Three reasons why the Embassy move is great for the United States and the world!
YES, Leaders lead and others follow, so indeed, more countries will move their Embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018. Here are three reasons why this “apocalyptic” decision by President Trump will NOT cause world disorder but more stability in the Middle East.
MUSLIM RAGE IS ETERNAL – Muslim rage, or insane behavior like blowing yourself up to please God is part of historic Islamic doctrine, it ain’t going away folks! Therefore it must NEVER be a factor in constructing principled public policy. Why has the USA deferred moving OUR Embassy for 22 years because of “Muslim Rage?” This was a perfect time for the Trump move.
MUSLIMS LEADERS REALLY HATE “PALESTINIANS” – The worst kept secret in the world is that the Saudi’s can’t stand the “Palestinians.” In fact most “advanced” Muslim countries hate the people who call themselves palestinians and have carried on this nonsense of “rage, terrorism and right of return” for 70 years! BUT, the countries like Saudi, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan have to play to their insane Jew-hating populations and these leaders make a lot of noise for public consumption but then call Bibi for help from his IDF when they need it, like EVERY DAY! These leaders will scream and yell at Israel and Trump for a couple of months and then Muslims will get used to the new normal of a stronger Israel. The Sunni Arab countries need Israel’s help against the Iran more than they care for the theatrical Palestinians and their fat-cat, Ritz Carlton-living billionaire leaders!
ISRAEL IS THE STRONG HORSE OF THE MIDDLE EAST – The Arab world, even pre-Mohammad, lived by the tribal doctrine, Strong Horse, Weak Horse. Darwin called this “survival of the fittest.” In the Middle East, Israel is the fittest, which is another evidence of the miracles of God in the life of the Jews. How else can a country a mere 70 years old surpass the strength of the complete 1400 year-old Muslim Umma? In spite of all the deadly comical “protesting” of the Muslims, which has become a cottage industry for the fat-cat leaders, there is real fear and respect for the Israelis. This move by President Trump has dramatically increased Israel as the STRONG HORSE of the Middle East.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Jerusalem-pic-1250x650-1-e1512655495288.jpg385640Defend The Borderhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDefend The Border2017-12-07 09:05:182017-12-14 13:04:12Prediction: In 2018 other countries will quietly move their embassies to Jerusalem
William Wilberforce was a 19th Century English political leader, devout Christian and the driving force behind Great Britain’s ban on slavery. He employed a principled Biblical understanding of the inherent value of every person and a practical willingness to compromise and take very small steps at times.
He is revered — by those who know his story. He was as morally upright as they come, although he would have decried such a description. His Christian life was the central focus of his life and he was a relentless fighter for what he believed was right — despite being barely five feet tall and sickly his entire life.
So for the voters of Alabama, including many Christians who are unsure if they can vote for Roy Moore, perhaps Wilberforce provides a way of measuring the decision by a man who more than understood the dilemma. It’s not as simple as maintaining total purity in whom one will support, or the end justifies the means.
Wilberforce was at once both a moral immediatist in abolishing slavery — he believed it must be 100 percent dismantled immediately — and a strategic incrementalist with a long-term view to take each necessary step to reach abolishment. His style and exhortations could in a sense be used to argue against a vote for Moore. But his actions tended more towards a vote for Moore.
Clarke Forsythe, M.A. in Bioethics from Trinity International University, wrote of Wilberforce in Politics for the Greatest Good:
“Although Wilberforce sponsored a motion for general and immediate abolition annually for several years, abolition came not immediately and totally, but in intent and in effect, incrementally. The slave trade was incrementally reduced by regulations and partial prohibitions, and those incremental reductions were tied, in public debate, to issues of national interest rather than strong arguments of morality – “justice” and “humanity” – which were reserved until the final stroke. The incremental reductions served to eliminate the fears raised by the claims of the slave traders. Though Wilberforce and his allies had the strongest moral motivations, they exhibited strategic, tactical and rhetorical flexibility in their actions and arguments in large part because they stayed focused on the end result and did not confuse the goal with their motivations.”
Compromise and sacrifice
Wilberforce’s choice to introduce a bill every year for the immediate abolition of slavery was a decision that politically eliminated him from ever becoming Prime Minister, which many thought he could probably obtain. But after going nowhere a few rounds, he began a more long-term approach that some refer to as incrementalism.
He was able to pass a bill banning the slave trade in certain parts of Africa and to certain parts of the colonies. It was a tiny step to slow the trade. He passed a bill limiting the number of slaves that can be shipped on British ships and a series of proposals called “amelioration bills” for better living conditions for slaves. This was argued on the basis of creating “humane” conditions on slave ships. Clanging words to our ears, but another step in reigning in some of the suffering by reducing the total trade.
These and other bills acted to reduce the profit and value of slavery. That, in turn, reduced the political support for the slave trade until it finally reached the point that Wilberforce and his allies in Parliament could bring the hammer to the cracking institution and finally destroy slavery in Great Britain and throughout the British Empire.
To accomplish this, Wilberforce not only compromised on immediate abolition, but he worked consistently on the incremental bills with members of Parliament who supported the slave trade and even participated profitably in it. He could be criticized for cooperating with slaver interests and not fighting to get full abolition sooner. And it was surely distasteful at times. But historians generally agree that without the incrementalism that reduced the political support, there was too much power in the slave trade to get full abolition passed.
The Wilberforce model has served as a bit of a guide — although not unanimously — for those who believe abortion is as morally abhorrent as slavery. Laws such as banning abortions once a baby in the womb is pain capable, waiting periods and requirement on mothers to see an ultrasound are in line with incrementalism even though the two issues are not completely analogous.
Tying these together a bit, the difference between Roy Moore and his opponent, Doug Jones, on the issue of abortion could not be more stark. Moore is pro sanctity of life from conception while Jones favors a woman’s right to kill her baby until the moment of birth.
Where would Wilberforce stand on this option, when Moore has a more questionable moral past than what is known about Doug Jones?
If Wilberforce had maintained a personal purity on who he would work with and what he would compromise — and stuck with total immediacy regarding the end of slavery rather than taking some bad to get more good — it seems unlikely he would have led the abolishment of slavery and that wicked institution would have continued to destroy lives for years or decades.
Can the same argument be made for Moore regarding abortion and federal judges who would rule more strongly in favor of personal freedoms — and possibly overturn Roe v. Wade and expand religious freedom? Is that an acceptable trade? Alabama voters will have to decide that one.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/roy-moore-so-help-me-god.jpg360640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2017-12-06 19:45:212017-12-06 19:58:39Does William Wilberforce Make the Case for Roy Moore?
This afternoon I had a great conversation with President Trump.
He called from Air Force One to offer his full support for me and my campaign in our all-out battle against Doug Jones and the forces of evil on December 12.
And earlier this morning, President Trump officially endorsed my campaign for U.S. Senate — slamming my opponent as just another “Pelosi/Schumer Liberal Puppet” who flat-out hates our conservative values.
If elected as the next U.S. Senator from Alabama, I pledge to fight with everything I’ve got to help President Trump Drain the Swamp in Washington — including repealing ObamaCare and building the wall!
I’m honored to have President Trump’s support.
And I’d be honored to know I’ve earned your support, too.
President Trump tweeted the following:
One America News published an exclusive two part interview by OANN journalist Emerald Robertson with Judge Moore.
One America Exclusive Interview with Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore: Part One
One America Exclusive Interview with Alabama Senate Candidate Roy Moore: Part Two
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/roy-moore-1-e1512472263737.jpg412640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-12-05 06:11:102017-12-06 19:59:14VIDEO: President Trump endorses Judge Roy Moore for the U.S. Senate
Sebastian Gorka, former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and counterterrorism adviser, is delivering a series of lectures for The Heritage Foundation about national security issues. His next speech will take place at Heritage on Dec. 15. Gorka spoke to Daily Signal editor-in-chief Rob Bluey about a range of topics—his time in the White House, Trump’s accomplishments and disappointments, his biggest fears, and Trump’s ability to outmaneuver the media. The following is an edited transcript of their interview along the with the video.
Rob Bluey: You’ve given a series of speeches to Heritage audiences now in three locations. What’s your message to them? What are you talking to them about?
