13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas

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What should conservatives expect from Donald Trump’s first 100 days of presidency?

Aided by full Democratic control of Congress, President Obama was able to do much harm in his first 100 days of White House control. In 2009, Obama had virtually free reign to implement his agenda.

He used that free reign to … pass a then-$787 billion stimulus bill; create a timetable to withdraw troops from Iraq; pass a budget appropriating funds for Obamacare, expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (i.e. SCHIP); relax enforcement of federal marijuana laws; formally endorse the U.N. Statement on ‘Human Rights, Sexual Orientation, and Gender Identity’; end the federal funding ban on embryonic stem cell research; and overturn a ban on federal funding for international abortion providers.

Now the tables have turned. Donald Trump is president-elect and the Republicans have full control of Congress. What follows is the conservative’s Christmas 2017 wish list. These are the agenda items Republicans should demand of the Trump administration in its first 100 days of White House control.

1. Full repeal of Obamacare

This is the big one. The Republicans emphatically won control of the House of Representatives in 2010 solely on the “stop Obamacare” wave and promise. They gained control of the Senate in 2014 on the same promise. Congressional Republicans have repeatedly broken their promises on this disastrous law.

Now is the time. Donald Trump needs to pressure the Republicans in Congress to fulfill their promises and deliver on a full and complete repeal of Obamacare. They can accomplish this by using budget reconciliation to pass the repeal without giving the Democrats an opportunity to filibuster. Failure to immediately deliver on this, as health insurance premiums continue to rise for American families, will break American confidence in the Republican Party and doubtlessly put GOP control of Congress in jeopardy in the 2018 midterms, along with Trump’s chance for reelection in 2020.

2. Border security and The Wall

While Obamacare’s repeal is the signature policy demand on the Right, illegal immigration and a southern border wall between the U.S. and Mexico are the signature issues that propelled Donald Trump to the front of the pack during the Republican presidential primary.

Trump has proposed a concrete wall anywhere from 35 feet to 50 feet or higher, estimating the cost of his proposal to be as high as $12 billion. He’s also famously pledged to make Mexico pay for it.

Daniel Horowitz has previously written for CR on the necessity for a legitimate southern border wall. And while some question the practicality of a concrete wall, a double-layered border fence is practical, effective (where it has been tried in San Diego and Israel), would cost roughly $2 billion, and, in fact, is already required by the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

The construction of the wall will not be completed overnight. But in the same way that President Obama budgeted funds for Obamacare before that law’s passage in his $3.5 trillion 2010 budget, Trump ought to insist Congress do the same to address the porous southern border.

3. Government lobbying ban

As part of his promise to “drain the swamp,” President-elect Trump pledged to institute a five-year lobbying ban for former officials after they leave the White House or Congress. Additionally, Trump has proposed a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of foreign governments.

These are common sense reforms that would decrease the influence of lobbyists for crony capitalists in D.C., and they have bipartisan support. Trump can accomplish his lobbying ban through executive order, but going through Congress would obviously have more force and social capital.

4. Repeal Dodd-Frank

“Dodd-Frank has made it impossible for bankers to function.” Donald Trump told Reuters back in May. “It makes it very hard for bankers to loan money for people to create jobs, for people with businesses to create jobs. And that has to stop.”

He is absolutely right. This atrocious piece of 2010 legislation (officially the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act) established the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Financial Stability Oversight Council — two boards of unelected bureaucrats that hang over the heads of banks in this country, zapping them with millions of dollars in fines and draining needed capital for investment and growth out of the marketplace to … only God knows where.

While liberals and populists love the idea of sticking it to the Big Bad Banks, like most all liberal policies, it has had the unintended consequence of hurting the little guy (small community banks) the most.

As of June 2015, American financial institutions suffered more than $160 billion in losses to government fines, which translates to a loss of approximately $3 trillion of potential growth, stifling job creation. Congress should enact and President Trump should sign a repeal of Dodd-Frank, unleashing capital into the economy and stimulating job growth in parts of the country that so desperately need it.

5. Nominate a pro-life justice to the Supreme Court

For many voters, keeping Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat out of the clutches of a liberal Clinton-appointed judicial activist was the single reason to vote for Donald Trump. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised to nominate a pro-life justice to the court.

Trump won, and to the victor goes the Supreme Court nomination. The president-elect has floated a widely praised list of legal minds. The problem is, as the Eagle Forum’s Andy Schlafly told Conservative Review contributor Steve Deace, though many justices on Trump’s list have the backing of the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist society, “most of them are actually not pro-life.”

Take Wisconsin Justice Diane Sykes, “probably the top pick of the Federalist Society,” according to Schlafly. “If you dig into her record you find that when she was a state court judge, she sentenced two pro-life advocates to jail for 60 days for a peaceful protest they engaged in. She also struck down an Indiana law that defunded Planned Parenthood,” Schlafly stated.

