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Here’s What the Tax Cuts Have Done for America in 2 Years

December 17, 2019/in Culture War, Economy, Policy, Politics, Regulation, Taxes/by The Daily Signal

It’s been two years this month since Congress passed and President Donald Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, providing the first major tax reform since 1986.

It was a historic overhaul that has delivered tangible benefits for our national economy.

The tax cuts lowered our federal corporate income tax rate, which was hurting American job creators’ ability to compete on a global stage. Previously at 35%, the U.S. rate was one of the highest in the developed world.

Now at 21%, it is closer to the average corporate income tax rate among developed countries, which allows U.S. companies to compete on a more level playing field.

The demand for socialism is on the rise from young Americans today. But is socialism even morally sound? Find out more now >>

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act also created innovative Opportunity Zones to provide tax incentives to boost long-term investment in historically distressed, underserved communities across our country.

Change doesn’t happen overnight, but this is an important part of a long-term effort to strengthen America’s economy and afford greater economic opportunities to all of our citizens in the decades to come.

In addition to bolstering our national economy as a whole, tax reform provided real relief for American families on a personal level. This came in the form of an increased standard deduction, as well as doubling the Child Tax Credit and expanding eligibility so more families can participate.

It also included strengthening 529 savings plans, which are one of the most commonly utilized tools for planning and saving for education expenses.

Under the old rules, families could only apply their 529 savings plans toward eligible colleges or universities. Now, thanks to tax reform, the money invested in your 529 savings plan can be used to cover qualifying expenses for private, public, or religious schools from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade.

Each of these reforms is playing a part in reenergizing our economy, one family at a time.

Consumers are highly optimistic. Richard Curtin, the chief economist at the Surveys of Consumers Attitudes, recently said consumer sentiment has been at 95 or higher in 30 of the past 35 months, according to CNBC. That’s a 20-year high.

Curtin also noted that, despite political uncertainties, “Personal spending will be energized by record favorable evaluations by consumers of their personal financial situation, with gains expected across the entire income distribution … .”

Our tax code will always be a work in progress, but this overhaul was an important step forward in updating our antiquated and overly complicated system. It also serves as a powerful reminder of what can be accomplished when we are directing our energy toward fixing real problems for the American people.

Moving forward, we must ensure these tax relief provisions are made permanent and continue our efforts to simplify and streamline the tax code.

Congressional leaders should be focusing on innovative solutions to make the system work better for American small business owners who are trying to create jobs, middle-class families trying to provide a better future for their children, and underserved communities trying to break out of generational poverty. After all, that’s what our constituents elected us to come here and do.

Unfortunately, however, under Democratic leadership, this Congress has only turned about 70 bills and resolutions into law, according to Congress.gov. In comparison, the last divided Congress, when Harry Reid controlled the Senate, was able to pass nearly 300 bills and resolutions into law between 2013 and 2014.

This is the opportunity cost of Democrats’ endless investigations and impeachment trials. It is not just about the cost of valuable time and taxpayer dollars being expended, but also about the loss of what we could otherwise be accomplishing to address real problems facing our country.

The two-year anniversary of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doesn’t just commemorate an important piece of legislation; it is also a call to Congress to get to work.

The American people hired us to be problems solvers, not circus performers. Let’s put an end to endless investigations to justify a predetermined push to impeach and focus on working to improve the lives of the people who put us here in the first place.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 proved that we can tackle an enormous challenge that had been festering for decades—and deliver real results. Now, we need to harness that energy toward the opportunities that remain to continue improving our tax code, modernizing our trade deals with agreements like the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and addressing the challenges that impact underserved communities, families, and individuals across our country on a daily basis.

Let’s not let those opportunities go to waste.

COMMENTARY BY

Rep. Brad Wenstrup

Brad Wenstrup is the U.S. representative for Ohio’s 2nd congressional district. Twitter: @RepBradWenstrup.

A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

No Gov. Northam, Your Gun Ban is NOT Constitutional

December 17, 2019/in Courts & Law, Elections, Gun Rights, Policy, Politics, Regulation/by NRA Institute for Legislative Action

As Virginia gun owners have shown their displeasure with Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s proposed attack on their rights in city and county meetings across the Old Dominion, Northam has been forced to answer questions about he and gun control financier Michael Bloomberg’s gun ban agenda. In doing so, the governor has proclaimed that he supports the Second Amendment and that his gun ban does not violate the U.S. Constitution. In truth, Northam’s proposed gun ban would violate the Second Amendment as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.

On Monday, Northam told reporters, “I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment,” adding, “I hear people out there saying that they don’t want law enforcement to enforce unconstitutional laws. Well we’re not going to propose or pass any unconstitutional laws.”

In a Wednesday meeting with reporters, Northam offered a veiled threat to sanctuary jurisdictions that have promised to not enforce unconstitutional gun laws stating, “If we have constitutional laws on the books and law enforcement officers are not enforcing those laws on the books then there are going to be some consequences…” The governor went on to say “Any law that we pass in Richmond and the 8 pieces of legislation that I put on the table back in July – they’re constitutional, so that’s not going to be an issue.”

Northam’s allies in Richmond have proposed firearm confiscation legislation that would prohibit the sale and possession of commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms like the AR-15. The governor has stated that he intends to push legislation that would ban such firearms but grandfather possession by gun owners who register their firearms with the government.

Banning commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms under either proposal is unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that governments cannot ban these firearms as they are “in common use” for lawful purposes.

Taken alone, Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in Heller is enough to dispose of Northam’s comments. In the decision, Justice Scalia made clear that the types of firearms protected by the Second Amendment include those “in common use at the time” for “lawful purposes like self-defense.”

The firearms industry has estimated that Americans own more than 17.5 million semi-automatic rifles. The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in the U.S. and therefore indisputably “in common use” and protected by the Second Amendment.

Further, in the 1994 case Staples v. United States, the Supreme Court determined that semi-automatic rifles were common. The case concerned the criminal intent requirement for a conviction for possession of an unregistered machine gun. The subject of the case had argued that he was unaware that the AR-15 in his possession had been modified for automatic fire and was not simply a legal semi-automatic AR-15. In the majority opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear that the mere possession of a converted AR-15 is not enough to infer intent sufficient for conviction, as some firearms are “so commonplace and generally available that we would not consider them to alert individuals to the likelihood of strict regulation.” Justice Thomas went on to write that most categories of guns, including semi-automatic rifles, “traditionally have been widely accepted as lawful possessions.”

All doubt as to whether the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heller and McDonald preclude bans on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms was settled in 2015. That year, Justice Scalia joined Justice Thomas in a dissent from the denial of certiorari in Friedman v. Highland Park, a case concerning a local ban on commonly-owned semi-automatic firearms.

Justice Thomas explained,

Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons.

Northam’s attempt to portray his Bloomberg-sponsored gun ban as constitutional is an absurd and transparent attempt to forestall the surging Virginia grassroots gun rights movement. Virginia’s gun owners have every reason to take defensive action against Northam and Bloomberg’s unconstitutional gun control agenda.

All Virginia gun owners must organize to fight against unconstitutional Bloomberg-backed gun control in the Old Dominion. Please contact Gov. Northam and let him know you oppose his unconstitutional gun control measures. You can contact Northam using the Governor’s Office contact form below or call his office at 804-786-2211.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Virginia Gov. Northam Seeks Gun Registration as Down Payment on Gun Confiscation

Bloomberg Bought Virginia Legislators Introduce Confiscatory Gun Ban

First Amendment Defends the Second

Pro-Gun Bill Introduced to Protect Lawful Gun Carriers from Federal-State Legal Trap

Amazon nixes positive review of ‘The Palestinian Delusion’, claims it violates its guidelines

December 17, 2019/in Economy, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

Click here to see the Amazon review rejection.

The fix is in. What in that review conceivably violates Amazon guidelines? This is clear evidence that Amazon is not a bookstore, but part of the Left-fascist cabal that is working so hard today to crush all dissent from the Leftist agenda.

Amazon is trying to ensure that as few people as possible see and read The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. Meanwhile, it remains by far the nation’s largest source for books, which makes its bias all the more insidious.

Strike a blow against the sinister Leftist establishment: if you have read The Palestinian Delusion and like it, please leave a favorable review at Amazon. If you haven’t read it, please buy a copy now. You could even buy it from Amazon, even as it is clearly trying to suppress this book: buying it from elsewhere is not going to dent this elephantine corporation’s earnings, while buying it from Amazon will show that their attempts to deep-six this book aren’t working.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Massachusetts: Muslim illegally retains classified national defense information regarding U.S. military programs

The Palestinian Delusion Demonstrates Conclusively That the Term “Palestinian” Has Been Invented

“Faith and reason are mutually reinforcing” by Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court

December 16, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Imprimis Digest

Hillsdale College held a dedication ceremony for its new Christ Chapel on October 3, 2019, during a two-day gala to celebrate the College’s 175th anniversary. The following are excerpts from the dedication address.

A video of the dedication ceremony may be viewed online at fourpillars.hillsdale.edu.

This is a very special occasion—the 175th anniversary of Hillsdale and the dedication of Christ Chapel. This beautiful Chapel is a culmination of years of generosity, planning, and hard work. And the end result is at once stunning and glorious.

The Chapel’s enduring beauty highlights the transcendence, the sovereignty, and the grace of God. It truly illustrates how architectural design can reflect the character of God and evoke a sense of reverence for His majesty.

Everyone involved in the financing, planning, and construction of this Chapel should rightly be proud. It is a magnificent accomplishment. But we’ve gathered here today not just to admire this beautiful Chapel—we have gathered here to dedicate it.

The word dedicate in this context means “to set apart and consecrate to a deity or to a sacred purpose.” To dedicate this Chapel appropriately, then, it is worthwhile to reflect on the purposes for which we are setting apart this sacred place on a college campus.

The primary purpose of a chapel is to provide a place where man can enter the presence of God. It provides a sanctuary in which man can withdraw from the chaos of our world and seek a sacred stillness. For as Elijah learned on Mount Horeb, God so often comes to us not in the storms, not in the earthquakes or fires of life, but in stillness—in a “gentle whisper.”

Accordingly, men and women have long sought respite from the noise and commotion of daily life, where they can “be still, and know that [He is] God,” where they can seek an inner calm and a transcendent peace. Beautiful chapels, such as this one, provide that sacred space for stillness, a place for an encounter with the Divine. As the architect of this Chapel has written, “When you enter a church, it is as if you are entering through a gateway from the profane toward the sacred.”

It is difficult to overstate the significance of the role that this Chapel will play in the life of Hillsdale College.

