A government watchdog group working to end corruption in Washington is shining a light on recent allegations of political partisanship at both the FBI and Department of Justice. One America’s John Hines has more from Washington.
House conservatives propose to cut nondefense spending and balance the federal budget within eight years in a blueprint released Wednesday.
The document produced by the Republican Study Committee, the largest caucus of GOP lawmakers in the House, includes a long list of policy goals such as repealing Obamacare, restoring power to states, making tax cuts “permanent,” reforming welfare programs, and “saving” Social Security and Medicare.
The 169-page blueprint, called “A Framework for Unified Conservatism,” proposes to cut government spending by more than $12.4 trillion over the next 10 years, compared with current law.
“I am very hopeful, when it comes to the legitimacy of this, if we are ever going to talk about the expectation of the federal government to live within its means, here’s the framework, this is the blueprint,” Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the 150-member caucus, said Tuesday during a press briefing.
“I don’t believe for one second that everything can be immediately instituted,” Walker told reporters, but “our job … is to put together some kind of blueprint, the framework that I have discussed, where we show, ‘Here is the path.’”
The Republican Study Committee traditionally seeks to unify GOP lawmakers to promote a conservative agenda, and this proposal boasts that it “refocuses federal spending on core constitutional responsibilities like national security.”
Under the budget framework, total defense spending would rise from the current $700 billion in fiscal 2018 to $716 billion in fiscal 2019.
The framework would reduce nondefense discretionary spending from the current $579 billion to $355 billion in fiscal 2019.
It also would reverse the decision by Congress to break caps on spending, which President Donald Trump approved Feb. 9 and again last month in signing the $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill for the remainder of fiscal 2018.
The RSC plan also calls for:
The blueprint also calls for saving taxpayers’ money by converting some mandatory government programs to discretionary programs. With “discretionary” programs, Congress must set funding levels each year, while the funding of mandatory programs such as Social Security and other entitlements is determined by the number of those enrolled.
The RSC plan says it considered input from congressional committees, individual lawmakers and their staff, conservative think tanks, and the executive branch to put forward over 300 specific policy reforms and spending cuts.
Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., chairman of the group’s budget and spending task force, told reporters Tuesday that this is the right way forward:
We block-grant many programs back to the states, giving them the freedom to innovate according to their own best judgment and needs; we fully fund the president’s defense requests while eliminating several wasteful programs and moving them to core defense priorities; [and] we save Medicare from impending insolvency in 2029 by moving to a premium support plan, very similar to the existing Medicare Advantage program.
McClintock is a senior member of the House Budget Committee as well as the Natural Resources Committee.
Besides calling for the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, the RSC blueprint proposes to make the health care market more affordable and competitive by allowing Americans to purchase health insurance across state lines, and by budgeting block grants for Medicaid at pre-Obamacare levels and limiting eligibility to U.S. citizens.
The budget blueprint says it “aims to go well beyond the least common denominator of politics to reflect the American people’s desire to see a more responsible and accountable government.”
It says it would do so in part by building on recent reforms such as making permanent the tax relief for individuals and other elements of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that took effect Jan. 1 after Trump signed the package that passed Congress without a single Democrat vote.
And it calls for:
The RSC framework follows the Feb. 12 release of Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2019, which begins Oct. 1.
That document includes the president’s recommendations to Congress, but Stan Collender, a former staffer for the House and Senate budget committees, is among those arguing that a rational budget process no longer exists. In an op-ed Tuesday in Forbes, Collender writes:
The federal budget process is not broken: It’s dead. Under Trump administration and congressional Republican control, the budget rules that are supposed to guide what the president and Congress do about the budget each year have died an ignominious death because of a combination of abject abuse and atrocious neglect.
In the congressional tradition known as regular order, the House Appropriations Committee passes 12 spending bills covering different aspects of government from transportation and social services to foreign policy and defense. Then the full House does the same, and the Senate follows suit. Finally, the president signs the 12 appropriations bills into law.
Congress hasn’t followed this process for more than 20 years, however.
In the latest go-round, Congress passed the $1.3 trillion omnibus bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2018. By that time, Congress will need to approve a budget for fiscal 2019, or at least short-term funding, to avert a government shutdown.
With such problems for Congress in mind, the Republican Study Committee proposes “reclaiming the … power of the purse by limiting spending and reforming the budget process.”
The next move on a budget for fiscal 2019 and beyond essentially is that of the House Republican leadership team under Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who recently announced he will not seek re-election in November and will retire in January.
All 435 seats in the House are up in the November elections; Republicans currently hold 236 seats and Democrats 193, with six vacancies.
Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst in fiscal affairs at The Heritage Foundation, said that if the RSC’s budget plan were to clear Congress, Americans “would see a smaller federal government certainly, less regulation, basically less of the federal government getting into areas that businesses and state and local government should be into.”
Instead of passing 12 separate appropriations bills this year, Bogie said, Congress might choose to do smaller omnibus spending bills, or “mini-buses,” where spending legislation is packaged into three or four bills. Congress technically would pass all 12 bills by Sept. 30, but not individually.
If Congress tries to pass the same type of omnibus that Trump threatened to veto before he signed it March 23, though, Republicans could be in hot water with the president.
“If they do it the exact same way that they did it last time, he probably doesn’t sign it or at least that threat is out there; if they pass more bills or most of the bills and then put them into an omnibus, then I think he probably signs it,” Bogie said.
Congress has no excuse for failing to start work on the budget, McClintock said.
“I think it would be an inexcusable dereliction of duty for the House Budget Committee to fail to produce a budget, and I am disappointed and embarrassed that it has not even begun that work, now a full week after the deadline for the House to adopt a budget,” the California Republican said.
“That’s why the RSC budget is so important,” he said. “It is the only credible and comprehensive plan put forward in this session to turn us back toward fiscal solvency before it is too late.”
Ken McIntyre contributed to this report.
Rachel del Guidice is a reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel. Twitter: @LRacheldG.
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: The featured image of Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., chairman of the Republican Study Committee is by Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom.
For crying out loud Lloyd, another article about how the LGBTQ movement seeks to ban Christianity? Folks, I keep talking about this because too many fellow Christians still don’t get it.
California pro-LGBTQ Assembly Bill 2943 threatens free speech and freedom of religion for Christians. It uses the state’s consumer fraud statute to make it illegal to “distribute resources, sell books, offer counseling services, or direct someone to a biblically based model for getting help with gender confusion and homosexuality.”
Meanwhile, Christians believe the LGBTQ movement’s lie that they only seek Christian love and acceptance. The truth is the LGBTQ movement seeks to bury Christianity; bullying us into silence and extinction. Christians have told me to stop posting my articles about LGBTQ aggression on their Facebook pages. A Christian told me not to post articles on their Facebook page about Planned Parenthood illegally trafficking aborted baby body parts.
Some Christians want to remain neutral on political/cultural issues for business and various other reasons. Folks, I would never arrogantly tell adults how to run their lives or facebook pages. What concerns me is Christians who still do not understand what we are up against and Christians who have embraced leftists’ agendas believing it’s what Jesus would do.
It bothers me that Christians allow themselves to be bullied into not speaking biblical truths and commonsense in America today. Growing up in the mean tough projects in Baltimore, I learned early that you never surrender ground to bullies.
Leftists worldwide portray Israelis as villains, claiming Israel refuses to negotiate peace with the Palestinians. The goal of the Palestinians is to drive Israelis into the sea. So how do you find common ground to negotiate peace with people who want you dead? Christians are dealing with the same scenario with the LGBTQ movement. Using their bogus victim status, LGBTQ activists are using every weapon in their arsenal to punish, humiliate and destroy Christians; ultimately wiping Christianity off the planet.
A lesbian dressed like a clergy “man” attended my stepmother’s funeral. The lesbian was unknown to our family. Everyone was kind and polite to her. The loving Christian thing to do is to help this gender confused woman find peace in being the woman God made her to be. Outrageously, leftists have made it illegal in some states to compassionately share Christ’s love with this troubled woman. Incredible.
An extremely effective tactic of leftists to force their agendas down the throats of the masses is to portray themselves as victims. This has caused me to roll-my-eyes when duped Christians lecture me about being more understanding of Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ movement.
Black Lives Matter is an awful evil hate group funded by evil George Soros and groups that hate America. These evil people promote the hate-generating and racial divisive lie that blacks are mistreated and are suffering in America. The truth is America is the greatest land of opportunity on the planet for all who choose to go for it. End of subject. Now, can we please move on?
