The Heritage Foundation works every day to build a free and prosperous nation where all Americans have the opportunity to achieve their version of the American dream, reaching their full potential and creating the financial security to provide for themselves, their families, and their communities.
The federal budget is at the
core of our political system. Everything the federal government does, from
taxing, to regulating, to providing services, to protecting our very freedoms,
it does through the federal budget.
Despite promises to the
contrary, however, Congress continues to pass bills that spend more than the
government takes in each year, adding trillions of dollars of debt and putting
our entire economy in peril. This constant financial mismanagement is
bankrupting the country and robbing future generations of Americans to pay for
it.
This is why The Heritage Foundation produces the “Blueprint for Balance“: to demonstrate to the American people and our elected leaders an approach to the federal budget that reins in out-of-control spending, ensures that the government is funding its constitutionally mandated duties, and provides an environment where our prosperity as individuals and as a country grows.
In the blueprint, Heritage scholars dig deep into the federal budget to offer detailed solutions to reduce federal spending and eventually bring the annual budget into balance. They identify where there is waste, duplication of services, and fraud. They separate proper functions of the federal government, such as providing for our national defense and national infrastructure, from those areas where government has overstepped its bounds.
Our nation thrives most when
the federal government is focused on core national priorities while states and
localities are empowered to address issues that are closest to the people who
will be affected by those policies.
Additionally, the tax reform
and deregulation of the past few years have brought tremendous economic
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been in 50 years, and wages for the lowest-income workers are growing faster
than wages of any other level.
The blueprint paves the way to cement these successful policies to ensure that all Americans, including lower-wage workers, young people, women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities, will continue to share in the prosperity of a healthy economy.
Recognizing that America
will be strong only if she is on financially sound footing, our experts
recommend important reforms to the biggest government programs in the budget,
from Social Security to health care, to protect the most vulnerable, deliver
better services at lower cost, and return control of personal decisions from
the Washington bureaucracy to the American people.
Finally, we believe that
Washington should work as the rest of us do: When our income goes up, our
spending can too, and when our income shrinks, we have to make do with less.
The total amount the federal
government spends in a given year should be directly linked by law to a fixed
percentage of the nation’s wealth: our gross domestic product. The only way the
government could spend more is if the economy grew faster than government
spending over the long run.
Such a rule should be smart,
allowing for deficits during an economic downturn and ensuring that the
government has to cut back on spending when the private sector is strong.
These and many other ideas for bringing fiscal restraint to Washington are presented in great detail in this book. “Blueprint for Balance” presents Heritage’s extensive research that, when implemented, can lead to a freer, more prosperous America with opportunity for all.
It’s not too late to save
the incredible promise that is America, but first, we have to get our leaders
to make economic growth, job creation, and an end to runaway spending and debt
their highest priorities.
The name of a Navy veteran may be cleared after he was convicted, fined, and imprisoned for digging ponds in a wooded area near his Montana home, to supply water in case of fire.
The Supreme Court has vacated a lower court ruling against Joe Robertson, who was sent to federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks.
Any definitive legal victory for Robertson would be posthumous, since he died March 18 at age 80.
But his lawyers describe the Supreme Court’s action as a “big win” for Robertson’s widow, Carrie, who plans to carry on the fight.
President Barack Obama’s Justice Department had prosecuted Robertson for digging in “navigable waters” without a permit, in violation of the Clean Water Act.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling against Robertson in November 2017 and denied him a rehearing in July 2018.
The Navy veteran’s initial trial at the district court level resulted in a hung jury and a mistrial. He then was convicted after a second district court trial.
Robertson was 78 when he was sentenced in 2016; he completed his 18 months behind bars in late 2017. At the time of his death, he was supposed to be on parole for another 20 months.
In November, he had petitioned the Supreme Court to review his case.
Prior to his conviction, Robertson operated a business that supplied water trucks to Montana firefighters. Because he himself resided in a “fire-prone landscape,” he was concerned for his safety and that of his property, according to his petition to the Supreme Court.
In 2013 and 2014, Robertson had dug a series of ponds close to an unnamed channel near his home, to store water in case of fire. The foot-wide, foot-deep channel carried the equivalent of two to three garden hoses of water flow, his petition explains.
Robertson argued that he didn’t violate the Clean Water Act because digging the ponds did not discharge any soil into “navigable waters,” since the water flow in the channel didn’t amount to that. The ponds are more than 40 miles away from “the nearest actual navigable water body,” the Jefferson River, the petition says.
On April 15, the Supreme Court vacated the 9th Circuit ruling in response to Robertson’s petition and said his widow, Carrie, could pursue his case and represent his estate. The high court also ordered the 9th Circuit to determine whether the estate may continue to contest the $130,000 in restitution.
Pacific Legal Foundation, a nonprofit, public interest law firm specializing in property rights, represented Robertson in his legal dispute with federal officials.
Tony Francois, a senior attorney with the firm, told The Daily Signal in an email that if the 9th Circuit decides to leave the fine against Robertson’s estate in place in one form or another, the Supreme Court possibly could review long-standing concerns over how the government applies the Clean Water Act.
