For Islamic Iran, It’s Hunting Season—Again

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Two weeks ago, Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok blew the whistle on the Iranian regime, accusing it of hiring local hit teams to assassinate prominent Iranian dissidents living in Holland.

Ahmad Mola Nissi, 52, was a leader of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz, a group that seeks to create a breakaway Arab province along Iran’s southern border with Iraq. He was leaving his house in The Hague on Nov. 8, 2017, when a man emerged from a BMW and shot him dead at his front door.

Two years earlier, in a similar shooting, Ali Motamed, 56, aka Mohammad Reza Kolahi, was gunned down near Amsterdam. The Dutch police have jailed two members of a notorious Amsterdam gang in connection with Motamed’s murder.

Blok didn’t just hint at Iranian government involvement, he spelled out in some detail a far-flung criminal conspiracy that led the European Union on Jan. 8 to impose sanctions against the Iranian Ministry of Information and Security (MOIS), freezing its assets in Europe.

In a letter to the Dutch House of Representatives, Blok revealed that the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service had been investigating the Iranian regime’s criminal conspiracy to murder dissidents in Europe since 2015. He also explained that the previously mysterious expulsion in June 2018 of two Iranian diplomats from Holland was related to the wave of assassinations.

The Dutch shared intelligence gathered during their investigation with other European intelligence agencies that helped thwart terror attacks in Denmark and France last year, Blok revealed in his letter.

In July 2017, Belgian police arrested two Iranians in possession of 500 grams of TATP, a homemade explosive, as well as a detonator, and charged them with conspiracy to bomb the opposition Mujahain-e Khalq in Paris. An Iranian diplomat posted to Vienna, was arrested while visiting Germany in connection with the same plot.

In September, Denmark dramatically closed its international borders with Germany and Sweden in an effort to apprehend a suspect in another assassination plot, and in October, a Norwegian citizen of Iranian descent was arrested on suspicion of aiding an unnamed Iranian intelligence service to “act in Denmark,” the country’s intelligence chief told reporters.

For all the drama of these arrests—and the murders themselves—European politicians have remained quiet until now. Blok’s “J’accuse” is the first time the Iranian regime has stood accused of successfully murdering dissidents since the late 1990s, when a former top regime intelligence official, Abolghasem Mesbahi, provided compelling testimony in the Mykonos murder trial in Germany directly implicating Iranian regime leaders.

Until Mesbahi came forward with insider information on the special committee formed of top regime officials that approved the assassinations, Germany and others in Europe did nothing to punish the Iranian regime for the murder of more than 200 dissidents across Europe. After the Mykonos trial, the European Union severed diplomatic relations with the regime and expelled Iranian government ambassadors for eighteen months from Europe.

Will the Europeans act more forcefully today than they did through most of the 1980s and 1990s, as Iranian regime hit teams gunned down dissidents at will?

The lure of profits from Iran is strong. Companies in Germany, Britain, Italy, and France constitute powerful lobbies that have sought protection from the European Union against U.S. sanctions for their continued business in Iran.

And many European-based dissidents I have spoken with complain that the Iranian intelligence services roam the streets at will, conducting acts of harassment and brazen surveillance against them. Some of these dissidents single out the German intelligence services for its close ties to Tehran, and its willingness to share information on their whereabouts and movements with MOIS operatives in Germany.

During his Middle East tour last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States and Poland would co-host a two-day summit next month in Poland to discuss Iran. The summit, expected to bring together diplomats and leaders from 70 countries, is expected to focus on Iranian regime terror operations, as well as its missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Europe needs to join the United States in taking a tougher stand on Iranian regime terror. For starters, they need to crack down on the Iranian intelligence networks that roam the streets hunting dissidents at will. They know who they are. It’s time for the Europeans to catch them and expel them before they act, not after they commit murder.

Next, Europe needs to acknowledge that the Iranian regime presents a clear and present danger not just to countries in the Middle East, but to Europe and the United States as well. They need to join the United States in sanctions that isolate the regime diplomatically and cripple its financial resources.

Ironically, the summit in Poland will coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Islamic terror regime takeover of Iran. If Pompeo succeeds in rounding up a posse, it could be the last of these anniversaries of darkness.

EDITORS NOTE: This Epoch Times column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo taken in Tehran, Iran is by Keith Zhu on Unsplash.

U.S. Supreme Court (Finally) Takes Another Second Amendment Challenge to a Gun Control Law

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This week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to a gun control law for the first time in nearly 10 years. Arguments in the case will likely be heard during the court’s next term, which starts in October.

During the opening decade of the 21st Century, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two landmark rulings that many hoped would revitalize the Second Amendment, which had been all but read out of the Constitution by activist lower judges that favored banning or heavily restricting firearms.

District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) made abundantly clear that the Second Amendment is a fundamental civil right and should be respected as such by the nation’s courts and public officials.

That did not happen. 

Instead, the rulings seemed mainly to energize the resistance to the right to keep and bear arms both within and without the judicial system. 

Billionaires turned social engineers – most notably Michael Bloomberg – created a new industry around more sophisticated and organized anti-gun efforts. 

Elite universities created research departments entirely devoted to engineering empirical support for gun control and rewriting American history as it pertains the Second Amendment and gun ownership.

The same judges with their same lifetime appointments who refused to acknowledge the obvious import of the Second Amendment’s history and text refused to acknowledge the obvious import of the Heller and McDonaldopinions. 

And one lower court decision after another upheld the most sweeping and oppressive forms of gun control, including bans on America’s most popular rifles, bans on magazines used for self-defense, bans on dealer sales of handguns to military-aged adults, mandatory handgun licensing fees of $340, discretionary licensing for the carrying of firearms, lengthy waiting periods to acquire guns, and infeasible manufacturing requirements that effectively ban new models of handguns.

Throughout it all, the high court seemed to have turned its back on the Second Amendment, refusing review in case after case. This sometimes provoked impassioned dissents from justices who believed the Second Amendment was being treated as a “disfavored right” and a “constitutional orphan.” 

Only once in all this time did the U.S. Supreme Court revisit the Second Amendment in an unsigned opinion that summarily reversed, without argument, a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court opinion that upheld the state’s ban on electrically-powered “stun guns.” 

That changed on Tuesday when the high court granted review to the NRA-backed case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York. This case concerns a challenge under the Second Amendment and other constitutional provisions to New York City regulations that effectively ban law-abiding handgun owners from traveling outside the city with their own secured and unloaded handguns.

The bizarre and unique nature of this regulation – apparently the only one of its kind in the nation – and the exceedingly thin “public safety” justification for it potentially make the case low-hanging fruit for another positive Second Amendment ruling. 

But whether the Supreme Court will use the occasion to bring lower court defiance of the Second Amendment to heel or simply to rule narrowly on this particular regulation remains to be seen.

The development does, however, underscore the importance to gun owners of President Trump’s appointments to the high court, including Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brent Kavanaugh. 

The latter replaced Justice Anthony Kennedy, who was considered the crucial swing vote in the Heller and McDonald cases. Yet Kennedy’s sustained commitment to a robust Second Amendment was always in question, leading to speculation that neither the court’s pro- or anti-gun blocs had the confidence to take another case.

Unlike Kennedy, however, Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are committed originalists, the same mode of judicial interpretation that the late Justice Antonin Scalia used in authoring the Heller opinion. Fidelity to that method and to the court’s opinions in Heller and McDonald are the surest guarantees we can have that the Second Amendment will get the respect it is due by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Left-leaning pundits are already issuing hysterical predictions about what this development means for gun control in the United States. 

May they be right and then some. 

The more sober and mature outlook, however, is a wait-and-see attitude, along with a healthy appreciation of how President Trump’s appointments to the court may finally reenergize a Second Amendment that has been neglected for too long. 

