If you’re indifferent about the crisis of pornography, the New York Times can change that — almost instantly. The paper jolted an entire nation into caring last year with its jarring exposé, “What Teenagers Are Learning from Online Porn” (warning: extremely graphic). What kids think is normal will shock and sober you. Because these aren’t Playboy magazines stashed under a teenage boy’s bed. These are raw, violent, and nauseating videos that they don’t have to sneak into a store for. Every time they hold a cell phone or log on to a laptop, the door is open to a life-changing experience that could kill the relationships in their lives forever.
Girls talk about learning how to “perform” from what they see online, using the scenes like a study guide. The boys’ stories are even more disturbing. They talk about aggressively hurting, choking, and punishing women as if it’s routine. “Women in porn like it,” one said. So, they assume all women do. They don’t realize that these are actors who are being exploited for an industry that’s tied to the dark world of sex trafficking, domestic violence, child abuse, and abortion. They don’t realize that this is a sinister trade that’s teaching men to dehumanize women, leading spouses to stray from marriages, and killing love and intimacy the world over.
To dads like Congressman Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the idea that his daughters could get caught up in this world is terrifying. “There are political issues that we deal with on Capitol Hill that are important,” he explained on “Washington Watch,” “but then there are political issues that are personal. And this is a very personal issue because I have three daughters 10 and under.” Like a lot of parents, he’s amazed at how much they’re in front of a screen or on the Internet watching YouTube videos. “As much as my wife and I try to police the amount of time they’re in front of a screen,” he says, “we find that they are sometimes we just can’t stop it. That’s just a part of the era that we’re in. And I’m horrified when I read stories or see statistics about the prevalence of obscene pornography that’s so readily available that our kids, even at a young age… That’s why I led this letter.”
For eight years, conservatives like Banks watched the Obama administration look the other way on pornography cases. Then, in 2010, the Justice Department quietly closed the doors on the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which was prosecuting hard-core offenders. It’s time, he insisted, to bring the issue back and make it a priority. Together with Reps. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), and Brian Babin (R-Texas), the group is asking Attorney General William Barr to start cracking down on a cancer that’s destroying our country from the inside out.
“Attorney General Barr can declare the prosecution of pornography a criminal justice priority. He hasn’t done that yet. I’m not attacking him or the administration. He’s new to the job, and he has a lot of other issues on his plate — like this impeachment fiasco… But he can direct the U.S. attorneys to investigate and bring prosecutions against the major producers and distributors of obscene pornography, just like he did under President George H.W. Bush. That’s what we’re hoping that our letter will motivate him to do,” Banks explained.
Luckily, the president’s team wouldn’t have to start from scratch. As Jim pointed out, there are already laws on the books to outlaw the worst kinds of material. The problem is, no one’s enforcing them. And a time when the states are lining up to declare pornography a public health hazard, it only makes sense for the administration to do the same. Too many people, including Christians, know how deadly pornography can be — to relationships, children’s innocence, and the thousands of women lured into an industry that exploits, demeans, and ensnares them. It affects our playgrounds, our politics, even our pulpits.
In surveys like Barna’s Porn Phenomenon, almost two-thirds of Christian men admitted to viewing porn at least once a month. For church leaders, the struggle is just as real: 57 percent of pastors and 64 percent of youth pastors admit they’ve used porn, “either currently or in the past.” There is a deep spiritual component to this crisis that’s corrupting people’s hearts and minds. It ties us up to the point that we’re not effective in our families. We’re not effective in the kingdom. And it stops us from speaking truth because we’re convicted of ourselves.
It’s time to deal with this, as a community, yes — but also as a church. FRC has some compelling resources, including Patrina Mosley’s “Women and Porn” publication. It starts: “I’m not being dramatic when I say that one wrong click changed by life…” But we also had the privilege of hosting one of the most authoritative voices on the subject, Josh McDowell. I strongly urge you to take the time to watch and share what he had to say at one of our recent pastors’ conferences. It just might change your life.
Tony Perkins’s Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2019-12-14 06:48:482019-12-14 06:48:48PODCAST: Returning to the Obscene of the Crime
William Kilpatrick: Pope Francis seems not to see a problem meeting with and embracing an anti-Semite like the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb.
John Cornwell’s 1999 smear of Pius XII, Hitler’s Pope, became a best-seller, lauded by reviewers and excerpted in major magazines. Cornwell portrayed Pope Pius as an anti-Semite, a supporter of Hitler, and an enabler of the Holocaust.
None of this is true, of course. Eugenio Pacelli despised Hitler, denounced Nazi ideology on numerous occasions, and – according to historian Martin Gilbert – was responsible for saving the lives of thousands of Jews. During the German occupation of Rome, hundreds of Jews were housed within the Vatican, 3,000 found sanctuary in Castel Gandolfo, and at Pius’s request, Roman convents and monasteries hid 5,000 Jews.
The book’s calumny was captured in the cover photo, which shows Cardinal Pacelli leaving a government building and being saluted by two German soldiers. All meant to insinuate that Pope Pius XII has just emerged from an important meeting with Hitler. But the picture was taken in 1927, long before Hitler came to power. Nuncio Pacelli was leaving a reception for German president, Paul von Hindenburg, and the soldiers were members of the Weimar Republic, not the Third Reich. Pacelli never met Hitler. Indeed, when Hitler visited Rome in 1938, Pacelli, along with Pope Pius XI, publicly snubbed him by leaving town. No photo of Pope Pius XII with Hitler exists. If it did, the world press would probably feature it on a regular basis along with stories condemning Pius for anti-Semitism.
Jump ahead to the present, and what do we find? Why, it’s a photo of Pope Francis kissing a well-known anti-Semite. No need to go digging to find it. In fact, there are several photos taken on several occasions of the pope embracing the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayyeb. Yet, the Grand Imam’s anti-Semitic views are no secret, and the pope must surely have been aware of them.
During the Second Intifada, al-Tayyeb said that “The solution to Israeli terror lies in the proliferation of suicide attacks that spread terror into the hearts of Allah’s enemies.” He added, “the Palestinians have the right to blow up everything they want.”
Why, then, isn’t an outraged press running the photo on the front pages accompanied by captions such as “Pope embraces anti-Semitic Imam”?
The short answer is that they’re not outraged – at the pope or the Grand Imam.
The media, of course, does display outrage at anti-Semitism when it arises among groups or individuals considered to be white nationalists, Christian extremists, alt-right, or just plain conservatives. But other groups and individuals seem exempt from charges of anti-Semitism.
When leftists, liberals, and Democrats express anti-Jewish sentiments, the mainstream media tends to look the other way. The other exempt group is Muslims. They can’t be blamed because . . . well, because it’s a part of their culture. Besides, considering all the evils that the Jewish State has visited upon Palestinians, it’s perfectly understandable that Muslims would respond with anti-Jewish sentiments – or, so the reasoning goes.
Since liberal journalists tend to favor Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and since they are very sensitive to cultural differences, it’s not surprising that the Grand Imam, too, is given a free pass on his anti-Semitism.
Pope Francis also gets a pass because the liberal press correctly perceives him to be a fellow liberal. So, even if they thought the embrace of al-Tayyeb to be unfortunate (which they don’t), it would be quickly forgotten in light of all of Francis’s good deeds on behalf of the environment, the poor, migrants, and world peace. Indeed, the signing of the Abu Dhabi “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together” would by itself, for liberal media, be enough to absolve both men of any prejudicial thoughts.
The media is friendly to Francis because he’s part of the club of bien-pensants who only wish well for the world. The proof of their protective attitude toward Francis is that, although Francis’s papacy is possibly the most scandal-ridden in modern history, with new scandals emerging on a weekly basis, most of the media has never looked deeply into the myriad charges.