Gorka: There’s one initial message I like to give everywhere, and it’s a very simple one that I give it to all conservative audiences. And it’s, “Relax, it’s OK.” Count to 10, take a deep breath, don’t worry.
Why do I say that? Because of the reactions I saw when my old boss Steve Bannon resigned. A lot of people were very worried about what happens to the so-called Trump agenda. And then when I resigned a week later, then even more people were worried about what’s going to happen to the platform that got this man elected on Nov. 8.
So I try to tell them a very simple messages: It’s not about where I sit or Steve sits and it’s not even about President Trump. It’s about what you voted for on Nov. 8 and making sure that it’s the long game.
So be calm, it’s OK. It’s about eight years of President Trump and then eight years of President Pence. That’s my first message. And then, of course, we talk about concrete national security issues.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.(Photo: Andrea Hanks/White House)
Bluey: And why do you have that confidence? Because there are those skeptics out there who worry that with a departure of you and with the departure of Bannon and others that there might be other forces at play in the White House. What makes you so confident about President Trump?
Gorka: Two things: No. 1, we’ve never had a politician like—well, he’s not a politician—we’ve never had a president like this in the modern age. In fact, it bears remembering that this is the first-ever president in U.S. history who’s never had prior political position and/or never served as a general in our armed forces.
The left had won the debate, whether it was on social issues, on education, on fiscal responsibility, and along comes this man who just ignores the original politically correct agenda and just breaks through the ice like an ice breaker.
So this is a very different kind of commander in chief and president. And he’s acted … the analogy I like to give is he’s like an ice breaker. The political waters froze over.
The left had won the debate, whether it was on social issues, on education, on fiscal responsibility, and along comes this man who just ignores the original politically correct agenda and just breaks through the ice like an ice breaker.
And now we have a very exciting moment to fill out behind him what it means to be part of the conservative movement at the beginning of the 21st century. So No. 1, he is a unique character in American politics. And then secondly, it is about a movement. It really is about returning to the first principles that made America so incredibly successful in the ’80s and that’s why I’m excited and everybody should be excited.
Bluey: As you look back over the past year, from the time he was elected in November 2016 to today, what is the greatest accomplishment in your mind that he’s been able to achieve?
Gorka: It’s a hard choice. I was on Lou Dobbs’ show and talking about all the foreign policy accomplishments, whether it’s the revitalization of NATO, the crushing of ISIS, the renewal of our relationships in Asia, the calling out of the Middle East to do more about radical jihadism. It’s an amazing list just in the first nine months. And then you look at the domestic scene, and it’s hard to choose.
Look at two quarters of 3 percent GDP growth, 1.5 million jobs created, the lowest unemployment in 17 years. So it’s hard to choose.
But for me, because I was involved in it, I was given the final draft of the travel moratorium to give my opinion on before we went public with it. I think the most important act of the president was the successful implementation of the travel moratorium to keep Americans safe from the kinds of attacks we see almost every day in Europe.
Bluey: Is there a disappointment that comes to mind? Something that you wish had gone better?
Gorka: Yeah, there is a disappointment, and it has to do with how unusual this victory was. Because for me, Donald Trump was only accidentally the GOP candidate. He really had very little to do with the GOP establishment, especially the RINO establishment.
I think the biggest flaw to date is lack of requisite attention to the key adage in Washington: personnel is policy.
He was an anti-establishment candidate, both with regard to the left and the right. And as such, it was a very small group of people that came into the White House who were truly part of the Trump agenda who came there because they believed in Nov. 8 and what it stood for.
And as a result, I call it the most leveraged hostile takeover in modern political history. And as such, our personnel policy was a problem.
There were very few people who were really Trumpian in mentality to fill key slots, and that’s one of the reasons I resigned to better serve the president from the outside. I think the biggest flaw to date is lack of requisite attention to the key adage in Washington: personnel is policy.
President Donald Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi participate in a bilateral meeting at the White House. (Photo: Benjamin Applebaum/White House)
Bluey: You worked on counterterrorism issues for the president. What’s your biggest fear today?
Gorka: I have to say, my time at the White House opened my eyes and changed my perspective. I went in there because of my work on Sunni jihadism, specifically Al-Qaeda and ISIS. And once I arrived and once I had the requisite clearances to see the materials that most people don’t get to see, my viewpoint changed.
My prior concern, groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS I now see as simply the 5-meter target, as the military would say. It’s the approximate close target but it will be dealt with. And with people like Secretary Mattis, we are dealing with it.
China has a plan to displace America as the most important nation in the world. It’s not secret. … They wish to displace us economically, militarily, politically.
More serious than that, the 100-meter target is in fact Shia jihadism. The Iranian regime’s capacity to create their own vision of a caliphate and, unfortunately, the fact that they’ve had almost $200 billion released to them by the prior White House and that they want nuclear weapons on top of it makes Shia jihadism, in my estimation, more serious.
And then the last thing, which may surprise you, and I have to thank Steve Bannon for this because he made the scales fall from my eyes. My real concern today is neither of those. We will deal with them.
My real concern in the long-term strategic sense is China. China has a plan to displace America as the most important nation in the world. It’s not secret. It’s called the One Belt, One Road strategy, which is timed for the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Revolution in 2049.
They wish to displace us economically, militarily, politically. And if we don’t wake up to what they’re doing in terms of the cyber domain, in terms of intellectual property theft, the intimidation of our friends and our allies, then we may just wake up one morning and China will be the dominant global player.
Bluey: How would you confront that challenge?
Gorka: Well, first things first, I’d do exactly what the president did two months ago. I’d use all the tools at his disposal to begin countering what they’re doing that most people don’t realize is already happening.
So the 301 trade investigation to look into what China is actually doing, not just with the theft of U.S. intellectual property but what is called the forced acquisition. If you want to do business as IBM or Google in China, you basically have to hand over your intellectual property to the state of China if you want access to that market.
Well, that’s not fair trade. That’s a protectionist attitude that also undermines our businesses because it’s their intellectual property that is being stolen.
No. 1 is call them out on what they’re doing, which is wrong. And secondly, do exactly what the president just did in Asia. Go and tell our friends, “It’s OK. America is back and we will help you and we’ll stand by you,” and send a clear message that the days of unfettered intimidation of its neighbors by China are over.
President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping in China. (Photo: Shealah Craighead/White House)
Bluey: How worried should we be about North Korea?
Gorka: North Korea is the most Stalinist regime this planet has ever seen. I mean, Joe Stalin was an amateur by comparison to this regime, the Kim family. It’s an evil dictatorship. It is a prison state, and it has to be understood as such.
North Korea is the most Stalinist regime this planet has ever seen. I mean, Joe Stalin was an amateur by comparison to this regime, the Kim family.
However, in terms of what we used to call it during the Cold War, the correlation of forces, it’s a flea. Yes, it may have missiles. It may have some nuclear capacity, but compared to America, which is the most powerful nation on God’s earth, they’re not really a strategic threat.
They bluster, they intimidate, but as Secretary Mattis and the president have said, if you actually take action against us, we will destroy you. And we’re not talking about the North Korean people. We’re talking about this Stalinist regime.
We have to take it seriously because they continually escalate. But at the end of the day, they will be dealt with.
Bluey: In October, the United States experienced the 100th terrorist attack or plot on our homeland since 9/11. What’s your outlook on the homegrown terrorist threat that we face here in the United States?
Gorka: First things first, we have to do what the president did when he addressed Congress in that joint session. We have to look at the world as it is and not as we wish it to be.
We don’t allow political censorship, political correctness to dilute our threat assessment. For eight years under Obama, we weren’t allowed to talk about jihad. We weren’t allowed to talk about the Islamic aspects of the ideology used by the terrorists. That has changed the normal political filter of the threat.
For eight years under Obama, we weren’t allowed to talk about jihad. We weren’t allowed to talk about the Islamic aspects of the ideology used by the terrorists.
Secondly, in addition to putting immense political pressure, immense military pressure on groups like ISIS, we have to learn the lessons from New York. The NYPD after 9/11 became one of the most effective intelligence-gathering agencies in the world, not just in America, in the world.
