Saudi Oil Field Crisis

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The conflict in the Middle East, among Shiites and Sunnis goes back to the time of prophet Muhammad himself.

When prophet Muhammad died, the infighting started in earnest among the various factions. Each demanding Bay’a (pledge of allegiance) with another clan. People jockeyed for power and did their Muslim-best to destroy their competition. Ali, Muhammad’s son-in-law was elbowed out of the way by the more powerful disciples of the prophet and had to wait his turn to head the already fractured and feuding Ummah. Several of the faithful resented the fact that Ali was not allowed to take over the leadership. Some felt victimized by Umar and his powerful conspirators and hated Ali for not standing and fighting like a man. Some real stand-and-fight Muslims decided that Ali should be punished and he was knifed to death on his way to the mosque

The death of Ali was the real stirring of the hornet’s nest, so to speak. All kinds of power struggle, infighting and bloodletting started among the followers of the religion of peace. To cut to the chase, the conflict in the Middle East has been ongoing and has not been settled. Most likely, it will never be settled.

To fully comprehend the scope of this new development in the Middle East and point fingers as to who is responsible for the Saudi oil field attacks, we need to understand their involvement and invasion against the Shiite Houthi insurgency in Yemen. In March 2015 when a Saudi Arabia-led alliance of ten mostly Arab states launched an operation of air strikes against the Houthis, this clash began. Saudi Arabia, considers the Houthis rebels as an Iranian proxy, therefore, they are doing everything within their power to counter the Islamic Republic’s influence.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS), titled, Yemen: Civil War and Regional Intervention has shed some light on a very convoluted issue. This report offers information and data about the continuing dilemma in Yamen.

According to this report:

“Overall, after five years of military operations against the Yemeni government and Saudi-led coalition, it would appear that the Houthis are better equipped with sophisticated weaponry than in previous conflicts against its rivals. According to one observer, “We have witnessed a massive increase in capability on the side of the Houthis in recent years, particularly relating to ballistic missiles and drone technology…. The current capability is far more advanced than anything the Yemeni armed forces had before the civil war.” In July 2019, the Houthis publicly displayed cruise missiles and UAVs in their arsenal and, according to one analysis, the Houthis are “revealing capabilities that Iran has been developing secretly for years.”

In May 2019, the Houthi faction declared they would target both the UAE and Saudi Arabia’s vulnerable facilities. Because the Houthis are supported by the Islamic regime in Iran, all the fingers are pointed at the Iranian regime.

According to Thomas Juneau of International Affairs:

“The Houthis, however, are not Iranian proxies; Tehran’s influence in Yemen is marginal. The civil war in Yemen is driven first and foremost by local and political factors, and is neither an international proxy war nor a sectarian confrontation. It is primarily a domestic conflict, driven by local grievances and local competition for power and resources.”

Conclusion

There is no doubt that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a leading state sponsor of terrorism worldwide. There is no doubt that the Islamic regime supports and finances many proxies in the region. There is also no question that the Iranian people have been experiencing Islamic justice by being arrested, raped, maimed and murdered for the crimes they have never committed. The wanton Islamic Republic of Iran has been at a murder and mayhem path for decades encouraged by an appeasing world.

Just a few reminders: The murderous villains took the life of several thousand Americans during the Iraq conflict without being punished for it. More recently they downed an American drone in the international air space without even getting a slap on their long blood-stained wrist. Then, they started piracy in the Persian Gulf. Nothing happened.

That said, yet, there are some diehard (MEK) Mujahidin Khalgh supporters who are pushing the US to go to war with Iran on behalf of the Saudis. Saudi Arabia started a war in Yemen that they cannot win. The Islamic Republic is facing serious setbacks with sanctions. It is just a matter of time for the regime to fall. The situation inside Iran is dire indeed.

Saudi Arabia is not our friend. In fact, they are America’s greatest nightmare. They are involved in all aspects of American life in the US and “Estimates are that the Saudis fund up to 80% of American mosques.” Let that sink in.

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Hints at New Iran Sanctions, Prefers to Avoid ‘Ultimate Option’ of War

Yes, America Is in the Midst of a Civil War

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Writers never know when something they write will strike a nerve—or, in the common phrase of the internet, “go viral.”

Yet my last column, “Why Conservatives Still Attack Trump,” did both. Aside from being reprinted on almost every conservative website, Newsweek published the column, and The New York Times quoted it.

More importantly, many major conservative writers responded to it, mostly in disagreement.

It is interesting that the column elicited so much attention. Maybe, like the man who bit the dog, an articulate case by a mainstream conservative in support of the president is so rare that people felt a need to publish it and respond to it.

Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to respond to some of the disagreements.

Before doing so, I want to note the respectful tone that permeated virtually every one of the disagreeing columns. We have enough cannibals on the left without conservatives eating each other up.

After reading the responses, I feel confident in saying that they confirmed my primary thesis: Anti-Trump conservatives do not believe that Americans are fighting what I call the Second Civil War, while pro-Trump conservatives do.

Indeed, Jonah Goldberg in National Review said as much. He denied that we are in the midst of a civil war on two grounds: One is that it is not violent, and the other is that we are fighting a “culture war,” not a civil war.

Whenever I write about the subject, I almost always note that this Second Civil War is not violent. I never thought that the word “war” must always include violence.

The word is frequently used in nonviolent contexts: the war against cancer, the war between the sexes, the war against tobacco, the Cold War, and myriad other nonviolent wars.

