BREAKING: President Trump Signs Order To End Family Separations

Less than 24 hours after saying that only Congress could change the immigration law that requires authorities to separate the children of illegal immigrants from their parents, President Trump has reversed himself. The president announced today that he will sign an Executive Order “to keep families together.”

“We are going to sign an Executive Order in a little while to keep families together, but we have to maintain toughness,” President Trump said.

Trump signed the order in the Oval Office on Wednesday, telling reporters, “We're signing an executive order. I consider it to be a very important executive order. It's about keeping families together, while at the same time being sure we have a very powerful, very strong border.”

The Executive Order declares that the policy of the Trump Administration is “to maintain family unity, including by detaining alien families together where appropriate and consistent with law and available resources.” Trump instructs the Department of Homeland Security “to the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of appropriations, maintain custody of alien families during the pendency of any criminal improper entry or immigration proceedings involving their members,” rather than transferring the children to the Department of Health and Human Services, unless keeping the family together would “pose a risk to the child’s welfare.” The order does not end the zero-tolerance policy of prosecuting all illegal immigrants.

It is not clear how the Executive Order will withstand the Flores Agreement. The 1997 court settlement requires the government to place illegal immigrant children with family members “without unnecessary delay” or hold the children in the “least restrictive setting appropriate to the minor’s age and special needs” otherwise.

As recently as yesterday, the president claimed that there was no legal way to avoid the separations. “Under current law, we have only two policy options to respond to this massive crisis,” Trump told the National Federation of Independent Businesses. “We can either release all illegal immigrant families [of] minors who show up at the border from Central America or we can arrest the adults for the federal crime of illegal entry. Those are the only two options, totally open borders for criminal prosecution for lawbreaking.”

“So, what I’m asking Congress to do is to give us a third option, which we have been requesting since last year — the legal authority to detain and promptly remove families together as a unit,” Trump continued. “This is the only solution to the border crisis.”

President Trump had claimed that the law mandated that children be separated from their parents, who were being arrested on immigration charges. Current law and the Flores Agreement also applied to previous administrations, but neither the Obama nor Bush Administration chose to systematically break up families. The Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy of prosecuting all illegal border crossers led to the systematic separation of families where previous administrations referred illegal immigrants to civil deportation hearings where the families could remain together. The Dallas News reports that approximately 2,000 children were separated from their parents between late April and the end of May under the new policy.

President Trump’s reversal is similar President Obama’s reversal on the so-called “Dreamers.” In 2010, when asked about the DREAM Act, Obama said, “I am not king. I can't do these things just by myself.” In 2011, he said, “[With] respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that's just not the case.” The same year, he reiterated that he could not “just bypass Congress and change the (immigration) law myself. ... That's not how a democracy works.” In spite of all that, in 2012, Obama unilaterally implement the DACA program that suspended deportations and provided work authorizations for people who entered the country illegally as children.

The president’s reversal may be related to a new CNN poll that showed that Americans opposed the zero-tolerance policy by more than two-to-one. Prominent Republicans criticized the Administration on the issue and Republican congressmen were preparing plans to overturn the policy.

Even with the end to the separation policy, immigration will not disappear as a hot-button issue. There has still been no resolution to the DACA problem, many industries are experiencing a shortage of immigrant workers and there is still no funding for the “big, beautiful wall.”

Originally published on The Resurgent

The Federal Government Lost 1,500 Immigrant Children

Sometimes the truth is stranger and more appalling than satirists could possibly imagine. That was the case recently when the news emerged that the federal government had misplaced 1,500 immigrant children.

For the past year, the Trump Administration has implemented a policy of separating children from immigrants who were being held in immigration detention centers. As John Stonestreet noted in Breakpoint, it was not only illegal immigrant families that were being torn apart, but also families who had come to the United States legally to seek asylum.

Earlier this month, CNN reported on the Senate testimony of Steven Wagner, Acting Assistant Secretary of the Administration for Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Wagner revealed that in the last three months of 2017 the government had lost track of an astounding 20 percent of undocumented minors in its custody. In all, Mr. Wagner testified that the Office of Refugee Resettlement “was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 children.” Another 28 children were known to have run away.

Mr. Wagner was not overly concerned with the 1,500 missing children. “I understand that it has been HHS's long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care,” he told senators.

Stonestreet noted that Obama Administration policy was to detain families of asylum seekers while their applications were being reviewed. The Trump Administration initiated the policy of separating families to discourage immigrants from coming to the US.

Earlier in May, the Trump Administration announced the new policy of referring every person caught crossing the border illegally for federal prosecution. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said at the time, “If you're smuggling a child, we're going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don't want your child to be separated, then don't bring them across the border illegally.”

On May 11, Chief of Staff John Kelly told ABC News, “The children will be taken care of -- put into foster care or whatever.”

The policy is apparently being used against legal immigrants seeking asylum as well. In Breakpoint, Stonestreet cited the case of “Mrs. L.,” a Catholic refugee who was detained in San Diego and separated from her daughter without due process. The daughter was sent to a facility in Chicago where their only contact has been a half-dozen phone calls.

When the policy of family separations became news this week, President Trump responded by blaming Democrats. The president tweeted that Democrats needed to be pressured “to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.” The problem is that the separations are Trump Administration policy, not a legal requirement.

While needlessly separating young children from their parents is bad enough, losing 20 percent of the children in federal care is appalling. If the Trump Administration hopes to persuade Americans that the federal government is not competent at even the smallest task, losing more than a thousand children in its care is an excellent way to start.

The hardline policy may backfire on the Trump Administration politically. Americans have consistently been more accepting of immigrants than Republicans have been. Last year, Fox News found that 83 percent of registered voters supported a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens. Ripping small children from the arms of their parents is unlikely to boost support for strict immigration enforcement.

The policy is likely to make the Republican brand look even worse. An AP poll from March found that most Americans already think President Trump is racist. A policy separating immigrant parents from their children is unlikely to convince people otherwise.

Trump’s policy is also inconsistent with the image of a party that claims to be pro-family and Christian. Republicans have scored recent victories against abortion and Planned Parenthood, but the poorly-implemented child separation policy lends credence to liberal claims that the party only cares about children until they are born.

