Human trafficking

Dunces 2.0

By Steve Woodward

Amid my eternal quest to understand the deranged Left in 2025, a long-forgotten book title jarred my feeble brain as I inhaled the longleaf pine-infused air on a Spring evening.

“The Confederacy of Dunces”, published in 1980, was written in the late 1960s by an iconoclast named John Kennedy O’Toole.

“The novel offended the progressive sensibilities of publishers based in New York,” wrote historian Auguste Meyrat in 2024. “It took a fellow writer from Louisiana, Walker Percy, to agree to read the manuscript and advocate for the book’s publication nearly a decade after Toole committed suicide.”

And what happened next? The book was declared to be a literary classic. And what did it, and central character Ignatius C. Reilly, reveal that resonates today?

“There’s a whole generation of Ignatius’s today: vain, overeducated young adults who can’t hold a job, live healthily, own any property, or maintain a friendship or romantic partnership, and yet often feel proud of themselves,” writes Meyrat. “Like Ignatius, they feel qualified to deliver their opinion on a whole range of issues they have no clue about. Without a doubt, if Ignatius existed today, he would likely be an online influencer hosting a popular YouTube channel or podcast.”

Ignatius is the poster boy for today’s Democrats, in other words. Their narratives, compliantly advanced by an ever more corrupt media, never have been more absurd, or delusional. We need to call them out for what they are. Dunces. Consider:

Tariffs are imploding the economy to permit a few Trump cronies to short the stock markets and make billions. (The tariffs are, in fact, causing a flurry of requests for Oval Office visits and phone calls by freaked-out foreign leaders knowing the gig is up).

The economy is teetering (but never mind the easing of inflation as reflected by the March consumer price index).

The deportation of illegal immigrants tied to murderous gangs is just a pretext in a grand scheme to mass deport American citizens. (If true, start with Hunter Biden).

The Department of Government Efficiency ultimately plans to dismantle Social Security and Medicare to deprive American citizens of their “God-given” entitlements. (False, but at least DOGE will end Social Security payments to the deceased).

Luigi Mangione, who shot a UnitedHealthcare CEO in cold blood, is a brave martyr and, damn, he’s handsome, too. (Who knew the steely eyes of a crazed killer are a turn-on?)

Karmelo Anthony had to carry a knife to a Texas high school track competition and stab a fellow teenager in the chest because, like every black teen amid confrontation, an unarmed white kid is intent on killing him. (Media spin: the dead kid is not the victim).

Every business venture that became wildly successful under Elon Musk, especially electric vehicle production and space travel, is a threat to democracy and reminiscent of pre-World War II Germany. (And Trump is Hitler because if you repeat it often enough …)

Trump’s mass deportations are cruel and astonishing Executive branch overreach. And unprecedented. (Except Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden deported millions of illegal immigrants without inspiring one court injunction or Supreme Court intervention).

Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a “Maryland man” who was deported to an El Salvadoran prison by a heartless Department of Homeland Security. He should be returned immediately to his wife and three children because he committed no crimes on U.S. soil.

(Entering the U.S. illegally 14 years ago was/is a crime. Maintaining ties to the notorious MS-13 gang – evidenced by Garcia’s identifying tattoos — poses a threat to Marylanders. And only a feckless Federal Bureau of Investigation spared Garcia from arrest and charges after he was pulled over for speeding in Tennessee in December 2022 with eight passengers in tow from Texas. They presented IDs showing the same home address but traveled without a single piece of luggage. Say it with me: human trafficking).

Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D) flew to El Salvador to score a photo op with Garcia (photo nearby), knowing there was no possibility he would be freed. But it turns out Van Hollen is not the most deranged among the apologists for thuggish gang members living in our homeland illegally.

A New Mexico magistrate judge was arrested and has been banned from the bench for life after homeland security officers raided his Las Cruces home, responding to a tip about who was living in the judge’s guest house. In March, officers arrested Venezuelan illegal immigrant Christhian Lopez-Ortega, 23, in the home of Judge Jose Cano, a Democrat. The Tren de Aragua gang member had been living with the judge’s family after his wife hired Lopez-Ortega to perform several home improvement chores.

