VIDEO: President Trump’s surprise Thanksgiving Day Visit to our Soldiers in Afghanistan

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Trending Politics’ Collin Rugg reports:

On Thanksgiving Thursday, President Donald Trump decided to make a surprise visit to Afghanistan to visit our soldiers overseas.

“Trump arrived at Bagram Air Field, the largest U.S. base in Afghanistan, and was expected to be on the ground for roughly 2.5 hours,” The Hill reports. “He served turkey to troops in a cafeteria, posed for photos and delivered brief remarks in a hanger.”

Read more.

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Elizabeth Warren: Those Settlements ‘Violate International Law and Make Peace Harder to Achieve’ by Hugh Fitzgerald

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Elizabeth Warren reacted to Secretary Pompeo’s statement that in the view of the Administration, Israel’s settlements did not violate international law with characteristic swift certainty:

“Another blatantly ideological attempt by the Trump administration to distract from its failures in the region. Not only do these settlements violate international law — they make peace harder to achieve. As president, I will reverse this policy and pursue a two-state solution,” Warren said.

Was Pompeo’s announcement merely a cynical attempt to “distract” the public “from its failures in the region”? Surely such an announcement was certain to have exactly the opposite effect – it would focus the media’s attention on the Israelis and Palestinians as it had not been so focussed since the Great March of Return began on March 30, 2018. Every major media outlet – CNN, AP, BBC, Reuters, New York Times, Washington Post – covered Pompeo’s remarks in detail. Those remarks were hardly designed to “distract” from supposed “failures in the region.” And as for those “failures,” what does Warren have in mind? Was the defeat, by the Americans and the Kurds, of ISIS in Syria a “failure”? Was the collapse of ISIS in Iraq, to which American military assistance contributed, a “failure”? Was the body-blow to Iran’s economy, that the Administration brought about by reimposing sanctions, that in turn led to the streets of Iran now being filled with Iranians shouting against the regime, a “failure”? Was cutting off aid to the massively corrupt UNRWA a “failure”? Was cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority, because of its Pay-for-Slay program, a “failure”?

Warren then blithely noted that the settlements “violate international law.” This was not always her understanding. At a Town Hall in August 2014, Warren called into question the notion that future US aid to Israel should be contingent on the halting of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Clearly she did not then regard the settlements as being “illegal.”

And two years later, in September 2016, ahead of a U.N vote on a resolution condemning Israeli settlements, Warren was one of 88 senators who signed a letter to President Obama sponsored by the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, urging him to “veto any one-sided UNSC resolution that may be offered in the coming months”: the resolution was approved by the Security Council 14-1-0, with the United States shamefully abstaining.

Again, Warren was still willing to urge the government to veto a Security Council resolution that treated the West Bank settlements as “illegal.”

What changed her mind? Perhaps, after Bernie Sanders’s claim that he would take some aid money away from Israel and give it to the Palestinians in Gaza, Warren felt she needed to establish her bona-fides among the “progressives” in the Democratic Party, who have become increasingly anti-Israel. And what better way to do it than to instantly attack Pompeo on the “legality” of Israel’s West Bank settlements?

A law professor for many years, Warren is well-versed in reading statutes and codes. As a professor of bankruptcy law, she can comprehend the Bankruptcy Code, so he Mandate for Palestine ought to be child’s play. If she reads that Mandate, she will understand that the League of Nations established, on a sliver of land that had been identified with the Jewish people for two thousand years, and that had formerly been part of the Ottoman Empire, the Mandate for Palestine. That Palestine Mandate was entrusted to Great Britain, whose task it was to prepare that territory for independence as the Jewish National Home. There were other Mandates that were intended to create Arab states – Syria, Lebanon, Iraq – but the Mandate for Palestine was intended solely for the Jews. Warren would then want to know, as the thorough policy wonk she is, precisely what territory was to be included in that Mandate. Upon investigation, she would discover that the Mandate for Palestine applied to all the territory from Dan in the north to Beersheva in the south, and from the river Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the West. In other words, all of what is present day Israel, and the entire West Bank, was included in the Mandate. Israel cannot be called the “occupier” of land that was assigned by the League of Nations to be part of the Jewish National Home, which would then become the State of Israel. When the League of Nations shut down, its successor organization, the United Nations, implicitly recognized in Article 80 of its Charter (the so-called Jewish People’s article) the continuing in force of the Mandate for Palestine. The only thing that prevented the West Bank from becoming, as it legally should have, part of the state of Israel in 1949, was that Jordan managed to hold onto the West Bank, and remained its “occupier” until 1967.

Elizabeth Warren never mentions the Mandate for Palestine, which is the indispensable document in judging the legality of the Israeli settlements. Nor does she mention, in any of her statements online, U.N. Resolution 242 and its significance in giving Israel the right to “secure and recognizable boundaries.” She has a duty to study both the Mandate, and Resolution 242, before making her self-assured and dismissive pronouncements about how those settlements “violate international law.” And she might also explain why those same settlements did not “violate international law” back in 2014, when she opposed making aid to Israel contingent on its halting of settlement building. Did she know something in 2014 about the settlements’ legality that she then forgot, or did she learn something since about their supposed illegality?

Then there is Warren’s remark that the settlements are not only “illegal,” but that they “make peace harder to achieve.” How does she, and the many others who mindlessly repeat this mantra – “settlements make peace harder to achieve” – know this? Because the Arabs – the Palestinians – keep telling them so.

What kind of “peace” is possible between Israel and the Palestinians? Some may insist that by squeezing itself back within the 1949 armistice lines, what Ambassador Abba Eban called “the lines of Auschwitz,” Israel makes peace more likely. But those who recognize that the war being waged, by all possible means, including terrorism, combat (qitaal), economic and diplomatic warfare, and demographic jihad, against Israel has no end, for Muslims, until the complete disappearance of the Jewish state, will not be so quick to put their trust in treaties. That is especially true because the Muslim model for all treaty-making with non-Muslims is the agreement that Muhammad reached with the Meccans at al-Hudaibiyya in 628 A.D., a treaty that was to last for ten years, but which he broke after 18 months, attacking the Meccans as soon as he felt his forces were strong enough to win. Given that Muhammad is the Model of Conduct for all Muslims, Israel cannot rely on a peace treaty with Muslim Arabs to be kept indefinitely.

Instead, there is another and better way to maintain the peace between Israel and its neighbors. That is deterrence: the enemy’s understanding that if Israel is attacked, it will respond, and much more devastatingly. Egypt and Syria now know what they did not know in October 1973, when they launched a surprise attack on Israel. Despite early losses, Israel delivered punishing blows in response. No Arab state since has tried to attack Israel; terror groups are a different matter, for their members are ready to be “martyrs.” For rational actors – fanatic Muslim groups and groupuscules are not among them – deterrence works. It kept the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union for more than four decades after World War II. Israel must remain overwhelmingly, and obviously, stronger than its enemies for deterrence to be effective.

That is where the West Bank settlements come in. The 400,000 Jews who live in the West Bank, with all of the adults having undergone military training when fulfilling their mandatory service in the IDF, are an indispensable part of that deterrence. Those settlements throughout the West Bank, especially those strategically placed on the Judean hills, and overlooking, the Jordan Valley, are a powerful obstacle to invasion from the east. The settlements significantly improve Israel’s deterrence, and a credible deterrence is the only guarantee that peace between Israel and the Arabs will be kept.

Warren claims the settlements will make peace “harder to achieve.” She has things backwards. The settlements may make a “peace treaty” harder to achieve, but they will make the only peace that really matters, a peace based on deterrence, easier to achieve.

In addition to the Mandate for Palestine (especially the Preamble and Articles 4 and 6), and U.N. Resolution 242, Elizabeth Warren should read about the treaty of Al-Hudaibiyya and its continuing significance, in Majid Khadduri’s magisterial War and Peace in the Law of Islam. That’s all the studying she need devote to the matter for now. The exam will be take-home. We’re all hoping that Professor Warren earns an A.

COLUMN BY

Hugh Fitzgerald

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

If democracy is dying, can schools revive it?

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Ever since the 2016 United States elections, American pundits have been writing about the decline and fall of democracy, a sentiment that is echoed in leading British and European media.

