Trump's New Regs Move Tax Dollars Away From Abortion

Tony Perkins: It's a big day in Washington where an injustice a quarter of a century in the making is finally being corrected. It was January 22, 1993 -- the 20th anniversary of Roe v. Wade - when then President Bill Clinton suspended President Ronald Reagan's regulation preventing federal Title X funds from going to family planning clinics where abortions are performed. Unbelievably, Clinton even went so far as to require every provider to refer for abortion, which disqualified pro-life and faith-based groups that have religious and moral objections to abortion from participating in the program.

Since then, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers have used these federal family planning programs as a slush fund to pay overhead expenses including staff salaries, facility rent, and even furniture. Sadly, no president over the past 25 years has stopped this co-mingling of taxpayer funds with the abortion industry -- that is until today.

Under President Trump's rule announced today, like Reagan's, Planned Parenthood and other abortion centers will have to choose between dropping their abortion services from any location that gets family planning dollars and moving those abortion operations offsite. Either way, this will loosen Planned Parenthood's grip on more than $60 million in taxpayer dollars. The new regulations will draw a bright line between abortion centers and family planning programs -- just as the federal law requires and the Supreme Court upheld in a 1991 ruling.

Praise for the president is pouring in from pro-life leaders and Members of Congress. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) who serves as Co-Chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus applauded the new rule noting that it "at long last reinstates principles first put forward under the Reagan administration, and upheld by the Supreme Court nearly three decades ago...Abortion is not family planning -- in sharp contrast, the violence of abortion wounds families." Rep. Robert Aderholt (R- Ala.) also offered praise and explained, "we only have to look to Planned Parenthood's activities in our own state to see why they do not deserve federal funds. Just within the last few years, the clinic in Mobile performed two abortions in less than a year on a 14-year-old girl. She was clearly being sexually abused, but no one at Planned Parenthood notified authorities, as is required by law. For them, it was another routine abortion."

And remember, it was David Daleiden and his undercover videos that uncovered Planned Parenthood's horrific routine of selling baby body parts. Thanks to President Trump, their routine -- at least when it comes to treating the taxpayers like an ATM machine -- is beginning to change. President Trump has teed up Congress to take the step toward the ultimate goal of ending taxpayers' forced partnership with the abortion industry. That includes an end to Planned Parenthood's federal gravy train in multiple federal programs in which they get over $400 million each year. The House has already voted to redirect tax dollars away from the abortion giant and the Senate came within one vote last year of sending the measure to President Trump's desk to be signed into law.

With hundreds of millions at stake, Planned Parenthood's PAC announced last month that they will spend $ 30 million dollars on the midterm elections. Obviously, it's illegal for Richards to use even a cent of federal funds on the group's political activities. And while her accountants use every possible trick to keep the monies separate, it is hard to separate the fact that $30 million is available to influence elections because the outcome of those elections has produced nearly a half a billion dollars of government money to fund their Leftist mission. In the meantime, President Trump is following through on his campaign promise that his administration will advocate for mothers and their unborn children every day he occupies the White House and take important steps to ensure taxpayers are not subsidizing the abortion industry. Join me in thanking the president by sending him an email of appreciation via the White House comment page.
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Tony Perkins is President of the Family Research Council . This article was on Tony Perkin's Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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The Virtuous Cycle of Learning

by Newt Gingrich: Last week, I wrote about my Facebook series, “What If? History that Could Have Been”, which highlights how history might be changed if certain important historical events had ended differently. Primarily the show is meant to help people think critically about the past, present, and future.

I mentioned my friend Jim Rogan’s new alternative history novel about how history might have been had Senator Robert F. Kennedy survived being shot by Sirḥān Sirḥān. The novel, On To Chicago: Rediscovering Robert F. Kennedy and the Lost Campaign of 1968, was released on Tuesday, and Jim graciously joined me for my most recent episode of “What If?” to talk about it in more detail.

As background, Jim has a remarkable personal story. When he was young, he was the son of a convicted felon single mom on welfare and food stamps. He ran with a gang of kids who did everything from drugs to crime. Jim ended up expelled from high school and worked at dead-end jobs that included bartending in Hollywood strip clubs and working as a bouncer at a pornographic theater. Eventually he straightened up, started focusing on learning, and became interested in history and politics. He finished college and law school, became a lawyer, served in Congress, and is now a judge with the Superior Court of California. He has spent his career working for the good of America and Americans.

When he joined me for “What If?”, Jim once again expanded my knowledge of the RFK assassination and the presidential campaign of 1968. For instance, I was reminded that several other people were also shot in the attack and survived because the attacker used a small caliber gun. In fact, RFK’s neurosurgeon later said it was “a lucky shot” for Sirḥān because had the bullet been one centimeter off its mark, Kennedy would have also survived.

However, Jim made another comment on the show that struck me as important – and illustrative of why studying history and current events is important. Jim remarked that the 2016 presidential election inspired him to write this book about RFK because he realized how dramatically politics and elections had changed.

He pointed out that in 1968, the roster of people running for president were “nine absolute political titans who had dominated the political stage for twenty years or more.” On the Democrats’ side, this included Lyndon B. Johnson (although he withdrew early), Hubert Humphrey, Robert Kennedy, and Eugene McCarthy. The Republicans were Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Romney (the father of Mitt Romney). And the “wild card” independent was George Wallace, who had become the infamous pro-segregation Governor of Alabama.

Compare this to the 2016 election, when aside from Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, and Donald Trump (who was well-known outside politics), more than a dozen other candidates – at the beginning at least – were not well-known nationally.

Jim’s mind cued to 1968, because studying that election years ago is what initially fueled his interest in politics (and likely set Jim on his remarkable career path). As a result, he was inspired to write an incredibly well-researched, interesting, deep-dive into a critical point in our history. (Despite being fiction, Jim has more than 350 pages of endnotes and sources for the book.) Jim’s book will doubtlessly get more Americans interested in history and politics – perhaps inspiring them to do amazing things, too.

Watching and listening to Jim talk about writing his book redoubled my passion for the “What If?” project because Jim’s new “What If?”-style book is a perfect example of the life-long virtuous cycle that gets started when young people get interested in learning about history.