Jesus said, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” But Christ also gave a warning, saying, “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones,” Jesus said. “For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

Ripping families apart to make a political point is hard to square with Christian and conservative ideals. It is even more difficult to justify taking so little care that 1,500 little children – 20 percent of the total – could be placed into federal care and simply disappear.  

Originally published on The Resurgent

Can America be saved?

During the Obama Administration, a frequent rallying cry among conservatives has been the need to “take our country back.” The Obama era has brought the fundamental change that the future president promised in 2008, but has left many Americans feeling that the country is on the wrong track.

Much of the focus on restoring America is centered on restoring Republicans –constitutional conservatives in particular – to the White House. Winning the election of 2016, however, will prove much easier than reversing American decline. Many of the problems faced by the United States are in reality merely symptoms of deeper problems that may well prove impossible to fix, even with committed conservative Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the presidency.

The national debt

The most obvious of long term problems is the mounting federal debt. The debt, which has been increasing for years under both Republicans and Democrats, almost doubled under President Obama and now stands at more than $18 trillion. If this were not bad enough, the figure is incomplete because it does not include unfunded liabilities for items such as entitlement programs and federal pensions. The true debt is more than $100 trillion according to Forbes, an amount that the government will almost certainly never be able to repay.

Republicans under John Boehner deserve credit for attacking this problem, but their efforts have been woefully inadequate, due in no small part to President Obama. The sequester led to the first real cuts in the federal budget since the 1950s. At this point, federal spending has declined for three consecutive years for the first time since the 1920s, but while the deficit has been reduced, it has not been eliminated. The federal debt continues to increase, albeit at a slower rate.

Federal borrowing has also been aided by historically low interest rates over the past decade, but this cannot be expected to continue indefinitely. Currently, interest payments make up seven percent of the federal budget according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As the debt continues to grow and interest rates rise, payments on interest will crowd out other budget items. At some point, Americans will have to choose between national defense and entitlements.

The destruction of the family

Hidden behind many symptoms of American decline is the decline of the family. Statistics show that half a century ago, almost all children were born to intact families. Divorce was uncommon and most kids grew up with two parents. Today, almost half of first babies are born to unmarried mothers. Two things caused the change: birth control and the welfare programs of the Great Society.

Birth control eliminated the big reason that women had for abstaining from sex until marriage. The increased availability of sex outside of marriage eliminated a big reason for men to get married. Accordingly, marriage rates have dropped since birth control became widely available.

Complementary to birth control was the fact that, if a woman did get pregnant outside of marriage, the government would now subsidize the costs of raising children for single parents. Men need no longer feel the pressure to marry a woman that they had “knocked up.” Dad wasn’t needed because Uncle Sam would fill the void.

The problem is that a government check is not as effective a parent as an actual, flesh and blood father. Studies have shown that children of single-parent households are more at risk for juvenile delinquency and drug abuse than their peers and are more likely to live in poverty. They also tend to have more children outside of marriage, requiring more government financial assistance, in a vicious cycle that perpetuates itself and that will be harder and harder to break.

Executive usurpation of Congress

A less obvious threat to the future of the United States is the damage that President Obama has done to the balance of power between the presidency and Congress. After the 2010 elections, President Obama learned that he could bypass Congress to enact difficult-to-pass items of legislation through the administrative rulemaking process of executive agencies. Net neutrality and new carbon regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency are two examples of this.

When the Republicans took control of the House and then the Senate, Obama increasingly relied on Executive Orders and administrative rulemaking to advance his agenda. A well-known example is the president’s 2012 directive on immigration. Two more recent examples are the agreement with Iran, which Obama refuses to call a treaty because that would require ratification by the Senate, and this week’s revelation, reported by Maggie Gallagher in The Pulse, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unilaterally criminalized workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The law, as written, does not include sexual orientation as a protected class.

Republicans have made attempts to rein in the president, but, all too often, these attempts fall victim to Democratic filibusters or the president’s veto pen. The Constitution is inadequate to deal with a president who has no respect for the rule of law. This was noted by framer John Adams who said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

It is unlikely that future presidents will not remember President Obama’s success at circumventing Congress with executive actions. It will be very tempting for Obama’s successors to adopt the same strategy of legislation by “a pen and a phone.”

The failure of the courts

Closely related to President Obama’s usurpation of congressional authority is the failure of the courts to adequately provide a check to unconstitutional laws and executive regulations. The appointment of liberal judicial activists for decades has eviscerated the judicial branch as a check to Congress and the president. The problem is not limited to the Supreme Court, but includes federal and state courts around the country, as evidenced by the plethora of state judicial decisions striking down definition of marriage of laws.

Likewise, the problem is not new. There have been many bad Supreme Court decisions throughout our history, notably the Dred Scott decision of 1857, but the idea of justices creating law rather than interpreting it stems back at least 80 years to the New Deal. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the Court ruled that the interstate commerce clause could be interpreted to mean that Congress could regulate commerce within a state, the opposite of what the Constitution says. Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) created the heretofore unknown “right to privacy” that led to other bad decisions such as Roe v. Wade (1973).

These earlier bad decisions are the direct lineage of more recent bad decisions like King v. Burwell (2015), in which a majority ruled that an “Exchange established by the State” can also mean “exchange set up by the federal government,” NFIB v. Sebelius (2012), where the Court ruled that Congress can tax people for not doing things it wants them to do, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), where a majority found that the dignity of homosexuals required the justices take defining marriage out of the hands of the states and place it into their own hands, the will of the people and the Constitution be damned. As Justice Scalia lamented in his King v. Burwell dissent, a judicial philosophy that allows judges to make “interpretive distortions… ignores the American people’s decision to give Congress ‘all legislative Powers’ enumerated in the Constitution.”

A constitutional republic requires the rule of law to exist. When judges rewrite laws based on their own desires, the rule of law is in peril. Judicial activism is a problem, but judicial restraint in the face of unconstitutional laws is just as threatening.