We have to reinstate those human intelligence capabilities, those undercover capabilities that let you find the terrorists before they build the pressure cooker bomb, before they rent that truck to mow down people on a bicycle path, because good counterterrorism is preventative. It’s not reactionary. There is a plan and the president has begun to follow it.
Bluey: What about the Diversity Visa Lottery Program? Do you think that that will come to an end?
Gorka: Yes, absolutely. I mean, it’s insanity. The idea that some vague concept of diversity has to be propagated in probably the world’s most diverse nation.
Really, I mean, you live here. I mean, isn’t America diverse? We don’t need little government programs to try and help the diversity of Americans. It’s a diverse nation.
The idea that we just spin a roulette wheel and if you’re from Chechnya or Kazakhstan you can get a green card and then you can have 60 or 70 people sponsored by that green card holder, that’s a bad “SNL” skit.
President Donald Trump speaks at the Loren Cook Co. in Springfield, Missouri. (Photo: Joyce N. Boghosian/White House)
Bluey: How much of a factor is the border and the wall that the president has talked about both in the campaign and as president to stop terrorist threats?
Gorka: It’s perhaps the most important pillar that got this real estate magnate from Queens elected.
Remember, this is where it all began, with Jeff Sessions and the commitment to the wall. The fact is this isn’t just about stopping illegal immigrants coming here and taking jobs from Americans or from newly arrived illegal immigrants. It’s a symbolic message about national sovereignty.
When you go to bed at night, do you lock your doors? Of course you do. It’s not because you hate your neighbors, but it’s because you want to keep what you love inside safe. America is a home and the border is our front door.
What the left doesn’t seem to understand is that the Trump phenomenon isn’t an isolated one. It’s linked to other phenomena, like Brexit, and it’s the reassertion—I don’t like the word populism—it’s the reassertion of democracy, representative government in which the government is held accountable and in which the nation has sovereignty again.
When you go to bed at night, do you lock your doors? Of course you do. It’s not because you hate your neighbors, but it’s because you want to keep what you love inside safe. America is a home and the border is our front door. So it’s just protecting the house that is America.
Bluey: What was it like to work for President Trump in the White House?
Gorka: I only became an American five years ago. I mean, this is an amazing nation. Think about it. I literally pinched myself.
I would be in and out of the West Wing 40 times, 50 times a day, and it never gets old. It never gets normal. So it was a dream come true. But also, it’s very different from what you expect.
If you watch the TV shows and the movies, you think the West Wing is this massive building and the president is going to be walking around it for an hour talking to his aides. You’ve seen it. You’ve seen the West Wing. The West Wing is two corridors. I mean, it takes three minutes to walk through the West Wing.
In real life you get a different perspective, but working for the president, being in the Oval Office for big decisions like the decertification of the Iran deal, it’s a dream.
President Donald Trump in the Oval Office. (Photo: D. Myles Cullen/White House)
Bluey: What’s the media’s biggest misperception about you?
Gorka: I wouldn’t know where to begin. I had one journalist—one journalist—write 45 attack pieces on me in just a matter of two months. They attacked my wife, my dead mother, my teenage son.
I’m so puzzled by the hatred people have for somebody they don’t know. And the way in which people will believe absolute fake news. So the accusations made against me of racism, proto-fascist, neo-fascist tendencies.
I’m so puzzled by the hatred people have for somebody they don’t know. And the way in which people will believe absolute fake news.
My father, as a young boy at the age of 13, escorted his fellow schoolmates to school in Budapest during the German occupation because his fellow schoolmates were forced to wear the yellow Star of David as Jews. And my father, as a Catholic young 14-year-old, protected them from getting beaten up or spat on by the German forces occupying Budapest.
And for them to then accuse me of having some kind of extreme right-wing tendency … you don’t get to call yourself a journalist and lie that badly, but it tells you the state of journalism in America today. But I think that’s going to change.
Bluey: As a contributor to Fox News, you’re not going to have the opportunity to appear on MSNBC or CNN. What are you going to miss most?
Gorka: I have to say, this is my dirty little secret. I loved going on CNN and MSNBC because but whether it’s Chris Cuomo, whether it’s Jake Tapper, they always came to a gun fight with a knife, and it was just too easy.
I mean, clearly they’ve been given talking points. And if you actually got into a conversation and asked them hard questions, they were stymied.
If it wasn’t in the script and if it hadn’t been written about in The New York Times or The Washington Post, it didn’t exist. So I will miss going on those shows to just slightly poke at their bubble. But I’m writing for The Hill. I’ll be giving lectures here at Heritage and maybe we can shake their world a little bit.
Bluey: It seems that no day goes by where some of those big players in the media aren’t obsessed about what the president is tweeting. What’s your take on his personal tweets?
Gorka: I was asked again and again and again live on TV to comment on the president’s tweets and shouldn’t he stop tweeting and I said to everybody who asked me to talk about my boss’ social media habits, I said, “I am the last person who will ever tell the president what he should or should not tweet.”
The most wonderful thing about the president is he just doesn’t care what The New York Times thinks about him. He doesn’t care what CNN thinks about him. And that’s how we can cut the heart of the matter.
Why? Because it’s thanks to his Twitter feed and the 43 million followers he has today that he is the president.
He is a master of social media. Whether it’s at 3 a.m. or whether it’s over Thanksgiving holiday, he knows what buttons the press.
The bottom line is he’s broken the false monopoly that the left-wing media thought they had on their version of the truth. The most wonderful thing about the president is he just doesn’t care what The New York Times thinks about him. He doesn’t care what CNN thinks about him. And that’s how we can cut the heart of the matter.
Rob Bluey is editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.
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https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/seb.png360640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2017-12-04 07:21:042017-12-16 15:59:36VIDEO: Former White House Insider Explains Why Trump Is Uniquely Able to Challenge the Left and Media
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. /PRNewswire/ — The eyes of the nation are upon you. December 12th vote will be a crucial test of honor, morality, justice and wisdom. As is often the case in politics, nothing will be black or white. There will be no “right” answer, no unequivocal fact, and no pundit, politician or personality who holds the moral high ground. Myself included.
However, our MAGA Coalition made the call on this race months ago when we endorsed Judge Roy Moore for US Senate. It would be a shameful abdication of our duties to shy away from clarifying that endorsement in a time of trial and tribulation. In fact, there is no greater test of one’s mettle than to weigh in on matters such as the election facing Alabama voters.
This is the new and obscene American political landscape — a place where the lowest common denominator reigns, and charges of depravity rule the day. Are we so desensitized that we don’t flinch at 40-year-old charges, lobbed like a hand grenade, 30 days before an election? The methods deployed by the Washington Post in printing their latest bit of “organic” journalism, is almost as repugnant as the charges alleged within. As we watch the establishment powers that be in Washington D.C., trying to wrestle away the autonomy and integrity of elections for all Alabamians, we can only offer our contempt for the manner in which their charges against Judge Roy Moore have been staged.
To be clear: the campaign of Doug Jones, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and the mainstream media, have turned a US Senate election into a binary choice on individual morality. The implication being, if you don’t vote a certain way, we will paint your entire state as moral degenerates. Not too dissimilar from the efforts of those who sought to define Donald Trump by surreptitious recordings from an Access Hollywood show. This playbook is well-worn and dog-eared by now, yet the masters of political war in Washington plow forward. They see themselves as the sole moral arbiters and purveyors of truth, and voters as simple tools to advance their agenda. Their hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Alabama is now the tip of the spear. Each man and woman of voting age will be transformed into an agent of justice on December 12th. Every voting booth will be transformed into a jury box; not for the guilt or innocence of Judge Roy Moore, per se, but for the whole political system. A vote for Roy Moore is not a vote on what may or may not have happened in 1979. The moral equivalency game is not a winnable one. If the biblical parable of Solomon’s wisdom is to hold true: who in this scenario is prepared to split the child? One side is willing to sacrifice this election rather than allow the grassroots another win. That much is clear.