Robertson’s petition makes the point that some Supreme Court justices have expressed concern over the “vagueness” attached to the term “navigable waters,” and that the dispute over the veteran’s ponds in Montana “offers an ideal vehicle” to resolve uncertainty over the definition of navigable waters. The petition also suggests that the court could void the term.
“The Supreme Court vacated the 9th Circuit’s decision in Joe’s case because of his death,” Francois told The Daily Signal. “It is the usual practice when a criminal defendant dies before his appeal is final for the federal courts to vacate the conviction and dismiss the indictment, regardless of the merits. There is some disagreement among the lower courts how this applies to restitution orders, including amounts paid prior to death.”
Francois added:
Because of Joe’s death, the Supreme Court ordered the 9th Circuit to consider whether the case is moot. We think this means that the court of appeals will have to consider whether all of his restitution obligation should be abated.
If they decide that to be the case, including return of the amount he paid before he died, then that would likely fully resolve the case and it would likely be moot. Joe’s estate would have no further obligations and would get back what he has paid to date.
If the 9th Circuit decides that any of the restitution remains due, including allowing the government to keep the amount he already paid, then we would likely return to the Supreme Court to ask for a substantive review of his convictions. It seems likely that only in that case would the Supreme Court address the Clean Water Act issues.
Congress initially passed the Clean Water Act in 1948, but lawmakers greatly altered and expanded it into the current form with amendments in 1972.
The law “establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters,” according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website.
Under the 1972 amendments, it is illegal to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters without a permit from the EPA. The Army Corps of Engineers oversees the permitting process and shares enforcement authority with the EPA.
In 2015, the Obama administration implemented its Clean Water Rule, widely known as the Waters of the United States rule or WOTUS rule, which expanded the ability of the EPA and the Corps to regulate bodies of water throughout the country.
The Trump administration has taken steps to withdraw the Obama administration’s rule and replace it with a new one that limits the regulatory reach of federal agencies.
The Daily Signal sought comment for this report from both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers. Neither agency had responded as of publication time.
Daren Bakst, senior research fellow for agriculture policy at The Heritage Foundation, submitted comments last month to the EPA and the Corps expressing concern that “vague and subjective definitions” attached to the Clean Water Act affect how those agencies enforce the law.
Those imprecise definitions also create great uncertainty for average citizens who must comply with regulations, Bakst said.
Addressing the Trump administration’s proposed rule revising the definition of “waters of the United States,” Bakst wrote:
In 2004, the General Accounting Office (GAO) highlighted the Corps’ inconsistent enforcement across districts and even asserted that definitions were intentionally left vague. If experts within the agencies are unable to agree if a water is a ‘waters of the United States,’ it is unreasonable to think that a lay person will be able to know that a water is a jurisdictional water.
In fact, if definitions are extremely vague and subjective, and enforcement is inconsistent, there is no way for anyone to know whether some waters are jurisdictional because the answers to those questions depend on the subjective whim of whatever government officials have decided to answer the questions …
Bakst told The Daily Signal in an email that the Robertson case “is a clear and horrifying example of how the vagueness problem with the definition of ‘waters of the United States’ is a major problem.”
“This vagueness problem is just one of the many reasons why the EPA and Corps need to develop a new definition of ‘waters of the United States,’” the Heritage research fellow said. “The definition should be clear and objective, and not allow the agencies to make subjective, after-the-fact determinations as to whether a specific water is regulated.”
Although the Robertson case is far from finished, the Pacific Legal Foundation in a blog describes the Supreme Court’s order moving the case back to the 9th Circuit as a “big win” for the veteran’s widow, Carrie.
“The high court’s decision came via summary disposition, which means it did not issue a written opinion,” the blog says. “But clearly the justices felt the 9th Circuit’s decision was erroneous, or they wouldn’t have granted Joe’s petition, or vacated the 9th Circuit’s decision, after his untimely death.”
As a woman who has experienced abortion, I would like to share
the truth of what abortion does and counter the arguments of the pro-abort/pro-choice
community who are so enraged at the new Alabama abortion law, which makes it a
felony for doctors to perform abortions in most circumstances.
Each time I see a woman entering an abortion facility, my
heart breaks because I walked through those doors … twice.
I was scared, confused, and felt I had no other options. I fell for the pro-abort rhetoric that it was my body, my choice, and that I was doing the right thing.
Nobody told me the truth.
Nobody told me there would be a lack of compassion as I laid
on that table … no one held my hand or offered any comfort at all. Instead it
was treated like it was no big deal. It was as if I was going in to have a
splinter removed. The only smile I got
was when I handed over the money.
Nobody told me I would eventually realize what I destroyed
was not tissue or a clump of cells, but my children … or that guilt and shame would follow me for
decades.
Nobody told me that abortion could lead to alcoholism and
drug abuse. I’ve now been sober for twenty years, but for over twenty-five
years, I was a raging alcoholic. Why? Because I had to do something to forget
what I had done and to numb the pain.
