Most everyone has heard about “sanctuary cities” during the past few years due to the attention they received during the presidential election. But have you heard of sanctuary states? How about sanctuary government buildings? Governor Bruce Rauner has agreed to sign SB 31 into law — a bill that will make taxpayer funded facilities sanctuaries for people who are here illegally.

Here is one summary of what “sanctuary” means:

The concept of a sanctuary city does not mean it is a place where federal law is unenforced by the feds. Rather, it is a place where local authorities have elected not to spend their tax dollars helping the feds to enforce federal law. The term “sanctuary city” is not a legal term but a political one.

While the United States Justice Department begins to pursue withholding federal funds from cities like Chicago for their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement officials, our governor and General Assembly are about to enlarge the controversy, expected to cost the state billions of dollars.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker wrote about the potential tally for just Chicago alone: Oops! Trump’s ‘sanctuary city’ penalties could cost Chicago $3.6 billion.

If the Trump Administration wins this fight (ultimately in the courts), it’s easy to figure the cost to Illinois taxpayers will be many times that Chicago estimate.

Money isn’t the only issue. The status of sanctuary state also creates a potential public safety issue.

This is from the Illinois General Assembly’s website page for SB 31 — I have separated them into bullet points for easier reading:

[CORRECTION — A reader kindly brought to my attention that the language below did NOT make it into the final version of the bill that was passed — see Amendment 3 here. In truth, the language was not necessary since state and local law enforcement officers are prohibited from making any arrests anywhere in Illinois according to the guidelines of the statute. Focusing on the “state-funded facilities” only made clearer the offensive nature of the law.]

Provides that absent a judicial warrant or probable cause of criminal activity, a government official shall not make arrests in the following State-funded facilities or their adjacent grounds:

• State-funded schools, including
• licensed day care centers,
• pre-schools, and
• other early learning programs;
• elementary and secondary schools, and
• institutions of higher education…

The list continues, but you get the drift.

The opinion divide on crime rates in sanctuary cities separates just as you would expect. “Sanctuary” proponents claim crime rates are not higher where illegal alien populations are greater, sanctuary opponents say crime rates are higher. Both sides cite studies to back up their contention.

What are the facts? In an April article at The Hill, Ron Martinelli, former minority community violent crimes detective, wrote:

Most states and our federal government have kept information and statistics about illegal immigration, crimes committed by illegals and the costs borne by you the U.S. payer out of public view. It is in fact difficult, but not impossible to locate accurate crime statistics involving illegal immigrants. The statistics are buried both to suit a political agenda and to avoid public outcry.

His article, “The truth about crime, illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities,” is worth your time. It is packed with important information to consider.

Another article to read is from Scott Erickson, posted at the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal website back in February: “The Truth About Sanctuary Cities and Crime Rates.” After a survey of the statistics, he writes:

No community of decent people—citizens, illegal immigrants, or otherwise—wants to live in a society beset by violence and social dysfunction. Stripping local law enforcement of the ability to merely cooperate with their federal counterparts on issues as plain as the removal of a dangerous criminal jeopardizes the safety of all law-abiding individuals.

If state and local law enforcement will be prohibited from making any arrests anywhere in Illinois according to the statute, let’s take another look at the kind of facilities that will be made into sanctuaries by Bruce Rauner signing SB 31:

• State-funded schools, including
• licensed day care centers,
• pre-schools, and
• other early learning programs;
• elementary and secondary schools, and
• institutions of higher education…

Is Illinois about to endanger children by preventing law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials?

Again, from the SB 31 web page showing the pre-amended bill — again, revealing legislative intent:

Provides that a law enforcement agency or official shall not (1) give any immigration agent access to any individual; (2) transfer any person into an immigration agent’s custody; (3) permit immigration agents use of agency facilities or equipment, including any agency electronic databases not available to the public, for investigative interviews or other investigative purpose in executing an immigration enforcement operation; or (4) respond to immigration agent inquiries regarding any individual’s incarceration status, release date, or contact information except insofar as the agency makes that information available to the public.

With Chicago’s murder rate and Illinois’ fiscal condition, is this really the time to have our state “harbor federal fugitives who have broken federal immigration law by crossing the border illegally”?

“Harboring federal fugitives” sure sounds different than the act of providing a “sanctuary,” doesn’t it?

Earlier this month, Illinois Review reported that according to the communications director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, “Signing SB 31 into law would make Illinois the state most open to illegal aliens besides California”:

“Not only would it make Illinois open to those in the country illegally, it could create dangerous situations for the public and add more financial burdens to the state,” Dave Ray said. “And isn’t the state of Illinois already having financial difficulties?”

To learn more about the current and historic legal tussle between the feds and the states, read this article by Douglas V. Gibbs: Sanctuary Cities Violate Supremacy Clause.