Those appointments would not have happened without the steadfast work of NRA members who understand the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court as the final backstop against infringements of our Second Amendment rights. We may now be on the threshold of realizing the fruits of that labor.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Illinois: Bill Introduced to Ban Many Firearms & Accessories

Washington: Anti-Gun Bills Pass Committee, On to Senate Floor

New York: SAFE Act Part 2 on Tap For Coming Week

South Dakota: Senate Passes Constitutional/Permitless Carry Legislation

Washington: Attorney General Introduces Additional Gun Ban Legislation

EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Sofia Sforza on Unsplash.

Trump Cave: Short-term Deal — NO WALL MONEY!

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Within minutes after President Trump made his Rose Garden announcement that a “deal” was made to reopen the government the Democratic National Campaign Committee (DNCC.org) sent out the below email:

Watch the video of President Trump’s announcement:

A good friend of mine noted that “compromise is the art of losing slowly.” It now appears that President Trump is more interested in making a deal than keeping America safe by building the wall. Now making a deal is the art of losing slowly.

President Trump now has five options:

  1. Sign legislation passed by both houses of Congress that does not include the $5.7 billion to build the wall.
  2. Veto legislation passed by both houses of Congress that does not include the $5.7 billion to build the wall.
  3. Sign legislation passed by both houses of Congress that does include the $5.7 billion to build the wall.
  4. If Congress does not pass legislation that includes the $5.7 billion to build the wall then declare a national emergency and build the wall.
  5. Do nothing and let the current border situation continue to worsen.

The question is will President Trump, now that he has signed the temporary CR, demand that Pelosi keep her word and open up the House chambers for the State of the Union address?

As the DNCC.org email highlights, “Time for some accountability.” The House and Senate Democrats plan on holding Trump accountable. As they do and the legacy media parrot their propaganda the Republicans will cower in fear. For you see the opposite of peace isn’t war, it is fear. The Democrats and media strike fear in the hearts of Republicans.

Ayn Rand wrote:

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.”

President Trump and the Republican Party are in a state of constant retreat. The Democrats are in a constant state of applying pressure. Today may go down in political history as the end of the Trump presidency.

Trump’s signature slogan was, like George H.W. Bush’s read my lips, “build the wall.” The wall will not be built because the Democrats rightly understand that they have won. They aren’t tired of winning.

The presidential election cycle that is just beginning could turn out to become a rout. The Republicans could lose the Senate and the White House.

Today, January 25, 2019 is the beginning of the retreat and the decline and fall of MAGA. The end.

RELATED ARTICLE: Report: Trump Could Have DOD Build Wall Without State of Emergency, Congressional Approval

RELATED VIDEO: Senator Lindsey Graham’s take on the Trump initiative.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Al x on Unsplash.

Religious faith is guaranteed; all religious practice is not

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By treating anti-blasphemy initiatives and anti-western rejectionism as protected religious expression, Islamist enablers make a mockery of American values and freedoms.

Secular progressives lack moral clarity when they preach détente with radical Islam while disparaging traditional Judaism and western religion.  They mock assertive Jews as chauvinistic or conservative Christians as puritanical, but defend doctrinal supremacists who despise liberal democratic values.

 Though the left often cites constitutional principles to justify coddling Islamists, the Constitution does not mandate tolerance of religious extremism. Nor does it guarantee totally unfettered freedom of religion.  Freedom of belief is certainly absolute, but the exercise of religion is not when it compromises the rights of others. Moreover, government has a legitimate interest in monitoring extremist ideologies that threaten public health, safety, and welfare.

America’s founding fathers envisioned a republic where individual liberties and communal obligations would be balanced in equipoise.  Generations of immigrants were able to embrace the American ideal without abdicating their religious or cultural heritage because the Constitution requires no repudiation of background, imposes no national creed, and respects freedom of belief.  It asks in return only that citizens pledge to uphold its principles. Immigrant Jews were able to thrive in this milieu because Jewish law provides “dina d’malchuta dina,” or “the law of the land is the law.”  Accordingly, Jews always felt compelled to respect native laws, assuming that none prohibited observance of the commandments.  

But supremacist ideologies that undermine the rights of others conflict with the law of the land, and thus are subject to monitoring and – if necessary – restriction.

The tendency to accuse critics of radical Islam of bigotry reflects ignorance or cognitive dissonance, particularly when their criticisms challenge western deference to extremist sensibilities or the intrusion of Sharia on majority culture.  By treating anti-blasphemy initiatives and anti-western rejectionism as protected religious expression, Islamist enablers make a mockery of American values and freedoms. Though Islamist intolerance and insularity are often rationalized in the name of multiculturalism, government cannot ignore faith-based conduct that threatens the rights of others.  There can be no excuse for honor killing, subjugating women, or imposing foreign parochialism in a society that espouses separation of church and state.

The First Amendment of the Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion . . . or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”  By prohibiting the establishment of national religion or endorsement of particular faiths, this language provides the basis for freedom of belief and worship. As integral as this amendment is, however, it does not prohibit government from safeguarding the welfare of its citizens; and the exercise of religion is not absolutely guaranteed when it threatens public safety or the rights of others.  

Calling for the subjugation of “infidels” or death penalty for heretics, for example, is incompatible with the Constitution and thus not subject to protection.

No discussion regarding free exercise today can omit reference to the threat of religious militancy.  Regarding militant Islam, Rabbi Dr. Richard L. Rubenstein, in his book “Jihad and Genocide,” discussed the jihadist impulse in the following context:

“Since Muslims believe that enduring peace and civic harmony can only be achieved by unconditional obedience to Allah, the project of spreading knowledge of Islam and calling upon non-Muslims to submit to conversion (da’wa) is seen as an invitation to join in the creation of a universal order of peace, justice, and harmony under Allah. When, however, nonbelievers decline that call, they are not regarded as being faithful to their own traditions but rejecting the sovereignty of Allah…”

“Hence, at least theoretically, Muslims are obliged to wage war until the unbelievers either become Muslim or acknowledge Islam’s supremacy…”

As Dr. Rubenstein and others have noted, Islamic militants are not an insignificant minority inhabiting the lunatic fringes of Mideast society.  Rather, they represent a powerful element dedicated to global Islamic hegemony. History suggests it is not hyperbole to characterize jihad against the west as a “clash of civilizations” or Islamist supremacism as inconsistent with pluralistic society.

In expanding the boundaries of their dominion since the seventh century, jihadists destroyed the sacred places of non-Islamic peoples they encountered, often using as building materials the rubble from temples, churches, synagogues and cemeteries they destroyed.  Characteristic of their disdain for native cultures and beliefs, they built mosques over the ruins of Hindu temples in India, converted churches after overrunning huge swaths of Christian Europe (centuries before the Crusades), and built shrines over ancient Jewish holy sites, including the Cave of Machpelah, Rachel’s Tomb, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Despite latter-day claims to the contrary, Jerusalem has no scriptural significance in Islam.  The Quran, in fact, is devoid of any reference, whereas Hebrew Scripture mentions Jerusalem and Zion more than eight-hundred times.  The Dome of the Rock, however, was built on the Temple Mount to symbolize the Jews’ subjugation in their homeland. This impulse to dominate is similar to that which compelled Umayyad Caliph al-Walid to convert the Church of St. John in Damascus to a Mosque in 706 and the Taliban to destroy ancient Buddhist shrines in Afghanistan in 2001.  

Indeed, it was this tradition that raised concerns a decade ago regarding a proposal to build a mosque at New York’s “Ground Zero.”  Critics then believed that constructing such a facility near the site where thousands were murdered by jihadists on 9/11 would essentially preempt a place held sacred by all Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion.  Despite these reservations, the proposal’s detractors were labeled bigots by progressives, whose accommodation of radical Islam became more pronounced in the years thereafter.

Liberals who excuse Islamist effrontery in the name of religious freedom are incongruously unabashed in their contempt for any perceived encroachment of western religion in secular society.  They chastise fundamentalist Christians for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, but express grave concerns that any discussion of Islamic radicalism will offend Muslim sensibilities. Christians can certainly be criticized when engaging in public debates – such is the nature of American politics.  So why should Muslims be regarded differently? If religious expression can be scrutinized when it implicates public interest, there can be no justification for excluding Islamist excess from government purview.

