The One Christmas Video You Have to See

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In a time where videos of happy Down’s Syndrome children are banned in some places, this video of a nativity play is joyously subversive.

The mother interviewed for the video shares her story of learning to accept the gift God gave in her child with Down’s Syndrome as a parallel to Mary’s acceptance of being chosen by God to bear Christ. Don’t bother trying not to cry, but do keep your eyes on the children — and share this video with a friend who needs reminding that Jesus came as one of us to be present in the times we grieve and don’t understand.

(For more from the author of “The One Christmas Video You Have to See” please click HERE)

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New Transgender Survey Could Set a Terrible Precedent for Policy Based on Feelings, Not Facts

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A recent nationwide survey revealed that “60 percent of transgender Americans have avoided using public restrooms for fear of confrontation, saying they have been harassed and assaulted.” The “landmark” survey cites data based on the responses of 27,715 individuals, or an estimated 2 percent of the adult transgender population (which comprises only 0.6 percent of the entire U.S. population).

Reuters refers to transgender people as a “severely understudied group whose experiences and challenges from medicine to law to economics and family relations are poorly understood.” And the National Center for Transgender Equality, the group that conducted the survey, hopes the new data will serve as a basis for researchers and policymakers for years to come.

A survey like this demonstrates the power of the trans-victim class, and it should be a cause of great concern for any American who respects the rule of law.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Here is the problem with these “findings” … There is no proof that these claims are accurate. The study cites alleged encounters and experiences reported by transgender people, without a shred of documented evidence to back them up.

According to the survey, 32 percent of transgender people said they limited the amount they ate and drank at least once in the past year to avoid having to use a public restroom. Eight percent reported that they developed a urinary tract infection, kidney infection, or another “kidney-related problem” because they avoided restrooms.

From Reuters:

The findings by the National Center for Transgender Equality on public restrooms counter the message of mainly conservative politicians and religious leaders that transgender people are the antagonists preying on others. It found that 12 percent of transgender people were verbally harassed in public restrooms within the previous year, 1 percent were physically attacked and 1 percent were sexually assaulted. Nine percent said someone denied them access to a bathroom.

Notice the unmistakably ambiguous language used in the study; what constitutes “assault” or “harassment” in these scenarios? The law clearly defines these terms, but the survey does not. The survey doesn’t “counter” the conservative response to transgender people occupying restrooms that don’t correspond with their birth sex, because it doesn’t actually “find” anything.

Transgender people already receive the same level of protection under the law as their fellow citizens. They have the same legal options as any other victim of discrimination, harassment, or assault. But instead of filing a legal claim, they report their experience to a transgender advocacy group who will apply social pressure to advance their interests, without a shred of proof required. How convenient.

He-said, she-said

“Trans people have been in danger in the bathrooms. These numbers are just astronomically high,” Mara Keisling, director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, told Reuters. “This is what’s really happening in bathrooms. The nonsense of what [North Carolina] Governor [Pat] McCrory was saying is not what’s happening in bathrooms.”

Reuters notes that the survey was conducted before the passage of North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which “prohibits local governments in North Carolina from forcing places of public accommodation to allow people to use restrooms and changing facilities that do not align with their biological sex.” The bill was met with powerful backlash that launched a nationwide civil rights debate over whether transgender people should be considered a protected class.

Here’s the thing about North Carolina’s “nonsense” bathroom bill: There have been not only reports, but documented cases that prove transgender bathrooms pose real threats to public safety. But a group like the National Center for Transgender Equality is able to dismiss actual evidence with anecdotal accounts via “surveys.”

This survey is just the latest example of the Left’s “ends justify the means” approach to public policy. Whether it’s the widely disseminated “1 in 5 women are raped on college campuses” propaganda and falsehood, or the countless hate crime hoaxes and fake trends perpetuated by the agenda-driven mainstream media time and time again, unapologetic liberals are notorious for playing fast and loose with the facts. The Left has had an extremely successful track record of furthering their agenda of victimhood by convincing the public that their claims are above (bigoted) scrutiny.

Sixty percent of transgender people have been “harassed and assaulted” in public restrooms? That’s one heck of a statistic to be throwing around without a shred of proof. And seeing as how literally anything and everything can (and is) deemed an “attack” these days, the onus should be greater than ever for the accusers to provide the unassailable evidence proving such charges.

