A Christian man who refuses to pay his taxes until the government stops funding abortion has won an historic lawsuit against the IRS.

Michael Bowman has refused to file a tax return or pay taxes since 1999.  “I’m not a tax protester. I love my country,”he told reporters. “I have a duty to my country. I have a duty to my conscience.”

Lifesitenews.com reports: The IRS has sent him numerous warnings over unpaid taxes from 2002 to 2014, and in 2012 the Oregon Department of Revenue began garnishing money from Bowman’s bank account. In response, he started cashing out his paychecks and leaving only a minimum balance in his account.

This, federal prosecutors say, constituted “remov[ing] his income from the reach of taxing authorities.” They indicted him for felony tax evasion in the amount of $356,857, as well as four misdemeanor counts of willful failure to file tax returns.

Bowman’s attorney, Matthew Schindler, argued that his client was fully transparent every step of the way, from disclosing all of his paychecks to cashing them at his own bank, under his own name.

“Like a player collapsing as they lose Twister, the government has reached too far forward and stretched way too far back,” his motion to dismiss read.

Last week, US District Judge Michael Mosman sided with Bowman on the felony charge, ruling that the feds failed to show he attempted to conceal income or deceive the government. Prosecutors remain free to re-introduce the charge in the future, and are currently weighing whether to do so.

On Tuesday, Bowman elaborated on his stand in an interview with CBN News.

“First, I would love to pay taxes so as to have a normal life, however, our government is using the tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood; which commits abortions – the death of the innocent,” Bowman said. “Apparently, a woman has the right to choose, but evidently, I do not.”

Click here to read full article.

When 16-year-old Autumn noticed a Teen Vogue article last week that tried to promote and normalize abortion to her peers, she could not stay silent.

The young pro-lifer worked with Students for Life of America to create a video response to the disgusting pro-abortion article.

The magazine’s piece encouraged teen girls to support a friend’s decision to abort her unborn baby by giving her gifts. While a pregnant teenager certainly deserves a lot of support and encouragement, the only support that Teen Vogue suggested was through abortion and abortion advocacy. Among its worst gift suggestions were an “F U-terus” pin and volunteer time at a local Planned Parenthood.

Autumn’s powerful and well-spoken response to the article already has captured the attention of thousands of viewers online.

“The point of the article was to make the situation seem as lighthearted and nonchalant as possible in order to convince girls my age that abortion is not big deal. We need to clarify one thing first — abortion is a big deal,” Autumn began in the video. “And to say it is not, is simply feeding us a lie.”

She said the teen magazine must be held accountable for such a “disgusting and disrespectful” article, targeted at an impressionable young audience.

“You trivialized an issue that leaves millions of women struggling every day,” the teen continued. “Such a blase approach hurts women who regret their abortions. It minimizes their pain.”

Later, she concluded: “If you know someone who has had an abortion, don’t buy them a gag gift and disguise it as a celebration. Treat it for what it is, a terrible loss. Go sit with her in her grief, pray for her … and promise to help her find healing.”

Click here to read full article and watch Autumn's response.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced the finalization of its rule changes to the federal Title X family planning services funding program, which will disqualify abortion facilities, such as those run by Planned Parenthood, from receiving federal funds, as well as any locations that promote, support or refer for abortions.

The changes revert to the 1988 standard under the Reagan administration that disqualified family planning organizations from receiving Title X funds if abortions are performed in the same building where contraceptives and other family planning services are offered.

Abortion providers would either have to divide their services into two separate physical locations, or lose funding.

“This rule will require Title X providers to maintain physical and financial separation from locations which provide abortion as a method of family planning,” a document released by HHS outlines.

“This physical and financial separation will ensure compliance with the statutory requirement that Title X funding not support programs where abortion is a method of family planning—and is consistent with the plain text of Section 1008, legislative history, and case law,” it states.

The rule change will also remove a requirement under the Clinton administration to refer for abortions. However, not only will recipients now not be mandated to refer, but they are completely prohibited from doing so. Title X grantees also many not “perform, promote, or support abortion as a method of family planning.”

HHS explained that it does not believe that the Clinton-era rule is “appropriate or permissible.”

“[T]he department believes the referral requirement is in conflict with federal conscience protections, such as the Church, Coats-Snowe, and Weldon Amendments, for individual and institutional entities which object, and is finalizing the proposal to remove that
requirement from the regulations,” it outlined.

“Furthermore, the department believes that, in most instances when a referral is provided for abortion, that referral necessarily treats abortion as a method of family planning.”

