June 26, 2019 The Daily Signal - The Heritage Foundation

After doctors in Britain’s single-payer health system recommended that a mentally disabled woman undergo an abortion, a judge ordered the woman—an unidentified Roman Catholic—to have an abortion against her will. 

In her June 21 decision, Justice Nathalie Lieven—a judge in Britain’s Court of Protection, a panel that handles cases involving the mentally disabled—declared, “I have to operate in her best interests, not on society’s view of termination.” 

The case was quickly appealed —and, happily, quickly overturned.

Britain’s Court of Appeals on June 24 reversed Lieven’s order and ruled that British physicians cannot abort the intellectually disabled woman’s unborn child.

The three-judge panel has yet to issue its reasoning in the case, but its rationale cannot come too soon. In the meantime, the facts of the case are instructive.

The New York Times reports that the woman, of Nigerian descent, has been diagnosed with a “‘moderately severe’ learning disorder and a mood disorder.” There was, according to the Times report, no evidence that the unborn 22-week-old fetus was “impaired.”

In short, the proposed compulsory abortion was to be the late-term destruction of a healthy child. 

In her ruling, Lieven opined, “I think she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll.” The woman’s mental suffering would be worse, she asserted, if the child had to be removed and put up for adoption.

Read it HERE

June 19, 2019 The Daily Signal - Heritage Foundation

Right now, a million illegal immigrants have exhausted all their legal appeals and yet still live in the United States illegally, partially thanks to lackluster deportation efforts by the Obama administration. Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, joins us to discuss what Immigration and Customs Enforcement can do, and how. Read the interview, posted below, or listen on the podcast:

We also cover these stories:

• Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan steps down, and Army Secretary Mark Esper is named the new acting defense secretary.
• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez compares migrant detention centers to concentration camps.
• Parkland student Kyle Kashuv reiterates how sorry he is for using a racist term, after Harvard rescinds his admission.

Matt Kittle speaks to Wisconsin State Sen. Kathy Bernier

Listen to interview by clicking on link here:

MacIver News Service | June 14, 2019

By M.D. Kittle

MADISON, Wis. —We’ll just take your word for it.

That’s effectively what left-wing voter-rights activists are pushing for Wisconsin’s election system. Now the Democratic Party of Wisconsin has made honor-system proof-of-address a plank in its far left platform.

Dem delegates earlier this month narrowly approved a resolution (39-36) that “no ‘proof of physical address’ other than spoken or written” should be “required for any voter registration or voting.”

The resolution was among several passed at the at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin state convention in Milwaukee.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party’s Automatic Voter Registration resolution insists, “Registration and voting is (sic) suppressed by picture ID and by proof of residence 29 days prior (to an election)” and that “poor access to clerks in rural areas creates more suppression.” They want “Point of contact” automatic voter registration.

State Sen. Kathy Bernier has heard it all before. The Lake Hallie Republican serves as chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Elections, Ethics and Rural issues. Before first being elected to the Assembly in 2010, Bernier worked as Chippewa County clerk for more than a decade.

She knows a thing or two about elections and voter integrity.

Bernier recalls serving on a panel for the National Conference of State Legislatures when a “very liberal secretary of state for Minnesota,” sitting to her left, “said voter registration is voter suppression.”

Voter registration is voter integrity, Bernier tells MacIver News Service.

“Gone are the days when you can just walk in and tell them your name and your address,” she said. “We clearly have lot of other issues, cybersecurity issues among others.”

She likens it to a financial institution acknowledging it has vulnerabilities in its data security but assuring the customer that they haven’t been hacked yet.  READ it HERE

June 14, 2019

Political, Top Stories, Wisconsin news from the Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee treasurer’s office records show Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes is delinquent on property taxes.

Deputy City Treasurer Jim Klajbor said Friday that Barnes, a Democrat, has failed to pay $2,225.43 in property taxes, interest and penalties for his condominium.

Barnes told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which first reported the delinquency , that he’s paying the delinquent taxes in an installment plan.