“This is not a pro-life judge,” he said. Conservatives need to hold President-elect Trump’s feet to the fire on this issue. Trump must nominate a justice who has a clear record of unabashedly pro-life, pro-Constitution rulings. Anything less would repeat the mistakes of previous Republican presidents, and lead to the nomination of another liberal David Souter or back-stabber John Roberts.

6. Pain-capable abortion ban

It is not enough to simply nominate a pro-life justice and trust the courts to take care of the abortion issue. Congress and enforcement from the executive branch is necessary to end the inhumane and evil practice of late-term abortions. Trump went so far as to promise a “Pro-life Coalition” on the campaign trail.

Trump can move beyond campaign rhetoric by signing into law a federal ban on abortions after 20 weeks, the point at which a child is capable of feeling pain. The cruelty and inhumanity of abortion is the same at all stages of a child’s development in the womb. Public opinion has swung in favor of the pro-life movement, and tangible policy achievements by the incoming Republican administration are more possible than ever (and the pain-capable abortion ban has already passed through the House of Representatives once).

7. Defund Planned Parenthood and make the Hyde Amendment permanent

The abortion mill that was caught on tape allegedly discussing the illegal sale of baby body parts has been formally recommended for prosecution by the special House committee responsible for investigating the illicit activities first exposed by the Center for Medical Progress. Efforts by conservatives to defund Planned Parenthood have been repeatedly defeated by threats of an Obama presidential veto and spineless Republicans who melt at the whisper of “shutdown.” But no more.

With the self-proclaimed pro-life Donald Trump in the White House, the veto threat is gone, and the worry over a government shutdown with it. There is no excuse to continue funneling tax dollars to Planned Parenthood now. And President-elect Trump should make the Hyde Amendment — which outlaws federal funding for abortion — permanent law, as he promised to do during the campaign.

8. First Amendment Defense Act

Congress and the president must act to protect the First Amendment rights of religious Americans. And President-elect Trump can accomplish that by signing into law the First Amendment Defense Act.

As the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%), explained, “The First Amendment Defense Act (S. 1598, H.R. 2802) would prevent any federal agency from denying a tax exemption, grant, contract, license, or certification to an individual, association, or business based on their belief that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.”

“For example, the bill would prohibit the IRS from stripping a church of its tax exemption for refusing to officiate same-sex weddings.”

Trump has previously expressed conditional support for the legislation. “If Congress considers the First Amendment Defense Act a priority, then I will do all I can to make sure it comes to my desk for signatures and enactment,” Trump wrote in a letter last year.

Congress ought to make First Amendment protections for the religious a top priority. And Donald Trump ought to keep his promise to sign that legislation into law.

9. Fix the Fed

President-elect Trump has consistently railed against the Chinese and has pledged to designate the communist country a “currency manipulator” on his first day in office. He would do well to also look inward and tackle the number one manipulator of U.S. fiscal policy: the Federal Reserve.

John Gray and Tommy Behnke have written on the opportunity for Trump to affect major policy change at the Fed by filling two vacant positions on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (and potentially up to four by 2018) with hard-money advocates. The leadership at the Federal Reserve is responsible for run-away inflationary policies that have cut the purchasing power of the dollar, and for artificially low interest rates that have recklessly disrupted the business cycle. The Fed’s created bad incentives for entrepreneurial capital investment — creating the environment for another great recession.

In a positive sign, Donald Trump has endorsed a return to the gold standard, and voiced awareness of the Fed’s bad leadership. “Sadly, we all know what’s happening to the dollar,” Trump told The Street in 2011. “The dollar is going down, and it’s not a pretty picture, and it’s not being sustained by proper policy and proper thinking.” Trump should appoint members to the Federal Reserve Board that share his thinking on hard money and believe that a change in policy is necessary.

Additionally, Trump ought to sign into law Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky. (A, 92%)’s legislation to audit the Fed to ensure accountability. He can also fight to enact positive reform by pushing to end the Fed’s dual mandate to keep the money supply stable and fight unemployment — a reform supported by Vice-president-elect Mike Pence.

10. Tax reform

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 40%) recently announced that comprehensive tax reform is all but guaranteed in 2017 using the budget reconciliation process, and stated he prefers a “revenue-neutral tax package.”

Republicans need to think bigger than “revenue neutral” and go for, as Brian Darling wrote for Conservative Review, “a wholesale scrapping of tax credit cronyism and massive tax cuts for business and individuals alike.”

What would that look like? It looks very much like adopting a plan proposed by President-elect Trump on the campaign trail. As CR’s John Gray wrote last year (“Donald Trump’s Tax Plan is YUUGE”), the Trump tax plan offered the largest tax cuts of any Republican plan proposed during the presidential primary:

The (Trump) tax cut not only easily surpasses all other candidates’ tax cuts in size, but it surpasses all of the other tax cuts combined! You heard that right. According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, Jeb Bush’s tax cut of $3.665 trillion, Rand Paul’s tax cut of $2.974 trillion, and Marco Rubio’s tax cut of $4.14 trillion add up to an aggregate cut of $10.779 trillion. At $11.98 trillion, the Donald’s tax cut is YUGE.