The most serious charges have to do with cover-ups for abusive prelates in which Francis has been directly involved. How has the media responded to these cover-ups? Basically, with a cover-up of their own. Not that the press doesn’t run stories about the abuse cover-ups, but they are strangely restrained and muted stories, often blaming “conservatives” for using the scandals to oppose the pope. By-and-large, they assign only minimal responsibility to Pope Francis. Just as the media wants us to believe that terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, it would also have us believe that the abuse crisis has nothing to do with Francis even when some of his closest collaborators are implicated.
Compare this to the media feeding frenzy that followed the 1963 premier of Rolf Hochhuth’s play “The Deputy” – which vilified Pope Pius Xll as a Nazi collaborator. For the next four decades, one sloppily researched book after another portrayed Pius as an anti-Semitic Nazi sympathizer.
The slur has never really gone away. It hangs heavily in the air waiting for the next scandalous book about the man who supposedly welcomed the Holocaust. As I wrote five years ago, “the ‘Hitler’s Pope’ campaign was highly successful, with the result that the calumny against Pius is now almost universally accepted by the opinion-making elites and by plenty of average citizens as well.”
Despite the fact that there now exist a number of well-documented books refuting the “Hitler’s Pope” myth, there have been, as far as I know, no retractions or apologies by those who helped spread the myth. The myth has been so widely disseminated, that few know that, in the years after World War II, Pius Xll was considered a hero by Jews throughout the world. And fewer still are aware that he was actually involved in a plot to assassinate Hitler.
The media seems to have a double standard about popes. They’ll believe anything derogatory about the pope who was known to be a staunch defender of tradition and doctrine, and they’ll forgive everything for a pope who shares their own liberal views. On the one hand, they’re eager to display a “fake news” photo of Pius in what appears to be a compromising position; on the other hand, they’re quite willing to ignore a photo of Francis embracing a contemporary anti-Semite.
None of this is meant to suggest that Francis himself is anti-Semitic, but it does suggest a certain carelessness on his part. Pope Pius Xll knew enough not to give photo ops to Hitler. But Francis doesn’t seem to understand that there is a problem with showering affection on a man with pronounced anti-Semitic views, so long as they are promoting interreligious relations.
Unlike Pius, he doesn’t seem to appreciate the gravity of his office or the responsibilities that go with it. He does seem, however, to understand that the media will put a positive spin on just about anything he does. So, perhaps, he thinks he can afford to be careless.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Catholic Thinghttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Catholic Thing2019-12-14 06:37:402019-12-14 06:37:58Pius XII, Francis, and the Media
As I told the press today in a statement, the Judiciary Committee’s vote on the articles of impeachment was both a tragedy and a farce. Truly, it was a sad day for America because a grave injustice was committed. There is no abuse of power by President Trump, however, it is clear that abuses were committed against him by the DOJ, the State Department, the FISA court, and certainly by Democrats in the House.
This impeachment scam was corruptly formed and is being corruptly pursued. A coup cabal has hijacked the House to violate the rights of President Trump and undermine our constitutional republic. It is not too late to “stop the coup.” Americans should call their members of Congress to share their views on this wild attack on self-government.
The House vote is set for next week, so contact your congressman ASAP. You can find all the contact details here: www.house.gov.
The FBI and DOJ Massively Violated the Law
As the coup proceeds against President Trump, the Justice Department’s inspector general finally issued his report on the Russiagate Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuse this week, and it provides abundant evidence that the FBI and DOJ massively violated the law to obtain the Carter Page spy warrants targeting President Trump.
As IG reports are both exposés and cover-ups at the same time, it is no surprise that the IG punted on implicating senior officials directly in the spy scandal.
President Trump should appoint a special counsel from outside of the DOJ and FBI to investigate the Obama/Clinton/Deep State Spygate scandal and other crimes that are in plain sight.
In the meantime, we will continue our dozens of FOIA lawsuits and investigations, which have already revealed much of what is known about Spygate – the biggest corruption scandal of all time.
Truth is, President Trump is actually the victim of a crime, as I explain here and here. The IG report provided our team with many investigative leads – so you can be sure that your Judicial Watch will continue to uncover more truths (and get more accountability) on what is the worst corruption scandal in American history.
Court Hearing on House Democrat IT Awan Bros Scandal
While the House Democrat leadership fiddles with impeaching it President, it is also has been long busy trying to squelch a serious scandal involving the contractors who managed information technology for top Democrats.Now it seems that Deep State bureaucrats in the Justice Department are sticking their heads in the sand as well. We’re not. We sued in November 2018 to dig out the details, and this week we were in court for a hearing on the matter.
U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ordered the hearing in our lawsuit, which we filed after the FBI failed to respond adequately to our two separate FOIA requests (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02563)).
Our first request, filed on May 26, 2017, sought:
All records related to any investigations or preliminary investigations involving former congressional IT support staffers Abid Awan, Imran Awan, Jamal Awan, and Hina R. Alvi. As part of this request, searches should of records [sic] should include, but not be limited to, the FBI automated indices, its older manual indices, and its Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Data Management System (EDMS), as well as cross-referenced files.
All records of communication sent to or from FBI employees, officials or contractors involving the subjects in bullet item 1.
We are seeking records from May 2015 to the present.
Our second request, submitted on July 3, 2018, sought:
All records related to any investigations or preliminary investigations involving former congressional IT support staffers Abid Awan, Imran Awan, Jamal Awan, Hina R. Alvi and Rao Abbas. As part of this request, searches of records should include, but not be limited to, the FBI automated indices, its older manual indices, and its Electronic Surveillance (ELSUR) Data Management System (EDMS), as well as cross-referenced files.
All records of communications, including but not limited to emails (whether on .gov or non-.gov email accounts), text messages, instant chats or messages on the Lync system, sent to or from FBI employees, officials or contractors involving the Awan brothers, Ms. Alvi and Mr. Abbas. Records of communications searched should include but not be limited to those between FBI officials, employees and contractors and officials with the Capitol Police, the Office of the Inspector General of the House, and the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer of the House.
In August 2019, the Justice Department told the court that it would begin producing records by November 5, 2019. After producing no records, the agency told us on November 13, 2019, that it was having “technical difficulties,” and in a recent email claimed that, “difficulties with the production remain.”In a joint status report filed on December 5, 2019, we reported to the court that the DOJ claimed in a phone call that it was now unable to produce any records to either of the FOIA requests “because the agency was waiting for some unspecified action by Judge [Tanya S.] Chutkan in some other matter so as to avoid having to produce records in this case.” In that same report the DOJ told the court that Judge Chutkan is “presiding over a related sealed criminal matter” that prohibits the government from releasing the requested FOIA information. [Emphasis added]
At the court hearing today, the Court ordered the Justice Department to provide, by January 10, an explanation to him on the issues Judicial Watch raised.
Imran Awan and his family were banned from the House of Representatives computer network in February 2017 after the House’s top law enforcement officer wrote that Imran is “an ongoing and serious risk to the House of Representatives, possibly threatening the integrity of our information systems,” and that a server containing evidence had gone “missing.” The inspector general said server logs showed “unauthorized access” and procurement records were falsified.
Imran Awan was Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s (D-FL) top information technology aide. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Wasserman Schultz kept him on until he was arrested in July 2017 trying to board a flight for Pakistan.
In July 2018, Imran Awan was given a plea deal, and pled guilty to federal bank fraud, but prosecutors found no evidence that Awan “violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems.”
The Awan brothers reportedly “were not given background checks before being given access to highly sensitive government information and no explanations have been given as to why.” Additionally, “If they would have run this background check it would have found out not only multiple criminal convictions, but $1 million bankruptcy, a dozen lawsuits … it would have found a whole host of major red flags and the Democrats didn’t do any of those checks.”