Deceived decent Americans think they are doing the right thing by not in anyway opposing Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ movement. Meanwhile, Black Lives Matter is aggressively engaged in punishing southerners, beating up Trump voters, dragging down historical monuments, assassinating police officers and teaching white kids to hate themselves for being born white. Folks, teaching innocent kids to hate who God made them to be is pure evil.
Equally aggressively tyrannical is the LGBTQ movement which is steamrolling across our country flattening anyone who has ever expressed anything other than enthusiastic approval of redefining marriage.
The Benham brothers who build homes for needy families were scheduled to launch a show on Home & Garden television. LGBTQ activists dug into the annals of the Benham brothers’ past to discover they once spoke out in favor of marriage. This caused HGTV to cancel the Benham brothers’ TV show.
Notice how punishing the Benham brothers trumped providing homes for needy families. This is why it is repulsive hearing fake news media furthering the lie that leftists have superior compassion for minorities and the poor.
Most disturbing is how we have allowed LGBTQ activists to totally hijack public education, placing LGBTQ lessons above reading writing and arithmetic.
LGBTQ activists forced Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich to resign upon discovering that Eich donated $1,000 to California’s Proposition 8 which defined marriage as between one man and one woman; God’s definition of marriage. So much for leftists being tolerant of other points of view. Meanwhile, the masses who are minding their own business, living their lives, are relentlessly scolded by duped Americans and leftists for not being submissive enough to the LGBTQ movement.
Deception is a powerful tool to control people. Jews at Auschwitz passively marched into gas chambers to their deaths because the Nazis deceived them into believing they were being taken to take showers. Christians are passively allowing LGBTQ activists to steal the hearts and minds of their children, drive followers of Christ out-of-business and threaten pastors with jail-time for quoting the Bible. Deceived by the LGBTQ movement, Christians are passively marching to the death of Christianity.
But wait: according to God’s Word, we win in the end!
It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: someone exposes your kids to something harmful — and you can’t stop them. That’s exactly the situation in Orange County, California, where the school district has decided that LGBT lessons are too important to let families opt out.
In a story that almost has to be read to be believed, Fox News’s Todd Starnes reprints the policy in black and white. “Parents who disagree with the instructional materials related to gender, gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation may not excuse their children from this instruction,” the memo from the Orange County Board of Education warns.
Todd couldn’t believe his eyes, so he called a district spokesman who confirmed that kids would be forced to attend the schools’ LGBT indoctrination sessions. Then, in what was supposed to offer some reassurance, he went on to say that while parents may have no authority over what their kids learn in class, they had the district’s approval to rebut the materials at home. “Parents are free to advise their children that they disagree with some or all of the information presented in the instructional program and express their views on these subjects to their children.” You mean you’ll let us make the decisions when our kids are home? How thoughtful.
“The Orange County Department of Education feels it is their right to GIVE YOU PERMISSION TO DISAGREE WITH THEM. These are our children! They do not belong to the schools,” mom Heidi St. John fumed online. Unfortunately, this is all part of the state’s Healthy Youth Act from 2015, whose controversial provisions are just starting to hit home. Apart from LGBT propaganda, the law points out that students will also be told about the “effectiveness and safety of all FDA-approve contraceptive devices,” along with discussions about “abortion.”
District officials try to head-off any controversy by including this gem in the same memo: “The courts have held that parents do not have the constitutional rights to override the determinations of the state legislature or the school district as to what information their children will be provided in the public school classroom.” In other words, thanks for supplying the kids — we’ll handle the brainwashing.
In case leaders in California missed it, Americans aren’t taking radical sex at face value anymore. On Monday, 16 cities in four countries joined the Sex Ed Sit Out to protest programs as fanatical as this one. RedState’s Kira Davis says that if Orange County didn’t get the message, moms and dads should send them another one.
“Make noise. Lots and lots and lots of noise. When constituents get cranky, [lawmakers] pay attention… and so few people actually call and write anymore that just a few hundred voices go a very long way to making your representative and governor think twice about proceeding with something that seems unpopular.” If you have family or friends in Orange County, ask them to call the district at (714) 966-4012 and demand an opt-out from LGBT sex ed for students! Find your school board member here.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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The Florida high school student who made a racist sign asking his girlfriend to the prom has issued a profuse apology. His family issued a more profuse apology. But the promposal brouhaha is forcing him to forgo all the rest of his high school activities — a decision made in conjunction with the high school administration.
There will be no prom, no graduation experience or anything else for him. So, quite a lot of consequences and punishment for a racist, but likely just stupid teenage boy stunt to get a girl. Lesson learned, move on, right?
We all know that was never going to happen. This racist promposal is an opportunity for the activists among us, as one of the school’s gun control activists pointed out in our initial story on this.
First, there is going to be plenty of training for the approved way to think about race relations through the school and the school district. Second, the NAACP intends to be involved in that training, or as they term it, “discussions” about race. And now, naturally, Black Lives Matter wants to be involved in creating “uncomfortable” conversations within the school district that, essentially, blame white people.
The high school student made the promposal to his girlfriend with this sign, “If I was black, I’d be picking cotton, but I’m white, so I’m picking u 4 prom?” So yes, racist. Insensitive. Stupid. It’s not clear however that he showed it anyone other than his girlfriend, and then she posted it on Snapchat with heart-eyed emojis, and his world got flushed.
(We’re consciously not naming him as we did not name bra-less girl because we recognize teenagers do dumb things that should not be digitally hung around their necks forever.)
The boy has now issued this apology:
“I want to sincerely apologize if I have offended anyone with the picture going around. That was not my intention. Anyone who knows me or … knows that that’s not how we truly feel. It was a complete joke and it went too far. After reading the texts and Snapchats I truly see how I have offended people and I’m sorry.”
Well that’s a humble apology. The boy’s family then further issued this apology the next day:
“While our son has apologized himself, on behalf of our family, we wish to also express our most sincere apologies for the terrible words used in his ‘promposal.’ We love our son dearly and know that he is a far better person than reflected in this reckless behavior…That said, as loving parents, we also feel compelled to share our own deep regret and serious concern about his actions…As a family, we truly recognize this incident is a very difficult but important life lesson and pledge to do all we can to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again…Certainly, we hope that all of the people and communities who were hurt and offended will forgive our son and family.”
“After numerous familial conversations and lengthy discussions with Riverview High School administrators, we have jointly agreed that our son will not be attending any further school activities or functions, including the Prom or graduation ceremony.” [emphasis added]
Of course none of this is enough for the student gun control activists, the NAACP or BLM. Allowing his apology to diffuse the situation would be the loss of an opportunity to pursue political agendas.
So according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, two of the gun control activists that have risen at the school post Parkland issued a statement after the promposal and apology that they claimed to be “on behalf of Riverview’s student body:”
“It is absolutely disheartening that opinions such as these are still present in current generations. It shows that racism is still alive and thriving and that there needs to be a continuation of fighting for equality to rid of this hate once and for all.”
There’s no evidence the boy “hates” anyone, but this is the way leftists talk — including budding young leftists inculcated in the activist mentality.
Meanwhile, the local chapter of BLM also sees an opportunity, and their comments are telling. Black Lives Matter Manasota President Shakira Refos said race discussions in the schools need to be made “uncomfortable” to create change. She said the discussion hides behind terms such as “under-served populations” and “the achievement gap.”
Actually, that phraseology is used to avoid offending minorities and is not talking about racism but about results. At this point, however, there is no win. Refos also said we need to avoid just talking about “meritocracies.”
“People don’t want to talk about racism, because it makes them uncomfortable,” she told the Herald-Tribune. “They’re comfortable talking about gun issues because they can point at other things in their community or their surroundings. But when you start dissecting the root cause of racism and racist behavior, white people don’t want to have that discussion, and that’s why they don’t listen to black kids, because it will open up a discussion that they don’t want to have.” [emphasis added]
To break this down, the BLM leader said we need to talk about race relations in an “uncomfortable” — presumably her uncomfortable way — not judge black people on their merits, and it’s all white people’s fault. “They” — white people are the problem in moving forward. Those are just her words and pretty clear meaning.
