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February 2020

The Victims of Anti-Christian Persecution And a harrowing glimpse at their victimizers. Jack Kerwick

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/victims-anti-christian-persecution-jack-kerwick/

Now that the year is behind us, Open Doors provides a recap of some of the most telling stories of global anti-Christian persecution from 2019.

It’s important to look at specific accounts of this endemic phenomenon, lest appeals to statistics, which despite being quite revealing themselves, threaten to obscure the ugliness of the suffering daily endured by Christians the planet over.

Anecdotal proof of this oppression also permits a study in contrasts between the religious bigotry to which Christians are subjected and that claimed on behalf of the members of other religious groups.

A third virtue to be had from familiarizing ourselves with victimized Christians is that it brings into focus the true nature of a Western media elite that is silent in the face of real anti-religious persecution while acting apoplectically when, say, it is Muslims who, upon allegedly being viewed suspiciously at an American airport, claim to have suffered “Islamophobia.”

Some genuinely, thoroughly, bad stuff has been happening to Christians in various parts of the world multiple times a day, every day, and for a very long time.

(1) Last year, on Easter Sunday, the holiest day of the Christian calendar, Christians who were in the midst of their religious services in Sri Lanka experienced the bombing of three of their churches.   

Three hotels were also bombed.

Over 300 people were killed, with 176 children losing either one parent or both.

Islamic militants were responsible.

Freedom Center Plans Title VI Suit Against Claremont Colleges for Funding Jew Hatred The Colleges violated President Trump’s executive order barring federal funding for anti-Semitic hate. Sara Dogan

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/freedom-center-plans-title-vi-suit-against-sara-dogan/

In a letter sent to the heads of Pitzer College and Pomona College in Southern California, the David Horowitz Freedom Center, acting with the Dhillon Law Group, put the Claremont Consortium of Colleges on notice that their promotion and funding of anti-Semitic speakers and events is a violation of federal law and will no longer be tolerated.

Over the past several years, Pitzer, Pomona, and the other Claremont Colleges have repeatedly funded anti-Semitic rhetoric and displays on campus—largely organized by the Hamas-funded campus hate group Students for Justice in Palestine—which contribute to a hostile environment for Jewish students.

The letter cites Executive Order 13899 which was signed by President Trump on December 11, 2019. The Order directs executive agencies to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 against all prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism just as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI. Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.

This is not the first occasion on which the Freedom Center has challenged the Claremont Colleges over their funding and promotion of Jew hatred. Last fall, the Freedom Center named Pitzer as one of the “Top Ten Colleges that Promote Jew Hatred and Incite Terrorism.” Over a thousand printed newspapers containing the report on the prevalence of anti-Semitism at Pitzer were distributed by the Freedom Center on Pitzer’s campus.

The Iowa goat orgy comes to an end with Buttigieg getting the most delegates By Andrea Widburg

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/02/the_iowa_goat_orgy_comes_to_an_end_with_buttigieg_getting_the_most_delegates.html

On Sunday, six days after the Iowa Caucuses took place, the Iowa Democrat Party finally released the 2020 Results. Based upon the complicated, vaguely parliamentary-style algorithm that Iowa uses, Buttigieg won 14 delegates, and Bernie trailed him with 12 delegates. Warren eked out 8 delegates, former frontrunner Biden got 6, and Klobuchar got 1 delegate. None of the candidates got anything out of their Iowa efforts:

With 38-year-old Buttigieg having leaped to prominence in Iowa, it’s time to remind everyone of a few pertinent facts:

1. Between 1972 and 2010, nine of the Iowa Democrat caucus winners secured their parties’ nomination (although both Clinton and Obama were unopposed during their second-term runs). However, of those nine, only three – Carter, Clinton, and Obama – won the presidency. Buttigieg now has the potential to win the primaries.

2. Buttigieg was raised in an extremely Marxist home:

The father of Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg was a Marxist professor who spoke fondly of the Communist Manifesto and dedicated a significant portion of his academic career to the work of Italian Communist Party founder Antonio Gramsci, an associate of Vladimir Lenin.

[snip]

He supported an updated version of Marxism that jettisoned some of Marx and Engel’s more doctrinaire theories, though he was undoubtedly Marxist.

[snip]

Paul Kengor, a professor at Grove City College and an expert in communism and progressivism, said Buttigieg was among a group of leftist professors who focused on injecting Marxism into the wider culture.

In sum, just as was the case with Barack Obama and his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, Buttigieg grew up steeped in Marxism.

3. Although Buttigieg is now challenging Bernie, when Buttigieg was a high school senior, he thought Sanders the most admirable politician in America:

One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only Independent Congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

‘The Scientist and the Spy’ Review: Agent Running in the Field An unusual FBI investigation illustrates the government’s evolving response to China’s stealing American industrial secrets. By Howard W. French

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-scientist-and-the-spy-review-agent-running-in-the-field-11581278582?mod=opinion_reviews_pos1

In the fall of 2011, a farmer deep in Iowa corn country was so startled by an unusual sight that he called the cops. The alert sent over police radio went as follows: “South of here walking westbound there is an Asian male wearing a suit walking through a farm field. He was dropped off. Nature of incident: suspicious.”

