Jeffrey McCall: From Transgender to Transformed by God
In major cities across the country, Jeffrey McCall organizes freedom marches. These events feature men and women who have left the LBGT life.
One of the speakers is McCall himself, who struggled with homosexuality and drugs until the age of 23 when he decided he was in the wrong body and began living as a woman named "Scarlett." As Scarlett, he began drinking heavily and prostituting his body. During those two years, he was secretly watching Jentezen Franklin's sermons on YouTube. Jeffrey surrendered to God soon after hearing God tell him "You will live for me."
"I started struggling with same-sex attraction around twelve, and around fifteen years old I acted on it, "McCall told CBN.
McCall always wanted love. But over the years his sexual encounters left him feeling empty and used.
"So, from 18 to 23, I lived in Nashville, Tennessee. And in those years, my whole identity was in being homosexual," he said.
"I just partied and would shop, and that was my life, shopping, partying, and whoever was my boyfriend at the time. I was addicted to drugs. I was taking a ton of Xanax and smoking crystal meth," he recalled.
"I'm about 6'4" almost, and I weighed about 160 lbs. at that time. I was very sick. So, I knew that if I didn't leave Nashville physically, I would die," McCall confessed.
He moved to Georgia to attend college. Four years later, he had a degree, and a new identity -- Scarlett.
"The summer after graduating, I did my first drag show. I had grown up around a lot of transgender, transsexual drag queens because I had a family member who did shows," McCall explained.
"And after that summer, I started living as Scarlet and I would start dressing and-and I started even dating men as Scarlet. And so, from there, it fed it even more that, you know, this is who I am. I'm in the wrong body," he said.
"I thought, you know, I'm going to have the surgeries and transition into a woman and this is what's going to make me happy. And during those years as Scarlet, I was beginning to be very promiscuous, very promiscuous where sometimes it was more than one guy a day. During those years, I also prostituted my body," McCall continued.
"That's when the drinking really heavily began," he told CBN.
One wild night, McCall got violently drunk and threatened to commit suicide. He spent two days in the psychiatric ward of the hospital.
"Here I was hitting rock bottom. I'm in graduate school. I'm prostituting my body. I'm with all these different guys. I'm drunk every other day, I have nothing, really," he admitted.
While living as Scarlett, McCall had a secret. Behind closed doors, he was listening to Jentezen Franklin, the pastor of Free Chapel. It was a church McCall had visited twice while in college.
"He would come on television, or, I would look him up on YouTube. I would listen to him and the Holy Spirit was using it to convict me of sin," McCall said.
"And it was around the last semester of graduate school, I was sitting in my room and I was just crying. It was really, really late at night. And I was just weeping. I spoke to God,
through my crying and weeping, and I said, "God, I know people live for you, not just go to church on Sunday, not just play a religious game, like something happened and their life was transformed. And I said, 'Will I ever live for you?' My voice went silent. My thoughts stopped. And I heard God say, 'Yes, you will live for me,' he recalled.
A few months later, McCall made a difficult decision.
"I'm going to throw away the hair, the makeup, the clothes, the shoes, and everything that I have as Scarlett. So, in June of 2016, I threw it all away. I went to a dumpster and I just threw my whole life away. And it wasn't a joke to me. It wasn't something I took lightly. I was planning to transition and have surgeries and change my body. So throwing that away was a huge step," he said.
"And I thought maybe I'll just give God a chance. He did speak to me and said I was going to live for Him. And that summer the Lord and I began to try to have a relationship," he continued.
"It was almost as if God, that summer, stripped everything I learned from the church, from the LGBTQ community, from everyone and said, 'Everything you've heard, just throw it out and I'm going to lay a clear foundation for you,'" McCall told CBN.
One night after church, McCall received another message from God.
"I heard the Holy Spirit speak to me. He said, 'You're going to make a video. You're going to make a Facebook live video and cut ties with everything from your past. You need to publicly acknowledge Jesus Christ as your Savior and that you want to cut ties with-with being a drunkard, homosexuality, the life of Scarlet, all of it,'" he said.
"And I made the video and thousands of people viewed it. And I started getting messages and calls like, 'You can't leave homosexuality. You're transitioning. Like, This is who you are. What do you mean you're just leaving everything?'" McCall noted.
"When I started losing the friends and some family members, my relationship with the Lord just kept blossoming. The day that I made the Facebook live video, that was the day I was filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible became completely alive to me," he recalled.
"All of a sudden, I had a peace and joy I hadn't had since I was a little, little, little boy – that peace and joy of like everything was lifted. And then the Lord started speaking to me and said, 'Go out and share.' My whole life's purpose now is to continue to share Christ's love," he said.