It feels to us like there are unseen forces at work, seeking to replace our hope with hostility, our faith with fear, and our judgment with theirs. On November 8th, 2016, the world watched as we made our choice. Now, on December 12th, the nation looks to you, Alabama. There, in the solitude of the voting booth, you will have your say. Nothing, and no one, can take that moment from you. May you all be blessed, even if only in that moment, with the Wisdom of Solomon.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/roy-moore.jpg368639Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2017-12-02 08:43:112017-12-03 07:46:04Make America Great Again Coalition stands with Alabama and Judge Roy Moore
The Christmas shopping season is officially here and 2ndVote’s research can tell you who’s been Naughty and who’s been Nice. In the list below, you’ll see the Top 10 Naughty and Top 10 Nice retailers for Christmas shopping in 2017. Are you surprised who made the Naughty list?
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/naughty-or-nice-retailers-e1512132570939.png3546402ndvote .comhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png2ndvote .com2017-12-01 07:50:082017-12-01 07:50:08Shoppers Guide to Christmas retailers who are Naughty and Nice
As the Senate prepares to vote on a tax reform package, President Donald Trump called the vote a “moment of truth.”
“In the coming days, the American people will learn which politicians are part of the swamp and which politicians want to drain the swamp,” Trump said to a supportive crowd Wednesday in St. Charles, Missouri.
The president fired up the crowd as the Senate nears a vote on a bill that would lower income tax rates, simplify the tax code, and reduce the highest corporate rate in the industrialized world from 35 percent to 20 percent.
The House passed a similar package, but one that differs in its treatment of the corporate tax rate and the number of brackets. The Senate bill keeps seven brackets, though with lower rates, delays the corporate rate cut by a year, and eliminates the Obamacare individual mandate.
Trump put a holiday spin on the legislation.
“You don’t see ‘Merry Christmas’ anymore,” Trump said. “With Trump as your president, we are going to be celebrating ‘Merry Christmas’ again and it’s going to be celebrated with a big, beautiful tax cut.”
Trump talked about how the tax code has made America uncompetitive.
“We cannot sit idly by and see ourselves losing in competition to other countries as they continue to take away their jobs because their tax codes are more competitive and less burdensome than ours. That’s why we must cut our taxes, reduce economic burden, and restore America’s competitive edge.”
Throughout the speech, he hit themes familiar with what he said on the campaign trail.
“If we do this, then America will win again like never, ever before,” Trump said. “A vote to cut taxes is a vote to put America first again.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, he frequently talked about how Americans would become “tired of winning” under his presidency.
Noting the declining unemployment rate and strong stock market, he joked with Republican Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, who was on the stage, that this was already about to happen.
Trump said:
Now we are getting number that nobody thought [was] possible, certainly not at this time and the numbers going up are much better than anybody anticipated. In fact, they’re going to say that Trump is the exact opposite of an exaggerator. They are going to start saying that he ought to be a little bit more optimistic because his predictions were low. A year and a half ago they said, ‘He can’t do that.’ Now they’re saying, ‘That was quick.’ …
We are going to win so much that the people of Missouri are going to go to your governor, and say, ‘Governor, please go see the president. We can’t stand winning so much.’ I used to say that. That’s what’s happening. Then the governor is going to come to the beautiful, historical Oval Office, he’s going to say to me, ‘Mr. President, the people of Missouri cannot stand all this winning. They don’t want to win so much. They love the old way where they had lousy job numbers, lousy economic numbers, lousy, they loved it. And I’ll say, ‘Governor, I don’t care what they say in Missouri, we are going to keep winning and winning and winning.’ I used to say that, I had fun with that.
Trump, a billionaire, stressed that the tax reform plan is so targeted at working-class Americans that it won’t help him or his wealthy friends.
“It [the current tax code] is riddled with loopholes that let some special interests, including myself in all fairness,” Trump said. “It [the reform proposal] is going to cost me a fortune, this thing, believe me, believe me, this is not so good for me. I have some very wealthy friends, not so happy with me, but that’s OK. I keep hearing [Democrat Sen. Chuck] Schumer, ‘This is for the wealthy.’ If it is, my friends don’t know about it. I have to explain why. Now it is great for companies because companies are going to bring back jobs and we are lowering the rates very substantially.”
Trump talked about hitting other agenda items as well, such as taking another shot at repealing Obamacare, pushing for an infrastructure plan, building a border wall, and welfare reform.
“Does anyone want welfare reform?” Trump said, to cheers from the audience. “I know people that work three jobs and the person that is not working at all and has no intention of working at all is making more money and doing better than that person that is working his or her ass off. It’s not going to happen, not going to happen. So we are going to go into welfare reform.”
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
Staffers who are the targets of unwanted sexual advances on Capitol Hill should not have to endure a lengthy mediation process and pay the legal bills as lawmakers secretly draw on a mysterious slush fund to settle the accusations against them, an advocate for taxpayers argues.
In the event of a monetary settlement of sexual harassment complaints, members of Congress can draw on a taxpayer-funded account set up within the Treasury Department to cover their legal expenses and settle cases.
The account has paid out $17 million in the past 10 years, public records show, although it is not clear how much of that was for cases of sexual harassment.
“Right now, it’s very unclear to the taxpayer where this money is going,” Grace Morgan, director of external affairs for the Washington-based Taxpayers Protection Alliance, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
“We don’t know who is getting paid the settlements and why they are getting paid the settlements,” Morgan said Monday. “The $17 million figure does not distinguish between sexual harassment claims and other general workplace claims. There is no information and no transparency.”
The spotlight fell on the question of sexual harassment on Capitol Hill after the scandal that brought down Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein prompted dozens of women, and men, to blow the whistle on the sexually predatory practices of major business, entertainment, and media figures ranging from actor Kevin Spacey to news anchor Charlie Rose.
Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the longest-serving member of Congress, has been accused of sexual harassment by two former staffers. Several women, although none of them staffers, also accuse Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., of groping them.
When a congressional staffer decides to press ahead with allegations of sexual harassment, he or she must navigate a four-step process administered through an agency called the Office of Compliance. The steps: counseling, mediation, administrative hearing or civil action, and appeals.
“This turns out to be a 180-day process, and it’s not very fair or just to the victims,” Morgan said.
Nor is the amount paid out as the result of sexual harassment accusations against lawmakers currently public information, she said.
“We also need a full investigation into the $17 million and what has been paid to victims, how much involves sexual harassment claims and how this impacts taxpayers,” Morgan said.
‘Initial Spike’
For starters, the Senate passed a resolution requiring training on sexual harassment for senators and their staff. The House was expected to follow suit Wednesday.
Although an “initial spike” in sexual harassment complaints is likely to occur when new procedures go into effect, congressional employees will benefit over the long term from a healthier workplace, Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Monday.
Comstock, sponsor of a resolution targeting sexual harassment and discrimination that has attracted broad, bipartisan support, said she expects the House to adopt it.
The resolution would require “all House members, officers, employees, including interns, detailees, and fellows” to complete “anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training” during each annual session of Congress.
Comstock said she also will explore a legislative fix aimed at preventing the use of taxpayers’ money to cover settlement expenses when employees accuse lawmakers of sexual harassment.
Meanwhile, the resolution stipulates that lawmakers and employees complete training regarding sexual harassment within 90 days of the start of a one-year session. New employees must complete the training within 90 days of their hire date.
Where the current, 115th Congress is concerned, individual lawmakers and staffers must complete training no later than 180 days after its second one-year session begins in January.
‘A Changed Culture’
The House vote Wednesday marks a “watershed moment” of bipartisan support for a resolution that will begin a step-by-step process for implementing “fundamental reforms that change how [sexual] harassment is detected and prevented,” Comstock told The Daily Signal.
“We are looking at what can be done by resolution and what needs to be done legislatively,” the Virginia Republican said:
What we want is a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of behavior and a changed culture so that people can be free from this kind of harassment. We would also like to streamline the process for victims to come forward with any complaints so that it is not so long and drawn out. It should be a victim-friendly process.
BuzzFeed first reported that Conyers, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, reached a settlement in 2015 with a former staffer in a wrongful dismissal complaint. She alleged that she was the victim of unwanted sexual advances from Conyers, now 88.
