No Matter What – Defend Our Constitution

Newsletter | February 23, 2023

We hear a lot of bad things about the rising generation — many spend too much time gazing at their phones, too many think communism is good, some promote hysterical claims of climate catastrophe, etc. Here’s the good news — the most thoughtful and patriotic university students among us are devoted readers of the Federalist Papers. And they’re risking a lot by doing so.

According to Cherise Trump, executive director of Speech First, a pro-First Amendment organization that works on college campuses, the Federalist Papers is something like samizdat literature, the pro-liberty pamphlets read secretly by millions who lived under communist rule throughout Eastern Europe. US college students are concerned about being seen reading The Federalist Papers, so they hide it from teachers and other students.

How did this prolific collection become so controversial on campus? After all, the 85 essays and articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay constitute something like the biography of our Constitution, explaining the history and ideas that went into the construction and then ratification of our Supreme Law of the Land. That must be why the Federalist Papers is so despised by radical university ideologues.

As Cherise Trump explains in an interview with America’s Future, it “outlines and justifies and explains why the Constitution was written the way that it was and breaks down what the founders were thinking during the writing of the Constitution. And if you are in a law program where law professors say that the Constitution is a racist document, and you’re reading something that justifies it, you immediately are going to be identified as someone who actually believes in that.”

In other words, US law schools are training the rising generation to dismantle the very foundations of our Republic. Therefore, they define supporters of the Constitution as hostile to universal freedom, i.e. racist.

The authors of the Federalist Papers warned that defenders of the Constitution would come under attack. In Hamilton’s introductory essay, Federalist No. 1, he writes: “An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government, will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of power and hostile to the principles of liberty.” That is, according to the enemies of the Constitution, its defenders are the enemies of freedom.

In fact, Hamilton argues, the Constitution would decide “whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.”

That sums it up perfectly: without the Constitution, Americans would be fated to live like others throughout human history, at the whims of threatening tyrants and under their dark power of coercion. And that’s where the enemies of the Constitution mean to drive us today — into the darkness. The best and brightest of university students stand stalwart at the front lines, fighting for our freedoms, prosperity, and the survival of our Constitutional Republic.

We, at America’s Future, link arms with them, and with you, relentless in our ongoing struggle to save the Republic. Make your voice heard — we’re in a fight for the future of our country.

Please participate in our Reader’s Survey on the topic above and provide your thoughts and comments with us. We read them all and share some of them every Monday at 9 a.m. during America’s Future live broadcasts with our Executive Director Mary O’Neill on America’s Mondays With Mary. Thank You!

Lara Logan Launches “The Rest of the Story” With An Exposé On Child Trafficking

Play Video about The Rest Of The Story

Lara Logan has no agenda. She never has and never will. Seeking truth wherever it leads has earned her international respect and acclaim over her award-winning journalism career – a career that spans decades of reporting on some of the most cut-throat foreign leaders in some of the most dangerous places on earth.

With the American public’s distrust of news media skyrocketing, Lara’s long-time, high-profile work makes her uniquely positioned to tell it as she sees it. And what she sees biased media reporting doing to journalism is “truly a betrayal of everything that we believe in and that we stood for. The media has failed all of us.”

For Lara, there is no standing on the sidelines watching her profession descend deeper into the dark abyss where lying fraudsters are rewarded, but truth-seeking journalists are smeared, canceled, and tossed aside by corporate media puppeteers and their conspirators-of-interest. Of this, she has first-hand experience.

“I realized I’ve got to do it independently, where it cannot be taken down, it cannot be censored, it cannot be silenced,” Lara explained, announcing the upcoming launch of her new program, The Rest of the Story. “This show matters to me because it’s really about preserving the discipline of real journalism – almost a lost art these days.”

Once launched, The Rest of the Story will include four, long-form investigative shows produced per season. “It’s not news style. It’s not documentary style. It’s storytelling, the way I believe it should be done.” The premier season will put the spotlight on child exploitation and trafficking.

“I know the first season has to be about child trafficking,” she said in the show trailer. “It’s just unconscionable to me that 55 children disappear from the child protection system set up in this country every single day, and we don’t even talk about it. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

Child trafficking is a national tragedy, and when the facts are known, Lara argues that “once you know the truth, I think the only thing that matters is the question that all of us will face in the end when you stand before God and He asks, ‘Once you knew, what did you do?’ There’s only one answer that counts.”

In addition to producing her new show, Lara is also a board member of America’s Future and advisor on its initiative, Project Defend & Protect Our Children (PDPC) – a nationwide, grassroots effort to end child exploitation, neglect, abuse, and trafficking in America.