The judge and his wife were said to be complicit in allowing their immigrant house guest to handle household firearms.

And what is the fate of the “adopted” Venezuelan? Another Democrat judge overturned his bail and suggested Lopez-Ortega be returned to the custody of his fellow judge because they, the two Dem judges, are friends. He remains detained while a hearing to decide the gang member’s fate is pending.

Did John Kennedy O’Toole contemplate dunces as extreme and pathetic as these? In 2025, who is the dunce? The illegal thug or the New Mexico judge? China’s hijacking of the U.S. economy or Trump’s overdue tariffs? Deported illegals or politicians who coddle them? The healthcare CEO assassin or the dead CEO? A knife wielding high school punk or his dead, unarmed victim?

Waiting.

The toll

By Steve Woodward

Disengaged and distracted, many Americans lament the deep division that defines the era in which we live. Yet, demonstrably, the 21st century Marxist Left that consumes the Democrat party stands for dead babies, dead Israelis and, thanks to undeterred waves of murderous illegal immigrants, dead and maimed American citizens.

Objectively, divisions have widened since the ascension of Barack Obama to the U.S. presidency in 2009. Two Obama terms and the establishment of Obama 3.0 under the guise of a Joe Biden administration have driven establishment Democrats violently further Left, and taken many young, college educated citizens with them.

This is starkly reflected by American policy regarding and attitudes toward Israel. An April 2024 Pew Research Center survey asked respondents to prioritize the importance of America’s support for its longtime ally. The resulting data delivered a 31-point gap, with 39 percent of Republicans (and those who are Republican-leaning) replying that Israel should be a top, long-range U.S. foreign policy priority compared to eight percent of Democrats (and those who are Democrat-leaning). In fact, on no other foreign policy issue were the D/leanD respondents more tepid. They even prioritize at 29 percent “limiting the power and influence of Iran” (the catalyst behind Israel’s perilous state).

Among 19 questions on U.S. foreign policy priorities, no other topic elicited a gap above 30 points with the exception of the one question that absolutely should not have been included in the foreign policy survey in the first place — “dealing with global climate change”. That delivered a 55-point gap. As expected from supporters of a Democrat party in which climate change is religion not mere policy, 70 percent of D/lean D say its the nation’s top foreign policy priority compared to 15 percent of R/lean R.

Democrats clamoring for a Kamala Harris policy speech on U.S.-Israel relations amid Israel’s war on Hamas terrorists (and by extension Iran, which funds Hamas) should expect to be disappointed. In reality, Democrats clamoring for any Harris clarity on policy are limited to a few think tank wonks, and obviously not the glassy eyed pro-abortion brigades that swarmed Chicago during the recent Democrat convention.

Policy that addresses human tolls does not align with a “joy and hope” narrative (smoke screen) that the media has assigned to Harris-Walz 2024. But human tolls are precisely what are exacted when the United States betrays its allies. Rather than supporting Israel’s destruction of Hamas, the U.S., along with the U.K., have pushed for measured responses to the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre of 1,200 innocents.

And rather than urging the United Nations and other U.S. allies to join us in pooling our intelligence resources to free more than 100 Hamas-held hostages, they languish in tunnels beneath Gaza. As of September 1, six fewer are languishing because they are dead — four men and two women, ages 23-40, brutally murdered. Point blank gun shots ended their innocent lives.

The Harris-Biden regime keeps pressure on Israel to call a cease fire to negotiate the release of the hostages, as if Hamas would never think of killing again during a lull in combat. As this is written, the U.S. Department of Justice is announcing charges involving a criminal complaint against Hamas related to October 7. How were these charges not filed on October 8, 2023? Why now? To absolve Democrats from pretending October 7 never happened? Just in case. Elections, and such.

“The terrorists murder six Israel hostages, including one dual-citizen American, and Israel is suddenly under pressure to make concessions — to Hamas,” observes a September 3, 2024, Wall Street Journal editorial. Over the months of war, writes the Journal, “Israel is offering unprecedented strategic concessions and risking its soldiers’ lives to free hostages.”