It turned out that the man was dressed in khakis and a short-sleeve collared shirt, not a suit. But in a part of the state that was 97% white, it was the detail about the race of the man that was most salient. A sheriff’s deputy quickly intercepted the vehicle that had dropped the man off. Its driver, Chinese national Robert Mo, claimed that he and his associate were conducting agronomy research and looking at crops; in reality, they were trying to steal seed samples. The deputy let them go on their way. Soon, however, an FBI agent would place this same Robert Mo at the scene of a similarly suspicious episode from earlier in the year and in a different cornfield. And so was born an FBI investigation that illustrates a shift in American domestic intelligence—away from an all-consuming focus on terrorism and toward a heightened attentiveness to Chinese economic espionage.

In “The Scientist and the Spy,” Mara Hvistendahl, who spent years in Shanghai as a science reporter, uses the case of Robert Mo to explore America’s response to China’s commercial intelligence-gathering efforts. Early in the past decade, as Washington awoke to China’s theft of American industrial know-how, the FBI caseload for investigating such theft increased 50% from year to year. One expert that the author quotes, arguing against those who would relativize China’s activities by saying that rising powers have always stolen secrets from advanced nations, the U.S. included, observes: “In a manner of speaking, the United States stole books; China steals libraries.”

The Democrats on Soleimani Biden, Buttigieg and Sanders say they would not have killed the Iranian terror master.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-democrats-on-soleimani-11581289385?mod=opinion_lead_pos2

One of Vice President Joe Biden’s better lines in 2012 was “Osama bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive.” The crowd at the Democratic convention loved it. This year it sounds like the Democratic campaign theme may be that Iranian terror master Qasem Soleimani is dead and the world is more dangerous because of it.

That’s a fair judgment from Friday’s debate in New Hampshire when ABC’s David Muir asked the candidates “if your national security team came to you with an opportunity to strike, would Soleimani have been dead or would he still be alive under your Presidency?”

Pete Buttigieg responded: “In the situation that we saw with President Trump’s decision, there is no evidence that made our country safer.” He deplored Soleimani’s “murder and mayhem” but then zagged to the Iraq war, the Iranian nuclear pact, and a wounded veteran friend he saw in an airport. Mr. Muir tried again, but the former mayor came down with a decisive, “It depends on the circumstances.”

Mr. Muir then moved to Mr. Biden, who at least didn’t fudge. “No. And the reason I wouldn’t have ordered the strike, there is no evidence yet of imminent threat that was going to come from him,” Mr. Biden said, before veering to “America First policies” and NATO. No mention that bin Laden wasn’t an “imminent threat” by the time he was killed.

Next up was Bernie Sanders, who listed several of the world’s “very bad leaders” but said we can’t “assassinate” them because that would open the door to “international anarchy.” He said the only recourse is diplomacy.

The answers were revealing and mark a sharp difference in the coming campaign. Mr. Trump shares some of the isolationist impulses of Democrats, but he is willing to use force to kill America’s enemies. The mayhem that critics said would follow the killing of Soleimani hasn’t happened. Mr. Sanders’s answer is no surprise. But Messrs. Buttigieg and Biden missed a chance to show they would act decisively as President to deter those who kill Americans.

I.J. Benjamin on Jews in Mid-19th Century Islamdom, Versus America:  Sharia Versus Freedom   Andrew Bostom

https://www.andrewbostom.org/2020/02/i-j-benjamin-on-jews-in-mid-19th-century-islamdom-versus-america-sharia-versus-freedom/

Israel Joseph (I.J.) Benjamin [1818-1864], was a “maggid”, an itinerant Jewish preacher, best known for his extensive first hand mid-19th century travelogue accounts of the Jewish communities of Africa and Asia (“Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855”), and subsequently, America (“Three years in America, 1859-1862”). Benjamin’s writings were supported by letters and various other memorabilia he collected during his journeys, and ultimately garnered contemporary approval as “truthful and simple narrative” accounts, by respected scholars of his era such as Alexander von Humboldt, Carl Ritter, andJulius Heinrich Petermann.

I am unaware of any direct juxtaposition of Benjamin’s observations on the condition of Jews in mid-19thcentury Islamdom, i.e., under the jurisdiction of Islamic Law, Sharia, relative to their simultaneous American experience. Extracts from “Eight years in Asia and Africa from 1846 to 1855”, and “Three years in America, 1859-1862”, allow direct, res ipsa loquitur comparisons of Jews living under Sunni Ottoman Sharia in their indigenous homeland of Israel (historical “Palestine”), as well as the Shiite Persian Sharia, versus American Constitutional law, while the United States, in addition, was a devoutly Christian country (i.e., in the mid-19th century words of Tocqueville, “there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.”)