We need to know our past successes and mistakes to prepare for the future – but we also need to constantly grow and develop new generations of intelligent, thoughtful patriots like Jim Rogan, who will keep the virtuous cycle of learning going strong in America.
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Newt Gingrich is a former Georgia Congressman and Speaker of the U.S. House. He co-authored and was the chief architect of the "Contract with America" and a major leader in the Republican victory in the 1994 congressional elections. He is noted speaker and writer. The above commentary was shared via Gingrich Productions.

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Speaker Ryan Nearing Deal With Pro-amnesty Republicans To Avoid Disastrous Discharge Petition

Chris Chmielenski

by Chris Chmielenski: According to multiple reports, House Speaker Paul Ryan is nearing a deal with Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) that would set up votes on several immigration proposals in June in lieu of a discharge petition that would likely lead to the House passing a no-strings amnesty for at least 1.8 million.

Leadership is also working with House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to bring Rep. Bob Goodlatte's (R-Va.) H.R. 4760, the Securing America's Future Act, to the floor for a vote. Earlier today, the House Freedom Caucus killed Speaker Ryan's farm bill because he has yet to commit to a vote on the Goodlatte bill.

A deal is needed to stop the discharge petition of Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) and Denham. It now has 196 signatures. Most of the petition signers are Democrats. The number of House Republicans who have signed stands at 20. If only 5 more Republicans and the rest of the House Democrats sign on, it will have the 218 votes needed to force a series of votes that would likely set up more endless chains of migration for amnestied illegal aliens while allowing employers to hire workers without using the E-Verify system.

Speaker Ryan is working with the 20 House Republicans who have already signed the petition and several Members who could sign but who have indicated a willingness to end the petition effort in exchange for other immigration votes this summer.

It's good news if the House can avoid Rep. Denham's disastrous resolution.

But, it's disappointing that Speaker Ryan seems to be more concerned about appeasing the pro-amnesty wing of the Republican caucus and the cheap labor business lobby rather than using his leadership authority to silence the revolt.

WHAT COULD HAPPEN?
There are some conflicting reports, but if a deal is struck, there could be a number of immigration votes in the House over the next few months.

As I said, one vote would likely be on Rep. Goodlatte's H.R. 4760. We owe a great deal of gratitude to Reps. Meadows, Jordan, and the House Freedom Caucus who have been pushing for this vote since last year.

Another vote -- to appease the petition signers and supporters -- would be on a proposal that likely trades a DACA amnesty for enforcement.

We'll continue to monitor the situation and alert you of action opportunities as things develop. For those of you that have made phone calls to GOP Leadership and House targets this week, thank you for your activism efforts! Your actions helped provide enough pressure on House Leadership to at least take the petition threat seriously, despite the possible outcome.
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Chris Chmielenski is the Director, Content & Activism for NumbersUSA

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AG Sessions Directs Immigration Judges to Stop Delaying Cases

AG Jeff Sessions

by Stephen Dinan: Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a directive to immigration judges Thursday telling them they can no longer shunt deportation cases off onto permanent wait lists and leave illegal immigrants free to roam the U.S.

Known as administrative closure, the wait list had become a favorite tactic of the Obama administration, serving to protect low-priority illegal immigrants from deportation.

Rather than pursue those cases, government attorneys would propose — and judges would grant — administrative closure by shipping more than 200,000 cases to the suspension list in what analysts said became a de facto amnesty.

Mr. Sessions, flexing his attorney general powers, ruled Thursday that the policy rested on shaky legal ground. He issued a precedent telling judges to decide the cases in front of them rather than rely on administrative closure.

“No attorney general has delegated such broad authority, and legal or policy arguments do not justify it. I therefore hold that immigration judges and the Board [of Immigration Appeals] lack this authority except where a previous regulation or settlement agreement has expressly conferred it,” Mr. Sessions said in his decision.

The ruling could, in the short term, speed up deportation decisions on the children and families that have surged into the U.S. over the past five years.

Indeed, it was one of those unaccompanied alien children cases that spurred Mr. Sessions to act.

A 17-year-old named Reynaldo Castro-Tum was nabbed crossing the border illegally in 2014. He was sent to live with his brother-in-law while he awaited deportation.

Mr. Castro-Tum was supposed to come back for his hearing but ignored all five summonses sent from the court to his brother-in-law’s address. Rather than order him deported in absentia, the immigration judge granted an administrative closure, essentially giving the now-adult illegal immigrant a tentative pass.

It was one of more than 215,000 cases shunted onto the administrative closure list from fiscal year 2012 through fiscal year 2017, sending the total off-calendar backlog to more than 350,000 cases. When combined with some 690,000 other pending cases, the immigration court has more than 1 million cases awaiting rulings.

Mr. Sessions’ decision does not immediately reopen the 350,000 cases on the closure list. He said he feared overwhelming the already stressed immigration courts.

Even before his ruling, the government was making headway in cutting the backlog, suggesting an interest in getting those cases off the wait list and onto deportation dockets.

“Attorney General Sessions is doing what should have been done long ago, which is trying to ensure that illegal aliens are actually found deportable, then removed from the United States, rather than leaving them here in limbo, still illegal but living under color of law,” said Rosemary Jenks, government relations manager for NumbersUSA, which pushes for stricter immigration limits.

Administrative closure was part of the Obama administration’s response to Congress’ failure to legalize illegal immigrants. Left without a permanent solution, Mr. Obama ordered his aides to find other ways to protect illegal immigrants from deportation through “prosecutorial discretion.”

One answer was the 2012 DACA policy, which not only protected “Dreamers” from deportation but also granted them work permits, Social Security numbers and some taxpayer benefits, giving them a more firm footing.

For migrants who didn’t qualify for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals but still had low levels of criminal behavior, the Obama administration ordered Homeland Security not to lodge deportation cases against them and ordered immigration judges to close out their cases without deporting them when circumstances warranted.

Immigrant rights groups were still digesting Mr. Sessions’ ruling Thursday evening, but their early reading was grim. They said the attorney general was stripping immigration judges of long-held discretion.

“The decision is bad law, bad policy, and harmful to immigrants and their communities,” said Trina Realmuto, an attorney with the American Immigration Council who accused Mr. Sessions of showing “anti-immigrant animus.”

The immigration council said Mr. Sessions was not an impartial arbiter and should not have used his attorney general powers to refer Mr. Castro-Tatum’s case to himself for a final ruling.