This scandal is a matter of national security. It involves a cover-up by House Democrat leadership and, now, the Deep State DOJ. We won’t let this go.
New York Becomes 13th State to Give Illegal Immigrants Driver’s Licenses
Given the murders committed by a Saudi national in Pensacola this week, and daily reports of violent crimes by illegal aliens across the country, everyone is more alert to who comes into our country. Everyone but New York state politicians, that is. Our Corruption Chronicles blog reports on that state’s move to make it easier for illegal aliens to reside here in violation of the law:
This month New York will become the 13th state in the U.S. to give illegal immigrants driver’s licenses, and officials in counties throughout the Empire State warn they are not equipped to handle the predicted onslaught. One state lawmaker is offering free care for the children of illegal aliens who attend a workshop to help them navigate the process of obtaining a license. More than half a million undocumented immigrants are expected to qualify, and all they need is an expired passport, consulate identification or license from their country of citizenship.
Local Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) clerks throughout New York are deeply concerned about their ability to authenticate the unfamiliar documents—written in foreign languages—acceptable under the new law to obtain a license. One county clerk in the state’s eastern region said in a local news report that his office, which services a population of about 160,000, will not issue licenses to illegal aliens and instead will let the state deal with the applicants. “They want to us to make a decision right at the window as to whether something is fraudulent or acceptable,” Rensselaer County Clerk Frank Merola said in the article. “I’m not going to make a major mistake.” In the state’s southern tier, Chemung County Clerk Catherine Hughes blasted lawmakers for leaving her and her colleagues to deal with the mess. “They don’t really realize the ramifications that it causes by doing something like this,” said Hughes, who serves a population of about 90,000. “There are no set of rules and regulations on how to get it done. And that puts us county clerks in a very precarious situation because we don’t know how to do it.”
Officials in some New York counties have filed lawsuits to block the measure, officially called the Driver’s license Access and Privacy Act but popularly known as the Green Light Law, from being implemented. It was passed by the legislature over the summer and signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo after he was assured federal immigration officials would not be able to obtain DMV records. That’s where the “privacy” portion of the bill’s language comes in. Officials in several counties—including Erie, Monroe and Rensselaer—are suing to thwart the law, which is scheduled to take effect on December 14. New York State Senator Julia Salazar, a former community organizer and proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America, announced this week that she is holding an “informational session” to guide illegal immigrants through the process of obtaining a license. Free childcare will be provided, according to the announcements, which were issued in English and Spanish.
Besides New York, a dozen states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws to allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. They include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Vermont and Washington. More than half of the states passed their measures in 2013. In 2019 several states—including Florida, Kansas, Minnesota and North Carolina—introduced legislation to grant illegal aliens driver’s licenses, but those haven’t been resolved and it’s not clear if they’ll pass. This week the Department of Justice (DOJ) challenged New York’s soon-to-be-implemented measure, writing in a federal court filing that it conflicts with federal law.
New York is also undermining national security, according to a report published by a Washington D.C. think tank dedicated to researching U.S. immigration policy. New York’s Green Light Law equips illegal aliens and others with nefarious intentions with legitimate, state-issued identification, prohibits federal authorities from using information maintained by the state’s DMV and inhibits public safety as well as immigration enforcement. “The federal government should not simply surrender to the unreasonable and potentially unconstitutional limitations imposed on federal immigration and local law enforcement agencies by this law,” the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) writes in its extensive report, which includes ideas to circumvent New York’s law. Among them is withholding federal funding and taking legal action. Over the summer a federal appellate court ruled that the Trump administration could withhold federal funding to local governments that offer illegal immigrants sanctuary.
Video: President Trump signs antisemitism executive order – News 19 WLTX
Pro-Palestinian thuggery on campus finally gets a rebuke. My latest in FrontPage:
President Trump made history again on Wednesday, when he signed an executive order authorizing the Department of Education to act against anti-Semitism on American college and university campuses, and making it clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal money, “would apply to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate,” that is, virtually every public institution of higher learning in America.
This executive order is long overdue. The Jerusalem Post reported that as far back as 2015, “more than 30 organizations, including Jewish fraternity AEPI, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Zionist Organization of America wrote to University of California regent Bruce D. Varner in July, requesting that substantive measures be taken to combat rising anti-Semitism on UC-affiliated campuses.”
The problem wasn’t restricted to the University of California, either, but nothing was done. And it is virtually inconceivable that Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or any presidential hopeful on the scene today would have signed the executive order that Trump signed Wednesday. Trump pointed out that earlier efforts to combat campus anti-Semitism “didn’t get it done,” and declared: “This year, there’s no roadblock.”
There have been roadblocks for years. Campus groups, most notably the notorious Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), have grown increasingly aggressive as the Left has intensified its embrace of opposition to Israel and open anti-Semitism. Jewish students and supporters of Israel on campuses have been shouted down, defamed, vilified, and physically menaced, with only a handful of groups, particularly the David Horowitz Freedom Center, providing any support for those students.
The Freedom Center has fought back, virtually alone, demanding that universities withdraw their support for pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic groups such as the SJP that spread Jew-hatred on campus for well over a decade. The Center provides students who support Israel with valuable intellectual resources and helping them to stand strong against the furious onslaught from Leftists and the Muslim Brotherhood juggernaut.
There are so many incidents illustrating that furious onslaught that they could fill an entire good-sized book. Nor have only students been targeted: in February 2010 at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, attempted to give a speech there on relations between the United States and Israel but was ultimately unable to do so: after Muslim students heckled and interrupted him repeatedly, he left the stage.
Before Oren appeared, the UCI Muslim Student Union (MSU) chapter had issued a statement that read, in part:
As people of conscience, we oppose Michael Oren’s invitation to our campus. Propagating murder is not a responsible expression of free speech. . . .
We strongly condemn the university for cosponsoring, and therefore, inadvertently supporting the ambassador of a state that is condemned by more UN Human Rights Council resolutions than all other countries in the world combined. . . .
The most important aspect of this statement was its claim that the university was “inadvertently supporting” Oren’s views just by cosponsoring the event. This was a complete rejection of the idea of the university as a place where all ideas can be discussed and accepted or rejected on their own merits. As far as the Muslim Student Union was concerned, giving someone a platform was tantamount to endorsing his views—so only those with acceptable opinions, that is, anti-Israel opinions, should be given a platform.
Applying that principle has turned universities into one-party states in which only one point of view is allowed. Trump’s executive order opens up the possibility that they might become institutions of higher learning again.
It will take a great deal of effort. At Temple University in August 2014, SJP members called Daniel Vessal, a Camera on Campus fellow and a member of the Jewish fraternity AEPi, “kike” and “baby killer,” and punched him in the face. Vessal explained that when he tried to engage SJP members in dialogue, but “people at the table were calling me a ‘baby killer’…And then this kid just rocks me in the face as hard as he can. My glasses flew off. After a two-second blur I had no clue what had happened. I couldn’t believe the kid actually hit me. When the police came over and were filing the report the kids at the table were screaming ‘You Zionist pig, you racist, that’s what you get.’” Police did not arrest the attacker.
In May 2016, Eliana Kopley, a sophomore at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), was trying to enter a screening of an Israeli documentary about the IDF called “Beneath the Helmet” when she was accosted by an angry mob screaming “Long live the Intifada!” and “F**k Israel!” The protesters prevented her from entering the building where the film was being shown, and even chased her into a nearby building, where they pounded on the doors and windows while continuing to scream their slogans. Police ultimately escorted Kopley into the screening. The UCI chapter of the SJP was thrilled with this thuggery, and praised the mob.
