6 Facts Highlight Why We Need to Rebuild Our Military

Commentary from Justin Johnson on The Daily Signal.com (May 17):

The U.S. military seems to be breaking. Senior military leaders have made dire statements before Congress, and story after story is revealing the potentially deadly challenges facing our men and women in uniform.

As Congress considers the annual defense authorization bill, here are six clear, real-world examples of why Congress needs to use the defense bill to start rebuilding the U.S. military.

1. The Marine Corps is pulling parts off of museum planes to keep their F-18s flying.
2. Only one-third of Army brigades are ready for combat.
3. The Air Force is cannibalizing parts from some F-16’s to keep other F-16’s flying and is pulling parts off museum planes to keep their B-1 bombers flying.
4. The Navy keeps extending deployments of its ships, but still doesn’t have enough to meet demand.
5. Serious crashes of Marine Corps planes and helicopters are nearly double the 10-year average.
6. The Air Force’s B-52 bombers are an average of 53 years old.

These six facts show the consequences of cutting the national defense budget by 25 percent over the last five years. [read more]

Pretty bad. Of all the spending the gov’t does, keeping the military in fighting order is the most important. Hopefully, if Donald Trump becomes president he can “make the military great again.” Hillary probably won’t.

The Political Illusion

A commentary by Chuck Colson on Break Point.org:

Politicians have been promising to fix the deficit for years. In 1976 both presidential candidates made promises to balance the books. But today the debt is bigger than ever, and growing.

And it's finally beginning to dawn on people that government is not able to deliver on a lot of its promises.

For most of us, that's a hard lesson to learn. We instinctively turn to government to solve our social problems. It's a habit reinforced from the time we're young.

Listen to these quotations from the Teachers' Edition of a fifth-grade social studies textbook.

"Today, when people lose their jobs," the textbook says, "they can get some money from the government." A few pages later the book says, "Today, families who do not have enough money for food can get money from the government." And a few pages later we read, "Today families who cannot afford to pay their rent can get help from the government."

The message is obvious: Government is the solution to every social need.

And here's a quotation that sums it all up. It's from a junior high civics textbook, explaining why the national government has grown so large. The book says that over time, "People were no longer content to live as their forefathers had lived. They wanted richer, fuller lives. They wanted the government to help make their lives rich and full."

What is this book teaching kids? That government can make our lives "rich and full."

This goes far beyond the traditional philosophy of limited government, in which the state is given only certain specified tasks, such as operating a police force and regulating traffic.

Modern societies have fallen prey to what political writer Jacques Ellul calls "the political illusion": the idea that government is actually capable of creating the good life, the good society.

It's a modern form of idolatry, which treats the state as a god.

But like all idols, the state inevitably disappoints those who worship at its shrine. A government that can't even manage the simple accounting task of balancing its budget is certainly not capable of making people's lives "rich and full."

And it was never meant to.

Biblically speaking, government is simply one of the many social structures ordained by God, each with a specific task to do. The job of the state is to promote justice and restrain evil. The hope that it can do more than that--that it can make people happy or fulfilled--is doomed to failure and disappointment.

There's only one way to make life "rich and full"--not by turning to government but by turning to God. The kingdoms of this world rise and fall, but the Kingdom of God will rule in human hearts for eternity.  [read more]

Yea, what’s in those textbooks above is pure subliminal brainwashing. Just the way Karl Marx would have liked it. And as for treating gov’t as God—that’s a Marxist idea too. Capitalism according to Marx is the major cause of crime. Thus, no capitalism no crime. One problem though. In the old Soviet Union (which was supposed to be a utopia) they had a serial killer. Go figure. Kind of blows that theory to bits.

Notes from the Defeating Jihad book

The Seven Swords of Jihad:

1. empire building;
2. the suppression of apostate subjects;
3. the revolution against “false” Muslim leaders;
4. the anti-colonial struggle and “purification” of the religion;
5. countering Western influence and jahiliyya;[1]
6. guerrilla warfare against secular invaders; and finally
7. the direct targeting of civilians in terrorist attacks.