Even as Mr. Sessions moved to speed up deportations, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it was already arresting and deporting more people in the interior of the country.

Through the first half of fiscal year 2018, ICE arrests were up more than 26 percent, nearly reaching the 80,000 mark. ICE deportations, meanwhile, were up 17 percent.

That is still well under the rates achieved during the height of the Obama administration, when Mr. Obama earned the label “deporter in chief” from angry immigrant rights groups.

But it does suggest changes at Homeland Security to make more migrants eligible for deportation.

Corey Price, assistant director for enforcement and removal at ICE, said they were told during the Obama era not to bother with illegal immigrants who didn’t have major criminal records. That has changed.

“Under this administration, we have been asked and told under the executive orders to open that aperture back up,” he said.
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Stephen Dinan authored this article on The Washinton Times. Shared under Fair Use Doctrine and prior encouragemnt of the WT Publisher.

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Another School Shooting, Prison Reform Summit, Gang Lives Matter, Fighting For Life, Tax Cuts Work

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Another School Shooting - I was at the White House this morning for a meeting on prison reform when news broke about another school shooting.

According to the latest reports, at least eight people were killed at Santa Fe High School, in Santa Fe, Texas, a small town located between Houston and Galveston. Law enforcement officials report that the suspect is in custody and a second person is also being detained. Explosive devices have reportedly been found at the school and at another location.

Without knowing additional details, I hope conservatives and liberals can at least agree that we need armed guards at our schools. We guard banks. We guard museums. We guard government buildings, and public schools are government buildings.

An armed guard made a big difference earlier this week, and I do not understand why anyone would oppose have trained security guards at schools.

Please join Carol and me in praying for the families of the victims, the students of Santa Fe High School and the first responders. Our nation is in desperate need of prayer, a restoration of faith and respect for the sanctity of life.

Prison Reform Summit - Today's White House summit on prison reform was an amazing event. There are many individuals there representing faith-based organizations because we believe one of the best ways to help prisoners avoid recidivism is to help them find God. This, of course, was the great passion of my late friend Chuck Colson.

There were liberals there, like Van Jones who moderated a panel discussion at the event, along with conservatives like Secretary Rick Perry, Kellyanne Conway and myself. Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump addressed the summit.

There are many competing ideas when it comes to prison reform, and this is only the beginning. We will have to see what policies come out of today's summit. But this is an important issue. As the president noted in his remarks:

"More than one-third of former federal prison inmates and more than three-quarters of state prisoners will be rearrested again within five years. Nobody wins when former prisoners fail to adjust to life outside, or worse, end up back behind bars. We want former inmates to find a path to success so they can support their families and support their communities."

Gang Lives Matter? - Just when you think you've seen everything, along comes Nancy Pelosi.

As I noted in yesterday's report, President Trump held a White House summit with California officials who are bravely fighting the state's sanctuary law, which protects criminal illegal immigrants.

During his remarks, the president referred to MS-13 gang members as "animals." Immediately, the media pounced. They said the president was referring to all illegal immigrants, but that was a deliberate lie. And it was so bad that some outlets grudgingly issued corrections.

But that didn't stop Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi from piling on.

Schumer tweeted: "When all of our great-great-grandparents came to America they weren't 'animals,' and these people aren't either."

During a press conference yesterday, Nancy Pelosi said this:

"When the president of the United States says about undocumented immigrants, 'These aren't people, these are animals,' you have to wonder: Does he not believe in the spark of divinity, the dignity and worth of every person?"

If Nancy is so concerned about the "spark of divinity" and the "dignity and worth of every person," I suggest she look in the mirror and prayerfully reconsider her support for abortion on demand!

That these leaders are so eager to defend MS-13 gang members shows you how much the left-wing open borders worldview dominates today's Democrat Party.

"Gang Lives Matter" may as well be the left's slogan for the 2018 elections!

It wasn't that long ago when the Democrat Party was the party of the working man. When it claimed to be party of civil rights. When it was the party of JFK that would "bear any burden" to promote freedom and resist communism.

Good people can disagree about how to reach these goals, but at least they were noble causes.

Today, the party of Truman and JFK is moving further and further left. Avowed socialists are winning more and more Democrat primaries. But there's more. . .

• In recent days, left-wing leaders have sided with Iran over the president.
• They have sided with Hamas over Israel.
• They have sided with terrorists over the first woman nominated to lead the CIA.
• Now they are siding with MS-13 gang members over the American people.

My friends, the stakes this November could not be greater.

Fighting For Life - Donald Trump ran for president as a pro-life candidate, and he is keeping a promise to ensure that taxpayer dollars are not funding abortion providers.

The White House announced today that it is issuing new regulations, modeled after a Reagan era policy, that require "a bright line of physical as well as financial separation" in programs and facilities that receive Title X federal funding for family planning services.

If family planning clinics accepts taxpayer dollars, they cannot perform abortions or refer clients for abortions. Abortion is not family planning, and Donald Trump is ensuring that your tax dollars are not paying for the destruction of innocent lives.

The policy does not by itself defund Planned Parenthood. It could still receive public funding IF its clinics do not perform or promote abortions. If Planned Parenthood clinics are not willing to meet that standard, they won't qualify for Title X funding.

There will be legal challenges, but the Supreme Court has already ruled on this issue and found the regulation constitutional.

This is great news, my friends. But, here's the real news: This president and vice president don't give up.

They tried to defund Planned Parenthood through legislation, but it failed in the Senate because Republicans have such a slim majority. That didn't stop them. They went back to the drawing board. Now they are putting forward an executive order that keeps us moving the ball down the field toward our goal.

Tax Cuts Work - Here's more evidence that the Trump tax cuts are working to grow the economy. The National Association of Manufacturers released a survey this week. It found that:

• 72% of manufacturers were boosting workers' pay and benefits as a result of the tax cuts.
• 77% were hiring more workers.
• 86% were investing in new equipment and facilities.
• 93% expressed optimism in the economy.

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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Another School Shooting, Prison Reform Summit, Gang Lives Matter, Fighting For Life, Tax Cuts Work To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

New Axis Of Evil - When Iran, Russia and Turkey Collude

by Joseph Puder: In his January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, President George W. Bush inaugurated the phrase “Axis of Evil.” He described the regimes of Iran Ayatollahs, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and North Korea as such. Bush stated that, “…Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction. Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September 11, but we know their true nature. (Kim Jong-il’s) North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens. Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom. Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections, then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.”