Bureaucratic intervention in religious affairs is often mundane.  A church seeking to expand, for example, must apply for zoning approval and go through the same process as any other petitioner.  It must file applications that are vetted publicly and which can be denied for a variety of reasons, including concerns for traffic safety, architectural integrity, or continuity of neighborhood character.  

Government regulatory authority is not limited to land use enforcement, however, and can be exercised whenever public safety and security are threatened.  Christian sects that practice snake-bite rituals, for example, are subject to state laws (upheld by the US Supreme Court) banning the sale and use of poisonous serpents for devotional purposes.  Christian Scientists who withhold insulin from diabetic children and Witnesses who deny blood transfusions to minors can be prosecuted for child neglect, abuse, or homicide. Likewise, religious polygamists who take child brides can be arrested for statutory rape, and cults threatening armed violence, like the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, can be restrained using deadly force.  

Even something as innocuous as a Lag B’Omer bonfire is subject to municipal fire codes and permit regulations.

Although the First Amendment mandates freedom of worship, it does not grant the right to harass others in the name of religion.  This is not to say that government can restrict religious thought. It cannot and should not. However, there must be a balance between the right to free exercise and the need to protect the rights of persons affected by the practices of others.

Accordingly, non-Muslims should not be subjected to Sharia or anti-blasphemy limitations any more than Jews should have to tolerate harassment by evangelicals who proselytize by corrupting Jewish Scripture.  The right to free exercise must be counterbalanced by the right to be left alone.

America’s founders conceived of a broadly inclusive society, but they never contemplated empowering religious extremists who would seek to impose their beliefs on others and respect no authority but their own.  Militant Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy, as are the efforts of its political vanguard to impose Sharia on non-Muslims. While the European Human Rights Court has affirmed laws prohibiting speech deemed “insulting to the Prophet of Islam” or offensive to Muslim sensibilities, such judicial overreach contravenes the American legal tradition.  The US Constitution grants freedom of speech and worship, but it entitles nobody to protection from insult or offense.

Indeed, US citizens are constitutionally protected from extremist enablers who seek to regulate speech or impose totalitarian restrictions through questionable legislation or enforced political correctness.  Freedom of belief may be absolute, but freedom of practice is not when it inhibits speech, imposes minority beliefs on the majority, and undermines the law of the land.

EDITORS NOTE: This Israel National News column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by أخٌ في الله ... on Unsplash.

Chaos in Venezuela by Clare M. Lopez

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Originally published on Newsmax:

Hundreds of thousands of desperate, hungry, fed-up Venezuelans took to the streets today in cities all over the country after Juan Gerardo Guaidó Márquez, president of the opposition-controlled National Assembly of Venezuela, declared himself Interim President.

Statements of official recognition and support quickly followed from U.S. President Donald Trump and senior administration officials, Canada, and many countries in Central and South America. The governments of Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Russia, and Turkey, notably, remain solidly behind current President Nicolas Maduro.

By day’s end, Maduro cut off diplomatic ties with the U.S. and gave American diplomats 72 hours to leave the country. The Trump administration fired back, saying through a spokesman that “all options are on the table.”

While the diplomatic, moral, and verbal support of the U.S. and other regional countries is surely important, what will matter even more are several factors likely beyond any of their control.

Will the Venezuelan people remain on the streets this time, no matter what?

Will the Venezuelan military remain loyal to Maduro even to the point of firing live rounds at their fellow Venezuelans? (The answer to that may already be coming into view, as there have been reports of live fire from the Venezuelan Guardia Nacional and casualties earlier today.)

Will Maduro’s Cuban, Hizballah, and/or Iranian “security advisors” take an even more active, direct role in putting down what may be the most serious challenge to Maduro’s rule yet?

Stay tuned, as Diosdado Cabello, a member of the Venezuelan National Assembly and reportedly one of the most corrupt politicians in the country, has called Maduro supporters to defend Miraflores Palace, the official presidential residence, in downtown Caracas.

About Clare M. Lopez

Clare M. Lopez is Vice President for Research & Analysis at the Center for Security Policy.  She previously was a Senior Fellow with the Center as well as with the London Center for Policy Research, member of Sen. Ted Cruz’ 2016 presidential campaign national security advisory team, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, and a career operations officer with the CIA. Read her complete bio here. Follow Lopez on Twitter @ClareMLopezView all posts by Clare M. Lopez →

RELATED ARTICLE: Steps Venezuela’s interim government must take – quickly – to survive

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Andrés Gerlotti on Unsplash.

A List of the Necessary Steps to End ‘Christophobia’

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After the recent incident involving Covington Catholic High School students at the Right To Life march in Washington, D.C. it is appropriate to take steps to end “Christophobia.” Of the three major monotheistic religions of the world, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, only Christianity does not have a plan to end the criticism of its beliefs. The Jewish people have anti-Semitism and the followers of Mohammed have Islamophobia to protect their beliefs from non-believers.

What can America and the world do to protect those who believe in Jesus Christ from non-believers?

Perhaps it is useful to use what the other two Abrahamic religions have used successfully as models. Just as the Jewish people have suffered from persecution and endured the horrors of the Holocaust, so to have Christians. Christians were fed to the lions by the Romans, slaughtered by the millions in socialist/Communist countries and are today being persecuted around the world in record numbers for their faith.

By the way, Jesus (عيسى or Issa in Arabic) is mentioned no less than 35 times in the Qur’an. Jesus is listed 27 times by his name, and 8 times as “the Messiah” or “المسيح” in Arabic. Mohammed is mentioned only 4 times in the Qur’an. (Read: All Qur’anic Passages about Jesus.)

Here are recommended steps to end the fear of Christians globally. (If you have other steps please feel free to list them in the comment section below.)

  1. Demand that all politicians refer to Christianity and Christians as followers of “the religion of peace.”
  2. Call anyone who blasphemes God or His Son Jesus as bigoted, hateful and a Christophobe (Christian anti-blasphemy law).
  3. Have the United Nations pass a resolution condemning Christophobia. Any nation state that speaks ill of Christianity must be condemned in the strongest terms and labeled Christophobic.
  4. Have the federal government hire Christians to go into prisons, neighborhoods, communities and recruit new members to the Christian faith, the religion of peace.
  5. Have the federal government subsidize the building of newer and larger churches throughout America and the world that praise the word of God and His Son, Jesus.
  6. Demand that local, state and the federal governments pass laws making it illegal for anyone to criticizes the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. Known as “blasphemy laws.”
  7. Designate any criticism or attack against any follower of Jesus, either verbal or physical, as a hate crime.
  8. Force all news sources to treat the followers of Jesus as a special class of people who cannot be criticized, vilified or covered in a negative way.
  9. Demand that Hollywood hire Christian actors and actresses in proportion to the followers of Jesus in the population of the United States. The same for professional sports teams.
  10. Require all school children to read the Bible and become followers of Jesus Christ.
  11. Elect more Christians to positions at the local, state and federal levels in proportion to the followers of Jesus in the population of the United States.
  12. Appoint Christians as judges in proportion to the followers of Jesus in the population of the United States.
  13. Force all businesses to serve the followers of Jesus equally.
  14. Force all non-Christian business to serve Christians equally under penalty of law.
  15. Pass resolutions at the local, state and federal levels making Christians a protected class of citizens.

Perhaps after reading this list you you may be thinking this is a joke. It is not.

These same protections, listed above, are provided in law and culturally to the other two Abrahamic religions at the local, state and federal levels in the U.S. and internationally.

QUESTION: Why not provide the same protections to Christians?

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Murder on a Genocidal Scale’: Why the US Church Needs to Wake Up to Scourage of Global Christian Persecution

Here Are 3 Ways the Legacy Media Failed in the Covington Incident

The Public School Monopoly Forces Kids to Learn Secular Humanism. We Need More Options.

