Christian entrepreneurs and twin brothers David and Jason Benham have issued an urgent call to Christians to hold fast to Biblical truths amid a “direct assault on Christianity in America.”
Speaking to CNSNews.com, Jason Benham said, “[W]e don’t believe there’s a threat to religious liberty. We think there’s a threat to Christian liberty, because all other religions seem to be fine right now in America.”
He referenced a recent report about Islam being taught in public schools across the United States, while Christianity is targeted.
“We’ve even got elementary schools now starting to teach Islamic prayers – but Christian prayers – how dare you have a Christian Bible in the schools,” he told the news outlet. “There’s a direct assault on Christianity in America. That’s why we’re encouraging Christians to stand.”
David Benham also urged Christians to become more vocal about their faith and publicly defend their beliefs instead of avoiding conflict in silence.
“The greatest threat to that is the silence of Christians,” he said. “As Edmund Burke once said, the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” (Read more about the “Greatest Threat to Liberty” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-30 03:56:032016-04-11 10:57:53Benham Brothers: The Greatest Threat to Liberty is Your Silence
Love him or hate him, John Boehner was by no means the dominant force of nature in American politics. The growing tidal wave of disapproval from GOP voters had nothing to do with Boehner as a person; it had everything to do with what he represents. Republican voters are not just looking for a new Speaker, they are looking for a new party. They are looking for a viable alternative to the Democrats. It’s time for elected Republicans to heed that lesson and forge an entirely new path.
Back in May 2014, when Dave Brat shocked the political world by resoundingly defeating sitting Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the GOP empire moved with swift agility and within 24 hours had blithely rallied around the “next in line.” There was no period of introspection or regard for what had just occurred. They pompously anointed Kevin McCarthy, the poor man’s Eric Cantor, as the next majority leader.
Now the House conference has a second chance to right the ship. It’s time for their colleagues across the Capitol in the Senate to heed the same lesson as well. According to a recent NBC/WSJ poll, 72% of Republican voters were dissatisfied with both Boehner and McConnell’s ability to achieve their party’s goals. A Fox News poll shows that 62% feel betrayed by their party. McConnell and Boehner are not dominant medial or cultural personalities like Newt Gingrich, Nancy Pelosi, or Hillary Clinton, yet their own party’s voters want them out. It was never about Boehner; it was about what he lacked. And what he lacked is the same thing McConnell and Kevin McCarthy lack—a desire to fight for issues concerning conservatives.
In many respects Mitch McConnell has been worse than Boehner this year. He has used control of the Senate to sabotage conservatives on every major battle, block conservative amendments, and undermine our leverage in an even more pernicious fashion than Harry Reid did during the last session.
As it relates to McCarthy, now is his time to shine. He is majority leader and Boehner is a lame duck. If he cannot stand up on the Sunday talk shows with his iPad in hand and play the Planned Parenthood videos and speak with moral conviction about why the president should not shut down the government in order to fund barbarism, he is unfit to replace Boehner.
Conservatives lack the votes to affirmatively push for the nomination of any particular candidate for Speaker, but they have enough votes to veto any choice. Even if a majority of the conference nominates a bad candidate in the private party conference, a group of about 30 members can always veto the decision on the floor because a Speaker must receive a majority from all those present and voting in the House body.
Nobody is going to get everything they want in a party leader and everyone is going to have to compromise, but the establishment is greatly mistaken if they seek to simply anoint a leader rather than allow all the candidates to air out their ideas over the next few weeks. This is not about personalities; it’s about laying out a vision for confronting Obama over the next 15 months and laying the groundwork for a conservative in the White House.
To that end, here are three overarching concessions conservatives must secure from any candidate for Speaker.