"Not just speaking of it, but acting it out, showing it to the people that He loves them, that He wants them. This is so real it's like having the best thing you could get in the world and you want everyone to have it," McCall continued.
Anti-Semitism: Let Us Choose the Path of George Washington, Not Ilhan Omar
In alarmingly rapid fashion, once-disreputable notions have ascended to acceptability in mainstream liberal circles.
For example, the label “socialist” once constituted a slur to which liberals would object. And rightfully so. Socialism constitutes an oppressive governmental system that relies upon compulsion, wreaks economic havoc and has directly caused the deaths of tens of millions of people over the past century.
Today, however, liberals proudly accept the label, and Gallup surveys show that Democrats view socialism more positively than capitalism by an astonishing ten percentage points. Apparently, conditions in places like Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea aren’t yet catastrophic enough to dissuade them from their fantasies.
Elsewhere, extremist concepts like single-payer healthcare, slavery reparations and tax rates up to 90% were dismissed by such recent liberal icons as Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Approaching the 2020 election season, however, those propositions have become mainstream policy positions on the left.
Now, an even more sinister sentiment appears to be gaining a foothold among liberals: anti-Semitism.
Many liberals might object to that suggestion, of course. They’ll typically respond that criticism of Israel or pro-Israel Americans is separable from anti-Semitism. But for numerous reasons, those rationalizations cannot withstand even passing scrutiny.
For instance, consider celebrated freshman Representative Ilhan Omar (D – Minnesota), who tweeted, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”
More recently, Rep. Omar has invited rebuke for repeating the timeless anti-Semitic trope that supporters of Israel somehow maintain “dual loyalty.” Among multiple similar disgraces, she accused the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) of capturing American politicians’ support with “the Benjamins, baby,” referring to $100 bills.
The act directs Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which has been officially adopted by the U.S. and 31 other nations, including the UK, Germany and other European nations.
The definition addresses traditional and current forms of anti-Semitism, specifically labeling as anti-Semitism anything that “[applies] double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of by any other democratic nation [in the world].”
Accordingly, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is by definition anti-Semitic. For example, there are at least 100 land disputes across the globe that are not subject to “BDS” movements.
CAIR’s leaders are heavily invested in supporting the BDS movement, particularly across college campuses in the U.S. The BDS movement aims to strangle the Jewish state economically while at the same time calls for the flooding of Palestinians into Israel to destroy the Jewish character of the state.
While the BDS movement purports to be about Palestinian rights, voices in support of BDS have been deafeningly silent about the horrific abuse of Palestinians who moved decades ago to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon during the Arab states’ war with Israel in 1948.
On a state level, CAIR has been busy bringing law suits against individual states who have passed anti-BDS legislation.
In their current lawsuits against the state of Texas and Arkansas, CAIR has brought the new argument that anti-BDS legislation infringes on their First Amendment right to free speech, essentially saying that legislation against anti-Semitism infringes on their right to be anti-Semites.
Boston-area residents file lawsuit over school district’s alleged anti-Semitism in curriculum
Several residents of the Boston suburb of Newton, Mass., have filed a lawsuit in a local superior court over what they alleged as bias in the school district’s teaching of the Arab-Israeli conflict in the public school’s system.
The 469-page legal complaint, Dechter et al. v. Newton School Committee et al., submitted by several Newton residents and represented by attorney Karen Hurvitz, purportedly details the history of residents attempting to address and correct bias in the curriculum.
The plaintiffs claim that Newton Public Schools has deliberately failed and refused to comply with the Equal Rights Amendment of the Massachusetts Constitution, with the Massachusetts Student Anti-Discrimination Act and with civil-rights regulations that require schools, through their curricula, to encourage respect for the human and civil rights of all individuals regardless of race, identity, religion, color, sex and national origin.
The plaintiffs and their attorney were provided with documentation by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) executive director Ilya Feoktistov, whose investigations over the past several months formed the basis of this action.
According to APT, evidence described in the complaint purportedly shows “how Newton teachers taught that Jews and Christians deliberately forged their holy texts to contradict the Muslim Koran; that Zionism has ‘little connection’ to Jewish history in ‘Palestine’; that the Jews took advantage of the Holocaust to gain sympathy for Zionism at the expense of ‘Arab plight’; and that the Israelis treat the Palestinians like the Nazis treated the Jews.”
Jeffress: Don't expect Dems to tone down their anti-Semitism
Leaders of two Christian ministries are sounding off on the anti-Semitic resolution that almost was, saying the version that ultimately made it to the floor of the House reflects not only the cowardice of Democratic leaders but also the "godlessness" that's taking over the party.
On Thursday evening, the House overwhelmingly passed what started out as a resolution to call out Representative Ilhan Omar and her anti-Semitic comments – but it ended up being something completely different. What began as a resolution of condemnation of Omar and her remarks morphed into a condemnation of "white supremacy" as the cause of all manner of hate. Omar's name was nowhere in the measure.