The butchery in Syria has exposed a new team in the “Axis of Evil” including the Bashar Assad regime, Iran, Russia, and Turkey’s maniacal president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Together, they have killed half a million Syrians, mostly civilians, and caused another 11 million civilians to flee and become refugees. They dropped barrel bombs and used poisoned gas on innocent civilians, including women and children. Together, they have devastated large cities such as Aleppo, and smaller ones like Afrin, once held by Kurds and bombed by the Turks. Syrian and Russian war planes have targeted hospitals, churches, mosques, and other public places where people might seek shelter. Iran’s proxy, the Hezbollah terrorist organization, has starved entire cities into submission. What is common to all of them is that they head dictatorial regimes.

North Korea’s cruel dictatorship that starves its people and intimidates the international community with nuclear weapons, especially South Korea, is still a solid member of the “Axis of Evil.” If however North Korea denuclearizes as a result of a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and its “Rocket Man,” Kim Jong-Un, North Korea might be able to exit from the “honor” of being part of the “Axis of Evil.”

With Saddam Hussein gone, Iraq today is under the leadership of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has exited the “Axis of Evil” club. Nonetheless, the dictatorship of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps are seeking to subvert the nascent Iraqi experiment with democracy. PM Abadi is subjected to powerful Shiite militia leaders agitating on behalf of Iran. Abadi would like to stay neutral in the Iran-Saudi (Shiite-Sunni) rivalry and benefit from both. His people are predominantly Arab, but the majority of his support comes from his fellow Shiites, who identify with non-Arab Shiite Iran.

Gary Osen, in a Newsmax piece, pointed out that “Iran has emerged as the dominant regional power in the Middle East. With Russia’s assistance, it now controls four Arab capitals, (Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Sanaa) and is within striking distance of destroying the security architecture America carefully constructed over the past seventy years.” The Islamic Republic of Iran evil is not however limited to its imperialistic machinations, it is a cruel and evil regime that oppresses its own people, and persecutes its ethnic and religious minorities. Its nuclear ambitions, coupled with its messianic and apocalyptic designs of its leadership, endangers world peace, the security of its neighbors, and the world.

Delivering a dramatic speech from the White House (May 8, 2018) on the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), President Trump stated that “The Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of terror. It exports dangerous missiles, fuels conflicts across the Middle East, and supports terrorist proxies and militias such as Hezbollah, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda (and Hamas in Gaza).

Over the years, Iran and its proxies have bombed American embassies and military installations, murdered American servicemen, and kidnapped, imprisoned, and tortured American citizens. The Iranian regime has funded its long reign of chaos and terror by plundering the wealth of its own people. No action taken by the regime has been more dangerous than its pursuit of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.”

President Trump went on to say, “Today, we have definitive proof that this Iranian promise (to abstain from developing its nuclear program) was a lie. Last week, Israel published intelligence documents long concealed by Iran, conclusively showing the Iranian regime and its history of pursuing nuclear weapons. Not only does the deal fail to halt Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it also fails to address the regime’s development of ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads. Finally, the deal does nothing to constrain Iran’s destabilizing activities, including support for terrorism. Since the (2015) agreement, Iran’s bloody ambitions have grown only more brazen.

In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget has grown by almost 40%, while its economy is doing very badly. After the sanctions were lifted, the dictatorship used its new funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, support terrorism, and cause havoc throughout the Middle East and beyond.”

Putin’s Russia allied with Iran, the Assad regime, and apparently Erdogan’s Turkey, has used the same rationale that Hitler used to annex first the Sudetenland and then the entirety of Czechoslovakia in October, 1938 and March, 1939. Putin annexed Ukrainian Crimea into Russia, and sent Russian-speaking proxies to detach sections of Eastern Ukraine from the sovereign Ukrainian state. Putin’s rationale was similar to Hitler’s in claiming that this act of aggression meant to “correct a historical wrong.” Today, Russia is complicit in the destruction of Syria, and the mass killing of its civilian population, along with the Assad regime and Iran. Putin’s dream is to re-create the Soviet Union, and restore its status as a superpower.

An unholy alliance has recently emerged between Russia, Iran and Erdogan’s Turkey. Turkey has been drawn into this alliance because it wants to crush the U.S. backed Kurdish forces. President Erdogan recently signed a $2.5 billion arms deal with Russia for S-400 sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, which raised deep concerns among NATO allies. Erdogan’s unrelenting assaults on the Kurdish people in his own country as well as in Syria, killing civilians under the pretext of combatting “terror,” is just one side of the new partner in the “Axis of Evil.” Erdogan’s has transformed Turkey from a secular, democratic state into another Islamist dictatorship with mass arrests, curtailment of press freedom, and human rights abuses. His illusions of grandeur seeks to restore the “glories” of the Ottoman Empire and the leadership of the Sunni-Muslim world.

While Syria’s Bashar Assad is merely an instrument to be used, Iran, Russia and Turkey are dangerous actors in the global arena. Together they constitute the new “Axis of Evil.”
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Joseph Puder writes about Jews and Arabs living in Judea and Samaria. Original Article in FrontPage.Mag, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

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Mueller Investigation One Year Old, Still No Collusion

. . . Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee says Russia interfered in 2016 to help Trump.

by Thomas Gallatin: President Donald Trump marked the one-year anniversary of the Robert Mueller special investigation by writing, “Congratulations America, we are now into the second year of the greatest Witch Hunt in American History…and there is still No Collusion and No Obstruction. The only Collusion was that done by Democrats who were unable to win an Election despite the spending of far more money!” Indeed, the fact remains that after a year of investigating, no evidence of any Trump/Russian collusion has been presented by Mueller’s team of Hillary Clinton donors. Witch hunt?

Clearly seeking to ratchet up the pressure on the Mueller investigation in order to bring it to a quick end, Rudy Giuliani, now Trump’s lead attorney, stated yesterday, “This case is essentially over. … [Mueller’s team is] just in denial.” Giuliani also noted that Mueller acknowledged the investigation would follow Justice Department guidance and not seek an indictment against Trump. That’s really not news, though, as it does not preclude Mueller from recommending that the House pursue impeachment. But over what?