America’s core problems are deeply rooted in decades of progressive policies and social tinkering as well as a changing culture. The left has been very successful at shifting culture away from the liberty-focused, hardworking culture of our forefathers to an attitude of dependence on government. Top down policy changes cannot correct cultural issues. Conservatives must focus on changing the culture of America from the grass roots as well.

No one can say for sure how long America will continue to struggle along under the weight of these four possibly insurmountable obstacles. It might take decades for them to take their toll on the country. We might follow in the footsteps of Europe’s social democracies with a generation or more of stagnation and decline.

Or, just the opposite, our core problems might never run their full course. Outside influences – from ISIS to Iran to China – might hasten our decline since weakness is an invitation to adversaries. As Lenin said, “Probe with a bayonet: if you meet steel, stop. If you meet mush, then push.”

Read the full article on Examiner.com

New poll shows social conservatives in decline

Polling released over the past few weeks has revealed what may be seismic shifts in American morality. On virtually every issue, American public opinion has shifted to the left. The most recent polling, released today by Gallup, show that the country has moved left on abortion and approval of out-of-wedlock births.

Today, a poll on attitudes about abortion showed that half of Americans consider themselves pro-choice for the first time since 2012. The Gallup poll showed that the percentage of Americans who identify as pro-life has declined to 44 percent, its lowest point since 2008. 2009 was the first year in which pro-life polled higher than pro-choice. Attitudes on abortion are still much more divided than they were in the 1990s.

The poll does not define pro-choice and pro-life, but 29 percent of respondents indicated that abortion should be legal in all circumstances. The plurality, 36 percent, said that abortion, should be legal in only a few circumstances.

Another Gallup poll released today revealed increasingly divergent attitudes on out-of-wedlock births. Sixty-one percent now believe that it is morally acceptable to have a baby outside of marriage. Only 35 percent call out-of-wedlock births immoral. Opinions on extramarital births have diverged widely since 2002, the last year that a majority called them immoral.

The shift has come as the percentage of out-of-wedlock births has increased dramatically. In 2014, the Washington Post reported that Census figures show that less than 60 percent of first-time births are to married couples. The Census report noted that “women with a nonmarital [sic] first birth are both less likely to ever marry and less likely to remain married if they do marry” and also links unmarried births to higher risks of poverty, lower educational attainment and family instability.

Today’s polling comes on the heels of increased support for doctor-assisted suicide, also from Gallup. Sixty-eight percent of respondents now support a right to die when a person has an incurable disease and is in severe pain. Only 28 percent are opposed. After remaining close for years, opinion on doctor-assisted euthanasia has diverged since 2013.

The biggest shift in public opinion is related to homosexuality and gay marriage. Gallup reports that a record high of 60 percent now supports gay marriage. Only 37 percent disagree. As recently as 1999, the numbers were almost completely reversed with 62 percent opposed and 35 percent in favor of redefining marriage.

Likewise, by 51 – 30 percent, most Americans now believe that homosexuals are born gay, not created by upbringing or environment. On this issue, Gallup’s numbers have also reversed since the 1990s. In reality, scientific proof that homosexuality is inherited genetically has been hard to find. It is even harder to find a genetic explanation for bisexuals, which make up approximately half of the gay and lesbian community.

On a similar issue, Gallup found that respondents greatly overestimated the number of gays in the US. Only 3.8 percent self-identify as gay or lesbian, but poll respondents believed that 23 percent of Americans were gay.

In general, the recent Gallup polling shows that social liberals are now equal in number with social conservatives in the United States. Since 1999, the percentage of social conservatives has declined while social liberals have increased. Both factions now stand equal at 31 percent.

The polling shows that the sample trended more liberal on virtually every issue since 2001. The largest shifts occurred on gay and lesbian relations (considered moral by 23 percent more in 2015 than in 2001), extramarital births (16 percent more), extramarital sex (15 percent more), divorce (12 percent more) and stem cell research using human embryos (12 percent more). Other issues with a large shift included polygamy (nine percent increase) and cloning humans (eight percent).

Some issues are considered less moral today than 14 years ago. Support for the death penalty declined by three percent, but a majority (60 percent) still approve. Support for medical testing on animals declined by nine percent to 56 percent approval.

Some of the shift in public opinion may be explained by the sample. The poll was conducted from May 6-10, 2015 with 1,024 adults, aged 18 or older, living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Since all of the findings stem from the same poll, if there is an error in providing an accurate sample or weighting the responses, the findings could have been skewed to the left. Nevertheless, these findings do support other polling that shows social attitudes moving to the left on several issues. 

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Save America: Take your family to church

Recent polls now show that almost three quarters of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track. The reality is that regardless of whether Republicans win control of the Senate this year and the presidency in 2016, it will be very difficult to solve the problems facing America today. Many of the most serious issues facing the country stem from cultural changes that cannot be solved solely by changes to government policies. Americans who are serious about changing the direction of the country should begin by taking their families to church. To save America, it will take a moral revolution that can only come from God, not government.

Even though some polls show that church attendance is still strong in the US, ChurchLeaders.com reports that counts by denominations and local churches show that church attendance is down and still declining. Although about 40 percent of the population reports that they attend church, the real number is probably less than 20 percent and not keeping pace with population growth.

It is likely that the decline in church attendance can be connected with many of America’s social and economic ills. Movement away from traditional Judeo-Christian morality may be responsible for a change in social mores that has led to an expansion of government and a growth in entitlement spending.

While there is no hard data or studies establishing a causal relationship between church attendance and fundamental shifts in American society, it is easy to see a correlation between the two. The movement away from traditional religion has occurred at the same time as a sharp decline in marriage. According to Census data, the share of unmarried couples cohabiting has risen from one percent in 1960 to more than 11 percent today. At the same time, the marriage rate has declined from 90 percent in 1950 to 36 percent. Both men and women are delaying marriage until later in life.

Unsurprisingly, the decline of marriage has led to an increase in the share of children living in single-parent homes. Two-parent families have declined from almost 90 percent in 1960 to less than 70 percent today. Put another way, according to The Atlantic, at 31 percent of U.S. households, “single parents have more than tripled as a share of American households since 1960.”

