STUDY: Term Limited States Ranked Best Fiscally as Career Politicos Flop

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Surprise, surprise. A brand new report says states with term-limited legislatures are outperforming their career politician counterparts.

According to George Mason University’s “Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition 2017” report, 8 of the 15 fiscally strongest states have legislative term limits. When one considers that only 15 out of 50 states have legislative term limits, this means citizen lawmakers are providing a quality of leadership disproportionately better than their peers.

The report’s criteria included five separate measures of solvency, which is a state’s ability to pay its short-term and long-term bills.

Florida, which has more term limits than any other state, was ranked as number one fiscally healthy state in America. For any state, the presence of term limits more than doubled the odds of receiving an elite ranking. None of the five worst-ranked states have legislative term limits.

So, what can we take away from this? First, this report dismantles the clichés that self-seeking politicians have always used to oppose term limits. For years they’ve warned that term limits would lead to inexperience which would produce fiscal ruin. This report proves the opposite is true – that term limits states do better than those run by prehistoric politicians.

As U.S. Term Limits has noted for years, real life experience – like running a business or being a teacher – gives lawmakers a better perspective than the political experience of cutting deals with lobbyists and raising cash for re-election. Career politicians are at best ineffective and at their worst, corrupt.

For evidence of this, look no further than the state ranked 49 on this list, Illinois. Illinois, which has no term limits, just made Representative Michael Madigan the longest serving legislative leader in American history. Madigan has been House Speaker for 32 of the last 34 years.

But Madigan’s vast experience has only plunged his state into fiscal calamity. Just last month, ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P dropped the state’s bonds to BBB-, the lowest rating ever for a state. The raters said if Illinois doesn’t do something about its $200 billion in long-term debt, the bonds will be downgraded to junk.

Madigan has been able to get himself and other careerist politicians re-elected in perpetuity, but he hasn’t lifted a finger to solve the state’s fiscal woes. And therein lies the problem with having no term limits.

Individuals elected under a term limits system know their job is not to build political empires. It’s to get in, solve problems, then return to private life.

If these rankings are any indication, term limits are doing a great job.

VIDEO: President Trump Gives Remarks at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree

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President Trump attended the 2017 Scout Jamboree in West Virginia and addressed the Boy Scouts of America. President Trump was joined by Secretaries Ryan Zinke, Rick Perry, and Tom Price.

TRANSCRIPT

TRUMP: Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. I am thrilled to be here. Thrilled.
(APPLAUSE)
And if you think that was an easy trip, you’re wrong. But I am thrilled.
(LAUGHTER)
19th Boy Scout Jamboree, wow, and to address such a tremendous group. Boy, you have a lot of people here. The press will say it’s about 200 people.
(LAUGHTER)
It looks like about 45,000 people. You set a record today.
(APPLAUSE)
You set a record. That’s a great honor, believe me.
Tonight we put aside all of the policy fights in Washington, D.C. you’ve been hearing about with the fake news and all of that. We’re going to put that…
(APPLAUSE)
We’re going to put that aside. And instead we’re going to talk about success, about how all of you amazing young Scouts can achieve your dreams, what to think of, what I’ve been thinking about. You want to achieve your dreams, I said, who the hell wants to speak about politics when I’m in front of the Boy Scouts? Right?
(APPLAUSE)
There are many great honors that come with the job of being president of the United States. But looking out at this incredible gathering of mostly young patriots. Mostly young. I’m especially proud to speak to you as the honorary president of the Boy Scouts of America.
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: You are the young people of character, integrity who will serve as leaders of our communities and uphold the sacred values of our nation.
I want to thank Boy Scouts President Randall Stephenson, chief Scout executive Michael Surbaugh, Jamboree Chairman Ralph de la Vega and the thousands of volunteers who made this a life-changing experience for all of you. And when they asked me to be here, I said absolutely yes.
(APPLAUSE)
Finally — and we can’t forgot these people — I especially want to salute the moms and the dads and troop leaders who are here tonight.
(APPLAUSE) Thank you for making scouting possible. Thank you, mom and dad, troop leaders.
When you volunteer for the Boy Scouts you are not only shaping young lives, you are shaping the future of America.
(APPLAUSE)
The United States has no better citizens than its Boy Scouts.
(APPLAUSE)
No better.
(APPLAUSE)
The values, traditions and skills you learn here will serve you throughout your lives. And just as importantly, they will serve your families, your cities, and in the future and in the present will serve your country.
(APPLAUSE)
The Scouts believe in putting America first.
(APPLAUSE)
You know, I go to Washington and I see all these politicians, and I see the swamp, and it’s not a good place. In fact, today, I said we ought to change it from the word “swamp” to the word “cesspool” or perhaps to the word “sewer.”
(APPLAUSE)
But it’s not good. Not good. And I see what’s going on. And believe me, I’d much rather be with you, that I can tell you.
(APPLAUSE)
I’ll tell you the reason that I love this, and the reason that I really wanted to be here, is because as president, I rely on former Boy Scouts every single day. And so do the American people.
It’s amazing how many Boy Scouts we have at the highest level of our great government. Many of my top advisers in the White House were Scouts. Ten members of my cabinet were Scouts. Can you believe that? Ten.
(APPLAUSE)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is not only a Boy Scout, he is your former national president.
(APPLAUSE)
The vice president of the United States, Mike Pence — a good guy — was a Scout, and it meant so much to him.
(APPLAUSE)
Some of you here tonight might even have camped out in this yard when Mike was the governor of Indiana, but the scouting was very, very important.
And by the way, where are our Indiana scouts tonight?
(APPLAUSE)
I wonder if the television cameras will follow you? They don’t doing that when they see these massive crowds. They don’t like doing that.
Hi, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
There’s a lot of love in this big, beautiful place. A lot of love. And a lot of love for our country. And a lot of love for our country.
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is here tonight.
Come here, Ryan.
(APPLAUSE)
Ryan is an Eagle Scout from Big Sky Country in Montana.
(APPLAUSE)
Pretty good.
And by the way, he is doing a fantastic job. He makes sure that we leave our national parks and federal lands better than we found them in the best scouting tradition.
So thank you very much, Ryan.
(APPLAUSE)
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry of Texas, an Eagle Scout from the great state.
(APPLAUSE)
The first time he came to the National Jamboree was in 1964. He was very young then. And Rick told me just a little while ago, it totally changed his life.
So, Rick, thank you very much for being here. And we’re doing — we’re doing a lot with energy.
(APPLAUSE) And very soon, Rick, we will be an energy exporter. Isn’t that nice? An energy exporter.
(APPLAUSE)
In other words, we’ll be selling our energy instead of buying it from everybody all over the globe. So that’s good.
(APPLAUSE)
We will be energy dominant.
And I’ll tell you what, the folks in West Virginia who were so nice to me, boy, have we kept our promise. We are going on and on. So we love West Virginia. We want to thank you.
Where’s West Virginia by the way?
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
Secretary Tom Price is also here today. Dr. Price still lives the Scout oath, helping to keep millions of Americans strong and healthy as our secretary of Health and Human Services. And he’s doing a great job. And hopefully he’s going to gets the votes tomorrow to start our path toward killing this horrible thing known as Obamacare that’s really hurting us.
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: By the way, are you going to get the votes? He better get them. He better get them. Oh, he better. Otherwise I’ll say, “Tom, you’re fired.” I’ll get somebody.
(APPLAUSE)
He better get Senator Capito to vote for it. He better get the other senators to vote for it. It’s time.
You know, after seven years of saying repeal and replace Obamacare we have a chance to now do it. They better do it. Hopefully they’ll do it.
As we can see just by looking at our government, in America, Scouts lead the way. And another thing I’ve noticed — and I’ve noticed it all my life — there is a tremendous spirit with being a Scout, more so than almost anything I can think of. So whatever is going on, keep doing it. It’s incredible to watch, believe me.
(APPLAUSE)
Each of these leaders will tell that you their road to American success — and you have to understand — their American success, and they are a great, great story, was paved with the patriotic American values and traditions they learned in the Boy Scouts. And some day, many years from now, when you look back on all of the adventures in your lives you will be able to say the same, I got my start as a Scout, just like these incredibly great people that are doing such a good job for our country. So that’s going to happen.
(APPLAUSE)
Boy Scout values are American values. And great Boy Scouts become great, great Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
As the Scout law says, a scout is trustworthy, loyal — we could use some more loyalty I will tell that you that.
(CROWD CHANTING)
That was very impressive. You’ve heard that before. But here you learn the rewards of hard work and perseverance, never, ever give up. Never quit. Persevere. Never, ever quit. You learn the satisfaction of building a roaring campfire, reaching a mountain summit or earning a merit badge after mastering a certain skill. There’s no better feeling than an achievement that you’ve earned with your own sweat, tears, resolve, hard work. There’s nothing like it. Do you agree with that?
(APPLAUSE)
I’m waving to people back there so small I can’t even see them. Man, this is a lot of people. Turn those cameras back there, please. That is so incredible.
By the way, what do you think the chances are that this incredible massive crowd, record setting, is going to be shown on television tonight? One percent or zero?
(APPLAUSE)
The fake media will say, “President Trump spoke” — you know what is — “President Trump spoke before a small crowd of Boy Scouts today.” That’s some — that is some crowd. Fake media. Fake news.
Thank you. And I’m honored by that. By the way, all of you people that can’t even see you, so thank you. I hope you can hear.
Through scouting you also learned to believe in yourself — so important — to have confidence in your ability and to take responsibility for your own life. When you face down new challenges — and you will have plenty of them — develop talents you never thought possible, and lead your teammates through daring trials, you discover that you can handle anything. And you learn it by being a Scout. It’s great.
(APPLAUSE) You can do anything. You can be anything you want to be. But in order to succeed, you must find out what you love to do. You have to find your passion, no matter what they tell you. If you don’t — I love you too. I don’t know. Nice guy.
(APPLAUSE)
Hey, what am I going to do? He sounds like a nice person. He — he, he, he. I do. I do love you.
(CROWD CHANTING)
By the way, just a question, did President Obama ever come to a Jamboree?
(APPLAUSE)
And we’ll be back. We’ll be back. The answer is no. But we’ll be back.
In life, in order to be successful — and you people are well on the road to success — you have to find out what makes you excited, what makes you want to get up each morning and go to work? You have to find it. If you love what you do and dedicate yourself to your work, then you will gain momentum? And look, you have to. You need the word “momentum.” You will gain that momentum. And each success will create another success. The word “momentum.”
I’ll tell you a story that’s very interesting for me. When I was young there was a man named William Levitt. You have some here. You have some in different states. Anybody ever hear of Levittown?
(APPLAUSE)
And he was a very successful man, became unbelievable — he was a home builder, became an unbelievable success, and got more and more successful. And he’d build homes, and at night he’d go to these major sites with teams of people, and he’d scour the sites for nails, and sawdust and small pieces of wood, and they cleaned the site, so when the workers came in the next morning, the sites would be spotless and clean, and he did it properly. And he did this for 20 years, and then he was offered a lot of money for his company, and he sold his company, for a tremendous amount of money, at the time especially. This is a long time ago. Sold his company for a tremendous amount of money.
And he went out and bought a big yacht, and he had a very interesting life. I won’t go any more than that, because you’re Boy Scouts so I’m not going to tell you what he did.
(CROWD CHANTING)
Should I tell you? Should I tell you?
(APPLAUSE)
You’re Boy Scouts, but you know life. You know life.
So look at you. Who would think this is the Boy Scouts, right? So he had a very, very interesting life, and the company that bought his company was a big conglomerate, and they didn’t know anything about building homes, and they didn’t know anything about picking up the nails and the sawdust and selling it, and the scraps of wood. This was a big conglomerate based in New York City.
And after about a 10-year period, there were losing a lot with it. It didn’t mean anything to them. And they couldn’t sell it. So they called William Levitt up, and they said, would you like to buy back your company, and he said, yes, I would. He so badly wanted it. He got bored with this life of yachts, and sailing, and all of the things he did in the south of France and other places. You won’t get bored, right? You know, truthfully, you’re workers. You’ll get bored too, believe me. Of course having a few good years like that isn’t so bad.
But what happened is he bought back his company, and he bought back a lot of empty land, and he worked hard at getting zoning, and he worked hard on starting to develop, and in the end he failed, and he failed badly, lost all of his money. He went personally bankrupt, and he was now much older. And I saw him at a cocktail party. And it was very sad because the hottest people in New York were at this party. It was the party of Steve Ross — Steve Ross, who was one of the great people. He came up and discovered, really founded Time Warner, and he was a great guy. He had a lot of successful people at the party.
And I was doing well, so I got invited to the party. I was very young. And I go in, but I’m in the real estate business, and I see a hundred people, some of whom I recognize, and they’re big in the entertainment business.
And I see sitting in the corner was a little old man who was all by himself. Nobody was talking to him. I immediately recognized that that man was the once great William Levitt, of Levittown, and I immediately went over. I wanted to talk to him more than the Hollywood, show business, communications people.
So I went over and talked to him, and I said, “Mr. Levitt, I’m Donald Trump.” He said, “I know.” I said, “Mr. Levitt, how are you doing?” He goes, “Not well, not well at all.” And I knew that. But he said, “Not well at all.” And he explained what was happening and how bad it’s been and how hard it’s been. And I said, “What exactly happened? Why did this happen to you? You’re one of the greats ever in our industry. Why did this happen to you?”
And he said, “Donald, I lost my momentum. I lost my momentum.” A word you never hear when you’re talking about success when some of these guys that never made 10 cents, they’re on television giving you things about how you’re going to be successful, and the only thing they ever did was a book and a tape. But I tell you — I’ll tell you, it was very sad, and I never forgot that moment.
And I thought about it, and it’s exactly true. He lost his momentum, meaning he took this period of time off, long, years, and then when he got back, he didn’t have that same momentum.
In life, I always tell this to people, you have to know whether or not you continue to have the momentum. And if you don’t have it, that’s OK. Because you’re going to go on, and you’re going to learn and you’re going to do things that are great. But you have to know about the word “momentum.”
But the big thing, never quit, never give up; do something you love. When you do something you love as a Scout, I see that you love it. But when you do something that you love, you’ll never fail. What you’re going to do is give it a shot again and again and again. You’re ultimately going to be successful.
And remember this, you’re not working. Because when you’re doing something that you love, like I do — of course I love my business, but this is a little bit different. Who thought this was going to happen. We’re, you know, having a good time. We’re doing a good job.
(APPLAUSE)
Doing a good job. But when you do something that you love, remember this, it’s not work. So you’ll work 24/7. You’re going to work all the time. And at the end of the year you’re not really working. You don’t think of it as work. When you’re not doing something that you like or when you’re forced into do something that you really don’t like, that’s called work, and it’s hard work, and tedious work.
So as much as you can do something that you love, work hard and never ever give up, and you’re going to be tremendously successful, tremendously successful.
(APPLAUSE)
Now, with that, I have to tell you our economy is doing great. Our stock market has picked up since the election, November 8th — do we remember that day? Was that a beautiful day?
(APPLAUSE)
What a day.
Do you remember that famous night on television, November 8th where they said, these dishonest people, where they said, there is no path to victory for Donald Trump. They forgot about the forgotten people.
By the way, they’re not forgetting about the forgotten people anymore. They’re going crazy trying to figure it out, but I told them, far too late; it’s far too late.
But you remember that incredible night with the maps, and the Republicans are red and the Democrats are blue, and that map was so red it was unbelievable. And they didn’t know what to say.
(APPLAUSE) And you know, we have a tremendous disadvantage in the Electoral College. Popular vote is much easier. We have — because New York, California, Illinois, you have to practically run the East Coast. And we did. We won Florida. We won South Carolina. We won North Carolina. We won Pennsylvania.
(APPLAUSE)
We won and won. So when they said, there is no way to victory; there is no way to 270. You know I went to Maine four times because it’s one vote, and we won. We won. One vote. I went there because I kept hearing we’re at 269. But then Wisconsin came in. Many, many years. Michigan came in.
(APPLAUSE)
So — and we worked hard there. You know, my opponent didn’t work hard there, because she was told…
(BOOING)
She was told she was going to win Michigan, and I said, well, wait a minute. The car industry is moving to Mexico. Why is she going to move — she’s there. Why are they allowing it to move? And by the way, do you see those car industry — do you see what’s happening? They’re coming back to Michigan. They’re coming back to Ohio. They’re starting to peel back in.
(APPLAUSE)
And we go to Wisconsin, now, Wisconsin hadn’t been won in many, many years by a Republican. But we go to Wisconsin, and we had tremendous crowds. And I’d leave these massive crowds, I’d say, why are we going to lose this state?
The polls, that’s also fake news. They’re fake polls. But the polls are saying — but we won Wisconsin.
(APPLAUSE)
So I have to tell you, what we did, in all fairness, is an unbelievable tribute to you and all of the other millions and millions of people that came out and voted for make America great again.
(APPLAUSE)
And I’ll tell you what, we are indeed making America great again.
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: And I’ll tell you what, we are indeed making America great again. What’s going on is incredible.
(APPLAUSE)
We had the best jobs report in 16 years. The stock market on a daily basis is hitting an all-time high.
We’re going to be bringing back very soon trillions of dollars from companies that can’t get their money back into this country, and that money is going to be used to help rebuild America. We’re doing things that nobody ever thought was possible, and we’ve just started. It’s just the beginning, believe me.
(APPLAUSE)
You know, in the Boy Scouts you learn right from wrong, correct? You learn to contribute to your communities, to take pride in your nation, and to seek out opportunities to serve. You pledge to help other people at all times.
(APPLAUSE)
In the Scout oath, you pledge on your honor to do your best and to do your duty to God and your country.
(APPLAUSE)
And by the way, under the Trump administration you’ll be saying “Merry Christmas” again when you go shopping, believe me.
(APPLAUSE)
Merry Christmas.
They’ve been downplaying that little beautiful phrase. You’re going to be saying “Merry Christmas” again, folks.
(APPLAUSE)
But the words “duty,” “country” and “God” are beautiful words. In other words, basically what you’re doing is you’re pledging to be a great American patriot.
(APPLAUSE)
For more than a century that is exactly what our Boy Scouts have been. Last year you gave more than 15 million hours of service to helping people in your communities. Incredible. That’s an incredible stat.
(APPLAUSE)
All of you here tonight will contribute more than 100,000 hours of service by the end of this Jamboree — 100,000.
(APPLAUSE)
When natural disaster strikes, when people face hardship, when the beauty and glory of our outdoor spaces must be restored and taken care of, America turns to the Boy Scouts because we know that the Boy Scouts never ever, ever let us down.
(APPLAUSE)
Just like you know you can count on me, we know we can count on you, because we know the values that you live by.
(APPLAUSE)
Your values are the same values that have always kept America strong, proud and free.
And by the way, do you see the billions and billions and billions of additional money that we’re putting back into our military? Billions of dollars.
(APPLAUSE)
New planes, new ships, great equipment for our people that are so great to us. We love our vets. We love our soldiers. And we love our police, by the way.
(APPLAUSE)
Firemen, police. We love our police. Those are all special people. Uniformed services.
Two days ago I traveled to Norfolk, Virginia to commission an American aircraft carrier into the fleet of the United States Navy.
(APPLAUSE)
It’s the newest, largest and most advanced aircraft carrier anywhere in the world, and it’s named for an Eagle Scout — the USS Gerald R. Ford.
(APPLAUSE)
Everywhere it sails that great Scout’s name will be feared and revered, because that ship will be a symbol of American power, prestige and strength.
(APPLAUSE)
Our nation honors President Gerald R. Ford today because he lived his life the scouting way. Boy Scouts celebrate American patriots, especially the brave members of our Armed Forces. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
American hearts are warmed every year when we read about Boy Scouts placing thousands and thousands of flags next to veterans’ grave sites all across the country. By honoring our heroes, you help to ensure that their memory never, ever dies. You should take great pride in the example you set for every citizen of our country to follow.
(APPLAUSE)
Generations of American Boy Scouts have sworn the same oath and lived according to the same law. You inherit a noble American tradition. And as you embark on your lives, never cease to be proud of you who you are and the principles you hold dear and stand by. Wear your values as your badge of honor. What you’ve done few have done before you. What you’ve done is incredible. What you’ve done is admired by all. So I want to congratulate you, Boy Scouts.
(APPLAUSE)
Let your scouting oath guide your path from this day forward. Remember your duty, honor your history, take care of the people God put into your life, and love and cherish your great country.
(APPLAUSE)
You are very special people. You’re special in the lives of America. You’re special to me. But if you do what we say, I promise you that you will live scouting’s adventure every single day of your life, and you will win, win, win, and help people in doing so.
(APPLAUSE)
Your lives will have meaning, and purpose and joy. You will become leaders, and you will inspire others to achieve the dreams they once thought were totally impossible. Things that you said could never, ever happen are already happening for you. And if you do these things, and if you refuse to give in to doubt or to fear, then you will help to make America great again, you will be proud of yourself, be proud of the uniform you wear, and be proud of the country you love.
(APPLAUSE)
CROWD: USA! USA! USA!
TRUMP: And never, ever forget, America is proud of you.
(APPLAUSE)
This is a very, very special occasion for me. I’ve known so many Scouts over the years. Winners. I’ve known so many great people. They’ve been taught so well, and they love the heritage. But this is very special for me.
And I just want to end by saying, very importantly, God bless you. God bless the Boy Scouts. God Bless the United States of America. Go out, have a great time in life, compete, and go out and show me that there is nobody, nobody like a Boy Scout.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much, everybody. (APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you very much
(APPLAUSE)