Speaking of Congress, the Senate Judiciary Committee released a report that seemed to contradict last month’s House report. In short, the Senate concluded that the U.S. intelligence community did indeed believe the Russian government ran a sophisticated and extensive effort to interfere in the 2016 election, and that the Kremlin aimed to help Trump and hurt Clinton. However, this report in no way even purports to provide evidence for any collusion conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Rather it simply agrees with the intelligence community’s assessment that Moscow was working to interfere in the election. There is no news here, despite Leftmedia attempts to drum it up.

But what is more revealing was yesterday’s release of transcripts from the Senate Judiciary Committee’s closed-door hearing with those involved in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian attorney. It’s significant because that meeting was supposedly the smoking gun upon which the collusion narrative hung — that and the Clinton-funded dossier. And what we find is that the meeting was a giant nothingburger. There is no evidence of collusion. In fact, as Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey argues, “If Mueller doesn’t care about this testimony becoming public … it suggests that the Trump Tower meeting doesn’t matter to the Russian-collusion track — and without the Trump Tower meeting, that track seems pretty narrow.”
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Thomas Gallatin writes for The Patriot Post

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Sex Education Battle

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: Another sex education battle is brewing. First, there was a scathing New York Times editorial aimed at the Trump administration and at the idea of abstinence education. Then there was the front-page article in USA Todayon sex education, politics, and pop culture.

These and other editorials and articles leave you with the feeling that: (1) the current sex education programs are working, (2) the abstinence programs are failures, and (3) the Trump administration is “advancing an anti-science, ideological agenda.” All three are false.

Back in 2010, President Obama’s administration eliminated all funding to Sexual Risk Avoidance education (that includes teaching about abstinence) and created the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program. Years later, HHS evaluated the comprehensive sex education program and concluded that more than 80 percent of the teens in the program fared either worse or no better than their peers who were not part of the program.

By contrast, abstinence programs have been proven effective. As I also pointed out in a previous commentary, a CDC report talks about additional health benefits that also accompany teaching about sexual risk avoidance.

Proponents of comprehensive sex education point to some studies that demonstrate that condoms can be effective in preventing the spread of STDs. But these studies say that condoms must be used consistently and correctly. Let me ask those of you who have had teenagers in your home. Would you use the words “consistently and correctly” to describe a teenager’s behavior? I didn’t think so.

Most Americans are surprised to learn that a majority of teens are NOT sexually active and that fewer are sexually active today than 20 years ago. Maybe it is time to reevaluate what we have been teaching in the schools.
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Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service

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Fake Racism News . . .

. . . In an effort to paint President Trump as an extreme racist, the mainstream media deliberately took him out of context when referring to MS-13 as animals.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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A Trump Doctrine for Singapore and Beyond

Patrick Buchanan

by Patrick Buchanan: After Pyongyang railed this week that the U.S.-South Korean Max Thunder military drills were a rehearsal for an invasion of the North, and imperiled the Singapore summit, the Pentagon dialed them back.

The B-52 exercises alongside F-22 stealth fighters were canceled.

But Pyongyang had other objections.

Sunday, NSC adviser John Bolton spoke of a “Libyan model” for the North’s disarmament, referring to Moammar Gadhafi’s surrender of all his weapons of mass destruction in 2004. The U.S. was invited into Libya to pick them up and cart them off, whereupon sanctions were lifted.

As Libya was subsequently attacked by NATO and Gadhafi lynched, North Korea denounced Bolton and all this talk of the “Libyan model” of unilateral disarmament.

North Korea wants a step-by-step approach, each concession by Pyongyang to be met by a U.S. concession. And Bolton sitting beside Trump, and across the table from Kim Jong Un in Singapore, may be inhibiting.

What was predictable and predicted has come to pass.

If we expected Kim to commit at Singapore to Bolton’s demand for “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,” and a swift follow-through, we were deluding ourselves.

At Singapore, both sides will have demands, and both will have to offer concessions, if there is to be a deal.

What does Kim Jong Un want?

An end to U.S. and South Korean military exercises and sanctions on the North, trade and investment, U.S. recognition of his regime, a peace treaty, and the eventual removal of U.S. bases and troops.

He is likely to offer an end to the testing of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, no transfer of nuclear weapons or strategic missiles to third powers, a drawdown of troops on the DMZ, and the opening of North Korea’s borders to trade and travel.

As for his nuclear weapons and the facilities to produce them, these are Kim’s crown jewels. These brought him to the attention of the world and the Americans to the table. These are why President Trump is flying 10,000 miles to meet and talk with him.

And, unlike Gadhafi, Kim is not going to give them up.

Assuming the summit comes off June 12, this is the reality Trump will face in Singapore: a North Korea willing to halt the testing of nukes and ICBMs and to engage diplomatically and economically.

As for having Americans come into his country, pick up his nuclear weapons, remove them and begin intrusive inspections to ensure he has neither nuclear bombs nor the means to produce, deliver or hide them, that would be tantamount to a surrender by Kim.

Trump is not going to get that. And if he adopts a Bolton policy of “all or nothing,” he is likely to get nothing at all.

Yet, thanks to Trump’s threats and refusal to accept a “frozen conflict” on the Korean peninsula, the makings of a real deal are present, if Trump does not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

For there is nothing North Korea is likely to demand that cannot be granted, as long as the security of South Korea is assured to the degree that it can be assured, while living alongside a nuclear-armed North.

Hence, when Kim cavils or balks in Singapore, as he almost surely will, at any demand for a pre-emptive surrender of his nuclear arsenal, Trump should have a fallback position.

If we cannot have everything we want, what can we live with?

Moreover, while we are running a risk today, an intransigent North Korea that walks out would be running a risk as well.

A collapse in talks between Kim and the United States and Kim and South Korea would raise the possibility that he and his Chinese patrons could face an East Asia Cold War where South Korea and Japan also have acquired nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

In the last analysis, the United States should be willing to accept both the concessions to the North that the South is willing to make and the risks from the North that the South is willing to take.

For, ultimately, they are the one who are going to have to live on the same peninsula with Kim and his nukes.

Trump ran on a foreign policy that may fairly be described as a Trump Doctrine: In the post-post-Cold War era, the United States will start looking out for America first.