Silencing Catholic Speech

EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Ismael Paramo on Unsplash.

House Republicans Vote Twice to Pay Government Employees During Shutdown

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House Republicans have now twice voted to pay government employees during the partial shutdown, but neither bill has passed the Democrat-controlled chamber.

“House Republicans have repeatedly introduced measures that would pay federal employees during the stalemate,” Rep. Mike Johnson, chairman of the Republican Study Committee, said in a statement provided to The Daily Signal. “Unfortunately, Democrats refuse to budge.”

“It is disingenuous to express outrage over the approximately 800,000 workers missing paychecks, but then continue to vote in favor of withholding their pay. That is precisely what the majority of Democrats are doing,” Johnson added.

In a statement provided to The Daily Signal, Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., said Democrats’ failure to vote with Republicans to pay federal employees is telling.

“Before choosing to go home early for the weekend, 215 Democrats voted to deprive hard-working federal workers of their pay,” Hice said, adding:

Once again, they blocked a good faith effort to ensure all federal employees receive pay during this stalemate as we allow negotiations to continue on border security. This is just the latest example that Nancy Pelosi and Democrats are only interested in hurting President Trump instead of actually solving problems.

Texas freshman lawmaker Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, says “actions speak louder than words,” noting that most Democrats failed to join House Republicans and vote to pay federal employees during the partial government shutdown.

“House GOP voted again to pay federal employees,” Crenshaw tweeted Wednesday. “This time just ten Democrats joined us,” he said, adding that the prior time Republicans voted to pay federal employees, only six Democrats had joined them.

The partial government shutdown has now been ongoing for 34 days due to the fight over $5.7 billion in funding for a barrier at the border.

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows, R-N.C., suggested in a tweet that House Democrats had no “sense of urgency” to end the shutdown.

“Democrats decry federal workers not getting paid in one breath and then cancel votes to leave town early in another,” Meadows tweeted Thursday. “Ridiculous—the shutdown is 33 days old. Where is the sense of urgency? There is zero reason anyone in Congress should go home until this is resolved. Period.”

The Senate will be voting on a package to end the shutdown on Thursday, but it is not expected to pass, Politico reported.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on the Senate to pass the package, but did not acknowledge the votes the House has taken to fund federal employees despite the shutdown.

“As the #TrumpShutdown hits Day 34, the consequences of this senseless shutdown continue to build,” Pelosi tweeted. “President Trump and Senate Republicans must allow us to do the responsible thing and re-open government.”

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., also introduced legislation Jan. 9 to pay federal employees during the government shutdown who are “tasked with securing our border and deterring illegal immigration,” and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz., told The Daily Signal in an email that Democrats should stop their obstruction.

“Nancy Pelosi and Democrats continue to vote against giving our federal workers a paycheck,” Gosar said. “It’s time for Democrats to stop this nonsense and come to the table and end this shutdown. I remain committed to securing our border and getting Americans back to work.”

Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., also highlighted on Twitter Thursday that “214 Democrats voted against paying our federal employees at [the Department of Homeland Security].”

COLUMN BY

Portrait of Rachel del Guidice

Rachel del Guidice

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

The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you. Donate now

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is from Congressman Dan Crenshaw’s Facebook page.

INTO THE FRAY: The imperative for incentivized Arab migration & the emerging inevitability of the Humanitarian Paradigm

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Once inconceivable, the dismantling of UNRWA; the naturalization of stateless Palestinian residents in Arab countries; and the emigration of Palestinians from Judea-Samaria & Gaza are slowly emerging as realistic outcomes

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth – Sherlock Holmes, in “The Sign of the Four”.

Over a quarter-century ago (in 1992) , I warned of the consequences—for both Jew and Arab—if Israel were to evacuate Gaza.

I cautioned: “…the inevitable implications of Israeli withdrawal can be ignored only at great peril to Israelis and Arabs alike”, observing:“…no measure whether the total [Israeli] annexation or total [Israeli] withdrawal can be reconciled with either Israel’s security needs or the welfare of the Arab population there.” Accordingly, I concluded that the only viable and durable policy was the resettlement and rehabilitation of the non-belligerent Gazans elsewhere—and I underscored: “this was not a call for a forcibly imposed racist “transfer” by Israel, but rather…a humane and historically imperative enterprise”.

Confusing economic enhancement with “ethnic cleansing”

Today, after a more than a decade-and-a-half of bloody confrontations, including three large scale military engagements—imposed on Israel to protect its civilian population from predicted assaults—and a fourth appearing increasingly inevitable; with the Gazans awash in untreated sewage, with their sources of drinking water polluted, and with perennial power outages, my predictions appear to have turned out to be lamentably precise.

Perversely, earlier this month I was excoriated for…being proven right—and my fact-based professional assessment as a political scientist that, because of the overtly unremitting enmity of the Gazans towards the Jewish state: “Eventually there will either be Arabs in Gaza or Jews in the Negev. In the long run, there will not be both”, was denounced as a call for ethnic cleansing.

Of course, my detractors conveniently ignore that, time and time again, I have called for providing generous relocation grants to help the hapless non-belligerent Gazans find more prosperous and secure lives for themselves elsewhere, in third party countries, outside the “circle of violence”; and to extricate themselves from the stranglehold of the cruel, corrupt cliques who have led them astray from debacle to disaster for decades.

Confusing an unequivocal call for economic enhancement with one for “ethnic cleansing”, they apparently believe—in their “infinite benevolence and wisdom”—that compelling the Gazans to languish in their current conditions is somehow more humane.

But, more on these wildly unfounded recriminations against me perhaps in a future column.

A tripartite plan

Several years after my 1992 article, I extended the idea of incentivized emigration to the Arab population in Judea-Samaria (a.k.a. the “West Bank”) and in 2004 I formulated a tripartite plan (The Humanitarian Paradigm) for the comprehensive resolution—or rather the dissolution of the “Palestinian problem”, which include the following components:

The first was the dismantling of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency), an anomalous UN entity, charged with dealing exclusively with the Palestinian-Arab diaspora (a.k.a. Palestinian “refugees”), displaced by the 1948 and 1967 wars with Israel. As I pointed out back then, because of its anomalous definition of who is considered a “refugee” (which extends to the descendants of those originally displaced), and its anomalous mandate (which precludes resettling them anywhere but in the country from which they were displaced), UNRWA is an organization which (a) perpetuates (rather than resolves) the predicament of the stateless Palestinian “refugees”; (b) perpetuates (rather than dissipates) the Palestinian-Arab narrative of “return” to pre-1948 Israel. Accordingly, the continued existence of UNRWA is an insurmountable obstacle to any resolution of the “Palestinian problem”—and hence its dismantling—or at least, radical restructuring—is an imperative precondition for progress toward any such resolution.

The second component was the launch of an international campaign to induce the Arab countries to desist from what is essentially a policy of ethnic discrimination against the Palestinian diaspora, resident in them for decades, and to grant its members citizenship—rather than keeping them in a perpetual state of stateless “refugees”, as a political weapon with which to bludgeon Israel. To date, any such move is prohibited by the mandate of the Arab League.

A tripartite plan (cont.)

The reasoning behind this prohibition was made clear in a 2004 LA Times interview with Hisham Youssef, then-spokesman for the 22-nation Arab League, who admitted that Palestinians live “in very bad conditions,” but maintained that the official policy on denying Palestinians citizenship in the counties of decades-long residence is meant “to preserve their Palestinian identity.” According to Youssef: “If every Palestinian who sought refuge in a certain country was integrated and accommodated into that country, there won’t be any reason for them to return to Palestine.”

The significance of this is clear.

The nations comprising the Arab League are prepared to subordinate the improvement of the dire humanitarian conditions of the Palestinians, resident throughout the Arab world, to the political goal of preserving the “Right of Return” — i.e. using them as a pawn to effect the elimination of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.

It is to the annulment of this pernicious policy that international pressure must be directed.