Conyers “repeatedly made sexual advances to female staff that included requests for sex acts, contacting and transporting other women with whom they believed Conyers was having affairs, caressing their hands sexually, and rubbing their legs and backs in public,” BuzzFeed reported.
Tuesday morning, news broke that another former staff member had leveled accusations against the congressman.
The accuser, Deanna Maher, said Conyers made unwanted sexual advances toward her on three different occasions while she ran his district office in Michigan between 1997 and 2005, according to the Detroit News and other media reports.
Four women have come forward to accuse Franken, 66, of sexual harassment, beginning with Leeann Tweeden, a radio talk show host who described his behavior during a USO tour in 2006, two years before he was elected senator. Another woman, Lindsay Menz, said Franken groped her while having his photo taken with her at the 2010 Minnesota State Fair.
Legislation Possible
Co-sponsors of Comstock’s resolution include fellow members of the House Administration Committee: Chairman Gregg Harper, R-Miss.; ranking member Robert Brady, D-Pa.; and Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif.
Looking ahead, Comstock said she would like to see additional steps taken to ensure taxpayers would not be on the hook to cover legal settlements following allegations of sexual harassment.
“For that, we would need new legislation,” she said.
The House Administration Committee scheduled a hearing for Dec. 7 to review possible actions under the Congressional Accountability Act, the 1995 law specifying that certain civil rights, labor, workplace, and health care laws must apply to Congress.
That law also created an independent agency, the Office of Compliance, which is led by a five-member, nonpartisan board of directors and four executive staff members appointed by the board.
The Office of Compliance is charged with advising members of Congress, congressional staff, and visiting members of the public on their rights and their responsibilities in the workplace setting.
The office also offers advice on potential changes to the Congressional Accountability Act. Its general counsel has independent investigatory and enforcement authority for certain violations of the law.
‘Needs to Be Reformed’
After receiving multiple media inquiries about taxpayers’ money being used to cover the costs of settling sexual harassment allegations against lawmakers or legislative branch employees, Susan Tsui Grundmann, executive director of the Office of Compliance, released figures showing more than $17 million has been spent since 1997 to cover the settlements.
Not all of the complaints covered by the $17 million involved sexual harassment. Some were allegations made under the Americans with Disabilities Act, while others involved potential civil rights infractions.
Neither Grundmann nor other officials have made public a detailed breakdown of how and why the $17 million was spent.
The idea behind the Congressional Accountability Act was to apply the same set of anti-discrimination and civil rights laws governing other Americans to members of Congress and their staffs. But the 1995 law created a taxpayer-financed “Awards and Settlements” account in the Treasury Department to cover the cost of legal settlements.
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance, which is nonpartisan, focuses on educating the public about the effects of excessive taxation and spending at all levels of government.
Morgan, the organization’s director of external affairs, said the settlements fund appears to be used to insulate Congress from much-needed accountability and transparency.
“I would like to see a system where members of Congress themselves have to pay the settlement, or they have to go through the dispute process,” Morgan said in the interview, adding:
As it stands now, the victim has to pay for her own legal fees, where the member of Congress gets the federal funding for their lawyer. It’s a very long, drawn-out process that needs to be reformed.
The Office of Compliance would be responsible for administering the training created by the House resolution.
Aggressive Action
Comstock said she anticipates more complaints will be filed against members of both the House and Senate as employees become more familiar with what sexual harassment is.
“We might see an initial spike in the number of complaints as people develop a better understanding of what constitutes harassment,” the Virginia Republican said. “But the end result will be a more positive, healthy work environment.”
Congress could learn from how corporate America and the military moved to address questions of sexual harassment, she said. Both institutions have wrestled with similar issues for many years and their procedural changes could be instructive, she said.
“They have addressed this problem very aggressively,” Comstock said, and she believes in-person training is more effective than online sessions.
In a change long familiar to many other workplaces, the House resolution would require every lawmaker’s office to post “a statement of the rights and protections provided to employees of the House of Representatives under the Congressional Accountability Act of 1995.”
What happens next, assuming the House adopts the resolution Wednesday, will become more clear after the Administration Committee’s Dec. 7 hearing.
While it may be challenging for Americans inside and outside Congress to come to terms with misconduct that involves public officials who agree with their political views, Comstock said, the safety and well-being of employees should be paramount.
“I think it’s best to stay out of the team politics and instead focus on the right policies,” she said.
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/john-conyers.jpg360640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2017-11-29 07:11:382017-12-02 09:52:44The Secretive, Taxpayer-Financed Settlement Fund Used by Lawmakers Accused of Sexual Harassment
We are living through a remarkable time in history. Almost daily, those in influential positions who once appeared untouchable are falling out of popular favor as their abuses are exposed.
Earlier this month, one particularly corrupt institution was dealt back-to-back blows: Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion business.
On Nov. 13, The Hill reported that the FBI may be investigating Planned Parenthood and its associates for the sale of aborted babies’ body parts for profit. It’s the latest development yet in a scandal that began in 2015 with the release of explosive undercover videos.
Those videos showed abortion industry executives haggling over the price of hearts, livers, brains, and kidneys and describing, in chilling detail, their techniques for crushing late-term babies to get the freshest organs.
The Senate Judiciary Committee and the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives spent almost one-and-a-half years conducting a national investigation, reviewing 30,000 pages of documents, and hearing hours of testimony.
They found enough evidence to refer several Planned Parenthood affiliates and tissue procurement companies for potential prosecution. Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggested that if the FBI concurs, charges might be filed.
Then came the second punch.
Just as news of the FBI inquiry broke, the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals declined to revisit its ruling that the state of Arkansas can redirect Medicaid funds away from abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood, which the state is completely justified in doing considering the ongoing baby parts scandal.
These two major breakthroughs would have been inconceivable under the Obama administration, which repeatedly abused federal power to prop up the abortion industry.
President Barack Obama’s aggressively pro-abortion administration put the “bully” in “bully pulpit.” Under Obama, the Justice Department became a tool to harass and intimidate pro-life advocates, labeling them domestic terrorists alongside groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
Instead of investigating Planned Parenthood for the shocking, potentially illegal practices exposed in the videos, pro-abortion Attorney General Loretta Lynch decided to investigate the whistleblowers.
The Obama administration also actively interfered with state efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Kansas, Tennessee, Indiana, Texas, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina—all these states tried to get taxpayers out of the abortion industry, only to have the federal government bypass local officials to directly award lucrative contracts to Planned Parenthood or threaten to withhold federal Medicaid funds unless they kept tax dollars flowing.
As one last parting gift, during Obama’s final weeks in office, his administration issued an order banning states from defunding Planned Parenthood under Title X, which took effect two days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Through it all, Obama’s court appointees have generally been reliable backers of abortion. One Obama appointee even compared an abortion to a tonsillectomy in a recent case that would have created new “rights” to abortion on demand for illegal immigrants.
But there’s a new sheriff in Washington now, and a palpable sense of terror is gripping Planned Parenthood and its camp. Without their defender-in-chief or the courts to bail them out, they are finally being held accountable.
Trump has busily set about undoing his predecessor’s destructive pro-abortion legacy. He has filled his Cabinet with pro-life officials, and has filled court vacancies with outstanding judges like Neil Gorsuch who faithfully interpret the Constitution.
Right away, Trump signed legislation (H.J. Res. 43) rolling back Obama’s parting gift to the abortion industry—something that, on a personal note, I was proud to witness in the Oval Office.
Trump’s strong commitment to pro-life policies has helped embolden state governors and legislatures. Texas has now applied to reclaim the federal funding it was denied under the last administration. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster in August successfully defunded Planned Parenthood and requested a waiver from the Trump administration so that the state can do the same with Medicaid, which is where the abortion business gets most of its taxpayer funding.
The next step is for the Trump administration to issue new guidance to the states restoring their freedom to prioritize Medicaid funds the way they believe will best serve their citizens. The administration must be prepared to defend that policy vigorously should the case go to the Supreme Court.
The pro-life majorities in both houses of Congress should also fulfill their promise to redirect half a billion dollars in annual taxpayer funding away from Planned Parenthood using budget reconciliation, where they have the best chance of succeeding.
