Think Progress in a Tizzy over Trump’s Description of the Diversity Visa Lottery at Ohio Rally

/in , , , , , , , /by

He just loves twisting their tails as he did in the Ohio rally two nights ago. And, I am so glad he brought up the truly insane Diversity Visa Lottery.

Here we have Think Progress, a preeminent Progressive website that’s been around for nearly 15 years (but losing its luster we see) attempting to get your minds right on how the Diversity Visa Lottery really works (according to them) and how Trump is a dummy.

If you missed it, you might first go back and see my post of last week where I told you that the big winners of the insane green card lottery this year were Russia and Egypt—WTH! We don’t have enough Russians and Egyptians in the US yet!

Here is Think Progress on Trump in Ohio,

Trump reveals he has no idea how the diversity visa lottery works

At a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, Thursday night, President Donald Trump painted a wildly inaccurate picture to his supporters of how the diversity visa lottery program works.

The diversity visa lottery program awards roughly 50,000 green cards each year to citizens from various underrepresented countries to legally live and work in the United States. In turn, lottery recipients “diversify” the U.S. population: in order to qualify for the lottery, an individual must meet a number of merit-based factors, including a certain level of education or comparable work experience.

Stop right there.  In that Miami Herald article I quoted last week, we learned that:

Overall, the winner must have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent, or two years’ work experience over the past five years in an eligible occupation that requires at least two years of training or experience.

Can you imagine how easy it would be to falsify that type of information when the applicants are coming from hellhole third world countries!

Think Progress goes on:

In Trump’s mind, however, the diversity visa lottery functions as some kind of Powerball for criminals.

“And you pick people out of the lottery,” Trump said Thursday night, gesturing as if he were picking names out of a hat. “Well let’s see, this one is a murderer, this one robbed four banks, this one I better not say, this one another murderer, ladies and gentlemen, another murderer.”  [LOL! A Trumpian description sure to make Leftwingers heads explode!—ed]

Oh good security screening!

Because the diversity visa lottery is self-selecting, it is not up to individual countries — as Trump appears to believe — to decide which of its citizens can be considered for a green card. In addition to the education requirements, all recipients of the visa undergo background checks, health examinations, security screenings, and interviews by consular officers before their arrival in the United States.

And, much to my surprise in the very next paragraph reporter Rebekah Entralgo confirms exactly what Trump is saying:

Trump has frequently railed against the diversity visa lottery program, even threatening to eliminate the program altogether in 2017, after a lottery recipient from Uzbekistan carried out an extremist attack in New York City, killing eight people.

See Fox News on November 1, 2017:

NYC terror attack suspect, Sayfullo Saipov, entered US through Diversity Visa Program

Need I say more? So much for security screening!

Tell the President he is right-on—Democrat lottery system it surely is!—and it must go!

RELATED VIDEO: Trump campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio. – PBS NewsHour

EDITORS NOTE: This Frauds, Crooks and Criminals column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Germany: Muslim who murdered man with sword in broad daylight is ‘Palestinian’ claiming to be Syrian ‘refugee’ [Video]

/in , , , , , , , , /by

“War is deceit,” said Muhammad (Bukhari 4.52.268).

“Breaking: sword murderer apparently lived under false identity in Germany,” translated from Eilt: Schwertmörder lebte anscheinend unter falscher Identität in Deutschland,” JournalistenWatch, August 1, 2019 (thanks to Searchlight Germany):

Stuttgart – The alleged murderer who attacked and killed a 36-year-old German with a sword on Wednesday evening in broad daylight is said to be a Palestinian who claims to have been a Syrian refugee.

According to Stuttgarter Zeitung, the 30-year-old alleged sword killer is said to be a Palestinian known to the police, who has acquired a Syrian identity. Once again, the German state has apparently accepted his data completely unchecked. The “Syrian” is said to be living in Germany for four years and is registered with the authorities as Issa M. (28). The authorities will now determine whether the perpetrator really is another person, according to the Stuttgarter Nachrichten. The “Syrian” Issa M. yesterday slaughtered a man with several blows and stabs in a block of flats in Stuttgart after a quarrel his former roommate in front of numerous eyewitnesses. And we say again: Thank you, Mrs. Merkel.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Islamists like These States.

Pence Speaks Out In Defense Of Christian Woman Punished In Iran For Converting From Islam

Just a Few Questions for Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch

NATO ally Germany refuses to back U.S. in Gulf out of fear of Iran

RELATED VIDEO: Maryland — BDS Occupies Takoma Park.

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

California: Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter had “reading material on white supremacy and radical Islam”

/in , , , , , , /by

He railed against “Silicon Valley white twats,” so it’s unlikely that he was a white supremacist, contrary to establishment media claims. But although he had material on jihad, he doesn’t seem to have been a committed Muslim, or a Muslim at all; he is more likely to have been a hate-filled individual with a thirst to do people harm than a committed jihadi.

In any case, it is characteristic of the establishment media to ignore the Islamic material that Legan had and play up the white supremacist material, as you can see in the SFGate’s headline.

“Report: White supremacist materials found in Gilroy Garlic Festival shooter’s home,” by Katie Dowd, SFGate, July 31, 2019:

A search of the home of Santino Williams Legan, the man law enforcement says shot and killed three people at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, has turned up materials on white supremacy and radical Islam, according to a report from the San Francisco Chronicle.

Federal law enforcement sources told the Chronicle that the makings of “massive attack” were found in the Walker Lake, Nevada rental home where the shooter was staying. Among the items found were a gas mask, “numerous” hard drives, a bulletproof vest and “reading material on white supremacy and radical Islam.”

An Instagram account purportedly belonging to the shooter also referenced white supremacist ideology, recommending “Might is Right” by Ragnar Redbeard.

Written under a pseudonym in the late 1800s, the book is a defense of Anglo-Saxon and male supremacy, and argues that weakness shows moral inferiority. It is also full of anti-Semitic rhetoric….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Just a Few Questions for Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch

NATO ally Germany refuses to back U.S. in Gulf out of fear of Iran

RELATED VIDEO: Maryland — BDS Occupies Takoma Park.

EDITOR NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Quebec’s Totalitarian Moment and Loss of Catholic Culture

/in , , , , /by

Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett: The government says, “We want you, but not your faith. Just your cultural and economic value to the state will do.”

In 1981, while ushering in Canada’s new Charter of Rights and Freedoms, then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau remarked that “The Golden Thread of Faith is woven throughout the history of Canada from its earliest beginnings up to the present time.” Now, in Trudeau’s home province of Quebec, we are witnessing the unraveling of that thread and the prospect of its complete sundering.

On June 16, 2019, the Quebec National Assembly passed the Coalition pour l’Avenir du Québec government’s Bill 21: An Act Respecting the Laicity of the State. At ten pages, the law is brief in length, but broad and troubling in scope. It affirms that Quebec is a “lay state,” characterized by the “separation of State and religions . . . the religious neutrality of the state . . . the equality of all citizens . . . and freedom of conscience and religion.”

Based on these mutually contradictory premises, the law prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by public servants when they are exercising their functions.

Caught in this web are, among others, legislators, justices of the peace, prosecutors, peace officers, and school teachers. Even religious freedom advocates will be unlikely to quarrel with the ban on full-face and head coverings for police officers and school teachers.

But the law goes too far in suppressing all outward symbols of religious faith, including religious Sikhs who wear a turban, orthodox Jews who wear a kippah, Muslim women in hijab, and Christians who wear visible crosses. Worse, the prohibitions extend to private institutions that are under agreement with the government to provide health and social services.

The exclusive focus on religious garb is indeed troubling. One suspects the ultimate goal of the National Assembly is to use the force of law to remove religion from Quebec’s public life, a process ongoing elsewhere in Canada.

The right of public religious expression entails more than wearing religious symbols. It also means the right to operate faith-based institutions in a manner consistent with religious teachings, to refrain from participation in activities that are incompatible with religious belief, and – in a democracy of equal citizens – the right to engage in debates over law and public policy with religion-based arguments.

The logic of the law could easily be wielded to justify future restrictions on these more substantive areas of expression.

Nevertheless, the law is deeply troubling on its face, demanding that public servants in Quebec present incomplete versions of themselves when performing their duties in the public domain. Anticipating the intense opposition this law would elicit, the government of Quebec invoked section 33, the so-called “notwithstanding clause” of Canada’s Constitution Act, 1982. That clause permits Parliament – or any provincial legislature – to enact legislation notwithstanding the provisions in sections 2 and 7-15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which includes freedom of conscience and religion) for a period of five years.

To each her religion

The Quebec government is seeking to do an end-run around the Charter, openly flaunting the suppression of fundamental freedoms, while baldly asserting that the secular state protects the equality of citizens and their freedom of conscience and religion.

The new law reflects anti-Muslim attitudes prevalent in rural Quebec. But ultimately it flows from a statist understanding of the role of government and from the gnostic impulses of Quebec’s secular elites. They view themselves as guardians of the knowledge of good and evil and arbiters of how the state is to be served. This amounts to a fundamental reordering of representative democracy.

The new law can also be characterized as a project of certain Québécois elites to cling to the political and cultural values of the 1960s and 1970s. During those years, French Quebec came to reject longstanding Catholic nationalism in favor of an avowedly secular progressive nationalism – Quebec’s so-called Quiet Revolution.

The Second Vatican Council unfolded during the early 1960s, but Quebec’s elites, like other Western Catholics, never understood the teachings of Dignitatis Humanæ concerning the human person and the utter necessity of religious freedom for all. Instead, the culture that emerged is an alien French laïcité – the use of the state to control and privatize religion –which historically has not been the stuff of French-Canadian society.

