Discovery Institute Releases National Report on Homelessness

Discovery Institute Releases National Report on Homelessness

Confronting the Reality of Failed Federal Policy on Homelessness and the Need for Reform

The problems linked to homelessness, including substance abuse, mental illness, and crime are increasing in America despite untold sums of government money spent to address this complex problem.

A new report from Discovery Institute, says Congress and Executive Branch need to focus more on untreated mental illness and substance abuse to reduce homelessness, drug overdoses, jail overcrowding, and misuse of emergency rooms. Dr. Robert Marbut, a Discovery Institute senior fellow and former Director of the Federal Interagency Task Force on Homelessness is presenting this report on Capitol Hill this week.

The Institute's report recommends that Congress:

·    eliminate the Housing First policy and adopt the Housing PLUS Act;

·    require that supportive services such as addiction treatment and job counseling services be combined with housing initiatives; and

·    revise the "IMD Exclusion" policy of Medicaid that limits care for mental illness and is responsible for much suffering on urban streets.

"The housing first policy often results in a housing only policy in many cases," says Dr. Robert Marbut, a Discovery Institute senior fellow and former Director of the Federal Interagency Task Force on Homelessness. "A more diverse policy should include treatment for mental illness and drug addiction. Congress should be measuring how many lives are improved and how many people exit homelessness, rather than promoting how fast and how many taxpayer subsidized housing are given out," adds Marbut. According to HUD's five categories of homelessness, there are almost 1.2 million adults experiencing homelessness today. Additionally, the Department of Education reports another 1.5 million children experiencing homelessness.

The Discovery Institute report asserts that the policy preference for "Housing First" has made matters worse, contributing to rising numbers of families, children and adults experiencing homelessness.

"In essence," says Marbut, "we have created an enormous federal homeless assistance program that is functionally equivalent to HUD Section 8 housing - but with no rules. The success of federal programs should not be measured by amounts of inputs - such as numbers of housing vouchers delivered - but by the number of persons recovered from homelessness."

"Only a few Republicans and almost no Democrats in Congress so far have been willing to confront the reality of failed federal policy on homelessness and the need for reform," according to Bruce Chapman, Discovery Institute founder and Director of the White House Office of Planning and Evaluation under President Reagan. "We are hoping for change in the coming Session." [more...]

Download the Report Here.

ABOUT THE EDITOR: Robert Marbut is a renowned expert on homelessness and a senior fellow of Discovery Institute's Center on Wealth & Poverty. Marbut has a PhD in Political Behavior and American Political Institutions, and his career has been marked by bipartisanship having served as Chief of Staff for San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros in the 1980s, as a White House Fellow under George H. W. Bush, and most recently as the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness from 2019 to 2021 under both the Trump and Biden administrations. 

The Byrna Shield

 

Learning from Andrew Pollack's Tragedy

Could Prevent Your Own...

Introducing The Byrna Shield:

A Commonsense Solution to a Difficult Reality

As children are going back to school, parents must be more vigilant than ever, get active in the schools and school boards, and seek out practical solutions to keeping their children safe. Getting involved locally can make a big difference. We are encouraged by the news of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspending four members of the Broward County School Board after reviewing a grand jury investigation into the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida. (The jury recommended that the board be suspended due to incompetence, neglect of duty and misuse of authority related to the shooting.) But what more can parents do to keep their children out of harm's way?

Parents are responsible for their children when they send them out the door.

They should know if and how their school is prepared against an active shooter.

Take action by ensuring your child has a chance to survive an active shooter.

While writing his book, Why Meadow Died: The People and Policies that Created Parkland's Shooter and Endanger America's Students, Parkland, FL shooting parent Andrew Pollack teamed up with a renowned education expert, Max Eden, to investigate and expose everything that enabled the tragedy. They quickly realized that it was the most avoidable mass murder in American history. And scarier still: the policies that made it inevitable have spread to your child's school.

An active shooting can take place anytime, anywhere.

The statistics are alarming!

School shootings are a wide-reaching problem that has gotten progressively worse in the past four decades. These horrific tragedies are unpredictable - no one knows where or when an active school shooting will take place. As difficult as this topic is to address, we must confront it head-on. Our children's lives are at stake. As parents, it is our duty to ensure their safety.