Therefore, not only will Planned Parenthood entities that currently receive Title X funding not be allowed to provide family planning services in the same building in which abortions are performed, those locations that do not perform abortions are additionally barred from referring any woman for a termination—or even promoting abortion as a method of family planning.

The rules may—in effect—defund the vast majority of, if not all, Planned Parenthood locations. They still have to be published to the Federal Register.

As previously reported, the changes come after nearly 200 Congressmen signed on to letters asking that HHS amend the Title X regulations, specifically mentioning the abortion and contraception giant Planned Parenthood.

Click here to read full article.

Singer Sam Martin who co-wrote Maroon 5’s top 10 single “Daylight,” David Guetta’s “Dangerous,” One Direction’s “Change Your Ticket,” and Nick Jonas’ “Wilderness,” wrote a beautiful song about his unborn son. Martin said that when he first found out that his wife was pregnant and saw his son’s heartbeat in an ultrasound, he was moved to compose a song.

His son is due on March 19th. Martin said, “The lyric came right then — ‘I’m going to love you anyway.’ I almost started crying just singing it over and over again. … It was a spiritual experience.” Two months later he finished the full chorus and verses.

Initially, Martin kept the song secret from his wife, Joy, because he wanted to complete it first; however, one day she walked in on him privately practicing it. He told her, “‘You weren’t supposed to hear that — give me 10 minutes. She left and came back; I played it, and then both of us were just sobbing. Uncontrollably crying."

He concluded, “I wanted to do it very simple; this song is all about the lyrics. I didn’t want to distract too much. This song is a rare situation where the label actually liked something that was incredibly personal and meaningful.”

Click here to see full article and listen to Sam's song.

New Marist polling out last night covered by Axios finds that Americans are now as likely to identify as pro-life (47 percent) as they are pro-choice (47 percent). A Marist poll from mid January reported that Americans were much more likely to call themselves “pro-choice” than “pro-life” (55 to 38 percent).

The poll’s most striking data shows that the shift in public opinion on abortion is being driven primarily by Democrats, especially younger ones. In January, only 20 percent of all Democrats self-identified as pro-life; the new poll found that percentage has jumped to 34 percent.

But among Democrats under the age of 45, the shift was even more significant: According to Marist, 28 percent of them said they were pro-life last month. Now, almost as many young Democrats identify as pro-life as pro-choice. The new poll found that 47 percent of Democrats under 45 call themselves pro-life, compared to 48 percent who call themselves pro-choice.

These changes have almost certainly been driven by recent instances of Democratic politicians pushing policies to expand abortion rights, even after the point of fetal viability: New York’s Reproductive Health Act allowing all abortion up to 24 weeks and increased access after that point, proposed legislation in Virginia that the bill’s sponsor said would allow abortion even during labor, and Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s interview in which he endorsed allowing physicians and mothers to let infants to die in some circumstances.

The survey also coincides with the GOP effort to push the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a piece of federal legislation that would require doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive after attempted abortion procedures. When Senator Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), the bill’s sponsor, asked for unanimous consent to the legislation earlier this month, he was blocked by Democratic senator Patty Murray of Washington. Murray and her fellow Democratic senators are expected to vote against the legislation in the Senate today.

Thenew survey found that 80 percent of Americans now say they support limiting abortion to the first three months of pregnancy, compared to 75 percent who said the same in the Marist poll last month, taken before these events began. A recent YouGov/AUL survey, meanwhile, found that nearly 80 percent of Americans oppose abortion in the last three months of pregnancy.

Marist has been polling public opinion on abortion for a decade, and Barbara Carvalho, who directed Marist’s poll this year, told Axios that this is “the first time since 2009 that as many or more Americans have identified as pro-life as have identified as pro-choice.”

Those Marist surveys consistently have found that, although Americans tend to call themselves “pro-choice,” they also tend to support policies that limit abortion to early in pregnancy. But this realignment in the pro-life direction is significant. It is an encouraging sign for the pro-life movement — and a warning to Democratic politicians who continue to propose increasingly radical pro-abortion policy.

Click here to read full article.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – In front of a standing room only committee room, the House Health Committee passed the Heartbeat Bill by an overwhelming majority of 15 for and 4 against, straight along party lines.

The bill, sponsored in the Tennessee House by Representative Micah Van Huss (R-Van Huss) as HB 0077, establishes the viability of a pregnancy when a fetal heartbeat is detected and bans an abortion once the fetal heartbeat is detected.

The bill passed through the House Health Subcommittee last week, moving on to the full House Health Committee Tuesday.

The hearing of Van Huss’s HB 0077 in the House Health Committee coincided with a previously scheduled Planned Parenthood Day on the Hill, complete with a bus from Knoxville.