The Atlantic has a collection of such articles under the heading, “Is Democracy Dying?”, whose general purpose seems to be to explain how Donald Trump could become President of the US. Two of the series recently highlighted by the magazine offered contrasting diagnoses – one, that America suffers from too much democracy, the other, that it doesn’t have enough.

The “too much” argument concerns the power that the major parties have given to grassroots voters in the selection of presidential candidates – to people who simply can’t know enough about the candidates even to choose one who actually reflects their own preferences. That sounds plausible.

The “too little” theory is more interesting, if not entirely original, but it leads to a proposed remedy that ignores even deeper problems in Western societies, where fundamental beliefs and institutions have been seriously weakened.

The democratic deficit

Probably every serious writer on the subject in recent years has contrasted the admiration of Alexis de Tocqueville nearly 200 years ago for the way democratic self-government permeated every level of American society, down to children at their games, with the Bowling Alone society described by Robert Putman that had largely replaced it by the end of the 20th century.

Yoni Applebaum, author of the “too little democracy” essay, notes that in 1944, historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. could still write of his countrymen: “Rubbing minds as well as elbows, they have been trained from youth to take common counsel, choose leaders, harmonize differences, and obey the expressed will of the majority. In mastering the associative way they have mastered the democratic way.”

Since then, probably since that watershed decade of the 1960s, the associative culture of PTAs, sports club and service club committees and the like has dramatically declined, and Americans – like others – have handed over more and more of their self-government to political authorities or salaried experts. At the same time people have grown to distrust government, and there are even signs of young people, notably, rejecting the idea of democracy itself.

It’s true, says Applebaum, that Americans still volunteer and attend church services at relatively high rates, and that they use social media to connect with each other in new ways, but these are not “schools for self-government; they do not inculcate the habits and rituals of democracy.” He cites a survey that showed Trump found the majority of his support precisely among voters who had “the least experience with democratic institutions” because they “never or seldom engaged in community activities.”

‘Here’s how to fix it’. Really?

Since the historical circumstances that produced the voluntary associations of yore are unlikely to recur, says Applebaum, the revival of democracy must come from somewhere else. And what better place to start than schools, where “the youngest generations” are gathered, and where they should have the opportunity in various areas of school life for governing themselves. Whether in the student council or club sports or the robotics team, they can be learning “an appreciation for the role of rules and procedures for resolving disputes.”

Giving kids a greater stake in the rules and how they are applied might be a good idea – apart from the time it would take, either by adding extra hours to the school day or by taking them from other learning; but it assumes an awful lot about what children bring to school in the way of moral and social resources.

Is an eight-year-old from a fatherless home, where a stressed solo mother is struggling to keep a roof over her head let alone cultivate the virtues in her children – is such a child ready to help make rules and apply them to disputes at school? Yet, according to the Annie E Casey Foundation, around 35 percent of children under 18 live in a single parent home (25 percent in a single mother home). Some of these parents will be doing a fine job of bringing up their kids, while others struggle heroically with the odds against them in a culture where mass media and social media propagate self-centredness and self-indulgence.

Democratic processes require considerable virtue: respect for others and openness to their ideas; patience and good humour in debate; willingness to compromise or yield on what does not involve conscience – and the stamina to stand up for what does; obedience to agreed rules… In other words, habits of prudence, justice fortitude and temperance that should be cultivated from the child’s earliest years – in the family, where natural bonds and affection make the learning easier and more lasting. The school can have only a marginal effect on a child’s character when it is not being properly formed at home.

The parents’ task will be much harder, too, where extended family and community support are lacking. In the past, the church was the family’s main moral support – and still is for a significant proportion of Americans. But church and synagogue are in decline and, in some instances, sadly, are more of an obstacle than an aid to good formation.

De Tocqueville, as Samuel Gregg points out, understood that democracies need virtuous people, and that, in the case of America at least, it was the Christian religion that fostered such people, who could govern themselves well. Today, however, egalitarianism has substituted “values” for virtues, introducing a moral relativism that has ruined the old Christian consensus underlying American democracy.

This is clearly seen in the irreconcilable opposition between pro-life and pro-choice positions on abortion and euthanasia, and the split over same-sex marriage in Western democracies.

School democracy cannot avoid the moral fault lines running through society. Are students going to make rules about the rights of transgender peers regarding bathroom use and choice of sports teams? Pride events? Guest speakers? What will be the position of dissenters and conscientious objectors? Schools in the current moral environment could, indeed, be just a training ground for the tyranny of the majority.

There is a lot more to fixing democracy in America, or anywhere, than liberals like to think. More than the electoral system. More than education. It involves fundamental beliefs about the human being and his relationship to others.

COLUMN BY

Carolyn Moynihan is deputy editor of MercatorNet.

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49 Conservative Leaders Urge Chick-Fil-A to ‘Reverse Course’ on Pro-Family Charities

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Leaders of pro-family, pro-life, and other conservative organizations have sent a letter to Chick-fil-A asking the fast-food chicken company to reconsider its decision to no longer financially support the Salvation Army.

“We are tremendously disappointed at your company’s complicity in defaming the mission and intent of the Salvation Army, one of America’s oldest and most accomplished charitable organizations,” the conservative leaders write to Dan Cathy, chairman and CEO of Chick-fil-A, in a letter dated Tuesday.

“We urge you to immediately reverse course and reconfirm your commitment to America’s families,” they add.

Among the 49 signers of the letter were Penny Nance, president and CEO of Concerned Women for America; Kay Coles James, president of The Heritage Foundation; Aaron Baer, president of Citizens for Community Values; Brent L. Bozell, founder and CEO of the Media Research Center; Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel; and Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute.

Congress is moving to impeach the president. But will their plan to remove him from office succeed? Find out more now >>

Chick-fil-A announced Nov. 18 that, under new giving plans, it would not renew multiyear donations to the Salvation Army and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, both organizations known for their support of traditional marriage.

Conservative leaders apparently prepared the letter before Townhall broke the news Tuesday that tax records show Chick-fil-A donated $2,500 to the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2017.

In recent years, the liberal SPLC has attacked many mainstream conservative organizations, including the Family Research Council, as “hate groups.”

Floyd Corkins, convicted of a 2012 attempt to massacre employees at the Family Research Council, told investigators he was inspired by SPLC’s description of the Christian, pro-family research organization as a hate group.  Corkins carried Chick-fil-A sandwiches with him, police said.

“No organization will be excluded from future consideration—faith-based or non-faith-based,” Tim Tassopoulos, president and chief operating officer of Chick-fil-A, said last week in a written statement about the changes in its charitable giving.

Conservative leaders behind the coalition letter, however, argue that Chick-fil-A is caving to pressure from LGBT activists rather than stay true to its principles.

“Your company’s stated mission is ‘To glorify God by being a faithful steward of all that is entrusted to us and to have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-fil-A,’” they write, adding:

Yet, by bowing to the pressure of left-wing extremist groups, you’ve allowed those ‘faithful stewards’ of the Salvation Army to be branded as ‘extremists,’ likely triggering a series of future events detrimental to the organization and the millions of American poor they serve.

When you were under attack by the left in 2012, America’s families stood with you. We, the signers of this letter, stood with you, and many of us urged our supporters to do the same.

We helped form long lines at your stores, stretching out the doors and around the buildings, in many cases. As a result, your restaurant chain vaulted into the top 3 nationwide.

The 49 leaders close the letter by asking Chick-fil-A to reconsider its course of action.

“We stand firm with the Salvation Army and others who truly are ‘faithful stewards’ of the heritage entrusted to them and all Americans,” they write. “We urge you to immediately reverse course and reconfirm your commitment to America’s families by rejoining us in support of these groups.”

COLUMN BY

Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice is a congressional reporter for The Daily Signal. She is a graduate of Franciscan University of Steubenville, Forge Leadership Network, and The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders Program. Send an email to Rachel.

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A Note for our Readers:

As we speak, Congress is moving to impeach the president.

We do not have all the facts yet, but based on what we know now, there does not seem to be an impeachable offense.

The questions stand: In drafting the Constitution, how did America’s founders intend for impeachment to be used? How does the impeachment process work, and what can history tell us about whether or not President Trump faces the real threat of being removed from office?

