Last year brought a flurry of news reports about how Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been actively working to suppress the conservative message. Their actions are not new — all the big four tech/social media giants are run by Leftists. Some speculate that the election of Donald Trump increased their motivation to step up their efforts.

The arguments in the public square and in the courts about the First Amendment, free speech, and religious liberty are common — and now another discussion is gaining momentum — this one is about viewpoint discrimination.

The government is not permitted to engage in it, nor are taxpayer funded entities. To what degree, however, are private companies allowed to do so because of public accommodation laws?

The “literature” on the topic, as they say, is growing. As the courts and commentators hash it out, it is worth excerpting from a must-read article last November by Ben Weingarten at The Federalist. Here is how it opens:

PragerU Sues YouTube For Discriminating Against Conservative Videos

PragerU’s suit against Google and YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination has the potential to be groundbreaking.

Those blackballed from social media platforms for sharing views dissenting from prevailing progressive Silicon Valley orthodoxy have to date had little recourse against the tech speech police. That is why PragerU’s newly filed suit against Google and Google-owned YouTube alleging unlawful censorship and free speech discrimination based on the educational video purveyor’s conservative political viewpoint has the potential to be groundbreaking.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in California, details upwards of 50 PragerU educational videos that YouTube has, in PragerU’s view, unjustifiably slapped with “restricted mode” or “demonetization” filters, violating its First Amendment right to free speech. These filters limit or otherwise prevent viewers, based on characteristics like age, from consuming content deemed “inappropriate.”

Weingarten goes on to address whether basic conservative ideas can be called “inappropriate.” YouTube told PragerU that it “can’t share more details about our review process, as doing so could benefit channels that do not play by the rules (those who game the system).”

Weingarten writes:

Indeed, PragerU’s suit confirms what conservatives have recognized for some time: the rules that govern banning users, taking down content, or otherwise disadvantaging posts and tweets on the basis of the sharer’s ideology or the message’s bent have been capriciously written and arguably even more capriciously applied.

The section of Weingarten’s article regarding “Free Speech Rights Can Apply in Private Contexts” is important and informative:

PragerU’s argument rests on the idea that modern social media behemoths constitute the digital equivalent of today’s public square. Thus, their users must be provided the same free speech protections in cyberspace as in the town green.

The suit reads in part:

The United States Supreme Court…recognized more than a half-century ago that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution can apply even on privately owned property. One of the most important places to exchange and express views is cyberspace, particularly social media, where users engage in a wide array of protected First Amendment activity on any number of diverse topics.

Where, as in the case of Google/YouTube, a private party operates as one of the largest internet forums for speech and expression in the history of the world and such forum is accessible to and freely used by the public in general, there is nothing to distinguish it from any other forum except the fact that title to the property on which the forum exists belongs to a private corporation. As the highest court in the nation has made clear, ‘[t]he more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.’

“Time will tell what the courts make of this argument,” Weingarten writes.

Later in the article he says:

To the degree to which there is still a relatively free market in technology, there are plenty of measures we can take to challenge Silicon Valley’s speech muzzles. Unlike the Left, which knows how to organize and strategically execute its political campaigns, to date conservatives have not committed to such a concerted effort to protect free speech in cyberspace. We should. These efforts would have to encompass extensive, highly coordinated and unceasing.

Click here to read the bullet points that follow. They provide examples of what I’ve been writing for years about our side’s failure in the information war. And that gets back to the question asked in the title of this article: what is the conservative movement’s answer to the big four social media outlets?

Weingarten applauds PragerU’s efforts, but notes that they are “by no means a sufficient and sure safeguard of our rights.” Putting our hopes in the decision of judges, some of whom (may I say it?) are unmoored from reality and the U.S. Constitution, is not a winning strategy.

Preserving free speech, like all of our cherished freedoms,” Weingarten writes, “requires constant vigilance and persistent defense.”

What does that mean? It can’t mean more of the same when it comes to the marketing and messaging efforts on the part of conservatives. One way to accelerate that process would be for big conservative donors to learn about the groups such as Illinois Family Institute and Illinois Family Action that are willing to innovate, fight and finally win the information war.

If you wish to read many more examples about how the “big four” treat conservatives, you can scan through these links: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

IFI Worldview Conference Feb. 10th

We are excited about our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Sat., Feb. 10, 2017 at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture:

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

As we stand on the threshold of a new year, a phrase from Simon and Garfunkel’s song “The Boxer” sums up why America’s division into two warring worldviews seems to be widening.

“A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”  That’s true for most folks, thanks to human nature.

However, we’re not on an equal playing field.  The whole thing is tilted to the left.  Progressive news and entertainment are everywhere, including airport lounges where thousands of travelers each day are afflicted with CNN’s non-stop propaganda.

If you don’t go out of your way to get some balance, you might think, for instance, that the tax cut bill signed by President Donald Trump does one thing only:  It kicks the middle class and the poor into the gutter, where they’re splashed with dirty, icy water as rich people guzzling Dom Perignon speed by in limos to celebrate at four-star restaurants.

Every day, led by the Washington Post and the New York Times, the media relentlessly portray the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act as a sop to the rich and an attack on the poor and middle class, even though the poor pay no federal taxes and an estimated 80 percent of taxpayers will see immediate cuts in 2018.

The long overdue reform to reduce one of the world’s highest corporate tax rates from 35 percent to 21 percent will free up capital to expand industries, create more jobs and to compete internationally.   And eliminating the Obamacare penalty tax as of January 1, 2019, is a major step toward repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act in piecemeal fashion.

Here are some other highlights of the new law from the Tax Foundation:

—Although it eliminates the personal exemption, it increases the standard deduction to $12,000 for single filers, $18,000 for heads of household, and $24,000 for joint filers in 2018 (compared to $6,500, $9,550, and $13,000 respectively under current law).

—Retains the charitable contribution deduction, and limits the mortgage interest deduction to the first $750,000 in principal value.

—Limits the state and local tax deduction to a combined $10,000 for income, sales, and property taxes. (This will affect people the most in high-tax states run by Democrats.  More on that later).  Taxes paid or accrued in carrying on a trade or business are not limited.

—Expands the child tax credit from $1,000 to $2,000, while increasing the phase-out from $110,000 in current law to $400,000 for married couples. The first $1,400 would be refundable.

—Raises the exemption on the alternative minimum tax from $86,200 to $109,400 for married filers, and increases the phase-out threshold to $1 million.

You don’t hear much about these provisions because they don’t fit the media narrative.  Instead, we get a steady diet of class warfare.

USA Today, for instance, analyzed “5 household situations” as to how the tax bill would affect them. One of them, as related by the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel, “included a childless single renter earning $1 million a year, paying $50,000 in state and local taxes, and claiming $40,000 in charitable deductions.” As Ms. Strassel notes, “this downtrodden soul would pay $1,887 more in taxes.” Oh, the horror.

Some media outlets are floating the theory that the new tax law is so unfair that Democrats now have a good chance to take back the U.S House and perhaps even the U.S. Senate this November despite the roaring economy.

Before they book too many dance floors, though, Democrats might be reminded that Alabama’s recent election of a Democratic senator was a unique case, and that they’re defending 25 U.S. Senate seats, including several in “red” states — Indiana, North Dakota, West Virginia, Missouri and Montana – that Mr. Trump carried by 19 percent or more. Republicans have to defend only eight U.S. Senate seats.