America’s Future will continue to inform the public about the premiere season’s release date and how to access The Rest of The Story. If you are interested in joining Lara and hundreds of Americans as part of the PDPC network, please click here to sign up.

Eighteenth Amendment – Establishing Prohibition; Empowering Corruption

Welcome back to our series surveying the 27 constitutional amendments ratified over the course of our history as a sovereign nation, a Constitutional Republic. Each amendment revises our Constitution, alters the course of history, and, in one way or another, advances America on her path to exceptionalism. In the last seven editions of our newsletter, we covered the Eleventh Amendment through the Seventeenth Amendment, which brings us to the Eighteenth Amendment this week. Readers can find our examination of the Bill of Rights, i.e. the first ten Amendments of the Constitution, in the online version of our book, Exploring America’s Founding Documents, by clicking here. If you would like to receive a free print copy, please do so by clicking here.

The Eighteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and ratified by the states on January 16, 1919, banned alcohol, for all intents and purposes, within the borders of American jurisdictions. The text of the Eighteenth Amendment states, in part,

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Two compelling facts about the Eighteenth Amendment include:

1) This is the only constitutional amendment to have ever been repealed. It was repealed on December 5, 1933, upon the requisite number of states ratifying the Twenty-First Amendment; and

2) It restricted private conduct by citizens and privately owned entities. In our history, only two constitutional amendments have ever been ratified to regulate private conduct – this amendment and the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude.

The Eighteenth Amendment sprang from the theory that societal problems like poverty, crime, violence, and the degeneration of the “family unit” could be cured if Americans were prohibited from consuming alcohol. For over a century, momentum pushing this philosophy, known as the Temperance Movement, gained traction. The Eighteenth Amendment was the culmination of efforts undertaken primarily by the “pro-prohibition” political party, the American Temperance Society, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Anti-Saloon League combining forces with the early 20th-century Progressive Movement.

Although the drafters of the Eighteenth Amendment did not directly proscribe consuming alcohol, the language of the Amendment set such strict limitations that the goal of preventing alcohol consumption was clearly the intent.

The most robust attempt to enforce the Amendment during its effective timeframe (January 1920 – December 1933) was through the enaction of the Volstead Prohibition Enforcement Act. Initially, enforcement worked. According to the National Archives, “liquor consumption dropped, arrests for drunkenness fell, and the price for illegal alcohol rose higher than the average worker could afford. Alcohol consumption dropped by 30 percent and the United States Brewers’ Association admitted that the consumption of hard liquor was off 50 percent during Prohibition.” But in the long term, enforcement measures proved elusive, and the eradication of alcohol consumption by Americans proved unrealistic.

Some unintended consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment included:

1) Organized crime syndicates rose to power;

2) Division throughout the country occurred based on whether an individual advocated for or against a “dry,” meaning alcohol-less society;

3) The collapse of an entire industry, leading to significant job loss along with large losses of tax revenue; and

4) As people openly rebelled against the Amendment and defied authorities, a dangerous sense that lawlessness was tolerable developed.

Over time, prohibition lost popularity with the public, which resulted in the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1933.

Justice Department Targets Traditional Catholics as Domestic Terrorists

This is the eighth entry in our expanded IN FOCUS section addressing corruption in the U.S. Department of Justice and the self-destruction of the FBI. Readers will find the compilation of the complete series of articles at Unequal Justice Under Law.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) represents on its website that it upholds four values:

Independence and Impartiality. We work each day to earn the public’s trust by following the facts and the law wherever they may lead, without prejudice or improper influence.
Honesty and Integrity. Our employees adhere to the highest standards of ethical behavior, mindful that as public servants we must work to earn the trust of, and inspire confidence in, the public we serve.
Respect. Our employees value differences in people and in ideas and treat everyone with fairness, dignity, and compassion.
Excellence. We work every day to provide the highest level of service to the American people and to be a responsible steward of the taxpayers’ dollars.

Let’s examine one recent leaked analysis to evaluate how well the DOJ has been doing thus far in 2023 according to the standards it sets for itself.

An FBI whistleblower revealed that the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia Field Office completed an “intelligence” analysis dated January 23, 2023 that describes:

the increasingly observed interest of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) in radical-traditionalist Catholic (RTC) ideology almost certainly presents opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwires and source development. [Emphasis added.]

The FBI document accused Catholics of “an over-emphasis in white US nationalism.” The FBI further describes these dangerous Catholics as having rejected “the Second Vatican Council” and finds that a preference for the Catholic Mass in Latin instead of the vernacular is a warning sign.