In the two months-plus that Omar has been in Congress, the Minnesota Democrat has managed to throw out several anti-Semitic statements that were offensive enough to convince some of her Democratic colleagues in the House that they needed to speak out against her. But Dr. Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas tells OneNewsNow the watered-down resolutionwas a cowardly retreat by Democrats' leadership.
"They don't want to deal with anti-Semitism in their own ranks. I think it's a sign, certainly, of the bankruptcy of the Democratic Party," says the Southern Baptist pastor.
Woman killed in California synagogue shooting died protecting rabbi
The woman who was killed Saturday in a shooting at a California synagogue reportedly died protecting the congregation's rabbi.
Lori Kaye, 60, was shot during the shooting and died Saturday at a nearby hospital. During the shooting, she stepped in front of bullets aimed at Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, Kaye's friend Audrey Jacobs wrote in a Facebook post, according to USA Today.
"Your final good deed was taking the bullets for Rabbi Mendel Goldstein to save his life," Jacobs wrote in the post, according to USA Today. "Tragically the rabbi was still shot in the hand and he gave a sermon telling everyone to stay strong."
The post was approved by the other victims in the shooting and their families, Jacobs added.
Kaye was the one person who died in Saturday's shooting, which also left multiple people injured.
USA Today also reported that Goldstein, the rabbi, told NBC's "Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist" that he was a longtime friend of Kaye and that Kaye was one of the earliest supporters of the synagogue, Chabad of Poway.
He added that he was in the synagogue when he heard the gunman.
“As soon as he saw me, he started to shoot towards me and that's when I put my hands up and my fingers got blown away," Goldstein said. "Then he continued on and killed Lori Kaye right there on the spot."
I am a Jew — an observant Jew, raised in Skokie, Illinois, a town that resisted neo-Nazi marchers and which, at the time, was home to the largest population of Holocaust survivors in the world outside Israel. Nazis murdered many of my grandfather’s relatives in Poland.
Today, former vice president Joe Biden trivialized the suffering of Jews and exploited the memory of the Holocaust for personal and political gain — and he used a lie to do it.
Biden suggested that President Donald Trump, and the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him, support the rise of a new wave of antisemitism and white nationalism similar to Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Biden claimed — falsely — that Trump called neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017 “very fine people” — when, in fact, Trump said the neo-Nazis “should be condemned totally,” as the transcript proves.
The former vice president was repeating a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the mainstream media to cast Trump and his supporters as bigots who are, in Biden’s words, a “threat to this nation.”
This is the same Saul Alinsky divide-and-conquer nonsense the left has employed for years. It is a dishonest and shameful attempt to put 63 million people on their heels.
I am outraged.
I am outraged because eight years ago, I joined the most pro-Israel website in the world. Breitbart News was founded by two best friends, and my mentors, Andrew Breitbart and Larry Solov … both Jewish. These men created a site designed to call out the exact hypocrisy exhibited by Biden this morning. And the idea for the site was conceived — guess where? — in Israel.
I am outraged because next Wednesday, I will visit Auschwitz, for the third time, at the invitation of the March of the Living, the annual international Holocaust memorial, as a representative of Breitbart News.
I am going to Auschwitz because the fight against antisemitism is a battle I wage every day, along with my all colleagues at Breitbart and our 20 million monthly readers.
Not only does Joe Biden have no right to paint 63 million Trump voters as antisemitic, but he also no standing to claim to be defending Jews.
As vice president, Biden triggered an international incident in 2010 when he condemnedIsrael for building apartments in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem. He campaigned for the Iran nuclear deal, propping up a genocidal, antisemitic regime that promotes Holocaust denial and vows to destroy Israel. He courts the support of Al Sharpton, a demagogue with a long history of virulent antisemitism.
I am outraged.
Today, Biden actually called Antifa — the violent, black-clad left-wing thugs who descended on Charlottesville with clubs and sticks — “a courageous group of Americans.” Not only is Antifa vehemently anti-Israel, but it is ideologically committed to violence. By praising Antifa, while falsely associating Trump with Nazis, Biden sanctified the use of violence against Trump and his supporters.
Moreover, by repeating the Charlottesville hoax, Biden is giving permission to Democrats to continue to ignore antisemitism in their own ranks.
Today’s Democratic Party not only includes, but also promotes, antisemites like Rep. Ilham Omar (D-MN), who still refuses to apologize for saying that American supporters of Israel have “allegiance to a foreign country.” It celebrates Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who backed a terrorist who murdered Israeli Jews.
President Trump has been the best friend that Jews have ever had in the White House. Just this week, Israel named a town after him. He moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, pulled out of the Iran deal, and deported a Nazi war criminal whom the Obama administration allowed to stay in the U.S.
