'Value and dignity of human life'

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'escalated trade tensions'

Tuesday, the Supreme Court upheld authority of HS Secretary to revoke visa petitions

Inside Team Trump's Big Bet On Election Integrity -- And How It Paid Off

Exceptionally wide online footprint...

Building 40 aircraft carriers. Constructing 80,000 miles of border wall. Rebuilding a devastated North Carolina in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene—nine times over. Regardless of party, most Americans agree that our government can and should use taxpayer dollars more efficiently. But they still might be shocked at the sheer scale of what we simply lose to fraud, let alone at how much worse the problem could get without decisive action from the incoming administration. Federal agencies lost between $233 billion and $521 billion to fraud each year from 2018 to 2022. This staggering sum represents 3% to 7% of annual federal spending over that period, enough to fund one of the programs listed above every year. Shockingly, that fraud estimate doesn’t include federal funds lost at the state level. Behind much of these losses are identity thieves, who use their victims’ personal information to steal benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) aid, small-business loans, and other federal resources intended for Americans in need. The problem exploded as more government services went digital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Generative artificial intelligence tools repurposed for scams and deepfakes are making it worse.   It’s not just the cost to taxpayers that’s troubling. The human toll of identity theft is devastating. In 2022, 16% of identity theft victims contemplated suicide. As a veteran, I’m also concerned with how military members are especially likely to be victims of identity theft. That’s one reason I founded ID.me, now the nation’s largest secure digital identity wallet, to keep Americans and funds safe. Identity Theft reportDownload Today, we’re seeing fraudsters use increasingly sophisticated AI tools. In 2023, their attempts to bypass remote identity verification using deepfake-driven “face swaps” rose by 704%. Meanwhile, generative AI is helping fraudsters manipulate people into divulging personal information at an unprecedented scale. We have reached a pivotal moment in the fight against fraud. On one side, fraudsters are evolving their methods through advanced techniques. On the other, the incoming Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was created to eliminate hundreds of billions in waste, fraud, and abuse. President-elect Donald Trump says he is committed to fully eliminating the “massive” issue of fraud and improper payments in order to save the U.S. trillions of dollars.  The creation of DOGE is a great first step. To achieve its goals of combating fraud, federal agencies must make identity verification more secure for Americans who access government services online. DOGE should work with the Office of Management and Budget and with Congress to immediately prioritize broader use of shared services for login and identity verification to grant users access to online applications. Shared services work across multiple agencies. They reduce agency costs and the burden on consumers of verifying multiple times with different agencies. It should also: Adopt, at minimum, the rigorous guidelines for identity verification set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology or high-risk transactions involving benefits programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance. Deploy advanced fraud controls such as biometrics to compare individuals to the documents they submit in the verification process, identify the use of deepfakes, and ensure one individual isn’t registering multiple identities. Use only solutions that are tested and demonstrate consistent performance across demographic groups. Test for the presence of a live individual during verification, known as Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) or “liveness detection.” PAD can reveal whether a video or selfie shows a real person rather than a deepfake.  Test and implement emerging technologies that can detect deepfakes, virtual cameras, or other GenAI-related technologies fraudsters use. Prevent scalable attacks by serial identity thieves via the use of identity resolution and duplicate evidence detection. These techniques can detect when a fraudster is duplicating someone’s documents to make a fake identity.  End the use of Knowledge Based Verification. National Institute of Standards and Technology guidelines note that KBV, which often takes the form of “security questions” based on data aggregated by data brokers (e.g., “Where did you meet your spouse?”), is highly vulnerable to social engineering. Leverage private-sector identity-verification technologies. Private-sector innovation and competition have resulted in the most effective solutions available. These technologies can evolve much more rapidly than government-built solutions to stay ahead of professional fraudsters. Fund fraud investigation efforts to recover stolen funds and deter attacks. International groups attacking Americans should face more severe consequences.  