Israeli Soldiers: Hand of God Protected Them Through Pillar of Cloud During Battle With ISIS

/0 Comments/in , /by

Israeli soldiers captured on video a pillar of cloud that strangely hovered over the boundary between Syria and Israel, protecting the soldiers from ISIS during a battle.

The Israeli soldiers videotaped the phenomenon that occurred during a battle with ISIS in the Golan Heights. The men called the pillar of cloud the “hand of Hashem,” or the hand of God, which protected them.

According to Israel News Online, the cloud was comprised of dust, cloud and rain and “did NOT cross the border fence into Israel. It sat like a barrier between ISIS and Israel.” Israelis have called the storm “divine intervention,” reported Israel Today.

“Huge miracle! Notice how God stopped this enormous storm exactly on the border,” Yifat Romano posted on Israel News Online‘s Facebook page. “Thank you, Father!”

Nissim Nahoum wrote, “The Creator of the world is protecting us.”

When asked about how the cloud protected the soldiers, Israel News Online responded, “Well there have been no ISIS attacks since then. I wonder what they thought of it. That may be the case if the cloud was there or not as we retaliated at the time. Impossible to say for sure.”

Here is the video, which was captured by an Israeli soldier:

(For more from the author of “Israeli Soldiers: Hand of God Protected Them Through Pillar of Cloud During Battle With ISIS” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Liberal Theology Empties Churches

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The Episcopal Church in America reached peak membership in 1959, with about 3.5 million baptized members, rising from just over one million in a decade. Since the population of the USA also rose during this period, another way to put it is to say the Episcopal Church had in 1959 about 19.4 members per every 1,000 citizens, rising from 17 per 1,000 in 1949. Total church membership has since fallen, with membership about 1.8 million in 2015, or 5.5 per 1,000, and dropping none too slowly.

Liberal versus Conservative

Similar rapid decreases are seen among the Presbyterian (PCUSA), United Methodist, and Lutheran (ELCA) churches. Episcopalians, Presbyterians (USA), Lutherans (ELCA) and United Methodists represent historical or mainline Protestant Churches in the USA,

The much more evangelical Southern Baptist Convention, because of its age, is similarly situated. Numbers are better in the large Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) than in the Mainline. But membership in SBC congregations has not been keeping track with population increases.

In contrast, evangelical denominations, such as for example the Assemblies of God, while still individually smaller than mainline Protestant congregations, have seen significant growth. The Assemblies of God had only about 300 thousand members in 1950 (about 2.1 per 1,000), swelling ten times to 3.1 million last year (9.8 per 1,000).

Broadly speaking, and using the colloquial understanding of the terms, conservative Protestant churches have had increases this past half century, and liberal churches have had decreases. It is, of course, of interest to shore up these loose expressions and discover just what “conservative” and “liberal” mean in this context.

Enter the paper “Theology Matters: Comparing the Traits of Growing and Declining Mainline Protestant Church Attendees and Clergy” by David Millard Haskell, Kevin N. Flatt, and Stephanie Burgoyne in the journal Review of Religious Research. The trio asked questions of the clergy and congregations of 22 Protestant churches drawn from the Anglican Church of Canada (5), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (4), the Presbyterian Church in Canada (8), and the United Church of Canada (4) all centered in southern Ontario. Of these, 13 had declining populations from 2003 to 2013 and 9 had increasing populations.

Now this isn’t an especially large or necessarily representative sample of churches outside Canada; however, as the survey questions will show, there is still much that can be learned.

Congregations in Growing and Declining Churches
Several questions were asked of the congregants, and many answers showed wide disagreement between the Growing and Declining churches.

For instance, 79% of Growing congregants agreed strongly with the statement “Through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of my sins,” whereas only 57% of Declining congregants thought the same. About 19% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “the beliefs of the Christian faith need to change over time to stay relevant,” whereas 31% of Declining congregants thought so.

Three questions in particular were revealing in the conservative-liberal gap. Only 7% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “the Bible is the product of human thinking about God, so some of its teachings are wrong or misguided,” whereas over 15% of Declining congregants strongly agreed.

About 13% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “all major religions are equally good and true,” but more than twice as many Declining congregants, or 25%, thought so. On the fundamental basis of the Christian religion, 66% of Growing congregants strongly agreed that “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh and blood body, leaving behind an empty tomb,” but only 37% of Declining congregants did.

Not surprisingly, about 29% of Growing congregants thought their church’s mission was evangelism, and 16% thought it was social justice, whereas the numbers in Declining congregations was 9% and 31%.

Clergy in Growing and Declining Churches

Questions were also asked of the clergy, and the differences between Growing and Declining congregations was starker.