The Heritage Foundation is making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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

Merited mistrust?

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“There is something sick in the State Prosecutor’s Office; Shai Nitzan is not fit to be the State Prosecutor” – Judge Hila Gerstel, former Commissioner for Prosecutorial Oversight

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (But who will guard the guardians themselves?) Juvenal, a Roman poet (circa 55 CE- circa 127 CE), Satire VI, line 347.

Public trust in the police – the lowest in the West…only 22% of Israelis believe that judges don’t take bribes – Haaretz, Oct. 31, 2011.

Public approval of the police at all time low – below all other public services – Haaretz, July 7, 2013.

Last Thursday (Nov. 21, 2019), Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit dropped a long-awaited bombshell on Israel’s political system.

Emotions erupt

After months of speculation, he announced his intent to indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in Case 4000 (the Bezeq-Walla Affair); for breach of trust in Case 1000 (the Illegal Gifts Affair); and for breach of trust in Case 2000 (the Yediot Aharonot-Israel Hayom Affair).

The announcement ignited an eruption of divergent public emotions. The Bibiphobes applauded it with undisguised glee, the Bibiphiles rejected it with unmasked abhorrence.

Netanyahu himself lambasted the decision. After a bland statement expressing generic “respect” for “the legal authorities”, he launched a bitter attack against specific sectors of those same authorities: “…you have to be blind not to see that something bad has happened to the police investigators and to the people in the State Attorney’s Office.”

Continuing his condemnation, he alleged: “We are witnessing an attempted coup against a prime minister on trumped-up charges and a tainted and tendentious investigation process…They didn’t pursue the truth; they pursued me.”

According to Netanyahu:

“[The} tainted investigation process, including inventing new crimes, has reached its apex today. It horrifies not only me, but masses of citizens in Israel, and not only on the right…This tainted process raises questions among the public about the police’s investigations and the prosecution. The public has lost trust in these institutions…This is selective enforcement on steroids. It’s enforcement just for me.”

Similar sentiments

I confess that I find that Netanyahu’s words of censure resonate with me.

Indeed, over the past two years I have expressed similar sentiments myself. For example, in February 2018, I wrote a piece entitled Coup d’etat, in which I warned :

“If he is … forced out of office, many will see this as naked politicization of law enforcement in the country, in effect, a legalistic coup d’état, designed to annul the outcome of elections — and will deal a mortal blow to their faith in the democratic process”.

Shortly thereafter, in The police, the press and a politicized “Putsch”?, I wrote: “The unrelenting drive to bring an indictment — any indictment — against Netanyahu has long exceeded the bounds of reasonable law enforcement”.

In March this year, in Will the “Deep-State” destroy democracy, I cited the prominent legal expert, Prof Alan Dershowitz, who sharply criticized the legal action against Netanyahu: “ The first probe, also known as case 1000, involves gifts of cigars and champagne Netanyahu received from close friends…I strongly believe that the appropriate criteria for criminal prosecution have not been met in the cigar and champagne case against Netanyahu…The other investigations (dubbed 2000 and 4000) pose even greater dangers to democratic governance and civil liberties…”

Earlier this month, in Democracy devoid of the demos?, I recalled the warning articulated by former Justice Minister, ‘Tommy’ Lapid (father of MK Yair Lapid of the Blue & White faction) : “…the legal system in Israel is being undermined by an over-zealous State Prosecutor’s Office, that is losing esteem and credibility with each additional trial…”; while the current Justice Minister expressed concern over a “dangerous symbiosis between elements in the police Major Crimes Unit, the State Prosecutor’s Office and the media”.

Understandable uproar

The hullabaloo is not difficult to understand.

Indeed, for the layman, the indictments appear to be uncompelling—to say the least.

After all, as I have written elsewhere, to “anyone but a rabid “Bibiphobe”, they appear transparently contrived, indeed, a thinly veiled attempt at a legalistic coup…creating a deep sense of unease that Israel’s legal establishment is being exploited for patent political ends — i.e. that unelected elites are using their positions of influence and authority to bring about political outcomes that do not correspond to — even contradict — the election results, depleting the influence of the demos in Israeli democracy.”

With regard to Case 1000, it is a little difficult to grasp why gifts of perishable goods from well-heeled acquaintances, even if inappropriately excessive, should be grounds for removing an incumbent prime minister from office. Indeed, even if punitive measures are called for, it would seem far more appropriate to impose administrative measures such as monetary penalties, rather than criminal ones.

With regards to Case 2000 involving a discussion between Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, owner of Yediot Aharonot, it seems more than a little puzzling as to why any legal action is merited because of a meeting that produced no concrete result or even concrete action towards achieving that result—especially when over 40 other MKs did in fact act to do Mozes’s bidding , while Netanyahu opposed it! Perversely, no charges have been, or will be, filed against the 43 members of Knesset, who actually attempted to give Mozes what he asked for.

Case 4000 is a little more abstruse, involving Netanyahu’s actions in his role of Minister of Communications, and in which he is alleged to have bestowed on Shaul Elovitch, owner of the popular Walla channel, commercial benefits in exchange for improved coverage of Netanyahu and his family. However, not only did Netanyahu’s actions fall well within the bounds of his role as Minister of Communications, but as Caroline Glick and Alex Traiman point out, nowhere in the democratic world, has any prosecutor ever indicted – or even investigated – a politician or media organization of having committed bribery for providing positive coverage—even when such coverage came in direct exchange for legislation.

Puzzling precedent

A layman’s puzzlement might well by increased by the fact that the State Prosecution has as good as admitted that Netanyahu could not be indicted on the basis of well-established legal practice—and to do so, new legal precedents needed to be invoked.

This emerges clearly from an interview (May 8, 2019) with Shai Nitzan, the State Prosecutor, leading the legal action against Netanyahu.

During the interview, Nitzan was asked: “The determination that positive media coverage should be considered “bribery” is a legal precedent. Is it appropriate to set such a precedent for the first time in a case against a prime minister?”

His stunning, almost self-contradictory, response was:

“Every legal precedent has to begin at some point. For example, in Case 4000 [involving positive coverage in the Walla site], there was no disagreement and everyone agreed that it was right to indict on bribery, despite the fact that it did not involve envelopes filled with cash, but influencing media coverage. So, just because it involves the prime minister, we should delay the precedent for another time? I do not think that this decision involves a widening of the charge of bribery or breach of trust.”

This leaves one to ponder over why, if the decision was in fact unprecedented, how could it possibly not involve widening the charges?

Bursting the bubble?

Significantly, grave questions have been raised over the functioning of the State Prosecutor’s Office, in general, and of the State Prosecutor Nitzan, in particular—by none other than the person appointed to oversee them—retired Judge Hila Gerstel, who resigned from her role as Commissioner for Prosecutorial Oversight—after an acrimonious relationship with the State Prosecutor’s Office.

In an interview in the business daily, The Marker (owned by the far-left Haaretz), headlined There is something sick in the State Prosecutor’s Office; Shai Nitzan is not fit to be the State Prosecutor, Gerstel was sharply critical of both.

Asked how she felt about what she had experienced as Prosecutorial Oversight Commissioner, she replied: “As if the bubble, in which I had lived for 24 years, had burst. I believed that there were systems that worked properly in the country and I discovered that the particular system, over which I was appointed to inspect, was not functioning as it should.”

Gerstel admitted that, despite the fact that her fellow judges warned her that she did not know what she was getting into, she believed that the State Prosecutor’s Office was a body of honest diligent people, which focused exclusively on the public interest and were not willing to “cut corners” . Later, however, this changed: “We got the feeling that no-one cared about the system.”

As for Shai Nitzan, Gerstel was brusque and harsh: “In the contacts between us there were several times I got the impression that there was a problem with him being precise and truthful. I believe that the State Prosecutor must be a manager and a leader. This was not what I discovered. There is no leadership in the State Prosecutor’s Office.”

In response to the question whether Shai Nitzan should be State Prosecutor, she answered bluntly: “According to my criteria: No. From my knowledge of him: No.”

Experts excoriate

The profound sense of unease, which all the preceding accumulation of troubling question marks generates, is heightened by the fact that an impressive battery of internationally renowned legal experts has excoriated the legal action against Netanyahu—in no uncertain terms.