This does not mean isolationism or the abandonment of our allies. It does mean a review and reassessment of all the guarantees we have issued to go to war on behalf of other countries, and the eventual transfer of responsibility for the defense of our friends over to our friends.

In the future, the U.S. will stop futilely imploring allies to do more for their own defense and will begin telling them that their defense is primarily their own responsibility. Our allies must cease to be our dependents.
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Patrick Buchanan is currently a conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He blogs at the Patrick J. Buchanan.

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Working for Whom?

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: Two articles on Sen. Rand Paul appeared in my Reason feed the other day. Up top.

So it was hard not to look.

They were “John McCain: It ‘Wasn’t Incorrect’ to Say Rand Paul Was ‘Working for Vladimir Putin’” and “Rand Paul’s Plan to Balance the Budget by 2023 Will Get a Senate Vote This Week.”

The latter story is the bigger one, of course. In it, Eric Boehm asked, “Do Republicans have the guts to impose strict spending caps?”

His answer was “probably not.” Good guess.

“Passing the Kentucky Republican’s so-called ‘Penny Plan’ would be a dramatic reversal for Congress,” Boehm wrote, “which earlier this year approved enormous spending hikes that busted Obama-era spending caps and threaten to put the country on pace for a $1 trillion annual deficits. . . . Paul tells Politico that it will be a ‘litmus test for Republicans who claim to be conservative, but are only too happy to grow the federal government and increase our debt.’”

I am afraid the litmus paper has turned . . . red. As in red ink. As in accumulating debt till we drop.

Yesterday Paul’s plan was voted down, 21-76.

In the other Reason piece, Matt Welch noted that Arizona’s senior senator stands by his calumny, last year, against Kentucky’s junior senator. Paul had delayed “ratification of Montenegro’s entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).” McCain, a gung-ho NATO expansion proponent, accused Paul of “working for Vladimir Putin.”

If Putin really seethes with ill will towards America, wouldn’t he want to see the country burdened with debt?

So, on this vote, those 76 senators who didn’t “stand with Rand” are undoubtedly working for Putin.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Paul Jacob is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacob is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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It's Been One Year Since Mueller Began His Investigation. It's Past Time For It To Wrap Up!

Robert Mueller

by Hans von Spakovsky: Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of Robert Mueller’s appointment as a special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and whether the Russian government coordinated its activities with associates of candidate Donald Trump.

Over the past year Mueller has managed to spend $10 million in taxpayer funds, taken up enormous amounts of time of people being questioned, forced many to run up big legal bills, and had a disruptive effect on the functioning of the White House. His probe has dominated the news, squeezing out coverage of many of the Trump administration’s accomplishments.

And in a new development Wednesday, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – now working as an attorney representing President Trump – told Fox News that Mueller told the Trump legal team he will not seek an indictment against the president, based on a 1999 Justice Department memo that concluded federal prosecutors can’t indict a sitting president.

That means the only way Mueller could act against President Trump would be to provide evidence that would be welcomed by Democrats in Congress eager to impeach the president.

So is the Mueller probe really a taxpayer-funded effort to overturn the results of the 2016 election and oust the duly elected president from office?

How long this seemingly endless probe will continue is anybody’s guess.

Mueller may have evidence that will result in actual indictments that have something to do with his original task and that justify his continued spending of taxpayer funds.

But after a year, we still have not seen him produce anything publicly that supports the claim he was originally assigned to investigate – whether there was any collusion of any kind in the 2016 election between the Trump campaign and Russia.

In addition to the issue of Trump-Russia collusion, Mueller was also authorized to look at additional issues uncovered in his investigation. That allows him to cast a very wide net in a fishing expedition looking for wrongdoing.

The special counsel’s probe has expanded to also examine whether the president and his associates sought to obstruct justice by impeding the investigation; whether Trump associates engaged in illegal financial dealings; and whether there were improper contacts between Trump officials and Russians during the presidential transition period.

President Trump has said many time that “there was no collusion.” The president has also said that “there was no obstruction” and called the Mueller investigation a “witch hunt.”

The House Intelligence Committee recently released its report on the investigation that it conducted of Russian election interference, concluding that that there “was no evidence” that the Trump campaign “colluded, coordinated or conspired with Russia.” Democrats dissented from that conclusion by the Republican majority on the committee.

A report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released Wednesday agreed with the intelligence community’s finding that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election with goal of helping Trump be elected president. But the committee said it will issue another report in the future examining allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Wednesday report did not address this issue.

We do know that there was no actual interference with the voting and balloting process that could have changed the outcome of the election. Jeh Johnson, who headed the Department of Homeland Security under President Obama, told us right after the election that Russians didn’t do any of that.

Since Mueller’s appointment, 19 people released Wednesday agreed with the intelligence community’s finding that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election with ghave been charged with illegal actions, including four Trump campaign aides and three Russians companies. But many of these alleged crimes have nothing to do with the election or with President Trump.

For example, former Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was indicted on charges involving alleged money laundering, tax fraud and violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. However, the charges are related to his representation of the Ukrainian government years before Donald Trump even thought about running for president. Linking President Trump to these charges is absurd.

Mueller’s indictment of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn also had nothing to do with the election. Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian government during the presidential transition.

Many are questioning the legitimacy of the FBI even questioning Flynn, since the questioning was apparently based on a potential violation of the Logan Act, which makes it a crime for unauthorized people to negotiate on behalf of the United States with foreign governments. No one has been successfully prosecuted under the Logan Act since it was passed in 1799. Many scholars believe it is unconstitutional.

Mueller also has indicted 13 Russians for using social media platforms to stir up trouble in the U.S over racial and social issues. But those Russians used social media to push people towards rallies and actions that in some cases supported Trump, in some cases supported Hillary Clinton, and in some cases opposed one of the presidential candidates.

It is obvious from reading this indictment that the Russians are accused of using fake and stolen identities to ensure no one knew they were Russians and that they were trying to sow dissension and social unrest rather than help a particular candidate. In any event, no collusion is even alleged in the indictment.

The year-long special counsel investigation seems to have raised more questions about the possible misbehavior by Mueller’s investigators and other government officials than by the Trump campaign. This includes serious questions about:

• The basis for starting an FBI counterintelligence investigation and surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign, apparently based on unverified opposition political research.
• The possible bias of FBI and Department of Justice officials involved in the investigation against Trump.
• The legitimacy of the far-flung expansion of Mueller’s investigation into things that seemingly have nothing to do with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, such as hush money paid to a porn star who alleges she had a one-night affair with Trump a decade before the election. The president denies the claim.

