Who Is Liz Truss?

My VIP for this week is Liz Truss, former British Prime Minister. She spoke today at The Heritage Foundation about challenges faced by both the United States and the United Kingdom from the Global Left, their extremist activists, and the power they hold. In her speech, she “warned that conservatives must create a stronger infrastructure to take on the Left – which is well-funded, activist, and has many friends in high places – by recruiting more conservative activists and candidates who can fight in the trenches in the ideological war that we now face.” Some of the excerpts from her remarks are as follows as published in The Daily Signal. 

Why am I launching “Ten Years to Save the West” in the United States as well as in the United Kingdom? Well, I like to think of the United States of America as Britain’s greatest invention, albeit a slightly inadvertent invention. And if you look at our history, from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights to the American Constitution, we have developed and perfected representative democracy.

And if you look at what is going on in our societies, first of all, the Brexit vote back in 2016 and then the election of President Donald Trump later that year, you can see the same desires of our people for change and the same desires for those conservative values and that sovereignty.

And if you look at the battle for conservatism now and the frequency with which we get new prime ministers in the United Kingdom and the frequency with which you get new speakers of the House here in the United States, we can see again that there is a battle for the heart and soul of conservatism on both sides of the Atlantic. And I think that battle is very important. Because, let’s be honest, we have not been winning against the global Left.

If you look at the history since the turn of the millennium, the Left have had the upper hand. And it’s not the old-fashioned Left who used to argue about the means of production and economic inequality. It’s the new Left who have insidious ideas that challenge our very way of life.

Whether it’s about climate extremism that doesn’t believe in economic growth, whether it’s about challenging the very idea of a man and a woman and biological sex, whether it’s about the human rights culture that’s been bedded into so much of our society that makes us unable to deal with illegal immigration – those new ideas have been promulgated by the global Left and they have been successful in infiltrating quite a large proportion of society and a large part of our institutions.

Truss then discussed the state of economics, the immigration and human rights culture, wokery, the fluidity of gender, the non-reality of biological sex, and biological boys in girls dressing rooms. She discussed the stopping of coal-fired power stations in the U.S., discouragement of [liquefied natural gas] terminals being built, and the stopping of fracking in the United Kingdom. She continued with the imposition of electric vehicles, air-source heat pumps, extra taxes on the public, and coal-fired power stations being built in China.

Truss spoke about other reasons why the West is in trouble and why conservatives should learn better ways of defending the Constitution and the American way of life. She concluded with the following message.

But my final message is that winning in 2025 or winning in 2024 and going into government in 2025 is not enough. It’s not enough just to win. It’s not enough just to have those conservative policies. That there will be huge resistance from the administrative state and from a Left in politics that has never been more extremist or more virulent.

And that is why it will need all the resources of the American conservative movement, think tanks like Heritage, and hopefully your allies in the United Kingdom to succeed. But you must succeed because the free world needs you.

 

Why Should America Come First for U.S. Congress?

The topic of discussion for this Constitution Monday concerns the concept that Americans politicians should put America first. According to Simon Hankinson in an article published in The Daily Signal, a recent poll shows that 11 percent of swing-state voters believe that the funding Ukraine is more important than securing the American borders. Congress approved a bill last week to send more money to Ukraine even though we have already spent up to $113 billion.

The United States is experiencing “an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration” – more than 11 million migrants have crossed illegally into the United States during the Biden administration. Yet, the current administration continues to spend more money on Ukraine than on securing our own border.

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas asked for fewer Border Patrol agents, fentanyl-detecting equipment, and detention beds than he previously argued were needed. To make matters worse, he wants a $4.7 billion “Southwest Border Contingency” slush fund that experience tells us he will spend in as many more illegal aliens as possible while he still can.

At the same time of the Mayorkas’ requests, Congress was passing a “huge supplemental foreign-aid package comprising individual funding bills for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine, plus a fourth bill with sanctions against Iran and Russia.”

Congressional leaders continue to promise legislation to close the border, but the borders are still open. The promises are empty promises. Congress and President Biden are failing America and American citizens while they are giving away the country to foreigners.

Unlike the empty promises of Congress and Biden, Donald Trump promises to put “America First.” We can believe Trump because he put America first for four years, and we had peace and prosperity – unlike the wars and rumors of war, economic damage, and foreign policy embarrassment of the Biden administration.

The Trump administration and the Biden administration show us two types of leadership. One leader put America first, and one put everyone else first. If you can see the truthfulness in this statement, I hope that you will have the fortitude to vote for Trump.

Does God Prepare the Way Before You?

 My Come Follow Me studies for this week took me to an interesting section of the Book of Mormon. The section is only eight pages long, but those eight pages cover one-third of the Book of Mormon time period, 476 years out of 1,021 years. This lesson is titled “He Worketh in Me to Do According to His Will” (Enos through Words of Mormon). It was introduced with the following information.

