You, the people, stopped the Media Matters attack on Sean Hannity ‘dead in its tracks’

Florida Family Association’s campaigns appear to have stopped Media Matters attack on Sean Hannity’s advertisers dead in its tracks.  Media Matters targeted companies that advertise on Sean Hannity because of his conservative values.  Sean Hannity is a true American patriot.  Hannity has reported news that no other cable news host has produced.  He has relentlessly stood for traditional Judeo Christian values.

We launched several email campaigns that urged advertisers to keep supporting the Sean Hannity Show.  One email campaign allowed supporters to send emails to over fifty companies urging them to keep advertising on Hannity.  Media Matters has reported no new companies dropping Sean Hannity since we launched this email campaign to urge more than fifty companies to stay with Sean.

Additionally, seven of the eleven companies that Media Matters claimed were “advertisers who’ve announced they’ll no longer advertise on Hannity” are back on the Sean Hannity Show and/or renounced Media Matters’ report.   Boehringer Ingelheim makers of Dulcolax, reported as no longer advertising, was recorded as advertising again during the June 9, 2017 edition of the Sean Hannity Show.  InterContinental Hotels Group, GoodRX and Ring.com also responded by stating that Media Matters had erroneously reported that these companies had stopped advertising on the Sean Hannity Show.

We launched three separate email campaigns that urged USAA, Viking Cruises and TD Ameritrade to reinstate advertising on Sean Hannity.  Media Matters had reported these companies as three of the eleven companies that had stopped advertising on the Sean Hannity Show.   USAA announced that they would resume advertising on Hannity.  Viking Cruises was recorded as advertising again on June 9, 2017.  TD Ameritrade responded with a statement claiming that Media Matters’ had incorrectly reported that they had stopped advertising.

Media Matters lost big thanks to the tens of thousands of emails that people sent through the Floridafamily.org email server that urged advertisers to stay with Sean Hannity.

Florida Family Association launched an online campaign to counter allure magazine’s push for acceptance of the hijab, an oppressive Islamist symbol, with Fourth of July American colors.  The July issue of allure magazine headlining a Muslim woman wearing a red, white and blue hijab on the front cover made the news racks and mail boxes just in time for its propaganda to take advantage of the Fourth of July.  The magazine also included eight pages of hijab photographs.  The allure cover headline states: “This is an American Beauty.”  Sounds just like other leftist media such as The Learning Channel which sought to push its propaganda to normalize Islamist program titled “All-American Muslim.”  The cover subheading states:  “Meet Halima. Muslim. Model.  Destroyer of Stereotypes.”

The hijab does not symbolize the freedoms and liberties bestowed upon all women who are under the protection of the United States Constitution.  Our online campaign allowed thousands of people to send emails to fifteen companies that advertised in the July 2017 issue of allure magazine.  Emails urged advertisers urge to be more careful in the future to sponsor content that embraces the liberties of the United States Constitution instead of Islamist tenets that oppress women and minorities.

Huffington Post laid off 39 employees amid cutbacks, plans new editorial version after losing 420 out of 439 advertisers.   Huffington Post published an article titled “HuffPost Lays Off Dozens Amid Corporate Cutbacks” on June 14, 2017.  The article states in part:  “Writers Guild of America, East, HuffPost’s union, said Wednesday that they were notified of 39 members being laid off.  The HuffPost layoffs come as Lydia Polgreen, who took over as editor-in-chief earlier this year, is assembling a newsroom leadership team, which includes former Daily News Editor-in-Chief Jim Rich, and charting a new editorial vision. She recently oversaw a rebranding of the site, which was co-founded by Arianna Huffington, who left the company in August.”

Huffington Post laid off the 39 employees after Florida Family Association influenced 420 out of 439 companies to stop advertising and influenced a drop from 61 companies advertising during the month of September 2016 to 19 companies in May 2017.   It is highly unlikely that Huffington Post’s parent company, Verizon, would have cut HuffPost’s workforce by twenty percent if the news site was making the profits it did when Verizon acquired AOL.  AOL purchased Huffington Post in 2011.  Verizon purchased AOL in 2015.  It is important to keep the pressure on companies to stop supporting this leftist, Islamist loving, America hating website.  Florida Family Association will diligently keep the pressure on.

Florida Family Association continues to influence more and more companies to stop supporting pro-Islamist web sites with advertising dollars.  Our numbers continue to grow.

  • Four hundred forty eight (448) out of four hundred seventy (470) companies have stopped advertising at Huffingtonpost.com since Florida Family Association started contacting advertisers in April 2016.  Ninety five percent (95%) of the companies stopped advertising as of June 30, 2017.   We have nine (9) ongoing email campaigns that target companies who are advertising at Huffingtonpost.com.  The companies that continued to advertise at Huffingtonpost.com include: Allstate, Amazon, American Express, AT&T, Core Digital Media – Lowermybills.com, CreditCards.com, Discover, Equifax, Everquote, Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, Goldman Sachs, Healthination, Hyundai, Lending Tree, Lifelock (Symantec), Microsoft Edge, Monex, Newchic.com, Rooms To Go, TD Ameritrade and TIAA.org.
  • One hundred sixteen (116) out of one hundred twenty (123) companies have stopped advertising at Aljazeer.com since Florida Family Association started contacting advertisers in February 2017.  Ninety four percent (94%) of the companies stopped advertising as of June 30, 2017.  We have one email campaign that targets Lifelock which is advertising at Ajazeera.com.  The companies that continued to advertise at Aljazeera.com include: Core Digital Media – lmbinsurance.com, CreditCards.com, Equifax, Everquote, Lifelock (Symantec), Monex and Robert Kennedy College.

Florida Family Association has numerous ongoing campaigns focused on Defending American Values against Islamization of America.  To see these campaigns please go to Floridafamily.org.

EDITORS NOTE: Reader support is very important to our ability to continue the fight.  To make your donation by credit card, debit card, checking account or PayPal please click here or mail your gift to Florida Family Association (FFA), PO Box 46547, Tampa, FL 33646-0105.  If you would like to support our efforts with a monthly donation but don’t want the inconvenience of taking the time to do so each month please consider selecting Yes for monthly donations at the top of our donation web page.

Muslim U.S. soldier swore allegiance to ISIS, tried to pass documents to it

Last week the presence of a Muslim such as Ikaika Kang in the U.S. Army would have been held up as evidence that concern about the loyalties of Muslims in the U.S. was sheer “Islamophobia.” Not today.

Ikaika Kang

“FBI: Hawaii soldier swore allegiance to ISIS, tried to pass documents to group,” Hawaii News Now, July 10, 2017:

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – An active duty Hawaii soldier has been arrested for allegedly trying to provide material support and training to the Islamic State terrorist group.

FBI special agents and SWAT arrested Ikaika Erik Kang, 34, on Saturday evening at his Waipahu apartment.

Authorities said they believe Kang was a “lone actor,” and “not associated with others who present a threat to Hawaii.”

“Kang has been under investigation by the U.S. Army and the FBI for over a year,” Honolulu FBI Special Agent in Charge Paul D. Delacourt said. “FBI assets and Army investigative resources were continuously deployed to ensure the public’s safety during the course of this investigation and Kang’s eventual arrest.”

Kang, a 2001 graduate of Kaiser High School, is assigned to the 25th Infantry Division at Schofield Barracks.

His rank was sergeant first class, and he enlisted in December 2001, just months after the 9/11 attacks.

Kang’s father, Clifford, said he’s shocked by the allegations against his son.

“He’s a great kid. He’s not real outgoing, he’s never been, but neither was I,” Kang told Hawaii News Now. “But other than that he’s a great kid, a normal kid who grew up in Waimanalo.”

His father also believes his son may be suffering from PTSD from his tours overseas.

Ikaika Kang was deployed to Iraq in 2010, and served in Afghanistan in 2014, according to his military service record.