Meanwhile, Joe Biden is attempting to divide Americans, spreading fear based on a lie. It is well past time for this shameless desecration of the Holocaust to end.
I am outraged.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Student: What White Privilege Lessons Did to My High School
During my last year in high school, all seniors were required to write a speech about the topic of their choice and present this speech to the student body and faculty. My essay, titled “Division”, dealt with how identity politics ruined the last few years at the high school that I attended. It was summarized well here.
In the weeks following the presentation of my speech, I remember being asked what led me to choose the topic, a topic of which could very likely lead to ridicule and even hostility from those listening. What defining moments compelled me to challenge the way in which I was being taught? Also, did I receive any backlash from my essay?
I had been raised in a conservative household, with a father who was especially staunch in his conservative beliefs. It was often pointed out, while watching the news, and reading articles, the obvious slant towards the Left. Because of this, it was easy to recognize when topics were being presented in school that were favorable towards the beliefs of the Left. A few examples stood out clearly.
During my sophomore year of high school, a mandatory lesson for the entire school was scheduled regarding the concept of being an ally towards those who were labeled as being marginalized. All homeroom teachers were required to discuss the idea that “privileged” people need to stand up for the minority students and ensure their safety and well-being. Minority students included anyone that was not white, straight, and Christian. The absurdity is how, within an instant, we were all separated into groups that we had not recognized prior to this. Some were labeled as victims while others had a superior position just by being born. From then on, relationships changed. It was so insulting to suggest that one group of people should feel guilty for their “privilege” and the other group forced to have the mindset that they need help from the privileged.
That was not the only time that the privilege concept was forced upon us. Picture being called to an obligatory assembly. You did not know the subject matter prior to attending. As you sit down in your seat, you notice there is a panel of guests sitting on the stage. The lights go down and the topic of the assembly is introduced. The theme is now specifically “white privilege.” Over the next 45 minutes, my white classmates and I learned that what we had accomplished throughout our short lives was tainted because of the “fortunate” color of our skin. According to the speakers, we were hurting those around us without even knowing it. It was now our responsibility to rectify that. Never had I viewed people in this way. That the color of our skin really separated us this much. The administrators knew that they had a captive audience and used that opportunity to their advantage. They presented this topic as fact. I am glad that before this assembly, I never considered that I was greater than anyone due to the color of my skin. It sickened me that anyone would believe that the color of my skin puts me on a greater level than others.
I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of Democratic candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought. We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.
Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”
Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Now, I’m not attributing Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s words to outright dishonesty. I do think she whole-heartedly believes the words she said to be true. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided. My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.
Let me lay down some universal truths really quick. The United States of America has lifted more people out of abject poverty, spread more freedom and democracy, and has created more innovation in technology and medicine than any other nation in human history. Not only that but our citizenry continually breaks world records with charitable donations, the rags to riches story is not only possible in America but not uncommon, we have the strongest purchasing power on earth, and we encompass 25% of the world’s GDP. The list goes on. However, these universal truths don’t matter. We are told that income inequality is an existential crisis (even though this is not an indicator of prosperity, some of the poorest countries in the world have low-income inequality), we are told that we are oppressed by capitalism (even though it’s brought about more freedom and wealth to the most people than any other system in world history), we are told that the only way we will acquire the benefits of true prosperity is through socialism and centralization of federal power (even though history has proven time and again this only brings tyranny and suffering).
The persecution and genocide of Christians across the world is worse today “than at any time in history,” and Western governments are failing to stop it, a report from a Catholic organization said.
The study by Aid to the Church in Need said the treatment of Christians has worsened substantially in the past two years compared with the two years prior, and has grown more violent than any other period in modern times.
“Not only are Christians more persecuted than any other faith group, but ever-increasing numbers are experiencing the very worst forms of persecution,” the report said.
The report examined the plight of Christians in China, Egypt, Eritrea, India, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria and Turkey over the period lasting from 2015 until 2017. The research showed that in that time, Christians suffered crimes against humanity, and some were hanged or crucified. The report found that Saudi Arabia was the only country where the situation for Christians did not get worse, and that was only because the situation couldn’t get any worse than it already was.
A member of the Syrian Arab-Kurdish forces places a cross in the rubble ahead of a Christmas celebration at the heavily damaged Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs in Raqqa, Syria. The persecution and genocide of Christians across the world is worse today “than at any time in history,” and Western governments are failing to stop it, a report from a Catholic organization said.GETTY IMAGES
The authors criticized the administration of President Donald Trump for not holding Saudi Arabia accountable for its human rights violations and instead focusing on the trade relationship between the two nations. In May 2017, Trump signed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia during his first overseas trip in office.