Pro-life grassroots advocates showed up as well, so that the room appeared to be about equally split, based on outward displays, between those representing two sides of the issue.

Despite 14 of the 19 House Health Committee members having signed on to the bill as co-sponsors prior to the meeting, making it fairly obvious the bill would pass, discussion on the bill lasted nearly three-quarters of an hour before a roll call vote was eventually taken.

Discussions went back and forth between the committee members and the bill sponsor, with most of the dialogue coming from the committee members, and abbreviated, direct responses coming from Representative Van Huss mainly focused on saving the lives of babies.

Stark contrasts could be observed in the dialogue of the committee members as well as the audible and visual responses of the audience, based on support for or opposition to the Heartbeat bill.

The debate initiated with an amendment offered by Representative Larry Miller (D-Memphis), who asked to be recorded as present and not voting during the previous week’s subcommittee meeting.  Miller said his amendment states that state funds shall not be utilized to defend this act in judicial proceedings unless the funds are specifically appropriated for such purpose in a general appropriation act.

Bill sponsor Van Huss responded by saying, “I think that we owe it to our taxpayers to use every available resource to save babies’ lives.” Van Huss then respectfully made a motion to table the amendment.

When a motion to table has been made, it cuts off all debate allowing only the sponsor of the amendment to speak to it.

Representative Miller argued the point that taxpayer dollars are being already being used and in lawsuits in three states that were struck down, $1 million had been spent. Miller went on to say he had received hundreds of emails from across the state, including Knoxville, middle Tennessee and west Tennessee.

Miller then read from a constituent’s email, “I urge you to oppose the unconstitutional, unsafe legislation that would ban abortions in Tennessee. House Bill 77 and House Bill 1029 are extreme measures that would make almost all abortions illegal in Tennessee. These bills simply go too far in inserting government into our personal and private lives. House Bill 77 will prevent most women from getting abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy before many women even know they are pregnant.”

House Health Committee Chairman Bryan Terry (R-Murfreesboro), as he had a couple times prior, reminded Representative Miller to stay on the amendment.

Miller went on reading, “These bills are so clearly unconstitutional that it would open the door to litigation, legal wrangling, costing taxpayers more of their hard-earned money. Passing this bill would be a waste of taxpayers’ resources on divisive unconstitutional bill.”

Miller then requested the Chairman and members of the committee support the amendment.

The voice vote to table the amendment was deemed that “the ayes have it,” by Chairman Terry.

Representative Barbara Cooper (D-Memphis) started with a seemingly innocuous question, asking the bill sponsor to give a brief explanation as to what the bill does.

Click here to read full article.

In recent history, self-described conservatives have generally outnumbered liberals by a ratio of 1 1/2 or 2 to 1. According to Gallup’s latest survey, that gap has narrowed. Conservatives had a 21-point edge in 2004; that is down to nine points today.

The state-by-state breakdown is interesting. Gallup emphasizes the fact that there are 19 “highly conservative” states, in which the conservative margin is 20 points or more. There are only six states in which more people identify as liberals than conservatives, and there is no state where liberals hold a 20-point edge. The widest gap is Massachusetts, where liberals are +14.

Weirdly, California has as many self-described conservatives as liberals, at 29% each. My own state, Minnesota, is often seen as deep blue, yet conservatives outnumber liberals by 32% to 25%.

What is going on here? Why do voter populations that identify as conservative elect so many liberals? One possibility is that self-described moderates, the largest group in many states, mostly lean left. In some states, that could be true. But take, for example, Minnesota. My organization, Center of the American Experiment, does quarterly polling. We find that Minnesotans express mostly conservative views on nearly all policy issues. To take just one example, supposedly deep-blue Minnesotans support income tax cuts in all four state brackets by an overwhelming 65% to 31%. But I am not sure there is a single politician in the state advocating such cuts.

I think part of the answer must be that the press effectively buoys liberal politicians. Incessant attacks on conservatives, combined with kid glove treatment of liberals, no doubt skews voting patterns away from voters’ philosophical inclinations, to some degree.

Still, Gallup’s findings raise serious questions about the wisdom of the Democratic Party’s headlong embrace of socialism.

Click here to read full article.

Last week, an enterprising conservative political consultant unearthed evidence that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) may have hired her boyfriend, Riley Roberts, to work in Congress. This news actually unraveled a far bigger story of corruption, however. As it turns out, a political group helping Ocasio-Cortez's campaign had already paid Roberts during the campaign — and those payments from that shady organization may be the reason Ocasio-Cortez is in Congress today.

On Wednesday, Luke Thompson, a podcast host and former staffer for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), shared some damning research into Ocasio-Cortez's campaign. He discovered more about the relationship between Riley Roberts and the campaign, but he also unearthed a humongous corruption story.