He also was a recipient of the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal. He worked as an air traffic control operator with the Army.

A criminal complaint filed in federal court alleges that Kang swore allegiance to ISIS, and attempted to provide military documents and training to the terrorist organization….

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The Startling Impact of Illegal Immigration in Florida

Jonathan Hanen, the Atlantic regional field representative from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently spoke to the Champions of Liberty Tea Party in Ft. Lauderdale, joined by members of F.L.I.M.E.N, and presented a comprehensive list of statistics which reveal the startling impact of illegal immigration in the state of Florida and the taxpayer’s ultimate burden.

Immigration by the Numbers

  • Population (2011 Census Bureau estimate)            19,057,542
  • Illegal Alien Population (2010 FAIR estimate)           820,000
  • Illegal Alien Share (2010 FAIR estimate)                     4.3%
  • Projected Population 2050 (2006 FAIR estimate)     31,750,000

Dept. of Motor Vehicles, Florida Data 2017

According to the Florida Dept. of Motor Vehicles, in 2017 there was an excess of 20 million registered motor vehicles.  They project by 2050 there will be 30% more residents in the state, which means 26 million more autos on the highway.  Does anyone believe that this is sustainable?

Cost to the Florida Taxpayer

There is an estimated 820,000 illegal aliens living in Florida and ‘in state’ and ‘local’ cost to the taxpayer of $5.5 billion.  F.A.I.R estimates that they may pay an estimated $261 million in taxes collected by the state, leaving a burden of more than $5.2 billion for Florida taxpayers to absorb.

Sanctuary Cities

The number of Sanctuary Cities and Counties in Florida has exploded to at least twelve.  They are:

  • Broward County
  • Miami-Dade County
  • Herano County
  • Hillsbourgh County
  • Palm Beach County
  • Pinellas County
  • Pasco County
  • DeLeon Springs
  • Jupiter
  • Lake Worth
  • Deltona

Sanctuary cities have chosen to protect the illegal immigrant, despite the fact that he could have a criminal history or could be a terrorist that just snuck across the border.  What about the protection of the citizens and their families?

What Are Florida Taxpayers Supporting?

Illegal immigration has placed a $3.34 billion burden on the taxpayer for education, $660 million for healthcare, $579 million for law enforcement, $317 million for public assistance, and $568 million for general government services. These figures equate to $5.2 billion (2010), which amounts to $981 per household headed by a U.S. citizen.  We must remind those that support open borders that there is an ultimate burden each Florida family must bear and sacrifice for this.

In Florida, natives accounted for most of the increase in the working age population, (16-65), but more than half of the employment gains went to immigrants, (2000-2014). According to Floridians for Immigration Enforcement, (F.L.I.M.E.N.), since the jobs recovery began in 2010, 64% of net employment growth among the state’s working age population has gone to immigrants.  While agriculture is important to the state, it employs a tiny share of immigrant workers, less than one percent.

The supply of potential workers in Florida indicates that a half a million native-born college graduates were not working in the first quarter of 2014, as were one million with some college and 1.4 million with no more than a high school education.  The labor force participation of black, Hispanic and less educated worker show the biggest declines.

Illegal Alien Crime

In April of 2017, U.S. Customs Enforcement, I.C.E., arrested 73 criminal illegal aliens across Florida.  Of those arrested, 57 had criminal records including felonies for such crimes as sexual battery, child sex crimes, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and other weapons and drug violations.  According to I.C.E. 2016 records, they conducted 240,255 removals nationwide; 92% of those removed had previously been convicted of a crime.  In April, 2016, Miami-Dade authorities announced arrest warrants for 22 people suspected of laundering money for Mexican drug cartel kingpin, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.  In March, 2016, Feds arrested 26 suspected MS-13 gang members from the notoriously vicious South American Mara Salvatrucha international gang, seizing narcotics and 150 firearms in Miami-Dade County.  The impact of lives lost, crime and narcotic trafficking impacts all Floridians, despite age, gender or income level.

Floridians for Immigration Enforcement

FLIMEN has been actively encouraging E-Verify for all employers in the state of Florida and nationwide, requiring them to confirm the legal status of new hires.  By doing so, the job magnet would be squelched and illegal immigration could be curbed.  Unfortunately, after years of pushing this mandate, despite the fact that Florida has a Republican governor and legislature, E-Verify still has not be voted on.  Perhaps the special interest groups and employers in the state would rather turn a blind eye to the hiring of illegal immigrants over native Floridians.

Illegal immigration may have temporarily slowed down because of President Trump’s mandate to ‘Build The Wall’ on the southern border, however, the impact of illegal immigration has not dissipated, as every taxpayer is still burdened with the ultimate absorption of costs, decline in pay and quality of living as a result of years of illegal border crossings.

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B’nai Brith Slams Canada’s Funding for Anti-Israel Exhibit

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praying in mosque.

LONDON, Ontario – B’nai Brith Canada is strongly condemning an anti-Israel art exhibit on display at Western University’s McIntosh Gallery which received grants from a federal funding agency, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

The display, entitled “Choreographies of Resistance,” glorifies the actions of Palestinian protesters, including stone-throwers who promote violence under the guise of resistance. In Israel, a reported fourteen civilians have been murdered by Palestinian stone-throwers, including infants such as Adele Biton and Yehuda Shoham, as well as three Israeli Arabs who were attacked because they were mistaken for Jews.

The creator of the exhibit is Rehab Nazzal, the sister of Palestinian terrorist leader Khaled Nazzal. In 2014, Rehab drew condemnation for a similar display at Ottawa City Hall which glorified Khaled and other Palestinian terrorists. Rehab continues to justify terrorist attacks plotted by her brother, including the 1974 massacre of 22 Israeli schoolchildren, describing him as a “martyr” who fought for “justice.”

Despite Rehab’s abuse of art to whitewash acts of terror, research by B’nai Brith shows that the SSHRC handed her $35,000 in 2015 in order to continue her work.

“It is irresponsible that taxpayer dollars are being used to finance this anti-Israel exhibit,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada.

“The false narrative of victimhood on display at this exhibit deliberately ignores Palestinian car rammings, suicide bombings, the recent knife intifada and lethal use of rocks targeting civilians due to a continual campaign of incitement. Rehab Nazzal’s public support for her terrorist brother is deplorable.”

The McIntosh Gallery says the exhibit “pays tribute to Palestinians who have lost their lives in what the artist notes is an ‘intifada, or uprising.'” The term ‘intifada’ actually refers to violent Palestinian uprisings that have left thousands of Israeli civilians dead or wounded.

RELATED ARTICLE: Palestinians to U.S. Ambassador: Drop Dead!

EDITORS NOTE: To share this story via social media, please click here.

A Terrorist & Naturalized Fraud: Why federal prosecutors failed to indict Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud

On June 29, 2017 the Department of Justice issued a press releases, Ohio Man Pleads Guilty to Providing Material Support to Terrorists.

Numerous politicians have proposed legislation that would strip an American of his/her citizenship if that American attended terror training overseas or fought on the side of terrorist organizations.  This is entirely understandable and other countries have proposed similar laws be enacted.

Incredibly, in this case, this terrorist could have easily been stripped of his citizenship because he apparently acquired it by committing fraud in his naturalization application.

Yet, inexplicably, the federal prosecutors in this case failed to indict him for this crime even as they successfully charged him with other crimes relating to terrorism, for which he pleaded guilty. Adding this crime to his charges would have been a simple matter, indeed.

The “Ohio Man” was Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud a native of Somalia who, according to the information filed by federal prosecutors, entered the United States at the age of two.

The DOJ press release began with these two paragraphs:

Court records unsealed today reveal that Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 25, of Columbus, Ohio, pleaded guilty to all counts alleged against him regarding a terrorist plot.