Nobody told me that abortion leads to unsavory behavior, such
as promiscuity. I’m embarrassed to say I
reached out everywhere else for love because I could no longer love myself.
Moreover, when I tried to settle down, nobody told me I
would sabotage those relationships. I
had two failed marriages because I couldn’t allow myself to be happy.
Nobody told me that abortion leads to depression. The same alcohol I used to forget the
abortions and numb the pain contributed to my hurting everyone I loved, leaving
me in self-imposed isolation, shrouded in darkness.
I became suicidal and ended up in a psychiatric
hospital. When asked why I wanted to
die, I told the admitting psychiatrist I was already dead inside and just
wanted to finish the job.
Nobody told me abortion results in other life-altering
decisions. I lost the chance of experiencing the miracle of carrying and bearing
a child by convincing a doctor to give me a tubal ligation at the age of 30
because I didn’t deserve to be a mother
Those who claim that not having access to abortion hurts women and also claim that having a choice on continuing a pregnancy is empowering could not be further from the truth in their assertions.
Abortion hurts women.
Not only does it kill an innocent baby, but it also ends the normalcy of
a woman’s life, as indicated in my story as well as the stories of countless
others.
Moreover, as to choice being empowering, that’s just another lie. Empowerment allows a woman to be comfortable in her skin, confident and at peace. Once a woman has an abortion, empowerment slowly slips away, leaving nothing but a gaping wound in her soul only to be backfilled with pain, self-hatred, guilt, shame, and remorse.
Editor’s note: Kelsey Bolar’s video report on high school runner Selina Soule, who was forced to compete with biological males, got a huge response from The Daily Signal’s audience. Don’t forget to write us at letters@dailysignal.com.—Ken McIntyre
If all women, or even
half, got together and battled this mess on the legal level, it would go down
in flames. But so many women are weak, silly, and easily intimidated by mere
words.
So what if they call you transphobic? Who cares? As a black woman in America, I’ve been called way worse and none of it bothers me because I am confident in who I am.
If you as a mother are
too afraid to fight for your child, then you are a poor parent and don’t need
to call yourself anyone’s mother. This is just ridiculous. I have never seen
such cowardice.
And all you fathers and brothers sitting on your butts watching and not speaking up are just as guilty. America has become a country of punks.—Deborrah Cooper
***
Kelsey Bolar’s report is outstanding—well written and right on target. We know those on the left are insane, but to allow them to get away with what they are doing is also insane.
Boys shouldn’t be allowed to compete as athletes on the girls team because they are not equal in strength, and common sense should prevail. Transgender athletes should have their own teams; that is the only fair way to do this.
Parents must
speak out and remove their daughters from a team that wants to allow trans athletes
to compete. Speak up!
Fear of reprisal
is foolish. And if enough people take action against this trans nonsense, you
will win.—Elna
Hughes
Dear Daily Signal: Having read Kelsey Bolar’s story on Selina Soule, I am appalled at the callousness of the left. I personally have no harsh feelings for transgender individuals, if and only if they are truly transgender.
Putting it plainly, they have no right to compete with
natural born females because biology doesn’t lie. Not only is it unfair,
it also opens the door to a great deal of corruption.
Imagine this: A transgender female wins
all sorts of awards and sets records for female athletes. A college board
is impressed and awards said student a scholarship with all the benefits to go
with it.
That student proceeds to higher education and then suddenly has a change of mind. The athlete decides that, through counseling, feelings, yada yada yada, he is indeed male and won’t proceed to a complete gender change. What then?
The only way for normally oriented athletes to combat this issue is to pass legislation that forbids athletic ability to be used as a benefit toward higher education. No longer would sports be a crutch, and only intelligence shall be considered toward higher ed. After all, it is fair.
Lastly, as part of the transgender issue, I have this morbid fear: How many of the alleged transgender females are budding perverts, seeking an easy way to gain access to the girls’ locker room? It’s a chilling thought, but one that needs to be addressed.—Scott J. Whitney, Colorado Springs, Colo.
***
No child has the right to upset an entire community’s
equilibrium in the school system. The parents of transgender athletes are being
extremely selfish to think that their kids are entitled to upset a local,
regional, or national competition.
The parents of these transgender kids are at fault, and so are the officials of those sports. There is one fair solution: Transgender athletes must compete with their equals—other transgender athletes. If too few exist in one school, the schools must bring enough kids together to make a reasonable competition.
It is time for transgender individuals to take full
responsibility for their choices and shoulder the tough realities of those
choices. Destroying the status quo of school activities is the last result
their choices should entail.
These people need to help each other in their own organizations, not usurp the places of rightful competitors in the schools, as if they have a right to upset everyone else’s lives just for their sexual conveniences.—Richard Canary
8th Place: A High School Girl’s Life After Transgender Students Joined Her Sport https://t.co/LxGHEt6q2W
If athletes possessing a Y chromosome are allowed to compete in girls events, why have girls events at all? This destroys all pretense of fairness.
Again, girls and women
have no real sport. Title IX becomes a farce and its intent is gutted in the
name of protecting some seriously ill and disturbed boys who need help, not
trophies.