But Klajbor said Barnes failed to make the first payment in a monthly installment option by Jan. 31 and hasn’t made any subsequent payments. A spokesman for Barnes did not immediately comment.

Barnes earlier this month said he had paid a $108 fine for parking tickets that went unpaid for more than a year.

Read it HERE

Everything You Wanted to Know about Law Enforcement, but Were Afraid to Ask! 

May 23, 2019 Fitchburg Library

Watch the Forum HERE

MacIver Institute, June 12, 2019

By Ola Lisowski

MADISON, Wis. — The Joint Finance Committee (JFC) came one step closer to finishing work on the 2019-21 budget Tuesday, spending $1.88 billion more on building projects. That level of spending notches a new record, exceeding the previous high of $1.7 billion under former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

Republicans agreed to spend and borrow nearly $1.9 billion on statewide building projects Tuesday, blowing away the $1 billion spent on the Building Commission in the last budget.

The party-line 12-4 vote came after three and a half hours of debate. The University of Wisconsin (UW) System will receive the largest portion of the new funding, with $1.026 billion more for buildings across the system.

Gov. Tony Evers had requested $2.5 billion in spending and borrowing in his capital budget. That package increased spending by 2.5 times over the prior budget, which authorized $1 billion in bonding.

The Republican-led Building Commission rejected Evers’ proposal outright in a March vote, calling the largest-ever capital budget “unrealistic and unsustainable.”

Instead, Republicans Tuesday finalized a plan that authorizes nearly $2 billion in borrowing and spending for projects across the state. The package nearly doubles bonding over former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s last budget, for 2017-19.  READ the REST

President Trump’s major win in his border-tariff showdown with Mexico is no skin off the Democrats’ nose.

by Jed Babbin,  June 10, 2019 American Spectator

The extremism of the Democrats, their honed-to-a-fine-edge radicalism, is displayed almost daily on the subject of abortion. When anyone — like poor old Joe Biden — strays an inch on abortion, they’re quickly reined in as Biden was last week when he endorsed the Hyde Amendment and then was forced into a flip-flop.

Their extremism goes beyond abortion to other important issues such as illegal immigration. The Dems are committed to an extreme open borders position.

The Dems’ refusal to consider any legislation to stop the flow of illegal immigration across our southern border was, to their outrage, end-run by the president in his deal with Mexico last week. The deal resulted from Trump’s threat of presidentially imposed tariffs under his national security authority. It was a beautiful sharp stick in Nancy and Chuckie’s eyes.

Since he was inaugurated, President Trump has been searching for solutions to the immigration problem and most — nearly all — of what he’s tried to do has been thwarted by the Dems and court actions. The threat of heavy tariffs on Mexican exports — most of which come into the U.S. — was Trump’s attempt to use the economic sanctions weapon that he’s used to great effect on nations such as Iran and Russia to tackle illegal immigration.

Trump threatened five percent tariffs on Mexican goods if they didn’t do more to stop the flow of illegal aliens into the U.S. The tariffs would have increased by five percent per month until Trump was satisfied with the Mexicans’ actions. About 80 percent of Mexico’s exports come to the U.S., so the Mexicans were facing a huge decline in trade they cannot afford.

READ it HERE

LAREDO, Texas—Pulling up in an SUV outside the 10-foot-tall fence at Laredo College, Narcizo Ramos recalls the problems the school used to have with unwanted visitors.

“I actually came to this college as a student,” Ramos, a special operations supervisor for the U.S. Border Patrol, told The Daily Signal. “I can tell you, this little fence that seems like it’s small—before that, you would actually see illegal immigrants and drug mules running through the school campus.

“And you would see Border Patrol agents and you would see campus police chasing them,” Ramos added.

The local college, with an enrollment of 12,000 students, finally had enough, said Ramos, a Border Patrol veteran of 19 years.

The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more >>

“It became such a nuisance to the college that they said, ‘We’ll erect our own fence,’” Ramos, 41, recalled. “It is actually pretty tall. It served its purpose. It did push the traffic they were seeing around it.”