Thus, in a detailed critique in Tablet Magazine, Prof. Avi Bell warned: “Mandelblit’s announcement inserts law enforcement officials into the political arena in an unprecedented way, and on a very shaky legal foundation. If the legal theories that the attorney general is introducing against Netanyahu become general law, a considerable part of the democratic life of Israel will have to pass through police interrogation rooms. If they remain restricted to Netanyahu, the partisanship will permanently damage public trust in the Israeli legal system.”

According to Bell: “…the danger in the novel legal theories introduced by Mandelblit is stark. The criminal charges against the prime minister lack legal substance, and they threaten both the rule of law in Israel and the health of its democracy.”

Prof. Alan Dershowitz, who has written several critical op-eds and an open letter to Mandelblit, calling on him to drop the indictments, warned that “we’re seeing the weaponization of criminal justice for political purposes.”

According to Deshowitz:

“The relationship between politics and the media—and between politicians and publishers—is too nuanced, subtle and complex to be subject to the heavy hand of criminal law…To empower prosecutors to probe these mixed motivations is to empower them to exercise undemocratic control over crucial institutions of democracy.”

Capacious crimes?

Prof. Bell concludes his Table Magazine critique in dour tones: “The dispiriting truth is that there have always been two ways to understand the investigations against Netanyahu, and the implications for Israeli democracy are alarming.”

According to Bell:

“One way to look at the investigation is as a neutral application of a new understanding of the traditional crimes of bribery and breach of public trust. Under this interpretation, Mandelblit’s capacious understanding of the crimes of breach of trust and bribery may be unprecedented, but will now be applied across the board to all public officials and politicians. The horrifying result will be police oversight of nearly all interactions between media and public officials.”

Underscoring the absurdity of the situation likely to arise, Bell points out: “When the evening news devotes 15 minutes of generally positive coverage to Benny Gantz or to Mandelblit himself, producers and reporters may have to expect a summons to a police interrogation where they will be asked to demonstrate the purity of their motives. Politicians and public officials in constant touch with the media—that is, everyone in public life—will always find themselves on the verge of conviction of the felony of taking bribes, or, at least, ‘breach of public trust’. The center of Israeli political life will move to [police] interrogation rooms ….”

As Bell explains:

“The other interpretation is that the investigations should be seen as Netanyahu and his supporters paint them: special rules that are meant to apply only to Netanyahu. Israeli political life will not move to the police station, but will face the constant threat that law enforcement authorities may suddenly decide to apply “Bibi rules.”

He warns sternly:

“The harm to Israeli democracy of double standards in the criminal law based on prosecutor’s will would be incalculable. And law enforcement officials could never be seen as nonpartisan again.”

Contrived criminality

It was Dershowitz who astutely remarked:

“If somebody were to introduce legislation saying that it is a crime for a politician to seek good coverage and it came for a vote, it wouldn’t get a single vote in the Knesset. And that’s the best proof that it shouldn’t be prosecuted as a crime under today’s law…If you couldn’t get the Knesset to pass as law criminalizing this, you shouldn’t be punishing it.”

One thing is beyond doubt: No good result can come out of these indictments.

If Netanyahu is found guilty, roughly half the Israeli public will feel that there has been a gross miscarriage of justice—and the already tenuous public trust in Israel’s arms of law and order with be undermined even further.

On the other hand, if he is acquitted, roughly (the other) half of the Israeli public will feel that has been a gross miscarriage of justice-and the already tenuous faith in Israel’s system of law and order will eroded even further.

Among the biggest losers will be those who launched this ill-considered initiative in the first place. The mistrust it will generate in them, will be certainly be well merited.

© All rights reserved.

Michael Bloomberg’s Ready-Made Network of Cities in Support of His Open Borders Agenda

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In 2010, the forward-thinking mayor of New York created the National Partnership for a New American Economy.  I say forward-thinking because now 9 years later, he has what amounts to a local government network of cities that favor more immigration as he launches his bid to defeat Donald Trump in 2020.

He and his cohorts have been awarding prizes, including grants and cataloging cities by their willingness to welcome an ever increasing number of immigrants with his special desire to legalize more of the illegals.

Co-Chairs of the Partnership for a New American Economy
Name Affiliation
Mark Hurd Co-CEO Oracle
Robert Iger Chairman and CEO, Walt Disney Co.
J.W. Marriott, Jr. Chairman and CEO of Marriott International, Inc.
Jim McNerney Chairman of Boeing
Rupert Murdoch Chairman, CEO and Founder of News Corporation
Julián Castro Former Mayor of San Antonio
Michael Bloomberg Former Mayor of New York City
Michael Nutter Former Mayor of Philadelphia
Antonio Villaraigosa Former Mayor of Los Angeles

Really what you see here is a list of (bipartisan) corporations that say they can’t live without immigrant laborers.

In between your turkey and stuffing and parade watching, take a look at the extensive website and operation Bloomberg has put in place.

I don’t see anything like this kind of organization anywhere in the immigration control movement.  Well, maybe NumbersUSA could come close on the other side of the argument about workers.

It really is a no-brainer, too many foreign workers depress wages of Americans including African Americans, but for moneybags like Bloomberg there is no such thing as too many low skilled and low wage immigrants!

Here, earlier this month, Bloomberg’s gang is chortling about bringing Midwestern cities into the light of their understanding.

New ranking of top 100 cities shows Midwestern cities are becoming more welcoming to immigrants. (You can read it yourself).

And, since we are talking about mayors and city leaders falling in line, don’t miss RRW today and see if your mayor is one of 88 telling the President that they want 100,000 refugees and want the feds (with their taxpayer funded contractors) to continue to decide which lucky cities will welcome the stranger.

RELATED ARTICLE: ICE Catches Alleged Child Sexual Predator Repeatedly Released by Philadelphia Police

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

Chinese Catholics Forced to Replace Holy Pictures with Portraits of Xi Jinping

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BEJING (ChurchMilitant.com)  Government officials are cracking down on Catholic churches in China, forcing them to replace religious images with portraits of the Communist president.

A Catholic Church in the city of Ji’an in the southeastern province of Jiangxi was built this year for more than one million RMB (over $ 140,000). All the money had been raised by believers. The church was named “The True and Original Source of the Universe” (萬有真原), which is a reference to the name inscribed on a plaque the 17th-century Kangxi Emperor donated to a Catholic church in Beijing in 1711.

Not long after it opened its doors, this parish became the target of the local government’s persecution.

In late September, local officials ordered the congregation to paint over the name of the church and replace it with the words “Follow the Party, Obey the Party, and Be Grateful to the Party.” Additionally, the national flag was ordered to be flown at the entrance of the church.

The government also ordered the removal of a painting of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and the Child Jesus from the center of the church, replacing it with a portrait of President Xi Jinping. Now, upon walking into the church, the first sight is that of the head of Xi, surrounded by propaganda slogans on the wall on either side.

The picture of the Holy Family has been relegated to a dark corner of the church.

A few days later government officials confiscated the church building and locked all its doors and windows, possibly preparing to transfer it to a Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, government-run church. Catholics who built their church building with their own private funds lost their place of worship.

Also in September, in Jiangxi’s Poyang county, a Catholic meeting venue was ordered to cease all religious activities. The church’s cross, a painting of the Virgin Mary and religious couplets were removed, and portraits of Xi Jinping and Mao Zedong replaced them.

In the same month, in the Linchuan district of Jiangxi’s Fuzhou city, local officials ordered the congregation of the state-run St. Joseph’s Cathedral to display slogans outside the building supporting traditional Chinese culture. Rather than a sacred place for divine worship, the church building now resembles a government propaganda agency.

The goal of the government is to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party,” reported the South China Morning Post.

In early May, another Catholic venue in Poyang county was shut down on the grounds that “any church refusing to join the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) is a xie jiao.”

Xie jiao can be translated as an illegal, unorthodox, deceptive religious organization or cult.

Congregation members said they would rather worship at home than join the state-run Church. The CPCA clergy proclaimed their support for the Party leadership, love for the country and religion, pledging “to contribute their share to realize China’s Dream — the great renewal of the nation.”