Since his initial proposal, Trump has tweaked the plan to address criticisms. The latest iteration would reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent, eliminate the death tax, permit families to deduct the full cost of child care, permit businesses to immediately expense all capital investments, and substantially lower individual income tax brackets to 12 percent, 25 percent, and 33 percent. These are great pro-growth ideas that conservatives ought to see signed into law next year.

11. Scrap Obama’s unconstitutional executive orders (DACA to start)

This is a Day 1 pledge from Trump that has been long-awaited by conservatives. Trump has promised to “cancel immediately all illegal and overreaching executive orders,” and he needs to start with President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty.

Recent statements by the president-elect indicate that he could be going back on his word and wavering on his promise to repeal the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals executive order that granted amnesty to thousands of illegal immigrants. That is unacceptable equivocation.

Failure to repeal DACA, which Trump himself has called “illegal and unconstitutional,” would constitute a broken campaign promise of the highest order and signal that Trump is no different from the amnesty-embracing Establishment Republicans he railed against on the campaign trail.

12. Repeal the EPA “Waters of the United States” rule

The Environmental Protection Agency is on a constant crusade for ever more control over every aspect of Americans’ everyday lives. In 2009, the agency moved to declare carbon dioxide — otherwise known as human breath — a “dangerous pollutant” in order to introduce a slew of new regulations to control the economy.

Likewise, in 2015 the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jointly issued a new water regulation that, in practice, illegally gave the EPA the authority to regulate non-navigable waters by redefining terms to circumvent restrictions on the EPA’s regulative authority in the Clean Water Act of 1972.

The result, as the National Federation of Independent Business concluded:

If rain collects on your property somewhere or you happen to have a pond or a stream bed that remains dry but for a small amount of time per year, then chances are the federal government will be requiring you to pay an exorbitant amount of money for a permit.

Landowners in violation of the rule could be fined an average of $37,500 per day. The EPA’s power grab essentially granted the administration an unlimited ability to extort land owners. Congress has attempted to pass a repeal bill to rein in the EPA, but President Obama vowed to veto any and all such repeal legislation. President-elect Trump needs to sign that repeal legislation in 2017.

13. National right to carry

“The Second Amendment guarantees a fundamental right that belongs to all law-abiding Americans,” reads Donald Trump’s official policy position on the right to bear arms. “The Constitution doesn’t create that right — it ensures that the government can’t take it away. Our Founding Fathers knew, and our Supreme Court has upheld, that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to guarantee our right to defend ourselves and our families. This is about self-defense, plain and simple.”

To that end, the president-elect has called for national concealed carry reciprocity. He declared: “A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”

Almost every Republican in Congress claims to be pro-gun rights, and now with Republican control of the government, it is time to finally restore the constitutional right to bear arms for every American with a national concealed carry permit.

These are the campaign promises. These are the agenda items. 2017 is the time to transform talk into action.

Check back with Conservative Review next Christmas to see which promises President Trump fulfilled, and which ones he broke in 2017. (For more from the author of “13 Victories Conservatives Want From President Trump by Next Christmas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

6 Times the PC Police Tried to Steal Christmas This Year

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We are in the heart of Christmas season, so that means it’s time for the tolerance Grinches to come out of their closets once again. And, despite its dumpster fire excesses, it is only fitting that the year 2016 close with the memory of these recent incidents and examples of America’s perennial War on Christmas.

1. No to “religious-themed” displays of Santa deity

An Oregon school district instructed staff to sacrifice Christmas symbols at the altar of “diversity.” According to a memo sent by the Hillsboro School District, school staff could still decorate their offices, but were asked to “be respectful and sensitive to the diverse perspectives and beliefs of our community and refrain from using religious-themed decorations or images like Santa Claus.”

Santa Claus is now too much for this Portland-adjacent school district.

2. Emergency Christmas tree memo

Government officials threatened to trash a Christmas tree in a cubicle at the Department of Veterans Affairs office in Philadelphia. A VA employee, who asked to remain anonymous, informed The Washington Times of one “chilling” memo:

“There is a Christmas tree, ornaments, and decorations in the cubicle across from Luis Stevenson’s desk (the same cubicle where the scanner is housed),” VA supervisor Rebecca Cellucci told workers in a late November email marked “high” importance. “If this belongs to you, please claim it. Otherwise, it will be discarded on Friday.”

3. It’s religious censorship, Charlie Brown

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is alleged that a middle school staffer’s First Amendment rights were violated after school officials tried to censor a “Charlie Brown Christmas” holiday poster, as it also contained a Bible quote.

CBS DFW reported:

A Patterson Middle School staffer had placed the poster depicting a “Charlie Brown Christmas” on a school door. It showed Linus and the line from the Bible “unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior.”

The principal told the staffer that the drawing could remain, but the biblical quote had to go.

