Michael Bloomberg, former NYC mayor and billionaire patron of the Nanny State, may be gearing up for the presidential race in 2020. He gave the idea of running as an independent candidate “serious consideration” in 2016, but ultimately decided against it.
A recent Washington Post story on Mr. Bloomberg’s potential 2020 bid highlighted what it called his “disturbing attitude toward the First Amendment,” which safeguards, among other things, freedom of speech and freedom of the press from government interference. Mr. Bloomberg, the founder of the eponymous Bloomberg L.P., a privately-held financial information and media company that operates Bloomberg News, indicated in a radio interview earlier this month, that, “[q]uite honestly, I don’t want the reporters I’m paying to write a bad story about me… I don’t want them to be independent.” To ensure that the coverage from his own news outlet would be consistent with these expectations, he added that, should he run for president, one option would be to eliminate any political reporting by his employees. Kathy Kiely, who wrote the Post story, is herself the former politics editor at Bloomberg News who resigned in 2016 over concerns that the media company could not cover its owner’s possible presidential run in the same way that it reported on other candidates.
This authoritarian outlook is hardly a revelation to anyone who has followed Mr. Bloomberg’s activism regarding another fundamental constitutional right.
While professing his support for the Second Amendment and that “no one wants to take away anyone’s guns,” his efforts – through his Everytown gun control group and otherwise – have included advocating for bans on the manufacture and sale of “assault weapons” and “high capacity magazines,” increased background checks, and in Washington State, spending a quarter of a million dollars to push through an initiative in November that bans the purchase and possession of semiautomatic rifles by law-abiding young adults, without an exception for guns lawfully acquired before the law takes effect. In an appearance in 2015, he apparently went so far as to advocate an age, race and gender-based ban, to “get the guns” away from minority males.
In a move evocative of his “bad story” strategy, in 2015 Mr. Bloomberg set up The Trace, an anti-gun news outlet “whose only mission is to write on gun issues from his perspective” and ensure that the “news” on guns and gun control is in line with his own messaging.
Contrary to this record (and perhaps mindful that most Americans take a dim view of any meddling with their civil rights), Mr. Bloomberg appeared on television a few days ago to assure viewers that “the Second Amendment gives you the right to own weapons and there’s nothing wrong with that,” and “if you want to buy a gun and go through a background check process … I’m not opposed, I’m not in favor of taking that away one bit.”
Freedom loving citizens shouldn’t be fooled into thinking Mr. Bloomberg has become much more open-minded about the Second Amendment as part of his possible bid for the White House. After all, we already know that he thinks we’re “pretty stupid” for exercising our constitutional rights.
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Airbnb is facing some media backlash after the deaths of several people who used their services to find rental accommodations. Via USA TODAY:
But in recent weeks, a couple of deaths have raised questions about the safety of Airbnb rentals.
Last week, a security guard at a villa in Costa Rica was arrested for the murder of a Florida woman who traveled there to celebrate her 36th birthday. Carla Stefaniak’s body was found in the woods near her Airbnb rental with a blunt force wound to her head. Bismarck Espinosa Martinez, 32, has been arrested for the attack.
Defenders of Airbnb correctly point out that the company has millions of listings, and that there is always risk in travel — whether it’s through Airbnb or a traditional hotel. However, the above incidents draw attention to a dangerous Airbnb policy which puts women’s safety at risk.
Airbnb does not assign a gender identity to our users. We consider the gender of an individual to be what they identify and/or designate on their user profile.
Airbnb hosts may not
Decline to rent to a guest based on gender unless the host shares living spaces (for example, bathroom, kitchen, or common areas) with the guest.
Impose any different terms or conditions based on gender unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.
Post any listing or make any statement that discourages or indicates a preference for or against any guest on account of gender, unless the host shares living spaces with the guest.
Airbnb’s policy literally states that women who use Airbnb must allow men who say they are women — regardless of the realities of biology or the actual feelings of said man — to stay at their homes if living quarters are separate. Of course, such a barrier won’t do much to stop a determined predator.
This abandonment of safety in favor of political correctness is part and parcel of Airbnb’s left-wing agenda. 2ndVote’s research shows that Airbnb has fully bought into the gender-confusion principle by joining business groups which want to force business owners and their customers to abandon biological realities when it comes to bathrooms and other private facilities.
2ndVote cares deeply about the safety and security of women, especially survivors of sexual assault. Make sure Airbnb knows of your displeasure with their discriminatory and harmful policy by not using Airbnb for your Christmas travels.
There are few better examples of left-wing hypocrisy than Apple CEO Tim Cook. This is the same CEO who ferociously opposed the very modest HB2 law in 2016 and Indiana’s brief religious liberty law in 2015 because of his beliefs on discrimination…all while cozying up to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China. Ironically, Cook — whose company supports laws to restrict the rights of businesses when it comes to LGBT issues — declined to donate money to the Republican National Convention in 2016 because of personal beliefs about then-candidate Donald Trump.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said Monday night that not using one’s judgement to kick certain people off of tech platforms is a sin. While accepting the first-ever “Courage Against Hate” award from the Anti-Defamation League in New York City, Cook said that Apple is proud of exercising its judgement to kick certain people off of its platforms.
“At Apple, we’re not afraid to say our values drive our curation decisions,” he said. “And why should we be?”
“We only have one message for those who seek to push hate, division, and violence: You have no place on our platforms,” Cook said. “You have no home here.”
“I believe the most sacred thing each of us is given is our judgement, our morality, our own innate desire to separate right from wrong,” Cook said. “Choosing to set that responsibility aside at a moment of trial is a sin.”
It’s simple, really. Cook is a hypocrite. Given how he and his company attacked conservatives who wanted to ensure that right for business people and their customers in 2016, apparently only some people to have the right “to separate right from wrong.” None of those people are traditional-minded Christians. His company wants to strip the right to live out one’s faith in the public square. They’ll do this while happily doing whatever it takes to improve their bottom-line, even sell iPhones in Iran.
