A Very Short List, and a Very Long Question thumbnail

A Very Short List, and a Very Long Question

By Jihad Watch

I was wondering, not exactly idly, where American foreign aid now is sent, and found online a list of the ten countries that receive the most aid from Washington. Here is that list.

In 2023, the United States spent nearly $61 billion on foreign aid. Fully half of that budget has gone to just ten countries:

  1. Ukraine ($16.4 billion)
  2. Israel ($3.3 billion)
  3. Ethiopia ($1.95 billion)
  4. Jordan ($1.65 billion)
  5. Egypt ($1.43 billion)
  6. Afghanistan ($1.19 billion)
  7. Somalia ($1.13 billion)
  8. Yemen ($1.05 billion)
  9. Congo ($987 million)
  10. Syria ($896 million)

Now I have no objection to aid for Ukraine, as it fights to push Putin’s troops out of the country. This unusually large sum — $16.4 billion, and much more so far in 2024 — far outstrips the amounts for the other recipients of aid. This aid only started to be given in 2020, after Russia invaded Ukraine, and it will not continue at anything like that level once that Ukraine-Russia war is over.

As for #2 on the list, I certainly do not object to the sums given to Israel, which for the fourth time in its young life is having to fight for its very existence (the previous wars were in 1948, 1967, and 1973) as it faces a seven-front war, with Hamas in Gaza, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the Houthis in Lebanon, with Assad’s army in Syria, with assorted terrorist groups — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — in Judea and Samaria, with the Shi’a militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, in Iraq, and looming behind them all, pulling the strings of these various proxies, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nor do I begrudge Ethiopia its aid, for that Christian country has endured several years of severe drought and internal conflict, including the war involving the Ethiopian central government and the northernmost region of Tigray. Ethiopia has once again become engaged in violent internal conflict, this time involving militia groups from the regions of Amhara and Oromia. And Ethiopia has long had a close relationship with the United States for many decades, beginning under the reign of Haile Selassie. The amount we provide is to help the government restore peace; as with the aid given to Ukraine, it isn’t intended to be a long-term commitment.

But. beyond that, I wonder. Of the seven remaining countries on the list of the top ten recipients, all but one are Muslim countries. Why are we transferring wealth to Muslim countries when the Arab states of the Gulf have trillions of dollars in their sovereign funds? Why do we not insist that the rich Arabs should be helping their brethren, instead of assuming that we should support Muslim states that, precisely because they are Muslim, cannot possibly be our friends (as the Qur’an directs them not to be; see suras 3:28 and 5:51)? Saudi Arabia has more than $1 trillion in its sovereign wealth fund. The UAE has even more: $1.7 trillion. In the first half of 2024 the sovereign wealth funds of five Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain — invested $39 billion. Surely they can spare $8 billion to provide to other Arab states, which is roughly the total the United States now gives to the seven Muslim states on the list above.

For reasons that deserve to be pondered, Anwar Sadat got the American aid ball rolling for Egypt with his “prince-of-peace” impersonation. And that money has continued ever since, despite the litany of human rights abuses in that country. Egypt need not be continuously bribed to keep the peace with Israel. What keeps the peace between Israel and Egypt is the IDF. If Egypt needs money, the Gulf states, whose monarchs share El-Sisi’s fear and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, should be happy to help.

Jordan, similarly, need not be given large sums by the Americans. The Hashemite king need only hold out his hand in Eleemosynary Position #1, and the Emirates and Saudis will be glad to help out a fellow monarch, especially one who doesn’t want to be overthrown by the two-thirds of his population that is Palestinian. That would be a dangerous example for the monarchs in the Gulf. King Abdullah, like the Saudi Crown Prince and the Emirati rulers, is prepared to repress the Muslim Brotherhood. He, too, needs no American bribe to keep the peace with Israel. The IDF maintains that peace.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

RELATED ARTICLES:

Kansas City, Kansas: Imam says that Jews have ‘now become cursed by Allah’

Hamas has made half a billion dollars from ‘humanitarian’ aid, pays jihadis

University of Michigan’s Black Student Union Cuts Ties To Anti-Zionist Group

Palestinian Authority Calls On UN to Remove 500,000 Israelis From Judea and Samaria Within Six Months

9/11 MIA at Debate

RELATED VIDEO: The 2024 U.S. Presidential Election and its Potential impact on Israel

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

Pastor Hamrick: ‘Get Over Looking for the Most Perfect Person’ and ‘Vote for the Better Choice’ thumbnail

Pastor Hamrick: ‘Get Over Looking for the Most Perfect Person’ and ‘Vote for the Better Choice’

By Family Research Council

The phrase “separation of church and state” is widely misunderstood. Often, it’s raised as an argument against Christians who engage in politics. Yet, the separation of church and state is nowhere in the U.S. Constitution nor any founding documents. Rather, it can be found in a personal letter penned by Thomas Jefferson in 1802 to the Danbury Baptist Association. In the name of religious freedom, Jefferson wrote not that the church should stay out of government affairs, but that government affairs have no place interfering with the church.

In his 2024 election sermon, Cornerstone Chapel Senior Pastor Gary Hamrick explained how in our country’s history, “[T]he church has always played … a critical role in speaking out about faith and politics and how faith should shape our politics.” Over time, he acknowledged, “Jefferson’s phrase [concerning the] separation of church and state … letter has been used to remove God from the public square and to remove church from government influence.” Rather than protecting our First Amendment rights, those in opposition have sought to intimidate “a lot of pastors from addressing things that are referred to as political in the pulpit.”

But as believers, we can’t afford to allow these tactics to push us back into the shadows of fear. Consider Jesus’s words from Matthew 5:13-16:

“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

Our Lord could not have been clearer: we are meant to be seen, and we are meant to have an impact. That’s what it means to be salt and light. Some Christians believe this truth, except when it comes to politics. In light of this, Hamrick half-joked, “Please save the emails accusing me of being political.” Because in all seriousness, “I’m not being political.” What the pastor went on to contend is the very truth all believers need to engrain into their minds: to discuss policy and government affairs is not to “be political.” It is simply a matter of biblical obedience.

According to Hamrick, Christians have to understand “that the culture has hijacked the narrative on social and moral issues” in order to gloss over the fact “that the Bible has already addressed” them all. “[T]he culture has twisted … distorted and perverted those social and moral issues into political issues” to deter people of faith from speaking out about them. And to this, the pastor underscored, “I have news for our culture: God had a say on all these subjects long before there was even a word ‘political.’”

He continued, “God had the first word long before anybody. And so, it’s important to understand we’re just talking about the biblical issues, and we’re looking at what is happening in our culture, and especially on the presidential election level” to be salt and light through our voting and other political engagement. “[I]f Christians would come together and vote their values,” Hamrick stated, “we could change America.”

As Hamrick made clear, the church needs to “be equipped to know who to vote for or who not to vote for, based on whether that candidate’s policies more closely align with biblical values.” In doing so, believers are not to “look to a person to save us,” because “our faith is not in a political hero.” Instead, we reflect on the reality that “our faith is in the Savior,” Jesus Christ, and “He is our only hope for America.” Hamrick went on to emphasize that “we have a moral obligation to represent Christ as ambassadors, and one way to do this is through politics.

“[B]y political engagement,” he added, “I mean advocating for policies that promote righteousness, voting for candidates who most closely represent our biblical values, praying for our elected leaders and holding them accountable, and even running for elected office” if God calls one to do so. Because ultimately, “if Christians do not stay politically engaged … what will fill the vacuum” other than “every evil demonic practice”?

Hamrick said it well when he observed that while “good government cannot save us,” bad government can certainly harm us. With the upcoming election in mind, he then posed the question: “What can we do to advance the kingdom of God for the glory of God, and to stem the tide of evil in our land until Jesus comes?” Considering this question, there’s one crucial thought to keep in mind during a time of political mayhem: there will never be a perfect candidate on the ballot. Even so, “God uses flawed, sinful people.”

According to Hamrick, his major concern is not that Christians don’t want to do the right thing and use their vote, but that they won’t vote for any “candidate who doesn’t have the total package.” This mindset, he went on to explain, is dangerous.

“I understand elections are serious things with serious consequences,” he said. And yet, “what other decisions do you make in your life that must meet 100% of the criteria?” What other decisions do we choose to only move forward with if they meet 100% of what we want? The truth is, if we’re to probe this question, most of us will find that we “don’t make a decision based on 100%. … Nothing is 100% based on certain criteria.”

Consider your spouse, job, church, house, or school. Do any of these areas meet every single one of your expectations? Would you consider any of them to be absolutely 100% perfect? For the vast majority, chances are the answer is no. And that’s because, as the pastor contended, there is “no perfect spouse. There’s no perfect church. There’s no perfect child. There’s no perfect job. There’s no perfect neighborhood. And … there is no perfect candidate.” Jesus Christ is the only Being who is perfect. And if we want to make progress in advancing the gospel in all areas of this life, we have to “get over looking for the most perfect person” and start voting “for the better choice.”

To hammer this point home, Hamrick took time to emphasize the many examples of imperfect leaders Scripture has to offer. For instance, “David was a righteous leader” and “a man after God’s own heart. But he committed adultery.” Yet, God still used him. Hezekiah, another righteous king, “had terrible foreign policy that also incurred the wrath of God as a national judgment.” Yet, God still used him. And Samson, who’s mentioned in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith, had “a weakness for women.” Yet, God still used him.

“I’m not making excuses for their bad behavior or their sin,” Hamrick clarified. “They all paid consequences for their sin.” But “my point is that God uses flawed people to promote good policies for a nation. You see it all through the Bible.” This is also true of the way God uses the unrighteous, such as King Nebuchadnezzar, to “put it on their hearts to do righteous things for Israel and for the Jewish people.” In the Bible, God used “unrighteous kings” to establish policies “that promoted good for the benefit of the nation,” and He can do the same today.

“Please stop looking at the person and look at their policies,” Hamrick pleaded. Because, looking at it in black and white, the choice can become easier. “On a personal level,” he noted, “I’d rather have a mean orange man who gave us three Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade than a joyful hen who believes in killing babies in the ninth month.” Ultimately, “[W]e have to stop focusing on who’s a good candidate, because Jesus said in Luke 18:19, ‘No one is good except God.’” If we take this at face value, then we can finally understand “there is no good candidate.” But God being God means He can use anyone “to accomplish His good purposes.”