1. Restore Deterrent of the Power of Purse: At present, the biggest problem with leadership is that they have conveyed the message to Democrats that there is nothing they will ever fight for in the budget process that would possibly risk a shutdown. That must change. As we’ve noted before, Republicans will have to eventually use budget brinkmanship to get things done even if they win back the White House. The next Speaker has to be willing to draw a line in the sand on fundamental and easy-to-message issues and be willing to publicly fight for them and let the Democrats know there’s a new sheriff in town.
2. Focus on Meaningful Ideas: Aside from the obdurate refusal to block Obama’s agenda with the purse strings, the current leaders have no positive message of their own on meaningful issues. Most of the House schedule is wasted on naming buildings, trivial suspension bills, or downright liberal priorities. As we’ve observed before, there are numerous consequential issues that work in our favor and should be brought to the floor to draw a sharp contrast with Democrats. Drawing that contrast and highlighting liberal extremism should be a priority for the next Speaker.
3. Returning Power to the Committees: The House has been run like a plantation straight out of John Boehner’s office. The committee process has become irrelevant and even the good legislation that passes out of committee, such as the Davis-Oliver immigration enforcement bill, has never made it to the floor. The next Speaker must allow the committees to do their work and conduct votes on conservative legislation that is able to pass the committee process. They must also follow through on their promise to allow an open amendment process on the House floor.
If Republican members think that by merely shunting the current failed leaders to the next level on the totem pole they will assuage the concerns of voters, they are mistaken. Voters are looking for a clean slate. The longer the Republicans carry on with their tone deaf actions the more severely they will suffer repercussions in the long run.
(This article on the grassroots looking for a new party first appeared HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-30 03:39:262016-04-11 10:57:54Overwhelming Numbers: Republicans Are Not Just Looking For a New Speaker, They’re Looking for a New Party
Last week Hillary Clinton has threatened a conservative political action committee with a lawsuit, angrily boycotted Fox News, complained about unflattering media photos, and demanded that a National Review editor be fined for making politically incorrect comments about her.
Oh, wait. That wasn’t Hillary Clinton doing any of those things. That was Donald Trump.
Trump’s seemingly endless capacity to bully and insult his critics has been entertaining, sure, but is quickly becoming dictatorial. His calls for (mostly conservative) political pundits to be silenced, fined, and boycotted should give pause to anyone in America who cares about free speech.
The Club for Growth, a political action committee dedicated to supporting free-market, limited-government conservatives [Editor’s note: The Club for Growth has an apparent hatred for genuine, Tea Party candidates as evidenced by its penchant for supporting Establishment candidates in a number of recent contested GOP primaries] recently produced an ad critical of Trump over his past comments promoting a socialized healthcare system, higher taxes, and Wall Street bailouts. How did Trump respond? With a cease and desist letter warning that a lawsuit would follow if the ads didn’t stop.
Trump also launched a boycott against Fox News this week because the network had allegedly been “unfair” In its coverage. The issue? The network reported CNN poll numbers that found Trump’s winning margin over the other Republican candidates dropping from 35% to 24%. In response, Trump said he’s refusing interviews until he is guaranteed favorable coverage.
One Fox source told The Hill Trump decided to boycott because he “doesn’t seem to grasp that candidates telling journalists what to ask is not how the media works in this country.”
Despite the boycott, Trump was still watching and dictating orders from afar.
Last Wednesday, National Review Editor Rich Lowry made a somewhat crass remark about Donald Trump’s manhood on Fox News. Trump responded with a furious tweet: “Incompetent @RichLowry lost it tonight on @FoxNews. He should not be allowed on TV and the FCC should fine him!”
(Never mind that the FCC doesn’t issue fines against cable news.)
There you have it. In just a few days, Trump offered three draconian responses to political speech he deemed unfriendly. And that barely scratches the surface. He also went on a tirade against CNN, the New York Times, Politico, and the Associated Press for citing the empty chairs at a campaign event in South Carolina. And who can forget his calling Fox’s Megyn Kelly a “bimbo,” and his endless stream of insults against well…any idiot loser who fails to clap loud enough every time Trump speaks?