Perhaps we should all take a page out of Cook’s book and get our phones anywhere but Apple? After all, he is definitely pushing division. His company supports the hateful and violent actions of the Iranian regime. And Christians’ “judgement…morality…[and] innate desire to separate right from wrong” is definitely opposed to the left-wing agenda which Apple continues to support.
EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is from Shutterstock.
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The United States is the most generous, pro-immigrant country in the world. Annually, we take in more immigrants than any other country on the planet.
Couple that with the fact that immigration has been a driving issue in the last two campaign cycles, and it is more than reasonable to demand that the next funding bill include commonsense border security measures.
With only days left before Congress gavels out and the power in the House of Representatives shifts from Republicans to Democrats, we, as members of Congress, must fulfill the promises we made to the American people to uphold the rule of law and secure our borders.
Congress must fund President Donald Trump’s border wall and close the “catch and release” loopholes in the upcoming must-pass spending bill. We must do it now.
The statistics are frightening. This fall, Border Patrol arrested a massive number of people coming across the border, as loopholes in our immigration laws continue to pull illegal aliens into the United States—more than 100,000 people in October and November alone.
These significant illegal immigration attempts are giving immigrants a bad name. Historically, immigrants to America have come here legally to seek a better life and contribute to our economy. In the case of illegal immigrants, their very first act on U.S. soil is to break the law.
That’s why it is critical that we stop the inflow. Doing so will allow us to focus on reforms that prioritize legal immigration and reward law-abiding people for doing the right thing. And we know how to do this: a border wall, and ending catch and release.
Catch and release is the natural result of a series of loopholes in current U.S. asylum laws that encourage lawbreaking. Because of various legal settlements and the unintended consequences of a 2008 law, when families come to the U.S. to claim asylum, they are released out of legal custody into the country to await a hearing. Many never show for their hearings, and simply disappear into America.
Armed with this knowledge, illegal immigrants game the system to get into the U.S. and plant roots, undermining our laws. Fixing this and making it easier for border agents to send illegal immigrants home will discourage illegal immigration and encourage people to immigrate the right way.
We need to pair this with a border wall, so that illegal immigrants cannot physically cross our border in the first place. And we know border walls work. When Israel constructed a barrier along its southern border, it cut down on illegal immigration by 99 percent. Along the U.S.-Mexico border, in the places where we currently have strong barriers, illegal crossings have also been drastically reduced.
Like so many entrenched, partisan issues in our country, the problem of illegal immigration is solvable, but will require compromise.
A good place to start will be with border security measures that Democrats have historically agreed to, and closing loopholes in current laws. Then, we can get back to doing what we have historically done best: welcoming legal immigrants from around the world with open arms.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. Photo: Pappis Jean Pierre Polaris/Sipa/Newscom.
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CSP President Frank Gaffney and Save the Persecuted Christians Founding Member Dede Laugesen joined the Jim Bakker Show to discuss the Save the Persecuted Christians coalition. Watch their excerpts in the clips below.
EDITORS NOTE: This column with videos and images is republished with permission.
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Where does raising a white flag in the battle over your core values lead? Ask the Boy Scouts of America. After throwing up their hands on 103 years of conviction, the group may finally be learning that standing on principle isn’t easy — but it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.The fight to live out your beliefs can be an exhausting one. Until 2000, the Scouts had spent years in court just for the freedom to stick to its moral code. They won, but — to the organization’s dismay — the battle didn’t end. Waves of LGBT activists kept coming, and the pressure built until 2013, when BSA leaders gave into the lie that compromise would be their salvation. Five years later, we all can see: there’s almost nothing left to save.
A half-decade into its LGBT experiment, the Boy Scouts are a step away from bankruptcy. Turns out, their defining moment may also be a fatal one. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the group has been bleeding members since it broke camp and allowed in kids and leaders who openly identify as gay and transgender. Not long after that, one of its biggest backers, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, announced the withdrawal of tens of thousands of young LDS from the program. Then, the paper points out, there was the fallout from recruiting girls, which not only angered its base — but pitted the organization in a legal war with Girl Scouts USA. Now, a program that used to be one of America’s finest is considering Chapter 11.
Friends, if you’re wondering where the road of compromise leads, this is it. This is the future of anyone in the Christian community who exchanges the truth for cowardly conformism. The Boy Scouts dropped their moral mandate to accommodate what they don’t believe. In the current climate, that’s called “inclusion.” But if the Scouts were being more inclusive, why didn’t their numbers grow? Because, when you try to appeal to a conflicting moral viewpoint you only end up attracting the conflict!
Right now, too many churches, Christian colleges, and leaders are dangerously close to making the same mistake. They’re so desperate or fearful — or both — that they’re willing to water down who they are to protect the small space they’re standing on. There’s just one problem: the gospel’s truth isn’t up for negotiation. And in their rush to soften the blow of its confrontation, some believers are losing their identity.
Christians in Paul’s time were no different. Like humans throughout history, they craved acceptance. “I am astonished,” Paul wrote to the Galatians, “that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel — which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ… Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? …If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
The Boy Scouts wandered so far away from their identity that by the end of 2016, they even dropped their most defining characteristic: boys. In the end, it ruined them. That’s the destiny of any Christian who takes the naïve view that world can be placated. It can’t. True love, I Corinthians 13:6 tells us, is truth. It’s being salt and light in a draining, unforgiving culture. “Come out from them and be separate,” Paul said, because he understands that in the end, it’s not our sameness with the world that transforms people. It’s our distinction. And one of the greatest is standing for truth — even when we’re standing alone.
Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
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Earth was 379.6 percent more plentiful in 2017 than in 1980.
Are we running out of resources? That’s been a hotly debated question since the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1968. The Stanford University biologist warned that population growth would result in the exhaustion of resources and a global catastrophe. According to Ehrlich, “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate.”
The University of Maryland economist Julian Simon rejected Ehrlich’s thesis. In his 1981 book The Ultimate Resource, he argued that humans were intelligent beings, capable of innovating their way out of shortages through greater efficiency, increased supply, or development of substitutes. He wrote:
There is no physical or economic reason why human resourcefulness and enterprise cannot forever continue to respond to impending shortages and existing problems with new expedients that, after an adjustment period, leave us better off than before the problem arose.
