last month, a 17th-century church was set on fire in Paris. We’ve seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues.”  Cavuto responded, “We don’t know that. So if we can avoid what your suspicions might be.”  Dohohue then stated, “When I find out that the Eucharist is being destroyed and excrement is being smeared on crosses. . .”  At that point Cavuto decided to terminate the interview, “Wait a minute.  I love you, Bill, but we cannot make conjectures about this. So, thank you. Bill, I’m sorry. Thanks very much. I do want to let people know, and again we’re not trying to be rude to our guests here.”

Muslim desecration of Christian churches has a long history.  In her book, ”The Rage and the Pride,” Oriana Fallaci relates how Somali Muslims desecrate Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence.  “The yellow streaks of urine that profaned the millenary marbles of the Baptistery as well as the golden doors.  With the yellow streaks of urine, the stench of the excrements that blocked the main entrance of San Salvatore al Vescovo.”  French churches have experienced nearly 2,000 attacks in the past two years. The was an arson attack on Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, feces smeared on a wall in Notre-Dame-des-Enfants in Nimes and the vandalization of the organ at Saint-Denis basilica. 

In light of the large number of attacks on Christian churches it should not be unreasonable to suspect that the fire was an act of arson.  There are also credible people who believe the accident theory makes no sense. Among them is Benjamin Mouton, former Notre Dame Cathedral architect (2000 to 2013). Mouton explained that the oak timbers that made up the cathedral’s roof had become hardened after more than 800 years and wouldn’t burn easily.  Mouton also claimed the theory of an electrical source for the fire was unlikely.  One possible source of the fire is a short-circuit by electrified bells near the spire.  Nicolas Gueury, who electrified a set of bells in the cathedral in 2007, thought about that possibility but has ruled it out.

Investigators were allowed inside the cathedral for the first time on Thursday.  They will determine what kind of accident took place. It certainly must be determined to be an accident.  This was the decision arrived at by the politicians and the media while the fire was still raging.  If the investigators were to determine that the fire was indeed arson, the media and politicians would be further discredited.  They cannot afford that.

Photo credit: LeLaisserPasserA38

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

Those of us who live in solid Democrat strongholds amidst single-minded leftists will know what it is like to attempt a civil conversation about President Trump.  This is especially true if one encounters those true-blue Dems in the wealthiest areas of California, NY or DC.   Because they are wealthy, successful, often educated at one of the prestige colleges, they know, with every fiber of their being, that they are smarter, wiser and better than any of us lowly, deplorable Trump supporters.

Inauguration Day 2016 (Photo credit: Jack from Leesport PA)

If they are Jewish and you ask them if they appreciate Trump’s support of Israel, they will look at you, roll their eyes as if you are even more yclept than they thought.  They hate Trump more than they love Israel.  If you ask them if they are bothered by the open acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democrat Party, they will shrug at the lunacy of your question and say something like “anti-Semitism has always been with us.”  They will deny to their death its escalation across the world at this moment in time, despite the obvious overt escalation and implicit approval of and by the global left.  Their identities since the 2016 election are defined by their opposition to Trump.  They have sold their souls because their candidate lost the election.  

Ask them if they are not pleased with his phenomenal success regarding the economy.  Are not the economic developments under Trump great for them, their 401ks, their stock portfolios?   Have not his foreign policy maneuvers been successful? Are we not immeasurably better off overall than under Obama?  Again, they will regard your question with disgust and disdain.  As many others have observed, they hate the President more than they love this country, this country that made their privilege, wealth and safety possible.  

These are arrogant people who, like most leftists today, see nothing good in America worth preserving.  They are supremely confident that none of the nonsense policies being promulgated by the crazy gaggle of Democrat presidential candidates will ever affect them.  The widespread contamination of San Francisco’s streets with human feces and discarded needles does not seem to bother Nancy Pelosi one bit, as she has opposed every possible solution.  She continues to encourage migrants from Central America to make their way to her sanctuary city.  

As long as the border remains a thorn in Trump’s side, the Democrats are willing to see the country invaded.   So what if the criminals among them maim and kill innocent Americans?  They won’t likely be roaming about in their neighborhoods.  There is a quote of Ben Carson’s that perfectly describes such people:  “What you’re saying is that ‘I, the superior elite, will take care of you.’ Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can’t be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.”  This sums up our disagreeable left to a T.

Dennis Prager has written at length in six columns about the Left, (Explaining the Left, Parts 1 – 6) all of which are worth reading, but his most succinct essay on the subject is “Whatever the Left Touches in Ruins.”  He rightly calls leftism, as opposed to liberalism, a nihilistic force.  He addresses the damage done by the Left to university educations, the arts, sports, late-night comedy, religion, gender confusion, and America’s once-sacrosanct reverence for the First Amendment; there will be no more free speech if the left gets its way.  

Karin McQuillan has written an excellent column that nails this single-minded, blinkered crowd to the cross. It is a must-read.  She writes:  “The Democrats don’t believe in our two-party system anymore. They utterly reject American civic norms of treating the president with a modicum of respect and cooperation…. They think theirs is the only party that deserves to be elected.”  That fact should be crystal clear to every Trump supporter by now who has tried to have a friendly discussion with a sanctimonious Trump hater.  They now favor voter fraud, the invasion of the country by illegal migrants for obvious reasons, late-term and post-birth abortion, no citizenship question on the census, etc.  They absolutely believe the ends justify the means; they will cheat any and every way they can (vote harvesting) and project onto republicans what they in fact do as a matter of course.  The last line of McQuillan’s column:   “The Democrats are into the dismantling of America for the long haul.  It is a national tragedy and it must be stopped.”  Read the whole thing.