So, as we move closer to the election, Hamrick suggested we consider these seven top issues as we determine who is the better candidate: judicial nominees, border security, Israel, religious liberty, biological sex, family, and life. All these topics, and more, have already been addressed within the pages of Scripture. And as we analyze them, the pastor urged us to remember that voting is “not just a right and a privilege. It’s a duty.” Silence is simply not an option.

Consider the fact that “God entrusts a lot to us,” Hamrick emphasized. “[O]ne of the things He has entrusted to us is the wonderful privilege as Americans of living in the greatest and freest country in the world. … He’s entrusted this freedom to us.” And so, we have to ask, “[W]hat are we going to do with what He’s entrusted to us? … Because if we do nothing, if we check out, if we remain silent, evil will rush into the vacuum.”

Even this pastor, as passionate as his sermon was, noted that, concerning this upcoming election, he’s “not an enthusiastic voter.” Yet he asserted nonetheless, “I’m going to vote.”

He referenced the words of Frederick Douglass, who said, “I will unite with anyone to do right and no one to do wrong.” And even in these times, there are numerous groups and people Christians can fight alongside to do what is right. With this, Hamrick concluded: “Until Jesus comes, get out there [and] vote. Be His ambassadors. Be salt and light in this world and advance the kingdom of God for the glory of God to stem the tide of evil in our land until Jesus comes. Let your voices be heard. Let your votes be counted, and let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

RELATED VIDEO: NYC Boy looks up a Trump and says, “President Trump, make America great again!”

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Harris Supported Taxpayer-Funded Trans Surgeries in 2019, Called ‘Transition Treatment … a Medical Necessity’ thumbnail

Harris Supported Taxpayer-Funded Trans Surgeries in 2019, Called ‘Transition Treatment … a Medical Necessity’

By Family Research Council

The Kamala Harris campaign kept her policies (and person) away from the mainstream media for so long that the media went snooping through the past. On Monday, CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski first reported Harris’s support for taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries on federal prisoners and detained illegal immigrants, revealed in a candidate questionnaire she filled out for the ACLU during her abortive 2019 presidential campaign.

On the questionnaire, Harris marked the “yes” box in answer the following question: “As President will you use your executive authority to ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention — will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care? If yes, how will you do so?”

The questionnaire also allowed candidates to explain their answer in 500 words or less. In the space provided, Harris wrote, “It is important that transgender individuals who rely on the state for care receive the treatment they need, which includes access to treatment associated with gender transition. That’s why, as Attorney General, I pushed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide gender transition surgery to state inmates.”

She continued, “I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained. Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”

“This questionnaire is really an interesting snapshot-in-time of that 2019 Democratic primary,” said Kaczynski. “Kamala Harris was trying to get to the left of [Independent Vermont Senator] Bernie Sanders. She was trying to get to the left of [Massachusetts Democratic Senator] Elizabeth Warren, and you really see that in a lot of these answers.” In a now-archived ranking, GovTrack.us rated Harris as the senator with the most liberal voting record in 2019.

Some snapshots can be consistent across time, as this one appears to be. Harris’s 2024 campaign finally published a page on policy issues on the eve of the one-and-only presidential debate (to quote Edna Mode, “Coincidence? I think not”). In a section on “fundamental freedoms … at stake in this election,” the Harris campaign touted their candidate’s record of LGBT advocacy as far back as 2004.

In particular, the Harris campaign said their candidate would “fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.” This extends the continuity because, as a senator in 2019, Harris was an original cosponsor of the Equality Act. While the campaign website elaborates no further, this far-reaching legislation would “virtually do away with sex-segregated spaces” by allowing “biological men into women’s private spaces,” Family Research Council director of Federal Affairs for Family and Religious Liberty Mary Beth Waddell warned in 2019.

This means that, under the Equality Act, male prisoners who identify as women would have a statutory right to be housed in a women’s prison, wrote Abigail Shrier. This is already law in Harris’s native California, where at least 47 biological males, including violent criminals and sexual offenders, were housed in women’s prisons, as of March 2023. Harris’s pledge to provide gender transition procedures to trans-identifying prisoners at taxpayers’ expense not only implies such a permissive housing policy, in which inmates get to self-define their gender, but it takes it one step further by placing the state’s endorsement behind their gender transition.

While Harris’s policy-light campaign has not explicitly reaffirmed her 2019 endorsement of taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for trans-identifying prisoners, its brief comments are consistent with that position. Fellow Senate progressive Sanders said Sunday that Harris was not “abandoning her ideals” but merely “trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.”

Even if Harris wanted to change her mind, the transgender lobby would not let her. This summer, left-wing activists poured out their wrath against the Biden-Harris White House over a statement softly opposing gender transition surgeries for minors. The administration quickly folded to the pressure and backpedaled from that position to appease the transgender lobby. If Harris became president, nothing in her record suggests that she would respond differently to pressure from the transgender lobby.

In her 2019 questionnaire, Harris also promised to provide taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries to detained illegal immigrants. However, at the rate the Biden-Harris administration is releasing detained immigrants into the U.S., this seems like a moot point. It would be rendered even further irrelevant if Harris fulfilled another pledge from her 2019 questionnaire, namely to “end … immigrant detention facilities.”

Also in 2019, Harris also pledged to codify abortion-on-demand, “eliminate the Hyde amendment,” “legalize marijuana,” end cash bail, defund ICE, provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and oppose legislation to impede or prohibit anti-Israel protests.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Israel’s Foes Unfailingly Side with Left’s Antisemitic Allies thumbnail

Israel’s Foes Unfailingly Side with Left’s Antisemitic Allies

By Dr. Martin Sherman

The 2024 Democratic National Convention has by now faded into the media’s rearview mirror. Yet one thing remains clear.

The major parties differ on the issue of Israel, that is, both in sentiment and substance.

This serves to underscore just how critical Nov. 5, 2024 (in the United States) is for the Jewish state.

Bastion of Anti-Jewish Sentiment?

The conduct of the Democratic Party at its recent convention underscores a doleful truth.

This is that, by-and-large, the party has become a bastion of animus towards the Jews — not only on the collective level vis-à-vis the Jewish state, but also towards the individual Jew, even American Jews.

Indeed, there is no other way to interpret what took place during the Convention, and before it it.

Thus, in large measure, the convention reflected the blossoming of the process initiated in 2009 by Barack Obama, when he intimated that distancing itself from Israel would benefit U.S. foreign policy.

True, some have attempted to “put lipstick on a pig” — downplaying the significance of incidents that underscore this trend and overplaying those that don’t. But the real point is not only the nature of the events that occurred, but the trend they represent.

Antisemitism as a ‘Point’

Although the convention did block a Palestinian speaker from addressing the convention, this was overshadowed by the fact that Jewish members were compelled to assemble in hiding to conduct Jewish-related affairs for fear of disruption by anti-Jewish mobs.

Indeed, one can only wonder what departing president, Joe Biden, had in mind when he conceded that the raucous pro-Hamas hooligans, outside the convention, “had a point” —in expressing their “outrage” at the IDF response to the murder and mutilation, the ravages and rapes of seniors and infants; men and women in the peaceful population of the towns, villages and agricultural communities in the Gaza Envelope.

The timing of this shift in sentiment seems particularly incongruous, coming as it does when the Palestinians seem more worthy than ever of censure/sanction, rather than support/sympathy.

Indeed, this is even more astounding since this hostility comes hard-on-the-heels, not only of unspeakable barbarity on the part of the Gazan Palestinians, but also the glee with which the appalling atrocities were celebrated by many Palestinians, in general.

Crucible, Not Victim

Moreover, it’s difficult to differentiate between the moral culpability of the general populace in Gaza and their elected leadership.

Indeed, contrary to popular belief, the overall population in Gaza is not the victim of its radical Hamas leaders.

Rather, it is the crucible in which Hamas was forged and the incubator from which it emerged.

Thus, Hamas is not an unwelcome imposition on an otherwise placid population, but an authentic reflection of its innermost desires.

But rather than side with Israel, the Democratic party and the Biden administration chose to take unprecedented measures against the elected government of an ally.

Thus, with cynical exploitation of his Jewish origins, Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, purported to know better than Israel’s electorate itself what is good for it.

In a desperate attempt to kowtow to his party’s increasingly radical wing, he accused the recently elected Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of being an “obstacle to peace,” calling for new elections to replace him — despite the fact that, even today, he’s the most popular politician in the country.

This, of course, is something Sen. Schumer would never have presumed to do with any other democratic ally of the U.S. — or even any non-democratic adversary. Thus, somehow, Schumer found no reason to urge removing any member of the brutal Iranian regime.

Pompous Pretentiousness

Even more perturbing is the initiative by Biden’s State Department to impose sanctions on rightwing Israeli citizens, and threaten sanctions on duly-elected Israeli ministers.

Stunningly, none of the sanctioned individuals/organizations have been accused — never mind, convicted — of any current transgressions by Israeli law-enforcement agencies.

With unmatched audacity, the administration pompously proclaimed, “The United States remains deeply concerned about [Jewish] extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel’s own security” neglecting of course any mention of how Arab extremism might impact Israel’s security.

Then, arrogantly, it announced that if Israel does not comply, the U.S. will take it upon itself to deal with “recalcitrant” Israeli citizens — with no commensurate intentions regarding lawless Arabs, who regularly stone, firebomb, and shoot at Israeli citizens, We strongly encourage the government of Israel to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable.

“In the absence of such steps, we will continue to impose our own accountability measures.”

Imagine the ensuing outcry should Washington threaten to intervene and supersede the functioning of national law enforcement authorities in any other country — especially if American citizens were not directly impacted by the action/inaction of those authorities.

Perverse, Paradoxical

Substantively, Democratic support for the Palestinian cause seems highly incongruous.

After all, for anyone who ostensibly embraces progressive-liberal values, there should be little attraction in the establishment of any Palestinian entity, especially a theocratic tyranny, such as a Hamas-ruled Gazan enclave.

Indeed, why would the party endorse establishing (yet another) homophobic, misogynistic Muslim-majority tyranny, whose hallmarks would be suppression of women, oppression of homosexuals, and repression of non-Muslims?

Clearly then, there is nothing that corresponds with the values the Democratic party professes to cherish, and the support for gender discrimination, gay persecution, religious intolerance, and political oppression that would characterize any self-governing Palestinian entity.