Although Enos went to the forest to hunt beasts to satisfy physical hunger, he ended up staying there all day and into the night because his “soul hungered.” This hunger led Enos to “raise [his] voice high that it reached the heavens.” He described this experience as a wrestle before God (see Enos 1:2-4). From Enos we learn that prayer is a sincere effort to draw near to God and seek to know His will. When you pray with this intent, you are more likely to discover, as Enos did, that God hears you and truly cares about you, your loved ones, and even your enemies (see Enos 1:4-17). When you know His will, you are better able to do His will. Like Mormon, you may “not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things …; wherefore, he worketh in [you] to do according to his will” (Words of Mormon 1:7).

Enos is the first of numerous writers for this portion of the Book of Mormon, and Mormon is the final writer of it. The principle that I feel prompted to discuss comes from Words of Mormon 1:1-8: “God will work through me as I follow His guidance.”

Mormon was in the process of abridging hundreds of years of ancient history when he came upon a few pages now known as the Small Plates of Nephi. These plates contain the material found in the current Book of Mormon books of First Nephi, Second Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, and Words of Mormon.

Mormon took the Small Plates of Nephi and placed them behind his abridgment from the Large Plates of Nephi of the same period of time. Here is the story in Mormon’s own words (Words of Mormon 1:3-7:

3 And now, I speak somewhat concerning that which I have written; for after I had made an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, down to the reign of this king Benjamin, of whom Amaleki spake, I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi.

4 And the things which are upon these plates pleasing me, because of the prophecies of the coming of Christ; and my fathers knowing that many of them have bene fulfilled; yea, and I also know that as many things as have been prophesied concerning us down to this day have been fulfilled, and as many as go beyond this day must surely come to pass—

5 Wherefore, I chose these things, to finish my record upon them, which remainder of my record I shall take from the plates of Nephi; and I cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people.

6 But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder of my record, for they are choice unto me; and I know they will be choice unto my brethren.

7 And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. And now, I do not know all things; but the Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.

One reason the Lord inspired Mormon to include the small plates of Nephi in the Book of Mormon was because He knew that the first 116 translated pages would be lost (see Doctrine and Covenants 10; Saints, volume 1, chapter 5). Without Mormon’s obedience to the prompting to include the Small Plates, the Book of Mormon would be missing its first 144 pages.

Heavenly Father knows what happened in the past, what happens in the present day, and what will happen in the future. He prepared the way for us to have the rich lessons of Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob as well as strong testimonies of other writers. God knew that we would need those lessons and acted to protect them.

God has the power to use either good people or evil people to bring about His will. In this case, He worked through His prophet. Have you seen the hand of God working through you or someone that you know?

 

 

Does Identity Change Between Premortal, Mortal, and Eternal Worlds?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when boys are allowed to be boys and girls are allowed to be girls without compulsion or influence to feel that they are the opposite sex. Gender issues are much in the news and have been for a few years. That could be one of the reasons why the prophets and apostles of God made a clear statement about gender in 1995. The first two paragraphs of “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” are as follows: 

We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

All human beings – male and female – are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

According to modern-day prophets and apostles, the word of the Lord states that our gender was essential in our premortal identity, is essential to our mortal identity, and will be essential to our eternal identity. It does not make sense that our identity changes from premortal to mortal and will change from mortal to eternal. It does make sense that a female in the premortal life will be born a female into the mortal life and pass through the veil to eternity as a female.

I suppose that a “quirk of nature” could happen once in a million or a billion cases. However, we now have hundreds, thousands of people believing that they were born with the wrong gender. I do not believe that there is room for that many “quirks of nature.”

According to Katelynn Richardson, there is a recent report published with the results of a four-year review about prescribing puberty blockers to children with gender dysphoria. The National Health Service England commissioned the review, and the review undermined the recommendations of major medical associations about the matter. 

The report is known as The Cass Report and was conducted by Dr. Hilary Cass, a pediatrician and former president of the U.K.’s Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health. Dr. Cass’s review “found only ‘weak evidence’ for offering puberty blockers to children.”

Cass concluded that her findings, released April 10, “raise questions about the quality of currently available guidelines” offered by associations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and Endocrine Society, yet neither organization has committed to reviewing their guidelines.

The review recommends against treating children with puberty blockers outside of a research setting. It also urged “extreme caution” for providing cross-sex hormones to minors under 18 and stressed the need for a “clear clinical rationale.”

The review further suggested a “full programme of research be established” to “look at the characteristics, interventions, and outcomes of every young person presenting to the NHS [National Health Service] gender services.”