The Kurds crave U.S. support, engagement — give it to them

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I have just returned from a fact-finding mission to northern Iraq, one of many I have made over the past decade. And while the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) appears to have landed on its feet after the long battle with ISIS, new battles loom on the horizon.

Kurdish Peshmerga commanders and political leaders I spoke with are convinced that they will be drawn into a confrontation, perhaps by the end of summer, with the Iranian-backed Shiite militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF).

An estimated 100,000 of these Iraqi Shia irregular troops now occupy Assyrian Christian towns and villages surrounding Mosul, as well as parts of Kurdistan, and are attempting to create a land bridge with Syria to link up with the forces of Syrian President Assad.

Should they succeed, it would spell the end of a relatively free Kurdish self-governing region in northern Iraq, a mass exodus of Middle-East Christians, and the death of an independent Iraq. It could also mean the end of pro-Western forces in northern Syria that are opposed to Assad, including the Syrian Kurdish enclave now governed by the Democratic Union Party of Syria, the YPD.

The Iranian regime is spending huge amounts of money to buy friends and allies throughout Iraq. When they find a potential ally, a terrorist, or someone offering to make trouble for their enemies, they spend liberally to support them. Iran’s Quds Force of Maj. Gen. Qassem Suleymani, is not accountable to government bean-counters, as we are.

Turkey is also vying for influence, and since January has been the sole market for the half-million barrels of oil produced every day in Kirkuk,  under KRG control. Turkey now has 18 military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, which opponents to KRG President Massoud Barzani believe are aimed at suppressing potential dissent as well as attacking Kurdish dissident groups.

The best way to counter Iranian and Turkish efforts to control the KRG and Iraq is to expand U.S. engagement on the ground.

“We don’t want a second American withdrawal,” a senior Peshmerga leader told me. “The last time you left, ISIS came. America has to stay!”

The Kurds are asking for a significant U.S. commitment to help them build a national army and national guard, putting an end to the party militias that have split the KRG into two rival zones.

The U.S.-backed “Peshmerga of the Future” program will slowly build capability over five years. But given the coming fight likely with the Iranian-backed Shiite militias, U.S. aid must be accelerated.

Over lunch at a conference in Suleymania last weekend, the first minister of the unified peshmerga forces, General Kamal Mufti, who is now 87, urged the United States to expand its existing base at Erbil International Airport into a full-scale Air Force Base. “The U.S. should replace Incirlik with Erbil,” he said.

I found overwhelming support among political and military leaders for U.S. military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan as a means not just of fighting ISIS and other terrorist groups, but of stabilizing the KRG and helping the politicians to enact meaningful reforms.

Critics might call such engagement “nation-building.” And in some ways, it is. But rather than force unwilling partners onto the dance floor, as we did for many years in Iraq, we have eager partners in Kurdistan who, for all their faults, aspire to create a secular, democratic society governed by law.

I am not suggesting that we fight the Kurds’ battles for them or that we substitute ourselves for a dysfunctional Iraqi state. But a stronger U.S. military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan would serve our national interest by countering both Turkey and Iran, predatory states seeking to dominate the region, monopolize its oil, and extinguish the democratic aspirations of its people.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Hill.

The Humanitarian Hoax of Bullying: Killing America With Kindness

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The Humanitarian Hoax is a deliberate and deceitful tactic of presenting a destructive policy as altruistic. The humanitarian huckster presents himself as a compassionate advocate when in fact he is the disguised enemy.

Obama, the humanitarian huckster-in-chief, weakened the United States by bullying America for eight years into accepting his crippling politically correct policies as altruistic when in fact they were designed for destruction. His legacy, the Leftist Democratic Party with its “resistance” movement, is the party of the Humanitarian Hoax attempting to destroy American democracy and replace it with socialism.

The Leftist Democrat Party under Obama embraced a hypocritical anti-bullying campaign with religious fervor. Presenting himself as the agent of change to make schools safe from bullying Obama launched his anti-bullying campaign at the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention in 2011 saying:

“If there’s one goal of this conference, it’s to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up. It’s not. Bullying can have destructive consequences for our young people. And it’s not something we have to accept. As parents and students; teachers and communities, we can take steps that will help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe.”

Sounds great – an anti-bullying campaign designed to make schools a safe space for students. Who could object?

Obama’s popular anti-bullying campaign of kindness was expanded to engage the public and private sectors to combat bullying together. Private, non-profit, and federal commitments were made and millions of dollars were spent on the effort to stop bullying. The Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention was launched.

Instead of providing safety and protection for all students the bullying prevention campaign was the ideal vehicle for left-wing liberal indoctrination in the schools that promoted the Leftist intersectional agenda exclusively. Feelings were prioritized over facts and curriculums were overhauled to adhere to the Leftist tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism. Student feelings were “protected” from averse ideas.