Perhaps Goldberg would respond that he did not write that all wars are violent, only that all civil wars are violent. But if there are nonviolent wars, there can be nonviolent civil wars.

Nevertheless, what most disturbs me is his second argument—articulated in various ways by most of those who disagreed with me—that there is simply no civil war. And many repeated the universal belief among Never-Trumpers that a Hillary Clinton victory would not have been a catastrophe.

My response is that “culture war” is much too tepid a term for what is going on now. Maybe anti-Trump conservatives are fighting a “culture war,” but the left is not.

The left is working to undo the American Revolution. It’s very close to doing so.

Of all people, one would think Goldberg would understand this. He is the author of what I consider to be a modern classic, “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Change.”

His book leads to one conclusion: We are fighting fascism. How is that not a civil war? When you fight fascism, you are not merely fighting a “culture war.”

So, shouldn’t the primary role of a conservative be to vanquish leftism? To me, that means strongly supporting the Republican president of the United States, who has staffed his Cabinet with conservatives and already won substantial conservative victories.

As I suggested in my previous column, conservatives would have been thrilled if any Republican president had achieved what Trump has at this point in his administration.

“But what about Trump’s character?” nearly all my critics ask. Or, as John Podhoretz, editor of Commentary Magazine, tweeted, “For Dennis Prager, who spent 40 years advocating for a moral frame for American politics, to argue as he argued today is, may I say, ironic.”

John Podhoretz
@jpodhoretz

For Dennis Prager, who spent 40 years advocating for a moral frame for American politics, to argue as he argued today is, may i say, ironic

First, I have indeed dedicated much of my life to advocating for morality—for ethical monotheism as the only way to achieve a moral world; for raising moral children (as opposed to concentrating, for example, on raising “brilliant” children); and for the uniquely great Judeo-Christian moral synthesis developed by the Founding Fathers of America.

But I have never advocated electing moral politicians.

Of course, I prefer people of good character in political office. But 30 years ago, I wrote an essay titled “Adultery and Politicians” in which I argued that what political leaders do is more important than their character.

To cite but one of an endless list of examples, I would prefer an adulterous president (like John F. Kennedy) who supported Israel than a faithful family man (like Jimmy Carter) who was an anti-Zionist.

Second, as a religious Jew, I learned from the Bible that God himself chose morally compromised individuals—like King David, who had a man killed in order to cover up the adultery he committed with the man’s wife, and the prostitute Rahab, who was instrumental in helping the Jews conquer Canaan—to accomplish some greater good.

(And, for the record, I am not suggesting that God chose Donald Trump.)

Third, though I listed his moral defects in column after column during the primaries, I believe that Trump is a better man than his critics maintain. I see no evidence, to cite one example, that he is a misogynist.

His comment about famous and powerful men being able to do what they want with women was

a) said in private—and we are fools if we assess people by their private comments (Harry Truman, a great president, frequently used “kike” in private comments about Jews);

b) not a statement about anything he had actually done;

c) not misogynistic, and

d) often true.

Fourth, even if he were as morally defective as his critics maintain, my response is this: Trump’s character is less morally significant than defeating the left.

If the left wins, America loses. And if America loses, evil will engulf the world.

COMMENTARY BY

Dennis Prager

Dennis Prager is a columnist for The Daily Signal, nationally syndicated radio host, and creator of PragerU. Twitter: .

Check out Dennis Prager’s latest book, “The Ten Commandments: Still the Best Moral Code”

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘America Was Never Great!’: Communist Group Burns American Flag as Trump Visits

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But is the answer really to create more laws around gun control, or is this just an opportunity to limit your Constitutional right to bear arms?

The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you better understand the 8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America.

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Trump’s White House Does More for Black Media Members Than Liberal Press Will Ever Tell You

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Last week Pastor Mark Burns, a Trump family confidant, and I facilitated a meeting at the White House for members of the executive board of the National Newspaper Publisher Association (NNPA).

NNPA is a trade association of more than 200 black-owned newspapers from across the United States.

The group has been around for more than 75 years.

Today, these 200 black newspapers reach more than 20 million black readers each week. Many of these newspapers have active websites and social media presences as well.

To be sure, certain publishers were skeptical about anything substantive coming out of such a meeting at the White House — yet the skepticism all but disappeared by the end of it.

Now, Pastor Burns — who runs Harvest Praise & Worship Center in South Carolina — and I have been tasked with making sure we follow up on all of the positive action items that flowed from the White House staff with whom we consulted.

When we called the Trump White House to gauge the openness to meeting with these newspaper owners, the answer was an unequivocal “yes.” Staff went on to ask, in fact, how soon we could organize this meeting.

We responded that the publishers were already in town for another conference, so we could facilitate asap. The White House seemed to moved heaven and earth to accommodate our meeting request.

Right about now, you might be asking, “Who in the White House would show this level of interest in meeting these influential newspaper publishers?”

The answer is that Stephanie Grisham, Hogan Gidley, and Darin Miller hosted the meeting with us.

Grisham is the White House press secretary; Gidley is the White House principal deputy press secretary; and Miller is deputy press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence.

This shows the level of seriousness given to this meeting. These three senior aides have the ear of the president and vice president; and we were told that both President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence would be briefed on our meeting and that the three individuals we met with would communicate how pleased they were with the dialogue that took place.