A.G. Paxton joined a lawsuit against the school, invoking the state’s 2013 “Merry Christmas law” (under then-Gov. Rick Perry) that permits biblical references to Christmas material. A district court judge eventually ruled in favor of the teacher’s rights, restoring the display of the poster.

4. “Civil liberties” triggering

A lawsuit taken up by the ACLU forced the small Indiana community of Knightstown to take down a cross from its Christmas tree, after the local town council decided it could not win a legal battle involving the ACLU.

The local resident who filed the lawsuit claimed that the existence of a cross-bearing Christmas tree on public land “violated his civil liberties.”

5. No school choirs for this Tar Heel Christmas concert

A list of school choirs in Wake County, N.C., were prohibited from performing at an off-campus Christmas celebration after a lawsuit from the Freedom from Religion Foundation, which regularly brings cases against any semblance of theism in the public square.

According to the Raleigh News & Observer:

The Wisconsin-based foundation argued that it was unconstitutional for the school choirs to perform at the annual nativity celebration sponsored by the Church of Latter-day Saints in Apex. Wake school officials said they acted after the foundation forwarded a YouTube video in which a church official makes statements such as how the event “represents a wonderful opportunity for you to bear testimony of Christ to your friends.”

“The advice of Tharrington Smith (the district’s attorney) is that it put the district in the position of potentially endorsing a religious viewpoint,” a school district spokesman told the Observer.

6. The war on … “holiday”?!

And if all the Christmas holiday sterilization on America’s college campuses wasn’t enough for you, one professor at Texas Woman’s University now wants you to stop saying the word “holiday” in association with the season altogether.

An online post on the university website suggested holding a “secular celebration,” offering suggestions on how to avoid “missteps” that might be beyond the diverse and multicultural pale … or something like that.

Though since removed by the school, Dallas’ WFAA 8 offers what is allegedly the original text, on Scribd:

Consider naming the party, if it is scheduled for December, without using the word “holiday.” “Holiday” connotes religious tradition and may not apply to all employees. For educational institutions, a December gathering may instead be called an “end of semester” party. For a business office, an “end of (fiscal) year” party may be more appropriate.

Further benevolent suggestions:

Try to assemble and include a diverse group of employees in the planning of the party. This would include, as much as possible, non-Christian employees of Muslim, Jewish, Hindu and other religions, as well as non-believers.

Avoid religious symbolism, such as Santa Claus, evergreen trees or a red nosed reindeer, which are associated with Christmas traditions, when sending out announcements or decorating for the party. Excellent alternatives are snowflakes, snowmen or winter themes not directly associated with a particular holiday or religion.

Avoid playing music associated with a faith tradition, such as Christmas carols. Consider a playlist of popular, celebratory party music instead.

I’d just say forget the whole thing and grab lunch together, but the potential presence of a Christmas tree in the restaurant might send someone into shock. You have to be careful about these things, after all.

The attempts to get around the fact that countless objects and events during the winter season revolve around a major Christian holiday get more absurd every year, it seems. And even though our president-elect has assured that we’re going to start saying “Merry Christmas” again, that probably won’t deter the P.C. police and the secularist Grinches from continuing to try their darndest to ruin the holiday for the rest of us.

Either way, the season is still upon us, and that’s always cause for joy. Eat a cookie, drink some egg nogg, lend a helping hand, enjoy your priceless family’s company, and have a Merry Christmas, everyone.

Or don’t, your call. Just don’t try to ruin it for everyone else. (For more from the author of “6 Times the PC Police Tried to Steal Christmas This Year” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Sheriff’s Deputy Receives ‘Best Gift’ — a Kidney — From Fellow Officer Just in Time for Christmas

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A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy received just the present he wanted a little early this year — a lifesaving kidney from a fellow officer.

The men met when Sergeant Darrin Offringa was Deputy Kevin Ay’s supervisor in July 2010. The two men became good friends and kept in touch over the years. So, when Ay was diagnosed with kidney failure in November 2013, Offringa began checking in on him from time to time. It was during one of those visits that the men learned they shared the same blood type, ABC News reported.

Offringa said his faith drove him to help his friend and fellow officer. “As I’ve dived deeper in my faith, my heartstrings were pulled to help out Kevin in this way and give him this gift,” Offringa said. Offringa’s left kidney was determined to be an ideal match for Ay.

On November 29, Offringa endured a four-hour surgery to remove the kidney.

The two deputies say that the transplant has “strengthened their relationship.”

“Words can’t really express how grateful I am to Darrin for what he did for me,” said Ay in a recent press conference. “So, if our story can help convince anybody to go through and make that donation, it’s the best gift anybody can give.”

Both men are doing very well.

(For more from the author of “Sheriff’s Deputy Receives ‘Best Gift’ — a Kidney — From Fellow Officer Just in Time for Christmas” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Christmas Day Blizzard Causes Road Closures, Power Outages Across Plains

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It’s been a white — but slick and messy — Christmas for the northern Plains and some Western states.