4 Reasons why ISIS is more dangerous than Al Qaeda:

1. It is its own self-generated, fully fledged, trans-national insurgency. Al Qaeda, in all the theaters where it existed in the last 14 years, was a parasitic terrorist organization that attached itself to indigenous insurgencies, whether it was Al-Shabaab in Somalia or whether it was the Taliban in Afghanistan, it did not generate its own mass base of mobilization as a true Maoist insurgency should, or one that follows Mao’s rule-book for mobilization. ISIS is different.
2. It is completely open source, it is the richest threat group of its type in human history.
3. As CG Cleveland has used the adjective, staggering, and I completely agree, the recruiting capacity of ISIS is mind boggling. You just heard in our presentation that we have figures that in historic perspective we have never seen before. Nineteen thousand foreign fighters in nine months.
4. Unfortunately, it has no peer competitor.

Three momentous events mark 1979 as the year in which modern jihad, having evolved over the course of the century, emerged as a global movement: the establishment of a theocratic regime in Iran, the siege of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. While the conditions for an Islamist explosion had existed for a long time, these events were the spark.

Three part strategy to beat the jihadists:

1. We have to get politics, and particularly political correctness, out of the threat assessment. We have to talk truthfully about our enemy, exactly the same way we did during World War II, when facing the Nazis, and during the Cold War, when President Reagan rightfully called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.”
2. We have to empower our Muslim allies in the Middle East who are most at threat from groups such as ISIS, and which, in the final analysis, have to be the face of a victory against Islamist extremism and terrorism. This includes the Jordanians and especially the government of President Fatah al-Sisi, a brave Muslim who has been rejected by this administration.
3. Finally, this war will not be won by killing jihadis in large numbers. The use of force is only a part of the solution. Ultimately we will win when the ideology of global jihadism is no longer attractive to young men and women from Orlando to Brussels, from Paris to San Bernardino. That can only be done through a strategic-level counter-propaganda campaign driven by the White House, in exactly the same way that we did during the Cold War.

For political leaders:

1. The politically motivated censorship of analysis, training and education must end. The White House must scrap the rules of what can and cannot be used by analysts, war fighters and FBI agents about the jihadist threat.
2. Washington must resist the continuous lobbying and subversive tactics such groups as CAIR and Muslim Public Affairs Council. These groups use the same tactics of the Muslim Brotherhood.
3. A complete reappraisal of US policy toward theocratic regime in Iran. Unless Iranian mullahs stops saying “death to America” and conditions for Iranians improve, sanctions should increase and the regime should be isolated.

Concrete measures to defeat ISIS and Al Queda:

1. Reinstate and expand the federal human intelligence counter-terrorism methods pioneered by the New York police department after 9/11.
2. Build a curriculum on the enemy threat doctrine of global jihadism that all local, state and federal law enforcement officers and analysts must be trained in. And fund such training through the DHS. Do the same for the joint military education system used across the defense department with short courses for all ranks and grades and long courses at academies and war colleges.
3. The department of defense and the intelligence community must hire subject matter experts on Islam and jihadist ideology to inform threat analyse and advise theater commanders including theater special operation commands.
4. The policy elite and the defense department should once and for all reject counter insurgency operations as an option to defeat jihadism.
5. Return our special forces to their original missions of direct action. Targeted killing of enemy leaders and foreign internal defense. Embed our soldiers and marines in the national units of Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE. Right down to the brigade level or lower so as to provide the central core around which an international force can move out to destroy ISIS and the like with the front-line fighters being our Sunni allies; not Amercan service men.
6. Initiate a stragic counter messaging campaign from the White House itself, modeled on the active measure working group of the Cold War. Use this new interagency publicly by identifying jihadi propaganda and the extent of the lies from the groups like ISIS starting with their professing to be fighting for Islam against the infidel while killing more Muslims that anyother target group.
7. Provide large scale technical and financial support to our partners best suited to continue this campaign in theater especially the Jordian and Egyptian governments.
8. Iniate a covert psychological warfare campaign to support Muslim reformers across the Middle East, Asia and North Africa in their ideological war to delegitimize the message of holy war against the infidel and bolster modern interpretations of Islam.

Source: Defeating Jihad. The Winnable War (2016) by Dr. Sebastian Gorka.

Good detailed ideas in this book. Hillary probably won’t implement these ideas because she will just continue Obama’s stupid program.