A New Dimension of Analysis
A just-released paper, which I co-authored with Brigham Young University economics professor Gale Pooley, revisits the Ehrlich-Simon debate. In “The Simon Abundance Index: A New Way to Measure Availability of Resources,” we look at prices of 50 foundational commodities covering energy, food, materials, and metals. Our findings confirm Simon’s thesis. Between 1980 and 2017, the world’s population increased from 4.46 to 7.55 billion or 69 percent. Yet, resources have become substantially more abundant.
To arrive at our conclusion, we introduce four new ways of measuring abundance of resources. Ehrlich and Simon looked at inflation-adjusted prices of commodities. By our count, those fell by 36 percent. Taking that analysis a step further, we have come up with a “time-price” of commodities, which allows us to cost resources in terms of human labor. We find that relative to the average global hourly income, commodity prices fell by 64.7 percent between 1980 and 2017.
Second, the price elasticity of population (PEP) allows us to measure sensitivity of resource availability to population growth. We find that the time-price of commodities declined by 0.934 percent for every 1 percent increase in the world’s population. Put differently, over the last 37 years, every additional human being born on our planet appears to have made resources proportionately more plentiful for the rest of us.
Third, we develop the Simon Abundance Framework, which uses the PEP values to distinguish between different degrees of resource abundance, from decreasing abundance at the one end to super abundance at the other end. Considering that the time-price of commodities decreased at a faster proportional rate than population increased, we find that humanity is experiencing superabundance.
Finally, we create the Simon Abundance Index (SAI), which uses the time-price of commodities and change in global population to estimate overall resource abundance. The SAI represents the ratio of the change in population over the change in the time-price, times 100. It has a base year of 1980 and a base value of 100. Between 1980 and 2017, resource availability increased at a compounded annual growth rate of 4.32 percent. That means that the Earth was 379.6 percent more plentiful in 2017 than it was in 1980.
What Does the Future Hold?
Based on our analysis of the relationship between resource availability and population growth, we forecast that the time-price of commodities could fall by a further 29 percent over the next 37 years. Of course, much will depend on policies and institutions that nations pursue. For time-price of commodities to decline and resource abundance to increase, it is necessary for market incentives and price mechanisms to endure. For it is when prices of commodities temporarily increase that people have an incentive to use resources more efficiently, increase their supply, and develop cheaper substitutes.
Simon’s revolutionary insights with regard to the mutually beneficial interaction between population growth and availability of natural resources, which our research confirms, may be counterintuitive, but they are real.
The world’s resources are finite in the same way that the number of piano keys is finite. The instrument has only 88 notes, but those can be played in an infinite variety of ways. The same applies to our planet. The Earth’s atoms may be fixed, but the possible combinations of those atoms are infinite. What matters, then, is not the physical limits of our planet, but human freedom to experiment and reimagine the use of resources that we have.
Marian L. Tupy is the editor of HumanProgress.org and a senior policy analyst at the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity.
EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.
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Without challenging this overarching narrative, the Manhattan Institute fellow said, “there is going to be no end to identity politics.”
Identity Politics as the Defining Issue of Our Time
The rise of identity politics has become a phenomenon not just in America, but in the West in general.
In many ways, debates over identity are defining and shaping the politics of our time and pose a unique challenge in particular to the United States, a vast, multi-ethnic country with potential identity fault lines that far exceed the more homogenous societies of the world.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, and Mike Franc, director of D.C. programs at the Hoover Institution, brought together a diverse set of thinkers to hash out why identity politics is on the rise and how to address it.
Besides Mac Donald, they included John Fonte, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute; Peter Berkowitz, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution; Michael Lind, a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin; and Andrew Sullivan, a writer for New York magazine.
Each highlighted the problem.
Hudson’s Fonte outlined what has become the framework for identity politics on the left.
“Multiculturalism, the diversity project, and critical theory” are the three major cornerstones of this creed, Fonte said.
In a 2013 article in National Review, Fonte described the “diversity project” as: “[T]he ongoing effort to use federal power to impose proportional representation along race, gender, and ethnic lines in all aspects of American life.”
Multiculturalism comes in a hard version and a soft version, he said.
The soft version celebrates ethnic subcultures, examples being St. Patrick’s Day and Cinco de Mayo.
The hard version, Fonte said, has damaged society. He concisely summed up its tenets:
The United States is a multicultural society in which different cultures—African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, and women—have their own values, histories, and identities separate from and sometimes in opposition to dominant Anglo, white, male culture.
This creed divides America into many peoples and has become the dominant ethos taught in American schools.
The diversity project’s demand for statistical equality for groups, or “group proportionalism,” as Fonte calls it, is another integral element of identity politics. But taken to its logical extent, the diversity project is incompatible with a free society, he said.
There is simply no way to create perfect, equal representation of all groups in all fields, the Hudson Institute scholar said. Any attempt to do so would require state coercion on a massive scale.
Looking at Things Critically
Finally, Fonte said, critical theory—which explains the difference in group outcomes by classifying groups as privileged or marginalized—further undermines free society because it directly opposes the concept of “liberal, democratic jurisprudence.” Individual justice is subordinated to social justice—the oppressors and the oppressed.
These concepts fundamentally undermine our republic, Fonte said, and while he had no answer to solve the threat, he said a return to patriotism and national identity was a better way forward.
Hoover’s Berkowitz reiterated the obsession of identity politics with “race, class, and gender.”
These classifications become the essence of who a person is, and subordinate individual differences and individual justice.
“Group rights are distributed on the basis of the discrimination or oppression that the group to which you belong has suffered,” Berkowitz said.
Thus, he said, victimhood becomes a “virtue” and a moral status symbol demonstrating that one deserves greater political power.
The Unravelling of a Narrative
Distinctions exist between the postmodernist ideologies of the 1980s and 1990s and the early 21st century, he said. A key feature defining the identity politics of today is that it has moved on from the relativism of earlier eras and become dogmatic in its certainties.
Identity politics adherents on the left, for example, are now certain in their assessment that the West—including America—is racist and sexist.