Strength in victimhood

The trans community will argue that many of these incidents of discrimination, harassment, and assault go unreported due to the fear or shame these victims feel. They have already successfully implemented this argument in the past to carve out special provisions in the workplace and, famously, in public restrooms.

In fact, the National Center for Transgender Equality was behind the LGBT report that was cited as the basis for California’s transgender affirmative action jobs program, which subsidizes restaurants who hire trans employees. These people know what they’re doing.

Consider this excerpt from the new survey’s executive summary:

The findings reveal disturbing patterns of mistreatment and discrimination and startling disparities between transgender people in the survey and the U.S. population when it comes to the most basic elements of life, such as finding a job, having a place to live, accessing medical care, and enjoying the support of family and community.

Replace the word “transgender” in the text above with “black,” “female,” or “Latino,” and you have the Left’s basic argument for identity-driven policies that forcibly “level the playing field” at the expense of true equality, justice, and safety for all. The implied claim is that the legal system doesn’t work for certain groups of people, and the only solution is to overthrow the system and create a new one. In other words, civil rights are great, but special accommodations and government handouts are not only better, but an absolute must. (A right, if you will…)

The conversation surrounding the new transgender survey is not about “equality” or “safety”; it is about subverting the rule of law and creating new policies based on feelings, not facts.

Though small, the trans-victim class is more vocal — via government allies, financial means, and political capital (with a virtual monopoly on all the greatest influencers in mainstream culture these days) — and more armed than ever. It is crucial, then, that public leaders and policymakers recognize the identity-driven agenda of the Left’s “equality” crusaders, and shut down any attempts to bulldoze over the rights of other Americans. (For more from the author of “New Transgender Survey Could Set a Terrible Precedent for Policy Based on Feelings, Not Facts” please click HERE)

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Why Liberals and Conservatives Can’t Communicate

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In a recent episode of my podcast The Renegade Republican, I lamented the fact that conservatives and liberals have a difficult time communicating with one another.

During my time in electoral politics, I often left a conversation with a liberal voter scratching my head and wondering where I went wrong. Often, it appeared as if the liberal and I weren’t even having the same conversation.

This got me thinking: Maybe we weren’t having the same conversation. As I mentally rewound many of these conversations and evaluated them, it became clear that when it came to discussing specific topics, I was talking about one thing, and the liberal was talking about something else. Here are some examples of what I experienced:

1. Health care

When discussing health care, conservatives are typically referring to the actual care of people’s health and well-being. Conservatives associate the health care debate with health care outcomes. In other words, is our country a place where people can actually choose their doctor, be seen in a timely manner, acquire needed medications, and able to make critical decisions about their health — free of government interference?
But, this isn’t what most liberals are talking about when they are debating “health care.” Liberals are typically discussing “coverage,” not actual health care. And this is where the communication gap originates.

Today’s liberals aren’t as much concerned with health outcomes — access to doctors and hospitals or choice of doctor or hospital — as they are with government edicts ensuring “coverage.” In other words, as long as the law can be used to say, “You’re covered,” even if the health care coverage is more expensive, more restrictive, and more bureaucratic, liberals think the debate is over and are therefore uninterested in additional dialogue.

2. Education

When discussing education, conservatives are typically referring to educational outcomes. Conservatives associate the word “education” with the acquisition of cognitive skills. In other words, are our kids learning anything? But this isn’t what most liberals are talking about when they are debating “education.”

Unfortunately, liberals often talk about government spending. And while no credible conservative doubts that money must be expended to educate children, the amount spent is not the primary determinant of the quality of the learning experience. We can’t have a sensible conversation if we conservatives are talking about the learning experience and the outcomes it provides, while liberals focus primarily on the government dollars provided.

3. Economy

Conservatives refer to policies that will grow the economy. We understand that both the value of a dollar and the likelihood that it will be used in a manner that adds to our national prosperity increase when when the earner gets to keep that dollar and chooses how to spend it .

In other words, are we growing more prosperous or not? But this isn’t what liberals are talking about when they debate about the economy. Liberals talk about who has the money — not how we multiply the value of our money through growth. Their viewpoint is evident; simply analyze their speech.

Next time you’re engaged in a debate with a liberal friend, count how many times he uses the terms “income inequality” or “income distribution” in comparison with the terms “economic freedom” or “free market.”

