A Modest Proposal: Deport Obama to Libya and Clinton to Kosovo

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Perhaps you’re weary of reading about Syria. So instead let’s speak of Libya. That’s the most recent country we attacked without provocation and “liberated.” Minus the evil dictator which NATO bravely bombed from orbit, Libya has returned to some native traditions: It is chaining up black Africans and selling them as slaves. Great job, President Obama! You really were a post-racial president after all! But in a totally different sense than most people thought.

Millions of “right-thinking” Americans have this weird idea: that our foreign policy is a form of virtue-signaling with deadly weapons. That’s why they are demanding the overthrow of yet another foreign government that hasn’t attacked us: that of Syria. (News flash: Trump’s targeted military strike, while probably unconstitutional, was limited. And now he is promising we won’t send troops to Syria.)

Are Americans who favor full-on “regime change” in Syria thinking through what would happen next to Syrians? What would happen to one million Christians if al Qaeda takes over?

No. They are watching news of an atrocity and demanding that “something be done.” What we do doesn’t really matter.

What happens to Syrians after we’re done with them? Not interested.

How will things be in Syria ten years from now? Boring. By then we’ll be busy in Myanmar.

Who will take over the country when we’re finished? Doesn’t matter. Talking about that is just a way of making excuses not to do… something … about an atrocity we saw on the news and thought about for ten whole minutes.

Occupy Wall Street. Or the Entire Middle East.

Ugly, sad images (like Syria’s chemical attack on al Qaeda that also killed civilians) make us really upset! So do something already, Mr. President, and make us feel better. Overthrow Syria’s government and replace it with … something. Make us feel strong, decisive, and freedom-loving. And make it quick: We have short attention spans. Oh look, a squirrel!

It’s probably too much to expect an administration to resist such a national tantrum. (Heck, we’re lucky that the Commander in Chief isn’t under pressure to blow United Airlines jets out of the sky.)

But as patriotic Christians, we’re supposed to at least make an effort to avoid fighting unjust or foolish wars that kill thousands of people and make things worse, not better. Right? Or am I being too moralistic here?

We Must Learn from King Kong’s Sad Fate

America is more powerful, relative to our rivals, than any empire on earth has been since the Roman Empire. The Mongols, Napoleon’s France, even Hitler’s Germany: compared to America 2017, they’re Liechtenstein waving a popgun.

We’re the 16-ton gorilla. All the more reason we must resist the impulse to act out like King Kong. We need to stop seeing countries that look interesting or sad, then picking them up to play with them — till we break them and leave them behind.

There’s just one way to make the average voter think twice about sending our troops to foreign shores: Bring back the draft. Today a tiny percentage of Americans defend all the rest of us. They bear the brunt of our bravado. Alas, most Americans don’t even know personally any serving soldiers or airmen. So it’s easy for us to treat them like foreign mercenaries and ship them off to distant shores, on a moralistic whim.

If voters themselves, or their own sons and daughters, might have to march off into the desert, you can bet they would think twice about joining the rush to war. Also, a draft today would get many thousands of sullen Millennials out of their parents’ basements. So chalk that up in the “plus” column.

Don’t Draft the People. Incentivize the President.

But the draft has many down sides. For one, it violates liberty. Only in the gravest national emergency should we force our citizens, on pain of imprisonment, to dress up in uniforms and follow orders. In peacetime, that’s literally un-American. (Germans, by contrast, will spontaneously dress up in uniforms and follow orders at the slightest encouragement.)

More importantly, a peacetime draft would never pass muster in Congress. We can’t even figure out how to make people repay their student loans, much less get them into fighting trim with decent haircuts.

So I have a better plan. It harms very few Americans, so it should be easy to pass in Congress. But it maximizes impact. I promise you: Pass such a plan, and the U.S. will never get involved in another poorly considered foreign war.