Luke Thompson had originally unearthed the central piece of evidence tying Ocasio-Cortez's congressional office to Riley Roberts — her boyfriend's official congressional staff email. In the wake of this news, some people noticed that the Ocasio-Cortez campaign paid Roberts $1,750, but Thompson insisted this was only "a means of keeping accounting in order." During the first half of 2018, the boyfriend volunteered with the campaign, and his efforts were classified as an in-kind contribution. This is normal.

Two far more conspicuous payments to Roberts came in 2017, however. Those involved Brand New Congress, an organization founded and run by Saikat Chakrabarti, who happens to be Ocasio-Cortez's chief of staff.

Chakrabarti founded Brand New Congress in 2017. "It’s a rather ingenious organization, but one that dwells in a legal gray-area as far as campaign finance law is concerned," Luke Thompson reported. "It facilitates campaigns on shoestring budgets by providing a single clearinghouse for campaign services, generally filed under the banner of 'strategic consulting'. But, as a result, it limits the meaningfulness of FEC disclosures by those campaigns," and it means that Brand New Congress "spends most of its budget on overhead and makes relatively few actual contributions to candidates."

Click here to read full article.

US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scrambled Sunday to explain why neighbors at her listed Bronx address never saw her there — and ended up claiming she recently relocated to a larger place nearby.

The day after The Post reported that residents said they had never seen her around — and she ducked questions about it after an appearance — her spokesman said the Democratic freshman congresswoman now lives with her boyfriend in a two-bedroom apartment “a block and a half away.’’

The pair relocated there earlier this month, he said.

“She lives in the same neighborhood she’s lived in for years,” said the spokesman, Corbin Trent. “She is not living in the exact same condo.’’

The recent move still didn’t explain why residents at her previous digs — a one-bedroom Bronx condo owned by her mom — insisted they had never seen her there.

US representatives and senators are required to have a residence in their home districts.

Trent claimed that Ocasio-Cortez, 29, was at her new home Sunday afternoon, although he wouldn’t give the address.

Ocasio-Cortez, a former bartender-turned-progressive pacesetter, ducked questions about her residence after an appearance Saturday in Queens. She told The Post to wait for her to pose for a photograph — then slipped out a back door and into a waiting SUV.

Ocasio-Cortez previously claimed that she has lived since 2011 in a mortgage-free, fourth-floor condo in Parkchester, which according to records was bought by her dad, Sergio Ocasio, who died in 2008.

Click here to read full article.

Continuing in her relentless career of not knowing things, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in the course of making an grotesque implicit comparison of herself with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., advised the noted scholar Stephen Colbert that important activism is bound to be unpopular. She said: “If you think activism is inherently divisive — I mean, today is Martin Luther King Day. People called Martin Luther King divisive in his time. We forget he was wildly unpopular when advocating for the Civil Rights Act.”

No.

As a matter of fact, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — and the people supporting it — were pretty popular in their time. From Pew Research:

A Gallup poll in October 1964 reported that the public approved of the new law by nearly two-to-one (58% to 31%). And in April 1965, Gallup found a whopping 76% in favor of a then-proposed equal rights voting law.

What’s more, following the events in Selma:

By a 48% to 21% margin, a Harris poll in May 1965 found its respondents saying they sided more with the civil rights groups involved than with the state of Alabama.

King himself polled pretty well during his advocacy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, with his favorable ratings reliably outpacing his unfavorable ratings. That changed toward the end of his life, when King took a more radical turn on economic issues, with that loose talk about “democratic socialism.”

Which is to say: King was in reality far from “wildly unpopular” when he was working for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and for the more general cause of desegregating public institutions. He grew unpopular when he starting indulging the kind of batty tomfoolery with which Representative Ocasio-Cortez associates herself.

Click here to read full article.

So, apparently, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is a little stung by all the critics, even some on her side of the aisle, trashing her Green New Deal. It’s a wide-ranging arc of criticism, from the bill is too ambitious to it’s totally insane; it’s become the Republicans’ favorite punching bag. It is a bag of meth, folks. It’s just totally off the rails. A complete transitioning away from fossil fuels within a decade, economic assistance to those unwilling to work, upgrading all buildings to energy efficient standards, and the mass genocide of farting cows. It’s crazy. Oh, and should it shock anyone that there is no cost projections or anything about possible tax hikes. Yeah, that’s because this socialist goodie bag will cost trillions. On Friday, the left-wing congresswoman tried to hit back at her critics, noting that they should come up with a plan of their own before saying until she’s the “boss.” She made these remarks at a Girls Who Code event (via American Mirror):

Talking about how she tried to overcome her insecurities, she said, “I’m at least trying, and they’re not. And so the power is in the person who’s trying, regardless of the success.