Although he’ll use any format to issue broadsides, the courts are, by far, Trump’s preferred remedy for conflict.
The Daily Beast recently posted a piece about his long-documented history of deploying lawyers to combat anyone who speaks ill of his name. And that piece doesn’t even include his threats to fellow Republicans for copyright infringement if they utter Ronald Reagan’s well-known 1982 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again,” which Trump trademarked for himself after stealing it from the Gipper. Or the fact he also fired off a cease and desist letter to a Boston-based t-shirt maker selling shirts that said, “Donald is Dumb” and “Stop Trump.”
You want tort reform? Start by limiting the number of lawsuits Donald Trump can file against political enemies.
It would all be fun and games if Donald Trump weren’t actually campaigning for the highest office in the land—and leading in the polls, a fact he believes earns him the right to laudatory media coverage.
One can only imagine how many press passes would be revoked by the Trump White House, if he deigned to keep a press corps around at all. Much more likely a Trump-approved reality TV camera would simply follow him around, unquestioningly documenting his greatness, similar to how President Obama restricted independent media access in favor of government-controlled media. WHTrumpTV! It’ll be yuuuuuge! NBC will pay for it! Right?
More seriously, Trump’s eagerness to use the courts and other agents of government power against his political opposition is not the mark of a leader. It’s a common trait among tyrants.
Trump may be campaigning as a Republican but his actions don’t reflect any understanding or appreciation for the core values enshrined in the First Amendment that guarantee Americans the right to criticize politicians.
His actions are much more aligned with far-left Democrats who want to pass rules and regulations to keep conservative personalities such as Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin off the air.
Conservatives have suffered through the era of Obama where the IRS was used as a political weapon against Tea Party groups, a filmmaker’s attempt to air an anti-Hillary Clinton film went all the way to the Supreme Court with Citizens United v. The Federal Elections Commission, and Democrats have relentlessly campaigned to silence those who donate to conservative causes.
Donald Trump is telling us he, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, also believes in using the brute machinery of government to savage political enemies. Pay attention. Free speech is at stake. (For more from the author of “Trump Is a Danger to Free Speech” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-29 00:05:052016-04-11 10:57:56OPINION: Trump Is a Danger to Free Speech
In November 1964, a crowd of 5,000 attended the opening of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, then the longest suspension bridge in the world. Presiding were New York Mayor Robert Wagner, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller and transportation and parks czar Robert Moses. Also in the crowd was a teenager named Donald Trump.
Trump later told a New York Times reporter that he remembered that on that occasion no one mentioned the name of 85-year-old Othmar Ahmann, designer of New York’s famous bridges for more than 50 years. “I realized then and there that if you let people treat you how they want, you’ll be made a fool,” he told the Times. “I don’t want to be anyone’s sucker” . . .
Trump’s entire life has been marinated in politics. His father Fred Trump made millions building apartments in Brooklyn and Queens. It didn’t hurt, when it came to land assembly and public subsidies, that he was a key supporter of Brooklyn machine Democrats and a close friend and ally of Abraham Beame, city controller in 1964 and later mayor . . .
Trump’s lavish self-praise and wild unpredictability, masking his long developed political acumen, makes him seem a unique political figure in American history. But maybe not completely unique.
Newt Gingrich compares him to Andrew Jackson, rich and smarter than generally thought, but regarded as a dangerous wild man by his predecessors Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. Justifiably: As president Jackson abolished the Bank of the United States, which the latter two supported and ruthlessly shipped the civilized tribes west in a way they never contemplated. (Read more from “Is There Any Historical Precedent for Donald Trump?” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-28 23:55:312016-04-11 10:57:57Is There Any Historical Precedent for Donald Trump?
Ben Carson’s blunt remarks about a Muslim president triggered much outrage, even after he partially walked them back. But secular Muslims like me, who reject political Islam, understood what he meant: He doesn’t want a Muslim as president who doesn’t believe in the strict secular separation of mosque and state, so that the laws of the state aren’t at all touched by sharia, or Islamic law derived from the Quran and hadith, the sayings and traditions of prophet Muhammad. Neither do we. We really don’t want a first lady—or a president—in a burka, or face veil.
