Earlier this month was a celebration of “World Refugee Day.” While immigrant activists were talking about the need to provide safe places for refugees, other commentators reminded us that many diseases were making a comeback in America.

The returning diseases are: tuberculosis, mumps, measles, whooping cough, scarlet fever, and the bubonic plague. It is probably safe to say that many doctors may not have even seen some of these diseases until now. My grandfather’s doctor saw many of them in the 1930s and 1940s, but vaccines and improved public health nearly eradicated them from the population.

What changed? One word: immigration. An article in Breitbart estimates that the number of foreign-born residents in this country has increased by 31 million in the last three decades. In the past, doctors at Ellis Island were watching for signs of contagious diseases. Today immigrants coming to this country (both legally and illegally) can bring diseases into this country we haven’t seen in significant numbers in decades.

Consider tuberculosis. Back in 1986, less then a quarter (22%) of the active cases occurred in foreign born. Today, two-thirds (66%) of the active cases are foreign born. Back in 1926, there were over 200,000 cases of whooping cough. A half-century later, the disease had nearly been eliminated. By the late 1980s it crept back up, but now the cases are 30 times the number of cases reported a few decades ago. Similar increases can be found for other diseases.

The next president and the next Surgeon General will have to set forth common sense procedures to deal with diseases that are once again returning to America. The first step is to recognize that this is a problem and begin a discussion. But that won’t be easy in a politically correct culture where some believe such a discussion is anti-immigrant. It isn’t anti-immigrant, but it is anti-disease.

A federal subsidy, often called “the Obamaphone,” could be losing nearly $500 million annually. That is the accusation made by one FCC Commissioner in a letter sent to the Universal Service Administrative Company. The company is a nonprofit organization that administers a fund that provides a monthly $9.95 subsidy for telecom service to low-income consumers.

The subsidy has expanded beyond its initial purpose. It was originally established to help low-income consumers in rural areas obtain access to 911 services. It was then expanded to include cellular devices. In March it expanded again to include Internet service.

The subsidy is limited to one per “independent economic household.” But cell phone companies can override that restriction if applicants check a box stating they represent a separate household, even if they have the same address. This is where the FCC Commissioner suspects fraud has taken place. More than 35 percent of the cell phone subscribers used this override. The annual cost for these apparent duplicates is nearly $500 million.

The Obamaphone story illustrates two key principles about government programs. First, once a program is started it never dies, but usually expands. The original government program was to provide 911 service to low-income consumers in rural areas. The Obamaphone has become a fixture in urban communities across the nation.

Second, any government program can be subject to fraud and abuse, especially when government agencies are lax in enforcement. The override process was supposed to help a few, but people figured out how to game the system and get an Obamaphone for more than just one family member.

If you want to understand why so much fraud exists in the federal government, you just need to look at what has happened in the last few years with the Obamaphone.

In a recent column, Mollie Hemingway documents that “religious illiteracy among journalists is reaching crisis levels.” She mentions a column from a number of years ago by Terry Mattingly with the title, “Reporters, crow’s ears, and Karma Light nuns” that provides some humorous examples of reporters who obviously know nothing about Christianity in general or Catholics in particular. She also reminds us of reporters who thought Jesus was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and that Easter marks the time when Jesus was resurrected into heaven.

We may merely shake our heads at such illiteracy, but we should be concerned with the latest claim made in the pages of the New York Times. Jeremy Peters wrote about the political divide on gay rights because of the shooting in Orlando. He then goes on to talk about a member of Congress who supposedly read a Bible verse from the book of Romans “that calls for the execution of gays.”

Even someone with just a Sunday school understanding of the Bible knows that is not what the Apostle Paul is calling for in the book of Romans. In order to back up such an outrageous claim, Peters links to a story from Roll Call that makes the same claim. The Congressman mentioned in the article actually read from Romans 1 and a few verses from the Book of Revelation. These verses do not call for the execution of gays.

By the way, if you are looking for any religious works that do call for the execution of homosexuals, you might look at another religion. Andrew McCarthy recently wrote a piece with the title: “Killing Homosexuals Is Not ISIS Law, It Is Muslim Law.” He takes the time to quote from the classic sharia manual (Reliance of the Traveller) to show that killing homosexuals or adulterers is commanded. He then quotes extensively from one of Sunni Islam’s most influential sharia jurists.