[ … ]

Although a chapel is a place for many activities, it also serves as a statement about the importance of those activities. The construction of a college chapel, in particular, is a public declaration that faith and reason are mutually reinforcing. And in 2019, the construction of a chapel is a bold act of leadership at a crucial time in our nation’s history. So I would like to underscore briefly the broader significance of the decision that Hillsdale College has made in building Christ Chapel.

Beginning in the early 1900s, many elite private colleges and universities began to face questions about the continuing relevance of religious instruction on campus. These questions would have surprised the founders of those schools, many of which were created in part for the express purpose of providing religious instruction. But as time went on and as schools moved away from their religious roots, the relevance of religion to higher education was increasingly questioned, and campus chapels, in particular, came to be viewed as relics of a bygone era.

With the completion of Christ Chapel, Hillsdale College has staked out its position in this debate, and its decision serves as an example for all of us. The construction of so grand a chapel in 2019 does not happen by accident or as an afterthought. Christ Chapel reflects the College’s conviction that a vibrant intellectual environment and a strong democratic society are fostered, not hindered, by a recognition of the Divine. Hillsdale College affirms, with the writer of Proverbs, that, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.”

By constructing this Chapel, the College upholds the continued importance of its Christian roots, even as it respects the rights of each person to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. Our country was founded on the view that a correct understanding of the nature of God and the human person is critical to preserving the liberty that we so enjoy.

John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” He recognized that the preservation of liberty is not guaranteed. Without the guardrails supplied by religious conviction, popular sovereignty can devolve into mob rule, unmoored from any conception of objective truth.

As I think about our political culture today, I am reminded of Ronald Reagan’s warning that, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it, and then hand it on to them . . . [to] do the same.”

Each generation is responsible both to itself and to succeeding generations for preserving and promoting the blessings of liberty. Faith in God, more than anything else, fuels the strength of character and self-discipline needed to discharge ably that responsibility. That is why I am so encouraged by the construction of Christ Chapel.

Hillsdale College’s Articles of Association affirm that “inestimable blessings” flow from “the prevalence of civil and religious liberty and intelligent piety in the land.” The College was founded on the belief that “the diffusion of sound learning is essential to the perpetuity of these blessings.” Thus Hillsdale College was founded on the understanding that the battle to preserve and promote freedom in our country will be waged in the hearts and minds of the people.

Rather than shrinking from the battle, Hillsdale is rising to the occasion by investing in the intellectual and spiritual development of its students, so they can provide God-honoring leadership in our country. Let it be said of them what was said of David, that he “served the counsel of God in his own generation.”

Students, faculty, administrators, and friends of Hillsdale, let this Chapel be more than just an impressive building. Let it be a place where people enter the presence of a majestic God. Let it be a house of worship, of prayer, of meditation, and of celebration before God. Let it be a haven of rest for the weary, a place of healing for the wounded, a place of comfort for the grieving, and a source of hope for the despairing and forgotten.

Let it point to a day when “the dwelling of God” will be “with men,” when God himself will “wipe away every tear” and mend every wound. Let it be a place where tomorrow’s leaders discern their callings and grow firm in their convictions. Let it stand as a bold declaration to a watching world that faith and learning are rightly understood as complements, and that both are essential to the preservation of the blessings of liberty.

Let this Chapel equip and inspire us to honor God in whatever He calls us to do. For as Saint Paul wrote in his Letter to the Romans, “From Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

May God bless each of you. May God bless Hillsdale. And may God bless this wonderful country.

VIDEO: Our Timid Intellectuals

December 16, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Bill Warner

Since the attack on the World Trade Towers we have seen many experts arise who are not professors. Why? The simple answer is that the professors are too timid to do their job and speak the truth about Islam. Others have to do their work for them.

INTEL REPORT: Anti-Iranian Protests, Turkey/Libya, Pensacola, FL plus Analysis

December 16, 2019/in National Security, Policy, Politics/by Barry Webb

ANTI-IRANIAN PROTESTS

During the weekend of 06-09 December the sin’aat al-mawt program on the Saudi-owned

al-arabiyya TV covered the Iranian interference in the demonstrations/revolts taking place in Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon. The Iranian and Iraqi dissidents interviewed for the show claim that Iran has been using its baseej personnel to physically attack demonstrators in Iran and Iraq with weapons.

The baseej is a voluntary militia force attached to, and subordinate to, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Their purpose is to enforce Iran’s religious laws, to monitor the internet and social media, help organize (and enforce) religious services, and to aid in “law enforcement,” including the breaking up of civil demonstrations. In other words, they are sort of an Iranian Shi’a Gestapo. They boast over 150,000 members and have branches in every city in Iran.

The Iranian dissidents interviewed for the sin’aat al-mawt show said that these baseej people are very religious, and their agenda is to enforce Islam. Their deployment against the demonstrators in Lebanon and Iraq, as well as Iran, are very telling in more ways than one. The media has reported that the demonstrations in Iran were simply over a rise in fuel prices. No, the rise in fuel prices was only the spark. The real reason for the demonstrations which have reached revolt status, and have taken place in over 100 cities and towns in Iran, is disgust against the regime.

That’s why the crowds are shouting “death to Khamenei,” and “down with the regime.” They would not be doing that, and they would not still be protesting in spite of the bajeej and IRGC using live rounds, including at one point machine gun fire, they would not still be protesting in the wake of over 1,000 protestors killed . . . if all they were protesting was a rise in fuel prices.

In Iraq baseej members in civilian clothes have infiltrated the protestors and have singled out apparent ring leaders upon whom they then converge and beat with Iranian-issued long, white billyclubs. Pro-Iranian Iraqi Shi’a militia called al-heshd ash-sh’abi (popular mobilization) militia have contributed live fire against the protestors resulting in over 300 deaths and over 1,000 injured in Iraq.

The Iranians have formed other plainclothes militia groups out of their IRGC which go by the names of al-za’laan, al-shebeehah, and al-mandosoun. As the host of the sin’aat al-Mawt show said, “the names proliferate, but the result remains the same: doing Iran’s bidding.”

One of the show’s interviewees complained that the Iranians are using the same techniques in the Arabic countries of Iraq and Lebanon that they used to gain control of Iran–namely these plainclothes militias to intimidate and subdue all opposition. The Original 1979 revolution against the Shah was not a “Khomeini-let’s-impose-shari’a-law” revolution at the beginning. The original demonstrators had legitimate concerns about the regime’s abuse of power, the lack of any freedom of speech, the media, and assembly, but the street thugs that Khomeini was able to unleash once the Shah was out of the way allowed the Khomeini movement to take control of the entire revolution, and quickly eliminate all opposing views. This is the struggle that is now being fought in the streets of Iraq and Lebanon.

There are reports of Iranian bajeej and other plaincloths militia also being used in Lebanon, but they are less prevalent there, however, Iran has the terrorist group hizbollah to do its dirty work there. That being said, in Lebanon, there have only been a couple of deaths and a handful of injured. The demonstrations in Lebanon are first and foremost against “Iranian hegemony” as represented by the hizbollah. The protestors are primarily Christians and Sunni Muslims. Shi’a Lebanese, even those not connected with hizbollah, are supporting hizbollah positions.

In Iraq, however, the protests so far have been entirely by the civilian Iraqi Shi’a and directed entirely against Iran and Iranian hegemony, as well as against the current Iraqi regime that is seen as a mere puppet of Iran’s. The anti-Iranian sentiment has reached the level of the crowds chanting “death to Khamenei,” “death to Iran,” and even to the level of setting fire to the Iranian consulate in the Shi’a holy city of Najaaf, Iraq–not once, not twice, but three times.

While Sunni Arabs and Sunni Kurds had initially stayed out of this conflict between the Shi’a demonstrators in Southern Iraq and the regime in Baghdad, this past weekend has seen the Arab Sunni clans in Western Iraq issue a joint statement supporting the protestors.

The protests in Iran have taken place in over 100 cities and towns, and in 20 different provinces (both Persian and non-Persian), and all strata of society has participated according to the sin’aat al-mawt participants.

ANALYSIS

While the protests in Lebanon have been primarily Sunnis and Christians vs. Shi’a, in both Iran and Iraq they have been primarily Shi’a vs. Shi’a. It is tempting to see the revolts in Iraq and Lebanon as an ethnic Arab vs. Persian thing, or even as support for the “imported from Europe” secular Nation State concept vs. the religion-based dictatorship offered by the Iranians. To be sure, some of the protestors have been quoted expressing support for the “nation state of Iraq” idea, however, I believe that at some subconscious level the protests in all three countries, Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon are against Islam itself, and not just the Iranian version of it.

While “nationalism” might explain part of the motivations for the protests in Iraq and Lebanon, it can not explain the similar protests in the Persian-speaking regions of Iran. As reported previously on this site, Mosque attendance in Iran has plummeted to 3% in some areas, and young parents are naming their children after ancient pre-Islamic Persian heroes rather than giving them Islamic names which had been the custom for nearly 14 centuries. This is an important development because Shari’a law recommends that parents name their children after the prophets (including Jesus and the old testament prophets, as well as Muhammad). So, to witness an entire population basically giving the finger to that portion of Shari’a by turning their backs on Islamic names to intentionally choose names as non-Islamic as they can find . . . is very significant.

I believe that similar sentiments have been welling up in Iraq and Lebanon, though they have not been expressed so openly. In fact, some of the protesters in Iraq have been yelling “Allahu akbar” as if to convince themselves and their opponents that they really aren’t anti-Islamic.

As support for the anti-Islam idea, we have reported previously on this site that some of the Kurds in Iraq and Syria have been leaving Islam for the older religions of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. I believe that this development must be seen in the same context as the developments in Iran where new parents are choosing non-Islamic names for their children. It is significant that all of these developments, the anti-Mullah revolts in Iran, the anti-Iran revolts in Iraq and Syria, and the Kurds turning to other religious other than Islam, are all connected, and that all began transpiring as a result of the rampages of ISIS and the expanding hegemony of Iran.

In other words, most Muslims, whether they will admit it or not, at some level the recognized the actions and behavior of ISIS as being the true Islam of Muhammad, and they recognize the actions and behavior of the Iranian Mullahs as being the mirror image of ISIS, in other words, just another manifestation of the real Islam imposed by Muhammad and the early Caliphs.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PROPHECY

From the standpoint of the Iranian regime and the Mullahs, this is a lot more than just a corrupt regime using violence to stay in power, which is the way it is being portrayed in the media. Their use of whatever means is necessary, including live rounds, is a religious necessity. Like most devout Muslims, they believe that we are living in the “Last Days” before the “Day of Judgment.” According to Islamic prophecies in the ahadeeth one of the things that must take place before that glorious day, is that the Muslims must fight the West and “break the cross” (referring to the need to destroy what’s left of western Christianity).