Pros can’t compete as
amateurs. Boys, regardless of their self-identification, shouldn’t be able to
compete in girls events.—Tony
Raskoon
***
There are good reasons why sports have separate categories for male and female participants. Why can’t there be yet another category … for transgender participants?
Let them compete, but
let them compete with each other, not with others who are not like them.—David Terry,Salt Lake City
***
Such a development will
do a great deal to undo the benefits that Title IX brought to female athletics,
yet it is a foreseeable consequence of progressive efforts to erase gender
differences across our society.
Over and over again, we
have been forced to deal with the unintended consequences of rash actions by
those who think they have the lock on wisdom and virtue but cannot see beyond
their own reflected image in the faces of their fellow travelers.
Why do we give them such
power? Why don’t we work as diligently for the stability of societal institutions
as the deluded ones work to tear them down?
If a conflict with these
forces is inevitable, and I believe it is, we need to roll up our sleeves and
have at it. They’re getting stronger every day, so the battle only will get
harder the longer we wait.—Noah
D. Cutler
***
Life is hard. Girls, you have to stand up for yourselves or face the consequences. Keep in mind that unless you do, you’re going to lose anyway. So why not do the right thing?—Louis Genevie
***
This is not a complex
debate unless you’re a liberal idiot.—Charles Spiegel
***
How about homeschooling your kids? It takes them out of the cesspool. Start your own athletics programs and invite college recruiters to the contests.—Deborah Harvey
***
Thank you for keeping attention on this issue. It’s unbelievable how deranged society has become.
No normal person could be persuaded that this is OK, and I feel for the girls affected. Twenty or fewer years ago, this would have been unthinkable. It is just another obnoxious step along the same-sex marriage continuum.—David Le Sueur
***
Wow. How entitled is
this child to think she can talk down on fellow athletes just because they are
“biologically males?”
They identify as female
and that makes them just as much of a female as any other girl. They have the
right to compete in the sport of their desire, and to be allowed to do so with
their chosen gender.
Sorry you didn’t take
first place, but, these other girls have just as much right to win as you think
you do.—Hailey Chandlee
***
Hearing the frustration,
pain, and despair in Selina Soule’s voice reminds me of the feelings boys and
men have felt their entire lives—as predatory feminists have made
our lives a living hell.
The only difference is
that nobody cares when it happens to men, especially straight white men.—Bill Sanders
***
It seems as if these
high school girls have the logic of when to draw the line in terms of
competition and “who is who” competing in what, and they can connect the dots
and see the dangers, hazards, and unfairness of the situation.
But what I don’t understand is that in the same breath, they turn around and say, essentially: “But we still stood with, and supported our friends when they chose to come out, still think everyone should be true to themselves, and we were kind and caring toward our transgender friends.”
If you have an issue
with which you are frustrated because it’s clearly hurting all your hard work
and threatening your chances of higher education, and it affects you so
strongly that you are desperate to try to find a way to have your voice heard
about it, to then turn around and say, “But I still support them” is
to the same effect as shooting yourself in the foot.
I agree that the girls’
concerns are well justified, but you need to learn that you can’t expect to
make the changes you seek if you continue to say “I still support this.”
That will continue to leave that same door open, unless you draw a complete
line between what is right and fair and what is wrong and morally twisted.—Jessica Vanden Bosch
***
Selina Soule would have
placed sixth without the two trans athletes, meaning she would have lost
regardless. So sick of these white, cis hetero girls who clearly don’t actually
train, crying victim when they lose fair and square. Even cis women with naturally
higher testosterone levels aren’t safe from this weakness.
And stop spreading
misinformation. You cannot claim to be trans whenever you feel like it. Thanks
to cis heterosexuals, we have to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria and have to
have had it for more than sx months.
Real women want the sexes to compete with each other. Sheltered, spoiled little white girls want to feel like they’ve achieved something without actually having to put any effort into it.—Raven Whitman
***
Kelsey Bolar writes: “While
the debate over transgender athletes and fairness is complex … ”
Utter hogwash. It’s abundantly clear that those two born-males identifying as females couldn’t make it in the male world of sports.
So what do they do? They go to an easier contest to win, i.e., compete in the female world of sports. And, what do you know, they take top spots. Amazing how that happened.
On top of that, too many people are intimidated into not objecting; those two born-males identifying as females knew that going in.— Gary Dickson
***
I guess whatever a woman
can do a man can do better, even being a woman.—Dennis
LeDrew
***
End girls sports and
boys sports. Encourage co-ed sports whenever possible.
When not appropriate,
have an XX league and an XY league, regardless of gender identity. Those who
are neither XX nor XY (yes, they exist) would be placed on the most appropriate
team on a case-by-case basis.—Karen
Crisalli Winter
***
Just plain stinking
wrong. Where did we lose our moral compass?—James
Hulse
***
A third category would
be the answer. Transgender athletes would be legitimized, as they want to be,
but not depriving others.—Dean
Agnor
***
This is as much as to
tell female athletes, “You’re not good enough because you were born a
girl.”—Kathleen Wagner
***
Transgender women are
still men and they are losers. They know that the only way they have a chance
to win is to compete with girls.—Karen
Boldrey Nelson
***
You’re not going to get
anything done unless you speak out and speak up regardless of the consequence.