The largest difference was in the statement “Jesus was not the divine Son of God,” where it might be expected no clergy member could agree. And, indeed, no Growing clergy member agreed in any way. Yet 13% of Declining clergy agreed at least moderately.

Likewise, no Declining clergy strongly agreed that “it is very important to encourage non-Christians to become Christians,” but 77% of Growing clergy did. The statement “The beliefs of the Christian faith need to change over time to stay relevant” could not get any Growing clergy to agree in any way, but 69% of Declining clergy at least moderately agreed.

Some 70% of Growing clergy strongly agreed that “those who die face a divine judgement where some will be punished eternally,” but only 6% of Declining clergy moderately agreed, and none strongly agreed. On that same fundamental question asked of the congregation, 85% of Growing clergy strongly agreed (and none strongly disagreed) that “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh and blood body, leaving behind an empty tomb,” yet only 38% of Declining clergy thought so (and 19% strongly disagreed).

Has the call for liberalization failed?

Writing in the Washington Post, one of the authors of the study (Haskell), reminds us of the 1999 book by Episcopalian bishop John Shelby Spong Why Christianity Must Change or Die. “Spong, a theological liberal, said congregations would grow if they abandoned their literal interpretation of the Bible and transformed along with changing times.”

The Episcopal Church followed this advice. They have female priests and bishops. They allow “the ordination of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender clergy.” They even had a practicing homosexual bishop in a (government-defined) “marriage” to another man, a “marriage” which was further liberalized into a “divorce.”

Yet, even though Haskell says Spong’s theory “won favor with academics” and was “praised” at no less eminent a place than the Harvard Divinity School to assist in “shifting Christianity to meet the needs of the modern world,” the Episcopal Church’s membership dropped precipitously, with no sign of slowing. The Church even splintered, with the Anglican Church in North America forming from former Episcopalians who could not countenance Spong’s liberal theology.

As for the anti-climatic conclusion of his study, Haskell blandly writes, “Conservative Protestant theology, with its more literal view of the Bible, is a significant predictor of church growth while liberal theology leads to decline.”

Apparently theological liberalism empties churches. (For more from the author of “Liberal Theology Empties Churches” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Ukraine’s Plan to Manufacture US M16 Combat Rifles Hits a Snag Over Ammunition

/0 Comments/in , /by

Kalashnikov assault rifles are among the most iconic symbols of the Soviet military.

Weapons such as the AK-47, the AKM, the AK-74, and the AK-103 are ubiquitous reminders of the Red Army’s legacy among the modern militaries of former Warsaw Pact countries and Soviet client states.

Also, the contemporary, worldwide use of Kalashnikovs by terrorists and insurgent groups offers grim evidence of the widespread proliferation of Soviet weapons during and after the Cold War.

On Jan. 3, as part of a long-term plan to adopt NATO military standards, Ukraine took a step toward ditching this Soviet military carryover.

Ukroboronprom, Ukraine’s nationalized defense industry conglomerate, announced a partnership agreement between the Ukrainian defense manufacturer Ukroboronservis and the U.S. company Aeroscraft to produce in Ukraine a variant of the U.S. M16 assault rifle.

“The M16 project was conceived some time ago, as the Ukrainian armed forces, border guards, and National Guard will with time switch to NATO standards,” Aeroscraft founder and CEO Igor Pasternak said during a Jan. 3 press conference in Kyiv.

The M16 variant Ukraine will produce is called the WAC47.

The catch: The WAC47 uses Soviet ammunition, not the standard NATO 5.56×45 mm cartridge.

However, the Ukrainian production of Soviet-caliber M16s plan is a first step toward adopting NATO military standards—a goal Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko directed the military to achieve by 2020.

The WAC47 can be modified to use NATO ammunition, and “switching calibers” was one of the reasons Ukroboronprom listed to justify its decision to build its M16 variant.

“For our country and the Ukrainian army, M16 production in Ukraine is a real step towards Euro-Atlantic structures,” Ukroboronprom said in a statement published to its website.

By the time Ukraine fully adopts NATO military standards, its military will have a stockpile of M16s that can be modified to use NATO ammunition.

According to Ukroboronprom, interoperability problems Ukrainian troops have faced while on joint operations with NATO troops spurred the decision to produce the American assault rifle.

“Ukrainian soldiers are already participating in joint maneuvers with NATO,” Ukroboronprom said on its website. “And in each case, one of the problems is logistics.”

Ukrainian troops deployed to support NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, for example, had to borrow German assault rifles from Lithuanian troops due to ammunition incompatibility issues.

There is no standard assault rifle among NATO countries, only an agreement to use the same caliber small arms ammunition. NATO Standardization Agreement No. 4172 sets the standard small arms caliber at 5.56×45 mm.