Oh, and did I tell you the White House thought enough of this group that the meeting didn’t just take place in just “any” of the meeting rooms in the White House — it took place in the vice president’s ceremonial office? This office is an ornate, historic room that is typically reserved for special occasions. Based on this, I will let you draw your own conclusions!

Grisham, Gidley, and Miller expressed great appreciation the group had made the time to get-together. The show of humility was very moving.

The aides asked the publishers to speak up about any concerns they might want or need addressed. The biggest concern by far was a lack of access to the White House and various administration officials.

The group was given an ironclad commitment this would no longer be an issue. They vowed to assist the publishers with access to various administration officials they were trying to reach for stories they were in the process of working on and reporting. Their job is to serve all of the American people, they stressed — not merely those who support the administration.

The aides indicated they wanted to have an ongoing dialogue with this group so that they could continue to build better relations with America’s black press.

There are about five follow-up items Pastor Burns and I will be handling; everyone involved thought this was a great first meeting.

The final thing Grisham, Gidley, and Miller said that left a good impression was that they were not necessarily expecting glowing stories about the administration — though they would welcome that. Rather, they felt it critical the administration was given an opportunity to present its side of whatever issue the media might be addressing. That’s all most people can ask.

The Trump administration has a great story to tell relative to the black community. It now has a chance to be heard directly by over 20 million blacks every week.

The Democrats’ biggest fear, it seems, is that the Trump administration will speak directly to the black community in a substantive, meaningful way without political input from the Left.

Yet Pastor Burns and I are committed to working with the Trump White House to share the administration’s message of hope and progress directly with the black community throughout the U.S.

After all, what do we have to lose?

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EDITORS NOTE: This LifeZette column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Weekend Revelations, Stories of the Holocaust and Eternal Hope

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(These are my views as a woman living in England, on how the culture and spirit of my country has changed over 50 years.   Why the country does not feel protected or strong any more, how it has lost, and is losing it values and decency, and how we are daily losing our free speech.)

Friday 29th August, 2019

It is pretty amazing what can happen all in the space of 3 days. What had started with a simple trip one Friday afternoon to an air-show to help hand out some leaflets for some friends, had also turned into an unexpected lunch with a young German couple and their child, an evening listening to Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, step-sister to Anne Frank, and a cosy evening curled up on my friend’s settee viewing a new film with a very strange title called ‘The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society’.

You just couldn’t have made it all up. Yet the air show, the film and the meetings, although separated over the length of 3 days, were all so closely connected, telling the story of life, sacrifice, death and resurrection,  that I had to write it all down. For you see they had also carried another message…….

Saturday 30th August, 2019

As we wandered through the crowds that Saturday afternoon handing out leaflets, some of the spectators and air enthusiasts would have witnessed in the skies the Battle of Britain Memorial flights consisting of Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters. There were warbirds including the Buchon, Spitfire, P-47D Thunderbolt and Mustang; and there was a P-8A Poseidon Surveillance aircraft, which has a wingspan of 40 metres, developed for the U.S. Navy.

Even some miles away you would have been able to hear the noise of their engines even if you couldn’t witness them.  Sometimes, and most especially in the evening, they had sounded like thunder in the distance warning people of an impending storm

Some of the planes were very reminiscent of a bygone era. However, on the ground that day there was a strange battle of another kind taking place which were definitely in conflict with the lessons we should learn from history.

A sea of demonstrators all representing many different groups appeared within the crowds.  We were faced with people waving blue and yellow star spangled EU flags, people waving rainbow coloured flags, placards were being carried calling for democracy, banners and posters were being displayed to ‘out’ the prime minister, Boris Johnson, and demonstrations against climate change, were all inter-mingled and all attempting to make their voices heard above the sounds of rock music from one area and 40’s swing music from another area.   It was all one crazy market place.

The peacefulness at my friend’s home was a very welcome relief as that evening we watched the strangely titled film “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society” which tells the true story of the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War and reflects the resistance that some Guernsey residents displayed towards the Nazi’s. [LINK]

In 2010, it was also reported that testimonies from resistance fighters in Guernsey were discovered by a research team from the University of Cambridge indicating that many resistance fighters were deported by cattle trucks from the island to be imprisoned in Germany. Many, however, also died on the way, and it is reported from those testimonies that the other prisoners were forced to bury them. [LINK]

Sunday 31st August 2019

The next day as the sounds of the rumbling aircrafts once more filled the skies we left the crowds and joined some friends for lunch. A couple from Germany, with their young child were staying with my friends. They were aged just 21. They were Christian and had a very strong and humble faith. I was particularly struck by their responsibility to their young daughter and how the husband only spoke English to the child whilst the mother spoke German.  The young man explained to me how he had been tempted by friends on some occasions to ‘go with the crowd’ but had escaped the baggage of ‘unravelling sin’ by resisting that. He was very keen to know about events happening in the UK, about Brexit, about culture and immigration.  They were an exceptional couple who I will always remember. Later, I learned that their child had been born with a serious condition at birth.  They prayed for her recovery, and she is completely healed.

Their beginnings in family life, and indeed their future, came to mind as later that day I attended a presentation called A Historic Event with Eva Schloss, who is a holocaust survivor, peace activist, international speaker, teacher and humanitarian.  She is also the step-sister of Anne Frank who wrote the book “The Diary of Anne Frank” and is 90 years old.

Listening to her story of how she survived, the escape from her homeland in Austria, two years in hiding in Amsterdam, capture on her 15th birthday, nine months in Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps, and her repatriation to Holland was very interesting.