Likewise in a November 2015 rally organized by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Hunter College, a campus of the City University of New York (CUNY), protesters brandishing signs reading “Boycott Israel” and “Zionists out of CUNY” screamed at Jewish students: “Zionists go home!,” “Zionists out of CUNY!,” “Jews out of CUNY!,” “Get out of America!,” and “We should drag the Zionist down the street!” In February 2016 at Brooklyn College, a group of hard-Left students burst into a Faculty Council meeting and began chanting “Zionists off campus!” When a Jewish professor tried to get students to end their disruption of a Faculty Council meeting at Brooklyn College, they called him a “Zionist pig.”
The Muslim students’ behavior toward Oren and at Hunter College rapidly became the norm across U.S. campuses: it has become unsafe to be pro-Israel at an American university. As colleges grow more authoritarian in their Leftism, they have become increasingly inhospitable to students who oppose the Left’s pet causes.
But now President Trump has ensured that universities and colleges that actively allow anti-Semitic activity will face consequences. At the signing of the executive order, Alan Dershowitz said: “No more important event to turn universities away from being bastions of hatred and discrimination than this executive order being signed today. It is a game changer. It will go down in history as one of the most important events in 2,000 battle against anti-Semitism.”
For the sake of simple justice, and for the sake of the freedom of inquiry on college and university campuses, and for the sake of the truths that the Freedom Center has been fighting for all these years, all people of good will should hope that Dershowitz will be proven correct.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jihad Watchhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJihad Watch2019-12-14 05:41:102019-12-14 05:42:32Trump Pushes Back Against Campus Anti-Semitism
New York City’s former Mayor Mike Bloomberg has announced his candidacy for the Presidency. Not unlike virtually all candidates for elected office, he has promised to help create jobs and improve opportunities for Americans.
However, as my mom used to say, “Talk is cheap” and his open-borders advocacy is inconsistent with the best interests of our nation and our fellow Americans.
Immigration is not a single issue but a singular issue that profoundly impacts nearly every challenge and threat that confronts America and Americans. The critical question therefore, is “Where does Mike Bloomberg stand on immigration?”
As it turns out, Mike Bloomberg is an unapologetic advocate for open borders. This is no surprise. After all, when he was the Big Apple’s mayor he was a strong supporter of New York City’s “sanctuary” policies that shield illegal aliens from detection from ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).
So while Bloomberg has promised to help create new jobs, in fact he does not care who actually gets those jobs. I have often made the point that while it is good to create jobs, liberating jobs is a quicker and cheaper way to provide jobs for American and lawful immigrant workers. (Jobs are liberated when illegal aliens are removed from the jobs that they illegally take.) This is one of many missions for ICE, an agency that has come to be reviled by the globalist, open-borders immigration anarchists such as Mike.
In fact, it would appear that Mike Bloomberg would be happy if illegal aliens get those jobs and not American workers, as a means of suppressing wages.
Although Bloomberg has reportedly amassed $50 billion, making him one of the very wealthiest people on earth, in a recent interview he actually publicly stated that golf courses could not survive if they had to pay more for grass cutters, thereby acknowledging that while we are frequently told that illegal aliens do the work Americans won’t do, in reality Americans would gladly do those jobs, but for a living wage under lawful working conditions.
For Mike, screwing Americans out of jobs and wages is preferable to suffering a “hardship” that he and his super-wealthy friends would suffer if they had to pay more for their greens fees on golf courses and their country club memberships!
In that article he not only addressed the wonders of cheap labor but carefully blurred the essential distinction between illegal immigration from lawful immigration.
To provide a bit of much-needed clarity, the difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien is comparable to the difference between a houseguest and a burglar.
Here is an excerpt from that article:
On immigration, a hot topic back then, he was adamant that hardworking immigrants help.
“We should open the borders, not close them. And you need to open them in tough times more than you need to open them in good times. And government has to lead, and I don’t think most of our leaders are willing to do that.
What nobody quite understands about the undocumented, and I think it’s true no matter where they come from, all the conventional wisdoms of Lou Dobbs — who has done an enormous amount of damage to this country – the undocumented have very low (rates of) crime. Why? Because they don’t want to go near the government.
“Undocumented pay taxes. Why? Because their company deducts and there’s no place to send the refund. Undocumented don’t use our schools very much. They tend to be young people coming here who don’t go and have families. They tend to send money back home.
“Undocumented don’t use our hospitals much. Why? Because most of us use three-quarters of our medical expenses in the last three years of our life, and these are young people who come here. And the argument that undocumented take jobs away from Americans is just not true. You cannot get Americans generally to do these jobs.
“Now you can say wait a minute and pay them more, but if you did that, yes, more Americans would take them, but the organizations couldn’t survive. Golf courses can’t survive if they have high-cost grass cutters. To answer your question on what do you do, it’s the elected officials (who must act).”
We must begin by making the distinction that Bloomberg and the other open-borders advocates refuse to make: the one between lawful immigrants and illegal aliens.
On June 13th of this year I was a guest on Fox & Friends First and ended my interview by asking cohosts Jillian and Rob if they would be willing to board an airliner if they saw some of the passengers on their flight sneaking past the TSA inspectors. They reacted as I expected them to, so I then asked, “Why then are we being forced to live among millions of people who snuck past a similar vetting process conducted at ports of entry?”
America is indeed a “nation of immigrants”; however, it is not a “nation of trespassers”!
In the article Bloomberg made a number of assertions that are utterly bogus.
While it is true that lawful immigrants are among the most law-abiding segment of our nation, illegal aliens are the most crime-prone individuals. I addressed this incontrovertible fact in my earlier article which I urge you to read in its entirety, “Illegal Immigration And Crime.”
New York City’s schools are prohibited from asking students about their immigration status so there is no easy way to determine the immigration status of these students; however, each year increasing amounts of money in the Board of Education budget are allocated to providing ESL (English as a Second Language) training. This would certainly seem to suggest that many of the students in our public schools are aliens. Furthermore, so-called “sanctuary” policies attract illegal aliens.
Additionally, New York State now provides illegal aliens with driver’s licenses, which not only serves as a magnet to attract increasing numbers of illegal aliens but also undermines national security and public safety. I laid out my concerns on this lunacy in my article, “New York Will Provide Illegal Aliens With Driver’s Licenses,” in which I rhetorically asked, “Where is Gov. Cuomo’s MVP Award from terrorists?”
The real question that Bloomberg and all candidates for the Presidency and other elected offices on all levels of government should be asked is, “Have you read, in their entirety, the The 9/11 Commission Report and the companion report 9/11 and Terrorist Travel?
As a follow-up, Bloomberg and the other candidates should be asked how their abhorrence for secure borders and fair but effective immigration law enforcement as evidenced in their statements square with the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
Those reports made it clear that terror attacks, and not only the attacks of 9/11, were only possible because of multiple failures of the immigration system — a system Bloomberg is determined to undermine and obstruct in order to achieve his globalist agenda.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Michael Cutlerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMichael Cutler2019-12-14 05:23:352019-12-14 05:23:35Bloomberg: Unacceptable Presidential Candidate — An unapologetic advocate for open borders.
Interestingly, the House Judiciary Committee members voted on articles of impeachment on of all days Friday, December 13th, 2019. Prophetic isn’t it.
The House Judiciary Committee adopted both articles alleging: 1. abuse of power and 2. obstruction of Congress, on a party-line vote of 23-17.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stated on the Sean Hannity Show:
The case is so darn weak coming from the House. We know how it’s going to end. There’s no chance the president’s going to be removed from office. My hope is that there won’t be a single Republican who votes for either of these articles of impeachment, and, Sean, it wouldn’t surprise me if we got one or two Democrats.