Conservatives avoid the term “income distribution” because income is not distributed; it is earned. And conservatives avoid the term “income inequality” because we are genuinely focused on how to make everyone more prosperous.

By the way, if you’re a liberal shaking your head while reading this, then you are proving my point. Your refusal to believe that conservatives care about everyone’s economic prosperity, educational outcomes, and health is prima facie evidence that the communications gap among liberals and conservatives is real. (For more from the author of “Why Liberals and Conservatives Can’t Communicate” please click HERE)

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Where Was the Media Outrage When Obama Ignored Intelligence Briefings on ISIS?

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In an interview with Chris Wallace and “Fox News Sunday” over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump indicated that he does not like to receive intelligence briefings every day, because the information can become repetitive.

“You know, I’m, like, a smart person. I don’t have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next eight years. Could be eight years — but eight years. I don’t need that,” Trump said. “But I do say, ‘If something should change, let us know.’”

Naturally, the media and liberal opponents are apoplectic. Outgoing Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. (F, 2%) told CNN Monday that Trump’s stance on briefings was “very concerning.” And Wired.com’s Andy Greenberg stated it is “the most troubling recent revelation of all.” Wrote Greenberg:

That dismissal and disregard of the intelligence agencies’ fact-finding represents a disturbing potential preview of the next four years, say former members of the US intelligence community who spoke with WIRED. They worry that it threatens to politicize the intelligence community’s work, pushing it toward conclusions that will please the president rather than inform him. They say the growing rift demoralizes staffers, leading to a loss of valuable talent, and that it could leave the commander-in-chief himself dangerously ignorant of crucial world events.

Now, the president-elect of the United States disregarding the value of intelligence briefings is absolutely a cause for concern. But where were the media and Harry Reid when it comes to President Obama and the briefings?

Back in 2014, the Government Accountability Institute released a report indicating that Obama only attended a little over just 40 percent of his daily intelligence briefings up to that point in his presidency:

In September 2014, the Government Accountability Institute updated an analysis of how much time President Barack Obama has spent attending his Presidential Daily Briefs (PDBs), as recorded on the White House official calendar and Politico’s comprehensive calendar. The updated study covered the president’s first 2,079 days in office, running from January 20, 2009 through September 29, 2014. Of those, President Obama attended a total of 875 Presidential Daily Briefs for an overall 42.09% attendance rate.

An unidentified senior Pentagon aide also confirmed to the Daily Mail that the president skipped his intel briefings.

“It’s pretty well-known that the president hasn’t taken in-person intelligence briefings with any regularity since the early days of 2009,” an unidentified senior Pentagon aide also stated to the Daily Mail in 2014. “He gets them in writing.”

Worse, still, is those sources in the Daily Mail report confirmed that the president knew about ISIS since before the 2012 election and ignored his intelligence reports to fulfill his campaign promise to remove American boots on the ground in Iraq. The withdrawal of American troops was accomplished in December 2011, and ISIS subsequently grew in strength to become a major threat throughout the Mideast.

The president, he said, was hearing information about ISIS ‘long before that. It goes back to the autumn of 2012.’

Al-Qaeda in Iraq, he said, had already begun to metamorphose into ISIS before Obama ran for president the first time. In 2006 the group’s Mujahideen Shura Council declared an Islamic ‘state’ in western and central Iraq, a development U.S. military intelligence was aware of since they were stationed ‘in country.’

By the late autumn of that year the nascent self-proclaimed Sunni country was organized and holding open-air military parades.

President Obama ordered America’s military to pack up and return home at the end of 2011. By that time, the would-be nation ISIS’s goals had exploded to encompass controlling land in Syria. And its tactical toolbox had grown to include the kind of genocidal preferences that ISIS has showed in 2013 and 2014.

In 2014, President Obama claimed that that U.S. intelligence had been caught off guard by the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq. “Our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that, I think, they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” Obama said during a “60 Minutes” interview.

Another former Pentagon official with experience combatting the Islamic militants told The Daily Beast, “Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullsh—ing.”

So, while the media would like to excoriate Trump for his seemingly hands-off approach to national security thus far during the transition, their words hold little credibility in light of Pres. Obama’s similar intelligence-briefings stance in the past.

Trump has yet to take office, but President Obama’s disregard for intelligence reports and his commitment to ending the war in Iraq solely out of rigid ideological reasons may well have permitted ISIS to become the global threat it quickly became.