The Ultimate Presidential Retirement Plan

Congress must pass a law with these provisions: Any future president who invades and occupies another sovereign state that has not attacked America, with the aim of overthrowing its government will be subject to the following penalties upon leaving office.

He must surrender his U.S. citizenship, in return for citizenship of that country. He must relocate to live in it. If he leaves his new homeland for more than 30 consecutive days, his pension is permanently cancelled.

He will be granted no Secret Service detail or U.S. Marines to guard him. He must rely on the local police, like everybody else.

He will have to build his presidential library in that country’s largest city. Again, it will be guarded by the same cops who guard — or looted by the same mobs that loot — every other local business, school, or church.

His pension will be paid in the local currency, which may well have collapsed, or been replaced by some pre-civilized form of primitive barter. So we might have to pay it out in tethered goats or cartons of cigarettes.

If he has invaded and toppled more than one such country, he will not be granted a choice among them. (Talk about perverse incentives!) No, he will be granted citizenship in the one with the lowest Gross Domestic Product.

If such a law were passed then President Trump and every one of his successors would need to think very carefully about their decisions on countries like Syria. He would need to flout public opinion, if it was out of step with reality.

He’d have very strong personal reasons to tell senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain and pundits like William Kristol what he thinks of their latest war of choice. He would face the same conditions that his policies left behind in a helpless foreign country whose citizens never voted for him. What could be fairer than that?

Where Would Dante Send Ex-Presidents to Live?

The Constitution forbids retroactive laws. Otherwise, such an act would demand that our recent ex-presidents reap the harvests that they sowed:

Bill Clinton forced to live in Kosovo, under the rule of increasingly radical Islamists who blew up its historic churches. They are also training al Qaeda and ISIS operatives for attacks all over Europe. He might not feel comfortable there, but Huma Abedin would, so at least poor Hillary would be happy (should she choose to join him there).

George W. Bush living in Baghdad, enjoying every day the exciting sights and sounds that his invasion and occupation of Iraq left behind. He might have trouble finding a church to attend, since most of the country’s 1 million Christians were driven out on his watch — precisely as antiwar conservatives had warned him would happen.

Barack Obama living in Benghazi. As a beloved elder statesman who holds a Nobel Peace Prize, he could certainly work out a diplomatic solution among the many violent factions — al Qaeda, ISIS, and a dozen tribal militias — which his bold, decisive action put in control of that country. But that might put a crimp in his golf game.

I hope that some statesmanlike senator, such as Rand Paul, will get behind this plan. We can call it the “Skin in the Game Act of 2017,” after The Black Swan author Nassim Taleb’s core principle of policy: Don’t let someone make major decisions for which he bears no personal risk.

Fear not! Presidents who fought countries that had actually attacked the U.S., or who didn’t spend trillions trying to bomb chaotic, hostile hellholes until they turned into Colonial Williamsburg, would go unpunished. (For more from the author of “A Modest Proposal: Deport Obama to Libya and Clinton to Kosovo” please click HERE)

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Is This a New Trump? Abrupt Reversals May Reflect Experience

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President Donald Trump is abruptly reversing himself on key issues. And for all his usual bluster, he’s startlingly candid about the reason: He’s just now really learning about some of them.

“After listening for 10 minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” the president said after a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping that included his hopes that China’s pressure could steer North Korea away from its nuclear efforts.

“I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power” over North Korea, he said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “But it’s not what you would think.” (Read more from “Is This a New Trump? Abrupt Reversals May Reflect Experience” HERE)

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Congressman Says Corruption in Washington Is ‘Worse Than You Think’

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Corruption on Capitol Hill is “worse than you think,” according to Colorado Rep. Ken Buck.

“When you first get here, you think that you are in some sort of fairy-tale novel,” Buck, a Republican, said. “They wine and dine you and they show you just exactly what it’s like if you play the game. It’s a wonderful life.”

Things quickly change, however, if “you don’t play the game.”

“If you don’t play the game … it becomes a much less conformable existence here,” Buck said.