The Illinois Senate passed SB 31 on May 4th by a vote of 31-21, and the Illinois House passed it on May 29th by a vote of 62-49.  The bill has been on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk since June 29th.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Bruce Rauner to ask him to veto this legislation. We only have a short window of opportunity to speak out.

ALSO: please call the public comment lines in the Governor’s office in Springfield: (217) 782-0244 and Chicago (312) 814-2121.

For even more on the politics, crime rates, and economics of sanctuary cities and states, a collection of articles can be found here.

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I was hoping not to step into the sticky wicket that the Charlottesville protest, counter-protest, and at

tack created. All discussions of fault or causation carry the risk of being labeled a bigot or hater. But, for a number of reasons, fearful silence is not a justifiable response.

Southern Poverty Law Center 

One of those reasons is that the Plainfield Patch published an article titled “Illinois Hate Groups: Map Shows Active Racist Organizations” in which the Patch cites the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to alert Illinoisans to the presence of “32 hate” groups in Illinois, including the Illinois Family Institute.

It is both morally indefensible and intellectually dishonest of the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center to include the Illinois Family Institute (IFI) on its list of “hate” groups, alongside repugnant white supremacist groups/white separatists/white nationalists.

IFI is included on this list because we espouse theologically orthodox views of homosexuality, marriage, and the intrinsic and profound meaning of objective, immutable biological sex—views that are held by the Catholic Church, a dozen Protestant denominations, the Mormon Church, Seventh Day Adventism, many non-denominational churches, 2,000 years of church history, the Bible, and Orthodox Judaism.

Other Christian organizations included on the SPLC “hate” groups list are the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, and the Ruth Institute.

The goal of the SPLC’s malignant slander is to stigmatize and marginalize any group that defends marriage and sexual morality. Is the Plainfield Patch absolved of all moral culpability for smearing IFI because technically all it did was cite the anti-Christian hate group known euphemistically as the SPLC?

To be clear, the Illinois Family Institute and its sister organization Illinois Family Action—both of which have blacks serving on our boards–unequivocally denounce racism and hatred directed at any persons.

White Separatism and racism

Every decent person and certainly every Christian should denounce the vile racist beliefs of white separatists/white supremacists. We should condemn the actions of the domestic terrorist who launched his car into a crowd to mow down those whose beliefs he rejected. His actions (and the beliefs that impelled them) are as repugnant as those that led to lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and the Holocaust.

Christians must speak truth even when doing so is difficult. In a letter to his son who has embraced the ugly and false beliefs of what has come to be called the “alt-right,” a father reveals what commitment to truth may entail:

On Friday night, my son traveled to Charlottesville, Va., and was interviewed by a national news outlet while marching with reported white nationalists, who allegedly went on to kill a person.

I, along with all of his siblings and his entire family, wish to loudly repudiate my son’s vile, hateful and racist rhetoric and actions. We do not know specifically where he learned these beliefs. He did not learn them at home.

I have shared my home and hearth with friends and acquaintances of every race, gender and creed. I have taught all of my children that all men and women are created equal. That we must love each other all the same.

Evidently Peter has chosen to unlearn these lessons, much to my and his family’s heartbreak and distress. We have been silent up until now, but now we see that this was a mistake. It was the silence of good people that allowed the Nazis to flourish the first time around, and it is the silence of good people that is allowing them to flourish now.

Peter Tefft, my son, is not welcome at our family gatherings any longer. I pray my prodigal son will renounce his hateful beliefs and return home. Then and only then will I lay out the feast.

He once joked, “The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech. You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven.”

Peter, you will have to shovel our bodies into the oven, too. Please son, renounce the hate, accept and love all.

The proper response to racial hatred is not the curtailment of speech rights, the destruction of property, or violent vigilantism. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mr. Tefft understood what antifa anarchists clearly do not.

Antifa’s anarchism

Peter Beinart, associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York, writes about the history and current incarnation of the troubling antifa movement in an article in the Atlantic titled “The Rise of the Violent Left”:

Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

Such tactics have elicited substantial support from the mainstream left.

…

The violence is not directed only at avowed racists like [Richard] Spencer: In June of last year, demonstrators—at least some of whom were associated with antifa—punched and threw eggs at people exiting a Trump rally in San Jose, California. An article in It’s Going Down [an online website for “anarchists” and “autonomous anti-capitalists”] celebrated the “righteous beatings.”

…

As members of a largely anarchist movement, antifascists don’t want the government to stop white supremacists from gathering. They want to do so themselves, rendering the government impotent. 

…

Antifa believes it is pursuing the opposite of authoritarianism. Many of its activists oppose the very notion of a centralized state. But in the name of protecting the vulnerable, antifascists have granted themselves the authority to decide which Americans may publicly assemble and which may not. That authority rests on no democratic foundation. Unlike the politicians they revile, the men and women of antifa cannot be voted out of office. Generally, they don’t even disclose their names.