A federal grand jury charged Mohamud in April 2015 with one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to terrorists, one count of attempting to provide and providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization – namely, al-Nusrah Front – and one count of making false statements to the FBI involving international terrorism in an indictment returned in Columbus. Mohamud pleaded guilty before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers on Aug. 14, 2015, and the plea was sealed because of an ongoing investigation.

According to the information provided in the press release and court documents (Revised Statement of Facts) filed on August 14, 2015 in the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, by federal prosecutors, the defendant did not become a naturalized citizen until 2014 when he was approximately 20 years of age.

Furthermore, the information contained in the documents made it clear that his motivation for becoming a United States citizen was not because of his love and respect for America but rather to enable him to acquire a U.S. passport to facilitate his travel to Syria to join his brother, Abdifatah Aden in fighting on the side of the al-Nusrah Front, a terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaeda.

Lying on those applications constitutes fraud.  As stipulated in federal law, Title 18 U.S. Code § 1425 (Procurement of citizenship or naturalization unlawfully) when this crime is committed in conjunction with terrorism, the punishment is a maximum prison sentence of 25 years, a greater penalty that he faces for lying to an FBI agent.

However, the greatest incentive for this additional charge goes well beyond increasing his possible period of incarceration.  By having Mohamud successfully prosecuted for this violation would result in his being stripped of his U.S. citizenship and consequently he would be subject to removal (deportation) from the United States.

This is of considerable importance considering that the DOJ press release reported:

According to a statement of facts supporting Mohamud’s guilty plea, while in Syria, Mohamud trained with al-Nusrah Front on fitness, and on the use of weapons and tactics. Mohamud also engaged in a firefight and expressed his desire to die fighting in Syria.

After his brother was killed while fighting for al-Nusrah Front, Mohamud returned to the U.S. According to the statement of facts, after returning to the U.S., Mohamud planned to obtain weapons in order to kill military officers or other government employees or people in uniform. Evidence seized by the FBI indicates that Mohamud researched places in the U.S. to carry out such plans.

Given that his goal, in returning to the United States, was to carry out terror attacks inside the United States, it is incomprehensible he was not charged with naturalization fraud to ultimately remove him from the United States upon completion of his prison sentence.

This excerpt from the previously noted Revised Statement of Facts provides clear and unequivocal evidence that the defendant procured United States citizenship unlawfully by concealing material facts in his application for U.S. citizenship:

  1. Abdirahman Sheik MOHAMUD is a 23-year-old resident of Columbus, Ohio. MOHAMUD was born in Somalia but came to the United States (U.S.) when he was approximately two years old and became a naturalized U.S. citizen on February 18, 2014.
  2. An overview of MOHAMUD’s criminal conduct is as follows:
  3. In September of 2013, MOHAMUD sent his brother, Abdifatah ADEN, a private message praising his brother Abdifatah ADEN, who was fighting in Syria, for being a soldier and committing himself to join ADEN as a fellow foreign fighter.
  4. From approximately January through April of 2014, MOHAMUD and ADEN coordinated MOHAMUD’s travel into Syria, planned MOHAMUD’s financial support for ADEN, and discussed MOHAMUD’s plans to obtain a communication device to provide to ADEN in support of terrorist activities. MOHAMUD’s planning included obtaining a U.S. passport and airline ticket, opening a bank account, gathering $1,000 of funds on ADEN’s behalf, and purchasing an internet-accessible device.
  5. On February 18, 2014, MOHAMUD became a naturalized U.S. citizen. On February 25, 2014, MOHAMUD submitted a passport application to the U.S.
  6. On April 8, 2014, MOHAMUD purchased a one-way ticket to Athens, Greece via Istanbul, Turkey.
  7. MOHAMUD departed the U.S. on April 18, 2014 for the purpose of fighting in Syria and providing material support to the al-Nusrah Front (“al-Nusrah”), an organization that is designated by the U.S. Secretary of State as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). MOHAMUD did not fly to Athens, rather, he disembarked in Istanbul, Turkey and did not board his connecting flight. Around the time MOHAMUD departed the U.S., he knew ADEN was in Syria fighting with the terrorist organization al-Nusrah.

This case is far from unique.  There have been numerous instances of foreign terrorists applying for United States citizenship as an embedding tactic and also to enable them to acquire U.S. passports which facilitate their entry into other countries as they go about preparatory functions relating to training, planning and conducing surveillance of potential targets in the United States and abroad.

“For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons.”  That statement appears in

Chapter 12 of the 9/11 Report under the subtitle, “What To Do?  A Global Strategy.”

For terrorists, travel documents are as important as weapons. Terrorists must travel clandestinely to meet, train, plan, case targets, and gain access to attack. To them, international travel presents great danger, because they must surface to pass through regulated channels, present themselves to border security officials, or attempt to circumvent inspection points.

In their travels, terrorists use evasive methods, such as altered and counterfeit passports and visas, specific travel methods and routes, liaisons with corrupt government officials, human smuggling networks, supportive travel agencies, and immigration and identity fraud. These can sometimes be detected.

Yet USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) a component agency of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), adjudicates hundreds of thousands of applications for United States citizenship via naturalization every year.  This only represents a small part of the more than 9 million applications filed annually for various immigration benefits.

This beleaguered agency and its employees are overwhelmed.  Immigration fraud is not a “victimless crime” as I noted in a recent paper, “Immigration Fraud: Lies That Kill – 9/11 Commission identified immigration fraud as a key embedding tactic of terrorists.”

Furthermore, when aliens apply for naturalization they are able to legally change their names and their U.S. passports only reflect their new names.  This enables criminals and terrorists to gain entry into countries that would bar them from entering under their original names but have no way of knowing that they have morphed into brand-new identities as U.S. citizens.  This not only threatens America’s security but the security of our allies.

I have raised this issue at congressional hearings and elsewhere, but to no avail.

As I noted in a previous article, Terrorists Value U.S. Citizenship More Than Our Politicians Do.

Additionally, in another article I included an excerpt from a May 19, 2015 New York Times article, In Osama bin Laden Library: Illuminati and Bob Woodward, that described what American commandos discovered when they raided bin Laden’s compound.

Here is that excerpt:

He (bin Laden) also appeared to have maintained a keen interest in what the United States government thought of Al Qaeda. A copy of ‘The 9/11 Commission Report’ was found in the compound in Abbottabad, as were three reports on Al Qaeda by the Congressional Research Service. There was also an application for American citizenship (no word on whether it was filled out).

Clearly bin Laden had an interest in our immigration system.

Numerous terror suspects, to this day, have sought U.S. citizenship as an integral part of their strategies to move freely around the world in preparation for carrying out deadly attacks.

Criminal violations of our immigration laws must not be ignored but prosecuted aggressively to protect America and its citizens especially, in cases involving terrorists.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in FrontPage Magazine.

Hungarian PM Orban: European Union following George Soros’ migration plan

He also suggests Italy will soon attempt to close its borders.  I won’t hold my breath on that one, political correctness has most of Europe by the short hairs.

Invasion of Europe news…..

From Breitbart London (which has been doing a great job of reporting on the invasion):

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has claimed the European Union are implementing migration plans designed by left-wing billionaire Geroge Soros to bring in a million migrants per year to Europe with the help of his army of NGOs.

Hungarian Prime Minister Orban (left) George Soros (right).

Orbán claimed the EU and Soros wish to bring in the one million migrants annually to create an EU immigration force to undermine the national sovereignty of member states, Die Presse reports.

According to Orbán, many heads of government across Europe agree with his government’s policy on migration but will only say so in private. He also said that because of the recent surge of migration into Italy, he expected the southern European nation could soon join Hungary and others in wanting to secure their national borders.