So, if the new surge of support for Hamas and Gaza is antithetical to values allegedly dear to the Democratic party, but is manifestly detrimental to the Jewish state, and by association, Jews who identify with it, what could be the motivation behind this malicious and malignant shift?

Antisemitism certainly seems a highly plausible answer.

This column originally appeared on ISRAPUNDINT.

©2024. Dr. Martin Sherman. All rights reserved.

9/11 ─ We Will Never Forget thumbnail

9/11 ─ We Will Never Forget

By Thomas More Law Center

This Wednesday marks the 23rd Anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack on America and the God-given freedoms we so cherish.  We remember with anger and anguish the nearly 3,000 Americans murdered by Muslim terrorists in the name of Islam.  We also remember and honor those first responders, many of whom lost their lives trying to save others.

This is also a time to remember the thousands of American soldiers who were killed, wounded, or are still suffering in the ensuing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and places unknown.  We honor all those who answered our Nation’s call to Arms.  We also remember the sacrifices made by their families.

On this 23rd Anniversary of 9/11, let us rededicate ourselves to the defeat of this evil. We will never forget September 11; and we must keep the flame of retribution burning until Radical Islam is wiped from the face of the Earth.

Please pray for all our men and women who are in harm’s way today in service of our Nation.

God bless America!

Thomas More Law Center

The Difference between a Christian Conscience and a Secular Conscience thumbnail

The Difference between a Christian Conscience and a Secular Conscience

By Family Research Council

The Trump conundrum is now well understood. Though his positions and decisions as president were surprisingly good in some ways, his self-centeredness, history of crudeness, and penchant for insults have led many to say their Christian conscience won’t allow them to vote for him. A growing number claim their Christian conscience is so offended by Trump they feel compelled to vote for Kamala Harris to ensure Trump doesn’t take office. “Evangelicals for Harris,” a group that recently hosted a Zoom call attended by 200,000, declares on their X bio they are “voting for someone who better reflects Christian values.”

To her credit, Harris doesn’t have an insulting nickname for everyone she perceives as a political obstacle, but she is the most radically pro-abortion presidential candidate our country has ever seen. She is in favor of taxpayer-funded abortion up to the point of birth and favors no restrictions of any kind. When, as attorney general of California, she learned the abortion industry was illegally harvesting and selling aborted baby body parts, she did nothing to the people who dissect babies but aggressively went after David Daleiden, the man who exposed it. She is also the first vice president to visit an abortion facility, a move intended to demonstrate just how supportive of abortion she is.

Unfortunately, abortion is just the beginning of her joyful war on the Imago Dei. Harris has aggressively opposed state legislation protecting minors from chemical and surgical mutilation. She staged a photo op in the White House with a bearded man in a dress as if men in dresses and six-inch heels have always been discussing important ideas in the White House. She is also the first vice president to appear on “RuPaul’s Drag Race” to show her solidarity with drag queens.

Not only was she an early proponent of same-sex marriage, she refused to defend California’s natural marriage law as AG even when it was her sworn duty to do so. Though Harris talks about the importance of following the law, she doesn’t follow laws she doesn’t like either.

America’s vice president formally opposes everything God said was good. She denies God made us male and female. She denies God ordained marriage to be a relationship between a man and a woman. She denies we should be fruitful and multiply but believes people are a threat to the planet, part of the reason she is an evangelist for reducing the population generally. But never mind all that, she laughs a lot.

Christians are forced to navigate the reality that perfect people are never on the ballot, so we’re always picking sinners — and it’s appropriate to have minimum qualifications for our leaders. But not all sin is the same. Yes, all sin separates us from God and requires forgiveness, but not all sin is equally harmful. This is part of the reason Jesus warns us not to neglect logs in favor of specks and mentioned that those who delivered Jesus to Pilate were guilty of “greater sin” (John 19:10-11). It’s also the reason Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for straining at gnats while they swallowed camels (Matthew 23:24). Indifference to grave evil because you’re busy being outraged over real but less serious matters is its own form of sin.

We do not want our children speaking disrespectfully to their teacher, but even more than that we don’t want them planting pipe bombs in the school bathroom. “Evangelicals for Harris” is overlooking the pipe bomb in Johnny’s backpack so long as he promises not to talk back to his teacher.

Kamala Harris works to advance the agendas of people who dissect babies and sell their organs for profit. Other things are also evil, but there is nothing worse than that. However bad you think January 6 was, it’s less bad than dissecting babies. Just because good-looking people in expensive suits are telling you it’s not a big deal doesn’t mean it’s not a big deal. If you can get over baby organ harvesting because it’s done with joy, but you can’t get over the fact that Trump is insensitive, that’s not a Christian conscience in operation.

Yes, Trump has made repeated, awful statements about women — including jokes about assaulting them. There’s no excuse for it. But if your moral outrage compels you to affirmatively support someone who facilitates the mutilation and sterilization of children in response, that’s a cultural conscience, not a Christian one. That’s a conscience formed by “The View,” not the Bible.

People have convinced themselves that because they agree with God slavery is wrong, they’re on God’s team. Not so fast. While we have fortunately reached a consensus about the evils of slavery, the test of whether you have a Christian conscience or a cultural conscience occurs when the culture and God disagree. There’s no cost to taking God’s side on the issue of slavery, but there is a cost to taking God’s side on gender, marriage, identity, sexuality, sin, and a host of other issues. If you take sides with the culture against God every time there’s a conflict, you don’t get to claim to be on God’s team just because you also want to help the poor. Everyone wants to do that. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved.

A blessing of living in a free country is that we get to vote for anyone we want or abstain entirely. Obviously, I have opinions, but this is less an effort to persuade you to agree with me and more an effort to get us to stop lying to ourselves. Efforts like “Evangelicals for Harris” are lying to themselves and others. Take your “better reflects Christian values” nonsense elsewhere. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart. There are a lot of people in the process of straining out gnats and swallowing camels right now. Kamala Harris is at war with God, and I’m not joining that war.

AUTHOR

Joseph Backholm

Joseph Backholm is Senior Fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Kicks Off Coalition to Shore Up Catholic Support thumbnail

Trump Kicks Off Coalition to Shore Up Catholic Support

By Family Research Council

Former President Donald Trump is launching a new initiative to bolster his support among American Catholics. On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign launched the “Catholics for Trump” coalition.

“The Catholics for Trump Coalition is committed to safeguarding the vital principles of religious liberty and the sanctity of life that President Donald J. Trump has ardently championed,” the coalition’s mission statement says. “Under President Trump’s leadership, our nation witnessed unprecedented support for religious freedoms, with significant victories both domestically and globally. President Trump restored protections for faith-based organizations and bolstered the rights of religious institutions against governmental overreach.”

“Unlike the Harris-Biden administration, which has systematically undermined these fundamental rights, President Trump has stood unwaveringly in defense of traditional values and the sanctity of human life,” the mission statement continues. “Catholics for Trump stands with President Trump to continue building a nation where the rights of every individual to practice their faith freely is protected. Together, we have the opportunity to secure a future that honors the principles of freedom, faith, and life that are integral to our American heritage.”

Trump has been encouraging Catholics to back his reelection, noting the anti-Catholic policies of his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D). Trump recently posted on social media, “Catholics are literally being persecuted by this Wack Job, just ask the Knights of Columbus. They say that she is the most Anti-Catholic person ever to run for high office in the U.S.” He called on “ALL CATHOLICS TO VOTE AGAINST KAMALA…”

While polling over the years has shown Trump — and the Republican Party more generally — gaining support from American Catholics, especially as the Democratic Party embraces increasingly extreme positions on abortion, a more recent EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research survey found that Trump is trailing Harris among Catholic voters, though neither candidate has the support of a clear majority. Abortion has proven to be a dividing issue, with Trump’s declaration that the federal government has no role in abortion-related legislation finding little favor among Catholic voters. Like most Americans, Catholics rank inflation and the economy, as well as border security and illegal immigration, the most pressing issues ahead of November’s election.

The Catholic Church is strictly and directly opposed to abortion, unequivocally declaring the practice a grave moral evil. Trump’s positions on abortion, voiced over the course of this year, along with the positions of his running mate, Catholic convert and Senator J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), have caused some concern among pro-life Americans, including Catholics. For example, Trump recently suggested that he would support an amendment to Florida’s state constitution allowing abortion, which is currently prohibited past the sixth week of pregnancy in the Sunshine State. In response to backlash from pro-lifers, including Catholic pro-life activist Lila Rose, Trump reversed his position and announced that he would be voting against the amendment. The former president’s abortion-related comments have thus been a source of consternation for Catholic voters.

In comments to The Washington Stand, Catholic League President Bill Donohue explained, “Most practicing Catholics are pro-life (the non-practicing ones are more in tune with the secular pro-abortion side), but they also want to win, and that means we need to be pragmatic.” While Donohue did say that Trump “did the right thing initially” by focusing on politically winning issues like inflation, the economy, and illegal immigration, his more recent comments on abortion show that he has “faltered” and needs “to rebound” on the issue. “He will find a sympathetic audience with Catholics, and most Americans, if he talks about the real extremists — Democrats who favor late-term abortions and who vote against bills that protect the life of a child who survives a botched abortion. He needs to be more consistent on this issue,” Donohue continued.

He added, “Trump won the Catholic vote in 2016, 52% to 45%, but he barely won it in 2020. Given the anti-Catholic animus of the FBI, and other agencies under Biden-Harris, the Catholic vote should be his in 2024.”

The “Catholics for Trump” coalition boasts that, while in office, Trump “did more for Catholics than any administration in history!” Among the achievements listed are conscience protections to ensure that Catholics in the health care industry are not forced to commit or support abortions, pro-life executive orders, and Trump’s address to the annual March for Life — the first time a sitting U.S. president ever spoke to attendees of the event.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Study: Number of ER Visits ‘Significantly Higher’ for Women Who Used Abortion Pill

The Difference between a Christian Conscience and a Secular Conscience

Rise in School Shootings Reflects Both ‘Mental Health and Spiritual Crisis’: Expert

RELATED VIDEO: Rasmussen Reports: Trump is on his way to WINNING the national popular vote

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Unsinkable Ship Titanic America thumbnail

The Unsinkable Ship Titanic America

By The Geller Report

One of my readers sent this to me this morning. I do not know the original source but it speaks for many of us.


I woke up, and as I had my morning coffee, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, something evil has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same.

I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life–so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone.

You can’t justify this insanity. We have become a nation that has lost its collective mind!