Apparently journalists who want to find a religious text that justifies killing gays have been looking in the wrong place.

America may be a divided country politically, but there are some issues where there is near universal agreement. That would certainly be the case with corporate welfare, or what many call “crony capitalism.” Progressives and conservatives are against it because the government favors some companies over other companies and because taxpayers are on the hook to help large corporations.

Brent Gardner argues in an op-ed column that it is time to end “the corporate welfare circus.” Not only is this a problem at the federal level (with tax loopholes, tax cuts, and carve outs), it has become an issue at the state level.

Boeing assembles jetliners in the world’s largest building in Everett, Washington. It announced a few years ago that it was looking for a location to build its new 777 plane. In order to keep Boeing from leaving, the state of Washington had to put together a $8.7 billion package, which is the largest such giveaway in American history.

There are many other examples. North Carolina sent $320 million to Apple and $250 million to Google so they would build data servers in the Tar Heel State. Kentucky gave $500 million in tax breaks and subsidies for Toyota and Ford auto plants. Nevada delivered $1.3 billion to Tesla Motors to build an electric-car-battery plant.

Akash Chougule (Americans for Prosperity) was on my radio program and made a good point. If a tax break was a good thing for one company, then it should also be good for all companies. Essentially, these state governments are making the case for cutting the tax rate and reducing intrusive regulation that prevents job growth.

Unfortunately, state governments seem all to willing to play favorites and pay certain companies so they will stay within their state borders or be enticed to relocate to their state. This is crony capitalism at its worst.

“What are your kids up to this summer?” KJ Dell-Antonia begins her New York Times column with that question. Although it sounds like a casual question, it strikes at the heart of the problem many parents face when summer vacation arrives.

If there is a Mom or Dad at home, the answer to the question isn’t as tough as when either both parents work or a single parent works. Then it becomes a financial and logistical nightmare. This is especially true if finances are tight and there is no money for day care or for a summer camp. Many of the parents she talked to were living paycheck to paycheck and could not afford additional summer expenses.

Children are often left with an older child or a neighbor. Sometimes they are merely plopped in front of the television set with full run of the house. That is hardly the vision we had in the past of kids playing baseball and romping through the lawn sprinklers.

There is also an educational cost that she describes in her column. Most children lose math skills over the summer. Even greater is the fact that low-income children lose (on average) more than two months of reading skills and don’t gain them back in the fall. That puts them three years behind their peers by the end of the fifth grade.

Some educators have suggested year-round schools with longer breaks throughout the year. That would be the death of summer camps and especially Christian camps. Longer breaks might prevent learning lost but it doesn’t really solve the problem for parents who work. Their kids would still be off about the same amount of time but just at different intervals. Even in countries that have year-round schools the breaks still last about six weeks.

Summer break is an American tradition that arose out of the need for farm children to help with the harvest and to do necessary chores. It is still a great idea but it hits working parents hardest because many of them simply cannot afford summer.

Should the next president try to relocate some branches of the federal government? Presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders expressed their disillusionment with a government that seems to live by the motto “business as usual.” The concentration of power in Washington with bureaucracies and lobbyists almost assures that nothing will change. Perhaps moving some of the government outside of Washington would be a positive step.

Over the years I have tried to get a conversation going about this. Once I brought the subject up at a Washington dinner. The woman at the table was horrified by the idea, so I dropped the subject. So I was glad to read that Paul Kupiec is also suggesting that it may be time to relocate the federal government.

When I was in graduate school at Georgetown University I saw how Washington was a money machine for government employees and political insiders. Eleven of the twenty richest counties in America are located in the Washington, D.C. metro area. It is not only rich, but it is out of touch. Former Vice President Hubert Humphrey described Washington as 26 square miles surrounded by reality.

The cost savings could be significant. Moving the Department of Homeland Security to another state would cost less. Every year government employees receive cost-of-living federal salary adjustments because it is so much more expensive to live in the Washington, D.C. area. Why not relocate the Department of Agriculture to a state where agriculture is the main industry?

In previous centuries, it made sense to have all the government functions in the same area. Modern telecommunications and transportation systems make that unnecessary. Distributing some of the federal bureaucracies across the country could reduce cost and bring economic development to parts of the country that need it. It would also lead to increased voter perception of equality and fairness.