The intersectional group identity of the Left insisted its members had been victimized and marginalized by white privilege and required protections from bullying. The victimized Left needed Obama’s anti-bullying campaign to keep them safe from opposing ideas. So what is the net effect of Leftist bullying prevention? Leftist bullying through censorship, Leftist bullying through intimidation, and Leftist bullying through violence.

Bullying through censorship

The Left continues to march self-righteously holding anti-bullying signs while it destroys freedom of speech on campuses by bullying campus administrators into canceling opposition speakers. The bullying prevention protesters have become the bullies in their anti-bullying campaign. In a particularly absurd example white women on campus at Pitzer college in Los Angeles were told by jean-clad hypocrites that they cannot wear hoop earrings because it is a cultural appropriation of African and Hispanic fashion. The hypocritical cultural fashion police are not bothered by their own cultural appropriation of wearing American jeans invented by a white American Levi Strauss in 1871.

Bullying through intimidation

The Leftist Democratic Party is an orthodoxy that does not permit dissent. Their politically correct vision of what America should be like and look like is most evident in television programming. Beyond the fake news and liberal bias in the mainstream media the commercial casting and plot summaries strictly adhere to the Leftist narrative. The globalist mega-corporations and media moguls who own the stations only support programming and programmers that reflect their globalist perspective. On stage the Hollywood glitterati fawn over plays dramatizing the murder of President Trump and comedy routines laughing at a beheaded President Trump. These hypocrites would need safe spaces and Play-Doh if conservatives assassinated Obama on stage or laughed at his beheaded image. Hypocritical bullying through intimidation is a Leftist specialty.

Bullying through violence

The anti-bullying protesters fomenting violence against President Trump, Trump supporters, Trump supporters on campus, racial violence, and violence against the police are a contradiction in terms. These bullying prevention supporters are supporting violence which is bullying of the most egregious and lawless kind. Students at Evergreen college wielding bats to patrol housing and campus have already assaulted white students who supported white biology Professor Bret Weinstein. Professor Weinstein refused to leave campus when black and Latino students tried to force whites off campus on a self-declared “Day of Absence.” In another egregious occurrence of Leftist hypocritical bullying Jewish LGBT marchers in Chicago were told to leave because the Star of David on their flags was offensive to pro-Palestinian marchers. An anti-bullying campaign designed to protect students of color and a marginalized gay community has resulted in reverse racist bullying of white students and anti-Semitic dismissal of Jewish marchers. The hypocrisy is stunning. The intersectional Left demands bullying protection while it bullies anyone who is not an intersectional Leftist.

What is the purpose of Obama’s Humanitarian Hoax of Bullying Prevention?

Each form of bullying is designed to break down American cultural norms and create social chaos. The Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention is designed to present Leftist bullying as kindness and any opposition to the Left as bullying. It is a deliberate effort to impose conformity to Leftist group think through reverse bullying and weaken America toward collectivism and socialism. The purpose of the Humanitarian Hoax of Bullying Prevention is to kill America with “kindness”

Socialism with its complete government control is the prerequisite social structure for the globalist elite to internationalize the socialist countries, internationalize the police force, and impose enforced one-world government. One-world government is the new world order that the globalist elite intend to rule themselves. It is unapologetically described in chilling detail in Lord Bertrand Russell’s 1952 book “The Impact of Science on Society.” One-world government is a binary socio-political system of masters and slaves. There is no social justice in one-world government, there is no income equality in one-world government, there are no Leftists, environmentalists, humanitarian hucksters, bullying prevention, or political agitators of any kind in one-world government – only a docile, compliant population of slaves ruled by the globalist elite.

One-world government is the goal and the underlying motive of the campaign to destroy America from within. American democracy is the single greatest existential threat to one-world government and President Donald Trump is America’s leader. The globalist elite are desperate to stop Trump because if Obama is exposed as a con man it leaves them without their primetime huckster to continue marching America toward anarchy and social chaos with his “resistance” movement. The globalist elites who fund the leftist humanitarian hucksters are using them as useful idiots to facilitate the great Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention to create the overwhelming social chaos necessary to internationalize the police force and impose their own special brand of a new world order.

Obama and his left-wing liberal lemmings are too arrogant to understand that they are being used as puppets by the globalist elite who have an end game of their own. If the globalist elite are successful in their efforts to weaken America and collapse freedom of speech through their deceitful anti-bullying campaign, overthrow the US government of President Donald Trump, and transform America into socialism the next step is globalist conquest and the imposition of one-world government.

After 241 years of American freedom the world will be returned to the dystopian existence of masters and slaves because a willfully blind American public was seduced by the Humanitarian Hoax of bullying prevention advanced by leftist humanitarian hucksters promising protection and safety for their victimized selves. The Humanitarian Hoax will have succeeded in killing America with “kindness.”

‘Through the Looking Glass’ – An Analysis of Linda Sarsour’s July 01, 2017 Speech at the 54th Annual ISNA Convention

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Where ever you came from, you came to America.  And you came for one reason – for one reason only – to establish Allah’s deen [a complete way of life, governed by a system of law]. Imam Siraj Wahhaj, November 15, 1991

As long as you remember that if you get involved with politics, you have to be very careful that your leader is for Allah.  You don’t get in politics because it’s the American thing to do.  You get involved in politics because politics can be a weapon to use in the cause of Islam. Imam Siraj Wahhaj, November 15, 1991

Before beginning an analysis of Linda Sarsour’s speech at the 54th Annual ISNA Convention, I’d like to thank Ms. Sarsour for doing all of us here in America (and the West) an invaluable favor.

What favor, you may ask?

Linda Sarsour has graciously accompanied us right up to the shore of the Great Sea of Islam, and allowed us to capture a rare glimpse into its impressive breadth and depth.

However, this thoughtful gesture comes with caveat, because even though Ms. Sarsour has granted us this unique opportunity to see Islam more clearly, we must still overcome the strong temptation to either hide our eyes (and ears), or to simply walk away entirely.

Perhaps now, thanks to you, Ms. Sarsour, we’ll all be delivered from the powerful grip of ignorance and delusion about Islam, and we’ll finally be able to gain a better, correct understanding of The Religion of Peace ®.

More specifically, Thank You, Linda Sarsour, for so graciously showing us:

Yes, Linda Sarsour, Thank You, for showing us the best possible reflection of what a first-generation, native born Palestinian-American Champion of Change really should look like.

Analysis of Linda Sarsour’s July 01, 2017 Speech At The 54th Annual ISNA Convention

His announcements and his talk have made an incredible measure of mischief [to] the American Muslim people group.

ISNA President Azhar Azeez, June 30, 2017 (referring to President Donald Trump’s efforts to reform  immigration)

This is a ‘through the looking glass’ analysis of Linda Sarsour’s July 01, 2017, speech at the 54th Annual Islamic Society of North America Convention, entitled Hope & Guidance Through the Quran, which was held in Chicago, IL from June 30 through July 03, 2017.

Just above, I summarized several years of opinions and public statements that have made Linda Sarsour a highly visible media figure.  This is the ‘looking glass’ (mirror) that the general public gets to see.

Meanwhile, as we’ll see in the following phrase-by-phrase analysis of Linda Sarsour’s ISNA speech, there is an entirely different dimension of meaning that lies camouflaged behind the everyday words and phrases she used during her presentation.

Let us now walk through this looking glass, into Sarsour’s ISNA-endorsed world of the Quran, Hadith and Shariah, as we examine the deeper Islamic meanings that lie hidden behind the veil of common American English.

Also, we should keep in mind that the federal government has already proven that the ISNA is a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas, and that for nearly 10 years, the ISNA has remained listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, still the largest terrorist financing trial in American history.

It should also be noted that the ISNA is prominently listed in a May 05, 1991 document entitled An Explanatory Memorandum On the General Strategic Goal for the Group In North America, as one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s self-described ‘organizations of our friends.’

The same Muslim Brotherhood strategic document, which was drafted for internal review as early as 1987, also lists the ISNA Fiqh Committee, the ISNA Political Awareness Committee, and the ISNA+Dr. Jamal Badawi Foundation (Islamic Information Foundation), as friends of the ‘Muslim Brotherhood Group in North America.’

In addition, Jamal Badawi, who also remains listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF trial, has been an ISNA member since its inception on July 14, 1981.  Dr. Badawi joined the ISNA Board of Directors (Majlis Ash-Shura) in 1988 and also served on the board of the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) from 1991 until 1993.  Along with the ISNA and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the NAIT was also named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trail.

With all this in mind, we might ask: Who was the real target audience for Linda Sarsour’s speech?  Was it the American general public, or was it the ISNA’s core leadership (Majlis Ash-Shura), who were assembled there at the annual conference?

A partial answer to this question will be found in a particular phrase on Page 1, Paragraph 1, of the Explanatory Memorandum.  In Arabic, the phrase is Al-Qaeda Al-Islamia Al-Moltzema, while in English, it is translated as the Observant (Obedient) Muslim Base.

Yes, Al-Qaeda, the word translated here as ‘Base,’ is the very same word we commonly associate with Jihadist groups throughout the world.  However, in its original meaning, Al-Qaeda is actually an important socio-political concept, i.e., a ‘base of operations,’ rather than a violent terrorist organization operating somewhere far away in Afghanistan, Iraq or Syria.

In the context of her ISNA-endorsed speech, this is the ‘Base,’ (audience), i.e., the ISNA Board of Directors, or Majlis Ash-Shura, that Ms. Sarsour was specifically addressing.

Ms. Sarsour’s calls to socio-political tactical action are actually based on well-established Islamic strategic principles, and were closely parallel to the call(s) to action (and Quranic warnings) found in a carefully-written document entitled AMJA Post-Election Statement: Principles and Roadmap, which was published by the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) on November 28, 2016.

A careful analysis of this 14-paragraph document, which regards the election of Donald Trump as President a disruptive calamity and source of oppression (see Sarsour’s comments on oppression below) for the Muslim community, can be found here.  Officially known in Arabic as the Majama Fuqaha Al-Shariah B’Amrikia (Group of Shariah Specialists in America), the AMJA is openly promoting the implementation of Islamic Shariah, right here in America.

This is in direct violation of Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, which reads:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.

To put this all in context, Sarsour’s speech before the ISNA leadership echoes the strategic and tactical plans of both the ‘Muslim Brotherhood Group in North America,’ as outlined in the Explanatory Memorandum, drafted thirty years ago, and in the AMJA Roadmap, published just two weeks after the November 2016 election.

Note: This analysis is presented in a chronological time sequence.  Specific comments or phrases are cited by marking the time they occurred in Ms. Sarsour’s speech, e.g., (3:01)

Honoring Imam Siraj Wahhaj as ‘My favorite person in the room’ (1:50-2:33)

Much has already been written about Siraj Wahhaj, Imam of Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, NY, who was listed as an “unindicted person who may be alleged as co-conspirators” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and stated that the bombing was a terrorist attack staged by the U.S. government and possibly Israel as a “conspiracy” against Islam.

What does it say about Ms. Sarsour, who considers Imam Wahhaj to be her mentor, when Wahhaj supported Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was charged with the attempted assassination of Egyptian leader Anwar Al-Sadat, and said while leading the Al Farouq mosque in Brooklyn that, “We must terrorize the enemies of Islam and…shake the earth under their feet.”

In fact, what does endorsing and supporting Siraj Wahhaj say about the leadership of the ISNA?

To be fair, we should also ask why the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC would feature Siraj Wahhaj as their ‘Grand Imam’ at its first ever “Jumah [Gathering] At The DNC”?

Allah is the Best of Protectors (3:01)

This phrase is taken directly from Quran 3.150 and Quran 12.64, Allah is the Best of Protectors (Al-Hafiz in Arabic).

For more on this concept from an Islamic perspective, especially the severe admonition not to take non-Muslims as helpers or protectors, or against obeying disbelievers and hypocrites, because such obedience leads to utter destruction in this life and the Hereafter, see here, here and also see Tafsir Ibn Kathir for Quran 3.150.

In America, Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism (5:32-5:45)

Patriotism in your home country is different than patriotism in these United States of America.  In this country, in the land of freedom of speech, in the land of democracy, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Is Linda Sarsour correct?  Is dissent really the highest form of patriotism in America?

Apparently, the earliest documented use of this phrase is found in a 1961 Friends Peace Committee publication entitled, The Use of Force in International Affairs: “If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?”  The Friends Peace Committee is a Quaker anti-war group that was founded in the 1880’s.

It was also used repeatedly during the Vietnam era, as when New York Mayor John Lindsay declared during an October 15, 1969, speech at Columbia University, “We cannot rest content with the charge from Washington that this peaceful protest is unpatriotic…The fact is that this dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

In a July, 03, 2002 interview, Howard Zinn said, “While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism.  In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles.  And if we’re exercising that right to dissent, it’s a patriotic act. ”

While dissent may truly be a form of patriotism (depending on the circumstances), so is defending the freedoms and liberties that our Creator endowed us with, as documented in the Declaration of Independence, and the U.S. Constitution.

Whether or not dissent is a higher form of patriotism than defense of our Constitutional freedoms depends entirely on motive, i.e., is it designed to undermine or supplant the Constitution, or strengthen and support it?

Sorry, Ms. Sarsour, but according to Article 6, Islamic Shariah will never be compatible with the Constitution, which means that, here in America, dissent for the sake of Islam cannot possibly be the highest form of patriotism.