Like a soap opera that goes on and on and an on, the Mueller probe continues, expanding into new story lines and growing ever more complex. How far back in time, and how wide-ranging this investigation will become is a mystery.

But whether you are a Trump supporter or opponent, do you really want this investigation to continue for months or even another year? Is the cost and the disruption of the functioning of the White House worth it? Shouldn’t President Trump and his team be allowed to focus on dealing with the challenges our nation faces at home and abroad?

If you think President Trump is doing a bad job, vote against him if he’s on the ballot in 2020. Criticize his conduct and his policies between now and then. But like it or not, he was elected president of the United States.

Mueller needs to wrap up his investigation, report to Congress, and then let lawmakers either act against the president or allow him to finish his term, focused on making America great again.
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Hans von Spakovsky is an authority on a wide range of issues—including civil rights, civil justice, the First Amendment, immigration, the rule of law and government reform—as a senior legal fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and manager of the think tank’s Election Law Reform Initiative. More ARRA News Service articles by or about Hans con Spakovsky. H/T Fox News. and Americans for Limited Government

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Tags: Hans von Spakovsky, Fox News, Americans for Limited Government, Mueller investigation, past time, to wrap up To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

How the Media Just Created a Powerful New Lie About Trump

President Trump spoke with California officials
about immigration policy at a roundtable.

by Katrina Trinko: If you’ve been scanning news headlines in the past 24 hours, you might have read that President Donald Trump on Wednesday called immigrants “animals.”

Here are a few of the headlines:

“During Roundtable, Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’” (NPR)

“Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’ in Rant” (New York Times)

“Trump ramps up rhetoric on undocumented immigrants: ‘These aren’t people. These are animals.’” (USA Today)

Then, Mediate did a nice roundup of tweets from news outlets that also promoted the narrative:

"These aren't people. These are animals." President Trump used the harsh rhetoric to describe some undocumented immigrants during a California "sanctuary state" roundtable. https://t.co/mOwXilRtwE pic.twitter.com/eYC6XhtR57

— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 16, 2018

"We're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people — these are animals." During a meeting with public officials who oppose California’s sanctuary policies, Pres. Trump criticized US immigration laws https://t.co/2KcrIhMnyR pic.twitter.com/SsmCdaofHb

— CNN (@CNN) May 17, 2018

Pres. Trump refers to some who cross the border illegally as 'animals,' not people. "You wouldn't believe how bad these people are."

The president was holding a roundtable discussion with California elected officials who oppose the state's sanctuary law. https://t.co/YfrZxC89CB pic.twitter.com/uvhKp9vwrO

— ABC News (@ABC) May 17, 2018

So, between the tweets and the headlines, we have six of the biggest news outlets in the United States promoting the narrative that Trump called illegal immigrants “animals” during a roundtable Wednesday.

There’s just one catch: The president was referring to MS-13 gang members

The first 12 seconds, below - that magically went missing in newsrooms across America — regarding POTUS comments on MS-13 being “ANIMALS!” pic.twitter.com/YGgnHR8m1U

— Dan Scavino Jr. (@Scavino45) May 17, 2018

If you look at the full transcript from the White House, here’s what was said:
Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims: Thank you. There could be an MS-13 member I know about—if they don’t reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it.

Trump: We have people coming into the country, or trying to come in—and we’re stopping a lot of them—but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals. And we’re taking them out of the country at a level and at a rate that’s never happened before. And because of the weak laws, they come in fast, we get them, we release them, we get them again, we bring them out. It’s crazy.

The dumbest laws — as I said before, the dumbest laws on immigration in the world. So, we’re going to take care of it, Margaret. We’ll get it done. So, if you read the full transcript, it’s an extremely reasonable assumption Trump was referring to members of the notorious gang MS-13 as “animals,” not all—or many—illegal immigrants.

Yet, none of these headlines or tweets note that the “some” illegal immigrants are actually gang members.

Personally, I’d rather never call another human being, no matter how reprehensible his actions, an “animal.”

But it’s ridiculous to pretend that people scanning the headlines would have the same reaction to “Trump Calls Some Unauthorized Immigrants ‘Animals’ in Rant” as to, say, “Trump Calls Some MS-13 Gang Members ‘Animals’ in Rant.”

Those are very different statements.

Now, the Associated Press at least has taken responsibility for leaving out context, tweeting today:

AP has deleted a tweet from late Wednesday on Trump’s “animals” comment about immigrants because it wasn’t made clear that he was speaking after a comment about gang members.

— The Associated Press (@AP) May 17, 2018

That’s good—and other media outlets should step up to the plate. Readers deserve accurate reporting from outlets that say they are objective and nonideological, not slanted reporting that completely eliminates crucial context.
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Katrina Trinko is managing editor of The Daily Signal and co-host of The Daily Signal podcast. She is also a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors.

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Gina Haspel Confirmed As Director of the CIA

Gina Haspel

ARRA News Service: Yesterday, the Senate confirmed Gina Haspel to be CIA Director. The cloture vote passed 54-44 and Haspel was confirmed 54-45 with six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no. She is the first woman to lead the CIA.

Haspel joined the CIA in January, 1985 working in numeerous position and was a longtime undercover officer. Haspel formally replaces Mike Pompeo as CIA director and will be the first career clandestine service officer to oversee the agency since Richard Helms in the 1960s and William Colby in the 1970s.

In a previous article, Arkansas US Senator Tom Cotton noted his belief that "[I]f Democrats had nominated her, she would be getting 80-90 votes in the Senate. Senate leftists oppose her because President Trump nominated her — and it gives him another historic win. After 9/11 her enhanced interrogation efforts resulted in the discovery of Osama Bin Laden’s message courier, who led American forces to Bin Laden in Pakistan." He exposed the Democrats hypocrisy on Gina Haspel in a video.

In debate before the vote, Senate Intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) summurized her readyness for theing the CIA Direcvtor: "She is intimately familiar with the threats facing our nation. Where others can discuss world events, Gina Haspel has lived those events. She has no learning curve.”