Carson’s comments underscore a political reality in which Muslim communities, not only in far-flung theocracies like Saudi Arabia and Iran, but also in the United States, still struggle with existential questions about whether Islam is compatible with democracy and secularism. This struggle results in the very real phenomenon of “creeping sharia,” as critics in the West call it (and which some Muslims like to mock as an “Islamophobic” allegation). While the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment states the United States “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” the Quran states that Allah “takes account of every single thing (72:28),” which has led to the divine mandate by leading Muslim scholars to reject secularism, or alamaniya, or the way of the “world,” derived, from the Arabic root for world, alam.
In too many instances, we are seeing an erosion of those boundaries, in part led by some Muslims, increasingly using America’s spirit of religious accommodation and cultural pluralism to challenge rules that most of the rest of America accepts. Many of those incursions have been led by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a controversial self-described advocacy group for Muslims that, not surprisingly, called for Carson to step down this week.
For example, when I was a girl in New Jersey in the early 1970s, we took our Muslim holidays off, if we wanted, but didn’t demand the rest of the school take the day off with us. Last week, however, four decades later, New Jersey Muslims stormed out of a Jersey City school board meeting after the school board refused to cancel school at the last minute for the Muslim holiday called “Eid al-Adha,” or “the Feast of Sacrifice,” being celebrated Thursday. CAIR has lobbied public school officials for the change for the sake of “diversity and inclusion.”
At the meeting, the local NBC news segment showed an older woman yelling in Arabic that the holiday was her “right,” followed by a young Muslim woman, wearing a headscarf and smiling eerily as she said, “We’re no longer the minority. That’s clear from tonight. We’re going to be the majority soon.” (Read more from “To This Secular Muslim, Ben Carson Had a Point” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-28 00:39:312016-04-11 10:57:59To This Secular Muslim, Ben Carson Had a Point
NASA tweeting that Congress should give it more money so our astronauts won’t have to ride on Russian rockets. Recovery.gov reporting overly optimistic statistics on jobs saved and created by stimulus funds. The Department of Health and Human Service Web site encouraging the public to “state your support for health care reform” during the congressional debate over Obamacare.
These are just some recent examples of the executive branch using our tax dollars to shape our opinions. Unlike the National Security Agency’s personal data collection or the overuse of “secret” stamps to withhold information, this government-produced propaganda receives almost no attention. But that doesn’t mean this “third dimension” of government information is not a problem. America becomes less democratic when the $3 trillion executive branch uses its resources to tilt the debate in its favor.
Of course, a democratic government has an obligation to inform and be transparent. Citizens need to know the government’s policies and plans. We have a right to know which companies receive government contracts, how to collect insurance benefits and social security payments and what public school educational reform will look like. But too often, the government uses its information machinery to do more than simply inform us about a policy. Sometimes, it tries to persuade us to adopt a particular position, regardless of its efficacy.
Consider, for example, the Department of Labor’s campaign to raise the minimum wage, a topic on which there is considerable debate. Raising the minimum wage, the Congressional Budget Office points out, will eliminate some jobs. Still, the government devotes a Web page to the topic that proclaims, “See how raising the national minimum wage will benefit America’s workers.” Americans are invited to tell the Labor Department why they “support raising the federal minimum wage.” Twitter users can see a video of a squiggle of mustard spelling out “#RaiseTheWage” on a hot dog, a reference to the recent interest group advocacy to pay fast-food employers more money. The Labor Department’s Web page treats raising the minimum wage as an unalloyed good and labels possible job losses a “myth.”