Marjorie Dannenfelser is president of the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List. Twitter: @marjoriesba
A Note for our Readers:
Trust in the mainstream media is at a historic low—and rightfully so given the behavior of many journalists in Washington, D.C.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected president, it is painfully clear that the mainstream media covers liberals glowingly and conservatives critically.
Now journalists spread false, negative rumors about President Trump before any evidence is even produced.
Americans need an alternative to the mainstream media. That’s why The Daily Signal exists.
The Daily Signal’s mission is to give Americans the real, unvarnished truth about what is happening in Washington and what must be done to save our country.
Our dedicated team of more than 100 journalists and policy experts rely on the financial support of patriots like you.
Your donation helps us fight for access to our nation’s leaders and report the facts.
You deserve the truth about what’s going on in Washington.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/CecileRichards6-1250x650.jpg361640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2017-11-29 06:33:362017-11-29 06:33:36Planned Parenthood Is in Deep Trouble With the Law. This Could Be a Turning Point.
On Tuesday, November 28th the Florida Constitution Revision Commission will hold a hearing on proposed state constitutional amendments, including one that would require employers to use E-Verify to check the workplace eligibility of new hires proposals. You can see the amendment at the Floridians for E-Verify website.
The group Floridians for E-Verify Now is seeking people to attend the hearing and, if possible, testify in support of their E-Verify amendment. If you cannot attend but want to help, please see instructions further below for emailing commission members.
Regarding testimony, the group is seeking, in particular:
Business owners or their staff who use E-Verify;
American workers adversely affected by illegal workers; and
Farmers who use the H-2A visa program as an alternative to hiring illegal aliens.
If you want to testify, or can attend but do not wish to testify, please contact Jack Oliver at jack@floridiansforeverifynow.org or 772-215-8424. Those not wanting to testify can waive their right to speak and assign it to others.
First “copy and paste” the comments just below to the body of your email. Then type in the subject line: Please Support Floridians for E-Verify Now’s E-Verify Amendment. Now place your name in the “To” field and copy the email addresses further below and paste in your “Bcc” field.
Dear Commission Member,
Please vote to move the E-Verify Amendment forward favorably without amendments. Floridians should have a right to vote on this issue next November. Thank you.
Few witnesses could be more damning against a purported sexual abuser of four decades ago than an ex-cop from that era. That is, unless the ex-cop has a hidden agenda. Like the former Gadsden, Alabama cop who claims police were told in the 1970s to ensure that now-GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore stayed away from teen cheerleaders — and who actually turns out to be a left-wing Moore opponent.
Faye Gary
Faye Gary created quite a stir last week with her comments, though she confessed to MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that the claims about Judge Moore were “just rumors” and that “we never got a complaint on it.”
What didn’t come out during her media interview — in which she appeared sober and non-partisan — is that she has an ideological ax to grind with the judge.
After confirming with the City of Gadsden Personnel Office that Gary actually had served as a police officer, I contacted her via a Facebook message. The passion and anger quickly emerged, with Gary making clear she objected to Moore’s stances on homosexuality, Islam and the display of the Ten Commandments.
In fact, the venom leapt from the page. Gary insisted that Moore will, as she put it, “pay for his stance on gays, Muslims and most of all for hiding behind the Ten Commandments for his political gain.” She seemed to be implying that he’ll suffer some kind of divine retribution.
Gary also became vulgar. After I told her the Gadsden Mall’s ex-manager contradicted her claim that Moore was suspended from the facility and that this is what happens when you listen to the “rumor mill” (her term), she wrote, “Thanks for your opinion but they r just like a[**] h[***]s we all have one.”
Note that none of this means Gary’s claims are or aren’t true. But it hints at her motivation for coming forward and certainly makes her something less than an unimpeachable source.
Unsurprisingly, Gary’s Facebook page reflects her political passions. Scrolling down, you find pictures of Barack Obama along with some harsh condemnation of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who had at the time raised Gary’s ire by criticizing Michelle Obama.
Casting further doubt on Gary’s claims is that her story doesn’t add up. She stated that “we were also told to watch him [Moore] at the ball games and make sure that he didn’t hang around the cheerleaders.” But when Andrea Mitchell asked if “this was just rumor” or if she was actually given instructions from superiors, Gary replied “It was just rumors.”
Of course, there’s no law stating you “can’t hang around cheerleaders,” anyway, so this wouldn’t be the police’s official domain. Nor did Gary say she ever saw Moore hanging around cheerleaders. And if cops had approached him and said “Judge, you must observe an exclusion zone around those cheerleaders,” it would be quite the story.
So the real story here may be that Gary would like to be a cheerleader for Moore’s far-left opponent, Doug Jones. Once again, Gary cited a rumor that the judge was banned from the Gadsden Mall even after Barnes Boyle, the facility’s former manager, said that to the best of his knowledge Moore was not banned (video below). Gary states she was told to watch Moore around cheerleaders, yet indicates that this “instruction” was actually a rumor. She says she “worked juvenile, so if any complaint [about Moore] had come in, it would have come to us. … But we never got a complaint on it.” What she doesn’t say is that, with all her watching, she ever observed Moore behaving inappropriately around any teen girls. So is there anything here but rumor?
In addition, the story of Moore’s most damning accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, has already unraveled. Meanwhile, rumor is helping obscure reality. This is precisely the goal, too. As Huffpo’s Amanda Terkel put it Friday, the best chance to defeat Moore is “for the Democratic Party to lie low.” Why? Because their positions are damning in Dixie.
Consider how Terkel also wrote that “Doug Jones is trying to distinguish himself from the national party….”
Well, he’s not trying very hard.
He’s pro-prenatal infanticide, apparently even up to the moment of birth. He’s pro-“transgender” agenda, which includes support for “transgenders” in the military and having confused (or clever) boys use girls’ locker rooms. He’s also pro-amnesty, pro-CO2 regulation, pro-ObamaCare and is a tax-and-spend politician. This is the real scandal in the Senate special-election campaign: that Doug Jones wants to bring New York values to Alabama.
And maybe this is why Democrats have to bring a Hollywood scandal to Roy Moore.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/breaking-news.jpg360640Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2017-11-26 15:41:172017-11-27 08:22:35BREAKING: Ex-Cop making Roy Moore Harassment Claim is Leftist, Anti-Moore Opponent
You’ve heard of “fake news,” but what about fake science? That’s been around even longer, thanks to liberals. Desperate to prop up their unpopular or unnatural agendas, the Left resorts to all kinds of statistical manipulation to persuade people that their arguments are legitimate. They insist the science is “settled” on hot-button topics like abortion, the environment, homosexuality, or same-sex marriage. And they’re right. It is settled — but not on their side!
From when life begins to what your gender is, conservatives are fed up with the lies the Left is using to shut them up. The Center for Family and Human Rights’s Austin Ruse was so frustrated with this coordinated effort that he wrote a book to expose it: Fake Science: Exposing the Left’s Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data. Yesterday, he stopped by “Washington Watch” and explained why liberals feel like they need to twist the truth. (Check out the full segment here.)
“What’s behind it is an ideology that, in our scientific age, needs scientific facts to back them up — when in fact, they don’t exist. The language of our age… is science, and if you don’t come to a political argument with a study in hand — or two or three — then you’re in trouble. People automatically want to know what the science says and what the social science says. And what’s driving it is a Leftist political agenda in search of arguments that will convince the public. And therefore they go out and either create these studies or commission studies that tend to be phony… Either the sample sizes are too small or the sample sizes are drawn from sympathetic audiences — there’s a whole lot of ways to game these studies, mostly in social science… A lot of the things they’re trying to prove are not really provable, and so they have to rely on fake science.”
For years, the far Left has tried to pin the anti-science label on conservatives, but the irony, Austin points out, is that “not only is the other side making things up, but science generally confirms the things we believe — like natural law… In the work that you and I do, we run across this all the time. On homosexuality, for instance, [they tell us] it’s inborn, and if you don’t believe it’s inborn and immutable, then you’re a hater. But science doesn’t show it’s inborn or that it’s immutable…”
The Left claims to be the party of science, but some won’t even acknowledge basic biology! In the battle over gender identity, they can’t accept that our sex is determined by our chromosomes at birth. They think it’s defined by feelings! And unfortunately, Austin explains, fake science is even more dangerous than fake news because scientific statistics — no matter their dubious origins — tend to lodge in our brains and stay there. Fake news, on the other hand, is just superseded by the next news cycle.