Dissent from this narrative is taken as “an act of violence, an expression of racism and hatred,” Berkowitz said.
These ideas not only have become dominant on college campuses, he said, but are a threat to the fundamental nature of liberal societies. They cannot coexist with concepts like free speech, due process, and limited government.
American universities won’t counteract the identity politics creed, Berkowitz said, and so Americans who oppose it need to find outside solutions if they want to preserve their free society.
Berkowitz, who has written extensively about restoring the value of liberal education, said such solutions may come through alternative paths to education at the K-12 level—homeschooling and charter schools—as well as more programs to provide alternative curricula to parents and young people.
Lind spoke about how identity politics is becoming a flashpoint for the most fundamental divides not only in the U.S., but throughout the West.
Half of America—mostly in the rural regions and exurbs—accepts and lives out the concept of the “melting pot,” while the other half—in urban environments—embraces and lives with predominant multiculturalism, Lind said.
This city vs. country divide sets this era apart from earlier ones where region was more of a factor.
A Multicultural Society?
For most of American history, the concept of the melting pot has worked, but Lind said he is pessimistic for its future because of demography.
“The native fertility rate in Western societies is below replacement … we need to have replacement immigration of some kind in order to prevent the population from just collapsing,” Lind said.
However, the continually low birth rates in these societies will put pressure on them to increase immigration, he said, and so feed the constant political base for multiculturalism.
Mac Donald, also a contributor to City Journal, said people of “courage” need to confront the ideology of identity politics directly for the sake of the nation’s future.
She summed up what she said is the crux of the debate and the oppression narrative:
The main driver is race—women are sort of a fast second place—but the main driver of all this is the lingering racial disparities, and we both need to close them and be honest about what’s driving them.
I would say family breakdown is the biggest driver and other behavioral disparities and culture [are also drivers]. Those need to be closed because if not, the oppression narrative is going to be with us to our enormous misfortune.
(Political) Climate Change
Sullivan said that while identity politics has existed in the past—notably in the 1990s—it’s “different now.”
People debated the concepts of identity politics in earlier eras, and often vehemently opposed them, but now identity politics has taken over “all teaching in the humanities” and has been fully embraced by an entire generation of “the elite,” the writer said.
Sullivan, an early supporter of same-sex marriage and President Barack Obama, said that it’s “staggering” how the ideas of identity politics have been universally accepted by the young elite, without question.
These ideas have spread beyond the college campus, Sullivan wrote earlier this year, and entered the mainstream of debate in America.
“It is staggering how people under the age of 30 buy all of this, have never even regarded it as questionable, that it’s become completely routine to believe these things,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan attributed this, in part, to parenting.
Parents tried so hard to create safe spaces for their children, he said, that the children were simply unable to handle disagreement or anything that made them feel unsafe.
Sullivan also said social media fuels surface-level hot takes and “virtue signalling,” rather than deeper thought.
What’s remarkable, he said, is that identity victimhood politics comes at a time when many of these groups are thriving more than ever before in history.
“We should talk about the successes that have occurred without this stuff,” Sullivan said. “In fact, I sometimes wonder whether this stuff is a function of having succeeded, because you’re terrified you’re going to lose the struggle you always lived with and you have nothing to do with your life.”
Parents are increasingly required to obey, to conform to a school’s demands even if they believe such orders may not be appropriate for their child.
Schooling is adept at rooting out individuality and enforcing compliance. In his book, Understanding Power, Noam Chomsky writes:
“In fact, the whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on—because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.”
This filtering process begins very early in a child’s schooling as conformity is rewarded and divergence is punished.
Public Schooling Breeds Obedience
Most of us played this game as schoolchildren. We know the rules. The kids who raise their hands, color in the lines, and obey succeed; the kids who challenge the rules struggle. The problem now is that the rules are extending beyond the classroom. Parents are increasingly required to obey, to conform to a school’s demands even if they believe such orders may not be appropriate for their child.
In my advocacy work with homeschooling families across the country, I frequently hear stories from parents who decided to homeschool their kids because schools were pressuring them to comply with various special education plans, push medications onto their children, or submit to other restrictive procedures they felt were not in their child’s best interest. Even more heartbreaking is the growing trend of school officials to unleash child protective services (CPS) on parents, homeschooling or not, who refuse to give in to a district’s demands.
Weaponizing Child Protective Services
An investigative report by The Hechinger Report and HuffPost released last month revealed that schools are increasingly using child protective services as a “weapon” against parents. It said:
Fed up with what they see as obstinate parents who don’t agree to special education services for their child, or disruptive kids who make learning difficult, schools sometimes use the threat of a child-protection investigation to strong-arm parents into complying with the school’s wishes or transferring their children to a new school. That approach is not only improper, but it can be devastating for families, even if the allegations are ultimately determined to be unfounded.
More troubling, these threats disproportionately target low-income and minority parents. According to the report:
Such families also have fewer resources to fight back. When a family in a wealthy Brooklyn neighborhood learned roughly two years ago that their child’s school had initiated an ACS [New York’s Administration for Children’s Services] investigation against them, they sued the city education department. Parents from lower-income, majority-black and Latino neighborhoods, few of whom can afford that option, say such investigations can be a regular, even expected, part of parenting.
Bullying Proactive Parents
For parents who are unhappy with their child’s school and decide to withdraw their child for homeschooling, threats of child welfare investigations can sometimes turn to actions. In Massachusetts, a mother is reportedly suing the Worcester Public Schools after school officials called the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) on her for alleged “educational neglect,” even though the mother contends that she dutifully filed her homeschooling paperwork for her eight-year-old son mid-year.
Brian Huskie, a public high school teacher and homeschooling father in New York, noted a similar case last year with one of his students. Dissatisfied with the school, the parents decided to remove their daughter from the district, filed the necessary homeschooling paperwork, and were soon visited by child protective services investigating “educational neglect.” Huskie detailed the incident on his blog, writing that the school made a “decision to weaponize CPS against a district family.”