Such aggressive communications are neither novel nor exceptional. Government agencies historically have made a habit of crossing the blurry line between informing the public and propagandizing. (Read more from “How the American Government Is Trying to Control What You Think” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-28 00:29:062016-04-11 10:57:59How the American Government Is Trying to Control What You Think
Today, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) announced his resignation. While this might have come as a surprise to his colleagues, it should come as no surprise to Republican voters who have been consistently let down by Boehner’s commitment to passing Obama’s agenda and caving on conservative principles whenever given the chance. Boehner’s stepping down symbolizes a tremendous victory for conservatives everywhere.
While Boehner alleges he was always intending to leave after two terms, it’s no surprise his record of capitulation played a part in this decision.
Here are the Top 10 times John Boehner massively caved:
1.) Boehner pushed through the budget busting Ryan-Murray budget deal which ended the mandatory spending cuts of the sequester. In order to make it happen, he violated a central promise of the 2010 election cycle, that he would allow three days for people to read legislation before the vote. The budget was released and voted on in about 36 hours.
2.) Throughout 2015, Boehner blocked religious liberty legislation from coming to the floor of the House in an effort to avoid confrontation with the President.
3.) In 2015, Boehner pushed through Trade Promotion Authority legislation for the Trans Pacific Partnership. Given this president’s penchant for implementing major policies without Congress, there is a widespread fear that Obama would use these trade agreements to pursue liberal policies, such as changes to our immigration system, labor laws, and global warming regulations.
4.) In a backroom deal, Boehner negotiated with Nancy Pelosi to increase the nation’s debt by $500 billion with a massive increase in Medicare policy, given the innocuous sounding name of “Doc Fix.” With this bill Boehner failed to address the underlying problems in healthcare entitlements and in true back room deal fashion, included several extraneous provisions designed to buy votes.
5.) In 2014, Boehner made a big show of being against President Obama’s executive amnesty. At the end of the day, Boehner, hoping to avoid confrontation, funded Obama’s plan to the tune of $2.5 billion.
6.) In his close to five years as Speaker, Boehner has been just as responsible for growing the nation’s debt as President Obama. He has not used the power of the purse to curtail spending. Perhaps the most egregious debt limit increase was the one that allowed the debt to increase by an infinite amount for the period of one year from February 2014 to March 2015.
7.) Boehner has repeatedly pushed for votes to reauthorize the crony capitalist Export-Import bank. The failure of his plan in 2015 to extend the life of this program was the first chink in his armor.
8.) Boehner, against the objections of conservatives, pushed through a reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act, which is being used by the Obama Administration to de facto enact a nationwide curriculum known as Common Core. (Conservative Review)
9.) Boehner led the effort to bailout the Highway Trust Fund to the tune of $1.8 billion in 2014. For years the Highway Trust Fund has spent more than it has taken in through the federal gas tax. Rather than addressing badly needed fundamental reforms, this legislation papered over the problem with dubious accounting procedures and tax increases to justify higher spending while still leaving the Highway Trust Fund on a path to insolvency.
10.) When it really mattered, Boehner caved instead of standing up for the most vulnerable in our society. He made a show of defunding Planned Parenthood, but would not fight to send the President a bill that ends the $500 million payment in federal that goes to an organization that lets born alive babies die on cold metal tables, then harvests their organs. This was the final cave that finally undid his speakership.
(For more from the author of “Top 10 Times John Boehner Massively Caved” please click HERE)
After conservatives everywhere, including Conservative Review, consistently pounded the drum calling on Speaker John Boehner to vacate his chair after his routine commitment to blocking conservative policy and passing Obama’s agenda without little to no resistance, today marks the day that the voices of conservative voters was heard.
It’s often said that one man with conviction constitutes a majority. The low-key yet resolute conservative from the west end of North Carolina has demonstrated this aphorism in spectacular fashion.
Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) introduced the resolution to fire Boehner on July 28, immediately preceding the congressional recess. At the time, the media and even fellow conservatives ridiculed him for not informing them and better planning the idea. Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) had this to say about his fellow conservative: “It took a lot of us by surprise, and I feel like any leadership discussions among Republicans should be with Republicans and not empower Nancy Pelosi to exploit the process.” K Street hack, Ron Bonjean said Meadows was a “lone wolf republican with gripes against leadership.” Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) pouted, “the Speaker’s leadership up to this point has not warranted this action by Mr. Meadows.”
As Conservative Review noted at the time, this was in fact a brilliant strategy. By letting this resolution hang over Boehner’s head during the August recess and have the fight crystalize along with the budget battle in September, Boehner would be boxed in and would lack the votes to survive a motion to vacate the chair.
Now Boehner is announcing that he plans to retire from Congress at the end of October.
This fight really began in January when a group of brave conservatives had the guts to challenge Boehner on the floor. Although they came up short in the inside game, they won the hearts and minds of the people when tens of thousands of calls flooded the capitol switchboard demanding that Boehner be fired. Make no mistake about it, this is a direct reflection of the people and an example of democracy at its best. The members were only spawned to action by the popular sentiment of their constituents. However, it took a specific plan of action – a live legislative vehicle on the table – in order to light the fuse. And that fuse was lit by Meadows.
During the January fight, Conservative Review was the only entity to score the vote for Speaker of the House. We noted that no other conservative priority would see the light of day were Boehner to remain in power and that this would be the most important vote of the session. Ultimately, that vote was won by conservatives, but it took nine months of patience.
Conservatives who are feeling so disheartened and disenfranchised should take solace from the latest developments. When you fight for a cause when it is initially unpopular, it almost always succeeds in the end if the cause is just. The people of Virginia tossed out the establishment Majority leader, Eric Cantor, and now the constituents of all the districts have had a hand in forcing Boehner into retirement. If Mitch McConnell had any semblance of intellectual honesty, he’d follow suit.
In this day of mass communications and the internet, the truth will eventually get out. The people can only be disenfranchised by the oligarchy for so long. During the month of September, as we celebrate the Constitution, that cherished document now had the last say. Those who sought to take the power of the purse away from the people were denied the power to continue ruling. Now it’s time for members to demand a new leader who will respect the awesome power the Founders vested in the House of Representatives. (For more from the author of “Meadows Wins, Boehner Resigns” please click HERE)
Was Ben Carson right to rule out ever voting for a Muslim U.S. president? Ted Cruz’s rejoinder that the Constitution forbids a religious test for public office was correct but off point, as Jonah Goldberg pointed out: No one has a Constitutional right to our votes. If you think a Muslim president would be a bad idea, then you would be perfectly within your rights to vote accordingly. The interesting question is whether one would be rational to vote that way.
Certainly, if a candidate were a pious, orthodox Muslim we would be crazy to do otherwise. It’s hard to imagine, but let’s say that a Sharia-observant, devout Muslim were to enter the Democratic or Republican primaries this year. When asked about his political philosophy, he would explain with perfect candor that all legitimate law comes from the Quran and the authentic hadiths reflecting the teachings of Islam’s founder, Muhammad. The moral law is contained in the infallible and unchangeable tenets of Sharia. They apply to every country on earth for all time, and are subject neither to revision nor rational criticism. Furthermore, the example of the “prophet” Muhammad is definitive and perfect. He is the ultimate model of conduct, so if he engaged in a practice then it is good and we should imitate it. Muhammad consummated a marriage with a 9-year-old girl, so for pious political Muslims, that is the appropriate age of consent. Hence Iran, after its Islamic Revolution, wrote that age into its laws.
As Robert Reilly documented in The Closing of the Muslim Mind, mainstream Muslim thought denies that Allah and his decrees are permeable to reason, since Allah is not subject to it. Unlike the dominant Jewish-Christian image of God, in mainstream Islamic thought, Allah does not contain ultimate Reason within himself, such that it would be impossible for him to act irrationally. Allah embodies not perfect Reason but absolute power. He could choose to damn the righteous and reward the unrighteous, since he is bound by no internal law. Pope Benedict XVI explored the deep implications of these Islamic tenets in his famous address at Regensburg.