In a glowing 2015 profile in the newspaper, Refos was described as “a 30-year-old lesbian born in the Netherlands and devoted to diversity,” and “a stalwart at the Harvey Milk Festival for the past four years and recently birthed a monthly ‘Girlcentric’ night at Ivory Lounge, focused on the LGBTQ community.”
Refos, to be fair, is more than just an activist, she’s also an actual do-er in the community. She’s created several successful marketing events for nonprofits in the region and has been part of mainstream organizations’ marketing teams — at least before she became head of BLM.
All of this explosion of response shows what can happen in this leftist-stoked atmosphere of racial tensions and hyper sensitivity to offense. Meanwhile, the kid who made an insensitive mistake that he has now owned and humbly apologized for, is having his life de-railed indefinitely.
EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.
If this is true, then nearly 1/3 of all refugee resettlement offices have closed around the country. Really?
And, if this is true, why has the Refugee Processing Center (Wrapsnet) not deleted any of the contact information for those now supposedly non-existent agencies from its database, or updated their resettlement site map? What are we paying them for?
First, here is the news I’m referring to. It’s one more pro-more refugees/anti-Trump story about Trump’s (trickling, falling, plummeting) refugee admission numbers—this time at the Christian Science Monitor:
US has cut inflow of refugees to a trickle, dousing hopes upstream
Jeffrey Thielman
Several paragraphs in….
Choking the overall pipeline of refugees means fewer federal dollars for the nonprofit agencies that are tasked with resettling them, which could make it harder to ramp up in the future under a more supportive administration.
Local refugee agencies have cut staff and closed offices; nearly half of all resettlement agencies in Florida have shut down due to the drop in caseloads.
Before the 2016 election, 351 agencies worked on resettlements. A year later, around 100 had closed, says Jeffrey Thielman, chief executive of the International Institute of New England, which places refugees in Boston, Lowell, and Manchester, N.H. and is working with the Jalhoums. [The International Institute of New England is a subcontractor of the US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of the big nine***)
Under Trump, the nativist wing of the Republican Party that wants both to slash legal immigration and expel undocumented residents has become ascendant. But the vexed politics in Congress on immigration reform has so far thwarted major changes. Refugees make an easier target since the president has discretion to set quotas and priorities for who comes to the US.
Shutting down the entire refugee program would require Congress to act, and there’s no sign of that happening, say refugee agencies. Instead, the administration is trying to gum up the process, a death by a thousand papercuts that is both constitutional and highly effective.
“They’re dragging their feet. They’re deliberately slowing things down,” says Mr. Thielman.
More here at the Christian Science Monitor.
So why is the Refugee Processing Center not updating its information on those offices?
Don’t we (the taxpayers) pay them through the US State Department to provide information as they say here:
Who We Are
We are the creators of WRAPS, a collaborative computer system built to assist in the processing of refugees to the United States. People all around the world use WRAPS (Worldwide Refugee Admissions Processing System) to process and track the movement of refugees from various countries to the U.S. for resettlement.
What We Do
The Refugee Processing Center (RPC) provides the technical and functional support for WRAPS so that it is accessible, current and easy for our stakeholders to use. Our Operations teams sit on the front lines, helping solve problems and make the most of the WRAPS software system. Our Development teams are constantly innovating, collaborating, testing and fixing things. And behind the scenes, we have trainers and communications teams working with our end users. We are here to make a difference.
Our Role
The Refugee Processing Center (RPC) is operated by the U.S Department of State (DOS) Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). We assist DOS/PRM in achieving its annual U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) objectives.
Check out the most recent map of resettlement sites—from December 2015—what good is this?
(I know it is impossible to read, you will be able to see it better here, but it is pretty useless since it is so out-of-date.)
That legend in the bottom right hand corner represents the nine contractors that monopolize all resettlement in the US. The 351 (?) are their subcontractors.
And, click here to see the full list (a list that has not been updated since January 1, 2017).
Come on, get with it! We all have a right to know which 100 of these offices have been shuttered!
*** I post the contractor list almost every day because I want new readers to know exactly who is responsible for driving the US Refugee Admissions Program (in addition to the UN!).
The number in parenthesis is the percentage of the nine VOLAGs’ income paid by you (the taxpayer) to place the refugees, line them up with (low paying) jobs in food production and cleaning hotel rooms, and get them signed up for their services (welfare)! From most recent accounting, here.
We are at war, an ongoing asymmetrical war with many different fronts, using a variety of tools, devices, methods, and tricks unknown to us. Seemingly unrelated events, in fact, are inextricably connected—all geopolitical events coordinated and directed from the Kremlin. The apparatus or engine of nefarious actions is waging a war against Western civilization for control and power. We are losing this war, because we are fighting the symptoms and not the source of the disease: the ideology of Soviet Socialism, the masked evil force I named Soviet fascism. That camouflaged force constitutes an Axis of Evil under the Kremlin’s umbrella.
Look at the world: Stalinist North Korea and China in Asia, Russian missioners in Syria, the terrorist Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and Iran in the Middle East, socialist Venezuela in South America have now established an epicenter for the Axis of Evil, fighting for control and power under Putin’s leadership today. Watch Pakistan and Turkey, they are on their way to join the Axis. All of them adhere to the ideology of Soviet fascism, inculcated by Moscow over many decades. It is not Liberal Fascism, Classical Liberalism had been annihilated by Stalinism in the 20th century. I am writing about an actual ideology of Soviet fascism in the reality of the 21st century.
Considering an erroneous American foreign policy at the time, and the DNC collaboration with the Kremlin, I would include the current leadership of the Democrat Party into the Axis of Evil as well. So, the issue for the Republican Party has become domestic and the world’s security that requires an international responses:
Soviet Fascism vs. Western Civilization
Stalin-Andropov-Putin
Those who saw and heard Stalin, and especially those who also know his personality and read his works, only those people can correctly interpret his words, behavior, and the meaning of his statements. That is the reason, I offer you again to think over his statement about America:
“America is like a healthy body and its resistance is Threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual Life. If you can undermine these three areas, America will Collapse from within.” — Joseph Stalin
This statement was made in the late 1940s or in the beginning of the 1950s. The words constitute a program and platform of Socialist/Communist war against Western civilization. The words also corresponded to actual actions towards other countries that had already been converted to Socialist/Communist ideology by Russia at the time: Mongolia, China, and North Koreas. Stalin’s statement was seen by the Soviet bureaucracy as an assignment to work out and produce a strategic plan of action against America in accordance with Stalin’s Doctrine of One World Government under Kremlin’s auspices and rule. By that time, Eastern Europe had already been under Russian control and power. America was the next target…
Everything said in the preceding paragraphs can be confirmed by the documents presented in the book Red Cocaine, The Drugging of America, by Joseph D. Douglass, Jr. Clarion House, 1990. The author was a smart man, who knew the Soviet system. He went to Moscow at the time of the USSR collapse and used the KGB archives, which had been opened due to events in the Soviet Union. His brilliant book was warning us then in 1990s and now Red Cocaine warns us again:
THEN: “Deception and drugs are our first two strategic echelons in the war with capitalism.” Nikita Khrushchev, 1963. For Khrushchev the main two fronts had been Deception and drugs at the time of the 1950s and beginning of 1960s.
NOW: sixty years later: “Red Cocaine at last blows the lid off the most explosive aspect of drug trafficking, the Soviet connection. Here is the shocking story of the drugging of America by international communism.” Robin Moore, author of The French Connection.
“This eye-opening book proves the insidious nature of the Soviet intelligence services in the deliberate spread of the drug menace in the United States.” Chapman Pincher, author of Secret Offensive.
“A powerful and well-documented case of a deliberate policy decision, first by authorities in Beijing and then in Moscow to contribute to the decay of American society… Red Cocaine puts the facts on record. We ignore the message it reveals at our own peril.” From the introduction by Dr. Ray S. Cline, former Deputy Director for Intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency.
I, myself could have not assessed the book better than these honorable people, talking about more than two fronts mentioned by Khrushchev. I deliberately gave you the timing of then and now, because the avenue of Stalin’s ideas have been developed and widened by all his devoted disciples further and especially by the KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov in the time. But before dealing with Andropov, let me give you some sentences from the old Soviet document, discussed in the book. As a matter of fact, several Soviet institutions had taken Stalin’s assignment very seriously: The KGB, The Soviet Defense Ministry, and the Soviet Academy of Science.