We are reminded weekly of the human toll exacted because the hapless Harris-Biden (or is it willfully negligent?) regime refuses to take stringent actions to close the U.S.-Mexico border. After allowing at least 10 million-plus to flood into the homeland since 2021, the Left is expecting an election year bump because it finally cut a deal with Mexico to keep immigrants from surging. (Imagine the human toll as they are herded like animals around northern Mexico or, worse, sent into the sex trafficking pipeline).

This temporary border control “solution” is not stopping the carnage across the United States. The high profile murders of children and women at the hands of young male illegals are nonetheless glaringly absent from the radar of these supposed legions of newly inspired Harris voters. They likely never will hear about — or choose to ignore — the 14-year-old girl in Indiana stabbed August 31, 2024, by Dimas Gabriel Yanez, 26, while she watched her brother play baseball. Indiana law enforcement reports that Yanez was deported to Honduras in 2018. But, along with millions, he returned to roam cities and towns, undetected and undocumented.

When will the trauma of being attacked in small town Lowell, Indiana, with a butcher knife subside for the Honduran’s teen victim?

When will the human tolls ever matter? When will Americans with the privilege and power of casting a vote wake up to the realization that they can stop the carnage? Or will the gutless Left, intent on breeding baby murdering pro-abortionists, and virulent anti-Semites, and deranged climate warriors, even notice the consequences of any of it?

Sadly, they almost certainly will not. At least not until they are added to the toll.

Collateral damage

By Steve Woodward

In the aftermath of a glaring security failure that allowed a deranged man-child to aim his rifle and fire multiple rounds at President Donald Trump, wise media overlords are warning that we must strive for national unity. This is a vile diversionary tactic intended to spin a narrative that every American is equally to blame for the so-called polarization that defines our times.

Instead, it must be loudly vocalized that what we observed on July 13, 2024, in rural Pennsylvania was a perfect storm of a vast mentally ill sector of our population converging with the relentless weaponization of corporate media, social media and our legal system.

The latter has been taking aim at Trump and his 75-million-plus legion for eight tumultuous years by trivializing physical threats against Trump or, worse, ignoring them.

But we’re once again called upon to unite, and lower the “temperature” of political discourse. It’s a sophomoric, hollow ploy to provide cover to the Biden regime’s army of surrogates in the White House, on Capitol Hill and within the corrupt, decaying journalism profession, all solely responsible for stoking smoldering embers of wrath.

“(Trump’s) opportunity now is to present himself as someone who can rise above the attack on his life and unite the country,” instructs a Wall Street Journal editorial.

It is “on all Republicans, all Democrats to come together, to lower the temperature (and) to measure the rhetoric,” said U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) during a television interview. Republicans? Are Republicans the ones drawing frequent comparisons between and Adolf Hitler and Trump? Are Republicans cheering on deeply corrupt attorneys general intent on imprisoning Trump?

The blue ribbon for post-Pennsylvania sermonizing goes to the Journal’s Gerard Baker, who wrote: “If there is room for emotional restraint in the aftermath of this horror, there is also reason to hope for a small movement toward de-escalating the mutual loathing to which so many Americans have fallen prey.”

Let us unpack the absurdity of Baker’s bloviation: Conservatives, many guided by Judeo-Christian principles, loathe hypocrisy, deceit and threats to our inalienable rights and freedom. Conservatives have not called for the execution of Joe Biden, however.

By contrast, the Left hates us. As people. You. Me. Our very existence. There is no pleasure to be gained from knowing this, but there is no escaping the reality that it is so. If we are collateral damage in their war on American exceptionalism it’s our fault. We keep getting in the way. Military veteran Ashli Babbitt got in the way of a bullet on January 6, 2021, the day she died in the U.S. Capitol, an unarmed protestor. What explains a Capitol Police officer’s impulsive firing of a pistol that took her life? Rage? Contempt? The question never was formally asked. Lt. Michael Byrd was not charged.

The Left coldly refuses to contemplate the collateral damage trailing in its relentless wake. Consider the the human toll during nearly a decade of Trump Delusion Syndrome. Lives lost. Jobs lost. Careers destroyed. Businesses closed or vandalized by BLM brigades. Kids trafficked.