The report put special focus on Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Syria, where the authors argued Christians would have been entirely wiped out if it weren’t for military action and the assistance of Christian humanitarian organizations, like Aid to the Church in Need.
“The defeat of Daesh [the Islamic State militant group] and other Islamists in major strongholds of the Middle East offers the last hope of recovery for Christian groups threatened with extinction,” the report found. “Many would not survive another similar violent attack.”
Relatives of Coptic Christians who were killed during a bus attack surround their coffins during their funeral service, at Ava Samuel desert monastery, in Minya, Egypt.GETTY IMAGES
The report, which was released in November 2017 but received renewed attention this week, is based on research in the countries and testimony from victims. It detailed attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt and monasteries burned in Syria.
In Africa, the report focused on countries like Sudan, where the government ordered that churches be destroyed, and Nigeria, where ISIS-affiliated groups like Boko Haram have led a surge in attacks on Christians. In Eritrea, hundreds of Christians have been rounded up and imprisoned over the past year because of their faith.
The report also documented numerous case studies in which Christians in countries such as India and Nigeria were murdered or beaten for practicing their faith.
Indian Christians gathers at St. Teresa’s Church for the midnight Christmas mass in Kolkata, India.
“A Christian pastor in India was left in a coma after being beaten in a ‘planned’ attack apparently carried out by Hindutva extremists,” the report noted. “Before slipping into unconsciousness, the pastor told police that the attack was religiously motivated.”
“You must never come to our village to pray. You should never enter our village,” the men told the pastor, according to the report.
Your taxpayer dollars are footing the spiraling costs of illegal immigration
As the heated debate over funding the southern border wall rages on in Congress, President Trump announced his intention to send illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities and states across the nation. Considering that a number of major locations, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and others have declared that they would not cooperate with immigration enforcement, the proposal seems like a rather logical one.
After all, if these cities decide to nullify federal law, there should be no issue in settling more illegal immigrants within their boundaries. But as clever as the proposal is, it also unveils a damaging policy gap and highlights the staggering costs that illegal immigration poses for state, local, and federal budgets. In short, illegal immigration burdens citizens, both native and immigrant, with immeasurable social and fiscal costs.
Setting aside the legal and moral questions that shape immigration policy, there is a significant tax burden imposed on citizens and legal immigrants tied to a leaky border. President Trump made headlines last year for questioning the costs of illegal immigration. Our dutiful firefighters in the mainstream press fact checked each word and called his $250 billionfigure an exaggeration. However, looking at the substance of his argument shows that he was likely on the mark.
The costs of illegal immigration are comprehensive. Even after deducting the $19 billion in taxes paid by illegal immigrants, the 12.5 million of them living in the country results in a $116 billion burden on the economy and taxpayers each year. About two-thirds of this amount is absorbed by local and state taxpayers, who are often the least unable to share the costs.
Commentary: Are There Any Limits to Illegal Immigration? At All?
by Victor Davis Hanson
The U.S.-Mexican border is essentially wide open.
Why? Because there is a general expectation in Mexico and Latin America that American immigration law is unenforced. Or it is so bizarre that simple illegal entry almost always ensures temporary legal residence, pending an asylum hearing.
A scheduled asylum hearing, in turn, is seen by border crossers as a mere formality to be ignored. The popular perception on the border, then, is to stick one foot illegally onto U.S. soil, and, presto, win permanent residence for you and any family members who wish to follow.
In an age of 500 sanctuary city and county jurisdictions, few illegal aliens believe they will ever be deported permanently, even if they have been apprehended committing serious crimes. There is also a general perception among would-be illegal entrants that prominent Democrats and progressives welcome their massive influxes as useful and will do their best to ensure illegal immigration continues unabated.
There is also the assumption that the greater the chaos at the border, the less likely Congress will take bipartisan action to end it. After all, 2020 is an election year and progressives are in no mood to hand Trump the semblance of a legislative victory. This fact is also known to would-be border crossers.
Illegal alien families sense that they are vital to progressive agendas of fundamentally transforming the country by importing first-generation, loyal constituents – a sentiment that is slowly replacing the prior idea of mostly young men coming to work off the books. In an increasingly tribal America, they expect on arrival to be recalibrated instantly from Mexican nationals without any experience of America into “Latinos” and “Hispanics” with historical grievances against the majority population of United States, to be remedied by reparatory hiring and admission, and facilitated by ethnic operatives.
Some polls in the past have suggested that a third of Mexico’s population would immigrate to the United States if possible. The percentages of would-be immigrants from Central America are likely to be even higher. In theory, 50 million could cross the border in the next two decades, which poses the question: what are the theoretical limits on illegal immigration?