The Italian government have already made several steps toward securing their border after they saw 13,500 migrants arrive by naval vessels and NGO rescue ships in a 48-hour period. The NGO ships have been accused by Italian prosecutors of cooperating with people smugglers and Italy has even threatened to close its ports to their boats if the traffic continues at the same pace.

Orbán also mentioned former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who once warned that if his government should fall, then millions of people would flood Europe from Africa.

The Hungarian prime minister said that although Gaddafi was no democratic ruler, Western interventionism in Libya was partly responsible for the current crisis.BTW, it was Soros’ pal Hillary Clinton who is responsible for getting Gaddafi out of the way, see here. Watch her laugh like a mad woman!

Come on Donald! You visited Poland, now invite Viktor Orban to the White House and give him a lavish state dinner—make the heathen rage!

Tell the President, here, to invite the brave Orban to the White House!  Soros might be a friend of your son-in-law, but he is not your friend.

All of my ‘Invasion of Europe’ news is here.  The archive extends back to about 2011.

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Every day tell the White House what you think about refugee program!

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of one of many NGO ships bringing African migrants to Italy. Photo: Breitbart

Trump’s New Foreign Policy of ‘Principled Realism’ by José Azel

The new U.S.-Cuba policy emphasizes our democratic values, but allows for negotiations responsive to the requirements of U.S. national interests. It is a policy of principled realism. The symbolism of a change to a policy that now embraces our values was richly expressed by U.S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart: “We will no longer have to witness the embarrassing spectacle of an American president doing the wave at a baseball game with a ruthless dictator.”

American foreign policy has historically fluctuated between two competing approaches that transcend our left-right political spectrum. Political scientists label these schools of thought Idealism and Realism.

Idealism holds that the purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to advance American values by fomenting freedom and democracy throughout the world. The ultimate goal of Idealism is to bring about a just and peaceful world by ending tyrannies. In the idealist view, the United States should engage in humanitarian missions, military interventions, and nation building, to advance this goal. Idealists believe that U.S. foreign policy should not be determined by what is best for the United States, but by what is, morally, the right thing to do.

In contrast, Realism holds that the purpose of U.S. foreign policy is to secure America’s national interest. Realists believe that moral principles are incompatible with the protection of our national interest. Interests come before values, and U.S. foreign policy should set aside moral considerations, and focus on whatever works.

Because interests are placed before values, foreign policy Realism enables policymakers to immorally embrace tyrannical regimes as President Obama did with Iran and Cuba in the name of the national interest.

President Trump has been very critical of Obama’s realist-inspired foreign policy as well as of the idealistic interventions favored by President Bush. President Trump’s foreign policy will not follow the Idealist approach of military interventions or nation building designed to foment freedom and democracy throughout the world. Nor will his foreign policy pursue national interests devoid of moral principles as in the Realist tradition.

President Trump’s foreign policy breaks from Idealism and Realism into a new foreign policy doctrine the President has labeled “Principled Realism.” Two recent overt military actions are illustrative of what the President means by principled realism.

First, the attack with Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Al Shayrat airbase, home of the Syrian warplanes that had carried out chemical attacks against civilians; the attack was timely, focused and proportional.

Second, the first use ever, in eastern Afghanistan, of the Massive Ordinance Air Blast (MOAB) that targeted an ISIS tunnel and cave complex; according to military analysts, the MOAB was precisely the right weapon for that target.

Independently of their military efficacy, both of these actions signaled an approach that, while in-line with our values, does not commit U.S. resources beyond what is necessary to protect our national interest and to make a point.

And, on June 16, the President, outlining his new U.S.-Cuba policy, explicitly referred to his Cuba foreign policy approach as: “the United States is adopting a principled realism, rooted in our values, shared interests, and common sense. We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer…America will expose the crimes of the Castro regime and stand with the Cuban people in their struggle for freedom.”

Given Cuba’s intransigence, the new policy is an intelligent, measured, and practical approach that, while not prohibiting travel to, or doing business in Cuba, forbids Americans from doing business in partnership with the Cuban military. The policy focuses directly on the adversary: The Cuban military.

In practice, American travelers will not be able to stay in the hotels of the Cuban Armed Forces but can stay in individually owned facilities. Doing business with the Cuban people is encouraged, but doing business with the military dictatorship is prohibited. The policy seeks to limit cash flows to the military enterprises while increasing cash flows to the people. Symbolically and practically, it embraces the oppressed and not the oppressors.

Principled realism opens up diplomatic possibilities anchored on the intersection of our values and our interests. President Trump’s foreign policy will not be one that puts fear in the minds of oppressive regimes as some had hoped. Dictatorships offend our values, but not necessarily our national interests.

The new U.S.-Cuba policy emphasizes our democratic values, but allows for negotiations responsive to the requirements of U.S. national interests. It is a policy of principled realism.

The symbolism of a change to a policy that now embraces our values was richly expressed by U.S. Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart: “We will no longer have to witness the embarrassing spectacle of an American president doing the wave at a baseball game with a ruthless dictator.”


ABOUT JOSE AZEL

José Azel arrived in the U.S. in 1961 from communist Cuba as a 13 year-old political exile with Operation Pedro Pan, the largest unaccompanied child refugee movement in the history of the Western Hemisphere. He is currently a Senior Scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS) at the University of Miami. Dr. Azel earned a Masters Degree in Business Administration and a Ph.D. in International Affairs from the University of Miami, and is author of Mañana in Cuba: The Legacy of Castroism and Transitional Challenges for Cuba, and Reflections on Freedom. He is also a contributor to SFPPR News & Analysis of the online-conservative-journalism center at the Washington-based Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research.

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When did ‘freedom’ become a dirty word?

Trump Defends the West

Raymond J. de Souza: If Europe’s elites think Trump’s defence of Western liberty is ‘racist, they’d have hated Churchill – National Post (Canada)

US shuts the door on refugees, wails ‘Think Progress’

VIDEO: America Under Siege — Soviet Islam

In my December 2015 column “The neo-Democrat Party: Devout followers of Marx, Mao and Mohammed” I wrote:

Numerous writers and political pundits have written on President Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform America” when elected in 2008.

I believe what President Obama has truly done is fundamentally transformed the Democratic Party of JFK to the Democrat Party of BHO. I use the word Democrat because the Party of Obama is not Democratic, as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. The membership of the neo-Democrat Party are made up primarily of the devout followers of Marx, Mao and Mohammed.

Those who oppose Obama and the neo-Democrat Party, including JFK Democrats, are subject to ridicule, rejection and bullying.

Extremism in the name of the collective is the over riding strategy of the neo-Democrat. Radicalism is the tactic. The more extreme the ideal, the more it is embraced. This leads to what some have labeled a form of political insanity. I call it political suicide. History teaches us that tyrants and tyranny ultimately lose the support of the masses. Why? Because the policies implemented harm the masses.

Trevor Loudon has released a new episode in the America Under Siege series titled “Soviet Islam.” Loudon writes:

“Soviet Islam” is the second episode in the five-part “America Under Siege” documentary web-series releasing over the course of 2017. Each episode profiles the influence of radical Marxists on various segments of American society.

The film uncovers the secret history of how the Soviet Union used Islamists and dictators in the Middle East to further its objectives and how Vladimir Putin’s Russia continues this strategy today, endangering Americans and all freedom-loving peoples.

After World War II, the Soviet Union used Muslim intelligence assets to subvert neighboring Muslim-majority nations. Putin’s Russia continues to infiltrate Islamic communities around the world, including Chechnya, Iran, Syria, and Palestine, and also at home in the United States, where Islamists and communists have joined in an unlikely alliance.

Please watch Trevor Loudon’s latest documentary “America Under Siege: Soviet Islam”:

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Soviet Fascism in America: Agents of Influence

The Political Mafia and Soviet Fascism in America

Donald J. Trump versus the Ideology of Soviet Fascism

Terrorism and the Ideology of Soviet Fascism

EDITORS NOTE: The film is narrated and written by conservative author Trevor Loudon, directed by Judd Saul, and produced by Cohesion Films in partnership with Dangerous Documentaries, a project of the Capital Research Center.