The change is even pronounced in black families where more than two-thirds of children belong to single-parent families. Many children who do live in two-parent families are not with both biological parents. The trend is not limited to black families. Nationwide, one out of every three children live in homes where the biological father is absent.

Given the enormous costs of raising children, it should come as no surprise that with the growth of single parent families has come a similar growth in federal entitlement spending. As more children grow up within broken families, the federal government has borne an ever larger financial share of the burden of parenthood. Federal entitlement spending has grown from less than one percent to approximately 13 percent of GDP with no sign of slowing.

The effects of single-parent families on children are well documented. According to the National Father Initiative, growing up in single-parent families, particularly families where the father is absent, puts children at risk for a variety of negative outcomes. Such families are more likely to live in poverty due to the fact that a single mother often cannot work a full-time job and care for her children. Children of absent fathers are more at risk for emotional and behavioral problems, juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual activity and teen pregnancy, and even bad grades.

The problem of single-parent families is a vicious cycle. Statistics show that children who grow up in single-parent families are more likely to experience divorce themselves as well as being less likely to marry in the first place. In many cases, children of single parents grow up to head their own single-parent families, which in turn require more government help.

Due to the unintended consequences of entitlements, such programs would be problematic even if the federal government could afford them. In reality, entitlements are unaffordable. The Heritage Foundation points out that 61 percent of federal spending is on mandatory items such as entitlements. Further, 31 cents of every federal dollar spent is borrowed. This has led to a federal debt of more than $17 trillion. When unfunded liabilities such as Social Security and Medicare are included, the total debt comes to $127 trillion, according to Forbes.

The problem of the growth of government deficit spending on entitlements is not merely an economic issue. It is also a moral issue. Growth in government is largely a response to the decline of the family and entitlements fill the vacuum of money and stability in single-parent families. Because a government check cannot fully replace a missing mother or father, these entitlement payments make the problem worse in the end by making marriage and traditional families seem optional.

The destruction of the family causes other problems as well. The problem of out-of-wedlock pregnancy is undoubtedly related to the abortion issue as well. According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than 85 percent of women who abort their babies are unmarried. The Guttmacher Institute notes that 75 percent say that they cannot afford a child, a problem that is often associated with single-parent, single-income families. Half specifically cite their desire to not be a single parent or problems with their husband or partner. While the rate of abortions in the U.S. is declining somewhat, more than 1 million abortions still occur in the U.S. each year.

Another possible, but less conclusive, result of the destruction of the family is increased homosexuality. Accurate statistics on the rate of homosexuality are hard to find (due to small sample size and self selection), but the theory that homosexuality in some people is related to domineering mothers has been around for decades, such as a paper by Dr. Marvin Siegelman from 1974 and several books by Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, author of “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.” While the left disputes this view, little is definitely known about the root causes of homosexuality.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists have advanced therapies based on these theories of environmental causes for homosexuality. In spite of being attacked by gay activists and leftists, there is evidence that these therapies can help some homosexuals. In some cases, liberals have sought bans against gay reparative therapy, even though such bans violate the freedom of speech of doctors and the freedom of choice of families. If homosexuality is a result of strong mother figures for some gays, then the rate of homosexuality should increase as the rate of single-parent families increases.

The negative effects of homosexuality are less disputed. Dr. Timothy Dailey of the Center for Marriage and Family Studies summarized the risks of homosexuality. These include an increased risk of suicide, domestic violence, and substance abuse in addition to greater risk for a variety of sexually transmitted diseases. Lesbians also have a higher risk for a variety of cancers.

Today, the United States resembles the Israel of the Bible in many ways. As Isaiah described, in spite of the blessings that God has bestowed upon America, the nation increasingly produces “bad fruit.”Americans increasingly revel in pleasure and immorality and our moral compasses are so distorted that we frequently “call evil good and good evil.” In America today, religion is being from the public square and people who follow the teachings of the Bible are increasingly in conflict with laws enforcing the new morality. Ancient Israel was destroyed by God’s judgment and some, such as Rabbi Jonathan Cahn, believe that America is already undergoing the early stages of judgment as well.

When viewed in context, it is apparent that a change in governmental policy is not sufficient to reverse the decline of the American family and the budget-busting entitlements that go along with it. What is needed is a national revival and a return to traditional family models.

The only way to reverse the trend of ever-increasing government entitlements is to reduce the need for those entitlements in the first place. By returning to a traditional family model where two parents share the responsibility for raising children, there will be less need for government intervention and support. Changes in policy without attacking the underlying problems will be doomed to failure.

The government cannot force Americans to return to traditional and time-proven methods of bearing and raising children, but a true revival and voluntary return to the Biblical teachings has the capability to change the course of American society and culture. Such a cultural shift will be necessary for the long term prosperity – and even survival – of the United States.

A revival has to start somewhere. If you want to save America, take your family to church. Teach your kids the value of the traditional family. Show them that when spouses fight, it doesn’t mean that the marriage has to end. If you love your children, try to make your marriage work. You can start this process by taking your family to church to learn about God’s forgiveness. You might save your country as well as your soul.

Read the full article on Examiner.com

Navy Yard killer shared traits with other rampage murderers

Already there are voices calling for increased gun control in the wake of Aaron Alexis’ murders of 12 people in the Washington Navy Yard yesterday. As Examiner reported, traditional gun control seems to be counterproductive in reducing crimes and mass killings, but an analysis of this and other shootings reveals several common threads between many perpetrators of rampage killings. Diagnoses are made more difficult by the fact that the killers in many of the rampages are often killed themselves, but in many cases, the killer had been diagnosed with some form of mental illness or can plausibly be considered to have an undiagnosed mental illness. Other factors, such as video games, movies, or broken families are also common.