Buck, who has served Colorado’s 4th Congressional District since 2015, also previewed his new book, “Drain the Swamp: How Washington Corruption is Worse Than You Think,” which was published on Tuesday.

Chapters in Buck’s book include “Why Washington is a Swamp,” “Play the Game–Or Else,” “Beating the Beltway Bullies,” and “What You Can Do To Drain the Swamp.”

Buck said his book addresses corruption present in government today that he was not prepared for after being elected to Congress in 2014.

“One of the things that I found startling when I got here is that you have to pay dues to be on a committee,” Buck said.

During the time he served on the House Judiciary Committee, Buck said he had to pay periodic dues of $200,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign committee of the House of Representatives.

Now, as a member of the House Rules Committee, Buck’s periodic dues are $450,000.

The obligation to pay dues, Buck said, forces members of Congress to hold fundraising receptions and encourages corrupt influences from special interest organizations who attend the fundraisers.

“Who comes to those receptions with checks?” Buck said. “Lobbyists, special interests that want something in return. So there is a game that goes on that you owe the party money and you are expected to vote with the chairman and you are expected to help special interests groups in Washington, D.C.”

Buck said there is also a significant amount of corruption in how Congress justifies spending for new project or programs.

“In the book, I list very specific ways that we need to change the incentives that we have in Congress,” Buck said. “I talk about … what we call ‘pay–fors.’ When we have new spending, we find ways to pay for that new spending program.”

Some of the ways Congress could pay for a new project or program are through tax increases or cuts to other programs, both of which are unlikely, Buck said.

Instead, Congress “makes up” sources of revenue.

Buck explains:

So we pass a transportation bill, and in the transportation bill we say that we’re going to sell oil in a strategic petroleum reserve to pay for that transportation bill. Now, what’s fascinating about this is that the average price that that oil was purchased at is $76. The price when we sold that oil was $48. Only in government is that considered a profit.

An issue with this system, Buck said, is that revenues from “pay–fors” have already been accounted for.

“One of the problems is that that barrel of oil that was used in the transportation bill as a ‘pay–for’ was already sold twice before,” Buck said.

This form of governing, Buck said, is irresponsible.

“If everything’s been paid for for so long, how did we get $20 trillion dollars in debt?” Buck said.

In an effort to bring transparency to the “pay–for” phenomenon, Buck introduced a bill last Thursday that would require the Office of Management and Budget to track and report the revenue that “pay–fors” actually bring.

“One of the bills that I just recently dropped would ask the Office of Management and Budget to do an annual report to Congress so it is available to the American people on how much revenue did those ‘payfors’ generate,” Buck said.

Buck’s goal, he said, is to educate the American people about the corruption in government so they are not as naive as Buck found himself when he started working in Congress.

“Before I got here, I knew that D.C. was broken, I didn’t know the specifics,” Buck said. “I’m hoping that by giving the American public the specifics, we actually have the record out there just … to make sure that people are aware.” (For more from the author of “Congressman Says Corruption in Washington Is ‘Worse Than You Think'” please click HERE)

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Dignity and Fairness Matter for Every Child in the Locker Room

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The American Civil Liberties Union recently noted in a blog post that “the burden of confronting and remedying injustice falls on the shoulders of the oppressed.”

There is some truth to this: The oppressed are powerful voices in any battle for justice. But when it comes to defending the most vulnerable among us—our children—it is chiefly the responsibility of parents, teachers, school administrators, and lawmakers to defend their rights.

Yet the ACLU, rather than seeking justice, fairness, and privacy for every child, has chosen to privilege a select few while utterly disregarding the privacy rights of millions of other young students across the country.

In the growing conversation taking place about what privacy means in intimate facilities, and whether one’s biological sex is a relevant factor to consider in boys’ and girls’ athletics, we’ve heard a lot from certain students who are working through very sensitive issues pertaining to their sex and gender identity.

And that is a good thing. Their voices matter in this conversation.