The Rage of Islam

To preserve his irrational sense of honor, the Muslim man must blame others for any wrongdoing. Conforming to this perverse logic, United Nations Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, Dubravka Šimonović, blames Israel for the violence committed by Palestinian men against their own women. If Israel’s retaliatory attacks were indeed the cause, then Hamas’s greater number of rocket and mortar attacks would cause Israeli men to be far more abusive to Israeli wives – but that is not the case.

It begins in the home. Family life is a microcosm of the surrounding culture. Inside and outside the Islamic home, there is oppression, subordination, envy, animosity, shame, enslavement, and emotional and physical pain for any deviation. Muslim women are among the poorest, most oppressed, and least educated in the world, caged by their cumbrous shrouds in the insufferable desert heat, by their misogynist sharia laws, and by their chauvinist husbands. The 7th-century Bedouin woman’s attempt at privacy and protection has become a symbol of humiliation, servitude, and protection from men who are raised to lack restraint. Thus clad and maltreated, there is no natural interaction between the sexes, such as is found elsewhere. Not only are the women deprived of freedom and individuality, but they are also denied sunlight and Vitamin D, and more likely to develop osteoporosis, experience pelvic fracture during childbirth, and have babies who are disposed to seizures.

The Muslim family is a hatchery for abnormal behavior, its dynamics providing constant frustration. Just as Islam seeks to dominate all other religions, so the man seeks to dominate all within his dominion — the employer who humiliates his employee, the husband who beats his wife, and the father who kills his daughter for his “honor.” It is seen in the pain needlessly inflicted on cattle brought to slaughter during the Islamic holiday of Eid. The sounds of the men’s sadistic torture, and animals bleating and bleeding in the streets, increase their indifference to cruelty and the value of life. All of these are nurtured within the family.

While the Jewish state sounds alarms to take immediate shelter from incoming rockets, the Palestinians provide no shelter. Rather, they often position their launch sites at schools or hospitals, adding women and children as human shields to increase the death toll from Israel’s reprisals and garner more world “compassion.” While Israel provides playground shelters, Hamas teaches children to decapitate with swords, handle automatic rifles, and employs them to construct terror tunnels. Irreverence for life is widespread throughout Islamic culture, and is both cause and consequence for Palestinian anger and aggression. It cannot be attributed to Israel’s retaliations.

Another assault on Islamic women is the Female Genital Mutilation performed on young girls — an excruciating, barbaric procedure of castration done without anesthesia to suppress her sexual desires, guarantee her virginity and ensure faithfulness before marriage. The risks include interference with normal female bodily functions, infections, exsanguination, and death, and psychological impairment as the young cannot emotionally rebel against their parents. They face another agonizing reversal surgery prior to marriage. How long before this, too, is blamed on Israel?

While boys and girls in Western cultures learn to communicate and socialize with each other, pursue their choice of careers and mate for marriage, Muslim youths are kept apart. The sexual attraction found throughout the entire natural world is spurned by Islam as “shameful”; they attach an unhealthy negativity to all aspects of sexuality. Social segregation leads to discomfort, fear, and hostility. Arab men learn to hate women and indulge in homosexual behavior with boys or effeminate men (considered an acceptable substitute), thereby emasculating the victimized male. The result is sexual confusion. The intense sexual repression and misogyny emerge as the rage and rape seen in the youths who are sent to the lands of the infidel. The husbands remain unhappy, confused, and violent. Yet Israel is blamed for the degenerate behavior with which Islamic society is riddled.

In some Muslim societies, consanguineous marriages are encouraged, often producing sick, dysfunctional children — suitable, perhaps, for jihad martyrdomPolygamous marriages with as many as four wives are also acceptable but deprive all of the intimacy and security found in faithful monogamous marriages. The effects of polygamy are favoritism and divisiveness, neglect, deprivation, jealousy, and bitterness. The women are stuck in a loveless marriage, beaten into submission, and robbed of friendships. Further, the Koran and Hadith sanction beating wives, with encouragement and guidelines provided on television by the Mufti of Gaza.

The children in such arrangements often grow to be resentful of their half-siblings, disrespectful of or deeply angry at their father, while feeling contempt and shame at their mother’s subservience. A loveless household breeds scorn and provides the perfect setting for the young male to become a stern husband and father, an unquestioning suicidal murderer, or a deranged sadist who receives sexual satisfaction from causing pain and degradation.

All the aforesaid fester in the daily life of the Islamic home.

For fourteen centuries, Mohammed’s examples of looting, enslavement, decapitation, and conquest have been the paradigm for his followers. The price of constant war and bloodshed has been their humanity. Islam keeps its adherents unschooled and severely restricted, lacking in compassion, courtesy, industry, and deficient in empathy for the suffering of others. Instead of yielding happiness, comfort, and security for its people, this religious, political, cultural, and economical ideology produces indoctrinated partisans, dedicated to hate the infidel and conquer land for their god. To feed the war machine, there must be constant illiteracy, stress, anger, blame, shame, and no bonds to love or family. The individuals are kept focused on their own anxieties and the state’s passion for a caliphate, taught during prayers five times daily.

A study conducted by Oxford University has shown that the male must make as many as 34 head-to-prayer mat contacts five times per day, often resulting in a zebibah (or prayer bump) and traumatic brain injury along with mental disorders. The practice is known to cause irritation, aggression, depression, and cognitive impairment, all to feed the cult and war mentality. Known as TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), it can affect thinking (memory, reasoning), sensation (touch, taste, smell), language (communication, expression, understanding), and emotion (depression, anxiety, personality change, aggression, social inaptness). It can cause epilepsy, and increases the conditions for age-related Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders.

Simonovic is sympathetic to the culture but cannot define it. Apart from prayer rugs, Islam has produced nothing but state-of-the-art terrorism techniques over the centuries. Their cultural accomplishments are kept to a minimum with half the people’s brain power confined under hijabs and burqas, and the other half driven to riot, kill, or commit suicide, as the outworking of the aberrant behavior that is inculcated from cradle to grave. Creativity flourishes in a free society; slave states produce tears.

The greatest fear to Muslim men may now well be the threat of modernization and the liberation of women. Throughout fourteen hundred years of history, the men have had their humbled dhimmis, the social and sexual inferiors that have bolstered their self-worth and warped sense of honor. The culture of the West and of Israel threaten Muslim male dominance. Add to this, their sense of resentment that their beleaguered and despised neighbor, Israel, has proven to be culturally, economically, and militarily superior to the Palestinians, a horde that has failed to produce a similar or better society during the same time, despite the world’s generosity.

It is obvious that the violence inherent within the Muslim male has its roots in the lurid instability of the home, the mosque, and their society in general. Tragically, instead of addressing the real source of the problem, Muslims are trained to blame anything but themselves. Islam has had many “whipping boys.” Blaming Israel’s retaliatory actions for Muslim violence, as proclaimed by Ms. Simonovic, is like accusing the victim of antagonizing his attacker by defending himself.

Disturbingly, Islam appears to have been masterfully crafted to be the antithesis of Judaism and Christianity that preceded it. The Bible celebrates life; the Koran sacrifices it. Wife-beating is merely one of innumerable components that form the atrocity of Islam and threaten the survival of humankind.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in American Thinker. Views expressed in this video do not represent those of PMW or this magazine. We expose hate speech so that it will be eliminated. For more info visit: http://palwatch.org.

VIDEO: If I Were the Devil

In 1965 Paul Harvey, an American radio broadcaster for the ABC Radio Networks and author who wrote Our Lives, Our Fortunes, Our Sacred Honor, did one of his “The Rest of the Story” broadcasts addressing what he would do if he were the devil. Harvey’s words have today become reality, the new-normal, the doctrine preached in our public schools and in the public square. His words were a warning, they are worth hearing over and over again.