Reilly notes that leading Muslim theologians considered empirical science to be essentially blasphemous, since it attributes causality to material objects: We say that a window has shattered because a stone smashed through it. For the Muslim purist, that is not the reason. It shattered because Allah willed it. Next time he might will the rock to bounce off the glass, or turn into a chicken. (Hence the almost universal Arabic caveat uttered after making any plan or prediction: “inshallah,” or “if God wills it.”) Reilly traces the slow technological and economic development of Muslim countries to the anti-rational precepts that dominate Muslim thinking about God. Those rockets that Hamas and Hezbollah fire at Israeli civilians were invented in Judaeo-Christian countries.
Ben Carson paid Muslims a back-handed compliment by taking their religion and its tenets with absolute seriousness, and assuming that individual Muslim politicians would do the same. In fact, no Muslim anywhere in the U.S. could be elected to a school board if he openly asserted that Sharia should be the source of our civil law — as many Muslims assert in their European enclaves. Is it really so controversial to state the obvious? Sharia law is incompatible with our Constitutionally-protected rights to freedom of speech and religion.
While there are some Muslim intellectuals who are trying to reconcile classical liberal values with Muslim tradition, the kind of Muslim who’d be likely to run for office, whom we will probably see in coming decades, would no doubt shunt aside many aspects of Islamic law: He would not advocate the death penalty for sodomy, adultery, or apostasy from Islam. He would probably not even try to legalize polygamy — leaving that for the secularists on our Supreme Court to impose. Strict Muslims would label him a heretic, as Islamists today condemn Arab leaders such as Egypt’s Muhammad el-Sisi. So would this candidate’s Muslim identity make any difference at all?
I think that it would. The sheer number of issues on which such a Muslim would have to compromise his faith probably rules out the likely prospect of a conservative, Republican Muslim candidate who would cooperate with Christians to fight abortion. The kind of person who cares deeply enough about moral issues to take on elite opinion would probably also take his own religion seriously. If he rejected Sharia, such a person would leave Islam. A secularized Muslim who advanced in American politics would almost certainly do so on the Left, riding the tide of fashionable multiculturalism, which in England has led to the alliance of radical politicians such as George Galloway with full-on Islamist imams.
The only aspects of such a candidate’s Muslim identity that could be put into practice in American politics would be those compatible with the rest of the Left’s agenda. On foreign policy, he would surely oppose Israeli interests, within the boundaries of what is acceptable in American politics. So he would favor treaties over sanctions with countries like Iran. He would use the rhetoric of democratization to favor Islamist movements in Muslim countries against the secular dictators who try to resist them — and hence he would support attempts to overthrow rulers like Mubarak in Egypt, Assad in Syria, and Gaddafi in Libya. When he was compelled to address atrocities committed by groups like ISIS, he would be careful to cite whatever horrors he could dig up that were once committed by Christians, for instance during the Crusades.
Are you getting the picture yet? No, President Obama is not a secret Muslim. His early years spent in an Indonesian madrasa marked him culturally and politically, but did not convince him that the Quran is divinely inspired. Still, it is clear why people have their suspicions: The only kind of Muslim remotely electable in America would have to govern as Obama has, rejecting the patriarchal aspects of that faith, and instead promoting multiculturalism at home, and anti-colonial leftism abroad. So maybe Dr. Carson’s worries are already moot. We have been there, and done that. (See “Would a Muslim President Govern Any Differently from Obama?”, originally posted HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-25 03:15:562016-04-11 10:58:02Would a Muslim President Govern Any Differently from Obama?
What a difference six years makes. In August 2009, the Obama White House was busy negotiating closed-door deals with special interests to get them to support Obamacare. Former Rep. Billy Tauzin (D-LA), then head of the pharmaceutical manufacturers’ trade lobby, bragged to the New York Times: “We were assured [by the administration] ‘We need somebody to come in first. If you come in first, you will have a rock-solid deal.’”