But substantially missing from this national conversation are the indispensable voices of the vast majority of children, and particularly girls. Ignoring their voices results in a failure to advance true equality and justice and violates children’s fundamental rights. Indeed, not one child’s privacy should be compromised.

And yet, young girls across the country—including in Illinois and Ohio, as just two examples—have been subjected to anxiety and humiliation when their school administrators secretly decided to open the schools’ locker rooms, restrooms, or showers to the opposite sex.

In Texas, 10-year-old Shiloh Satterfield recently described to the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee how uncomfortable and anxious she feels now that her school has changed its policies to let boys into the school’s intimate facilities.

Her parents join thousands of other parents understandably concerned about what this means—not only for their children when changing clothes for gym class or showering after a swim meet, but also for overnight school trips where their daughters could be forced to share a bed with a biological boy (or vice versa).

And take the young boy in Pennsylvania who is not even able to change for the school’s mandatory gym class because the school is forcing boys and girls to undress together and to try “to act as natural as possible” while doing so. The boy is receiving a failing grade for each class he is unable to change for.

Young girls and boys across the country are trying to be heard—to share their discomfort and embarrassment at the thought of having to undress with a member of the opposite sex, or their frustration that they will no longer be able to compete in a fair environment if their sports teams allow boys and girls to play together.

These voices are not coming from a place of fear or social dislike. I’ve witnessed the love these students have for their friends who consider themselves transgender, while simultaneously pleading for their own rights, dignity, and privacy to be protected.

Just last week, a 15-year-old boy who identifies as a girl competed in a Connecticut high school girls’ track meet and won the 100- and 200-meter dashes.

Even a quick glance at the pictures from the meet reveal that this young man, who now identifies as a woman, is still very much built as a male and is already significantly larger than his female peers.

As a woman who loved playing sports in high school, it’s obvious to me and many others that allowing biological males to compete with females is fundamentally unfair to girls who are physically different than high school boys.

Allowing boys, regardless of how they identify, to play on girls’ sports teams creates an unequal playing field for girls to compete and deprives them of a fair chance to qualify for—let alone win—athletic competitions.

Before the Civil Rights Act of 1972, women did not have the same athletic opportunities as men. In this emerging conversation, we cannot forget the ground women have gained for equal opportunities.

Permitting the definition of sex to be changed or ignored would undermine the very essence of what it means to be male and female, which is a particularly relevant factor when it comes to athletics.

This understanding of biological differences is precisely what led to the passage of federal laws that help ensure a fair playing field for women. And now, some in our society, ironically in the name of equality, are running roughshod over what women fought so hard to obtain.

Many would like to paint this as a one-sided story about one victim: the boy who thinks he’s a girl, or the girl who thinks she’s a boy. And these children absolutely deserve love, attention, and support.

But supporting and caring for them does not mean we should inflict injustice on other children. We owe every young person in America a better response—a compassionate and fair solution that ensures protection for every student’s privacy and well-being, such as the policy that Alliance Defending Freedom has recommended to schools since 2014.

This policy allows schools to respect student privacy by continuing to designate separate boys’ and girls’ showers, locker rooms, and restrooms while providing other facilities for any student uncomfortable with using areas that correspond to his or her biological sex.

Justice requires that we protect the privacy and dignity of every child. We as a society should pause before we tell some children that their voices and their privacy rights don’t matter. (For more from the author of “Dignity and Fairness Matter for Every Child in the Locker Room” please click HERE)

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Rao Tapped to Taper Red Tape

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Just hours after Justice Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation as the newest member of the Supreme Court, the White House announced the appointment of George Mason Law Professor Neomi Rao to be the administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, or OIRA.

The appointment won’t be accompanied by the intense media coverage that Gorsuch received. Nevertheless, it could be one of the most important offices filled by President Donald Trump. If confirmed by the Senate, Rao will lead the new administration’s war on the red tape burdening Americans and the U.S. economy.