Policies that Oppress the communities that they came from…(5:45-5:55)

This is the moment when Ms. Sarsour introduces the central theme of her speech, which is the volatile Islamic concept of fighting or striving (Jihad) against Oppression (Fitnah فِتْنَةَ, which occurs at least 60 times in the Quran).  Fitnah is also translated as Affliction, Confusion, Disbelief (Shirk), Discord, Dissention, Distress, Domination, Mischief, Sedition, Strife, Testing, Trials, Tumult, Opposition, Persecution and Punishments.

To further build her case, Ms. Sarsour goes on to say that if you [the ISNA audience] maintain the current status quo that not only oppresses Muslims…you, my dear sisters and brothers, you are aligned with the oppressor…if you are neutral in the face of oppression in this country…you are not a patriot, you are aiding and abetting the oppressors in these United States of America (6:09-6:35)

The concept of fighting or striving (Jihad) against Oppression (Fitnah) is a 1,400 year old doctrine, deeply embedded within the founding ideology of Islam.  From such a Quranic perspective, the consequences of transgressing the statutes and commandments of Shariah law, or of oppressing (opposing or preventing ) the Islamic community from following the laws of Allah, warrants a Shariah-authorized violent response toward all such ‘rulers and tyrants.’

For example, in 2014, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, wrote to President Barack Obama about his views on the situation in Iraq, Gaza and Palestine, while also commenting about “Muslim oppression at the hands of the West in general and the United States in particular.”

For three explicit Quranic examples, see Quran 2.190: Fight in the way of Allah those who fight you but do not transgress.  Indeed, Allah does not like transgressors, Quran 21.9: Then We fulfilled for them the promise, and We saved them and whom We willed and destroyed the transgressors, and Quran 2.193 Fight them until there is no [more] Fitnah [oppression] and [until] worship is [acknowledged to be] for Allah. But if they cease, then there is to be no aggression, except against the oppressors.

The concept of Oppression is also discussed in extensive detail in the Hadith (Bukhari), Volume 4, Section 43, and in Tafsir Ibn Kathir for Quran 8.73

What is the Best Form of Jihad, or Struggle? (7:02-7:04)

After introducing the concept of Oppression (Fitnah), Ms. Sarsour segues into a discussion of fighting or striving (Jihad) against Oppression, by recounting a passage from the Hadith: “What is the best form of Jihad”?

Paraphrasing the Hadith, Ms. Sarsour then provides the answer, which is, “A word of truth, truth in front of a tyrant, ruler or leader, that is the best form of Jihad.”

At this point, it is also important to note that the phrase “The best Jihad is speaking the truth to an unjust ruler” also occurs in Chapter Q1.2(3) of Reliance of the Traveller, which is the world’s most authoritative English translation of Islamic Shariah.

Also, Chapter Q2.4(4) of Reliance begins a section entitled Being Able To Censure, which includes the following incredible endorsement of what we call lone-wolf terrorists, or lone-wolf Jihadists:

There is no disagreement among scholars that it is permissible for a single Muslim to attack battle lines of unbelievers headlong and fight them even if he knows he will be killed…Such censure is only praiseworthy when one is able to eliminate the wrong and one’s action will produce some benefit.

The phrase eliminate the wrong in Chapter Q2.4(4) is just the theological equivalent for what we call Socio-Political Activism in the secular (non-Islamic) arena.

All of Book Q in Reliance is under the main heading of THE OBLIGATION TO COMMAND THE RIGHT (AND FORBID THE WRONG), which is derived from Quran 3.104.

For additional detail on the concept of enjoining Al-Maruf (all that Islam orders) and forbidding Al-Munkar (all that Islam has forbidden), see Tafsir Ibn Kathir for Quran 3.104.

It is disingenuous, at best, for Ms. Sarsour to claim that she wasn’t talking about violence, or that she is being persecuted by the alt-right, for her statements about the Best Form of Jihad, when she is well aware (and so is her ISNA audience), of the deeper, inflammatory, theological connotations of her remarks.

A Note on Linda Sarsour’s use of the phrase ‘A Word of Truth’ (7:10-7:18)

In his July 11, 2017 article entitled Linda Sarsour Defends Her Call for Jihad Against President Donald Trump, writer Neil Munro made the following observation:

Sarsour’s “word of truth” phrase seems like a Western-style appeal for debate, but for Muslim activists, truth is only found in the Koran’s transcribed instructions from Allah, which include his frequent calls for warfare against his enemies.

That ‘word of truth’ phrase also evokes the dramatic courtroom defense strategy adopted by the “Blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, who was accused by the Egyptian government of urging the murder of Egyptian dictator Anwar Sadat in 1981.

Shortly after Sadat was murdered, Rahman was accused by the Egyptian government of urging the murder of Sadat in prior religious tracts.  But Rahman pressured the Egyptian government and judges to declare him innocent by portraying himself as merely a blameless messenger of the Koran’s denunciations against oppressors.

This is what ‘A Word of Truth’ looks like, when you go through the looking glass, and look at the world through the eyes of Islam.

And I hope…that Allah accepts from us that as a form of Jihad, that we are struggling against tyrants and rulers…but here in these United States of America (7:23-7:29)

This is the part of Ms. Sarsour’s speech that received the most attention (and criticism) in the media.  In an attempt to defend her comments, she posted a July 09, 2017 editorial in the Washington Post, entitled Islamophobes Are Attacking Me Because I’m Their Worst Nightmare.

In her editorial, Ms. Sarsour made the following assertions:

Most disturbing about this recent defamation campaign is how it is focused on demonizing the legitimate yet widely misunderstood Islamic term I used, “jihad,” which to majority of Muslims and according to religious scholars means “struggle” or “to strive for.”  This term has been hijacked by Muslim extremists and right-wing extremists alike, leaving ordinary Muslims to defend our faith and in some cases silenced.  It sets a dangerous precedent when people of faith are policed and when practicing their religion peacefully comes with consequences.

At this point, an obvious question arises: Is Linda Sarsour correct that the term Jihad “has been hijacked by Muslim extremists and right-wing extremists alike”?

Let’s start with Chapter O9.0 of Reliance, which defines Jihad in the following manner:

Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word Mujahada signifying warfare to establish the religion.  And it is the lesser Jihad . As for the greater Jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (Nafs), which is why the Prophet said as he was returning from Jihad.

Then, in Chapter H8.17 of Reliance, in a section entitled Those Fighting for Allah, we find the following discussion of Jihad:

The seventh category [of giving charity] is those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster (O: but who are volunteers for jihad without remuneration).  They are given enough to suffice them for the operation, even if affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing, and expenses (O: for the duration of the journey, round trip, and the time they spend there, even if prolonged.  Though nothing has been mentioned here of the expense involved in supporting such people’s families during this period, it seems clear that they should also be given it).

In addition to what is found in Reliance, it is also important to note that variants of the root word Jihad occur about 40 times in the Quran.  In virtually every case, it is obvious from the plain Arabic meaning of the text, that Jihad means to wage war against non-Muslims.

It seems pretty obvious that the leaders of Turkey recognize the full meaning of Jihad, too.  On July 22, 2017, Ahmet Hamdi Çamlı, a deputy of the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP), participated in a debate about the introduction of the concept of jihad, or holy war, into the national school curriculum.  During the debate, Çamlı said it is useless to teach math to a child who does not know the concept of jihad, while also asserting that jihad is one of the main pillars of Islam.  The previous week, Ankara Minister of Education İsmet Yılmaz said, “Jihad is an element in our religion; it is in our religion…”

Fascists, and White Supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House (7:30-7:38)

This is another subject that is discussed extensively in the Quran (for example, see verses 10.83, 28.19 and 40.35), and in Reliance.  Chapter P13.0 of Reliance is entitled The Leader Who Misleads His Following, the Tyrant and Oppressor.  Section P13.1 refers to Quran 42.42, which says: “The dispute (lit. “way against”) is only with those who oppress people and wrongfully commit aggression in the land; these will have a painful torment.”

In Section Q1.2(4) of Reliance, it is written: The Prophet said, “When you see my Community too intimidated by an oppressor to tell him, ‘You are a tyrant,’ then you may as well say goodbye to them.”

The Tafsir Ibn Kathir for Quran 40.35 says, [Tyrants] who attempt to refute truth with falsehood and who dispute the proof without evidence or proof from Allah, Allah will hate them with the utmost loathing.  It is greatly hateful and disgusting to Allah, and to those who believe…

From an Islamic perspective, Ms. Sarsour is well aware of the volatile implications of calling President Trump a tyrant, fascist, white supremacist or Islamophobe.

Islamophobia Industry…if those who choose to vandalize our masjids [mosques]…if they are treating us like we are one community, why are we not acting like one community…(8:42-9:06)

According to Nathan Lean, author of The Islamophobia Industry,

Fear sells and the Islamophobia Industry – a right-wing cadre of intellectual hucksters, bloggers, politicians, pundits, and religious leaders – knows that all too well.  For years they have labored behind the scenes to convince their compatriots that Muslims are the enemy, exhuming the ghosts of 9/11 and dangling them before the eyes of horrified populations for great fortune and fame.

Their plan has worked.  The tide of Islamophobia that is sweeping through Europe and the United States is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is their design.

A June 24, 2016 Al Jazeera article entitled Report: Islamophobia Is A Multimillion-Dollar Industry claims that,

More than $200m was spent towards promoting “fear and hatred” of Muslims in the United States by various organisations between 2008 and 2013, according to a fresh joint report by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the University of California, Berkeley.

Released on Monday , the report [Confronting Fear] identifies 74 groups, including feminist, Christian, Zionist and prominent news organisations, which either funded or fostered Islamophobia.  “It is an entire industry of itself.  There are people making millions of dollars per year from promoting Islamophobia. They often present themselves as experts on Islamic affairs when they are not,” Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, a spokesman for CAIR, told Al Jazeera.

At least 32 states have introduced and debated anti-sharia or anti-foreign law bills.  And, according to our research, 80 percent of legislators who sponsor this type of legislation also sponsor bills restricting the rights of other minorities and vulnerable groups.

If Ms. Sarsour wants to put an end to the Islamophobia Industry, she should simply stand up for the Constitution, and stop promoting the normalization of Shariah in America.

Potentially horrific time that could come (9:20)

This is a direct parallel to Paragraph 8 of the AMJA Roadmap, which states:

Islam, with respect to its belief and legal foundations is unalterably fixed.  It does not accept any replacement for change…A Muslim must comply with his faith and refer confusing or troublesome matters to the well-grounded scholars. AMJA is of the view that there has yet to occur – and they do not expect to occur – a situation in which one is required to flee with one’s faith, or wherein one is excused from performing some parts of the faith’s teachings.

Note on the phrase ‘Flee With One’s Faith’: This refers to the Hijrah (Migration), another fundamental concept in Islam, with connotations going back 1,400 years, to the founding history of Islam.  At this point, the Roadmap introduces the possibility that Muslims in America may have to flee to a safer location, for the sake of their faith.  Socially, this is a very provocative (and potentially inflammatory) statement by the AMJA.  It engenders immediate animosity and tension, and serves to further alienate and marginalize the Muslim community in America.

Notice also that in this time of crisis, the AMJA is not encouraging Muslims to assimilate into American mainstream culture, but instead advises them to further distance themselves from it, while surrounding themselves with the protective wall of Shariah law, and preparing for the possibility of leaving the country entirely.

We need to build coalitions; we need allies…in communities who are marginalized and oppressed in this country (10:23-10:32)

Ms. Sarsour also refers to building coalitions as “creating intersectional alliances within communities of color, and other oppressed minorities,” while her biography says she is “most known for her intersectional coalition work and building bridges across issues, racial, ethnic and faith communities.”

Remarkably, building coalitions is also specifically called for in Paragraph 11 of the AMJA Roadmap:

Among the most important of obligations during these days is to open our doors to all sectors of our society and to reach out to the other ethnic and religious groups as well as political movements on both the left and right of the political spectrum.  This will be the only way to stop those who deal in hate.

This is AMJA’s call (and official authorization) for American Muslims to form coalitions with a diversity of ethnic and religious groups, as well as movements on the left and right of the political spectrum.  In other words, to start forming new alliances, in as many different arenas as possible, to build a wall of resistance.

Some of the organizations involved in this AMJA-authorized effort to develop common-cause alliances include the 2017 Women’s March on Washington, the Black Lives Matter movement, ANSWER Coalition, the Tides Foundation, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

In Islamic terms, phrases like creating intersectional alliances and building bridges across issues, racial, ethnic and faith communities are socio-political substitutes for what is known as Dawah, which means to invite or summon someone, in order to teach them more about Islam.

Quran 16:125 calls Muslims to, “Invite (all) to the Way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious.”  Dawah is mentioned at least 19 times in the Explanatory Memorandum.  In fact, Mohamed Akram Adlouni, the author of the memo, signs the Foreword with the salutation, May God reward you good and keep you for His Daw’a, Your brother, Mohamed Akram.