Most of the Dakotas and southwest Minnesota had turned into a slippery mess due to freezing rain Sunday morning before snow arrived later in the day as temperatures fell . . .

The South Dakota Department of Transportation announced the closing Sunday night of Interstate 90 from the Wyoming border to Chamberlain — a stretch of about 260 miles. “The freezing rain from earlier today and dropping temps have created icy and slushy roadways; falling snow and increasing winds are creating zero visibility conditions in the west,” the department said in a statement. (Read more from “Christmas Day Blizzard Causes Road Closures, Power Outages Across Plains” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Obama’s Last Stand: Flurry of Actions Raise Fears of ‘Midnight’ Regs, Agenda

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A flurry of big decisions out of the Obama administration just weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office has rekindled Republican concerns about President Obama’s plans for jamming through so-called “midnight regulations” and other leftover items from his wish-list on his way out the door.

In the last week alone, the Obama administration blocked future oil and gas leases in swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans; granted a record number of pardons and commutations for a single day; and scrapped a dormant registry for male immigrants from a list of largely Muslim countries.

Defense officials told Fox News there is an effort underway to transfer up to 22 additional detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. And Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations stunned Israel on Friday by abstaining on a Security Council measure condemning settlement activity, allowing it to pass.

And Obama still has a month left in office. The most recent announcements were made while the first family was on vacation in Hawaii – leaving unclear what Obama has in store for when he gets back to Washington.

Hanging over any final actions is the likelihood that Trump, once in office, will roll back many of them. “The things he’s done this week will be turned around,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said of Obama on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s in this desperate frenzy.” (For more from the author of “Obama’s Last Stand: Flurry of Actions Raise Fears of ‘Midnight’ Regs, Agenda” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Jesus Came During a Time of Crisis. He Still Does

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Like people throughout history, we are inclined to think of the challenges of our time as unique. Certainly, they are immense, ranging from the brutality of Islamist terrorists to the economic turmoil wracking much of the world.

Yet careful reflection on preceding eras demonstrates how throughout the saga of human experience, life has always been fraught with political intrigue, military adventurism and economic uncertainty.

Just take, say, Palestine in the first century A.D. The area we now know as the State of Israel was, in Jesus’s time, a Roman province. Herod, the non-Jewish “king” (under Roman auspices, of course), was the founder of a dynasty that lasted for about 100 years. He launched his rule by murdering 45 of the 70 members of the Sanhedrin. Over time, he murdered his wife, Mariamne, her brother and grandfather, and two of their sons. He murdered another son, Antipater, after learning that out of fear for his life Antipater was planning to have Herod assassinated. Like father, like son.

Of course, we read in Matthew 2 that a then-elderly Herod, his idolatry of power and willingness to use the blood of others to sustain it unabated by age, ordered the slaughter of all male children aged two and under in Bethlehem and its surrounding area upon learning that a King had been born in the city of David.

Immediately after the death of Herod in 4 B.C., Rome divided the province between his three sons. Falling not far from their ancestral tree, these men were harsh, immoral and extravagant. The one who figures most prominently in the New Testament, Herod Antipas, was called “that fox” by Jesus (Luke 13:32) and is perhaps most commonly recalled for ordering the beheading of John the Baptist after watching his step-daughter dance. Another, Herod Agrippa, rejoiced in being called a god by the people at public games in Caesarea, only to be stricken by an angel of the Lord and dying a few days later (Acts 12:20-23).

This complex political situation was made somewhat coherent through the governance of a Roman prefect, essentially the final authority in all civil matters, yet the overlapping jurisdictions are evidenced by the way the Gospels describe Jesus being marched around from one governor to the next in the hours before His crucifixion.

Palestine was not considered an active threat to Roman rule in the region; while there were Roman soldiers there to enforce Roman law, they amounted to less than a single full legion.

Life generally was hard. Estimates of tax rates range from 30 to 50 percent. They involved “Roman taxes and tributes but also religious taxes and taxes imposed by Herod the Great and later his sons. Among the taxes paid were tributes and direct taxes such as land taxes and a head tax. There were also duties, sales taxes, and extra taxes on items such as salt. In addition there were taxes for the building and upkeep of the temple and various tithes.”

Tax collection itself involved the selling, by the Romans, of the franchise for tax regions to influential men who, in turn, recruited tax collectors to squeeze the people. “The result was a system of robbery which left nothing to be desired for thoroughness,” wrote the late historian Paul Kretzmann. “Unjust valuation, extortion, blackmail, was the order of the day, and the people had to suffer.

Interestingly, we read in Luke 3 that John the Baptist told the soldiers who asked him how they could demonstrate their repentance of sin not to leave the military but to quit “shaking-down” the people — to quit extorting money from them.

As to Galilee, Jesus’s home region, it was small but politically significant. It was home to the Roman resort city of Sephoris, just a few miles from Nazareth; Sephoris was constructed during Jesus’s youth and it is very possible He worked there.