Buried within the Office of Management and Budget, which itself is part of the Executive Office of the President, OIRA is easy to miss on an organization chart. Yet, it is one of the most important offices in Washington. Established in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan, it is charged with regulating the nation’s regulators and reviewing the costs and benefits of federal rules to ensure that they are justified and consistent with the president’s agenda.

This is no easy task: OIRA’s staff of about 50 full-time professionals is responsible for keeping watch over an army of more than 279,000 regulators, a ratio of 5,600 to one.

OIRA has historically punched well above its weight in bureaucratic battles, especially when it enjoys White House support. It’s a nearly unique institution in Washington, being one of the very few government agencies for which success is defined in terms of how much it has limited the growth of government, not how much it has expanded government power.

OIRA’s role–and that of its administrator–promises to be particularly important in the months ahead as the Trump administration focuses on rolling back regulation.

The objective is set out by the president’s January 30 executive order on regulation, which sets a cap of zero on the net cost of new regulation. That is a daunting task: the last time in which the burden of federal regulation did not increase was 35 years ago, in 1982. Nevertheless, it is well within the bounds of possibility.

Rao will find a sizeable to-do list on her desk when she arrives. Among the items: the semi-annual regulatory agenda, which will outline what each agency will regulate–and deregulate–in the near future. Rao will also be tasked with making the new “2 for 1” rule (requiring two rules to be rolled back for every new one imposed), and implementing the regulatory cost cap called for by Trump.

There is little question that Rao, who comes to OIRA with broad experience in government, is well qualified to lead the effort to cut red tape. However, even though there is no reason to doubt her commitment to reform, she will need continued support from the president and other leaders in the administration.

While support for a regulatory rollback is plentiful now, such support tends to diminish as other issues and priorities intrude. But if that support is maintained, a historic reduction in regulatory burdens may be within reach. (For more from the author of “Rao Tapped to Taper Red Tape” please click HERE)

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Rising Tensions on Korean Peninsula Put Region at Risk

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When Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Asia earlier this year, the principle objective was to reassure allies that the Trump administration would maintain the U.S. commitment to defend them.

Vice President Mike Pence will now reaffirm that message during his own trip, which comes amid increased fears of an imminent preemptive U.S. attack on North Korea in expectation of a possible nuclear test and/or missile launch.

Pence should explain to our allies the results of the administration’s recently completed North Korea policy review, as well as the results of the U.S.-China summit.

Indications are that the White House will prioritize restrengthening the U.S. military to offset degradations in capabilities incurred from budget cuts over the last several years. Deterrence and defense will also be increased through augmented ballistic missile capabilities.

The White House will also put a strong emphasis on pressuring North Korea, going beyond the timid incrementalism of half-hearted sanctions that President Barack Obama pursued.

While Washington will remain open to holding working-level diplomatic discussions with North Korean counterparts, that channel has already been shut by the North Koreans. Pyongyang shut the “New York Channel” last July, severing the last official communications link.

However, the Trump administration’s intent to more fully implement U.S. laws, including imposing secondary sanctions on Chinese violators, is now on hold pending actions from China to fulfill pledges it made regarding North Korea during the summit.

In the run-up to the summit, Trump vowed to act unilaterally to “solve” North Korea, saying, “If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will.” During the summit, Trump told the press, “We’ve had a long discussion already, and so far I’ve gotten nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

However, after the summit, Trump commented that Chinese President Xi Jinping had “explain[ed] thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy. In other words, not as simple as people would think” for China to exert pressure.

Trump assessed that Xi is “going to try very hard” on North Korea.

Trump should be aware that Beijing has frequently promised tougher action on North Korea—including more fully implementing required U.N. sanctions—only to underperform every time.

As such, any behind-the-scenes summit agreement that would delay the U.S. from fully enforcing its laws and increasing pressure on North Korea and its facilitators should have a short expiration date.