Perhaps the Dems’ hope lies in a mass migration from high-tax, “blue” states whose residents will no longer be able to deduct all state and local taxes on their federal returns. Formerly rock-solid conservative New Hampshire recently went purple, as thousands of liberals from Massachusetts moved north to escape the consequences of their own party’s policies.  One would have hoped that they would think twice about fouling their new nest, but, no.  They’re trying their darndest to turn the Granite State into a replica of their former state or socialist Vermont.

Up in that neck of the woods, the Boston Globe and its former owner, the New York Times, are liberals’ version of the Bible.  Plus National Public Radio and PBS.  So it’s not surprising that even the many folks there who will benefit from the new tax law consider themselves victims.

A little retooling of the first referenced phrase might be in order:  “The media tell you what they want you to hear, and disregard the rest.”

This article was originally published at Townhall.com

Is that headline dramatic enough for you?

Since writing the four part series focusing on trade and manufacturing jobs (one, two, three, four), Jim Dicks at American Thinker added some interesting political information to the mix.

Steve Bannon, Jim Dicks wrote, has begun an

epic confrontation between the multinational corporations on one side (and their congressional politicians, to whom they have lavishly contributed) and the newly emerging Republican Party of the Little People on the other — the forgotten working class, championed by Donald Trump in his successful presidential run.

It is a crucial struggle, where, as stated best by Sundance of The Conservative Treehouse, “trillions of dollars are at stake.” It is a battle that will determine who controls the future wealth of the United States, where the manufacturing sector and portions of the service industry sector of the U.S. economy have been eroded, stripped from the United States and moved to cheap-labor countries, leaving behind a massive loss of jobs and wealth.

The goal of the Trump agenda is simply to “generate an economic renaissance with a dramatic infusion of wealth for middle-class workers,” Dicks wrote. President Trump “rejects the notion that the demise of U.S. manufacturing is inevitable and irreversible.”

Bannon believes that if we are to revitalize our moribund Obama economy and safeguard our future against the implications of profound technological advancements coming over the horizon, this economic and political reformation is essential. Corruption through bribery of our political class by multinationals must be stopped. Macro-level decisions concerning our national wealth must include the workers who build it and whose very future is at stake.

Bannon asked what’s more powerful: “the money of the corporatists or the muscle of the people”? His bet is on the people.

In part four, in my article I hyperlinked the words “creative destruction” to a definition of it at the website of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I’ve bolded the text on a key passage:

[Creative destruction] has become the centerpiece for modern thinking on how economies evolve.

[Economists who adopt the summary] of the free market’s ceaseless churning echo capitalism’s critics in acknowledging that lost jobs, ruined companies, and vanishing industries are inherent parts of the growth system. The saving grace comes from recognizing the good that comes from the turmoil. Over time, societies that allow creative destruction to operate grow more productive and richer; their citizens see the benefits of new and better products, shorter work weeks, better jobs, and higher living standards.

Herein lies the paradox of progress. A society cannot reap the rewards of creative destruction without accepting that some individuals might be worse off, not just in the short term, but perhaps forever. At the same time, attempts to soften the harsher aspects of creative destruction by trying to preserve jobs or protect industries will lead to stagnation and decline, short-circuiting the march of progress. … The process of creating new industries does not go forward without sweeping away the preexisting order.

It seems to me that the question of how many people will be permanently worse off is key. The page goes on to give helpful examples of how progress did away with jobs as technology evolved.

In a nutshell, cars wrecked the horse and buggy industry, planes lowered the number of people travelling by train, and “all this creation did not come without destruction.”

“Each new mode of transportation took a toll on existing jobs and industries”:

What occurred in the transportation sector has been repeated in one industry after another—in many cases, several times in the same industry. Creative destruction recognizes change as the one constant in capitalism. Sawyers, masons, and miners were among the top thirty American occupations in 1900. A century later, they no longer rank among the top thirty; they have been replaced by medical technicians, engineers, computer scientists, and others.

Technology roils job markets, as Schumpeter conveyed in coining the phrase “technological unemployment” E-mail, word processors, answering machines, and other modern office technology have cut the number of secretaries but raised the ranks of programmers. The birth of the Internet spawned a need for hundreds of thousands of webmasters, an occupation that did not exist as recently as 1990. LASIK surgery often lets consumers throw away their glasses, reducing visits to optometrists and opticians but increasing the need for ophthalmologists. Digital cameras translate to fewer photo clerks.

Companies show the same pattern of destruction and rebirth. Only five of today’s hundred largest public companies were among the top hundred in 1917. Half of the top hundred of 1970 had been replaced in the rankings by 2000.

That’s all easy to understand. What’s not easy to understand is — what happens if not enough new industries arise to provide the kind of good-paying jobs that are lost with the elimination of the old jobs?

Change is happening faster and faster — technology no longer creeps forward, it leaps, leaving many behind. We all know and live that. But many of those manufacturing jobs lost over the past few decades weren’t lost due to technology or progress. Many were just shipped overseas.

It is a fundamental fact: manufacturing is an important aspect of a nation’s wealth. Equally important is the fact that our nation’s policies should be geared towards benefiting our nation’s people. Like it or not, there is a segment of the population who will never write computer code or start a small business. What do we do about them? I don’t pretend to have the answer. The search for that answer is why the Illinois Family Institute decided to bring attention to John Westberg’s proposal. It is also why IFI provides this list of articles for anyone who wants to learn more on the topic.

As noted, click here for the rest of the articles on Trade and Manufacturing that I easily collected for about two years. Depending upon the value of anything new that I see, I will add links to the list.

Download the IFI App!

We now have an IFI mobile app that enables us to deliver great content based on the “Tracks” you choose, including timely legislative alerts, cultural commentaries, upcoming event notifications, links to our podcasts, video reports, and even daily Bible verses to encourage you. This great app is available for Android and iPhones.

Key Features:

• It’s FREE!
• Specific content for serious Christians
• Performs a spiritual assessment
• Sends you daily Scriptures to encourage and equip you
• You determine when and how much content you get

“Creative destruction” is a common phrase used in economics. One simple example that’s in the news a lot lately, is the phenomenon of Amazon.com. Since it launched in 1994, countless small books stores have been put out of business, and at least one large chain, Borders, has closed. That’s the destruction part. The creative part is the locating of new distribution centers all over the country — Illinois has been trying to land one as this article gets posted. The benefit to consumers is that within minutes, customers can find the book (or whatever) they want online and have it shipped in days.

When the American textile industry was decimated a few decades ago, the jobs were sent overseas due to free trade policies. Clothing prices dropped, but not without many Americans losing good paying jobs.

One common argument from the pro “free” traders is that trade, unrestricted by tariffs, raises the standard of living. For example, the middle, lower middle class, and the poor can afford things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. I have no doubt that’s true. For example, the last time I was in a Walmart I was shocked at just how inexpensive those foreign-made massive flat screen TVs are these days.

Of course, it’s not just clothes and TVs that are less expensive with free trade, but computers, furniture, clothes, and food (though evidently not meat).

Maybe there is someone out there who supports fairer trade who wants Americans to be priced out of necessities of life basics. If there is, I haven’t met them.

But is it just me or is the storage unit business a growing industry? Maybe I didn’t notice many of the Public Storage, Self Storage, and U-Haul Storage facilities when I was younger. I have noticed many new ones being opened, however.

It’s reasonable to surmise that what fills up many of that storage space is furniture and other items that could be afforded because of “free” trade. It’s also not unfair, it seems to me, to wonder about the impact on the average standard of living by having so much affordable stuff that a person winds up paying monthly storage fees.