Border Patrol officials and other advocates for a security wall along the southern border contend that although it wouldn’t stop illegal immigrants, it would slow them down and force them to cross the border in areas where they can be captured more easily.

Laredo, a city of 250,000, is a densely populated urban area along the southwest border that has no sections of wall to block entry by illegal immigrants who cross the Rio Grande River.

“We have no wall at all,” Joel Martinez, the Border Patrol deputy chief for the Laredo sector, told The Daily Signal during an interview at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Laredo station.

 READ it HERE

By Victor Davis Hanson| May 26th, 2019 American Greatness

Before the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the idea that the Russians or anyone else could warp or tamper with our elections in any serious manner was laughed off by President Obama. “There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America’s elections,” Obama said in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election.

Obama was anxious that the sure-to-be-sore-loser Trump would not blame his defeat on voting impropriety in a fashion that might call into question Clinton’s victory. After Clinton’s stunning defeat, Russian “collusion”—thanks initially to efforts by Obama holdover Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to go after Michael Flynn and the successful attempts of the CIA and FBI to seed the bogus Steele dossier among the government elite—became a club to destroy the incoming Trump Administration.

Colluders, Inc.
How ironic that Russian “collusion” was used as a preemptive charge from those who actually had colluded with Russians for all sorts for financial and careerist advantages.

The entire so-called Uranium One caper had hinged on ex-President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and their Clinton Foundation uniting with Russian or Russian-affiliated oligarchs to ease restrictions on the sale of North American uranium reserves to a Russian company with close ties to Vladimir Putin. Coincidentally what followed were massive donations from concerned Russian parties to the foundation, as well as a $500,000 honorarium to Bill Clinton for a brief Moscow speech. Note that no more money has been forthcoming from Russia to either of the Clintons or their foundation.

READ IT HERE

MacIver News Service | May 20, 2019

By M.D. Kittle

MADISON, Wis. — America’s drinking water “crisis” didn’t just pop over night. 

Milwaukee, one of thousands of U.S. cities found to have lead levels higher than the troubled municipal water system of Flint, Mich., has known about the dangers of lead for decades. 

Yet, Democrats on the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee would lead you to believe that their conservative colleagues are to blame for Milwaukee’s lead problems. More so, they believe taxpayers from Superior to Kenosha should have to pick up the tab for Milwaukee’s failure to prioritize a basic local government function: Providing clean drinking water to its citizens.

Five years after Flint, Milwaukee city officials are scurrying to catch up in the heat of public pressure, scandal, and increased scrutiny.

“This crisis isn’t going to go away. It’s only going to get worse,” state Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) admonished the committee’s Republican majority members last week. 

While no one denies the dangers of lead in drinking water and that children in Milwaukee and other U.S. communities have been poisoned by unacceptable lead concentrations, what also cannot be denied is the fact that Democrats — and socialists — have been in control of Milwaukee for the better part of a century. And those city leaders could have made replacing lead laterals, the lines that connect the public water main to some 70,000 homes, a top priority years ago. 

“One reason the Flint disaster should not have happened is that drinking water experts have known all about these problems, generically for a long time,” according to the Society of Environmental Journalists. “As far back as 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued something called a Lead and Copper Rule using the authority Congress gave it under the Safe Drinking Water Act … In another set of amendments in 1996, Congress tried to ratchet up pressure to solve the problem. Those amendments banned lead materials in water systems.” 

Five years after Flint, Milwaukee city officials are scurrying to catch up in the heat of public pressure, scandal, and increased scrutiny. 

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation are investigating the city Health Department’s lead abatement programs. In January 2018, Bevan Baker, Milwaukee’s health commissioner, resigned a day before word came down about the department’s myriad failures to attack the lead pipe problem. 

Baker, it should be noted, was appointed to the commissioner post in 2004, when Mayor Tom Barrett, a Democrat, began his mayoral tenure. Activists have demanded Barrett follow Baker out the door.

READ the rest HERE