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Arizona Border Ranchers Live in Fear as Illegal Immigration Crisis Worsens

Rancher John Ladd

by Judicial Watch: More than half a million illegal immigrants of several dozen nationalities have been apprehended on John Ladd’s sprawling cattle ranch in southeastern Arizona. Ladd has also found 14 dead bodies on his 16,500-acre farm, which has been in his family for well over a century and sits between the Mexican border and historic State Route 92.

The property shares a 10 ½-mile border with Mexico, making it a popular route for human and drug smugglers evading a meager force of Border Patrol agents in the mountainous region. “As big as that number sounds, many more got away,” said National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd of the hundreds of thousands arrested on Ladd’s parcel. Judd spent a chunk of his decades-long career with the agency patrolling the area and he knows it well. “It’s gotten more violent. It’s gotten worse.”

As part of an ongoing investigation into the critical security issues created by the famously porous southern border, Judicial Watch visited frustrated ranchers and residents in Sierra Vista, a Cochise County town located 75 miles southeast of Tucson with a population of around 44,000.

The town sits in the picturesque Sonoran Desert and is surrounded by the scenic Huachuca Mountains. Illegal immigrants and drug smugglers are devastating the area and many longtime residents live in fear. Some are too scared to enjoy a simple pastime—horseback riding on their own land. “I can’t guarantee there’s not a dead body somewhere in my ranch right now,” said Ladd pointing to his property as he stood in front of the U.S. government’s border fence, an area known as the “shit ditch” because illegal immigrants use it as a toilet and trash can.

Sporting a thick gray mustache and a dapper cowboy hat, Ladd said 200 to 300 illegal aliens are caught daily passing through his property. “We don’t have any control of the border,” he said. “I see it every day.”

A 60-foot wide dirt road, known as a federal easement, separates Ladd’s ranch from Mexico. Some portions have an 18-foot iron fence along the border that Ladd says illegal immigrants “easily climb with a pack of dope.” Other sections have a laughable wire fence that has been repeatedly penetrated with vehicles speeding through from Mexico.

Some areas have been visibly patched where holes were carved out for passage. The fence is such a joke that the Border Patrol installed concrete barriers along a busy two-mile stretch across the 60-foot dirt road, right in front of the barb wire barrier on Ladd’s property line to stop smugglers. “Smugglers even put a hydraulic ramp, so a car or truck could blow through,” Ladd said.

He estimates that around 70% of the traffic that comes through his ranch is human smuggling and 30% is drug smuggling. In the last three years most of the illegal border crossers have been central American, Ladd said. The veteran rancher first became concerned with the unprotected border decades ago because sick Mexican cows threatened his herd.

The problem became more serious over the years. “First it was Mexican cows, then people, then dope,” Ladd said. “Now it’s really bad.” Ladd has traveled to the nation’s capital seven times to bring attention to the crisis in Sierra Vista, but Washington bureaucrats have failed to take any action.

Instead, the federal government has placed ineffective or faulty surveillance equipment in the region that smugglers easily evade. “The smugglers know the radio range and avoid it,” Judd said, adding that cameras are installed in the wrong spot and don’t have great resolution.

Judicial Watch staffers pictured with John Ladd

On a hill adjacent to Ladd’s ranch stands an imposing camera tower that could never capture illegal border crossers because its view is completely blocked by a sea of lush trees below. The government spent $1.3 million on the useless equipment and never bothered to study the terrain’s impact on the technology.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) simply installed the equipment based on a predetermined formula that separates the cameras by a fixed number of miles without considering the landscape, according to Judd. “They didn’t do any research on the topography,” he said. These kinds of failures frustrate local ranchers, who feel increasingly threatened by the barrage of illegal crossers rampaging through their property. With both thumbs resting on his thick, bronze belt buckle, Ladd looked up at the pointless camera tower smiling and quipped: “Now that’s a big boondoggle right there, a total waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Another troubled property owner, John Guerrero, took Judicial Watch on a nighttime tour of a nearby smuggling route that is inexplicably unprotected. The dirt road runs through the Coronado National Forest and Guerrero, a retired U.S. Army Ranger and intelligence officer who served in Iraq and Somalia, has felt the impact of the government’s failure to adequately guard it.

Five strands of barb wire serve as the physical boundary between the U.S. and Mexico in a remote portion of the park, which is closed to the public at night and is heavily transited by drug and human smugglers. Illegal immigration has had such a devastating impact on the area that Guerrero wrote a book offering detailed anecdotes of what he and his family endure because they live near the Mexican border. This includes drugs and illegal immigrants piling into vehicles on the road adjacent to his four-acre property and ultralight aircraft flying near his rooftop, just above the trees, en route to make a drug drop. “Local residents are increasingly fearful,” Guerrero said.

The event that has most impacted Guerrero occurred when smugglers burned down a beloved chapel, Our Lady of the Sierras, situated on a hill across the road from his home. A 75-foot Celtic cross outside the chapel remains lit through the night and serves as a navigational tool for smugglers and the grounds are regularly used to transfer drugs.

In 2011, illegal immigrant smugglers started the fire along the border to escape the Border Patrol during a pursuit. Besides the chapel, which has since been rebuilt, the fire destroyed nearly 30,000 acres and dozens of homes. Guerrero and his family were forced to evacuate. Widespread media coverage omitted that illegal immigrants were responsible for the fire, but a local news station finally reported that the Cochise County Sheriff confirmed the fire started 200 yards north of the Mexican border in an area known as Smuggler’s Gulch. “There was absolutely no mention by the federal government as to the true origin of the fire,” Guerrero said.

Judd, who heads the union that represents some 16,000 Border Patrol agents nationwide, says the border can be secured. “There has to be political will to secure the border,” he said. The frontline agency had tremendous faith that the Trump administration would finally get the job done, but the stats tell a different story.

Shortly after Trump became president there was a dip in the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through Mexico, Judd said. However, “by April 2018 we were back to the Obama high of illegal border crossers,” Judd confirmed. Sierra Vista residents like Ladd and Guerrero continue to suffer the consequences of anemic border control and worry about the crime that has infested their once-idyllic town.

The problem is so rampant that Ladd often sees smuggling spotters from his property on the nearby mountains in the Mexican side. “They’re right there every day,” he said. “They live in camps and have solar generators. Their job is to look out.” Residents in Sierra Vista feel no one is looking out for them.
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Judicial Watch is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

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