It was sad to listen to how she had lost her father and brother, and very difficult to listen to how the women and young children had been stripped naked in front of the soldiers whilst they decided who would go to the gas chambers.   Both Eva and her mother did survive and she stated they were eventually liberated by the Russian army.  She went on to be married, have children, and also grand-children.

Whilst listening, I thought about the plight of children who are separated from their parents, and also recalled the 80th anniversary of Harwich Kindertransport, where 10,000 children were evacuated from Germany after anti-Jewish violence known as Kristallnacht in 1938. Many of those children never saw their parents again. [LINK]

During the evening there was a musical tribute called Ani Ma’amin – I Believe.   The history of the music is that it was composed by Azriel David Fastage on his way to his death at Treblinka.  A single survivor who jumped from the train later bought the composition to the United States.  The song is meant to speak of Eternal Hope.

Eva Schloss stated she speaks about her experiences so that it does not happen again, that we remember the holocaust, and fight the rise of anti-Semitism. She was very honest in her answers saying she would not forgive the Nazi’s.  You can read about Eva here.

I came away with many questions and observations about the times we are currently living in.

Monday 1st September, 2019

It was a beautiful morning as I packed my case to return home.  The sun was shining and it was very peaceful.   No doubt, I would later meet the thousands of spectators who had been attending the air show who would also be returning to their respective homes. I looked at one of the leaflets which I had kept.It spoke of the great mysteries of the air; the first hot air balloon in France, where the cargo was a sheep, a duck and a chicken.It spoke of the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle, how a helicopter lands when its engines fail and the disappearance of flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.  The leaflet then linked to the mystery that the disciples of Jesus Christ faced right before their eyes, as they watched him ascend from the Mount of Olives, 2000 years ago.  Some people who had taken the leaflets felt misled that the mysteries that they were more interested in had led them to read about a greater mystery explained.

It had been interesting that my friend had been approached by a local council official who had attempted in a false manner to stop her handing out these leaflets whilst ignoring the demonstrations nearby who had made a religion out of their own particular cause. Eternal Hope, appeared to be an enemy.

I witnessed how the battle between good and evil is continuing taking place and how eugenics, euthanasia, and abortion, which are all trade marks of evil and are symbolic of ethnic cleansing are increasingly being promoted quite openly.  I thought about the indoctrination in our primary schools in relation to gender identity and how young children were being experimented upon with hormone blockers and how children were being given a so called freedom and encouraged to ‘choose’ their sexuality or have no identity at all.  ‘Nobodies’.   Yes, in my opinion, there is a holocaust taking place. Objectors will be silenced. [LINK]

Monday September 16th 2019

The events of the weekend I spent 2 weeks ago had become a bit of a distant memory until I read a timely article today and was reminded about two German Christians, Sophie and Hans Scholl, who were executed in Germany for resisting Hitler and the Nazi’s. At the time of their beheading Hans was 24 years old and Sophie was 21. They had belonged to a non-violent underground movement in Germany known as the White Rose resistance movement and as part of their activities had wrote and distributed leaflets exposing the brutality that was happening in Germany.

In 1943, after their death, millions of copies of the sixth leaflet called ‘The Manifesto of the Students of Munich’ which had been smuggled out of the country were airdropped over Germany by the Allied Forces.

I was particularly struck by a quotation attributed to Sophie Scholl which reads:

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves – or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

“I will cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even when my numb hands can no longer feel it.”

© All rights reserved.

PODCAST: Iran sanctions, Cost of illegals, Bernie’s Free tuition, Medical Care cost…

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GUESTS:

Lt Col (R) Saris Sangari is a retired US Army Colonel who saw extensive combat in the Middle East as a Special Operations Forces soldier and who, after retirement, continues to advise the fledgling Assyrian Christian Army in Iraq known as Dwekh Nawsha with his military expertise.

Topic – Iran: Hardliners vs Moderates on shooting down the drone!

Frank Vernuccio, editor-in-chief of the New York Analysis of Policy & Government, providing objective coverage of key issues facing the United States today. Frank is the co-host of the Vernuccio/Novak Report, nationally both on broadcast radio and the web at amfm247.com. FRANK also co-hosts of the “The American Political Zone,” Broadcast on cable in eastern Connecticut.

Topic – Illegal Alien Impact on 2020 Election!

Michael Busler, Ph.D. public policy analyst and a Professor of Finance at Stockton University where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in Finance and Economics. He has written Op-ed columns in major newspapers for more than 35 years.

Topic – Sanders, liberals, out to cancel student debt!

Stephen Moore writer and economic policy analyst. He founded and served as president of the Club for Growth and is a former member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. In 2014 Steve joined The Heritage Foundation serving as its its chief economist. and Distinguished Visiting Fellow. Steve now serves as senior economic analyst with CNN, and author of “Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy” and former senior economic advisor to the Trump campaign. Moore’s work continues to appear regularly in the Wall Street Journal, Townhall, The Washington Times, and various publications including The Weekly Standard, Washington Times and National Review.

Topic – Blurring the Expense of Medical Care!!

PODCAST: In NYC, a Change of Orientation

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The last place anyone would expect liberals to rethink their extremism is New York City. But, thanks to a new lawsuit, even the Big Apple seems to understand when it’s vulnerable. “Pinch yourself,” FRC’s Cathy Ruse says. One of the most radical cities on earth is about to walk back its LGBT counseling ban. All because one courageous psychotherapist fought back.