Over 10,000 Illegal Aliens from Terror States Are in America
Dale Wilcox, executive director and general counsel of IRLI, was a guest on The Lars Larson Show. He discussed an IRLI investigation, which found that there are over 10,000 illegal aliens in the United States from state sponsors of terror.
On April 9, 2019, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) released its latest numbers from the Southwest border. Last week, I estimated that 100,000 aliens would have been apprehended between the ports of entry and deemed inadmissible at the ports of entry, along that border in March 2019. I am man enough to admit when I was wrong: There were actually 103,492, up from 76,535 the month before, a 35 percent increase over an already unbelievable flood.
If only the bad news ended there. Of that 103,492, Border Patrol apprehended 53,077 aliens traveling in family units (that is at least one adult traveling with at least one child) last month, up from 36,531 family units the month before, a 45 percent increase. Border Patrol also apprehended 8,975 unaccompanied alien children (UAC), up from 6,828 in March, a 31 percent increase.
At the ports, CBP officers in the Office of Field Operations (OFO) deemed 4,194 family units inadmissible, which was actually down from 4,210 the month before. This likely reflects the fact that aliens did not want to wait at ports of entry for their opportunity to claim credible fear, but decided to enter illegally to do so instead. Three fewer UACs were deemed inadmissible of the ports of entry last month than in the month before, again probably for the same reason.
Interestingly, CBP has added a new category for inadmissibility, "accompanied minor child (AMC)", which is likely a minor traveling with an adult who is neither that minor's parent nor guardian. There were 100 AMCs in March 2019, up from 76 the month before, a 31.5 percent increase.
If only the bad news ended there. On March 29, 2019, the Washington Post reported:
Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] is sharply curtailing the number of families it will hold at a detention center outside San Antonio, because the agency is unable to transport them there amid an influx of migrant families at the southern border.
...
"The current volume of family units crossing the Southwest border has overwhelmed ICE's limited transportation resources to the point that ICE is currently only able to route a limited number of families apprehended at that border to the one other family residential center in Texas — the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Tex.," ICE spokeswoman Danielle Bennett said in a statement.
More than 20,000 migrants caught in the Rio Grande Valley
ROMA, Texas - U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector encountered another large group crossing the Rio Grande.
Early this morning, Rio Grande City agents responded to the report of a large group of illegal aliens that had crossed the Rio Grande near Roma, Texas. Upon arrival, agents encountered 170 illegal aliens comprised of family units and unaccompanied children from the countries of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua.
In the month of March, Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector apprehended over 20,900 individual classified as family units and more than 3,700 unaccompanied children.
Dems Furious Barr Will Hold Press Conference Before Report Is Sent To Congress
Many Democratic Party leaders expressed outrage at the revelation that Attorney General William Barr will host a press conference Thursday morning, prior to the Mueller report being sent to members of Congress.
After nearly two years of investigation, a redacted version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia is set to be released mid-day on Thursday.
Many Dems have criticized the order of these events, suggesting that Barr will simply summarize the report and potentially add his own spin on it in an effort to “shape the public’s perception of the report,” according to House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff.
House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler said on CNN, “The attorney general appears to be waging a media campaign on behalf of President Trump, the very subject of the investigation at the heart of the Mueller report.”
Many other congressional Democrats also expressed their anger.
The Mueller Report On Trump-Russia Collusion Isn’t Released…And The Liberal Media Is Already Melting Like Chernobyl
Today is the day. It’s arrived. The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller is about to be released. Attorney General William Barr will host a press conference at 9:30 A.M EST. Congress will receive their copies of it at 11 A.M. President Trump could host his own presser after the attorney general concludes his event with the media. It’s going to be pandemonium. The allegations of Barr being a political operative will be flying. The Russian collusion myth peddlers will continue to triple-down. And the liberal media will once again eat crap. They will embarrass themselves. They will become a frothing mess—and it will be absolutely delicious to watch. Donald J. Trump is president. He will remain president. And there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Your two-year campaign has failed. Two words, snowflakes: Suck. It.
Vicious: This Reporter Has Taken The Liberal Media To The Woodshed For Its Russian Collusion Myth Peddling
We’ll probably see another wave of this tomorrow, but in case you missed it, The Intercept’s Glenn Greenwald went on a rampage against the mainstream media for peddling the Russian collusion myth. Now, Greenwald is no conservative writer. He’s not an establishment liberal either. I guess you can call him a progressive who calls out both sides for their perceived sins. Either way, if you want to hear the other side that isn’t totally insane on the Russia stuff, Greenwald is a good follow. His Twitter thread over the past few weeks, like that of Michael Tracey, formerly of the Young Turks, has been brutal in holding accountable those who have been peddling the Russian collusion myth. From Rachel Maddow to The New Yorker, Greenwald does not hold back in slamming those who have made this narrative into something of a psycho left-wing cult.
