Iniquitous Indictments for Invented Infractions

Despite his remarkable success, Netanyahu has been ceaselessly assailed by his political adversaries. Indeed, it is perhaps his very success that has generated such raw rancor against him.

Israel – “a land that devours its inhabitants.” Numbers 13:32.


I would have preferred to have devoted this week’s column to some other topic—such as the ascendance of blatant anti-Semitism around the globe, or the heightening tension between the US and Iran, or the emerging “understanding” with Hamas for “calm” in Gaza. After all, in the recent past, I have focused several times on the topic of the pernicious pursuit and persecution of Benjamin Netanyahu by his political antagonists in a determined—almost desperate—effort to unseat him by means other than the ballot box—which, infuriatingly, has eluded them for over a decade- see: here, here,  here, here,  here and most recently, here.

Dramatic request

But Netanyahu’s dramatic ten minute address on Wednesday evening (January 1, 2020), in which he announced his intention to request parliamentary immunity from the charges to be brought against him for alleged breach of trust and bribery, is sufficiently significant to put other matters on the backburner—at least temporarily. (Reports on the assassination of Qasem Soleiman were just coming in as this article was being prepared for submission.)

As I have set out, in considerable detail, my own grave reservations as to the indictments against Netanyahu, which largely coincide with those of an impressive array of internationally renowned legal experts, I will attempt to avoid restating them here, while urging readers to peruse them once again by means of the hyperlinks provided in the opening paragraph of this column.

Instead, I will focus on Netanyahu’s assertions as to the injustice of the charges brought against him, and the inherent justice of this request for immunity.

In the opening two minutes of his address, he briefly enumerated the extraordinary achievements Israel had attained in the last decade under his premiership, and outlined future challenges facing the country and, which under his leadership, would be successfully met.

Halfway into the third minute, he turned to the allegations against him, pointing out that the whole rationale behind the idea of granting elected parliamentarians immunity was to protect them from biased politically motived legal action. In this regard, Netanyahu underscored that he had been true to his pledge not to advance new legislation to provide him immunity, but that his request was based entirely on the existing law.

The rationale for immunity

He explained: The [existing] Immunity Law is meant to protect incumbent representatives, elected by the public,  from trumped up charges, and from politically motivated indictments, which are intended to undermine the will of the people. This law is meant to ensure that people’s representatives can serve the people according to the will of the people”.
He paused and added, with emphasis: “I said the will of the people, not the will of the bureaucrats”, promising that, once he had completed his stint as prime minister, he “would appear in court to shatter the baseless allegations against me”.

Netanyahu then invoked the words of the President, Reuven Rivlin, who has had an overtly contentious relationship with Netanyahu, and who, arguably because of that relationship, has become the epitome of moderation and respectability for the Center-Left in Israel.Citing from an address by Rivlin at a recent conference, Netanyahu read out: “The legislators created far reaching immunity in order to protect representatives elected by the public…If the prosecutors and investigative authorities decided, because of political reasons , to neutralize a Member of Knesset, they could open an investigation against him—and things like that have happed in the past. People were subjected to criminal investigations and indictments were handed down against them—and there is grave concern that this was done by the authorities with the intention of preventing them from serving as ministers….

Rivlin: Politically biased investigations launched in past

Significantly, Rivlin articulated very similar views, long before the prospect of any indictments against Netanyahu emerged.

Indeed, interviewed while still in his former capacity of Knesset Speaker, he expressed the identical rationale for parliamentary immunity for elected legislators:

We must remember what the logic behind [the idea] of immunity is; what the substantive reason was, which brought the founders of the Knesset…to create over-arching immunity, immunity that is unassailable, for each and every Knesset Member. [It was] the desire to protect publicly elected representatives from the ability of the authorities to bully and intimidate them”.

He explained:

For if someone is elected to the Knesset and an investigation is opened against him, despite the fact that there are no grounds to do so, despite the fact that the suspicions against him are so remote, yet the Prosecutor’s Office or the investigative bodies decide that there is some political need to neutralize him, they will initiate an investigation against him.”

Rivlin declared solemnly:

And things like that have happened here in the State of Israel! Investigations were launched against Knesset Members…”

Here the interviewer interjected:

Despite the fact that there were no ]incriminating] facts or evidence?”

Rivlin responded emphatically:

Indeed! Of course! But beyond that, [unsubstantiated] indictments were handed down or alleged suspects were subjected to criminal investigation under caution in cases where there was grave concern that the authorities did that with the intention of preventing them from becoming government ministers…”

Recriminations resonate

Basing himself on Rivlin’s arguments, Netanyahu declared: “Sadly, this is what happened in my case. Trumped up charges, selective enforcement, extorting state witnesses with threats, witness tampering, a flood of illegal and biased leaks and continual [media] brainwashing to incite against me, and to conduct a kangaroo court by manipulating public opinion.”

I must confess that Netanyahu’s shrill recriminations regarding the odds stacked against him and the motivations of the forces ranged against him resonate strongly with me.

As I have pointed out previously – see for example here— to anyone but a rabid “Bibiphobe”, they appear transparently contrived, indeed, a thinly veiled attempt at a legalistic coup, creating a deep sense of unease that Israel’s legal establishment is being exploited for patent political ends—i.e. that unelected elites are using their positions of influence and authority to bring about political outcomes that do not correspond with—even contradict—the election results…

This, of course, describes exactly the circumstances for which parliamentary immunity was created and in which invoking it is justified.

Indeed, there are plausible reports validating most, if not all, of Netanyahu’s claims of selective prosecutions, extortion of state witnesses and attempted witness tampering –see for example here, here, here, here, and here. Indeed, it seems that the police investigation was so flawed and “over-zealous ”that it drew sharp condemnation from the Head of the Israel Bar Association, prompting the Attorney General Mandelblit to order a probe into how the police had conducted the questioning of witnesses. However, it appears that a gag order was placed on the findings of the probe, prompting yet further censure and misgivings from the Head of the Bar Association.

The accumulated picture from all these reports of investigative malfeasance seems to fit exactly the scenario which Rivlin specified to justify invoking parliamentary immunity.

“Appropriate criteria for criminal prosecution not met…”

But it seems that not only the practical conduct of the investigation and the motivations behind it are disturbingly suspect, but so are the very conceptual foundations on which it is founded.

This was powerfully conveyed by prominent legal expert, Professor Alan Dershowitz in  a piece written almost exactly a year ago, in the far-left daily, Haaretz, entitled Voters, Not the Police or the Courts, Should Decide Netanyahu’s Future.

According to Dershowitz:

The issue at the center of these investigations seems trivial against the background of the existential crises Israel is facing…The first probe, also known as Case 1000, involves gifts of cigars and champagne Netanyahu received from close friends…I strongly believe that the appropriate criteria for criminal prosecution have not been met in the cigar and champagne case against Netanyahu… The other investigations (dubbed 2000 and 4000) pose even greater dangers to democratic governance and civil liberties… In both cases, the prime minister is essentially being investigated for allegedly trying to push the media – with long histories of attacking him and his family – to be fairer.”

He continued:

“…what we are left with is an exploration of motives… [which] are not the kinds of questions that prosecutors and police should be empowered to ask elected officials and media moguls as a part of a criminal investigation…The relationship between politics and the media – and between politicians and publishers – is too nuanced, subtle and complex to be subject to the heavy hand of criminal law…police and prosecutors should not intrude on this complex, messy and nuanced relationship between politics and the media, except in cases of clear and unambiguous financial corruption well beyond what is alleged in the current cases… to criminalize these political differences is to endanger democracy and freedom of the press..”

Flimsy case vs impressive achievements

I disagree with Alan Dershowitz on much regarding Israel, but I identify almost completely with his analysis of the indictments filed against Netanyahu. Indeed, not only do the substance of the indictments appear “trivial” compared to the challenges Israel faces, but also seem trivial against the background of the giant strides with which Israel has progressed under Netanyahu.

As readers of this column will recall, I have had many criticisms of Netanyahu in the past. Indeed, there have been several important things that he did not do, but should have; and things that he did do, but should not have.

As for the former, he has not dealt with the lawlessness of the Bedouin in the South, with the illegal Arab construction across the country; he has not adequately beefed up Israel’s public diplomacy, nor has he sufficiently reformed Israel’s legal establishment, which is now attempting to remove him from office before he can…

With regard to the latter, he unadvisedly froze Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria, released thousands of convicted terrorists and undertook the unfortunate attempt at rapprochement with Erdogan’s Turkey—including paying humiliating compensation to the casualties on the Mavi Marmara, injured when trying to disembowel Israeli commandoes enforcing a legal quarantine of Gaza.

Of course, Netanyahu—like every mortal on the planet—is not irreplaceable or unblemished, but his record indicates that he is by far the most capable candidate to lead Israel in these challenging times.