Like most Americans, Dr. Dovid Schwartz doesn’t want the government telling him what he can and can’t say — especially not to patients in desperate need of a listening ear. As someone who’s practiced in New York City for 50 years, he’s seen countless people who want his help overcoming same-sex attractions. After the council passed its ban on talk therapy for patients like his, simply offering that help would have come at a price: $1,000, $5,000, or $10,000 for first, second, and third violations. In Schwartz’s opinion, people should have the right to seek whatever counseling they need. By passing the law, they weren’t just punishing therapists, they were punishing patients. It’s “inhumane,” he argued.

So, with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, he filed a lawsuit. And, without even stepping foot in a courtroom, Schwartz won. The council, seeing the writing on the wall, buckled, announcing that it would be the first legislative body in America to reverse itself on the issue. “Obviously, I didn’t want to repeal this,” the council’s speaker, Corey Johnson, told reporters last week. “I don’t want to be someone who is giving in to these right-wing groups. But the Supreme Court has become conservative; the Second Circuit, which oversees New York, has become more conservative. [And] we think this is the most responsible, prudent course.”

Friday, on “Washington Watch,” lead ADF attorney Roger Brooks told listeners that this case was about a lot more than sexual orientation or gender identity. It goes to the heart of free speech as we know it. “What this lawsuit is about is defending the right of New Yorkers — and obviously, down the road, protect every American to pursue their [own] lives [and seek their own] counsel… [T]here were fundamental constitutional issues at stake… And the bottom line, I think, is that after they looked a little harder at the case, the city attorneys had to agree and agreed that this was simply found unconstitutional.”

ADF’s hope — and ours — is that more elected officials see what’s happening in New York and stop to think about the dangerous side effects to policies like this one. This law, he points out, “extended to conversations between a therapist and an adult,” but there are a great many other laws that take aim at minors and their free speech and personal rights. “Some of those laws are currently being challenged… [and] I think that this case is likely to slow down the emotion elsewhere in the country.” Maybe, he hints, it’s the start of something.

FRC’s Ruse agrees. In a column for the Stream, she talks about the significance of the LGBT movement — “a wrecking ball against any cultural or legal edifice in its way — repealing its own law out of fear. It fears that the new slate of federal judges — who see themselves as umpires and not social problem-solvers — might well strike its law. And in the process, create a precedent that threatens other new laws policing LGBT speech. This is, in a word, huge. It might even rise to the level of a paradigm shift.”

But, she warns, it’s not over until it’s over. “Even if the New York City gag rule is repealed, nearly 20 state gag rules still stand, including one passed by the New York General Assembly this January.” That’s where you come in. There are plenty of local councils and state leaders trying to keep Americans trapped in a lifestyle of pain and bondage. Ohio has a hearing on a similar ban this Wednesday. Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin aren’t far behind. Make sure you’re informed. Find out how Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) are helping people — and what you can do to protect them in Peter Sprigg’s new issue analysis, here.

Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column with podcast is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Trudeau keeps trying to hide his errors. Its like he has never heard of The Streisand Effect

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Posted by  Eeyore

The story:

DISTURBING: Video Of Trudeau Giving Poutine To Laughing Reporter & Saying “The Liberal Party Always Supports The CBC” Has Been Taken Down

Who requested removal, and why?

A deeply disturbing incident has changed the conversation from media bias, to outright election interference by the establishment press.

Earlier, @CanadaBuster shared a video, showing a CBC reporter fawning over attention from Justin Trudeau, accepting poutine fries with a hearty laugh. It was notable because the CBC reporter – David Cochrane – had previously been defending Justin Trudeau’s indefensible avoidance of the reporters questions and scrutiny.

The video spread rapidly, showing in clear picture how fawning much of the media is over Trudeau – a huge contrast to their brutal coverage of the Conservatives.

But then, the Twitter account – which is often anti-Trudeau – where it was spread was the subject of a ‘copyright’ removal. It was seemingly removed everywhere except Global News.

Video below:

Direct link.

© All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Exposing the mainstreaming and disguising of communism in the USA

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Posted by Eeyore

She does quite a good job. The first guy she speaks with is a classic example of the communist hyperbole. He doesn’t say communist or socialist preferring the term, progressive. At this point its worth knowing that a famous communist leader in a speech in the USA that was attended by Bella Dodd, quoted here, said in Philadelphia, PA on November 16, 1953,

“I was told by Gil Green, chairman of the party in New York State, that if ever communism came to America it would not come under the Socialist label or the Communist label but it would come under a label palatable to the American people.”

That Communist Party leader Alexander Trachtenberg included terms like “progressive democracy” and “liberalism.”

Beto Going All-In on Confiscation

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Democrat Presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke continues to struggle to gain any sort of traction for his campaign. With some polls putting him in 10th place, and his average sitting around 7th, some might say that it is desperation time for the candidate who was once a darling with the far left and the legacy media while he was running his losing campaign to unseat U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.).

A recent tweet from O’Rourke is just one clue that the candidate is, indeed, becoming desperate.

The former U.S. Representative from Texas called on banks and credit card companies to help promote gun control by refusing to do business with companies that produce legal products, and refusing to process legal financial transactions.

As has often been the case with Beto’s campaign, he seems to try to be provocative by rehashing old ideas.