For two years, the liberal media created hundreds of stories that insinuated some dark conspiracy that cheated Hillary Clinton out of a win in 2016. In reality, it was Hillary Clinton who did that to herself, ignoring the Rust Belt, having piss poor messaging, and being an all-around terrible candidate. And even after Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his report, which was summarized by Attorney General William Barr, after two years of investigating—there is still zero evidence of Russian collusion. Tomorrow, the full Mueller report will be released. It will be another time the Left eats crap over this myth.
How Minneapolis' Somali community became the terrorist recruitment capital of the US
Published
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.
FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.
In the case of the Somalis, it's no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.
So what has made the area such a hotbed for such activity? And what has been Rep. Ilhan Omar's record in addressing the issue - either before she was elected, or since?
The answers matter because federal authorities say they remain "highly concerned" about the terrorist connection with the Minneapolis Somalis - even though al-Shabab is struggling against the Somali government, and the so-called ISIS “caliphate” has crumbled under a sustained U.S.-led military campaign.
“We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time," one federal official told Fox News. "Based on historical experience, we had (an uptick) in 2007 and 2008 going for al-Shabab, then a lull. Then, as ISIS came back, we saw a whole bunch of people no longer headed for Somalia. They were headed for Iraq and Syria. That really caught us off-guard, we didn’t see that coming. It didn’t make sense to us. We understood why kids were going back to Somalia, but going to Syria was another we issue.”
With by far the largest Somali American population in the United States - estimates of up to 100,000 - the insular ethnic community in Minnesota offers a rich recruiting ground. Investigators told Fox News that early on, al-Shabab recruiting was almost exclusively word-of-mouth. One family connection to a contact in the terrorist group would be pulled in as a recruit, in a process that was repeated as the ranks of the al-Shabab grew.
Hundreds of newly trained al-Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area south of Mogadishu, in Somalia. (The Associated Press)
But that chain seemingly changed when ISIS came on the scene around 2014. Personal connections still played a part, but it became much more about digesting online recruitment videos and turning to “alternative news sources,” which played into violence being committed against Muslims around the world.
“Recruitment takes place online as well as face-to-face radicalization, sometimes with promises of what appears to be legitimate opportunities. For al-Shabab, they focus mainly on the negative impact of US counterterrorism policies – like targeted assassinations and drone strikes that sometimes kill innocent civilians in Somalia – to attract recruits and sympathizers,” explained David Otto, director and counterterrorism program coordinator at Global Risk International. “They blame the failures of government on foreign intervention and link it to the reason why most Somalians have escaped home. The promise that al-Shabaab will restore a Sharia state and get rid of the government is somewhat attractive.”
The first tide of jihadists left in 2007, under the banner of joining al-Shabab after neighboring Ethiopia invaded Somalia a year earlier, citing its own need to face the direct threat encroaching their borders from within that unstable country.
Dozens of young men have been recruited from the Somali-majority Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis. Experts and authorities are urging the community to keep the issue at the forefront to prevent others from joining extremist groups abroad. (Fox News/Hollie McKay)
Since then, some 23 men from the Twin Cities allegedly made it to the Horn of Africa, specifically to take up arms with al-Shabab. At least two became suicide bombers, and an estimated seven more are believed to have died on the battlefield.
"For over a decade, Islamist terror groups have been able to recruit from Minnesota. This is, in part, because Minnesota has a large Muslim population compared to other parts of the U.S,” said Robin Simcox, a terrorism and national security expert at The Heritage Foundation. “However, it is also because there have been small segments of the Somali community there that have struggled to integrate into the U.S. Al-Shabaab and ISIS have exploited this – upon religious, political cultural and identity issues to offer a compelling alternative to Western democracy.”
Josh Lipowsky, Senior Research Analyst at the Counter Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has proven to be ripe for targeting in recent years by specifically playing into the card of being something of an outsider and that “society has shunned them.”
Local authorities contend it has been challenging for them to penetrate the Somali-American community in Minneapolis, who remain a unique immigrant population that hasn't actively assimilated with the neighboring township. In the neighborhood of Cedar-Riverside, for example, it's possible to go about day-to-day business without ever interacting with a non-Somali.
Josh Lipowsky, Senior Research Analyst at the Counter Extremism Project concurred the immigrant community in Minnesota has proven to be ripe for targeting in recent years by specifically playing into the card of being something of an outsider (Fox News/Hollie McKay)
“You can buy your clothes at a Somalia mall. You can buy insurance at a Somalia insurance adjuster. You can buy real estate at a Somali real estate adjuster,” explained a U.S official. “I think that is pretty unique.”