The Mullahs in Iran, therefore believe that Allah has chosen them to lead all Muslims in this final jihad, this final “Holy War.” One of the key steps necessary to take before they can pull that off is to complete the “Shi’a Crescent” connecting Iran with the Mediterranean on Lebanon’s coast, snuff out Saudi Arabia via Iranian pressure from the “Shi’a Crescent” and a Shi’a-controlled Yemen in the south. Controlling the “holy” sites in Arabia’s hijaz region, they could then overrun Israel from three sides at once which would unite all Muslims under their banner (Sunni Arabs as well as all Shi’a) which would set the stage for the final battle with the West.

So, you can imagine what the Mullahs of Iran are thinking as they sit there in Tehran and Qom while watching their “Shi’a Crescent” fall apart not only in the Arab countries to their west, but inside Iran itself. This is why the demonstrators are nothing more than kufaar in their minds. For the demonstrators it is a war between a desire for modernization and the nonsense of the Mullahs.

I want to revisit now the idea broached above that at some subconscious level the protesters in Iraq, Lebanon, and especially in Iran, are protesting against Islam itself (whether they can admit it to themselves or not). What is lacking is some mechanism to give these protesters the tools they need to admit their wish to break away from Islam and Shari’a law, and not just the ruling Mullahs.

It is for this reason that I have been screaming for years about the necessity of establishing a “Radio Free Europe” type program for the Middle East. I have written about that in the book listed below, and have mentioned it previously on this site as well. Such a program (which would include satellite TV as well radio broadcasts) would give these protestors (and doubters across the entire Islamic world) the tools they need to free themselves from that atavistic ideology that has kept them chained to backwardness, violence, and dictatorships).

Such a program would also undermine the Mullahs supporters’ belief in the “Last Days” and in the Mullahs’ right to lead all Muslims in the great fight against the west. It would also undermine the ideologies behind the Sunni terrorism exhibited by al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and similar groups, since Sunni terrrorism and the jihadi urge is fueled by much the same prophecies that are driving the Iranian Mullahs.

The inability of western “intelligence experts” to understand these issues is why we have to keep fighting the same wars over and over again.

TURKEY/LIBYA

As reported previously on this site, Turkey’s recent signing of a maritime treaty with the so-called government of Tripoli, Libya has generated lots of consternation among neighboring countries such as Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Greece–not to mention the competing power in Libya led by General Khalifa Haftar.

Well, I’ve got news for these people. It’s only going to get worse. Arabic media outlets are reporting that Turkey has just announced that among the agreements Turkey has signed with “Libya” is the right to send in regular Turkish forces should Tripoli request such military help.

ANALYSIS

Up to this point, the terror-supporting nations of Turkey, Qatar, and to a lesser extent, Iran, have been offering only “superficial” aide, meaning such things as money and weapons, and Turkish operation of drones launched from Turkish ships off the coast. Meanwhile, the other side has been receiving “superficial” aide from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, France, and more recently Russia.

Therefore, the prospect of Turkey actually landing regular army troops on Libyan soil to fight alongside the Muslim Brotherhood government of Fayez Sirraaj would represent a dangerous new phase in the Libyan civil war, one that could lead to a wider Middle East.

Mediterranean war drawing in the great powers from outside the region.

Turkey could be gamboling that its strong stance on Libya will scare Russia, the UAE, and the others off leaving it free to include Libya as a new vassal state to its nascent Neo-Ottoman Empire. You see, the current ruling party in Turkey, the AKP, is a clone of the Muslim Brotherhood, and they are driven by the same Islamic prophecies and jihad ideology as are the Iranian Mullahs, and the Sunni terror groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

In the mind of Erdogan, and his supporters, Turkey must reconstitute the Ottoman Empire Caliphate before the next step of destroying the West can take place. Our political, military, and intel leaders in the DC area are totally oblivious to these facts, which is why they consistently misplay the Turkish card–to the extent of even selling them weapons, much less kicking them out of NATO as should have been done at least a decade ago.

PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

The terrorist attack at the U.S. Naval Air Station in Florida this past week was also a direct result of an officially imposed ignorance about who our real enemies are. Failure to vet Muslims based on their level of devoutness has led to the deaths of Americans on an American military base on American soil–just as it did on Ft. Hood decade ago, and on numerous terrorist attacks both before and since Ft. Hood.

The media and the authorities will insist that the Pensacola shooter acted alone. In fact the media, including FOX news, is proclaiming that the motivation was a comment one of the shooter’s instructors had uttered six months previously! If that were true, the shooter would have done his act six months ago, and would have killed only that particular instructor. Absolute nonsense.

The mass shooting conducted by the shooter was a jihad act, he was doing his duty to Allah. He was earning his one way express ticket to paradise where his “porn stash” fantasy would become a licentious reality.

The night prior to the attack, the shooter and a number of his Saudi colleagues were watching “massacre videos.” What kind of mass shootings, the media has of course never said, but you can bet that these were clips of ISIS massacres, these were jihad Allahu akbar videos. This, to get them all pumped up for the big day of serving Allah. Then, as the shooting was taking place, witnesses noticed three other Saudis filming the event, a common tactic by ISIS.

To put icing on the cake, a few days after the shooting much of the city of Pensacola was shut down by a cyber attack. Anyone wanna bet this entire operation could not be a trial run for a larger operation later? Perhaps a 9/11-type event in conjunction with a more massive power outage? Perhaps combined with ambushes of emergency responders in order to create more chaos and havoc?

Bottom line: Until our political, military, and intel leaders are willing to indentify the enemy correctly, and to take appropriate actions at the ideological, propaganda, educational, and legal levels, Americans will continue to be slaughtered on American soil.

CAIR Leads Fight for ‘Right’ of Universities to Promote Anti-Semitism

December 16, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, Elections, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Clarion Project

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is leading the fight for the “right” for universities who receive government funds to promote anti-Semitism.

CAIR’s fight is against the announcement by President Trump last week to expand Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to include protection against discrimination based on religion.

Title VI currently prohibits institutions from receiving federal funds if they discriminate on the basis of race, color or national origin.

The expansion of Title VI comes at a time when Jewish students on U.S. college campuses are facing widespread anti-Semitism — and violence, at times — due to extreme actions being taken by supporters of the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) movement against the state of Israel.

According to the definition of anti-Semitism adopted by the U.S. State Department and 31 other countries, the BDS movement is anti-Semitic because it holds Israel to a different standard than that required of other countries.

CAIR promotes anti-Semitism by being huge supporters of the BDS movement. Linda Sarsour, Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are also outspoken proponents of the BDS movement .

In announcing their opposition to the executive order, CAIR disingenuously framed the issue as a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech. They called the executive order an attempt “to suppress academic freedom.”

Ironically, CAIR just recently called on Amazon, Audible and Kindle, Amazon, Google Play Books, AudioBooks, and Barnes and Noble “to remove all white supremacist and pro-confederate digital audio books and related social media ads.”

CAIR obviously has no problem stifling “First Amendments rights” in these above cases since they fit the organization’s Islamist agenda.

In April, CAIR voiced its opposition to the proposed “Anti-Semitism Awareness Act of 2019” in Congress.

The act directs the Department of Education to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, which has been officially adopted by the U.S. State Department and 31 other nations, including the UK, Germany and other European nations.

The definition addresses traditional and current forms of anti-Semitism, specifically labeling as anti-Semitism anything that “[applies] double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of by any other democratic nation [in the world].”

Accordingly, the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement is by definition anti-Semitic, since there are at least 100 land disputes across the globe that are not subject to “BDS” movements.

CAIR’s leaders are heavily invested in supporting the BDS movement, particularly across college campuses in the U.S. The BDS movement aims to strangle the Jewish state economically while at the same time calls for the flooding of Palestinians into Israel to destroy the Jewish character of the state.

While the BDS movement purports to be about Palestinian rights, voices in support of BDS have been deafeningly silent about the horrific abuse of Palestinians who moved decades ago to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon during the Arab states’ war with Israel in 1948.

On a state level, CAIR has been busy bringing law suits against individual states who have passed anti-BDS legislation.

Trump’s announcement of the executive order came on the same day as a deadly anti-Semitic attack that left four victims dead in New Jersey.

Since then, a synagogue in Los Angeles was vanadalized over the weekend by what police believe was a “lone male suspect.” Although the police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, they said they found “no overt sign of anti-Semitism.”

(It is likely that the LAPD would also find no “no overt sign of anti-Semitism” in CAIR’s opposition to an executive order which forbids discrimination of Jews.)

Meanwhile, it is also likely that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) will join with CAIR in advocating for the right to receive government funding while promoting anti-Semitism.

AOC recently shared a video promoting British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn ahead of last week’s UK elections. Corbyn and his party have been engaged in virulent and shameless anti-Semitism for years. They were soundly defeated in the election by a landslide, with many districts voting against Labour for the first time since 1935.

In fact, the election was, to a large part, a referendum against Corbyn’s overt promotion of anti-Semitism.

“This video is about the UK, but it might as well have been produced about the United States,” says AOC who urged British voters to vote for the Labour party.

HOLY S**T AOC OFFICIALLY ENDORSES JEREMY CORBYN pic.twitter.com/0F1VZYyIlv

— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) December 12, 2019

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Some Trump Defenders Seek Senate Testimony From Hunter Biden, Adam Schiff

December 16, 2019/in Courts & Law, Culture War, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

House Republicans sought to get a minority hearing to call their own witnesses during the impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump, as was done in previous such processes. House Democrats, in the majority, rejected the proposal.

That’s among the reasons many in the GOP were disappointed when Senate Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Channel that the Senate impeachment trial—if there is one—should be short and not include witnesses.

Graham said Thursday that he doesn’t “want to give it legitimacy” because Democrats’ case against Trump is “a crock.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night: “My hope is that it will be a shorter process rather than a lengthy process.”

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House Republicans said they wanted to hear testimony from potential witnesses such as Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden; Alexandra Chalupa, a former Democratic operative with reported Ukraine ties; and the whistleblower whose complaint set in motion the impeachment investigation over Trump’s July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

According to an official White House transcript, Trump and Zelenskyy briefly discussed Trump’s interest in Ukraine’s investigating its own possible interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the younger Biden’s lucrative employment by a Ukraine energy company while his father was President Barack Obama’s point man on Ukraine policy.

“It has been a phenomenal and frankly frightening display of injustice that the Democrats have been allowed to have. So the motion to recommit was to say, ‘Let us have a minority hearing.’ Every Democrat voted against it,” Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., told The Daily Signal.

“So, they are voting against their own rules. The Democrats have just railroaded this thing through,” Hice said.