Dr. Gorka says the Soviet Union is in many ways similar to the Islamic State and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Both have an extreme oppressive idealogy in that they want to spread over the world because they feel that’s what the world needs for its own good. Both force people to join them. Communism has its true believers just like the Jihadists do. The only difference is Communism is athestic while Jihadism is Islamic. So, to defeat Jihadism you have to defeat it like America defeated Communism in the old Soviet Union.

The Points of Proof for Life: Scientific

From Human Coalition.org (May 12):

In 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court made abortion on demand legal in all fifty states, science was lagging behind what pro-life individuals already knew to be true: life begins at conception and should be protected at all stages.

Since that infamous ruling, science has made great strides to validate our position. In 2016, the scientific evidence for life seems hardly in dispute…except for those who are ideologically blinded by the pro-abortion agenda.

So what is this evidence?

• A child in the womb has individual and unique Chromosomes. At the moment of conception, the zygote—the fertilized ovum—retains full personhood and does so throughout the gestation period: forty-six chromosomes, a carrier of similar DNA to his or her parents, and the same genetic makeup inside the womb that he or she will have outside the womb.
• Seven Characteristics of Life: Also from the moment of conception, pre-born babies possess the seven characteristics that define life: responsiveness to the environment, growth and change, the ability to reproduce, a regulated metabolism and oxygen flow, maintaining homeostasis (the ability to regulate internal bodily functions in response to external changes), composed of cells, and the capacity to pass traits onto offspring—in this case, human offspring.

You may have once heard the commonly cited quote: If a single living cell was found on a distant planet, scientists would exclaim that we have found life elsewhere in the universe. So why then is a single living cell in the womb of a pregnant woman not considered life?

According to the father of modern genetics, it undoubtedly is! He writes, “After fertilization has taken place, a new human being has come into being. It is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”  [read more]

The other points of proof are: the biblical argument, the philosphical argument, and the sociological argument. All of which are on the webpage.

Philosophy and Science

Commentary by Eric Metaxas on Break Point.org:

Socrates said that wisdom consists in knowing that you know nothing. If that’s true, a few of our brightest scientists need some enlightenment.

The popular “Existential Comics” Twitter page appeals to a segment of the population most of us avoid at dinner parties. It’s humor at its most esoteric. But Existential Comics recently posted a real zinger that cuts scientific hubris down to size.

A scientists asks why philosophy matters. The philosopher counters and asks “Why does science matter?” The scientist thinks for a moment before replying that science matters because… And here, the philosopher interrupts him and says, “You’re doing philosophy.”

It would be funnier if so many scientists today didn’t share this ill-informed attitude toward philosophy. New Atheist rock star and Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins tweeted on Darwin Day that philosophers’ failure to anticipate Darwin was “a severe indictment of philosophy.” And theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking recently declared “philosophy is dead.”

Bill Nye “the Science Guy” took on the subject last month in a Big Think video on YouTube. A philosophy student contacted Nye to ask whether he, like so many atheist scientists, considers philosophy a “meaningless topic.”

………………………

These kinds of charges, writes Olivia Goldhill at “Quartz,” show that Nye buys into the common caricature that “philosophy is about asking pointlessly ‘deep’ questions, plucking an answer out of thin air, and then drinking some pinot noir and writing a florid essay.”

Far from it! As Existential Comics cleverly hinted, not only is philosophy not dead, but without it, science itself is impossible. Philosophy tells us not only why we do science—it gives us the assumptions that undergird the scientific method.

Ned Hall, a philosophy chair at Harvard, explains that science as we know it involves “unstated but fairly substantial assumptions about the simplicity and elegance of the natural world.”

In other words, the scientific process of observation, hypothesis, experiments, theories, and predictions requires us to assume that nature is orderly and predictable. Just because the sun has risen every day since the dawn of civilization doesn’t mean it will rise tomorrow without a human sacrifice—just ask the Aztecs! Modern inferences like the laws of gravity, optics, and Newtonian physics only make sense if you assume an orderly and consistent universe—the kind of universe the Judeo-Christian Bible says we have.