The region itself “was relatively prosperous, since the land and climate permitted abundant harvests and supported many sheep,” write Jaroslav Pelikan and E.P. Sanders in the Encyclopedia Britannica. “There were, of course, landless people, but the Herodian dynasty was careful to organize large public works projects that employed thousands of men. Desperate poverty was present too but never reached a socially dangerous level.”

However, Galilee suffered from a reputation for contention and insurrection. A man called Judas the Galilean led a revolt in 6 B.C. against the Roman taxation recorded in Luke 2. Arguably the founder of the Zealots, Acts 5 tells us that “Judas was killed and his followers scattered.” Perhaps it was this background of violence that prompted Nathaniel to say, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” when urged to come and meet Jesus, Nazareth being Jesus’s hometown in Galilee (John 1:46).

High taxation, Roman domination, cruel political machinations, and a faux Jewish ruling family made for a troubled existence in Jesus’s day for the people of Israel. Much like the world of our time, the Palestine of the first century was riven by human sin in all its debauched aspects. It was politically unstable, economically tenuous, and characterized by oppression.

Jesus came into a tumultuous world in a time of uncertainty, of sword and fist, of paganism and pride. Many of the political rulers of His age clung to power at the expense of others’ blood, and some even claiming to be gods. Kim Jong Un, the dictator of North Korea, has nothing on them. And even in the everyday-ness of life in Palestine, there was loss and disappointment, impermanence and hard striving.

Our world is no different, and He comes to us still today, not as an infant but as a Savior Who took into Himself the punishment for all of our sin as He died, suspended on a Roman cross at the behest of some of the Jewish religious leaders of His day. But in rising from the grave, He proclaimed His Lordship of all men, of all human history, and heralded a day in which a new earth will resonate with His justice and righteousness, with the glorious liberty of the children of God.

There is no national or international crisis, and no personal or family need, into which He still does not come and offer life and hope to all who will receive it. If His gift is unknown to you this Christmas, take it. It’s free. It’s real. It’s eternal. (For more from the author of “Jesus Came During a Time of Crisis. He Still Does” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

McConnell Is Going to Hate This Latest Trump Hire

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Donald Trump just put a lump of coal in Mitch McConnell’s, R-Kentucky (F, 40%) Christmas stocking.

McConnell and Trump have been playing nice since the election. Will Trump’s selection of Jason Miller as White House director of communications fray that relationship? Miller was a certified thorn in McConnell’s side and helped to run the unsuccessful GOP primary campaign of then businessman Matt Bevin against McConnell in 2014. Ouch.

It’s not just Bevin that Miller has been involved with. He was also a senior advisor to the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz, R-Texas (A, 97%), McConnell’s least favorite senator. According to his biography on the Jamestown Associates website, Miller “served as Senior Communications Advisor on the presidential campaign of Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, overseeing the Communications Department and creating more than two dozen television and radio ads as part of the campaign’s advertising team.”

Miller has also worked with other anti-establishment conservatives including South Carolina representative Mark Sanford, R-S.C. (A, 90%).

Miller, and Jamestown’s work against Establishment Republican incumbents, got them blacklisted by both McConnell, and the House Republican’s campaign arm. To say McConnell held a grudge is an understatement. Here is how the Daily Caller described the blacklisting.

The damage done to the Republican ad firm Jamestown Associates as punishment for working for the controversial outside group Senate Conservatives Fund could be even more substantial than first thought. It was originally reported that the National Republican Senatorial Committee would blacklist the company. But that might be just the beginning.

Aside from the NRSC, Jamestown has, in the past, been awarded contracts to create independent expenditure ads for groups like the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the Chamber of Commerce.

McConnell’s grudge against Jamestown is so complete that he even targeted Ben Sasse, R-Kansas (A, 94%), during the now senator’s primary in 2014. Why? Because he had the temerity to use Jamestown associates. Here’s how Erick Erickson described it.

Ben Sasse, the conservative candidate in Nebraska on the most recent cover of National Review and who has the backing of the Senate Conservatives Fund, RedState, and others, suddenly finds Mitch McConnell and the NRSC holding fundraisers for his opponent. Sasse, it should be noted, is widely considered a brainiac opponent of Obamacare and healthcare policy expert.And just yesterday, the National Republican Congressional Committee blackballed Jamestown Associates from helping elect Republicans. The NRCC is joining the NRSC in attacking Jamestown. Why? Because Jamestown Associates has been working with conservative candidates the House and Senate GOP leadership opposes.

It is fair to say that Miller, and the company he is a partner in, are some of Mitch McConnell’s least favorite people. In fact that may be an understatement.

With Trump’s choice of Miller to run his White House communications team, he has not only chosen someone unafraid to fight against the “Washington Cartel,” but also defied McConnell’s blacklist. For conservatives, this is a very welcome Christmas present. (For more from the author of “McConnell Is Going to Hate This Latest Trump Hire” please click HERE)

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Media Guilty of Double Standard on Terror Attacks

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Here’s a paradox for you. Whenever there’s a terrorist attack, the immediate response from government officials and the media is: “Let’s not jump to conclusions.” Yet when there are breaking reports that Muslim or Arab Americans were allegedly victimized by bigots in some hate crime, the response is instant credulity, outrage and hand-wringing.