In theory, troops from NATO countries could swap ammunition in combat, even if they use different weapons.

NATO Standards

The M16 became the standard infantry weapon for the U.S. military in 1967. U.S. versions of the weapon use the standard NATO cartridge.

However, the WAC47 (the M16 version to be produced by Ukraine) is designed for 7.62×39 mm ammunition used by Soviet weapons such as the AK-47 and the AKM assault rifles.

Ukraine plans to adopt NATO military standards by 2020. Consequently, the Ukrainian weapons will have to be retroactively modified to use NATO ammunition.

According to weapons experts consulted by The Daily Signal, the WAC47 can be modified to take the NATO 5.56×45 mm cartridge, but it might be cost prohibitive.

“Rechambering a rifle for a cartridge different than it was originally designed for can be done in some circumstances,” Dakota Wood, senior research fellow for defense programs at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal.

“A lot of expense that simply implies it would be cheaper to buy new rifles designed for common NATO ammo,” Wood said.

In order to modify Ukrainian M16s to use NATO ammunition, the bolt and barrel will have to be replaced, Brian Summers, a U.S. Army veteran and weapons expert, told The Daily Signal.

“The only items that would have to be replaced are what I would describe as items that would normally be replaced based on use,” Summers said. “The magazines are ammo specific, and would have to be changed to the specific caliber.”

The M16 rifle has two main components—an upper and a lower receiver. According to Summers, for a Soviet-caliber M16 to use NATO ammunition, only the upper receiver has to be modified by replacing the bolt and barrel.

The M16 weapons system is “one of the most versatile weapon platforms in configuration and caliber,” Summers said. “Your troops essentially can train on one platform and when switching over to a new caliber do not need to be retrained in a new weapons system … Core of the platform, lower receiver, does not change and any optics can be moved.”

In the 1990s, Colt Defense LLC, the original M16 producer, produced a special civilian version of the military assault rifle designed to use Soviet 7.62×39 mm ammunition.

“I own this variant and if I want to fire 5.56 mm [NATO ammunition], I simply switch the upper receiver with 5.56 mm bolt and mags,” Summers said. “Two minutes to change.”

The Ukrainian M16 deal is not the first time a foreign weapon modified to use Soviet ammunition has been mass produced in Ukraine.

Ukrainian weapons manufacturer RPC Fort produces a version of the Israeli Tavor assault rifle, which the Israel Defense Forces chose to replace the M16.

Israeli Tavors use standard NATO 5.56×45 mm ammunition. The Ukrainian variant, however, uses Soviet 5.45×39 mm ammunition, but can be modified to use NATO cartridges.

Soviet Surplus

The Ukrainian military is embroiled in a nearly three-year-old proxy war against pro-Russian separatists and Russian regulars in the Donbas, Ukraine’s embattled southeastern territory on the border with Russia.

Since the war began in early 2014, Ukraine has embarked on a crash course to rebuild, resupply, and modernize its military.

According to Ukrainian news reports, pro-Russian separatists captured Ukraine’s only small arms ammunition manufacturer, the Luhansk cartridge plant, in 2014.

Since then, the Ukrainian military has relied on Soviet-era stockpiles to supply its troops in combat.

In June 2016, a group of top Ukrainian military officials announced a plan to develop domestic ammunition manufacturing.

“The ammunition reserves inherited by our country from the Soviet Army … are not unlimited, while their significant part has been thoughtlessly recycled or sold at a time when no one was thinking that we would be engaged in a war,” Oleksandr Turchynov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said, according to Ukrainian news reports.

“This is a crucial large-scale task, and we have no other option but to implement it as soon as possible, for our country’s security directly depends on it,” Turchynov said.

Ukroboronprom’s 2016-2017 product catalogue does not include 7.62×39 mm or 5.45×39 mm ammunition—the two calibers most widely used by Ukraine’s armed forces.

According to arms experts, Ukraine currently has about 1 million AK-74 assault rifles and RPK-74 light machine guns in service. Both weapons use Soviet 5.45×39 mm ammunition.

NATO Standards

On May 20, 2016, Poroshenko, Ukraine’s president, signed a comprehensive military reform plan called the Strategic Defense Bulletin.

The document calls for a total revamp of Ukraine’s military doctrine, training, and operations to ultimately achieve the “full membership in NATO.”

“We have finally abandoned the system of the Soviet army and started to build truly efficient armed forces,” Poroshenko said. “It is very important for me, because it is evidence that Ukraine and NATO speak the same language and understand each other well.”

The Strategic Defense Bulletin directs the Ukrainian military to adopt NATO standards by 2020. It also singles out Russia as the No. 1 national security threat.