The third—and arguably the most controversial—element was to offer the non-belligerent Arab residents in Judea-Samaria generous relocation grants to provide them and their families an opportunity to seek a better and safer future in third-party host-nations, than that which almost inevitably awaits them—if they stay where they are.

Atomization & de-politicization

To overcome potential resistance to accepting the relocation/rehabilitation grants, I stipulated two elements regarding the manner in which the funding activity is to be carried out: (a) the atomization of implementation of the grant payments; (b) the de-politicization of the context in which they are made.

(a) Atomization: This implies that the envisaged compensation will be offered directly to individual family heads/breadwinners—not through any Arab collective (whether state or sub-state organization), who may have a vested interest in impeding its payment. Accordingly, no agreement with any Arab collective is required for the implementation of payment to the recipients—merely the accumulated consent of fate-stricken individuals, striving to improve their lot.

(b) De-politicization: The incentivized emigration initiative is not cast as a political endeavor but rather a humanitarian one. This reflects a sober recognition that, after decades of effort, involving the expenditure of huge political capital and economic resources, there is no political formula for the resolution of the conflict. Accordingly, efforts should be channeled into dissipating the humanitarian predicament of the Palestinian-Arabs, which the insoluble political impasse has precipitated.

These two elements–direct payments to individuals and the downplaying of the political nature of the relocation/rehabilitation grants and the emphasis on the humanitarian component are designed to circumvent—or at least attenuate—any claims that acceptance of the funds would in some way entail an affront to—real or imagined—national sentiments.

Once inconceivable, now slowly materializing

For many years, advocating these three elements—the dismantling (or at least the radical restructuring) of UNRWA; the naturalization of the Palestinian diaspora resident in Arab countries as citizens; and the emigration of Palestinian-Arabs from Judea-Samaria and Gaza—seemed hopelessly unrealistic.

However today, all three are slowly but inexorably materializing before our eyes in a manner that would have appeared inconceivable only a few years ago.

Of course, a major catalyst for this nascent metamorphosis has been the Trump administration.

The US administration has—despite hitherto unexplained and inexplicable Israeli reluctance—exposed the fraudulent fiasco of UNRWA. As its erstwhile biggest benefactor, the US has retracted all funding from the organization. But more importantly, it has focused a glaring spotlight on the myth of the “Palestinian refugees” and the spectacularly inflated number of such alleged “refugees”—which even include those who have long acquired citizenship of some other country!

This salutary US initiative has the potential to rescind the recognition of the bulk of the Palestinian diaspora as “refugees”. Thus, even if they continue to receive international aid to help ameliorate their humanitarian situation, this will not be as potential returnees to their alleged homeland in Israel.

Once the Palestinian diaspora is stripped of its fraudulent refugee status, the door is then open to settling them in third party countries other than their claimed homeland,  and to their naturalization as citizens of these counties.

Naturalization of Palestinian diaspora in countries of residence

In this regard, the Trump administration has reportedly undertaken an important initiative–see here; here; and here. According to these reports, President Trump has informed several Arab countries that, at the start of 2019, he will disclose a citizenship plan for Palestinian refugees living in those countries. 

Significantly, Palestinian sources told the news outlet: “Trump informed several Arab countries that the plan will include Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon.” According to these sources: “the big surprise will be that these countries have already agreed to naturalize Palestinian refugees.” Moreover, it was reported that senior US officials are expected to seriously raise an American initiative with several Arab countries—including stipulation of the tools to implement it, the number of refugees, the required expenses, and the logistics demanded from hosting countries for supervising the process of “naturalization of refugees”.

It is difficult to overstate the significance of such an initiative, which coincides precisely with the second element in the foregoing tripartite plan. For, it has the potential to remove the ominous overhang of a five million strong (and counting) Palestinian diaspora that threatens to inundate the Jewish state and nullify its ability to function as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

As such, the Israeli government and all pro-Zionist entities should strive to ensure its implementation.

Emigration: The preferred option of the Palestinians?

As for the third element of the tripartite plan, emigration of the Palestinian population to third-party countries, there is rapidly accumulating evidence that emigration is emerging as an increasingly sought-after option. Indeed, earlier this month, Israeli mainstream media highlighted the desire to leave Gaza in order to seek a better life elsewhere. For example, the popular website, YNetnews, ran a piece entitled, Gaza suffers from brain drain as young professionals look for better life, with the Hebrew version appearing a few days previously, headlined The flight from Gaza: What Hamas is trying to conceal from the media. Likewise, the KAN Channel ran a program reporting very similar realities (January 13).

These items come on the heels of a spate of previous articles that describe the widespread clamor among Gazans to find alternative places of abode—see for example For Young Palestinians, There’s Only One Way Out of Gaza (Haaretz) ; Thousands Abandon Blockaded Strip as Egypt Opens Crossing  (Alaraby); As Egypt Opens Gaza Border, A Harsh Reality is Laid Bare (Haaretz); and How Turkey Has Become the Palestinian Promised Land (Haaretz).

The Ynetnews piece describes the fervor to leave: “Leaving Gaza is expensive, particularly for the residents of the impoverished coastal enclave…The demand is high, and the waiting list to leave is long…Those wishing to cut short their wait must pay for a place on a special list, which is run by a private firm in Gaza…The price for a place on this special list is $1,500—a fortune for the average resident of Gaza…”

It would appear then, that the only thing preventing a mass exodus from Gaza is…money. Which is precisely what the tripartite plan proposes providing.

Let their people go: A slogan for April’s elections?

There is, of course, little reason to believe that, if Israel were to leave Judea-Samaria, what happened in Gaza would not happen there. After all, the preponderance of professional opinion appears to hold that, if the IDF were to evacuate Judea-Samaria, it would likely fall to elements very similar to those that seized power in Gaza—and the area would quickly be transformed into a mega-Gaza-like entity, on the fringes of Greater Tel Aviv—with all the attendant perils that would entail.

Sadly however, despite its clear strategic and ethical advantages over other policy proposals, few in the Israeli political system have dared to adopt incentivized emigration as part of their platform. The notable exception is Moshe Feiglin and his Zehut party –and, to certain extent, Bezalel Smotrich, the newly elected head of the National Union faction in the Jewish Home Party, previously headed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett.

It is, however, time for the idea of incentivized emigration to be embraced by the mainstream parties as the only viable policy paradigm that can ensure the continued survival of Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. It is time for the mainstream to adopt an election slogan that sounds a clarion call to “Let their people go”.

EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Cole Keister on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Republican member of Congress calls CNN ‘fake news king’

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One Republican member of Congress is standing against fake news. Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Alabama took to the floor and gave a clear and precise evisceration of CNN.

Congressman Brooks also spoke on how MS 13 gang members brutally murdered a grandmother and her granddaughter. Illegals have even impacted the state of Alabama. Watch:

Cross Examining the 2020 Census [+Video]

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The Trump Administration intends to appeal the decision of Judge Jesse Furman at the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after the Southern District of New York ruled that the Commerce Department must strike a question from the 2020 Census.

The question: “Is this person a citizen of the United States?”

The use of his question has energized the usual suspects and some disparate interests, all of which take exception to it. There is precedent for asking Census respondents about citizenship status: The American Community Survey, an annual statistical canvass of 3.5 million U.S. households conducted by the Census Bureau, asks about citizenship, and the main Census itself has done so in the past.

A number of left-of-center groups like the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU), the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers, Bend the Arc, Center for Popular Democracy, Common Cause, People for the American Way, Rock the Vote, Southern Poverty Law Center, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and scores of others have filed amicus briefs challenging the question or issued statements urging the Commerce Department and Census Bureau to drop the question on the grounds that the question will cause non-citizens not to respond to the decennial census. (The Census is required to count “the total resident population of the 50 states” for determining Congressional apportionment, or the number of Representatives to which each state is entitled.) At least 19 states and 10 cities have sued the Commerce Department over the question, citing violations of the Administrative Procedures Act and the Census Act.  These groups claim (among other things) that the citizenship question on the U.S. Census will deter certain groups, largely Hispanics and undocumented residents who fear deportation, from answering the census, depressing the number of respondents and leading to inaccuracies which have heavy political consequences.