Something resonated with the Pennsylvania shooter. How can we not conclude that this mentally damaged person believed his cause was just? He believed that Trump needed to die. What triggered that belief and his act of terror might never be known. Take your choice on what influenced him. Trump is 21st century Hitler. Trump is an existential threat to “democracy”. Trump’s supporters are racist, sexist, transphobic. These narratives have bubbled like a toxic brew for years. Suck the hope out of human souls for long enough and some of them will snap.

The collateral damage in Butler, PA, was a firefighter, 50, attending Trump’s rally, Corey Comperatore. He is deceased. He took bullets to save his wife and daughter. David Dutch, 57, and James Copenhaver, 74, remain hospitalized and critically wounded by the gunman’s erratic shots.

These names are added to the rolls of lives ended, or upended, by the a weaponized federal government during the Trump presidency, and by the current Biden regime. Many of these shortened lives include growing numbers of victims of murderous illegal aliens swarming our homeland, aided and abetted by Team Biden’s open border betrayal.

Recent victims of immigrant misconduct are Lisbeth Gutierrez-Salazar and her two sons, Juan Gutierrez-Salazar, 10, and Julian Cardona-Gutierrez, 7 (photos nearby), who died in an arson fire set in Stockton, CA, by three-time deportee Jose Carmen Cardona. Joining the list of needlessly deceased: Kristie Thibodeaux, 43, of New Orleans, fatally shot by three illegals, including Joshua Bonifacio-Avila, 19, a Honduran citizen who illegally entered the U.S. on an unknown date at an unknown location. Authorities say he was arrested for theft and released on two previous occasions. In New Mexico, Tiger Gutierrez, 22, was killed by a drunk hit-and-run driver on July 1, 2024. Mexican national invader Jesus Sandoval-Martinez, 21, is charged with vehicular homicide.

These incidents are just a few of many happening almost everyday across the homeland. And this is only one category of Biden-era carnage.

After then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s self-acknowledged refusal to bring in 10,000 National Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol ahead of an openly scheduled January 6, 2021, rally, Capitol security is seen welcoming citizens through the doors (contrasted by smaller pockets of more aggressive protestors). Rather than take responsibility for encouraging crowds to surge in, Pelosi and fellow Democrats doubled down. More than 460 January 6 patriots have been or are imprisoned. More than 1,260 have been charged with offenses. Matthew Perna, 37, one of those charged, committed suicide more than one year later as the feds prolonged an investigation without explanation.

Capitol police officers were not unscathed by the orchestrated free-for-all. At least two committed suicide in the aftermath

Trump surrogates have suffered greatly amid perpetual law-fare waged by the Left. Gen. Michael Flynn. Roger Stone. George Papadopoulos (the alleged Russian collusion agent). Peter Navarro (who will complete a four-month federal prison sentence on July 17, 2024). Steven Bannon (who reported to federal prison to begin a four-month sentence on July 1). Navarro and Bannon refused to testify before a sham House panel “investigating” January 6.

Finally, let us not diminish victims of Left-imposed pandemic hysteria, lockdowns and forced injections. Thousands were fired or suspended from jobs. Military service members were demonized and stripped of pensions for refusing the mRNA jabs. Teen suicide was rampant. But once the Left recognized that compliance was widespread, and that a virus during an election year worked to its advantage, there would be no further introspection, no reassessment. No regrets, certainly.

Former Centers for Disease Control chief Dr. Robert Redfield testified on July 11 to what many Americans knew instinctively three-plus years ago when he observed, “They never should have been mandated. It should have been open to personal choice. (mRNA jabs) don’t prevent infection; they do have side effects.”

The overlords are begging us to embrace a side effect of the bloodied side of Trump’s head. Unite, they say.

But Trump had it right as he rose, defiant, from the stage. Fight.

Illegals among us?

By Steve Woodward

A nondescript building along Highway 1 near Southern Pines, N.C., that is home to Sandhills Assembly Church is also the operational headquarters of a little known entity, Immigration Hope Sandhills.