Donald Trump would do well to learn from Obama’s mistakes. (For more from the author of “Where Was the Media Outrage When Obama Ignored Intelligence Briefings on ISIS?” please click HERE)

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Trump’s ‘Penny Plan’ Could Slash Federal Spending over Decade

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Being penny-wise could pay off big over the next decade, according to budget experts looking at part of President-elect Donald Trump’s spending plan.

While campaigning in September, Trump told the New York Economic Club, “If we save just one penny of each federal dollar spent on nondefense, and non-entitlement programs, we can save almost $1 trillion over the next decade—again this is spending that does not touch defense, and that does not touch entitlements.”

Trump’s plan is narrower than similar plans previously proposed in Congress for an across-the-board 1 cent out of every $1 cut in each federal agency’s budget from the previous year, because it would exclude cuts from the military and entitlements.

But, since most federal agencies are projected to grow by 4 percent per year, this could lead to a reduction in spending by a quarter over a decade, or about $630 billion less in nondefense discretionary spending, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Trump projected “almost $1 trillion” in his economic speech in September.

For now, the Trump transition team did not have details as to how quickly the plan would be implemented. More details will come after Trump takes office, transition team spokesman Jason Miller said.

“The penny plan is something the president-elect spoke about on the campaign trail as part of a broader economic and spending plan,” Miller told The Daily Signal during a conference call with reporters. “We’ll explain of the mechanics of it after he is in office. But it is an innovative cost-cutting measure.”

What seems to be a small reduction, one penny out of every dollar or 1 percent, would accumulate over 10 years. For example, a federal agency with a $100 billion budget would decline to $99 billion the next year, then to $98.01 billion the year after that.

The Trump version of the penny plan would apply only to nondefense discretionary spending, which already faces spending caps.

Discretionary spending includes areas such as education, research, environmental and health programs, foreign aid, or any spending that Congress must set. That’s as opposed to entitlement or “mandatory” programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that occur without annual action by Congress.

“Trump’s version of the penny plan is actually more targeted and thoughtful because it isolates this to spending that is already being capped,” Marc Goldwein, senior vice president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, told The Daily Signal.

Goldwein said a one-fourth reduction in nondiscretionary spending over a decade will accumulate, even if the “penny” branding seems small.

“This will seem modest in the first years, but it will accumulate significantly,” he said. “I’m not advocating against a 25 percent reduction, but it will mean there are some nondefense discretionary programs that they’ve got to deal with.”

Goldwein also said this won’t necessarily conflict with Trump’s ambitious plans for infrastructure, since most of that will be financed through highway funds.

If Trump’s economic policies are successful in spurring job growth, then government revenues could increase enough to pay for infrastructure spending, said Justin Bogie, a senior policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation.

However, unlike other “penny plan” proposals in Congress, the Trump plan shields defense and entitlement spending.

“Entitlements are the biggest driver of the debt,” Bogie told The Daily Signal. “ [Trump’s version of the plan] limits itself on how much it can save. But, it’s better than nothing.”

Politically, Bogie thinks the penny plan could be easy to sell.

“It’s very anecdotal to say that if every agency cuts just one penny from every $1, you’ll have substantial savings,” Bogie said.

The plan already has support in Congress. In July, House Budget Committee member Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., introduced a version of the “penny plan” that “would cut a single penny from every dollar the federal government spends.”

This would be across the board, and would cap federal spending as a percentage of the economy at 18 percent by 2022.

It is quite unlikely lawmakers would have the discipline to keep a “penny plan” in place for a decade, said Damian Brady, director of research at the National Taxpayer Union Foundation. Yet, if such a plan is in place for even a few years it would at least reduce spending as a percentage of the economy and maybe lead to a budget surplus, he said.

“If it’s enacted and actually adhered to, it would definitely lead to more savings,” Brady told The Daily Signal of the penny plan. “It’s nice on paper but history tells us Congress and the executive branch don’t hold the line on spending for long. If they do this for a couple of years, they will have extra money to play around with and begin spending again.” (For more from the author of “Trump’s ‘Penny Plan’ Could Slash Federal Spending over Decade” please click HERE)

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Trump’s Welcome Interest in Kazakhstan, and Why It Matters

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Among the long list of foreign leaders phoning President-elect Donald Trump in recent days was Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. According to some press reports, Trump described Kazakhstan’s progress since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union as “a miracle.”