A local retired priest from the northeastern province of Jilin spoke about the government-run Church: “Falling under communist control is a calamity to the Church. Joining the CPCA is equivalent to handing oneself to the devil.”

He chose to retire because he refuses to undergo government indoctrination nor will he willingly allow himself to be used to indoctrinate believers.

 

The South China Morning Post reports that Communist Party of China (CPC) officials visited believers’ homes in Yugan county of Jiangxi province, a poor area where around 10% of the population is Christian. They were urged to replace personal religious displays with posters of President Xi Jinping.

Though the party denies it, some Christians in Yugan county say they were told they would not be eligible for government assistance unless they took down their religious posters. One family’s home had “God loved the world” inscribed above a gate on their property. The government forced them to change the quote from John 3:16 to “Family harmony leads to thousand-fold prosperity.”

More than 600 homes removed Christian symbols from their living rooms, and 453 replaced them with portraits of the Communist leader.

China has seen an uptick in persecution of Christians as President Xi Jinping consolidated power and abolished term limits.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom made it clear that the worst violator of religious freedom is China: “As a Christian, your Bible may have been rewritten by the Chinese government, your church shuttered or demolished, and your pastor imprisoned. As a human rights defender who works to protect people targeted for their faith, you may be arrested, or worse, disappeared.”

COLUMN BY

Paul Murano

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

Thanksgiving—to be Practiced Year Round

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There are valuable lessons to be learned from the first Thanksgiving but the first grade class of Stone Bank Elementary School in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin won’t be learning them. Even though no one had complained, school administrators sent the following message to disappointed parents, “Out of respect for Native Americans, and the sensitivity of this time in our history, we are not going to reenact the first Thanksgiving story.”

The ingratitude of political correctness strikes again. They could learn a thing or two about the importance of Thanksgiving, not only in our nation’s history but in our daily lives.

The first Thanksgiving was actually a beautiful three-day celebration by the Pilgrims with their new friends, the Native-Americans—with whom they made a long-lasting treaty of peace. At harvest time 1621, in Plymouth, Massachusetts, this festival was a wonderful example of people of different cultures sitting down together and breaking bread. And they gave thanks to God, who made it all possible.

Rev. Billy Falling, author of My Cherokee Roots, is grateful for people like the Pilgrims. In an interview for Christian television, he told me,

“As a Native-American, I thank God for the Europeans that brought us the Gospel and brought us Western Civilization.”

Falling observes, “Native-Americans were just as pagan as the rest of the world. They practiced cannibalism, they practiced devil worship, they practiced slavery, they practiced polygamy, they practiced all the sins of the flesh that the rest of the world practiced….they needed God just like the rest of the world.”

He adds,

“It’s hard today to find a sweat [lodge] where you can go as a Native-American and go inside and smoke out your sins, but it’s easy to find Native-Americans in any congregation in the United States, worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ because of the Europeans. And I thank God for that.”

Granted, much later, terrible things happened to Native-Americans at the hands of Europeans and Americans. Very unchristian things. But it does not make sense to blame the Pilgrims for that.

That would be like blaming the Wright Brothers for all the airplane accidents in history.

Meanwhile, the Pilgrims were onto something by their practice of gratitude. Gratitude is good for us. Even modern psychologists are discovering this.

While ingratitude comes natural to us, and often it is the norm, it’s also true that some people can find ways to be grateful—even in difficult circumstances (like the Pilgrims)—while others might be in paradise, yet they find all sort so of nitpicky things to complain about.

Gratitude does not come naturally. “Give a man everything he wants,” declared Immanuel Kant, “and at that moment, everything will not be everything.”

When something bad happens, what is your immediate reaction? “Oh great.” I must confess how often that has been my instinctive reaction—a complaining one.

Two psychologists, Robert Emmons of the University of California, Davis and Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, said:

“Gratitude is the ‘forgotten factor’ in happiness research.”

Their research found:

“Grateful people report higher levels of positive emotions, life satisfaction, vitality, optimism and lower levels of depression and stress. The disposition toward gratitude appears to enhance pleasant feeling states more than it diminishes unpleasant emotions. Grateful people do not deny or ignore the negative aspects of life.”

In short, the grateful focus more on what they have, not what they lack.

Too often we focus on the negative—even if, overall, we have many reasons to be positive. I remember years ago hearing Jerry Lewis being interviewed on the radio, and he described a scene in Europe, where he was being warmly received by this huge crowd. People were standing and wildly cheering him. But he noticed “that one guy.” That one guy in this sea of humanity that was giving him this great reception. That one guy wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t standing. He had his arms crossed. And Jerry Lewis said that he should have felt great. Here were all these people cheering him on. But his mind focused instead on the one guy who wasn’t clapping (for whatever reason).

My wife and I have often observed to each other (jokingly): “I’m not complaining. I’m just stating facts.”

The Bible tells us that we should give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. What is God’s will for your life? To be thankful.

D. James Kennedy once observed that gratitude is “the Christian’s magic wand.” It transforms everything.

I am grateful for the tradition of Thanksgiving in this country. The Pilgrims chose gratitude over bitterness. Half their number had died several months before the harvest. Rather than grousing, they chose to give thanks. And now somehow this beautiful American holiday is becoming politically incorrect.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Perils of the Left: The Unrecognized, Profound Danger of Elizabeth Warren

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Senator Elizabeth Warren, one-time Indian and beer drinker, would make a very dangerous president. This isn’t just because of her policies, which include ending the Electoral College, banning fracking everywhere, regulating a naturally occurring gas (CO2), being radically pro-abortion, decriminalizing illegal border crossing, and free health care for illegal aliens. It’s not only her complete phoniness, which is in one way actually reassuring: It informs that the aforementioned policies are surely as pliable as her family history narrative. No, it’s also because she’s frightfully out of touch with reality in a largely unrecognized way, one common to leftists.

Approximately 25 years ago, I attended a local feminist conference concerning how our “patriarchal” society supposedly hobbled girls’ academic performance. Because I’d articulately refuted the speakers’ thesis using facts and reason during the commenting period, some of the organizers approached me afterwards, suspicious, wondering what organization I represented (only myself). The group, perhaps four middle-aged women, remained civil, but the arrows shooting from their eyes betrayed their thinly veiled feelings. Anyway, uninterested in my thoughts, they quickly begged out of the conversation by offering to mail me literature on their positions. I said, jokingly, sure, “as long as you don’t send a hit squad to my house.” The response?

Very seriously and sternly they replied, “We don’t do things like that.” They didn’t get that it was a joke (and, mercifully, I didn’t get the literature).

But perhaps those feminists graduated from the Patsy Schroeder School of Comedy. To wit: Engaging in demagoguery during a 1990s budget battle, the Democrats claimed the elderly would have to eat dog food to afford medicine if the GOP prevailed. Radio host Rush Limbaugh then spoofed this in a GOPAC speech, claiming he’d bought his mother a new can opener so “she can get the dog food easier when she has to eat it.”

Taking this seriously, liberal congresswoman Patsy Schroeder (D-Colo.) appeared on the House floor the next day and emotionally exclaimed that “this is what it’s come to! …Rush Limbaugh actually said he’s going to buy his mother a can opener so she can have dog food. Wow!” The point?

These women exhibited a drastically poor grasp of man’s nature, a profound illiteracy with respect to reading others. They also are Elizabeth Warren; she is them. This is plain.

Consider Warren’s livestream broadcast from her home, last New Year’s Eve, in which she tried to sound down-home authentic and said, “Hold on a sec, I’m gonna get me a beer.” She consequently was widely mocked, with even left-wing columnist Joel Stein calling it the “worst impersonation of a non-elite since John Kerry entered an Ohio grocery store and asked, ‘Can I get me a hunting license here?’”

Even better was the top-rated comment under the below YouTube video of Warren’s beer gambit. “Another Native American succumbs to alcoholism,” “Shepface XL” plaintively remarked (you won the Internet that day, sir!).

Then there was Warren’s response to an endorsement by an obscure, fringe activist group calling itself “Black Womxn For.” “Black trans and cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy…,” she tweeted November 7th.