Although a diagnosis of gender dysphoria has been seen as necessary for initiating medical treatment, it is not reliably predictive of whether that young person will have longstanding gender incongruence in the future, or whether medical intervention will be the best option for them,” The Cass Report noted.

The American Medical Association, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and the Endocrine Society did not respond to multiple inquiries over the past week from the Daily Caller News Foundation asking whether they had concerns with the report’s findings or intended to conduct their own review.

Aside from WPATH, these organizations largely have failed to address the report publicly. In a written statement, the transgender health organization said it “supports policies that increase access to high-quality ethical care for transgender youth” and claimed that the report is rooted in a “false premise.”

Because American health and medical associations have not made public statement, pressure should be put on them to do their own reviews to determine the truth about the gender situation.

Meanwhile, American parents and children should be wise enough to pay some attention to the information in The Cass Report. Since gender is essential to our mortal and eternal identities, families, communities, and nations are stronger when adults and children know their own identities.

 

Should Haitians Be Allowed to Immigrate into America?

The Biden administration is not content to destroy the United States by allowing illegal immigrants to invade our nation. It is also pushing President Luis Abinader of the tiny nation of Dominican Republic “to accept 3 million Haitians.”

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Florida) wrote that foreign officials tell him that their perception of the Biden administration is that “It’s better to be the United States’ enemy than its friend.” He wrote in his article published in The Daily Signal the “bad foreign policy” of the Biden administration encourages “chaos in our own region of the world.” He continued: 

Just look at what’s happening in the Dominican Republic. The Caribbean nation is facing extraordinary migratory pressure from neighboring Haiti, which has all but collapsed into anarchy. President Luis Abinader has made it clear he will protect Dominican sovereignty by enforcing deportations.

Yet the Biden administration, influenced by radical left-wing groups like Amnesty International, is pushing Abinader to accept 3 million Haitians at any moment. This is unfair to the Dominican Republic, a developing nation with limited resources that is already bearing significant burdens on Haiti’s behalf. Anyone who doubts this should consider the fact that more than a third of all births in the Dominican Republic are currently to Haitian citizens.

But encouraging illegal mass migration is also unfair to our country. The Biden administration seems unaware that many Haitians view the Dominican Republic as a steppingstone to Puerto Rico – and that a well-established smuggling ring to facilitate that journey already exists. Because our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico have their own fiscal constraints, illegal migrants who reach the U.S. territory would likely move on to the continental United States.

Like most Americans, I recognize that what is happening in Haiti is horrible and tragic. The breakdown of law and order, the displacement of more than 300,000 people, and the need of roughly 5 million for some form of aid – all of these are matters of grave concern.

Rubio showed his concern in several ways: (1) supported “the international peacekeeping mission that Kenya proposes to lead once Haiti has established a provisional government.

(2) “reintroduced legislation to preserve U.S. trade benefits for Haitian manufacturers, which could prove a lifeline to legitimate Haitian businesses in this time of crisis.” He then continued with his article.

But, like most Americans, I also recognize that no country should experience illegal mass migration – not the Dominican Republic, and not the United States. Illegal mass migration does no good for the nation people are migrating from.

When all able-bodied, law-abiding citizens leave their homeland, there is no one left to defend it from criminals and tyrants – and no one left to provide for the vulnerable who remain there. On a more fundamental level, though, I cannot support illegal mass migration because the job of elected officials is to protect their citizens first, not anyone else’s.

This is why I have asked the State Department to prioritize U.S. citizens trapped in Haiti, as well as their adopted Haitian children. Moreover, it’s why we cannot allow Haitian citizens to surge across our borders….

The tragedy in Haiti is great, but it’s no excuse for letting these threats increase.

What Is the Reason for the Senate Dismissal of a Trial for Mayorkas?

A historical precedent was set today when the United States Senate dismissed the House of Representatives’ impeachment case against Alejandro Mayorkas, Homeland Security Secretary. According to Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal, the result was 51-48 on a party-line vote.

The interesting point to me is that my senior senator voted “present.” Then the Senate voted 51-49 to reject the second charge against Mayorkas. Since the Democrats hold a majority in the Senate because three independents vote with them, the only slight surprise is Murkowski, the fake Republican, a real RINO.

In dismissing the case, the Senate ended a year-long attempt by the House to hold Mayorkas accountable for the illegal immigration invasion at America’s southern border. According to Virginia Allen at The Daily Signal, Republicans had something to say about the situation.

·         Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas): “Democrats concluded that Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas’ defying federal law, ignoring the text of the [immigration] statute, deliberately releasing criminal illegal aliens over and over and over again, that’s just hunky-dory.” He warned that the dismissal “sends a message to other members of the Cabinet.