A transformative leader

Indeed, despite any criticism of him, it is undeniable that, in many ways, he has been a truly transformative leader.

On his watch, Israel joined the prestigious group of OECD countries, and has become a  major energy exporter—things almost inconceivable before his incumbency.

Under his stewardship, Israel has become one of the best performing economies in the world — with GDP per capita breaching the $40,000 mark for the first time ever in 2017, up sharply by almost 45% since 2009, when he was first re-elected after losing power in 1999.

He has drastically reduced Palestinian terror from the horrific levels he “inherited” from the Rabin-Peres era — and, despite occasional flare-ups, he has largely managed to contain it to hardly perceptible proportions — certainly nowhere near the grisly scale that prevailed under his predecessors.

In terms of foreign policy, he has produced remarkable success. He managed to wait out the inclement incumbency of Barack Obama, emerging largely unscathed — despite the undisguised antipathy between the two men.

His views on Iran and its perilous nuclear ambitions have been embraced by the Trump administration. He has managed to initiate far-reaching changes in Middle East politics, with increasingly amicable — albeit, as yet, only semi-overt — relations with important Arab states, inconceivable several years ago, while sidelining — or at least, significantly reducing — the centrality of the intractable “Palestinian problem”.

He has overseen Israel’s “pivot” eastwards, and burgeoning relationships with the ascendant economies of India and China, increasingly offsetting Israel’s commercial dependence on the oft less-than-benign EU. He also has scored remarkable diplomatic successes in Africa and South America.

Moreover, notwithstanding difficulties with western European countries, he has fostered increasingly warm relations and understanding with those in central and eastern Europe, driving a wedge into the otherwise widespread European animus towards Israel…

“A country that devours its inhabitants?”

Yet, despite his remarkable success, Netanyahu has been ceaselessly assailed by his political adversaries, ever since he was first elected in 1996. Indeed, it is perhaps his very success that has generated such raw rancor against him.  Thus, despairing of removing him via the ballot box, his political rivals and adversarial civil society elites have had to turn to the law to do so—mounting what Netanyahu has accurately dubbed a legalistic coup.

It is an initiative that is likely to backfire.

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

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

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

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

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Turning The Corner against Iran’s Terror Militias

EDITORS NOTE: Originally posted by Newsmax

There should never have been any doubt that the Iranian regime would return to direct strikes against American targets.

It got away with the 1983 Beirut Embassy and Marine Corps barracks bombings; overtly allying with Usama bin Laden in Khartoum in 1990; Khobar Towers (1996), the East Africa Embassy bombings (1998); the USS Cole attack (2000); and eventually the attacks of 9/11, too — with nary a peep of protest, much less any sort of retaliatory strike from any one of four U.S. presidents.

Years of IED carnage against Americans and Coalition troops in Iraq by Qods Force-commanded militias elicited nothing more than gag orders on the U.S. soldiers who came home maimed.

So, when a different sort of president won the White House in 2016, while not really knowing who Donald J. Trump would be, the Iranians still saw no reason to be concerned.

After all, they’d just pulled off the biggest scam in the history of U.S.-Iranian relations with the fraudulent nuclear deal, topped off by $1.7 billion in cash that enabled the ruling mullahs and their hired guns in the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), Qods Force, Bassij and MOIS (Ministry of Intelligence and Security) to ramp up both their nuclear weapons program and financial support for a slew of jihad terror groups across the region.

Israel knew what was going on because it had to defend against an incessant barrage of border attacks, rockets, missiles, and terror tunnels from north and south.

Then, in May 2018, President Trump took the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear deal and began incrementally to re-impose sanctions against the Iranian regime. It’s called a campaign of “maximum pressure” and while it placed a certain amount of financial strain on Tehran’s budget, it was not possible to deter an aggressive jihadist regime with mere financial measures.

Popular uprisings in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon were annoying, of course, but nothing the Qods Force commander, MG Qassem Suleimani, couldn’t handle with the Supreme Leader’s command to use lethal force that took thousands of lives and counting.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that the U.S. stood with the protesters, but they saw no evidence of it. In Lebanon, where citizens from all sectors of society — Druze, Shi’ites, Sunnis — were openly clamoring for reform minus Hizballah, the December 2019 release of over $100 million in U.S. military aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces was seen as funding to an Iranian satrap run by an Islamic terror organization.

Throughout 2019, Iranian attacks against commercial shipping, Saudi oil facilities, and even a U.S. drone elicited nothing more than some more sanctions and discussion about renewing negotiations with the mullahs. Tehran was on a roll and it seemed no level of instigation could prompt anything more threatening to the regime itself than a few tweets.

Naturally, Tehran upped the ante: why not? U.S. credibility and deterrence, from its perspective, were non-existent.

By mid-December 2019, rockets were falling on military bases in Iraq where U.S.-led coalition forces were stationed.

The culprits were Iran-backed Shi’ite terror militias.

That seemed to get the attention of U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, who testified before Congress on December 11, 2019.

They talked about how Iran shouldn’t “mistake U.S. restraint for unwillingness to respond with decisive military force should our forces or interests be attacked.”

Acting U.S. Navy Secretary Thomas Modly registered a bit more alarm on December 27 when he warned that “There’s nothing that suggests to me, short of a regime change there, that you have a different tone set from the leadership, that would suggest to me that they’re going to stop doing what they’ve been doing.”

Secretary Pompeo also warned that any Iranian attack harming U.S. personnel would draw a “decisive U.S. response.”

The mullahs must not have gotten the message, though, because two days later, an American citizen contractor was killed and U.S. military personnel injured by a rocket barrage targeting the Kirkuk, Iraq, military base where they were posted.

Iran’s Shi’ite terror proxy Kata’ib Hezbollah was identified as responsible and the same night of December 29, the U.S. finally launched air strikes against at least five of its command posts and weapons depots in both Iraq and Syria. This is a good start.

As Caroline Glick pointed out in her December 27 column, it is time to face the true nature of this Iranian regime, the one detailed in its constitution.

There is no internal struggle between “moderates” and “hard liners.” There is only a unified, brutal, and ruthless enemy that will not stop its aggression until forcibly stopped — by us. By Israel and the U.S. No one else can and no one else will. If we wait much longer to tangibly support the Iranian, Iraqi, and Lebanese people in their quest to shake off Tehran’s oppression, we will all be confronted with a nuclear-armed regime.

Time for regime change. Faster, please, as Michael Ledeen might say.

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VIDEO: Eva Vlaardingerbroek’s Controversial Speech About the Dangers of Modern Feminism — English subtitles

This video is a list of good and at this point, courageous observations. But misses the big point. And that is that Feminism has been hijacked, if it wasn’t created in the first place for this purpose, by Marxists as a weapon of attack on Western culture, peoples and thought overall.

To understand how this works, watch pretty much anything produced by Netflix. Communists have been steadily hijacking and re-purposing every legend, myth and story of the West, understanding the power of a narrative far better than we, and re-purposing these stories to incept the communist dialectic negation of all things Western.

The Gay Jesus story is a top of the heap example. But we see it in and through everything like a virus hijacks a healthy cell.

To be blunt, she, like most people who understand what is going on, in a way become controlled opposition. Because they see a tactic but not the strategy. This means they can be negated easily because they do not point the light quite in the right direction.

Feminism is one of many institutions if you will, that has been re-purposed. Much of the Catholic Church, entire Churches like the Unitarian are nothing but a Lenin’s beard.

Reform Jewish temples, most of major media, all now are agencies of re-purposing existing truths to force a Neo-Marxist agenda.

I used to ask why various groups, African-Americans, Feminist etc. etc. did not make their own legends and stories but instead had to create Ghostbusters 3 and ruin our own existing cannon.

The answer is obvious now. Because the purpose was not to create new legends with politically correct plots and characters, it was literally made to destroy our own. Not to make a good movie, but to ruin good movies of the past. To Winston Smith the culture. Put the classics and genius of the past into the incinerator and replace it with the new horrible and unwatchable replacements but push the ‘right’ message.

We were never at war with Oceana.

We have always been at war with Oceana.

RELATED TWEET:

https://twitter.com/imamofpeace/status/1212325132447825920?s=11

EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column and video posted by Eeyore is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

DECADENT DEMOCRATS: From CNN’s New Years Day C*cks and Drag Queen Mermaid to Teen Vogues’ Pushing Prostitution

EDITORS NOTE: This is the third in our Decadent Democrats series. Click here for our first column and here for our second column.


The depravity of Democrats, and those who support them, began 2020 with a bang, no pun intended.

Homosexuality as the New Democrat Normal

The Daily Caller’s  media reporter Shelby Talkott in an article titled C*cks, Shots And A Drag Queen Mermaid: Here’s How CNN Rang In The New Year simply posted this self explanatory video:

Shelby Talkott wrote:

CNN rang in the new year with its co-hosts taking tequila shots and talking about “the biggest cock in Hollywood” while a correspondent jumped into a rum bath with a drag queen mermaid.