The FBI’s conclusion that “Traditionalist Catholics” are tied to “violent extremists” was based in part on the work of the discredited, leftist Southern Poverty Law Center.

Let’s compare these slurs on Traditionalist Catholics to the DOJ’s values: Does DOJ show “impartiality” without “prejudice?” Does DOJ inspire the “confidence” of the American People? Is DOJ treating people with “respect?” Is citing the discredited SPLC evidence of “excellence?” With its vitriol against Roman Catholics, DOJ has sunk to new lows by every standard.

While there have always been serious problems at DOJ, during the last Administration, there was a commitment made to religious freedom. On October 20, 2017, the DOJ issued guidance for all Executive Departments and Agencies interpreting the religious liberty protections in federal law. That guidance was directed by President Trump’s Executive Order No. 13798. The prior Justice Department’s guidance sources Religious Liberty to our Creator, giving it the high and lofty position it should hold in our pantheon of rights:

Religious liberty is a foundational principle of enduring importance in America, enshrined in our Constitution and other sources of federal law. As James Madison explained in his Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, the free exercise of religion “is in its nature an unalienable right” because the duty owed to one’s Creator “is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society.”

It only took a little over five years for the Justice Department to move from promising to protect Americans who are exercising their religious freedom, to targeting those same people as “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics.”

Digging deeper into the report, we see the FBI’s politics revealed in its concern that RTCs might have common interests such as opposition to abortion rights, affirmative action, immigration, and “LGBT protections.” If people of faith oppose the leftist political agenda, they must be violent extremists.

It is not just abortion that has gotten the Church in Biden’s crosshairs. The memo also cited an article in the far-left magazine, “The Atlantic,” which “slammed Catholic rosary beads for increasingly being associated with right-wing Christians, especially those who are gun owners” as ammunition for its assault on Catholics.

The Biden Administration may have other reasons to target Catholics. On June 18, 2021, America’s Catholic bishops approved a document instructing Catholic churches to deny Holy Communion to pro-abortion elected officials. One such elected official, of course, is President Joe Biden, nominally the second Catholic President. During his 2020 campaign, the St. Anthony Catholic Church in South Carolina denied communion to candidate Biden for the same reason. But for whatever reasons, the “Catholic” President’s administration seems to have practicing Catholics squarely in its crosshairs. His Justice Department attorneys recently did their best to jail pro-life Catholic father Mark Houck for peacefully protesting at abortion clinics, discussed in our article last week.

On February 10, 2023, a coalition of 20 state attorneys general wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to protest. It complained that the report extolled “opportunities for threat mitigation through the exploration of new avenues for tripwire and source development.” In plain English, it was a recommendation that the DOJ send FBI spies into Catholic churches in a witch hunt for “traditional Catholics” among apparently more “politically correct” “non-traditional” Catholics.

The letter blasted the DOJ for the “un-American and unconstitutional memorandum,” demanding that Garland and Wray “immediately and unequivocally order agency personnel not to target Americans based on their religious beliefs and practices.” Emphasizing that “anti-Catholic bigotry appears to be festering,” the attorneys general wrote, “[S]pying on Catholics in their churches and cathedrals is an absurd use of federal law-enforcement and counterintelligence resources.” The letter demanded that DOJ reveal to the American public the extent to which they have engaged in infiltrating and collecting intelligence on Traditional Catholics.

New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, chair of the U.S. bishops’ religious liberty committee, blistered the memo’s “religious profiling” of Catholics. “A preference for traditional forms of worship and holding closely to the Church’s teachings on marriage, family, human sexuality, and the dignity of the human person does not equate with extremism,”

Bishop Barry Knestout of the Diocese of Richmond, in perhaps the understatement of the month, stated: “The leaked document should be troubling and offensive to all communities of faith, as well as all Americans.” Indeed, it should, and it must if the nation is to survive.

To read the entire series of articles, please click here.

Reminders & Updates

MORE WAYS TO STAY INFORMED: America’s Future is always growing and expanding with more ways to stay informed, get involved, and get connected. We’ve added Twitter and Instagram to our social media platforms to keep you updated on our initiatives, activities, articles, and offers to our fellow Americans. Connect, follow, like, comment, and share! Thank you for being a part of America’s Future!

GET INVOLVED: Join hundreds of Americans who have signed up to be a part of America’s Future Project Defend & Protect Our Children network to help end child exploitation, abuse, and trafficking. Visit the Project’s web page here to watch multiple videos describing the initiative, download our tips sheets for suggestions you can do in your community, and read about the Project’s Little Flower Advisory Board. Get involved today!

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