…

The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.

The causes of both racial hatred and anarchism are numerous and complex. As Americans grapple with understanding them and finding solutions, I hope and pray they will think deeply about the causative roles these three phenomena play in rendering young people—particularly young men—vulnerable to racist or anarchistic ideologies:

• the absence of faith in the one true God

• the break-up of nuclear families and the concomitant absence of fathers

• the dissemination in government schools of Critical Theory, which teaches students that whites are oppressors based on nothing other than their skin color

Pastor and theologian John Piper reminds Christians that what unites humans—what humans of all races and ethnicities share in common—is far greater, more profound, and more substantive than the things that divide us:

In determining the significance of who you are, being a person in the image of God compares to ethnic distinctives the way the noonday sun compares to a candlestick. In other words, finding your main identity in whiteness or blackness or any other ethnic color or trait is like boasting that you carry a candle to light the cloudless noonday sky. Candles have their place. But not to light the day. So color and ethnicity have their place, but not as the main glory and wonder of our identity as human beings. The primary glory of who we are is what unites us in our God-like humanity, not what differentiates us in our ethnicity.

Recovering and passing on to our children an understanding of the political principles on which the greatest country in the history of the world was founded is essential to fostering unity amid diversity. So too is faith in God.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
(William Butler Yeats)

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Virtually anyone over the age of 25 today has heard of Karl Marx and Marxism, though many remain ignorant of Marx’s history and the subsequent cultural ideology that emerged from aspects of his economic theories.

Karl Marx was the grandson of a Jewish rabbi, but his father converted to Lutheranism to escape the antisemitism endemic in Germany, and Karl and siblings were baptized in a Lutheran church in 1824.

Karl Marx’s father died in 1838, leaving the family in dire financial straits.

Like so many young people today, Marx became enamored with radicals at the University of Berlin, and in 1844 at the age of 26, Marx met the German socialist, Friedrich Engels, which sparked a friendship and collaboration.

Marx is perhaps most famous for describing religion as “the opiate of the masses.”

Marxism is a godless theory that promotes the view that what we can see and touch is all that exists: There is nothing beyond this mortal life, there is no hope of eternity in heaven, no dread of hell, no thing called sin. Therefore, everything in life is detached from any intrinsic value. Every act is valuable only if it contributes to the well-being of the proletariat (i.e., the lower or working class). Marx viewed society through an economic lens that divided people into groups based on economic wealth. The wealthy were deemed oppressors of the poor.

From Marxism emerged a social and political movement called the Frankfort School and its more comprehensive (i.e., not merely economic) theory of social criticism called Critical Theory, which began in Germany and later moved to academic institutions in the United States. Critical Theory is a complex and diverse set of ideas that share in common the goal of critiquing those forces in cultures that purportedly enslave and oppress humans.

In the view of critical theorists, those forces include traditional and natural institutions like marriage, family, and religion, as well as norms pertaining to sexuality. The sustained attack on these institutions and norms manifests through movements like Second- and Third-wave feminism, the homosexuality-affirming movement, and the “trans”-affirming movement. Many refer to these post-modern, politically correct, “progressive” movements as part of or emerging from “Cultural Marxism.”

The embrace by conservatives of political figures like Milo Yiannopoulos  who delights in flaunting his homosexuality suggests that Critical Theory has corrupted even conservatism. Milo claims to be a conservative, yet, like so many libertarians, divorces God’s transcendent truth from social and political theory.

Unfortunately, Yiannopoulos is not alone. Increasing numbers of Christians and conservatives capitulate to the cultural demands to tear down essential norms and institutions. Worse still, they exhort others to refrain from “judging” or “condemning” life choices inimical to human flourishing.

Too many libertarians and a growing number of conservatives advocate for near-absolute autonomy with a concomitant disregard for either moral truth or the public good.

Dr. Paul Kengor writes this in his book 11 Principles of a Reagan Conservative:

Consistent with Reagan, conservatives today constantly talk of freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. Go to any gathering of conservatives, and you will hear a freedom mantra.

. . .

Yet, in truth, as Reagan understood, to invoke freedom alone is a mistake. Freedom by itself, isolated, is libertarianism, not conservatism. For the conservative, freedom requires faith; it should never be decoupled from faith. Freedom not rooted in faith can lead to moral anarchy, which, in turn, creates social and cultural chaos. Freedom without faith is the Las Vegas Strip, not the City of God. Freedom without faith begets license and invites vice rather than virtue.

Faith infuses the soul with a sanctifying grace that allows humans in a free society to love and serve their neighbors, to think about more than themselves. We aspire to our better angels when our faith nurtures and elevates our free will.

America’s survival depends upon citizens with inner moral constraints striving to do what is right, not just what feels good at the time.