Parents who push back against a district’s recommendations or withdraw their child from school for homeschooling are often trying to ensure their child’s well-being. Questioning various educational interventions and examining alternatives is part of a parent’s job. They should be praised for looking out for their child’s best interest, while schools should be sure that they use social services agencies to investigate serious claims of abuse and neglect—not just district snubs or paperwork quarrels.
If, as Chomsky suggests, many of us have grown acquiescent to power due to our successful schooling, it can be hard to challenge authority. It can be even harder when that authority is strengthened by government force and when we may not have the resources to fight it.
Supporting parents, broadening their education choices, and respecting their decisions are crucial steps in liberating families and curbing government coercion.
RELATED VIDEO: Child protection services “Legally Kidnapped.”
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How the ex-Radical-in-Chief created a security vacuum that Iran rushed to fill.
Donald Trump has a name for everything and everyone, from Crooked Hillary to Little Rocket Man, who for a time became his best friend. Will he call the next region-wide conflagration in the Middle East, when it breaks out, Obama’s War?
If he hasn’t thought of that already, he should start considering it now. Because the catastrophic policies of our former president have emboldened the Islamic state of Iran and enabled it to threaten the United States and our allies militarily in ways never before possible.
When Obama took office in January 2009, he inherited a strong U.S. military and diplomatic posture across the Middle East.
The U.S.-Israel strategic relationship was at its peak, with the Bush White House openly supporting Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s latest attempt to stop Hamas terror in Gaza.
The U.S. enjoyed a close relationship with a secular Turkey, that itself had strong ties to Israel.
Egypt was at peace, Qaddafi had come into the Western camp and abandoned terrorism and its nuclear weapons program, and the insurgency in Iraq had been crushed.
Al Qaeda truly was “on the run,” while Iran was beginning to feel the crunch of international sanctions over its previously covert nuclear weapons program.
Obama succeeded in reversing every one of these strong U.S. positions, treating Islamic Iran as a friend and Israel as an enemy while promoting the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and its terrorist spawn.
And while President Trump has taken great strides to reverse the enormous damage to our strategic posture Obama caused, fighting his way out of the spider’s web of Iran deal restrictions Obama enacted against the United States has taken nearly two years, time the Iranian regime has put to good use.
Iran today can bracket Israel with more than 150,000 rockets and guided missiles from the North and the South. That’s more than twenty times what it had available during the 2006 war. In addition to its proxies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the recently formed Golan Liberation Brigade in Syria – Iran now enjoys a “land bridge” directly linking it through Iraq and Syria to Israel’s northern border.
Terror chief Qais al Khazali, known for his attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, officially opened the land bridge by leading a military convoy from Iraq into Southern Lebanon in December 2017, where he did a stand-up for an Iranian-backed television network while surveying Israel from the Lebanese side of the border.
Khazali was acting on orders from Quds Force terror-meister, Qassem Suleymani, and met up in Beirut with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah before heading to the South.
At the same time, the Iranians and their local minions have been burrowing tunnels into Israel from Lebanon that the IDF began targeting last week.
From its bases in Yemen, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has lobbed missiles at the Saudi capitol, Riyadh, and at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley forced the media to acknowledge these aggressive Iranian actions by unveiling Iranian missile fragments at a press conference at Andrews Air Force base exactly one year ago.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has now revealed that the ballistic missile Iran test-fired last week was capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads to targets as far away as Europe. Even the Europeans finally realize that the Iran deal did nothing to restrain Iran’s nuclear weapons development or tame its aggressive behavior. It was not the U.S. but France that convened the UN Security Council to condemn the Iranian test.
In a nutshell, Iran today is poised to wreak havoc across the Middle East and beyond with military and strategic capabilities it did not possess a decade ago, including the ability to target U.S. aircraft carriers with ground-based missiles.
Short of U.S. military force, the sole limiting factor on Iran’s actions will be the position of Russian President Vladmir Putin. Will Putin seek to restrain Iran? Or give the Iranian regime free reign?
This is one reason why it is so important for the U.S. President to maintain an open channel of communications to the Kremlin, meeting with Putin, say, at G-20 summit meetings and one-on-one.
Why do you think the anti-Israel Left is so eager to hog-tie President Trump in Russia witch hunt investigations, forcing him to downscale relations with the Russians to the point that the two leaders no longer talk, at least not in public? Because they actually favor a strong Iran and see it and Russia as constraints on the evil United States. As Obama put it in his address to the UN General Assembly in September 2016, “We’ve bound our power to international laws and institutions.”
Russia signaled a strategic shift in its position toward a potential Iranian-led regional war on September 17, when a Syrian air defense crew downed a Russian Ilyushin-20 spy plane over Syrian air space, killing all fourteen Russian crewmen on board.
Putin could have called it a “tragic accident,” which indeed it was. Instead, he blamed Israel for the attack.
Until then, Israel enjoyed a special relationship with Russia when it came to Syria. The IDF had a hot line to the Russian defense ministry, which it used to give a heads up before Israeli air strikes against Iranian positions inside Syria. The result: not a single Russia missile was ever fired at an IDF fighter jet.
When a particularly large strike was in the offing, Prime Minister Netanyahu would fly to Moscow to brief Putin ahead of time. With Putin’s green light, Israel then decimated IRGC and Hezbollah positions.
All of that changed after September 17.
Today, Putin refuses to meet with Netanyahu and the Russian military has rejected Israeli efforts to deconflict its operations in Syria with the Russians.
Last month, Russia turned over operational control of its sophisticated S-300/400 air defense batteries in Syria to the Syrian military, a clear sign that restraint toward IDF fighter jets was over.
On November 29, Israeli showed that it takes these moves seriously, launching its first-ever major strike on Iranian Quds Force position inside Syria using surface-to-surface missiles and long-range artillery. By using unmanned weapons, Israel avoided the possibility that Syrian air defense batteries could shoot down an IDF jet or that Israel might inadvertently kill a Russian military advisor.
After that attack, Netanyahu met in Brussels with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, where the two pledged to work in tandem to contain Iranian “aggression.”
“As we have been warning for some time, Iran’s missile testing and missile proliferation is growing. We are accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence,” Pompeo said.