The Soviet Academy of Science had researched the effect of drugs on the human body and mind for many years and the conclusions were that drug trafficking would be extremely effective and the most vulnerable countries would be the United States, Canada, France, and West Germany. This study was approved in 1955 by the Soviet Defense Council. It was the first formal Soviet decision of the Soviet government to launch narcotics trafficking against the bourgeoisie and especially against the American capitalists:
“Soviet strategy for revolutionary war is a global strategy… narcotics strategy is a sub-component of this global strategy. …First was the increased training of leaders for the revolutionary movements—the civilian, military, and intelligence cadres. The founding of Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow is an example of one of the early actions taken to modernize the Soviet revolutionary leadership training. The second step was the actual training of terrorists. Training for international terrorism actually began as ‘fighters for liberation’…The third step was international drug and narcotics trafficking. Drugs were incorporated into the revolutionary war strategy as a political and intelligence weapon to use against the bourgeois society and as a mechanism for recruiting agents of influence around the world.”
This paragraph doesn’t need any explanations for those who can read English. It was decided THEN in 1955 to wage the war on many fronts—an asymmetrical war against Western civilization. Yet, Stalin’s devoted disciples have developed, even widened the tools, devices, and methods of the war crimes committed since 1955. And the leading role in that development belongs to Yuri Andropov. I wasn’t personally acquainted with him, but my term as a defense attorney coincided with his as the KGB Chairman—the legal community united us, providing me with a lot of information about him. It was Yuri Andropov, who had a plan to transform America, I named this plan—Soviet Operation Barbarossa.
So, that is the reason, I have been writing about Yuri Andropov in my books and columns for the last almost thirty years. If you read my latest columns, you will find a detailed information about Andropov’s plans and designs. In short, it was two major avenues in his plan to change mentality of the people in America by infiltrating and subordinating American social media, making it a dominant political force. Andropov needed the social media to disrupt capitalism, stop its social mobility and create chaos, to act the way it was implemented in the Eastern Europe by the Soviets—a coordinated effort of several institutions against the opposition.
The road to enhance and widen Stalin’s design has never ended–if Stalin had the ideas to destroy America, Andropov worked out the strategy and tactics for the KGB of how to achieve that destruction. He also had a monumental plan, designed and aimed at destruction of American capitalism through infiltration of its security apparatus, transforming it from within into something resembling the KGB, subordinated to the top ideological leadership of the country. So, the Barbarossa Operation had two wings to fly to America, acting in concert, to destroy our country. The drugs design, described in the book was an additional wing existing before Andropov. Yet, all three corresponded to the initial design made by Stalin.
Of course, Andropov’s plan has been more than those two wings, it was multiple-fronts, designed to cover completely Stalin’s ideas for several generations in America. You can see it in my books and columns how Andropov was talking about Palestine as a Muslim land, about Whites as the Oppressors of the Blacks in the KGB pamphlet the BLACK Coordinating Committee’s Message to the Black Movement, A Political Statement from the Black Underground, published in America in 1972. To perceive Andropov personality and character, please listen the KGB General Pacepa talking about him:
“In 1972 the Kremlin decided to turn the whole Islamic world against Israel and the U.S. As KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov told me, a billion adversaries could inflict far greater damage on America than could a few millions. We needed to instill a Nazi-style hatred for Jews throughout the Islamic world, and to turn this weapon of the emotions into a terrorist bloodbath against Israel and its main supporter the United States. No one within the American/Zionist sphere of influence should any longer feel safe.” – Russian Footprints by Ion Mihai Pacepa, National Review Online, August 24, 2008.
General Pacepa wrote in the same article: “According to Andropov… the Muslims had a taste for nationalism, jingoism, and victimology. Their illiterate, oppressed mobs could be whipped up to a fever pitch. Terrorism and violence against Israel and her master, American Zionism, would flow naturally from the Muslims’ religious fervor, Andropov sermonized.” This is a real portrait of Yuri Andropov and his dislike of America.
Nevertheless, I will continue to discuss only three fronts of the asymmetrical war against Western civilization mentioned above. I am a witness, the information about two wings in Andropov plan has been said to me by different people from the KGB in the 1960-1970s. At the time, I did not believe them, I just listened and did not responded—you don’t argue with the KGB. America was such a Giant in my eyes at the time that I stayed silent with no reaction to their information. However, life in America gradually gave me the signs of changes to think them over and I began talking and warning about Sovietization of America since the 1990s …
Now, it is the time to come to America of 2018 and analyze the reality of life. I have a special commitment to tell the truth in reality on the ground and you are my witnesses today. We are all Americans and what we see and hear today is shocking, unexpected, and very disturbing: We are dealing with deep and massive improprieties within our Security apparatus and Law Enforcement—an unprecedented and enormous scale of violations and abuses within both. The guaranties of our national security have lost their credibility. And this is my reason to analyze only three main fronts of Andropov’s Operation Barbarossa in this column.
Dr. Ray S. Cline, former Deputy Director for Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency was right: “Red Cocaine puts the facts on record. We ignore the message it reveals at our own peril.” Today we have an epidemic of Opioids that are killing our youth and adults. And… nobody is talking about an asymmetrical war that had been waged by Soviet fascism against Western civilization since 1955. The war had begun in Europe, spread across the world, and never ended. Read Baltic Winds: Testimony of a Soviet Attorney, by Simona Pipko, Xlibris, 2002.
I believe that two wings of Andropov’s Operation Barbarossa have constituted a Global Spy Ring established by the KGB since 1969. It was Andropov’s conspiracy, which has lasted for decades, transforming the American Republic in attempt to implement a corrupt system of Soviet Socialism in our country. The two wings are the essence of our national security and check and balances in America and I believe that both are run by the Kremlin. Yes, today as well. The KGB Russian Government inherited Andropov’s legacy by Putin’s leadership—the same ideology, same agenda, tools, and methods, the same cover-up activities…
We called our media the fourth branch of the government. Look at American social media today—96 percent of journalists have donated millions to Democrats and 4 percent to Republicans. Then thirty journalists joined the Obama administration—they are all the devoted ideological army of the Democrats, creating fake public opinion together with the social media. Don’t you see it as a successful achievement of Andropov’s conspiracy? I do and that is the reason I have been writing about Yuri Andropov and Sovietization of America for many years…
Ideology can’t be spread by air or wind—people dispersed the ideas and implemented them on the ground. American’s political system is quite unique and differ from all others in the world. It took me a decade to learn it. A lucky chance helped Andropov and his KGB to have an American lawyer as a guide and ally to act freely on the American soil. I am writing about this man for the last twenty-five years, because I know him, his name is Bill Clinton. If in 1991 it was my personal impression about him as an enemy of America, the time since then provided me with a plenty of evidence confirming that. Bill Clinton is the bad actor in all my books, during the last twenty-five years, especially in the last 3-4 columns.
The Clinton Mafia was created by the mutual dealings of Clinton with the KGB. It was the Andropov/Clinton conspiracy, the reciprocal doings to protect the criminal activities of the conspiracy. Clinton helped Andropov to transform our social media by ideological politicization and by appointing former KGB political operatives as journalists. Clinton appointed Democrat Judges to infiltrate our Justice System, he appointed yes-men to our intelligence and security agencies with the corrupt intention to politicize and polarize their lawful functioning to pursue the Andropov design. In response, the KGB had tried to help Clinton in many events, described in my books: the events in 1998 were the best evidence of that:
“There is another event that deserves attention and deep thinking about the Clinton Mafia. Do you remember Monica’s “blue dress?” I have found an interesting chronology connected to the “blue dress” in 1998. The FBI asked for Clinton’s blood sample to compare it with the sperm’s stain on the “blue dress,” three days later the terrorists committed two tragic blasts of American Embassies in Africa. Don’t tell me about the coincidences in life. It is the “work” of the Russian connection to divert attention from Clinton and “the blue dress.” P. 186, Socialist Lies: From Stalin to the Clintons, Obama, and Sanders, Xlibris, 2016.
For many decades, the Clinton mafia acted to implement Andropov’s design in America. The design was learned from Stalin and tested in Europe—divide and conquer. It was quite a simple design; to create different symbolic groups of minorities with a specific agenda like homosexual and transsexual to oppose and intimidate a cultural trend in America. Then to inculcate the groups and unite them in a combined force with the Black groups opposing Whites, women against men and so on. This way the leftists started a cultural war under the leadership of Democrat Party against the Republicans and that exact way the leftist orthodoxy has been built since 1960s. The tactics, methods, and agenda of the KGB have never changed, they automatically came to Vladimir Putin. Can you imagine the amount of KGB’s operatives Democrats or Republicans that infiltrated the Swamp since 1969???