The main issue is that Speaker Pelosi, Representatives Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler have focused on overturning the results of the 2016 election using every and all means available.
Because of their desperate stand to impeach President Donald J. Trump it is becoming clearer with each passing day that they cannot win at the ballot box in 2020.
Here are the top reasons that the Democrats are confused and spreading disorder within their own political party:
The Mueller Report debunked the malarkey that there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
President Trump releasing the transcripts of his two phone conversations with the President of the Ukraine debunked the malarkey of a quid pro quo.
The hearings in the House Intelligence Committee, both secret and public, debunked the malarkey of a quid pro quo.
The hearing in the House Judiciary Committee debunked the malarkey of a quid pro quo.
The hearing in the House Judiciary Committee ignored the quid pro quo of former VP Biden and his son Hunter.
Rep. @RepMattGaetz says an essential part of the Democrats' impeachment case is that the Bidens did nothing wrong. So Gaetz digs into the shady dealings of Hunter Biden. pic.twitter.com/12wUkPtMws
During all of this time since the election of Donald J. Trump the Democrats have been trying, unsuccessfully, to dig up dirt. Again, they have kept digging and they now find themselves in a deep hole that they cannot extricate themselves from.
These continuous investigations and hearings have hurt the candidates running for president during the Democratic primary. The media has focused on the investigations and have in large part ignored giving the limelight to the Democratic candidates.
To make matters worse the polling, if you believe the polls, show President Trump has remained steady in his popularity. If anything the polls indicate that the American people have grown tired of the constant malarkey.
More telling is how the President and the Republican Party continue to stand together as never before. The Republican Party is raising money from small donors for the President’s 2020 campaign and those Republicans on the 2020 ballot in record numbers.
Finally, the Trump campaign has used this opportunity to both emphasize the Democrat’s disarray and expose their malarkey.
The Republicans House members were fantastic yesterday. It always helps to have a much better case, in fact the Dems have no case at all, but the unity & sheer brilliance of these Republican warriors, all of them, was a beautiful sight to see. Dems had no answers and wanted out!
1. Trump and Zelensky deny conditionality 2. The transcript shows no quid pro quo 3. Ukraine wasn't aware of delay at the time of the call 4. The aid was ultimately delivered
The Democrats are hurting their candidates for president, those seeking reelection in 2020, those in both the House and Senate, and the party as a whole.
Question: Why?
Answer: Perhaps they can’t see that their malarkey is pure bunkum.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2019-12-13 10:16:032019-12-17 04:29:15Democrats in Disarray and Full of Malarkey!
P.J. and Nicole Marie Mongelli. President Trump made a surprise appearance at a wedding reception of P.J. and Nicole Marie Mongelli Saturday night that took place at his New Jersey golf club, prompting the bride, groom and attendees to break into chants of “USA! USA!”. Video circulating on social media Sunday showed Trump walk out to the reception and the bride and groom rush over to join him. The crowd then erupted in the patriotic chant.
TOPIC: Trump crashes wedding reception, crowd chants USA, USA!
Mark Meckler, President, Citizens for Self-Governance. Mark is one of the nation’s most effective grassroots activists. After he co-founded and was the national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots, he founded Citizens for Self-Governance to revolutionize American government. this grassroots initiative expands and directs the ever-growing, bipartisan self-governance movement. Mark appears regularly on wide variety of television outlets, including MSNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News, CNN, Bloomberg, Fox Business and the BBC. He is the co-author of “Tea Party Patriots: The Second American Revolution,” and writes regularly on Breitbart, the American Spectator, and SelfGovern.com. He also is an attorney who specializes in internet privacy law.
TOPIC: Trump’s Plan To Deter Asylum Seekers.
James S. Davidson was an FBI special agent for 23 years. He investigated major crimes in Texas and California and served in Ukraine, Israel, and Washington, D.C. He is now president of Protect the FBI, a non-partisan organization whose mission is to safeguard the FBI from the partisan politics of both political parties.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Conservative Commandos Radio Showhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngConservative Commandos Radio Show2019-12-13 09:17:242019-12-13 09:18:35PODCAST: Trump crashes wedding reception, crowd chants USA, Trump’s Plan To Deter Asylum Seekers, How to watch Robert Mueller testify
Rep. Rashida Tlaib took to social media Thursday to falsely blame white supremacy for Tuesday’s murderous shooting in Jersey City targeting Jews.
“This is heartbreaking,” Tlaib tweeted. “White supremacy kills.” This came more than a day after the two perpetrators had been identified as David Andersen and Francine Grahm, both black. Police found anti-Semitic posts online written by the suspects, who were killed in a shootout with police. A manifesto of some sort was left in their car. Anderson reportedly was associated with the Black Hebrew Israelites, a black nationalist group made up of racists and anti-Semites.
Tlaib eventually deleted her racist tweet without comment.
“It’s telling, and frankly sick, that Tlaib tweeted out sympathies for the Jews that were murdered blaming it on white supremacists,” tweeted journalist Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll. “Didn’t care enough to find out what happened. Just enough to use dead Jews for her political agenda.”
Upon winning the Democratic primary on August 7, Tlaib draped herself in a Palestinian flag while celebrating with her supporters. In her victory speech, she promised to “fight back against every racist and oppressive structure that needs to be dismantled.” When she was subsequently asked by Great Britain’s Channel 4 News if she planned to vote against U.S. military aid to Israel, Tlaib responded: “Absolutely, if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice…. If you’re going to be a country that discriminates on somebody solely based on their faith, solely based on their skin color … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice….”
When Tlaib won her congressional election on November 6, 2018, CAIR founder and CEO Nihad Awad congratulated her on her “historic victory of becoming the first Muslim and Palestinian woman in the U.S. Congress.”
In December 2018, Tlaib become just the second U.S. lawmaker — the first was Ilhan Omar — to publicly voice support for the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. “I personally support the BDS movement,” Tlaib said in an interview with the news website The Intercept. “I want us to see that segregation and how that has really harmed us being able to achieve real peace in that region.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2019-12-13 06:34:202019-12-14 05:48:26Tlaib Falsely Blames Jersey Shooting on ‘White Supremacy’
To say that We the People are outraged over the Democrats baseless absurd articles of impeachment against our president would be an understatement. Candidly, I’ve had to talk my Irish/Cherokee feisty wife down from throwing a brick through our TV. These arrogant scumbags, in essence, are saying screw you 63 million Americans who elected this guy. We’re smearing his a** with impeachment and y’all can’t stop us.
The most infuriating thing about Democrats and fake news medias’ fake-outrage over Trump’s alleged crimes is everyone knows Trump has done nothing wrong. He has functioned totally within his presidential authority. Democrats and media are attempting to criminalize Trump defending himself while exposing their corruption. The only thing Trump is guilty of is keeping his promise to do everything within his power to make America great again.
Folks, it feels like we are in an episode of the Twilight Zone in which Democrats’ and medias’ reality is the polar opposite of the truth. With straight faces, they authoritatively lie about every issue. Our economy is booming. And yet, Democrats and media say people are horribly suffering in Trump’s economy. Blacks are enjoying a historic low unemployment rate. Dems and media tell blacks Trump is a white supremacist seeking to harm them.
We are livid that bad actors in the FBI, CIA, DOJ, State Department and Obama Administration illegally conspired to kick Trump out of the White House. These arrogant treasonous scumbags continue their unlawful assault on president Trump in-plain-sight while they appear on TV with their noses in the air – talking down to We the People.
Our prayer is that these enemies of the Constitution will receive their just rewards. AG William Barr and federal prosecutor John Durham appear to be hot on their tails with indictments.