·         Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) declared the trial of Mayorkas to be unnecessary because it represents “the least legitimate, least substantive, and most politicized impeachment trial ever in the history of the United States.” He declared that the charges made by the House “fail to meet the high standards of high crimes and misdemeanors” and a “dangerous precedent” would be made for the future if the Senate validated the “gross abuse by the House.”

·         Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) did not agree with Schumer. He told his colleagues from the Senate floor after the vote that “it does not make any difference whether our friends on the other side thought [Mayorkas] should have been impeached or not.

“He was [impeached]. And by doing what we just did, we have in effect ignored the directions of the House, which were to have a trial…. This is a day that’s not a proud day in the history of the Senate.

·         Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) lamented on the Senate floor after the vote that “nothing like this has ever occurred.

“We’ve been given a duty, we’ve been given the sole, exclusive power to try all impeachments. Try all impeachments…. Not some of them, not just those with which we happen to agree, not just those that we are happy that the House of Representatives undertook to prosecute, but all.”

·         Representative Mark Green (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said the following in a written statement after the Senate dismissed the case:

“However, just as Secretary Mayorkas has grievously failed in his constitutional duty, now so has the Senate…. Instead of addressing the serious charges against Secretary Mayorkas, the upper chamber has chosen to neglect its responsibility. This is an unprecedented failure by the Senate to do its duty, which, for the first time in our history, has outright refused to conduct an impeachment trial when given the opportunity to do so.”

Once again, Democrats showed that they are not interested in protecting Democracy. They are willing to break any law or precedence if it furthers their agenda.

How Should the Supreme Court Read 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2)?

The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments today in the case of Joseph Fischer, who is challenging a criminal prosecution for being in the Capitol on January 6, 2021. According to Seth Lucas at The Heritage Foundation, it is possible that the results from the Fischer case will “affect the pending federal indictment against former President Donald Trump in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.” Lucas reported the following: 

Although the case that the court heard Tuesday is about what happened on Jan. 6, the court isn’t going to decide whether Jan. 6 was a peaceful protest or an insurrection. Instead, the court agreed to hear Fischer’s case to decide a different question; namely, whether Fischer can be prosecuted under a federal law that forbids corruptly obstructing an official proceeding.

Rules about how to interpret a statute – think textualism – will therefore play a far greater role in the court’s decision than the justices’ views on whether an insurrection occurred.

In a discussion about 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), one of the laws that Fischer is charged with violating – “whoever corruptly … or otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so.” The charge was dismissed by the U.S. District Court, but it was reinstated by a “divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Fischer asked the Supreme Court to take his case and to rule on the meaning of Section 1512(c). His attorney, Jeffrey Green with the Northwestern Supreme Court Practicum, “urged the court to read Section 1512(c)(2) narrowly.” He then explained the reason for his request.

Congress passed Section 1512(c) … in the wake of the Enron financial scandal to prohibit tampering with evidence to be used in an official proceeding. Congress later added subsection (c)(2) to cover the gaps in the original statute and ban other forms of impairment.

By using “otherwise,” he argued, subsection (c)(2) was limited to similar kinds of obstructions as those that Section 1512(c)(1) – which covers tampering with documents or other objects with the intent to impair their integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding – sought to prohibit.

The solicitor general countered that subsection (c)(2) defined a different crime than subsection (c)(1), arguing that Section 1512 covers both tampering with evidence and obstructing an official proceeding. Under the government’s interpretation, Section 1512(c)(2) covers not only destroying documents that might be used in an investigation, but also attempting to impede Congress’ certification of election results.

With the above information as a foundation, the justices sought to “understand the relationship between the two subsections.”

·         Justice Sonia Sotomayor wondered “why the statute was not like a movie theater sign that read, “[Y]ou will be kicked out of the theater if you photograph or record the actions or otherwise disrupt the performance.” She noted that yelling was different from recording a performance, but both acts would result in being kicked out of the theater.

·         Justice Amy Coney Barrett wondered if the government could use the statute to prove that “Fischer did try to obstruct the delivery of Electoral College certificates.” Green said no because there is a difference between changing or altering a document and trying to stop a vote count.

·         Justice Samuel Alito observed that the statute could be read broadly or narrowly, but a broad reading might be “more straightforward.”

The justices asked Green lots of questions, but “they appeared more skeptical of the government’s broad reading of Section 1512(c)(2). There were enough justices who seemed willing to look at Section 1512(c)(2) narrowly. However, Lucas emphasized that even a decisive win would not mean freedom for Fischer and other Jan. 6 defendants. They still have other charges to face. Lucas noted that a win for Fischer “could affect special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump.” He reasoned further:

Smith has charged Trump with obstructing and impeding the electoral vote certification in violation of Section 1512(c)(2). A ruling that Section 1512(c)(2) is limited to obstructions of investigations, for instance, could make Smith’s efforts to convict the former president under that statute much harder, if not impossible.