Ukrainian M16 production is a step—albeit a largely symbolic one—toward divorcing Ukraine from its Soviet military past by ditching Soviet weapons systems, thereby inching the country toward NATO interoperability.

“Every country that has teared itself away from Russia’s orbit, went or is going through this difficult stage, taking many years and demanding great effort,” Ukroboronprom, the Ukrainian defense industry conglomerate, said in a statement published to its website.

Resale Value

Ukraine will produce M16s for use by its armed forces, as well as for export. The deal, therefore, is a piece of a larger plan to reform and expand Ukraine’s defense industry.

Joint ventures with foreign partners is a key part of reforming Ukraine’s defense industry.

“Weapon manufacture in accordance with NATO standards is an important part of the development and reform of the Ukrainian defense industry,” said Serhiy Mykytyuk, head of Ukroboronservis, according to a statement posted to the Ukroboronprom website.

Aeroscraft, the American firm partnering with Ukroboronservis to produce M16s, is a California-based aviation company specializing in lighter-than-air aircraft—including airships intended for U.S. military use.

Pasternak, Aeroscraft’s founder and CEO, was born in Soviet Kazakhstan and founded his first company, Aeros Ltd., in Ukraine. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1994, according to a biography published on Aeroscraft’s website.

Ukrainian officials also want to make Ukraine one of the world’s top arms exporters.

“Ukraine is rapidly increasing its military capacities,” Poroshenko wrote in the introduction to the 2016-2017 Ukroboronprom product catalogue. “To become among the world’s top-five arms exporters is our strategic objective.”

In 2014, Ukraine was among the world’s top ten arms exporting nations, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (For more from the author of “Ukraine’s Plan to Manufacture US M16 Combat Rifles Hits a Snag Over Ammunition” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

The Sickening Nature of Anti-Israel Hatred

/0 Comments/in , /by

When is a cold-blooded murderer hailed as an international hero? When he’s a radical Islamic terrorist who slaughters Jews.

It is gut-wrenching to watch the video footage of a truck ramming into a crowd of Israelis in East Jerusalem, killing four of them and injuring at least 15 more. Three of the victims were female soldiers, aged 20, 20 and 22. The fourth victim was an Israeli man, also just 20-years-old. All of them had dreams of a bright future, a future none of them will live to see.

Israel is again in mourning.

But there is celebration in the Jew-hating, Israel-despising world. It doesn’t get any better than slaughtering Israelis — especially Israeli soldiers — in cold blood.

As for the truck driver, a religious Palestinian Muslim who was shot dead by police, his sister said “the family was ‘thankful’ for the attack and called her brother’s death ‘the most beautiful martyrdom.’”

Other Palestinian Muslims reacted similarly, as reported by Michael Qazini on the Daily Wire, noting, “These weren’t spontaneous celebrations by a few bad actors. Praise for the terrorist came from the top of the Palestinian leadership chain, placing a rubber stamp on a Jew-hating culture of death.” (See the article for details.)

Accordingly, Hamas, representing the most extreme side of Palestinian leadership, lauded the truck attack as “heroic.” (Yes, it takes a real hero to back up a truck and run over your victims. What courage.)

Similarly, Al Quds [Jerusalem] News posted a report, “Live from where the heroic incident took place in Occupied Jerusalem.” (See the link for more examples of Palestinian celebration, including passing out sweets in the streets.)

But this shouldn’t surprise us at all, since this is same leadership that names children’s schools after Palestinian terrorists who died in the course of their murderous acts, hailing them as martyrs. (Last October, the Palestinian Authority “dedicated a new school to the mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre …”)

This is the same leadership that pays salaries to imprisoned Palestinian terrorists at a rate up to four-times the average Palestinian salary. This is the same leadership that sponsors summer camps for children where they learn the requisite skills for slaughtering Jews, also naming the camps after famous terrorists.

Over on the Iranian-run Press TV Facebook page, the hatred flowed freely, with a good number of commenters justifying the slaughter because these Israelis were in East Jerusalem, which they consider to be an illegal occupation. (Wait a minute. Didn’t the Obama administration just affirm that in the UN Security Resolution it allegedly helped craft?)