Remember that liberty divorced from truth ultimately results in chaos and destruction. Pray and act to advance God’s truth unapologetically and without ceasing.

Righteousness exalts a nation:
but sin is a reproach to any people.
~Proverbs 14:34~

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The Army recently released a new training presentation for troops regarding their interactions with transgender soldiers, and guidelines regarding gender transition in the military. The policy favors the needs and feelings of the individual over the well being of the unit, a practice that is formerly foreign to military protocol. In the Christian Post, James Hasson, a former Army captain, shed some light on the PowerPoint presentation containing the new procedures:

“For a soldier to officially change gender requires only some paperwork. A military doctor or civilian medical professional must certify that the transgender person has achieved ‘stability in the preferred gender’ and the soldier must change the gender designation on the soldier’s passport or birth certificate,” Hasson wrote. “From that point on, the transgender soldier is ‘expected to adhere to all military standards associated with their gender,’ and ‘use the billeting, bathroom and shower facilities’ of their new gender.”

Since no sex-reassignment surgery is required, this means that, among other things, female soldiers will have to shower alongside “transitioned females” (with male genitalia), and male soldiers will be forced to shower with “transitioned males” (with female genitalia). This practice does nothing to improve combat readiness, but rather contributes to making the normal 30-some person shower that soldiers are routinely subjected to an even more unpleasant and violating experience.

Further, The Federalist points out that:

The changes also affect drug-testing procedures. DoD Instruction 1010.16 requires urine specimens to be “collected under the direct observation of a designated individual of the same sex as the Service member providing the specimen.” To be blunt, “observers” must watch the urine sample leave the tested soldier’s body and enter the collection cup.

Practically, this means that biologically born females may be forced into very exposed and uncomfortable one-on-one situations such as the one described above with “transitioned females,” who may still have male genitalia. Rather than protesting this blatant breach of privacy and social boundaries, biologically born female and male soldiers must simply accept these new policies and their implications, for the sake of their transgender peers.

Obama-era military policies like these continue to haunt and hinder the Armed Forces, placing emphasis on and favoring a minority group and social platform rather than building service members up to be stronger, more lethal, unified, and ready to protect America from danger. A One News Now contributor highlights this well:

“The social extremism that characterized the last eight years still haunts the Defense Department at a time when the military can least afford it,” FRC President Tony Perkins warned. “With ISIS torching its way across the Middle East, our troops shouldn’t be torn between its role securing America and securing the Left’s radical social agenda.”

Thankfully, President Trump has expressed a desire to further strengthen our military. If these new policies take effect, may their detrimental consequences quickly be brought to attention, so that the military’s focus can shift from coddling a small group of people at the expense and privacy of many, to ensure our military is a force to be feared and reckoned with.

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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.

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IFI works diligently to serve the Christian community in Illinois with email alerts, video reports, pastors’ breakfasts, special forums, worldview conferences and cultural commentaries. We do not accept government funds nor do we run those aggravating popup ads to generate funds.  We depend solely on the support of readers like you.

If you appreciate the work and ministry of IFI, please consider a tax-deductible donation to sustain our endeavors.  It does make a difference.

As Washington D.C. lawmakers wrangle about the details of the so-called “ObamaCare repeal,” “progressive” politicians and activists are ramping up their rhetoric. Setting aside the fact that the repeal effort has turned into an effort merely to reform government healthcare and the fact that Congressional leaders are seemingly unwilling to undo the legislation that mandated socialized medicine, I think it is important to once again address the Left’s dogmatic narrative that asserts that health care is a human right.

In 2010, I described the idea that health care is a human right as socialistic propaganda:

The implicit claim in the assertion that health care is a “right” is that it is a constitutionally protected right. All experts agree that health care is neither a constitutional nor a legal right. In America we understand that our rights to the free exercise of religion, to speak freely, to bear arms and to be secure from unwarranted search and seizure come from God.

To see the difference in government-mandated health care and real rights, look at how they are exercised. Historically, American citizens have been free to exercise their real, constitutionally protected rights or not as they see fit. The government does not compel citizens to attend church in the name of religious freedom. The government does not compel citizens to own a gun in the name of the Second Amendment. And the government does not force citizens to engage in the political process in the name of free speech. In contrast, our radically “progressive” friends are eager to compel every American using the heavy hand of government to exercise their so-called right to health care. Should we celebrate the passage of a bill that in the service of non-existent rights actually diminishes our liberty?

What is really at issue is not whether health care is a “right” but whether citizens have a right to taxpayer-funded health care. What other cherished American “right” has ever required that we diminish another’s liberty? Does the right to free speech require newspaper owners to print every op-ed and editorial? Does the right to bear arms require the government to arm its citizenry? Does the freedom of religion require government-funding of churches, mosques and synagogues? Why then, does this “right” to healthcare require the government to take from some to give to others? When in the history of our country have we had to secure a right by trampling on the liberties of others?