Co-hosts Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen got ready for 2020 by downing shots of tequila during CNN’s live coverage of New Year’s Eve in Times Square on December 31. At one point, the two recalled when Cooper’s mom Gloria Vanderbilt asked at Cohen’s “‘Watch What Happens Live” Bravo program if he planned to ask her “who has the biggest cock in Hollywood.”

Read more.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper is a homosexual so discussing c*cks makes perfect sense to him/her/it but it is harmful to everyone else’s sensibilities.

Homosexuality is deeply embedded in the polities and politics of the Democrat Party. The liberal media, like CNN, is working overtime to normalize these behaviors.

A New Years eve fundraising email from Equality Democrats calls all Republicans “transphobic” (a new bulling term) stating,

“For decades, LGBT+ Americans have fought for equal rights. And in just 3 years, Trump’s administration has reversed a large part of that hard-earned progress.

They said transgender soldiers have a “disqualifying psychological and physical” condition for military service.

He confirmed hundreds of homophobic judges to our highest courts, called for the Senate to block the Equality Act, and banned transgender Americans from homeless shelters.

We’re not letting Trump trample on our rights any longer: We’re taking the future into our own hands and electing leaders who will never fail to fight for the LGBT+ community.

A Pete’s Mission [Equality Democrats] New Years Day fundraising email states:

LGBT+ Americans are under attack. And Pete Buttigieg refuses to stay silent about the war Trump has launched on our community

For decades, LGBT+ Americans have fought for equal rights.

And in just 3 years, Trump’s administration has reversed a large part of that hard-earned progress.

He confirmed hundreds of homophobic judges to our highest courts, called for the Senate to block the Equality Act, and banned transgender Americans from homeless shelters.

We’re not letting Trump trample on our rights any longer: We’re taking the future into our own hands and electing leaders who will never fail to fight for the LGBT+ community.

The Sexualization of America’s Underage Boys and Girls

This overt sexualization of Americans, especially our youth, is nothing new. For example, an April, 2019 op-ed titled Why Sex Work Is Real Work “I do not believe it is right or just that people who exchange sexual services for money are criminalized and I am not for what I do. by Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng,  founder of Nalane for Reproductive Justice, wrote:

So, what exactly is sex work? Not all sex workers engage in penetrative sex, though, undeniably, that is a big part of sex work. Sex-worker services between consenting adults may include companionship, intimacy, nonsexual role playing, dancing, escorting, and stripping. These roles are often pre-determined, and all parties should be comfortable with them. Many workers take on multiple roles with their clients, and some may get more physical while other interactions that may have started off as sexual could evolve into emotional and psychological bonding.

But not all “sex work” is between “consenting adults.”

Many times it involves underage boys and girls. Vlad Tepes Blog published the following video that talks about Pakistani “grooming gangs” who turned tens of thousands of underage girls into prostitutes:

The Clarion Project warned about using children for sex work in a column titled UK Sex Grooming Gangs Victimize 19,000 Children in 2019 stating:

Despite the publicity given to UK’s Pakistani sex grooming gangs since 2012, close to 19,000 children have been victimized by UK sex grooming gangs in 2019.

The number represents a 3,300 increase from five years ago.

In a report by the Independent, activists say the true number is much higher, as many of these crimes go unreported. After underage girls are groomed using drugs and alcohol, many are reluctant to go to the authorities as their groomers convince them that due to the illegality of the substances, the victims themselves will be punished.

The exploitation has been widely known to local government officials, social workers and law enforcement officials for over a decade. However, for fear of being called racists, authorities took no steps to prevent the horrific abuse of young, white British girls.

Welcoming Illegal Aliens

The Democrats fully embrace open borders and sanctuary cities. In America we have witnessed drug cartels turn to human trafficking of women and children for profit. 

In a Daily Caller article titled Here Are The Most Heinous Criminals Deported By ICE In 2019  by Jason Hopkins, immigration and  politics reporter, on multiple criminals deported by ICE including:

Arturo Lopez-Mendez — Alleged Child Rapist

Arturo Lopez-Mendez, a Mexican national, was deported by ICE in June on charges in his home country relating to the gruesome rape of a 7-year-old girl.

[ … ]

Juan Ramon Avila-Leon — Convicted Child Molester

Juan Ramon Avila-Leon, a Mexican national, was deported by ICE in September following his conviction of child molestation. And thanks to the work of Border Patrol, he was apprehended before he could illegally re-enter the U.S. just weeks later.

CONCLUSION

The Democratic Party is totally committed to replace love with sex, replace the traditional family with single family homes and replacing the biological fact of male and female with dozens of “preferred pronouns.” The Democrats are all in on open borders, sanctuary cities, giving voting rights and benefits to illegal aliens.

The difference between the party of JFK and today’s Democrats is like between light and darkness. Between good and pure evil.

November 3rd, 2020 will be critical in determining if America continues down the road toward more decadence and debauchery or returns to cultural norms.

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How a Lowly Monk Ended Rome’s Bloody Gladiator Duels

Telemachus, a previously unknown monk, moved the heart of a Roman Emperor.


Fought in stadiums before tens of thousands of boisterous onlookers, ancient Roman gladiator duels are well known today—more than 1,600 years since the last one was fought. Too few people, however, know of the one man who deserves the most credit for bringing those bloody spectacles to an end. A lowly monk from either Turkey or Egypt, his name was Telemachus.

By the old Julian calendar of Telemachus’s day, he performed his famous duel-ending deed on January 1, 404 A.D. You can wait a couple of weeks and celebrate it on January 14 if you choose, because that’s the corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar the world uses today. Before I tell you what this humble humanitarian did, allow me to provide some historical background.

The Latin root of “gladiator” is “gladius,” meaning “sword.” Gladiators (swordsmen) were combatants armed with swords but also with spears, daggers, and nets. They sparred in the arenas throughout the welfare/warfare state of the late Roman Republic and for the great majority of the period of the Roman Empire.

The most famous of all Roman gladiators was Spartacus (not to be confused with New Jersey Senator and presidential flame-out Cory Booker). He fought fiercely in the arenas, escaped, and led a failed slave revolt in 73-71 B.C.

Gladiators entertained the increasingly morbid sentiments of a public thirsty for blood. Most were free men. A small number were women. Professional gladiators were a privileged class in ancient Rome, even endorsing products as idolized athletes. An especially illuminating article about them is “Misconceptions About Roman Gladiators” by Indiana University historian Spencer Alexander McDaniel.

Emperor Commodus, who joined in the killing as a gladiator himself on numerous occasions, once decapitated an ostrich in an amphitheater. Then, holding the head aloft, he signaled to the senators present that they might be next. Power corrupts, just as Lord Acton told us.

The bloodiest shows in Roman arenas, the still-surviving Coliseum being the best-known, did not involve the professional gladiators. The combatants in those instances were prisoners of war or criminals condemned to death. Others were slaves and were forced to fight to their last breath. They not only fought each other but frequently even wild animals—including lions, tigers, and bears (oh, my!).

By January 404, the remaining days of the western Roman Empire were numbered. Its decadence moderated slightly by the legalization of Christianity in the previous century, it would nonetheless fall like ripe fruit to barbarian invaders in 476. In 410, Rome itself was briefly occupied and sacked by the Visigoths. The place had largely become a moral cesspool run by brutal and often megalomaniacal tyrants—men who controlled whatever aspects of other people’s lives their whims fancied.

In this environment, Telemachus made his appearance. Rome was his destination after a long sojourn from Asia Minor. A stadium packed with raucous, sadistic pagans may not sound like a place that would attract a pious pilgrim, but Telemachus was on a mission. What happened on that fateful January day in 404 was recorded as follows by Bishop Theodoret of Cyrus in Book V of his Ecclesiastical History:

There, when the abominable spectacle was being exhibited, he went himself into the stadium, and stepping down into the arena, endeavored to stop the men who were wielding their weapons against one another.  The spectators of the slaughter were indignant and inspired by the fury of the demon who delights in those bloody deeds, stoned the peacemaker to death.

When the admirable Emperor (Honorius) was informed of this he numbered Telemachus among the victorious martyrs and put an end to that impious spectacle.

Another account claims that as he raised his arms between dueling gladiators, Telemachus repeatedly cried out, “In the name of Christ, stop!” Yet another, though likely spurious one, reports that the spectators fell silent at the monk’s murder and then, one by one, quietly filed out of the stadium. There’s no real dispute over this central fact, however: Moved by those last, courageous moments of Telemachus’s life, Emperor Honorius immediately stopped the killing games of ancient Rome—forever.

One man made a difference. He was a man of little note before January 1, 404. We know almost nothing else about him but what I’ve told you here. It’s likely that few, if any, in the stadium that day noticed him when he entered, but they all knew afterward what he came for and what he did.