Yes, the Russian KGB Government inherited Andropov’s legacy under Putin’s leadership—the same ideology, same agenda, tools, and methods, the same cover-ups activities. It is Operation Barbarossa that runs the Democrat Party today—a Grand-conspiracy to destroy the American Republic. Just pay attention to Syria and the Obama/Putin Alliance. During Obama’s administration Russia established two military bases in Syria and Iran, Russia’s satellite has become a formidable military force helping Assad to survive there. Obama gave Putin time to develop and enhance Russian military force, especially new ICBMs. My book Socialist Lies chronicles the events and presents them in details of time and space. Look at the events in Syria today, April 2018, the typical tactics of Soviet fascism is there: Syria used WMD and then try to cover up the crime, preventing inspectors to get the samples of the soil, the Syrian army has cordoned off the area to all outsiders.
Today the Obama/Putin Alliance describe by me for many years turned to the Deep State, fighting the Trump Presidency, the people who are really pulling the strings are hiding in the shadows of the Deep State. In fact, the Alliance using the international force of the Axis of Evil to fight the Trump administration. Look at the second week of April: there had been caravan coming from Salvador through Mexico to our Southern borders, in the Middle East the Palestinians protested, attacking Israeli military, Syria used chemical WMD killing its own people, and in America, Mr. Mueller involved the New York Federal forces to raid the office and apartment of Tramp’s personal lawyer… This week is an embodiment of the Grand-Conspiracy against the American Republic. It is the Axis of Evil, an international force cooperating with the Democrat Party against President Trump.
Who is running this international force? To answer this question you have to know history and the plans and designs for several generations of Americans by Yuri Andropov. It was his idea to create chaos in America by using the Democrat Party as a Controlled Opposition—an infiltrated by the KGB opposition serving the conspiracy. I gave you the concept of a Controlled Opposition in the preceding column of March 31, 2018. This Controlled Opposition has been built during several decades, turning Truman’s Party to a party of Soviet Socialism I named Soviet fascism. Now, after reading about Andropov’s Grand-Conspiracy, you can see the events in its historical perspective—Vladimir Putin and his KGB is the only beneficiary of the Grand-Conspiracy, the Andropov legacy. The chaos in America, designed by Andropov, now continues under Putin’s leadership to defeat Trump. Putin mortally hates Trump—Putin plans to be a President of the world…
Any conspiracy doesn’t want to be revealed, it plans to act underground for many years, and especially any international conspiracy tries to escape public domain. It is easy to do that when the main actors are in power and… nobody knew about Andropov’s design during his tenure. Bill Clinton followed Andropov’s cover-ups as soon as he become President—all institutions studying Russia had been dissolved. It was a criminal intent to deprive the people and American national security to learn about our enemy, a criminal intent to make us, Americans deaf, mute, and defenseless…
Do you remember the field of Sovietology? It was dissolved by Clinton. Do you remember the field of Kremlinology? It was closed by Clinton, like many other faculties of Russian studies in American Universities. My website with the description of my books was deleted three times and my name had been submitted to the FISA court, making me a foreign agent. Knowledge is power and Clinton did everything possible to deprive Americans from knowing the enemy. Reading my books, you will find multi-actions by Bill Clinton to destroy the American Republic. Barack Obama continued the line of collaboration with Russia and further destruction of America. Just turn the radio or TV and a cascade of confrontation against the Republicans will bombard your ears. The confrontation is camouflaging the attempt to cover-up the crime committed by the Democrats—the crimes of treason against the United States of America. I am not sure that the contemporary FBI and DOJ are able to investigate this case of espionage and treason…
Isn’t it a coincidence that the fight against Trump started with the Trump/Dossier? No, it is not a coincident, Putin’s KGB had produced the Trump/Dossier to continue the international Grand-Conspiracy against the American Republic. When in my column, I exposed the KGB as a producer of the Dossier, the other bad actors from the KGB came to the surface—Papadopoulos and a man from Australia. This is a typical KGB’s game on American soil, to blame Trump for the crime committed by the KGB/ Democrats Grand-Conspiracy. In fact, after the Trump victory in 2016, the entire case against Trump has been created, contrived, and shaped by Putin’s KGB to save the Democrat Party, its reputation, and prevent the international troubles for Russia.
It is not a coincidence that Bill O’Reilly titled his column: The Stalinists are Here, April, 19, 2018. He is talking about the established media and “Stalinist-type attacks on free expression” as if he has already read this column. O’Reilly is also right writing that” Somewhere far below, Joseph Stalin is smiling…” because the leaders of the Republican Party have missed the crimes committed by the DNC. The only remedy for the GOP is to learn the reality and expose the Democrat Party for what it really is, to support President Trump’s foreign and domestic policy to reassert American leadership, to stand up for the American nation and world security as we are dealing with the ideology of Soviet fascism, the enemy of humanity. The GOP must act promptly and decisively to prevent Putin from implementing the Stalinist Doctrine of One World Government under Kremlin’s rule globally…
And again, I am ending my column by introducing another poem of my friend:
We’re the Last Hope
It started with Stalin and his plan to defeat the West
Andropov and Putin have nearly completed the rest
More than half the world’s run by puppets and dictators
All backed by Russia to be Capitalist haters
They’ll use any method to destroy opposition
Kill, lie and cheat to further their ambition
Human life means nothing, only power and control
We can’t imagine how evil, “cause they don’t have a soul
We are now on the verge of World War III
And the total annihilation of both you and me
Yet America is oblivious and totally divided
With protests and agitation, that are purposely misguided
We’re the last bastion of freedom and human rights
Now’s the worst time to be lost in internal fights
We need to come together and remember what made us great
God bless America, it’s still not too late
To be continued www.simonapipko1.com and www.drrichswier.com/author/spipko/
Energy philosopher Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, challenges conventional wisdom about the fossil fuel industry and argues that if we look carefully at the positives and negatives of all our energy alternatives, we have a moral obligation to use more fossil fuels, not less.
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In recent decades, hundreds of millions of people (mainly in Asia) have, by their own ingenuity and with the infusion of at least a modicum of freedom to pursue their livelihoods, climbed out of entrenched poverty. The desperately poor as a percentage of global population have reached unprecedented lows. This is the very good news associated with the occasional problems of globalization.
And it’s quite a triumph, though there is still no shortage of economic misery, and even cases of a descent or return to widespread indigence and starvation. Life is complicated, but there are reasons for underdevelopment or economic collapse. And it hardly seems controversial to argue that successful approaches to minimizing deprivation should be emulated, whereas crippling models that predictably create or sustain it should be avoided.
Everyone claims to be concerned about poverty. But why, then, is this bit of common sense sometimes spurned – and severe collapses downplayed? I’m thinking of the humanitarian catastrophe that’s been unfolding in Venezuela the past few years; news about it has been rather limited and carefully massaged. The horrors are sometimes cataloged, sparingly. But the “why” is not properly examined.
A recent New York Times story, for example, described the burgeoning tuberculosis outbreak now afflicting the country. This disease, regarded as a solid indicator for poverty levels in general, had been mainly under control but is now hitting even the middle classes in Venezuela. We read that the outbreak is occurring during “a profound economic crisis,” and that “declining nutrition from food shortages” is a factor. There is nary a word about what triggered the economic crisis and the food shortages. Hint: hard-core socialism.
Because socialism is the undeniable culprit, stories on the crisis in Venezuela have an uncanny tendency to resort to the passive voice, or other rhetorical devices, with little curiosity beyond the immediate crises. It’s as though food shortages just happened to fall, by chance, upon this previously prospering country, for no reason.
This Times story tells us of one poor fellow stricken with a particularly virulent form of tuberculosis who wound up losing 77 pounds. I mention this because, as grave as his case is, there are other general weight-loss statistics that are even more staggering. Reuters recently reported that the average Venezuelan has lost 24 pounds in the past year! (That’s up from the average 19-pound loss the year before.)