Learn about the sobering statistics from the Center for Homeland Defense and Security. Did you know:

·    The most common age of a shooter is 17, followed by 16 and 15.

·    Handguns were the most commonly used weapon in school shootings: Handguns: 1,344;

·    Rifles: 107.

·    Fall is the most common time of year for school shootings.

·    148 of the 320 students shot on college campuses were shot in mass shootings.

THE SOLUTION: As easy to insert into a standard-sized student backpack as a school notebook, the Byrna Shield Backpack Body Armor is a thin, lightweight (14 oz.), flexible Level IIIA-rated ballistic plate. It can withstand up to 6 hits from .44 magnum bullets with velocities up to 1,464 feet-per-second, essentially making it capable of stopping every handgun on the market today.

For the price of a pair of sneakers, parents can have peace of mind knowing they're giving their children a chance to survive when the unthinkable happens... and avoid the high cost of regret. And 10% of every purchase goes to the Meadow Pollack Memorial Fund to supply inner city schoolchildren with ballistic backpack body armor and other school supplies. Get your Byrna Shield today... use Promo Code: Andy10 to save 10%.

ABOUT ANDREW POLLACK: Andy became a nationally recognized activist for increased school safety measures after the High School shooting in Parkland Florida on February 14, 2018, which took the lives of 17 people, including his daughter, Meadow. Since that day, Andy has made it his life's mission to continue advocating for smarter, real-life solutions to an increasing yet avoidable issue in the United States.  After seventeen people were murdered at a high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018, the national conversation focused exclusively on a handful of students fighting for gun control. The media ignored the questions that matter: Why did this happen? How can we stop it from happening again? Moving forward without answers wasn't an option for Andy. He now dedicates his life to making schools safe again, founding a non-profit Americans for Children's Lives and School Safety and making sure that the families of victims get answers and justice. 

Internal Radical Service: How the IRS abuses taxpayer dollars to advance leftwing causes illegally and unconstitutionally

Rampant Corruption and Partisanship by the IRS Revealed in New Report

By John Perazzo and David Horowitz

The IRS subsidized Democrat election campaigns and funded BLM riots

A pivotal report published this week by the David Horowitz Freedom Center reveals the blatant corruption and malfeasance within the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its use as a partisan tool to aid the Democrat Party in winning elections and promoting radical causes.

In "Internal Radical Service: Abuse of Taxpayer Dollars to Advance Leftwing Causes," David Horowitz and John Perazzo reveal how the IRS has allowed hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to fund left-wing advocacy foundations, violating its own rules, while denying conservative foundations the same privilege.

The IRS has already been weaponized as a national police force to harass, punish and obstruct conservative and religious organizations. But, as the authors reveal, this persecution of conservatives is only a small part of the story.

The IRS has violated its own policies by providing taxpayer subsidies to Democrat election campaigns, underwriting Black Lives Matter riots which caused billions of dollars in property damage and led to the deaths of scores of individuals, enabling the illegal invasion of our southern border and funding racist policies which violate the Civil Rights Act and The Constitution.

"This has had the effect of creating a lobby within the Democrat Party that has transformed it into a radical force bent on 'fundamentally transforming the United States of America,'" the authors explain.

The recent passage by Democrats of a bill that authorizes a ten-year, $80 billion hike in federal funding for the IRS and the hiring of 87,000 new agents makes these concerns even more pressing.

"Internal Radical Service documents these violations and their destructive consequences," said David Horowitz, founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center. "We publish it as an appeal to Congress to investigate the abuses and restore the integrity of an organization which has become a major threat to our democracy." [more...]

The Return By Dick Morris

 

"Dick Morris and I conferred regularly throughout the 2016 and 2020 campaigns. He helped me hone my message and aim it at the right audience. His father was my attorney, and he is my counselor. And I am grateful to them both."

--Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States

THE RETURN

Trump's Big 2024 Comeback

By Dick Morris

New York Times bestselling author of ARMAGEDDON

THE TRUMP REVOLUTION CANNOT

SUCCEED WITHOUT TRUMP.

Will he run in 2024? YOU BET HE WILL.

Will he be the GOP nominee? ABSOLUTELY.

Will he win the election?

YES.