“If you’re trying, you’ve got all the power, you’re driving the agenda, you’re doing all this stuff,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“Like, I just introduced the Green New Deal two weeks ago, and it’s creating all of this conversation. Why? Because no one else has even tried,” she declared, in an apparent snub to Barack Obama’s Paris accord.

[…]

“Some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s unrealistic, oh, it’s vague, oh, it doesn’t address this minute little thing, and I’m like, you try! You do it! ‘Cause you’re not! ‘Cause you’re not! So, until you do it, I’m the boss!

“How about that?” she declared

And as some noted on Twitter, she’s not really the boss being part of a 435-member body, and she’s an elected official. The voter is the boss. Yes, theoretically, they can vote her out, but they won’t being that AOC is from a D+90 district. Still, maybe throw a few jabs at her inane remarks, but stick to her policy. It’s bad. It’s outrageous. Virtually the entire 2020 Democratic field has backed it. That’s where the attacks should be concentrated.

Click here to read full article.

The murder of Newman California Police Corporal Ronil Singh allegedly by an illegal alien with a criminal past is the latest high-profile killing of an American citizen that contains nearly every element in our illegal immigration discourse.

Singh, 33, legally immigrated to the United States, became a U.S. citizen, and then became one of Newman’s finest citizens serving as a police officer for twelve years. Singh’s legal entry into the U.S. added value to our country. Sadly, this husband and father of a 5-month-old son was allegedly murdered by an illegal criminal alien gang member on Christmas Eve.

This tragedy was preventable. 

Singh’s suspected murderer had “prior criminal activity that should have been reported to ICE,” Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson had said. “Law enforcement was prohibited because of sanctuary laws and that led to the encounter with (Cpl.) Singh… the outcome could have been different if law enforcement wasn’t restricted or had their hands tied because of political interference.”

California is a state that provides a safe harbor for people illegally in the country. California boasts its status as a sanctuary state in violation of federal law and the supremacy clause in Article VI of the U.S. Constitution. California cities have passed laws prohibiting local law enforcement agencies from cooperating with law enforcement officers from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with the apprehension of illegal immigrants even after they have committed a crime. Many of these illegal criminals continue on to murder, rape and rob U.S. citizens post-release from a local jail under the catch-and-release policies before notifying ICE officials.

Currently, the threshold for immediate deportation proceedings is set too low. Catch-and-release instead of being detained pending an immigration hearing is like unleashing a dangerous animal into a public space. Eventually, we’ll be dealing with an avoidable catastrophe.

Typically the definition to detain involves only crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. That’s about it. Serious drug dealing or gun possessions are not considered crimes of violence under this strict definition. Neither does burglary or the severe crime of driving under the influence of alcohol. As we have seen over and over through the cost of American lives, many additional crimes pose equally great risks to our communities should these illegal criminal aliens be released without detaining for ICE.

Burglary is a felony and as far as I am concerned a crime of violence. It’s not merely a property crime that results in minor victimization. It involves forced entry. It is a category Part I crime by FBI statistics. Part I crimes are serious felonies. Anybody whose home has been broken into suffers a traumatic mental experience. I have seen it when investigating burglaries. People who once felt safe in their homes lose that sense of security after their home is burglarized. Their kids have nightmares; adults sleep with one eye open and every little noise in the house startles them. It takes a long time to heal. Burglary costs Americans an estimated 4 billion in property loss every year, but this does not include the psychological damage. The fact that many states allow residents to use deadly force to stop intruders means that a burglary could end violently for the intruder. It will if it happens at my home and I am there.

Click here to read full article.

A new Department of Justice report released Thursday reveals 20 percent of federally incarcerated individuals in the United States are illegal aliens, costing taxpayers $1.5 million per day. Many of these individuals committed serious and violent crimes, in additional to entering the country illegally.

From the findings:

A total of 57,820 known or suspected aliens were in in DOJ custody at the end of FY 2018 Q1, including 38,132 persons in BOP custody and 19,688 in USMS custody. Of this total, 42,284 people had been confirmed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be aliens (i.e., non-citizens and non-nationals), while 15,536 aliens were still under investigation by ICE to determine alienage and/or removability.

Among the 42,284 confirmed aliens, 39,413 people (93 percent) were unlawfully present. These numbers include a 62 percent unlawful rate among 38,132 known or suspected aliens in BOP custody and a 78 percent unlawful rate among 19,688 confirmed aliens in USMS custody.