This doesn’t really even scratch the surface of the double standard. When there’s a terrorist incident, there’s deep skepticism at every stage of the unfolding story. At first we’re told there’s no evidence that the attack is terror-related. Then, when reports come in that a shooter shouted “Allahu akbar!” or has an Arabic name, we’re assured there’s no evidence that the shooter is tied to any international terror groups. Days go by with talking heads fretting about “self-radicalization,” “homegrown terror,” and “lone wolves.” This narrative lingers even as the killer’s Facebook posts declaring allegiance to ISIS emerge.

Now, truth be told, I think some of this skepticism is understandable. Often, the media and the pundit class on the left and right are too eager to win the race to be wrong first. It’s perfectly proper to not want to get ahead of the facts.

More annoying is the Obama administration’s studied practice of slow-walking any admission that the war on terror isn’t over, but at least it’s understandable. President Obama came into office wanting to end wars and convince Americans that terrorism isn’t such a big deal. It seems to be a sincere belief. The Atlantic reported that Obama frequently reminds his staff that slippery bathtubs kill more Americans than terrorism. It took Obama six years to admit that the shooting at Fort Hood was terrorism and not “workplace violence.”

Regardless, my point here is that I can understand why politicians and the media want to be skeptical about breaking news events and even why they try to frame those events in ways that fit a political agenda.

The best defense of that agenda isn’t the sorry effort to pad the legacy of our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president. It’s the desire to err on the side of caution when it comes to stigmatizing law-abiding and patriotic Muslims with the stain of acts of terror in the name of their religion. The media doesn’t want to give credence to the idea that all Muslims are terrorists, not least because that attitude will only serve to radicalize more Muslims. As we are often told, ISIS wants peaceful Muslims in the West to feel victimized and unwelcome.

And that brings me back to the media’s instant credulity for stories of anti-Muslim bias. This eagerness to hype “anti-Muslim backlash” stories has been around for nearly 20 years, and it has always been thin gruel. According to the FBI, in every year since the 9/11 attacks, there have been more — a lot more — anti-Jewish hate crimes than anti-Muslim ones. Which have you heard about more: the anti-Jewish backlash or the anti-Muslim backlash?

Amazingly, the “experts fear an anti-Muslim backlash” stories keep popping up after every Islamic terror attack, despite the fact that the backlash never arrives. To be sure, there have been hateful and deplorable acts against Muslims. But evidence of a true national climate of intimidation and bigotry has always been lacking.

What has not been lacking is evidence that many activists want to convince Americans that such a climate exists. This effort has been old hat for the media-savvy spokesmen of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for years. But since Donald Trump’s election, there has been an explosion of freelance anti-Muslim hate crime hoaxes. A Muslim girl fabricated an attack by three Trump supporters on a New York subway. A young man pulled a similar stunt on a Delta flight this week. False fraud claims by Asian and Hispanic students at various universities have popped up as well.

The media, still in the throes of anti-Trump panic, has been quick to credit these hoaxes and grudging in clearing the air when they’ve been debunked. It’s time the media applied at least the same level of skepticism that they reserve for real terror attacks to fake hate crimes. Why? First, because their job is to report the facts. Second, because if they’re really concerned about not alienating or radicalizing American Muslims, they shouldn’t hype the propaganda efforts of the idiots who are doing exactly that. (For more from the author of “Media Guilty of Double Standard on Terror Attacks” please click HERE)

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Labor Secretary’s Bid to Lead Democrats Comes Under Legal Scrutiny

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Labor Secretary Tom Perez is campaigning actively to become the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee, prompting a watchdog group to investigate whether he has violated a law prohibiting federal government employees from engaging in partisan politics while on the job.

Two other Cabinet-level department heads in the Obama administration previously were found to have broken the law, called the Hatch Act.

The Hatch Act, passed in 1939, limits political activities by federal employees to ensure they do their taxpayer-funded work in a nonpartisan way and protects employees from partisan retaliation by a supervisor.

Breaking this law is an administrative violation, not a criminal act, with discipline ranging from a warning to removal.

Labor Department spokeswoman Mattie M. Zazueta said Perez was careful not to violate the law.

“Before deciding to run for DNC chair, Secretary Perez sought counsel from [the Labor Department’s] counsel for ethics, who informed him that it would be permissible for him to run while still serving as secretary,” Zazueta told The Daily Signal. Robert M. Sadler is the department’s counsel for ethics.

Zazueta added:

The Hatch Act allows federal employees to be a candidate for and serve as an officer in a political party. Secretary Perez is always extremely careful to follow the law and all rules associated with political activity, and takes the appropriate measures to keep any political activity separate from his official duties. He will continue to do so in this situation.