Comments on the Press TV page included:

“Sow the wind, reap the storm. Occupiers have no rights, only the obligation to go back to where they came from. The Israeli regime is responsible for the deaths of its citizens in this instance. There will never be peace on stolen land.”
“Palestinians have every right to self-defense. If they find IOF on their roads they must repeat this and should be encouraged.”
“I wish and pray there will be repetition of this incident at much much bigger scale which will wipe out brutal israel from world map, Insha Allah [God willing].”
“Good job … because its Israel problem killing innocent Palestinians every day no one criticise why…”
“Tonight I’m very happy after watching video, and I especially order for mutton biryani.”
“Hahaha look at the IDF soldiers. Muppets. I don’t support terrorism but at least this one did not kill any innocent woman or child and went straight for their killers!”
“Killing an oppressor is not being an extremist. These were occupation soldiers and were in the process of going to commit atrocities in Palestine. When the French resisted German occupation it was not called terrorism.”
“It is so good to hear this News.”
“Good work ever done by a true Muslim.”
“BWAHAHAHA!”
“Kill them all.”
“Deserved.”
“The Zionists been ramming tents and makeshift shelters of innocent Palestinians for the past 70 years no problem, now that some Zionist soldiers rammed by Palestinian is good thing to happen.”
“One sure remedy — ‘Get out of Palestine’ — back to your Ghettos.”

I have no doubt that there are Palestinians who have been mistreated by Israeli soldiers and for that reason, harbor intense hatred against the people of Israel. As a friend of Israel, I say: Let the injustices be exposed and rectified. And certainly, many Palestinians are shocked and grieved over the death of these young people.

I also recognize that there are right-wing extremists in Israel who have engaged in terrorist acts against Palestinians (like the infamous Baruch Goldstein), and I know that some of these extremists consider Palestinians (and even all non-Jews) to be less human, even saying that the only good Arab is a dead Arab.

But this represents the extreme fringe of the extreme fringe, and if an Israeli rammed a truck into a crowd of young Palestinians, there would be national outrage in Israel (and the worldwide Jewish community), the government would immediately and unconditionally condemn the killer and look to arrest any accomplices, and there would be a sense of shame rather than glee through the country.

But when Jewish blood is shed by a radical Islamic terrorist — in particular Israeli blood, especially the blood of an Israeli soldier — then celebration erupts among Jew-haters worldwide.

Time to pass out the candy and rejoice.

This is beyond sick. (For more from the author of “The Sickening Nature of Anti-Israel Hatred” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Ghana Is Leading the Way for Democracy in Africa

/0 Comments/in , /by

Ghana, a West African country, has experienced peaceful transitions of power each time there has been a change in government since the country ended military rule in 1992.

Solidifying its notable status as one of Africa’s most stable democracies, Ghana is about to embark on another handover of power from the sitting head of state to the candidate of a longtime opposition party who won the recent presidential poll.

In a testament to Ghana’s functioning democracy, the country’s outgoing president, John Mahama, who fought hard for re-election, said during his farewell state of the nation address:

I stand here today, Mr. Speaker, holding the baton of leadership prepared to pass it on with pride, goodwill, and determination to Nana Akufo-Addo and to ask all Ghanaians to cheer him on as he runs his portion of this important relay for Ghana.

The president-elect, Akufo-Addo, former attorney general and foreign minister of the county who emerged victorious in his third presidential attempt, will be sworn in as Ghana’s new president on Jan. 7.

In fact, The Heritage Foundation had a unique opportunity to welcome then-presidential candidate Akufo-Addo to Washington and hear about his vision for Ghana in October 2015.

Akufo-Addo remarked in his speech,

I thank The Heritage Foundation for inviting me to speak at one of Washington’s most celebrated centers of thought and intellectual endeavor. It is an honor to be here in such company and to see so many people eager to discuss the future of my country, Ghana, and Africa more broadly … I remain staunchly optimistic about our future. I am proud to be a Ghanaian, the people who were the first in sub-Saharan Africa to free themselves from colonial rule, and who remain the pace-setters in the development of the principles of democratic accountability, respect for human rights, and the rule of law on the African continent. And as we move toward another election, I am reminded—and proud—of how hard we have fought for our democracy.

During his presidential campaign, Akufo-Addo highlighted the damaging effects of government corruption in Ghana and plans to tackle the issue by strengthening the judiciary and enacting constitutional reforms to decentralize power from the executive branch.

At The Heritage Foundation event last year, Akufo-Addo also emphasized that “[t]here is a connection between poor democracy and poor economic performance. Short-termism and political expediency in regard to elections tend to correlate with a lack of vision and incompetence in the economic field.”

In addition to strengthening the rule of law, Akufo-Addo’s vision for Ghana includes reforms in three key areas to transform the economy and set out a path to growth: pursuing economic diversification, unleashing the private sector from burdensome regulation and excessive taxation, and reining in the national debt.

As Ghanaians welcome and embrace this new presidency, Akufo-Addo should follow through with these reforms to enhance Ghana’s economic freedom and advance opportunities for all Ghanaians. (For more from the author of “Ghana Is Leading the Way for Democracy in Africa” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

French Catholics Wake up to Islamist Threat, Despite Their Bishops

/0 Comments/in , /by

The searing novel Submission by Michel Houellebecq is a profane but powerful snapshot of the likely near-future of Europe: Mainstream political parties going through the motions of trying to govern spiritually exhausted and nearly childless Western countries, whose only growing demographic consists of Islamists seeking sharia. In the course of the novel, the godless and bloodless socialists finally give way to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose sole opponent is the angry, right-wing National Front.