Without knowing the outcome, Telemachus gave his life for something in which he strongly believed. He surely realized that the odds he could succeed were long at best. It’s doubtful he put himself in danger because he thought that doing so would result in earthly fame, fortune or power for himself. While it might be tempting to dismiss him as nuts or stupid or naively altruistic, I suspect his motivation was quite noble: He loved and valued life—the lives of others at least as much as he cherished his own.

Some people write or speak about their principles, and that’s perfectly fine. I do that a lot myself. But one graduates to a higher level of conviction and commitment when he (or she) assumes the ultimate risk and pays the ultimate price on behalf of those principles. Though they are a small minority, such heroes appear again and again in human history.

I’m grateful for that fact, and I am inspired by it. I hope you are too.

Happy New Year!

For related information, see www.fee.org/rome

COLUMN BY

Lawrence W. Reed

Lawrence W. Reed is President Emeritus, Humphreys Family Senior Fellow, and Ron Manners Ambassador for Global Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also author of Real Heroes: Incredible True Stories of Courage, Character, and Conviction and Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of ProgressivismFollow on Twitter and Like on Facebook.

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

A Worthy New Year’s Resolution

Teddy Roosevelt remarked in 1914:

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”

If that was true then, it is truer today—because of the curse of political correctness.

With a new year upon us, and the opportunity to turn over a new leaf, why not resolve to spend more time in the wonderful book God has given us—the Bible?

This is the book that has had unparalleled influence on so many great people in history. Many of our nation’s presidents made it a habit to read the Bible on a regular basis. It is part of what made them who they were.

Consider these sample opinions:

  • John Adams, our second president and a key founding father: “I have made it a practice every year for several years to read through the Bible.”
  • His son, John Quincy Adams, American president who was a champion against slavery, and who greatly influenced the thinking of fellow Congressman Abraham Lincoln during the latter’s one term (1847-1849): “The Bible is the book of all others to read at all ages and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once, or twice, or thrice through, and then laid aside; but to be read in small portions of one or two chapter a day, and never to be omitted by some overwhelming necessity.”
  • Abraham Lincoln: “In regard to this great book, I have but this to say: It is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Savior gave to the world was communicated through this book. Except for it, we would not know right from wrong.” The 16th president made that statement when a delegation of African-Americans visited him in 1864 and gave him a beautiful copy of the Scriptures. Having known of this story for years, I was overjoyed to see the actual Bible at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. about a year ago.
  • Lincoln’s winning general, Ulysses S. Grant, later our 18th president: “Hold fast to the Bible as the anchor of your liberty; write its precepts in your hearts and practice them in your lives.”
  • FDR: “Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength and now, as

always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.”

  • Ronald Reagan: “Inside the Bible’s pages lie all the answers to all the problems man has ever known. I hope Americans will read and study the Bible…it is my firm belief that the enduring values presented in its pages have a great meaning for each of us and for our nation. The Bible can touch our hearts, order our minds, and refresh our souls.”

But what about George Washington? An influential book written in the early 1960s claimed that our first president did not quote the Bible.

But that is not so. In Appendix #2 in the book I co-wrote with Dr. Peter Lillback, George Washington’s Sacred Fire, we show example after example of quotes and phrases and special vocabulary found in the writings/speeches of Washington (public or private) that come from the Bible. It is as if you cut Washington, he would have bled Scripture.

Clearly Washington was a Bible reader and very familiar with it. For example, more than 40 times he alludes to Micah 4:4 in the King James: “But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the Lord of hosts hath spoken it.”

Author Dr. Art Lindsley of the Institute of Faith, Work, and Economics, told me regarding Micah 4:4, our first president’s favorite verse:

“[Washington] uses it up to about 50 different times in his writings. And it’s really what he wanted for America….Your own vine and your own fig tree. There’s the idea of private property, that you can have property that’s your own, which, of course, is the antithesis to Marxism and some forms of socialism—with no one to make them afraid. And it particularly shows the primary place of government as a rule of law, and thoroughly fits in with a biblical perspective on that subject.”

Why not make it your goal in 2020, like some of our presidents, to read through the whole Bible or to continue to study the sacred volume? I have found a classic book from the 1940s, Search the Scriptures (edited by Alan Stibbs, IVP), as a wonderful aid to help me study the Bible, passage by passage.

Teddy Roosevelt once remarked,

“If a man is not familiar with the Bible, he has suffered a loss which he had better made all possible haste to correct.”

© All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: A New Year’s Resolution for America: Realize That Politics Isn’t the Most Important Thing

VIDEO: Massive pro 2nd amendment demo planned for January 20, 2020, in Virginia

Posted by Eeyore

MASSIVE MILITIA MOVEMENT!! 2ND AMENDMENT RALLY VIRGINIA!! PLEASE BE PREPARED! (Warning 1/20/2020)

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EDITORS NOTE: This Vlad Tepes Blog column with video is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

The Baghdad Embassy Siege: Did the Iranian Mullahs Think Donald Trump Would React Like Jimmy Carter?

My latest in PJ Media:

The Islamic Republic of Iran, facing demonstrations at home that threaten its very existence and more in Iraq that threaten that country’s Shi’ite proxy government, is resorting to a tested and true strategy. Fox News reports that “crowds of angry Iraqis protesting America’s recent airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia have laid siege to the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad Tuesday, chanting ‘Down, Down USA!’ and storming through a main gate, prompting troops to fire back tear gas in response.”

President Trump tweeted: “Iran killed an American contractor, wounding many. We strongly responded, and always will. Now Iran is orchestrating an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. They will be held fully responsible. In addition, we expect Iraq to use its forces to protect the Embassy, and so notified!”

Whether the pro-Iranian Shi’ite regime will take any serious steps to protect the embassy is an open question, and the Iranian mullahs may be assuming that Trump will talk tough and then let the whole thing blow over. After all, as The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran explains in detail, there is a significant precedent for this that occurred right at the time the Islamic Republic was founded.

On January 16, 1979, a tearful Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and his family left Iran after being betrayed and abandoned by Jimmy Carter. Two weeks later, on February 1, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, returned to Iran after fourteen years of exile and set out to establish the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini had made abundantly clear that the Islamic Republic would consider the United States a mortal enemy when he enabled the storming of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. American diplomats would be held hostage for well over a year.

The immediate pretext for the invasion of the Embassy was Jimmy Carter’s reluctant decision to allow the gravely ill Shah to enter the United States on October 23, 1979, for medical treatment. Carter asked his advisers, “What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?” Nonetheless, he had no plan when a group calling itself Muslim Students Following the Imam’s Line (that is, Khomeini’s line) entered the embassy compound and took hostage the skeleton staff of sixty-six that was still serving there after the fall of the Shah.

There is much more. Read the rest here.

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

How Colleges Dupe Parents and Taxpayers

Colleges have been around for centuries. College students have also been around for centuries. Yet, college administrators assume that today’s students have needs that were unknown to their predecessors. Those needs include diversity and equity personnel, with massive budgets to accommodate.

According to Minding the Campus, Penn State University’s Office of Vice Provost for Educational Equity employs 66 staff members. The University of Michigan currently employs a diversity staff of 93 full-time diversity administrators, officers, directors, vice provosts, deans, consultants, specialists, investigators, managers, executive assistants, administrative assistants, analysts, and coordinators. Amherst College, with a student body of 1,800 students employs 19 diversity people.

Top college diversity bureaucrats earn six-figure salaries, in some cases approaching $500,000 per year. In the case of the University of Michigan, a quarter (26) of their diversity officers earn annual salaries of more than $100,000. If you add generous fringe benefits and other expenses, you could easily be talking about $13 million a year in diversity costs. The Economist reports that University of California at Berkeley has 175 diversity bureaucrats.

Diversity officials are a growing part of a college bureaucracy structure that outnumbers faculty by 2 to 2.5, depending on the college. According to “The Campus Diversity Swarm,” an article from Mark Pulliam, a contributing editor at Law and Liberty, which appeared in the City Journal, diversity people assist in the cultivation of imaginary grievances of an ever-growing number of “oppressed” groups.


Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. Defend your principles before it is too late. Find out more now >>


Pulliam writes:

The mission of campus diversity officers is self-perpetuating. Affirmative action (i.e., racial and ethnic preferences in admissions) leads to grievance studies. Increased recognition of LGBTQ rights requires ever-greater accommodation by the rest of the student body.

Protecting “vulnerable” groups from “hate speech” and “microaggressions” requires speech codes and bias-response teams (staffed by diversocrats). Complaints must be investigated and adjudicated (by diversocrats). Fighting “toxic masculinity” and combating an imaginary epidemic of campus sexual assault necessitate consent protocols, training, and hearing procedures—more work for an always-growing diversocrat cadre. Each newly recognized problem leads to a call for more programs and staffing.