That said, my assumption over the years has been that “free” trade is to be preferred. Only in recent years have I begun to read articles from serious men and women who are not pro-big government or economic isolationists making the case for a fairer trade.

While “creative destruction” leads to innovation, my concern is that the creative part doesn’t keep up with the destruction part. Factories close, towns die, and a lot of men and women who earned a good living working in manufacturing cannot find work that will allow them to maintain a decent standard of living.

It has been widely noted that Hillary Clinton lost states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan in no smart part due to their concentration on identity politics and their ignoring the economic challenges of the working class.

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon refers to a lot of what has been taking place concerning working class jobs as “economic hate crimes.” Bannon calls Washington, D.C. a “business model,” in that those on the inside always prosper. The think tank culture is also, no doubt, a “business model,” as big donors that benefit from “free” trade write big checks to defend current policies. There aren’t a lot of big donors in those dying towns across America.

Recently, townhall’s Kurt  Schlichter was tough on the “free” traders in an article:

Conservativism forgot about the real world conservatives we expected to line up behind us. While we were talking about free trade, we were ignoring that GOP voter who fought in Fallujah, came home, got a job building air conditioners, raised a family, and then one day watched the video of the oh-so-sorry CEO. . . sadly informing his beloved employees that their jobs were getting shipped to Oaxaca. And our response to the 58-year old Republican voter who asked us how he was going to keep paying for his mortgage and his kid in college? Pretty much, “Well, that’s how free enterprise works. Read some Milton Freidman and go learn coding.”

That’s not a response, not for a political party that requires people to actually vote for it. That’s an abdication…

Last year, Victor Davis Hanson also weighed in on the topic during an interview with Laura Ingraham: (see here starting at about the 8-minute mark).

I saw a whole generation of people in agriculture completely wiped out by unfair trade with the European Union. And Every time I would write about it I was told that I didn’t understand free market economics. And the same thing with China, and the same thing with outsourcing.

I grew up in a small town where everybody had a good job at a manufacturing plant. Now it’s 16 percent unemployment and I’m supposed to say this is creative destruction.

And I read in [National Review], that I’m affiliated — that this is good. That people lose jobs. They have to move. You just abandon your family your house, everybody, your community, and you just get in the car and follow the job.

And then I think to myself, I get up every morning at the Hoover Institution — I don’t worry that somebody from the Punjab is gonna walk in my office and say I’ll write that column for 40 percent of what you’re doing.

. . .

I know people in Silicon Valley that are being outsourced right now by people coming in on Visas. The elite has never suffered the consequences of their own ideology.

It’s not just conservative commentators who are not experts in economics. Economist Stephen Moore, no Trumpian protectionist, recently wrote about how NAFTA needs to be improved, and cites unfair practices of our trading partners.

Another expert is John Westberg who we mentioned in part two. His solution is innovative and deserving of attention and study — you can read more about it here ADD LINK.

As I noted at the outset of this 4-part series, this is a huge topic worthy of an ongoing debate. The need for a healthy middle class is obvious — and impossible without enough good paying jobs. Just looking at the employment/unemployment numbers isn’t enough. We must look at the actual human impact on the ground — that is how we will measure how well trade is working for working Americans.

This isn’t a matter of feelings and emotions but of dollars and cents. American policy should be aimed at benefiting Americans, even if we wind up paying more for goods, and less on storage units.

Up next: ‘Trillions of dollars are at stake’: It is a battle over ‘the future wealth of the United States.’

Download the IFI App!

We now have an IFI mobile app that enables us to deliver great content based on the “Tracks” you choose, including timely legislative alerts, cultural commentaries, upcoming event notifications, links to our podcasts, video reports, and even daily Bible verses to encourage you. This great app is available for Android and iPhones.

Key Features:

• It’s FREE!
• Specific content for serious Christians
• Performs a spiritual assessment
• Sends you daily Scriptures to encourage and equip you
• You determine when and how much content you get

Last week, President Donald Trump announced that his administration will exempt employers who have religious or moral objections to providing contraceptives, including drugs that can cause abortions. This is an important action to restore religious liberties that were stripped away in the Obamacare HHS mandate.

The Little Sisters of the Poor, Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties brought the Obamacare violation of religious freedom to the national spotlight when they fought the mandate at the U.S. Supreme Court. The sincere religiously informed consciences of the owners of Conestoga Wood and Hobby Lobby played heavily into the opinion of Justice Samuel Alito, which upheld religious liberty and freedom of conscience.

“Our legal team went to court in 2012 to fight this unjust mandate on behalf of the Hahns, a Mennonite family and owners of Conestoga Wood Specialties,” said Michael Geer, President of the Pennsylvania Family Institute. “Thankfully, in 2014, the Supreme Court victory granted relief for the Hahns and the Green family (owners of Hobby Lobby) in a landmark ruling. We’re glad now to see that other religious employers and ministries will be protected as well, thanks to the President’s actions.”

“President Trump deserves to be thanked for upholding his promise on religious freedom,” said Paul Weber, President of Focus on the Family’s Family Policy Alliance. “And we’re grateful for the team of attorneys brought together by the Pennsylvania Family Institute that paved the way to this victory through their outstanding work that led to the Supreme Court win.”

Randall Wenger, Chief Counsel for the Independence Law Center, was interviewed by a local Fox affiliate outside of Conestoga Wood to discuss this policy improvement. “The first liberty in our Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion, and what this mandate is doing is protecting the rights of conscience not only for religious people but for non religious people.”

In response to Leftist hysteria over this minor change, National Review’s David French explains that “Totally ignored by these borderline-apocalyptic assessments of what was, in fact, a modest rollback is the reality that birth control has only very recently come to be viewed as an entitlement.”

IFI joins other pro-family groups across the nation in applauding this important action by President Trump. Moreover, we stand in full agreement with his statement on the issue: “No American should be forced to choose between the dictates of the federal government and the tenets of their faith.”

Oct. 27th – IFI Annual Banquet with Lt. Col. Allen West

Join us in Hoffman Estates for IFI’s annual banquet on Friday, Oct. 27th.  This year we are celebrating our 25th Anniversary with American hero Lt. Col. Allen West as our keynote speaker. Space is limited, don’t miss this special event. Click HERE for more information.

Call (708) 781-9328 for more information.

If Illinoisans want to know what’s wrong with public education, look no further than School District U-46, more specifically to the arrogant, self-righteous school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis who never misses an opportunity to insult conservative values through bigoted, divisive, uncivil language.  She is the school board member who has twice gleefully referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.”

Evidently wanting to outdo herself in offending a segment of the diverse community whose interests she laughingly claims to represent, she just posted this on her Facebook page:

I’m proud to stand with the sons of bitches on the field today. And I promise you I would #TakeAKnee at school board meetings if my doing so would not be disruptive to KIDS and a distraction to the work we need to do for THEM. But [Trump’s] remarks are nothing more than continued white nationalism at its finest. That flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me. [emphasis added]

By asserting that the American flag means nothing more than “toilet paper” to her, Ellis reveals her crudity and unprofessionalism.

Ellis’ unprofessional comment came to light when a concerned community member sent it to the only  conservative on the U-46 school board, Jeanette Ward, who then re-posted it, with this brief statement:

This was sent to me by a very concerned constituent. A U-46 BOE colleague of mine has stated that our country’s flag means “nothing more than toilet paper”. I disagree in the strongest possible terms. Many patriotic Americans have shed their blood to defend the ideas and ideals America represents. To call it “nothing more than toilet paper” is absolutely despicable and disgusting.