Obtaining a reliable headcount through the census is of utmost importance to American civic life. The constitutionally mandated census determines how federal funding for government programs is distributed, how the states draw the maps of election districts which determine state elections, and how the states vote for members of Congress to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Why the Data Matters

As reported by Hayden Ludwig in early 2018, there is good reason to capture citizenship information. On a common-sense level, it is important for policymakers to know the makeup of their districts and to understand the size of (potentially) competing interests and policy agendas.

When it comes to ensuring that voting is indeed fair, citizenship data can be crucial to determine if the Justice Department needs to intervene in areas where there is suspected voter suppression. Right now, the Justice Department relies on sampling data derived from the American Community Survey. It’s especially unreliable for districts with smaller populations and in communities with high numbers of minority residents who aren’t eligible to vote.

The lawsuits also ignore the fact that the Census Bureau has been tracking citizenship data for a very long time. The now-defunct “long-form” census asked this question until it was eliminated in 2000 in favor of the American Community Survey. The American Community Survey, which is distributed to 2.6 percent of the population, asks this question of respondents every year. Furthermore, other government agencies, such as the FBI or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are not allowed to access this information.

But what’s emerging from the “resistance” to this question is a power-grab that is inherently political.

Groups on the left are concerned about supposed underreporting because areas with a high density of foreign nationals—including illegal immigrants—tend to vote for Democrats. (Many are also so-called “sanctuary cities” which do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.) A depressed population count in these areas could cost Democrats seats in the House of Representatives. After all, after the 2020 Census, the states are required to draw new district maps to reflect any changes in the population in accordance with Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. This is the opportunity Democrats have been waiting for since 2010.

Moving Redistricting Out of the Shadows

After Republicans across the country won a wave of elections in 2010, they were in power to draw (most of) the required 2011 district maps. As is predictable, a number of GOP-controlled states drew maps favorable to Republicans. (This is hardly unusual. As a rule, both sides will draw maps favorable to themselves; indeed, both sides did it in states they controlled after 2010. Watch CRC’s video on gerrymandering here.)

The Democrats have been quietly working to break up Republican-drawn district maps since 2010, when Marc Elias, chair of the political law group at Perkins Coie and counsel to a host of Democratic lawmakers and left-leaning political and nonprofit organizations, secured an exemption from the Federal Elections Commission to raise money for a coordinated litigation effort. His efforts became the National Democratic Redistricting Trust.

The effort moved into the national spotlight after former Attorney General Eric Holder founded the National Democratic Redistricting Committee(NDRC)—a registered 527 political action committee which incorporated the former Trust. (Elias remains senior advisor and general counsel to NDRC.) Litigation funded by the PAC argued that the maps constituted racial or partisan gerrymanders that violated the Voting Rights Act. As a result, new maps were drawn in Virginia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania to name a few. In the 2018 midterm elections, Republicans lost seats in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. (The new map in North Carolina had yet to be implemented: The GOP retained its seats, although one election is unresolved.) Elias and Holder definitely helped swing the 2018 mid-term elections.

But the Census question is too important for Holder, Obama, and Elias to sit out.

Holder issued a statement through the National Democratic Redistricting Committee in March 2018, promising to litigate the case. In April, Covington & Burling, a white-shoe law firm where Eric Holder is a partner, filed a lawsuit against the Commerce Department. The plaintiffs are voters from Arizona and Maryland—an attempt by Holder to illustrate that voters in Red and Blue states are affected by the citizenship question.

According to the Washington Post, the lawsuit is being coordinated by the National Redistricting Foundation, which is closely affiliated with NDRC.

In fact, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization shares two of its three officers with the political action committee. Kelly Ward serves as NDRC executive director and President and CEO of the National Redistricting Foundation; Elisabeth Pearson sits on the board of both organizations and formerly served as the executive director of the Democratic Governors Association. The third officer, Treasurer Mitch Stewart, is a Democratic consultant whose firm counted Organizing for America as client.

The group is only a year old, but its first Form 990 revealed the nonprofit organization already has $2.85 million to dedicate to its anti-gerrymandering efforts. The Form 990 also reveals that the Foundation is a direct controlling entity of the 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, the National Redistricting Action Fund. The National Redistricting Foundation, National Redistricting Action Fund, and the NDRC all indicate they are headquartered at 700 13th Street NW, Suite 600, in Washington, D.C.—the address of Perkins Coie’s D.C. offices, where Marc Elias works.

On its own, the National Redistricting Action Fund reports it has $1.15 million in available funds. Kelly Ward, Elisabeth Pearson, and Mitch Stewart are also the three officers on the (c)(4)’s board. The group recently announced it was absorbing Organizing for Action, former President Barack Obama’s 501(c)(4) advocacy group—a reincarnation of his presidential election campaign. Organizing for Action will cease to exist. Presumably this merger will add over $5 million to the Democrats’ redistricting project as well as make the Obama campaign’s much-coveted email list available to drum up support for its version of a supposedly less gerrymandered America.

Who Will Be Asking the Questions?

As the varied lawsuits make their way through the appellate courts, newly empowered House Democrats are keeping the issue alive. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross agreed today to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. The Committee, led by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) released a statement: “Committee Members expect Secretary Ross to provide complete and truthful answers to a wide range of questions, including questions regarding the ongoing preparations for the census, the addition of a citizenship question, and other topics.”

While litigators and politicians make their case to strike or include the question, time is ticking. The 2020 Census Form needs to be finalized soon, before the counting begins next year. After that, the contentious redistricting process will begin. By then the Democrats at the heart of the party’s redistricting effort will have even more money to pay for ballot initiatives, campaign expenditures, and, of course, litigation.

COLUMN BY

Christine Ravold

Christine Ravold

Christine is the Capital Research Center’s Communications Officer. She writes, edits, and serves as a press contact. She is a graduate of Rosemont College in Pennsylvania. + MORE BY CHRISTINE RAVOLD

RELATED ARTICLE: Who Runs the Census? How the bureaucracy takes power away from elected officials. – WSJ

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EDITORS NOTE: This Capital Research Center column with images is republished with permission.

France builds “Trump-style” wall to keep illegal Muslim migrants from breaking into Britain from Calais

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France has speedily “built a ten-foot wall at a Total station in Calais used by migrants who attempt to storm lorries and break into Britain.”

The wall is being compared by detractors to the “Trump wall,” and it is just as needed: “there are an estimated 600 mostly male migrants hailing from Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria squatting in makeshift camps around the port town waiting to break into Britain— down from an estimated 10,000 during the heyday of the infamous ‘Calais Jungle.’”

Reminder: the Calais jungle was a violent no-go war zone.

“France Builds Trump-Style Wall to Stop Illegals Getting to Britain,” by Victoria Friedman, Breitbart, January 21, 2019:

French authorities have built a ten-foot wall at a Total station in Calais used by migrants who attempt to storm lorries and break into Britain.

The barrier is being erected at a petrol station in the Marcel-Doret area where lorries stop to fill up with fuel before heading to the port and onwards to the United Kingdom. It is set to be finished by mid-February.

Local prefect Fabien Sudry told Nord Littoral that “smuggling networks meet there and take advantage of stations near the port to get migrants in trucks.”

“The situation was rather tense at this station. The police regularly had stones thrown at them,” Mr Sudry said.
A Total spokesman confirmed the barrier was built at the request of the Calais prefecture to “protect customers, staff, and migrants,” the Daily Mail reports, with locals comparing it to the wall that U.S. President Donald Trump wants to build along the southern border of the United States to stop mass illegal migration from Central and South America.

Pro-migration aid workers object to the wall, as the barrier between the two spaces is “divisive.”
One Calais-based charity worker who wished to withhold their identity complained: “The wall is ugly and of course divisive.”