  • If a man pretends to be a woman, you are required to pretend with him.
  • Somehow it’s un-American for the census to count how many Americans are in America.
  • Russians influencing our elections are bad, but illegals voting in our elections are good.
  • It was cool for Joe Biden to “blackmail” the President of Ukraine, but it’s an impeachable offense if Donald Trump inquires about it.
  • Twenty is too young to drink a beer, but eighteen is old enough to vote.
  • People who have never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to people who have never been slaves.
  • People who have never been to college should pay the debts of college students who took out huge loans for their degrees.
  • Immigrants with tuberculosis and polio are welcome, but you’d better be able to prove your dog is vaccinated.
  • Irish doctors and German engineers who want to emigrate to the US must go through a rigorous vetting process, but any illiterate gang-banger who jumps the southern fence is welcome.
  • $5 billion for border security is too expensive, but $1.5 trillion for “free” health care is not.
  • If you cheat to get into college you go to prison, but if you cheat to get into the country you go to college for free.
  • People who say there is no such thing as gender are demanding a female President.
  • We see other countries going Socialist and collapsing, but it seems like a great plan for us.
  • Some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, and other people are not held responsible for what they are doing right now.
  • Criminals are caught and released to hurt more people, but stopping them is bad because it’s a violation of THEIR rights.
  • And pointing out all this hypocrisy somehow makes us “racists”?!

Nothing makes sense anymore, no values, no morals, no civility and people are dying of a Chinese virus, but it’s racist to refer to it as Chinese even though it began in China. We are clearly living in an upside down world where right is wrong and wrong is right, where moral is immoral and immoral is moral, where good is evil and evil is good, where killing murderers is wrong, but killing innocent babies is right.

Wake up America, the great unsinkable ship Titanic America has hit an iceberg, is taking on water, and is sinking fast.

The choice is yours to make. What will it be?

Time is short, make your choice wisely!

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

UK’S TERROR TV: BBC Coverage Heavily Biased Against Israel, ‘Breached Guidelines 1,500 Times’ Over Israel-Hamas War – New Report

Why Tucker’s Historian Hates Churchill

Trudeau’s Canada safe for Muslim terrorist targeting New York Jews

Alan Dershowitz leaves Democratic Party, cites DNC: ‘I was disgusted’

RELATED VIDEO: America will sink like the ‘Titanic’ — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Kamala, who is half-Indian, fails to speak about Hindu massacres in Bangladesh thumbnail

Kamala, who is half-Indian, fails to speak about Hindu massacres in Bangladesh

By NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story

Kamala constantly comments on how awful Israel’s defense against Islamic terrorists is, but has nothing to say about the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh. 

Last week we had the big loud debate over what race Kamala Harris is. As I’ve said before, I don’t think she’s anything.

Her identity is as negotiable as anything else. And like Obama, it doesn’t fit the American identity politics calculus anyway.

Like a lot of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, she’s a member of a high-achieving minority group (who is admittedly a lot dumber than the average Indian and Jamaican immigrant) with some family ties, but little sense of belonging to anything beyond a social class.

Kamala’s cooking session with Mindy Kaling gets at how Indian she is which is as much as your average liberal Jew is Jewish.

They picked up some things growing up, mostly foods, a few words, and fond memories, but no real sense of identity, belief, or commitment.

Over in Bangladesh, a color revolution by Marxists and Islamists, cheered on by the media, has set out to demolish the country as an independent secular state.

Call it a smaller Arab Spring with no Arabs (except the ones remotely funding all this) and it has more than slight echoes of the massacres by Islamists (including some who fled to America and became political players) during the battle over Bangladeshi independence.

Like all Islamic movements, a primary goal is to massacre non-Muslims, in this case Hindus.

The media has mostly ignored or downplayed the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, much as it previously did the Muslim massacres of Chinese in Indonesia or of Christians in Nigeria.

The New York Times even justified them as “revenge” because the Muslim majority attacking a non-Muslim minority are still oppressed.

Kamala constantly comments on how awful Israel’s defense against Islamic terrorists is, but has nothing to say about the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is Indian, offered a belated statement urging an end to the violence.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries claimed, “I am deeply concerned and saddened by the violence, casualties and human rights abuses in Bangladesh over the past weeks and offer my condolences to the families of the victims, including within the Bangladeshi-American community that calls Brooklyn home. Recent developments and new leadership must bring with them respect for democratic principles and the rule of law and a commitment to investigating the attacks, calling for accountability for those responsible and demanding justice for the victims. Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris administration, the United States will continue to closely monitor the situation unfolding and we encourage all parties to refrain from further violence.”

And yet there’s been nothing from the ‘Harris’ part of the Biden-Harris administration.

Kamala, when it was convenient, pretended to be the “first Indian-American senator”.

Now when Hindus are facing violence, she couldn’t even be bothered to make a statement.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Jewish patrols set up to protect students at Canadian university

Media goes to Bat for ISIS in Israel

UK: Man gets six months in prison for chanting ‘Who the f**k is Allah

EDITORS NOTE: This World Israel News column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

WATCH: This Game-Changing video of Trump’s path to victory from Laura Loomer on X thumbnail

WATCH: This Game-Changing video of Trump’s path to victory from Laura Loomer on X

By The United West/ Defend The Border

FROM LAURA LOOMER ON X:

You need to watch this video to see this game-changing information that will help get President Trump @realDonaldTrump get elected in November!

Watch this Game-Changing video of Trump’s path to victory

As you know, I’m a Jewish woman who has worked for many years, very closely with like-minded, evangelical Christians. My Christian friends have supported me throughout the years, worked to get Trump elected, and always stood firmly against the rise of Jihad in America.

In fact, in 2018, I went on a trip to Israel with my friends over at The United West
@TheUnitedWest, where we were at the ceremony of the historic American Embassy transfer from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem! This was only made possible by President Trump!

The United West gave me some verifiable information about evangelical Christians who are already registered Republicans but did NOT vote in 2020 in six key swing states. I thought that out of all voters who didn’t vote in 2020, the Christian vote would be the quintessential definition of low hanging fruit since Christians are under attack in our country.

We all know the 2020 race was decided (or shall we say stolen) in those six states, but I never realized how critically important the Christian vote was for the 2024 election in those exact same battle ground states.

The research I have posted below suggests and explains that Donald Trump will either win or lose in November based upon whether evangelicals who did NOT vote in 2020, actually come out to vote in November.

In the video below, the “Swing-State” Chart http://TheUnitedWest.org produced is absolutely SHOCKING!

You can also download this chart on their website.

Every swing state GOTV org should have this chart.

We need to get the word out to all of the Christians in these states who did NOT vote.

They need to see just how impactful their votes are, so to please show them the negative impact it had in 2020 when they didn’t come out to vote.

Let’s not replicate the disastrous last 4 years of the Biden-Harris regime, and let’s make a decision to vote for Donald Trump in 2024.

I will be putting out a lot of information for Christians in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

Watch this short video, go to http://TheUnitedWest.org, download the “Swing-State Chart” and post it all over the place, and please share it with the Christians you know in the six key swing states.

Let’s get Donald Trump elected in 2024!

©2024. The United West/ Defend The Border. All rights reserved.

22 WORDS is a compelling documentary that delves into the profound consequences of removing prayer and the Bible from American schools thumbnail

22 WORDS is a compelling documentary that delves into the profound consequences of removing prayer and the Bible from American schools

By Dr. Rich Swier

22 WORDS is a compelling documentary that delves into the profound consequences of removing prayer and the Bible from American schools, as set in motion by a series of landmark court cases in 1962 and 1963.

Theose rulings have contributed to a decline in societal values, marked by rising divorce rates, teenage pregnancy, suicide, violent crime, and the growing acceptance of pornographic content and LGBTQIA+ agendas in schools.

As traditional moral anchors have been replaced by harmful content and agendas, 22 WORDS advocates for a cultural shift and bravely calls for the reintroduction of school-sponsored prayer and the Ten Commandments across the nation.

NOTE: This Documentary Releases on October 3rd at www.iknowGod.us/22WORDS

Subscribe John Amanchukwu’s YouTube channel for more updates on the release of this documentary!

©2024. 22 Words. All rights reserved.

CBS Journalist in Gaza Tied to Terror, Investigation Finds thumbnail

CBS Journalist in Gaza Tied to Terror, Investigation Finds

By NEWSRAEL Telling the Israeli Story

News producer for CBS praised terrorists, had contacts with terrorists as a member of the Gaza City municipality council.

A CBS News journalist in Gaza praised terrorists at an official event of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and had contacts with terrorists as a member of the Gaza City municipality council, an HonestReporting investigation revealed.

Marwan al-Ghoul has been working as a CBS News producer in Gaza for more than two decades, and his affiliation with a proscribed terror group, as well as his official public role in the Hamas-ruled Strip, raise alarming questions regarding the network’s journalistic standards.

Here are the details of what HonestReporting has discovered, based on Arabic media reports and Al-Ghoul’s Facebook page. It is the latest in a series of exposes unmasking Gaza’s biased reporters.

PFLP Links

In 2018, Al-Ghoul was among the speakers at an official PFLP event commemorating one of the prominent members of the terror group who was also Al-Ghoul’s relative.

According to the PFLP website, Al-Ghoul spoke on behalf of the family, which “expressed their gratitude to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and their esteemed comrades everywhere in the Palestinian land . . . for their . . . commitment to continue the struggle.”

Al-Ghoul praised the group’s terrorists, emphasizing his relative’s dedication to “maintaining the noble national values established by the leading martyrs, such as Al-Hakim, Abu Ali Mustafa, and Wadie Haddad, and those who followed their path of struggle and martyrdom.”

The PFLP is a proscribed terror group whose members were involved in deadly attacks against Israelis, including suicide bombings, stabbings and shootings.

The fact that Al-Ghoul was invited to address an official event of the group suggests his (and his family’s) affiliation with it is deep. The effect such an affiliation might have on his “journalistic” work cannot be underestimated.

Official Role

Al-Ghoul also cozied up with the terror group’s officials as a member of the Gaza City municipality council.

In 2022, a news report showed him smiling next to Gaza City mayor Yahya Sarraj as they hosted a PFLP delegation to discuss “issues of concern to citizens and ways of cooperating.”

What could possibly be discussed in such a meeting? How to better embed terrorists amid the civilian population?

That would not be far-fetched to assume, considering that back in 2022, the IDF revealed that an Islamic Jihad rocket was launched from a location owned by the Gaza City municipality. It misfired and killed two Palestinians.