Ellis, incensed that Ward and community members are (justifiably) upset by her juvenile comment, took to Facebook again to rationalize her comment and attack—not Ward’s brief comment—but Ward herself.

Ellis, who is black, began though with a summary of the tragic history of her family going back to the Middle Passage and continuing up to today when, Ellis reports, her family continues to experience racism. Because of this, she says that “The flag and the anthem are symbols in this country of freedom and ‘justice and liberty’ for all. Yet that is a blatant lie for black folks.”

But is it a “blatant lie for black folks”? Is there no justice or liberty for blacks?

I couldn’t possibly list all the blacks who have achieved success in virtually every area of life including the arts,  military, government, journalism, athletics, academia, and medicine. Ellis herself is a sitting school board member and an attorney, and yet she claims there is no justice or liberty for blacks.

Ellis shares that she has “many family members and friends who now serve or have served in the United States military, and they have my deepest respect. But let’s be clear, I can love and respect them without loving a false symbol of hope.”

How is the flag that represents the ideals and principles that have helped rid our nation of the scourges of slavery, slave codes, Black Codes, Jim Crow Laws, and segregation a false symbol of hope? Is Ellis so blind that she cannot see how far this country has come in healing racial division? When I look around, I see daily marvelous evidence of racial unity. I see bi-racial couples, families that include adopted children of diverse races, churches with racially mixed congregations, colleges with racially mixed student bodies and faculties, and racially mixed groups of teens laughing together.

It is not the ideals and principles represented by the flag that have failed. It is fallen people who fail to live up to those ideals that have failed. It is fallen people who don’t recognize truth who perpetuate foolishness, injustice, and evil.

If the injustices that persist because of the fallenness of humans taint the flag for Ellis, then why don’t the great strides we’ve made in America in eradicating racial injustice generate in Ellis a love for the flag?

Ellis then behaved like a schoolyard bully, attacking Jeanette Ward personally:

Jeanette Ward is the most absurd hypocrite I have ever had the personal misfortune to know and have to yield any of my personal time to. She dares to claim free speech to castigate U-46 kids and deny the humanity of our LGBTQIA students. She constantly WHINES about lack of tolerance to diversity of thought and CRIES like a 2 year old that her freedom of speech is being impinged on when anyone dares to disagree with her. Yet she has the unmitigated gall to try to take me to task when I express MY OPINION on the flag on my personal Facebook page. Hey Jeanette (and anybody else offended by what I said), that’s not how free speech and liberty and the flag you love so much works. THAT’S. NOT. HOW. ANY. OF. THIS. WORKS.

Jeanette Ward has never denied “the humanity” of “LGBTQIA students.” When has she castigated U-46 kids and for what? Recognizing the profound meaning of objective, immutable biological sex, Jeanette Ward has worked courageously for the privacy rights of all students, which entailed opposing co-ed restrooms and locker rooms. Perhaps in Ellis’ twisted world, denying students access to the private spaces of opposite-sex persons constitutes “denying” their “humanity.”

All school board members, teachers, and administrators should care deeply about diversity of thought—something woefully absent in many public schools when it comes to matters related to race, sex, homosexuality, and the “trans” ideology. And school board members, teachers, and administrators—who are role models for children—should care deeply about how diverse views are expressed.

Ellis calls Ward’s 63-word comment on Ellis’ offensive Facebook post a galling attack on her speech rights. So what is Ellis’ 842-word screed in which she describes meeting Ward as a “personal misfortune,” and calls Ward an “absurd hypocrite” who “cries like a 2 year old”?

But Ward is not the only target of Ellis’ unrighteous indignation:

Finally, the fact that so many of you are coming UNHINGED over my post actually proves my point. The freedoms you enjoy and the flag you profess to love so much do not extend to me as a black woman. They are not my birthright. Yet I demand them anyway, and that demand includes the right to not feel any patriotism towards a piece of cloth and a pledge of allegiance to a country that does not love me back. Forced allegiance is not patriotism. It is fascism. And I will not bow to that.

Does Ellis actually think criticism of her Facebook post constitutes the denial of her freedoms? Does she think exercising her speech rights requires everyone else to remain silent? When she criticizes Republicans, conservatives, or colleagues is she denying them their birthright freedoms?

Ellis’ pouts that her country “does not love” her back. How did she arrive at that odd conclusion? Because her comment was criticized? Is she kidding? If she’s serious, what does her nasty personal attack on Ward mean? What do the hateful comments about Ward from Ellis’ fans in U-46 over the past six months mean?

Clearly Ellis doesn’t understand why so many people are upset by her adolescent “toilet paper” comment. People feel resentful about Ellis’ comment—not because they desire to force allegiance—but because the comment represents a myopic and distorted view of America, which is shaped by Critical Race Theory and promulgated as truth in public schools.

This ideology promotes an imbalanced, cynical view of American history. It encourages students to view the world through the divisive lens of identity politics, which separates people into groups according to who are the purported oppressors and who the oppressed. It cultivates a sense of undeserved guilt on the part of the alleged oppressors and robs minority students of a sense of agency in and responsibility for their own lives. Critical Race Theory (or teaching for “social justice”) is distinctly anti-American, hyper-focusing on America’s failings while diminishing or ignoring the remarkable success America has achieved in integrating virtually every ethnic and racial group in the world, and enabling people to improve their lots in life through economic opportunity and American principles of liberty and equality.

Ellis holds in contempt the American flag about which President Barack Obama said, “”I revere the American flag, and I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country.”

The American flag that drapes the coffins of soldiers who have given their lives for this country—the country into which millions of people have sought and continue to seek refuge—is to Ellis something that people should use to clean themselves after defecating.

Ellis has a First Amendment right to say anything she wants, and her community has the right to decide whether she truly seeks to represent all members of her community in a professional manner.  Ellis doesn’t seem to realize that school board members are role models for children or that she is a lousy one. If I were a member of her community, I would use my birthright freedom to give her the heave-ho.

Listen to Laurie read this article in this podcast:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/School-Board-Members-Adolescent-Statement-About-the-American-Flag.mp3

PLEASE consider a financial gift to IFI to sustain our work.
We’ve stood firm for 25 years, work diligently to accomplish our mission to
“boldly bring a biblical perspective to public policy” in Illinois.

If Illinoisans want to know what’s wrong with public education, look no further than School District U-46, more specifically to the arrogant, self-righteous school board member Traci O’Neal Ellis who never misses an opportunity to insult conservative values through bigoted, divisive, uncivil language.  She is the school board member who has twice gleefully referred to the Republican National Convention as the “Klanvention.”

Evidently wanting to outdo herself in offending a segment of the diverse community whose interests she laughingly claims to represent, she just posted this on her Facebook page:

I’m proud to stand with the sons of bitches on the field today. And I promise you I would #TakeAKnee at school board meetings if my doing so would not be disruptive to KIDS and a distraction to the work we need to do for THEM. But [Trump’s] remarks are nothing more than continued white nationalism at its finest. That flag means nothing more than toilet paper to me. [emphasis added]

By asserting that the American flag means nothing more than “toilet paper” to her, Ellis reveals her crudity and unprofessionalism.