Until now, the only real opposition to the Islamic colonization of France has found its home in that party, whose founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, had dabbled in anti-Semitism. While the party’s current leader, his daughter Marine, has firmly rebuked extremists within its ranks, that party still carries for millions of Catholic voters in France a whiff of neo-paganism, and the ultra-nationalism which in the past led right-wing ideologues like Charles Maurras to call themselves “Catholic atheists.” In other words, they didn’t believe in God, but considered Catholicism a part of the French culture worth fighting to preserve.

Church Leaders Clash with the National Front

Such attitudes, real or suspected, repelled the believing Catholics who still make up a fair swathe of the potential conservative vote in France. It didn’t help that French bishops marched well in advance of Pope Francis in discarding the church’s balanced teaching on immigration, for a reckless open-borders stance that helped invite 2016’s wave of Syrian Muslim colonists.

The open hostility between France’s pastors and the National Front was on full display this week, as The Tablet (U.K.) reports:

Three leaders of France’s far-right Front National (FN) have used post-Christmas interviews on leading radio stations to criticise French bishops for urging Catholics to support refugees. They argue that the clergy should focus on filling up their churches rather than interfering in politics.

FN vice-president Louis Aliot said a “large majority of bishops” had “spit in the face” of the party by “systematically denigrating the FN, its leaders and its policies.”

Gilbert Collard, one of the Front’s two MPs in the National Assembly, said the Church was “disconnected from reality — in the name of welcoming others, they reject us.”

Party secretary general Nicolas Bay denied the interviews were a “declaration of war” but said the Front “didn’t need to hear any lessons from the clergy about migration.”

A New Choice for Faithful Frenchmen

However, French voters concerned about the overwhelming influx of sharia-believing Islamists into their country now have another option. In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attack and the Bataclan massacre, a conservative movement has arisen with no links to the old, extremist right, with solid Christian credentials. Sens Commun (Common Sense) is a pro-life, pro-family Catholic grass roots group that spans the country, and its members are willing to question the wisdom of their bishops on crucial issues of border control and national identity.

The leading rival Marine Le Pen faces on the right is François Fillon, who has ties to Sens Commun. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

In France, the strict separation between personal faith and public life, known as laïcité, is a pillar of national identity. However, a confluence of events — from the legalization of gay marriage to the more recent string of Islamist terror attacks — has many conservative voters looking to the country’s Christian heritage as a bulwark.

Mr. Fillon’s candidacy is seizing on that impulse. In publicly embracing his faith, the 62-year-old is tapping a wellspring of Catholic voters who have begun coalescing into a potentially decisive voting bloc.

His performance during the country’s first-ever conservative primaries provided the clearest sign yet of the revived Catholic vote.

…

The Catholic vote is shaping up to play an unusually prominent role in the general election in May, when polls predict Mr. Fillon will face-off against Marine Le Pen , leader of the far-right anti-immigrant and anti-euro National Front party.

Many conservative Catholics shifted to the National Front during recent regional elections, feeling more at home with its call for revived nationalism than with the pro-EU principles — free movement of people and goods — espoused by other parties.

A quarter of self-described practicing Catholics voted for the National Front in December 2015 regional elections, up from 16% in local races in March of that year, according to polling firm IFOP.

Mr. Fillon’s Catholicism reassures voters who want to show support for French traditions. “The National Front has made a lot of progress with this group,” said Jerome Fourquet, director of IFOP. “They could come back to the center-right with Fillon.”

The rise of a Catholic vote in France is a measure of how deeply the continent has been shaken by a series of crises, from the arrival of migrant waves from the Middle East to the surge in political parties questioning the future of the European Union itself. …

[Fillon] voted against the gay-marriage bill and criticized the government for not doing more to protect Christian minorities in Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, organizing a rally in June 2015 to support them.

“We are all Eastern Christians!” Mr. Fillon told the crowd.

Denial Across the Rhine

Meanwhile, in neighboring Germany Angela Merkel — the architect of the Syrian “refugee” invasion — was granted a prestigious Catholic humanitarian award by that country’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, specifically for her handling of Muslim immigration. However, in Austria, the prominent Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has recently questioned the wisdom of accepting so many Muslim immigrants, and even called for Europeans to give U.S. President-elect Donald Trump a second look, pointing out that Ronald Reagan was also widely dismissed when he took office. (For more from the author of “French Catholics Wake up to Islamist Threat, Despite Their Bishops” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

North Korea: Cold War Relic, Present Day Threat

/0 Comments/in , /by

You can kick the can down the road, but when Kim Jong Un announces, as he did last Sunday, that “we have reached the final stage in preparations to test-launch an intercontinental ballistic rocket,” you are reaching the end of that road.