Referring to the Gaza City mayor, the IDF spokesperson’s unit said at the time that “Sarraj chose to take care of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad more than the residents of the city he heads, and he abused public space that belongs to the residents of the city for terror. This is how he harmed his citizens directly.”

According to an announcement on his Facebook page, Al-Ghoul resigned from his membership in the city council in November 2022. It’s not clear how long he served, why he resigned, whether he got paid to do the job, and if so by whom.

But according to a Fatah official quoted by WAFA, Gaza municipal council members are appointed by Hamas. And according to Reuters, Hamas is the body in charge of paying public sector workers.

The Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Local Government may be in charge on paper, but de-facto, Hamas runs the show.

In any case, AL-Ghoul’s profile photo still appears on the official website of the Gaza city municipality, with a bio that presents him as a “media professional working with several Arab and international channels,” as well as a “member of the Municipal Council.”

What’s clear is that such a public role, in an enclave ruled by terrorists and where terrorists are hosted by the mayor, cannot be done without problematic ties. Especially for a journalist who needs to cover political and civilian issues objectively.

Celebrated Journalist

None of that seemed to bother CBS News, which either turned a blind eye to Al-Ghoul’s activities, or had no idea about them.

The network relied heavily on his work at the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war and praised his “journalism.”

Unsurprisingly, Al-Ghoul’s reports from Gaza are typical — they include destruction and victims, not Hamas terrorists.

Perhaps this is because he prayed for the “victory” of these terrorists in a Facebook post on October 7, as they massacred Israeli women and children:

And it might also be because, as the head of the Mayadeen media Group, Al-Ghoul had long lasting ties with the Hamas-run Government Media Office. In 2008, he delivered a panel in a workshop organized by the office on “the freedom of journalistic work under the Israeli occupation” (although Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.)

Al-Ghoul is not a journalist. Like many other Gaza “reporters” who work for respected Western media outlets, he is a propagandist, at best, or a terror collaborator, at worst.

CBS News should not celebrate his work, but be ashamed of it.

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

VIDEO: Robert Spencer on the Leftist/Islamic Alliance, U.S. Errors in Countering Jihad Violence and More… thumbnail

VIDEO: Robert Spencer on the Leftist/Islamic Alliance, U.S. Errors in Countering Jihad Violence and More…

By Jihad Watch

/in , , , , , , , , /by

Thursday, on Yoel’s Hang Outs.

WATCH: Robert Spencer on the Leftist/Islamic Alliance, U.S. Errors in Countering Jihad Violence and More…

AUTHOR

Robert Spencer

RELATED ARTICLES:

Students for Justice in Palestine calls for ‘total collapse of the university structure and American empire itself’

Fight Fiercely, Harvard?

UK: Man gets six months in prison for chanting ‘Who the f**k is Allah’

Taking Care of Muslim Migrants Can Be Fatal

UK: Muslima enters London church screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ and ‘I am here to kill the God of the Jews’

Muslim Migrants and the Seething In Europe

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

0 0 Jihad Watch 2024-09-08 04:55:02VIDEO: Robert Spencer on the Leftist/Islamic Alliance, U.S. Errors in Countering Jihad Violence and More…

This is not fake news: U.S. Surgeon General warns that parenting is a health hazard thumbnail

This is not fake news: U.S. Surgeon General warns that parenting is a health hazard

By MercatorNet – A Compass for Common Sense

The US Surgeon General, Dr Vivek Murthy, just issued an official advisory warning against the stressful nature of parenting and labelling it “an urgent public health issue.” The document says Surgeon General Advisories “require the nation’s immediate awareness and action.” So, according to the Surgeon General, what exactly is the urgent issue and what immediate actions should be taken to rescue parents from the stress of raising their own children?

In short, the advisory cites data showing that parents experience more stress than non-parents and that sometimes, some parents’ stress levels are so high they cannot function. It says parental stress can negatively affect children. It says major sources of parental stress include “financial strain and economic instability, time demands, concerns over children’s health and safety, parental isolation and loneliness, difficulty managing technology and social media, and cultural pressures.”

All true.

I’m a mom of five children, and I birthed four of them within a time span of roughly five years. 12 years later, I had a baby in my 40s. We had diapers and dating going on at the same time. I’m no stranger to stress. I have known financial strain, the instability of layoffs, bone-deep fatigue, and so much more.

As for not being able to function, that depends on your definition of the word “function”. (Does inventing games where I lay motionless on the bed while my kids pile heaps of clean laundry on top of me count as “functioning”?) Parenting has beat the stuffing right out of me at times. But through all these years, I never saw my children as a threat to my mental health.

Children are a danger to their parents

This Surgeon General’s Advisory is the first time I recall seeing an official government entity framing children as a clear and present danger to their parents. It reminds me of radical feminist Sophie Lewis’ assertion that babies in utero commit “fetal violence” toward their mothers by introducing health threats to and demanding nourishment from their unfortunate maternal hosts. Likewise, Suzanne Sadedin says an unborn baby employs “manipulation, blackmail, and violence” against its mother while floating in the womb and usurping whatever sustenance it can suck from her body.

Collectivism is always the answer

What does the Surgeon General say should be done about this assault on parents’ health? The “We Can Take Action” section of the advisory starts with this preface: “[W]hile parents and caregivers may have the primary responsibility for raising children… [it] is a collective responsibility.” It then gives a laundry list of collectivist solutions including the following:

  • “Bolster support for childcare financial assistance programs such as childcare subsidies and child income tax credits; universal preschool; early childhood education programs.”
  • “Establish a national paid family and medical leave program.”
  • Prioritise “poverty reduction, prevention of adverse childhood experiences… and improve access to healthy food and affordable housing.”
  • “Strengthen public and private insurance coverage of mental health care.”
  • Expand workplace policies, including “paid parental, medical, and sick leave” and “access to childcare (in the community or on-site)”.

Unsurprisingly, most of the solutions call for more government intervention and lots more childcare. (Sorry, but universal preschool has not been shown to improve the situation of the majority of children or their parents.) We will never fix the problem by encouraging less family unity and more government “help” that comes at the cost of higher taxes.

There doesn’t seem to be acknowledgment in the Surgeon General’s Advisory that the separation of parents and children for most of the waking hours of every day and the reality of both parents focusing most of their time and efforts outside the home may be contributing to the very problem they’re trying to solve: the widespread breakdown of the mental health and happiness of both children and their parents.

The advisory does have some solid suggestions that deserve kudos. For instance, it urges friends and family members to offer practical support to parents, including “lending assistance with household chores, childcare responsibilities, or running errands” and “looking for ways to support parents and caregivers so they can take breaks, attend needed appointments, and engage in self-care activities.” Bravo.

Humble solutions

Here are some additional suggestions for policymakers and individuals:

  • Live near familyGrandparents and others can offer vital support. Studies show that living near grandparents can benefit children, parents, and grandparents.
  • Ease parents’ financial burdens by lowering taxes; do this by eliminating social programs, not increasing or expanding them. Largely let families solve their own problems with their own money.
  • Cultivate an economy in which one parent can primarily support the family financially, and one parent can primarily focus on the physical and emotional needs of their children.
  • Spend more time and effort preparing children for parenthood. Cultivate selflessness, sacrifice, and responsibility in children (Hint: Large families often foster this.)
  • Limit time spent on electronic devices for both parents and children (for more vital information on this, see my articles here and here.)
  • Revitalise THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. Initiate simple neighbourhood gatherings to get to know the people around you. Use social media neighbourhood groups to support each other, like offering to pick up a gallon of milk, etc., for the family next door.
  • Don’t wait for the government to save you. If you are overstressed — as I was at one time when my kids were young — ask another parent to swap babysitting with you every week (or as often as needed.) Doing this reduced my stress level significantly.
  • Reconsider and revise your priorities. If work has become more dominant than home life, or if your life is overrun with too much to do, simplify and sacrifice in order to focus on what matters most to you.

Despite the often chaotic and stressful nature of parenting, most parents see their children as a deep and satisfying source of joy — despite the pain. There is work and struggle in parenthood. That’s part of what you sign up for when you decide to welcome a helpless person into your life.

But you also sign up for a life of purpose and boundless adventure beyond what you could have imagined. And almost all parents rise to the occasion. They embrace the adventure of raising a family, and it gives them both daily and lifelong purpose. At the end of the day — and at the end of their lives — most parents consider themselves better off rather than worse off for having embarked on the irreplaceable adventure of becoming parents.


What do you make of the US Surgeon General’s advisory? Leave your thoughts below.


AUTHOR

Kimberly Ells

Kimberly Ells is the author of The Invincible Family. Follow her at Invincible Family Substack.

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

An Open Letter to the God of Islam thumbnail

An Open Letter to the God of Islam

By Amil Imani

It is axiomatic that to be a Muslim, you must believe in Allah by taking him as your one and only lord, accept Muhammad as Allah’s beloved messenger, and take the Quran as a literal work of Allah and a perfect prescription for living.

Hard as I tried, I had a terrible time being a Muslim right at the entry-level. I, therefore, decided to write this open letter in the hope of receiving some satisfactory answers to the many questions that trouble me greatly.

From the first breath of life to the last pang of death, Islam relentlessly bombards us: surrender yourself fully to Allah, pray for his help, let him make all decisions for you and run your life, don’t ever question anything, since questioning is the whisperings of the accursed Satan who strives to take you astray.

Islam says that Allah is the javaab-ul-doaa (answerer of supplications/prayers) and that to him, we should supplicate for any help in all matters.

Well, I am doing strictly what I was told. In this open letter, I am supplicating Allah to provide me with answers to some of my numerous and troubling questions.

It must be a peculiarity about me. I am loath to surrender my inquiry about things and allow others, divine or not, to think for me. If I am to let Allah do all the thinking and deciding for me, then why am I given my brain? I have challenged the Islamic divines.

See, I have already failed the test since I have not surrendered fully to Allah and, by questioning, did not place my total faith in him.

I have been spending much of my life trying to get some satisfactory answers to my questions about Islam from Islamic scripture and authorities without success. More often than not, I get conflicting answers, confusing responses, and even outright contradictory statements.

Hence, I decided to pose some of my perplexing questions in this open letter directly to the god of Islam, Allah, earnestly hoping for deliverance from the anguish of doubt.