DICK MORRIS, New York Times bestselling author and political consultant, details what he predicts will be President Trump's return to power in 2024 in his new book: THE RETURN: Trump's Big 2024 Comeback. Based on over one hundred conversations with President Trump, Morris says Trump is going to run in 2024, he will be the Republican candidate, and he will win, making him the 47th President of the United States.

The stakes of the next elections could not be higher. The Democrats "won" the election of 2020 and the disastrous consequences are already upon us. As he did in his 2016 New York Times bestseller, ARMAGEDDON: HOW TRUMP CAN BEAT HILLARY, world-renowned, winning campaign strategist Dick Morris provides the road map to take back the White House and the nation in his new book, THE RETURN.

Conservatives must realize that all the "rules" have changed since 2020. Unless the Right figures out how to beat the Democrats and the radical Left under these new rules, freedom-loving Americans will lose again. In the post-COVID era, everything the pundits knew - or thought they knew - is obsolete because of the massively higher turnout.

Morris outlines the strategy for Trump's victory:

·    Make certain more legal, eligible voters cast ballots for Republicans, and that their votes are not offset by a torrent of illegal ballots.

·    The Republican candidate in 2024 will be, AND MUST BE, Donald J. Trump. Accept no substitutes.

·    Take the Trump message seriously: The Democrats will transform America into a nation none of us will recognize by destroying social, cultural, economic, and political freedoms. He accuses the Democrat Left of making America "unrecognizable."

Morris says there are three issues that are going to dominate the elections of 2022 and most likely 2024: inflation, illegal immigration, and crime. He points out that focusing on these issues all bolster Trump because they were not major problems when he was in office. 

While THE RETURN explains much of the inside maneuvering in the Trump campaign of 2020, its main purpose is to suggest strategies to win in 2024. He maintains that if the elections in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Wisconsin had been free from Democratic shenanigans, Trump probably would have won some or all of these states, likely enough to carry the Electoral College and re-elect him president. In short, Morris calls upon the Republicans to adopt some of the tactics the Democrats used to beat them in the popular vote in 2020.

Republicans must no longer focus on "Get Out The Vote," but bring the vote to the doorstep of every voter. He urges the GOP to solicit aggressively mail-in and absentee votes and to treat every day in September and October as Election Day and act as if the polls are about to close, frantically soliciting each vote every day for those two months. While he outlines a plan to assure honest elections and urges every state to pass it (many, including Georgia, Florida, and Arizona, already have), he says that Republicans must not rely on legal changes, but on these new tactics to win elections.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dick Morris is one of the most prominent political consultants in the U.S., and the world, and has been called "the most influential private citizen in America" by TIME magazine. Morris was instrumental in the winning campaigns of Bill Clinton in 1996, over 30 senators or governors nationally, and the surprise victory of Donald Trump in 2016. On the international stage, Morris has managed the successful campaigns of the presidents or prime ministers of Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Kenya, Spain, and others.

Dick is the host of Dick Morris Democracy on NewsmaxTV and is the author of over ten New York Times bestsellers, including ARMAGEDDON: HOW TRUMP CAN BEAT HILLARY and POWER GRAB: OBAMA'S DANGEROUS PLAN FOR A ONE-PARTY NATION.

New York Post article.

Non-Computable YOU By Robert J. Marks

 