The House Judiciary Committee, in two 23-17 votes Friday morning along party lines, approved impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress against Trump, setting up a full House vote as early as Wednesday.

Noting the reported coordination between House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff’s office and the whistleblower in the case, Hice said he thinks the California Democrat also should answer questions if there is a Senate trial.

“When it goes to the Senate, assuming it’s going there for a trial, at that point the president should have the right to have input as to who needs to be called to testify under oath,” Hice said. “I would think under that context that individuals like Hunter Biden, the whistleblower, a host of others [would appear], I would like to even see Adam Schiff.”

Regarding Schiff, Hice said:

He is the architect behind all of this. He ought to give testimony under oath. How did all this get started? What kind of coordination did he and his staff and the whistleblower have? These are all pertinent witnesses that have yet to be brought forth for testimony. I would like to see that sort of thing happen.

Now that the Judiciary Committee has adopted two articles of impeachment, a simple House majority is all that is required to send the charges to the Senate for a trial.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, one of two Democrats who voted against opening the impeachment inquiry, is expected to change parties and become a Republican after he met Friday with Trump. (The only other “no” vote Oct. 31 among Democrats was Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, but party leaders expect others among 31 Democrats in districts won by Trump in 2016 to vote “no” on impeaching him.)

After the House committee’s votes Friday, Trump seemed open to either a short trial or a longer one with more witnesses.

“I’ll do whatever they want to do,” Trump said, referring to McConnell and the rest of the Senate’s Republican leadership:

It doesn’t matter. I wouldn’t mind a long process because I’d like to see the whistleblower, who is a fraud. The whistleblower wrote a false report and I really blew it up when I released the transcript of the call. Then, Schiff gets up and he–I blew him up too. He made a statement in front of Congress that was totally false. Then, a long time after he made it, when he got caught, he said, ‘Oh, well, that was a parody.’

In the Senate impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999, Republican House managers did not hear live testimony on the House floor, but showed three video depositions to the full Senate.

Asked whether Trump would be disappointed if the Senate did not attempt to hear from Hunter Biden and others, presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said he is looking for a fair process.

“The president is confident he will get a full and fair true trial that Americans can relate [to], rather than whatever this has been, this multilayered process in the House that is unserious and was executed upon in a very unserious way,” Conway said Friday in response to a question from The Daily Signal during a press briefing.

“It was very difficult to follow, and I’m admitted to practice law in four jurisdictions,” she said. “I couldn’t follow it at all because it didn’t resemble any legal proceeding that any of us had ever witnessed.”

In response to another question, Conway agreed that Schiff should testify.

“I hope he [Schiff] is practicing, because he is a fact witness,” Conway said. “He ought to testify in front of the Senate. Everybody named Biden should too.”

She said that if the Senate trial is “organized” and “focused,” then it’s possible to hear depositions or testimony from fact witnesses and still have a short process.

But bringing forth witnesses could be problematic, said Thomas Jipping, a former chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee who was involved in two impeachment trials of federal judges.

“There has been some criticism that the House launched an illegitimate impeachment,” Jipping, now deputy director of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal. “So, the Senate would be reluctant to have complicating factors.”

Jipping added: “One reason the Republican Senate majority is reluctant to go down that path is that they want to get this over with.”

The Senate could force Hunter Biden and others to testify or face prosecution for contempt of Congress, said former independent counsel Robert Ray, who was involved in the investigation that led to Clinton’s impeachment.

“The Senate has the power to compel witnesses. So, subpoenas would be enforceable. Contempt of Congress is illegal. I don’t know that they have the votes, as a political question,” Ray told The Daily Signal.

Although the president’s side likely would win, a Senate subpoena could be fought in court by Biden and others before being enforced, which could drag out the trial.

“It would take time to be adjudicated in court,” Ray said. “So the political question is, why prolong the agony? Both parties have budgeted the month of January. The president says he wants his day in court, but does he really want a long process?”

This article has been updated to include Van Drew’s expected party switch.

COLUMN BY

Fred Lucas

Fred Lucas is the White House correspondent for The Daily Signal and co-host of “The Right Side of History” podcast. Lucas is also the author of “Tainted by Suspicion: The Secret Deals and Electoral Chaos of Disputed Presidential Elections.” Send an email to Fred. Twitter: @FredLucasWH.

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A Note for our Readers:

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!

GET YOUR FREE COPY NOW! >>

Media Watchdog Exposes ‘Fake News’ With Citizen Activism, Investigative Journalism

December 16, 2019/in Elections, Must Read, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Signal

Accuracy in Media recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. Founded in 1969 by Reed Irvine to combat liberal media bias, the organization has a new leader. Adam Guillette spoke to The Daily Signal about his plans for Accuracy in Media, the threat of “fake news,” and the media’s relentless attacks on President Donald Trump. Listen to the podcast or read a lightly edited transcript below.

Rob Bluey: Your organization has been around from the start of the conservative movement, and you are doing some really transformational things. So I want to delve into a couple of those. But before we begin, share with us the mission of Accuracy in Media and what it is you do.

Adam Guillette: Reed Irvine founded our organization in 1969 because that was a time where you had Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, lying to Americans about what was happening in the Vietnam War. So he set out to use a combination of citizen activism and investigative journalism to create a healthy skepticism of the media. And when he passed away just over a decade ago, The New York Times credited, or blamed, depending on how you view it, blamed him with creating skepticism toward the media today.

Bluey: And of course, it was also just five years after Barry Goldwater had made his run for president, so pre-Ronald Reagan and a lot of the figures that modern conservatives really identify with. You were at the vanguard back then to do the type of work that you were doing.

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Guillette: That’s exactly right. They were doing investigative journalism before it was cool. They were the hipsters of investigative journalism. They were taking on media bias using citizen activism before the internet. Before you could send out an action alert and get all of your followers to email this person or email this congressman, they would mail postcards to their supporters and say, “Fill this out, send it to the address on there, and tell them what you think about that article in the paper.”

They were doing brilliant stuff at a much more difficult time when there was no real precedent for how to do it or how do you go about exposing media bias. They were making it up as they went along and they did it very well.

Bluey: So you just celebrated this 50th anniversary in Washington. You’re new to the organization as its leader. Tell us about where you want to see and take the organization in the future.

Guillette: I want to bring back our great history of investigative journalism. I think moral outrage is the most powerful force in all of politics and nothing elicits moral outrage better than hidden camera, undercover investigative journalism.

And it is a target-rich environment. There are so many folks in the media and outside the media that should be exposed. There are some incredibly powerful targets in the media that nobody really talks about. People complain about Rachel Maddow or they complain about The New York Times. Most of the people watching MSNBC already are of that political persuasion.

I’m more worried about the influence from sites like Now This and BuzzFeed. People signed up for Now This on Facebook because of puppy videos. Who doesn’t like puppy videos? Fast forward a couple of years, they have 10 million followers and they start putting out news that’s so biased that CNN calls them out for it, and they’re reaching easily influenced young people who signed up for puppy videos and sharing propaganda with them on a daily basis. That’s dangerous.

Bluey: It’s really remarkable to see the growth of some of these sites. If you’re a parent or somebody who doesn’t necessarily keep tabs on what the millennial generation or Gen Z is following, that’s how they are consuming their news. They’re not getting it through the evening newscast or the newspaper. They are turning to sites and platforms like Snapchat and Twitter to consume that news and information.

I want to go back to the investigative reporting piece of it, because you previously were at Project Veritas, so you obviously have some knowledge and experience doing those undercover investigations. Talk to us about how that experience shaped your view and why you think that it’s so important to pursue at Accuracy in Media.

Guillette: I’ve really come to the conclusion that politics is so much more determined by emotion than by fact and logic, for better and for worse. We would argue for worse.

And we can either sit around and bemoan the fact that political voters don’t make their decisions logically and largely make them emotionally, or we can embrace the fact that human beings are creatures of emotion. They make decisions emotionally and then search for logic and facts to back them up.

The most effective method of persuasion is leading with emotion and backing it up with facts. The left, they’re masters at emotion. We resign ourselves to facts and statistics and put people to sleep.

Say we’re debating Obamacare. We’ll stack up all the facts and statistics and prove that it’s a bad idea. And someone might say, “OK, I kind of agree.” The left comes in and says, “Well, what about that single mother over there?” And just like that the battle has been lost.

So one thing I learned at Veritas and previously at the Moving Picture Institute is that when you use emotional arguments to draw people in, that gets them to understand how much you care and that gets them to care, and then you can use your facts and logic and statistics to back up your argument and say, “This isn’t anecdotal. In fact, X, Y, and Z.”

I think it’s a great one-two punch that our entire movement could be utilizing. It’s a much better way to get people to pay attention to policy papers and graphs and statistics and so forth when you lead with the emotional arguments that investigative journalism can bring forth.

Bluey: Adam, I wholeheartedly agree. I hear it often from our president at The Heritage Foundation, Kay Coles James. It’s one of the reasons we started The Daily Signal five years ago was to do a better job of exactly what you’re describing.

It is challenging for conservatives because we too often want to resort right to the facts and the data and the numbers, but those stories are so powerful and can be incredibly helpful in terms of convincing people and persuading them that our solutions really are going to lead to a better life for all Americans.

Guillette: That’s right, and that we’re not just calculated pencil pushers, obsessed with numbers, that we actually care about individuals, that we actually care about you and so forth, and the kind of stuff you’re talking about is what most effectively accomplishes that.

Bluey: Tell us how somebody could go about finding the work that you’re doing as you’re producing this investigative reporting. Where do they go to find it?

Guillette: The website is AIM.org. We’re also on all the social media channels and we literally just relaunched a couple of weeks ago, and we’re working right now to hire investigative journalists and to build a small cadre or small army of them out there working on a variety of fronts in a variety of states.

I can’t specifically name too many of our targets right now, but it is an incredibly target-rich environment that we face. Our movement could use umpteen organizations doing investigative journalism to bring our ideas to light, to expose morally outrageous behavior, and I’m excited for what we’re going to accomplish next year.

Bluey: Prior to The Daily Signal launching, we had an investigative reporting team here at The Heritage Foundation, so that was a precursor to what eventually became The Daily Signal. I admire you. It’s hard work. It’s not easy. It takes time and a lot of effort on the part of journalists who are pursuing investigative reporting. But I give you credit for doing it.

You mentioned social media just a moment ago. It is increasingly difficult for conservatives, it seems, to get their message out using the social media platforms. We have heard all sorts of debates recently about whether or not companies are going to ban political advertising and whether or not algorithms are biased against conservatives. I wanted to give you an opportunity to weigh in on what you think the current state of affairs is with some of these social media platforms.