I will do my very best to conduct myself with decorum and courtesy toward Allah. At no time will I behave rudely toward him, just in case he is indeed the sole author of this incredible universe, as Islam claims. To be discourteous and rude is not my habit. I don’t even behave rudely toward anyone, much less so in dealing with a purported unfathomably magnificent being.

The list of my questions is long indeed. Here are some of my questions, not necessarily in order of importance, presented in all meekness to Allah, the Lord of Islam. All questions are important to me, and assigning relative importance to them is arbitrary. So, I get started.

I have no illusions of grandeur and no pretense of knowing very much. I am a sincere seeker of truth, and it is in this spirit that I am humbly composing this message to you, Allah. I hope I am not discourteous by simply addressing you as Allah. I mean without preceding invocation of your name by honorifics.

I fully realize that I am insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But, again, you have created me, so I must be worth something. This realization gives me the courage to address you with my questions, your Lordship.

Without further ado, I have some questions for you here.

* Islam says that you are the uncreated creator. I have a tough time with that claim. Of course, I am finite. I have some questions for you here, and my intellect can hardly imagine that something comes from nothing. There is that old refrain, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could,” that humans take as an article of faith and fact. But, again, we humans can hardly fathom things that transcend the limits of our finite rational mind. Any clarification of this assertion would be beneficial.

* Speaking of creating, Islam says you created the universe by the command: kon va yakoon (become and became). The universe appeared instantly in obedience to your command. There are different views about this whole topic of creation that I don’t want to trouble you about. For now, my simple question is: Lord, by this simple command of kon va yakoon, you brought about this indescribably magnificent universe, yet you took some twenty years to write your smallish book, the Quran. Why did it take you so long to write it? I fear a thunderbolt might strike me dead for posing this intrusive question. I hope you hold off and allow me to continue.

So, I can supply a rationalization, not a plausible reason, for it. I told myself, Your Lordship, perhaps it took you twenty years because Muhammad was illiterate and slow in getting your dictates and taking them to a scribe to jot them down. That’s why. Yet, finding someone who could actually write things down among the horde of savages was not an easy task.

A follow-up question! Why a supremely august being, as you are, with all the indescribably exulted powers and attributes, chose an illiterate Arab, a hired hand of a wealthy widow, as your messenger is a mystery. Couldn’t you have selected a Rabbi from nearby Medina, a Zoroastrian Mobed, a Christian Priest from Mecca, a Hindu Monk, a Buddhist Clergy? These were people who had specialized in matters of religion, rather than an Arab whose only skill was helping drive caravans of camels.

I have seen Islam’s pat answers to all questions: no one is given the right to ask Allah about his doings; he does what pleases him and ordains what he wants. But this is no answer. It is a copout.

*Are you male, your Lordship? I’m sorry for asking a personal question. The reason I ask is that you have a lot against women. You stipulate that women are worth one-half of men. You ordain that men are rulers over women and much more. I don’t see that. My lifelong experiences with women have convinced me that women are as worthy as men, if not better, in many respects. For one, women are the life-givers and nurturers of life. Men, by contrast, are forever in the business of life-taking.

Science tells us that women are as capable as men in every sphere other than those that require brute force. However, machines are much superior to men in brute force, and women can operate those machines as well as men.

Is there something inherently inferior or evil about women? If so, then pardon me, your lordship. It is you who designed them that way. Didn’t you?

Is it not a fact that the savage chauvinist Arabs of Muhammad’s time are the ones who instituted this oppressive scheme against women, and Muhammad stamped his approval of the fraud in your name?

My next question is about the role of religion. My limited understanding is that the primary function of religion is to bring disparate people together. It brings unity and amity among diverse and quarreling human groups. Islam fails miserably on this major point. While Muhammad was alive, he kept preaching the gospel of divisiveness. He taught a gospel of us against them, believers against the unbeliever. Since his death, Muhammad’s followers have doggedly followed his gospel of divisiveness.

How can fueling the fire of polarization bring about peace and unity after what Muhammad and his disciples continue to do, killing the unbelievers in mass and without the slightest bit of mercy?

Compounding the problem is the fact that as Muhammad was still gasping his last breath, his senior disciples were busying themselves with the business of killing one another in their lust for power and leadership. And Islam has been on a mission with internecine as well as infidel killing ever since.

If I don’t get answers to these questions, I will continue to ask more of them in the future. Who knows? As unlikely as it may seem, Allah may indeed deem it appropriate to send another of his archangels with a Quran addressing these and other troubling questions. Remember that he does what pleases him and ordains what he wants. Like I was told.

©2024. Amil Imani. All rights reserved.

Why is ‘Florida’s capital of anti-Semitism’ also ‘Florida’s murder capital’ in 2024? thumbnail

Why is ‘Florida’s capital of anti-Semitism’ also ‘Florida’s murder capital’ in 2024?

By Beverly Newman, Ed. D.

In Florida, generations of Jews are routinely victimized with absolute impunity.

This is institutional antisemitism passed along from generation to generation of Jew-haters against generations of Jew-victims. In our family, Florida’s intergenerational antisemitism is now in Generation 4 — starting with my Dad, Holocaust Survivor Al Katz, and thereafter passed down to my husband and me, our child, and our four grandchildren.

In 2023, our four Indiana grandchildren, one of whom was still in high school, purportedly disinherited themselves of Al Katz’s bequest to them of hundreds of thousands of dollars, by their signing of a sheet of paper, prepared by the Florida lawyer representing the Manatee County condo association suing them for Al’s condo debts; despite the fact that none of Al’s great-grandchildren was ever an owner of his condo or liable for his debts.

By falsifying official government records, the law firm representing Heritage Village West Condominium Association in collaboration with HVW President, Matthew Schrier, signing under oath, filed a lien against HVW 4102 intending to nullify Al Katz’s warranty deed, stipulating his sole ownership of HVW 4102 since 1984. Put simply, with the stroke of his pen, Matthew Schrier “transferred” on paper 40 years of continuous real property ownership from a Holocaust Survivor to his great-grandchildren with no distributions thereof, threatening them with alleged insurmountable debts unless they would disinherit themselves and agree to HVW’s foreclosure on Al Katz’s condominium and awarding of hundreds of thousands of dollars to HVW’s lawyers.

This slight of hand, of course, is patently illegal except when the hundreds of thousands of dollars belonging to Jews is involved. The Manatee County court avidly approved of the numerous transactions that falsified governmental records; fraudulently foreclosed on Al Katz’s real property at the foreclosure sale held online for two minutes, selling HVW 4102 to HVW at a cost of $100.00; and HVW’s stealing and looting of thousands of Jewish personal property items inside of HVW 4102.

This pattern is the self-same one used in Nazi Germany – to seize Jewish real property and loot all Jewish personal property therein. Even with copious photographic and eyewitness evidence of these felonious grand thefts and antisemitic hate crimes, the supervising court was unmoved to stop the evisceration of Al Katz’s bequests to his Jewish family, preceded by HVW’s decade-long antisemitic campaign against them via threats, extortion, defamation, vandalism, thefts, intimidation, and classic antisemitic accusations.

Likewise, the Manatee County law enforcement and prosecutor’s office have since 2008 refused to take a single action against any of the perpetrators of the well-documented crimes, felonies, and antisemitic hate crimes against our family, such that our reports of crimes receive no case numbers, no investigators assigned, no response at all from the authorities, no indictments, no prosecutions, no fines, and no penalties of any kind ever.

Growing up in KKK Indiana, living in non-Jewish neighborhoods, attending schools from primary through doctoral levels with nearly 100 percent non-Jewish student populations, working with nearly 100 percent non-Jewish staffs and administrators, and living for decades across the street from a Catholic church and immense Catholic schools complex, preschool-grade 12, I have never witnessed the enormity and impenetrability of institutional antisemitism that our family has suffered for decades in South Florida.

No matter the visibility of the crimes inflicted against our family, the perpetrators remain invincible, untouchable. Years ago, Dr. Rich Swier published “Florida’s Capital of Antisemitism“, the status of which crimes against our family has only intensified and solidified many years later. Also intensifying and solidifying are the murders in the self-same City of Bradenton/ Manatee County, now dubbed as “Florida’s Murder Capital 2024“; for antisemitism is a highly-contagious disease creating a climate of hate witnessed and practiced by our youths in gang violence, murders, drug-related crimes, child abuse, and human trafficking, all of which plague this picturesque area on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

Rather than being the picture of beauty The Divine One blessed this county to be, it has morphed into a forbidding and foreboding site of hatred run amuck from generation to generation, breeding many children filled with uncontained disillusionment, disgust, distress, and desires to harm themselves, their peers, family members, strangers, community, and society for cheating them out of the decent childhood they deserve.

©2024. Beverly Newman, Ed. D. All rights reserved.

The Murdered Hostages and the Western Cheerleaders For Hamas thumbnail

The Murdered Hostages and the Western Cheerleaders For Hamas

By Jihad Watch

As the six murdered hostages are being buried in Israel, Brendan O’Neill has some furious words for Western antisemites who have been cheerleading their murderers in Hamas. He rounds on them here: “The deaths of these hostages shame the Western conscience,” by Brendan O’Neill, Spiked, September 1, 2024:

…Now this is resistance. Unprepared, unarmed, these six young people did what they could to resist the anti-Semitic savagery of the invading army from Gaza. They repelled its grenades, rescued some of its intended targets, tended to the victims of its racist sadism. They didn’t ask for war, they didn’t expect war, they didn’t deserve war. But when it came, brutishly intruding on their kibbutzim and parties, they took action that helped to minimize the Jewish people’s suffering. It is a testament to Western radicals’ swirling moral disarray and their detachment from civilisational values that they referred to the racist invaders of Israel as the ‘resistance’, and the Jewish heroes who fought back as ‘colonizers’.

But this goes beyond foolish ‘left’ apologism for Hamas. It goes beyond excuse-making for terror. There is a case to be made that the self-styled progressive conscience of the West has not been complacent in the face of Hamas’s barbarism, but complicit. Many in the West played an active role in justifying the kidnapping of people like Goldberg-Polin, Lobanov, Gat, Sarusi, Yerushalmi and Danino. They actively bolstered the kidnappers’ claims to be resistance fighters, and they actively prevented the raising of awareness of the kidnap victims, particularly through the destruction of posters featuring their faces. They were more than bystanders to a pogrom – they were unpaid PR men for the pogromists….