If Trump was referring to the country’s economic progress since the mid-1990s, his description wasn’t far off. Yes, many Central Asian countries have faced daunting economic challenges, but in many ways Kazakhstan has been able to rise above the others.

During the early years of independence from Moscow, between 1991 (when Nazarbayev assumed the presidency) and 1995, the Kazakh economy contracted by 31 percent—a bleak situation, to say the least. However, since 2000, the economy has more than recovered, growing on average by 8 percent annually in the first decade of the new century.

When The Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom started scoring Kazakhstan’s performance in 1998, the country ranked 136th in the world in terms of economic freedom. Today, it ranks 68th, actually placing it ahead of Western nations such as France and Italy. And Kazakhstan aims to do better.

In 2012, its government set a goal of becoming one of the world’s top 30 developed countries by 2050. So far it has made good progress.

Whether you describe Kazakhstan’s economic growth as a “miracle” (as did Trump) or simply “impressive” (as did the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), this nation of 17 million has made tremendous strides over the past two decades.

Which is why Trump can rightly ponder: What role can Kazakhstan play to help his administration on the world stage?

U.S. foreign policy over the past eight years has left the world more unstable and less predictable. America’s adversaries have been appeased and emboldened; allies have felt abandoned, and certain regions outright ignored.

One of the ignored regions is Central Asia. Though often overlooked, this region is important in regard to challenges such as nuclear proliferation, religious extremism, an increasingly provocative Russia and rising China, a destabilized Afghanistan, and an emboldened Iran. Kazakhstan sits smack dab in the middle of all of this and is emerging as a regional leader.

It is especially well-suited to help on the issue of nuclear nonproliferation.

One of the country’s greatest achievements since 1991 has been its strong commitment to the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

It divested itself of all the nukes left behind by the Soviets, and Kazakhs are proud of this fact. As North Korea continues to test nuclear weapons and as the future of the Iran nuclear deal remains uncertain, Kazakhstan’s voice in the nonproliferation debate is crucial.

Or consider the rise of Islamist terrorism. As a secular, Muslim-majority country, Kazakhstan has been able to counter the rise of extremism, making it a natural partner for the U.S.

Another consideration for the U.S. is Kazakhstan’s potential for oil and gas exports to help Europe break its energy dependence on Russia. Freeing Europe from this dependence would directly affect Europe’s security and, potentially, the need for the U.S. to act on its treaty obligations under NATO.

Since the 1990s, Western energy giants, including Chevron and Exxon, have helped Kazakhstan develop some of the largest oil fields on the planet, including Tengiz, Kashagan (which finally came online earlier this year), and Karachaganak.

Human rights problems inevitably loom over U.S. policymaking throughout the region. The U.S. should have a frank, open, and constructive dialogue with its allies in the region when and where there are human rights issues—with the goal of long-term democratization.

However, human rights should be just one part of a multifaceted relationship that considers broader U.S. strategic interests and stability in the region. One issue should not automatically trump the others.

So far it seems that Trump understands this. Let’s hope we see this in practice.

If the U.S. is to have a strategy to deal with the many challenges it faces overseas, then building strong and pragmatic relations with Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, is a must. A new U.S. administration can re-energize our relationship, and the timing now is excellent.

Kazakhstan can be a useful partner in the United Nations when it begins its term as a nonpermanent member of the U.N. Security Council next month.

Trump’s pick for secretary of defense, retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, once said: “The nation with the most allies generally wins; that’s what history teaches.”

The U.S. needs friends in Central Asia, and Kazakhstan has many shared interests—and a lot going for it. (For more from the author of “Trump’s Welcome Interest in Kazakhstan, and Why It Matters” please click HERE)

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Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths

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Just as the newly-elected Trump administration is preparing to take office, America gets a surprise reveal from The Washington Post that President Obama’s Pentagon deliberately suppressed a 2015 report revealing $125 billion in wasteful spending could be saved over five years. Secretary of Defense (not for long, thank God!) Ashton Carter, his deputy Robert Work and other underlings squashed the report and its findings, placing secrecy restrictions on it and removing it from public view. They were busy with more important things like getting women into combat units and people with gender identity confusion to serve openly. Exposed just three days after the $619 billion National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 was passed, it reeks of a cover-up.