While it is aligned with a recognized protestant religious organization, Immigration Hope Sandhills (IHS) is a nonprofit outreach seeking to assist people who reside in the United States illegally. According to its web site, IHS offers illegal aliens advice on paths to U.S. citizenship, English language and citizenship courses, and mental health counseling. Through a program coordinated by the U.S. Department of Justice, IHS trains volunteers who do not hold law degrees to provide low-cost legal advice and services toward navigation of the U.S. immigration process.

Under executive director Sarah J. Cortesio, IHS has operated under the radar since 2018 during a time when Americans have grown increasingly weary of illegal invaders. Undocumented and unscreened, they are overwhelming hospitals and emergency rooms, and arriving with children who generally do not speak English, vying for seats in already crowded public school classrooms. Americans are leery of the threat to public safety posed by adult illegal migrants. In a February poll by Monmouth University, 61% of those surveyed describe illegal immigration as “a very serious problem”.

IHS is one of 11 immigration service centers operated by the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) nationwide, and one of the few located in a rural location. Immigration Hope, according to its web site, has locations in Atlanta; Bloomington, Minn. (a Minneapolis suburb); Brooklyn, N.Y., where IHS launched in 2011; Gainesville, Fla.; and Santa Barbara, Calif.

The founding organization, EFCA, came into existence in 1950 after a merger of two U.S.-based EFC denominations with Swedish and Norwegian origins. As has been the case across numerous long standing religious denominations, EFCA has moved gradually down a path toward “woke” relativism and a so-called social justice gospel.

A professor on the faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Jarvis Williams, attracted the attention of Baptist pastor Seth Brickley, who was raised and baptized in the Evangelical Free Church. Knowing that Williams has emerged in recent years as a social justice evangelist (some say he actually is part of a post-evangelical movement), Brickley was surprised when EFCA invited Williams to speak at a leadership conference. At the same conference, a member of the EFCA board of directors “encouraged pastors to promote political diversity, giving legitimacy to the harmful agenda of the Left,” wrote Brickley in a June 2023 article for TruthScript.com. The piece by Brickley, who left EFCA to pastor a traditional Baptist church seven years ago, was entitled, “Injustice In The Evangelical Free Church of America”.

A founder of the EFCA’s first Immigrant Hope ministry center, Roy Larsen, in a piece posted on an EFCA web site in 2011, did not attempt to veil its intent: “to give all immigrants among us — including the undocumented — the hope of the gospel, (and) help in finding a pathway to legal residency if possible (emphasis added).” In 2011, few Americans could have imagined that a sitting U.S. President and Democrat surrogates would willfully oversee an open border policy and permit the illegal crossing of tens of thousands per day, some encountered by border patrol, others not.

Even fewer could have foreseen the emergence of organizations deliberately setting up their own migrant processing centers near prime border entry points.

“Many of the country’s best-known (taxpayer funded) nonprofits, including Catholic Charities (photo nearby), the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, the Red Cross, and United Way … and scores of lesser-known charities have instead worked to increase the number of illegal border-crossers dramatically,” wrote Lewis M. Andrews for The American Conservative on April 28, 2024.

“There is no special exemption (in U.S. law) which allows an employee of an American tax-exempt organization willfully to ignore his own country’s laws, as increasing numbers have been doing since Biden’s election. This is true no matter how well-intentioned that nonprofit staffer might imagine himself to be.”

The New York Post reported as long ago as 2022 that the federal government launders money through contracts with nonprofit charities to keep the illegal immigration pipeline flowing.

“Even before crossing the border, migrants still in Mexico are being handed debit cards loaded with $800 a month to enable them to pay for necessities,” reported former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey in a July 2022 op-ed in the Post. “The gift cards are distributed by the non-profit Organization for Migration, thanks to money provided by the U.S. State Department.

“CARECEN, a far left group funded almost entirely by government contracts, and Catholic Charities … (provides) gift cards and food packages, direct migrants to shelters or hotel rooms, or helps them buy (air) tickets to other destinations. Who pays for all this? FEMA — the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a government agency that funnels money through the nonprofits.”