Paragraph 12 of the AMJA Roadmap reinforces this premise:

From among the most important obligations during this stage is to support those institutions and organizations that serve the Muslim community, such as those interested in defending freedoms, civil rights and political activism, those dedicated to social services and relief, and those dedicated to Dawah, religious instruction and providing religious rulings. It is most unbelievable that there are some who cry over the state of the community and then they are too stingy to donate their time or money to such organizations. Worse than that are those who are even too stingy to pray for them or give them a kind word.  But the worst of all are those who seek to destroy such organizations.

U.S.-based Shariah-promoting organizations include the AMJA itself, as well as the Fatwa Center of America, the North American Imam’s Federation (NAIT), and the Institute of Islamic Education (IIE), which is part of a network of Islamic schools (Madrassas) operating across America.

So, when we go through the looking glass, we find out that Linda Sarsour is channeling (mainstreaming) the strategic goals of the Muslim Brotherhood here in America, as found in both the Explanatory Memorandum, and in the AMJA Roadmap.

We also discover that creating intersectional alliances is really just the cynical use of American style politics and social activism for the promotion of Islam, and, ultimately, to push us toward acceptance (normalization) of Islamic Shariah.

Giving support to ICNA Relief, ISNA, CAIR, MAS (13:43-13:48)

All four of these organizations are known front groups for the Muslim Brotherhood.  CAIR and ISNA remain unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial, while ICNA Relief and the Muslim American Society (MAS), have also been linked to support of terrorism (specifically, to the support of Hamas).

What does it say about Linda Sarsour, that she would encourage (exhort) Muslims in America to increase their financial support of these known pro-Shariah, pro-Jihad Muslim Brotherhood organizations?

And we still as a community find ourselves unprepared, in so many moments…Why, sisters and brothers, why are we so unprepared, Why are we so afraid of this administration, and the potential chaos, that they will ensue on our community…? (14:10-14:45)

At this point, Ms. Sarsour reinforces her basic theme, which is to resist the tyrannical, racist, relentlessly Islamophobic Trump administration.  She also uses the word ‘chaos,’ which is just another adjective for the Islamic concept of Fitnah.

From an Islamic (Quranic) perspective, she is now calling for the Muslim community in America to Prepare themselves fight Jihad against the Fitnah of the Islamophobic Trump administration.

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is Wa’a’idu (وَأَعِدُّو), which is translated ‘Be Prepared,’ or ‘Make Ready.’  Make ready for what, exactly?

The answer is found in Quran 8.60 (Al-Anfal – The Spoils of War), which says:

And prepare against them whatever you are able of power and of steeds of war by which you may terrify the enemy of Allah and your enemy and others besides them whom you do not know [but] whom Allah knows. And whatever you spend in the cause of Allah will be fully repaid to you, and you will not be wronged.

Also see Tafsir Ibn Kathir for Quran 8.60, which makes it very plain that this entire verse (in fact, the entire Chapter) is about preparing to wage war against unbelievers.

Once again, the Explanatory Memorandum has already laid the groundwork for the path that Ms. Sarsour (and the ISNA) are now following.  In a section entitled Understanding The Role Of The Muslim Brother In North America, the following emphatic declarations are made:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.

Page 8 of the Memo also addresses the theme of being prepared:

And in order for the process of settlement to be completed, we must plan and work from now to equip and prepare ourselves, our brothers, our apparatuses, our sections and our committees in order to turn into comprehensive organizations in a gradual and balanced way that is suitable with the need and the reality

All of this sounds remarkably similar to the major themes that Linda Sarsour emphasized during her ISNA speech.  In fact, Ms. Sarsour was obviously warning her ISNA audience, as well as the wider Muslim community, not be caught unprepared, or to be numbered among those who are counted as ‘slackers’ by Allah.

Now that we’ve gone through this part of the looking glass, we can finally get beyond the outward persona, and the social media hype, and the cultural barriers, and the gender sensitivities, and just listen to the actual words that Ms. Sarsour is saying.

When we do that, we soon discover that she is speaking a dialect of English that is 100 percent pure Muslim Brotherhood.

When I think about building power, I think about brothers like Abdul Sayed, who is in this room today, who is running to become the first Muslim Governor of the state of Michigan (14:49-16:07)

To set an example of taking direct action (i.e., political Jihad), Ms. Sarsour now endorses Abdul Sayed [Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed], who was seated in the audience, while urging the audience to donate to his political campaign (cue the applause).

At the same time, Ms. Sarsour also criticized “establishment Democrats” who have blocked Muslims from succeeding within the Democratic Party in the past, and declared that brother Sayed would change that.

On February 25, 2017, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed announced his bid to become the Democratic candidate for Governor of Michigan.  Dr. Sayed graduated from the University of Michigan on June 11, 2007, where he served as Vice President of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), and was also chosen for a [Paul & Daisy] Soros “New American” Fellowship.

With nearly 600 chapters located in the United States and Canada, the Muslim Students Association (MSA) is the most visible and influential Islamic student organization in North America.  The MSA was incorporated in January of 1963 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign,  with the goal of “spreading Islam as students in North America,” and for the specific purpose of Dawah (promoting Islam, as discussed above).

Dr. Sayed has grown up in an environment saturated with Muslim Brotherhood ideology.  If he is selected to run as the first Muslim Democratic candidate for Governor of Michigan, it will likely draw national (and international) interest.

We have to stay outraged…We as a Muslim community in these United States of America have to be Perpetually Outraged every single [day] (18:52-19:01)

Even this concept – Staying Perpetually Outraged – is alluded to in Reliance.  The title of Book Q is COMMANDING THE RIGHT AND FORBIDDING THE WRONG, which is based on a passage from the Hadith, “Command the right and forbid the wrong, or Allah will put the worst of you in charge of the best of you, and the best will supplicate Allah and be left unanswered.”

To add further context, Book Q of Reliance specifically discusses how Muslims should actively oppose the unjust leader (the tyrant, the oppressor), who does not rule his people according to Islamic Shariah.  Perhaps now, we can better understand why Ms. Sarsour’s determination to stay perpetually outraged is actually authorized by Islamic law.

Then, Chapter Q5.0 of Book Q, which is entitled THE ACT OF CENSURING, provides eight ‘degrees’ (levels) of authorized response when a Muslim encounters a non-Islamic ‘wrong act.’  Each one of these progressively more violent eight levels of response has ‘various degrees of severity and rules.’

For brevity, I will just include the main title of each one of the eight authorized degrees of response to a wrong act (i.e., Fitnah).

Q5.2: Knowledge of the Wrong Act

Q5.3: Explaining that Something is Wrong

Q5.4: Forbidding the Act Verbally

Q5.5: Censuring with Harsh Words

Q5.6: Fighting the Wrong By Hand

Q5.7: Intimidation

Q5.8: Assault

Q5.9: Force of Arms

Ms. Sarsour, haven’t we been told repeatedly that Islam is a benign, harmless religion of peace?

Do not ever be those citizens that normalize this administration, because when the day comes that something horrific happens to us, or to another community…you will be responsible for normalizing this administration…(19:18)

Once again, we can turn to the Quran, and to Reliance to find the deeper source of what Ms. Sarsour refers to as ‘normalization’ of a corrupt, tyrannical regime.

For example, Quran 4.89 warns Muslims that:

They wish you would disbelieve as they disbelieved so you would be alike. So do not take from among them allies until they emigrate for the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them and take not from among them any ally or helper.

Quran 5.51 gives an even more specific warning:

O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you – then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.

Section R7.1 of also Reliance reiterates this theme:

It is not permissible to give directions and the like to someone intending to perpetrate a sin, because it is helping another to commit disobedience. Allah Most High says, “Do not assist one another in sin and aggression” (Quran 5.2).

Once again, as we go through another part of the looking glass, we find that Ms. Sarsour’s use of the term ‘normalization’ is just a secular (political) equivalent of the well-established Islamic concept of opposing (‘striving against’ = Jihad) tyrants and unjust rulers.

Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community; it is not to assimilate and to please any other people in authority…(19:32-19:36)

The admonition to avoid assimilation into non-Muslim cultures is found in multiple places in the Quran (as in verse 5.51, cited above), as well as in the fundamental Islamic doctrine known as Al-Wala’ Wa’l-Bara (Loyalty and Enmity; see here and here), and in the Explanatory Memorandum, as stated here in paragraph 7 of the section entitled The Process of Settlement:

The success of the [Islamic] Movement in America in establishing an observant Islamic base with power and effectiveness will be the best support and aid to the global Movement project…the global Movement has not succeeded yet in “distributing roles” to its branches, stating what is needed from them as one of the participants or contributors to the project to establish the global Islamic state. The day this happens, the children of the American Ikhwani [Brotherhood] branch will have far-reaching impact and positions that make the ancestors proud.

In other words, more than thirty years ago, the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in North America was already looking ahead, to the time when an entire generation of American children would be raised under the influence of orthodox Ikhwan ideology, with the hope that this future American Muslim generation would play a central role in the establishment of a Shariah-compliant, global Islamic state (= Caliphate).

Nor is this strategic goal of non-assimilation and separation unique to North America.  Islamic communities in many western countries are in the process of balkanizing, as they rapidly transform into Shariah-compliant ‘no-go zones.’

Finally, if we refer one last time to the AMJA Roadmap, we find that in this time of calamity, chaos and crisis (i.e., the tyrannical Trump Administration), the AMJA scholars are not encouraging American Muslims to assimilate into mainstream culture, but instead advising them to further distance themselves from it, while building a protective barrier of Shariah, and preparing for the possibility of leaving the country entirely.

No wonder, then, that Linda Sarsour would feel compelled remind the audience of the ISNA, the premier Muslim Brotherhood organization in America, that their top priority is to “defend and protect our community; it is not to assimilate.”

Our top priority…even higher than all those [other] priorities, is to please Allah, and only Allah (19:52)

The concept of pleasing only Allah is found in at least 110 verses in the Quran, such as this example from Quran 5.55:

Your Guardian [Friend, Helper or Protector] can be only Allah; and His messenger and those who believe, who establish worship and pay the poor due, and bow down (in prayer).

As Linda Sarsour has said, we must be prepared.

Even if you don’t believe me (yet), then at least take a look at the world around you.

It remains my hope that America will never succumb to the temptation to hide our eyes (and ears) from the threat(s) we face.

Temple Mount: What’s the point in praying if you can’t bring your gun?

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This week a lot of people died in Israel. How did it all happen? What critical facts did the media leave out? And why do some headlines make it look like there’s no moral difference between the victims and the attackers who killed them? We break down the events, the facts and the media failures.

CORRECTION NOTE: The attack on the Temple Mount occurred on a Friday, not Thursday. Apologies for any confusion.

EDITORS NOTE: Readers who wish to communicate with Daniel and HonestReporting please follow them on Twitter: Daniel: @danielspeaksup or HonestReporting: @honestreporting

How My 40th Wedding Anniversary Relates to Race in America

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Sunday, July 23, 2017, was Mary and my 40th wedding anniversary. We celebrated at our favorite sushi restaurant. I enjoyed sashimi (raw fish without rice). Over 40 years ago, I brought this outspoken hippie blonde home to meet my black parents. Dad was a Methodist minister. I instructed Mary not to speak, confident she would say something to offend them.

Entering my parent’s home, Mary asked what is that horrible smell? I said that is dinner. Mom was cooking my favorite hog maws and chitterlings.

Dad was the pastor of our all black community’s Methodist Church. His eldest son dating a white girl was embarrassing.

Upon meeting me, Mary’s grandma said, “Lloyd is nice, But couldn’t you have found a nice white boy to marry?” As fate would have it, Mary’s grandma later succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease. The only family member she recognized was me. Excited, she would yell, “LLOYD” and give me a hug.

God really did right by me, gifting me with Mary; my greatest fan. I can honestly say I would not be who I am today had I married anyone else. I wrote and recorded a song to Mary many moons ago titled, “When I Look In Your Eyes.” The lyrics of the song are truer today than when I wrote them 30 years ago.

My parents were married for 45 years before mom passed away. I asked my now 89 year old dad how to make a marriage last. Dad said there always has to be one of you thinking correctly and praying. Dad said sometimes it was him and other times it was my mom.

Mary has always been super supportive of my endeavors; acting, my paintings, music career, writing and etc. Forty years ago, Natalie Reed, an extremely bright, beautiful and classy lady driving a pink Cadillac showed up at our home to present Mary with an opportunity to sell Mary Kay Cosmetics. Mary was hooked, became a beauty consultant and Natalie was her mentor.

The company had a sales contest in which beauty consultants had to make 10 presentations (shows) in a week. Mary entered the contest. I blew the whole thing off as her silly little make-up project.

Mary quickly booked her 10 shows, but women began canceling. Mary desperately re-booked shows. Plus, our car broke down. Still, Mary stayed laser focused on winning the contest. Finally, it dawned on me. This is a really big deal to her. I began doing whatever I could to help.

There were hundreds of beauty consultants and company big wigs at the banquet to announce the winner of the contest. My heart nearly exploded out of my chest when the sales director at the podium said the award for highest sales of the entire freaking region goes to Mary Parker Marcus. With great pride I thought, “Yeah, that’s my wife.”

I learned the importance of giving back to my wonderful supportive wife.

This month, we are relocating from Florida to a tiny town in West Virginia to be closer to our parents. West Virginia is not my favorite choice, but it will make Mary happy. And that is good enough for me.