The nation is virulently divided, but all the virulence is coming from the left.  They have become so desperate, especially in the wake of the betrayal of the Mueller Report.  They were so sure it would be the nail in Trump’s presidential coffin.  As it turns out, Trump is perhaps the most investigated President in US history and thus the one with the cleanest bill of political health!  As has now been proven, the whole Russia-collusion meme was a set-up from the outset, an attempt to bait the President into obstructing a trumped-up investigation.  Their grand plan has backfired and hopefully the schemers, so sure of their own moral supremacy, will be indicted and tried for their many crimes against the President, the Constitution and the American people. 

May this long nightmare of their invention soon be over and may all those parochial people who for over two years have been willing to sacrifice everything Americans once held dear to unseat a President who simply offends their sensibilities be shamed for their bigotry for that is what characterizes them; sheer, unmitigated contempt for no reason other than Trump is not one of them.  No, he is not. He is by far the better man.

Those of us who live in solid Democrat strongholds amidst single-minded leftists will know what it is like to attempt a civil conversation about President Trump.  This is especially true if one encounters those true-blue Dems in the wealthiest areas of California, NY or DC.   Because they are wealthy, successful, often educated at one of the prestige colleges, they know, with every fiber of their being, that they are smarter, wiser and better than any of us lowly, deplorable Trump supporters.

Inauguration Day 2016 (Photo credit: Jack from Leesport PA)

If they are Jewish and you ask them if they appreciate Trump’s support of Israel, they will look at you, roll their eyes as if you are even more yclept than they thought.  They hate Trump more than they love Israel.  If you ask them if they are bothered by the open acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democrat Party, they will shrug at the lunacy of your question and say something like “anti-Semitism has always been with us.”  They will deny to their death its escalation across the world at this moment in time, despite the obvious overt escalation and implicit approval of and by the global left.  Their identities since the 2016 election are defined by their opposition to Trump.  They have sold their souls because their candidate lost the election.  

Ask them if they are not pleased with his phenomenal success regarding the economy.  Are not the economic developments under Trump great for them, their 401ks, their stock portfolios?   Have not his foreign policy maneuvers been successful? Are we not immeasurably better off overall than under Obama?  Again, they will regard your question with disgust and disdain.  As many others have observed, they hate the President more than they love this country, this country that made their privilege, wealth and safety possible.  

These are arrogant people who, like most leftists today, see nothing good in America worth preserving.  They are supremely confident that none of the nonsense policies being promulgated by the crazy gaggle of Democrat presidential candidates will ever affect them.  The widespread contamination of San Francisco’s streets with human feces and discarded needles does not seem to bother Nancy Pelosi one bit, as she has opposed every possible solution.  She continues to encourage migrants from Central America to make their way to her sanctuary city.  

As long as the border remains a thorn in Trump’s side, the Democrats are willing to see the country invaded.   So what if the criminals among them maim and kill innocent Americans?  They won’t likely be roaming about in their neighborhoods.  There is a quote of Ben Carson’s that perfectly describes such people:  “What you’re saying is that ‘I, the superior elite, will take care of you.’ Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can’t be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.”  This sums up our disagreeable left to a T.

Dennis Prager has written at length in six columns about the Left, (Explaining the Left, Parts 1 – 6) all of which are worth reading, but his most succinct essay on the subject is “Whatever the Left Touches in Ruins.”  He rightly calls leftism, as opposed to liberalism, a nihilistic force.  He addresses the damage done by the Left to university educations, the arts, sports, late-night comedy, religion, gender confusion, and America’s once-sacrosanct reverence for the First Amendment; there will be no more free speech if the left gets its way.  

Karin McQuillan has written an excellent column that nails this single-minded, blinkered crowd to the cross. It is a must-read.  She writes:  “The Democrats don’t believe in our two-party system anymore. They utterly reject American civic norms of treating the president with a modicum of respect and cooperation…. They think theirs is the only party that deserves to be elected.”  That fact should be crystal clear to every Trump supporter by now who has tried to have a friendly discussion with a sanctimonious Trump hater.  They now favor voter fraud, the invasion of the country by illegal migrants for obvious reasons, late-term and post-birth abortion, no citizenship question on the census, etc.  They absolutely believe the ends justify the means; they will cheat any and every way they can (vote harvesting) and project onto republicans what they in fact do as a matter of course.  The last line of McQuillan’s column:   “The Democrats are into the dismantling of America for the long haul.  It is a national tragedy and it must be stopped.”  Read the whole thing.

The nation is virulently divided, but all the virulence is coming from the left.  They have become so desperate, especially in the wake of the betrayal of the Mueller Report.  They were so sure it would be the nail in Trump’s presidential coffin.  As it turns out, Trump is perhaps the most investigated President in US history and thus the one with the cleanest bill of political health!  As has now been proven, the whole Russia-collusion meme was a set-up from the outset, an attempt to bait the President into obstructing a trumped-up investigation.  Their grand plan has backfired and hopefully the schemers, so sure of their own moral supremacy, will be indicted and tried for their many crimes against the President, the Constitution and the American people. 

May this long nightmare of their invention soon be over and may all those parochial people who for over two years have been willing to sacrifice everything Americans once held dear to unseat a President who simply offends their sensibilities be shamed for their bigotry for that is what characterizes them; sheer, unmitigated contempt for no reason other than Trump is not one of them.  No, he is not. He is by far the better man.