Read more…

Written by Hans von Spakovsky

If you have no idea what happened at the second meeting of President Donald Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in New Hampshire on Sept. 12, I’m not surprised.

Though a horde of reporters attended the meeting, almost all of the media stories that emerged from it simply repeated the progressive left’s mantra that the commission is a “sham.”

Almost no one covered the substantive and very concerning testimony of 10 expert witnesses on the problems that exist in our voter registration and election system.

The witnesses included academics, election lawyers, state election officials, data analysts, software experts, and computer scientists.

The existing and potential problems they exposed would give any American with any common sense and any concern for our democratic process cause for alarm.

The first panel included Andrew Smith of the University of New Hampshire, Kimball Brace of Election Data Services Inc., and John Lott. They testified about historical election turnout statistics and the effects of election integrity issues on voter confidence.

Lott also testified that his statistical analyses show that contrary to the narrative myth pushed by some, voter ID does not depress voter turnout. In fact, there is some evidence that it may increase turnout because it increases public confidence in elections.

In a second panel, Donald Palmer, the former chief election official in two states—Florida and Virginia—testified about the problems that exist in state voter registration systems.

He made a series of recommendations to improve the accuracy of voter rolls, including working toward “interoperability” of state voter lists so that states “can identify and remove duplicate registration of citizens who are registered to vote in more than one state.”

Robert Popper, a former Justice Department lawyer now with Judicial Watch, testified about the failure of the Justice Department to enforce the provisions of the National Voter Registration Act that require states to maintain the accuracy of their voter lists.

He said there has been a “pervasive failure by state and county officials” to comply with the National Voter Registration Act, and complained about the under-enforcement of state laws against voter fraud.

Ken Block of Simpatico Software Systems gave a stunning report on the comparison that his company did of voter registration and voter history data from 21 states. He discussed how difficult and expensive it was to get voter data from many states—data that is supposed to be freely available to the public.

According to Block, “the variability in access, quality, cost, and data provided impedes the ability to examine voter activity between states.”

Yet using an extremely conservative matching formula that included name, birthdate, and Social Security number, Block found approximately 8,500 voters who voted in two different states in the November 2016 election, including 200 couples who voted illegally together. He estimated that “there would be 40,000 duplicate votes if data from every state were available.”

Of those duplicate voters, 2,200 cast a ballot in Florida—four times George W. Bush’s margin of victory in 2000. His analysis “indicates a high likelihood [of] voter fraud” and that there is “likely much more to be found.”

As a member of the commission, I testified about The Heritage Foundation’s election fraud database. That non-comprehensive database has 1,071 examples of proven incidents of fraud ranging from one illegal vote to hundreds. It includes 938 criminal convictions, 43 civil penalties, and miscellaneous other cases.

Heritage is about to add another 19 cases to the database. This is likely just the tip of the iceberg, since many cases are never prosecuted and there is no central source for information on election fraud.

The commission also heard about a report published by Shawn Jasper, the Republican speaker of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. That report stated that over 6,500 individuals in 2016 used an out-of-state driver’s license to take advantage of New Hampshire’s same-day registration law to register and vote on Election Day.

Despite a law that requires an individual with an out-of-state license to obtain a New Hampshire license within 60 days of establishing residency in the state, only 15.5 percent have done so.

Many have tried to explain this away be saying those voters must all have been college students living in New Hampshire. Perhaps that is true.

But it may also be true that voters from Massachusetts and other surrounding states decided to take advantage of New Hampshire’s law to cross the border and vote in a presidential and Senate race, which were decided by only 3,000 and 1,000 voters, respectively.

Of course, we won’t know the truth of what happened unless we do what should be done, and what the commission’s critics don’t want to be done: investigate these cases.

Finally, the commission heard from three computer experts—Andrew Appel of Princeton University, Ronald Rivest of MIT, and Harri Hursti of Nordic Innovation Labs. Their testimony about the ability of hackers to get into electronic voting equipment and just about every other device that uses the internet (and even those that don’t) was chilling.

As Appel stated, our challenge is to ensure that when voters go to the polls, they can “trust that their votes will be recorded accurately, counted accurately, and aggregated accurately.” He made a series of “technological and organization” recommendations for achieving that objective.

All in all, the Sept. 12 meeting, which was hosted by Bill Gardner, New Hampshire’s longtime Democratic secretary of state, was both informative and comprehensive. But anyone who didn’t attend would never know that based on the skimpy and biased coverage it received in the media.

The hearing is evidence of the good work the commission is already doing in bringing to light the problems we face in ensuring the integrity of our election process.

This article was originally posted at The Daily Signal.

They claim creating an election integrity commission is a way to advance voter suppression.

Progressives are in an uproar over the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, and we have to ask why?

Why not look into ways to protect our elections from fraud?

Because to do so would advance “white supremacy,” according to Democratic U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York, who tweeted on Aug. 24, that “If the president wants to truly show that he rejects the discrimination agenda of the white supremacist movement, he will rescind the Executive Order that created this commission.”

Then, he warned, “And if the president does not act, the Congress should prohibit its operation through one of the must-pass legislative vehicles in September.”

Wow. So, the Democrats would shut down Congress in order to keep a blue-ribbon panel from studying the vulnerabilities of our election process? Mr. Schumer must truly fear this commission. He wants it to disband even before its second official meeting on Sept. 12 in New Hampshire.

“The Ku Klux Klan and its sympathizers at all levels of government denied black Americans the right to vote for decades,” Mr. Schumer continued in his tweet without a hint of irony. The Klan was the militant wing of the Democratic Party, which enforced Jim Crow laws against black people for 88 years. More on that later.

“Today, voting rights are once again under assault,” the senator bleated, er, tweeted. “The misguided Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision gutted the Voting Rights Act, opening the door to the same voter suppression tactics that existed before the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.” He means back when Democrats ran the show in the South.

Instead of Jim Crow, the Democrats rely today on the bureaucratic behemoth created under Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, which shattered the black family and still keeps blacks and other minorities beholden to the Democrats’ federal welfare plantation. They just have to keep promising more and more stuff to the Free Stuff Army. Who needs the Klan when you’ve got Uncle Sugar? But, what does chronic dependence do to people’s souls? Hey, don’t be getting all religious on me.

Mr. Schumer was not the first Democrat to cry that the sky would fall. Former Attorney General Eric Holder called the new commission “another frightening attempt to suppress the votes of certain Americans.” This kind of balderdash is not harmless. Commission members that I have talked to have reported harassment and even death threats.

Mr. Schumer equates any and all election integrity measures such as voter ID laws as brutal instruments designed to “suppress” the votes of minorities, the elderly and the young. In fact, minority voting has increased following passage of voter ID laws. Perhaps folks have more of an incentive to vote when they know their ballots will actually count.

Mr. Schumer contends that vote fraud is a myth cooked up to advance voter suppression.

This is a serious charge, and nobody knows better how to go about suppressing voters than the Democratic Party, which benefited from it for nearly nine decades with its Jim Crow system before congressional Republicans rammed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But back to the original question. Why not have a bipartisan panel of experts make sure that election officials are doing their jobs to ensure fairness and integrity? Indeed, if you think vote fraud poses no threat, why oppose a study that might prove your point? If the panel comes up empty, you get to crow. But if it exposes sloppy practices that enable fraudulent voting, shouldn’t you want to know that and clean up the mess?

Progressives crowed that some liberal state officials initially refused to provide voter data to the commission. But as of now, virtually all states are complying with the request, having been told by their attorneys that it is entirely lawful, especially since the data are already in the public realm and commercially available. What? You hadn’t heard from the media that the states are now cooperating?