Immigration Hope Sandhills poses a threat to the security of Moore County by attracting migrants who will take all of the help they can get but typically have no inclination to assimilate or seek legal citizenship. A recent, tragic example is provided by the murder on June 17, 2024, of a Houston girl, age 12, who was strangled by two Venezuelan adult males who entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass near El Paso, Texas, earlier this year. After kidnapping Jocelyn Nungaray (photo nearby) in a convenience store, the men murdered her and hurled her body into a creek.

Pre-socialism

By Steve Woodward

It’s the most wonderful time of the year (to be a member of the ruling government elite). It’s the end of another long year (for the thousands of Americans who live in the shadows, in despair, far removed from anything wonderful).

Here in Moore County we are surrounded by poverty within rural hamlets that are so close and yet so far. So far removed from our daily lives. So frequently ignored. But in Moore, and across North Carolina generally, we take on poverty across political lines through many faith-based and charitable organizations committed to providing services and hope to those in need, those in the grip of addiction, those who are victims of domestic and street violence. This has not been eradicated, not by a long shot, but we soldier on even as human trafficking and drug smuggling courtesy of illegal immigrants strain our defenses.

Common sense and human decency dictate that citizens must engage in a relentless war on poverty. But the hard socialist Left, specifically its leaders, would prefer that we stand down. Look no further than the state most associated with the Democrat party, California. Known for it’s breathtaking beauty and year-round mild weather (interrupted by deadly wildfires and mudslides), California’s major cities are, in fact, cesspools of human suffering. No matter how many hearts are left in San Francisco, lawmakers and leaders are not prone to affection or compassion when faced with acute homelessness

homeless_fig-2_web

I have a personal connection to the futile war on homelessness in Los Angeles. My take is that the war being waged is losing. I say this with regret because a former college roommate is the one waging it, and he has for two decades. The Giving Spirit enlists throngs of successful, healthy L.A.-area women and men to look the homeless in the eye, offer a glimpse of hope and supply them with life-critical sustenance kits. More than 53,000 have received these kits since 1999, during which TGS has deployed more than 18,000 volunteers and raised north of $3.7 million.

Despite a fractional 1% decline overall in California’s homeless population in 2017-18, one quarter of the nation’s homeless — close to 140,000 people — are found in California, 50,000 in Los Angeles County alone. This year upon receiving TGS’s annual email soliciting a donation, I paused to wonder if, despite loyalty to my ex-college roomie and my admiration for his dedication, writing another check made any sense. The organization is addressing the immediate needs of people without shelter and basic needs fulfillment, but state lawmakers have for years done little to get them off the streets once and for all. I replied to the email something to effect of, “God bless you, but when are you Californians finally going to wise up and free yourselves from Democrat control?”

I meant it. My friend replied, “We don’t get stuck on policy and partisan rancor.” I reconsidered and submitted my donation. But is it not deeply troubling that my friend likely reflects the thinking of many fellow Californians? This is how the thinly veiled threat of socialism creeping into political agendas on the Left make advances.

Despite benefiting from robust tax revenue, California “is far from flourishing,” wrote Manhattan Institute scholar Steve Malanga in The Wall Street Journal on November 23. The state is “increasingly beset by social and economic problems, from homeless encampments to rubbish-strewn streets to (Pacific Gas & Electric) blackouts.”

Meanwhile, California Democrats take pride in having transformed The Golden State into The Sanctuary State, with politicians earlier this year even considering Medicaid for all undocumented aliens. Brilliant. (Not even Medicaid expansion warrior Gov. Roy Cooper in Raleigh has dared go that far!) Meanwhile, there are plenty of bad policies already in place, wrote Malanga. Decriminalization of property crimes and drug offenses. Shelters that welcome pets. Free needles. All resulting in California becoming “a magnet for unstable street people from around the country, and disorder is growing.”

In June, California’s uber-liberal Governor, Gavin Newsom, approved a staggering $215 billion budget for the state. Money has been flowing for decades to address every need imaginable, but signs of improvement, even progress, are hard to find. This is socialism on full display. It fails every time.