Most of those alleged to have joined al-Shabab had completed high school, and were either in college, or working in an array of industries as maintenance, security guards and caregivers. Others worked at rental car companies, money-wiring service centers, and in fashion retail.
One such person, Mahmud Said Omar, reportedly left in 2008 and went on to facilitate the conduit for other Minnesota-based recruits and returned to the U.S. a few months later. He was sentenced in 2013 to 20 years behind bars.
But there are other underlying causes, officials said.
Jeanine Brudenell, who formerly served as the Somali liaison for the Minneapolis Police Department, told Fox News much of the extremism that has sparked in recent years – perhaps ironically – stemmed from the crackdown to dismantle local street gangs.
“In trying to lead youth away from joining gangs, many parents were taking their children to the mosques, which deal with everything, including mental health concerns,” she said. She said that opened the way for radicalization.
In one case, Zakaria Maruf, was known for some time as a member of the local Somali Hot Boyz gang. Yet he is reported to have become deeply religious after abandoning the street life, and around 2008 is alleged to have fled abroad. He was killed in Somalia the following year.
As for Omar, she spoke up for a group of six Somalis arrested in 2015 for trying to cross into Mexico, as part of a plan to join ISIS in Syria. As the case went to trial the following year, the then-state representative wrote a letter to the trial judge requesting “compassion” - and lighter sentencing on behalf of one of the Minnesota men, who was facing 30 years jail time.
“Such punitive measures not only lack efficacy, they inevitably create an environment in which extremism can flourish, aligning with the presupposition of terrorist recruitment,” Omar wrote. “The best deterrent to fanaticism is a system of compassion. We must alter our attitude and approach; if we truly want to affect change, we should refocus our efforts on inclusion and rehabilitation.”
ISIS has long waged a recruitment and propaganda war online. (Reuters)
Her position has been slammed by those who say she hasn't taken a tough enough stand.
“Rep. Omar is asking for our justice system to support known terrorists, this sets an extremely poor precedence and should not be allowed,” contended Rudolph Atallah, chief executive officer of White Mountain Research, and former Africa Counterterrorism in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. “She clearly has a bias and an agenda and does not understand what the United States truly stands for.”
Omar has also been criticized by others in her community who contend her plea didn’t go far enough.
“A lot of people were disappointed, they felt she could have done more,” one Minneapolis local noted, arguing the boys had been coerced into making final arrangements to flee abroad by FBI informants, and would never have gone that far without encouragement.
Omar's office did not respond to a request for further comment.
Meanwhile, authorities have pushed back against the argument the Somalis arrested crossing into Mexico wouldn't have done so without the FBI involvement. Officials also said they repeatedly met with the families of the suspects, cautioning parents about their children's plans - to no avail.
“We would go out and interview people, try for an intervention, and really try to stop those people from going. But they were determined to go. They were committed. We tried to stop and could not,” one source said. “We had to prosecute to stop them from going.”
While Daud ended up with the 30-year sentence, others charged with similar offenses have since been more fortunate. In November 2016, a Minnesota judge gave 21-year-old Abdullahi Yusuf an unprecedented opportunity to avoid jail time by undergoing experimental “rehabilitation,” after having pled guilty in 2014 to purporting to join ISIS.
Six months later, he was back before the Judge having violated the terms of his probation – having been caught watching a news documentary about western ISIS fighters in the halfway house where he was confined. Nonetheless, Yusuf completed the carefully tailored “Heartland Democracy Education” program centered on studying literature, philosophy and writing poetry and in late 2017 was “integrated back into society” where he will be monitored for the next 20 years.
His lawyer, Jean Brandl, told Fox News Yusuf’s “transformation” has been nothing short of “successful” and one that could be adapted to others going down a dangerous road to radicalization.
“It was a program uniquely tailored to Abdullahi, but which can and does work with all teens or young adults who are straying onto unhealthy paths. (It) allowed Abdullahi to see his role as a member of his society rather than as an outsider,” Brandl continued, underscoring that it “can be used to make any young person feel integrated rather than at war with his or her personal universe.”
Abdullahi Yusuf, a Somali-American who was caught at the airport on his way to join a terrorist group, has since completed the first de-radicalization program in the United States.
Authorities told Fox News that Yusuf was indeed a rare and unique case, in that he had gone from being the ringleader planning the move abroad to largely walking away from it prior to arrests being made.
Going forward, authorities say they are adjusting their approach to deal with the ever-changing threat climate.
“Our focus now is on home-grown violent extremists, and the Somali population is a factor in that,” added the federal official, highlighting a 2016 incident in which a Somali-American embarked on a mass stabbing spree at the St. Cloud mall in Minnesota, before being fatally shot by an off-duty police officer. “That is a more likely scenario at this point than a large class of kids trying to get to a foreign terrorist organization in the theater of war.”
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