Here’s one more thing to consider: All of the allegedly vulnerable identity groups: minorities, elderly, the young — strongly favor voter ID laws, since, like everyone else, they don’t want their votes stolen by someone casting a fraudulent ballot. Survey after survey shows it.

So, I think I know what’s behind the Democrats’ fear of the election integrity commission: They have already lost the argument over voter IDs. In its eventual report, the commission will be making the case for how to ensure accurate voter registration rolls. And, accurate voter rolls prevent vote fraud.

If that isn’t frightening to a liberal, nothing is.

This article was originally posted by The Washington Times.

As I listen to the main stream media daily and hear what they determine to be the “news stories” of the day, I have asked myself on numerous occasions, “What has President Trump accomplished in his first eight months of office?”

That is a question that has gone unanswered by any of the news media outlets, save one.

On Thursday, August 24th, Sean Hannity ran down a list of the President’s accomplishments during his Fox News Channel program.

For those of you who may have missed his monologue, I offer this list:

• Neil Gorsuch on the U.S. Supreme Court
• Stock Market at All-Time high
• Consumer Confidence at 16-year high
• More than 1 million jobs created
• Mortgage Applications for new homes rise to a 7-year high
• Unemployment Rate at 16-year low
• Signed the promoting women in Entrepreneurship Act
• Gutted Obama ERA Regulations
• Ended war on coal
• Weakened Dodd-Frank regulations
• Promotes buying and hiring American
• Investments from major businesses (Foxconn, Toyota, Ford, and others)
• Reduced illegal immigration
• Bids for border wall underway
• Fighting back against sanctuary cities
• Created victims of immigration crime engagement office
• Changed Rules of Engagement against ISIS
• Drafted plan to defeat ISIS
• Worked to reduce F-35 cost
• 5-year lobbying Ban
• Sanctioned Iran over missile program
• Responded to Syria’s use of chemical weapons
• Introduced Tax reform plan
• Renegotiating NAFTA
• Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific partnership
• Removed the United States out of the Paris accord
• Created Task force to reduce crime
• DOJ targeting MS-13
• Signed an Executive order to promote energy independence and economic growth
• Signed Executive order to protect police officers
• Signed Executive order to target drug cartels
• Signed Executive order for religious freedom
• Sending Education back to the states
• Fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs
• SCOTUS upheld part of Pres. Trump’s temporary travel ban Executive Order
• Authorized the construction of the Keystone pipeline.
• Created commission on Election Fraud
• Created commission on opioid addiction
• Combating Human Trafficking
• Rollback of Obama’s Cuba Policy
• Food Stamp use lowest level in 7 years
• Reduced White House payroll
• Donating Presidential salary
• Signed 52 pieces of Legislation

If you are aghast at not having any word from our Media regarding this list of either direct actions by our President, or outcomes resulting from legislation, Executive Orders, or creation of a climate for business growth, you echo my sentiments. WHY are we not hearing about real actions designed to get the country back on track? And why are we not hearing how we are doing in relation to the issues that were most important to the people who elected our President & representatives?

Just thought you might like to see the list.

Roy M. Endres. Board Member
Illinois Family Institute

Last year I was at lunch with an evangelist. After the meal, he handed our waitress a Gospel tract. I wanted to reinforce his compassion, so I told the young lady that her relationship with God was the most important thing in the world. She responded, “Yeah, that and global warming!” She proceeded to tell us that she wakes up in fear of what may happen to the earth during her lifetime. I was shocked. I asked her if she was familiar with the old Sunday school song, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” She said, “Yes.” I told her it was true.

I left that meeting with a deeper awareness of the politics of fear.

The Left uses fear to get people to act. Environmentalists argue that a growing human population using growing amounts of energy from fossil fuels is causing catastrophically dangerous global warming. The Left prescribes two cures.

First, replace fossil fuels with wind, solar, and other renewables. But as Dr. E. Calvin Beisner (of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation) explains, abundant, affordable, reliable energy is indispensable to lifting and keeping any society out of poverty, and fossil fuels are and for the foreseeable future will remain our best source of that energy. Wind, solar, and other renewables are diffuse, expensive, and unreliable. Substituting them for fossil fuels makes energy more expensive, thus slowing, stopping, or even reversing the conquest of poverty in the developed world while impoverishing many in the developed world.

Second, slow, stop, and finally reverse population growth. Environmentalists openly advocate reducing the world’s population to 500 million, i.e., getting rid of 9 out of 10 human beings. How? Partly through homosexuality and transgenderism, but also through government-run “family planning” programs that invariably involve highly incentivized and often even forced use of contraceptives, sterilization, and abortion.

Efforts to control population have unintended consequences. For example, from its start in 1979 China’s one-child policy has led to sex-selected abortions, with male births outnumbering female by about 115 to 100, resulting in about 33 million more Chinese men than women. In turn, this has fueled demand for pornography and prostitution, much of which is met by sex-trafficking that has become so bad that the U.S. State Department has named China among the world’s worst offenders.

All of these things led to our inviting Dr. Beisner to speak for our events in April. I was convinced that the climate change debate had to be addressed from a Christian perspective.

Dr. Beisner did an amazing job helping people of faith to understand why this issue is a conservative, pro-life concern. He ably integrated Biblical worldview, theology, and ethics with excellent science and economics to help our audiences understand how climate alarmism threatens family, freedom, and prosperity—and how to respond to it.

Yes, climate change is a pro-family issue.

As anyone knows who has counseled couples on the verge of divorce, one of the most common causes is financial stress. Poverty harms families. Driving up energy prices increases poverty and so undermines the family.

To that end, it is a very good thing, indeed, that President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change.

Learn More:  If you’d like to learn more, Dr. Beisner’s presentation was video-recorded and is now posted on the IFI YouTube channel. This 90-minute presentation will leave you much better informed and with a deeper understanding of why Christians should actively oppose the climate alarmist agenda. You can watch it here below, or click HERE.

Please subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel.

Read more about Dr. Beisner and the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation and please visit their blog, EarthRisingBlog.com.

You can also follow them on Twitter @CornwallSteward, and “like” their Facebook page HERE.

IFI depends on the support of Christians like you. Donate now

-and, please-

The election of Donald Trump was often attributed to a reaction to the declining economics of middle-aged men.  However, a new study of young men finds that they have their own share of economic struggles today, too.   According to data from the National Bureau of Economic Research:

“Between 2000 and 2015, market hours worked fell by 203 hours per year (12 percent) for younger men ages 21-30, compared to a decline of 163 hours per year (8 percent) for men ages 31-55 . . . Not only have hours fallen, but there is a large and growing segment of this population that appears to be detached from the labor market. 15 percent of younger men, excluding full-time students, worked zero weeks over the prior year as of 2016. The comparable number in 2000 was only 8 percent.”

What is particularly interesting is that this study looked at what is occurring with many of these unemployed or underemployed young men.  They found that as these men work less, many are spending more time on computers, playing video games.  The study found that unemployed young men spend about 530 hours a year, or thirteen 40-hour-work weeks, playing video games.

The Institute for Family Studies points out that only 12 percent of non-working younger men are married, or live with a partner and a smaller fraction report living in a household with a dependent child. Many young men are still living at home or receiving assistance from their parents.  A generation or two ago, things would have looked quite different. Men were forced to grow up more quickly by becoming husbands and fathers, with wives and young children who depended on them financially and otherwise.