Oh, and over 80 percent of Venezuelan households are mired in poverty (now closer to 90 percent). That sure sounds like they are experiencing “the equal sharing of miseries,” which Churchill sarcastically dubbed the “inherent virtue of socialism.”
More numbers: one in seven Venezuelans (four million out of 28 million) have fled in desperation rather than pick through garbage for food; a mass migration here in our own hemisphere that we hear little about.
What makes each of these eye-popping figures even more maddening is that Venezuela is naturally blessed with the largest oil reserves in the world. More maddening still is how the cheerleaders (in the usual places) for the Marxists who delivered these brutal outcomes sit back and overlook all this real, human suffering. Yet again.
The brazen disregard for socialism’s track record is a fundamentally inhumane act – one only mitigated by genuine naiveté. Man’s inhumanity to man is obviously not limited to any one political system. But to countenance Marxism or socialism is to court human misery, whatever lofty rhetoric is bandied about in its defense.
Indeed, putting it into practice means, as John Paul II noted, “the working man himself would be among the first to suffer.” And, no surprise: former president Hugo Chavez’s daughter just happens to be the wealthiest person in Venezuela. Apparently something went slightly wrong on the road to the Bolivarian “revolution” and equality.
Socialism’s inherent destructiveness was forecast in advance, when all we had to go on was abstract theory, and sure enough, destruction ensued. We now have a track record of the ways of socialism in multiple countries; stagnation or much worse is entirely foreseeable.
Dostoevsky and several popes highlighted its philosophical and, yes, spiritual dangers, and warned of tyrannies to come. It came in spades. The core of the Marxist project – atheism and corresponding devaluation of individual human rights and liberties – has long been on full display.
Venezuela’s bishops have spoken out against both the theoretical and real-world consequences of this tyranny disguised as popular government, and received the usual threats for their troubles. Pope Francis, alas, often vocal in support of migrants and persecuted groups like the Rohingya, has seemed reluctant to echo his brother bishops in Venezuela.
Some in our country are skeptical of critiques when they come from Christian quarters. But we know what socialism’s most avid advocates actually said. Marx made a high priority of abolishing the family and private property, and envisioned peace precisely the same threatening way Mohammed did: “The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to Islam.” (Substitute socialism for Islam and you’ve got functional interchangeability). The goal of socialism, as Lenin remarked, is communism. And communism, according to Mao Zedong, “is not love,” but “a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”
Blunt, monstrous words, with a history to match. Yet socialism retains a cachet in the West and elsewhere that a whole string of disasters – now including Venezuela’s – never dissipates. There’s an enduring market for the vindictiveness that socialism stokes – and cloaks under the illusion of being on the “right side” of history.
Another whole generation is not learning one of the plainest lessons of modern history. According to recent surveys, young people today express a shockingly high level of support for socialism. They’ve never been taught otherwise. It’s as good an indicator as any of the failure of our public education system. And the result will be that people in various parts of the globe will have yet more bullets to dodge in the decades to come.
Matthew Hanley is senior fellow with the National Catholic Bioethics Center. With Jokin de Irala, M.D., he is the author of Affirming Love, Avoiding AIDS: What Africa Can Teach the West, which recently won a best-book award from the Catholic Press Association. The opinions expressed here are Mr. Hanley’s and not those of the NCBC.
EDITORS NOTE: © 2018 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. The featured image is of Présidente Nicolás Maduro.
A few years ago tech giant Apple announced that it was using 100% renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind for many of its power needs, including its data centers, and that 87% of its global operations were run on “renewables.”
You can read the whole thing here.
It is bad enough that these companies are making false claims to build up their image, but they are using their unearned status to promote policies that would deprive others—especially poorer Americans who can’t afford to live in San Francisco mansions—of energy. That is shameful.
Tim Cook and the other “100% renewable” CEOs owe the public—including members of the fossil fuel industry—an apology. They should tell the truth about their energy usage, and thank the men and women who provide the reliable energy that allows them to flourish.
Thank you for presenting in Ferndale, WA on March 29th at the Silver Reef. I enjoyed your balanced view of the role of energy and how to frame the conversation in a positive way. Unfortunately, the discussion is biased, sloppy, and anti-human just as you described. Framing the issue with the goal of human flourishing versus unchanged nature is the way to have a productive conversation.
Thanks for your perspective, it’s refreshing. -Jason J.
1. Change a mind by sharing my Google talk. Do you have someone you know who needs to learn pro-human thinking about energy issues? A great place to start is by sharing my talk at Google, which is designed to persuade even those immersed in the biased, sloppy, and anti-human energy thinking in our culture. Click the button below and I’ll send you the link to the talk.
2. Empower a friend by inviting them to this newsletter. If you know someone who wants to increase their clarity and influence on energy issues, to invite them to this newsletter.
3. Bring me to speak at your next event. If you have an upcoming board meeting, employee town hall, or association meeting, I have some new and updated speeches about the moral case for fossil fuels, winning hearts and minds, and communications strategy in the new political climate. If you’d like to consider me for your event, click the button below and I’ll send you the info.
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4. Recommend me for a high-level speaking event (and get an I Love Fossil Fuels t-shirt). One way to influence a high-level audience is to have me speak to them. If you are connected to any high-level events at companies, associations, and conferences, your recommendation could make a huge difference. A simple way to do this is to send an email to your event contact, CC’ing me, with: 1. That you’ve seen me speak. 2. Why you liked it. 3. Why I might be a good fit for their event. For every introduction you make I’ll send you an “I Love Fossil Fuels” t-shirt or a signed copy of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
Aaron Blake
Washington Post Senior Political Reporter Aaron Blake recently wrote an article that was run in newspapers around the nation under, Trump’s Foreign Policy Chaos. In related news, a recent CNN Poll reported Trump’s approval rating at 42 percent while his disapproval stands at 54 percent.
These are related because one leads directly to the other, but both are wrong.
Relentlessly negative reporting by the media leads its consumers by the nose into disapproving of the President. Partisan focus on Stormy Daniels and Russian collusion and other nonsense obfuscates the enormous successes of the presidency so far. Sure, his approvals are up a few points, but based on actual performance, they should be much higher.
However, just scoffing at this dynamic is a mistake. This drives elections. Conservative media must be just as relentless in getting out the truth about Trump successes, about conservative successes, about the traditional American successes. Because the other side, which definitively includes the traditional media, will push out the failures and misrepresent the successes.
The gist of Blake’s criticism (remember, he is labeled as reporter, not columnist or opinionist) is that Trump “can’t stick to a foreign policy script or even general guidelines.” This, of course, is a terrible breach of “the way things are done” for folks inside the Beltway. But Trump was elected to do things differently than the way they have been done.
Contrary to the impression given by Blake and the rest to those who imbibe oldstream reporting, the world is actually becoming a significantly better place since Donald Trump was elected and took foreign policy in a different direction.
This is just objectively true. It’s not blind Trump or Republican loyalty. The world is demonstrably better off in most every respect than when Obama left office — something Aaron Blake and his kin are simply unwilling or unable to see.
But we are.
So here are seven areas that have objectively improved since President Trump was elected in November 2016 and inaugurated in January 2017 — regardless of whether he followed script or not:
✓ ISIS is decapitated. This bloody stain on the world arose in the vacuum left by President Obama’s foolish decision to abruptly withdraw American troops from Iraq before that country was able to stand on its own. His decision resulted in the rapid collapse of the infant democratic government in Iraq and the sweeping successes of ISIS.
ISIS’ sadistic methods for torturing and murdering anyone not pure enough in their version of Islam was spreading around the world, and the so-called caliphate was occupying large parts of two countries under Obama. It was the first and so far only actual terrorist nation — as opposed to those such as Iran, which is an existing nation that is considered a sponsor of terrorism.
Within a year of Trump’s inauguration, the caliphate was gone, and ISIS has almost no land holdings anymore. They have been relegated to the status of a terrorist organization, such as Al-Quaeda and dozens of others.
✓ Russia is contained. During the Obama Administration, Russia greatly expanded its geographic reach and influence. It invaded and annexed Crimea and Obama did nothing. It’s proxies invaded Eastern Ukraine and Obama did nothing. It threatened the Baltic nations and Obama did nothing. It jumped into the breach left in the Middle East and re-established itself with its ally Syria in the midst of the nation’s terrible civil war, and Obama did nothing. Finally, Obama was aware of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election, and he did nothing.