Now, maybe ol’ Liz was drunk on beer, or firewater, but as one Twitter respondent put it, “The ‘backbone of our democracy’? They aren’t even the backbone of the alphabet soup community.” (In fairness, though, how many politicians have acquaintance with the concept of “backbone”?) In fact, I went far down through the Twitter responses and didn’t even see Warren’s followers defending her puffery. It was that bad.

The issue is not, however, that Warren was marketing herself with the livestream and pandering with the LGBTQ praise; such is typical of politicians. But it’s normally done with some finesse and sophistication, giving wanna’-be believers some plausible deniability in their own minds.

Warren’s inability to do this — her obviously total ignorance of how ridiculous she’d look and her inability to read how others would read her — speak volumes. Call it extremely low emotional IQ, dislocation from reality in the given area, poor people skills, stupidity or something else, but it’s a fatal defect in a leader.

Remember, for a president to effectively deal and negotiate with others, manage geopolitical crises and keep our nation safe, he must be able to interpret foreign leaders properly and send them the right messages. Thus, a deep grasp of man’s nature, which should involve a great ability to read others, is imperative — especially when your “finger is on the button.” Elizabeth Warren clearly, abjectly fails in this regard.

In fact, being only human, even the relatively discerning can stumble here. Just consider how in the early ‘80s President Ronald Reagan reportedly remarked, upon hearing that the Soviets genuinely feared a surprise attack by the U.S., “Can they really believe that we’re about to launch a nuclear attack?”

However accurate this report, I’m certain the Soviets could have. Note that people tend to project their own mindsets and priorities onto others; thus would Reagan never think that another government could suspect utter madness from his, and thus would the utterly mad absolutely suspect it.

Note here that leftists are characteristically godless, and to paraphrase Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts,

“When people cease believing in God, it’s not that they start to believe in nothing; it’s that they’ll believe in anything.”

Leftists occupy an inverted moral world, a reality perhaps best illustrated by what an American defector learned about his “hosts” while spending decades in North Korea.

“In North Korea, when you lie they think you are telling the truth, and when you tell the truth they think you are lying,” said ex-Army Sergeant Charles Jenkins. “You learn real quick to say no when you mean yes, and yes when you mean no.”

The North Koreans are obviously an extreme example. But this all raises interesting questions: How do people get this way? Does the dislocation from reality lead to the embrace of the unreality of leftism? Or does the unreality of leftism lead to wider dislocation from reality? I’m quite sure it’s both, actually. But now I’ll briefly outline Descent into Unreality 101.

Man has a great capacity to rationalize, which, of course, is when you lie to yourself, twist reality for yourself. People do it when reality isn’t what they want it to be. This especially characterizes leftists, whose agenda is wholly contrary to reality, to Truth.

The problem is that when you lie to yourself over and over again, bending reality year after year, you fall further and further out of touch with reality. Not only can rationalization then become entirely habitual, but you may reach a point where you can’t “find” reality even when you want to (Warren certainly didn’t want to make a fool of herself). Once severe enough, this may be called being crazy.

It’s like continually feeding bad data into a computer. How will the output be? In fact, people can reach the point of having “corrupted files,” more commonly known as character defects or dysfunction (though I dislike psychobabble terms reflecting the atheistic lexicon).

By the way, this habitual rationalization likely begins in childhood, when parents (often “liberal”) enable it by not holding their kids responsible and forcing them to face reality. “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree” — and in this case it’s not the tree of liberty.

And in reality, being human, we all have to guard against rationalization and ask ourselves, honestly, if we’re ever and always seeking Truth above all things, even our passions. What is for certain, however, is that the people we today call leftists surely don’t — and they belong nowhere near the levers of power.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Gab (preferably) or Twitter, or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

© All rights reserved.

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FEMINISM: The Second Bite of the Forbidden Fruit

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Genesis 2 KJV

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

While in our local theatre I saw a promotion for the new season of the ” L Word: Generation Q.” L Word is an LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual +) drama on Showtime.

After seeing the promo it struck me how far women have fallen into the abyss by eating of the forbidden fruit a second time.

The forbidden fruit’s name is “feminism.”

Ultimate Goals of Feminism

The Feminist/Women’s Rights/Women’s Liberation movement began primarily in America. Encyclopaedia Britannica defines feminism as:

The women’s movement of the 1960s and ’70s, the so-called “second wave” of feminism, represented a seemingly abrupt break with the tranquil suburban life pictured in American popular culture. Yet the roots of the new rebellion were buried in the frustrations of college-educated mothers whose discontent impelled their daughters in a new direction. If first-wave feminists were inspired by the abolition movement, their great-granddaughters were swept into feminism by the civil rights movement, the attendant discussion of principles such as equality and justice, and the revolutionary ferment caused by protests against the Vietnam War. [Emphasis added]

Question: Are women more equal and treated more justly today than they were in the 1960s? Are women today less frustrated?

Answer: In many ways yes but in others decidedly no.

Feminism: The Second Bite of the Forbidden Fruit

Genesis 3 KJV:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Question: Since the 1960s women have become more educated but are they wiser?

The answer lies in where women are today socially, culturally and politically.

Some women today have taken a second bite of the forbidden fruit of feminism. Feminism has morphed into the “social justice” movement with the latest iteration being the Women’s March. The Women’s March mission statement reads as follows:

The mission of Women’s March is to harness the political power of diverse women and their communities to create transformative social change. Women’s March is a women-led movement providing intersectional education on a diverse range of issues and creating entry points for new grassroots activists & organizers to engage in their local communities through trainings, outreach programs and events. Women’s March is committed to dismantling systems of oppression through nonviolent resistance and building inclusive structures guided by self-determination, dignity and respect.

The Women’s March is primarily a socialist political movement.

The Women’s March demands “self-determination, dignity and respect” for some but not all women.

According to Wikipedia the Women’s March was a “worldwide protest on January 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Tensions rose due to his statements, considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive. It was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.”

The Women’s March:

The goal of the annual marches is to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including women’s rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, reproductive rights, the environment, LGBTQ rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, workers’ rights and tolerance. According to organizers, the goal was to “send a bold message to our new [Trump] administration on their first day in office, and to the world that women’s rights are human rights”.

The goals of the Women’t March do not coincide with the goals of most let alone all women. The goals of the Women’s March are not bi-partisan. Rather the goals of the neo-feminist/Women’s March coincide with the goals of one major political party in America.

Where Feminism, and the Women’s March, have failed women

Unlike the Woman Suffrage Movement, which “began in 1848, when a women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York,” to give women the right to vote the current Women’s March movement is about some women and not ALL women. The Woman Suffrage Movement resulted in the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the Women’s March and neo-feminists support legislation, human rights issues, religions, LGBTQ rights and tolerance that have harmed women.

Here are examples of how the neo-feminists and Women’s March harm women:

  1. Divorce. Divorce by its very nature harms women the most. The good news is women are waking up to the dead end of divorce. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control’s latest report the divorce rate has declined from 8.2 per one thousand in 2000 to 6.9 per one thousand in 2017.
  2. Single parent homes. One of the myths of the neo-feminist movement is the need to “create transformative social change.” This social change has resulted in the deconstruction of the nuclear family. In a study released in 2010 the CDC reported on family structure in the United Sates. The study reported on the percent distribution of family structure for children under age 18: United States, 2001–2007. The study found that only 48.4% of children were part of a nuclear (traditional) family. However, the study found that the percent distribution of nuclear family structure for non-Hispanic black children under age 18 is only 20.5%.
  3. The misogynistic myth of “intersectionality.” Intersectionality diminishes the value of being a women. When women are thrown into the same category as other minority groups based upon race, class, gender, ethnicity, language, age, sexuality and ability, they lose the one thing that holds them together, being a woman. A woman is a woman regardless of her race, class, gender, ethnicity, language, age, sexuality or ability. A woman has great value because she is a woman. Just as a man has great value because he is a man.
  4. The misogynistic myth of LGBTQ rights. Gender diaspora is by its very nature misogynistic. When one denies one’s biological sex at birth in the name of LGBTQ rights, then that person denies what makes them unique. Women are most harmed by the LGBTQ movement. Women have become infected with HIV/AIDS by having sex with bi-sexual men. Women are seeing transgender men beat them in “women’s sporting events.” Too many women, girls and boys will never know the real love of a traditional nuclear family.
  5. The misogynistic myth of reproductive rights. Killing one’s unborn, and even born, child is premeditated murder. Women have many ways to prevent pregnancy before conception. Women have the final say when it comes to becoming pregnant. Once pregnant a woman has a duty to carry her baby to term. If she does not want to keep her child there are many couples willing to adopt. Finally, abortion is not healthcare. In abortion the patient dies, sometimes with the mother.
  6. The misogyny of pedophiles and pederasts. The sons and daughters of women being abused by members of both the LGBTQ (i.e. pederasts) community and pedophiles. But neo-feminists do not give the same treatment to all children who have been abused. They do not speak with one clear voice that these behaviors will no longer be tolerated.
  7. The myth of tolerance. Tolerance must be a two way street. Women cannot demand tolerance and be intolerant of other women because this leads to cultural suicide. Rape, incest and other crimes against humanity do not differ because of the political affiliation of a woman or a group of women. Wrong is simply wrong. All women must stand against wrong.
  8. The misogyny of Islam. Islam views and treats women differently than any other major religious system. The neo-feminists and Women’s March have fully embraced Islam and its tenants. Unlike women living in Muslim majority nations, feminists in America have no idea what the true believers and followers of Mohammed can do to a woman.