Worked for them, did it not?—Kenneth
Willis
***
The girls need to put on
their big girl panties and stand together against this. It is no different than
standing up to a bully; in fact, that is exactly what it is.
Girls athletics was
designed to give girls the opportunity to compete on a level playing field, and
this takes that away from them.
Either fight to retain
women’s teams that compete against other women or make all sports co-ed,
because calling something a woman’s sport and letting biological males compete
makes the sport co-ed in practice anyway.—Paul
Mazan
***
Unfortunately, one day soon, a young woman will be killed or seriously injured by one of these severely confused young men who think they are female.
The male and female bodies are biologically very different and most times the larger, stronger male body can be quite injurious to the female, whether they mean to or not.—Ken O’Connell
***
So, am I to understand
that if boys get tired of losing to other boys, they have the option of
competing against girls? Well, I guess that’s one way to become a winner.
I thought the saying
was, “If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.” When did it change to
“if you can’t beat ’em, then go trans?” Absurd!—James Dalian
***
Wait till the competing
girls boycott the athletics department as a whole for trans girls being allowed
in girls sports. It will happen, but not soon enough.
And it will take these
boycotts against athletic departments at the college and high school levels.
Once this gets more media attention, it might get the traction needed to make
trans girls compete on the boys’ level. Where they should be.
Or there needs to be a
handicap put on trans girls to make it fair for biological girls. Maybe in a 1,000-meter
dash, biological girls get 200 meters on trans girls. It would be like 1,000 meters
for trans girls to 800 meters for biological girls, for example.—Drew Brenneman
***
These men are cheaters. Instead
of complaining, women athletes have to sue in the courts to get these frauds
removed.
Males and females are completely different physiologically, especially in athletics. Males have no right to compete in female-only events, and need to be legally barred from doing so.—Susan Nunes
***
The problem is if you
are not careful with how you do things, you get those born girls who are taking
testosterone and you force girls to compete with them.
No surprises when they
take first place against girls who aren’t on steroids. But because we were
shortsighted and used things like birth certificates as a standard we let these
ones through.
No restrictions is
absurd. Whatever you want to call these kids, they have demonstrated an unfair
advantage. We need commonsense restrictions. If a rare intersex person
competes, that person should be competing on a level playing field.
If someone has testosterone, a steroid that encourages muscle growth, as an advantage, they need to be competing against others with the same advantage. If we have to be politically correct, call it a heavyweight league. When it is mostly boys on it, everyone will know what it means.
Whatever we do, we can’t
encourage young girls to take steroids to be able to compete.—Jessica Pennell
***
I think this is very, very
unfair. If they are going to have transgender athletes, then make another
section; so you have male, female, and trans. That way it’s fair. As it is now,
females will stop competing, which is so unfair.—Diana Campkin Vickerson
***
The people who are so
concerned about this issue know how to vote, so why are those who supported
this allowed to remain in the offices that they occupy? Elect folks who are
reasonable and responsible for the safety and efficacy of girls sports.—Terry Story
***
The only way to solve
this problem is that not one biological female moves off the start line until
the man pretending to be a woman leaves the race.—Bob
Shoemaker
***
I have a feeling that
this girl was not treated very nicely when she went back to school. And if this
state or school division has a leftist-established anti-bullying policy, the
school will not be able to do anything to protect her.—Charles Kehler
***
To qualify, the rule
should be “born a female.”—Jeanne
Ballard
***
Add a third gender
classification in sports: “Whatever you think you are.” Open to
anyone.
You can be disqualified
in the Olympics women’s competition for having too high a testosterone level.
Maybe that’s going to be necessary in our school sports.—Francisco Machado
***
How on earth is this
complicated? For the confused out there, here it is in simplified form: 1) If
you are born male, you compete against males. 2) If you are born female, you
compete against females. How hard is that to comprehend?—Dennis Campbell
***
Where are the feminists?
Why are they not fighting for these girls?—Christina
Dorrego
***
It’s not politically
correct to say trans girls are not the same as biological girls, but it’s true.
Everyone knows that boys and girls are demonstrably different in bone
structure, bone density, hormones, and so on.
But because we live in
clown world, we allow boys to compete in girls sports, knock them out of top
spots, and congratulate ourselves for being so woke and brave for letting them.
What nonsense. Indulging the mentally ill, or even worse, indulging bad actors looking for cheap wins, is ruining girls sports. Where are the feminists, and why are they not fighting this?—Edward Morgan
***
No woman should consent (and no parent should allow their daughter) to enter into competition with men, whether transgender or with any other mental condition.—David L. Miller
This and That
Dear Daily Signal: I read Star Parker’s commentary on Social Security (“Change Social Security to a Program of Ownership”). I don’t disagree; however, the means of managing that approach, Wall Street primarily, is clearly very broken.