Aaron Alexis is reported to have been undergoing treatment for mental illness with the Veterans Administration according to the Washington Times. The report indicates that Alexis had reported hearing voices in his head and suffered from paranoia. NBC News reports that Alexis had two prior arrests for gun related crimes. In 2004, he allegedly shot out the tires of another man’s car during “an anger-fueled ‘blackout’” in Seattle. In 2010, he was arrested in Texas for shooting his gun through the ceiling of his apartment. The bullet went through his ceiling into the apartment upstairs. Alexis told police that the shooting was accidental. According to Seattle police, Alexis was present at the September 11 attacks and was an “active participant in rescue attempts” [at the World Trade Center according to the Telegraph] and may have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The Daily Mail also reports that Alexis’ best friend, Nutpisit Suthamtewakul, 31, of Ft. Worth, said that Alexis was obsessed with violent video games. Mr. Suthamtewakul said that Alexis would often play “zombie” shooter games for much of the night. Mr. Suthamtewakul also said that Alexis was a “hard core drinker.”

Atlanta’s 11 Alive News also reported a third arrest in Georgia. On August 10, 2008, Alexis was arrested in DeKalb County for disorderly conduct. There was no indication that a weapon was used. He was also discharged from the Navy Reserve in 2011 for unspecified misconduct. None of this prevented Alexis from obtaining a security clearance to work as a navy contractor. CNN reported that Alexis’ security clearance was renewed in July.

The full details of Alexis’ family and childhood are not available, but reports of the family make no mention of his father. A Newsday article quoted a former neighbor of the family’s apartment in Brooklyn who noted that the family consisted of a mother, a daughter, and two boys. Mr. Alexis reportedly lived with his grandmother in Seattle.

In the case of last year’s shootings at Newtown, Ct., the Hartford Courant and NBC’s WPTV reported that Adam Lanza was a frequent player of violent first-person shooter video games. Police report that Lanza destroyed his computer before his rampage, so the exact extent of his video gaming may never be known. Lanza was known to have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism and had not seen his father since 2010.

Peter Bell, executive vice president of programs and services at Autism Speaks told PBS that some Asperger’s patients do have trouble controlling aggressive thoughts and behavior, but that there is no evidence linking the condition to violence. Nevertheless, Randi Rentz, a teacher specializing in Asperger’s, notes that some of her students exhibit hostility. There is also the possibility that other undiagnosed forms of mental illness were present along with the Asperger’s.

James Holmes, who went on a rampage in a movie theater showing “the Dark Knight” in Colorado in July 2012, apparently came from an intact family, but had seen three mental health professionals at the University of Colorado according to CBS News. Any diagnosis is unknown due to a gag order imposed by the judge in the case, but Holmes reportedly mailed a package to one of the school’s psychiatrists. Because of the gag order, not much information is available about Holmes’ mental state, but Fox News has reported that he was a frequent player of video games including “World of Warcraft,” a role-playing game. One friend told the Telegraph that Holmes preferred “Guitar Hero” to shooter games.

The Week reported that a local gun range owner flagged Holmes after he attempted to join the range. The man called Holmes’ answering machine “bizarre or freakish” and told employees to refer Holmes to him before letting him do anything there. In the months before the killing spree, Holmes’ grades had fallen and he had dropped out of graduate school. Apparently, one of the psychiatrists at the college had become concerned that Holmes might be a potential threat, but he dropped out before her concerns could be addressed according to a report from the local ABC affiliate.

Jared Lee Loughner, who shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed six others in Tucson in January 2011, was both mentally ill and a video gamer. Several sources, including the Wall St. Journal, report Loughner’s obsession with games. Loughner had a long history of mental illness according to Time. He had made threatening and nonsensical comments to fellow students and teachers at his college. His tests and writings included bizarre and sometimes violent phrases. At times he seemed paranoid and unable to function socially. He was also a frequent user of marijuana which may have made his condition worse. He apparently was rejected for military service due to a failed drug test. He also had stalked several women and, at one point, was involuntarily committed to a mental institution.

A Wall St. Journal investigation of Loughner’s posts in online video game forums showed a number of disturbing posts. He pondered whether one should “hit a Handy Cap Child/Adult” [sic] and theorized that women enjoyed being raped. He also lamented his inability to find a job. According to the report, Loughner played role-playing video games such as “Starcraft,” “Diablo,” and “Earth: 2025.”

Cho Seung-Hui, who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, had been diagnosed with mental health problems at an early age according to a well documented report on the massacre by the State of Virginia. In elementary school, he was diagnosed with emotional issues that led to communication problems. In middle school, he was diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, lack of verbal skills and immaturity. In 1999, after the Columbine murders, Cho wrote a paper for his English class that indicated that he wanted to carry out a mass murder as well. He was diagnosed with selective mutism in social situations and depression. At this point, he was given a prescription for antidepressants, after which his condition improved.

Cho had an above average IQ and, with special accommodations in high school, his grades were high enough that he was accepted at Virginia Tech. In eleventh grade, he had improved enough that he was able to stop the counseling sessions and never resumed them after he graduated and began attending college.

As a college sophomore, Cho’s grades began to drop. He changed his major to English, a subject that he struggled with. He became disruptive in class and his creative writing assignments reflected dark and violent themes. He was accused of stalking a female student and had stabbed the carpet with a knife at a party. A friend reported that Cho had threatened to kill himself and Cho admitted to having depression and anxiety, although he denied having suicidal thoughts according to ABC News. Cho talked to three counselors, but failed to come to counseling appointments and pursue treatment. Throughout his school career, Cho was known for not speaking or speaking in barely audible tones.

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, the Columbine killers, reportedly had different motives and illnesses. According to an assessment published in Slate, Klebold may have suffered from depression while Harris was likely a psychopath. Based on his journal, a panel of psychologists, psychiatrists, and FBI agents point to Harris’ contempt for others and his total lack of empathy and conscience as evidence of his psychopathic tendencies. Dr. Peter Langman, formerly a clinical director at Kids Peace Hospital and author of “Why Kids Kill,” agrees. His analysis of the writings of Klebold and Harris agrees that Harris was a psychopath while Klebold apparently suffered from a variety of psychoses including depression, paranoia, delusions and disorganized thinking. The two teens famously enjoyed violent video games as well.

Michael Brandon Hill, the gunman who invaded a school in Decatur, Ga. last month, also had a history of mental illness and a criminal record according Examiner. A quick-thinking school receptionist was able to convince Hill to surrender after exchanging shots with police.