Trump enforced Obama’s 2012 red line by attacking a Syrian target responsible for chemical weapons attacks on civilians. But has he now drawn his own red line against North Korea developing an intercontinental ballistic missile?

The president and other senior officials have issued a series of ominous statements suggesting the U.S. could conduct a preemptive military attack on North Korean targets to prevent the regime from completing its quest to develop an ICBM that could threaten the United States with nuclear weapons.

The White House warned that Trump has put North Korea “clearly on notice” and may take “decisive and proportional” action as seen in the airstrikes on Syria.” A senior White House official warned that “the clock has now run out and all options are on the table.”

Tillerson commented that “the situation has intensified and has reached a certain level of threat that action has to be taken.”

National security adviser H.R. McMaster went further, stating that a nuclear-capable North Korea “is unacceptable [and] so, the president has asked us to be prepared to give him a full range of options to remove that threat to the American people and to our allies and partners in the region.”

The redeployment of an aircraft carrier strike group back to the Korean Peninsula heightened speculation about the White House’s plan of action.

If the Trump administration intends to increase sanctions pressure on North Korea while also removing the preemptive attack option from consideration, as some administration officials have privately commented, then the White House’s public statements appear to be out of sync with such a policy.

Moreover, North Korea is not Syria. Pyongyang is capable of a substantial military reprisal against South Korea and Japan using nuclear, chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, jeopardizing millions of citizens in those countries.

A U.S. attack against production or test facilities for North Korea’s nuclear or missile programs could trigger an all-out war with a nuclear-armed North Korea, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties.

Both South and North Korea have announced they would undertake preemptive military strikes on the other if they perceive signs of imminent hostilities.

With all sides leaning further forward on hair-trigger responses, there is greater danger of misinterpreting the other’s intentions, thus fueling tension, intensifying a perceived need to escalate, and raising the risk of miscalculation—including preemptive attack.

Continued U.S. threats could exacerbate the situation or lead to perceptions of Washington as a paper tiger. The uncertainty of U.S. actions, tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and the consequences of such military action are high—and rising. (For more from the author of “Rising Tensions on Korean Peninsula Put Region at Risk” please click HERE)

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The Mother of All Bombs the US Just Dropped on ISIS: What You Need to Know about MOAB (+video)

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The U.S. military just dropped the world’s largest non-nuclear bomb, the MOAB (officially, Massive Ordinance Air Blast, but better known by its nickname “Mother of All Bombs”), on an Islamic State terror stronghold in Afghanistan.

According to military officials, at 7:32 pm local time, the military dropped a GBU-43 bomb in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan.

The 22,000-plus pound weapon was developed by the U.S. Air Force at the turn of the century, and has been described as arguably the most powerful non-nuclear ever made. It is the first time the weapon has ever been utilized on the battlefield, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The MOAB serves as a replacement to the Vietnam-era BLU-82 (also known as the “Daisy Cutter”). It is not intended to be used similar to a massive ordnance penetrator (commonly referred to as a “bunker buster”) to crack through heavily armored facilities. Instead, the MOAB is best utilized to target large surface areas (such as wooded areas or large swaths of terrain) that are out in the open.

“The strike was designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities,” the statement said.

ISIS-K is short for ISIS-Khorasan, which references the branch of the Islamic State that has a presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

General John W. Nicholson, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, added:

“As ISIS-K’s losses have mounted they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense … this is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against ISIS-K.”

The news comes following President Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that he is sending National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster to Afghanistan to evaluate the operations there. The president is contemplating whether to send more U.S. troops to the war-stricken country.

The strike took place on the birthday of Thomas Jefferson, who was the first American president to square off against Islamic radicals (the Barbary pirates). (For more from the author of “The Mother of All Bombs the US Just Dropped on ISIS: What You Need to Know about MOAB” please click HERE)

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MIT Press Publishes Children’s Book Titled “Communism for Kids”

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Once again, academia proves itself to be a hotbed of delusional communists, who seek to warp the minds of the young with propaganda.