Kamala Harris has questions to answer here. She’s issued a welcome, angry statement on the slaughter of the six hostages, describing it as ‘an outrage’. And yet for months she sternly instructed Israel not to launch a ‘major military operation’ in Rafah. There will be ‘consequences’, she warned. It is now known that in Rafah, an American citizen was being held captive. Now killed. Is this the first time in history an American leader warned of ‘consequences’ over the rescue of an American rather than over the kidnap of an American? As National Review summarises it, ‘Kamala Harris warned Israel of “consequences” if it invaded Rafah, where Hamas just murdered an American hostage’.

Here’s the only question that matters right now: are Jewish lives worth fighting for? Some of us think they are. Others, from the top of politics to the frenzied anti-Semites on the streets, seem to think otherwise. It is tempting to see the West’s moral disorder over Israel-Hamas as a consequence of that old problem, ‘the sleep of reason’, the sleep of our conscience. But in truth, the West’s conscience has been wide awake, and excitable, and noisy, and it has sided not with kidnapped Jews, but with their kidnappers. Let us hope the memory of the six slain will be a blessing – and let us hope their deaths will be a lesson for a West that seems utterly morally lost.

Brendan O’Neill is enraged at the “morally lost” in the West who have chosen to sympathize not with the six murdered Israelis, but with the Hamas killers who murdered them, just as for the last eleven months of the war in Gaza, so many in the increasingly antisemitic West have expressed their support not for the embattled Jewish state, but for those who would, if they could, wipe that state off the face of the earth. His savage indignation is exactly what is called for.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

RELATED ARTICLES:

NYC: Muslim Charged in Mass Shooting Plot at Jewish Center to “Kill as Many Jewish People as Possible” Linked to Islamic State on Anniversary of October 7th

The Only People Starving in Gaza Were the Jewish Hostages

Israel: ‘Palestinian’ car bomb was intended for jihad attack on school bus

Hamas-linked CAIR top dog: ‘We can have in ten years, at least 40-50 members of the U.S. Congress’

London Provides New Bus Service For Jews

German: Machete-wielding Muslim migrant screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ threatens to murder cops at police station

In Judea and Samaria, UNRWA teaches ‘Palestinian’ kids to kill Jews

RELATED VIDEO: This Week In Jihad with David Wood and Robert Spencer (Las Vegas Jihad Edition)

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

Will ‘Generation Z’ Take Us All to Hell? thumbnail

Will ‘Generation Z’ Take Us All to Hell?

By The Catholic Thing

David Warren: We were counting on the younger generation to provide us with further generations of kids, but they seem to have come to believe that they have better things to do.


“Well done, good and faithful servant,” as we said to ourselves in thinking (here) of Saint Bruno today, that courageous enemy of decadence and filth, and of the Carthusian Order he founded. “Euge!”

I’ve been trying to catch up with our social degeneration with the help of Jonathan Haidt, the only social psychologist who is, apparently, not also a left-wing lunatic. His recent book, The Anxious Generation, is a study of the latest generation of our youth, and how they’ve been rewired by the Internet.

It’s a challenging topic, for none of the subjects of his study has – as a result of entanglement in apps, video games, and influencers – what was previously known as an “attention span.” Dr. Haidt writes about people who have no use for books, and will only tune into a summary for as long as it takes to call up another screen.

The beginning of this “revolution” was in approximately 2014, or prior to the visitation of Batflu. Or perhaps 2011, according to alternative reports. The “Zoomer” cohort was born about 1997, so as their teens began to pass into adulthood, “social media” arrived.

It arrived for their elders, too, but we had the advantage of familiarity with a world before, which I fondly remember. The speed with which it came, saw, and conquered, was not an event. There is simply a before, and an after, when nothing will ever be the same.

Around here in Toronto, for instance, it is difficult to spot a young person who is not jangled and inhabited by extra-planetary voices, to which he is wired via headphone. Except, the little buds sticking out his ears seem now to have been “integrated” with his flesh.

Dr. Haidt investigates the brave new world of mental illness that follows from youthful addiction, in America, and more or less simultaneously, everywhere on earth. He looks at the consequence of lost childhoods, where play has ceased to happen, along with independent exploration, on the path to maturity. He surveys the explosion of anxieties that have resulted: the children have freaked out.

My son, who is a technologist (but nevertheless sane) points to the apps, rather than the telephony, available through various hand-held devices. It’s more or less plain that unrestricted commercial “sponsors” govern them, and direct the social damage for their own material gain, without the slightest sense of responsibility.

As are the political interests, which do not give a damn about moral consequences, but wish to censor deviation from their narrow party lines. They are the co-authors of the catastrophe, by using heretical inquisitions to constrain our ability to resist, by suppressing freedom of speech.

Yet so would the (sometimes attractive) idea of shutting the whole Internet down – which would be the shortest way with the abusers. The sun will do that anyway, at the next Carrington Event.

For Generation Z itself, there is a question whether it would survive Internet closure – as the final step in the dramatic decline, from many causes, of the birthrate. For we were counting on the younger generation to provide us with further generations of kids; but they have better things to do.

Perhaps they are “the last generation”? Or maybe they merely precede a great depopulation, as the Black Plague did in the XIVth century.

For like ants, and bedbugs, the creatures with which Heaven favors this world are characteristically robust, within their allotted “time zones,” and do not simply disappear without something ready to replace them. It isn’t for us to know what, or who, that will be.

And if we did know, we would be mortally surprised.

But meanwhile we have some years to run, with a generation that can’t be counted on, for anything. This is what makes Generation Z unique.

We cannot even count on them to be evil, in the time-honored ways, as previous generations were, since Adam. I would not mistake this for innocence, however.

We cannot expect them to follow self-interest, or even the perversions of self-interest that bring wealth and power.

Of course, people will write in to tell me that they know, say, some lads or lasses who are an exception to my rule, and have not been acting like the “Zees” at all. That is the marvelous thing about the humans. You can’t expect them all to go to hell by the same route. There are, however, some very broad highways.

And the Internet has, since it was recently created (barely a generation ago), provided such a highway, over a landscape that was, comparatively, just flowers and trees. It was an extraordinary economic opportunity, for both good and bad actors. And as usual the bad were awfully quick.

If humans should last so long, it would, like other revolutions, be gradually assimilated and tamed, but how soon? The Industrial Revolution still hasn’t been assimilated, after two or three centuries. The Electronic Revolution may take much longer, for it slides much farther along the track of mobility, and moves closer to everyone, everywhere.

To a perhaps unprecedented extent, it even enables us to slide out of our minds.

This is a world in which men can become women, and women can become men, and half the men and women are comfortable with that: the former men and women in quite different ways. For the behavioral differences between the two sexes have become more apparent to psychologists and sociologists than ever before, even while their bodies become interchangeable. For females and males have succumbed to contrasting mental illnesses.

It is a time when Generation X is almost forgotten as if in antiquity, in which Millennials are about to be forgotten, and in which the new Generation Alpha (arguably still being born) does not have a parentage – except for those happy exceptions, chiefly of weird people who still go to church.

But the “reset” that Generation Z brings, rises to God; with Whom, as I have observed, all things are possible.


You may also enjoy:

Robert Royal The Time of the Gentiles

Michael Pakaluk Faith Counts


AUTHOR

David Warren

David Warren is a former editor of the Idler magazine and columnist in Canadian newspapers. He has extensive experience in the Near and Far East. His blog, Essays in Idleness, is now to be found at: davidwarrenonline.com.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Catholic Thing column is republished with permission. © 2024 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org. The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

EXCLUSIVE: Law School Offers Course That Explores Rise Of ‘Authoritarian Christianist Nationalism’ In ‘Age Of Trump’ thumbnail

EXCLUSIVE: Law School Offers Course That Explores Rise Of ‘Authoritarian Christianist Nationalism’ In ‘Age Of Trump’

By The Daily Caller

A top public university’s law school is offering a class this fall that aims to explore the U.S.’ political shift towards “authoritarian Christianist nationalism” in the “age of Trump,” according to an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The University of Colorado Boulder’s Law School class, titled “Statutory Interpretation,” is offered to second-year law students and will hinge on topics of relevance in the current election season, including former president Donald Trump’s legal battles and the Supreme Court’s supposed “legitimacy crisis,” professor Paul Campos told students in an email obtained by DCNF. Campos noted in the email that the course could be more aptly named “The Crisis of the American Legal System in the Age of Trump.”

“[It] isn’t surprising that [the school would] offer such a course, but it is disappointing,” a law student who alerted the DCNF of the course said, mentioning multiple instances of similar bias experienced at the school. The student requested anonymity in order to “avoid retaliation” from the school.

“When I learned constitutional law, I learned it from a professor that openly called for the rewriting of the constitution. Students in that same class complained about the fact that “non-college educated” voters in rural America could affect elections at all,” the student told the DCNF. Professors at the university, he said, “tout the likes of Ginsburg and Sotomayor, reading their opinions as though it were gospel. I have yet to hear critiques on the liberal justices, but I often hear critiques on the likes of Justice Gorsuch, who once taught at the school.”

Course topics will include abortion and the “current legitimacy crisis” of the Supreme Court and will discuss how they create a “fundamental threat to social and political national stability,” according to the email.

The course will also examine “the extent to which the American legal and political systems are being pushed toward some variety of authoritarian Christianist nationalism, with potentially fascistic overtones” and “the perils of presidentialism.” Some of the required readings for the course include several books on fascism as well as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 2017 Atlantic article, The First White President, which attributes the election of Trump and other white presidents to the “bloody heirloom” of “whiteness.”

“It is absurd that a public university in this age would push the narrative that there is a secret cabal being pushed by members of a religion to overthrow the government,” the student said. “I’ve heard professors and students alike joke and insult Christianity for being backwards. It’s no wonder that someone is now teaching to fear it as a course.”

Campos, an ardent Trump critic, wrote in 2016 that the former president is a “total moron” who represents “every horrible personality trait and political instinct that fueled the Reagan revolution.” When then-president Trump was hospitalized briefly with COVID-19 in 2020, Campos wrote in a blog post that the president’s death would be a “blessed event,” saying, “I just want him to die,” according to Campus Reform.

The University of Colorado settled a lawsuit in February with Campos in which he received a six-figure payout, according to the Denver Post. Campos sued the university after he received a low annual review score, which he attributed to discrimination.

“The university is creating activists, soon to be sheathed in the power of the law,” the student warned. “Those activists are being taught to despise conservatives and view them as lessers through courses like this one.”