Taken as a whole, I believe Iran actually welcomes U.S. and Israeli military action, now that Russia has made clear it will no longer restrain Iran. Seen from Tehran, they have many cards to play, including the activation of Iran’s vast underground terror networks in North America and Europe and an ability to target U.S. military bases in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the region.
Successive U.S. administrations have a bad track record of holding the Islamic state of Iran accountable for its aggression. We never responded to the 1983 attack that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon, nor did we hit Iran for its direct material involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks on America.
While Team Trump has reimposed sanctions and escalated the rhetoric, it has yet to take military action against Iran’s Islamic regime. But when that happens, make no mistake: the United States will be fighting Obama’s war.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/keith-zhu-638323-unsplash-e1544736696807.jpg401640Kenneth R. Timmermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKenneth R. Timmerman2018-12-13 16:31:442018-12-13 16:31:44Here’s the biggest security threat now facing President Trump… and it’s not what you think.
It looked like a family gathering for a holiday meal. What ostensibly began as a peaceful meeting for a friendly conversation quickly devolved into a classic, round-the-table political fight about the wall and who would pay for it. In the end, everyone left angry, but no one got to eat any of the food.
It was a classic Donald Trump move and one that continues to serve him well. Find the issues his base wants to see solved and take the fight directly to the people. Yesterday was no exception when Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer appeared for a meeting before the press at the White House.
As things usually go in the finely choreographed world of Washington politics, Schumer and Pelosi sat around a table with Vice President Mike Pence and President Trump for what normally would have been a time for photographs and softball questions from the press.
Instead, the President delivered a full-fledged argument on border security and wall funding. Trump, once again demanded that the wall be funded to the tune of $5 billion while Schumer and Pelosi insisted that no more than $1.7 billion should be allocated to the project by way of a continuing resolution.
The conversation devolved when President Trump observed the difficult position in which Pelosi found herself as she tried to secure the votes necessary to get her elected Speaker of the House. This prompted Pelosi to chastise the President for suggesting that she did not have the overwhelming support of House Democrats. In the meantime Schumer kept accusing the President of wanting to shut down the government. The President finally concluded the meeting by resoundingly accepting the responsibility of shutting down the government if his demands for wall funding were not met.
In the end, it was the most fascinating political exchange ever with drama rivaling those seen in the best reality shows and replete with an ending reminiscent of a “You’re Fired” episode. It was so entertaining, in fact, that it has earned a “Feature Video” status in our Library page.
To be sure, the exchange was the first of many heated confrontations to surely take place over the next two years. But there are other insights to be gained from this meeting.
First, you can rest assured that President Trump will shut down the government when Schumer and Pelosi fail to bring him the necessary votes to fund the wall in an amount he believes is necessary. Second, for all those Democrats who thought they would be seeing a more subdued Donald J. Trump as a result of the gains they made in the House of Representatives, they should reconsider that impression.
And finally, like Pelosi and Schumer did Tuesday, the Democrats are going to appear paltry and petty when they continue to resist the President over an extra $3.3 billion for a wall in a budget numbering in the trillions of dollars. As a matter of fact, Pelosi and Schumer may have just handed President Trump his own “Reagan-youth-and-inexperience” moment.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/democrat-party-logo-black.jpg360640Dr. Julio Gonzalezhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Julio Gonzalez2018-12-13 16:15:282018-12-14 06:18:23Trump Meeting with Pelosi and Schumer a Sign of Pending Disasters for Democrats.
We all know the script by now: A mass public shooting occurs. Grief and anger ensue. Calls for stricter gun laws soon follow.
Given how incredibly upsetting these crimes are, and how deeply they shake their communities—and the nation itself—such calls are perfectly understandable. If we’re truly serious, however, about reducing gun violence rates and increasing personal safety, we must ensure that policy decisions are made with an eye toward facts and reality, not panic and outrage.
The facts tell us that most commonly proposed gun control measures are already ineffective at preventing mass public shootings in states where they are currently implemented, and that they will continue to be ineffective at preventing future tragedies.
Although some gun control advocates claim there have been more than 300 “mass shootings” this year, that number is a product of using deceptive and largely meaningless definitions that include incidents far removed from the context commonly associated with the term.
Since Jan. 1, 2018, there have been 11 mass public shootings in which three or more people other than the shooter were killed, parameters derived from Congress’ definitions of “mass shooting” and “mass killing.”
These 11 mass public shootings occurred across seven different states, but three occurred in California, the only state with an “A” rating from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Two more occurred in Maryland, with an “A-” rating. Another two occurred in Pennsylvania, whose “C” rating still accounts for the 13th strictest gun control framework in the country.
Strict gun control may be the go-to response of many, but it’s simply not the answer to the problem of mass public shootings. In fact, since 2000, 17 percent of mass public shootings have occurred in California, even though the state accounts for only 12 percent of the nation’s population.
Texas, meanwhile, has an “F” gun control rating, yet has seen only 6.6 percent of total mass public shootings since 2000—below its expected share, given that it holds 8.6 percent of the national population. On the other hand, Washington state—with a “B” rating—accounts for 2.2 percent of the population but 8 percent of mass public shootings since 2000.
More importantly, the general availability of guns doesn’t appear to be the problem. Since 1990, the number of firearms per capita in the United States has increased by 50 percent. At the same time, however, the national homicide rate and national gun homicide rate have plummeted by 50 percent, and the number of nonfatal firearm crimes committed in 2011 was one-sixth the number committed in 1993.
On the whole, the increasing availability of firearms has not been related to increases in violent crime.
Mass public shootings rightly terrify us, but they remain statistically very rare. The same is true of firearm deaths related to the use of semi-automatic “assault weapons.” You are, in fact, three times more likely to be beaten to death with hands and feet than you are to be shot to death with a rifle of any kind.
That does not mean we should not continue to find ways to remove firearms from the hands of individuals who show themselves, by their actions, to be a heightened risk of violence to themselves or others.
It does mean, however, that rational gun policies should not demonize particular types of firearms rarely used by criminals but commonly used by millions of law-abiding citizens for a variety of lawful reasons—including self-defense.