Conclusion

One would think that the Women’s March would be focused on reducing the divorce rate even further, working to strengthen the nuclear family unit (especially among blacks), divest itself of the intersectionality and LGBTQ rights issues which are misogynistic, fight against pornography, work to enact laws that provide harsh punishment for pedophiles and pederasts and support the women in Iran, Hong Kong, Cuba, Valenzuela who are fighting and dying in the streets in the quest for freedom.

You would think that the Women’s March would be for the civil rights of the unborn!

Today women are seeing greater opportunities than ever before. There are more career women, more job opportunities for women in the digital world, and more freedom for women to be all that they can be. Even the sky is no longer the limit for women. Space.com notes:

The first woman in space, Valentina Tereshkova, blazed a trail for the many female spaceflyers who would follow. Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, was selected from more than 400 applicants to launch on the Vostok 6 mission June 16, 1963.

In June 1983, NASA astronaut Sally Ride became the first U.S. woman in space when she launched on the STS-7 mission of the space shuttle Challenger.

[ … ]

NASA astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to do a spacewalk when she floated outside the space shuttle Challenger during mission STS-41-G on Oct. 11, 1984.

[ … ]

NASA astronaut Mae Jemison flew on space shuttle Endeavour in September 1992, becoming the first African-American woman to travel to space.

[ … ]

NASA astronaut Eileen Collins was the first woman to command a space shuttle mission, a role that required an astronaut to have at least 1,000 hours of experience piloting jet aircraft. Collins commanded the STS-93 space shuttle mission in July 1999, and went on to command a second time in July 2005.

Women do not need to compete with men. Women and men have a greater calling.

To paraphrase Belgian poet Émile Cammaerts,

“When people cease believing in God, it’s not that they start to believe in nothing; it’s that they’ll believe in anything.”

Remember Genesis 2:24, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”

© All rights reserved.

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Top Arab Figures From 15 Countries Meet to Say ‘No’ to BDS

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Prominent figures from 15 Arab countries met in London last week to reject the BDS movement and encourage relations with Israel.

At the same time last week, a delegation of Arab journalists, bloggers and musicians toured Israel at the invitation of the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Some of the journalists were from countries with no diplomatic relations with Israel.

BDS stands for Boycott, Sanction and Divest. It is an anti-Semitic movement against the state of Israel devised to  strangle the Jewish state economically.

Participants in the London meeting hailed from Morocco, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and the Persian Gulf states and included journalists, artists, politicians, diplomats, Quranic scholars, women and young people.

The meeting was publicized only after its participants returned to their native countries. The New York Times was allowed to post a live stream of the meeting (held in Arabic) after the event.

The London meeting was sponsored by the Center for Peace Communications, an organization that “works through media, schools, and centers of spiritual and moral leadership in the Middle East and North Africa to roll back divisive ideologies and foster a mindset of inclusion and engagement.”

The Times reported that the group in London agreed that “[BDS] has only helped [Israel] while damaging Arab nations that have long shunned the Jewish state. Demonizing Israel has cost Arab nations billions in trade.”

Mustafa el-Dessouki, an Egyptian who is the managing editor of the prominent news magazine, Majalla (which is funded by Saudi Arabia), was one of the main organizers of the meeting.

In recent travels around the Middle East, Dessouki said met many Arabs with similar views to his, including citizens of Lebanon. This was in spite of the fact that the Arab news media and entertainment industry have long been “programming people toward this hostility” against Israel and Jews, he said, while politicians were “intimidating and scaring people into manifesting it.”

Meanwhile, in Israel last week, the visiting delegation included journalists from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Egypt.

The trip was organized by Hassan Kaabia, the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s spokesman for the Arabic media. “My goal is to bring people here to get to know the real Israel, to see it first hand, and not through television or social media, and see how Israel is unjustly slandered,” he said.

Kaabia brought a similar delegation to Israel last summer.

He said he met the journalists on Twitter and didn’t know if their governments knew their citizens were visiting Israel.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one of the journalists, who was described as a prominent figure in Saudi Arabia, said, “There is no escape from establishing normal relations with Israel.”

By “normal relations,” he said he meant “real peace,” not the peace that is currently seen between the Egyptian and Jordanian governments with Israel, which he criticized for fomenting hate against Israel.

In regards to the Palestinian issue, the Saudi said, “Why should the Arab world ignite problems with Israel and the super-powers because of a small minority? This minority had a chance to form a state in ’47 but refused because it only dealt with the question, ‘Why do the Jews have an independent country?’”

When asked about his experience touring Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, he said, “When people heard I am from Saudi Arabia, they were amazed. Not in a hostile manner, but by accepting who I was.

“I love the Jewish people and all the citizens of Israel,” he concluded in Hebrew.

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Here’s Everything NOT Happening During Impeachment

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Amid the unceasingly negative coverage of President Trump and impeachment by the former mainstream media, there is zero coverage of what Congress is not doing. What the Democrat-led Congress is not doing is keeping any of the promises it made during the 2018 midterm elections, when Americans flipped 40 seats and gave them control of Congress.

Instead, the Democrat energy has simply been what it was the previous two years when they did not have control — get Trump. That effort was through the Trump-Russia collusion hoax, which belly flopped, then obstruction, which went nowhere, and now it’s morphed to impeachment based on a Ukrainian phone call.

But Democrats actually made promises in 2018. Sure, a lot of us knew they had no real intentions of keeping those promises, they were wink-and-nod lies at the time. The primary reason they have not is because any of these would also be considered a victory for President Trump and Republicans. And it might make Trump look legitimate, and able to work with Democrats — which he actually is. But the Democratic Party, in its leadership at any rate, is all about getting Donald Trump.

However, millions of Americans did expect Democrats to keep their promises. So here’s a list of the major promises made through the Democratic Party’s informal 2018 platform, and most frequently by those running as moderates in Trump-won districts.

  • Democrats promised to work on new trade deals with the President because they knew those would be good for America, including many of their voters. They also knew that fair trade deals are popular with Americans. However, now that they are in power, Speaker Nancy Pelosi refuses to even bring to a vote the United States, Mexico, Canada (USMCA) trade deal that Mexico and Canada have already signed off on, even though it would most assuredly the pass the House, pass the Senate and go into law with Trump’s signature. This refusal actually fits with impeachment, because none of it is about what’s good for the country, and all of it is about getting Donald Trump.
  • Democrats promised to work with the Trump Administration and Republicans to lower drug costs, because Americans of every political stripe want to see that. But they have done nothing on that front. No legislation, no committee hearings on pending legislation. We’re now more than halfway through their term in control, and they’ve made no effort to do anything to lower drug costs. Perhaps they will during the spring and summer campaign season, but that would be just to use it in a way that they keep it as a political weapon in 2020 — rather than try to do what is right for Americans. Because it is all about getting Donald Trump.
  • Democrats promised to work with Trump and Republicans to pass infrastructure improvements. This is one of those pablum issues that the American people love, and therefore politicians love, but actually has very little meaning. The vast majority of capital improvements are done at state and local levels. But the promises are made every election cycle. And the Democrats did so. But with impeachment mania, they’ve done nothing on infrastructure. Because it is all about getting Donald Trump.
  • One of the fundamental requirements of Congress is to pass a budget each year. For many years under Obama and sporadically before and after that, Congress went to Continuing Resolutions (CRs) — which are irresponsible short-term spending bills to “keep the government open” and which are invariably larded up with special interest pork projects. Republicans had tried to push away from those, but now we are back to being stuck with them. Which means billions flushed down the hole and more media drama for no good reason.