Guillette: Now, we’re certainly dealing with tremendous difficulties with sites like Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was caught shadow banning. They said they were trying to block Russian bots from taking over their site. When asked what terms they use to flag a Russian bot, they said, “Well, people are tweeting about God, guns, American flag emoji. Then you know it’s a bot.”

These are the people that we’re dealing with, people who think that if you’ve got an American flag emoji, you’re obviously a Russian bot because somebody living in Silicon Valley never confronted anyone in their life who would use an American flag emoji in a non-ironic sense. So that absolutely is a challenge.

I would say we’ve got a lot of self-inflicted wounds with social media as well. We’re very often happy to be in our own echo chamber and share stuff that’s really only of interest to people who share our beliefs. We’ll endlessly virtue signal about pro-life causes as if we’re going to save one baby with every like and five babies with every share, ignoring the fact that everyone in my social network [is] already pro-life. I think that’s a big problem with it.

Other times organizations within our movement create content that really are only appealing to our echo chamber, only appealing to our supporters and aren’t necessarily of interest to the easily persuadable 19-year-olds.

It’s a challenge, because if you’ve got to pitch something to a financial supporter of your organization, it’s got to appeal to them, but obviously what’s going to appeal to a 65-year-old may not be as appealing to a 19-year-old. And I think we can more better balance that and make sure that the content we create in social is going after that actual audience.

Bluey: You’ve had experience doing it even before coming to Accuracy in Media at Project Veritas and the Moving Picture Institute. What advice do you have for people who might be active on social media? How can they do a better job of breaking out of those echo chambers?

Guillette: It’s just like if you’re giving a speech to an audience. The thing is know your audience. Who are you going after? Speaking their language. If your audience only spoke French, you would at the very least have subtitles. But so frequently we’ll create content that really is only appealing to our group, and it’s understandable because it’s so rare to see content for us.

There’s you guys, there’s some others out there, but if I turn on TV, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing point of view offering comedy. If I turn on a network show, odds are it’s going to be a left-wing storyline subtly being put through.

So I can understand why people are so excited to make content that’s specifically for us. But if we seek to persuade, if we don’t just seek to motivate the base, the goal should be knowing your audience and trying to actually persuade them and speaking in a language that they speak in.

A lot of times, we’ll see videos created that are incredibly long on our side and incredibly fact-based. Well, if you have a 12-minute video and consistently people are clicking away on YouTube after two minutes, YouTube is going to down-rank your video like crazy and you’ll sit there and say, “Well, those jerks are biased against conservatives. Those jerks.”

Well, no, it’s because YouTube wants you to watch videos for the rest of your life. They’d like you to watch one video until it ends, then another, then another, and if people are clicking away two minutes into your video, they don’t want people to see your video. It’s your own darn fault. Our side needs to embrace more effective tactics on YouTube and on Facebook and Twitter.

Bluey: That’s so true. I had an opportunity earlier this year to attend the Social Media Summit that President [Donald] Trump hosted at the White House, and I believe he either was asked or he referenced the fact that some people say, “You wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for social media.” He says he would be president regardless.

I have my own doubts. Social media definitely gave him a direct line of communication to the American people. He’s still using it, obviously, with Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on a daily basis. I think it’s so important that conservatives leverage that opportunity.

For years we complained about the media serving as a filter and not letting through the information that we were trying to get out there to more and more Americans. I think that’s one of the reasons you do hear concerns about some of the social media companies today is that they don’t want to see information restricted or limited, but you have to create effective content that people want to consume as well.

Guillette: That’s exactly right. Certainly there’s bias against conservatives. Certainly the power they have is incredibly dangerous.

We often talk about Eisenhower’s farewell address and how he warned about the military-industrial complex. In that same speech, he warned about the dangers of a technological elite that could take over our nation without us even realizing it. That danger exists with Google and with Facebook and with Twitter. Google can redefine words like they did with fascism without you even realizing it.

Three years ago, Google, to fight fascism, left-wing ideology, which it is, as soon as Trump started getting called a fascist, they redefined the term as a right-wing ideology. What a dangerous power.

Similarly, Facebook, they know your political inclinations. They can make it so on Election Day if you’re of a political inclination they like, they’ve got banners on the top saying, “Vote today, vote today, vote today,” and if they disagree with your beliefs, those banners ain’t there. That’s a tremendous power they’ve got.

But the first thing we need to focus on, no self-inflicted wounds. Let’s at least use them as effectively as we can.

Bluey: [Facebook founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg gave a big speech here in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University where he talked about the benefits of free speech and why he wanted to keep Facebook as open to different points of view as possible.

He came under some fire for that from those on the left, which, it seems that they don’t necessarily agree with that instinct that we should have a freedom to speak our minds.

Do you think that he’s sincere in those remarks? Do you think Facebook is trying to position itself differently from some of those other social media platforms? Or is this just lip service?

Guillette: Even if he’s fully sincere—let’s assume that—he doesn’t have control over every bit of his organization every day, as Project Veritas exposed. There were folks inside the organization who were demonetizing and down-ranking people endlessly, just as we saw on Twitter. So it’s more to the company than Mark Zuckerberg. He’s not the only one there.

And what we need to do is first use these platforms properly, and second, if we find legitimate instances that we can prove of them being biased, let’s expose that again and again and again and create that outrage amongst the American people as a whole that will cause them to reform their ways.

They’re always going to have a cranky, loud leftist majority that they probably go to cocktail hours with every Thursday afternoon that is going to have their ear telling them that they should be blocking hate speech and we’ve got to be aware of that and we have to counterbalance it with a majority in America of people who think that it should be a platform for all viewpoints and those folks putting pressure on Facebook from the other side.

Bluey: And I might be remiss if I didn’t ask you about President Trump, who we’ve talked about, and somebody who has used the term “fake news.” He’s constantly criticizing the media as being biased against him despite the tremendous economic success he’s had in this country leading it as the president. What are your thoughts on the traditional media, the national news media’s coverage of him, particularly as we head into an election year?

Guillette: As we’ve even seen that The New York Times, Project Veritas exposed, they’re all chasing the Trump bump. It’s an era of declining clicks, declining subscribership, and so forth. So they’ve given up objective journalism and instead are writing any kind of anti-Trump content they can because they know there’s a rabid base of people who want to read that content and it’ll sell.

It’s almost as if they’re writing fan fiction in their newspapers and on their websites because that’s of interest to that base of subscribers. That’s morally outrageous. Don’t pretend to be a journalist. The greatest threat to real news is fake news. These folks say that attacking the news is a threat to our democracy. Their fake news is a threat to our republic. It’s morally outrageous.

Bluey: Adam, the other thing that I associate with that are polls indicating the trust in media and journalists appears to be at record lows. Increasingly, it seems that the American people are looking for alternative sources, probably places like Accuracy in Media and The Daily Signal, because they have lost trust in other media platforms.

What is it that you’re going to do at Accuracy in Media to make sure that you are on the same level and breaking through and having success as a New York Times or Washington Post or a big TV network?

Guillette: We’re going to confirm suspicions. We are going to expose bias. We’re going to catch people engaged in morally outrageous behavior and maintain a healthy skepticism. And I think when these folks get exposed again and again and again, it’ll cause some people to reform their ways.

We’ve got a profession now where it’s much like contractors or trial lawyers or politicians. The few remaining good journalists are going to want to be in a position where they say, “These folks have given me a bad name,” and they’ll start to speak out against the fake news going on out there.

Bluey: Adam, as we wrap up here, anything else you’d like our audience to know about the work you’re doing at Accuracy in Media and your new leadership of the organization?

Guillette: Sure. Follow us on all of our social media platforms at @AccuracyInMedia. One thing we’re launching in the beginning of next year is we’re going to be working with conservative social media influencers to expose influencers and celebrities and reporters sharing fake news online.

I think there are so many celebrities out there who are far more influential with news than any journalist that we would talk about because if you’re a young person, you’re not following Rachel Maddow and Twitter unless you’re a leftist, but you might be following Jaden Smith or Justin Bieber and they’ll be incredibly influential when they share fake news.

We’re building an army of folks who will activate as soon as we see that sort of thing being shared and respond to it, not in a tribal, divisive manner saying, “You blankety blank, sharing fake news.” But rather when George Takei shared the photos of kids in cages on the border, [of] immigrant children, and said, “Darn you Trump for doing this,” people responded and said, “Appreciate your concern about kids on the border. That photo’s from the Obama administration.” And to his credit, Takei corrected the record and apologized.

I think if we can replicate that again and again and again and say to these celebrities and to these influencers, “Listen, I appreciate your concern in X issue, but what you shared was wrong,” people will either be more hesitant to share fake news because they don’t want to get called out and look like a fool or they’ll start actually checking the facts before they get out there and they’ll apologize when they screw it up.

Bluey: And we can certainly hope that this is successful because I can tell you that I still hear repeated to this day the claim about President Trump and cages.

You can even have an apology, but because of the cultural influence and the way that news spreads, sometimes that message doesn’t ever filter back to the people who saw the original post. So it’s really important that you’re doing this project.

I’d also say culture, as Andrew Breitbart always said, is upstream from politics. These cultural figures and celebrities are oftentimes the ones at the forefront and the politicians are the ones lagging behind.

Guillette: Politicians are followers, not leaders. They follow the polls, they follow the celebrities, they follow the money. These folks in the culture have a much greater influence over our nation than a Rachel Maddow or even a Sean Hannity does. Although those people have tremendous value for what they do, they’re not as much reaching undecided folks and easily persuaded young people as these celebrities are.

Bluey: Adam Guillette, thanks so much for joining The Daily Signal. Congratulations on your new role at Accuracy in Media. We wish you the best.

Guillette: Thank you so very much for having me.

COLUMN BY

Rob Bluey

Rob Bluey is executive editor of The Daily Signal, the multimedia news organization of The Heritage Foundation. Send an email to Rob. Twitter: @RobertBluey.

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Jew Hate

December 16, 2019/in Culture War, Policy, Politics, Religion, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Joan Swirsky

There is nothing new about the fanatical hatred of Jews that we see playing out in today’s world––literally a pandemic of anti-Semitism which echoes the fear and loathing that gave rise to the over-4,000-year history of the Inquisition, the Crusades, centuries of pogroms, the expulsion of Jews from country after country, and the Holocaust of the 20th century in which six-million Jews were savagely incinerated in the crematoria of Hitler’s Germany as the entire world––including U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt––looked on and did nothing!

Plus ça change and all that. But it’s not exactly true that things have remained the same. Today, the staggering power of technology makes the spread of Jew Hate all the more rapid, powerful and lethal.