On the day of my 40th wedding anniversary I received an email from a Leftist named Edward. He gave his full name, but I will not expose him. Edward began his email with “You are an a**. You sir are a vile piece of s***!” Edward then went into a passionate vitriolic rant against me, Trump and Jesus.

Normally, I laugh and delete hateful emails. But for some reason, I felt a bit sorry for Edward and responded to his email. Obviously, he is in pain and out of his mind with rage from consuming fake news regarding conservatism, Trump and Christianity.

I thought, “Why does this guy hate me so much?” In a nutshell, my writings are about spreading the truth to empower people. I tell fellow blacks that they are blessed to be born in the greatest land of opportunity on the planet. I tell them to forget the victim nonsense and simply pursue their dreams.

Over 40 years ago when I met Mary, interracial dating was taboo. We were verbally assaulted by blacks and physically attacked by whites on a hand full of occasions. In a surprise attack in a family restaurant, a white guy smashed a beer bottle over my head and ran out of the restaurant. He was later prosecuted.

Today, interracial couples hardly receive a second glance. Despite the insidious hate-generating lies of Black Lives Matter and fake news media, we have come a long ways baby in regards to race relations. Americans electing Obama for two terms should have ended Leftists’ lie that America will always be a hellhole of racism; scheming 24/7 how to keep blacks down.

Meanwhile, Mary and I enjoyed a fabulous 40th wedding anniversary.

Communism’s attack on America never died — It just changed tactics

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The U.S. is undergoing a cultural revolution similar to the one in England and Europe. If you believe our Democracy as outlined in the U.S. Constitution cannot be destroyed by the insidious cultural attack on our core values enshrined in the Hebrew Bible and the Christianity that is embodied in those Biblical moral codes you are mistaken.

The West thought they had defeated Communism with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing could be further from the truth. What changed was the Left’s tactics.

Ms Melanie Phillips clearly points out:

“What they [leaders in the West] never understood – at least, most of them – was that the left-wing war to destroy the west had not in fact ended but merely shifted its strategy. Instead of the workers seizing control of the levers of the economy, the left would now seize control of the levers of the culture – the universities, media, civil service, churches, the legal profession – and subvert them from within”.

“Its aim was to undermine and weaken the normative values of the west and then flip them, so that what was transgressive became normative while what was normative became ostracized as transgressive. That way the west would be destroyed and would be transformed into… quite what was never very clear, but some kind of new world order”.

“The institutions at which this cultural revolution took particular aim were the family and the education system – the principal means though which a culture replicates itself”.

Read this important article by Ms Phillips a brilliant journalist, speaker and author…

THE TORY JACOBINS

The reason why conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic have lost their way so badly in recent years is that they never understood, and paid scant attention to, the culture wars. In Britain, this has now led some of them to come out as warriors on the wrong side.

Conservatism is not an ideology but an attitude of mind. It involves identifying and holding onto what is most valuable and defending it against erosion or attack. In the 18th century this was embodied in the thinking of Edmund Burke, widely considered to be the philosophical godfather of conservative thought, when he defended freedom and human rights against the barbarism of the French Revolution.

In the 20th century, conservatives knew what they were defending and against whom. They were defending liberty and democracy against Soviet communism. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they assumed their fox had been shot since everyone seemed to have accepted capitalism.

What they never understood – at least, most of them – was that the left-wing war to destroy the west had not in fact ended but merely shifted its strategy. Instead of the workers seizing control of the levers of the economy, the left would now seize control of the levers of the culture – the universities, media, civil service, churches, the legal profession – and subvert them from within.

Its aim was to undermine and weaken the normative values of the west and then flip them, so that what was transgressive became normative while what was normative became ostracised as transgressive. That way the west would be destroyed and would be transformed into… quite what was never very clear, but some kind of new world order.

The institutions at which this cultural revolution took particular aim were the family and the education system – the principal means though which a culture replicates itself.

Read more.

Avoid this store: Do your back-to-school shopping elsewhere

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As back-to-school shopping season nears, I’m asking your family to avoid shopping at Target stores…and to warn your friends about the danger Target presents to women and children.

Together we are making an unprecedented financial impact on a corporation whose policy is to allow men to use women’s restrooms and dressing rooms. Target’s decision is unacceptable for families, and their dangerous and misguided policy continues to put women and children in harm’s way.

We must keep the pressure on Target by avoiding their stores during back-to-school shopping. Let’s educate Target to the fact that their bathroom policy earns them a failing grade.

Take Action

Target is dependent on a large back-to-school sales season. By spending your money with their competitors, you are sending a strong message to Target that their policy is bad for business.

  1. Forward this information to friends and family. Invite them to sign the boycott pledge at www.afa.net/target.
  2. If you haven’t already, sign the #BoycottTarget pledge. Invite your family and friends to sign the pledge too.
  3. Call Target headquarters at 612-304-6073 and personally let them know you are boycotting their stores.
  4. Visit www.afa.net/target for more tools and information on the Boycott Target pledge.

If our mission resonates with you, please consider supporting our work financially with a tax-deductible donation. The easiest way to do that is through online giving. It is easy to use, and most of all, it is secure.

Jared Kushner and the collusion between the media and Democrats

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It seems that the media can’t get enough of the word collusion when it comes to President Trump, his family and his administration. We now know the truth about Jared C. Kushner and the Russia, the media’s boogeyman to discredit this President. It seems that the real collusion is between the media and Democrats.

Collusion is defined as “a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.”

Does this not describe what the media, the deep state and Democrats are doing? Are they not colluding?

The public is tired of eating nothing burgers. Its time for the media to be called out for what it is, the propaganda arm of the Democrat party.

Please take the time to read the statement of Jared Kushner that he released to the press. He’s honest, straight forward, working for the good of the United States and the state of Israel.

These attempts to discredit Mr. Kushner, who is Jewish, is akin to the kind of hate we saw during the rise, and eventual fall, of the Nazi Party.

The comparisons are too stark and too consistent. The media did collude with the Clinton campaign during the primary and general election. The media created conspiracies during the election and since President Trump was inaugurated. The media, the deep state and Democrats have cheated and deceived the American people.

But, thankfully, its not working. The resistance is dying of its own hate. The Democrats can’t win even one of the special elections since President Trump’s inaugural. Finally, the Democrats, in a fit of desperation, have re-branded themselves in name only. Democrats keep losing, the media keeps losing and the deep state keeps harming the national security of the United States of America.

Time for this to end and end now. Report what is important, what is relevant and what is truthful. You already know the cost CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and PBS. You already know the cost Democrats.

You are all committing suicide by collusion.

STATEMENT OF JARED C. KUSHNER TO CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES 

July 24, 2017

I am voluntarily providing this statement, submitting documents, and sitting for interviews in order to shed light on issues that have been raised about my role in the Trump for President Campaign and during the transition period.

I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception. Because there has been a great deal of conjecture, speculation, and inaccurate information about me, I am grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight.

My Role in the Trump for President Campaign

Before joining the administration, I worked in the private sector, building and managing companies. My experience was in business, not politics, and it was not my initial intent to play a large role in my father-in-law’s campaign when he decided to run for President. However, as the campaign progressed, I was called on to assist with various tasks and aspects of the campaign, and took on more and more responsibility.

Over the course of the primaries and general election campaign, my role continued to evolve. I ultimately worked with the finance, scheduling, communications, speechwriting, polling, data and digital teams, as well as becoming a point of contact for foreign government officials.

All of these were tasks that I had never performed on a campaign previously. When I was faced with a new challenge, I would reach out to contacts, ask advice, find the right person to manage the specific challenge, and work with that person to develop and execute a plan of action. I was lucky to work with some incredibly talented people along the way, all of whom made significant contributions toward the campaign’s ultimate success. Our nimble culture allowed us to adjust to the ever-changing circumstances and make changes on the fly as the situation warranted. I share this information because these actions should be viewed through the lens of a fast-paced campaign with thousands of meetings and interactions, some of which were impactful and memorable and many of which were not.

It is also important to note that a campaign’s success starts with its message and its messenger. Donald Trump had the right vision for America and delivered his message perfectly. The results speak for themselves. Not only did President Trump defeat sixteen skilled and experienced primary opponents and win the presidency; he did so spending a fraction of what his opponent spent in the general election. He outworked his opponent and ran one of the best campaigns in history using both modern technology and traditional methods to bring his message to the American people.

Campaign Contacts with Foreign Persons

When it became apparent that my father-in-law was going to be the Republican nominee for President, as normally happens, a number of officials from foreign countries attempted to reach out to the campaign. My father-in-law asked me to be a point of contact with these foreign countries. These were not contacts that I initiated, but, over the course of the campaign, I had incoming contacts with people from approximately 15 countries. To put these requests in context, I must have received thousands of calls, letters and emails from people looking to talk or meet on a variety of issues and topics, including hundreds from outside the United States. While I could not be responsive to everyone, I tried to be respectful of any foreign government contacts with whom it would be important to maintain an ongoing, productive working relationship were the candidate to prevail. To that end, I called on a variety of people with deep experience, such as Dr. Henry Kissinger, for advice on policy for the candidate, which countries/representatives with which the campaign should engage, and what messaging would resonate. In addition, it was typical for me to receive 200 or more emails a day during the campaign. I did not have the time to read every one, especially long emails from unknown senders or email chains to which I was added at some later point in the exchange.

With respect to my contacts with Russia or Russian representatives during the campaign, there were hardly any. The first that I can recall was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C. in April 2016. This was when then candidate Trump was delivering a major foreign policy speech. Doing the event and speech had been my idea, and I oversaw its execution. I arrived at the hotel early to make sure all logistics were in order. After that, I stopped into the reception to thank the host of the event, Dimitri Simes, the publisher of the bi-monthly foreign policy magazine, The National Interest, who had done a great job putting everything together. Mr. Simes and his group had created the guest list and extended the invitations for the event. He introduced me to several guests, among them four ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. With all the ambassadors, including Mr. Kislyak, we shook hands, exchanged brief pleasantries and I thanked them for attending the event and said I hoped they would like candidate Trump’s speech and his ideas for a fresh approach to America’s foreign policy. The ambassadors also expressed interest in creating a positive relationship should we win the election. Each exchange lasted less than a minute; some gave me their business cards and invited me to lunch at their embassies. I never took them up on any of these invitations and that was the extent of the interactions.

Reuters news service has reported that I had two calls with Ambassador Kislyak at some time between April and November of 2016. While I participated in thousands of calls during this period, I do not recall any such calls with the Russian Ambassador. We have reviewed the phone records available to us and have not been able to identify any calls to any number we know to be associated with Ambassador Kislyak and I am highly skeptical these calls took place. A comprehensive review of my land line and cell phone records from the time does not reveal those calls. I had no ongoing relationship with the Ambassador before the election, and had limited knowledge about him then. In fact, on November 9, the day after the election, I could not even remember the name of the Russian Ambassador. When the campaign received an email purporting to be an official note of congratulations from President Putin, I was asked how we could verify it was real. To do so I thought the best way would be to ask the only contact I recalled meeting from the Russian government, which was the Ambassador I had met months earlier, so I sent an email asking Mr. Simes, “What is the name of the Russian ambassador?” Through my lawyer, I have asked Reuters to provide the dates on which the calls supposedly occurred or the phone number at which I supposedly reached, or was reached by, Ambassador Kislyak. The journalist refused to provide any corroborating evidence that they occurred.

The only other Russian contact during the campaign is one I did not recall at all until I was reviewing documents and emails in response to congressional requests for information. In June 2016, my brother-in-law, Donald Trump Jr. asked if I was free to stop by a meeting on June 9 at 3:00 p.m. The campaign was headquartered in the same building as his office in Trump Tower, and it was common for each of us to swing by the other’s meetings when requested. He eventually sent me his own email changing the time of the meeting to 4:00 p.m. That email was on top of a long back and forth that I did not read at the time. As I did with most emails when I was working remotely, I quickly reviewed on my iPhone the relevant message that the meeting would occur at 4:00 PM at his office. Documents confirm my memory that this was calendared as “Meeting: Don Jr.| Jared Kushner.” No one else was mentioned.

I arrived at the meeting a little late. When I got there, the person who has since been identified as a Russian attorney was talking about the issue of a ban on U.S. adoptions of Russian children. I had no idea why that topic was being raised and quickly determined that my time was not well-spent at this meeting. Reviewing emails recently confirmed my memory that the meeting was a waste of our time and that, in looking for a polite way to leave and get back to my work, I actually emailed an assistant from the meeting after I had been there for ten or so minutes and wrote “Can u pls call me on my cell? Need excuse to get out of meeting.” I had not met the attorney before the meeting nor spoken with her since. I thought nothing more of this short meeting until it came to my attention recently. I did not read or recall this email exchange before it was shown to me by my lawyers when reviewing documents for submission to the committees. No part of the meeting I attended included anything about the campaign, there was no follow up to the meeting that I am aware of, I do not recall how many people were there (or their names), and I have no knowledge of any documents being offered or accepted. Finally, after seeing the email, I disclosed this meeting prior to it being reported in the press on a supplement to my security clearance form, even if that was not required as meeting the definitions of the form.