The federal government has a duty to be a responsible steward of taxpayer resources while ensuring Americans are protected and get the benefits they deserve. The incoming Trump administration and the DOGE are well-suited to turn the page on the federal government’s reliance on outdated and ineffective practices deployed by data brokers. Now is the time for decisive action to stem our losses to fraud and put Americans back in control of their identities.  We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Here’s How Trump Admin Can Stamp Out Federal Fraud, Save Hundreds of Billion$ appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President-elect Donald Trump is setting the world to rights, especially with his pick to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dhillon. In a grotesque abuse of power, the Biden administration used the division that aims to uphold civil rights as a cudgel to silence Americans who protest the killing of unborn children. The department also followed Biden in twisting federal law to push gender ideology. Dhillon’s record as a civil rights lawyer suggests she’s exactly the right person to right the ship at DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. Biden-Era Abuses The Department of Justice has multiple divisions, with assistant attorneys general at their helms. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke leads up the Civil Rights Division under President Joe Biden, and she has weaponized the division to target pro-lifers. In one case, the Civil Rights Division sent a SWAT team to the home of a Catholic father with seven children at 7 a.m. on charges that he had assaulted an abortion center worker. Not only had local authorities declined to charge Mark Houck for the brief altercation, but a federal jury ultimately acquitted him. He’s now suing for malicious prosecution. While the DOJ clearly states that the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act protects access to both abortion centers and to pro-life pregnancy resource centers, the Civil Rights Division charged 26 pro-lifers with FACE Act violations in 2022. By contrast, the DOJ charged only four people with FACE Act violations in 2021 and even fewer in the years before that. Following the leak of the Supreme Court’s June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion overturning the abortion precedent Roe v. Wade, vandals have attacked at least 95 pro-life pregnancy centers and 303 Catholic churches. Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta, who held Clarke’s job during the Obama administration, said in December 2022 that the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s work, including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.” A former DOJ official told The Daily Signal that the department appears to be “using the FACE Act to intimidate the pro-life population of the country.” Yet the Civil Rights Division has also taken up the cause of transgender orthodoxy. Last March, the division published a “Fiscal Year 2024 Performance Budget,” justifying its work for Congress to subsidize. In that document, the department followed Biden’s twisting of the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that “discrimination on the basis of sex” in employment law prevented employers from firing or refusing to hire people based on claimed gender identity, as well as sexual orientation. While Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority in Bostock, explicitly stated that the ruling only applied to employment law, Biden issued an executive order applying to it all federal civil rights law. “As a result, in addition to our Title VII [employment law] cases involving sexual assault and misconduct, we are pursuing cases based on gender identity and sexual orientation across all of our statutes that prohibit sex discrimination,” the department noted. The department highlighted “developments” that it claimed “reflect the increased visibility and urgency of issues related to gender-based violence and discrimination.” In that list, it claimed that “nearly 240 anti-LGBTQ bills have been filed in state legislatures in 2022 alone, most of them targeting people for their gender identity.” That suggests that the Civil Rights Division was gearing up to file lawsuits against states that pass laws aimed at protecting kids from experimental transgender medical interventions or preventing biological males from accessing women’s private spaces. Kristen Clarke Clarke served as president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a left-wing activist group. She also worked for five years at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, a leftist group that links abortion to “racial justice.” Both groups have frequently accessed the Biden White House and received large cash infusions from the Left’s dark money network, as I reveal in my forthcoming book, “The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.” This bureaucrat’s social media history suggests a bias against pro-lifers and Christians. She cited the far-left smear factory the Southern Poverty Law Center in condemning Alliance Defending Freedom, a nonprofit pro-life and religious freedom law firm, as a “hate group.” She said that those protesting Dr. Anthony Fauci, the