As historian Rodney Stark argues in his terrific book, “The Victory of Reason,” Christianity gave birth to modern science by laying this philosophical groundwork. That is to say, the Christian worldview, alone in the history of mankind, made the right claims about reality necessary for empirical science to develop and flourish.   [read more]

I agree that philosphy matters. Science is just finding the truth in the universe. Philosphy asks what happens if a particular truth is discovered and should it be discovered at all. Science leads to technology which affects people. So, we should be asking how that technology affects people.

For example, should driverless cars be completely without control of the “driver?” What if there is a bug in the software or a hardware glitch and the car is moving toward an embankment or cliff? Or what if the car “decides” to avoid hitting a squirrel, it moves toward a tree or another car? These are philosophical questions. I put the word driver in quotes, by the way, because if cars are steering themselves then basically there are really no human drivers anymore.

Then there is human cloning. I could go on.

Interesting essay.

Rigged Against Trump: Presidential Debate Commission

From Dick Morris.com:

The decision of the Presidential Debate Commission to hold two of the general election debates on nights that conflict with high profile NFL games — and their refusal to reconsider the scheduling — raises the question of pro-Hillary/anti-Trump bias on the Commission.

By deliberately setting the debate dates opposite highly popular football games, the Commission seems to be angling to cut the viewership of white males, a key voting groups generally supporting Trump, in a bid to reduce their interest in the election.

While theoretically bi-partisan, the Commission is currently dominated by high profile Hillary supporters and Republicans who oppose Donald Trump — elite insiders. So, in sum, it about as anti-Trump as a commission can get.

And the Commission also chooses the moderators for the debates. Look for a Hillary-friendly choice.

Take a look at some of the “non-partisan” members:

The two co-chairmen are Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton’s press secretary and Frank Fahrenkopf, who held the same post under Reagan. Sounds fair? Look closer. Fahrenkopf is 90 years old and well past his prime. His co-chair? Mike McCurry, 62, who remains a vigorous defender of the Clintons working especially hard to ward off negative stories. [read more]

Yea, it doesn’t look good for Trump but then what do you expect. Morris goes on to say that former President Jimmy Carter, a Democratic National Chairman and a long-time aide of Ted Kennedy, and Jim Lehrer, a noted but also liberal news commentator among others.

Trump says he doesn’t want conservative Mary Katharine Ham moderating debates because she “says only bad things” about him. He doesn’t know her though. Well, she, being a conservative, probably doesn’t say anything nice about Hillary either for that matter. I’ve seen her on the O’Reilly Factor and maybe Hannity and she seems nice. I think she would treat him fairly. Ham said she has had at least two nice interactions with Trump personally, once where he introduced himself, and the Republican debate she moderated in New Hampshire, which turned out fairly well for Trump. She did say during the Republican debate that “jabs are Donald Trump’s entire brand.” And “the only way to rattle the real-estate mogul and reveal the shallow nature of his policy ideas.” Maybe that is what Donald Trump is referring too. But that isn’t a personal attack so much. That’s an opinion. And he did throw jabs during, before, and after those debates. As long as she isn’t intentionally lying about him he should grow a thicker skin. Politics can be rough for a republican candidate especially by the drive-by-media and doesn’t get any easier even if you are president. Just look at how the press treated President George W. Bush and President Reagan when they were in office. They called Reagan a cowboy and Bush much worse. It’s what the press does. Sadly, nothing’s going to change that.

Was Jesus a Socialist?

Commentary by Lawrence W. Reed from FEE.org:

On June 16, 1992, London's Daily Telegraph reported this astonishingly bold remark by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev: "Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind."^{1
……………………………}
You don't have to be a Christian to appreciate the errors in the Gorbachev canard. You can be a person of any faith or no faith at all. You just have to appreciate facts, history, and logic. You can even be a socialist — but one with open eyes — and realize that Jesus wasn't in your camp.
In a modern political, economic, and social context, socialism isn't voluntary like the Girl Scouts. Its central characteristic is the concentration of power to forcibly achieve one or more (or usually all) of these purposes: central planning of the economy, government ownership of property, and the redistribution of wealth. No amount of "we do it all for you" or "it's for your own good" or "we're helping people" rhetoric can erase that.
…………………..
So was Jesus really a socialist? More to the main focus of this essay, did he call for the state to redistribute income to either punish the rich or to help the poor?
I first heard "Jesus was a socialist" and "Jesus was a redistributionist" some forty years ago. I was puzzled. I had always understood Jesus's message to be that the most important decision a person would make in his earthly lifetime was to accept or reject him as savior. That decision was clearly to be a very personal one — an individual and voluntary choice. He constantly stressed inner, spiritual renewal as far more critical to well-being than material things. I wondered, "How could the same Jesus advocate the use of force to take stuff from some and give it to others?" I just couldn't imagine him supporting a fine or a jail sentence for people who don't want to fork over their money for food-stamp programs.
………………………
The fact is, one can scour the Scriptures with a fine-tooth comb and find nary a word from Jesus that endorses the forcible redistribution of wealth by political authorities. None, period.
"But didn't Jesus say he came to uphold the law?" you ask. Yes, in Matthew 5:17–20 he declares, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."³ In Luke 24:44, he clarifies this when he says, "Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms." He was not saying, "Whatever laws the government passes, I'm all for." He was speaking specifically of the Mosaic law (primarily the Ten Commandments) and the prophecies of his own coming.
……………………….
In Luke 12:13–15, Jesus is confronted with a redistribution request. A man with a grievance approaches him and demands, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me." Jesus replies thusly: "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you? Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions" (emphasis added). Wow! He could have equalized the wealth between two men with a wave of his hand, but he chose to denounce envy instead. [read more]

Interesting essay. Socialists and the Left are always trying to twist and make socialism and Christianity the same thing by using code words like “collective salvation.” Socialism and Christianity are nothing alike and ministers and preachers who use Left’s terms like “social justice” are doing a disservice to Jesus’ teachings.
If anything, Jesus is more closer to what a conservative is.

Bryan Fischer on OneNewsNow.com also wrote an interesting commentary called "No, Jesus was not a socialist."

Sometimes a Question is Better than an Answer

Commentary by John Stonestreet on Break Point.org:

Ever left speechless on these tough conversations about social issues? Ever think afterwards, why didn’t I say that? Well, here are six questions for your conversational toolkit.
Last week, at a gathering of strategists on some tough cultural issues, a very good point was made: Sometimes the right question at the right time is the best way to have a conversation with someone with whom you fundamentally disagree.
I couldn’t agree more, especially when the topic is something like same-sex marriage, religious freedom, or bathrooms at Target—when you know that to have an opinion counter to the new cultural orthodoxy is to be thought of as hateful or intolerant.
………………..
Here are six questions I’ve found extremely helpful to create the sort of dialogue we should desire about issues of faith and culture.

1. What do you mean by that? The battle of ideas is always the battle over the definition of words. Thus, it’s vital in any conversation to clarify the terms being used.
2. How do you know that is true? Too often, assertions are mistaken for arguments. There’s a vast difference between the two. An assertion is a definitive statement made about the nature of reality. An argument is presented to back up an assertion. By asking “how do you know that’s true?” you’ll move the conversation beyond two people merely asserting what they believe to why those assertions should be taken seriously.
3. Where did you get this information? Once arguments are offered, it’s important to ensure the arguments are valid. For example, news reports love to shout that same-sex parents are better parents than straight couples—a talking point that’s based on very limited studies, while other studies suggest the exact opposite.
4. How did you come to this conclusion? Behind the person you are talking with and his/her convictions, is a story, a personal story. If you know that story, it may make more sense why they don’t find your views plausible. Plus, it’ll help you remember the person you’re talking with is a real, image-of-God bearing person.
5. What if you’re wrong?
6. What if you’re right?

[read more]

Good questions not just for faith and culture but about any topic that deals with culture.

Origins of the Islamic State and How to Defeat the Group

From Rand.org (May 19):

Drawing from more than 140 recently declassified documents from the predecessors of the Islamic State, a new RAND Corporation study shows that the group has been operating for years with remarkable continuity in its philosophy, methods and goals, including the long-standing aspiration for creating a caliphate.

The documents show that the leadership consciously designed the organization not just to fight, but also to build a state governed by the laws dictated by its strict Islamist ideology.