Time to take back America. Time to make America great, again, by embracing God. As President Trump said in Warsaw, Poland, “‘Together, let us all fight like the Poles—for family, for freedom, for country and for God’.

Joe Donahue writes:

Dear American Citizen: Most would agree the reach of the Federal Government is simply too big, and has lacked true accountability by the press – Yet now the mainstream media (seemingly) is beginning to show signs of investigative journalism. And they should! Admittedly, the IRS has been targeting “Pro-America, Patriot, less Government, more God” non-profit groups. Using Paul Harvey’s words and images from our current culture, this video has a message that clearly speaks into the souls of American citizens.

America is not lazy. America is not apathetic. America is not complacent. Yes, some American’s are lazy, complacent and apathetic. Some choose laziness and complacency over hard work and creativity. Some stumble through this life completely dependent upon the government, faith based organizations, and the kindness of neighbors…and as American’s we support them, not because we have to – but because we want to. We want to help our fellow countryman. But their comes a point where a line must be drawn. There comes a time when we say, “We will go this far, but no further.” We cannot carry you forever. You must “want it” yourself. You must begin to walk…and run – on your own. And in time, you will see, that you must begin to help others as well.

And the hard workers? Yes, we dream. We work. We keep the country rolling. We give financially to our churches. We help our neighbors. We pay our taxes. Not out of any sense of shame or compulsion but because we WANT to…

Between the two Paul Harvey Videos I have made they have been viewed over 2,000,000 times. Not bad for a video I put together for our student ministry…but future America needs your help today in spreading the message of this video.

Please share, post, embed, re-post, email and get this message into the hands of Americans. This is not about an election. This is about fighting for the Heart of America…Freedom. You would be surprised who may watch this video and begin to reject complacency and dependency upon the government…together we can slowly rise to rebuild America.

RELATED ARTICLE: ACADEMIA – Discover the Networks

The Attack on Hobby Lobby Is Incoherent and Unjust by Jeffrey A. Tucker

The mainstream press has accused Hobby Lobby, a great and beloved American company, of hypocrisy, unchristian behaviorsmugglingstealing, and even funding terrorism. As punishment, and concluding an investigation that has been going on for six years, the US government has extracted from the company a fine of $3 million, and the company is sending to the government property it bought fair and square.

What horrible things did the company do? It purchased from sketchy sources in the Middle East thousands of ancient artifacts, including extremely rare cuneiform tablets. The purpose of such purchases – the Green family that owns Hobby Lobby spent its own money – is to complete an exciting project in the nation’s capital, the building of a new museum called the Museum of the Bible that will be open to the public in November.For its efforts to save ancient historical artifacts and put them on display for educational purposes, the company has been declared guilty of trafficking war loot. And the property it bought? It is presumably going to be owned now by the US government – and maybe put in a warehouse and forgotten, like the disgraceful scene from the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The War Caused This

And yet, it was the chaos of the Iraq War itself that brought these artifacts to the black markets to begin with. Previously, one supposes, they were claimed by Saddam Hussein as the national property of the government that the U.S. overthrew. They were pillaged by traders in the midst of the confusion that the US had not properly prepared for. This was nearly 15 years ago, and, presumably, the artifacts have changed hands many times.

Given how valuable these items are, and how little care the US government showed them, there is a sense in which the black market deserves praise. There was no longer a regime in place to claim ownership. The treasures were not destroyed or forgotten. Rather, they were preserved in the care of new owners and traders who understood their value – far more so than the marauding occupiers who allowed a birthplace of civilization to be pillaged without a thought.Hobby Lobby – scrupulously and motivated by genuine piety – was only seeking to recover them and put them on display to increase public awareness of their value and what they represent. It is not the company’s fault that these treasures were floating around and changing hands all over the Middle East. Hobby Lobby didn’t cause the war. It didn’t steal a single thing from anyone. What the company was doing was systematically buying them from criminals, gangs, and shadowy forces with an eye toward keeping them safe and showing them to the public.

Hobby Lobby deserves praise, not condemnation, for these actions.

The most preposterous claim is that what the company did was unchristian. This is a jab at the company culture, of course, which is openly evangelical and has otherwise embroiled the company in public controversy. The Supreme Court decided in favor of its claim that it should not be forced to provide medical services to its employees. It was the first time in US history that the courts said that a for-profit company enjoys certain rights to religious liberty – and the partisans of Obamacare have never forgiven the company for that reason.

It’s like the whole of the social-democratic opinion cartel got on board with a plan: get Hobby Lobby!

False Records

What about the claim that there was fraud involved in the shipping of items themselves? According to reports, the company acquiesced to falsified shipping records in order to disguise the contents of the packages.

This strikes me not as fraud – who is actually being defrauded here? – but rather very smart and strategic behavior. What was the company to do? Put a big stamp on the packages that says PRICELESS ARTIFACTS FROM ANTIQUITY INSIDE? The efforts to disguise the contents were consistent with the care that the company was taking with the property that it justly acquired on the market.In fact, by not insuring the contents as much as the shippers might have been willing to cover, the company was bearing the full liability that would have been associated with theft. Therefore it had every incentive to obscure the nature of the contents. No one got hurt by their doing so.

Making the Market

But there is yet another claim making the rounds. In the words of professional Hobby Lobby haters Joel Baden and Candida Moss:

The black market has done more for the cause of historical preservation than either Saddam Hussein or the occupying military forces ever did.

If collectors like the Green family were unwilling to purchase unprovenanced antiquities — items that do not have a clear and clean history of discovery and purchase — the black market would dry up. As long as there are buyers, there will be sellers. It is because collectors like Hobby Lobby are willing to pay a premium and look the other way that looting continues. They dramatically expanded the market for biblical antiquities in the late 2000s.This is just crazy talk. Are we really supposed to believe that if the Greens had not put a value on ancient Mesopotamian artifacts that these items would thereby fall in value for everyone else? This is preposterous actually. And think about this: if the treasures actually fall to zero price, there would be no incentive to care for them and display them for the public. It is precisely because The Green family and so many others value them that they have been preserved.

These writers are living in a fantasy world. Actually, the black market has done more for the cause of historical preservation than either Saddam Hussein or the occupying military forces ever did.

Ownership Records

There is the final matter of ownership records. These are obviously controversial for property that is, after all, thousands of years old. What to do? Hobby Lobby had the right solution: they should be owned by the highest bidder and displayed for the edification of the public. As a private enterprise, it could have experimented with using the right technology – blockchain – to create immutable records, along with the complete history. That way, there would never again be a controversy.

Much the same is already being done in the art world to prevent forgeries, track ownership, and verify the authenticity of works of art. This process needs to commence with ancient artifacts too, for the sake of posterity and the future.

What Hobby Lobby was doing could have finally saved this sacred history on behalf of the whole of humanity. Sadly, it will not be so, simply because some bureaucrats and petty pundits are working through their resentments of the company, fining them and dragging its reputation through the mud. Hobby Lobby wasn’t stealing; it is being stolen from.

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey A. Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow at the Acton Institute, policy adviser of the Heartland Institute, founder of the CryptoCurrency Conference, member of the editorial board of the Molinari Review, an advisor to the blockchain application builder Factom, and author of five books. He has written 150 introductions to books and many thousands of articles appearing in the scholarly and popular press.

VIDEO: Obamacare’s ‘People Will Die’ Canard by Charles Blahous

Passions are high in the national health care debate. Some supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have taken to asserting that hundreds of thousands of “people will die” if it is repealed or significantly altered. These claims do not withstand scrutiny, and those who wish their policy arguments to be taken seriously would be well advised to avoid them.