In America, while blacks, Muslims, feminists, single mothers, immigrants, the global-warming fetishists, college graduates in debt for their exorbitant-but-meaningless “educations” and minorities of every stripe all bleat endlessly about being victims of this or that indignity, slight, “unfairness,” historical insult or crime, the Annual Report on Hate Crimes released by the Uniform Crime Reporting Program of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) show that, by far, it is the world’s tiny population of Jews––15 million in a world of nearly eight billion––who experience the most bias, hatred, assaults, blatant racism and hate crimes.

I purposefully have not included the 2018 statistics from the global study on anti-Semitism by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), whose director, Jonathan Greenblatt, worked for three far-left regimes––the Clinton administration, the Obama fiasco, and the George Soros-funded Aspen Institute, and who has been accused by the founder and president of Americans for Peace & Tolerance, Dr. Charles Jacobs, of actively deceiving the American Jewish community about polling around the world that shows Islamic Jew hatred tops all others by a significantly wide margin.

“To stay anchored in the left,” explains Dr. Jacobs, “the ADL has had no choice but to bury its findings about Muslim anti-Semitism…prioritizing the protection of American Muslims over the protection of American Jews.”

Writer Isi Liebler elaborates at length on this premise, calling the ADL “a radical extension of the Democratic Party” that refuses to fight the Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement––declared anti-Semitic by the American government––because the ADL actively supports the Marxist anti-Semitic group Black Lives Matter, which “incorporates anti-Israel passages in its platform and campaigns against anti-boycott legislation.”

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE

But we don’t need skewed polls from the ADL to know what is happening to innocent Jews both here and abroad.

All you have to do is to read the daily exposés on Jew hatred around the world and in America that Pamela Geller has been documenting for almost 20 years at https://gellerreport.com. ––definitely subscribe to this powerful site. Here, a small sample of typical headlines:

And in other venues:

Panel: Judge who shared ‘get the f**k over the Holocaust’ link not anti-Semitic.
European Court of “Justice” condemns Israeli winemakers in Judea and
Samaria but not Iran for nuclear violations.
The esteemed Gatestone Institute‘s Denis MacEoin writes about A “Guide” to the Israeli-“Palestinian” Conflict by the United Church of Christ which leaves “no room in it for a Jewish, Israeli or moderate Christian voice; just hatred of Israel…”
The European Union openly declares war on the Jews.
Amnesty International Teams with Radicals to Blast Israel.
Shock as Merkel Donates Half a Billion Dollars in Aid to Palestinian President, Paying Terrorists to Kill Jews.
Jewish cemetery in France vandalized, over 100 graves desecrated.

ON CAMPUSES

Again, the headlines say it all:

The 40 worst colleges for Jewish students, according to the Algeimener.com online newspaper, include, among others at which rampant anti-Semitism flourishes––largely with impunity: Vassar College, U of Chicago, U of California LA, U of Washington (Seattle), New York University, Oberlin College, U of California Berkeley, Brown U, Brooklyn College, U of California Irvine, San Diego State U, Stanford U, Northwestern U, U of Michigan Ann Arbor, Tufts U, U of California Santa Cruz, Hunter College (NY), U of Mass Amherst, Rutgers U, U of California Davis, Ohio State U, Wesleyan U, U of North Carolina, Harvard U, U of Texas Austin, Swarthmore College, Georgetown U, Syracuse U, U of Wisconsin Madison.

According to author, editor and blogger Ruth S. King in Tenured Cowards, “The craven indifference of academic elites to the anti-Semitism that threatens Jewish students…is reminiscent of the purges of Jewish professors and students in the darkening days following Kristallnacht in November of 1938”

Today, she continues, professors “…worry about every minority right except for the right of Jews to live in safety everywhere, including on their own campuses. These cowards, particularly Jewish professors––who preen and strut in narcissistic self-hatred––have turned their back on Jews and Israel. They will be the first to be shocked when the rising tide of international anti-Semitism comes lapping at their heels, and their cronies and friends abandon them as they have abandoned principles and decency.”

Among the vilest and most anti-Semitic groups at Harvard, Columbia and campuses across the country is Students for Justice in Palestine. By the way, will someone please tell me where on any map or Atlas in the entire world Palestine exists?

Yoo Hoo, Jewish alumni! Are you still donating to these schools? Paying them to “educate” your children. Well…stop! Let them know that their desire to extinguish Jews and annihilate Israel is the reason they will not receive another cent from you! Money Talks!

Clearly, the Arab strategy over the past many decades of spending multimillions of dollars endowing hundreds if not thousands of Chairs at colleges and universities throughout America––and especially in the D.C. area and other seats of powers, has given them total control over their preferred anti-Jewish and anti-Israel curricula, the better to contaminate the minds of students and influence America’s foreign policy vis-à-vis the historically anti-Semitic U.S. State Department.

For the first time since Israel was founded in 1948, we have a State Department under Sec. of State Mike Pompeo that is not blatantly anti-Semitic! Moreover, President Trump has just issued an Executive Order that deems discrimination against Jews on U.S. campuses to be a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and mandates that both colleges and universities lose federal funding if they fail to combat discrimination against Jewish students.

Of course, leftists everywhere––with Democrats leading the pack––object, which is absolutely no surprise as the Democrat Party is now the Official Party of Jew Hatred.

Do sane, moderate Democrats still exist? Yes they do, and to them I say Get Out Now! Leave your Party until it is purged of its racists, which you can help to accomplish at the ballot box.

MEDIA MAGGOTS

According to author and columnist Ben Shapiro, “Media coverage of Israel has long been skewed in favor of Israel’s enemies. Jews…are targeted by those perceived as higher on the scale of privilege. It’s the reason Rev. Al Sharpton has a show on MSNBC, the reason Democratic politicians continue to play footsie with Louis Farrakhan, the reason the New York Times ignores hate crimes in its own city…”

Social Media too––Facebook, Twitter, etc.––are hotbeds of Jew-hating fanatics, many with made-up names, cowards who routinely engage in blood libels, vicious stereotypes, and lies and rants that I, personally, interpret as jealous screeds. These are the people who lie in bed at night obsessing about Jews, blaming their own lack of success on Jews, and projecting onto Jews their own worse character traits and failings.

As ace journalist Ashley Lutz scrupulously documented in a Business Insider report, in 1983 there were 50 media companies, but today only six organizations are responsible for 90 percent of all the “news” we read, watch and listen to! They include:

GE (Comcast, NBC, Universal Pictures, Focus Features, et al).
NewsCorp (Fox, Wall St. Journal, NY Post, et al).
Disney (ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Miramax, Marvel Studios, et al)
Viacom (MTV, Nick Jr., BET, CMT, Paramount Pictures, et al)
Time Warner (CNN, HBO, TIME, Warner Bros., et al)
CBS (Showtime, Smithsonian Channel, NFL.com, Jeopardy, 60 Minutes, et al)

Make no mistake, the CEOs of these multibillion-dollar businesses are all leftist globalists––not a conservative among them. The last was Rupert Murdoch (Fox, Wall St. Journal, NY Post, et al) who gave control of his empire to his leftist sons Lachlan and James, hence the distinctly leftward tilt of Fox and the WSJ.

And shame on them for their positive coverage of raving anti-Semites like Cong. Ihlan Omar (D-MN), Cong. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cong. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cong. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and all the others who avidly support both the BDS movement to destroy Israel economically and the denial of foreign aid to America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East.

DEMOCRATS

As you read above, the Democrat Party has now––under the, ahem, leadership of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY)––become the de facto party of Jew Hate, proven by the fact that with every vicious anti-Jewish, Israel-loathing statement of the above Democrats (Omar, Tlaib, Pressley, Ocasio-Cortez, et al), there has been NOT ONE WORD of objection, but rather Speaker Pelosi appointed Rep. Omar to the Foreign Affairs Committee, where she could learn every secret of the United States and pass it along to her like-minded Jew haters both here and abroad.

As Professor Abraham H. Miller has aptly noted, “Given a choice between preserving their Jewish identity or embracing the ideology of the left, many Jews would prefer to be Democrats than Jews.”

Writer Victor Rosenthal correctly posits that “the secret to educating anti-Semites so that they will stop being anti-Semites remains undiscovered.” He goes on to suggest that “Jews should secure their institutions and arm themselves to the extent that the law permits. Self-defense training should be part of all Jewish education. Nobody is respected for being a victim.”

There are simply too many examples of the betrayal of Israel and Jews everywhere by the current anti-Semitic Democrats in the U.S. Congress to cite. Suffice a few more headlines:

Democrats to Israel: Go to Hell.
Dem Presidential Hopefuls (Sanders and Warren) Meet With Terrorist-Run Pay-To-Slay Group.
In rebuke to Trump and Netanyahu, 107 Democrats pass resolution supporting 2 states (essentially cutting Israel in half).
Jews who are leading us away from peace.
Progressive Democrats Get it Wrong About Israel, Again.
154 Nations [in the rancid United Nations] Reject Israel’s Biblical Connection to the Temple Mount.
US Presidential Candidates, Anti-Israel Groups to Share Views at Far-Left J Street Conference––where, indeed, more than one of them recommended cutting or withholding aid to Israel.

In my view, these despicable anti-Semites resemble the “just-following-orders” Germans who Daniel Goldhagen aptly described in the title of his 1996 book, “Hitler’s Willing Executioners.”

Today, the Jew haters in America––who get away with their murderous attacks under the cover of “free speech”––and the vast number of Muslim and Arab Jew haters who have predicated their entire lives on killing Jews and eliminating the State of Israel, now take their marching orders from Democrat leaders, leftwing newspapers, cowardly professors, and the megalomaniacal anti-Semitic billionaires who support them.

It is no wonder that the estimable Daniel Greenfield wrote: “There is no future for Jews on the left except as collaborators in anti-Semitism.”

WHAT TO DO

It is clear that the Jewish organizations that once strongly advocated for Jewish issues and fought anti-Semitism aggressively no longer do so unless they involve politically correct issues that won’t inspire the vindictive wrath––and financial support––of Jewish Democrats. These include: the UJA-Federation, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the Hillel chapters on college campuses and the Reform movement.

So don’t count on these organizations and don’t send them another dollar!

The good news is that, along with wide support from political conservatives, most Republicans, and the Christian Evangelical community, other Jewish advocacy organizations and publications are working tirelessly to combat the relentless assaults of the Jew- and Israel-haters among us.