There seems to be broad support for a system of screening students for mental illness. Dr. Harold Koplewicz wrote in the Huffington Post that 75 percent of psychiatric disorders appear by age 24 and that early intervention greatly improves the prognosis. Dr. Bill Knaus of the Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy network points out that many mentally ill people are not aware of their illness and therefore will not voluntarily seek help. A particularly dangerous time seems to be when people stop taking their medication, especially if they do so abruptly and without supervision.

One solution to the problem of the mentally ill committing massacres would be reforming laws to allow state and local governments more flexibility in involuntarily committing people who might be a danger to themselves and others. This should include follow up visits to confirm that they remain on their medication and that their condition remains stable. This may also require that privacy laws be amended so that information can be shared between agencies. Such an approach has been used in Colorado where Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, reformed the state’s involuntary treatment laws in the wake of James Holmes’ killing spree.

A second strategy is to change popular culture. As Lt. Col. Dave Grossman describes on killology.com, violent images and games can condition children to kill in much the same manner that armies condition soldiers to be able to pull the trigger. Although popular culture does not turn all children into remorseless killers, the combination of cultural cues and mental illness may combine to push some people over the edge.

Finally, acting to preserve the family would help to grow stable adults. Children from single parent families and broken homes are far more likely to turn to crime and violence than children who come from stable families as Examiner previously reported. Single parent families are also far more likely to live in poverty and require government assistance as well.

There is a legitimate role for governments to play in keeping firearms out of the hands of potentially dangerous mental patients. However, addressing the underlying issues is much more difficult than returning to traditional and ineffective forms of gun control.

Originally published by Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Who killed Trayvon Martin? An honest discussion of race and crime

Earlier this week on July 16, Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the NAACP convention in Orlando in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict. In the speech, Holder said that the “tragedy provides yet another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly – and openly – about the complicated and emotionally-charged issues that this case has raised.” In truth, the national conversation about the killing of Trayvon Martin has been anything but honest. 

George Zimmerman admits that he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Even though Zimmerman pulled the trigger to fire the shot that ultimately killed Martin, he was not the only cause of Martin’s death. There seems to be plenty of blame to go around.

As noted in Examiner, Zimmerman, a registered Democrat, lived in a racially mixed neighborhood. In fact, Martin’s father’s girlfriend lived in the same neighborhood. It is unlikely that Zimmerman would have thought the mere presence of a black teenager would be alarming unless he was acting suspiciously. The Daily Caller reported in April 2012 that Zimmerman was one of few people in Sanford who pushed for justice in 2010 when the son of a white police officer beat a black man.

It seems likely that there is more to the case than the media narrative of a racist neighborhood watch captain killing an innocent black teenager. In many accidents, investigators point to a chain of events that lead up to the final incident. If any of the events that link together to cause the accident had not occurred the accident chain might have been broken. In the case of Trayvon Martin, there are several links in the chain.

The most obvious link in the chain is the string of burglaries that occurred in George Zimmerman’s neighborhood prior to his encounter with Trayvon Martin. According to CNN, there were at least eight burglaries within the previous 14 months. CNN notes that witnesses reported black males were responsible in three to four of the incidents while the other four had no witnesses or suspects. One resident said that George Zimmerman had called to alert police to a burglary in progress at his home on Feb. 2. Zimmerman’s call noted that the burglar in this case was also a black man.

According to the FBI, blacks represent 28 percent of arrests in the United States even though they make up only 13 percent of the population according to the Census Bureau. This means that they commit a disproportionate number of crimes compared to other demographic groups. Half of all murder arrests and more than half of robbery arrests are blacks. Thirty-one percent of burglary arrests are blacks. The statistics are even higher for juvenile arrests. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, blacks are “disproportionately represented among both homicide victims and offenders.”

None of this means that every black person should be automatically suspected of criminal behavior. However, it does show that if a black teenager is acting strangely and looking into houses as Zimmerman alleges, investigating further is not unreasonable. The very purpose for the existence of a neighborhood watch is to be alert for suspicious activity regardless of race.

The question is why crime and incarceration rates among blacks are so much higher than their share of the total population. The answer can likely be found in the destruction of the black family. Data from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that 67 percent of black children live in single-parent households. This is a far greater rate than for other races. Seventy-two percent of black children are born to unwed mothers according to NBC News.

The link between single-parent families and risky behaviors of children is well established. According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, especially when the absent parent is the father, children are much more likely to become sexually active, use drugs, and have increased risk of juvenile delinquency.

The underlying truths represented by these statistics may have shaped Trayvon Martin’s young life. Martin’s step-mother, Alicia Stanley, raised him for 14 years until she and Trayvon’s father, Tracy Martin, divorced. Trayvon apparently changed after the divorce. In a CNN interview, Stanley said that he wasn’t a “thug” and that language like “creepy-ass cracker” was not used their home. Stanley said that she did not believe that race was a factor in the shooting.

Nevertheless, New York Times reported that, after the shooting, pictures and text messages found on Trayvon’s cell phone included guns, drugs, fighting and the fact that he had been kicked out of his mother’s house. One picture apparently shows Martin smoking marijuana, which has been shown to cause aggression, anxiety and paranoia. The Daily Mail reports that Trayvon was suspended from school three times in the months before his death. Reasons for the suspensions were possession of a burglary tool and jewelry, truancy, and possession of marijuana paraphernalia. Twitter messages refer to Trayvon hitting a bus driver. (Martin’s complete tweets can be viewed here.) ABC News also reported that Martin’s autopsy showed THC, the drug found in marijuana, in his blood.

In one eerily prescient exchange of text messages, reported in the Miami Herald, a friend asked Trayvon “so you just turning into a lil hoodlum [?]” and then warned “Boy don’t get one planted in ya chest.” Three months later, Trayvon was dead.