We do not effectively combat gun violence by broadly restricting the rights of law-abiding citizens, thereby hindering their ability to defend themselves and others from violence.
Rather, we must focus more intently on the major underlying causes of the gun violence: untreated mental health problems that increase the risk of suicide and interpersonal violence, gang and drug activity that drive illegal black market firearm transfers, and the lack of economic and educational opportunities that lead to cycles of poverty and crime.
We must also increase the ability of law-abiding citizens to choose where and how and with what means to best defend themselves and their families from criminals who do not care to follow laws generally, and gun control laws in particular.
Exposing the Lies Told About “Right To Carry” Laws
New “Red Flag” Gun Control Bills To Be Introduced in Texas
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EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished. The featured photo is by Quentin Kemmel on Unsplash.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/quentin-kemmel-445082-unsplash-e1544734585924.jpg379640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2018-12-13 15:57:072018-12-15 13:45:47Broad Gun Control Restrictions Are Not the Answer. Just Look at These Facts.
A suspect in a 1987 bombing that wounded six American soldiers in Honduras is leading a group of migrants demanding entry into the United States.
Alfonso Guerrero Ulloa organized a march of approximately 100 migrants to the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico, on Tuesday, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Ulloa delivered a letter to the consulate on behalf of the migrants, asking for either entry into the U.S. or a payment of $50,000 per person.
“It may seem like a lot of money to you,” Ulloa told the Union-Tribune. “But it is a small sum compared to everything the United States has stolen from Honduras.”
An appropriations bill passed by Congress in December 1987 included Congress’s findings that “the bomb was directed at American soldiers and did in fact wound American soldiers and an American contractor.” The report noted that Ulloa was a suspect in the bombing.
Ulloa has posted on Facebook about his role in organizing the migrants in Mexico, which he is open about, and the accusations against him from 1987, which he denies.
Ulloa posted a video on Tuesday of the migrants marching to the consulate. He described the group as a “caravan” of Honduran migrants.
WATCH:
Ulloa posted a lengthy diatribe about the 1987 bombing to Facebook in June 2017.
In the post, Ulloa again denied any role in the bombing, though he admitted to being a member of Popular Revolutionary Forces-Lorenzo Zelaya — a now-defunct left-wing group whose members claimed responsibility in 1982 for hijacking a plane and taking hostages, including eight Americans.
EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/CARAVAN-LEADER-e1544705823764.jpg374640The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2018-12-13 07:57:302018-12-14 06:19:24Suspected Terrorist Leading Migrant Group Demanding Entry Into U.S.
Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol are investing in pot to make Big Marijuana, the New York Times reports this morning.
Altria, the tobacco company that makes Marlboro and other cigarettes, paid $1.8 billion last week to buy nearly half of Cronos Group, a Canadian marijuana company.
Constellation Brands, the company that makes Corona and other beers, paid $4 billion last August for a major stake in another Canadian pot company called Canopy Growth.
And Molson Coors Canada, the Canadian branch of Molson Coors, bought a controlling interest in a joint venture with The Hydropothecary Corporation, a third Canadian pot company.
All three Canadian marijuana companies got their start producing the drug for medical use and are licensed by Health Canada. Canada’s full legalization of marijuana in October opened the door to the recreational market. US companies want an early entry into a market they believe will open soon in the US.
This morning’s print edition of today’s Times has a different title for this story: “This is the Dawning of the Age of Pot, Inc” the headline claims. Apparently, the Age of Aquarius (“Let the Sun Shine In”) has suffered a premature death. Big Tobacco lied to Americans for nearly a century, claiming nicotine is not addictive and smoking is harmless. Even before it became Big, the marijuana industry began following Big Tobacco’s playbook with the same mantra: Is pot addictive? “No.” “Harmless? Yes. It’s even a medicine.”
Sound familiar?
“The arrival of large multinational corporations portends sweeping changes for an industry that until recently operated in the shadows. As billions of dollars pour into product development, marketing and manufacturing, these companies will be looking to create big brands with the market share to match,” notes the Times.
Earlier this year, Coca-Cola representatives acknowledged their company was looking closely at the CBD industry. For a few days, Target sold CBD products online but abruptly ended the practice. Diageo, a spirits company, was rumored to be close to joining forces with an unnamed Canadian pot company last summer, but no announcement has been made yet. And Walmart Canada is looking into the industry but currently has no plans to start selling products containing CBD or THC.
Some CEOs like Coca-Cola’s James Quincey are holding back. “It needs to be legal, it needs to be safe, and it needs to be consumable,” he said on CNBC this week. “It’s not there yet.”
Nonetheless, industry spokesmen say as more big companies get involved with marijuana, they’ll likely pressure Congress to legalize the drug in the U.S. nationwide, like Canada.
So, watch out. Those Green Marlboro packs containing pre-rolled joints seen in counterculture publications may not be hippie hallucinations after all.
Here’s what happens when marijuana is commercialized
This graph, from a 2018 report by the Colorado Department of Public Safety (state law mandates a comprehensive report every two years), presents the clearest picture yet of what happens when a state commercializes marijuana.
Colorado legalized the drug for medical use in 2000. Patients who obtained a medical marijuana card from the state could access the drug by selecting a caregiver to grow it for them, and caregivers could grow enough marijuana for six patients. The number of patients who obtained cards grew from 94 in 2001 to 4,819 in 2008.
Effective 2009, the Colorado legislature established a system to license people to grow, manufacture, and sell marijuana for medical use. A license meant the holder could start investing in and making profits on these activities. In other words, Colorado created one of the first commercial marijuana businesses in the nation.
In 2008, there were no licensed medical marijuana growers, product manufacturers, or dispensaries in Colorado. By the end of 2012,* there were approximately 1,150 licensed facilities, and the number of patients who obtained medical marijuana cards jumped from 4,819 to 108,526 in four years.
*Colorado archives licensee data, but they only go back to 2013. These data are taken from January 2013, one month after 2012 ended.
Farm Bill agreement allows nationwide hemp cultivation for any use – including CBD
If the US House passes the Farm Bill this week, hemp will be legal throughout the US. Hemp is defined as containing less that three-tenths of one percent of THC, the cannabinoid in marijuana that makes users high. The Senate passed the bill this week.