The revelation that government agencies are involved in the Democrats’ silent coup and smear campaign is extremely disturbing. It is pretty scary to realize that if you p*** off the Democrats, they will “get you”. Let us not forget that Obama’s IRS punished the Tea Party.
This whole impeachment scam reminds me of the 1938 Disney movie, “Snow White.” As a child, I could not understand why the wicked queen’s hatred for Snow White was so great that she was willing to sacrifice her beauty and even her life to destroy Snow White. We are witnessing the same obsession with Democrats irrationally moving forward with impeaching Trump.
Immediately after Trump was elected, Democrats began their impeachment scam. They have ignored numerous issues important to the American people such as prescription drug prices, border security and the opioid crisis. Democrats know their impeachment scam will crash and burn in the senate. And yet, they press forward.
President Reagan predicted the U.S.S.R. would collapse due to the weight of its evil. The Democrats’ 2020 presidential dreams are collapsing under the weight of their deranged hatred.
For years, Democrats and their media minions appeared to win every battle, chipping away at our constitutional freedoms. Who could imagine a day would come when Democrats’ deranged hatred for all things beneficial to America would cause Democrats to eat themselves? Like the wicked queen’s obsession with destroying Snow White, Democrats deem no cost too great to remove Trump.
I believe we owe the anti-Trump resistance a bit of gratitude. Their hatred created our America-first superhero president. Trump was not ideological. When the left immediately sought to block him from making America great again, Trump’s eyes were opened. I believe he was stunned by leftists’ vitriolic hatred for our country. This moved Trump closer to We the People.
We are in a spiritual battle of good verses evil.“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12
Spiritual wickedness is the root cause of Democrats’ hatred for everyday Americans. Democrats vehemently oppose Trump restoring religious liberty, restoring our constitutional freedoms, securing our borders and governing in the best interest of the American people.
Be of good cheer and hang in there folks. Our Sherlock Holmes, (William Barr) and his Doctor Watson (John Durham) are close to cracking the Democrats’ evil scam wide open. We The People are so looking forward to crushing the Democrats at the polls in November for their wicked crimes against our president and America.
Despite its many undoubted merits, democracy has one glaring detriment. There is never a dictator to blame for the fate that befalls the people. They alone are responsible for whatever befalls them.
“Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit (And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness). –Alcuin of York, an English scholar, clergyman, and poet (c. 735 –804 CE)
Israel is now hurtling towards its third national election within a year.
Not Force Majeure
This was not an outcome precipitated by some unforeseen or uncontrollable force majeure. On the contrary, it was entirely the result—albeit an entirely perverse and paradoxical one—of the free exercise of collective human volition.
It was perverse and paradoxical because it reflected the diametric opposite of the express–and expressed—desires of the individuals comprising the collectives involved in precipitating it.
Indeed, in the myriad of interviews in the national media—whether on radio or television, in the printed media or on the web—there was not a single politician, who did not voice opposition to yet another round of elections. Yet despite literally wall to wall individual resistance to sending voters back to the polls for a third time within a year, the motion to hold a new ballot on March 2, 2020, was passed with an overwhelming majority (96-7) in the wee hours of Thursday morning (December 12, 2019).
Toxic quagmire of irreconcilable demands
As the inevitability of a new election drew inexorably closer, and the quagmire of the irreconcilable political demands of the potential coalition partners grew more viscous and more noxious, so the blame-game, the endeavor to attribute guilt for the undesirable outcome, spiraled to evermore shrill and venomous levels. Every political faction pointed accusatory fingers at every other faction.
Each party extolled its own “flexibility” and underscored its own selfless willingness for sacrifice to hobble together a coalition—any coalition-to avoid a dreaded third national ballot.
Thus, the Likud castigated Blue and White for intractable anti-Netanyahu rejection and excoriated Avigdor Liberman for perfidy and betrayal of his Right-wing constituency. Blue and White condemned the Likud for obsequious subservience to Netanyahu and putting the wishes of their indicted party leader above the needs of the nation. Liberman slammed both for being inflexible and for secretly preferring new elections, in which they hope they would improve their positions, over forming a unity government with each other. In Blue and White itself, Left of Center members accused Right of Center members of preventing the creation of a coalition headed by their party, that relied on the support of the Arab Joint List.
So, to sum up so far on how the third round of elections came about: No-one wanted them, almost everyone voted for them and everyone blamed everyone else—except themselves—for causing them.
Another perverse paradox
This brings us to the second perverse paradox.
Apart from Liberman reneging on his pre-election pledges in April to help set up a Right-wing coalition (or, at least, what many saw as such), the subsequent rounds of elections were in fact precipitated by the various parties ostensibly insisting on honoring their electoral pledges to their voters.
The Right-wing parties maintained their ideological solidarity and allegiance to Netanyahu as their choice for premier. Blue and White refused to give up their undertaking not to join a government under an indicted prime minister; Liberman kept to his (relatively new) commitment to eschew participation in what he dubbed a “Messianic Ultra-Orthodox” coalition—despite the fact that he had done precisely that, on numerous times in the past.
Thus, the event, which no-one wanted (i.e. additional elections) came about precisely because the elected politicians strove to stick to their campaign promises and to provide their voters what they elected them for.
Dysfunctional or irrational?
Accordingly, the repeated failure to form a government is not really a failure of Israel’s democratic system as some have claimed, but rather a reflection of its success—and its ability to accurately convey the will of the electorate—including its view of Netanyahu’s legal situation and the moral implications thereof!
Indeed, if this is the case—and there seems little grounds to think otherwise—the ongoing political saga in Israel leads unavoidably to one of two gloomy conclusions regarding the Israeli electorate as a functioning collective:
(a) It is either dysfunctional in that it cannot agree to provide any elected political entity, or any combination thereof, the power to govern—i.e. it cannot generate the collective will to allow the formation of a viable elected government; or
(b) It is irrational in that it has a collective desire to install a viable government but insists on rewarding precisely those who thwart that desire.
Arguably, either possibility was clearly discernable in the last round of elections. After all, in the original elections in April, the formation of a viable Right-wing coalition was eminently feasible until Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu faction, which had pledged to facilitate precisely such a coalition under Netanyahu, refused to do so. Indeed, had Liberman honored his commitment, there would have been little difficulty in forming a governing coalition.
Perversely and paradoxically
However, when the next elections came about (in September) instead of punishing the very faction that frustrated the formation of a governing coalition, the electorate chose—perversely and paradoxically—to reward it, almost doubling Yisrael Beteinu’s strength in the Knesset; commensurately increasing its ability to torpedo the formation of any future coalition—which, of course, it did.
Worse, if current polls are anything to go by, Liberman’s faction will retain more or less the same number of seats as it has today, leaving its obstructive power undiminished.
Accordingly, it would appear, that as a collective, the Israeli electorate is still resolved to sustain the ongoing political limbo—whether it is unwilling to confer the power on any elected political grouping the ability to form a viable government; or despite the fact that it is willing to do so. In other words, it appears to be persisting with collective behavior that is either dysfunctional or irrational.
No dictator to blame
Of course, Israel’s elected politicians have been sorely reproached for the prevailing fiasco. Much has been made of the cost of the repeated elections and of how many classrooms could be built, hospital beds increased, and roads upgraded with the sums required to conduct them.
This, of course, is as true as it is irrelevant. For the necessity of holding and re-holding elections is due to one thing, and one thing alone—the election results, which reflect the will of the voters.
Had they voted differently, had they not empowered the very faction responsible for preventing the formation of a duly elected government (and which they knew to be responsible therefor); had Yisrael Beteinu been punished, rather than rewarded, in September for blatantly violating its April pledges and received less votes than the required threshold to be admitted to the Knesset, the country would, in all likelihood, have had a functioning government today.