“The lessons from examining the group's history are useful for setting expectations about the strengths and vulnerabilities of the Islamic State and its ability to combat its opponents,” said Patrick Johnston, the lead author of the report and a political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “Understanding the origins of the Islamic State can help lead to a coordinated and effective campaign against it. It also can explain how the Islamic State may be able to survive such an effort and sustain itself in the future, albeit perhaps at a lower level of threat.”

……………….

The group paid its personnel low wages that would draw true believers rather than opportunists, trained and allocated its membership with an eye toward group effectiveness, raised revenues locally through diversified sources and was able to maintain itself, albeit at much reduced strength, in the face of an aggressive counterterrorism and counterinsurgency strategy put in place by its opponents.

“Its own records show that the group was rational in its administration, adaptive in its actions, careful about spending and diversified in revenue raising,” said Howard J. Shatz, a co-author of the report and a senior economist at RAND. “This made it — and continues to make it — a formidable enemy.”

The RAND report recommends that any counter-personnel strategy should strive to eliminate layers of high-level and mid-level managers from the Islamic State. Capitalizing on any fissures within the group can speed its decline, as can degrading its revenues and therefore its ability to make payments.

…………………….

“Targeting the Islamic State's training camps and its flow of skilled terrorists returning to their home counties could be a new approach to reducing the group's ability to strike abroad, especially if it is combined with the current campaign to eliminate their revenue sources and bulk cash holdings,” said Benjamin Bahney, a co-author of the report and a RAND policy analyst.   [read more]

Interesting. So, the Islamic State’s thugs are like the mob? Sounds like it to me. The mob I believe was efficient too. Both are evil. The only difference is one was about money, the other is about ideology. The Rand Organization has several reasearch articles on the Islamic State.

PragerU.com has an informative video called What ISIS Wants. It also talks about how the Islamic thugs got their beginning and about their ideology.

7 Habits of Highly Effective Libertarians

From FEE.org:

What can be done to sustain the passion for liberty throughout a lifetime? Here are my [Jeffrey A. Tucker] suggestions for seven habits to foster a lifelong attachment to liberty and to live a life that makes the best possible contribution to human well-being.

1. Oppose oppression but love liberty even more.
   1. You realize that there is such a thing as a state that is distinct from society at large, a fact that massive swaths of the social sciences (not to mention mainstream media) try to cover up.
   2. There is the new awareness that the state is distinct from every other institution in society because it uses aggressive force to achieve its aims.
   3. The state actually does not achieve the aims it promises. Rather, it violates rights, undermines economic achievement, fosters dependency, and serves a ruling class rather than the public at large.
2. Read broadly and be confident in your ideas.
3. Look beyond politics.
4. See everyone as an ideological friend.
5. Don’t have all the answers.
6. Hack your life. Once you realize that we are living under a central plan for your life and property, you can start to get creative about finding alternatives. You can use technologies to find a new approach to education. You can find better paths toward personal success. You can better manage your finances without the personal debt encouraged by the policies of the Federal Reserve. You can hack your appliances in ways that make them operate better than the regulations allow.
7. Be joyful.

[read more]

Good advice even for conservatives.

A Question for Minimum Wage Advocates

An essay by Donald J. Boudreaux (May 27, 2015) from FEE.org:

I state, however, here and again my conclusion: Legislating minimum wages – that is, enacting a policy of caging people who insist on entering voluntarily into employment contracts on terms that political elites find objectionable – is no more attractive or justified or likely to succeed at helping low-skilled workers if the particular caging policy in question is enacted locally than if it is enacted nationally or globally.

In this short post, I ask a simple question of all advocates of minimum wages: If enforcement of minimum-wage policies were carried out in practice by policing low-skilled workers rather than employers – if these policies were enforced by police officers monitoring workers and fining those workers who agreed to work at hourly wages below the legislated minimum – would you still support minimum wages?

Would you be good with police officers arresting those workers who, preferring to remain employed at sub-minimum wages rather than risk losing their current jobs (or risking having do endure worsened employment conditions), refuse to abide by the wage terms dictated by the legislature?

Would you think it an acceptable price to pay for your minimum-wage policy that armed police officers confine in cages low-skilled workers whose only offense is their persistence at taking jobs at wages below those dictated by the government?