These sensational claims rest on fallacious reasoning, which I’ll describe later in this piece. But first let’s acknowledge that neither I, you, nor anyone else has any idea how many Americans will live or die under alternative federal health care policies. It’s an inherently fruitless exercise to attempt to quantify these effects. However, if one seriously wished to attempt it, one would not do so via the methods now being employed to promulgate the “people will die” claim.

Effects of the ACA

The claims are based on extolling a single effect of the ACA: increasing health insurance coverage, which is said to reduce mortality. Of course, the ACA didn’t magically produce its coverage increase out of thin air. To finance it, the law included several features that likely have countervailing effects on mortality.

Below is a partial list of such effects, provided with the caveat that it would be just as silly to charge the ACA with killing people as it is to attribute deaths to its possible repeal:

  • CBO also found the ACA to reduce workforce participation. Although there is a fierce national debate over the effects and causes of unemployment, there is broad understanding that unemployment correlates with worsened health.
  • The ACA imposed substantial taxes on medical devices and drugs, inhibiting their development and use. We do not know how many lives these products would otherwise have saved.
  • Most of the ACA’s coverage expansion occurred through Medicaid, which has a limited supply of providers and services. Those who gained Medicaid coverage via the ACA gained access to subsidized health services. But unless the number of providers, facilities and services accessible through Medicaid grew at least as fast as enrollment did, there has been a corresponding reduction in health service availability to people previously on Medicaid.

What Studies Show

But even a balanced attempt to weigh the ACA’s net effects on longevity would be inherently problematic under the methods currently being employed to estimate them.

The widely-circulated figures for deaths supposedly caused by replacing the ACA are extrapolated from a study of the Massachusetts health reform experience. That study found that post-reform (2007-10) mortality rates in Massachusetts improved relative to pre-reform (2001-05) mortality rates more than was the case in other US counties after controlling for demographic and economic conditions.

The study is credible, interesting, and suggestive, but does not offer any generalizable proofs of the effects of national health policy on longevity. To the contrary, the authors state that “Massachusetts results may not generalize to other states.”

The study merely shows that longevity improved within Massachusetts after health legislation, more than can be accounted for by economic and demographic trends. This indeed might plausibly have happened because of Massachusetts’s particular health reforms but as the authors acknowledge, it could also have arisen from any of countless factors specific to Massachusetts.

Indeed, a similar study of Oregon’s experience with Medicaid expansion “did not detect clinical improvements other than depression reduction.” In any case, the Massachusetts study only tells us what didn’t cause its longevity improvement; it cannot definitively explain what did.

Killing Your Credibility

But the biggest problem with the “people will die” claim is that it rests on a fundamental logical fallacy. It is related to the familiar “Fallacy of Composition,” which any discerning interlocutor will call you on if you commit it. An oft-cited example of the fallacy is that just because a standing spectator can see a baseball game better than the patrons seated near him, this doesn’t imply that everyone will see better if they all stand up.

The application of the fallacy to health insurance is straightforward. One cannot leap solely from the observation that “having health insurance. . . results in better health” to the conclusion that “the more we expand health insurance, the healthier we all will be.”

Health insurance reduces the out-of-pocket costs individuals face when they buy health services. Expanded insurance coverage increases health service consumption which, considered by itself, should improve health. But it also increases cost growth, an effect widely recognized in health expenditure forecasting. People with insurance feel this cost growth through rising premiums, but the cost inflation is felt especially keenly by the uninsured, who must pay more whenever they buy health services (or receive less care for what they pay).The observation that the insured are relatively healthier doesn’t by itself imply that expanding coverage will save lives.

Thus, even if health insurance did absolutely nothing to improve national health outcomes, we’d still expect the insured to be healthier than the uninsured. Thus, the observation that the insured are relatively healthier doesn’t by itself imply that expanding coverage will save lives.

There are countless potential examples of the fallacy in operation. For example, consider the current tax preference for employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). Those who receive health insurance through their employer enjoy an advantage in these benefits’ exemption from taxation. This tax preference steers additional health benefits to these individuals. However, this does not mean improved health for the nation as a whole. To the contrary, the ESI tax preference is widely recognized as a driver of health market inefficiency, reducing the value of health services relative to dollars spent.

An even simpler example: the government could easily add to the wealth of ten individuals by sending them each a million-dollar check. It is a non-sequitur to infer from this that the national wealth would be increased by the government’s sending a million-dollar check to every American.

In short, the “people will die” argument is premised on an easily-recognized logical fallacy. Don’t use it if you want to convince others to adopt your health care policy views. If you do, the only thing certain to die will be your credibility.

Reprinted from Economics 21.

Editor’s Note: Check out this hilarious video, parodying the “people will die” argument.

Charles Blahous

Charles Blahous

Charles Blahous is a senior research fellow for the Mercatus Center, a research fellow for the Hoover Institution, a public trustee for Social Security and Medicare, and a contributor to e21.

Actor Clooney flees Europe: Do as I say, not as I do!

These super rich Lefty celebrities have no shame!

In 2016, Clooney and his wife praise German Chancellor Angela Merkel [pictured right] for her welcome to the migrant invaders (not using those words of course!). Italy as an escape? Maybe not so much!

George Clooney is reportedly moving his young family to his Los Angeles mansion which is deemed safer (from Jihadists) than is his property in the UK or his Italian get-away mansion at Lake Como.

From Breitbart (hat tip: Brenda):

Report: Open Borders Advocate George Clooney Moving Family Back to Trump’s America for ‘Security Reasons’

Actor and immigration activist George Clooney will move to Los Angeles with his wife Amal and newborn twins Ella and Alexander due to security concerns at his England estate, according to a report.

Life & Style magazine reported last week that the 56-year-old Oscar-winner will move his newly-expanded family to his mansion in Studio City, California, after deeming his 17th century mansion in Sonning, England to be not sufficiently safe for them.

“As soon as Amal found out she was pregnant, he hired former Secret Service agents to assess all his properties and make recommendations for improvement,” an unnamed Clooney “insider” told the magazine. “His mansion in Studio City [Calif.] was deemed the most secure, and it’s within minutes of an LAPD station.”

[….]

In May, British government officials disclosed that 23,000 known jihadi terrorists are believed to be residing in Britain, far more than the 3,000 that had initially been reported.

[….]

In February of last year, the actor met privately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and praised the German leader’s acceptance of refugees from Syria and other countries. The same month, Clooney told Sky News in an interview that the United States is not doing “enough” to help Syrian refugees, and that 10,000 refugees per year was too low a figure to be admitting into the country.

[….]

In July of last year, a makeshift refugee camp was established in Lake Como after the Swiss government decided to close its southern border with Italy. Dozens of refugees arrived from African and Asian countries were housed in tents close to the Clooneys’ home, with a local tour guide telling the Daily Mail that the refugee camps were a “big problem because of the huge numbers [of refugees] who are arriving all the time.”

More here.

Bill Gates woke up and smelled the coffee, any chance Clooney will get it?

This post is filed in my ‘Laugh of the day’ category.  I have another good laugh for later (or tomorrow), so come on back!

Click here for my complete archive on the Invasion of Europe.

Linda Sarsour: LOCK HER UP!

Linda Sarsour, the darling of the Islamist/Leftist consortium of anarchists currently trying to overthrow the United States government is at it again. In a stunning seditious address to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) she unapologetically and emphatically called on Muslims to wage jihad in America against duly elected President Trump and the White House by saying:

“We (Muslims) are struggling against tyrants and rulers not only abroad . . . but here in the United States of America, where you have fascists and white supremacists and Islamophobes reigning in the White House. . . . Our number one and top priority is to protect and defend our community. It is not to assimilate and to please any other people in authority. And our top priority . . . is to please Allah, and only Allah.”