The contrast presents one of two possibilities: Either Clinton, like Obama, will renege on her campaign promises while in office and leave Big Pharma alone—or, rather than showing preference to special interests, will instead use government to squeeze their businesses.
Compare the backroom dealings between Big Pharma and the Obama administration with developments yesterday. A tweet by former Senator Hillary Clinton decried “price gouging” by manufacturers and pledged that the plan she will release today will stop “outrageous” pricing, causing pharmaceutical stock prices to tumble. The contrast presents one of two possibilities: Either Clinton, like Obama, will renege on her campaign promises while in office and leave Big Pharma alone—or, rather than showing preference to special interests, will instead use government to squeeze their businesses.
Price Controls and Government “Negotiation”
Clinton has yet to release details of her proposals on drug costs, but the media is already reporting that her plan will likely contain elements of a policy paper released yesterday by the Center for American Progress (CAP). The CAP plan includes sections on increasing transparency of pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) spending and expanding research into the comparative effectiveness of various treatment options.
Those proposals might sound simple enough, but they come with big catches. As is usually the case, liberals propose transparency not for its own sake, but as a cudgel with which to bully private enterprise. In this case, CAP proposes price controls: “If drug companies do not invest a minimum amount of money in R&D, require them to pay a refund to the National Institutes of Health.” Likewise, the paper suggests that drug companies should charge “reasonable rates,” as determined by outside “experts”; if prices fall “outside the recommended range, require public justifications and license patents that result from federally funded research to competitors.”
In short, the CAP plan—likely to resemble the Clinton plan—would:
Force drug companies to turn over proprietary material about the R&D costs associated with specific drugs; Subject that R&D spending to government-established price controls;
Establish a board of technocrats—ostensibly independent, but likely to be influenced by both government and lobbyists—to set “recommended” prices; and
If manufacturers do not comply with the “recommended” price levels, subject those products to additional “public justifications”—read: opportunities for political posturing and demagoguery—and/or remove the patent exclusivity for those products, and allow other companies to manufacture generic versions.
As noted above, transparency alone brings with it numerous benefits to consumers. Health care markets have a notoriously opaque reputation. More independent research on what treatments work best will put more knowledge and power in the hands of patients.
But Consumer Reports-style research is one thing and price controls another. Creating an environment where a technocratic entity—one similar to Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB)—can determine the prices for an entire industry consolidates a troubling amount of power in one place. Moreover, precision medicine will likely make medical treatments much more personalized to each specific patient’s genome; creating a centralized price-setting body runs contrary to the progress medicinal science is making. The greater specificity of treatment patients are offered, the less conducive these practices will become to a uniform bureaucratic standard of cost.
Obamacare Process Not Transparent
The CAP paper’s focus on drugmakers’ transparency carries with it a particular irony. In 2008, then-Senator Obama pledged that “we’ll have the [health care] negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies.” Of course, that promised transparency never materialized—and Big Pharma benefited immensely from those closed-door negotiations.
Yesterday, Senator Clinton said that she was “so proud to be part of the Obama administration” when the president signed Obamacare into law. But a cabinet member of an administration that threw away many of its promises to help a special interest group has little right to come back and complain about the resulting privileges of that group. And likewise, members of Big Pharma outraged about the Clinton proposals should remember that conservatives warned them about the implications of their Faustian bargain at the time they made it. Therefore, given the history of this administration, both Hillary Clinton and the pharmaceutical industry would be wise to keep their own self-righteousness on this issue in check—for neither one comes to this debate with clean hands. (For more from the author of “Democrats and Big Pharma: Hypocrisy You Can Believe In?” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-09-23 23:20:202015-09-23 23:20:20Democrats and Big Pharma: Hypocrisy You Can Believe In?