Some banking institutions, with the urging of anti-gun extremists, have already adjusted their practices to accommodate those, like O’Rourke, who stand opposed to the Second Amendment. While this subject has been part of the anti-gun crusade for some time, it has been met with strong opposition, and others have questioned how credit card companies could stop processing certain, specific transactions without actually ceasing doing any business with companies that allow the targeted transactions, as well as others not targeted.

Beto’s most puzzling demand is that banks and credit card companies “(s)top processing transactions for gun sales online & at gun shows without background checks.” As a presidential candidate, and former U.S. Representative, O’Rourke should be aware that ALL firearm transfers through licensed gun dealers—whether they be at a brick-and-mortar store, at a gun show, or over the Internet—are required, by law, to be run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

Of course, he knows this, but his tweet is intended to create confusion on the issue, as well as create the impression that he is proposing to address specific problems, even though they simply do not exist.

Rehashing an old anti-gun campaign isn’t his only sign of desperation, though.

On September 12, during the third debate of Democrat Presidential candidates, he tried to be even more provocative.

When asked if he supported confiscation of certain semi-automatic firearms, Beto stated, “Hell yes, we’re gonna take your AR-15, your AK47….”

And just to prove he was serious, his campaign started selling t-shirts.

Thankfully, he didn’t go so far as one former candidate who also proposed confiscation, but also made what many considered to be a rather ominous threat.

So far, Beto has tried being folksy, posting videos of him at the dentist, getting his hair cut, flipping burgers, and changing a tire. That hasn’t been successful in getting his polling numbers out of the low single digits.

Now he’s selling profanity and trying to prove he’s the most anti-gun candidate in the field in trying to lure support from Democrats in his Quixotic quest to be President. A far cry from when he faced only the Texas electorate, and assured lawful gun owners they could keep their firearms. If these tactics don’t work, which they likely won’t, can we expect O’Rourke to dive even deeper into the anti-gun end of the pool, and start promoting the repeal of the Second Amendment? As we often say, stay tuned!

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EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Why Won’t Ilhan Omar Talk to Me? Muslim Journalist Dalia Al-Aqidi

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Last month, veteran Muslim journalist Dalia Al-Aqidi faced Twitter censorship after inviting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar to an interview. Both women are refugees and Muslim Americans, which would have made for an eye-to-eye conversation between the leaders. However, Ilhan Omar ignored the requests from another Muslim American woman, which came on the heels of also spurning interview questions from American Muslim human rights leader Ani Zonneveld.

In response, Dalia Al-Aqidi headed to Ilhan Omar’s district in Minneapolis, Minnesota and invited reporters to a sit-down conversation close to the 18th anniversary of September 11th attacks where “somebody did something” (according to Omar).

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The Environmental Costs of Renewable Energy Are Staggering

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“If the world isn’t careful, renewable energy could become as destructive as fossil fuels,” warns a recent article from Foreign Policy.

“The Limits of Clean Energy” is the title of an article by Jason Hickel in Foreign Policy, with the sub-title “If the world isn’t careful, renewable energy could become as destructive as fossil fuels.” Here’s the opening:

The conversation about climate change has been blazing ahead in recent months. Propelled by the school climate strikes and social movements like Extinction Rebellion, a number of governments have declared a climate emergency, and progressive political parties are making plans—at last—for a rapid transition to clean energy under the banner of the Green New Deal.

This is a welcome shift, and we need more of it.

But a new problem is beginning to emerge that warrants our attention. Some proponents of the Green New Deal seem to believe that it will pave the way to a utopia of “green growth.” Once we trade dirty fossil fuels for clean energy, there’s no reason we can’t keep expanding the economy forever.

This narrative may seem reasonable enough at first glance, but there are good reasons to think twice about it. One of them has to do with clean energy itself. The phrase “clean energy” normally conjures up happy, innocent images of warm sunshine and fresh wind. But while sunshine and wind is obviously clean, the infrastructure we need to capture it is not. Far from it. The transition to renewables is going to require a dramatic increase in the extraction of metals and rare-earth minerals, with real ecological and social costs.

In 2017, the World Bank released a little-noticed report that offered the first comprehensive look at this question. It models the increase in material extraction that would be required to build enough solar and wind utilities to produce an annual output of about 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power roughly half of the global economy. By doubling the World Bank figures, we can estimate what it will take to get all the way to zero emissions—and the results are staggering: 34 million metric tons of copper, 40 million tons of lead, 50 million tons of zinc, 162 million tons of aluminum, and no less than 4.8 billion tons of iron.

MP: As we learned from Thomas Sowell, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.” See video below.

This article was reprinted from the American Enterprise Institute.

COLUMN BY

Mark J. Perry

Mark J. Perry is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.

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EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Democrats don’t hate your guns, they hate you!

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In an article titled “Have They Lost Their Minds?” John C. Sigler wrote:

Last year I was criticized for saying “they don’t hate your guns, they hate you” – Well, it looks like I was right. San Francisco’s defamatory and utterly hateful and ridiculous resolution shows just how far off the deep end their hatred for you, the NRA, and America’s traditional values has driven the anti-gun crowd.

But there is a method to their madness. The real meat of their preposterous resolution lies not in the defamatory and inflammatory labeling of NRA as a so-called “domestic terrorist organization”. No, the real meat of their preposterous resolution lies in the purpose of that resolution which is to do the same thing that New York tried to do – scare off businesses who do business with NRA and its 5+ million law-abiding God-fearing, freedom-loving patriotic members. Here’s the punch line from their hate-filled resolution:

“The City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization”( meaning the NRA and its members). [Emphasis added]

What we have seen since the election of Donald J. Trump is a global effort to delegitimize his administration and a national effort by the Democratic Party and the media to dehumanize his supporters.