There is an important lesson to be learnt from all this on free choice and civic responsibility. It is this:
Despite its many undoubted merits, democracy has one glaring detriment. There is never a dictator to blame for the fate that befalls the people. They, and they alone, hold the key to their destiny and for whatever befalls them.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Martin Shermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Martin Sherman2019-12-13 06:11:142019-12-13 12:31:41Israel’s dysfunctional electorate?
Following the Great Recession in 2008, many economists and liberal thinkers argued that rural America would never again be an engine for economic growth.
While more folks today reside in metropolitan areas, I can tell you from firsthand experience that rural communities continue to play an integral role in job creation and our national economy. Thankfully, President Donald Trump has been steadfast in advancing pro-growth policies that help residents living in these areas of our country.
According to the Brookings Institution, “redder, smaller, more rural communities really are ‘winning’ a little more.” Brookings found that rural areas outperformed their share of the economy to generate around 16.6% of the nation’s job growth during Trump’s first year in office.
The jobs numbers are pretty clear cut. Coming out of the recession, the economic picture for rural communities was bleak at best. Residents were growing older, population was in decline, and more people were moving to metropolitan areas.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
And while the Obama administration did little to help the people in these communities, Trump has pursued a bold agenda that empowers these communities to grow and prosper. The keys to growth have been lower taxes, less burdensome regulations, and market certainty.
The results back this up, especially in manufacturing. In Trump’s first 30 months in office, manufacturing produced 314,000 more jobs than during the same period in Barack Obama’s presidency.
Manufacturing is especially important in rural communities because roughly 2.5 million manufacturing jobs exist in these areas. Many manufacturing firms are attracted to areas due to lower property taxes, operating expenses, and land prices.
At the end of the day, I realize that elites in Washington, New York, and Los Angeles aren’t going to highlight the successful policies that Trump has championed. But I can tell you that North Carolinians and folks from rural communities are thankful to have a president that listens to and fights for the American worker.
Many lawmakers in Washington come from very urban districts where the population is concentrated. I represent a district that is predominantly rural. I’ve had nearly three years to see how rural workers in manufacturing, health care, retail, textiles, and construction have benefited from Trump’s economic freedom agenda.
I will keep fighting for these policies because they represent economic hope for communities like mine.
Ted Budd is the U.S. representative for North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District. He is a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Twitter: @RepTedBudd.
With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:
Is socialism really morally sound?
The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-12-13 05:57:452019-12-13 06:03:29Trump Is Delivering Economic Wins for Rural America
As protests continue to wreak havoc in Iran with a breadth and intensity not seen since the 1978 revolution against the Shah, Tehran’s clerical rulers and their Revolutionary Guards enforcers have become increasingly desperate.
That could be seen in videos that recently surfaced of the horrific massacre of hundreds of unarmed protestors in Bandar-e Mahshahr, an oil town on the Persian Gulf near Iraq. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his top Iran advisor, Brian Hook, both condemned the regime for sheer evil of this deed, worthy of Hitler’s executioners.
So what is the regime to do? Why, blame the Americans, of course!
In every Iranian media today you will find articles and columns blaming President Trump, Secretary of State Pompeo, and yes – even me! – for fueling the protests.
Hossein Shariatmadari, the executive editor of Kayhan, a daily that is run by Iran’s intelligence ministry, is a top regime propagandist. When things go wrong for his clerical brethren, he reassures them that it’s not their fault: it’s the Americans.
Over the years, he has repeatedly identified me as the head of some secret-spooky CIA HUMINT program to assist the Iranian opposition.
I’m flattered he thinks that one person, unfunded, unsupported, with only a voice, can have such an impact. And I’m positively thrilled that he actually believes that the CIA has such a program (alas, they do not).
“Didn’t Trump officially support the protests as soon as they started? And didn’t he announce that America will meet the needs of the rioters? I say, Damn him! Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state, and Kenneth Timmerman, former CIA member and currently director of the American institute NED [National Endowment for Democracy], also acknowledged that the CIA has not only helped the Iranian rioters by providing software systems but also has delivered them hardware.”
For years, the State Department has funded software developers to provide Persian-language messaging apps and encrypted web-browsers for Iranians. That’s a matter of public record.
Early iterations of these apps were woefully deficient, and actually caused more harm than good, since Iranian statehackers were able to penetrate them and expose the Iranians who were using them.
I am guessing that the technology has gotten better since then. Why? Because the regime felt so threatened that immediately when the protests erupted in response to the gasoline price hikes on November 15, they cut off all access to the Internet nation-wide, starting with the popular Telegram app that reportedly is now used by forty million Iranians (half the entire population).
Iran’s so-called Cyber Army monitors traffic on these apps on a regular basis. And they monitor opposition news sites, especially those that have tentacles into the regime itself and expose the abject corruption of the regime’s leaders.
Iran’s intelligence services goes to great lengths to neutralize these opponents, not just by hacking their websites, which they do frequently, but by sending assassins out to kill them.
In early November, an Iranian regime assassin gunned down a cyber activist, Massood Molavi, in the streets of Istanbul, in a brazen attack caught on live video surveillance cameras. Molavi’s sin? Exposing secret documents from within the regime’s intelligence services on a Telegram channel known as “Black Box.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo referred to Molavi in a recent press conference where he blasted Iran’s clerical and military leaders for their murderous crackdown on protesters and dissident.
Just one month earlier, the regime boasted of capturing the publisher of a popular opposition news site, Ruhollah Zam, luring him from Europe to Iraq with promises of big money. After they forced him to make a televised confession, he disappeared.
But no amount of bluster, and clearly, no amount of bullets, can check the will of the Iranian people to resist the tyranny of their usurper rulers.
As I wrote in 2009, on a previous occasion when IRGC Brig. Gen. Hossein Shariatmadari and others in the state-run media in Iran tried to lay the “blame” on me and my foundation for an earlier run of nation-wide protests, I would be happy to accept such an honor, however misplaced.
However, neither I nor my board can take credit for such power or influence. As I wrote then,
“The people of Iran have shown through their courage, independence and determination that they don’t need help from anyone outside their country to get them to take to the streets. I have full confidence that they will get rid of the dictators of Tehran. Apparently, so do the regime’s leaders.”
Wonder if they’ve started fueling the Leader’s escape jet yet?
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Kenneth R. Timmermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKenneth R. Timmerman2019-12-12 09:00:342019-12-12 09:01:26Guilty! I Support the Iranian Protestors
How politically diverse is the Yale faculty today? According to an article by James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal: “0%.” He notes, “Nobody looks to the Ivy League for balanced political discourse. But a new report suggests that on at least one campus, the stifling of conservative views among faculty members is nearly complete.”
I find this 12/9/19 report fascinating because recently I have been culling through the transcript of an old radio interview a cousin sent me of William F. Buckley, Jr., who attended Yale. Buckley was my mom’s first cousin. He founded National Review and was the father of the modern conservative movement.
Buckley wrote a book exposing its liberalism back then and caused quite a stir. The book was
God and Man at Yale. The radio interview hosted by Bill Slater in 1951 is striking because it echoes today’s debates.
Buckley railed against the incongruity he saw at Yale: “the institution that derives its moral and financial support from Christian individualists and then addresses itself to the task of persuading the sons of these supporters to be atheist socialists.”
Buckley exposed the following quotes from textbooks on economics at Yale:
There is no “‘right’ of private property, and the freedom to engage in business for oneself is not a basic freedom.”
“The State must remedy the appalling inequality of income which most Americans regard as inequitable.”
“The fear that increasing the public debt can make the nation go bankrupt is almost completely fallacious.”