There were many links in the chain that led to Trayvon Martin’s death. George Zimmerman’s ill-considered decision to follow the teen is only the most obvious. Directly related to Zimmerman’s paranoia was the spate of burglaries that local police either could not or would not solve. The “broken windows” theory of policing holds that prosecution of small crimes can prevent larger, more violent crimes. In this case, if the police had solved the string of burglaries, they might have prevented an assault and killing. Likewise, if Trayvon’s parents and school administrators had reacted more strongly to the warning signs in his academic career, he might have been “scared straight.”

The biggest and most difficult link to break is the destruction of the black family. Trayvon Martin’s problems may have stemmed from the divorce of his father and step-mother. Like many children of divorce, Martin seems to have begun having trouble at school, become involved with drugs, and finally graduated to violence. Eyewitness testimony, reported by ABC News, supports Zimmerman’s story that he was pinned by Martin and screamed for help. If Martin had returned to his father’s girlfriend’s home rather than turning to confront Zimmerman, regardless of who threw the first punch, he would be alive today. His anger, resulting from anger at his parents’ divorce and compounded by drug use, may have played a role in his decision not to walk away.

Bill Cosby is one of the few black leaders who is willing to speak frankly about the problems facing the black community. In a 2011 interview with the Christian Post, Cosby decried the rise in single-parent families and the “media that romanticizes criminal behavior, things that a person will say against women, profanity, being gangster, having multiple children with multiple men and women and not wanting to is prevalent.”

The way to prevent more Trayvon Martins is not banning stand-your-ground laws, guns or hoodies. Preventing the deaths of more young black men and women starts with repairing the damage to the black family, a much more difficult task than demonizing George Zimmerman. Perhaps that is why so many choose to ignore the problem.

Originally published as Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Troy Davis and the minority death penalty

This week’s execution of convicted cop-killer Troy Davis in Georgia had sparked protests and appeals for clemency from around the world. Even many people who normally support the death penalty believed that with the recanted testimonies of several prosecution witnesses, there was too much doubt to allow the execution of Davis to proceed.

In many cases, the race of the defendant is a factor in opposition to the death penalty. Critics have long charged that there is discrimination in the application of the death penalty. According to census.gov, blacks make up about 12 percent of the US population and 30 percent of the population of Georgia. Hispanics make up 16 percent of the US population and eight percent of Georgia’s.

In contrast, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, the number of blacks on death row and who have already been executed is out of proportion the percentage of blacks in the general population. Recent statistics show that 44 percent of death row inmates are white and an approximately equal percentage, 42 percent, are black. Hispanics make up 12 percent of death row inmates. In the past, 56 percent of executed inmates have been white. Thirty-five percent of past executions have killed blacks and seven percent have killed Hispanics. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, blacks are imprisoned at a much higher rate than Latinos or whites.

Rather than racism, the racial disparity on death row and in our prisons can most likely be attributed to the disintegration of the black family over the past half century. President Obama recognized the problem in a Father’s Day address in 2008 when he said, “More than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children.” According to Politifact, the percentage of black single parent families has risen from 22 percent in 1960 to 54 percent in 2006.

Put another way, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 67 percent of black children grow in single-parent homes, as do 53 percent of American Indians and 40 percent of Hispanics. The percentage of white children in single-family homes, 24 percent, is much less but still significant.

Many of these fatherless children end up inside prisons. Troy Davis was one. According to the Savannah Morning News, Davis’ mother divorced his father when Troy was very young. The oldest of five children, Troy was forced to grow up at an early age.

Without positive male role models, many children from single-parent families get into trouble with the law according to statistics on divorcereform.org. Children who grow up without fathers are twice as likely to become juvenile delinquents or teenage mothers. Seventy percent of long term prison inmates, 60 percent of rapists, and 75 percent of juvenile murderers grew up without fathers. Children without fathers are more likely to drop out of school and are 40 times more likely to become victims of child abuse.

By the time children reach their teens or, as with Troy Davis, they are sent to prison or death row, it is often too late. Chuck Colson, himself a former inmate, started Prison Fellowship in 1977 as a ministry to reach out to prisoners and their families. The ministries of Prison Fellowship include Angel Tree, which gives Christmas presents to the children of prison inmates, and Innerchange, a faith-based program for prisoners that focuses on rehabilitation instead of merely punishing prisoners.

Much of the blame for the destruction of the black family unit can ultimately be traced to well-intentioned federal programs. As Walter Williams explained in the Wall Street Journal, “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn't do, what Jim Crow couldn't do, what the harshest racism couldn't do, and that is to destroy the black family.”

The fatherless upbringing of Troy Davis does not excuse his shooting of Michael Cooper, his assault on Larry Young, or his murder of Mark MacPhail, but it does help us to understand why he committed those crimes. More importantly, it gives us clues about how to keep from raising another generation of violent criminals.

The answer to the problem of greater percentages of minorities on death row or incarcerated in our prisons is not to impose racial quotas on the death chamber or to release large numbers of convicted criminals back into society. The way to address the problem of crime by children from single-parent families is to address the problem of single-parent families. Steps must be taken to minimize divorce and promote stable marriages. This is the way to save the next Troy Davis.

Read this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/troy-davis-minorities-and-the-death-penalty

Marriage can be antidote to poverty

Portman (Josh Jensen/Wikimedia Commons)

Many Atlantans probably heard Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, when he appeared on the Michael Medved Show on February 28.  Huckabee and Medved discussed the Oscars and Natalie Portman’s pregnancy.  Both men agreed that the out-of-wedlock pregnancy of Portman, as well as other high profile stars, sent a “problematic message.”  Huckabee went on to say, “Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care.  And that’s the story that we’re not seeing.”  This week Huckabee, who won Georgia’s 2008 Republican presidential primary, has been taking heat for his comments. 

As it turns out, there is a lot of evidence to support Huckabee’s position.  The United States is a prosperous country by most standards, but there are always exceptions.  Consistently, just fewer than 15% of Americans are considered to live in poverty.  This number has remained relatively constant since the 1960s.  About 20% of Americans in poverty are under 18 years old.  .  Statistically, it is far more likely that members of single parent families will live in poverty than any other group.  This points to the breakdown of the family as a causative factor in child poverty.