It looks a lot more like a casino down there rather than a reasonable place to invest. Then there is the government. In 2000, when the government-sponsored tech bubble burst, I lost 40% of my 401(k). I was 57, not a good time to lose 40%.
My 401(k) recovered
by 2008, but then the government-sponsored real estate bubble burst. Again, I
lost 40%. I was now 65, really not a good time.
Now I am not a very wise investor, nor are most regular folks. But the 401(k) programs generally help with that, and I still lost 40%, twice.
401(k)
programs pushed a lot of money into the Wall Street machine and contributed
greatly, I believe, to the current Wild West character of those folks. Adding
even more capital to their playground seems a really bad idea.
Before
ownership Social Security programs are considered, Wall Street insanity needs
to be addressed. Isn’t the 2008 mess a clear example of this? Securitization
upon securitization upon securitization … there is nothing real left. Look at
how quantitative easing was used by these folks to line their pockets, leaving
us regular folks in the dust.
I’m thankful for Star Parker’s efforts, but this idea needs some really careful thought, a lot of government elimination, and the restoration of some kind of sanity to the investment world.—Peter Crowell, Harrisville, N.H.
Hence, the simple solution to these
problematic issues is to recognize that women and men are not equal. And
in fact, that was the standard recognition in society for thousands of years.
So, what do women want?
Equality? Or no equality? It seems the decision is up to the women.—Richard Ho, Taiwan
I could not have said
it better. Sovereign personhood is
endowed by “their Creator,” not by the state. Therefore, the state may not deny
sovereign personhood to any human being.
Denying sovereign personhood is the
imposition of atheism by the state, a violation of our First Amendment.—Mary DeVoe
***
A big hello
from this 87-year-old in Saskatoon. I’d just like to inform The Daily Signal
that from Day One we have prayed for President Donald Trump.
I sure would like to ask you to inform him about this, as I know he will acknowledge and appreciate prayers. I never saw or heard of a president who has accomplished so much with so much opposition against him.
The swamp will take a long time to drain, with so many liberal Democrats against Trump.—Roy Kappel, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
I’m an unlikely person to be supporting Alabama’s new
pro-life law. I was pro-choice for many years, and as a young woman I had not
one, but two abortions.
Both of my abortions would have been illegal under Alabama’s new law passed last week. The law bans abortion at all stages and allows an exception only to save the life of the mother. Other states like Missouri and Louisiana aren’t far behind Alabama—and I applaud them all.
I’ve come a long way to get to this position. As I
mentioned, I was once pro-choice. In 1972, I actually joined a high school
walk-out march protesting the fact that Planned Parenthood wasn’t allowed to do
a presentation at our school.
After graduating from nursing school, but before receiving
my license, I was working in a hospital in Maryland. One evening, I was asked to
assist a doctor with some procedures. I was not aware that this hospital did
second trimester abortions until I arrived on the floor and was given my
assignment.
There were three women there—all had been given saline
injections into their uterus, and then placed on Pitocin drips to encourage
contractions.
I spent the majority of time with one of the women, a 29-year-old
who shared with me the circumstances behind her decision to abort. She had come
home early from work the day before, and caught her husband on their living
room couch having sex with another woman.
She said she left the house, and in her extreme hurt and
anger decided the best way to get back at him was to tell him she had a
miscarriage brought on from the shock of what she had witnessed. He would never
know she had actually aborted their child.
Shortly after sharing this, her contractions became close
enough that the doctor and I took her to the treatment room, where she began to
push and eventually delivered a small baby boy a little larger than the size of
my hand.
The doctor estimated him to be between 19-20 weeks. His body had been badly burned, and the expression on his face was unmistakably one of intense pain. He was still alive.
Other states like Missouri and Louisiana aren’t far behind Alabama—and I applaud them all.
The doctor explained if the eyes were not “fixed” we may
need to resuscitate. As he held up the baby to check the eyes, the mother saw
him and began to scream uncontrollably: “Oh, God, what have I done?”
Declaring the eyes were fixed, he dropped the baby in a
bucket on the floor where I saw it moving and gasping for breath, and then
died. The mother became hysterical and had to be medicated.
I ended up going home sick. Eight months earlier, my husband
and I had chosen abortion so I could finish nursing school, and the reality of
that decision now weighed heavily on me.
That marriage ended, as is often the case in relationships
involving abortion. I remarried, had a child, and when I soon became pregnant
with a second, my husband claimed he wasn’t ready, and I aborted again.
This time, I fought for the baby, but went ahead with the
abortion after he threatened to leave me. I believed the doctor when he told me
the baby had no heartbeat or body form, and I went through with the procedure—though
every fiber in me was unsure.
Two years later, now pregnant with a child we wanted, I had ultrasounds
done regularly. I was shown a sonogram of my baby—at the same age as the two I
aborted. It had arms, legs, a distinctive heartbeat (separate from my own), and
most of all, was moving constantly as I watched.
The horror I felt when I realized I had been lied to—not
once, but twice, and by different doctors—was overwhelming.