MIT Press, a publisher affiliated with the world renown Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently published a children’s book titled Communism for Kids. Its content is every bit as asinine as the title suggests. According to the book’s description:

…This little book proposes a different kind of communism, one that is true to its ideals and free from authoritarianism. Offering relief for many who have been numbed by Marxist exegesis and given headaches by the earnest pompousness of socialist politics, it presents political theory in the simple terms of a children’s story, accompanied by illustrations of lovable little revolutionaries experiencing their political awakening.

Considering that the far-left consists of a bunch of unimaginative joykills, it’s not surprising that the book isn’t very good, as the many one star reviews on Amazon can attest. One reviewer stated, “Essentially the book is summarized thusly: The world is terrible because a bunch of entrepreneurs invented things like television, cars and nice homes. Because of scarcity, not everyone can have those things. Therefore, those things are evil and pursuing them is capitalist brainwashing.“ Another reviewer wrote “Will sell like hotcakes in Venezuela. They need toilet paper.”

Though the description claims that this book is “perfect for all ages,” it’s not even a very good children’s book. It’s apparently riddled with with academic jargon and references to political movements that no child would understand.

What’s most surprising, is not that a book with this subject matter would be published, but that it was published by MIT press. MIT produces some of the most brilliant graduates in the world, who go on to make countless contributions to the global marketplace through inventions, research, and startups. It’s an engine of entrepreneurship. It’s estimated that if all the companies that were started by MIT graduates were one country, it would be the 17th largest economy in the world. I guess no school is safe from the blathering madness of leftist academics. (For more from the author of “MIT Press Publishes Children’s Book Titled “Communism for Kids”” please click HERE)

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Why Don’t We Care about the Slaughter of Christians?

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A United Airlines passenger is violently hauled off a plane, and there is national outrage, rightly so. Press Secretary Sean Spicer says that Assad is worse than Hitler, and again, there is national outrage, rightly so. Forty-five Egyptian Christians are slaughtered by ISIS while attending church services on Palm Sunday and scores of others are wounded, and there is barely a national yawn. How can this be?

You might say, “That’s easy. The first two events took place right in front of our eyes, here in America. The third event took place in Egypt, and as tragic as it was, it’s a matter of out of sight, out of mind.”

I understand that. But what about the Islamic terror attack on the Brussels airport last year, killing more than 30 people? That was covered by our media day and night, with footage from the blast shown over and over by the hour.

And what about the Islamic terror attack in France, when a driver plowed his truck into hundreds of people in Nice, killing more than 80? That too received day and night coverage, with the bloody footage, including dead children lying in the streets, put before us by the hour.

But when it’s Christians being slaughtered by Islamic terrorists while worshiping the Lord in the safety of their church buildings, it only receives passing mention on our networks. Why?

We have the video footage of the attacks, which took place in two different locations in Egypt. We see the bomber being directed to walk through the metal detector, and then we see the massive explosion. And we see the carnage within one of the church buildings — blood all over the floor; corpses scattered in the debris; wooden pews torn apart; the sound of people moaning and crying.

The video footage is compelling and agonizing, just as much as any of the footage from Brussels or Nice. Yet most of us have not seen this footage on major TV networks, or if it has been aired on these networks, it has received a fraction of the coverage that the other attacks have received. Why?

But I’m not the only one asking this question. Nor is this a new question. For the last decade, a Christian genocide has been taking place in the Middle East representing one of the ugliest chapters in recent human history, yet most Americans remain sadly uninformed. The secular media is complicit.

As expressed by none other than Piers Morgan,

Unfortunately, if it happens in the Middle East, this kind of atrocity, it just does not seem to attract the kind of media attention in America that it would if it happened, as we’ve seen in attacks in Sweden the last few days, in London two weeks ago. I was there for that. Huge attention in the American media. In Paris and Nice. These get huge attention. Yet what happened in Egypt was unbelievably significant.