All of this came after Obama was infamously caught on a hot mic openly colluding with Russia against American interests by telling then-President Medvedev that Obama would have “more flexibility” after the 2012 elections.
Trump has twice now attacked Syrian government military installations after the use of banned chemical weapons, over the protests and threats of Russia and President Putin. He’s placed sanctions on Russian individuals and then on Russia as a whole after the blatant attempted chemical assassination in England. Putin has been much more restrained in his expansionist goals.
✓ North Korea is talking. This dangerous mess had been kicked down the road by several presidents, including Clinton, Bush and Obama. It always seemed a nasty bit of business with all sorts of dangers even before the North got nukes — specifically because China was an ally. So the world kept buying off the North with supplies for its starving population and resources for its nuclear program. They would have been easier to stop earlier, but none did. Now the North has larger nukes and much more advanced missile delivery systems and is more bellicose than ever.
However, that belligerence eased when Trump responded forcefully by telling the North that no aggression against America or her allies would be tolerated, and backed it up by sending two aircraft carrier groups to the region. Further, the North saw that this president did not make empty threats or draw red lines he would not back up. He’d already attacked Russian allies once, killing Russians in the process, and was reinforcing our allies in Eastern Europe.
The result is that for the first time, it appears the North is willing to have actual talks, not just blackmail sessions. Kim Jong Un crossed into South Korea for brief talks and requested to talk to Trump, who has agreed and already sent CIA Director Mike Pompeo to meet with the North. This is potentially huge.
✓ China is re-negotiating. Part of the reason the North is willing to budge is also that Trump has been applying the screws to China on trade issues and this emerging power apparently does not want to get into a sanctions war and a military confrontation at the same time with the United States. China has long been violating our trade agreements — costing American jobs far beyond simply losing out to cheap labor — and shaking down American businesses as the price of entry.
Trump had enough. He immediately scrapped the trade deal that Obama had negotiated — which almost assuredly would have given away the store. And now he has instituted a round of tariffs on China for their trade practices. Think of this what you will, but despite their response of trade tariffs on the U.S., they are far more reliant on our market than we are on theirs and they know it. It sounds like they are willing to make some of the trade changes Trump wanted that are in America’s interest.
This foreign policy strategy bypasses the stuffed shirt, worthless trade organizations that were supposed to be policing these agreements but essentially let China do whatever it wanted. Obama would never even have thought to do what Trump has done.
✓ Allies are ponying up. Obama, as did Bush and Clinton before him, talked about making our allies pay more of their fair share of the military burden of protecting Europe and the Pacific Rim. But as usual, particularly with Obama, it was all fine-sounding hot air. He did nothing.
Trump campaigned on this issue, as he did trade, and he jumped right in suggesting that if France, England, Germany and others cannot contribute the share they are contractually obligated to contribute for their own defense, then perhaps the United States would not continue to be a part of NATO. This was considered outlandishly irresponsible and proof of the Russian collusion, which we dispelled above, or just Trump idiocy. The intelligentsia have been remarkably consistent in judging Trump wrongly.
Sure enough, a strong hand that is backed by strong actions appear to have prevailed. Our NATO allies, and even Japan, are already beginning to spend more on their own military. This is not only fair, it makes the free nations stronger in that they are not as totally reliant on the U.S. military.
✓ Iran is confronted. Obama made what will go down in history as one of the worst agreements ever (still unsigned by both nations) by giving Iran everything from a pathway to sanctioned nuclear weapons in 10 years to literally a planeload of cash and unfrozen assets that were quickly put to use funding its proxy terrorists in Hezbollah. Just incredibly irresponsible and a direct threat to Israel and America.
Trump has not ripped it up yet, but he gave our allies deadlines of May 12 to toughen up the agreement with Iran or we will let American sanctions “snap back” in. Further, recent personnel changes in the administration will put back on the table the entire elimination of the agreement.
Iran is the most destabilizing power in the fiery region and an official state sponsor of terrorism. The deal was a huge setback to peace and fighting terrorism and Trump is pushing back hard on it. Considering his actions in regard to Syria, Russia and North Korea, the Iranian Mullahs will be weighing carefully how confrontative they want to be with this president.
✓ Iraq and Afghanistan stabilizing. This is huge for the region, and for Americans who have fought and bled for so long under substandard White House leadership. The defeat of ISIS and the pushback on the Taliban has allowed two long-time problem countries to stabilize, at least temporarily. Plenty of problems remain, but neither are as capable of training and sending out terrorists as they were and this is good for everyone.
Trump’s list of successes domestically is also more impressive than generally credited — unless of course you don’t like tax cuts that help all Americans and goose the economy; or judges who rule on the Constitution rather than political whims; or a return of manufacturing jobs; or fewer strangling, bureaucratic regulations. But that is another article.
Suffice to say that the critics who claimed — and in the face of all this evidence, continue to claim — that Trump is a stupid bungler unqualified to deal with foreign policy…are dead wrong. Reality is showing that style aside, Obama actually fits that description far better than Trump.
EDITORS NOTE: The column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.
Judicial Watch hosted a special educational panel on Tuesday, April 24, 2018 to discuss “The Deep State Update.” The expert panelists included Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Vince Coglianese, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, Michael Bekesha, and Tom Fitton.
This hard-hitting, informative panel really shows what the Deep State is.
Dear #NationalSchoolWalkout Students,
I weep with you. I am also proud to see you standing for what you believe in. However, what you ask for will not bring the results you desire.
These problems in society have never been a result of too much Liberty, and eliminating the natural rights of all people will never bring the proper solutions. If we want to make you feel safe at school and everywhere in public we must be honest as a society and deal with the real problems.
The real solutions that will bring the safety and security we all desire do not require a new federal law or regulation; they do not require a constitutional amendment; they do not require depriving anyone of any rights. The real solutions are much simpler than that.
The real solutions to keeping you safe require only a people who love their children enough to create and enforce local policies and proper training dedicated to the preservation of life, liberty, and property.
The history of the entire world dictates that taking the rights of people to defend themselves will not keep them safe, but will only serve to enslave our future to those more powerful. We must learn that without liberty, security is nothing more than a vapor. Unfortunately, those who do not recognize their history are doomed to repeat its mistakes.
By not addressing the real problems and and not employing the real solutions, we end up destroying what we set out to preserve. We will make you and your future less safe and we will pass on to all our children a future of greater oppression.
I am telling you this not because I am judging you. I am telling you this because, as a mom, I love you.
We can keep you safe and keep your rights and liberties secure at the same time. It is time to take back the narrative. It is time to get to work and secure Liberty for all. That is not just our duty to you and to all our children, it is who we are as Americans.
Sincerely,
KrisAnne Hall
www.LibertyFirstUniversity.com
ABOUT KRISANNE HALL
KrisAnne Hall is a former biochemist, Russian linguist for the US Army, and former prosecutor for the State of Florida. KrisAnne also practiced First Amendment Law for a prominent Florida non-profit Law firm. KrisAnne now travels the country teaching the foundational principles of Liberty and our Constitutional Republic. KrisAnne is the author of 6 books on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, she also has an internationally popular radio and television show and her books and classes have been featured on C-SPAN TV. KrisAnne can be found at www.KrisAnneHall.com.
EDITORS NOTE: The column originally appeared on The Revolutionary Act.
The biggest challenge facing Republicans heading into the November elections isn’t Donald Trump. It isn’t even the Democratic Party. It’s apathy. In the seven months between now and the midterms, the GOP will be doing everything it can to recreate the magic of 2016. But one thing is abundantly clear: they’ll need evangelicals’ help — and a lot of it.
History has never been kind to the majority party at the midterm point. Republicans are expecting to take a few on the chin in November. What they don’t know is whether the Left’s enthusiasm will be enough to wrestle away control. A lot of that, strategists believe, will come down to the president’s most supportive base: Christian conservatives. Despite the daily drip of salacious storylines, evangelicals have remained solidly in Trump’s corner — rewarding him for more than a year’s worth of progress on judges, life, religious liberty, taxes, and military readiness. To the media’s astonishment, evangelicals haven’t walked away from the president — they’re doubling down on their support. Just last week, the Public Religious Research Institute found that white evangelical approval for Donald Trump is at its highest point ever: 75 percent.