The Democratic Party is working day and night to turn America into a socialist nanny state.

Their strategy is to use political correctness to silence the overwhelming majority of Republicans, growing numbers of Independents and Democrats who believe the party has gone to far. Even Rahm Emanuel, during a panel discussion on ABC’s show This Week, said,

We have taken a position so far, and the candidates have, through the process — a few have not — about — on basically Medicare for all, which is, we’re going to eliminate 150 million people’s health care, and we’re going to provide health care for people that have just come over the border.

That is an untenable position for the general election. [Emphasis added]

Whether it is the New Green Deal, Medicaid for all, free healthcare for illegal aliens, forgiveness of tuition debt, giving away money to everyone not working at the expense of those who are working, or attacks on the U.S. Constitution, the Democratic Party has left America.

On September 11th, 2019 CNBC reported that the Democrat controlled House passed two bills banning new offshore oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Florida Gulf Coast. The day after this bill passed drones attacked the Saudi oil fields. This has driven oil and gas prices up globally. The Democrats do not have what is good for working Americans in mind. Emma Newburger reported:

The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed two bills banning new offshore oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts and the Gulf Coast of Florida. It was set to vote on a third bill banning drilling in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The legislation could hamper President Donald Trump’s push to expand offshore oil and gas development.

Conclusion

Democrats are unabashedly the party of Karl Marx and Mao.

Only President Trump had the foresight to make America energy independent. Only President Trump is unabashedly pro-worker, pro-middle class, pro-jobs and pro-America.

That is the choice on November 3rd, 2020.

© All rights reserved.

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Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Is Petitioned to Rehear the Federal Refugee Resettlement Opinion

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ANN ARBOR, MI— The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) and Bursch Law PLLC have filed a petition for rehearing by the entire Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals bench of a two-judge panel opinion of that court dismissing Tennessee’s challenge to the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program for lack of standing.​

The basis for the rehearing petition, which was filed last Friday, Sept. 6, is that the two-judge opinion is “painfully at odds” with Supreme Court precedent.The Thomas More Law Center, a national nonprofit public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, agreed to represent the State of Tennessee, its General Assembly and two state legislators at no charge, after the state’s attorney general refused to bring the requested lawsuit. John Bursch of Caledonia, Michigan, represented the plaintiffs on behalf of TMLC at the oral arguments in the Sixth Circuit.

TMLC filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs in March 2017, alleging that the Refugee Act of 1980, currently imposed on it by the federal government, amounts to an unconstitutional power grab – commandeering millions in state taxpayer dollars for a purely federal program.

A federal district court granted the federal government’s motion to dismiss the case. On appeal to the Sixth Circuit, a two-judge panel affirmed the lower court’s dismissal on the sole grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing. It never reached the merits of the case.

Consequently, the petition for rehearing asks the Sixth Circuit’s full bench to consider the question: Does the Tennessee General Assembly have standing to challenge a regulatory regimen that allows the federal government to siphon dollars from the state treasury “at times and in amounts of the federal government’s choosing,” effectively diluting the legislature’s exclusive power of appropriation?

The controversy over refugee resettlement in Tennessee dates back to 2008. That’s when the state pulled out of the federal refugee program in accordance with its agreement with the federal government. But the flow of refugees continued, as the federal government simply transferred management of the program to a private agency, Catholic Charities of Tennessee, an arm of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, observed, “This case has enormous jurisprudential consequences, not only on the issue of the federal refugee resettlement program, but on the ability of Congress to force states to pay for future bizarre, fantastical, unwanted programs as proposed by current Democrat candidates without any recourse to the courts.”

Crucial to the argument for rehearing is the 2015 case of Arizona v. Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC), wherein the Supreme Court ruled that state legislatures have standing to bring lawsuits when their legislative powers are threatened.

The petition for rehearing states, “In sum, the federal government is siphoning state funds to pay for a program from which Tennessee has withdrawn, and it can do so on any date and for any amount it wants. As the federal government admitted in its brief, Tennessee’s decision to end participation in the Refugee Resettlement Program had ‘no implications whatsoever’ on Tennessee’s obligation to fund the program. The federal government mandates Plaintiffs provide Medicaid to otherwise eligible refugees, or face termination of federal benefits.”

Accordingly, the federal government forces Tennessee to continue funding the refugee program by threatening to pull $7 billion in federal Medicaid funding, which represents 20 percent of the state’s total budget.

The rehearing petition warned, “As the federal bureaucracy continues to grow, federal officials will increasingly look to state budgets as the solution to federal funding deficits. When federal bureaucrats do so in violation of the Constitution, e.g. by coercing states to continue funding under pain of losing 20% of the state budget, state legislators must have the ability to bring suit.”

Besides Medicaid funding, the federal government also commandeers state funds for other welfare programs and for public education of the refugees.

TMLC’s complaint alleges that “the federal government has violated the Unites States Constitution’s Spending Clause and the Tenth Amendment” by enacting legislation and rules which purport to give the federal government authority to commandeer state funds to finance the refugee resettlement program.

The argument in favor of the General Assembly’s standing is bolstered by the fact that both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in 2016 in favor of filing a civil lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the federal refugee resettlement program. The State Senate passed Senate Joint Resolution 467, by a vote of 27-5 while the House voted 69-25 to pass the same resolution.