Make no mistake, that is exactly what is happening with this government takeover of the healthcare industry. This new health care “right” will be forced on every American, and it will be made possible by taking from citizens “according to their ability” and giving to others “according to their needs” (Karl Marx, 1875).

We only have to look to the U.K. and the sad case of Charlie Gard to see what government-controlled health care looks like. If the bureaucratic “experts” deem you unworthy of medical treatment, they can slam the door on any options you may want to pursue. We might as well put a fork  in any semblance of liberty when it comes to parental rights, conscience rights and free will. The tyrannical government decides.

ObamaCare forced many American citizens into a socialized health care system and forced states into an enormous expansion of Medicaid. According to the Chicago Tribune, approximately 650,000 Illinoisans were added to the Medicaid rolls over the past few years. Crain’s Chicago Business claims that this “expansion has caused skyrocketing enrollment, massive cost overruns and siphoned away incredibly limited resources from those who truly have no way to help themselves.” The article points out that this expansion has cost Illinois taxpayers “more than $9.2 billion—more than double what was projected.” It is part of the reason state lawmakers voted for massive tax hikes earlier this month.

Sadly, the costs of ObamaCare have been much higher than the so-called “experts” projected, and the Republican version of socialized medicine may not prove to be much better. More important, while the financial costs to taxpayers is considerable, the damage to personal liberty is incalculable.

Take ACTION:   Send an email or a fax to your U.S. Representative now by clicking HERE. Urge your U.S. Representative to follow through on the promises to repeal Obamacare and the individual federal mandate.  While you are at it, remind them to permanently defund Planned Parenthood.

Read more:

Fearmongering Over Medicaid Ignores Just How Bad the Program Is

Ted Cruz wrestling with ObamaCare … Is he winning?

Obamacare Is Causing Insurers To Delay Surgeries Patients Need

The Uninspiring Medicaid Debate

The GOP’s Health-Care Messaging Needs Serious Work

Why is Healthcare So Expensive?

Help expand our reach by forwarding this email to like-minded family and friends.

Click HERE to make a donation to the Illinois Family Institute.

In his recent video for PragerU, National Review senior fellow David French illuminates the political buzzword of “transparency” and the Left’s illicit application of the concept to the private citizen. While the government possesses an obligation to be transparent in its exercise of your tax dollars, privacy is an individual right, and no government is entitled to know whether or not you donate to a nonprofit like IFI.

With echoes of Lord Action’s famous “power corrupts” aphorism, French explains the gravity of capitulating to the Left’s demand for citizen transparency—the disclosure of your personal donations to private nonprofits breeds governmental abuse through exposing you to your political opponents. A country where you only possess free speech if you disregard the repercussions is a country that violates your individual rights.

We highly recommend this five minute PragerU video to you and your family:

French concludes, “While government transparency is an obligation, privacy is an individual right, protected by the First Amendment.”

The shooting of GOP House Whip Steve Scalise and several other Republicans during an early morning baseball practice this month is as unsurprising as it was dreadful. Some of our deepest expectations were realized in that moment, as the furious rhetoric being churned out by the Left finally expressed itself in the ultimate form of contempt: an attempt to assassinate political leaders.

It wasn’t hard to predict where our national discourse was taking us. For years in the halls of Congress and in the courts, we’ve been engaged in a civil war. There’s been a marked increase in the use of the term “civil war” by those who spend their days opining on culture. It’s all been there but the shooting, and now we can check that box.

Until that happened, we all hoped that what was left of the original American spirit—the rule of law, respect for human dignity, a sense of honor, and love of country—would hold back the baser instincts of human nature. But we could all feel the rope fraying.

Even a cursory look at the last few years reveals a surprising amount of unfiltered and increasingly hostile rhetoric coming from politicians, entertainers, professors, scientists, philosophers, and other public figures.

It started with words

• Words from Barack Obama: “they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them” and “I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”

• Words from Donald Trump: “Anybody who hits me, we’re gonna hit them ten times harder” and “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

• Words from Hillary Clinton: “You could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it.… Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America” and “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

• Words from DNC Chairman Tom Perez: “[Trump] doesn’t give a s— about health care;” U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY): “Has [Trump] kept his promises? No. F— no;” U.S. Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA): “[Trump is a] disgusting, poor excuse of a man;” and former Clinton running mate Tim Kaine (D-VA): “What we’ve got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box.”

• Words from Fresno State University lecturer Lars Maischak: “Justice = the execution of two Republicans for each deported immigrant;” “To save American democracy, Trump must hang. The sooner and the higher, the better”; and “#TheResistance Has anyone started soliciting money and design drafts for a monument honoring the Trump assassin, yet?”

• Words from Trinity College (CT) professor Johnny Eric Williams: “I’m fed the f— up with self-identified ‘white’s’ daily violence directed at immigrants, Muslims, and sexual and racially oppressed people. The time is now to confront these inhuman a–holes and end this now.”