They include:

AFSI (Americans for a Safe Israel)
1751 Second Avenue
New York, NY 10128
www.AFSI.org
Tel: 1-212-828-2424
Mark Langfan, Chairman

Americans for Peace & Tolerance
5 Main Street, Suite 118
Watertown, MA 02472
https://www.peaceandtolerance.org
Founder: Charles Jacobs

American Jewish Congress
745 5th Ave., 30th Floor
New York NY 10151
https://www.ajcongress.org
President, Jack Rosen

CAMERA–Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis
PO Box 35040
Boston MA 02135-0001
Andrea Levin, Founder

Campus Watch (a project of the Middle East Forum) monitors bias on American campuses, issues reports, and takes strong action where indicated.
https://www.meforum.org/campus-watch/
E-mail: info@meforum.org
Tel: 1-215-546-5406

Canary Mission
www.canarymission.org
Canary Mission documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses.

Coalition for Jewish Values
2833 Smith Avenue, Suite 225
Baltimore, MD 21209
1-301-727-2700
Office-at-CJValues.org
Www.Coalitionforjewishvalues.org

Coalition of Pro-Israel Advocates (COPIA)
10507 Tanager Lane
Potomac, Maryland 20854
info@copma.net

Combat Anti-Semitism
www.combatantisemitism.org
info@combatantisemitism.org
Email: sacha@combatantisemitism.org
Tel: +1- 646 417 4046

EMET (Endowment for Middle East Truth)
PO Box 66366
Washington, DC 20035
https://emetonline.org
Sarah Stern, Founder

Gatestone Institute
14 East 60 Street, Suite 705
New York, NY 10022
Www.GatestoneInstitute.org

HonestReporting.com
165 East 56^th Street, 2^nd Fl
New York, NY 10022-2709
Tel: 1-847-745-8284
E-mail: action@honestreporting.com

Jews Choose Trump
62 William Street
New York, NY 10005
Jewschoosetrump.org
www.jewschoosetrump.org

NCJA (National Conference of Jewish Affairs)
90 Washington Valley Road, Suite 1261
Bedminster, NJ 07921
www.conservativehq.com
Attn: Rabbi Aryeh Spero

Republican Jewish Coalition
50 F St NW, Suite 100
Washington, D.C. 20001
www.rjchq.org

The Exodus Movement, founded by Elizabeth Pipko for “proud Jewish Americans who reject the hypocrisy, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism of the rising far-left.”

Elizabeth Pipko, founder and president of The Exodus Movement.The Exodus Movement
740 South Mill Avenue, #200
Tempe, AZ 85281
www.theexodusmovement.com
Elizabeth Pipko, Founder
https://theexodusmovement.com

The Lawfare Project
633 3^rd Avenue, Fl 21
New York, NY 10017-8157
https://www.thelawfareproject.org/
Brooke Goldstein, Founder/Director

PRIMER- Promoting Responsibility in Middle East Reporting
P.O. Box 0591
West Hartford, CT 06137-0591
http://primerct.org/index.php?content=index&title=PRIMER-Connecticut
info@primerct.org
Founder: Alan Stein
President, Mark Fishman
http://www.jewishledger.com/2014/07/primer-israel-advocacy-in-good-times-and-bad/

Stop Anti-Semitism.org
https://www.stopantisemitism.org/
Features Anti-Semite of the Month and Anti-Semite of the Year
Contact: Liora Rez at Liora@stopantisemitism.org.

Understanding the Threat
Provides tools to leaders, police and citizens to identify and dismantle jihadi/terrorist networks in their local communities.
P.O. Box 190772
Dallas, TX 75219
www.UnderstandingtheThreat.com
Founder: John Guandolo

ZOA (Zionist Organization of America)
633 Third Avenue, Suite 31-B
New York, NY 10017
https://zoa.org
Morton Klein, President

VIDEO: ‘The two-state solution is a myth’

December 16, 2019/in Culture War, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Video, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

Order The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process here.

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Trump Makes Christmas About Jesus Again

December 15, 2019/in Culture War, News, Policy, Politics, Religion/by Lloyd Marcus

“Donald Trump is making Christmas great again”, Sam Sorbo, talk radio host. I could not agree more with Mrs Kevin Sorbo.

My wife Mary is a great caretaker of our elderly greyhound whom she gets up early to let him outside to relieve himself. She also takes care of six cockatiels, three parakeets, two cats and me. Whenever I want to express my appreciation, I take her shopping.

It is amazing to watch Mary’s transformation upon entering a store. Invisible antennas rise out of her head and she becomes laser-focused, in shopping mode. I can see she is happy and will have a good time. Anyone who says women and men are the same is nuts.

Allowing her to enjoy herself, I tell her to call me when she is ready. Off I go wandering into various stores in the mall. It was Saturday and checkout lines in every store were long. Trump’s booming economy was easy to see; 566,000 new jobs, 54,000 manufacturing jobs, 3.5% unemployment rate and 3.1% wage growth.

In 2016, Trump promised that if elected, Americans would say, “Merry Christmas” again. Wandering around the mall, I repeatedly heard shoppers and sales clerks say, “Merry Christmas!” I overheard a father instructing his three sons, “Remember boys, you’re suppose to be shopping for others, not for yourselves.” An adult woman said, “Mom, you’re not listening to me! Okay, we have to part ways”, as she headed to another section of the store. Ah, the sounds of the season. Clearly, the vibe in the air was upbeat and busy. Thank you president Trump.

Our tiny town of 500 residents in West Virginia had its annual Christmas Parade. The float carrying Santa and Mrs Claus was beautiful; pretty impressive for such a small town. However, the message that Jesus is the reason for the season was strong, bolstered by three floats featuring live Nativity scenes.

I smiled when I recognized a guy costumed to portray Joseph in one of the Nativity scenes. I met him at a church flea market this summer where he wore a Trump 2020 cap. Wearing my Trump 2020 cap, I approached him and said, “Are you a racist white supremacist?” He laughed as we embraced in a bear hug.

Something else I have noticed is an abundance of new faith based Christmas songs on the radio. Things have truly changed for the better in America. God has given us the gift of president Trump. I do not mean that in a weird idolatrous way. It is unarguable that the dramatic swift u-turn away from the evil direction our country was going is the result of Donald Trump in the White House.

After the Christmas parade, folks met for hot chocolate, cookies and homemade donuts gifted by the town bakery. As we chatted with neighbors, it felt warm, friendly and very Christmas; kind of like Bedford Falls in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Despite the three Grinchs’ (Schiff, Pelosi and Nadler) hate-filled attempts to remove him from office and their party’s war on Christmas, Trump has made Christmas about Jesus again.

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus (Donald J. Trump) who gives good and honorable gifts. He does not take hard earned funds from achievers to redistribute to illegals, the lazy and entitled. Here is a look into Santa Trump’s big red bag of gifts to America.

May you and your family have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Blessed New Year.

Weaponization of Impeachment Has Utterly Failed

December 15, 2019/in Commentary, Courts & Law, Elections, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by John Michael Chambers

The weaponization of impeachment has utterly failed. I called this long ago and my media interviews, weekly video commentaries and articles will serve as a track record. The real and only concern about this is the potential precedent this creates moving forward into 2020 and beyond for President Trump and for future Presidents.

It’s our turn. We are now ready. Timing is everything. We shall now weaponize the truth. Team Trump has all the goods on everyone. They are all going down. And as a side note to all this, there have been nine horrific shootings over the past few weeks. Like I have stated before, the deep state orchestrates and triggers events prior to and during such times, to clog up the news cycle and divert attention away from them and their crimes. This short excerpt of a talk I gave covers it well.

30,000 Foot View

Taking a look at the big picture here’s the bottom line. First off, the grounds for impeachment has shifted with the wind day by day since day one along with the “kangaroo court” procedure for impeachment hearings, all of which are so far south from protocol, the founding fathers have been alerted and awakened and are shouting from their graves. Can you hear them?

There were no high crimes and misdemeanors. President Trump is not even remotely close to having done anything to impeach him. Even the two “articles of impeachment” drafted by Nadler and company do not cite any high crimes and misdemeanors but rather “obstruction of congress” and “abuse of power”. Lawyers, constitutional scholars and great legal minds both left and right, concur with the President, that this is a total sham, another baseless witch hunt. People like Alan Dershowitz, Mark Levin, Ken Star, Jonathan Turley, Gregg Jarret, my gosh even Gerardo Rivera, to name but a few.

Then in the midst of this sham, IGII FISA report is released along with testimony from IG Horrowitz, all of which was and is devastating to the FBI and the deep state players. Pay no attention to the fake news headlines and pompous James Comey’s statements since it’s release. Comey along with Clapper, Brennan, McCabe, Page, Strzok, Schiff and many others are among the low lying fruit about to be plucked in 2020. Like I said all along, FISA brings down the house. Indeed the findings in that report will. Then there is Durhams criminal investigation, NSA data collection, Epstein and Assange intel and Rudy Giuliani who has all the goods on Biden and more. Timing, my friends, timing. The deep state, the dems. and the fake news both here and globally, are panicking.

What’s Next?

AG Bill Barr has become activated (NBC interview) as has Prosecutor John Durham. Believe me, there is a plan and yes it is unfolding as it should. Next year, 2020, the world will begin to see what people perhaps like you and me have known all along. I will refer once again to the article I wrote back on June 13, 2018, “Scale of Discovery and Action“. Read it. Yes we are indeed now at steps 6, 7 and 8 on this twelve step program. And the fact that I wrote this and scores of other articles before and since, most of all highly accurate on forecasts, commentary and analysis, I ask you to follow my work and the work of others and to come aboard, for WWG1WGA. Meanwhile this was sent to me as pulled from the article by Sharyl Attkisson of Epoch Times.

Below are 24 points Barr felt the need to make after the release of the Horowitz report. (All of the information is attributed to Barr.)

1. Don’t expect Durham’s findings to be announced before late spring or summer 2020.

2. The FBI did spy on the Trump campaign. That’s what electronic surveillance is.

3. Regarding the FBI’s actions in surveilling Trump campaign associates, it was a “travesty” and there were “many abuses.”

4. From “day one,” the FBI investigation generated exculpatory information (tending to point to the targets’ innocence) and nothing that corroborated Russia collusion.

5. It’s a “big deal” to use U.S. law enforcement and intelligence resources to investigate the opposing political party, and I cannot think of another recent instance in which this happened.

6. Evidence to start the FBI’s investigation into Trump associates was “flimsy” from the start and based on the idea that Trump aide George Papadopoulos expressed he may have had pre-knowledge of a Democrat National Committee computer hack. However, it was actually just an offhand barroom comment by a young campaign aide described merely as a “suggestion of a suggestion, a vague allusion” to the fact that the Russians may have something they can dump. But by that time, May 2016, there was already rampant speculation online and in political circles that the Russians had hacked Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2014 and that they might surface. So the idea that Papadopoulos’s comment showed pre-knowledge of the Democratic National Committee hack and dump “is a big stretch.”