“This is very political — it aims to show desperate people that they are not welcome here, and that more and more walls and police will be used to keep them out.

“If you oppose such policies, you can get into a lot of trouble.”

There are an estimated 600 mostly male migrants hailing from Afghanistan, Iran, and Syria squatting in makeshift camps around the port town waiting to break into Britain — down from an estimated 10,000 during the heyday of the infamous “Calais Jungle”.

It is believed to be the first time that a wall has been so quickly erected in a hotspot area for trafficking with the intention of stopping migrants attempting to make the journey to the United Kingdom…..

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column with images is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Benny Jackson on Unsplash.

VIDEO: Native American Drummer Nathan Phillips was NOT a Vietnam Vet!

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Controversial Indian Activist going after Covington High School students is not who he wants you to believe. Ex-Navy SEAL pulls Private Nathan Phillips (a.k.a. Nathan Stanard) DD Form 214 and the Truth is told.

Thanks Master Chief – If that thanks triggers your sensitivities self-look it up and go find a safe space.

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Native American activist Nathan Phillips has violent criminal record and escaped from jail as teenager

Nathan Phillips, Native American in standoff with teens, faces scrutiny of his military past – Stars & Stripes

The New York Times issues correction on Nathan Phillips’ military service

Nathan Phillips reportedly tried to disrupt National Shrine Mass after Covington Catholic incident

EDITORS NOTE: The United West column with video is republished with permission. The featured image of Nathan Phillips (a.k.a. Nathan Stanard) is a screen shot from Indian Country Today.

Reading between the Maligns

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Under normal circumstances, the kids at Covington Catholic would be cheering the extra day off. But yesterday’s decision to cancel classes was not a moment anyone celebrated. It was a reminder that no one in the tight-knit community is safe. Least of all the children.

Four days after Covington students clashed with a man by the Lincoln Memorial, police cars are still staked out across the high school. The parking lot is closed, and officers have fanned out everywhere just in case one of the hundreds of threats pouring into the school materializes. The Left’s rush to judgment about a group of teenagers in MAGA hats at the March for Life means that basketball games have been postponed. Clothes with Covington colors are too dangerous to wear. And life for some of these teenagers may never be the same.

It was the kind of story liberal reporters dream about — a group of pro-life Catholic Trump supporters caught on tape abusing an older man with a different ethnicity. They seized on the video of a “smirking” Nick Sandmann like a pack of wolves, savoring the opportunity to prove that every MAGA hat-wearing American is an evil homophobic racist misogynistic sociopath (as one extremist so eloquently put it). The image of Nick’s face went viral, unleashing a raw and feral torrent of backlash. Nick and his friends were savaged across every media platform. “I want NAMES,” Kathy Griffin demanded. “Shame them. If you think these f—–s wouldn’t dox you in a heartbeat, think again.” Best-selling author Reza Aslan tweeted that the Nick had a “punchable face.” Others called for him to be burned alive — a high school junior with a spotless record. “I have never heard such cruel things wished upon another human being,” Covington Senior Grant Hillman said soberly.

There’s just one problem. The accusations weren’t true. Longer videos showed that Covington Catholic kids weren’t the aggressors — they were the victims, first of a group of Black Hebrew Israelites, then by the media’s phony martyr, Nathan Phillips. And while hate may be in the Left’s vocabulary, sorry isn’t. When the full version of the tape was released, the New York Times didn’t apologize. They said, “more videos later emerged complicating the story.” To the other side, I suppose that’s what the truth has always been — a complication.

Shame first, confirm later. But in the rush to paint a group of pro-life teenagers as a gang of Trump-loving thugs, the irony is this: liberals doxxed themselves. It’s no longer a mystery where the real prejudices lives. And unlike the crucifixion of Brett Kavanaugh — and you can draw plenty of parallels — this is not an “oops, my bad” moment for the Left. These are children with futures and families and friends. In a world like ours, where one tweet, one hate map, one cellphone video can end up in the wrong hands, there are real consequences here. We at FRC have seen them.

As the Wall Street Journal points out, “Most of those who so eagerly maligned these boys will face no lasting consequences, while the boys themselves will always have to wonder, when they are turned down for a job or a school, whether someone had Googled their name and found only half this story. This is an ugly moment in America, all right, but there are few things uglier than a righteous leftist mob.”

Some of the boys’ critics were brave enough to retract their statements. CNN’s S.E. Cupp did an immediate mea culpa. “Hey guys. Seeing all the additional videos now, and I 100% regret reacting too quickly to the Covington story. I wish I’d had the fuller picture before weighing in, and I’m truly sorry.” Others, like the Atlantic’s Julie Zimmerman, used her snap judgment as a cautionary tale. “Why are we all so primed for outrage, and what if the thousands of words and countless hours spent on this had been directed toward something consequential? If the Covington Catholic incident was a test, it’s one I failed.”

The rest of the media continues to see what it wants in the footage, which is really not so different from how they treat anything that conflicts with their agenda. Biology, moral law, science, the Constitution — it’s all irrelevant if it doesn’t fit their narrative. To them, these kids will never be innocent because of who they are and what they believe. Real bigotry doesn’t stop to acknowledge truth — which, along with the Left’s deep desire to destroy conservatives — is what keeps the wheels of fake news churning.

Joy Behar didn’t mind admitting as much on yesterday’s “View.” When Whoopi Goldberg asked why “we keep making the same mistake?” Joy was honest. “We’re desperate to get Trump out of office,” she said. What she and her extremist friends don’t seem to realize is that vitriol like this only makes that more unlikely. When a group of high schoolers behave more grown up than the mobs who come after them, the Left is losing its grip on a lot more than reality. It’s losing its argument for America.

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Family Research Council column with images is republished with permission.

The Ultimate Irony of the ‘Native American Elder’ and the MAGA Hat Kids

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This past weekend’s big news was a big media frame-up of kids and the beating of a leftist drum by a little Indian. There’s no need now to elaborate on how the Covington Catholic High School students may end up being 2019’s most unfairly maligned group; their innocence has already been established. But suffice it to say that with video-recording devices ubiquitous today — and with incidents such as last Friday’s Lincoln Memorial affair shot by multiple people from many angles — if there’s no footage of something that allegedly happened there, it didn’t happen, period.

What did happen was that Talking Bull (Nathan Phillips), a professional agitator and American Indian separatist, was given a forum in which to spew nonsensical ideas. Here’s a prime example: “I heard them [the students] saying ‘build the wall, build that wall,’” he said,” as Vibe reported. “This is indigenous land. We’re not supposed to have walls here. Before anyone came here there were no walls….”

(Actually, the Indians built plenty of walls, as old ruins attest.)

But something occurs to me here: If the Indians had effective border security, perhaps they wouldn’t have been overrun and conquered.

So what’s the message? “We lost the continent…and we can show you how to lose it, too!”?

Talking Bull followed up his anti-wall blather by adding that American Indians “never even had prisons,” either.

Well, North American Indians also didn’t have the wheel, a written language or anything beyond stone tools. What’s the point?

Mine is this: We all could conceivably wax romantic about our primitive ancestors’ days. Yet it’s silly. I don’t want to live as my savage European forebears did in, let’s say, 500 B.C. any more than Talking Bull desires to live as American Indians did in 1500 A.D. Typical of activists, Talking Bull is all talk.

It’s reminiscent of an old Sanford and Son episode in which the Lamont character, claiming embrace of his African roots, dons a dashiki and assumes an African name (video below). To the show’s credit, it later illustrated how he knew nothing about African traditions and was just childishly playing African.

Likewise, Talking Bull & Co., with their ceremonial pipes and drums, are merely playing Indians and Indians. Had Western civilization never existed and the dreaded white man not ever arrived on these shores, the Indians would still be living a stone-age lifestyle. The “noble savage” suckers may romanticize this, but neither they nor Talking Bull want any part of it. They could withdraw into the wilderness and live like the Sentinalese, but they don’t. They love our modern conveniences, luxuries and prosperity too much.