• Words from Art Institute of Washington professor John Griffin: “[Republicans] should be lined up and shot. That’s not hyperbole; blood is on their hands.”

• Words from former Rutgers adjunct professor Kevin Allred: “Will the Second Amendment be as cool when I buy a gun and start shooting at random white people or no?”

• Words from former CNN personality Reza Aslan: “This piece of s— is not just an embarrassment to America and a stain on the presidency. He’s an embarrassment to humankind.”

• Words from pop diva Madonna: “Yes, I’m angry. Yes, I’m outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House;” actress Lea DeLaria: “[O]r pick up a baseball bat and take out every f—ing republican and independent I see. #f—trump, #f—theGOP, #f—straightwhiteamerica, “f—yourprivilege;” comedienne Sarah Silverstein: “Once the military is w us fascists get overthrown;” and actor Johnny Depp: “When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?”

While the words broke an unspoken decorum, they weren’t much without action. Mobs gathered and marched with signs that read, “Become ungovernable” and “This is war” and “The only good fascist is a dead one.” Violent protests shut down presentations deemed hate speech on college campuses: Dr. Charles Murray at Middlebury College, Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley.

From there it was only a few steps to acting out murder fantasies in the form of “art”: comedienne Kathy Griffin decapitating Donald Trump; rapper Snoop Dogg shooting Donald Trump in a “music” video; and a Shakespeare play featuring the murder of “Julius” Trump.

And finally, someone put these sentiments into action, unleashing a hailstorm of bullets on unsuspecting Republican congressmen practicing for a charitable baseball game.

As much as I regret making the distinction, the animus is almost wholly on the Left of the political spectrum. It is the Left that has become hostile to historical, traditional American values. It is the Left that has mocked Christianity and rejected our Judeo-Christian heritage. It is the Left that has labeled the rest of America homophobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic. It is the Left that accuses white people of having privilege that needs to be checked. It is the Left that has championed the principles of “tolerance,” “diversity,” and “inclusion” as the new American values. It is the Left that has embraced democratic socialism. It is the Left that has twisted American history and alters textbooks, traditions, and monuments.

John Adams once warned in a letter to the Massachusetts Militia:

Should the People of America, once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another and towards foreign nations, which assumes the Language of Justice and moderation while it is practicing Iniquity and Extravagance; and displays in the most captivating manner the charming Pictures of Candour frankness & sincerity while it is rioting in rapine and Insolence: this Country will be the most miserable Habitation in the World. Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

In other words, our society was organized on the assumption that our “moral and religious people” would govern themselves under the auspices of godly conduct and that if they didn’t, our country would become a hellhole. Does anyone doubt the truth of his statement?

He wasn’t the first to recognize that laws can’t keep people from wickedness. “When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild,” wrote the wise man, “but whoever obeys the law is joyful” (Proverbs 29:18).

James T. Hodgkinson didn’t pull the trigger in a vacuum. He did what many of our fellow citizens seem to be calling for. Now that the barrier has been broken, is it only a matter of time before others unbridled by morality and religion step through the breach?”

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As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men,
especially unto them who are of the household of faith. ~Galatians 6:10

Donald Trump was elected President of the United States on November 8, 2016. He won the election for many reasons, not the least of which were promises to secure America’s borders and deport illegal aliens, prioritizing any known criminals (for crimes in addition to breaking national immigration laws).

Since inauguration day, January 20, 2017, President Trump has worked diligently to keep that promise, and to stop the flow of refugees and unvettable persons from countries that harbor and/or endorse Islamic jihad.

Both of those efforts to protect U.S. citizens should be lauded and supported.

But there’s one significant issue which must be addressed and remedied quickly. Among the “refugees” from Iraq are an estimated 100+ Christians who were truly endangered by remaining in Iraq, and they are among those detained in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) raids and, therefore, scheduled for deportation.

These Chaldean Christians most likely would qualify for asylum in the U.S. according to the necessary requirements:

1. An asylum applicant must establish that he or she fears persecution in their home country.
2. An applicant must prove that he or she would be persecuted on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group.
3. An applicant must establish that the government is either involved in the persecution, or unable to control the conduct of private actors.

Evangelist Franklin Graham has weighed in on the distressing situation. Sarah Pulliam Bailey writes at the Washington Post:

Prominent evangelist Franklin Graham says he finds it “very disturbing” that immigration authorities have arrested many Iraqi Christians for possible deportation. President Trump promised earlier this year he would prioritize persecuted Christians, but many international religious freedom advocates say deporting these Christians back to Iraq could put them in serious danger.

Graham, who has been supportive of Trump and his travel ban, urged the president to have someone investigate the cases where dozens of Iraqi nationals were swept up in immigration raids in Michigan and Tennessee.