7. It was “wrong” for the FBI to presume the Trump campaign was part of a plot. They should have gone to the campaign and discussed their suspicions.

8. The normal thing to do would be to tell the campaign that there could be attempted foreign interference. There is no legitimate explanation as to why the FBI didn’t do this. The FBI’s explanation for this was that they only do “defensive briefings” if they’re certain there’s no chance they’re tipping someone off. But this simply isn’t true, isn’t plausible, and doesn’t hold water because our intelligence officials and President Barack Obama repeatedly contacted the Russians, the guilty party, to tell them to “cut it out.”

9. If the purpose were to protect the election, you would have given the Trump campaign a defensive briefing. You could have disrupted any foreign activity in time to protect the U.S. election.

10. As to the FBI’s motive, “that’s why we have Durham.” I’m not saying the motivations were improper, but it’s premature to say they weren’t.

11. The inspector general operates differently as an internal watchdog. Horowitz’s approach is to say that if people involved give reasonable explanations for what appears to be wrongdoing, and if he can’t find documentary or testimonial evidence to the contrary, he accepts it.

12. Contrary to much reporting, Horowitz didn’t rule out improper motive; he didn’t find documentary or testimonial evidence of improper motive. Those are two different things.

13. Instead of talking to the Trump campaign, the FBI secretly “wired up” sources and had them talk to four people affiliated with the Trump campaign, in August, September, and October 2016.

14. All of the information from this surveillance came back exculpatory regarding any supposed relationship to Russia and specific facts. But the FBI didn’t inform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court, which approved wiretaps against former Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page four times.

15. At one point early on, the FBI didn’t have enough probable cause for a wiretap warrant, so it took the “Steele dossier” information against Trump, “which they’d done nothing to verify,” and used that to get the wiretaps.

16. The wiretaps allowed the FBI to go back and capture Page’s communications, emails, and other material from weeks, months, and even years ago.

17. Should the four FBI applications to wiretap Trump campaign aide Carter Page have ever been made, considering there were 17 critical omissions or errors by the FBI making it appear they had better evidence than they had? This is the meat of the issue, and “if you spend time to look at what happened, you’d be appalled.”

18. The FBI withheld from the court all of the exculpatory information and the lack of reliability of the main FBI source, Christopher Steele, who was being paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign to find evidence connecting Trump to Russia.

19. The major takeaway is that after the election in January, the FBI finally talked to one of Steele’s important sources to try to verify some of the “dossier” information and sourcing, as they’re required to do. This Steele source told the FBI he didn’t know what Steele was talking about in the dossier, and that he’d told Steele that the information he’d provided was “supposition” and “theory.” At that point, “it was clear the dossier was a sham.” Yet the FBI didn’t tell the court, and continued to get wiretaps based on the dossier.

20. Further, the FBI falsely told the court that Steele’s source had been proven reliable and truthful. In fact, what the source had told the truth about was that “the dossier was garbage.” It’s hard to look at this “and not think it was gross abuse.”

21. Were the four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act judges who approved the four wiretaps against Trump associate Carter Page badly misled by the FBI? Yes.

22. Are people going to be held accountable, including at the very top of our intelligence agencies and FBI? Well, they’re all gone.

23. The whole Russia collusion hype was a “bogus narrative hyped by an irresponsible press” that proved entirely false in the end.

Are former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI official Andy McCabe and others implicated in the Durham investigation? I think there was a failure of leadership in that group. Quoting the inspector general, the explanations he received “were not satisfactory. You can draw your own conclusions.”

24. Why haven’t we already thrown people in prison? “These things take time.” The government has to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt before we indict; it’s a substantial hurdle. Nobody is going to be indicted and go to jail unless that standard is met.

In his interviews this week, Barr provided a treasure trove of information about what stands to be one of the most important investigations into our U.S. intelligence community of our time. His signposts indicate that we can expect a shakeup of a system that may have been broken for decades.

What’s Next?

Know this. We, Trump, AG Barr, Durham, others and we the patriots, are in control.

Seems like Mitch McConnell, and the White House Council on behalf of the President have a plan. Will the House reject these articles due to no actual impeachable evidence and procedural violations? Will this go to the supreme court to decide? Will these articles now get to the full House for a vote? How many Democrats will not vote in favor for impeachment? How many will vote only based on fear of blackmail since that’s how the swamp works? I know one thing, if it gets to a full House vote and it seems like it will, we know it is DOA in the senate. If it gets to the senate will they fast track it by not going to trial? Will they go to trial and extend the process as the President seems to indicate he is willing to do? The days and short weeks ahead will tell. I do know one thing of which I have stated all along, the President will not be impeached and removed from office. Oh and Trump’s polling numbers are soaring and the battleground states are now in jeopardy for the dems. It’s a wonderful thing.

Summary

The weaponization of impeachment and abuse of power by the dems. has utterly backfired since day one out of the gate. My position remains the same. They are all going down and President Trump, (barring successful voter fraud), will win in an absolute landslide both electoral college as well as the popular vote. In 2020 and beyond the exposure of the individuals and their crimes, along with justice finally being served, will be the bottom line. But get ready for more and more battles and false flags as time is running out on the deep state and the dems. Their time is up and they know it. They have 11 months to remove or derail Trump to avoid his forgone re-election. Pray for the President and get busy waking others and getting others to vote for freedom versus a tyrannical socialist police state.

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Decadent Democrats — From Pedophilia to Sex with Animals

December 15, 2019/in Commentary, Culture War, Elections, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Dr. Rich Swier

Merriam-Webster:

decadent adjective

1: characterized by or appealing to self-indulgence

2: marked by decay or decline

an increasingly decadent society

The Democratic Party has embraced extremes in sexual behaviors to the point of institutionalizing social decadence via public policy.

Decadent Democrats

The most recent example of a decadent Democrat is Cenk Uygur who is running to replace California Rep. Katie Hill’s seat, who resigned amid a bi-sexual scandal, after allegations she slept with a congressional staffer and a campaign staffer, and nude photographs of her surfaced on the internet.

Prophetic, isn’t it.

Uygur, in a video that was posted on Twitter, states that he would legalize sex with animals.

VIDEO: Young Turks host and California congressional candidate Cenk Uygur endorses sex with animals. pic.twitter.com/bD8ywsSXG9

— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) December 13, 2019

In other videos Uygur discusses “hot” Dominican women and “scoring women” on how they perform fellatio.

In 2013 #Cenk2020 discusses what "score" a woman has to be if she asks to "suck your d*ck." Cenk says 99% of men would let a woman who is "hot" or a "9." But a "2" or "3"? Meh. Maybe 50%.
Didn't Harvard men's soccer get in trouble for lewd rankings of women like this? #CA25 pic.twitter.com/AWhpSgm7Jf

— M. Mendoza Ferrer (@m_mendozaferrer) November 26, 2019

Other elected Democrats who have been accused of sexual misconduct include former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Senator Al Franken, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va), State Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nev), former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich) and Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA).

We also have the scandal surrounding Rep. Ilan Omar who divorced her husband, the father of her three children, just weeks after her double life in D.C. with her married aide was exposed.

We also have the issue of Democratic Party mega donors Harvey Weinstein and Jeffery Epstein who epitomize decadence, including pedophilia.

Of course there are notable cases of Republicans being accused of sexual misconduct the most notable being Associate Justice Bret Kavanaugh, who has been completely vindicated.

Conclusion

The Democratic Party has devolved into the party of decadence. We are seeing transgender story hours in public libraries, the sexualization of children in our public schools, the promotion of the LGBTQ agenda, transgender athletes competing in women’s sports and, for the first time in our history, an openly gay candidate running for the Democratic nomination for president.

Decadence is becoming systemic and dangerous. Our heterosexual culture is under attack on all fronts. The fundamental idea of marriage between one man and one woman is now considered “homophobic” and hate speech. The age for legal marriage is going down in state after state. According to Wikipedia:

As of May 2019, in all but two states, a minor can marry with parental consent or with judicial authorization, with the minimum marriage age, when all exemptions are taken into account, being as low as 14, and potentially lower.

As Mark Dysan wrote in The Evil Trance, “Everyone can be corrupted, even the great and the good.”

It is time for those who are good to end the corruption of our social and moral values.

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Impeachment Implosion: Wave Of Polls Show Swing Toward Trump

December 15, 2019/in Culture War, Elections, Featured, News, Policy, Politics, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Rod Thomson

It appears that Nancy Pelosi’s initial political instincts were right: Impeaching President Trump over a phone call would be bad politics. And now with the hearings held and the two milquetoast articles of impeachment on the table, which do not even mention a Constitutionally requisite crime, it may be worse than she thought.

It’s so sudden that we are seeing about a dozen House Democrats in Trump-won districts publicly stating they would prefer censure over impeachment. They will likely be strong-armed into voting for impeachment, but we can only imagine what their internal district polling must look like.

FiveThirtyEight has created a running poll aggregator that pulls in every poll that asks some version of a yes/no question on the Trump impeachment. It’s like the RealClear Politics list of polls, but it uses a lot more polls and created a formula for aggregating them them all together. In this respect, it gives the broadest view and maybe most importantly, the trendline.

And that trendline ain’t good for Democrats.

At the beginning of the hearings last week, the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator had Americans favoring the impeachment of Trump by 5.3 percent support. (That included polls both in impeaching and impeaching and removing.) But as of today, that gap has shrunk to 1.7 percent supporting impeachment.

The RCP composite poll on impeachment shows the same shift. It went from Americans favoring it by a 3.2 percent margin at the beginning of the hearings all the way down to Americans being dead even right now.

That’s a huge move considering both FiveThirtyEight and RCP are still pulling in those polls that were higher earlier. This aggregator is showing what the Quinnipiac and Monmouth polls showed this week — that the impeachment hearings are doing the opposite of making the case for Democrats’ impeachment claims.

Both Quinnipiac and Monmouth showed moves of up to seven points against impeachment, and gigantic swings among independent voters.

And on the bottom line — because this is all political — Firehouse Strategies released their new quarterly battleground polling results this week and found Trump surging in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — which likely mirror what Democrats are seeing in districts won by Trump.

The shift is interesting in its timing. One would suppose that once the Democrats got to make their case, with just their witnesses, in the chamber where they have a majority, that the polls would swing toward impeachment — at least until the Senate held the “trial” phase and many different witnesses were brought in.

But it was actually during this time that the polls shifted against impeachment. One possible explanation is that when Americans were only getting information filtered and fitted by the Democrat Media Establishment, they were more in favor of impeachment. When the media could not spin it for those Americans watching, the polls shifted.

Whatever the reason, impeachment was a gigantic miscalculation by Democrats, one they may pay for in November.

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