Approximately 16,233 aliens in USMS custody required housing in state, local, and private facilities, which cost $1,458,372.72 a day.

Click here to read full article.

An illegal immigrant – who’s served at least three stints in U.S. prisons for sexually abusing children -- was reportedly arrested during an early morning traffic stop in Texas on Wednesday.

Marvin Yovani Mejia Ramos, 50, had given a fake name but was arrested after the deputy who stopped him on 69 North ran an onsite fingerprint scan that revealed his identity, KHOU.com reported. A Mexican national, Ramos was turned over to the Department of Homeland Security after his arrest.

“Mejia Ramos is a very dangerous convicted criminal that is in our country illegally,” Precinct 4 Constable Kenneth Hayden said in a Facebook post. “Great job by our deputy that located him and is once again bringing him to justice.”

Ramos served eight years in Lancaster, California for continuous sexual assault of a child. In Los Angeles, he served six years for perjury, six years for sexual assault of a child and two years for lewd acts with a child under the age of 14, Montgomery County Pct. 4 Constables wrote on Facebook.

He had been deported in 2013 and again in 2015 after a DWI arrest, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Click here to read full article.

Illegal immigration across the southwest border is on pace for the worst year since 2007 — or the last time the country began a massive wall-building spree — according to new Homeland Security numbers.

Four months into the fiscal year the Border Patrol nabbed nearly 201,500 people, compared to about 109,500 at the same point in the previous year. If that 84 percent surge holds, it works out to 733,000 immigrants crossing illegally for fiscal year 2019, which would be by far the highest numbers in more than a decade.

And the new surge is comprised of migrant families and children, which are a much tougher population to combat, thanks to U.S. policies imposed by Congress and the courts that make it tougher to deport them.

“Family units and unaccompanied children from Central America are crossing the border illegally in greater numbers and in larger groups than ever before, straining our law enforcement resources,” said Brian Hastings, U.S. Border Patrol Chief of Operations. “These trends are very concerning and demonstrate the reality of the ongoing humanitarian and border security crisis.”

The number of families nabbed through the first four months of fiscal year 2019 is up 290 percent compared to the same point in 2018, authorities said, with mini-caravans of hundreds of people now a regular occurrence.

Late last week in Arizona, agents spotted a group of 325 people who’d jumped the border in remote desert country west of Lukeville.

That’s an area where there’s no border wall, but rather low-slung metal poles and crossbars that are meant to stop vehicles. They are easy for someone on foot to step over or crawl under.

Of the 325, 150 were children — and 32 of them unaccompanied, meaning they were traveling without their parents.

It took agents several hours to do an initial health screen, then pack the migrants into vans and take them to take them to a staging area where they could be picked up by buses and taken to a Border Patrol facility for processing.

During the medical screen, two children were deemed to need immediate medical attention: One 5-year-old had chicken pox, and a 12-year-old had a skin infection.

Members of the mini-caravan said they’d been dropped off by buses and trucks that used Mexican Federal Highway 2, a high-speed road that runs a parallel track just 50 yards south of the border, to deliver them. They massed, then crossed as a group at 8 a.m. on Thursday, and sat to wait for agents to find them.

A day later and several hundred miles to the east, agents arrested 290 people in a mini-caravan near Antelope Wells, New Mexico.

Click here to read full article.

[This story was three years ago, but still representative of what has been going on.]

ALBERTVILLE, Ala. — Two illegal aliens were arrested in Alabama over the weekend for their participation in what authorities are describing as an “ongoing sex trade operation.”

Ricardo Castaneda, 33, and Humberto Erazo-Medrano, 42, were taken into custody after Albertville police, Marshall County Sheriff’s deputies, the FBI and the Dept. of Homeland Security executed a search warrant on a residence in Albertville.

“Officers and agents located multiple items which supported suspicions of an ongoing sex trade operation at the residence,” a spokesperson for the Albertville Police Department said in a press release. Law enforcement officials did not provide any further details in announcing the arrests, but they are believed to have been made in conjunction with the takedown of a multi-state prostitution ring.

Authorities were not immediately able to verify Mr. Erazo-Medrano’s and Mr. Castaneda’s country of origin.

Their arrests come on the heels of months of national headlines detailing the illicit activities of illegal aliens in various parts of the United States.

According to police, Ramiro Ajualip, a 27-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant living in Alabama, confessed to raping a ten-year-old Alabama girl in March of 2015. But while the story received some local coverage at the time, the national media only recently brought renewed attention to the attack as a result of controversial comments made by Republican presidential contender Donald Trump.