Republicans will need to harness every point of the president’s churchgoing base if they have any hope of protecting his agenda moving forward. Last night’s Arizona race was at least one step in the right direction. Despite a last-minute Democratic frenzy, Debbie Lesko held on to her six-percent lead and kept former Congressman Trent Franks’s district in GOP hands. Her opponent, Hiral Tipirneni, managed to close the gap, but not enough to pick off one of the 24 House seats the Democrats need to retake the speaker’s gavel. Although the mood in Arizona was upbeat, voters’ message in a Trump-heavy area was clear: There’s no such thing as a safe Republican seat this year.
To conservatives’ relief, Lesko has promised to carry on the pro-life, pro-family legacy of Franks — which was one of the reasons FRC Action endorsed her. She’s already told reporters she plans to join our friends in the House Freedom Caucus, where she’ll help keep GOP leaders honest on values issues. “Debbie will do a great job!” the president tweeted before the election — and we agree. And while the talking heads are focused on Lesko’s single-digit victory in a double-digit Trump district, Republicans have still held their own in a string of special elections, winning six of the last nine.
And in the run-up to November, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is making a pretty good case for voters to stick with Republicans, telling a group of Georgetown students yesterday, “We will have a pro-choice gavel when we win the Congress. We need to have at least 218 votes to achieve that.” It’s a “very high priority,” she went on, “to protect a woman’s right to choose.” If that means supporting a pro-life Democrat to get her hands on the gavel, she’s willing. Even so, Pelosi made clear, it’s just a means to a pro-abortion end. “I know this is touchy on this campus — on all Catholic campuses. … And it’s an issue in the diocese,” Pelosi said. “But the fact is, God gave us all the free will [and] our sense of responsibility to answer for that. So I am a rabid supporter of a woman’s right to choose and a similar issue of the LGBT community, because they are connected.”
That ought to be all the motivation evangelicals need to get off the fence on the midterm elections. With Planned Parenthood funding, conscience protections, the 20-week abortion limit, and so much more in the balance, it’s obvious what a lag in turnout would mean: an encore of the Obama years. That’s why groups like FRC Action and other parts of the evangelical coalition are planning what the New York Times is calling the “largest midterm election mobilization ever.” In a feature on how Christian conservatives are turning the November tide, reporters Jeremy Peters and Elizabeth Dias highlight FRC’s voter registration push, our pastors’ outreach, and even our culture impact teams.
The Family Research Council has already activated its network of 15,000 churches, half of which have ‘culture impact ministries’ that organize congregations to be more socially and civically engaged. The group’s efforts will gear up with voter registration drives around the Fourth of July and voter education that will focus on a half-dozen states that could determine control of the Senate. Their tactics are almost identical to the work they used during the presidential campaign to unite a fractured evangelical base. The June meeting in Washington is a follow-up to a gathering in New York in the summer of 2016 that soothed tensions after it became apparent that Mr. Trump would be the Republican nominee.
The Times even talks about FRC’s Watchmen on the Wall ministry, which is hosting its 15th national briefing in Washington, D.C. next month where hundreds of pastors will be in attendance. “The message to energize Christian conservatives has twin purposes: to inspire them to celebrate their victories and to stoke enough grievance to prod them to vote.”
… [L]eaders of the movement plan to lean hard into a message that fans fears and grudges: that the progressive movement and national media mock Christian life and threaten everything religious conservatives have achieved in the 15 months of the Trump administration. ‘Show the Left that you can put labels on us, you can shame us. But we’re not giving up,’ said Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council.
Join us in protecting the successes of the last year and a half! Get involved.
Become a member of FRC Action, start a Culture Impact Team in your church, or sign up for the Values Voter Summit this fall!
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.
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By Travis Weber, Director of the Center for Religious Liberty
The Bible is in the news again. Last week, the editors of GQ listed the Bible in their article “21 Books You Don’t Have to Read,” recognizing the Good Book has “some good parts,” but concluding “overall it is certainly not the finest thing that man has ever produced. It is repetitive, self-contradictory, sententious, foolish, and even at times ill-intentioned.” One wonders if any GQ editors have ever read the Bible. If so, they might see they have just affirmed what it says about human nature’s tendency to rush to judgment. Nevertheless, this news item provides some good funnies — that GQ, which was birthed in 1957, offers its judgment of a book which predates it by about several thousand years, and which influenced the rise and fall of civilizations for millennia before any GQ editor ever entered the world. I wish funnies were all that came of this, but GQ’s casually-expressed ignorance could lead many to ignore the Bible to their own harm and peril.Such cultural sneering at the Bible may at first glance seem harmless, but these attitudes often have real-word consequences when they fuel anti-Christian hostility of some in the halls of governmental power. Take, for example, the anti-Christian impulses of the California state legislature.
There, politicians will soon vote on Assembly Bill 2943, which bans the “sale . . . of goods or services” that “offer[] to” or “engage . . . in sexual orientation change efforts,” which are defined to include “efforts to change behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” Alarmingly, this would include basic Christian and biblical teaching and counseling against unrepentant homosexual conduct — something that any Bible-believing Christian across America holds to.
Moreover, those bound by this bill include any “association” or “other group” — “however organized,” and are prohibited from selling “goods” which are defined as anything “tangible” and used “primarily for personal, family, or household purposes.” This would include a prohibition on groups of people selling books or materials to other people for their own use which express the biblical and Christian position on unrepentant homosexual conduct. This could very likely include Christians selling other Christians counseling books on LGBT-related issues, and there is no reason why it can’t be construed to include a church bookstore offering these books, and even the Bible itself.
Many have observed the serious problems with this language. First Amendment attorney David French has analyzed it and concluded it would ban the sale of books expressing the standard Christian view on this issue. After California State Assembly member Travis Allen stated that the bill would “prohibit the sale of the Bible,” the supposed fact-checking site Snopes rated the claim “false.”
First, someone should fact-check whether Snopes is actually a fact-checking website. In addition to giving the wrong answer to the question, the website struggled to hide its bias in the process. Second, while the law would need to be enforced against the sale of Bibles, there’s nothing in its text prohibiting this from happening, especially due to what the Bible says about homosexual conduct. The bill’s purview clearly includes the sale of books and materials counseling according to a biblical view of sexuality. As the above analysis shows, just because the bill doesn’t say “the Bible is hereby banned” (something Snopes wants to rely on) doesn’t mean there won’t be enforcement of certain provisions in this bill against the sale of the Bible or any other book which asserts that homosexual conduct is wrong.
If you’re rubbing your eyes and don’t quite believe this yet, just look at the treatment of Pastor Jeremy Schossau several months ago in Michigan. Pastor Schossau was subjected to death threats, vitriolic treatment online, and demands for a state investigation into his church all for offering a biblically-based counseling program for teens wanting answers regarding their sexuality. As these developments show, it’s not only “controversial” Christian public figures that anti-Christian groups are after — it’s the eradication of biblical beliefs themselves. Many (though not all) of those Christians popularly viewed as “controversial” right now are only seen this way because they are the ones in the limelight, popping their heads out of the sand to simply express the biblical position on sexuality and taking fire for doing so. But the forces opposed to Christian beliefs on sexuality will eventually come for anyone who stands by biblical truth.
This is a tough pill for many American Christians to swallow. While Christians elsewhere in the world face the possibility of being killed for their beliefs on an ongoing basis, we have not historically had to exercise the muscle of standing for our beliefs in the face of such serious opposition. While this is changing, it hasn’t reached most American Christians yet, and it’s tough for them to accept that there are many in society opposed to the mere expression of biblical truth about human sexuality, no matter how nuanced and artfully expressed.
Many Bible believers across America today may think they can fly under the radar if they just don’t say anything about sexuality. Some may hold back due to fear of what others would think of them, and their cowardice should be gently yet firmly called out for the sin it is. Others may believe in what the Bible says about these issues yet stay silent for what in their mind are strategic reasons — they may want to lead with their framing of the gospel message, or something else.
Yet part of the gospel message is the clear proclamation and recognition of sin. Without this, the clear proclamation of Christ’s provision on the cross for our sins makes no sense; only with the admission of sin can we enter into true freedom and peace in Christ. If we compromise on this true gospel message for our own strategic reasons, we are really failing to fully trust God.
Christians should absolutely continue to do everything we can to win every person to Christ. Unfortunately, many will try to stamp out part of the gospel message and truth itself. Are we prepared for this opposition when it comes, and are we proclaiming the truth while we are still able to do so?
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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