The arrests came after a deal the United States made with Iraq, which sought to be removed from Trump’s travel ban, as originally proposed, on seven Muslim-majority countries and agreed to accept deported Iraqis. Immigration authorities said all of the Iraqi nationals who were arrested had criminal convictions.

“I understand a policy of deporting people who are here illegally and have broken the law,” Graham wrote on Facebook on Friday. “I don’t know all of the details, but I would encourage our president to give great consideration to the threat to lives of Christians in countries like Iraq.”

In a strange turn of events, the ACLU — hardly an entity known for their love of Christians — filed a habeus corpus petition in the U.S. District Court in Michigan and U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Goldsmith has issued a two week stay.

As reported at Fox News:

A Detroit federal judge issued a two-week stay Thursday halting the planned deportation of more than 100 Iraqi Christians back to their country of origin.

U.S. District Court Judge Mark A. Goldsmith responded to a habeus corpus petition filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 114 immigrants by staying the deportation orders until he decides whether he has jurisdiction to hear the case.

The Justice Department said the detainees must go to immigration court to try to remain in the U.S., not U.S. District Court. But the ACLU said they might be deported before an immigration judge can consider their requests to stay.

Goldsmith, who heard arguments Wednesday, said he needs more time to consider complex legal issues.

Potential physical harm “far outweighs any conceivable interest the government might have in the immediate enforcement of the removal orders before this court can clarify whether it has jurisdiction to grant relief to petitioners on the merits of their claims,” Goldsmith said.

The danger to these Iraqi Christians is real and ominous. Remember the genocide of Yazidis and other Christians in Iraq by ISIS (also ISIL or Islamic State)?

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, calling itself Islamic State) is recognized by the UN as the perpetrator of a genocide of Yazidis in Iraq.The genocide has led to the expulsion, flight and effective exile of the Yazidis from their ancestral lands in Northern Iraq. The genocide led to the abduction of Yazidi women and massacres that killed thousands of Yazidi civilians during what has been called a “forced conversion campaign” being carried out in Northern Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), starting in 2014.

ISIL’s persecution of the Yazidis gained international attention and it directly led to the American-led intervention in Iraq, which started with United States airstrikes against ISIL. Additionally, the US, UK, and Australia made emergency airdrops to Yazidis who had fled to a mountain range and provided weapons to the Kurdish Peshmerga defending them alongside PKK and YPG forces. ISIL’s actions against the Yazidi population resulted in approximately 500,000 refugees and several thousand killed and kidnapped.

Christians in the Middle East live in peril, and according to Open Doors USA, Iraq is number 7 out of 50 on the World Watch List of countries!

Thus, we know as believers we are called to pray for and help our brothers and sisters in Christ. We also know that over 100 of the immigrants which I.C.E. has rounded up for deportation back to Iraq may be Christians. And we know that, if they are Christians and if they are sent back to Iraq, there is a very high probability these Iraqi Christians will be tortured and killed.

We must not only pray, petitioning God Almighty to intervene on behalf of these Christian refugees, we must also ACT now by contacting our representatives in the U.S. Congress and President Trump.

Proverbs 21:1 tells us:

The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turns it wherever He wishes.

Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to President Trump and to your U.S. Representative to urge them to intervene in this somber situation.  Ask them to protect these persecuted Iraqi Christian refugees by allowing them to stay in the United States as permanent residents.  Deporting Christians back to Iraq will put their lives at serious risk.

God can certainly turn President Trump’s heart, as well as the hearts of those in Congress. Please take action and then join us in praying for a good resolution to this situation!

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Some readers may be blissfully unaware of DOJ Pride, the “Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and Their Allies.” According to its website, “DOJ Pride is the recognized organization for all Lesbian, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgend employees and allies in all DOJ Offices, Boards, and Divisions; the ATF, BOP, DEA, FBI, USMS, OJP, and USAO; and contractors in any of these components.”

In celebration of “pride” month, DOJ Pride is hosting its annual event on June 28, 2017 in the “in the Great Hall of the department’s main building on Pennsylvania Avenue, in between the Capitol and the White House.”

At this event, DOJ Pride will award its Gerald B. Roemer Community Service Award to “Gavin” Grimm, the girl who masquerades as a boy and who filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against her Virginia high school for prohibiting her from using the boys’ restrooms.

Her case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court and would have been heard this month had Attorney General Jeff Sessions not rescinded Obama’s edict to public schools, which threatened loss of federal funds to schools that prohibited co-ed restrooms and locker rooms.