According to police, Ajualip raped and sodomized the young girl, then threatened her life in an attempt to keep her quiet. She later broke down and revealed the vicious attack to her parents.

“You know, (it was) a 10-year-old child that probably has no idea what`s really going on,” said Russellville Police Chief Chris Hargett. “It`s sad because now that child is going to be scarred for the rest of her life.”

The murder of Kate Steinle, a young San Francisco girl who was shot by an illegal alien who had been convicted of seven felonies but never deported, also sparked a national conversation about so called sanctuary cities. Sanctuary cities do not enforce federal immigration laws, often allowing criminal illegal aliens to be released back onto the streets, rather than working with federal law enforcement to have them deported.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions has frequently lambasted the Obama Administration for not cracking down on sanctuary cities, choosing instead to allow widespread de facto “amnesty.”

“What the American people know and what the families of victims of violent crime know is that this Administration has consistently and steadfastly placed the goal of amnesty above the goal of public safety,” Sen. Sessions said earlier this year. “If this Administration spent one-tenth of the effort on enforcement and protecting people from crimes and punishing people who are criminals who violate our immigration laws, rather than on amnesty, we’d be a lot safer today. Many of the people who have been injured, robbed, or killed by illegal aliens would be alive today. That’s just fact and everybody knows it.”

Sen. Sessions also sponsored a bill to “end the mass release of criminal aliens, return law and order to devastated communities, and ensure the consistent and uniform application of federal law. The proposal, which builds on legislation introduced by House Immigration and Border Security Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, is named after Detective Michael Davis and Deputy Danny Oliver, two local law enforcement officers who were murdered by an illegal alien with an extensive criminal history.”

In the last two years, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released back onto the streets 76,000 convicted criminal aliens. There are currently 169,000 criminal aliens at large in the United States who have criminal convictions and were formally and lawfully ordered deported.

The Obama Administration’s tolerance of sanctuary cities has also resulted in another 10,000 potentially deportable arrested aliens being released by local law agencies since January of 2014. 121 of the criminal aliens who’ve been ordered deported in the last few years and were released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement have now been charged with additional homicide offenses.

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Carl Jackson Posted: Feb 17, 2019 2:10 PM

I don’t watch the show “Empire,” so I’d never heard of Jussie Smollett before the story broke that he was physically assaulted in an apparent racist, homophobic attack. I suspect most Americans, like myself, thought his story was fishy from the very beginning. Nonetheless, as Americans tend to do, we gave him the benefit of the doubt until more details emerged. 

His story seemed so unrealistic and convenient I assumed it would be a day or two before it all blew up in his face. It simply never added up. Trust me, I’ve been a thug (before Christ) and I’ve been the victim of a violent crime, if criminals had the time to tie a noose around your neck and shout “this is MAGA country” in your face, you’d remember some specific details about their features, clothing, smells, etc. 

Stop and think about it. What black man in Chicago, one of the most liberal cities in all of America, is attacked in the middle of the night because he’s black or gay? It would be different if Smollett were robbed for money or gangsters mistook him for someone else. That wasn’t the case. Additionally, on the night of the attack, temperatures were well below freezing. Wouldn’t Smollett have been bundled up? I wouldn’t recognize the guy on the red carpet, let alone during an arctic blizzard! How is an attacker going to recognize and target him specifically because of his skin color and lifestyle?! 

Democrats like Jussie Smollett shouldn’t be able to get away with fabricating stories created to divide Americans and simply walk away with a slap on the wrist. However, since this story no longer serves its intended to purpose to destroy Trump, I suspect his left-wing media allies will sweep it under the rug as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, here are some useful takeaways from the Jussie Smollett hoax:

1) Political correctness forbade us from calling BS: Face it, although most of us instinctively knew the story was a hoax from the onset, for fear of being labeled racists or homophobes by strangers, we decided to sit back and trust the cops and the media while hoping for the best. The left has us where they want us. Not only have we succumb to self-censorship, but the real bullies portray us as the bullies.

2) The media wanted this story to be true: The mainstream media (MSM) has such disdain for President Trump and his supporters that they were willing to believe Jussie Smollett’s lie before the investigation even began. The truth is the MSM is still mad at themselves. Why? The combination of Donald Trump’s huge personality and their overwhelming coverage of him during the GOP primary helped him secure the presidential nomination for the GOP. They wanted to run against him because they believed Hillary Clinton would easily defeat him in the general election. She didn’t. They want revenge. 