Indigenous First Nations, English, Scottish, Irish, Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, Lebanese, Italians, Haitians, and North Africans, among many others, have long come together in Quebec (though not without discrimination along the way). Quebec’s government has almost exclusive control over immigration to the province. It welcomes immigrants, especially Francophone immigrants, from around the world to help build French civilization in North America.

This is a laudable project. Yet the government is now telling those it has welcomed: “We want you, but not your faith. Just your cultural and economic value to the state will do.” This represents a narrow, utilitarian, and fundamentally anti-Catholic understanding of the human person.

Hence the stunning hypocrisy of the government’s claim to uphold freedom of conscience and religion in the new law. Religious freedom is the right of every person, and every religious community, to live their faith through religious observance and public action. Religious freedom is necessary for individual and social flourishing. Like all other inalienable rights, it is not a gift of the state. It should be protected and defended by the state.

So why this law? The answer is that the secular elites of la belle province do not really believe in pluralism and diversity. This new law is a gross violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It represents a significant legal step in the removal of religion from the public life of this historically Catholic province.

Legal challenges are pending, of course, and some people of faith in Quebec, along with some public institutions, such as municipalities and school boards, may decide to respond with civil disobedience. If so, will the Quebec government arrest observant Sikhs, Jews, and Muslims while they fulfill their duties as public servants? We must wait and see.

COLUMN BY

Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett

The Rev. Dr. Andrew P.W. Bennett serves as Senior Fellow and Director of the North American Action Team of the Religious Freedom Institute. He is a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic deacon of the Eparchy of Toronto and Eastern Canada. He previously served in the Canadian foreign service as Canada’s first Ambassador for Religious Freedom and Head of the Office of Religious Freedom from 2013 to 2016. He holds a B.A. Hons. in History (Dalhousie), an M.A. in History (McGill), and a Ph.D. in Politics (Edinburgh).

EDITORS NOTE: This Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2019 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

CAIR Islamophobia Report: A First-Class Fraud

/in , , , , , , /by

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) has jumped in on the effort to paint its opponents as “Islamophobes,” the latest twist in the Left’s never-ending effort to smear opponents with names like “racist,” “xenophobe,” etc. And while this repulsive strategy makes a mockery of the First Amendment and has reduced American political dialogue to infantile, elementary school name-calling, its true goal is to marginalize, deplatform and defund its opponents, especially those that pose a threat to its subversive agenda. This paper exposes for all to see, just how transparently dishonest and hypocritical CAIR and its allies in the Red-Green Axis truly are in this their latest “Islamophbia” report, and links them to the worldwide effort of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to impose blasphemy laws against anyone who would speak ill of any aspect of Islam.

CAIR Islamophobia Report- A First-Class Fraud PDF

The Left has become increasingly aggressive about silencing its critics. In late June 2019, James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas released its latest undercover video showing Google’s frightening institutional bias and its apparent intention to manipulate public opinion to influence the 2020 elections. Google is just one of many on the Left seeking to mislead, discredit, defame, and silence the Left’s opponents. But they are not alone. In what we have called the Red-Green Axis, Islamic groups in the U.S. and abroad have partnered with the Left to silence anyone who questions any aspect of Islam, including Islamic terrorism. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently published its latest effort in a piece titled Hijacked by Hate: American Philanthropy and the Islamophobia Network.

It would be a joke, but it isn’t funny. “Islamophobia” is the latest in a long list of contrived “phobias” invented by the Left and its Muslim allies to continue the Left’s time-honored vilification tactic. It is an unscrupulous, intellectually dishonest way of dealing with legitimate criticism that has reduced political discourse in the U.S. to infantile, elementary school name-calling. The Left owns this outcome, but the Muslims are catching up.

First, we must ask: what is “Islamophobia?” Well, CAIR doesn’t exactly say. That is understandable, because if they told you what it means, you would laugh out loud. But one of their collaborators was honest enough to put it in a Facebook post (which wasn’t blocked by Facebook, BTW, unlike some posts critical of Islam). Here’s a screen shot of the post.

Meanwhile, we have Boko Haram’s gruesome mass slaughters in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab engaged in mass terror attacks in Somalia and Kenya, Abu Sayyaf kidnapping and murdering in the Philippines, countless individual and group acts of barbaric terrorism throughout the West, and the Islamic State beheadings everywhere – all doctrinally justified by the Qur’an, Sunna and Islamic Law (shariah).

If this is not Islam, then Islam is the most misunderstood religion in world history. There is literally no parallel in any other religion—although it should be noted that, according to a widely-used textbook in U.S. madrassas (Islamic schools), indeed, “Islam is not a religion,” but rather a complete way of life. And while we struggle to cope with this deadly onslaught, CAIR and its proxies are aggressively inserting Islamic teachings in public schools (while Christianity is equally aggressively banned), engaging in relentless lawsuits attempting to insinuate Islamic Law into U.S. courts, colluding with the Left in its various acts of subversion and sedition, and viciously attacking anyone who protests.

No, Esam, we are not the haters. You are! And your list is a bad joke, especially as it contains terms like jihad and terrorism that are to be found throughout the Islamic canon (notably the Qur’an itself!), as well as the perfectly doctrinal assertion about Islam not being a religion.

But it’s no joke. He is serious. And this is not just anyone. Esam Omeish is “Chief of General and Laparoscopic Surgery” at INOVA Alexandria Virginia hospital. Omeish is a former leader of the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) — both prominent Muslim Brotherhood groups. He is also a founding board member of the Dar al Hijra mosque in Falls Church, VA.

Dar al Hijra’s former Imam is the infamous Anwar al-Awlaki — mentor to Fort Hood terrorist, Nidal Hassan and others. Al-Awlaki was later killed in a CIA drone strike in Yemen. Hassan, along with two of the 9-11 terrorists, attended the mosque during 2001, when Awlaki was Imam. Another attendee was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, an al-Qaeda member convicted of attempting to assassinate President George W. Bush.

Can we say Islamic Terrorists?

If we do, we are… wait for it… Islamophobes! It turns out that this compendium merely details what the Organization for Islamic Cooperation defines as Islamophobia. The OIC is the world’s largest Islamic group, and the second largest intergovernmental organization in the world — including 56 nations and the Palestinian Authority. It wields substantial influence over the United Nations, and was able to convince the U.N. to insert its blasphemy definitions into UN Resolution 16/18, Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief.

Would that include “negative stereotyping” or violence against Christians and Jews? Ah, no. It is all about Islam, the only “religion” the U.N. has ever cared about.  And according to Islamic Law, anything that gives offense to Muslims by criticizing Islam in any way whatsoever, whether true or false, is slander – a criminal, even capital, offense against Islam. If, for example, you criticize Islam for Islamic terrorism, you are guilty of “incitement to violence.” So Islamic terrorism is our fault! According to the OIC, this kind of talk should be criminally prosecuted under Islamic blasphemy & slander laws, and while Resolution 16/18 pays lip service to free speech concepts, its true goal is to criminalize speech critical of Islam.

These people are the real haters. Let’s be clear about that. And they express their hate by trying to destroy those who expose them, meanwhile living comfortably in the most generous, free, affluent nation in the world. They define the term “parasite.”

So, let’s expose this “Islamophobia” report for the fraud it is. Its purpose is to attack those foundations providing income for CAIR’s enemies, the so-called “Islamophobia Network,” to starve them out of existence. As Center for Security Policy (CSP) Vice President for Research and Analysis Clare M. Lopez wrote in May 2019, “the clear intent of the report and the list is to provide a target list of philanthropic organizations to be shamed, shunned, and ultimately pressured into divesting from support of those groups deemed by CAIR to be “Islamophobic.”

CAIR claims that this network benefits from donations made through shadowy organizations called Donor-advised Funds. There are numerous such funds, including Fidelity, Schwab, Tides, Proteus, Vanguard, and others. These funds allow donors to remain anonymous. In today’s hyper-partisan atmosphere, where the Left and its Muslim allies are constantly seeking to expose, doxx and threaten donors, who can blame them?

But how can CAIR criticize others? CAIR gets money from Schwab and Proteus, according to Foundation Search. And while it has not received anything from Fidelity or Vanguard recently, many of its Muslim Brotherhood allies have. The Islamic Society of North America has received $176,600 from Fidelity, and $79,500 from Vanguard. The U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), also receive donations from Fidelity and/or Schwab.

In fact, Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity, Tides and other donor-advised funds are major financiers of the Left, and donations to non-Left groups are tiny by comparison. CAIR’s characterization of these funding sources is a fraudulent misdirection in this report. CAIR’s true goal in publishing this screed is to intimidate those funds from offering any money at all to CAIR’s political enemies.

CAIR’s Xenophobe Network

CAIR’s report claims that 39 xenophobic “hate” groups comprise a nefarious network receiving “billions” in “dark money” from those evil donor-advised funds. Never mind their definition. This is an absurd exaggeration, and it is factually incorrect:

  1. There were 46 groups listed in the report, not Can CAIR even count? NPR endorsed this report: Can NPR count? Did they even bother?
  2. Collectively, these 46 groups received approximately $1.4 billion over three years – about $450 million in one year, not “billions.”
  3. Two-thirds of this income was received by one organization, Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN).

Hard to fathom, but yes, CAIR considers the 700 Club to be part of a vast, dark “Islamophobia” network.

But let’s consider: if CBN’s annual income is removed, the other 45 receive an annual total of $145.1 million/year. It becomes immediately apparent why CBN was included. Without it, CAIR cannot us the “B” word, and even with it they have to count up three years. Of course, the CAIR report does not break the numbers out by organization, so you wouldn’t automatically know that most of this “network” was in fact the 700 Club.

Spread across the 45 organizations, excluding CBN, gives an average annual revenue of $3.2 million each. Literally, a hill of beans in the non-profit world, and nothing like the billions in funding received by the Left.

See the table below. Figures are taken from each organization’s nonprofit tax returns (linked in the table). While they pay no taxes, they are still required to file, but sometimes file quite late. All of the figures in the table below and the other tables in this report for that matter, were taken from the most recent tax return, usually 2016 or 2017, but a few were for 2018.

CAIR’s $1.5 Billion Xenophobe Network
  Net
Revenues Assets
1 Christian Broadcasting Network $308,099,729 $142,691,721
2 American Future Fund $29,401,632 $2,838,387
3 American Center for Law and Justice $22,801,099 $1,224,787
4 American Family Association $19,068,393 $28,683,191
5 Foundation for Defense of Democracies $9,039,436 $18,973,604
6 Center for Security Policy $6,548,493 $1,967,835
7 Middle East Media Research Institute $6,262,533 $1,532,913
8 David Horowitz Freedom Center $5,976,459 $650,572
9 National Review Institute $5,689,857 $9,660,370
10 Concerned Women for America $5,596,942 $191,832
11 Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting $5,363,477 $7,632,375
12 Middle East Forum $4,361,751 $5,463,633
13 American Civil Rights Union $3,119,465 $1,250,047
14 Clarion Project $3,005,986 $2,074,817
15 Gatestone Institute $2,159,819 $120,750
16 Investigative Project on Terrorism $2,056,982 -$137,257
17 Eagle Forum & Defense Fund (10 Chapters) $1,810,441 $29,351,809
18 Religious Freedom Coalition $1,529,083 $438,276
19 Lawfare Project $1,392,062 $790,780
20 American Freedom Law Center $1,276,078 $530,871
21 Christian Action Network $1,098,170 $80,590
22-46 All Others $8,298,096 $7,045,532
TOTAL $453,955,983 $263,057,435

Most of these groups are involved in many and different issues: so, to call them part of any kind of “network” is absurd. Consider the National Review (NR) for example. Founded by William F. Buckley, NR is one of the oldest conservative publications in the U.S. Except for a few writers, it is also one of the last Never-Trump holdouts. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)? How about the American Future Fund (AFF)? AFF turns out to be a group that promotes “conservative, free market ideals.” That does not sound “Islamophobic” to me.

Besides being groups that CAIR/SPLC hates there is actually little, if any connection, among these 46 groups. Not a “network” of any kind, let alone “dark.”

Only four make over $10 million/year. Most struggle just to keep their doors open.  More than half (represented by line 22-46) are not even worth mentioning separately. Combined, these 25 organizations realized just $8.3 million in their latest year. That averages out to about $332,000 each. Some earn less than $100,000. Two take in nothing at all. Most have only one or a few staff members. This vast network looks more and more like a guppy the closer you look.

Finally, the role of donor-advised funds is exaggerated. For example, of approximately $24 million CBN has received from various donors since 1999 according to Foundation Search, less than 18 percent came from donor-advised funds. Most of the rest came from individual family foundations, Christian foundations, and others. Conversely, CAIR’s network of conspirators, which I have dubbed the Red-Green Axis, thrives on donor-advised dollars.

So, CAIR’s characterization of this “Xenophobe network” is fraudulent on its face. It is also indicative of the group’s shoddy workmanship — alone enough to mistrust its assertions. So, let’s now take a look at CAIR’s Red-Green Axis network. This really is a multi-billion-dollar network. And you don’t even have to add years.

CAIR’s Multi-Billion Dollar Red/Green Axis Network
Annual Net
Islamic Groups Revenues Assets
ACCESS $27,488,567 $37,871,650
CAIR & CAIR Foundation $14,026,522 $11,663,463
Islamic Circle of North America $8,351,219 $20,337,153
International Institute of Islamic Thought $7,559,412 $963,220
Muslim American Society $4,381,563 $3,676,152
Muslim Legal Fund of America $3,576,412 $71,496
Islamic Society of North America $3,481,603 $1,601,028
Muslim Advocates $2,376,533 $1,553,085
MPAC Foundation $2,093,657 $1,084,022
Pillars Fund $1,906,122 $2,015,940
Constitutional Law Center for Muslims $1,700,636 $17,225
Muslim Public Affairs Council $1,552,024 $417,529
North American Foundation of Islamic Services $1,248,598 $814,284
Council of Islamic Organizations $937,397 $611,099
EMGAGE Foundation $740,752 $199,613
Assembly of Muslim Jurists in America $330,871 $384,048
U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations $100,795 $3,434
Washington Trust Foundation, Inc. $13,896 $4,923,358
North American Islamic Trust* NA $300,000,000
Subtotal $81,866,579 $388,207,799
 
Collaborators & Supporters
American Civil Liberties Union $380,810,055 $470,408,742
ACLU Foundation $146,251,550 $342,625,524
Southern Poverty Law Center $136,373,624 $449,834,593
Anti-Defamation League $65,971,077 -$16,541,031
Industrial Areas Foundation $6,028,449 $4,792,009
TOTAL $817,301,334 $1,639,327,636
* Assets estimate based on news reports. No public information exists.

Compare and contrast this network with CAIR’s contrived Xenophobe “network.” Virtually all of the listed Muslim groups are Muslim Brotherhood fronts. Many, including CAIR, are also named by the Justice Department as unindicted co-conspirators in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation HAMAS terror financing trial — the largest of its kind in the U.S.

The SPLC and ACLU work hand in glove with CAIR all the time. In fact, SPLC’s Heidi Beirich contributed to the CAIR report. No wonder it is such shoddy work. The ALCU’s conservative counterpart is Jay Sekulow’s American Center for Law and Justice. The ACLJ received $22.8 million, according to its most recent IRS filing. The ACLU amassed over $500 million in the same year, 23 times that of ALCJ. Kind of like Sasquatch being attacked by a gnat. Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation and even the ADL are now working with these Islamic groups as well.

The Six “Islamophobes” CAIR Really Hates

CAIR singles out six “Islamophobe” groups for particular animus. CAIR claims in the report that they have collectively received $125 million from various funders (including those evil donor-advised funds). Where did they get all that money? CAIR provides no citations or explanations in the report. You just have to take their word for it. These groups receive nothing like that, even if you add up multiple years. Here are the facts from each organization’s most recent tax return:

CAIR’s $125 Million Islamophobia Network
Net
Revenues Assets
ACT for America $128,631 $1,053,938
American Freedom Defense Initiative $405,658 $516,119
American Freedom Law Center $1,276,078 $530,871
Center for Security Policy $6,548,493 $1,967,835
David Horowitz Freedom Center $5,976,459 $650,572
Middle East Forum $4,361,751 $5,463,633
TOTAL $18,697,070 $10,182,968

Whoops! Not quite $125 million, eh? Unlike CAIR, you can check my work by simply clicking on the hyperlinks in those tables. Most of these groups are living on a shoestring budget. CAIR knows this but purposely doesn’t mention it.

So how much does poor little CAIR take in annually? Look at the Red-Green Axis table. All by itself, CAIR receives $14.0 million annually through its foundation and network of offices, and has amassed $11.6 million in net assets, more than the six “Islamophobes” combined.

Additionally, an organization called the Washington Trust Foundation, holds another $5 million in real estate assets owned by CAIR. In its own words, the Washington Trust’s purpose is “To support the purposes of CAIR Foundation, Inc….” And guess who runs the Trust? None other than “Islamophobe” expert Esam Omeish.

But why single out these six small organizations for particular attention? That’s where the rubber meets the road, because while almost all of the 46 organizations listed in the Islamophobia Network table focus on a broad range of issues, and are not “networked” in any meaningful way, those six singled out for particular vilification are the ones that have been very effective at exposing and pushing back against CAIR’s subversive onslaught.

Take David Yerushalmi’s American Freedom Law Center (AFLC). It has battled CAIR in court numerous times and has never lost a case against them. This tiny organization with half a million in assets, has forced CAIR to pony up millions for its misguided lawfare.

For example,  CAIR has agreed to pay significant legal fees and other compensation to plaintiffs in two cases represented by the AFLC:  a June 2019 Virginia case and  an April 2019 case in Oklahoma. Both cases revealed CAIR engaging in significant fraud against the plaintiffs. And each time, CAIR relented when it became clear that the alternative was to carry the case to trial. Going to trial would expose CAIR to a close examination of its terrorist connections and subversive agenda. CAIR demurred.

CAIR is plainly not a “social welfare” organization, a designation required for 501.c.3 tax-exempt designation. They are afraid of losing it, and these six organizations are a major threat. They have been effectively exposing CAIR’s association with terrorists (especially the Palestinian terrorist group, HAMAS), and the subversive agenda that follows the Muslim Brotherhood “Civilization Jihad” plan for the Brotherhood in America, specifically:

The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.

In response, what is CAIR’s vile, unethical answer? Savage these groups and their funders in an attempt to starve them of funding. What would CAIR do if it had the unbeatable political power it is hoping to obtain with the Left’s help? One shudders to think.

With the media, Hollywood, the education establishment, and a major political party totally owned by the hard Left and more than willing to echo your messages, destroying your opponents through defamation is a pretty good business model, too. All you need do is abandon all ethics, integrity, morality, and any interest in the truth. Right up Nihad Awad’s alley, and he has made $723,000 over the past three yearsdoing so.

Branches and off-shoots of the Muslim Brotherhood are responsible for virtually all Islamic terrorism in the world. In a declassified secret FBI memo, an informant disclosed that the Muslim Brotherhood’s “ultimate goal is to enforce, by ‘violence if necessary,’ the Islamic Revolution on all non-Islamic Governments,” including the United States.

This Islamophobia report is just the latest in a long line of assaults by CAIR and Co. against their political enemies. It is a form of pre-violent-stage terrorism that does not yet kill individuals directly but attempts to destroy their ability to earn an income and continue their work, while intimidating would-be allies.

A not insignificant number of individuals associated with CAIR have been convictedof terrorism-related charges over the years, although the Muslim Brotherhood has chosen to avoid terrorism in favor of subversion in the U.S. because it is a more effective strategy for the moment. CAIR’s Awad has publicly allied himself with both the PLO and HAMAS terrorist groups in the past, and CAIR refuses to denounce HAMAS.

As urgent as international threats undeniably are and will continue to be, top level U.S. national security leadership attention must be turned to the domestic insurgency threat posed by the subversive, jihadist agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rest of the Islamic Movement in this country. CAIR is undoubtedly the lead Brotherhood front group driving this threat, but its top position within the U.S. Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO) and, in turn, its close working relationship with the pro-Muslim Brotherhood, HAMAS-supporting regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, add a further and foreign dimension to the threat that must not be ignored.

To counter this threat, the U.S. government must reverse the Great Purge of 2011-2012, which, under Brotherhood supervision, removed all training curricula as well as language from official USG usage that accurately identified the inspirational/motivational role of Islamic doctrine for all Islamic terrorism. The professional instructors who once taught this enemy threat doctrine and their courses must be restored government-wide, with USG backing and funding.

Finally, the declassification of PSD-11 (Presidential Study Directive 11), which reportedly in 2010 laid forth the blueprint for the Obama administration’s new supportive relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, is an absolute priority. Absent its declassification, it will remain impossible for those responsible to be held fully to account and very difficult to reverse its ongoing malign effects on our national security.

The Trump administration must confront the Muslim Brotherhood’s many tentacles in the U.S. Federal law enforcement should begin a renewed effort to investigate Brotherhood groups in the U.S. and at the very least, revoke CAIR’s tax exempt status. It is plain from this report that CAIR is not a “civil rights” organization, but one intent on imposing the Muslim Brotherhood’s malevolent “…grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…

INTEL REPORT: Emerati Delegations visit arch enemy Iran

/in , , , /by

On 30 July 2019 www.aljazeera.net reported that in spite of the rising tensions in the Gulf, an Emirati military delegation visited Iran for the 2nd time in two weeks.

These visits by delegations from the Emirati Coast Guard had to do with discussing “cooperation” on border issues between the two countries and cooperation concerning “unlawful entry into each other’s territories.”

Of course, the only border the two countries share is that in the Arab/Persian Gulf, so these meetings obviously had to do with the security of international shipping through the Gulf.

What I find interesting about this, is that these visits come on the heels of the Sultanate of Oman recently declaring that it and Iran are the ones best suited to provide security for the shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz and nearby areas.

Since the Sultanate of Oman’s territories are not contiguous with the Strait of Hormuz, and since Iran and/or its proxies are the only culprits attacking civilian ships in the region, I find that doubly amusing–except that there might be something else going on especially when seen in light of the above-mentioned Emirati visits to Iran (especially since it is the UAE’s territory that is contiguous with the Strait.

A little background on the Sultanate of Oman might explain why.

The Sultanate of Oman is neither Sunni nor Shi’a.  They follow a brand of Islam called ‘Abadi and claim that they broke off from the rest of the Muslims prior to the split between the Sunnis and Shi’a.  Among the unique features of their religion, is the non-belief in Jihad.  As a result, throughout the Middle Ages they were persecuted by both the Sunnis and the Shi’a and were forced down into the remote southeast tip of the Arabian Peninsula.  Insulated by the world’s largest continuous sand desert to the north, and rugged mountains to the west, they were able to survive into the 20th century.

Due to their unique religion (and their relative geographic isolation) , they were able to always stay neutral during Sunni-Shi’a disputes, however, during the 20th century, while the pro-western Shah was ruling in Iran, they tended to be closer to Iran than to their fellow Arab (but Sunni) neighbors.

Since the Iranian revolution in 1979 they distanced themselves from Iran somewhat, but still maintained their strict traditional neutrality.  Because of their unique position in the region, they have been offering their services as “intermediaries” during the current disputes between Iran on the one hand, and Saudi Arabia and its allies on the other.    They have also tried to intercede vis-à-vis the U.S. and Iran on the nuclear deal after Trump pulled out of the Obama atrocity.

Thus, when the Omani Foreign Minister recently visited Iran and made the above-mentioned statement about sharing responsibility with Iran for the security of international shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and environs, I began to wonder if  this was not some sort of “soft soap” operation to assuage Iran’s ego prior to (hopefully) getting it to agree to lessen tensions in the Gulf.

The above-mentioned UAE security visits might be a part of that process.

RELATED ARTICLE: Israel Preemptively Strikes Iranian Missiles in Iraq

VIDEO: Maria Elvira Salazar running for Congress in Florida District 27

/in , , , , , /by

Maria Elvira Salazar has announced that she is running for Congress in Florida District 27. Ms. Salazar is running against incumbent Donna Shalala.

In an email Ms. Salazar states:

We are now seeing politicians in Washington behave like corrupt banana republic dictators.

Not only are they peddling a disturbing, socialist agenda that threatens our freedoms, they’re openly spewing hateful, anti-Semetic rhetoric against Israel, our great American ally.

And South Florida’s own Donna Shalala remains silent.

Ms. Salazar goes on to say:

Florida knows what socialism does to a country. Many of us saw first hand how it ruined the countries from which many of us escaped.

Many exiles, like my own parents who came to this great country from Cuba, know the pain of  leaving behind your life’s work and starting anew with only five dollars in your pocket. And we know how important it is to preserve the freedoms that we came to America to pursue.

I grew up hearing about the horrors and injustices of the socialist Castro regime which instilled in me a deep faith in and a desire to pursue the American Dream.

My career as a journalist has taken me all over the world – including to Latin America where socialism has run rampant for decades. There, I confronted dictators with questions they did not want to hear – and much less wanted to answer.

Despite the dangers to my own life I covered the wars in Central America because I am committed to the truth and bringing a voice to those who cannot be heard. This is a principle I stuck by when I returned to South Florida. I dedicated my tv career to providing an outlet for the voices of my community, Miami. I wanted us to be heard.

But politicians like Donna Shalala callously continue to ignore people like us.

For that reason, I am more committed than ever to bringing our fight to Washington. I will not be invisible. I will not remain on the sidelines. I will not be silent.

ABOUT MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR

Born in Miami’s Little Havana to Cuban parents, who emigrated to the United States, fleeing Cuba due to the arrival of Fidel Castro to power. With only five dollars in their pockets, the pursuit for freedom and the American dream was instilled in María Elvira Salazar at an early age by her parents. While being raised in Miami and Puerto Rico, Salazar listened as her parents told stories of the oppressive communist regime from which they escaped. Becoming American citizens at the Freedom Tower, Salazar’s parents wanted a better life for their family; they wanted freedom.

READ MORE.

© All rights reserved.

Florida: Muslim attacks man with scissors, screams ‘We are coming for you Trump. We are coming for you with knives.’

/in , , , , , /by

“Whoever knows why I came to America wait for the urgent news on television screens and victory is from Allah.”

Another grateful “refugee.”

“Florida man accused of threatening President Trump during arrest at Walmart,” Associated Press, July 30, 2019:

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man accused of trying to slash a Walmart employee with scissors now faces federal charges after allegedly threatening President Donald Trump while he was being arrested.

Federal court records show Mohammed Omar Haji Mohammed is charged with making threats against the president during the July 8 altercation. A Secret Service affidavit says Mohammed tried to slash a Walmart employee during a disagreement at the customer service desk, then yelled threats in Arabic that were recorded on body cameras by police who responded.

The alleged threats, translated into English by the FBI, include: “We are coming for you Trump. We are coming for you with knives. God will send angels to destroy you.”

And this: “l need Trump cut. I want to cut, two portions.”

The affidavit says Mohammed had made suspicious Facebook posts about doing something that would be newsworthy. Those posts caught the attention of an anonymous tipster who let authorities know two days before the Walmart incident that Mohammed seemed to be poised to take some action and had recently been fired from his job at a local Quickies restaurant.

The tipster, according to the Secret Service, said Mohammad at been “acting strange” and had “become more withdrawn” since losing his job.

One Mohammed Facebook post read: “Whoever knows why I came to America wait for the urgent news on television screens and victory is from Allah.”

Federal agents confirmed Mohammed’s identity and had translated his Facebook posts. Then he appeared at the Walmart, where he was charged with aggravated assault, battery against a police officer and disorderly conduct. No injuries were reported in that altercation, which included police use of a Taser to subdue him.

It was only after the Secret Service reviewed the Fort Lauderdale Police Department’s body camera video of the Walmart confrontation that he was charged last Friday with making the threats against Trump. There is nothing in the affidavit to suggest he was planning any kind of serious attempt against the president….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Del. Ibraheem Samirah escorted out of ceremony amid boos.

Rashida Tlaib, Marc Lamont Hill, other Leftists celebrate “Palestinian” teen from murderous jihadi family

Ilhan Omar endorses violence against Senator Rand Paul

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Virginia: Muslim lawmaker who disrupted Trump speech had Hamas financiers as donors, wrote anti-Semitic posts

/in , , , , , , /by

Those who are celebrated by the Left today for hating Trump more vociferously and obnoxiously than the next Leftist don’t have clean hands themselves.

“Virginia Lawmaker Connected to Anti-Semitic Groups,” by Mikhael Smits, Washington Free Beacon, May 21, 2019:

A member of the Virginia legislature and former volunteer for Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) is connected to multiple anti-Semitic organizations and is the son of a Hamas fundraiser.

Del. Ibraheem Samirah (D.)—who received sympathetic national coverage this week after alleging harassment for his Muslim faith at a town hall—has supported multiple virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel organizations, once speaking at a Hamas-affiliated conference.

Samirah is a vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which seeks to use economic and political pressure against Israel. In a 2014 Facebook post, Samirah urged friends to support the BDS movement while Israel was “most exposed.”

As a student at American University and then Boston University, Samirah was an active member of Students for Justice in Palestine. He credits the organization with helping convince students that “Israel REALLY sucks.”

SJP relies heavily on American Muslims for Palestine, of which Samirah is also a part, for funds and logistics. According to 2016 testimony from Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, “AMP is arguably the most important sponsor and organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine.”…

“Ibraheem Samirah’s Donors Are Named In Israeli Government’s Report ‘Terrorists In Suits’ For Hamas Financing,” by Patrick Howley, Big League Politics, February 12, 2019:

RICHMOND — Democrat Virginia 86th district delegate candidate Ibraheem Samirah accepted campaign contributions from Osama Abuirshaid and Rafeeq Jaber.

Osama Abuirshaid and Rafeeq Jaber are listed as donors to Samirah’s delegate campaign, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. Samirah is up for delegate on February 19th, running against Republican Air Force veteran Gregg Nelson. Samirah erased his state senator Jennifer Boysko’s endorsement after his anti-Semitic posts came to light.

Both of these men — Abuirshaid and Jaber — were named by the Israeli government in a February 3 report on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s links to terrorism. Both of these men, Osama Abuirshad and Rafael Jaber, are top-ranking officials of the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP).

The AMP is spun off from a group that was found guilty by a federal court of providing financial aid to Hamas. Abuirshaid and Jaber were also part of that parent group.

Samirah was the featured speaker at this past November 22-24 conference for the American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), which is named in the Israeli government’s report “Terrorists In Suits.” The AMP is alternately based in Falls Church, Virginia or Illinois, according to differing official addresses. Linda Sarsour was also a featured speaker at this conference….

“Muslim lawmaker protests at Trump event: ‘You can’t send us back!,’” by Erick Ortiz, NBC News, July 30, 2019:

A Virginia lawmaker, who is Muslim, shouted “you can’t send us back!” briefly interrupting President Donald Trump during an event Tuesday commemorating the 400th anniversary of Virginia’s first legislative assembly.

Ibraheem Samirah, a Democrat elected this year to the state House of Delegates, halted Trump’s speech with a one-man demonstration as he held a sign that read “deport hate,” “reunite my family” and “go back to your corrupted home.”

Video from the Jamestown event showed Samirah being led out as some in the audience clapped at his removal while chanting Trump’s name.

In a statement later posted to Twitter, Samirah defended his actions, writing that “nobody’s racism and bigotry should be excused for the sake of being polite.” He added that while he was born in Chicago, his family came to the United States as Palestinian refugees and that his father in 2002 was “forced to literally ‘go back’” after he was denied re-entry following a visit to Jordan….

RELATED ARTICLES:

Del. Ibraheem Samirah escorted out of ceremony amid boos.

Rashida Tlaib, Marc Lamont Hill, other Leftists celebrate “Palestinian” teen from murderous jihadi family

Ilhan Omar endorses violence against Senator Rand Paul

Florida: Muslim attacks man with scissors, screams “We are coming for you Trump. We are coming for you with knives.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

The Senate Confirmed 13 Trump Judges While America Watched Democrats Debate

/in , , , , , /by

The Senate confirmed 13 judges President Donald Trump chose while America had its eyes on the Democratic primary debates Tuesday and Wednesday.

Though Senate Republicans had initially planned to confirm 19 Trump judges before leaving Washington, D.C., for August recess, they successfully confirmed four nominees Tuesday and nine Wednesday.

“For too long, fairly uncontroversial judicial nominees just like these have been held up and delayed by our Democratic colleagues even when the vacancy qualifies as a judicial emergency,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday, The Hill reported.

“Uncontroversial district judges used to be confirmed promptly in big groups by voice vote,” he continued.

Confirmations include the following district court nominees:

Karin Immergut for the District of Oregon, John Milton Younge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Mary M. Rowland for the Northern District of Illinois, Mark Pittman to the Northern District of Texas, Jeffrey Brown to the Southern District of Texas, Brantley Starr to the Northern District of Texas, Martha Pacold to the Northern District of Illinois, Jason Pulliam to the Western District of Texas, William Stickman IV to be the Western District of Pennsylvania, Michael T. Liburdi for the District of Arizona, Peter D. Welte for the District of North Dakota, James Wesley Hendrix for the Northern District of Texas and Sean D. Jordan for the Eastern District of Texas.

Republicans have confirmed more than 100 Trump court picks since 2017, including Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, as well as a record number of appeals court judges.

Trump accused Democrats of obstructing his nominees earlier in 2019.

“Democrats in the Senate are still slow walking hundreds of highly qualified people wanting to come into government,” the president said in a February tweet. “Never been such an abuse in our country’s history.”

Sections of the 2019 book “Justice on Trial” by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino reveal how 2016 Trump campaign lawyers consulted with retired Justice Anthony Kennedy in an effort to build a list of prospective Supreme Court nominees ahead of Trump’s election.

COLUMN BY

Audrey Conklin

RELATED ARTICLES:

Trump Keeps Campaign Promise, Picks More Conservative Judges

Trump Says Senate Shouldn’t ‘Go Home’ Until His Executive Nominees Are Confirmed

Joe Biden Becomes The Left’s Punching Bag During Second CNN Debate

Protesters Interrupt Booker, De Blasio At CNN Debate To Call For NYC Cop To Be Fired

Biden And Castro Spar Over Border Decriminalization

Media ‘Got It Wrong’ on U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan, Pompeo Says

/in , , , , /by

BANGKOK—Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed back on what he called inaccurate news reports regarding U.S. plans to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan by 2020.

“I wish reporters had been a little more careful in what they had said. They got it wrong,” Pompeo told reporters Tuesday en route to the Indo-Pacific region for a week long series of meetings in Thailand, Australia, and the Federated States of Micronesia.

“There’s no deadline for this,” he said of withdrawing from Afghanistan.

In remarks Monday at The Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Pompeo reportedly announced President Donald Trump’s intention to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan by next year—in time for America’s presidential election.

Many U.S. media outlets painted Pompeo’s remarks as a tacit declaration that the 2020 election was driving the withdrawal timeline.

On Tuesday, however, Pompeo challenged that characterization, as well as the notion that the U.S. was looking for an exit from Afghanistan by any means necessary.

“The president has been very direct about his expectations that we will reduce our operational footprint on the ground in Afghanistan just as quickly as we can get there,” Pompeo told reporters traveling with him.

The secretary of state added that such an effort had to be paired with “an adequate risk-reduction plan” to make sure Afghanistan does not become, once again, a safe harbor for terrorists with designs on global attacks.

“We will have an orderly plan for how we’re going to maintain our counterterrorism posture in the region,” Pompeo said.

Status Quo

Despite promises to draw down in Afghanistan, the number of U.S. troops in-country has gone up on Trump’s watch.

Taliban and Islamic State fighters are ratcheting up their attacks on Afghan forces and civilians, officials say, and the instability has spurred U.S. military leaders to request more troops.

Underscoring the fragile security situation in Afghanistan, a roadside bomb Wednesday killed 35 people traveling on a bus and injured dozens more, according to news reports.

More civilians died in Afghanistan due to fighting in 2018 than in the previous nine years, a United Nations report found. Yet, despite the increase in violence, a negotiated end to the war could now be closer than ever.

Since last year, Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy for peace in Afghanistan, has met several times with Taliban officials, hammering out the prospective terms of a cease-fire deal—and a plan for the eventual cessation of hostilities.

After months of stop-and-go progress, U.S.-Taliban talks are seen as inching toward a breakthrough. A memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and the Taliban calling for an end to hostilities reportedly is possible within days.

For its part, the Afghan government has been pushing for talks with the Taliban in the next two weeks. Over the weekend, however, the militant group rebuffed the request, saying it wouldn’t negotiate with the Afghan government until a deal had been struck with the U.S. to withdraw forces.

With the Taliban removed from power and the Afghan government establishing its legitimacy, the U.S. has, in a way, already accomplished its war goals in Afghanistan, said Jeff Smith, a research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

Along that line of thinking, the tenuous status quo between Kabul and the Taliban might be the best outcome America could have hoped for, Smith said.

A lean, long-term advise and assist mission in Afghanistan would be a cost-effective investment for the U.S. to maintain its gains and mitigate “any threats to U.S. interests and territory from regional terrorist groups,” he said.

“There’s no reason to believe America’s footprint in Afghanistan can’t evolve into a high-level train and assist mission, the likes of which the U.S. is operating in dozens of countries around the globe,” Smith said.

Best-Case Scenario?

America and allies invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001, weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The U.S. officially ended its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2014, shifting to a so-called advise and assist operation that left Afghans to bear the brunt of fighting against militants.

About 14,000 U.S. troops currently are deployed to Afghanistan, providing air support and other types of assistance to Afghan forces. Those U.S. forces are part of  NATO’s Resolute Support mission, which comprises about 20,000 foreign soldiers altogether.

U.S. casualties in Afghanistan dropped precipitously in 2014 after the decision to halt conventional combat operations and transition to the advise and assist mission. Yet, U.S. troops are still in danger.

Two U.S. service members died in combat in Afghanistan on Monday. Altogether, the 18-year-old conflict has claimed more than 2,400 U.S. lives. So far this year, 12 U.S. troops have died and 60 more have been wounded.

Pompeo praised Khalilzad’s efforts in the peace talks with the Taliban and said he is optimistic about the possibility of American troops finally coming home from the war in the near future—with the caveat that a durable peace has to be achieved beforehand.

“I hope they’re out not only before the next election, but before we land today, right?” Pompeo said of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, speaking to reporters aboard a U.S. Air Force aircraft en route to Thailand.

The secretary of state added that the U.S. is working on “a peace and reconciliation plan that will permit us to conduct a conditions-based withdrawal from Afghanistan as quickly as we can execute it.”

“That’s the mission the president’s laid out, and we’re working our way there,” Pompeo said. “I hope in the next handful of weeks we’ll have significant progress we can announce.”

COLUMN BY

Nolan Peterson

Nolan Peterson, a former special operations pilot and a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, is The Daily Signal’s foreign correspondent based in Ukraine. Send an email to Nolan. Twitter: @nolanwpeterson.

Dear Readers:

With the recent conservative victories related to tax cuts, the Supreme Court, and other major issues, it is easy to become complacent.

However, the liberal Left is not backing down. They are rallying supporters to advance their agenda, moving this nation further from the vision of our founding fathers.

If we are to continue to bring this nation back to our founding principles of limited government and fiscal conservatism, we need to come together as a group of likeminded conservatives.

This is the mission of The Heritage Foundation. We want to continue to develop and present conservative solutions to the nation’s toughest problems. And we cannot do this alone.

We are looking for a select few conservatives to become a Heritage Foundation member. With your membership, you’ll qualify for all associated benefits and you’ll help keep our nation great for future generations.

ACTIVATE YOUR MEMBERSHIP TODAY

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Has Ilhan Omar imported the ideology of a Somali dictator into the heart of American politics?

/in , , , , /by

Studying the politics of Ilhan Omar I am struck by how similar they are to that of the brutal dictator, Siad Barre, who governed Somalia with an iron fist when she was young girl in that country.

When Barre seized power in a coup d’etat in 1969, following the assassination of the president, Ali Shermarke, he built a new political order, a one-party regime built on a mix of Communism and a local form of political Islam.

He abrogated the constitution within hours of his coup, and ruled the country by decree until he had time to redraft a new constitution.

Are we not hearing calls to repeal parts of the US Constitution by members of the new left in American politics?

The United Nations profile of Siad Barre explained, “The theoretical underpinning of the state ideology combined aspects of the Qur’an with the influence of Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Mussolini, but Siad Barre was pragmatic in its application. ‘Socialism is not a religion,’ Barre explained, ‘It is a political principle to organize government and manage production.’”

An organized Socialist government managing production is the underpinning of the new left of the Democratic party being promoted by Ilhan Omar.

When Barre grabbed power, Marxist sympathies were not deep-rooted in Somalia. In order to achieve his political goal, the dictator denigrated the opposition, did away with the previous governments law enforcement, replacing it with his own tough enforcement police and military rule.

Sound like the tactics of the radical left today in America.

We hear calls of the radicals within the Democratic Party to abolish ICE. We see the deliberate demoralization of the police force in major cities controlled by the Democratic Party as part of that process.

Ilhan Omar never explained what she meant when she described her father, a central influence in her life, as the Somali “teacher of teachers.”

It was a telling remark.

In Somalia, Siad Barre introduced a nationwide indoctrination campaign. He appointed teacher trainers whose job it was to indoctrinate the government-run education system into the dictator’s Koranic-Marxist-Leninist ideology.

This radical Red-Green political agenda can be found both in Britain with Jeremy Corbyn’s associations with Islamist forces, including the IHRC in Britain, Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian terrorists abroad.

We see it with Ilhan Omar who goes on fund-raising junkets not for the Democratic Party but for CAIR, the American branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a co-conspirator for Hamas.

In Somalia, Barre moved from rule control to thought control. Civil servants were required to attend reorientation courses that combined professional training with the regime’s political indoctrination. Anyone found incompetent or politically resistance was fired.

The propaganda ministry reached into national broadcasting and local communities with loudspeaker announcements blasting the dictator’s political ideology in town squares. The regime’s brainwashing continued as they raped, robbed and ruined their country which descended into civil war.

Ilhan Omar may blame America for the turmoil in Somalia but it was the Barre regime with his accolade of apparatchiks that brought about the destruction of that country.

The regime set out to destroy traditional social structures and reduce the opposition to powerlessness by imposing its central control over the country. They depended on a compliant media.

Human Rights Watch issued a report entitled, “Somalia. A Government at war with its own People.”

The United Nations Development Programme declared,

“The 21-year regime of Siad Barre had one of the worst human rights records in Africa.”

The UN report on Somalia stated,

“The newly formed Ministry of Information and National Guidance set up local political education bureaus to execute the government’s message to the people and used Somalia’s print and broadcasting media for the ‘success of the socialist, revolutionary road.’”

These bureaus required teacher trainers to retrain teachers into the ideology of the regime.

It is legitimate to ask, was Ilhan Omar’s father, the teacher of teachers, part of, perhaps a leader in, the political education system in the service of a brutal genocidal dictator?

Was he the Josef Goebbels of the Somali regime? The opposition certainly did not have teacher trainers.

The slogan of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party was “social justice” and “scientific socialism” as they delivered an intolerant national injustice.

There was a mass dismissal of non-compliant civil servants in 1974. Ilhan Omar’s father apparently kept his job.

And what was the connection between Nur Said Elmi and Mohammed Omar in Somalia?

Ilhan Omar’s remark that her “very privileged life suddenly came to a halt” in Somalia reveals something significant.

As the civil war raged in Somalia, including torture, mass murder and the genocide of the opposition Isaaq tribe, no one in the people’s opposition to Siad Barre lived “privileged lives” in secure compounds.

Was it a coincidence that the Said Elmi family did not flee from their “privileged lives” in their sheltered compound in Mogadishu until just before the fall of the Barre regime?

Did Ilhan Omar’s father actively side with the war criminal Barre, or did he side with the people?

To me, at least, the answer is clear.

Another slip of the tongue, this time by Ilhan’s sister, Sahra, is telling. Following Ilhan’s election to Congress, Sahra celebrated by congratulating their father who, she claimed, was a “great political strategist and fundraiser,” and that Ilhan Omar’s victory “would not have been possible without him.”

One wonders where this talent and aptitude came from. Could it have derived from his professional experience in Somalia and his contacts with the Somali community in America, many of whom may have been on the side of the war criminal, Barre?

Is America turning a blind eye to people who entered the United States illegally and who aided and abetted a murderous regime?

Would it be disqualifying to have someone sit on the US Foreign Affairs Committee who is under the paternal political and ideological guidance of someone who could have been close to the top of a Marxist-Islamist dictatorship?

Why hasn’t the genocide committed by the Siad Barre regime, and all those culpable in the human rights and war crimes committed in Somalia, ever come before the International Court of Justice?

Ilhan Omar and her father can produce evidence of his role in the Somali civil war? Why have they been totally silent about the burning issue?

There may be no there three, but surely an investigation is warranted into the roles played by the senior members of the Said Elmi-Omar families in Somalia under Barre? She talks about her grandfather, but not of her father. Why? Especially if he is such a great political strategist.

It is clear that the political ideology of Ilhan Omar is not too far removed from that of the Siad Barre in Somalia. There are signs of a Red-Green alliance emerging out of Democratic politics. Perhaps a part of that derives from Somali politics.

Ilhan Omar hails from a country that never saw a Jew yet was steeped in anti-Semitism.

Omar never met a Jew in Somalia, nor in Kenya. She barely met a Jew in her Somali-community in Minnesota. Yet, she is a virile anti-Semite. It is a well-known cultural affliction throughout the Middle East.

Is Ilhan Omar the second generation of a family attempting to subvert the democratic system of their respective countries?

Does America really want that inflicted on the greatest democracy in the world in which the opposition party is increasingly tilting radically left?

EDITORS NOTE: This The View from Israel column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

Ilhan Omar, Jihadi Squad Islamic Socialist

/in , , , , , , /by

“Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” – Vladimir Lenin

“Contrary to popular misconception, Islam does not mean peace but rather means submission to the commands of Allah alone.  Therefore, Muslims do not believe in the concept of freedom of expression, as their speech and actions are determined by divine revelation and not based on people’s desires.” –  Anjem Choudary, British Islamist and socialist activist

“I am convinced Socialism is the only answer and I urge all comrades to take this struggle to a victorious conclusion.  Only this will free us from the chains of bigotry and exploitation.” –  Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani Muslim and Nobel Prize winner

“Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty.”  Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

Though Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution when they became members of Congress, their goal is to institute both sharia law and democratic socialism, neither of which are compatible with the Constitution and is anathema to their oaths of office.

Omar and Tlaib refused to place their hands on the Bible whose laws are incorporated into our Constitution; they were sworn in on the Quran.  When John F. Kennedy ran for the presidency, he assured the people his allegiance was to the Constitution, not the papacy.  We have had no assurance from Omar or Tlaib regarding their fidelity to the Constitution over Islam.

Our Founding Fathers were men who knew and studied scripture.  Their lives were wrapped in God’s Word; it was the chief source of their education.  They relied on the Bible and philosophers whose own works and commentaries also relied on Holy Scripture.  Scripture is what all laws are to be based upon, not the Quran.

None of the four jihadi Janes represent our Republic.  They are dangerous zealots.

Ilhan Omar

Just as Saikat Chakrabarti’s Brand New Congress (BNC) and Justice Democrats (JD) were major supporters of AOC, they also supported Ilhan Omar.  Here is the list of JD candidates for 2020.

Ilhan Omar ran for the 5th Congressional District seat in Minnesota, formerly held by Muslim Keith Ellison. The 5th district is home to 100,000 Somalis, the terrorist recruiting capital of the U.S.  Her campaign was supported by Our Revolution (closely affiliated with Bernie Sanders) and the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which held three fundraising events on Omar’s behalf in distant southern California.

Like her jihadi Jane sisters, she promotes the Green New Deal, (which is nothing more than U.N. Agenda 2030 on steroids), Medicare for all, tuition-free colleges, limits to the Second Amendment, the dissolution of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) along with open borders, murder of unborn babies up to and after birth, high taxes on corporations, steep cuts in defense spending, and a 90% tax rate for the wealthy.

Speaker Pelosi has appointed Ilhan Omar to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Education and Labor Committee, and the House Committee on the Budget.

Somalia born Omar graduated from North Dakota State University, where she joined the campus Muslim Students Association and eventually earned a degree in Political Science and International Studies.

Omar has served variously as an Advisory Board member for CAIR-Minnesota, Vice President of the Minneapolis NAACP, a Sister Planet Ambassador for Oxfam (International relief organization that condemns Israeli defensive measures against terrorism, and supports boycotts of Israeli products), a Board member of the Legal Rights Center, which provides criminal defense and justice services in particular to people of color, and the Director of Policy & Initiatives at the Women Organizing Women Network (inspires Somali women to get involved in the political process, a subgroup of Headwaters Foundation for Justice).

In 2017, Omar was one of only two Minnesota House members (out of 129) to vote against a bill to allow life-insurance companies to deny payouts to the beneficiaries of people who died while committing acts of terrorism.

That same year, she was one of just four House members to oppose legislation that would make it a felony for parents to subject their daughters to female genital mutilation, a common practice in some Muslim cultures.

Both Omar and Tlaib belong to extremist mosques and rub shoulders with those who wish to annihilate the Jewish State.  Their goal is to normalize anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiment throughout America.  Omar has come out in strong support for all forms of boycotts against Israel, but she can’t seem to do it without the start-up nation’s incredible tech innovations.  IlhanOmar.com is powered by the Israeli company WIX!

Ban Lifted for Omar

A 181-year ban on head coverings in Congress was lifted to allow this jihadi Jane to wear her hijab in Congress.  The rules package was passed by 234 to 197, and this was the beginning of the Islamic sharia makeover of America’s Judeo-Christian culture. Omar admits that she didn’t always wear her hijab; it wasn’t until after the attack on America by Islamic extremists on 9/11, that she chose to wear her hijab to make a statement.  The hijab is a symbol and it is a symbol of the fact that the woman wearing it is fully committed to the sharia.  It is a symbol that says to infidels that they are kafirs. Kafir is an Arabic term meaning “infidel.”

The only Omar photo without her hijab is a mugshot after being arrested in 2013 for trespassing and booked at Hennepin County Jail “to prevent further criminal conduct.”

Ethics Charges Filed

Now that Judicial Watch and Michigan State Representative Steve Drazkowski have filed ethics charges against Ilhan Omar for immigration fraud (using an unrelated family’s name), a bigamous marriage with her brother so he could obtain American citizenship, corrupt campaign financing and student loan fraud, she now has filed for divorce from the father of her three children.  The controversial Congresswoman has a lengthy record of utter contempt for the rule of law, of which she is now ostensibly a guardian.

Omar first married Ahmed Hirsi only in an Islamic ceremony in 2002 when she was 19, but six years later they “reached an impasse in our life together,” and separated. In 2009, Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a British citizen, who has been identified as her brother.  Omar had a third child with Hirsi in 2012, even though she was still legally married to Elmi – who she divorced in 2017 and then legally married Hirsi in 2018.

Questions surfaced again this month in a state probe of campaign finance violations showing that Omar filed taxes with her Islamic husband Ahmed Hirsi in 2014-2015, while she was still legally married to but separated from Elmi.  She has declined to make her tax and immigration records available, but no one is demanding she produce them.

Her Real Name

David Steinberg published an extensive report on the alleged crimes and history of Rep. Ilhan Omar and the “Omar” family. In his report David found that the Omar family changed their name in order to enter the United States.

In 1995, Ilhan entered the United States as a fraudulent member of the “Omar” family. That is not her family. The Omar family is a second, unrelated family which was being granted asylum by the United States. The Omars allowed Ilhan, her genetic sister Sahra, and her genetic father Nur Said to use false names to apply for asylum as members of the Omar family.  Ilhan’s genetic family split up at this time. The above three received asylum in the United States, while Ilhan’s three other siblings — using their real names — managed to get asylum in the United Kingdom.

Ilhan Abdullahi Omar’s name, before applying for asylum, was Ilhan Nur Said Elmi.

Her father’s name before applying for asylum was Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. Her sister Sahra Noor’s name before applying for asylum was Sahra Nur Said Elmi. Her three siblings who were granted asylum by the United Kingdom are Leila Nur Said Elmi, Mohamed Nur Said Elmi, and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

On October 22, 2008, the U.S. State Department stopped accepting applications for the Priority 3/Refugee Family Reunification program — the process by which refugees can apply for asylum if one family member is already a legal U.S. resident. State halted the program because DNA testing — primarily of Somalis — had concluded that perhaps 87 percent of applicants were fraudulently claiming family relationships.

Steinberg has also exposed Omar supporters who were caught threatening and attempting “to dox a Somali whistle blower” who revealed Ilhan’s crimes.

Ilhan’s Father, Top Propagandist in Somalia

Omar’s father was the top propaganda official in the genocidal Barre Regime, thus the reason for changing his name in order to enter the U.S. illegally.  When he immigrated to America, he claimed he was a “teacher trainer.”  A teacher trainer in any revolutionary communist regime is the political commissar who trains teachers in the government-run school systems to impose the Qur’anic-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist-Mussolini hybrid of the Barre Regime.  Nur Omar Mohamed (aka Nur Said Elmi Mohamed), father of Ilhan Omar, was one of those indoctrinators under the bloody Marxist Islamic dictator, Siad Barre who was in power when hundreds of thousands of Somali people were massacred.

Somalian dictator Mohammed Siad Barre, whom the Omar family served.

When the Barre regime collapsed in 1991, the country was plunged into civil war, regime loyalists like Nur Omar Mohamed were not safe.  The family fled to Kenya, and then to the U.S. in 1995.

While some critics claim that Omar’s family migrated illegally to the U.S. because they did not disclose that they were communists, the Center for Security Policy claims that Congress, at the urging of the Clinton administration, abolished the law requiring that would-be immigrants declare whether they had belonged to a foreign Communist party. The Omar family was able to move to America without that important element of screening.

Jihadi Jane Ilhan Omar personifies the Red-Green Axis: an ideological and political combination of Marxism-Leninism and Islamism mixed with the technology of eco socialism.  She was raised in it.  The Red-Green Axis is strategic, as well as opportunistic. The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) now supports Black Lives Matter (BLM) and participates in its protests. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) also work with BLM, CAIR, and open borders groups.  Ilhan Omar has deflected any questions about violence from Antifa.

Omar interpreted for her grandfather, a Siad Barre servant, at political meetings. In high school, she became active in student politics.  From there, the Red-Green Axis import from Somalia, put down her own political roots, became a community organizer, and laid her path to the United States Congress.  Upon taking office in the U.S. House, she promptly joined the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

Omar has never been critical of the Siad Barre regime or the horrors it inflicted during her childhood in Somalia.  Her father is not the only Somali war criminal who immigrated to America illegally.

Yusuf Abdi Ali is a convicted war criminal who did the killing himself.  Ali has been located in the US working as security at Dulles International Airport and driving for Uber in 2019.  He reportedly lived at one time in Alexandria, Virginia.  Ali was a Colonel in the Somalian Army’s 5th Mechanized Brigade in 1987 and was a graduate of the Pentagon’s Program for Foreign Officers in 1986.  He’s also a war criminal in response to his actions in Somalia.

Conclusion

There is a Red-Green Alliance of Islamists and the “regressive” left.  It is a racist war against American Jewry, the American-Israel Alliance, and the foundations of America’s Republic.  The Jihad squad fully encompasses this hatred, yet they use the “race card” against any and all enemies who go against them.  When our President wanted to stop immigration from terrorist countries, Omar said, “This ban on refugees is rooted in racism and Islamophobia.”

The left arm of the Democrat Party, the mainstream media, continually screams racism against our President.  The jihadi squad and their democrat comrades scream “white privilege,” which is equally racist in its tone because it stereotypes all whites, (something black people have long railed against when it comes to people of color) as over-privileged and undeserving of what they have, and this leaves them ripe for humiliation and white discrimination.

Just like Mandela’s apartheid plan in South Africa, the jihad squad plan is as old as the snake in the garden.  The armed struggle Mandela led was not to give every South African an equal opportunity to enjoy the fruits of liberty. It was a will-to-power struggle to give the Communists dominion over the country.  White farmers and their families are murdered daily by Mandela’s communist black rogues.

Mandela was the head of the Marxist African National Congress just as these four jihadi Janes are now the head of America’s Democrat Party.

RELATED ARTICLE: When Muslims Do Not Assimilate

VIDEO: OAN Exposes ‘malicious lies and attacks’ by Daily Beast/MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow

/in , , , , , /by

One America News Network published the below video expose titled “Left-wing media on notice after malicious attacks against OAN.” OAN states:

One America News is officially putting the left-wing media on notice. Pearson Sharp explains how the malicious lies and attacks from MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and the Daily Beast are backfiring in a big way.

Watch:

Visit One American News Networks’ Website, like them on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

ABOUT ONE AMERICA NEWS NETWORK

One America News Network is owned by Herring Networks, Inc. Herring Networks, Inc. is a family owned and operated, independent media company focused on providing high quality national television programming to consumers via its national cable networks. The for-profit company was established in 2004 and has its primary production operations in California and Washington, D.C.

© All rights reserved.

A TALE OF TWO POPES: NATIONALISM OR GLOBALISM? Stark difference between John Paul II and Francis

/in , , , , /by

Two hundred years ago, the Pope decided to expel the Jews from Rome. The Jews protested. The Pope made a deal: He would debate a Jew; if the Jew won, they could stay. The Jews picked an old sweeper as their debater. Moshe had one condition: It had to be a silent debate. The Pope agreed.

At the debate, Moshe and the Pope sat silent for a minute. Then, the Pope stuck out three fingers. Moshe raised one finger. The Pope waved his fingers around his head. Moshe pointed to the ground. The Pope pulled out a Communion wafer and wine. Moshe pulled out an apple. Stunned, the Pope surrendered: “This man is too good. The Jews can stay.”

“What happened?” the cardinals asked the Pope.

The Pope said:

I held up three fingers for the Trinity. He held up one finger for one God in both our religions. I waved my finger around me to show him God was all around us. He pointed to the ground to show me God was here with us. I pulled out the wafer and wine representing Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins. He pulled out an apple reminding me of original sin. He had an answer for everything. What could I do?

“What happened?” the Jews asked Moshe. “First,” said Moshe, “he told me that the Jews had three days to get out. I told him not one of us was leaving. Then he told me this whole city would be cleared of Jews. I said we were staying right here.”

“And then?” asked a woman. “I don’t know,” said Moshe. “He took out his lunch and I took out mine.”

Two hundred years later, the Pope is debating a Jewish scholar. Pope Francis waves his fingers around his head. We need a supranational authority to meet the great evils of our age. The Jewish scholar points to the ground. God gave us nations with borders. Nationalism is a virtue, Professor Yoram Hazony tells Pope Francis.

Pope Francis’ globalist project has the support of the Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and every serving bishop in the Church of England and the House of Lords. The high priests of progressivism in the Western Church are extolling the gospel of globalism and damning to Hell nationalism and populism as the elemental evils of our age.

If we define nationalism as a polity of independent nations and a political order based on the nation-state seeking self-determination and self-rule, what could be so un-Christian about it?

Isn’t nationalism biblical? God promises to make Abraham a “great nation” (Gen 12:1) so that “all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him” (Gen 18:18). God also promises to make of Ishmael a “great nation” (Gen 17:20).

Conversely, if globalism intends to usher in a new pax mundi by uniting humanity under one imperium, how biblical is this political doctrine?

Doesn’t the Hebrew Bible debunk the hubris of hegemonistic globalism in the archetypal story of Babel just before the story of God’s blessing to Abraham? Isn’t the nationalism offered to Abraham and all nations of the earth a counter-narrative to the globalism of Babel?

Among Christian ayatollahs, Francis has so far delivered the most pronounced calls for globalism.

In his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si: On Care for our Common Home, Francis insists on “the subordination of private property to the universal destination of goods.”

Francis seeks solutions “from a global perspective” because “interdependence obliges us to think of one world with a common plan [italics original],” especially when facing a fictional climate change apocalypse.

Francis occasionally tips his miter towards state sovereignty. But the fortissimo of his globalist leitmotif drowns out any minor theme of nationalism. At best, the nation is a penultimate and problematic political phenomenon in the Wagnerian triumph of a globalist order.

The nation is a nostalgic relic of the past, and because transnational corporations are “weakening of the power of nation-states” economically, Francis wants to create stronger international institutions “empowered to impose sanctions.”

Francis’ most aggressive bid for globalism came in May when addressing the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences conference on “Nation, State, Nation-State.” Speakers preached the globalist gospel as a remedy against the twin evils of market forces and climate change. (“Markets can only function within a legal framework that is not in itself subjected to market forces”).

Francis was categorical: instead of the state being at the service of individual and family, states were more often “enslaved to the interests of a dominant group, mostly for reasons of economic profit” and so “the nation-state is no longer able to procure the common good of its populations alone. The common good has become global and nations must associate for their own benefit.”

Francis called for a “new supranational authority to implement the common good.”

At the conference, Cdl. Walter Kasper fired the kill shot: Nationalism is bad because nationalism produced two world wars. The Pope’s ideological kapellmeister, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, advocated a one-world government in 2013, calling for organizing “global democracy” around an Earth Constitution, a Global Council and a Planetary Court.

A fortnight later, conservative Catholics held a counter-conference on “Global One World Order Vs Christendom.” Cardinal Raymond Burke spoke of “filial piety and national patriotism as essential virtues of the citizens of heaven at work on earth,” rebuking “those who propose and work for a single global government” and “for the elimination of individual national governments, so that all of humanity would be under the control of a single political authority.”

The opposition of the current ecclesiastical elite to the nation-state stands in violent contrast to the nationalism of Christian leaders only a few decades ago.

The war between globalism and nationalism being waged at the heart of Western Christendom is a war between progressivism and conservatism. It is embodied in a tale of two pontiffs — Pope Francis and Pope John Paul II.

While visiting the Sant’Egidio Community earlier this month, Francis called for a “globalization of solidarity.” Contrastingly, his Polish predecessor called for a “nationalization of solidarity.” When Poland was under martial law, Pope John Paul II uttered the banned word “solidarity” six times in his Sunday Angelus address.

In 1983, John Paul preached to two million Poles at Jasna Góra calling for Poland to be a sovereign nation. In his homily, he used the word “nation” or “national” 20 times.

Karol Wojtyła boldly theologized nationalism using the phrase “evangelization of freedom.” He defined this as “the dimension of the freedom of the nation” and the “dignity of a sovereign state.”

“The sovereignty of the state is deeply linked to its ability to promote freedom of the nation,” he said, adding:

The Nation is truly free when it can be configured as a community determined by the unity of culture, language, and history. The State is solidly sovereign when it governs society and also serves the common good of society and allows the Nation to realize itself in its own subjectivity, in its own identity.

John Paul unblushingly theologized “the fundamental truth about the freedom of the Nation: the Nation perishes if its spirit is deformed, the Nation grows when this spirit is purified more and more, and no external force is able to destroy it.”

Historian James Felak asserts that Pope John Paul’s speeches empowered Polish nationalism. According to Felak, Wojtyła asserted that people are partly defined by the role they play in their national community; that people’s thoughts and choices are deeply allied to the traditions of their country and that an intrinsic nationalistic sentiment is a right and obligation for every citizen.

Edward Barrett writes:

He never calls for single- or multi-nation states to cede a portion of their sovereignty to a global political organization — somewhat surprisingly, given his perennial concerns for nonviolent conflict resolution and international development. Instead, he envisions the United Nations mainly as a place of dialogue in the service of both conflict resolution and a deeper sense of international solidarity based on trust, respect, and “mutual support.”

The verdict of a number of historians is that John Paul’s emphasis on nationalism aided in the renewal of civil society in Poland and the emergence of Solidarity.

Conservatism is inextricably tied to nationalism. This is the fundamental thesis of our conference. The contrast between the two popes could not be greater in evaluating their stance towards conservatism.

Unlike Pope Francis, John Paul was a theological and social conservative—on sexuality, family and free markets. In his encyclical Centesimus Annus (1991), he wrote: “On the level of individual nations and of international relations, the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.”

A conservative pope was a nationalist. A progressive pope is a globalist. A critique of Pope Francis would expose his progressivism and globalism as riddled with internal inconsistencies — e.g. his globalism claims to be based on a nebulous ethic of the common good, but fails to explain (against the evidence of history) how a centralized superstate can fulfill this common good better than sovereign nations.

Most importantly, Pope Francis and Christian globalists simply cannot justify their globalist ideology using biblical theology. It is not only the Hebrew Bible which offers humanity the eschatological hope of “all nations” going up to Zion to receive Torah but also the New Testament book of Revelation which describes a great multitude “from every nation, tribe and people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.”

Like a fool or a prophet, I predict that the Western Church will fail in its mission if it follows Pope Francis in preaching the gospel of globalism. Why?

First, in doing so it departs from the nationalistic trajectory of Scripture. Second, it offers no alternative biblical theology of globalism. Third, it alienates populists like Mattheo Salvini in Italy who are promoting nationalism using Christian symbols like the Rosary or the Bible, but who lack the spiritual and theological scaffolding that will ultimately ensure that the nation is re-built on a Judaeo-Christian foundation.

Fourth, its hierarchs risk being seen as collaborators with elites who are orchestrating the globalist project. They provoke the contempt of those pejoratively described as “basket of deplorables” and Brexit-loving “little Englanders.”

Today’s Church is choosing to be on the wrong side of history. In 1979, on his first apostolic visit to Poland, Pope John Paul II stood in Victory Square, Warsaw, and climaxed his homily with a prayer from Psalm 104. The Pope indulged in a delightful wordplay on the Hebrew word adamah — it can mean land (soil, earth) or a territory with borders (nation).

The Pope prayed:

And I cry — I who am a son of the land of Poland and who am also Pope John Paul II — I cry from all the depths of this Millennium, I cry on the vigil of Pentecost: Let your Spirit descend! Let your Spirit descend! And renew the face of the earth. The face of this land!

Thousands of young Poles responded by raising thousands of wooden crosses. They chanted: “We want God! We want God!” Ten years later, communism in Poland was overthrown. This was the beginning of the end of communism in the rest of the Eastern bloc. Catholic Poland was the only nation within the Soviet empire that had survived the atheistic-communist assault on religion.

The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” In our postmodern world, the fool also says in his heart, “There is no nation.”

This talk was given at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C.

— Campaign 31544 —

COLUMN BY

JULES GOMES

The Rev. Dr. Jules Gomes, B.A., B.D., M.Th., Ph.D. (Cantab) is a journalist, academic and editor of Rebel Priest.

EDITORS NOTE: This Church Militant column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.