The regret was crushing. And the anger was immeasurable.
The horror I felt when I realized I had been lied to—not once, but twice, and by different doctors—was overwhelming.
I found forgiveness when a dear friend introduced me to
Jesus. I found healing in a post-abortive recovery group, and I found purpose
in promising to keep other woman from being lied to and deceived as I had been.
I am now a nurse manager at a pregnancy center, and have
been trained to do ultrasounds on the clients who come to us for help. Daily, I
see the shock, and then the tears of women as they realize the child they were
getting ready to abort is alive and moving within them—and has a beating heart!
One young 16-year-old told me, “The baby’s heartbeat is so much faster than mine! It has its own heartbeat, separate from me! So it’s not my body, it’s his! I would be getting rid of him!”
Pretty profound wisdom for a teenager.
This is why women need to know the truth. They deserve to make an informed decision about such a consequential thing. They deserve the facts—not pro-choice talking points that are riddled with lies and deceptions. They deserve the whole truth.
Daily, I see the shock, and then the tears of women as they realize the child they were getting ready to abort is alive and moving within them.
The pain on the face of the baby I helped abort, and the pain of his mother as she realized what she’d done, should never have happened. It should never be something either of these human beings experienced.
The rhetoric on the other side says that post-abortion trauma doesn’t exist, that women don’t regret their abortions. I know that’s a lie. But what was worse for me was finding out the truth after the lie. The betrayal and regret almost destroyed me.
I commend the legislation being passed in states like Alabama, Missouri, and Georgia. These latter two states are advancing bills to ban abortion from when a heartbeat is detected. This means doctors will have to perform sonograms to see if the baby has a heartbeat, and then the mother will see her child.
That is a very compelling piece of information for a woman.
She deserves that opportunity so she will know the truth. Her baby is alive, and
all it needs to someday become a person—just like her—is time to grow.
I also believe the adoption option needs to be made more
accessible and affordable. High schools should offer more education about this
so that kids can know the truth about open adoption and the safety of intensive
background checks.
The rhetoric on the other side says that post-abortion trauma doesn’t exist, that women don’t regret their abortions. I know that’s a lie.
There are, of course, those who throw out the argument of
rape: “Should a woman have to birth her child if she’s been raped?” To that I
respond: Why should a woman suffer an act of violence twice? Abortion is an act
of violence, too. And for an abortion to be successful, someone has to die.
I promise you, at some point, the mother will realize that her
child was killed, and it will overwhelm her. She will want to know why she
wasn’t told the truth.
Women need the truth. Women deserve the truth. That’s the
true definition of caring for women’s health.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, background, amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge, and support vessels conduct joint operations in the Gulf region on Saturday. (Photo: U.S. Fifth Fleet/Facebook)
One of the many illegal actions that President Obama partook during his eight years in office was the assimilation of personal data on all Americans. His “Operation Hammer” will soon be uncovered and show his contempt for Americans and the rule of law.
Maxine Waters slipped up during a 2013 interview with journalist Roland Martin. In this interview Waters said –
…I think some people are missing something here. The President [Obama] has put in place an organization that contains a kind of database than no one has ever seen before in life. That’s going to be very, very powerful and whoever …and that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been don before.”
Maxine was right and Obama’s spying was soon uncovered –
Just five months after the Martin interview, Obama was exposed by NSA leaker Eric Snowden for operating a massive government surveillance program which targeted just about every American to ever use a cellular or communicate from the internet. The Washington Post described the program as a massive expansion of President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director of the Counterintelligence Division Peter Strzok and his supposed paramour, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, exchanged a cryptic, indeed coded, text message on Sunday, March 19, 2017, twenty-six minutes after retired U.S. Air Force Four Star General Thomas McInerney read our exclusive “Whistleblower Tapes” exposé over America’s airwaves, revealing “The Hammer.”
The Hammer is the Stasi-like secret surveillance system created by CIA/NSA/FBI contractor-turned-whistleblower Dennis L. Montgomery for Obama’s intelligence chiefs, CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
The Hammer, under the Obama administration, negated every American’s constitutional rights to privacy, turning the United States into a police state where the federal government was weaponized by the Obama administration against its political enemies.
According to the secretly-recorded audio tapes released by Federal Judge G. Murray Snow, Brennan’s and Clapper’s illicit super surveillance system “The Hammer” wiretapped Trump “a zillion times.”
Late that Sunday evening, just hours after General McInerney’s radio appearance, Strzok and Page exchanged a text message that explicitly referenced Dennis Montgomery and Montgomery’s attorney Larry E. Klayman.
Only a few hours earlier, General McInerney had referenced Montgomery and Klayman on “Operation Freedom,” exactly the same names about which Strzok and Page were now texting.
General McInerney appeared on Dr. Dave Janda’s “Operation Freedom” that broadcasts from terrestrial radio station WAAM 1600.
The next morning, the Russian Collusion investigation was born.
