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2016

Thoughts on Trump’s ‘Islam Hates Us’ Remarks (1 of 2) By Andrew C. McCarthy

In an interview by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Donald Trump was asked whether he thought “Islam is at war with the West.” He replied, “I think Islam hates us,” adding that there is such a “tremendous” and “unbelievable” amount of “hatred” that we must “get to the bottom of” it. But when Cooper pushed him, it became clear that Trump was far less interested in getting to the bottom of it than shielding the country from its consequences.

Cooper pressed Trump about whether this “hatred” was inherent “in Islam itself?” Trump answered, “You’re going to have to figure that out.” He went on to opine that the cause was less important than what we do to protect ourselves: “We have to be very vigilant, we have to be very careful, and we can’t allow people coming into this country who have this hatred of the United States and of people who are not Muslim.”

Cooper, however, continued homing in on the root cause of the hatred: “Is there a war between the West and radical Islam, or is there a war between the West and Islam itself?”

Trump responded, “It’s radical, but it’s very hard to define, it’s very hard to separate because you don’t know who’s who.”

Before I address Trump’s remarks on Islam (in this post and a second one that follows), let’s clear away the underbrush. I am a Cruz supporter. I also do not have a view about whether Trump’s comments reflect what he really thinks or what he thinks people want to hear. On the matter of Trump’s candor, I lean more toward Kevin than Camille Paglia, but for present purposes it is beside the point. My objective here is twofold: (1) to assess what Trump said; and (2) to urge other candidates not to condemn it just because Trump, who often says condemnable things, is the one who said it. Already, the usual suspects are attacking Trump as a bigot and demanding that other candidates do likewise. That would be a mistake. One needn’t be a Trump supporter to see that there is a lot more right than wrong in his remarks.

The GMO-Labeling Lobby Takes Its Fight to the U.S. Senate By Julie Kelly —

The U.S. Senate is on the verge of settling the nation’s fiercest food fight: GMO labeling. And if you need an example of lawmakers, lobbyists, special interest groups, and corporations wasting time and money on a manufactured problem that is completely inconsequential to the health and welfare of the American people, look no further than this.

The fight is about whether food companies should disclose the presence of GMOs, or genetically modified organisms, in their products. This applies to hundreds of ingredients, from soybean oil to vitamins to cheese. In the U.S., almost all corn, soy, and cotton crops are genetically engineered to tolerate herbicides or resist pests, so any by-product of those crops would require a label. Same with canola. Sugar from sugarbeets, which produce more than half the sugar supply here and are also grown via genetically engineered seeds, would need a label. The list goes on.

No good justification for a label exists: Ingredients derived from these crops pose no health or safety concern and do not compromise the nutritional value of food. That, however, has not impressed our esteemed United States Senate, which will take a break from terrorism and trade pacts to deliberate a new label on a can of soup.

Democrats Propose Lawlessness and Call It Immigration Policy By The Editors

On immigration, as on so much else, the Democrats have become the party of Obama — only more so.

Because Wednesday’s debate was co-hosted by Spanish-language network Univision, and the questioning spearheaded by Jorge Ramos, an immigration activist masquerading as a journalist, there was little doubt that the evening would feature what Hillary Clinton’s detractors have derisively labeled “Hispandering.” But Clinton and her remaining challenger, Bernie Sanders, effectively promised an end to American immigration law.

Clinton had previously affirmed her support for President Obama’s massive exercises in “prosecutorial discretion,” DACA and DAPA, both flagrantly unconstitutional amnesties covering together some 5 million people. However, prodded by Ramos, Clinton promised not only that she would not deport children — an assurance that every “unaccompanied minor” who has crossed the southern border in the past few years would be permitted to stay — but that she would not deport anyone without a criminal record, period, guaranteeing a permanent home to almost every illegal immigrant residing in the country, and effectively reducing crossing the border illegally to a minor and ignorable infraction. Clinton also reiterated an earlier commitment to somehow reunite families separated by deportation. With all of this, Sanders concurred.

Suffering Christians in Nigeria Muslim-on-Christian murder rate rises 62% in one year. Jack Kerwick

Roman Catholics throughout the world are in the midst of the season of Lent.

Lent occurs over the six weeks stretching between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. It is recognized by Catholics as a season of renewal, a time for Christians to repent of their sins and draw nearer to God.

And while prayer is essential to renewing one’s relationship with one’s Creator, Sustainer, and Savior, unless prayer is accompanied by the love of one’s neighbors, it is in vain.

There are two things that every Christian knows: (1) The love of neighbor transcends any and every boundary that human weakness—human sin—disposes us to draw; and (2) This agape (highest form of love) can be expressed in any number of ways.