In truth, we all had ancestors who once were conquered or colonized. And the European tribes subdued by the Romans surely had many of the same complaints today’s grievance groups do: that their cultures were being trampled, their values eviscerated. Yet should we lament those Roman conquests and demonize Italians?

In reality, we’re all better off for the Romans having spread Christianity, Western civilization and technology and having built infrastructure throughout Europe (e.g., roads, aqueducts, amphitheaters). We still use today much that they birthed, too, from our calendar to concrete to plumbing to sanitation to fast food to trademarks and beyond.

The Romans, of course, had gotten much from the Greeks and Etruscans. This Western civilization then spread to the rest of Europe; later to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand; and to a lesser extent elsewhere, influencing and enhancing the whole world.

Thus did a Zambian man I knew once argue that African colonization was good; it’s why a fellow from India I knew despised Mohandas Gandhi (who was phony, but that’s a different issue), condemning the Indian leader for driving experts and expertise from the country. Shocking? These men understand how civilization spreads.

Of course, it would’ve been better if these glories had been spread via suasion and salesmanship than by the sword, but that’s a non-starter. Not only wasn’t this history’s norm, but would they have spread to the same degree sans sword? Would the world really look better today?

If any of us could be transported back to our primitive ancestors’ time and place, there’s a good chance they’d view us as aliens, suitable, perhaps, for slavery or stew. Speaking of which, it was Western civilization that ultimately outlawed slavery and birthed our modern concept of human rights.

The point is that, however our glorious civilization came to be, be happy we’re part of it — and not living in barbarism.

But, again, the world’s Talking Bulls don’t really want their ancestors’ ways, just their image. They live in modern homes (presumably with walls), drive cars, shop at supermarkets, visit doctors and use high-tech recording devices to frame unsuspecting youths. Dispense with Western civilization’s fruits? Never! They just want their own ethnic dominance while gorging on them. They don’t love what’s behind them as much as they hate what’s in front of them.

It also should be said that — contrary to common misconceptions — the Indians were not the first Americans. Ernie LaPointe, great-grandson of Sitting Bull, made this point in 2010 when responding to Barack Obama’s inclusion of the famed Indian in a “great Americans” children’s book. He said that Sitting Bull “never was an American” but “a Lakota.”

Of course. “America” is a European-derived word, taken from Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci’s name; “America” is also a Western concept and the United States a Western creation.

Nonetheless, Westerners did dominate the Indians. And the Etruscans initially dominated the Romans, who later dominated the Italian peninsula’s other groups and ultimately were dominated by “barbarians” West and Muslims East. The Aztecs dominated other tribes as did Africa’s Shaka Zulu. Many European groups were actually subsumed, which is why you don’t hear about Goth, Frank, Lombard, Alan, Burgundian, Gaul and Frisii lobbying organizations. Heck, the politically correct documentary series The West mentioned that the Lakota justified their dominance of other tribes to the U.S. government by saying they were only doing what “we” were doing; in fact, it quoted a modern-day Lakota as stating (I’m paraphrasing), “We were very good at what we did.” So what’s the complaint?

That Westerners were better?

This isn’t to imply might makes right, only that it’s insane to think the West should commit cultural suicide unilaterally to atone for a universal human sin. We have a civilization here, now, today — the greatest to grace the planet — and preserving it is our duty.

Speaking of which, the lesson to learn from the Indians, and the aforementioned history of conquest, is that demography is destiny. Thus should we have built a wall, both physical and technological, a long time ago, along with altering our suicidal, nation-rending immigration regime.

As for Talking Bull, there’s no point taking him too seriously. His problem isn’t that he wants off the reservation — it’s that he’s on the leftist one.

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

EDITORS NOTE: This column with video was republished with permission.

Planned Parenthood and the African-American Community

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Does Planned Parenthood target blacks? That is what Dr. Martin Luther King’s niece thinks.

Recently, I spoke on my radio show with Evangelist Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. She is the Director of Civil Rights for the Unborn with the organization Priests for Life. The focus was on Planned Parenthood and the African-American community.

Her comments are relevant all year around, especially around this time of MLK day and the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision favoring abortion, Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973).

Dr. Alveda King told me, “The leading cause of death in the African-American community is not gang-violence, gun violence, heart attack, stroke, HIV, high blood pressure, diabetes. People will name all these. No, it’s abortion. And the reason we have come to that conclusion, statistically, you’ve got 60 million plus abortions legal in America since 1973. About a third of those occur in the African-American community. That means dead babies. And, with us being 13 percent or less of America’s population, that means we are having more abortions.”

She asked, “Now does it mean that African-Americans are more immoral or don’t care? Absolutely not. We are just regular, everyday people like everyone else. But Planned Parenthood moved into our community with the abortion killing centers and said, ‘We’re here to help you. Let’s kill your baby, so you can have a better life.’ Well, killing our babies doesn’t give us a better life. I have had my own abortions in the 1970s. They were secret then, and after I became born again in 1983 and became a pro-life voice, I began to talk about how those abortions hurt me and my family.”

In 1921, Margaret Sanger founded the Birth Control League, which later changed its name to Planned Parenthood. Dr. Paul Kengor, author of Takedown, writes about when Sanger spoke to the Ku Klux Klan in Silver Lake, New Jersey in May 1926: “The Planned Parenthood founder’s KKK talk was a smash hit. Not only did it go very late, after a very long wait, but she received numerous invitations to speak to other groups like the Klan. Why would the KKK be so interested in Ms. Sanger? The reasons are obvious, a natural fit. It was because Sanger was a passionate racial eugenicist with grandiose dreams of ‘race improvement.’”

Alveda King told our listeners: “Margaret Sanger, the founder of the Birth Control League [later, Planned Parenthood], said, that ‘colored people are like weeds,’ and they need to be eliminated. They need to be exterminated. We don’t want the word to get out, so let’s not package it that way. So that’s why they began to make a lot of propaganda and marketing materials, saying that abortion is a woman’s right. It will help her to finish college, get a job, do this or do that.”

Christian author and educator Dr. George Grant points out that it was not just the African-American community Sanger targeted for population control: “Now for Margaret Sanger and her followers, those undesirable aspects of humanity were largely ethnic minorities: blacks, Jews, oftentimes Slavic peoples from Eastern Europe. These were considered undesirables, ‘imbeciles’ she called them, ‘human weeds’ she called them; and so Planned Parenthood was originally designed to limit the populations of those peoples and to increase the population of what she felt were the desirable races. So right at the heart of the philosophy of Planned Parenthood is this ideological and scientific commitment to a kind of racism.”

Sanger did not want it known that she believed blacks should be targeted for a significant reduction in their population. She wrote, “We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population.” (Margaret Sanger, Letter to Dr. Clarence J. Gamble, December 10, 1939.)

Alveda notes that Planned Parenthood said in effect, “We don’t want the word to get out, so let’s get a slick marketing plan.” That plan included such things as handing out awards (such as to her uncle—a few years before Planned Parenthood began to do abortions, beginning in 1970) and scholarships. She said, “So many people rose to success on the backs and bucks of Planned Parenthood—the rabid, feminist movement, for example—a lot of people who have been elected…the Congressional black caucus—many of them were put in office and are still in office because of dollars from eugenicists, such as Planned Parenthood.”

To see for yourself the ongoing racism of Planned Parenthood in action, notice how often their clinics are still in very poor neighborhoods. Alveda notes some of those Planned Parenthood neighborhoods have streets nearby named after her uncle.

Alveda King concludes, “That’s a baby in the womb, who should have human rights, and I believe if my uncle were here today, he would have to agree that abortion is a crime against humanity.”

RELATED ARTICLE: Cardinal Dolan: Excommunicating Andrew Cuomo “Not an Appropriate Response” for Legalizing Abortions Up to Birth

EDITORS NOTE: This column is republished with permission. The featured photo is by Zach Vessels on Unsplash.