In the irony of ironies department, the actual budget proposal they won’t pass includes $250 million for Ukraine aid. So Democrats are holding impeachment hearings in large part based on the delay of funding for Ukraine — over which they intone dramatically the gravity of Trump having done so. It was so, so very serious that the President would delay Ukrainian aid for even a few weeks. And yet their anti-Trump budget antics are delaying financial aid to Ukraine indefinitely.

Now compare this record to Trump’s record over three years:

  • 7 million new jobs, record low unemployment, all-time low unemployment for black and Hispanic Americans;
  • Hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing jobs that the previous administration said would never happen;
  • Extricating ourselves from the destructive Paris climate accords which have all but fallen apart now;
  • Ditching the terrible Iranian nuclear agreement and reinstituting sanctions on that murderous regime;
  • Markets at all time highs, which means pensions and retirement plans are healthy and growing;
  • Rebuilding the military that was depleted under the Obama Administration
  • Appointing Constitutional judges at every level. By the end of next year, Trump will have appointed, and the Republican Senate approved, about 30 percent of federal judges;
  • Renegotiating a much more fair trade deal with Mexico and Canada.

This is a very solid record of success for President Trump. Democrats have created no record of their own to run on. It’s no wonder they don’t want to run on records.

EDITORS NOTE: This Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEOS: President Trump and the 45 Fest in Sunrise, Florida

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President Trump changed his residence from New York to Florida. He is now registered in the Sunshine State as a Republican voter.

Here are two videos of President Trump and the 45 Fest held in Sunrise, Florida.

Commentary on 45 Fest in Sunrise, FL. Hat tip to Kirk Elliot.

GOP video of Trump Rally in Sunrise Florida.

© All rights reserved.

MIDDLE EAST INTEL REPORT: Anti-Iranian Demonstrations and Turkey, Iran, Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood

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ANTI-IRANIAN DEMONSTRATIONS

The Lebanese have been demonstrating for weeks against Hezbollah’s control of their government, which is just another way of saying that they are demonstrating against Iran’s control of their country by proxy.  They are demanding a new government of technocrats not connected with any political party be appointed to run the government.

The protestors are made up primarily of Sunnis and Christians.  The Iranians have ordered their proxies in both Lebanon and Iraq to do what ever is necessary to put a stop to these demonstrations.  Though the violence here has not been as severe as in Iraq, there has been some shooting with live rounds, and last night Hizbollah thugs attacked a group of protestors with motorcycles.

In spite of the Hizbollah violence, the non-terrorist Shi’a Amal party has long ago sold its soul to Hizbollah and has sided against the demonstrators.  Likewise the largely figurehead president, Gen. ‘Aoun, a Christian, has sold his soul to Hizbollah, thus he too has sided against the demonstrators (and against his own ethnic group).

The Iraqis have also been demonstrating for weeks.  While these demonstrations ostensibly began to protest corruption in the government, lack of services, and a rotten economy that can not provide enough jobs, they quickly morphed also into anti-Iranian protests.  What is most interesting about these protests is that they are taking place mostly in the southern portions of the country which is predominantly Shi’a.  In other words, we have Shi’a Iraqis in huge numbers protesting Shi’a Iran’s hegemony over their country.

In fact, these Shi’a protestors are burning pictures of Khomeini and Khamenei, burning Iranian flags, and chanting “death to Khamenei.”  Iranian stooges in the security forces and in the Iranian-controlled Iraqi Shi’a militias called al-heshd ash-Sha’bi (popular mobilization) militias have been using live rounds against the demonstrators.  As a result over a hundred protestors have been killed and hundreds more wounded.

The past week has also seen massive anti-regime protests in Iran taking place in at least 100 cities and towns and in every region of the country.  It was the regime’s sudden steep increase in the price of gasoline that allegedly touched off the nation-wide protests, but they too quickly morphed into anti-regime demonstrations with protestors chanting “death to the dictator, death to Khamenei.”

These protests lasted only a few days because the regime did not just use live rounds sporadically like in Iraq, they used live fire massively to intentionally mow down large numbers of protestors at once.  Machinegun fire was used at one point.  Also, as in Lebanon, thugs on motorcycles were used to terrify and break-up groups of protestors.

TURKEY/IRAN/QATAR/MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

Over the weekend, leaders of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) met with Muslim Brotherhood (MB) leaders in MB friendly Turkey to discuss common actions against reportedly Saudi Arabia.

Today, Monday 25 November, terrorist-supporting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visited MB financier Qatar to discuss regional issues.  Arabic news sources are reporting that massive trade deals have been signed as a result of this Erdogan visit.  Erdogan, who just happens to have 10,000 Turkish troops already stationed in tiny Qatar, said that his purpose is to guarantee the security of Qatar, and the “peace and stability” of the region.  Additional military cooperation is also in the works.

VIDEO: In a Blue State, Parents Beat Planned Parenthood’s Sex Ed Push

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Worcester, the second largest city in solidly blue Massachusetts, was the scene of a sex ed showdown between Planned Parenthood and concerned parents and church leaders. Last February, more than 75 of those parents and church leaders stood up alongside the Massachusetts Family Institute to outnumber pro-Planned Parenthood voices at a meeting of a local school committee.

The parents, church leaders, and Massachusetts Family Institute officials were there to pose a question: What would Planned Parenthood gain from teaching students about safe sex that would reduce both pregnancies and abortion? How would that benefit a business that relies heavily on income from abortion?

Planned Parenthood didn’t just want to redefine abstinence, it wanted to introduce comprehensive sex education, including curriculum on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Planned Parenthood advocates argued that their curriculum qualified as age-appropriate, medically accurate, and evidence-based. But when read aloud, as I did at the meeting, the content of the curriculum is found to be clearly neither age-appropriate nor medically accurate.

Congress is moving to impeach the president. But will their plan to remove him from office succeed? Find out more now >>

Watch the three-minute testimony: (Viewer discretion advised.)

To further expose what is going on in Massachusetts schools, we interviewed a young man who recently had been exposed to this curriculum. In this brief video (viewer discretion advised) pasted below, he explains what students are being taught and how sexual behavior and abortion are being completely normalized.

The Massachusetts Family Institute is working with local churches to introduce positive curriculum alternatives to Planned Parenthood’s version because many parents want their children to be taught to value abstinence and marriage. The organization is working with several churches in Lawrence, Massachusetts, to convince local school officials to adopt curriculum that is truly age-appropriate, medically accurate, and evidence-based.

Our organization believes there is a Biblical mandate to protect the minds of young people from being polluted and seeks to build on its success in Lawrence by replicating this strategy all over the state.

Over the past three years, the Massachusetts Family Institute has spoken at about 125 different churches across the state. Churches are starting to see that their Biblical mandate, as Martin Luther King Jr. explained, is to be the conscience of the state and never its slave. Relationships between local churches, parents, and pro-family groups are strategic.

Ultimately, in Worcester, the school committee voted to not allow the “Making Proud Choices” curriculum from Planned Parenthood into the schools.

We succeeded in defeating Planned Parenthood and protecting the minds and hearts of our young people in Worcester. But parents, community leaders, and pro-family advocates can team up anywhere to strengthen the family, life, and liberty.

COMMENTARY BY

Michael King

Michael King is the director of community alliances at the Massachusetts Family Institute.

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A Note for our Readers:

As we speak, Congress is moving to impeach the president.

We do not have all the facts yet, but based on what we know now, there does not seem to be an impeachable offense.

The questions stand: In drafting the Constitution, how did America’s founders intend for impeachment to be used? How does the impeachment process work, and what can history tell us about whether or not President Trump faces the real threat of being removed from office?

The Heritage Foundation is making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!

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