Campus diversity people have developed their own professional organization, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. They hold annual conferences, the last one in Philadelphia. The NADOHE has developed standards for professional practice and a political agenda, plus a Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

One wonders just how far spineless college administrators will go when it comes to caving in to the demands of campus snowflakes who have been taught that they must be protected against words, events, and deeds that do not fully conform to their extremely limited, narrow-minded beliefs built on sheer delusion.

Generosity demands that we forgive these precious snowflakes and hope that they eventually grow up. The real problem is with people assumed to be grown-ups—college professors and administrators—who serve their self-interest by tolerating and giving aid and comfort to our aberrant youth.

Unless the cycle of promoting and nursing imaginary grievances is ended, diversity bureaucracies will take over our colleges and universities, supplanting altogether the goal of higher education.

“Diversity” is the highest goal of students and professors who openly detest those with whom they disagree. These people support the very antithesis of higher education with their withering attacks on free speech.

Both in and out of academia, the content of a man’s character is no longer as important as the color of his skin, his sex, his sexual preferences, or his political loyalties. That’s a vision that spells tragedy for our nation.

COPYRIGHT 2020 CREATORS.COM

COMMENTARY BY

Walter E. Williams is a columnist for The Daily Signal and a professor of economics at George Mason University. Twitter: .


A Note for our Readers:

As progressives on the far Left continue to push for greater government control under the disguise of “free stuff,” our lawmakers need conservative research and solutions to guide them towards promoting your principles instead.

That is why we’re asking conservatives to unite around the key values of limited government, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense by making a special year-end gift to The Heritage Foundation before December 31.

Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. The Left won’t pull any punches. They stand ready to trade the principles of the American founding for the toxic European socialism that has failed so many times before.

That is why finishing this year strong is so critical. The Heritage Foundation is challenging you to rise up and claim more victories for conservative values as we battle socialism in 2020.

LEARN MORE NOW >>


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

The Top 4 Issues America Will Face in 2020

As we head into the new year and the kickoff to the Roaring Twenties 2.0 (and they will roar), policymakers will be faced with some incredibly important decisions.

Several issues will take center stage, ones with the potential to significantly shape our future, from immigration reform to college-loan debt.

Certainly, one of the biggest will be the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Although the outcome is nearly certain—there aren’t enough Senate votes to remove the president from office—the issue will steal the air from other issues until the trial is concluded.

Post-trial, here are some issues likely to dominate 2020. Each represents a fork in the road, and the direction the nation chooses will be critical.


Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. Defend your principles before it is too late. Find out more now >>


• Immigration: Trump could roll out a new immigration plan as we head toward the elections. In addition to trying to secure more funding for desperately needed border security, a part of the plan could include another attempt at creating a merit-based legal immigration system, rather than one that’s based primarily on family ties.

A system that favors applicants with desirable job skills would shift legal immigration’s focus from being centered on the desires of immigrants to being centered on the needs of the American people and our economy.

A merit-based system also more easily allows “patriotic assimilation,” creating a more unified nation, rather than one divided into special-interest groups based on where we came from.

• Election integrity: With the 2020 elections coming, citizens must be assured that the electoral process for federal, state and local elections is fair.

Although many on the left deny it, voter fraud exists. Even the U.S. Supreme Court has noted that voter fraud is a clearly documented part of our nation’s history.

Unfortunately, politicians and advocacy groups on the left continue to fight laws that require an ID to vote. They’ve even sued states that have tried to purge voter rolls of people registered in multiple jurisdictions who could vote more than once in an election.

Moreover, the push to eliminate the Electoral College would increase the influence of large urban centers at the expense of small states and rural areas, striking at our constitutional structure that balances the rule of the majority with protections for minority interests and state governments.

• Education: Politicians have floated proposals of free college tuition for all and loan forgiveness for everyone carrying college debt.

They are characterized as “investments in our future,” but the reality is, they would be a suffocating financial burden on every taxpayer, especially middle- and lower-income citizens. There’s also an inherent unfairness to forcing Americans who couldn’t afford to go to college themselves to pay off the loans of those who could.

One also has to question what kind of return taxpayers would get for their “investment.” Many colleges are indoctrinating students into a socialist, “America is evil” ideology, and often students graduate unprepared for a career and unable to pay off the enormous college debt they accumulated. Forty percent of those who start college don’t even finish within six years.

Despite these issues, because federal loan money is handed out with little scrutiny as to students’ ability to pay it back, colleges have had free rein to raise prices at rates often double that of inflation. In addition, more than 1 million people default on their loans annually, leaving taxpayers to pick up the tab.

“Free” college tuition would only make things worse.

• China: Under the brutal governance of the Chinese Communist Party, China presents a combination of risks our nation has never before faced.

Chinese authorities direct attacks on our government cyber networks, steal the intellectual property of our companies, and threaten the travel of ships and planes in and over international waters.

The authoritarian regime is also spending enormous amounts of money to build up its offensive military machine.

As U.S. policymakers start to pay more attention to China’s threats, we can expect to see more recommendations for rebuilding America’s military to keep China’s in check.

Moreover, while the national security threat is very real, because so many raw materials and finished goods come from China, the U.S. will continue attempting to build more positive trade relations with the country.

Besides being good for Americans economically, a better trade relationship also serves as a deterrent to Chinese aggression, since there’s little incentive to attack a major market for its goods.

What we do about any one of these issues in 2020—China, electoral integrity, education, or immigration—could represent a major turning point for America.

From safeguarding the right to vote to protecting the nation from foreign aggression to deciding whether more taxpayer money is the solution to rising college debt, the new year will certainly provide several opportunities to make pivotal decisions about America’s future.

Originally published by The Washington Times

COMMENTARY BY

Kay C. James is president of The Heritage Foundation. James formerly served as director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and as Virginia’s secretary of health and human resources. She is also the founder and president of The Gloucester Institute. Twitter: .

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RELATED VIDEO: California officials refusing to turn over signatures in recall effort against Gov. Gavin Newsom.


A Note for our Readers:

As progressives on the far Left continue to push for greater government control under the disguise of “free stuff,” our lawmakers need conservative research and solutions to guide them towards promoting your principles instead.

That is why we’re asking conservatives to unite around the key values of limited government, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense by making a special year-end gift to The Heritage Foundation before December 31.

Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. The Left won’t pull any punches. They stand ready to trade the principles of the American founding for the toxic European socialism that has failed so many times before.

That is why finishing this year strong is so critical. The Heritage Foundation is challenging you to rise up and claim more victories for conservative values as we battle socialism in 2020.

LEARN MORE NOW >>


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

Rep. Green: Impeachment ‘Genesis’ Was Before Election

Monday on MSNBC’s All In, Rep. Al Green admitted that the “genesis” of Donald Trump’s impeachment began well before he was elected President in 2016.

Green was asked to respond to the argument of the right that “the Democrats wanted to impeach Donald Trump from day one, they cast about looking for a set of facts they could plausibly use to do it, and all of it was pretextual and reverse-engineered to get to this point. Exhibit one is Al Green, who’s been calling for the man’s impeachment for two years now.”

Well, the genesis of impeachment — to be very candid with you — was when the president was running for office and he had members of his own party to talk about his unfitness to hold office,” Green conceded. “The persons who were running against him, Mr. Romney spoke of his not being fit to hold office. Mr. Cruz made statements about it…”

And there you have it: Democrats intended from the beginning to impeach Trump, and years of fruitless investigations into purported Russian collusion and Ukrainian corruption were merely pretexts.


Al Green

0 Known Connections

During an August 23, 2018 appearance on Democracy Now!, Green said that President Trump could be impeached without having committed a crime: “I think it’s becoming increasingly clear that the president will have two options: One, he can resign from office, or, two, he can face impeachment. Impeachment is something that the Framers of the Constitution provided for a time such as this and a president such as Trump … [who] is alleged to have committed certain offenses that are onerous to the Constitution and that harm society.”

At a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation meeting in September 2018, Green revisited the theme of impeaching President Trump:

“The people who say, ‘What law did he break? What rule did he break?,’ they are perpetrating upon you a belief that is totally inaccurate. You decide that you are not going to be nice to suspects when you arrest them, you tell police, ‘You don’t have to be nice,’ … and ban children on the border of color, you produce a policy that separates them from their parents…. Now, this might be debatable, [but] for me, when I add all of this together, I find that I have a person who is placing his bigotry into policy that is harmful to our society, and for that, he ought to be impeached.”

To learn more about Al Green, click on the profile link HERE.


Search our constantly growing database of the left and its Agendas.


EDITORS NOTE: This Discover the Networks column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

VIDEO: Hizballah militia besieging US embassy in Baghdad screams “Allahu akbar”

This gives the lie to the establishment media claims about the meaning of “Allahu akbar.” It does not mean “God is great,” and is not a simple manifestation of Islamic piety. It means “Allah is greater,” i.e., greater than your god. The demonstrators besieging the embassy are proclaiming the superiority of Allah and Islam over the United States. And the best part is that in analyzing what is happening here, the first thing mainstream analysts in the State Department and elsewhere will do is ignore Allah and Islam.