Since the early 1990s, we have offered every kind of inducement to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program. All failed miserably. Pyongyang managed to extort money, food, oil and commercial nuclear reactors in exchange. But it was all a swindle. North Korea was never going to give up its nukes because it sees them as the ultimate guarantee of regime survival.

The North Koreans believe that nukes confer inviolability. Saddam Hussein was invaded and deposed before he could acquire them. Kim won’t let that happen to him. That’s why Thae Yong Ho, a recent high-level defector, insisted, “As long as Kim Jong Un is in power, North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons, even if it’s offered $1 trillion or $10 trillion in rewards.”

Meanwhile, they have advanced. They’ve already exploded a handful of nuclear bombs. And they’ve twice successfully launched satellites, which means they have the ICBM essentials. If they can miniaturize their weapons to fit on top of the rocket and control re-entry, they’ll be able to push a button in Pyongyang and wipe out an American city. (Read more from “North Korea: Cold War Relic, Present Day Threat” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Palestinian’s Threaten ‘Bloodshed’ After Trump Promises to Move Israeli Embassy

/0 Comments/in , /by

A prominent member of Fatah — the militant political organization that governs Palestinian areas of the West Bank under Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas — has threatened to target the United States in response to the potential American embassy move from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Jerusalem, its capital city.

“I believe that any American act of stupidity will ignite the Palestinian territories,” Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu al-Einein said on Alghad TV, in comments translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

The Palestinian official, who serves as an aide to Mahmoud Abbas, added: “We must prepare for a confrontation with the new U.S. administration, which has clearly and audaciously declared that Israel and its settlements are legitimate and legal.”

If President-elect Donald Trump chooses to move the embassy to Jerusalem — which he has pledged to do — both Israel and America “will bear responsibility for the return of the bloodshed in the Palestinian territories,” Abbas threatened.

Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, expects to take up his new post in the Israeli capital.

Sultan Abu al-Einein is well-known for his incitement to terrorist activity. In June, he advised fellow Palestinians, “Every place you find an Israeli, slit his throat,” per Palestinian Media Watch, stressing that killing innocent Jews is an Islamic duty. In 2014, he said that killing Jewish rabbis while they pray is “Allah’s will.”

Fatah, the supposed “moderate” Palestinian organization, has long been associated with terrorist activities. “Fatah” is a reverse acronym of an Arabic phrase meaning “conquest by means of jihad,” and has been responsible for dozens of jihadist attacks over past decades.

The group’s most infamous act of terror occurred during the 1972 Munich Olympics, when its Black September brigade murdered 11 Israeli coaches and athletes at the Summer Games. (For more from the author of “Palestinian’s Threaten ‘Bloodshed’ After Trump Promises to Move Israeli Embassy” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

GOP to Bail out Duplicitous Dems With Sham Anti-UN Resolution

/0 Comments/in , /by

There is no issue that unites Republicans, divides Democrats, and is easier to message to the American people more than cutting funding to the U.N. and the PLO.

Likewise, there is no better time to harness momentum for those goals and permanently refocus our Middle East priorities than now, as we stand at the cusp of a new GOP government. Yet, Republican leaders are not only shirking from this slam dunk initiative, but they are also giving Democrats cover — a loin cloth — for their duplicity on the issue of Israel.

Despite the sleepy news cycle of the holiday season, the U.N.’s assault on Israel captured the rage of Americans across the country. Here we are suffering from the effects of ubiquitous global jihad, and they want to focus on Jews building some homes in land originally designated and then recaptured (in a defensive war) for the only Jewish state in the Middle East. Meanwhile, the “Palestinians,” comprised of Fatah and Hamas, continue to pursue jihad and elect terrorists as their leaders.

With Trump headed to the White House, Republicans have the public support and the political power to finally right the drifting ship of our Middle East policy and defund the U.N. and PLO terrorists. Conservative members were hoping to pass legislation doing just that.

Instead, House leadership plans to vote on a vacuous resolution objecting to U.N. Resolution 2334 and reaffirming our commitment to “the two-state solution” — a myopic pink unicorn that stands contrary to our national interests, yet has become a religion among the foreign policy establishment.

It would be one thing if this “bipartisan resolution” was the beginning of a broader effort to defund the bad actors and finally move away from the two-state solution nonsense. But there is no evidence leadership plans to move anything meaningful to the House and Senate floors. Consequently, not only does this resolution fail to change policy in a meaningful way, but it also serves as loin cloth legislation to bail out Democrats who are on the wrong side of the American people on this issue.