This means more personal freedom for the average 20-something man today.  However, it also means that without work or a family to hold them accountable, these young men are free to “game” away their time. They are also increasingly unmoored from things, like marriage or faith that would have sustained the hard and unpredictable lives of the blue-collar men who came before them.

Video games may be more cool and advanced than ever before, but can they offer the long-term happiness that previous generations of men found in hard work, personal community, marriage and faith?

This article was originally posted by AFAIN.net.

Those first courageous settlers in the new world — circa 1607 — faced peril and hardship to make a new home in this country. They steeled themselves, ready to fight predators and all who would threaten their loved ones and property.

Within 175 years America faced the British and their allies in the Revolutionary War  (1775–1783), battling King George’s Redcoats, necessitating the formation of regular military. The United States Army was founded on 14 June, 1775, the Navy on 13 October 1775, the Marines on 10 November 1775, the Coast Guard on 4 August 1790, and the Air Force on 18 September 1947.

Since our nation’s “infancy,” the United States of America has maintained the mightiest military in the history of the world. What has contributed to such overpowering armed forces?

Perhaps a key can be found in Steven Pressfield’s The Warrior Ethos:

At Thermopylae on the final morning, when the last surviving Spartans knew they were all going to die, they turned to one of their leaders, the warrior Dienekes, and asked him what thoughts they should hold in their minds in this final hour to keep their courage strong.

Dienekes instructed his comrades to fight not in the name of such lofty concepts as patriotism, honor, duty or glory. Don’t even fight, he said, to protect your family or your home.

Fight for this alone: the man who stands at your shoulder. He is everything, and everything is contained within him.

The soldier’s prayer today on the eve of battle remains not “Lord spare me” but “Lord, let me not prove unworthy of my brothers.”

Civilians wonder at the passion displayed by wounded soldiers to get back to their units, to return to the fight. But soldiers understand. It is no marvel to them that men who have lost arms and legs still consider themselves fit for battle, so powerful is the passion to return to their brothers–and not to let them down.

Ordeals of initiation are undergone not as individuals but as teams as units.

Courage is inseparable from love and leads to what may arguably be the noblest of all warrior virtues: selflessness. (The Warrior Ethos, pages 40 & 41)

Selflessness and the critical mindset of the unit or the team fly in direct opposition to all the self-centered notions and attitudes of our current culture. There is no room for the babified squalling for safe places or whining over microaggressions.

Consider the Soldier’s Creed (emphasis mine):

• I am an American Soldier.
• I am a warrior and a member of a team.
• I serve the people of the United States, and live the Army Values.
• I will always place the mission first.
• I will never accept defeat.
• I will never quit.
• I will never leave a fallen comrade.
• I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
• I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
• I am an expert and I am a professional.
• I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy, the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
• I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
• I am an American Soldier.

There is no greater picture of John 15:13 than the creed lived out by each of the branches of the United States military:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Sacrificial selflessness combined with a “unit/team mentality” fuel the might of our Armed Forces. The team mindset is a biblical principle. Ecclesiastes 4:12 instructs: “Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”

Unfortunately, popular culture today has exulted selfishness–self-centeredness–above all else. The very concept of a movement with the motto “Pride” speaks volumes about the hearts and minds deluded by biological fantasy.

The Left and the LGBTQIA activists wailed and gnashed their collective teeth over President Trump’s transgender ban for the military. Those same moaners and groaners have not an inkling of what it takes to build a mighty and lethal fighting force.

Introducing sexually confused members into the units does nothing to help the cohesiveness imperative to do battle victoriously.

So many factors can affect the readiness of armed forces. The experts Trump conferred with understand the warrior ethos and the art of war. Purposefully adding conflicted soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines into the mix detracts, rather than augments, the aggressive strength of the teams/units.

Thus, the strict and stringent physical requirements: mean strength and superlative physical fitness and mental tenacity are imperative.

There’s no room for a military member thinking about issues other than success of the mission. There’s no room for fat soldiers or legally blind soldiers.

The standards for service in the armed forces are purposefully, even vehemently, biased against ANY weak link.

Quite another thing to think about, military service is already demanding on marriages. Think of six month deployments on a U.S. aircraft carrier in tight quarters, with little privacy in the “head” or sleeping quarters where as many as 96 sailors are crammed together. How would a stateside spouse deal with knowing their husband (or wife) was in such tight proximity with a transgender claiming to be a man or woman but still having the biological plumbing and parts of their birth sex? That is a recipe for disaster and divorce.

How can we counteract this unhealthy roar from the Left?

President Trump would do well to continue listening to the Generals, the Colonels, the Lt. Colonels — those warriors who understand the vital components of troop readiness and lethality. Those same military giants should, at every occasion, refute the nonsense and inform the uninformed why we have a mighty military and how to maintain that might.

America has never faced more insidious enemies, both foreign and domestic.

May God help us fight both with an unashamed will to win.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois!

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

At 5:55 (CDT) this morning, President Donald Trump tweeted the following:

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.

Finally, a president who listens to the voices of reason, wisdom, and military expertise rather than to the cacophonous, incoherent voices of fools, Leftists, and military-antagonists.

This momentous decision comes at a critical juncture. The military was poised to allow men and women with serious psychological disorders to serve openly in the military.

Last September an Army Training Power Point presentation included this astounding “guideline”:

Understand that you many encounter individuals in barracks, bathrooms, or shower facilities with physical characteristics of the opposite sex despite having the same gender marker in DEERS [the army’s personnel system].

All Soldiers should be respectful of the privacy and modesty concerns of others. However, transgender Soldiers are not required or expected to modify or adjust their behavior based on the fact that they do not “match” other Soldiers.

As Americans are all too aware the disorder that threatens military order, cohesion, morale, and strength is the disorder that threatens the cohesion, strength, and social fabric of America. That disorder is gender dysphoria or as Leftists call it “transgenderism.”

Gender dysphoria leads to profoundly destructive actions that have moral, political, social, and military ramifications. Gender dysphoric men and women who wish they were the opposite sex are cross-dressing and engaging in chemical and surgical mutilation of their healthy bodies. They seek to force all of society to treat them as if they are the sex they are not. They seek to force all citizens to pretend that subjective, internal feelings about one’s sex are more important than objective, immutable biological sex. They seek to invade the restrooms, locker rooms, showers, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, and sports teams of persons of the opposite sex. They seek to impose hefty fines on citizens who refuse to refer to them by pronouns that correspond to the sex they are not. They seek to force all citizens to pretend that men can menstruate, become pregnant, and “chest-feed.” They offer children as sacrifices to Moloch.

They also seek to serve openly in the military, which means impersonating and being housed with persons whose sex they do not share. That is an offense against nature and nature’s God, and a violation of the rights of the men and women who serve every American and every non-citizen who lives in this once-great nation.

What a grotesque outrage that so few Americans have said anything as the military stood poised to force men and women who are willing to sacrifice their lives for us to suffer the indignity of showering and toileting with persons of the opposite sex. If Leftists can get women in silly costumes to march for the mythical right to have the government subsidize feticide, conservatives should be able to get men and women to march against compulsory co-ed showers in the military.

We underpay these men and women and their families. We take for granted their service, forgetting how spouses and children are affected. We forget the suffering they endure when grievously injured in war. And then we say virtually nothing while a small group of biological-sex-rejecting persons with perverse desires impose their twisted, truth-denying vision of human nature on the rest of our young soldiers.