The university and course professor did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Elite Universities Ranked Lowest For Free Speech, Report Finds

RELATED VIDEO: Fine Point – Red Scare Is Back – With Jim Hoft

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


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Betrayal thumbnail

Betrayal

By Jihad Watch

The entire policy of Israel’s elite after October 7 boils down to twisting the government’s arm and preventing victory over Hamas. Before October 7, it threatened to destroy the country from within. And what about October 7 itself?

According to Hegel’s dialectics, at a certain stage of development “quantity inevitably turns into quality.” This is what happened to the ruling class of Israel.

For 30 years, the Israeli establishment (judicial, military, political, Academy and media) played with the destinies and lives of its people cynically and unceremoniously in favor of its interests and ideological preferences. The Shamir-Arens government was the last one allowed to be guided by the responsibility for the country’s future. Then the games began: gambling and blood.

Here they are — the elite “Hunger Games”:

Oslo Accords

The “deal” with the head of a terrorist group cost lives of hundreds of people. Peres and Rabin called them “sacrifices on the altar of peace.” It was a new pseudo-religious cult with mass human sacrifices.

Ehud Barak’s flight from Lebanon in 2000

The South Lebanon Army was abandoned to its own fate (like the Arabs who collaborated with Israel before them), and Hezbollah became a powerful force here.

Ehud Barak and Camp David

The offer to Arafat to transfer to him 91-95% of the territory of Judea, Samaria, part of the Negev (as part of a “territory exchange”), the Arab areas of East Jerusalem and most of the Old City was rejected by the PLO leader. He didn’t want to share the fate of Anwar Sadat. He gave carte blanche to the militants. During the four years of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, also known as the Oslo War, more than 1000 Israelis were killed and more than 5500 were wounded.

The “Disengagement”

In 2005, Ariel Sharon, who proudly declared: “The fate of Netzarim is the fate of Tel Aviv,” wiped out the thriving Jewish communities of Gaza. The Zionist, mostly Religious Zionist, residents were thrown into the trash heap. The elite triumphed. Some of the youth of Gush Katif lost themselves into drinking and taking drugs, and some emigrated. It was literally an expulsion from paradise. Two years later, Hamas came to power in Gaza.

Kadima party, Annapolis, and the planned disengagement in Judea and Samaria.

The opportunist Kadima party of Sharon, Olmert and Tzipi Livni was ready to liquidate more than 90% of the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria. However, Mahmoud Abbas, like Arafat before him, refused to accept the idea of “conflict is over.” In return, Kadima decided to carry out a second “unilateral disengagement” — this time on Judea and Samaria. Luckily, it failed to be implemented due to the second Lebanese war.

These projects were not buried by the elite, who aspired after three strategic things:

  • Ending the falsely termed “occupation” (“the apartheid regime” according to the former head of the Mossad, Tamir Pardo).
  • Transformation of Israel from a Jewish state into a state for “all its citizens” (de facto, one more Arab state).
  • Elimination of the settler movement (peopled by those called “subhumans” by Meretz party head Yair Golan).

Netanyahu’s stubbornness caused fury. He would not give in to the elite establishment nor would he fulfill its goals. He was seen by the world as a statesman and by a majority of Israelis as the leader they wanted. So the elite were prepared to jeopardize the country to get rid of him.

Meanwhile, the rot kept growing. We observed shocking manifestations of it. Some examples: fictitious court cases against the head of government, Netanyahu; the Shin Bet’s use of female soldiers as sex toys for terrorists in prisons; the deadly Jewish pogroms in Lod and Acre in 2021, which took the Shin Bet and the police by surprise (as they always do); the humiliating concession of gas fields to Hezbollah in 2022; the Supreme Courts decisions to abrogate powers of every part of government and be the judge of the legitimacy of its own powers.

After the right-wing government won the elections by a large margin, the elite resorted to open sabotage. Their worst nightmares seemed to be coming true: Avi Maoz’s (“Noam”) call for the restoration of Jewish identity and family values; Ben Gvir’s “national guard” project; finally, an attempt to define the unlimited powers of the judicial caste (the “priestly corps” of the elite) and have checks and balances – all these became a pretext for starting a de facto coup.

Even if the judicial reform’s first steps were half-baked, it certainly did not pose a threat to democracy. Prof. Alan Dershowitz suggested that with the reform implemented, Israel would be much more like “Canada or New Zealand or Australia, or many European countries,” still a far cry from the USA.

The defense establishment led this crusade. Not a day passed without some former chief of the General Staff, ex-head of Shin Bet, Mossad or AMAN declaring that “democracy is under threat” or the country is “on the verge of dictatorship.”

The elite threatened to refuse to serve when called up, and pilots did not report for reserve duty necessary for maintenance of their operative level. The elite threatened to take their money, grown exponentially due to government encouragement and tax breaks to strengthen the economy, out of the country. They set fires on main roads, blocked them and were treated with kid gloves by law enforcement, whose then heads identified with them.

Hamas was watching.

Ominous prophecies about an impending “dictatorship”, threats of civil war, allusions to the collapse of two Temples, pogroms, and Ehud Barak’s “wishes” to fill Yarkon with corpses created an atmosphere of hysteria and fear.

Yet all of this was not enough. Something bigger was needed that would plunge the entire country into chaos.

This would allow:

  • to create a government of national unity by introducing people loyal to the establishment.
  • to push out the so-called “Kakhanists” of Otzma Yehudit and “Noam” parties
  • to remove the judicial reform from the agenda.
  • to weaken Likud as much as possible. Same for the Religious Zionists.
  • eventually, to remove Bibi from the big politics once and for all.

And after that, they could move on to the strategic tasks mentioned above.

Stalin wrote: “The forest is cut — the chips fly.” Why wouldn’t these principles be still relevant today? Perhaps all means seemed acceptable.

A Hamas attack would make it possible to objectively achieve the assigned tasks in the shortest possible time.

Maybe they thought the scale of the attack would be limited. Maybe they couldn’t imagine that Hamas would decide to carry out massacres because the enemy they hated was Bibi, not the terrorists. Maybe they didn’t consider that a music festival with the participation of left-wing youth would take place nearby. Maybe…

But remember that Ehud Barak said that “the corpses had to float along the Yarkon.”

I have not the slightest doubt that the conditions for the massacre were prepared. Warnings by observers were ignored, the border was unguarded (by tacit agreement? or worse?), and the predator was allowed into the territory of defenseless Negev settlements. It took hours for defense establishment help to arrive. Israel was saved by the initiative of its heroic sons and daughters.

And the massacre plunged the entire country into horror, chaos, and mourning.

So a betrayal turned into a crime, and it not only continues, but reaches a new level.

The entire policy of the ruling class after October 7 boils down to twisting the government’s arm and preventing victory over Hamas.

The country must be brought to its knees before the Islamic jihadists, so that our elite will be able then declare: Netanyahu lost the war, he is responsible to the hostages’ deaths and we must hold elections now.

“Elections NOW!”, “Rak Lo Bibi – anything but Bibi.” That’s all that matters.

All means at their disposal are used for this:

  • Mass hysteria and playing on the suffering and emotions of the families of hostages. The goal is to force the government to return the hostages NOW at any cost: that is, to give up control over Gaza, the Philadelphi Corridor won with the blood of IDF soldiers, and return Sinwar and his thugs to power. It will be clear and unconditional capitulation, but doesn’t matter.
  • Blaming Netanyahu for the deaths of hostages in Gaza instead of Hamas, using the mantra “bring them home” instead of “set them free”, while knowing full well that the repeated demonstrations made Israel seem divided and raised the price for freeing the hostages.
  • The assertion that Hamas cannot be defeated because “it is an ideology”.
  • Coordination of actions with White house. In fact, the entire military establishment, as well as former generals, including Galant, Gantz, Eisenkot, and media are on a short leash of the Democratic Party and systematically voice its demands to wind down the operation and hand Gaza over to the PA.
  • Blocking an independent investigation of October 7.
  • Sowing confusion and disarray in society by pursuit of soldiers and reservists for “mistreatment of the Nukhba terrorists” while not bringing one terrorist to trial.
  • Hounding (in unison with the US administration) of right-wing politicians like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.
  • The desire to drag the country into a war of attrition with Hezbollah NOW, before the Hamas regime in Gaza is destroyed.

Israel must be sacrificed on the “altar of peace.” In framework of this “peace” there will be no place for Israel, but it doesn’t matter.

The result of this unscrupulous manipulation is ambiguous. The ruling class has won the battle, but probably has lost the war. The left is traditionally strong at intrigue, but weak at strategy. The ordinary people are making their voices heard. The IDF rank and file, reservists and medium level echelons are loyal and dedicated to saving the country.

In truth, the left camp is demoralized.

These were its most consistent adherents who became tragic victims of the massacre, and the consequences of this will have far-reaching results. The veil of great-heartedness fell from the eyes of many: it became obvious that Jews were tortured, raped, killed, roasted in ovens not because they were “right-wing extremists” and “colonists,” but only because they were Jews. And this can happen not only in Israel, but everywhere: from New York and Toronto to Berlin, London, and Paris.

What also became obvious is that the Middle East remains the same Middle East and will not turn into Iceland or New Zealand. The entire society is traumatized, but the left is traumatized much more, because until now they lived in the world of illusions.

The war awakened the country to the dedication of the Religious Zionists and aroused national consciousness to the need to involve the haredi population, start a process where they eventually join military service and contribute economically. And clearly, they won’t be on the side of the elite either.

Thus a tactical victory will turn into a strategical defeat.

AUTHOR

Alexander Maistrovoy

RELATED ARTICLES:

How the US State Department Helped Jihad Come to Power in Bangladesh

Islamic scholar: ‘After Palestine is liberated, not even a single grave of a Jew will remain in Palestine’

Goodnight, Vienna

Islamic State calls for jihad massacres in Europe to avenge deaths of Muslims in Gaza

The IDF’s Operation Summer Camps

Germany: Muslim migrant who tried to run over pedestrians says he did it ‘on behalf of Allah’

France: Muslim migrant screaming ‘Allahu akbar’ and ‘There is only one god’ threatens to slit woman’s throat

Belgium: School makes Arabic compulsory for sixth graders

Another Week, Another Muslim Stabbing In Germany

Imam Khalil Adem: From Kidnapping to Threatening the End of Jews—Why Is He Still Employed at a New Jersey Hospital?

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