These facts considered, Christians in America—particularly during this Holy Season—should bear in mind the plight of their brothers and sisters in the faith around the globe who are made daily to endure persecution of a kind that few of us can scarcely conceive.

The victims are men, women, and children to whom we are now and probably always will be strangers. They are almost always people of color, not infrequently (but by no stretch invariably) Africans and Middle Easterners.

And most (but not all) of the time, their persecutors are Muslims.

How Immigration Reform Would Re-Form America The devastating truth that’s not being discussed by politicians or journalists.

Failures of the immigration system have a profound impact, exacerbating nearly every challenge and threat that America and Americans confront on a day-to-day basis. However, the true significance of immigration is rarely, if ever, discussed by politicians or by journalists upon whom we depend for information.

Unbridled greed and hunger for power lead the list of factors that motivate many politicians to ignore this side of the immigration debate. Journalists may be ideologues or may be controlled by the executives of their news organizations who are impacted by greed as well.

On June 18, 2015 FrontPage Magazine published my article, “Theft By Deception: The Immigration Con Game: How politicians are robbing citizens of access to the American Dream” in which I laid out some of the ways that so many profit from the failures of border security and failure to enforce our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

The premise of my November 29, 2015 article for the Daily Caller, “Immigration: A Matter Of Integrity – Or A Lack Thereof,” was that the immigration system’s lack of integrity simply parallels the lack of integrity of all too many of our politicians who write our laws, provide or deny funding for programs and devise strategies to either effectively carry out various governmental missions or seek to obstruct missions — often while providing the false illusions that everything that can be done is being done.

The Fourth Strategy Time to fight our enemies rather than empowering them Caroline Glick

This week we learned that Lebanon is no more. It has been replaced by Hezbollah’s Iranian colony in Lebanon.

Two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and canceled its $3 billion aid package to the Lebanese military. The Gulf Cooperation Council followed suit. Rather than support the move by his sponsors and allies, Saad Hariri, the head of the anti-Hezbollah March 14 movement, flew to Syria to meet with Hezbollah leaders.

Saudi Arabia’s decision to end its support for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) doesn’t mean that Saudi Arabia is making peace with Hezbollah.

It means that the Saudis are no longer willing to maintain the fiction that with enough support, the LAF will one day challenge Hezbollah’s effective control of Lebanon.

Hezbollah and its bosses in Tehran don’t seem too upset about the Sunnis’ decision to acknowledge that Hezbollah is a terrorist group. And they are right not to care. In essence, the Saudi move is simply an admission that they have won. Lebanon is theirs.

Hezbollah’s isn’t the dominant force in Lebanon because it has better weapons than the LAF.

Unlike the LAF, Hezbollah has no air force. It has no armored divisions.

Hezbollah is able to dominate Lebanon because unlike the LAF and the March 14 movement, Hezbollah is willing to destroy Lebanon if doing so advances its strategic goals.

This has all been fairly clear for more than a decade. But it took the war in Syria to force the truth above the surface.

How US Taxpayers Funded the Murder of an Iraq Vet in Israel It’s time for the US to stop funding Islamic terrorists. Daniel Greenfield

Taylor Force had been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, he had served at Fort Hood in the year of the infamous Islamic terrorist attack on the base, but a Jihadist finally caught up to the veteran, whose father and grandfather had also served their country, in civilian life during a visit to Israel.

Bashar Masalha, the Islamic terrorist who murdered Force, was shot dead by Israeli police around the time that Biden was hanging out a mile away at the Peres Center for Peace. But Biden and his boss signed the checks to Iran and the Palestinian Authority that motivated and rewarded Force’s killer.

Masalha came from Qalqilya which is under the civil control of the Palestinian Authority. Its mayor, Othman Dawood, is a member of Fatah, the core political organization behind the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. Fatah celebrated the murder of Taylor Force and other victims of the attack, praising Masalha as a “heroic martyr”. It named him and two other terrorist attackers as “the pride of all of the young Palestinians” and urged future terrorists to go on killing in their name.

Palestinian Authority television called the terrorist who murdered an American, a Shaheed, a martyr for Islam. And the Palestinian Authority’s support for the murder of Taylor Force doesn’t just end there.

The Palestinian Authority pays terrorists based on the amount of harm they caused and the resulting jail sentence. Had Masalha survived his attack on Taylor Force and the other victims, he would have likely been paid $2,000 a month for his act of terror. That’s pretty good money in a place where $2,000 is more like an annual income. It’s so good that that there’s no shortage of terrorists eager to kill for cash.

AG Lynch testifies DoJ ‘discussed’ prosecuting ‘climate deniers’ By Thomas Lifson

Do you remember when we had a First Amendment? It seems to have vanished in the view of the attorney general of the United States, Loretta Lynch, who testified yesterday to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Jon Street reports at TheBlaze:

During Lynch’s testimony at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said that he believes there are similarities between the tobacco industry denying scientific studies showing the dangers of using tobacco and companies within the fossil fuel industry denying studies allegedly showing the threat of carbon emissions.

