DOJ ends political targeting of conservative, religious groups

For eight years the Department of Justice under former President Barack Obama was weaponized. Religious liberty and free speech were constantly under assault. Spiritual institutions were forced to violate their religious beliefs. Citizen organizations were targeted because they had a different interpretation of the Constitution than President Obama. Attorneys General Holder and Lynch launched an all-out assault on freedoms of Americans.

Attorney General Sessions is leading the fight to depoliticize the DOJ and put the blindfold back on Lady Justice.

Early in President Obama’s first term in the wake of the Citizens United ruling, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began scrutinizing organizations with specific words in the names. Words like “tea party” and “patriots” would cause the determinations unit to provide extra scrutiny when reviewing the application for tax-exempt status.

The targeting would also include groups with specifically outlined goals. Groups that wanted to challenge the Affordable Care Act, complained about government spending, or raised questions about illegal immigrants voting spent well over a year on the list to become tax exempt.

In 2012, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa expressed concerns to the IRS about allegations he was hearing. The Inspector General for the IRS would launch an investigation looking at the claims.

One year later in 2013, the IRS, through Lois Lerner, would issue an apology for targeting conservatives, days before the results of the IG would be released. Congressional investigations would soon follow. The actions of the IRS during the congressional investigations would also draw attention. Computers, emails, and back up tapes would all be destroyed while under a subpoena be retained. Americans and Congress smelled a rat, but could not quite get a handle on the scandal.

Following years of legal battles, the IRS finally reached settlements with over 400 groups targeted by the Obama IRS last week. The settlements include an official apology with AG Sessions stating, “Hundreds of organizations were affected by these actions, and they deserve an apology from the IRS.  We hope that today’s settlement makes clear that this abuse of power will not be tolerated.”

This Department of Justice has also signaled it will defend the First Amendment’s freedom of religion. One of the main components of Obamacare was the contraceptive mandate. The law mandated female contraceptive coverage for all employers and educational institutions, except churches and other houses of worship. This created a problem for the thousands of religious hospitals, religious charities, Christian universities and organizations owned or controlled by religious establishments. Many of the institutions took legal action and sued the Obama administration for violating their First Amendment rights.

After years of expensive legal battles, the DOJ settled with more than 70 plaintiffs that challenged the mandate. The settlement was allowed after the Trump administration issued new guidelines to all federal agencies that allow for religious exemptions. Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior stated, “This brings to a close protracted litigation that never should have happened in the first place. As this president and this attorney general have made clear, they will always seek to protect and defend religious liberty.”

Free speech has been under assault for years on college campuses, and the Obama DOJ ignored the mugging of the Constitution by institutions receiving billions in taxpayer funds. In September, the DOJ announced it would take the fight to the bastions of anti-constitutionalism by filing a Statement of Interest in two campus free speech cases, with more to be filed.

In a statement about the move, Attorney General Sessions stated, “A national recommitment to free speech on campus and to ensuring First Amendment rights is long overdue. Which is why, starting today, the Department of Justice will do its part in this struggle. We will enforce federal law, defend free speech, and protect students’ free expression.”

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The Left and Right are not equally bad: Here's the crucial difference

Harry Binswanger, below, seems to deplore the Christian Right but otherwise he has a good point

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that we are seeing a wholesale, frontal assault on America, in the hopes of establishing a dictatorship--since respect for America's past and the American "sense of life" are the only things holding us back from dictatorship.

The "God Damn America" viewpoint is not a pose or a tactic: these people have really talked themselves into the belief that America is and always was essentially evil. It began as a hatred for American individualism and capitalism. It now seems to be more of a free-floating hatred.

Accordingly, this is not the time to say, "Well, yes, there are some bad things in America's past, and yes some police do horrid things, but . . ."

The Weimar Republic, as the Nazis were gaining strength, was not the place and time to say, "Well, yes, some Jews are money-grubbers but . . ."

I've seen this movie before. In the 60s, the Left was also anti-police, which means pro-anarchy. In the 60s, as today, the Left charged that America is a fascist nation. In the 60s, as today, black athletes were making symbolic gestures of defiance against America during the national anthem.

But today, we are a lot further down the road to dictatorship than we were in the 60s. And a lot deeper into the lobotomizing effects of Comprachico-style "education." Further, today, equally reprehensible things are growing on the Right. And religion has become tremendously stronger in the culture and on the Right than it was in the 60s (it was hard then to find a student at my college (MIT) who had any respect for any religion).