Relocating the federal government may not happen, but it should if we really want to shake up Washington

We all know the value of a correct diagnosis. If your doctor can give you the right diagnosis for your symptoms, he or she will be more likely to prescribe the correct medicine or treatment regime. If your car stops working, you certainly hope your mechanic can figure what is wrong so he can fix it.

Shortly after the mass shooting in Orlando, we heard lots of theories. Hillary Clinton put forth two. First, she talked about the fact that the “gunman attacked an LGBT nightclub during Pride Month.” That was evidence that there is lots of hate in the world and illustrated the need to continue to promote the homosexual-transgender agenda.

She also focused on the need to keep guns “out of the hands of terrorists or other violent criminals.” In fact, she argued that: “weapons of war have no place in our streets.” If that phrase “weapons of war” seems odd, it is the term more and more progressives are using to describe the AR-15 rifle. This focus-group-tested-phrase makes the gun sound more dangerous.

Colonel Allen West had a very different diagnosis. He explained that this shooting took place during the period know as Ramadan. “Any Islamic jihadist who kills infidels and dies doing so during this period is awarded what is called ‘shaheed.’ It is an elevated status of Islamic jihadism.” The shooter was Muslim, shouted “Allahu Akbar” during the attack and pledged his allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Colonel West didn’t need to look any further for a motive. We have seen this in Fort Hood, we have seen this at the Chattanooga Navy Reserve Facility, and we have seen this in San Bernardino. He also knew what to prescribe: bring the war to ISIS before ISIS brings the war to us.

Everybody these days has a diagnosis of the problem, but some seem more reasonable than others. If we can get the correct diagnosis, then perhaps we can begin to treat and eliminate the disease.

After the worst mass shooting in American history took place in Orlando, people were asking what we could do to fight domestic terrorism. Some practical, common sense ideas have surfaced in the last week that deserve attention.

The editors at National Review called for a long-term strategy to fight Islamic terrorism. First, they recommend that the U.S. no longer treat the Islamic State, a resurgent al-Qaeda, or other terrorist groups as distant enemies. They are bringing the war to our shores and will continue to do so unless we implement tactics to stamp them out.

Second, our foreign policy and military policy must prevent the establishment of safe havens for terrorists. The drawdown of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan made it possible for these safe havens to exist. We should also aid our Kurdish allies in their fight against ISIS.

Third, we must prevent the recruitment of disaffected Muslim men and women. That will require more than “positive messaging” from the government. We must also discredit the radical Muslim ideology that appeals to so many.

The editors of the Wall Street Journal also believe we can fight domestic terrorists with “sting” operations. It is often hard to second-guess the motives of some Muslims. Have an undercover agent invite him to take a step toward violence. If he refuses, then he is probably not a threat. If he accepts, then you know his intentions.

I saw the impact of this in Dallas. A few years ago, I was near a building that a suspected terrorist thought he was going to blow up. The undercover agent gave him a fake bomb, which the suspected terrorist attempted to explode. Fortunately, the bomb wasn’t real or I might have experienced something that could have felt like 9/11.

These domestic terrorists seek to kill and disrupt our way of life. It is time to take the fight to them before they kill others.

You may have noticed that the contentious issues in the culture war seem to be coming faster and with more intensity. In a recent commentary, Kevin Williamson validates that observation.

He begins by reminding us how long it took for homosexuality to become mainstream. The decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual took place in 1973. But homosexual acts were still listed as criminal for an additional 30 years until the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas overturned laws on homosexual sodomy. He then reminds us that even after ruling, both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton ran as candidates in 2008 opposing same-sex marriage. By contrast, he says “transgenderism took a shorter and much more direct path.”

Both the speed and intensity have been greater on the transgender issue. We can look at what the Obama administration has threatened in North Carolina when the state legislature offered what most would think would be a reasonable accommodation. We can look to New York City where the mayor threatens nonconforming businesses and other establishments with huge fines if they do not adjust to transgender demands.

Kevin Williamson shares his own experience when the Chicago Sun Times reprinted his essay from National Review that raised important questions about surgical attempts to change a person’s sexual organs. The firestorm of reaction illustrates one point. Another point comes from the fact that he quoted from Dr. Paul McHugh who has been critical of sex-reassignment surgery. A number of studies show that: “Such surgery often is harmful, or produces harmful results.” Kevin Williamson wonders, though, if someone like Dr. McHugh would even be allowed to publish such an essay today.

This is the result of an aggressive transgender culture war.