The resolution (H.Res. 11) — sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed Royce, R-Calif., an extremely weak leader on foreign policy — references “the two-state solution” on four occasions. It seems to raise concerns only about creating an Arab “Palestinian” state in Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall but not the rest of Judea and Samaria. Also, it calls on our government to “work to facilitate serious, direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions toward a sustainable peace agreement.”

Really? Is this our position as Republicans? Do we not desire to strive for something different than the failed Oslo Accords promoted by Bill Clinton? And with whom exactly are we to “facilitate” negotiations given that the PLO is a terrorist group, pursuant to current law — a law, which Clinton suspended but was never repealed?

Indeed, aside from the Western Wall and a tiny area in Jerusalem, there is no difference between the blueprint laid out in this resolution and John Kerry’s plan.

Clearly, the resolution was drafted by Ranking Member Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., who is the de facto chairman of the committee, and was designed to get approval from Democrats. Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is bragging about his support for this resolution. This is reminiscent of when Republicans passed the Corker-Cardin loin cloth bill on Iran, which provided the veneer of congressional oversight of the Iran deal, thereby giving Democrats much-needed cover, but in fact codified Obama’s unilateral execution of a treaty into law.

It’s never worth pursuing bipartisan support unless the bill will actually further a credible agenda in a meaningful way; otherwise, it just gratuitously gives cover to two-faced “pro-Israel” Democrats. In this case, the resolution codifies a wrongheaded foreign policy.

To his credit, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa offered an amendment to strike out any references to a two-state solution, an idea that has long been repudiated. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the Rules Committee.

It’s a time for choosing for these supposed pro-Israel Democrats. They are either with America and Israel, or they are with the far Left and PLO terrorists. It’s not the job of Republicans to obfuscate the irreversible party divide on the issue.

How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD [be] God, follow him: but if Baal, [then] follow him.” — Kings 1: 18-19

As for Republicans, why not harness this once-in-a-generation opportunity to end — finally — the foreign policy mistakes of the past. Is it too much to ask that we defund the U.N.? Is cutting off $500 million to PLO terrorists beyond the scope of their agenda? Reforming taxes and entitlements might be a cumbersome issue, but defunding the U.N. and PLO is not. (For more from the author of “GOP to Bail out Duplicitous Dems With Sham Anti-UN Resolution” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

How France’s ‘Right to Disconnect’ Law Is an Assault on Freedom

/0 Comments/in , /by

France passed a new labor law over the weekend that gives employees the “right to disconnect” from their work email and devices such as smartphones and laptops after business hours. According to CNN, the policy was informed by French unions, who have long complained that modern technology has led to an “explosion of undeclared labor” that exceeds the country’s 35-hour work week.

The new law seeks to benefit working mothers and fathers, and others who find their home life interrupted by out-of-office requests. Many of these workers, however, probably aren’t aware of the subtle attacks on freedom a government-mandated work-life balance presents.

Like the minimum wage, the “right to disconnect” policy sounds like a pretty good, and even compassionate, idea at first. Many people desire a clearer separation between work and home, and a rule like this can help to create that.

But what about the 23-year-old bachelor seeking to climb the corporate ladder? For him, uncompensated overtime hours might seem like less of a burden and more of an opportunity to jumpstart his career before other obligations like marriage and family take shape in his life. In this case, the “right to disconnect” policy is likely to provoke hostility toward employees who willingly choose to work beyond the time specified by a particular company.

According to the new rule, companies with 50 or more employees must negotiate after-hours email guidelines with their staff. Further, firms are required to “regulate the use of emails” to ensure employees are getting their promised break.

“If management and staff cannot agree on new rules,” CNN reported, “the firm must publish a charter to define and regulate when employees should be able to switch off.”

Under this provision, individuals like the 23-year-old bachelor could be flagged for violating company policy. In order to comply with the new restrictions, he would have to forego his comparative advantage (i.e. more free time and less out-of-office obligations), and the company would cease to benefit from his (completely voluntary) additional labor.

Policies affecting the private lives of employees should be settled through private contracts between individuals and their employers. The issue of out-of-office email should be addressed in the same way companies determine salary negotiation and paid time off. This way, the 23-year-old bachelor receives the same level of consideration as the working mother of three. His willingness to work overtime may provide him with an advantage when it comes to asking for time off. On the other hand, the working mother may value free time with family in the evening more than a few more vacation days. In both cases, employees are afforded the freedom to negotiate a policy that works for them. (For more from the author of “How France’s ‘Right to Disconnect’ Law Is an Assault on Freedom” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.