There was one more possible contact that I will note. On October 30, 2016, I received a random email from the screenname “Guccifer400.” This email, which I interpreted as a hoax, was an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump’s tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information. I brought the email to the attention of a U.S. Secret Service agent on the plane we were all travelling on and asked what he thought. He advised me to ignore it and not to reply — which is what I did. The sender never contacted me again.

To the best of my recollection, these were the full extent of contacts I had during the campaign with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

Transition Contacts with Foreign Persons

The transition period after the election was even more active than the campaign. Starting on election night, we began to receive an incredible volume of messages and invitations from well-wishers in the United States and abroad. Dozens of messages came from foreign officials seeking to set up foreign leader calls and create lines of communication and relationships with what would be the new administration. During this period, I recall having over fifty contacts with people from over fifteen countries. Two of those meetings were with Russians, neither of which I solicited.

On November 16, 2016, my assistant received a request for a meeting from the Russian Ambassador. As I mentioned before, previous to receiving this request, I could not even recall the Russian Ambassador’s name, and had to ask for the name of the individual I had seen at the Mayflower Hotel almost seven months earlier. In addition, far from being urgent, that meeting was not set up for two weeks — on December 1. The meeting occurred in Trump Tower, where we had our transition office, and lasted twenty- thirty minutes. Lt. General Michael Flynn (Ret.), who became the President’s National Security Advisor, also attended. During the meeting, after pleasantries were exchanged, as I had done in many of the meetings I had and would have with foreign officials, I stated our desire for a fresh start in relations. Also, as I had done in other meetings with foreign officials, I asked Ambassador Kislyak if he would identify the best person (whether the Ambassador or someone else) with whom to have direct discussions and who had contact with his President. The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day.

The Ambassador expressed similar sentiments about relations, and then said he especially wanted to address U.S. policy in Syria, and that he wanted to convey information from what he called his “generals.” He said he wanted to provide information that would help inform the new administration. He said the generals could not easily come to the U.S. to convey this information and he asked if there was a secure line in the transition office to conduct a conversation. General Flynn or I explained that there were no such lines. I believed developing a thoughtful approach on Syria was a very high priority given the ongoing humanitarian crisis, and I asked if they had an existing communications channel at his embassy we could use where they would be comfortable transmitting the information they wanted to relay to General Flynn. The Ambassador said that would not be possible and so we all agreed that we would receive this information after the Inauguration. Nothing else occurred. I did not suggest a “secret back channel.” I did not suggest an on-going secret form of communication for then or for when the administration took office. I did not raise the possibility of using the embassy or any other Russian facility for any purpose other than this one possible conversation in the transition period. We did not discuss sanctions.

Approximately a week later, on December 6, the Embassy asked if I could meet with the Ambassador on December 7. I declined. They then asked if I could meet on December 6; I declined again. They then asked when the earliest was that I could meet. I declined these requests because I was working on many other responsibilities for the transition. He asked if he could meet my assistant instead and, to avoid offending the Ambassador, I agreed. He did so on December 12. My assistant reported that the Ambassador had requested that I meet with a person named Sergey Gorkov who he said was a banker and someone with a direct line to the Russian President who could give insight into how Putin was viewing the new administration and best ways to work together. I agreed to meet Mr. Gorkov because the Ambassador has been so insistent, said he had a direct relationship with the President, and because Mr. Gorkov was only in New York for a couple days. I made room on my schedule for the meeting that occurred the next day, on December 13.

The meeting with Mr. Gorkov lasted twenty to twenty-five minutes. He introduced himself and gave me two gifts — one was a piece of art from Nvgorod, the village where my grandparents were from in Belarus, and the other was a bag of dirt from that same village. (Any notion that I tried to conceal this meeting or that I took it thinking it was in my capacity as a businessman is false. In fact, I gave my assistant these gifts to formally register them with the transition office). After that, he told me a little about his bank and made some statements about the Russian economy. He said that he was friendly with President Putin, expressed disappointment with U.S.-Russia relations under President Obama and hopes for a better relationship in the future. As I did at the meeting with Ambassador Kislyak, I expressed the same sentiments I had with other foreign officials I met. There were no specific policies discussed. We had no discussion about the sanctions imposed by the Obama Administration. At no time was there any discussion about my companies, business transactions, real estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind. At the end of the short meeting, we thanked each other and I went on to other meetings. I did not know or have any contact with Mr. Gorkov before that meeting, and I have had no reason to connect with him since.

To the best of my recollection, these were the only two contacts I had during the transition with persons who were or appeared to potentially be representatives of the Russian government.

Disclosure of Contacts on My Security Clearance Form

There has been a good deal of misinformation reported about my SF-86 form. As my attorneys and I have previously explained, my SF-86 application was prematurely submitted due to a miscommunication and initially did not list any contacts (not just with Russians) with foreign government officials. Here are some facts about that form and the efforts I have made to supplement it.

In the week before the Inauguration, amid the scramble of finalizing the unwinding of my involvement from my company, moving my family to Washington, completing the paper work to divest assets and resign from my outside positions and complete my security and financial disclosure forms, people at my New York office were helping me find the information, organize it, review it and put it into the electronic form. They sent an email to my assistant in Washington, communicating that the changes to one particular section were complete; my assistant interpreted that message as meaning that the entire form was completed. At that point, the form was a rough draft and still had many omissions including not listing any foreign government contacts and even omitted the address of my father-in-law (which was obviously well known). Because of this miscommunication, my assistant submitted the draft on January 18, 2017.

That evening, when we realized the form had been submitted prematurely, we informed the transition team that we needed to make changes and additions to the form. The very next day, January 19, 2017, we submitted supplemental information to the transition, which confirmed receipt and said they would immediately transmit it to the FBI. The supplement disclosed that I had “numerous contacts with foreign officials” and that we were going through my records to provide an accurate and complete list. I provided a list of those contacts in the normal course, before my background investigation interview and prior to any inquiries or media reports about my form.

It has been reported that my submission omitted only contacts with Russians. That is not the case. In the accidental early submission of the form, all foreign contacts were omitted. The supplemental information later disclosed over one hundred contacts from more than twenty countries that might be responsive to the questions on the form. These included meetings with individuals such as Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Luis Videgaray Caso and many more. All of these had been left off before.

Over the last six months, I have made every effort to provide the FBI with whatever information is needed to investigate my background. In addition, my attorneys have explained that the security clearance process is one in which supplements are expected and invited. The form itself instructs that, during the interview, the information in the document can be “update[d], clarif[ied], and explain[ed]” as part of the security clearance process. A good example is the June 9 meeting. For reasons that should be clear from the explanation of that meeting I have provided, I did not remember the meeting and certainly did not remember it as one with anyone who had to be included on an SF-86. When documents reviewed for production in connection with committee requests reminded me that meeting had occurred, and because of the language in the email chain that I then read for the first time, I included that meeting on a supplement. I did so even though my attorneys were unable to conclude that the Russian lawyer was a representative of any foreign country and thus fell outside the scope of the form. This supplemental information was also provided voluntarily, well prior to any media inquiries, reporting or request for this information, and it was done soon after I was reminded of the meeting.

As I have said from the very first media inquiry, I am happy to share information with the investigating bodies. I have shown today that I am willing to do so and will continue to cooperate as I have nothing to hide. As I indicated, I know there has been a great deal of speculation and conjecture about my contacts with any officials or people from Russia. I have disclosed these contacts and described them as fully as I can recall. The record and documents I am providing will show that I had perhaps four contacts with Russian representatives out of thousands during the campaign and transition, none of which were impactful in any way to the election or particularly memorable. I am very grateful for the opportunity to set the record straight. I also have tried to provide context for my role in the campaign, and I am proud of the candidate that we supported, of the campaign that we ran, and the victory that we achieved.

It has been my practice not to appear in the media or leak information in my own defense. I have tried to focus on the important work at hand and serve this President and this country to the best of my abilities. I hope that through my answers to questions, written statements and documents I have now been able to demonstrate the entirety of my limited contacts with Russian representatives during the campaign and transition. I did not collude, nor know of anyone else in the campaign who colluded, with any foreign government. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds to finance my business activities in the private sector. I have tried to be fully transparent with regard to the filing of my SF-86 form, above and beyond what is required. Hopefully, this puts these matters to rest.

RELATED ARTICLE: Liberals’ Allegations of Treason Against Don Jr. Fall Short

Trump Supporters Prepare for Battle

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Since the day Donald J. Trump announced his bid for the White House, he has been embattled with globalist “never-Trumpers” across the aisle, around the globe and in his own party.

They tried to prevent him from entering the race – tried to defeat him in the primaries with a dozen high-profile contenders – tried to defeat him in the general election with “sure thing” Hillary Clinton and her global war machine… and have since thrown everything including the kitchen sink at him in an effort to remove him from the Oval Office.

No U.S. President in history has survived so much assault in such little time… but the opposition will not give up or give in, no matter the sentiments of 63 million Americans who chose Trump to lead America out of the anti-American secular-socialist abyss that the global left led us into.

IMPEACHMENT?

Talk of impeaching Trump is nothing but a diversionary tactic designed to manipulate broad public opinion into believing that Trump has committed “impeachable offenses” when it’s no secret that no such offenses have been committed by Trump or anyone in his administration.

Despite zero evidence of successful “Russian hacking” into the 2016 elections or any “collusion” between the Trump Campaign and Russia, the “fake” narrative and ongoing “investigations” continue. Meanwhile, evidence of real criminal collusion and corruption committed by Clinton and the Democratic Party is not being investigated. Trump should have kept his promise to “lock them up” immediately following his inauguration and he is paying a price for not doing that today.

Impeachment was never really on the table for following three reasons;

  1. There are no impeachable offenses
  2. They don’t have the votes in congress
  3. Impeachment would allow Trump a defense

But they can use impeachment chatter to convince many Americans that Trump is “impeachable” and provides aid and cover for the real plan, while move public opinion in their direction and blocking the “Trump agenda” from moving forward under a cloud of doubt.

THE REAL PLAN

Because the three above reasons make impeachment of Trump impossible, “never-Trumpers” needed a different plan, one that did not require impeachable offenses of any evidence thereof, impeachment votes in congress or would allow Trump a defense against his accusers.

Trump’s opposition has worked feverishly around the clock to find a way to legally remove Trump from the Oval Office without using impeachment. They searched high and low for that solution, while they used impeachment chatter to raise doubts about Trump’s ability to serve.

They found their solution in two alternative forms…

  1. A 25th Amendment removal based on “unfit to serve” for any number of reasons.
  2. An obscure memo from Ken Starr alleging a President may be indicted outside of impeachment.

The 25th Amendment Solution

Section 4. reads in part as follows – “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”

Section 1. reads – “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”

Key to using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the Oval Office is the Vice President, Mike Pence. In order to use the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from power, Vice President Mike Pence must be on-board. No one can remove Trump from the presidency via the 25th Amendment without Vice President Mike Pence leading that effort.

So, where do Vice President Mike Pence’s loyalties stand? With 63 million voters, or with his globalist friends in the GOP?

The Ken Starr Solution

In the massive search for how to remove Trump from the Oval Office, an obscure memo written by then Special Prosecutor Ken Starr was discovered, in which Starr states his legal opinion that a sitting President can be indicted outside of impeachment proceedings.

This opinion flies in the face of Article II – Section IV of the U.S. Constitution, which reads – “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment.” Further, they can only be impeached – “for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

It also flies in the face of Oval Office immunity from prosecution, other than by way of impeachment. Presidents are not to be removed from office by any other means than impeachment, nor for light and transient political reasons.

Congress alone has the constitutional power to remove a sitting president by way of impeachment. The impeachment of a sitting president is an indictment, which requires the accused be given a right to a defense against the charges asserted.

Ken Starr may have a different opinion, but even he did not act on that opinion. Bill Clinton was impeached.

63 MILLION PREPARE TO ENGAGE THE BATTLE

63 million Americans did not buy into a “Trump agenda.” Trump bought into their agenda. So, any effort to remove Trump from power or obstruct “the people’s” agenda is not just an assault on Donald J. Trump, it is an act of war against 63 million Americans who elected Trump to lead the way on their agenda and they are getting sick and tired of watching their President under constant attack.

If the globalist left “never-Trumpers” want a war with 63 million Americans, they will get it… If they think they can thwart the will of 63 million Americans, they had better think a bit more carefully.

Americans went incumbent, career-politician hunting in 2016 for a reason and they are just getting started in their revolution to reclaim control over the future of freedom in America.

Subversive actions have consequences.

RELATED ARTICLE: To Sink Trump is to Sink Ordinary Americans | Opinion – Conservative

“Trump Hasn’t Done Anything!” Is False. Here’s the Truth

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“Trump and Republicans haven’t done anything!”

We see that refrain constantly on our Facebook and Twitter feeds, and it is driven by a hostile media that hyper-focuses on Russia largely to the exclusion of other real stories regarding the Trump administration. It doesn’t help that Congress seems incapable of doing with Obamacare what they did for six years — vote to repeal it — or that Trump helps the media stay distracted with his Twitter feed.

But it is a false narrative, falsely promoted.

This is not a Trump apologist article. He’s made his mistakes, and undoubtedly will make more. But this is an attempt to honestly lay out context, with basic facts and some data points, that show what Trump is actually doing in the office of President.