If a minimum-wage policy is both economically justified and morally acceptable, you should have no problem with this manner of enforcement. [read more]

Good questions. The Left would say “no we wouldn’t be enforce minimum-wage polices on the workers because they are the ones being taken advantage of by the employers. The employers have all the power. They are coercing the poor worker into working for low wages.” This animosity toward the employers is why the Left has no problem about salary ceilings toward businesses.

The problem is the Left never gets that if a person wants to work for a low-age or even no wage temporarily (like an apprentice situation—on-the-job training before you get an actual wage) that’s between him and his employer. Both are adults who can make a contract. But if a person wants to work voluntary without pay for a non-profit—that’s okay. Then again  non-profits aren’t evil to the Left like the profit-oriented businesses are. It’s the word “profit” that drives the Left crazy as if they aren’t already there.

‘Radical Islam’ Does Matter in Identifying Enemy, Experts Say

From The Daily Signal.com (June 16):

Using the phrase “radical Islam” to describe the Islamic State or other jihadist groups will not win the war, but is nonetheless relevant in identifying the ideology—not the religion—that America is fighting, experts said.

“I don’t believe the phrase “Islamist extremism” or “Islamist terrorism” is some sort of incantation that’s going to fix everything,” Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.

“In fact, I don’t even think it’s the most important thing in this whole issue set. What’s most important are the policies that we pursue and the action that we take to defeat it, whatever you want to call it. But it does matter because we—Muslims, as much as other Americans—are engaged in a war of ideas as well as a war on terrorism.”

……………….

Lohman, who last December hosted a forum, “Muslim Voices Against the Islamic State and Islamist Extremism,” said the point is to understand the ideology.

“Islamism is a political ideology and it has to be taken on,” Lohman continued in the email. “If we physically dissuade terrorists from hurting people, we still have to stop Islamists from coercing people into their way of thinking by other means. Actually identifying the ideology is key to that, and unfortunately, that ideology is cast in religious terms. It’s like a Muslim civil society leader in Indonesia told me one time talking about the much more serious threat in her own country, ‘What difference does it make whether they are terrorists or not. They (Islamists) all want the same thing.’”  [read more]

I agree with Lohman. To solve a problem, you have to first define what the problem is. Just like during WWII FDR had no problem using the term Nazi. Using the term didn’t mean all Germans were Nazis only those Germans fighting for Hitler. The Isamists thugs know who they are and the peaceful Muslims who don’t support them know who they are too.

Obama and the Left have no problem calling republicans extremists or automatically grouping mass shooters as “radical right extremists” if they believe they are not Muslim. Then again Muslims are a minority so they are protected from the Left’s classification.  Heck, during the Dem presidential primary debate the moderator asked Hillary, Sanders, and the other guy whose name escapes me, if Republicans were the enemy. Not, mind you, an adversary (like in a sport) but an enemy. All three said yes. Well, the Left think politics is war. So, I guess that makes sense in a sort of warped way.

Congressman Says His Constituents ‘Shouldn’t Have to Carry a Gun’ — However, Congress ‘Deserves’ and ‘Needs’ to Be Protected by Them

From The Blaze.com (June 23):

Tuesday night, Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) was speaking with a reporter from the Daily Caller about a recently exposed scandal involving some members of the NYPD selling access to concealed carry permits when he laughingly stated that his constituents “just shouldn’t have to carry a gun.”
When asked about the armed security protecting him and the rest of the members of Congress, he answered, “I think we deserve, need to be protected down here.” [read more]

I wonder if Hillary Clinton and Obama think the same way too? Of course. They believe as most of the Left believe they are special because they are the Elites. The peons or if you prefer “the masses” don’t need protection. Rangel is just being honest about his beliefs.

Side note: On this day in 2006 I posted my first entry.

20,642 New Regulations Added in the Obama Presidency

From The Daily Signal.com (May 23):

The tide of red tape that threatens to drown U.S. consumers and businesses surged yet again in 2015, according to a Heritage Foundation study we released on Monday.

More than $22 billion per year in new regulatory costs were imposed on Americans last year, pushing the total burden for the Obama years to exceed $100 billion annually.