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

Clarion’s 2020 Predictions: Bernie, Jew Baiters and Western Insanity

As 2020 makes its entrance, Clarion editor Meira Svirsky makes predictions on five trends will can expect to see:

Democrats Go Left (Before Heading South)

Joe Biden will self-destruct his “front-runner” candidacy in 2020. It won’t be difficult as all he has to do is open his mouth.  Elizabeth Warren, already on a steady road down, will continue to fall out of favor due to her manifold lies and hypocrisy. From her false narratives of (1) being a native American, (2) getting fired from a job because she was pregnant, (3) that her children went to public schools to railing against the rich when she is a millionaire and accepts huge donations from the same, Democrats are waking up to the fact that Trump would make mincemeat of her on the campaign trail.

That leaves Bernie Sanders, the favorite tortoise among the bevy of hares vying for the Democrat nomination. Bernie might have garnered it last time if not for the rigging of the vote by Hillary through her super delegates.

Yet, with Bernie, we would not only get socialism (the kind that turned Venezuela from a promising country to a hellhole), we would also get his “surrogates,” who are already out stomping for him. These are the likes of Islamists and anti-Semites such as Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Linda Sarsour, as well as plain old wacky millennial AOC (which is not to underestimate her own pro-BDS version of anti-Semitism).

Clarion predicts Bernie and his triple trio may get the nomination but they will go south fast in 2020.

Anti-Semitism Becomes the New Fashion of Macho Violence

This is a scourge on the soul of America that will not abate in 2020.

The Left’s inability to accept that Donald Trump was actually elected to be the president of the United States, egged on by the mainstream media and their constant churning of fake news, the Left’s willingness to lie to the American public and cheat their way through a faux impeachment process to get him out of office has contributed to the extreme polarization of American society – a state which makes the Left’s demonization of Republican politicians from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush look (almost) like fairy tale.

Who gets caught in the crossfire of this polarization? The Jews.

On the Left, Jews are accused of being everything from white colonialists (by the BDS, Palestinian chic and campus crowd) to slum lords and blood suckers (witness the spate of black-on-Jew crimes in the last months and listen to Black Muslim preacher Louis Farrakhan).

While the Left still cozies up to Farrakhan as well as the likes of Jew-baiting racists like Al Sharpton, the U.S. Congress can’t even muster the votes to censure the likes of Ilhan Omar for trolling us all with her anti-Semitic tropes on Twitter.

This is not to mention how, in New York, many of those who are committing violent anti-Semitic offenses are simply receive a “Get Out of Jail Free” card (along with metro cards to ride around on the subway, two debit cards with $25 each  and a burner cell phones.)

I’m not making this up.

Take the case of Tiffany Harris, a young black woman, who admitted to slapping three Jewish women while hurling at them anti-Semitic epithets. She was quickly released from jail without having to post bail (due to the early implementation of NY’s new bail reform) and got all those goodies mentioned above.

Once out on the street, she punched a woman in the face in front of the woman’s two children, was arraigned yet again and released (this time with “supervision,” which doesn’t mean much).

While a man in Iowa was charged with a hate crime for burning a LGBT flag (which resulted in a 16-year sentence due to his prior two felony convictions), NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio is defending letting Ms. Harris out of jail:

Jew hatred on the Far Right has always existed and didn’t need much of push to bring it out in the open and even manifest in violence. The classic Far Right tropes about Jews as socialists out to destroy our country or, alternatively, as rich capitalists feeding on the poor are now back in fashion thanks to the Left.

The increasing frequency of anti-Semitic attacks in America will bring many other Jew haters out of the woodwork to claim their day of “fame” in the news.

Case in point: As I write, this just in from the largely Orthodox Jewish community of Lakewood, New Jersey:

The Life Gets Sucked Out of Iran by Trump

Some potential good news for 2020 is on the horizon. Rather than initiate a new foreign war (a concept to which Trump is ideologically opposed and which would ruin his chances of reelection), Trump will respond to the latest aggression against the U.S. embassy in Iraq by Iranian-backed militias with new and crushing sanctions on Iran.

Will that mean the collapse of this failed and brutal Islamist state? We’ll be following that story.

Western Insanity Rolls Over for Islamist Supremacy

If the stories coming out at the beginning of 2020 are an indication of how political correctness is careening Western countries into the hands of Islamists (without them lifting a finger to gain control through jihad), we are embarking on a course of civilizational suicide.

  • This week in the UK, 11 armed officers burst into the home of cancer-victim Paul Newey in the wee hours of the morning and threw him in a top security cell reserved for the worst terrorists. Newey’s crime? Sending $200 to his son Dan, who decided to quit his job as an insurance salesman and do something noble. Dan joined the Kurdish forces in Syria fighting against ISIS. Those forces were not only backed by Britain, but they were trained by the SAS, UK’s special forces.
  • Also in the UK, under the nose of British authorities, Pakistani Muslim sex grooming gangs victimized 19,000 children in 2019 alone. For over a decade, this exploitation was known to local government officials, social workers and law enforcement officials. Yet, for fear of being called racists, authorities took no steps to prevent the horrific abuse of young, white British girls.Excuses still abound. Just a year ago, Sarah Champion, a Labour MP from Rotherham where the story broke in 2012 and a tireless campaigner for the victims of these gangs, was forced to resign from her position as shadow (opposition) secretary for women and equalities after writing an article in The Sun telling the facts about the sex grooming gangs: “Britain has a problem with British Pakistani men raping and exploiting white girls … There. I said it. Does that make me a racist? Or am I just prepared to call out this horrifying problem for what it is?” Champion wrote.
  • In Switzerland, child marriage (which often is arranged by Muslim families for their underage daughters) is essentially recognized. It works like this: A girl can be married off at any age by her family. When she reaches the age of 18, her “marriage” becomes legally binding. This rule holds for those born both inside and outside of Switzerland. Due to this law, there is no recourse for girls often forced into marriage as early as the age of 14.

American Universities Continue to Get Rich by Taking Islamist Money

Foreign donations — to the tune of over $10 billion since 2012 – continue to flow in to U.S. universities. With that money comes influence ops to try to mold public opinion and policy.

In some cases, the funding comes via government-tied entities with known links to subversion, spying, terrorism and extremist ideology. For example, the terror-linked Qatar Foundation donated $33 million to Georgetown University in 2018 alone.

Over the years, Iran used a well-known front to send donations to about 30 universities in the U.S. and Canada. These donations, for example, don’t even show up U.S. records.

The Department of Education is currently investigating funding from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, China and (presumably) other countries. We are, too. Stay tuned for Clarion’s next film in 2020 on foreign funding of U.S. universities.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Clarion Project column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

I Went to a Socialism Conference. Here Are My 6 Observations.

While you were enjoying your Fourth of July weekend, I was attending a national conference on socialism.

Why? Because socialism is having its moment on the left.

Since there’s often confusion as to what socialism really is, I decided to attend the Socialism 2019 conference at the Hyatt Hotel in Chicago over the Fourth of July weekend.

The conference, which had the tag line “No Borders, No Bosses, No Binaries,” contained a cross-section of the most pertinent hard-left thought in America. Among the sponsors were the Democratic Socialists of America and Jacobin, a quarterly socialist magazine.


Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. Defend your principles before it is too late. Find out more now >>


The walls of the various conference rooms were adorned with posters of Karl Marx and various depictions of socialist thinkers and causes.

Most of the conference attendees appeared to be white, but identity politics were a major theme throughout—especially in regard to gender.

At the registration desk, attendees were given the option of attaching a “preferred pronoun” sticker on their name tags.

In addition, the multiple-occupancy men’s and women’s restrooms were relabeled as “gender neutral,” and men and women were using both. Interestingly enough, the signs above the doors were still labeled with the traditional “men’s” and “women’s” signs until they were covered over with home-made labels.

One of the paper labels read: “This bathroom has been liberated from the gender binary!”

While the panelists and attendees were certainly radical, and often expressed contempt for the Democratic Party establishment, it was nevertheless clear how seamlessly they blended traditional Marxist thought with the agenda of what’s becoming the mainstream left.

They did so by weaving their views with the identity politics that now dominate on college campuses and in the media and popular entertainment. The culture war is being used as a launching point for genuinely socialist ideas, many of which are re-emerging in the 21st century.

Here are six takeaways from the conference:

1. Serious About Socialism

A common line from those on the modern left is that they embrace “democratic socialism,” rather than the brutal, totalitarian socialism of the former Soviet Union or modern North Korea and Venezuela. Sweden is usually cited as their guide for what it means in practice, though the reality is that these best-case situations show the limits of socialism, not its success.

It’s odd, too, for those who insist that “diversity is our strength” to point to the culturally homogeneous Nordic countries as ideal models anyway.