This anarchical sexual revolution is the most significant revolution in the history of the world and we treat it like another offensive Hollywood movie. Never in the course of human history has a society denied the reality, immutability, and meaning of the sexual binary. Subjective feelings do not trump reality. If Americans can’t be roused to defend the meaning of sexual differentiation—and yes, that will require enduring Leftist ire in the service of perversion—America doesn’t deserve to survive as a nation.

No matter how Americans feel about President Trump, his tweets, or his positions on other issues, the position he expressed this morning is something for which all Americans who care about the military should be thankful. And they should express their thanks to him.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send President Trump a message thanking him for protecting the integrity of the military and preserving a strong national defense. Thank him for listening to our generals and military experts.

For up-to-the minute news, action alerts, coming events and more you can now sign up for IFI Text Alerts!

Stay in the loop by texting “IFI” to 555888 or click here: goo.gl/O0iRDc to enroll right away.

Click HERE to donate to IFI

Written by Pastor Scott Lively

What we call the pro-family movement is a component of the larger conservative movement and deals with matters of sexuality and the natural family. Its American roots are in the cultural backlash to the Marxist revolution of the 1960s that turned family-centered society on its head and swapped the Judeo-Christian morality of our founding for Soviet-style “political correctness.”

Before the 1960s there wasn’t any need for a “pro-family” movement because family values had been the overwhelming consensus of the western world for centuries. Indeed, so surprised were Americans about the cultural revolution that it took nearly twenty years for the conservatives to mount a truly effective response to it. That came under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.

The 60’s revolution was not grounded in the Marxist orthodoxy of Lenin and Stalin, but the Cultural Marxism of Herbert Marcuse’s Frankfort School, which envisioned sexual anarchy, not a “workers revolt,” as the key to dismantling Judeo-Christian civilization. The natural core constituency for this ideology was the underground “gay” movement whose dream of social acceptance was not possible without a complete transformation of American sexual morality. Thus, beginning in the late 1940s, Marxist organizer Harry Hay, so-called “father of the American gay movement” was also “father” of the (then hidden) army of “gay” activists most responsible for the “culture war” that exploded in the 60’s and continues today.

America’s Marxist revolution was therefore a “sexual revolution” whose overwhelming success vindicated Marcuse’s destructive vision and became the primary tool of the one-world government elites for softening resistance to their domination by breaking the family-centered society which is every nation’s greatest source of strength, stability and self-sufficiency.

Importantly, though primarily driven behind the scenes by “gays,” the first goal was not legitimization of homosexual sodomy but the normalization of heterosexual promiscuity. This was the motive and strategy that drove “closeted” 1940s and 50s homosexual activist Alfred Kinsey’s fraudulent “science” attacking the marriage-based sexual ethic as “repressive” and socially harmful. It also drove the launch of the modern porn industry, beginning with Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine (Hefner called himself “Kinsey’s pamphleteer”). It drove and defined the battles in the courts where sexual morality was systematically “reformed” by Cultural Marxist elites on the U.S. Supreme Court: contraception on demand to facilitate “fornication without consequences” (Griswold v Connecticut 1966), abortion on demand as the backup system to failed contraception (Roe v Wade 1973), and finally legalization of homosexual sodomy (Lawrence v Texas 2003).

Note the thirty year gap between Roe v Wade and Lawrence v Texas. That major delay in the Marxist agenda was achieved by the election of Ronald Reagan, under whom the pro-family movement became a major political force. That gap also highlights a critical fact: that “street activism” may be essential to any political cause but the real key to the culture war is the U.S. Supreme Court. By 1981 when Ronald Reagan took power the Marxists had nearly succeeded in collapsing the nation’s family and economic infrastructure and the LGBT juggernaut had come completely out of the shadows and taken its place at the head of the cultural blitzkrieg it had been steering from the beginning. Reagan stopped that juggernaut by putting Antonin Scalia on the U.S. Supreme Court, the lion of constitutional originalism who wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v Hardwick (1986) which affirmed (not created) the constitutional right of states to criminalize homosexual sodomy and other harmful sexual conduct in the public interest.

Reagan and Scalia stopped the sexual revolution in its tracks and made it possible for the pro-family movement to begin restoring family values in society, which we strove diligently to do. I got my start in Christian social activism in those heady days and served as State Communications Director for the No Special Rights Act in Oregon in 1992 which forbade the granting of civil rights minority status based on sexual conduct. We fell short in Oregon but a Colorado version of our bill passed the same year. We had in essence won the culture war with that victory given that the Supreme Court had previously ruled that minority status designation required three things: a history of discrimination, political powerlessness, and immutable (unchangeable) status (such as skin color). We had a slam-dunk win on at least two of the three criteria and it would have been just a matter of time before we passed the No Special Rights law from coast to coast.

However, Reagan had been prevented by the elites from putting a second Scalia on the court in the person of Robert Bork, and was forced by the unprecedented political “borking” of Mr. Bork to accept their man Anthony Kennedy to fill the seat instead. Just ten years later, Kennedy served his function by writing the majority opinion killing the Colorado law in Romer v Evans (1996), audaciously declaring that the court didn’t need to apply its three-part constitution test to the No Special Rights Act because it was motivated by “animus” (hate) and thus did not represent a legitimate exercise of the state’s regulatory authority. The ruling was all the more outrageous given that it was only possibly through a blatant abuse of the court’s own judicial authority. Kennedy’s “disapproval = hate” lie set the tone for the political left from that point forward.

In Lawrence v Texas, Kennedy delivered the coup-de-grace to Justice Scalia by striking down Bowers v Hardwick and brazenly ruling that “public morality” cannot be the basis for law. Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority in all five SCOTUS opinions that have, in essence, established homosexual cultural supremacy in America, including the infamous and utterly unconstitutional Obergefell v Hodges (2015) “gay marriage” decision. He is, in my opinion, the worst and most culturally destructive jurist in the history of the court: the culprit (among many villainous candidates) most responsible for the current dysfunctional state of the family in America.

So where’s the “bright future” amidst this lamentation? It’s in the promise made and so-far kept by President Donald Trump to appoint only constitutional originalists to the supreme court. It is in the pleasantly surprising discovery that his first pick, Neil Gorsuch, seems from his first comments as a “supreme” to be a perfect choice to fill the “Scalia seat” on the court. It is in the hopeful rumors that Anthony Kennedy is about to retire, and the simple fact that ultra-hard leftist Ruth Bader Ginsberg and leftist Steven Broyer are of an age that their seats could at any time be vacated by voluntary or involuntary retirement.

In short, the bright future of the pro-family movement is in the hands of the man we hired to drain the swamp in Washington DC, and who hasn’t yet backed down in that fight despite the remarkable scorched-earth campaign of destruction and discreditation being waged against him by the establishment elites of both parties, Hollywood and the media.

I must admit that after Obergefell I began to think that the pro-family movement had lost the culture war, but I now believe there is real hope, not just for reclaiming some lost ground, but possibly of reversing all of the “gains” of the hard left over the past half century. A solid majority of true constitutional originalists could actually restore the legal primacy of the natural family in America fairly quickly, and our cultural healing could quickly follow.

As the leftist elites and street activists continue their all-hands-on-deck attempted “borking” of President Trump, let’s not forget why they’re doing it. His political survival means the end of theirs. I can’t think of a brighter future than that for our nation.

This article was originally posted at ScottLively.net