In other words, conservatives have to fight even harder to be heard! Consider partnering with FRC as we speak truth into a culture — and Capitol — that desperately needs it. Our work depends on people like you.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/111717_fakescience_770x400-e1511659171421.jpg360640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2017-11-25 20:19:422017-11-25 20:26:30‘Skewed Statistics, Fuzzy Facts, and Dodgy Data’
Judge blocks Trump’s effort to end sanctuary cities — the day after a border patrol agent is bludgeoned to death.
On Sunday, November 19, 2017 two United States Border Patrol agents were attacked and one of the agents, identified as 36 year-old Rogelio Martinez, died of massive injuries to his head and body, possibly caused by rocks. His partner, who has not yet been identified, was grievously injured but is expected to survive.
On November 20th CBS News and the Associated Press jointly reported on the attack which reportedly occurred about 110 miles southeast of El Paso Texas and 30 miles from the U.S. / Mexican border.
El Paso is directly across the U.S./Mexican border from Ciudad Juarez, one of the most violent cities in Mexico and has become synonymous with the deadly drug trade.
Meanwhile even as news reports about the deadly attack on members of the United States Border Patrol were being made public, on November 20, 2017 San Diego-Union Tribune reported, “Judge permanently blocks Trump order that cut funding to sanctuary cities.”
That disheartening and infuriating report began with this excerpt:
A federal judge has permanently blocked President Donald Trump‘s executive order to cut funding from cities that limit cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities.
U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick issued the ruling on Monday in lawsuits brought by two California counties, San Francisco and Santa Clara. Orrick said Trump cannot set new conditions on spending approved by Congress.
There is a clear nexus to these two events that has not been covered in the news.
Border Patrol Agent Rogelio Martinez was killed because he and his seriously injured partner were performing their sworn duties, protecting America and America by securing our dangerous border.
The individuals who attacked those valiant agents escaped and, for all we know, are presently hiding out in a city in the United States. It is likely that they would feel most secure in a Sanctuary City that will happily ignore that they are illegally present in the United States.
If, indeed the this the case, that city is harboring dangerous fugitives who have already demonstrated depraved contempt for human life and the laws of our nation.
Providing fugitives with sanctuary is a violation of law and constitutes a contradiction in terms, logic and morality and places others in that community at risk.
Our immigration laws deem harboring and shielding illegal aliens from detection and related crimes to be felonies. The statute of relevance to these crimes is Title 8, U.S.C. 1324(a) Offenses.
Consider this excerpt from that statute:
Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.
Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.
Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.
Illegal entry of aliens into the United States poses a direct threat to national security and public safety. The preface of the official report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” begins with the following paragraph:
It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal.
Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.
Immigration anarchists have come to use deceptive language to obfuscate the truth about America’s borders and immigration laws.
Aliens who evade the inspection process conducted at ports of entry conducted by CBP (Customs and Border Protection) Inspectors are not vetted and their very presence in the United States is unknown to the DHS.
Such unlawful entries are properly described as Entry Without Inspection (EWI). However, in a turn of language that could have been produced by the fictional “Ministry of Truth” of George Orwell’s “1984,” immigration anarchists refer to such violations of our borders as “entering undocumented.”
This example of semantic artifice is as outrageous as it would be to describe a bank robber making an “undocumented withdrawal” of money from the bank that he robbed.
The terms “Sanctuary City” or “Sanctuary State” provide an additional example of manipulation of language to achieve political objectives.
Dictionaries define a “sanctuary” as a place of refuge or safety.
Sanctuary Cities should be referred to as “Magnets for criminals, fugitives and terrorists.”
America’s immigration laws were enacted to provide refuge and safety for all who live in the United States by preventing the entry of aliens who suffer from dangerous communicable diseases, suffer extreme mental illness are criminals, terrorists, spies, fugitives, members of violent gangs or otherwise pose a threat to national security and/or public safety.
Finally, our immigration laws were enacted to protect American workers from unfair competition foreign workers.
Title 8, United States Code, Section 1182 enumerates the categories of aliens who are to be excluded and serve as the guide for CBP Inspectors at ports of entry. A review of that statute, which is comprehended within the Immigration and Nationality Act, will verify the foregoing.
Aliens who are lawfully admitted, either as immigrants or non-immigrants need no protection from immigration law enforcement authorities. Indeed, annually immigration officers admit approximately one million lawful immigrants and admit tens of millions of non-immigrants (temporary visitors). Our immigration officials naturalize hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year bestowing upon them the highest honor a nation may provide to an alien, citizenship.
America’s immigration laws are utterly and totally blind as to the superficial issues of race, religion and/or ethnicity.
Furthermore, illegal entry is considered a continuing offense. Generally when an individual commits a crime, the venue where the crime must be prosecuted is determined by the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. This is the case for violations of laws on the local, state or federal level. When a bank robber flees from the jurisdiction where the bank he/she robbed is located, that individual must be returned to the jurisdiction in which the robbery took place.
However, where illegal entry into the United States is concerned, the venue for prosecuting the crime is “where found.” This is because this violation of law is a continuing offense. An alien who runs our nation’s borders does not somehow gain lawful status by getting further from the border.
Immigration anarchists frequently (falsely claim) running the border is not a crime. In fact, aliens who have been convicted of committing serious crimes and have been previously deported may face up to 20 years in prison for unlawful reentry as established in Title 8 U.S.C. 1326.
Finally, one of the key issues identified in the 9/11 Commission Report and the report 9/11 and Terrorist Travel from which I quoted earlier, was the need for effective immigration law enforcement from within the interior of the United States.
Thus, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity. It would remain largely unknown, since no agency of the United States government analyzed terrorist travel patterns until after 9/11. This lack of attention meant that critical opportunities to disrupt terrorist travel and, therefore, deadly terrorist operations were missed.
Judge Orrick needs to read the 9/11 Commission Report and the United States Constitution, especially Article IV, Section 4 which states:
The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Invasion has been defined in part as:
An incursion by a large number of people or things into a place or sphere of activity:
An unwelcome intrusion into another’s domain
The oath of office taken by law enforcement officers, judges and other officials make it clear that our Constitution and our laws must all be enforced. Our laws are not a menu from which those who take an oath of office can pick or choose as one might when ordering food in a restaurant.
Our two greatest presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, respectively thought Thanksgiving sufficiently important to initiate its national celebration and to later revive this tradition.
Our accepted convention is that Thanksgiving is about family togetherness and feasting. Surely this is part of it—but perhaps a more refined notion of what this nearly ancient holiday should mean for us today is helpful.
National days of reflection are required to unify the American public in common sentiment. Washington had this in mind in issuing his rightly famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1789.
First begun as a harvest holiday, Thanksgiving predates the founding of our republic. But in this first proclamation of the first year of his presidency, Washington gave a political direction to the holiday. As he said elsewhere, he wanted, through his example, “to establish a national character of our own.”
In doing his part to establish our national character, Washington was aware that we are a people capable of courage and assertion, able to win independence. He was likewise aware of our ability to choose, through representatives, a new constitutional order.
Progressivism’s quasi-religion lacks any understanding of gratitude and humility.
But this holiday is of a different character, as it calls us to develop a capacity for gratitude. The American public ought to be grateful not merely, however, for the immediate circumstance of their lives, but also for the greater blessings of liberty bestowed upon their nation. Our gratitude is directed toward a nonsectarian God—like the God of the Declaration of Independence—which all citizens can worship.
Importantly, gratitude also means acknowledgement of our frailty and the imperfection of our understanding; gratitude implores us to deepen our self-knowledge. Thanksgiving is, therefore, a holiday against self-satisfaction and pride.
At the end of the Proclamation, Washington implores Americans toward modesty regarding our own powers, reminding citizens that we live in an order that may be mysterious insofar as God possesses superior knowledge of what is “best.”