And it’s not at all what you would expect based on media coverage. In fact, it turns out that Trump is right in line regarding signed legislation with modern presidents and actually a little ahead of President Obama and well ahead of President Bush — with the caveat that there are not as many major pieces of legislation as Obama’s first six months.

Of course the problem with this kind of purposely unbalanced coverage is that it drives Trump’s poll numbers into the toilet. Frankly, it’s astonishing they are as good as they are — and they’re not good — when you look at not only what is being reported, but what isn’t.

So let’s take a look at what has been given short shrift.

Trump Twitter forces an admission

As is fairly common, Trump’s Twitter account drives a lot of news cycles. A recent Trump tweet claimed he’d passed the most legislation in history. Well the media fell all over themselves to point out that this was not true, because this was not true and easily proven.

However, most Democrats and many in the media continually say that he is in trouble with his base because he’s not getting anything done — which is different. Of course, they’re actually hoping he is in trouble with his base, but he’s probably not. His base is looking at Congress and the media as the problem.

The Boston Globe, like hundreds of other newspapers, wrote a big story to knock down the Trump Twitter claim. And even in that endeavor, they were forced to write:

“Among recent presidents, both the total number of bills he signed and the legislation’s substance make Trump about average.”

Not what your average Democrat, or maybe even many other Americans, think. Good for the Globe for including it.

So in the big picture, Trump is actually not outside the norm in getting things done when compared to other modern presidents at this point in their presidencies. He doesn’t have many big legislative accomplishments — specifically not ridding the healthcare system of the poison of Obamacare — but has done a lot of smaller things that will have strong impacts.

Plenty of accomplishments in six months

Here’s a topical breakdown of what Trump has accomplished in his first six months:

  • Energy:  Approving the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines and pulling out of Paris Climate Accords were both good for working Americans. These will combine to reduce energy costs for all Americans and provide tens of thousands of above-average American jobs.
  • Military:  Beginning the long and arduous task of rebuilding our military, which his predecessor used and abused by dramatically underfunding. Obviously the American military is crucial to American security, and Trump’s budget added $54 billion to the budget. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
  • Foreign:  Re-establishing defenses for our allies in Eastern Europe against Russian threats and bullying; increasing military pressure on ISIS, which is in full retreat; re-establishing trust with our strongest allies in Great Britain and Israel.
  • Courts:  Installing Justice Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and nominating dozens of great judges to federal court positions, which obstructionist Democrats are blocking in their entirety. The courts are exerting an outsized influence on American laws now and so this is a critically important area.
  • Border:  Ending the ridiculous catch-and-release policy for people caught illegally crossing the border; starting on building the wall; increasing illegal immigration arrests by 38 percent and reducing illegal border crossings by 73 percent; signing Kate’s Law to increase penalties on previously deported criminals.
  • Government:  Firing 500 people in the malfunctioning and just gosh-awful Department of Veterans Affairs; Eliminating burdensome regulations that smother businesses, particularly through the EPA that makes everything more expensive for Americans; re-starting NASA with its first budget in six years at $19.5 billion; repopulating Gitmo with our most dangerous enemies, rather than releasing enemy terrorists to go back into the field against us.

There is a long, long ways to go for President Trump and his promises. But despite the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., including the lopsided media coverage, Trump is doing a far better job so far in keeping his promises than most Americans realize.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

Would Baby Charlie Have Gotten Death Sentence if Not a White Male?

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Would baby Charlie have gotten his death sentence were he not a white boy? It may seem an odd question, but there’s a good reason to pose it.

The poor child at issue is Charlie Gard, a British infant thus far denied medical treatment by the U.K. government — even though his parents can pay for it themselves. So much for death panels being a myth.

Charlie has a serious genetic condition called mitochondrial depletion syndrome, which causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage. The details of it aren’t important here, however. What’s significant is that the boy’s parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, have raised $1.7 million via crowd-funding and can pay for travel and treatment themselves; this would allow them to bring Charlie to the U.S. for a novel therapy offered by a Dr. Michio Hirano.

“Would” is the operative word because the British medical establishment, bureaucracy and courts have, again, thus far said “No, you may not seek further treatment for your son. It doesn’t matter that you’re paying the piper; we’re calling the tune and say he must be allowed to die with ‘dignity’” (as if these statists have even the foggiest idea what that is).

And we’ll have to wait to see if it matters that, according to Dr. Hirano, the new therapy would give Charlie an 11 to 56 percent chance of meaningful improvement, which, even under Common Core math, is far better than the zero percent chance offered by Oceania. (Note: British authorities just recently granted Charlie an 11-day “stay of execution,” so to speak, so that Hirano can travel to the U.K. to evaluate him.) But on to my opening, eyebrow-and-doubts-raising question.

To illustrate why I ask it, here’s a little background. It was revealed in 2014 that British authorities had ignored Pakistani Muslim child sex-trafficking rings for 16 years — even though the perpetrators were responsible for the abuse (and sometimes torture) of at least 1400 girls, some as young as 12. In fact, when complaints were made, the girls were often dismissed as tramps to justify the inaction.

Of course, they were only white girls.

And this abuse is still occurring, we hear.

The reason for turning this blind eye has been absolutely established: The authorities, from police to bureaucrats to social workers, were afraid that pursuing Muslim criminals would get them branded “racist.”

In fact, some of the girls who went to the police “were told they were being racist,” reported The Federalist. And a Home Office researcher attempting to blow the whistle was warned by a colleague that she “must never [again] refer to Asian men” (“Asian” references Muslims in the U.K.). She also was forced into diversity indoctrination to raise her “awareness of ethnic issues.”

You see, better to allow young girls to be raped and brutalized than to, as one British politician put it, “rock the multicultural community boat.”

That is, in today’s (formerly) Great Britain — one of the more politically correct places on Earth.

Now back to poor Charlie. Would the powers-that-be have denied the opportunity for life if he were, let’s say, a Muslim female?

I believe the likely answer is no. They’d be too afraid of accusations of racism (yes, I know “Muslim” isn’t a race, but leftists use “racism” as synonymous with “bigotry”); they’d be worried about their reputations and careers. Their whole mindset would be different. Remember, again, the U.K. is a place where the rape of little white girls is preferable to the implicating of swarthy men.

Yet it’s not just fears of labeling, but also something far darker. In today’s world of identity politics — where we hear about mythical “white privilege,” “dead white males,” “the problem of whiteness” college courses, and prohibitions against whites expressing opinions — white males are lowest on the totem pole. They get the most grief and blame and the least consideration and charity — and compassion. Hey, given group voting patterns, Charlie could grow up to be a Tory or, perish the thought, even a Brexit supporter.

To be clear, I’m not saying the biases in question here are generally conscious. They are mainly, if not completely, those unconscious biases (you know, those things you leftists ever warn about but always get wrong). Man has a great capacity for rationalization, and Charlie’s grim-reaper judges have no doubt convinced themselves they’re acting in the “best interests of the child.” And were the baby a Muslim female, I suspect they would’ve rendered the opposite decision and deferred to the parents without prodding, again convincing themselves of their righteousness.

To those taking offense at my speculation, realize it’s similar to when activists respond to the shooting of a black criminal by claiming it wouldn’t have happened had the miscreant been white. The only difference is that they’re wrong — police are actually more likely to shoot white criminals than black ones — while my suspicion has a basis in today’s social reality.

And this reality is that with the current group spoils system, race and sex can determine one’s chance of enjoying college scholarships, good jobs, justice in court and, perhaps even, life itself.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

RELATED ARTICLE: How Britain’s Surrender to the UN Led to Charlie Gard’s Fate

Some Recent Energy & Environmental News

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The newest edition of the Energy and Environmental Newsletter is now online. To start to balance the incessant Russian “news” stories, below I’ve supplied a few pertinent articles that you won’t see in the mainstream media.

Some of the more informative energy articles in this issue are:

Superior: New EU Proposals Would Kill Solar and Wind

Property and Wind Turbines: A Missing Point in the Discussion

Tourists Shun Areas Hit by Wind Turbine ‘Blight’

Navy: Interference From Wind Farms Dangerous to Military Aircraft

Study: A New Methodology for Investigating Turbine Infrasound Complaints

Wind turbines damage human health says Portuguese scientist

Wind and Solar Energy Are Dead Ends

The Best of Alex Epstein (so far)

73% Of World’s Renewable Energy Is Made By Burning Wood & Dung

The Trump Doctrine on Energy

Environmental Progress: a worthwhile site on nuclear power

Some of the more interesting Global Warming articles in this issue are:

How Science Is Losing Its Humanity

Agenda Behind Global Warming Alarmism

A Step Toward Scientific Integrity at the EPA

Study: Temp Adjustments Account for Nearly All of the Climate Warming Data

Most of what you’ve read about Greenland is wrong

Looks Like Global Action On “Climate Change” Is Dead

Climate Scientist Says Debating Scientific Theories Would Be ‘Un-American’

EPA plans to challenge climate science in series of debates

Pittsburgh, Not Paris: Explaining the Climate Hysteria

Some Russia and related articles in this issue are:

Short video: Russians Funding US Environmental Groups

Russia’s Propaganda War on Fossil Fuels

Why the Russians Conceived the Global Warming Scam

Russia as Media Manipulator: Nothing New

From Russia With Love

The Nazi Origins of Renewable Energy (and Global Warming)

Ecofascists Needed an Enemy, So They Chose Fossil Fuels

PS: Our intention is to put some balance into what most people see from the mainstream media about energy and environmental issues… As always, please pass this on to open-minded citizens, and on your social media sites. If there are others who you think would benefit from being on our energy & environmental email list, please let me know. If at any time you’d like to be taken off the list,simply send me an email saying that.

PPS: I am not an attorney, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or our WiseEnergy.org website) should be construed as giving legal advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent attorney when you are involved with legal issues.

Facebook censor: ‘When I can save someone from seeing something, I find that really good’

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“Holocaust denial, incitement of hatred, as well as racist and anti-Semitic speech are all illegal under German law.”

Holocaust denial is a fairly straightforward concept, as is anti-Semitic speech, but “incitement of hatred” and “racist” speech are much less clearly definable concepts. Who gets to decide what is “incitement of hatred” and “racism”? Why, the nameless Facebook censors profiled in this article, all of whom no doubt have a far-Left point of view.

For years, Islamic and Leftist groups have insisted that any analysis of how Islamic jihadis use the texts and teachings of Islam to incite violence and hatred was itself “incitement of hatred.” Now the other shoe has dropped: Facebook and other hard-Left social media outlets are blocking what they consider to be “incitement of hatred,” with no notice, no appeal, and no recourse.

Consequently, referrals from Facebook to Jihad Watch dropped by 90% in mid-February, and never recovered. Reporting on jihad activity is not in any genuine sense “incitement of hatred,” but the Left says it is, and so that is the end of the matter.

Meanwhile, Facebook has repeatedly assured the Pakistani government that it will enforce Sharia blasphemy laws:

Many people will no doubt respond to this article that it doesn’t matter: they avoid Facebook, and everyone else should as well. That’s fine, but Facebook still has a massive international clientele, giving it extraordinary power over the means of communication. And it is, under the guise of policing “hate speech,” steadily choking out all voices that don’t toe the far-Left line.

This is extremely important, as the freedom of speech is indispensable to the freedom of society in general. But since the Left controls so much of the means of communication, it has gotten scant notice. Most people do not realize how far advanced the war against the freedom of speech really is. I lay it all out in my new book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies).

“‘No more faith in humanity’: A day in the life of Berlin Facebook moderators,” The Local, July 11, 2017 (thanks to M.):

For the first time, Facebook opened up its Berlin centre for deleting hateful or violent content, providing journalists with a glimpse into the workers’ everyday dealings with decapitation videos, racist propaganda and child pornography.

“I still remember the first beheading video – I turned it off, went outside and wept a little bit,” said one female employee.

But she said that this was her only breakdown, because the first time she was unprepared.

“Now we’re so used to it, that it’s not so horrible anymore,” the 28-year-old explained.

This was the first time that journalists were allowed to speak with three workers at Facebook’s deletion centre, though they were not allowed to give their names so as to protect their identities.

In total, 650 people work in this multifaceted operation to examine and delete posts which could be considered illegal, or against Facebook’s own rules.

They alert Facebook when they believe that someone could harm themselves or others. These workers have already been able to prevent suicides through subsequent contact with police, they say.

One of their least stressful tasks is also to verify the authenticity of accounts.

Facebook is now facing increased pressure from the German government to crack down on hate speech, after the Bundestag (German parliament) recently passed a law to fine social media companies up to €50 million for not swiftly removing illegal content.

The legislation – one of the toughest in the world – came amid a rise in racist content posted online, often in response to the refugee crisis, which has brought in around one million asylum seekers since 2015.

Holocaust denial, incitement of hatred, as well as racist and anti-Semitic speech are all illegal under German law.

But opponents of the so-called “hate speech law” have cautioned that the fines could stifle free speech, with social networks opting to delete rather than thoroughly vet content out of fear of being punished. Facebook itself condemned the law before its passage for allowing the state to “pass on its own failures and responsibilities to private companies”….

“We feel good about what we do. When I can save someone from seeing something through my work, then I find that really good,” she said, adding that if she had kids, she also would not want them to stumble upon certain content….

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