But Cause of Action Institute, a conservative government watchdog group, last week filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for all communications by Perez with voting members of the the party organization, including emails, text messages, and voicemails.

“The law is clear: Public officials paid by taxpayers cannot use their position to engage in political activities,” Henry Kerner, assistant vice president of Cause of Action Institute, said in a public statement. “The Obama administration’s unprecedented history of Hatch Act violations threatens to undermine this important protection. Americans have a right to know if [Secretary] Perez used taxpayer-funded resources to further his own political campaign.”

Running for office within a party structure possibly wouldn’t be a violation of the Hatch Act, but soliciting support for a campaign could be, according to rules from the Office of Special Counsel, an independent government agency that investigates possible Hatch Act violations.

Cabinet secretaries officially are always on the clock. So, mixing politics with what is not supposed to be political would constitute a violation.

Politico reported that Perez “emailed all neutral and supportive party chairs, vice chairs, and executive directors” and asked the Democrat activists to join him on a conference call.

The portion of the Office of Special Counsel website devoted to “frequently asked questions” on the Hatch Act says: “A federal employee cannot send or forward a partisan political email from either his government email account or his personal email account (even using a personal device) while at work.”

The Democratic National Committee will select a leader in February. Perez is challenging Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.

Perez is mounting something of a grassroots campaign, while Ellison has the backing of prominent Democrats such as the Senate’s new top Democrat, Charles Schumer of New York.

In July, the Office of Special Counsel found that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro violated the Hatch Act by endorsing Hillary Clinton for president during an interview with Yahoo News in HUD’s TV studio about housing policy.

President Barack Obama opted not to take disciplinary action against Castro.

The Office of Special Counsel earlier determined that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius violated the Hatch Act during the 2012 presidential race when she told a major LGBT advocacy group, the Human Rights Campaign, during a speech in North Carolina that it was “hugely important” to re-elect Obama.

Obama took no action against Sebelius, who resigned in April 2014.

While on the job, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis raised money for Obama’s re-election campaign. However, by the time audio recordings about her fundraising surfaced, Solis already had resigned from the Cabinet position.

The Hatch Act generally applies to merit-based civil service employees, who may be disciplined by their supervisor with a warning, a formal reprimand, administrative leave, and even termination, Office of Special Counsel spokesman Nick Schwellenbach told The Daily Signal.

If a question arises about a presidential appointee confirmed by the Senate, the Office of Special Counsel sends its finding to the president, who determines whether discipline is warranted. (For more from the author of “Labor Secretary’s Bid to Lead Democrats Comes Under Legal Scrutiny” please click HERE)

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Reagan, Bush on the Atlantic’s Short List for ‘Worst Leader of All Time’

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Who do you believe is the worst leader of all time?

The Atlantic asked the question in its latest issue and included two of the most recent Republican presidents on a list of 12 contenders for worst-ever leader: Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Their names appear alongside some who you’d probably expect on such a list: Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, even the devil.

Were Reagan and Bush really “the worst leader of all time?” That’s the opinion of two of the five people The Atlantic invited to contribute.

Bryan Safi, co-host of the new late-night TV show “Throwing Shade,” used this logic to rate Reagan as the worst of all time:

Ronald Reagan. Tens of thousands of gay men were wiped off the map simply because he refused to speak, much less act. What’s worse than ignoring a national health crisis while you stuff your face full of jelly beans and your wife reads her horoscope in the next room?

Here’s what Laurence Leamer, who wrote the book “The Price of Justice,” had to say about Bush:

I was thinking of Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins, when the goofy, smiling face of President George W. Bush appeared out of nowhere. Bush’s invasion of Iraq was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions, was a major factor in the dismemberment of nation-states, and the tally goes on.

The other names are Confederate President Jefferson Davis, former Uganda President Idi Amin, and Roman emperor Romulus Augustus. The Atlantic’s readers added conservative British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, France’s Napoleon Bonaparte, Russian emperor Nicholas II, and German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The Atlantic’s decision to include Reagan and Bush on the same list as Hitler and the devil comes shortly after Jeffrey Goldberg took over as editor-in-chief.

When Goldberg took the job in October, The New York Times noted his influence over the magazine’s endorsement of Democrat Hillary Clinton:

He shaped The Atlantic’s recent editorial endorsing Hillary Clinton for president, only the third presidential endorsement in the magazine’s nearly 160-year history. The endorsement, which was published last week, called Donald J. Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, “the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.”

In this issue’s editor’s note, Goldberg sounded off on Trump, calling him the “chief” of a “resentful tribe” who “traffics in racial invective.”

Not to be outdone, The Atlantic’s James Fallows wrote in the same issue, “I view Trump’s election as the most grievous blow that the American idea has suffered in my lifetime.”

Earlier this year, Gallup reported that Americans’ trust in the news media dropped to its lowest level ever. Just 14 percent of Republicans said they trust the media. (For more from the author of “Reagan, Bush on the Atlantic’s Short List for ‘Worst Leader of All Time'” please click HERE)

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