………………………

The consequences of this rampant rulemaking are widespread:

• Restricted access to credit under the hundreds of rules unleashed by the Dodd–Frank financial regulation statute.
• Fewer health care choices and higher medical costs from the Affordable Care Act.
• Reduced Internet investment and innovation under the network neutrality rules dictated by the Federal Communications Commission.

These are just a few of the 2,353 regulations of 2015—and there have been 20,642 since Obama took office in 2009.

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There are already more than 2,000 proposed or final rules in the pipeline—including 144 that are expected to cost $100 million a year or more. These include yet more energy-efficiency mandates for home and commercial appliances, additional food-labeling requirements, stricter fuel economy standards for vehicles, and more stringent limits on consumer access to credit.  [read more]

Wow! Over 20 thousand regulations! No wonder the economy is stalling. If the secretary of the status quo (Hillary Clinton) becomes POTUS she won’t stop those additional regulations. Talk about strangulating businesses.

What Will Happen if Hillary Clinton Becomes President

Below is what I think Hillary Clinton will do if she becomes president in no particular order:

1. Hillary Clinton will veto any bill that removes Obamacare. This is a given.
2. She will appoint a very left-wing person to the Supreme Court. Another given.
3. She will get us into another war. Dick Morris says this.
4. She will try to get an illegal immigrant amnesty bill passed. A given.
5. She will move the server with classified emails to her bedroom closet or somewhere else. Okay, this is a joke.
6. More terrorist attacks will occur because the evil crazy Islamists will sneak across the border. See 4.
7. Sanctuary cities will continue because she will veto any bill that contains anything stopping sanctuary cities.
8. Kate’s Law will be vetoed.
9. More illegal immigrant crimes will happen because of 4, 7, and 8.
10. Hillary Clinton will use her power as a president to go after her political “opponents” or people with “Never Hillary” bumper stickers. Or conservative talk show hosts who criticize Hillary. Or conservative bloggers who criticize her. Dick Morris. I added the “Never Hillary”,  the “talk show” part and the “blogger” part.
11. She will lie to the American people like she did to the mother of Sean Smith, the diplomat that died in Libya.
12. She will try to put even more restrictions on guns.  A given.
13. Saudi Arabia and other countries will call in favors from her because of all the money given to the corrupt Clinton Foundation.
14. Wall Street will will be rewarded from the donations it gave.
15. She will be blackmailed by China, Russia and any other countries that hacked her email and servers.
16. There is high chance that America will be bombed by Iran if she becomes president. Why? Because Iran being an Islamist state treats women as second class citizens. And a women in power makes America look even weaker to them and to the Islamic State thugs. After they bomb America Iran will bomb Israel because Israel is “little Satan.”
17. The republicans in Congress won’t stop Hillary’s agenda because they don’t want to appear disrepecting the first woman president. So, impeachment is off the table if she ignores the Constitution. Sad to say, another given.
18. More blood in the White House will spill from things thrown at Bill by Hillary.
19. Hillary kills Bill by poisioning him. The FBI director says she didn’t intend to kill Bill. She got arsenic mixed up with sugar. Okay, this is another joke.
20. The lame-stream-press will circle the wagons around the secretary of the status quo. A given.
21. Hillary will get a new broom because the old one is getting worn out from all the sweeping she does. What? If you are thinking anything else shame on you!
22. Hillary will implement a “fair share surcharge” on multi-millionaires and billionaires and fight for measures like the Buffett Rule to ensure the wealthiest Americans do not pay a lower tax rate than hardworking middle-class families. From her website.
23. She will charge an “exit tax” for companies leaving the U.S. to settle up on their untaxed foreign earnings. Again from her website.
24. Make debt free college available to all Americans. Her website. So, the colleges are not going to charge intuition and for books? Or is the federal gov’t going to pay off the debt for the students? So, the national debt goes up and up.
25. Overturn Citizens United. Her website. This is about freedom of speech not campaign finance reform. I agree with the Citizens United verdict. The McCain–Feingold Act is stupid anyway.
26. Impose a tax on high-frequency trading. From her web site. Now, that is funny! See 14. Now, Bernie Sanders would have done this.

This is not a complete list.