However, there's not a symmetry of Left and Right here. The relation of the far Left to the rest of the Left is different from the relation of the "alt-Right" to the rest of the Right. And by Left and Right here, I mean as the terms are conventionally taken. You can almost substitute Democrats and Republicans.

Take Antifa on the Left and neo-Nazis on the Right. The entire Left is sympathetic to Antifa. They may, with varying degrees of sincerity, condemn Antifa's violent means, but, to a man, they share Antifa's ethical-political viewpoint.

Does anyone in the Democratic Party think, for instance, that egalitarianism is wrong, that the rich are benefactors, not fat cats, that banks are not vampire squids sucking the blood of society, that America is not a racist society? Maybe someone somewhere, but you get the point: the extreme Left is just an undiluted version of the moderate Left.

But the alt-right is not just an undiluted version of what most all Republicans hold. Steve Bannon is not a purer version of Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, or even Sarah Palin. Neo-Nazis are not a group that Tea Partiers, Establishment Republicans, or Libertarians would say have the right idea but the wrong means. You can say that about a disturbing number of Trump supporters, but that Trump-fringe, though quite alarming, is only a small minority on the Republican side (if they are even on that side).

But Michael Moore, Sean Penn, the kneeling footballers, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, et al. are not a small minority on the Democrat side. They are the beating heart of the Party.

So, yes, there is a very ugly and growing cancer on the Republican side, the side conventionally called the Right. But the Democrats and the Left are a sea of malignancy with islands of healthier tissue.

To concretize, you can look for, and occasionally find, good Republicans politicians for whom you are happy to vote. Can you do that with Democratic politicians?

Or, you can often find some halfway decent editorials in the Wall St. Journal (never fully good, however), but how often can you find them in the NY Times? Sometimes, but not a twentieth as frequently as in the WSJ.

Yes, I know, at the deeper level, even the people on the right who look good hold some very bad premises--especially regarding religion. And the Wall St. Journal is largely neo-conservative, which is death on wheels.

So, I'm not here to praise the people or the essays of the Republicans. I'm just here to point out that as bad as the Republicans are, they are not nearly as far gone as the Democrats.

I also hasten to observe that if you take the fundamental ideas--communism and theocracy--there's no choosing between them. It's death by drowning or death by burning.

But my point is that the Left is more communist than the Right is theocratic.

SOURCE

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The Catholic Church Actually Has Pretty Good Standards For Immigration

From the Catechism

In Church teaching 2241, the Church offers a very reasonable and fairly balanced approach to immigration. The nation is called to accept immigrants to “the extent they are able” and protect their inalienable rights. The immigrant, however, is "expected to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens."

2241 The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.

Compare that principle to President Donald J. Trump’s stance on immigration and you will find the two are not at odds. In a statement on September 5th, 2017, the executive branch called for immigration reform that rids the nation of immigrants who have committed crimes, promotes economic prosperity for all Americans, and reforms the current immigration system so that immigrants can come here legally.

In that statement, Trump said,

 “Our enforcement priorities remain unchanged. We are focused on criminals, security threats, recent border-crossers, visa overstays, and repeat violators.  I have advised the Department of Homeland Security that DACA recipients are not enforcement priorities unless they are criminals, are involved in criminal activity, or are members of a gang.” 

Getting rid of drug dealers and gang members is not the same as deporting law-abiding illegal aliens. In fact, Trump makes it very clear that those illegal aliens who are here respecting the laws of the land, contributing, and working to earn a living that they otherwise could not in their native country is not law enforcements concern.

His statement continues,

“The decades-long failure of Washington, D.C. to enforce federal immigration law has had both predictable and tragic consequences: lower wages and higher unemployment for American workers, substantial burdens on local schools and hospitals, the illicit entry of dangerous drugs and criminal cartels, and many billions of dollars a year in costs paid for by U.S. taxpayers.  Yet few in Washington expressed any compassion for the millions of Americans victimized by this unfair system. Before we ask what is fair to illegal immigrants, we must also ask what is fair to American families, students, taxpayers, and jobseekers.”

President Trump is essentially saying that our failure to enforce the laws of the land for so long is now limiting the extent to which we are capable of accepting foreigners. Because of that, reform is needed as well as immediate enforcement of current laws.

SOURCE

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