He went on to point out that under President Bill Clinton, the Justice Department brought and won a civil case against the tobacco industry, while the Obama administration has “done nothing” so far with regard to the fossil fuel industry.

Whitehouse concluded his comments by posing a question to the country’s top law enforcement officer.

“My question to you is, other than civil forfeitures and matters attendant to a criminal case, are there other circumstances in which a civil matter under the authority of the Department of Justice has been referred to the FBI?” he asked.

“This matter has been discussed. We have received information about it and have referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action on,” Lynch answered. “I’m not aware of a civil referral at this time.”

As a matter of fact, Lynch and Whitehouse understate the degree of persecution of dissent underway. Over a week ago, it was disclosed that the DoJ has made a criminal referral for views on a scientific dispute. David Hasemyer reported for Inside Climate News last week:

The U.S. Justice Department has forwarded a request from two congressmen seeking a federal probe of ExxonMobil to the FBI’s criminal division.

Is Public Anger at the Republican Establishment Justified? By Gideon Isaac

A frequent accusation that has been leveled at Republican politicians is that they did nothing to fight the Obama agenda, even though they had a majority in both houses of Congress. Supposedly the rank and file now see them as useless or unprincipled, and so are going with Donald Trump, or possibly Ted Cruz.

One reason for inaction is that when the Republicans did take a stand, in 2013, under the initiative of Ted Cruz and others, the public blamed them for the results. A confrontation with Obama led to a partial shutdown of the government. Polls showed Republicans were blamed by 53% of the public. This echoed the experience of 1995, when led by Newt Gingrich the Republicans shut down President Clinton’s government to halt excessive spending. Gingrich felt the brunt of the blame then also.

The resulting cautious thinking was demonstrated by Republican Lindsey Graham who said in 2015: “…You want to lose in 2016? Let it be seen that the Republicans in the House and Senate can’t govern, then that’s the end of our 2016 hopes.”

In his book A Time for Truth, Ted Cruz describes the events in 2013 that led to the shutdown. He says that he and Senator Mike Lee had asked their Republican colleagues “What are you going to do to stop Obamacare from kicking in?” and the answer was always nothing, since a fight was risky, and could imperil re-election. Cruz ‘s idea was that Congress should fund everything except for ObamaCare. This is within the power of Congress, and is known as “the power of the purse.” The big obstacle was Obama’s veto power, but Cruz hoped that if he got enough Republicans, plus Democrats from “red” (conservative) states, he might put enough pressure on Obama to reach some sort of compromise. Ted’s colleagues responded “Absolutely not!” and advised “Wait until the debt ceiling”, which did come along, but they did nothing then either.

Cruz and Lee traveled the country to get support, and more than two million Americans signed a petition to stop ObamaCare, and also phoned Capitol Hill. The Senate Republican leadership directed their fire — not at ObamaCare, but at Cruz. Twenty senators went on every TV channel, and “carpet-bombed” the House Republicans for the initiative.

Enough with the Double Standards for Muslims By Eileen F. Toplansky

If alleged Islamophobia causes Muslims to pillage, rape, and slaughter, then how come centuries of anti-Semitism have not produced a raging Jewish population hell-bent on murder? Or if cartoons about Muhammad can cause homicidal riots, how come the daily anti-Semitic cartoons emanating out of the Middle East and other parts of the globe do not result in Jews going on a rampage?

Because civilized people don’t behave this way.

For that matter, how come when people step on the American flag and rip it to shreds, Americans don’t go on assassination raids?

I am absolutely sick and tired of talking heads using a double standard for those Muslims who act like barbarians against their own women and against other people who refuse to accede to their demands.

If you don’t want to eat bacon, then don’t eat bacon.

If you don’t want to drink alcohol, then don’t drink alcohol.

If you don’t want to wear pig costumes, then don’t.

But we will not surrender to your demands.

When people begin to self-censor their ideas, their activities, their food, and their entertainment, we might as well put “RIP” over our heads, because we are triggering our own suicide.

I, for one, opt out of that thinking. If you cannot abide by the American Constitution, and despise what the Stars and Stripes symbolizes, you are certainly free to leave this country. If you cannot use the same toilet as a non-Muslim child, then please do not use the facilities. We are not going backward to a segregation of Muslims vs. non-Muslims.

If you want to pray, you will not take over public space of a taxpayer-funded university and demand a key to lock out anyone else who wants to use the room.

Engaging in female genital mutilation has no place in this country; it is heinous and a form of child abuse.