It’s clear, however, that while many socialists insist that their ideas don’t align with or condone authoritarian societies, their actual ideology—certainly that of those speaking at the conference—is in no sense distinct.

Of the panels I attended, all featured speakers who made paeans to traditional communist theories quoted Marx, and bought into the ideology that formed the basis of those regimes.

Mainstream politicians may dance around the meaning of the word “socialist,” but the intellectuals and activists who attended Socialism 2019 could have few doubts about the fact that Marxism formed the core of their beliefs.

Some sought to dodge the issue. One was David Duhalde, the former political director of Our Revolution, an activist group that supports Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and that was an offshoot of Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign.

Duhalde said that Sanders is a creation of the socialist movement—having had direct ties to the Socialist Party of America in his youth—but hasn’t maintained an official connection to socialist political organizations throughout his political career.

Sanders’ position, according to Duhalde, is “anti-totalitarian” and that he favors a model based on “neither Moscow, nor the United States, at least in this formation.”

It’s a convenient way of condemning capitalist-oriented societies while avoiding connections to obviously tyrannical ones.

It was also difficult to mistake the sea of red shirts and posters of Marx that adorned the walls at the conference—or the occasional use of the word “comrades”—as anything other than an embrace of genuine socialism, but with a uniquely modern twist.

2. Gender and Identity Politics Are Ascendant

Transgenderism, gender nonconformity, and abolishing traditional family structures were huge issues at Socialism 2019.

One panel, “Social Reproduction Theory and Gender Liberation,” addressed how the traditional family structure reinforced capitalism and contended that the answer was to simply abolish families.

Corrie Westing, a self-described “queer socialist feminist activist based in Chicago working as a home-birth midwife,” argued that traditional family structures propped up oppression and that the modern transgender movement plays a critical part in achieving true “reproductive justice.”

Society is in a moment of “tremendous political crisis,” one that “really demands a Marxism that’s up to the par of explaining why our socialist project is leading to ending oppression,” she said, “and we need a Marxism that can win generations of folks that can be radicalized by this moment.”

That has broad implications for feminism, according to Westing, who said that it’s important to fight for transgender rights as essential to the whole feminist project—seemingly in a direct shot at transgender-exclusionary radical feminists, who at a Heritage Foundation event in January argued that sex is biological, not a societal construct, and that transgenderism is at odds with a genuine feminism.

She contended that economics is the basis of what she called “heteronormativity.”

Pregnancy becomes a tool of oppression, she said, as women who get pregnant and then engage in child rearing are taken out of the workforce at prime productive ages and then are taken care of by an economic provider.

Thus, the gender binary is reinforced, Westing said.

She insisted that the answer to such problems is to “abolish the family.” The way to get to that point, she said, is by “getting rid of capitalism” and reorganizing society around what she called “queer social reproduction.”

“When we’re talking about revolution, we’re really connecting the issues of gender justice as integral to economic and social justice,” Westing said.

She then quoted a writer, Sophie Lewis, who in a new book, “Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family,” embraced “open-sourced, fully collaborative gestation.”

3. Open Borders Is Becoming a Litmus Test

It’s perhaps not surprising that socialists embrace open borders. After all, that’s becoming a much more mainstream position on the left in general.

The AFL-CIO used to support immigration restrictions until it flipped in 2000 and called for illegal immigrants to be granted citizenship.

As recently as 2015, Sanders rejected the idea of open borders as a ploy to impoverish Americans.

But Justin Akers-Chacon, a socialist activist, argued on a panel, “A Socialist Case for Open Borders,” that open borders are not only a socialist idea, but vital to the movement.

Akers-Chacon said that while capital has moved freely between the United States and Central and South America, labor has been contained and restricted.

He said that while working-class people have difficulty moving across borders, high-skilled labor and “the 1%” are able to move freely to other countries.

South of the border, especially in Mexico and Honduras, Akers-Chacon said, there’s a stronger “class-consciousness, as part of cultural and historical memory exists in the working class.”

“My experiences in Mexico and my experiences working with immigrant workers, and my experiences with people from different parts of this region, socialist politics are much more deeply rooted,” he said.

That has implications for the labor movement.

Despite past attempts to exclude immigrants, Akers-Chacon said, it’s important for organized labor to embrace them. He didn’t distinguish between legal and illegal immigrants.

For instance, he said one of the biggest benefits of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 was that there was a brief boost in union membership amid a more general decline in unionism.

Besides simply boosting unions, the influx “changed the whole AFL-CIO position on immigrants, [which was] still backwards, restrictive, anti-immigrant,” Akers-Chacon said.

“So, there’s a correlation between expanding rights for immigrants and the growth, and confidence, and militancy of the labor movement as a whole,” he said.

4. ‘Clickbait’ Communism Is Being Used to Propagandize Young Americans

The magazine Teen Vogue has come under fire recently for flattering profiles of Karl Marx and promoting prostitution as a career choice, among other controversial pieces.

It would be easy to write these articles off as mere “clickbait,” but it’s clear that the far-left nature of its editorials—and its attempt to reach young people with these views—is genuine.

Teen Vogue hosted a panel at Socialism 2019, “System Change, Not Climate Change: Youth Climate Activists in Conversation with Teen Vogue.”

The panel moderator was Lucy Diavolo, news and politics editor at the publication, who is transgender.

“I know there’s maybe a contradiction in inviting Teen Vogue to a socialism conference … especially because the youth spinoff brand is a magazine so associated with capitalist excess,” Diavolo said. “If you’re not familiar with our work, I encourage you to read Teen Vogue’s coverage of social justice issues, capitalism, revolutionary theory, and Karl Marx, or you can check out the right-wing op-eds that accuse me of ‘clickbait communism’ and teaching your daughters Marxism and revolution.”

The panel attendees responded enthusiastically.

“Suffice to say, the barbarians are beyond the gates. We are in the tower,” Diavolo boasted.

5. The Green Movement Is Red

It’s perhaps no surprise that an openly socialist member of Congress is pushing for the Green New Deal—which would essentially turn the U.S. into a command-and-control economy reminiscent of the Soviet Union.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti recently said, according to The Washington Post: “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.”

“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti asked Sam Ricketts, climate director for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, who is running for president in the Democratic primary. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

Economic transformation barely disguised as a way to address environmental concerns appears to be the main point.

One of the speakers on the Teen Vogue climate panel, Sally Taylor, is a member of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-oriented environmental activist group that made headlines in February when several elementary school-age members of the group confronted Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., about her lack of support for the Green New Deal.

The other speaker on the Teen Vogue climate panel was Haven Coleman, a 13-year-old environmental activist who has received favorable coverage for leading the U.S. Youth Climate Strike in March. She was open about the system change she was aiming for to address climate change.

She noted during her remarks that she was receiving cues from her mother, who she said was in attendance.

Haven said the answer to the climate change problem was moving on from our “capitalistic society” to something “other than capitalism.”

Interestingly, none of the glowing media profiles of Haven or the Climate Strike mentioned a link to socialism or abolishing capitalism.

6. Socialism Can’t Be Ignored as a Rising Ethos on the Left

According to a recent Gallup survey, 4 in 10 Americans have a positive view of socialism. Support among Democrats is even higher than among the general population, with a majority of Democrats saying they prefer socialism to capitalism.

But many who say they want socialism rather than capitalism struggle to define what those terms mean and change their views once asked about specific policies.

As another Gallup poll from 2018 indicated, many associate socialism with vague notions of “equality,” rather than as government control over the means of production in the economy.

What’s clear from my observations at Socialism 2019 is that traditional Marxists have successfully melded their ideology with the identity politics and culture war issues that animate modern liberalism—despite still being quite far from the beliefs of the average citizen.

Socialists at the conference focused more on social change, rather than electoral politics, but there were still many core public policy issues that animated them; notably, “Medicare for All” and government run-health care, some kind of Green New Deal to stop global warming (and more importantly, abolish capitalism), open borders to increase class consciousness and promote transnational solidarity, removing all restrictions on—and publicly funding—abortion, and breaking down social and legal distinctions between the sexes.

They were particularly able to weave their issues together through the thread of “oppressor versus oppressed” class conflict—for instance, supporting government-run health care meant also unquestioningly supporting unfettered abortion and transgender rights.

Though their analyses typically leaned more heavily on economic class struggle and determinism than what one would expect from more mainstream progressives, there wasn’t a wide gap between what was being discussed at Socialism 2019 and the ideas emerging from a growing segment of the American left.

COMMENTARY BY

Jarrett Stepman is a contributor to The Daily Signal and co-host of The Right Side of History podcast. Send an email to Jarrett. He is also the author of the new book, “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.” Twitter: .

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A Note for our Readers:

As progressives on the far Left continue to push for greater government control under the disguise of “free stuff,” our lawmakers need conservative research and solutions to guide them towards promoting your principles instead.