controversial COVID-19 czar and now-retired head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, should be “publicly identified and named, barred from treatment at any public hospital if/when they fall ill and denied coverage under their insurance.” As my former colleague Mary Margaret Olohan exclusively reported for The Daily Signal, Clarke had been arrested for attacking her then-husband, Reginald Avery, with a knife, deeply slicing one of his fingers to the bone in 2006. The pair finalized their divorce in 2009. Clarke had the arrest expunged from her record, and during her Senate confirmation, she denied ever having been arrested or having been accused of committing a violent crime. Clarke admitted to her failure to disclose that arrest, and Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, called for her to resign. Harmeet Dhillon’s Record Dhillon, by contrast, has been a fearless advocate, not just for pro-lifers, but for the civil liberties of many who stand against the woke orthodoxies of the day. While the Civil Rights Division prosecuted pro-lifers, Dhillon has represented pro-life journalist David Daleiden, who exposed Planned Parenthood staff who sold aborted-baby body parts. Then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris launched an investigation into Daleiden that later led to criminal charges from her successor, Xavier Becerra (who now serves as Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services). Planned Parenthood also sued him, and Daleiden responded with lawsuits of his own. Dhillon also represented former Google senior software engineer James Damore, who sued Google after it terminated him following his exposure of the Big Tech company’s anti-conservative bias. She sued Rose City Antifa on behalf of journalist Andy Ngo, after Ngo suffered injuries in an assault in Portland, Oregon. Breaking: Donald Trump has announced Harmeet Dhillon @pnjaban as the nomineee to become Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice. Ms Dhillon has been a steadfast advocate of mine in my legal battles against Antifa and their members who have tried… pic.twitter.com/LybnHkWJm4— Andy Ngo ???? (@MrAndyNgo) December 10, 2024 Dhillon also represented Americans who lost their freedoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. She filed more than a dozen lawsuits against pandemic orders in California, representing pastors, businesses, and citizens. She testified before a House committee about the COVID-era abuses in April. “At any given time today, a state or federal government could declare an emergency—or fabricate some other unfounded excuse—and suspend our fundamental rights once again,” she warned. “Most courts will not stop them, as we have unfortunately seen. It is imperative that Congress intervene so history cannot and will not repeat itself.” “One of the most egregious violations of our First Amendment freedoms was the treatment of religious Americans as second-class citizens, as vectors of disease,” Dhillon warned. “From the very beginning of the pandemic, governors across the country discriminately labeled houses of worship, and by extension the First Amendment, as ‘non-essential,’ while at the same time leaving their secular counterparts open for business. In my state, California, marijuana, liquor, and big-box retailers were deemed essential, but God was banned.” What a breath of fresh air to move from a person who said COVID-19 dissenters should be barred from hospitals to someone who defended the civil rights government trampled on during the pandemic. Dhillon has also championed the cause of detransitioners—men and women who identified as transgender, underwent medical experiments to alter their bodies, and then rejected their transgender identities, lamenting the damage done to their bodies. Detransitioners are often left out in the cold, as transgender people receive praise and recognition in public and LGBTQ activist groups often demonize or ignore those who are victimized by gender ideology. Dhillon started the process of suing Kaiser Permanente on behalf of detransitioner Chloe Cole, a woman who suffers from experimental hormone “treatments” and surgery she had between the ages of 13 and 17. “The medical system shouldn’t dictate the future of young children’s lives,” Dhillon said in announcing legal action. “Through this legal action, the ‘professionals’ involved will be held accountable for their despicable plot to mutilate children and financially benefit from it.” Dhillon, who was born in Chandigarh, India, to a Punjabi Sikh family, delivered a Sikh prayer at the Republican National Convention earlier this year. While some conservatives criticized her for that, Sikhs often understand religious freedom issues because Sikh soldiers have had to fight for the right to wear turbans in the U.S. military. Dhillon has proven herself a warrior for free speech, religious freedom, and sanity in the face of radical abortion and transgender movements. President-elect Trump said it well: Throughout her career, Harmeet has stood up consistently to protect our cherished Civil Liberties, including taking on Big Tech for censoring our Free Speech, representing Christians who were prevented from praying together during COVID, and suing corporations who use woke policies to discriminate against their workers. Dhillon will represent a major upgrade from Clarke. Perhaps more importantly, she will actually uphold civil rights at the Civil Rights Division. Imagine that. The post Trump Taps Champion of Free Speech, Biological Reality to Replace Woman at DOJ Who Jailed Pro-Lifers appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Israel Zeroes Out Syrian Military Before Hezbollah Can Seize It