“To set the responsibility for attaining and maintaining full employment on the shoulders of individual consumers or individual business men is absurd.”
Some of these arguments sound exactly like what we are hearing from candidates on the Left today.
In his research, Buckley found that Yale was not alone. He included in his 1951 book an appendix that listed “hundreds of colleges using the same left-wing textbooks on economics.”
Perhaps what disturbed the young Buckley, a strong Catholic, the most was another trend he discovered at Yale: “I found that, with some exceptions, the teachers disparage Christianity—or for that matter, any belief in God—and even go so far as to play up the notion that religion is a ‘superstition.’”
The host probed Buckley as to the issue of academic freedom:
Slater: But surely the objection arises that unless all points of view are expressed in college, a student isn’t going to come out well educated.
Buckley: All points of view should be expressed—but there’s a difference between a point’s being expressed and point’s being propagandized.
Slater: Will you give us an example, please?
Buckley: Well, I am strongly in favor of presenting a course on the theory of Communism, but I am very much opposed to its being taught by a propagandist for Communism.
Slater: Well, then, Mr. Buckley, where does the time-honored search for truth come in?
Buckley: It seems to me, Mr. Slater, that educated men ought to be able to say, with respect to truth: Our convictions and our knowledge lead us to believe collectivism to be false and individualism to be truth—and we shall certainly not support or tolerate the teaching of error, at least in those schools for which we are responsible….The freedom of a group to found a school—as Yale was originally founded—to support that school, and to urge its students, for whose education they are responsible, to scorn error as they—the responsible ones—see error, and to embrace truth as they see it. [emphasis added]
In effect, argues Buckley, “academic freedom” became the avenue by which education was replaced with indoctrination. Buckley also says in the interview, “those citizens who wish to urge socialist values ought to be allowed to found and support schools dedicated to this program.” But don’t pretend (to keep the alumni support coming) that such a school is Christian and that it promotes free enterprise.
A year after Buckley’s book came out, Witness, by former Communist Whittaker Chambers was released. Chambers said of communism, “It is not new. It is, in fact, man’s second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: ‘Ye shall be as gods,’ It is the great alternative faith of mankind….The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God.”
Despite the incredible power of free enterprise for good to alleviate the misery of poverty for hundreds of millions the world over, and despite the murderous track record of the Communists (100 million-plus human beings killed by the Communists in the 20th century alone), somehow socialism/communism seems to be winning the debate in the minds and hearts of many young people in our society. They have learned these things in their colleges.
Many of them are simply echoing the kinds of unbelief in God and belief in the state that the young William F. Buckley, Jr. encountered at Yale 70 years ago. Some things never change.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Jerry Newcombe, D. Min.http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJerry Newcombe, D. Min.2019-12-12 08:46:142019-12-12 08:46:58A Timeless Warning from William F. Buckley, Jr.
Making headlines as the first mainstream hijabi model who appeared on Kanye West’s runway then again in Sports Illustrated, Halima Aden is turning heads again — this time as a headline speaker at the Reviving Islamic Spirit conference.
**Huge Announcement**
For the first time at #RIS2019 – Halima Aden @Kinglimaa!!
Taking place December 20-22, 2019 in Toronto, Canada, the choice of hijabi model Halima Aden has drawn mixed reviews from Muslims. While there’s always the group that loves the fanfare of celebrity Muslims, there is also the group of Muslims who are interested in faith for the sake of faith rather than the next fashionable identity brand (which is how some see Halima and social justice Muslims).
Why this is problematic: it tells us #Muslims to take as role models individuals whose public decisions and acts contradict the #Quran & sunnah. Can we please just stop & develop some foresight? What does #RIS2019 presume to achieve by becoming a pop cult convention? https://t.co/q75ImD13Mf
Though I don’t wear the hijab and understand that Muslim women who do wear one tend to have their own reasons for it, I can sympathize with the frustration of seeing items of faith reduced to markers of diversity or fashion, or embraced by businesses as a marketable item. On that, conservatives, traditionalists, a reformer like myself and even Islamists disinterested in social justice causes, can all agree: Stop fetishizing what some women in Islam choose to wear as part of their faith.
While I’m sure Halima Aden is a wonderful person, leaning into bringing on board celebrity Muslims to draw an audience is against what I imagine is the spirit of Islam. We should be led by our ethics and ideas, and not by how loved we are by the material world.
In the lead-up to the 2016 election, Democrats fretted openly about the possibility that Donald Trump, being a rather poor sport, might refuse to acknowledge an election loss.
To be fair, Trump refused to state that he would accept election results, depending on the circumstances: “I’ll keep you in suspense,” he stated in his Oct. 19, 2016, debate with Hillary Clinton. Clinton, for her part, called his statement “horrifying,” adding that he was harming American democracy.
Trump, of course, won. And Clinton spent the next couple of years suggesting openly that she had been robbed in the election. Democrats blamed Clinton’s election loss on Russian interference, on voter suppression, on anything but Clinton’s campaign performance.
That wasn’t a particular shock: After George W. Bush won the 2000 election, many Democrats continued to maintain that he was an illegitimate president.
The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>
And not much changed in the nearly two decades since: In 2018, Democrats insisted that Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams had actually defeated Brian Kemp, despite having lost by approximately 55,000 votes. To this day, Democratic presidential candidates repeat the lie that Kemp stole the election from Abrams.
Now in the run-up to 2020, Democrats are already suggesting that if Trump wins, the election will have been illegitimate.
This time, they’re pointing to Trump’s supposed attempt to gather information from the Ukrainian government on potential 2020 rival Joe Biden in return for release of much-needed military aid. In fact, Democrats state that if Trump is not impeached, the 2020 results will inevitably be deemed improper.
On Sunday, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., who suggested way back in 2017 that though Trump was “legally elected,” he was “not legitimate,” doubled down: “The president, based on his past performance, will do everything he can to make it not a fair election. And this is part of what gives us the urgency to proceed with this impeachment.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said last week, “The president leaves us no choice but to act because he is trying to corrupt, once again, the election for his own benefit.”
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “If you have a corrupt executive who is willing to maintain power by corrupting our election, there’s an urgency there.”
Former federal prosecutor Anne Milgram wrote in The New York Times, “Who gets to pick the next president of the United States—President Trump, Ukraine, Russia or us?”
Impeachment, then, must be used without proper evidence of a crime in order to prevent Trump from stealing the election. By this logic, any suspicion of illegitimacy in an upcoming election becomes an excuse for ousting a legitimately elected president.
This is a vicious cycle: illegitimate impeachments based on perception of illegitimate elections. And with Pelosi promising that our very civilization is at stake—a contention she made over the weekend—over the outcome of the next election, we can be sure that the pressure will continue to rise.
Things are already ugly in American politics. A republic can only be maintained when the people have faith that even if their side loses an election, that election was legitimate—and only when people believe that there is a tomorrow.
With Democrats openly claiming that they can run an end-around with the electoral process because they don’t trust the results, and stating that any future loss is evidence of corruption and a representation of the end of the country, things are about to get a lot uglier.
Ben Shapiro is host of “The Ben Shapiro Show” and editor-in-chief of DailyWire.com. He is The New York Times best-selling author of “Bullies.” He is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School, and lives with his wife and two children in Los Angeles. Twitter: @benshapiro.
With the demand for socialism at an all-time high among our young people—our future leaders and decisionmakers—the experts at Heritage stopped and asked a question that not many have asked:
Is socialism really morally sound?
The researchers at The Heritage Foundation have put together a guide to help you and our fellow Americans better understand the 9 Ways That Socialism Will Morally Bankrupt America.
They’re making this guide available to all readers of The Daily Signal for free today!