Non-Computable YOU What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will By Robert J. Marks  Are Future Humans Doomed to Be Replaced by Artificial Intelligence?  Artificial intelligence has largely replaced travel agents, tollbooth attendants and mapmakers, but will smart machines / AI someday replace attorneys, physicians, military strategies, and world leaders? What about composers, painters, and novelists? Are we doomed to obsolescence by tomorrow's ultra-powerful artificial intelligence? Robert J. Marks, a pioneer in computing intelligence, says, "no way." In his new book, Non-Computable You: What You Do That Artificial Intelligence Never Will Marks says as impressive as AI is, it doesn't hold a candle to human intelligence... and it never will. How does he know? The answer can be stated in one word: algorithm. In NON-COMPUTABLE YOU, you will learn: ·    The difference between artificial intelligence (AI) and artificial general intelligence (AGI); ·    That AI has achieved many incredible things - and continues to do so... but that there are certain problems AI will never solve; ·    That AI will never be sentient; ·    About examples of how AI doesn't have common sense; ·    Why AI will never be creative; ·    That artificial general intelligence, or AGI, will never be achieved by computers; ·    That there is a cult religion forming around AI called the AI church; and ·    Why great minds like Henry Kissinger and Stephen Hawking are wrong about AI. Catch a glimpse of the geniuses behind today's AI - their foibles, follies, and friendships - as told by someone on the inside. Under the author's steady and winsome guidance, learn about the exciting possibilities for artificial intelligence, but also hear how many of the heady claims for AI are provably overblown. Marks shows why there are some powers AI will never possess, no matter what. These powers belong to another - to NON-COMPUTABLE YOU. "Emotions that make us human will never be duplicated by a machine," says Marks. "These include compassion, love, empathy, elation, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, pleasure, pride, excitement, embarrassment, regret, jealousy, grief, hope, and faith. Properly defined, creativity, sentience, and understanding are also on the list. These and other non-algorithmic traits are evidence of NON-COMPUTABLE YOU." Machine intelligence may someday have the proper code to duplicate all human attributes. Impersonate, perhaps, but experience, no. AI will never be creative or have understanding. Machines may mimic certain other human traits but will never duplicate them. AI can be programmed only to simulate love, compassion, and understanding. "Written brilliantly by an expert who served as Editor in Chief of a leading AI journal and who helped lay the foundations of the field." --Jacek M. Zurada, PhD Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Robert J. Marks II, Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, School of Engineering & Computer Science, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Baylor University. He serves as the director of Discovery Institute’s Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence and hosts the Center's Mind Matters podcast. Marks is a Fellow of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and the Optical Society of America.

LOCKDOWN By Cheryl Chumley

 

LOCKDOWN

The Socialist Plan to Take Away Your Freedom

By Cheryl Chumley

Beware. Be warned. Be armed with the truth to fight.

This is the world the Left envisions.

This is the America the collectivists are busily building.

Washington Times Online Opinion Editor, Cheryl Chumley's new book, LOCKDOWN: The Socialist Plan to Take Away Your Freedom is the terrifying story of how the government is using the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic to cloak their nefarious plan to take away American freedoms, a dangerous growth of government power. 

Using COVID-19 as a cover, Democrat leaders and their bureaucratic health advisers have seized powers the Constitution never gave them and ordered citizens to stay off streets and out of public parks, banned them from their workplaces, closed down their schools, and made church attendance a crime - even as these same leaders and their left-leaning cronies blithely, arrogantly and outrageously allowed mass protests, kept open abortion clinics, and did as they pleased.

In LOCKDOWN, you'll learn:

·    That the Coronavirus will go down in U.S. history as the greatest political hoax the Democrats have ever inflicted on the American people. The virus may have been real - but the response from the left was far from truthful.

·    'Never let a crisis go to waste' is old-style Democrat politicking. The new mantra, thanks to the Coronavirus, is never let fear go to waste.

·    That Americans ought to be both shamed and shocked at the way the country caved to Democrat demands during the height of coronavirus crackdowns. What's worse is now Americans have been conditioned to believe the government holds the power to strip away rights at will. 

·    That either individual rights come from God - or they don't. Either America is a nation of individualism - or it isn't. The Coronavirus showed how far we've strayed from those core characteristics of American exceptionalism; and the goal post may have been permanently moved. Today's America is all too willing to compromise on God-given liberties for the sake of the greater good - and to do so without questioning the conflict of interest with a government that's allowed to define the greater good.

·    To peel back the curtain of government and peek behind the doors of Big Pharma and it's clear: the same people who continue to call for continued clampdowns on liberties and for more shots in the arms of citizens are those most benefitting - either in terms of power and influence, or in terms of financial profits.

In this sequel to her bestselling Socialists Don't Sleep - and relying on her trademark, aggressive reporting style - Chumley exposes how hypocritical, elitist, and radical leftists are STILL using the Coronavirus to score political points and steal individual rights as the original pandemic served as a dress rehearsal in the march toward the new fascism.

The people, organizations and companies Chumley exposes in LOCKDOWN (responsible for the "Great Reset" in order to increase control over the lives of citizens as they build a one-party, socialist state in America) include:

·    The Democratic Party and its leaders: Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi;

·    The Radical Left and its leaders: Bernie Sanders & A.O.C.;

·    Bill Gates, big tech and media companies such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & CNN; and

·    Big Government bureaucracies such as the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and the NIAID, and its Director, Anthony Fauci.