CBD products can be made from hemp although, because some patients insist they need THC as well, CBD must be extracted from marijuana to obtain THC.
According to Marijuana Business Daily, the measure would lift restrictions on advertising, marketing, banking, and other financial services on hemp growers and manufacturers. It also would:
Allow hemp production in all 50 states, including the production of CBD
Producers who raise hemp with a higher THC level than 0.3 percent would not be guilty of a drug crime but would have to submit a plan to correct the problem
Allow the sale of hemp and CBD across state lines
Make the US Department of Agriculture administrator of the program
Legalize production in US territories and on Indian tribal lands
Require taxpayers to subsidize the hemp industry by providing access to federal farm support, including crop insurance, federal water access, and low-interest loans to new farmers
Allow hemp producers to bring “foreign nationals” to the US to fill “temporary agricultural” jobs
Remove barriers to obtaining patents and trademarks
Ban state or federal drug felons from participating in the program for 10 years, and
Require the agriculture department to work with the Attorney General on hemp rules.
Maryland marijuana panel approves ban on cannabis advertising on billboards, radio, TV, and other media
The Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission voted unanimously to ban nearly all advertising of marijuana for medical use. The industry says it will fight the ban when the General Assembly convenes in January 2019. The rules prohibit advertising on or in:
Billboards
Radio
Television
Most online outlets
Newspapers and magazines that cannot prove 85 percent of their audience is over age 18
Leaflets or flyers in most public and private places
Internet ads must include an age verification page.
An industry spokesman claimed the ban came about after a billboard showing Adam and Eve smoking a joint upset two legislators. However, a spokeswoman for the commission said the effort was to mirror bans on tobacco advertising.
A deputy attorney general asked the commission to also add specific language prohibiting manufacturers from making any medical claims without scientific evidence.
The new rules state that marijuana companies may not make any claim that is “false or misleading in any material way or is otherwise a violation” of state laws.
EDITORS NOTE: This column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/marijuana-tie.jpg360640National Families in Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNational Families in Action2018-12-13 07:31:032018-12-13 07:33:52For Big Tobacco and Brewers, Grass is Greener
Cherif Chekatt reminds Emmanuel Macron that climate change is not the only threat France faces. My latest in FrontPage:
Emmanuel Macron, France’s youthful wunderkind, Europe’s poster child for globalism and socialism, has been absorbed lately with furious protests and riots over a confiscatory new tax he placed on gasoline in order to fight what he thinks of as the greatest threat France and the world face today: climate change. But on Tuesday in Strasbourg, a Muslim named Cherif Chekatt reminded Macron that France faces another threat, one that could prove to be immensely more serious: jihad. Chekatt opened fire at a Christmas market in his native Strasbourg, murdering four and injuring eleven.
As of this writing, Chekatt is on the run, and in a departure from the recent tendency to wave away all such attacks as manifestations of “mental illness” and insist that they’re not terrorism, much less jihad, French authorities are, according to the Telegraph, “treating the attack as a terrorist act. Anti-terrorist prosecutors have opened an investigation.”
In fact, Chekatt was “on a list of ‘security threats,’” France’s “Fiche S” list of people who pose a serious terror threat. RT reported that the regional prefecture announced: “The author of these acts, listed as a security threat, had been sought by police” on Tuesday, but they hadn’t been able to catch up with him before he opened fire. A former London police inspector, Peter Kirkham, explained to RT: “There are so many people that are involved around the edges of this sort of terrorism if this is what it turns out to be, that you can’t keep any sort of meaningful surveillance on them. Even just monitoring the use of communications and social media would be too much.”
And that’s especially true when, like Macron, you don’t want to admit that there is any significant threat at all. But it is also a situation that the Islamic State (ISIS) has been working actively to bring about. As I explain in detail in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to ISIS, in 2015 the Islamic State (ISIS) published Black Flags from Rome, detailing its strategy for conquering Europe. It explains how, as the Muslim population of Europe increases, intelligence agencies collect huge amounts of data, “but they will not study it unless you are caught under the radar.” As jihad attacks become more common, law enforcement authorities will not be able to keep up:
As the Western nations get poorer, their intelligence collection agencies will continue to exist, but they simply won’t have enough manpower (less jobs) to analyse it all. With less attacks in the West being group (networked) attacks and an increasing amount of lone-wolf attacks, it will be more difficult for intelligence agencies to stop an increasing amount of violence and chaos from spreading in the West.
As this violence and chaos spreads, Leftist non-Muslim Europeans will help pave the way for the Islamic conquest of Europe, for
a growing population of left-winged [sic] activists (people who are against; human/animal abuses, Zionism, and Austerity measures etc) look upto [sic] the Muslims as a force who are strong enough to fight against the injustices of the world….Many of these people (who are sometimes part of Anonymous and Anarchy movements) will ally with the Muslims to fight against the neo-Nazis’ and rich politicians. They will give intelligence, share weapons and do undercover work for the Muslims to pave the way for the conquest of Rome.
When will this alliance be cemented? When, sooner or later, Leftist protesters realize that taking up arms alongside Muslims is the only viable way of achieving their goals:
If you have ever been at a pro-Palestine / anti-Israel protest, you will see many activists who are not even Muslims who are supportive of what Muslims are calling for (the fall of Zionism). It is most likely here that connections between Muslims and Left-wing activists will be made, and a portion from them will realise that protests are not effective, and that armed combat is the alternative. So they will start to work together in small cells of groups to fight and sabotage against the ‘financial elite’.
Three years later, this plan is working beautifully. And so Cherif Chekatt will fade quickly from the headlines, and the jihad threat will again be downplayed, until the next one. Meanwhile, watch in the coming days for the handwringing establishment media stories about how the local mosque in Strasbourg fears a “backlash,” and that Muslims are the real victims of jihad terror attacks. It always works the same way, like clockwork. That is, until the day that it doesn’t. One day soon the disingenuousness and cynicism of this establishment media propaganda will be obvious to everyone. But by then it will likely be far too late for Emmanuel Macron, and France.
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