That is why we’re asking conservatives to unite around the key values of limited government, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense by making a special year-end gift to The Heritage Foundation before December 31.

Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. The Left won’t pull any punches. They stand ready to trade the principles of the American founding for the toxic European socialism that has failed so many times before.

That is why finishing this year strong is so critical. The Heritage Foundation is challenging you to rise up and claim more victories for conservative values as we battle socialism in 2020.

LEARN MORE NOW >>


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

VIDEO: 8th Place — A High School Girl’s Life After Transgender Students Join Her Sport

When two high school athletes who were born male but identify as female took first and second place at Connecticut’s girls indoor track championship this year, it wasn’t just a local news story.

To some, it was a story of triumph and courage. The winner, a junior from Bloomfield High School, set a girls state indoor record of 6.95 seconds in the 55-meter dash, and went on to win the New England titles in both the 55-meter dash and the 300-meter dash.

To others, it was a story of shock and disappointment: Is this the end of women’s sports?

To Selina Soule, a 16-year-old runner from Glastonbury, it was personal.


Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. Defend your principles before it is too late. Find out more now >>


A junior, Selina missed qualifying for the 55-meter in the New England regionals by two spots. Two spots, she said, that were taken by biological boys.

Had the boys who identify as girls not been allowed to compete, Selina would have placed sixth, qualifying to run the 55 in front of college coaches at the New England regionals.

Instead, she placed eighth, watching the 55 from the sidelines after qualifying in only the long jump, an event in which the transgender athletes didn’t compete.

“It’s very frustrating and heartbreaking when us girls are at the start of the race and we already know that these athletes are going to come out and win no matter how hard you try,” Selina told The Daily Signal. “They took away the spots of deserving girls, athletes … me being included.”F

While the debate over transgender athletes and fairness is complex, the situation in Connecticut has brought forth another complicating layer: Plenty of parents and high school girls appear to object to the participation of biological boys in girls sports, but fearing public bullying and backlash, they’re not speaking out.

Publicly, at least.

The stakes of remaining silent are high: Policies are being formed in real time at the local, state, and federal levels regarding transgender individuals, student athletes, and sports.

Most prominently, on March 13, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced HR 5, the Equality Act, a bill that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes under federal civil rights law.

The legislation would create a civil right for male athletes to self-identify as females at any time, critics say, without any evidence of physical changes to their bodies.

A Voice for the Voiceless

When the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, or CIAC, said biological boys who identify as girls can compete as girls in sports, most track athletes remained mum.

Connecticut is one of 17 states that allow transgender high school athletes to compete without restrictions, according to Transathlete.com, a website that tracks state policies in high school sports across the country.

Encouraged by her mother, Bianca Stanescu, who has been in the forefront in challenging the state policy, Selina is one of the few students, if not the only one, giving a voice to countless others who appear to feel the same way.

“Everyone is afraid of retaliation from the media, from the kids around their school, from other athletes, coaches, schools, administrators,” Selina explained. “They don’t want to drag attention to themselves, and they don’t want to be seen as a target for potential bullying and threats.”

In a visit to the Nutmeg State, The Daily Signal spoke with four other track athletes from two high schools in Connecticut. Echoing Selina’s sentiments, they asked to remain anonymous.

“I think it’s a very important thing for people to really understand where we’re coming from, instead of just immediately going to, ‘We’re transphobic,’” one said. “Just the way that our society is built, it snaps on people so quickly.”

“We live in such a cruel world, and society is just so hard to figure out sometimes,” another girl told The Daily Signal. “You never know what the reaction is going to be. It’s so hard because you want your voice to be heard … but, how can you know what to say that will affect things positively, instead of people twisting what you’re saying and turning it against you?”

‘An Equality Issue’

The girls’ parents, too, expressed a high level of concern for protecting their daughters’ identities, not even wanting to identify them by high school.

Connecticut is made up of small towns, the parents explained, and given the relatively small number of athletes affected, people can connect the dots.

“There’s really nothing else you can do except get super frustrated and roll your eyes,” the first girl said, “because it’s really hard to even come out and talk in public just because of the way with the far left, and how just immediately you’ll just be shut down.”

“It’s not like we’re saying that we don’t like transgender people,” she added. “It’s just an equality issue where these girls are trying their absolute hardest to try and get those good things on their college resumes, and then it just gets completely taken away from them because there’s a biological male racing against them.”

The athletes say they don’t fear only being bullied or portrayed as a bigot. They also hope to attend college, and are afraid their politically incorrect views could hurt their prospects.

“I personally want a future in athletics in college,” a third girl told The Daily Signal, “but I feel like if there’s a coach that disagrees with my personal opinion, or a board that disagrees with it, then they’ll already have a predisposition with me and then it’ll affect maybe playing time or my ability to get into that college.”

“We have college down the road—I’m scared that that could get impacted,” a fourth girl said. “Sometimes the coaches will just like look at the lists … and if you’re not No. 1 then they won’t choose you.”

“I have heard opinions where coaches are just going to look at your times, and that they don’t really care where you place,” the first girl added. “But college coaches are going to these bigger meets, and when they don’t see you there, they’re not necessarily focusing on you. They’re focusing on the people that are there.”

“It kept Selina from getting to New Englands, where she had the opportunity to be running in front of college coaches, which is just unfair,” she added.

Uncomfortable Opinions

The athletes’ hesitation to speak out publicly begs the question:

How did society get to the point where high school girls now fear their uncomfortable opinions could prevent them from being admitted to the very institutions where uncomfortable opinions are supposed to be explored?

Whatever the answer, few could blame them, given the vitriol on display in today’s public square.

Business Insider removed a writer’s article defending the casting of Scarlett Johansson to play a transgender man in an upcoming film, for example. The publication said the article violated its “editorial standards,” and the writer later quit.

Authorities in Canada allegedly threatened to arrest a father if he refers to his biological daughter as a female in private or in public because she identifies as a boy.

And in schools, The Daily Signal has documented multiple cases of biological girls being forced to share locker rooms or bathrooms with boys, despite their safety concerns and discomfort.

But again and again, those on the “wrong side” of this conversation are too afraid to speak out.

‘Door Is Open for Any Other Sport’

Selina’s mother, Stanescu, told The Daily Signal that she has done “everything that I thought would be possible to help this and just open a conversation” about what’s happened in Connecticut and what could happen should Congress pass the Equality Act.

“The doors have been shut over and over again,” Stanescu said. “People are afraid to speak.”

In addition to potentially instating a nationwide bathroom requirement, health care mandate, and a “preferred pronoun” law based on gender identity, the Equality Act would enshrine in federal law the right of biological boys to compete as girls in all sports.

If the measure passes, Stanescu warned, “women will be completely eradicated from sports.”

What’s happening in Connecticut, she added, will happen across the country—and not just in track and field.

“Yes, it has been affecting track and field in Connecticut, but the door is open there for any sport, and that is something that could become also a safety issue,” Stanescu said. “It’s taking away the opportunity to win for the girls, but in sports that have physical contact, [it] could become a serious safety issue.”

“It could be potentially very dangerous if you have a transgender female that’s competing in basketball, soccer, lacrosse, field hockey because they are so physically superior to females,” her daughter Selina added.

Selina says all this while making clear she supports athletes “being true to themselves.”

“I have friends in school who are transgender and I know when they are struggling to come out or deciding to come out, I was there supporting them,” she said. “And when they were freshly out, I was caring towards them. I was never rude or disrespectful.”

But the situation in sports has “nothing to do with their gender identity and how they feel,” Selina said. “It has to do with what is right and what is fair in athletics.”

Looking forward to her senior year, Selina said she hopes to run track in college. She referred to the long jump event as her “safe haven” where “the results were fair no matter what, because it was girls competing against girls.”

“But now, unfortunately,” she said with a disappointed look on her face, “one of those athletes has started to compete in long jump. So now none of my events are safe.”

COLUMN BY

Kelsey Bolar

Kelsey Bolar is a senior writer and producer at The Daily Signal and co-host of “Problematic Women,” a podcast. Send an email to Kelsey. Twitter: @kelseybolar.

RELATED ARTICLE: I Was America’s First ‘Nonbinary’ Person. It Was All a Sham.


A Note for our Readers:

As progressives on the far Left continue to push for greater government control under the disguise of “free stuff,” our lawmakers need conservative research and solutions to guide them towards promoting your principles instead.

That is why we’re asking conservatives to unite around the key values of limited government, individual liberty, traditional American values, and a strong national defense by making a special year-end gift to The Heritage Foundation before December 31.

Next year, absolutely everything is on the line. The Left won’t pull any punches. They stand ready to trade the principles of the American founding for the toxic European socialism that has failed so many times before.

That is why finishing this year strong is so critical. The Heritage Foundation is challenging you to rise up and claim more victories for conservative values as we battle socialism in 2020.

LEARN MORE NOW >>


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