LOCKDOWN is a warning that the extraordinary powers invoked by left-wing Democrats and others, justified by claims of public health and safety, have begun the unraveling of America's constitutional order and our most cherished freedoms.

"Exposes the truth about the Left's exploitation of COVID-19 and the dangers of big government. This book is an important tool for all Americans to defend their God-given freedom and liberties."

--Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Cheryl Chumley is an author and the online opinion editor for The Washington Times, where she also serves as commentary writer and host of the "Bold and Blunt" twice-weekly podcast. An award-winning journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering Capitol Hill, state and local politics, her publication credits include Newsmax, The Blaze, The Washington Times, The Washington Examiner, The Heritage Foundation, and more. Chumley has made hundreds of appearances on TV and radio, including Fox News, C-SPAN, CBN and Newsmax TV. Chumley is the author of four books, including: Socialists Don't Sleep: Christians Must Rise or America Will Fall. She is a U.S. Army veteran. 

BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution By Mike Gonzalez

BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution

By Mike Gonzalez

In the explosive new book, BLM: The Making of a New Marxist Revolution, Sr. Fellow Heritage Foundation Mike Gonzalez takes on a terrorist organization that is methodically destroying America - Black Lives Matter - and exposes them for what they really are revealing grifting on a major scale.

Back in 2020, BLM, which says its mission is to "eradicate white supremacy," quickly stoked anger over George Floyd's death and unleashed protests and riots in American cities, precipitating great changes throughout American society. These were not spontaneous events; Americans did not suddenly rise up in righteous anger, take to the streets, and demand not just that police departments be defunded but that all the structures, institutions, and systems of the United States - all supposedly racist - be overhauled.

Incredibly, Wikipedia still identifies BLM with this completely false narrative: "Black Lives Matter protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful; when violence does occur, it is often committed by police or by counter-protesters. Despite this, opponents have falsely portrayed the movement as violent." Because of media portraying this terrorist group as a peaceful movement, many hundreds of thousands of people and corporations have been bamboozled into donating money that has never been accounted for.

In BLM, you'll learn:

·    That BLM's founders are radical Marxists whose express goal is to dismantle America - especially the nuclear family;

·    Why the money Americans contributed to BLM is not being used to fight racial discrimination at all;

·    That the three leaders of BLM - Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Melina Abdullah - used donations to buy a $6 million dollar home in California;

·    That the IRS has no idea where the millions of dollars in donations went; and

·    People and corporations who donated to BLM have filed many complaints that the funds never reached the black community; and

·    That BLM has not reported to the IRS what is has done with more than $60 million it has grifted from the vulnerable public;

The 12,000 or so demonstrations and 633 related riots that followed Floyd's death took organizational muscle. The movement's grip on institutions from the classroom to the ballpark required ideological commitment. That muscle and commitment were provided by the various BLM organizations.

This book examines who the BLM leaders are, delving into their backgrounds and exposing their agendas - something the media has so far refused to do. These people are shown to be avowed Marxists who say they want to dismantle our way of life. Along with their fellow activists, they make destructive use of social media to spread their message and organize marches, sit-ins, statue vandalism and removal, and riots. In 2020, they seized upon the video showing George Floyd's suffering as a pretext to unleash a nationwide insurgency.

Certainly, no person of good will could object to the proposition that "black lives matter" as much as any other human life. But Americans need to understand how their laudable moral concern is being exploited for purposes that a great many of them would not approve. This ambiguous phrase has become ubiquitous in America and around the world implying that the eradication of systemic racism is their intent, when in fact they're bilking donors out of millions of dollars to line their own pockets.

"Mike Gonzalez shows why Americans must take seriously the architects of Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and Critical Race Theory. He systematically reveals how these Marxists seek to transform America into something unimagined by the Founders and unrecognizable to most Americans today. His diagnosis of the threat is superbly argued and his wake-up call sorely needed."

--Victor Davis Hanson, The Hoover Institution

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Mike Gonzalez has been a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. since 2009. He spent close to twenty years as a journalist, fifteen of them writing from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He left journalism to join the Bush administration, serving as a speechwriter before moving on to the State Department’s European Bureau, where he wrote speeches and op-eds.