3) Democrats wanted this story to be true: No victims, no votes! When you stop to think about it, it seems like Democrats don’t want racism to end. Their party would be useless if it did. Without victims they won’t get votes. If all Americans were financially independent and content with their lives, there’d be no need for the Democratic Party as it exists today. The Left constantly stokes fear and anger into the hearts and minds of their voters in hopes that more Americans will depend on them for protection from evil conservatives, and for purpose in life. Democrats choose to believe that white Christian, conservative men are all racists and homophobes. Not because they necessarily believe it, but void of real solutions to the nation’s problems, they need a bogeyman to secure their power.

4) Jussie Smollett isn’t a good guy: I think “hate crime” legislation is stupid. If you’re going to charge a person for a crime, charge them for the actual crime they’ve committed. It’s a safe bet that most violent criminals have malice in their heart. Tacking on additional time to their sentences based on feelings isn’t justice; it’s juvenile.  However, if anyone should be charged with a hate crime it should be Smollett! This guy could’ve started race riots! Imagine if black Democrats had begun physically assaulting Trump supporters because they believed Smollett’s story. The fact that this didn’t happen is indicative of how skeptical the black community was about the allegations. Smollett hates Donald Trump so much, that he either didn’t care or think of the havoc this lie could’ve wreaked across America. Sick!   

5) America isn’t the place Democrats say it is: What does it say about America when a gay, rich, black man pretends to be the victim of a racist, homophobic crime? It tells us that such crimes are rare. It also tells us that most Americans are too consumed with their own lives to care about Smollett’s race and sexual preference. Americans, in general appreciate diversity. It’s democrats that are intolerant. 

Liberals who live in the social-justice bubbles of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York don’t have a clue of what people are like outside of their insulated enclaves. Nor do they care to know. Democrats project their feelings onto conservatives. Jussie Smollett is indicative of what the left has become; dangerous, irrational, hateful, judgmental, close-minded, self-absorbed and phony. 

https://townhall.com/columnists/carljackson/2019/02/17/five-takeaways-from-the-jussie-smollett-hoax-n2541624

The Common Core teaching methods pushed by the Obama Administration are continuing to show failure as math scores hit a record 20-year low and show no signs of improving.

Former President Obama forced schools in the US to adopt the controversial teaching method, yet teachers are reporting a significant decline in students' learning in comparison with traditional practices.

After nine years of Common Core, parents are teachers are urging schools to drop Obama's toxic methods, arguing that it intentionally dumbs-down children by creating unnecessary and complicated techniques for working out relatively straightforward problems.

Records show that students are now recording lower results than was previously thought possible, with teachers warning that “if we do nothing” about Common Core the scores “will keep on declining.”

According to the latest batch of ACT data, scores show “dangerous long-term declines in performance.”The results, which were released last month, indicate that students’ math achievement has now reached a new 20-year low.

READ MORE: https://neonnettle.com/news/5606-obama-s-common-core-math-scores-hit-20-year-low-continue-to-plummet

Newly released data detailing how ready Tennessee students are for college paint a grim picture of the state's continued challenges in improving K-12 education.

The data, released to the state Senate Education Committee at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday and obtained by the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee, tally college readiness across the state in math and reading down to the high school level.

“Connecting it with local high schools clearly makes it more tangible,” said Mike Krause, Tennessee Higher Education Commission executive director.

It shows that while some public high schools prepare their students extraordinarily well for college, others have profound challenges and send many of their students on needing remedial education.

For instance, in Shelby County, Hillcrest High School, part of the Achievement School District, sent all of its 18 students who went to public colleges in Tennessee needing math remediation, the data show of the 2016-17 first-year college class.

Nashville's Whites Creek High School sent out 78 percent, or 28 students, into the state's colleges needing reading remediation. In Knoxville, Austin-East sent 80 percent of students, or 36, who enrolled in the state's colleges needing math remediation.

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An education analyst who says the Common Core Standards have been the “worst large-scale educational failure in 40 years” told Breitbart News the business community especially propped up the education reform, primarily to provide basic skills to immigrant workers.

“A lot of people don’t realize the connection between the debates we’re having over immigration and the debates we’re having on education – Common Core and education quality more generally,” Ted Rebarber of AccountabilityWorks said during an interview with Breitbart News.

He explained:

One of the arguments for Common Core, for education reform – which has come from the business community, primarily – is that our students are not internationally competitive, particularly in math and science skills. And the diagnosis of the problem is accurate – we’re not in the top tier. The problem has been with the prescription – that Common Core would help. In fact, it’s actually hurt – which is historic!

In a study published by Boston-based Pioneer Institute, Rebarber and co-author Neal McCluskey of Cato Institute, observed that since the federally incentivized Common Core standards were implemented in 45 states and Washington, DC, students have demonstrated sharp drops in academic performance. In addition, those students who were already performing poorly, declined even further.

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