Linda Sarsour is openly fomenting insurrection and allegiance to Allah in pursuit of the Islamic goal to re-establish the Islamic caliphate and impose sharia law worldwide. Why hasn’t Linda Sarsour been arrested and charged with treason?

It seems the noisy Brooklyn born Palestinian-American Muslim needs a refresher course in American democracy. In America we are still ruled by secular American laws and the United States Constitution. We are not ruled by religious Islamic sharia law. So, if Linda Sarsour prefers an Islamic government she is free to live in any one of a number of Islamic theocracies in the world. The tolerance that American democracy has extended to multiculturalism reaches its tipping point when Islamists, whether foreign born or natural born like Sarsour, demand that America submit to religious sharia law and become dhimmis in their own country.

All across Europe the consequences of Western nations tolerating intolerant Muslims are manifest. It is cultural suicide to import masses of Muslim immigrants with hostile cultural norms. It is a fiction of the Left that Muslim immigrants will assimilate. To the contrary, the mass immigration of Muslims into Europe and America is HIJRAH – a form of population jihad that is endorsed, encouraged, and rewarded by Islamic sharia law. Sharia compliant protesters like Sarsour are advancing Islam in America in an effort to replace American democracy with religious sharia law. Her allegiance is to Allah and not to America – she is an enemy of the state.

Again I ask, Why hasn’t Linda Sarsour been arrested and charged with treason?

Immigration without assimilation is invasion. Americans have been duped by the left-wing liberals and the colluding mainstream media into believing that the worldwide refugee “crisis” is a humanitarian calamity. The only humanitarian calamity is the stunning willingness of the West to be duped, invaded, submit to Islam, and become dhimmis in their own countries.

How did America reach the point where an Islamist like Linda Sarsour can publicly address a Muslim group also seeking to conquer the West and openly call for jihad against the President of the United States without being arrested and charged with treason?

The answer is that for two generations Americans have been indoctrinated in left-wing liberal tenets of political correctness, moral relativism, and historical revisionism brought to America courtesy of Tavistock Institute in a deliberate effort to destroy American democracy and American dominance in the world.

Since the end of WWII the globalist elite of the world have been colluding to internationalize the world and create an unimpeded global marketplace to enrich themselves and further their goal of imposing one-world government. Described unapologetically by aristocrat Lord Bertrand Russell sixty-five years ago in his 1952 book The Impact of Science on Society, one-world government is a binary socio-political system of elite rulers and an enslaved population who serve them. The United States emerged from WWII as the dominant military, political, and economic force in the world – invincible, impenetrable, and impregnable – and the single greatest obstacle to one-world government.

The destruction of America was impossible from the outside in – it would have to be accomplished from the inside out. Tavistock Institute was exported to the United States from England to accomplish psychologically what was impossible to accomplish militarily – the destruction of America from within. Islamists were exposed as having the same goal in papers found in the home of Ismael Elbarasse, a founder of the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, during a 2004 search:

“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…”

Ex-president Barack Obama became a radical Leftist tutored in the value of community organizing by radical socialist Saul Alinsky. Obama entered the world stage as the face of globalism and an internationalized world. His disingenuous campaign of hope and change were code words for destroying American democracy and replacing it with socialism. Hillary Clinton, also a radical left-wing socialist follower of Saul Alinsky, was to be Obama’s third term.

The destruction was envisioned sequentially: Public indoctrination toward collectivism through education and mainstream media -> break down of established morality and cultural norms of behavior -> create social chaos -> impose martial law -> impose socialism -> internationalize police force -> impose one-world government.

Independence of any kind, particularly critical thinking skills, poses a threat to tyranny – the goal was complete passivity and dependence upon the government because a dependent population is easily manipulated. This explains Obama’s anti-American policies that crushed the economy, weakened the military, incentivized government assistance, and indoctrinated American children toward socialism. It also explains Hillary Clinton’s stunning remark that “we (Democratic Party) need an unaware and compliant population.”

The Obama Leftists and the Islamists joined forces to bring down America from within – and then came President Donald Trump who shocked the Left by beating Hillary in the presidential election. President Trump is an unapologetic American patriot who believes in American sovereignty, American exceptionalism, and making America great again. He is the existential threat and enemy of one-world government today just as America was the existential threat and enemy of one-world government after WWII.

The Islamists and radical Left have common cause to destroy American democracy. What both are too arrogant to understand is that the globalist elites who fund the Left consider both parties to be useful idiots whose sole purpose is to create overwhelming social chaos. The globalist elite have every intention of eliminating or enslaving both the Islamists and the Leftists as soon as the police force is internationalized. The globalist elites have no use for social chaos makers in their one-world government.

President Donald Trump is the only force standing between democracy and the return to a world of masters and slaves.

RELATED VIDEO: Linda Sarsour: The Enemy of the State.

President Trump in Poland: ‘Our Civilization Will Triumph’

A far cry from Obama’s avowal that Islamic civilization will triumph. My latest in FrontPage:

Interrupted repeatedly by chants of “Donald Trump! Donald Trump! Donald Trump!” as he was speaking in Poland on Thursday, President Trump delivered a ringing affirmation that he would defend Western civilization: “Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail, our people will thrive, and our civilization will triumph.”

Now, we’re used Presidents affirming that civilization will triumph. Barack Obama did it, too. Trump’s remarkable innovation here, and sharp departure from the example his predecessor set, is in declaring that Western civilization would triumph. Barack Hussein Obama, by contrast, was famous for declaring the triumph of Islamic civilization, most notably when he told the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2012: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

If the future is not to belong to those who are perceived as slandering the prophet of Islam, Sharia blasphemy laws criminalizing criticism of Islam will have to have been imposed; people aren’t likely to give up criticizing Muhammad voluntarily, especially as jihad terror attacks incited by his teachings become an ever more common feature of life in the West. Thus if the future doesn’t belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam, it will be because the freedom of speech has been extinguished and Islamic values have prevailed: Islamic civilization will have triumphed.

If that was not what Barack Obama wanted, he never gave any indication of it during eight years in the White House. The Democrats constantly pointed to his killings of bin Laden and al-Awlaki as indication that he was tough on terrorism, but amid foreign and domestic policies indefatigably supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its auxiliaries in the United States, unstinting opposition to the freedom of speech regarding criticism of Islam, and an appalling deal that gave aid and comfort to the Islamic Republic of Iran, those killings only made clear that while Obama evidently opposed violent jihad, he had no serious objection to other methods of Sharia imposition and Islamization.

In Warsaw Thursday, Trump offered a radically different vision. “We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism,” he declared. “And we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.”

We cannot accept those who reject our values.” After eight years of Obama acting as if the freedom of speech and the right to bear arms were burdens to be cast off rather than rights to be defended, this is an extraordinary statement. It is also one of the reasons why Trump’s notorious “travel ban” contains a little-noted directive that is clearly designed to preserve American values. The March 6 executive order states:

To be more transparent with the American people and to implement more effectively policies and practices that serve the national interest, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Attorney General, shall, consistent with applicable law and national security, collect and make publicly available the following information:…information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including so-called “honor killings,” in the United States by foreign nationals.

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law. In this case the victim was the murderer’s daughter, a victim to the culture of violence and intimidation that such laws help create.

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer. President Trump is trying to keep women from suffering in this way in the United States.

That element of the executive order is the kind of thing that is involved in ensuring that “our civilization will triumph”: stopping the encroachment of Sharia values in the United States. Trump in Warsaw wasn’t just paying lip service to unattainable ideals, any more than Obama was when he said that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.” Obama worked very hard to make sure that would be true, and now his successor is working very hard to ensure that Judeo-Christian civilization survives instead. Americans can be grateful that we do not, for the moment, have (as Trump as said) a President of the world, but a President of the United States.

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Trump in Poland: Transcript of Warsaw remarks | Fox News