Unfortunately, Sessions really mucked things up a couple of days ago. When asked about the upcoming DOJ Pride event, Sessions said this:

We are going to have a pride group, in this very room… so that’s perfectly appropriate, and we will protect and defend and celebrate that — and protect the rights of all transgender persons…. [W]e are not going to allow persons in this country to be discriminated against or attacked in any way for their sexual orientation—”

What the heck does that mean? Is he saying it’s “perfectly appropriate” for the government to celebrate homoeroticism? Or it’s perfectly appropriate for the government to celebrate the “trans” cult ideology? Or it’s perfectly appropriate for the government to protect and celebrate the non-existent right of pretend-boys and pretend-girls to force their way into opposite-sex restrooms? Is he suggesting that subjective homoerotic feelings and volitional homoerotic activity (i.e., “sexual orientation”) should constitute the basis for a protected class? Is he suggesting that, for example, those who refuse to provide goods or services for celebrations of faux-marriages are guilty of unjust discrimination or attacking homosexuals?

No one should be mistreated or attacked. Neither Gavin Grimm, nor any other person who rejects her or his sex, nor any person who identifies as homosexual should be mistreated. But opposition to bullying or other forms of abuse does not require humans to relinquish their privacy. And opposition to bullying or other forms of abuse certainly does not require the government to celebrate homoeroticism or gender-rejection.

Homosexuals and people who reject their sex are no more or less deserving of celebration than any other person, but the reasons to celebrate them do not include their homoerotic desires, their sex-rejection, or their efforts to sexually integrate restrooms, locker rooms, showers, and shelters.

Session’s statement is the kind of ambiguous statement born of foolishness, cowardice, and political correctness run amok that sows confusion and helps advance the social, political, and moral agenda of Leftists. Many conservative Americans expect more of Sessions.

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From Congress.org

Originally published from regular emails from Congress.org.

Written by Calvin Beisner

President Donald Trump attends his first G7 Summit May 26–27. There he will face enormous pressure to break a promise to those who elected him.

The promise? To get the United States out of the Paris climate treaty.

The pressure? It will come from the head of pretty much every other G7 member. Canadian socialist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will lead. Others will follow.

Even United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May might, despite Brexit, push Trump to “stay in Paris.”

Their reason? It can’t be because they’re convinced Paris is a good deal.

Trillions for Virtually Nothing

Full implementation will cost the world about $1 trillion a year from 2030 to 2100. And that’s an optimistic estimate. If politicians muck things up — and when do they not? — the cost could double.

For that, there’d better be a whopping temperature reduction. But by now these leaders must know there won’t be.

Why? Because the cat’s out of the bag.

Computer climate models — the sole basis of fears of dangerous warming — predict two to three times observed warming. That means they’re wrong. And that means they provide no rational basis for predicting future temperature. And no rational basis for any policy — like the Paris treaty — based on it.

But there’s another reason. Even if the models are right, fully implementing Paris would achieve only 0.3ºF of cooling by 2100. That’s about 23.3 to 46.6 trillion dollars per tenth of a degree of cooling.

And if CO2’s warming effect is only one-half to one-third what the models predict? Then the cost will be two to three times that much per tenth of a degree of cooling.

Whichever, it’s no bargain. It won’t benefit any ecosystem. It won’t slow sea level rise. It won’t reduce hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, droughts, or heat waves. It won’t save human lives.

Cutting America Down to Size

So why will G7 leaders pressure Trump to “stay in Paris”?

America has the world’s highest CO2 emissions per capita. The cheap energy that generates those emissions gives us the world’s largest economy. Under Paris, America will bear the highest costs. (Thanks, Obama Administration.) China, the highest CO2 emitter, and the EU, India, and Russia, third through fifth, will bear comparatively little.

That’s despite the fact that, because of our revolution in natural gas production, we’ve already reduced CO2 emissions far more than the smug EU.

(By the way, don’t feel bad about our CO2 emissions. CO2 is non-toxic at twenty times the natural concentration, so it’s no “pollutant.” Plants grow better with more of it. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere greens the planet. That means more food for everything that eats plants, or eats what eats plants. And that benefits the poor most of all.)

So what drives EU leaders? The same thing that’s driven them for decades. They envy and resent American freedom and prosperity. (They forget that our nuclear umbrella protected them from Russian aggression for fifty years.) They see Paris as a way to cut us down to size. Not to mention that many see it as the path to global government and global wealth redistribution.

Trump Answers to Americans, Not G7 Leaders

So if President Trump is to keep candidate Trump’s promise, he needs to hear from the American people. He answers to us, not G7 leaders.

The American people need to tell him, loudly and clearly, that $23.3 to $46.6 trillion, let alone two or three times that much, per tenth of a degree of cooling is a price we won’t pay.

We need to tell him we don’t want candidate Barack Obama’s promise that if elected electricity prices would “necessarily skyrocket” fulfilled on Trump’s watch.

We need to make it clear that forcing low-income Americans, many elderly, to choose between having enough food and keeping warm in winter is wrong.

And we need to insist that American consumers and producers not be sacrificed to the pipe dreams of Green Eurocrats.

Article originally published at Stream.org.