In accordance with SJR 467, TMLC is providing its legal services, including a potential appeal to the Supreme Court, at no cost to taxpayers.

Since January 2002 the federal government has placed more than 19,000 refugees into Tennessee cities and towns.

These refugees often arrive in poor health, with no job or English skills, and with children who are placed in public schools and in need of expensive translators and tutors. And without any waiting period they can automatically apply for all welfare programs provided by the State of Tennessee.

As a result, the federal program thwarts the state legislature’s ability to pass a balanced budget as required by the Tennessee Constitution.

In the middle of a fiscal year the federal government, for any reason, can decide to settle additional refugees into Tennessee causing the state’s spending to exceed its revenue.

In short, this purely federal program diverts state tax dollars away from other state programs that benefit deserving Tennesseans.

Clearly, the General Assembly has been deprived of its right “to spend state funds in the manner the people of Tennessee may – through their elected legislators – deem appropriate,” the petition states.

You can read the full petition for rehearing here.

You can read the original complaint, as filed by TMLC in March 2017, here.

FIFA: Did a Woman Have to Die Before You Stepped In?

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FIFA officials will make a visit to Iran after a young woman set herself on fire after being arrested for attending a soccer match.

FIFA (the International Federation of Association Football) gave the Islamic Republic until August 31 to allow women to enter soccer stadiums, but the deadline passed with no signs of compliance. Unfortunately, it appears that it has taken the death of young woman to wake FIFA up.

This story began when Sahar Khodayari, a young Iranian woman who has been since dubbed “Blue Girl” (due to her favorite team’s colors), was arrested for trying to enter a soccer stadium disguised as a man.

After spending three days in jail, she was released on bail and a court date was set for six month later. However, when Khodayari showed up for her trial, she found that it was postponed due to the judge being called away for a family emergency.

It was reported that when she went to pick up her cell phone, she overheard someone saying that if she was convicted, she would be sentence to between six months and two years in jail.

Hearing this, she set herself on fire in front of the courthouse and later died in the hospital.

Women have been forbidden from entering stadiums to watch men’s sporting events since 1981, two years after the Islamic Revolution that propelled the ayatollahs into power. One exception was made last year when women were allowed in a stadium to watch the streaming of the World Cup.

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Low Lying Fruit About To Be Plucked

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The hunters have now become the hunted. They are all going down. It’s either us or them. I for one, do not think Trump is in this to lose. You see, we are now at steps six, seven and eight on the scale of discovery and action I wrote about last year. We are at war and we are in fact winning. I am well documented stating this for nearly three years now in my books, articles, media interviews and public speeches. President Trump actually named Page, Strzok, Comey and McCabe in this exchange with the media as individuals guilty of treason. But the swamp runs very deep. This is just the beginning, the low lying fruit.

What to Expect?

They are all going down. Yes, that includes the Clinton’s and the Obama’s in due time. Mark my words. It begins now in 2019 and carries on through Trump’s second term. It will be a cascading avalanche at some point in time. Just like Hillary Clinton stated way back when that if you take me down that she would bring all of Washington DC down with her. Well its seems Mcabe has said the very same thing as reported by Sara Carter on the Laura Ingraham show.

AG Barr and John Durham are working in great detail on multiple investigations. Remember, FISA brings down the house. Then we have Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, and  Rudy Giuliani, all working on different aspects of taking down the deep state. And as President Trump told us at the Orlando rally in 2019, that the state department has most if not all of the 33,000 e-mails that Clinton bleached. Then there are the NSA files, Wikileaks and all that Julian Assange will reveal once extradited to the US and gets his day in court. Then there is the Jeffrey Epstein case. Now I for one have not seen a death certificate, autopsy report, or a funeral for Epstein. Did he kill himself? I was not there, but I would say most definitely not. Was he suicided? Meaning killed by another to look like a suicide? Highly probable. Or, is Epstein being held in a military detention as a controlled high valued asset to extrapolate intel? Time will tell. Dead or alive, much of the intel needed to go after those surrounding the Epstein case is already procured. The list is extensive and it is global.

The deep state scum will eat each other alive throughout this process. They will rat each other out as the cascading avalanche crushes them all. Caution, as time goes by, we will learn about not only treasonous acts and crimes, but horrific acts which include pedophilia and believe it or not acts even far worse than this. For now, I will leave it at that. Oh and don’t be concerned about impeachment or any other subpoenas or attacks against President Trump. They have NOTHING on the President, nothing. There will be no impeachment. If by chance it gets to and then through the house, its’ DOA in the Senate. The deep state  and its fake news media operatives are panicking. They know they are in deep S$%t. Sit back, enjoy the show.

THE STORM IS UPON US

Trump and the Age of Transparency

So you can see the de-class is now underway. The swamp is being drained. Do you think it is by coincidence that headline after headline is coming out with regards to 911? This issue along with Benghazi, fast and furious, JFK, MLK, RFK and scores of other injustices, and crimes against humanity, will dominate the headlines throughout President Trump’s second term. This will include the nationalization of the Federal Reserve and the restoration of sound money restoring power to the people. I cover this weekly, with Economist Dr. Kirk Elliott on the GFR (Global Financial Reset) weekly report here on my YouTube channel.

The world is changing. And so, we are engaged and embarking upon a truly unprecedented time in our history. Buckle down. Stay the course, trust the plan and remember, Freedom…it’s up to U.S.

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