The day after the airing of General McInerney’s discussion related to Obama’s spying, FBI Directory James Comey went before a House committee [emphasis added], via American Report:
Early the following morning, Monday, March 20, 2017, FBI Director Jim Comey announced before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that the FBI Counterintelligence Division, where Strzok served as Deputy Assistant Director, was investigating Trump’s connections to the Kremlin, and that the FBI had “no information” to support Trump’s tweet claiming that President Obama wiretapped Trump.
That morning, FBI Director Jim Comey lied to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and to the American people.
Comey was well aware that President Trump was under illegal surveillance because Montgomery had already turned over to Comey’s FBI mountains of evidence confirming the existence of Brennan’s and Clapper’s illegal surveillance system.
On August 19, 2015, Montgomery turned over to FBI Director Jim Comey’s office 47 hard drives that he alleges contain over 600 million pages of documentation from Brennan’s and Clapper’s secret surveillance system.
Comey lied [again].
According to the “Washington Examiner,” former FISA court counsel Joe diGenova stated during an April 24, 2019, Fox News panel discussion:
The problem for Brennan and Clapper and Comey and Baker and all of them now is, is that the FISA court has already communicated with the Justice Department about its findings. And their findings are that for more than four years before the election of Donald Trump, there was an illegal spying operation going on by FBI contractors, four of them, to steal personal information, electronic information about Americans, and to use it against the Republican Party.
There are going to be indictments. There’s going to be grand juries. John Brennan isn’t going to need one lawyer. He’s going to need five. . .
. . . The Obama administration, for more than four years before the 2016 election, allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil American citizens, illegally. The FISA court has already found that.
Dan Bongino believes Obama’s spying will be a major part of his corrupt legacy –
Take it to the bank, the FBI/FISA docs are devastating for the Dems. The whole image of a benevolent Barack Obama they’ve disingenuously tried to portray is about to be destroyed. The real Obama, the vengeful narcissist, is going to be exposed for all to see.
Barack Obama’s corrupt officials are all lashing out at Attorney General Bill Barr because he launched a massive investigation into the origins of Spygate.
Obama’s corrupt Attorney General Eric Holder lashed out at Bill Barr this weekend.
Holder accused Barr of protecting President Trump and asserted that the Attorney General started his probe of the Intel/FBI for political reasons.
“He is not fit to lead the DOJ,” Holder said.
HOLDER: “AG Barr has deliberately misrepresented the Mueller report. He has started examinations of the conduct of Intell/FBI personnel without a predicate-for political reasons. He is protecting the President. He does not stand up for the good people he leads. He is not fit to lead DOJ.”
AG Barr has deliberately misrepresented the Mueller report. He has started examinations of the conduct of Intell/FBI personnel without a predicate-for political reasons. He is protecting the President. He does not stand up for the good people he leads. He is not fit to lead DOJ.
Attorney General Bill Barr launched a sweeping investigation into Spygate and stunned the Democrat-media complex when it was revealed he appointed US Attorney John Durham to probe abuses at the highest levels of Obama’s intel and law enforcement agencies.
It was recently revealed Barr’s investigation into Spygate is much broader than previously known.
Barr and Durham are working closely with CIA Director Gina Haspel, Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats and FBI Director Christopher Wray on surveillance issues related to Trump’s 2016 campaign.
This suggests a broader inter-agency effort is underway.
Obama’s officials from Holder, to Comey, Brennan and Clapper have gone into overdrive attacking Barr on Twitter and in various media appearances because they know they are in serious trouble.
Former AG Eric Holder ran an illegal gun running operation (Fast and Furious) and was held in criminal contempt of Congress so he has no room to speak on Barr’s leadership.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who is running in the 2020 Democrat presidential primary, pledged to enact an open border policy on Sunday, saying that she would release all border crossers and illegal aliens into American communities so long as they claim they are seeking asylum.
During an interview on CBS’s Face The Nation, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said, as president, she would end the detention of all border crossers and illegal aliens, instead, releasing every foreign national arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border into American communities if they are claiming asylum.
“As president of the United States, I would not fund any for-profit prisons, I would not lock up these families, I would have a humane immigration policy where people … would have lawyers and have a proper asylum process,” Gillibrand said.
“I wouldn’t keep them in detention at all,” Gillibrand continued. “I wouldn’t … as president of the United States, I wouldn’t use the detention system at all … if someone is seeking asylum, I would assign them a lawyer.”
When Gillibrand was pressed as to how she would handle the inflow of hundreds of thousands of border apprehensions and crossings set to occur this year, she said no border crossers and illegal aliens claiming asylum would be incarcerated under her watch.
“They don’t need to be incarcerated,” Gillibrand said. “If they’re given a lawyer and given a process, they will follow it. They can go into the community…”
At current rates, experts project there to be 863,000 border apprehensions this fiscal year, though this only counts illegal aliens who are caught at the border and does not include those who successfully cross. Experts predict that potentially half a million illegal aliens will successfully cross the southern border this year, undetected by Border Patrol.
Under Gillibrand’s open border plan, all border crossers and illegal aliens claiming asylum would be allowed to enter the country, freely, with the hope that they arrive in court for their hearing.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