But are all peoples capable of gratitude? In the present time it has become fashionable to espouse if not open atheism, then at least antagonism toward religion. These opinions come forth in various, sometimes obfuscated, forms.
Part of the left’s recent fanaticism originates from the fact that progressivism’s quasi-religion lacks any understanding of gratitude and humility. Progressivism precludes belief in these since progress as an alleged cosmic force is neither merciful nor beneficent, but is merely abstract and all-powerful. As such, it does not encourage its believers toward either humility or gratitude.
Neither does belief in the abstract and inhuman forces of progress require humility on account of human frailty and ignorance. Rather, progress, claiming perfect knowledge of the laws of the universe, leads to fanaticism.
Is the individual, modeled on these assumptions, of the kind required for self-government? Rather, does not self-government require generosity between citizens, which can be the product only of a common recognition of an America inhabited by one people, united in a common cause, with common beliefs, grateful for what has come before us?
What happens to a people when they lose the ability for gratitude? Insolence and impudence rule, while the various factions devour each other, competing for the national stage. Alternatively, one might inquire whether a people is up to the task of ruling itself once gratitude is lost, since then it loses its ideals and the justification for its self-government.
Our nation has produced hitherto-thought impossible prosperity on the broadest scale. “The civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed” has endured as an ideal for many generations. Indeed, many remarkable individuals have fought to secure these blessings for our benefit.
On Thanksgiving this year, perhaps raising our purview above the pleasures of family togetherness, we might think about our nation, the good fortune we have to be its citizens, and the task ahead in preserving it.
Arthur Milikh is assistant director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/George-Washington-e1636576470297.jpg369640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2017-11-23 07:13:482017-11-23 07:14:52Why George Washington Thought the Practice of Gratitude Was Essential for the American Character
As waves of sexual assault and harassment allegations roll in — and the media, liberals and feminists hyperfocus on the allegations against Roy Moore because of the opportunity to flip a very solid Republican Senate seat — it’s worth revisiting what leading feminists said on the exact same issue in 1998 when it was Democrat President Bill Clinton’s position at stake.
This is important because there are a stunning number of people today who seem to have amnesia about the Clinton years — or young people today who were never taught them.
The context is that just a few years earlier feminists ardently supported the less-than-credible allegations made by Anita Hill that almost sunk the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court. They jumped in to support Anita Hill ostensibly because any woman alleging sexual harassment or worse must be believed. But in reality, it seems it was only a partisan attack against a conservative justice. Worse for Democrats, a conservative black justice. Thomas was brilliant in his defense, and his labeling it a “high-tech lynching.”
Fast forward to 1998 and Bill Clinton. Please read these in light of how both Anita Hill a few years earlier and the Roy Moore accusers today are treated by some of the same feminists.
⇢ “We’re trying to think of the bigger picture, think about what’s best for women,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. When conservatives called hypocrisy on the feminists, Smeal said: “It’s a twofer for them. If they can get the president, great. And if they can get feminism, even greater.”
⇢ “It will be a great pity if the Democratic Party is damaged by this,” feminist writer Anne Roiphe told Vanity Fair’s Marjorie Williams in 1998. “That’s been my response from the very beginning — I just wanted to close my eyes, and wished it would go away.”
⇢ “We do not know what happened in the Lewinsky case,” said Kathy Rodgers, executive director of the NOW’s Legal Defense and Education Fund. “The only thing that is clear is that the facts are not clear.”
⇢ One feminist infamously said she would perform oral sex on Bill Clinton as long as he kept abortion legal up to nine months. Some campus extremist? Hardly. Nina Burleigh, Time magazine’s White House correspondent when Clinton was President. She wrote: “I’d be happy to give him [oral sex] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal.”
⇢ “If anything, it sounds like she put the moves on him,” said Susan Faludi, a feminist author, said of one of Clinton’s prominent accusers.
⇢ Bill Clinton’s “enemies are attempting to bring him down through allegations about some dalliance with an intern…. Whether it’s a fantasy, a set-up or true, I simply don’t care,” said high-profile feminist Betty Friedan. Or true.
⇢ After 60 Minutes interviewed Kathleen Willey that Clinton had manhandled her in private when she was seeking a job, Anita Perez Ferguson — president of the National Women’s Political Caucus, said the charges were more “quantity rather than quality, in terms of my feelings…There’s no question that it’s disturbing…. But to come to any judgment now is definitely not something that I think is timely.”
⇢ “What is important for the American people to know is that there is a process in place to deal with these allegations,” said California Sen. Barbara Boxer. So let’s not be Roy Moore-like hasty.
⇢ “Not so many years ago, a woman couldn’t be a White House intern,” Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun said in an an amazing attempt at distraction on Meet the Press.
⇢ And finally Rep. Nancy Pelosi complained that Special Prosecutor Ken Starr was causing “humiliation” by calling Clinton’s female victims before the grand jury.
There is an obvious trend here. Against Republicans, feminists say the accusing female must be believed. Against Democrats, not so much. That’s not a philosophy, that’s straightforward partisan politics. And it makes their words today truly incredible.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/pink-pussy-hats-720-e1511358886161.jpg393640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2017-11-22 08:56:102017-11-22 08:56:28Feminists Own Words Condemn Them
Our accepted convention is that Thanksgiving is about family togetherness and feasting. Surely this is part of it—but perhaps a more refined notion of what this nearly ancient holiday should mean for us today is helpful.
National days of reflection are required to unify the American public in common sentiment. Washington had this in mind in issuing his rightly famous Thanksgiving Day proclamation of 1789.
First begun as a harvest holiday, Thanksgiving predates the founding of our republic. But in this first proclamation of the first year of his presidency, Washington gave a political direction to the holiday. As he said elsewhere, he wanted, through his example, “to establish a national character of our own.”
In doing his part to establish our national character, Washington was aware that we are a people capable of courage and assertion, able to win independence. He was likewise aware of our ability to choose, through representatives, a new constitutional order.
But this holiday is of a different character, as it calls us to develop a capacity for gratitude. The American public ought to be grateful not merely, however, for the immediate circumstance of their lives, but also for the greater blessings of liberty bestowed upon their nation. Our gratitude is directed toward a nonsectarian God—like the God of the Declaration of Independence—which all citizens can worship.
Importantly, gratitude also means acknowledgement of our frailty and the imperfection of our understanding; gratitude implores us to deepen our self-knowledge. Thanksgiving is, therefore, a holiday against self-satisfaction and pride.
At the end of the Proclamation, Washington implores Americans toward modesty regarding our own powers, reminding citizens that we live in an order that may be mysterious insofar as God possesses superior knowledge of what is “best.”
But are all peoples capable of gratitude? In the present time it has become fashionable to espouse if not open atheism, then at least antagonism toward religion. These opinions come forth in various, sometimes obfuscated, forms.
Part of the left’s recent fanaticism originates from the fact that progressivism’s quasi-religion lacks any understanding of gratitude and humility. Progressivism precludes belief in these since progress as an alleged cosmic force is neither merciful nor beneficent, but is merely abstract and all-powerful. As such, it does not encourage its believers toward either humility or gratitude.
Neither does belief in the abstract and inhuman forces of progress require humility on account of human frailty and ignorance. Rather, progress, claiming perfect knowledge of the laws of the universe, leads to fanaticism.
Is the individual, modeled on these assumptions, of the kind required for self-government? Rather, does not self-government require generosity between citizens, which can be the product only of a common recognition of an America inhabited by one people, united in a common cause, with common beliefs, grateful for what has come before us?
What happens to a people when they lose the ability for gratitude? Insolence and impudence rule, while the various factions devour each other, competing for the national stage. Alternatively, one might inquire whether a people is up to the task of ruling itself once gratitude is lost, since then it loses its ideals and the justification for its self-government.
Our nation has produced hitherto-thought impossible prosperity on the broadest scale. “The civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed” has endured as an ideal for many generations. Indeed, many remarkable individuals have fought to secure these blessings for our benefit.
On Thanksgiving this year, perhaps raising our purview above the pleasures of family togetherness, we might think about our nation, the good fortune we have to be its citizens, and the task ahead in preserving it.
COMMENTARY BY
Arthur Milikh
Arthur Milikh is assistant director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation.