The rest of the country knows it as the 2020 election. To the leaders at Google, it’s the “Trump situation.” And based on new undercover video, they’ll do anything to prevent this president’s history from repeating.
Americans knew there was a censorship problem at places like Google and Pinterest. Now, thanks to James O’Keefe and Project Veritas, they see just how bad it is. Turns out, platforms like this search engine aren’t in the browsing business — they’re in the political business. And not as an unbiased observer. In the footage released Monday, Jen Gennai, head of Google’s Responsible Innovation team, has been innovative all right — especially when it comes to trying to alter the president’s reelection chances.
“Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google,” Gennai was caught saying on tape. “And I love her, but she’s very misguided. That will not make it better, it will make it worse, because now all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation.” And according to the footage, those resources have been hard at work since 2016 “to make sure that we are ready for 2020.”
To conservatives like Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the surprise is not that companies like Google are trying to interfere with the election. The surprise is that they’re being so candid about it. There’s plenty of evidence from three years ago, he told me on “Washington Watch” that the search engine had rigged their algorithms to favor Hillary Clinton results over Donald Trump’s. But here’s the scary thing, he said. “More and more voters, especially undecided voters, get their news from Google search right? So this platform with its monopoly power has the ability to swing undecided voter could potentially swing an election… [T]his is something that we should all be concerned about.”
It’s time to take seriously what liberals in Big Tech are doing, he insisted — “let alone what they’re doing that we don’t know about.” After all, “we’re talking about democracy. I mean, “You’ve got Google executives and Google employees saying, ‘We want to manipulate the information that goes to voters, so that they will vote the way that we Google want them to vote. That’s not democracy. That’s not the rule of the people. That’s rule by this multinational corporation.”
If people were unconvinced about these leaders’ motivations before, Project Veritas is making believers out of more every day. This morning, most of us woke up to the headlines that one leaked Google document compared conservatives like Ben Shapiro, PragerU, and others to “Nazis using dog whistles.” And just as O’Keefe’s post was approaching a million views, guess what? YouTube, which happens to be owned by Google, pulled it.
Here’s the thing, Senator Hawley told me. Google is a private company, and it can do what it wants. But it certainly shouldn’t be getting special deals and immunity from the federal government if they’re going to try to influence the outcome of an election or silence conservatives. Under his new bill, the Internet Censorship Act, major tech platforms would have to start being politically neutral toward what content they allow or disallow. If they want to keep operating under this unique status, they should have to submit to an audit that proves they aren’t discriminating against conservatives or the conservative viewpoint.
“And if Google doesn’t want to do that because they’re private company and they want to be out there as a progressive Left-wing company, that’s fine. But then they shouldn’t [get this special status from the] government…” And it’s not just Google, Senator Hawley explains. It’s Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, and others too. Right now, he points out, “If Twitter takes away your account or Facebook takes down your post because they don’t like that it’s pro-life, there’s currently nothing you could do to Facebook or to Twitter. They have immunity from liability.” The traditional media, on the other hand, doesn’t. “Whether it’s television or newspapers or even online journalists… if they print stuff that’s not true, if they slander you, if they discriminate against you, you can sue them [to hold them] accountable.”
Every platform should be playing by the same rules. Either Google and the rest of Big Tech need to embrace the First Amendment and treat people fairly or they can wave goodbye to their cozy government deals.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-06-28 10:39:232019-06-28 10:42:48PODCAST: Techs and Balances
Allegorically, a “Trojan Horse” has come to mean any trick or plot that causes a target to summon an enemy into a firmly enduring fortress or place. The Greeks tricked the people of Troy by pretending that they had abandoned the war. Meanwhile, the Greek army rolled a giant wooden horse outside the gates of Troy, and then sailed off to the island of Tenedos nearby. One unarmed Greek stayed behind to convince the Trojans that the horse was indeed a present. Exulted by the gift, Trojans hauled the wooden horse inside the city walls and locked the gates.
Using it as a mental model, we can apply the Trojan Horse story to a range of restraints and situations. As a theory, it can be used for both good and evil.
The Islamic doctrine of Hijrah or conquest via immigration is still alive, active and well. The recent arrival of Muslim migrants in Western countries, who don’t migrant here to embrace our Western civilization, but to enforce their own barbaric dogma on the host country has been compared to a Trojan Horse.
The Islamic hydra, with Saudi Arabia and the oil-money bloated Emirs and Sheiks of the Persian Gulf lead the Sunni charge from one side and the end-of-the-worlder bomb-seeking Shiites of the Islamic Republic of Iran along with its proxies of Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, Houthis of Yemen and the Sadrists in Iraq closing from the other side, have the intention of devouring the free world.
Meanwhile, America is under the effect of Islamic subversion, Muslim escapees of the misery of Islamic countries, exhibit such incredible gall and audacity as to shamelessly demand that their benevolent hosts surrender their liberty and legalize and adopt Sharia in our society.
The Muslims’ presence in countries such as Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway and Belgium, represent the tip of the sword of the Islamists protruding from the Trojan horse. Once Sharia is recognized to any extent, it will reach out to rule, not only on matters that concern Muslims, but also those that may involve a Muslim and non-Muslim. Presently, America is faced with a formidable enemy in a Trojan Horse: Islam.
Islam was birthed by primitives some 1400 years ago and over time invaded much of the world at the point of the sword. Presently, Islamists, with their treasuries flushed with petrodollars, are in a great position to realize their ongoing dream of bringing the world under the rule of Muhammad’s Ummah. On the one hand, Pakistan is already a nuclear power and the Islamic Republic of Iran aims to be one before too long. On the other hand, Muslim governments and wealthy Sheikhs are funding Islamic schools, centers and front organizations in the West to work from within at the unraveling of non-Islamic democratic systems.
This danger makes it imperative to revisit the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and make the necessary adjustments to legally defeat Islam’s subversion of our democratic system.
Some people may ask, why others on our planet are not subjected to severe restriction? Because Muslims have been taught to ignore the laws of the host country and never assimilate. To a Muslim there is only one law and that is Sharia law. Muslims, like other nationalities, do not migrate in order to live in peace and achieve the Western dream. They migrate in order to change the host country, in a manner they have been indoctrinated from their childhood. They can’t help it. It is part of their identity. Wherever Muslims go, so goes their ethos. This has become a huge problem for the 21st century civilized world.
As more and more Muslims arrive in non-Islamic lands, as they reproduce with great fertility, as they convert the disenchanted and minorities, (Muslims in non-Muslim lands proselytize relentlessly and convert others while any Muslim who leaves Islam is judged as an apostate and automatically condemned to death) and as petrodollar-flush Muslims and Muslim treasuries supply generous funds, Muslims gather more power to undermine the democratic rule of a host country.
The hydra of Islam reveals itself when Muslim jihadist lash out with sophisticated and well-funded lawyers, terrorist groups, and terror-sponsoring governments who have the bomb and those who race non-stop to acquire the ultimate weapon. There is no time to waste. We must steadfastly confront Islam since it is the only way to defeat a fanatical enemy who does not believe in negotiation or compromise. For Islam, it is winner take all. And the way that permissive, oblivious, and well-meaning free societies are reacting does not bode well for liberty.
Islam must be recognized for what it is: a Trojan Horse carrying in its belly what will assuredly slaughter any and all who stand in its way without compunction.
The large field of Democrats who are vying for their party’s nomination to run against President Trump has not started out well. Two debates were held in Miami, FL. After the second debate the DNC Headquarters sent out a survey asking “Which Democratic candidates did you most enjoy hearing from on the debate stage?” Enjoy hearing from? Is this a talent contest or a race for the presidency?
After listening to the Democrats running it has become clear as Senator Kamala Harris said, “America does not want to witness a food fight, they want to know how we’re going to put food on their table.” The question is who’s putting that food on the table, the working fathers and mothers of America or the federal government.
Trump wins both Democratic Party Debates
President Trump used Twitter to respond to each debate. Trump characterized the first debate as “boring.” The second debate Trump tweeted, “All Democrats just raised their hands for giving millions of illegal aliens unlimited healthcare. How about taking care of American Citizens first!? That’s the end of that race!”
Here is a short list of why the Democratic candidates, and their party, is out of touch with the American people:
They hate President Trump. Senator Bernie Sanders said during the second debate, “You asked before, what is the greatest national security threat to the United States, it’s Donald Trump.” No matter what President Trump does, it is wrong, hateful, bigoted or just plain evil.
Jobs, jobs, jobs. President Trump has put more people to work, and taken more people off of government welfare, so that families can “put food on their table.” As former President Bill Clinton said, “It’s the economy stupid.”
Free stuff. The Democratic candidates love the word free. Free is not freedom. Free means some lose their ability to put food on their tables so others, i.e. illegal aliens, can have government benefits.
Tribalism. The Democrats focus on tribes (e.g. blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, illegal aliens) and not Americans or America. They try to speak Spanish in order to show their compassion for minorities and not the majority.
Pandering. The Democrats face a tough race and therefore pander for votes. Bernie Sanders panders to the young voter by promising to pay off all student debt. But by doing so he ignores the 2/3rds that have no college degree. It’s this 2/3rds that will pay off the debt of the 1/3 who get a degree.
Taxes and big government. The only way to pay for all of the various proposals made during the debates is to raise taxes. The mantra is tax the rich to help the poor. Venezuela and Cuba are examples of how taxation trickles down to the poor very quickly as the rich become poorer and the poor become poorer.
Equality for me but not for thee. Equality is a loaded word. For Democrats equality means a variety of ideals: equal pay for all (e.g. minimum wage), equal rights (for some more than others) and equal distribution of wealth (taking wealth from the successful and giving it to the unsuccessful). It does not mean equal justice under the law.
Diversity. Diversity is the second most loaded word used by Democrats. Diversity means you cannot criticize anyone who is different than you. If you are white you cannot criticize someone born with a differ skin tone. In many cases, if you are a person with a different skin tone and you support Trump you are, by definition, a racist.
The Big Lies. Democrats tell big lies like: no one is here illegally, the world will end in 10 or 12 years due to climate change, killing a baby born alive is moral, Americans must pay for government funded abortion for transgender men and finally the biggest whopper, more government is necessary to fix just about anything and everything.
Control. Politics is not about which party you belong to. Politics is all about control. Politicians want control, politicians want to control their constituents and politicians want others to become dependent upon them. The more dependent one is to a politician, the better for the politician. It’s call modern day slavery.
Marxism and the Democratic Debates
Andrew Yang when asked to defend his proposal to pay $1,000 a month, to every American, from the federal government, said, “It’s difficult to do if you have companies like Amazon, trillion-dollar companies, paying zero in taxes.”
Karl Marx wrote, “The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” Will Amazon be the last company to ship us (free if your a member of Amazon Prime) the rope to collectively hang ourselves?
It appears the Democratic Party’s candidates, to one extent or another, want to hang every capitalist (i.e. working American) in our nation.
As Leon Trotsky wrote: “The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced with a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.” Democrats want to control/regulate the means of food production (see Green New Deal). Also, see food rationing in Communist Cuba.
Why Trump Won Both Debates!
As President Trump said during his inaugural address:
Today’s ceremony, however, has very special meaning because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another – but transferring it from Washington DC and giving it back to you the people.
For too long a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered but the jobs left and the factories closed.
The establishment protected itself but not the citizens of our country.
Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs. While they have celebrated there has been little to celebrate for struggling families all across our land.
That all changes starting right here and right now because this moment is your moment. It belongs to you. It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America today.
This is your day.
This is your celebration.
And this – the United States of America – is your country.
Trump noted, “What truly matters is not what party controls our government but that this government is controlled by the people.”
Give the American people control of their lives and good things happen. Give the American people jobs and good things happen. Give the American people the freedom to speak and good things happen. Give the American people their God given Constitutional rights and good things happen.
Power to the people is winning! Are you tired of winning?
Here are two interesting political satire videos by Carpe Donktum on the debates.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2019-06-28 05:00:172019-06-29 07:18:08And the Clear Winner of the first two Democratic Party Debates is — Donald J. Trump
Michael Pakaluk: Americans believe that God’s purposes are discerned in creation, and that our institutions should affirm not negate them.
One liberalism is a personal style and way of life. It means favoring strong-mindedness and independence of thought. These require good education and, especially, a good culture. It means aiming to be genial, frank, and magnanimous – traits that I see especially among good businesspersons today (not academics, alas!). I embrace liberalism in this sense, and I suspect you do too. Before the French Revolution, the word “liberal” was used exclusively in this sense. Thus, people sometimes call it the “classical” meaning of liberalism.
Another liberalism is an approach to institutions. You can call it a “philosophy,” if you wish, but only in the sense in which an intuitive rule of thumb is a philosophy. To be a liberal in this second sense is to be implicitly against centralization and absolutism, and in favor of pluralism of power, shared governance, and persuasion and cooperation as modes of social order. You favor anything that disperses power. Thus, competition is favored; also, “spontaneous order.” Monopolies are disfavored, including monopolies of preference, such as ranking systems or uniformity of products.
On this second conception, you also instinctively side with the little guy. Something is gravely wrong when “flyover country” counts as nothing. Domestic life and cultivating one’s garden look good, in contrast, as a protest against the large-scale. Small is beautiful. The “ordinary” is, after all, God’s standard intention.
The American founding was profoundly liberal in this second sense. Federalism and the separation of powers work to disperse authority. Republicanism makes persuasion and compromise necessary. The recognition of religious freedom opens up entire spheres of human life where human government has no competence. An agrarian society, so dependent on variations in land and climate, has a naturally diverse economy.
Obviously, these first two liberalisms go together. The independence of thought and good education required by the first are necessary for the practical realization of the second. But “liberal” institutions in the second sense also tend to produce citizens with “liberal” characters – think of Norman Rockwell’s painting, Freedom of Speech– a working man standing up at a small-town public meeting (independence of thought), who has some kind of folded document in his pocket, which he has studied (education), and who addresses his peers face-to-face (geniality and frankness).
As a Catholic who is an American I heartily embrace liberalism in this second sense too, and I suspect you do as well.
Liberalism in both these senses never “failed.” Rather, they “succeeded” quite stupendously for three centuries in our nation’s history. They succeed today handsomely, for example, in home-schooling households and associated institutions.
But they depend upon liberalism in a third sense. If this third kind fails, or more precisely is abandoned, or not cultivated, then all three will eventually go down – not in the manner of an inevitable working out of an implicit logic, but in the manner of a communal collapse.
The popes have told us this. They gave a simple and clear diagnosis. And I am astonished that in discussions of “liberalism” among Catholics these important teachings are ignored.
Liberalism in the third sense is a firm conviction of human freedom as rooted in the authority of God, and of nature as an expression of God’s purpose in creation. It claims that human practical reason is already imbued with a lawfulness, having the character of something set down from above (so-called “natural law”). We do not construct this law, but find it. It claims that all authority capable of binding the conscience derives ultimately from God.
This third liberalism regards God, the good angels, and the saints as exemplars of freedom.
Hence freedom does not include, but strenuously excludes, doing evil. Hence the most serious attack on freedom comes from sin. “Liberation is first and foremost liberation from the radical slavery of sin,” wrote Cardinal Ratzinger about theologies of liberation, one type of false liberalism. And Pope Leo XIII in Libertas, his encyclical on liberalism, quotes Our Lord, “Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” (Jn 8:34)
As a Catholic, I embrace this third liberalism. As an American, too, I embrace it. To refer to God as “nature’s God” is to suppose that God’s purposes can be discerned in creation, and that our manners and institutions should honor and express these rather than attempt to negate them.
Likewise, the doctrine that we are endowed by God with natural rights, logically unfolded, affirms that practical intelligence is already bound by limits not its own, and that human authority is both secondary and derivative.
Generally, a liberalism that encompasses all three varieties I’ve mentioned, especially the third, is good and cannot “fail.” But any putative liberalism that rejects the third is bad and will inevitably fail. Indeed, such “liberalism” holds out a false promise and will inevitably turn into totalitarianism.
When did the fatal turn take place in our society? Was it the secularization of universities that originally had a religious foundation? Was it the influence of the jurisprudence of Oliver Wendell Holmes (as Fr. John C. Ford believed)? Or was it when Hiroshima and Nagasaki convinced Americans of the godlike powers of “science”?
“What naturalists or rationalists aim at in philosophy, that the supporters of liberalism, carrying out the principles laid down by naturalism, are attempting in the domain of morality and politics,” Leo XIII wrote in Libertas: “The fundamental doctrine of rationalism is the supremacy of the human reason, which, refusing due submission to the divine and eternal reason, proclaims its own independence, and constitutes itself the supreme principle and source and judge of truth. Hence, these followers of liberalism deny the existence of any divine authority to which obedience is due, and proclaim that every man is the law to himself; from which arises that ethical system which they style independent morality, and which, under the guise of liberty, exonerates man from any obedience to the commands of God, and substitutes a boundless license. The end of all this it is not difficult to foresee.”
COLUMN BY
Michael Pakaluk
Michael Pakaluk, an Aristotle scholar and Ordinarius of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, is acting dean of the Busch School of Business at the Catholic University of America. He lives in Hyattsville, MD with his wife Catherine, also a professor at the Busch School, and their eight children. His latest book, on the Gospel of Mark, The Memoirs of St Peter, is now available from Regnery Gateway.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Catholic Thinghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Catholic Thing2019-06-27 19:16:422019-06-27 19:19:22Three Liberalisms: The Good, the Bad, the Disastrous
With too many Muslim migrants, “the continent could become ‘Muslim’ or ‘African.’”
“Only a ‘limited number’ of migrants should be permitted to reside in Europe”
According to globalist labels, these are the “racist“, “Islamophobic“, “intolerant“, “EU democracy-threatening“, “far right“, “Nazi” words of populists like Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, and Italy’s Matteo Salvini right? Throw in Donald Trump too. Except, that they are not the words of “populists” who have been logically and responsibly aiming to protect their citizenry and democratic heritage, but are constantly attacked and disparaged, even by the Pope–the blind guide sitting comfortably, wealthy and walled in at the Vatican. These words have been issued by a global leader that is deemed to be a top peacemaker who also teaches the young about how to be peacemakers: “The Dalai Lama”. His words of warning about Muslim migration should be on front pages of the news everywhere, but they won’t be, because they are not what globalists want to hear nor convey to the public. They fear that the Dalai Lama might influence citizens who have been duped into thinking that kindness and charity means to throw out all logic and fling open the doors to every and anyone regardless of their background activity or their goals.
The Dalai Lama went on to instruct:
“Receive them, help them, educate them, but ultimately they should develop their own country….I think Europe belongs to the Europeans.”
“Dalai Lama: Europe Will Become ‘Muslim’ if Migrants Allowed to Stay”, by Thomas D. Williams, Breitbart, June 27, 2019:
The Dalai Lama insisted Wednesday that “Europe is for Europeans,” warning that if too many migrants are allowed to stay, the continent could become “Muslim” or “African.”
The Buddhist spiritual leader, who has been living as a refugee in India since fleeing Tibet in 1959, told the BBC that only a “limited number” of migrants should be permitted to reside in Europe.
The 83-year-old said Europe should take in refugees and offer them an education, but then send them back to their homelands.
“European countries should take these refugees and give them education and training, then the aim is return to their own land,” he said.
The BBC host asked what should happen if migrants want to stay in their adopted countries, to which the Dalai Lama replied:
“A limited number is OK, but whole Europe eventually become Muslim country? Impossible. Or African country? Also impossible.”
Asked what was wrong with the scenario of Europe becoming Muslim or African, he said: “They themselves I think better to their own land. Keep Europe for Europeans.”
This was not the first time the Tibetan leader has voiced these opinions……
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2019-06-27 18:48:082019-06-27 19:10:37Dalai Lama: ‘Europe is for Europeans,’ EU will become ‘Muslim’ or ‘African’ if migrants allowed to stay
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Vlad Tepes Bloghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngVlad Tepes Blog2019-06-27 18:25:072019-06-27 19:46:15VIDEO: How long till Google takes this down?
There are some good-hearted, non-Muslim tolerant people who tend to overlook all the terrible things that Islam perpetrates and point to some of its good teachings. These folks contend that the world should direct its effort not to combat Islam, but at those individuals and groups that commit heinous acts in the name of Islam.
There are others who disagree with this benign approach. This latter group sees all the so-called aberrations as inherent and part and parcel of Islam. They believe that it is Islam that actively promotes and is terribly out of sync with the best interests of the 21st century world.
They contend that Islam may have served the primitive Arab people of fourteen centuries ago. But by breaking out of its cradle and morphing into a world dominant crusade that has inflicted incalculable harm to its victims as well as those who ended up in its fold.
For now, Islam can be thought of as a stagnant body of water. Over the years, the body of water has become greatly polluted to a point that it has become a breeding medium for all kinds of death-bearing insects such as the ‘West Nile Disease’ mosquitoes.
Humanity has suffered horrific wars in the past. Yet, the present multi-form and multi-front war waged by Islamists has the potential to inflict more suffering and destruction of more lives than ever before. Ruthless Islamic forces advance rapidly in their conquests while those of freedom acquiesce and retreat. Before long, Islam is poised to achieve its Allah-mandated goal to cleanse the earth of all non-Muslims through ‘grand Jihad’ and establish the Islamic Ummah.
The counter-jihadists struggle with jihadist is like Hercules’ epic combat with the multi-headed Hydra-monster. You slay one jihadi, two more appear in no time. It makes you wonder if we are ever able to eradicate jihadists for good!
“Bin Laden is Killed,” headlines blanketed the world, a few days ago. Many rejoiced and felt justice was served while a few mourned the mass murderer’s demise. Celebration and mourning aside, the fact is that the death of one demon does not mark the end of the evil of Islamism. In the same way that it is the nature of swamps to breed mosquitoes, Islam is the incubator of jihadist mass murderers. It never ends.
Jihadists have searched the scripture and selectively choose those statements and precedents that they do use to legitimize their violent and primitive agenda. Jihadists, for instance, claim that the Quran itself urges them to make jihad, “jahedoo fee sabeil-u-llah,” (make jihad for the cause of Allah.) The word “jihad” has at least two vastly different meanings. It means exertion. It also stands for making war, and it is the latter that jihadists invoke as their mandate.
“Jihad in the path of Allah is greater than any individual or organization. It is a struggle between Truth and Falsehood, until Allah Almighty inherits the earth and those who live in it. Mullah Muhammad Omar and Sheikh Osama bin Laden—may Allah protect them from all evil—are merely two soldiers of Islam in the journey of jihad, while the struggle between Truth [Islam] and Falsehood [non-Islam] transcends time “(The Al Qaeda Reader, p.182, emphasis added).
While so-called silent Muslims generally ignore jihadists, either out of fear, lack of organization, or apathy, Islamists work around the clock and around the world to further their agenda. Hardly a week passes without a Grand Mufti or an Ayatollah who issues pronouncements in support of extremist Islam. The rank-and-file Islamist clergy, for their part, transmit these fatwas and edicts to their flock at mosques and hammer them into the minds of impressionable children in madrassahs. Through this grassroots process, Islam is recruiting greater and greater numbers of adherents. On the one hand, Islamists engage in acts of violence to disrupt the function of societies, while on the other they cleverly exploit the freedom they enjoy in non-Islamic lands to subvert them from within.
After 1400 years, Islam is still on a campaign of conquest throughout the known world. Hordes of life-in-hand foot-soldier fanatical Muslims strive to kill and get killed. All they want is the opportunity to discharge their homicidal-suicidal impulse, on their way to Allah’s promised glorious afterlife. And in the background, granting the foot-soldiers’ wishes, are their handlers, the puppeteers, who pull the strings and detonate these human bombs.
Those who cherish life must recognize these emissaries of death, what makes them, what motivates them, and how best to defend against them. The campaign of death waged by these Islamic jihadists, be he a puppet or a puppeteer, is energized by the belief of delectable rewards that await the faithful implementer of Allah’s dictates.
Through a highly effective indoctrination, the jihadist has come to believe firmly in Islam’s absolute delusion. He believes that Allah is the one and only supreme creator of the heavens and the Earth; that it is his duty and privilege, to abide by Allah’s will and carry out his plans at all costs. He believes firmly in a gloriously wonderful immortal afterlife in paradise, for which a martyr’s death is the surest quickest admission. Although the dominant theme of the delusion is quasi-spiritual, the promised rewards of the afterlife awaiting the martyr are sensual and material. Civilized people must come to terms and accept the reality that orthodox Islam requires endless jihad!
One Osama is dead. More Osama are in the wings. The enemy is relentless. The free people must wage an unceasing battle against this menace of Islamism through massive education and by any other means to preserve humanity’s most prized possession—liberty.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Amil Imanihttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngAmil Imani2019-06-27 18:07:172019-06-27 18:08:59The Hydra of Jihad
The Supreme Court’s Thursday decision relating to the 2020 census split a baby that should have remained whole.
The question at hand was whether the Trump administration could add a question about citizenship to the 2020 census. The court found that adding such a question would not violate the Constitution, but that the administration’s justification for doing so—enforcing the Voting Rights Act—may have been “contrived.”
It sent the case back to the lower court for further findings.
That means the secretary of the Commerce Department, which controls the census, gets to fight another day and can justify its decision another way.
The Trump administration should not give up, but instead should fight to justify including the question before time runs out and the Census Bureau has to print out the census forms.
On the whole, we agree with Justice Clarence Thomas’ partial dissent that “our only role in this case is to decide whether the secretary complied with the law and gave a reasoned explanation for his decision. The court correctly answers these questions in the affirmative. That ought to end our inquiry.”
However, that is not what happened, and so the administration must act fast. Failure to do so would be a victory for a very well-organized left and for the administrative state.
This decision should have been uncontroversial and downright boring. Indeed, this issue should have never come to the court in the first place.
It was only there because leftist groups that have controlled the census for decades have spent two years throwing the mother of all tantrums. One can only conclude that they don’t want accurate data on the number of noncitizens in the country.
Conservatives should pay heed and recognize that if the census is this important to liberals, it is probably of some value to conservatives, too.
They should follow this 2020 census effort by eliminating all race categories from the 2030 census, as these constitute the warp and woof of the identity politics ideology that these advocacy groups push.
These challengers—including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and Asian Americans Advancing Justice—have pursued a full-court press, oratorically and legally, since the Trump administration announced two years ago it wanted the citizenship question reinstated on the 2020 census for the first time since 1950.
(Yes, reinstated. The question previously appeared on census forms dating back to 1820, at the recommendation of President Thomas Jefferson.)
The left’s unfair, inflammatory rhetoric has been over the top.
“The American people will not tolerate the Trump administration exploiting the census in order to carry out their racist and xenophobic policies,” claimed Michael Brune of the Sierra Club.
“This egregious citizenship question is a political effort to weaponize the census to redefine American democracy,” said Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference Education Fund.
On the legal front, these groups first filed a lawsuit against the administration in New York City, which culminated in the January decision by a federal judge in Manhattan (an Obama appointee) that the administration had violated the Administrative Procedures Act by acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.
In a similar case, a second Obama appointee in San Francisco held that asking a citizenship question is “unconstitutional.”
It was these cases that came before the Supreme Court.
The leftist organizations didn’t stop there. They kept throwing things against the wall hoping something would stick.
In early June, they released information in a document prepared years ago by a deceased Republican redistricting expert. The document was found by his estranged daughter among his possessions and forwarded to the challengers.
The so-called smoking gun document showed that if citizen population was used to draw electoral maps in Texas, rather than total population, Republicans and non-Hispanic whites might benefit—hardly earth-shattering news.
Indeed, the truth is that in other states, this would also benefit Hispanics—a large umbrella group that covers Americans of many origins, many of whom vote for Democrats.
In a move that evokes the left’s desperation during the Kavanaugh hearings, liberals trotted out the information, claiming—without any proof whatsoever—that the Justice and Commerce departments had “relied” on this information in making the decision to reinstate the citizenship question.
The administration’s lawyers vigorously denied this unsupported and unproven claim, which activists sent to the Supreme Court late in the game, well after oral arguments, as it was preparing to issue its decision.
Did these strategies play a role in the court’s decision? It’s hard to say. If so, then the justices who remanded the decision to the lower court gave in to an organized mob.
But let us all put aside the last-minute theatrics and the legal sleight of hand, and get right down to the point of this entire controversy.
My friend Jim Geraghty hits the nail on the head when he writes in National Review that many leftists want to live in a borderless world where the nation-state just withers away.
The problem is that democracy, the rule of law, and the very concept of human rights are territorially constrained and protected.
Natural rights may be universal, but the laws that protect these rights, and the cultures that underwrite these laws, are very much local to the nation.
Groups like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, La Raza (now known as UnidosUS), and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials have for decades used the census to break up and divide Americans into racial and ethnic identity groups—a triumph for them and for identity politics, but a disaster for America’s sense of national cohesion.
These groups are examples of what the social scientist Peter Skerry calls “elite network insiders.”
These groups have “weak community ties,” but they win policy fights because they partake in “a process of specialization and professionalization by which politics become more and more an insiders’ game.”
The racial identities that they’ve intimidated the Census Bureau into adopting are “highly useful to elite-network insiders who are in need of some cogent category that subsumes the disparate population they aspire to represent.” But such categories do no good to the people themselves, or to the nation.
One of the platforms for these organizations is the Census Bureau’s National Advisory Committee on Racial, Ethnic, and Other Populations, where many have a seat.
As I wrote in Quillette a few months ago, few Americans have heard of this committee, but, “along with bureaucrats in other agencies, and various non-governmental ‘stakeholder’ groups on the left, the [committee] has for decades controlled the policy by which demographic data—the seedbed of identity politics—is collected and interpreted.”
On June 14, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to re-evaluate all national advisory committees and eliminate at least a third of them. The census committee, which fought the citizenship question so hard, should be one of the first to go.
So, what should happen now?
The Commerce Department should fight for the citizenship question by providing a new explanation.
The administration should then rescind the 1977 Office of Management and Budget directive that first artificially created pan-ethnic identity groups, such as “Hispanics,” as well as the 1997 revision of that directive.
It’s time we moved back to a culture and society where we consider all Americans to be one people—e pluribus unum (out of many, one)—that are not divided by their skin color or ethnic or family background.
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.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-06-27 17:35:482019-06-29 07:59:06Trump Should Act Quickly to Secure 2020 Census Question in Light of Court Ruling
George Landrith’s interviews covering ethanol mandate, student conservatives, your kids, and Venezuela with guests Peter Roff, Burton Folsom, Sam Sorbo, and JD Gordon.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Conservative Commandos Radio Showhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngConservative Commandos Radio Show2019-06-26 07:38:522019-06-26 07:38:52PODCAST: The Ethanol Mandate, Student Conservatives, Your Kids, and Venezuela. . .
When US President Donald Trump finally admitted that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of Israel, he was merely acknowledging what everyone already knew. Jerusalem has been the heart of Israel for over 3,000 years, and, like it or not, has served as the Jewish state’s administrative center for the past 70 years.
But that didn’t stop the Arab nations from condemning, vilifying and even threatening Trump for his audacity. This despite the fact that under Israel’s control, Jerusalem has been a city open to people of all religious backgrounds, and its holy sites are open to everyone without restriction. This certainly was not the case when the city was ruled by Arab Muslims.
Let us not forget that the Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan of 1947 that would have already back then created a Palestinian state. The Arabs wanted war so that they could throw the Jews into the sea. But they failed. And so, the Arabs tried again, and again, and again, each time losing more and more territory to Israel.
Only Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was smart enough to try a different approach, and managed to regain the Sinai Peninsula from Israel by offering peace. All Israel wants, surrounded as it is by 22 Arab countries, is to live quietly in its little corner of the Middle East.
Arabs say that Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims, but it is sacred also to the Jews and Christians. Muslims tend to sidestep the fact that they also have Mecca and Medina, in addition to numerous holy sites in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Egypt.
The Jews, meanwhile, have this one holy city, which they happily open to all. Arabs should instead focus on all the ways in which Israel has surpassed them. It is the only true democracy in the region, it is a first world country among a backward Middle East, and it is a world leader in technology, medicine and other fields of science. All theArab states have managed to export of late is terrorism. And yet, many in the Middle East, from Gaza to Lebanon to Iraq to Iran, still believe that in order to achieve peace and stability in the region, Israel must be destroyed! Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s famous quote still rings true for me as an Arab living in this twisted reality: “We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.” We Arabs should have taken a lesson from the Japanese, who knew that following World War II they could not continue to view America as an enemy if they wanted to move forward. And so, despite the fact that America had nuked two of their cities, the Japanese began a new chapter in which America was portrayed as a friend, partner and, eventually, an ally. It was this courageous first step that enabled Japan to emerge from the ashes of World War II and become the advanced first-world nation it is today.
ABOUT RAMI DABBAS
Rami Dabbas is a Jordanian civil engineer, activist and writer. He was born to a Jordanian father and a Russian mother in the city of Astana in Kazakhstan. Rami is a sympathizer with the religious minorities in the Middle East.
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2019-06-26 06:55:012019-06-26 06:55:01Israel: The Small, Great Country
“Equality” cries were cherished by feminists when they gave females entry into military academies, boardrooms and the ranks of police; prize-money parity in some sporting events; and access to boys’ athletics. But with these appeals now putting sexually confused men in women’s sports, well, feminists’ cries are a tad different. Equality can be a real downer when it’s principle and not ploy.
As for my position, I’ve devoted more ink to combating the made-up sexual status (MUSS, usually called “transgender”) agenda than most any other writer. In fact, almost first in the field — and almost alone there — inveighing against MUSS ideology 10 years ago, I was criticized for political incorrectness by conservatives (some of whom now sing my tune). It thus may be surprising that I today say to MUSSmen athletes everywhere:
Best of luck to you, lads — may the best man win!
No, I’m not now seeking the Democrat presidential nomination, Biden-style (I’m using the wrong pronouns for that). It’s that, to use a twist on a quotation attributed to Abe Lincoln, “The best way to eliminate a bad law, or social law, is to apply it strictly.”
You see, I believe that anyone who wants equality should get equality — good and hard.
Up until the Rise of the MUSSmen, male-female Equality™ had been a one-way street called Feminism Way, sort of equality lecture+selective application=whatever advantage I darn well want at the moment. Prestige-oriented feminists could complain about too few female CEOs while never being asked about too few female garbage collectors, iron workers or loggers; or why women aren’t subject to selective-service registration. Politicians could bloviate about the workplace intersex wage gap, which somewhat favors men, and ignore the workplace intersex death gap, which greatly favors women. Activists could sanctimoniously agitate over men out earning women in acting while making nary a peep about women out earning men in modeling. Professional female soccer players (and other athletes) could lose to 14-year-old boys — lobby for the same pay as the men without being laughed at — and never be told the obvious: If you want the men’s money, emerge from your separate, protected athletic realm and try playing in the men’s arena and succeeding. Your separate ain’t equal, hon.
As one commenter quoted here put it, “I’m constantly told that men and women are equal and that gender is a social construct. I’m constantly shown ‘bad[***] women’ on TV and in movies that can beat up men easily. I’m told a woman can do anything a man can do. So…[w]hy segregate sports?”
Yes, what’s the problem? I also grew up hearing, “A woman can do anything a man can do!” Case closed.
Oh, you weren’t really serious about that? I’m sorry. I guess I missed the joke hearing the line screeched over and over and over and over again, year after year, in any and all circles, in every relevant debate, whenever the least convenient. I suppose my humor meter was malfunctioning — for four decades straight.
You feminists said you were equal. Now you can put your money where your mouths are.
The culpability of feminism and its enablers in advancing the MUSS agenda goes beyond this, however. For a couple of generations the theory the Thought Police demanded assent to was “gender neutrality”; it dogmatically stated that the sexes are the same but for the superficial physical differences, and, therefore, if you raise boys and girls identically, they’ll end up identical in capacity.
So intense was this dogma that, related feminist Camille Paglia, angry feminists would corner her on college campuses and insist that hormones didn’t exist and that, even if they did, they couldn’t possibly influence behavior.
But “gender neutrality” was a theory of convenience. After all, if the sexes were the same beneath the skin, there could be little justification for traditional sex roles and excluding women from once-all-male arenas.
Of course, if feminists and their capon enablers hadn’t eschewed “white male linear logic,” they might have realized that ideas have consequences, that A can lead to B. In this case, A was the thesis that the “sexes are the same except for the superficial physical differences.”
B is the corollary, “Change the superficial physical differences, and you can be the ‘opposite sex.’”
It’s the logical (d)evolution from “gender neutrality” to the MUSSmen’s “gender identity” (misusing the term “gender” all the way through). The former absolutely led to the latter — and feminism absolutely laid the groundwork for it.
Thus, when I now hear complaints about MUSSmen’s athletic exploits, my very unmusical self plays the world’s smallest violin. These triumphant individuals are merely providing an object lesson in the consequences of advancing momentarily convenient lies.
Some will now mention that innocent women and girls suffer here along with the feminists. Yet while the age’s sins do “fall like black atomic rain on the just and unjust alike,” to quote English satirist Malcolm Muggeridge, there’s plenty of blame to go around.
For starters, women broke percentage wise for Democrats in last year’s midterms 59-40, meaning, well intentioned or not, six out of 10 women (and 47 percent of men) recently empowered a political group advancing the MUSS agenda. As for the rest of the ladies, ask yourselves: Did I ever say, even just in the heat of the moment, “A woman can do anything a man can”? Did I ever cheer those who do? Did I ever utter any other feminist battle cry? Insofar as anyone did, he helped MUSS up women’s sports — and society.
Don’t think I’m just placing an onus on women, because men allowed this to happen, too. The point is that people get the culture they deserve as much as the government they do, and too many of us, through mistakes of omission or commission, helped bring us to where we are now.
As for solutions, as long as many insist on talking equality’s talk, we should insist on walking its walk. For it’s easy to be idealistic when you don’t have to live with your ideals, and equality self-righteousness is all fun and games — until you’re no longer one of those people more equal than others.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Selwyn Dukehttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSelwyn Duke2019-06-25 17:36:302019-06-25 17:42:46Hey, “Trans” Men in Women’s Sports: Good Luck, Fellas’ — Go for the Gold!
Now that President Trump has shifted away from an immediate war with Iran, it’s time to step back and look at what a war with Iran might entail. I recently had a conversation with a former special forces veteran who offered insight into the framework around a potential war with Iran.
After the downing of an American drone, which triggered the most recent increased tensions with Iran, we have to ask whether a retaliatory military strike is wise as a long-term strategy?
Here are five key components to going to war with Iran that we need to build a dialogue around:
What is the long-term strategy for a war with Iran?
National Security Adviser John Bolton, among others, is rattling for a war with Iran that ushers in regime change. Yet, there is no specific plan for a regime change beyond offering resources and short-term support. Is there a contingency plan in place should the “regime change strategy” fall flat or derail?
Rumors in the military intelligence sector disclose that there is zero appetite for regime change. Many believe that recent U.S. actions have strengthened the resolve of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) hardliners. Just this year, for example, President Trump designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization, which resulted in further ideological escalation when Iran designated the U.S. military with the same title.
The sentiment among some military professionals (vs. pro-war neocon national security consultants) is that a regime change would likely yield a worse regime with the IRGC “superhero” Qassem Soleimani calling the shots. The result is inevitable: another generational struggle in the Middle East, and a second failed regime change in Iran, which would only amplify criticisms of U.S. intervention.
2. Would American allies offer coalition support for a strike against war?
Would that coalition support translate into military support? Where do U.S. allies stand in the event that such strikes lead to an official declaration of war with Iran?
3. Given that Iran shares borders with Afghanistan and Iraq, would the Trump administration be prepared to escalate if Iran uses its forces to kill Americans in Iraq, Syria or Afghanistan?
If so, is there a contingency plan to fight Iran across the region (i.e., not just within Iran but in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan)?
What are the contingencies to fight Hezbollah?
4. Russia is Iran’s chief partner in the region, so a war with Iran would also become a proxy war with Russia.
Given that U.S. special forces killed hundreds of Russian nationals (mercenaries) in Deir al-Zour, and given President Trump’s inability to address Russia’s malign actions in the U.S. and Europe particularly when it comes to sowing discord through social media channels, what are Russia’s goals? Would Russia join in the fight against America?
5. If the Strait of Hormuz is closed in a regional war and oil prices skyrocket globally, what will be the second-order effects of a war with Iran?
Could a lack of access to oil crash sectors of the global and U.S. economies?
Given that President Trump avoided the attack on Iran proposed by his national security aides, it’s likely that his decisions on Iran are being guided by the sound military leadership of General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (and not Bolton).
It’s also likely that military planners raised the issue of escalation, which would necessitate the total destruction of the Iranian Navy in the Strait of Hormuz and bring with it reciprocal action in terms of halting oil shipments and launching asymmetrical attacks against the U.S. military in Syria, Iraq, and possibly Qatar.
Whatever the decision will be moving forward, there is one hard reality that must be factored in alongside the likely trillion-dollar price tag and possibility of another failed Middle East war: We have to consider that a boots-on-the-ground conflict with Iran will likely mean that, at some point in the future, children in elementary school today will be shipped off to fight another the generational war.
IRANIAN PROVOCATION SINCE MAY 2019
PERSIAN GULF AND SURROUNDING AREA
May 12, 2019 – Explosions in the United Emirates Port of Fujairah burn 7-10 oil tankers
June 13, 2019 – Two oil tankers struck in Gulf of Oman. Iran attempts but fails to shoot down American drone surveiling the attack. U.S. later presents detailed evidence Iran was involved, including fingerprints.
June 14, 2019 – U.S. releases video showing Iranian special forces removing unexploded mine from damaged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman.
June 20, 2019 – Iran shoots down highly sophisticated American drone over international waters in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump back off attack calling it an accident.
SAUDI ARABIA
May 14, 2019 – Drone sent by Houthis, Iranian proxy militia in Yemen, bombs two pumping stations in Saudi Arabia on strategic oil pipeline in Dawadmi and Afeef.
May 22, 2019 – Drone launched by Houthi fighters strikes Saudi arms depot in Narjran Domestic Airport.
June 7, 2019 – Two car bombs target the Saudi city of Jeddah (home of the U.S. consulate) causing injuries.
June 11, 2019 – Saudi Arabia’s air defense forces intercept two drones launched by Houthis targeting Khamis-Mushait.
June 12, 2019 – Cruise missile hits Abha International Airport outside of the Saudi city of Khmais-Mushait injuring 26, including three women and two children in arrivals terminal.
June 17, 2019 – Saudi forces intercept two explosives-laden drones – one targeting a civilian area in Saudi city of Abha and the other in Yemeni airspace as it approached the kingdom.
June 19, 2019 – The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen says missile fired by Houthis landed near a desalination plant near Saudi city of Jizan. Houthis say it was a cruise missile aimed at power plant in Jizan.
YEMEN
June 6, 2019 – U.S. drone shot down by Houthis in the Yemeni western coast of Al Hudaydah.
June 17, 2019 – Iranian experts, along with Houthi militants, Killed in failed attempt to launch a ballistic missile outside of Yemeni capital of Sana’a at the Al-Daylamit air base.
June 19, 2019 – Drone sent from Yemen to Saudi Arabia intercepted by Saudi air defenses over Yemen’s Hajjah province.
EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Clarion Projecthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngClarion Project2019-06-25 16:00:452019-06-26 06:29:495 Questions to Ask Before Going to War With Iran
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been quieter than usual since its blockbuster scandal rocked the liberal world. Now the group is slowly coming out of hiding, and staffers like Nancy Abudu are trying desperately to make up for lost time. If her latest attack against Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill is any indication, nothing at the Poverty Palace has changed. Including, the state would tell you, its approach to the facts.
Now that it’s “hate lists” are completely discredited, SPLC is apparently venturing out in a new area: voting rights. Last month, the Montgomery headquarters announced that it was creating a Voting Rights Legal Team — with about the same level of integrity Americans have come to expect from an organization knee-deep in systematic racism and bigotry.
For their first hit job, Abudu didn’t stray far from home. The deputy director of SPLC’s project took aim at the organization’s state for supposed voter suppression — a charge John Merrill would have a good laugh at if he weren’t so annoyed. “You know,” he told our listeners on “Washington Watch,” “they’re entitled to their own opinion, but they’re not entitled to their own facts.” And those facts tell a far different story than what Abudu suggested in a wildly inaccurate op-ed in the Montgomery Advertiser.
To anyone paying attention in Alabama, the suggestion that state leaders are intentionally suppressing voter registration is almost too ridiculous to repeat. For four years, five months, and two days, Merrill said, “we’ve made a concerted effort… to ensure that each and every eligible U.S. citizen as a resident of Alabama is registered to vote [and] has a photo ID.” They’ve traveled to all 67 counties each year, he explained. They go to festivals, events, and other activities to promote voter registration. They even created a mobile application so that Alabamians can register to vote on the computer or on their phones. Then, of course, there’s the Board of Registrar’s Office. “It’s open each and every day. The courthouse is open in every county in the state, and we ensure that we provide a photo ID or the opportunity to register to vote for any citizen that wishes to register [who] is qualified to do.”
The idea that his staff or anyone in the state is actively trying to turn people away from their civic duty is preposterous. In fact, Merrill explains, Alabama has been such a success story that officials have been invited to Congress to testify twice about the great work they’re doing. And why not? Since his time in office, the state’s registered a whopping 1,278,824 new voters. “We now have a state record, 3,491,599 registered voters in Alabama. Those numbers are unprecedented and unparalleled in the history of our state,” Merrill says proudly. But there’s more. “[W]hen you compare our per capita to every other state in the union, we surpass every other state in the union when it comes to voter registration and photo.”
If SPLC is insinuating that Alabama is intentionally targeting minorities, they’ll have a tough time proving it. Ninety-six percent of all eligible African-Americans in the state of Alabama are registered to vote. If Morris Dees’s old group is being honest, what SPLC is most upset about is that Merrill and his team have cracked down on the rampant fraud plaguing Alabama. While Democrats benefit from a slow and duplicative system, the 53rd secretary of state in Alabama says: not on my watch. “You also need to know that we removed more than 780,000 people from the voter rolls because those people have moved away, they passed away, or they’ve been put away, and whenever that happens, they need to come off the voter rolls.”
Even so, Alabama still broke voting records in the state for everything from the presidential primary in 2016 to the general election and the midterms in 2018. “Voter registration is important,” he agreed, “but voter participation is better.” Fortunately for his state, there’s both. “I am proud to ensure that in Alabama, we make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.” That’s clearly disappointing to SPLC!
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
EDITORS NOTE: This FRC column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-06-25 06:31:162019-06-25 06:32:02PODCAST: SPLC — Coming Soon to a Voting Booth Near You
Bernie Sanders is a liar–Socialism is not love and compassion it is just the opposite of that—Socialism is corruption, abuse and fraud. Yet Socialism has become a legitimate philosophy in America, Alas! We have dozens Democrat-Socialists candidates for the U.S. presidency. Do they know what Socialism is really about? No, they don’t. As a result, their words are often deceptive, misleading, and confusing. Bernie Sanders doesn’t know a real Socialism is also or pretends that he doesn’t know it. He is a Trojan Horse, propagandist, who is fooling and deceiving you for decades. Just wait for AG William G. Barr completing his investigation of the investigators, you will be shocked by a massive fraud, deceit, distortion, and lies perpetrated by the leadership of the Democrat Party during the last decades…
To really understand Socialism, you must have lived through it. I am a survivor of Soviet socialism and I know what it truly means. I came to America to enjoy the individual liberty, freedoms and opportunities the country offers to humanity. I love this country with all my heart and I am concerned about the state of America’s national security, especially during this dangerous time for our country. This is the reason I want to share my personal experiences living under a socio-economic system called Socialism and expose the frequent lies, deception, and misrepresentations of what the term really means.
Marxism, Socialism, and Communism
For most Americans Socialism is an abstract notion—something they have never experienced. Not coincidentally, Americans wonder about the difference between Socialism and Communism, and it is very hard for them to find the truth on the internet or from the Academia. For those of us raised under the Communist system in the Soviet Union, Marxism-Leninism was a mandatory subject in all universities. Most Russian émigrés know the subject well, they have studied Marxism at least for two years. I have studied Marxism for all four years at law school and I loved it, because I lived behind the Iron Curtin and Marxism was the only information available from the West…
I was surprised by the various explanations of Marxist theory offered by American authors. Some of them were pure propaganda. One misleading presentation on Marxist theory and its comparison of Lenin with President Reagan stunned me the most. Other strange statements I read included such comments as, “Socialism is liberal…Communism is conservative.” This was news for me. We cannot compare liberals of the 19th century with leftists of the 21st century, just as we cannot compare Democrat President Harry Truman with Democrat President Barack Obama. Over the past sixty years, there has been a drastic transformation within the Democrat Party and this transformation itself requires a separate discussion.
Because there is an alarming need for real knowledge, I will present my view on Marxism to Americans who hunger for the truth. There is a spectacular ignorance pertaining Socialism in America–people do not understand basic civics. Socialism is a system of a big, centralized government within a mafia-like police state, which runs all means of production, and assumes absolute control of the people, and all methods of productivity. There are no freedoms, no personal liberty, nor First Amendment rights under Socialism. I can testify that at any courts, because I lived half of my life under real Socialism and knowing Marxism pretty well, I’d like to introduce my view on the subject.
The publication of The Communist Manifesto in 1848 provided a road map for the period’s leftist political activists and their comrades in Europe. Marx was the primary author of the Manifesto, while Engels’ exact contributions are unknown. They offered their views on how capitalism would eventually be replaced by socialism and then give way to communism, the purest form of socialism. Nevertheless, any potential details about what communism would look like were missing. I would say the Manifesto was a radical left-wing political program of the mid-19th century with some historical and social information not always honestly presented. Moreover—Manifesto has declared a war to Western civilization, which is still going on in the 21st century today…
Creating the Theory of Socialism and Communism as a means of rooting out the exploitation of man by man, Marx and Engels purposely divided it into two phases: the first phase was Socialism and the second –- Communism. They identified in detail the tasks, agendas, and ways to achieve them in their Theory, as follows.
First – the tasks and agenda—overthrowing the capitalist economic system and establishing Socialism as a basis for the creation of a classless Communist society in the future.
Second – how to fulfill the tasks and agenda—through World Revolution.
Third – the World Revolution would occur under the leadership of the proletariat. “Proletariat of the world unite!” was their slogan.
Fourth – Marxist Theory can be applied only in industrially developed European countries…
The first task and the agenda, which I call the first Marxist postulate is clear—the overthrow of the existing Capitalist economic system and the creation of a new Socialist economic system under which all means of production would belonged to the government. As a survivor of Soviet Socialism, I can tell you how this was brought about — through the forcible confiscation and nationalization of all private property in the country.
Private Property is the main target of Marxism
The simple truth is that private property is a cornerstone of our democracy and our American economic system, as it’s declared by our Founding Fathers. “Capitalism is not a system of government, it is the practice and philosophy of transforming resources into capital goods for the purpose of producing consumer products.” Michael Barone is right talking about American economic system: “we have been a property-holders’ democracy.” A very important element of the Theory is missing–neither Marx nor Engels, identified over what time span Socialism would mature into the evolved and perfect classless Communist society. That is the crux of the matter—a dark hole in the theory and not the only one…
The second postulate, how to achieve the task, is also clear—through World Revolution. It is a radical and categorical approach to the matter entailing unrest, chaos, violence, and killings. I am vehemently against such an approach because I know the tragedy that occurred in Russia. Marx’s statement that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle,” is simply not true. America’s Founding Fathers created a just and fair government and free country without any class struggle.
The third Marxist postulate is the leadership of the Proletariat. Class division is the wrong approach to the problem of leadership. And again, the example of America is the antithesis of the Marxist approach and suggests, to the contrary, that only competent, well-educated, and highly respected individuals — leaders who come from all walks of life with all kinds of talents — can provide a country true leadership, as was the case in America. It is individual personality and human qualities alike George Washington or Thomas Jefferson that bring a leader to the forefront of a movement, not his or her identification with a certain class.
The fourth postulate is perhaps the only logical and economically sustainable position, i.e. that “Marxist theory can be applied only to industrially develop European countries…. “
Ironically, despite not meeting the requirements of any of Marx’s four postulates, the first Socialist Revolution took power in Russia in 1917. And despite failing to meet Marxist requirements, and on the contrary by perverting all of them while at the same time using Marxist rhetoric to further his ends, Joseph Stalin created his own ideology and established a criminal syndicate, a totalitarian terror-machine called Soviet Socialism… For decades the expansionist ideology was corrupting, abusing, and defrauding people of the world and this is one of the main reasons I am renaming the term Soviet Socialism to Soviet Fascism…
A more comprehensive explanation of this complex and important subject will follow. I will offer you a suggestion and a series of articles to learn about Soviet Socialism in the 21st century.
To learn a real life under Soviet Socialism, please read my book Baltic Winds: Testimony of a Soviet Attorney, Xlibris, 2002. Pay attention especially to pp 167-168 to learn the term “Blat” and how a famous defense attorney buys meet and other food in the country under Socialism, where private property is liquidated… Reading the book, you actually can find some similarity with what you are seeing in America today…
Please, read in addition 1. Chapter 2 Marxism: Utopianism, a Fraud or Both? Socialist Lies, From Stalin to the Clintons, Obamas, and Sanders, Xlibris, 2016
Replacing Property as a Source of Wealth Creation, by Michael Barone, Townhall.com July, 4, 2011
The Morality of Capitalism; What Your Professors Won’t Tell You by Tom G. Palmer.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Simona Pipkohttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngSimona Pipko2019-06-25 06:06:502019-06-25 06:07:28Soviet Socialism in the 21st century — Part 1
Sharia-adherent nations have long “sought a determination from the United Nations that any criticism of Islam or Muslims is ‘Islamophobia’ and banned globally.’”
But somehow Westerners still generally refuse to acknowledge the real meaning and intent of the concept of “Islamophobia.” In short, it’s intended to promote the supremacy of the Sharia by discrediting and silencing critics of Islam. The UN declared its intention to become closer with the OIC years ago, and it has happened. Now:
Nations belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other governments adhering to Shariah law across the world are ramping up their new campaign with the United Nations to prohibit all speech that Muslims consider offensive.
This aggressive campaign is the logical next step following years of appeasement, thanks to politically correct Western leaders. There have been enough warnings. Now, the final stage for Western subjugation has arrived, and the more Westerners fight for their own right to the freedom of speech, the more aggressive the “Islamophobia” brigade will become, particularly in light of the fact that they have come this far through bullying, intimidation, deceit and manipulation. They’re not about to surrender now, as they have been encouraged by too many Western dhimmis surrendering to them.
Pakistan Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi incited more support to silence any opposition to Islam and its adherents – including speech condemning Islam for its scriptural inciting of terrorists to conduct jihad (holy war) on “infidels.”
Mainstream Muslim groups in the West share the message of Lodhi and routinely persecute those who call out the truth about Islam. Lodhi stated a common message which is now embraced across the West in describing the so-called consequences of those who offend Islam:
“An inevitable consequence is to fan the flames of bigotry, intolerance, anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia”
An “inclusive political process for durable peace” by rejecting “Islamophobia” is what Lodhi — and other stealth jihadists who are promoting the Sharia — have duped Westerners into believing as they promote Islamic anti-blasphemy laws.
“UN poised to launch global ban on all criticism of Islam,” by Michael F. Haverluck, One News Now, June 23, 2019:
Nations belonging to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and other governments adhering to Shariah law across the world are ramping up their new campaign with the United Nations to prohibit all speech that Muslims consider offensive.
“Islamist nations … long have sought a determination from the United Nations that any criticism of Islam or Muslims is ‘Islamophobia’ and banned globally,’” WND reported, noting that with 57 members, the OIC represents the largest voting bloc in the U.N. “But each time it has come up for a vote, more realistic arguments prevailed and the campaign never was legitimized.”
Pakistan putting on the pressure
After U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres unveiled the new “U.N. Strategy and Plan of Action” to fight so-called “hate speech” at a special meeting in the packed Economic and Social (ECOSOC) chamber, Pakistan Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi incited more support to silence any opposition to Islam and its adherents – including speech condemning Islam for its scriptural inciting of terrorists to conduct jihad (holy war) on “infidels.”
An inevitable consequence is to fan the flames of bigotry, intolerance, anti-Muslim hatred and xenophobia,” Lodhi proclaimed before ambassadors, senior diplomats and high-ranking U.N. officials, as quoted in a press release, according to MSN. “My Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently again called for urgent action to counter Islamophobia, which is today the most prevalent expression of racism and hatred against ‘the other.’”
EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2019-06-25 05:42:202019-06-25 05:47:06UN poised to launch global ban on speech that insults Muslims