Census data shows a dramatic increase in US divorce rates over the past half century.  The divorce rate rose sharply in the 1970s and remains high, although slightly lower than its highest point which was in 1979 and 1981.  Georgia has had a low divorce rate in the past, but it is rising because, even though the number of divorces is falling, the number of marriages is falling even more.  Three towns in Georgia (Dalton, Albany, and Warner Robins) are among the cities with the highest divorce rates in the nation.  The US divorce rate is one of the highest in the world.

The increase in divorce corresponds to the years following the implementation of President Johnson’s Great Society programs, specifically the expansion of welfare to include people who are not elderly or disabled.  Making welfare available to single parents removed a negative consequence of raising a child outside of marriage (although many other negative consequences remain).  The majority of teenage girls no longer believe that having a baby outside of marriage will cause problems in their life.

To be fair, statistics do show a decrease in the overall rate of poverty since the Great Society, at least until the current Great Recession.  This is largely due to a decrease in poverty in senior citizens.  This may be due to the implementation of Medicare, a health insurance program for the Americans age 65 and over.  By the standards of government social programs, Medicare is successful in that it did meet its goal of helping to reduce poverty of the elderly. 

On the other hand, Medicare is very expensive and getting more so.  In 2010, Medicare alone costs $452 billion, over 12% of the federal budget.  This figure alone does not reflect the true cost of Medicare because the program reimburses doctors at artificially low rates.  This means that doctors must make up those losses by charging other patients more.  More and more doctors are refusing to take Medicare patients at all.  Even charging below market rates for care, Medicare is projected to be insolvent by 2017, only six years from now.

Huckabee (David Ball/Wikimedia Commons)

Statistics show that marriage tends to be associated with lower rates of poverty.  The highest rates of poverty are in families headed by a single woman with children under eighteen.  Almost 40% of these families are under the poverty line.  One quarter of American kids are raised in single parent families and 84% of these families are headed by women.  Most of these women are divorced or separated (58%) or were never married at all (24%).  The idea that poverty is strongly linked to single parent families is borne out by statistics.

Intuitively this makes sense.  If you are a parent, you know how expensive it is to raise children.  In a two income family, both parents are working to pay for food, shelter, clothing, childcare, and other necessary expenditures.  When there are two parents but only one income, child care, a major expenditure is removed, as are costs associated with the second spouse’s job, such as transportation, business attire, and meals.  Additionally, the working spouse does not have to lose income or use sick days when a child is sick. 

On the other hand, a single parent family has only one income (although often multiple jobs) for all necessary expenditures.  This often includes childcare costs since the children cannot stay home alone while the parent earns an income.  When a child is sick, the parent often cannot work unless extended family members or friends can care for the child.  The difficulty and the costs are compounded when there is more than one child.  This is not to say that many or most single parents are not dedicated and loving parents, but they start at a tremendous disadvantage.

The societal costs of single parent families are not limited to the cost of government programs.  One of the most obvious costs involves the fact that children who are unsupervised are more likely to get into trouble.  Children from single parent families are more likely to act out and be aggressive.  They are also more likely to become unwed or divorced parents themselves, perpetuating the cycle of poverty.

It should be in the government’s interest to reduce the number of failing marriages and out-of-wedlock births because this would reduce the number of Americans that are dependent on government entitlements.  Factors that are known to affect the chances of making marriage last include the age of a woman at the time of marriage, whether she was raised in an intact two-parent family, whether religion plays an important role, and whether she had a high income or lived in an area with a high median income, low male unemployment, and low poverty.  Additionally, people who divorce once are more likely to divorce if they marry again.  Unmarried cohabitation is more than twice as likely to result in a breakup as a marriage.

The government can act to reduce the divorce rate by repealing no fault divorce laws and requiring marriage counseling prior to divorce.  In Georgia, a divorce can be granted if only one spouse can establish that refusal to live with the other and that there is no hope of reconciliation.  In approximately 55% of divorces, only one spouse wants out of the marriage and there is no clearly defined cause.  Many of these marriages could be saved.  Further, the government could launch public awareness campaigns similar to anti-smoking and anti-drug campaigns to promote marriage and marriage counseling. 

(Joe Mabel / Wikimedia Commons)

Ultimately, it is up to the spouses to fight for their own marriage and family.  Love alone is not enough to make a successful marriage.  It takes work and communication.  A series at Peachtree Community Church in Villa Rica recently covered the four communication patterns that most threaten marriage from the book Fighting for Your Marriage.  Withdrawal occurs when one spouse is unwilling to engage in important conversations.  Escalation occurs when spouses raise the stakes, making an argument more and more hostile.  Invalidation is when a spouse puts down another, either intentionally or not.  Negative interpretation occurs when one spouse sees the other’s behavior more negatively than was intended.  These communication patterns are found in over 90% of distressed marriages.  (The two-sermon series for February 13 and 20, 2011 is available for download at peachtreecc.org.)

Peachtree Community Church pastor David Reid also recently authored the book Leading to the Bedroom, a couple’s guide to more satisfying sex.  In the book, Reid points out that when faced with conflict, the result for most people is to either get angry or go passive.  Neither is good for communication in a marriage.  To strengthen a marriage, spouses must overcome these natural tendencies.  The ultimate result will be both a stronger marriage and a more intimate and exciting sexual relationship between the spouses.

It is up to the men of Georgia and the United States to step up and work for their marriages and families.  Traditionally, men are the head of the household, but over past decades there has been a tendency for men to become withdrawn and delegate their family responsibilities to women.  This is probably partly due to the fact that welfare makes it more acceptable for them to run out on their kids.  Media focus on sex and portrayals of strong women and shiftless men may also be a factor.  The fact that many boys from broken families grow up without a positive male role model undoubtedly also contributes to the vicious cycle.  All of these factors (and more) combine to make negative changes in the way society views families and parenting. 

The stability of the family is a key to America’s future stability and prosperity.  It is one of the most important issues that we face as a country and one that we must address. 

The Michael Medved Show airs weekdays in Atlanta from 3-6 p.m. on WGKA AM920.  The show can also be downloaded as a podcast on MichaelMedved.com for a small fee.  Archives of the show, including the February 28 interview with Mike Huckabee, are also available on the website.

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