In a victory for justice and common sense, subway hero and former Marine Daniel Penny overcame politically motived charges brought against him by far-left, pro-crime New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Of course, the liberal ladies of ABC’s The View were up in arms that an innocent man was found not guilty. On Tuesday, moderator Whoopi Goldberg ranted against Penny daring to celebrate his big win for justice in a bar. Meanwhile, not-so Sunny Hostin was lashing out at America for supposedly not having compassion and lying about Jordan Neely not threatening people. “Penny's defense was that he was de-escalating the situation, after Neely threatened other commuters. And he celebrated the verdict with his lawyer while Neely's family was mourning the loss,” Goldberg whined. Even though she was not the one facing the possibly of spending years behind bars for protecting people, Goldberg lectured Penny about how he should have jest went home instead of celebrating his freedom: I don't know. I don't know that seeing them celebrating in a bar made me comfortable, you know? I mean, you killed a guy. The man is dead, and maybe you just -- you take the celebration home. You don't do it outside but that's just me. Don't listen to anything I say. Not listening to Whoopi’s advice is the smartest thing to do. Goldberg even declared that the jury’s not guilty verdict was a “Failure on the part of the courts.” Later in the segment, Hostin released some hot air when she questioned, “How do we describe and subscribe danger and who is dangerous?”     She called Neely a “victim” and downplayed his threatening demeanor on the train by simply calling him “a former Michael Jackson impersonator” who “talked about being hungry and thirsty and said he didn't care if he lived or died.” “There is no evidence that he attacked anyone. There is no evidence that he put his hands on anyone,” Hostin argued before Alyssa Farah Griffin got her to admit “on this occasion.” Someone talking out loud about how they don’t value their life is pretty big red flag that they’re about to mess around and they care if they find out. Try saying that on an airplane, Sunny. Hostin completely ignored the fact that other people were helping Penny subdue Neely (with no curiosity about why they weren’t charged as accessories) and Farah Griffin’s notation that a mother had to shield her child in fear of Neely, she falsely claimed “he didn't approach anyone in a threatening manner.” She then lashed out America and questioned the lack of “compassion.” “And so, when you look at that and look at the result of what happened, my question is where is our compassion?! As a society, where is our compassion?!...Where is our compassion as a society?!” she screeched. In May of 2023, after this incident happened, Hostin insanely attacked the people on the train car for not forking over all their money to Neely. “Where was the humanity of anyone that was on that train?! I would have given him money! I would have tried to give him food! I would have tried to help!” she lectured. Joy Behar apparently woke up on Tuesday and self-identified as a self-defense and chokehold expert. She ranted about how the hold should only be used for “eight seconds” and wondered why they didn’t just sit on Neely like an egg (Click “expand”): BEHAR: It is supposed to last eight seconds! It’s something called a blood choke that he learned in the Marines. I think that seemed – That seemed longer than eight seconds. [Crosstalk] HOSTIN: He did for minutes. FARAH GRIFFIN: There were two other men with him. BEHAR: Let me just ask this question: so, if he had let go of the guy before he died. SARA HAINES: He probably would have survived. BEHAR: He would have survived and the other guy was on top of him and he was holding him down. Farah Griffin’s take was much more measured. She proclaimed Penny was not the “villain” of the story, but rather, “it is the City of New York who repeatedly fails people who could be a danger to themselves and others.” She even admitted that she and staffers of The View have felt unsafe on the subway. “I can say I've been on the subway and felt unsafe. People that I've talked to on our staff have been on the subway and felt unsafe,” she said. She also noted that Neely had “previously assaulted a woman.” Her “only criticism” was “have not let go sooner?” But she did add that she “wouldn't presume to know what's going through someone's mind when you're afraid and you're trying to react in the moment.” She also feared the case would cause others “to be afraid to help their neighbors.” Adding: “And I want to mention he is a Marine. I have a lot of dear friends who are Marines. It is in their nature to want to protect people. Did it go too far? I wish he had let go sooner. But I think that is built into who he is as a service member.”