The Post reports:

Pentagon officials knew their back-office bureaucracy was overstaffed and overfunded. But nobody had ever gathered and analyzed such a comprehensive set of data before…Based on reams of personnel and cost data, their report revealed for the first time that the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its $580 billion budget on overhead and core business operations such as accounting, human resources, logistics and property management. The data showed that the Defense Department was paying a staggering number of people — 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel — to fill back-office jobs far from the front lines.

Despite the recommendations to address the waste, namely through attrition and redirection of the funds to weapons repair and development and the troops themselves, officials used the scare tactic that revealing it would result in budget cuts. They used this excuse to hide it.

As I’ve previously reported, our military aircraft are at a mere 30 percent readiness, with the Marines even cannibalizing museum pieces to get some aircraft working. Our carrier fleet is in a similar state of disrepair and decline. The Heritage Foundation’s 2016 Index of U. S. Military Strength notes, with emphasis added:

Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief of Naval Operations (CNO), testified in his March 2015 posture statement, the Navy was “compelled to further reduce the capacity of weapons and aircraft, slow modernization, and delay upgrades to all but the most critical shore infrastructure” due to continued budget shortfalls of $11 billion.

The Obama administration has slashed military personnel — 20,000 Marines in 2012, 20,000 from the Army in 2015 and another 30,000 this year — as well as military pay and pensions. While drawing down, however, they’ve prioritized spending for more recruiters to go after women for combat jobs because they want to see an increase in female representation in the ranks. Also on their priority list are mobile “unconscious bias” training units to disabuse grunts of believing in the physiological differences between men and women that are reconfirmed every time they test against men’s standards. And then there’s the “Transgender 101” training, sex change operations and safe spaces now being provided at taxpayer expense.

Reduced flight training due to budget cuts imposed on the services has resulted in several fatal crashes, including one last January that killed 12 Marines. The waste revelation is more than just a disgrace. Marines have died directly due to a lack of funding for the training they need, but Obama’s Pentagon wouldn’t deign to divulge the waste, let alone slash office jobs held by civil servants. The stink of Washington elitism is repugnant. Far from the fray, detached from the consequences of their actions, they’re willing to put men and women in harm’s way without the things they need to succeed and to survive.

The government’s first and most basic responsibility is to protect citizens against enemies foreign and domestic. Yet the hard-earned dollars of those same citizens are being squandered in the worst way. More importantly, the lives of those actually defending the country are not only being put in greater peril but are being squandered just to fund more overpriced contractors and civilian desk jockies. Ashton Carter couldn’t care less.

Luckily for us, far better leadership is soon to take over in the form of retired Marine General James Mattis, a man who cares deeply for America’s defenders. His oversight of the Pentagon can’t come soon enough. (For more from the author of “Obama’s Effort to Force Women into Combat, Allow Transgender Troops Results in $135 Billion Cover-Up, Deaths” please click HERE)

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New German Secretary of State Is pro Sharia Law

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The daughter of Palestinian immigrants is to be the Berlin senate’s secretary of state for coordinating federal and state affairs, but attention has focused on her recent remarks in support of Sharia law.
Berlin state senate member, former deputy speaker for foreign affairs and Muslim rising star of German politics Sawsan Chebli is to get a new cabinet post. The appointment by the Red-Red-Green coalition government has caused concern after a recent interview in which she expressed her view that Sharia law was perfectly compatable with secular German society.

Speaking back in August alongside Berlin Social Democrat party Mayor Michael Muller, she not only defended Sharia law against suspicion by many Germans who she accused of not understanding what it meant, but she also went on the attack too. Criticising members of anti-mass migration party Alternative for German (AfD), she said their views towards foreigners made them fundementally un-German.

Speaking to the Franzfurter Allgeimeine Zeitung, she said: “My father is a pious Muslim, hardly speaks German, can neither read nor write, but he is more integrated than many functionaries of the AfD who question our constitution”.

Germany’s newspaper of record and the nation’s most widely-read broadsheet Welt reported Sunday that while the politician attempted to portray the image of the perfect “successful migrant” who despite being born to illiterate, stateless parents was able to succeed in education and enter politics, there are “cracks” displayed by her support of Sharia. (Read more from “New German Secretary of State Is pro Sharia Law” HERE)

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Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing

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When Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, you didn’t see Republicans whining. Quite the contrary: They got to work and launched the Tea Party wave. Unsurprisingly, after spending the year insulated in their Brooklyn safe space, the Clinton team has perfected the art of whining since voters rebuked them in early November. They are blaming everyone and everything but themselves and their horrible candidate for their loss. It’s really starting to get embarrassing.