If you look at what ISIS really stands for, what they are carrying out now in the Middle East and the Egypt in particular, is a kind of genocidal attack on Christians and Christianity. They want Christianity eradicated and they want to convert all Muslims to their crusade, they want it to be a holy war. They want Christians gone. And I don’t think that narrative is getting the attention it should get in the American media and, I have to say, in other media around the world.

These are strong words: What happened in Egypt is a “genocidal attack on Christians and Christianity.” These Islamic terrorists “want Christianity eradicated. … They want Christians gone.”

Morgan added, “I think this is a huge story. This is the kind of story that ought to be dominating cable news in America. It should be dominating headlines around the world. ISIS have declared war on Christianity. I’m not seeing that being covered enough.”

He is absolutely right, and somehow, the secular media is barely covering one of the most important humanitarian stories of the age. Again I ask: Why?

We’re talking about multiplied hundreds of thousands of Christians being displaced, exiled, attacked, maimed, tortured, starved and killed. We’re talking about a crisis of epic proportions, yet the news coverage of this ongoing tragedy receives is negligible. Why?

Whatever the reason, there is a solution to the media’s relative silence.

All of us can raise our voices and draw attention to the suffering of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East (and elsewhere). And all of us can pray for their protection, their courage and their comfort. In the words of Letter to the Hebrews, “Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies” (Heb. 13:3 NLT). (For more from the author of “Why Don’t We Care about the Slaughter of Christians?” please click HERE)

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My Near-Abortion Experience: What I Would Have Missed

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Those of you who have read one of my earliest stories know how close I came to an abortion when I was pregnant with my fourth child. I considered it as a single 40-year-old mom of three. Now having just passed my son’s third birthday, I reflect on what could have been had I chosen death instead of life. Here’s what I would have missed.

I would have missed my baby calling me “Mama” for the first time. More than that, I would’ve missed hearing him sleepily say “Mama, I want you,” first thing in the morning as he’s waking in his crib.

I would’ve missed his cuddling and the kisses where we play who-can-smack-louder and say “MUA!”

I would’ve missed his first dance as I played TobyMac’s Feel It. (Incidentally, the chorus says, “You take our brokenness and make us beautiful.”)

I would have missed that precious day when a little voice in the back seat of the car said, “Mommy, you’re my best friend.” I almost cried.

I would have missed him saying “No, I want Daddy to change my poopy diaper,” because only Daddy knows how. (That is just fine with me).

I would’ve missed the dumbfounded look on his face when he was watching Johnny Depp play Willy Wonka and hearing him say, “Something on the T.V.’s strange.”

I would’ve missed hearing him say, “Mommy, I want to sleep in your big girl bed.” (Um, no.)

I would’ve missed hearing him talk about a bad day at daycare and concluding the story with “Every single one of those kids get on my last nerve!” (I laughed hysterically.)

I would’ve missed hearing him quote one of my favorite Madea movies, hollering at me: “Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth??!”

I would’ve missed all of the firsts. First kiss, first hug, first steps, first words, first tooth, first real meal.

I wouldn’t have known that he loved green beans. Or boudain (gross). Or hot salsa from Mexican restaurants. Or black olives that he puts on his fingers before popping them in his mouth.

I wouldn’t have known he was so independent. That his mantra would be, “I want to do it all by myself!” while brushing his teeth, or crawling into his car seat, or sitting on the big boy potty.

I wouldn’t have known his awesome personality. I wouldn’t have known him.

Yes, I would’ve missed all of the temper fits, the corner time, the spitting, the screaming, the poopy diapers. But I would’ve missed the greatest blessing in my life, too. I would’ve missed an unconditional love that is almost unequaled. Only Jesus did that better.

If I chose death over life, I would’ve still been trying to convince myself that it was only tissue. That I wasn’t ready. That I didn’t make a mistake. That a baby would’ve complicated things. And they do. But in the best way possible.

(For more from the author of “My Near-Abortion Experience: What I Would Have Missed” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.