While it is hard to select just one whine as the whiniest, there seems to be a winner.

Drumroll, please …

And the award for whiniest Clinton team whine goes to … Jennifer Palmieri, communications director for Clinton’s campaign. You know the person most responsible — after Clinton herself — for the tone-deafness of the campaign.

Palmieri got into a verbal altercation with Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway last week at Harvard University. The disdain was palpable.

Palmieri started the fireworks by stating that she was “more proud of Hillary Clinton’s alt-‘Right’ speech than any other moment of the campaign.” This statement elicited an audible, “Wow” from Conway. It got more heated from there when Conway asked Palmieri to explain, “How exactly did we win?” after Palmieri said she would “rather lose” than “win the way you did.”

Conway got the better of the altercation.

Now Palmieri is taking another shot at Conway this time in a Washington Post op-ed. She pats herself on the back, with both hands, for “standing up” to Conway. Then goes off on a diatribe about how Clinton really won, and basically the Trump administration has no mandate.

But it’s also important for the winners of this campaign to think long and hard about the voters who rejected them. I haven’t seen much evidence of such introspection from the Trump side. That’s concerning.

She then says that Trump’s words hurt people. It is basically a rehash of their entire campaign. That Trump’s a mean bully who won’t be the president, even if he got elected. Because as Palmieri likes “to note, Clinton received more votes for president than any white man in U.S. history.”

You can just feel the condescension with those words. Of course, they are meaningless because Trump actually won where it mattered. As far as a mandate goes, Trump has a pretty strong one. Conway explained to Chuck Todd after the encounter about the mandate:

People open up their mailboxes and fire up their computers and see these premium increases. But, you know, the idea that he doesn’t have a mandate, when on President Obama’s watch they now lost the White House, 60 seats in the House, over a dozen Senate seats, over a dozen governorships, and over 1,000 state legislative seats, this Democratic party is having an identity crisis in a circular firing squad, and what I heard at Harvard is the same thing I hear all the time, “It’s Jim Comey’s fault, it’s Bernie Sanders’ fault.”

There is most definitely a Republican-governing mandate. When folks like Palmieri claim there is none, they are trying to delegitimize a Trump presidency like they did to George W. Bush. Trump and his team seem willing to fight back hard against that.

Almost daily you hear another Democrat, or media analyst, talking about how Trump’s picks for his administration are going to destroy the country — or most laughably the environment. Take for example Dan Pfeiffer, a former member of the Obama administration.

That’s right. Up until the end, global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism.

These folks wonder why Trump can’t be gracious and consensus building like — make sure you have no fluids in your mouth for this — Barack Obama. (If you did a spit take, I warned you.) That’s right. They still can’t see that to many everyday Americans, Obama was worse and more divisive than their wildest fantasies about Donald Trump.

So maybe they should just take what Obama said after the 2008 election to heart. I’ve slightly edited it for them, “Elections have consequences and …” Donald Trump “… won.” (For more from the author of “Team Clinton Can’t Stop Whining, and It’s Getting Embarrassing” please click HERE)

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Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25

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A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt’s main Coptic Christian cathedral killed 25 people and wounded another 49 during Sunday Mass, in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory.

The attack came two days after a bomb elsewhere in Cairo killed six policemen, an assault claimed by a shadowy group that authorities say is linked to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and which claimed responsibility for a pair of assassination attempts earlier this year in Cairo that targeted Egypt’s former mufti, or chief Muslim theologian, and an aide to the country’s top prosecutor.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday’s attack. However, Islamic militants have targeted Christians in the past, including a New Year’s Day bombing at a church in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria in 2011 that killed at least 21 people. More recently, the local affiliate of the Islamic State group targeted Christians in the Sinai Peninsula, where the extremist group is waging attacks against security forces. Christians endured a wave of attacks against their property and churches in provinces south of Cairo in the weeks and months that followed the July 2013 ouster by the military of an Islamist president. (Read more from “Bombing at Egypt’s Main Coptic Christian Cathedral Kills 25” HERE)

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