Drive the U.N. Into the Sea

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This weekend, on the eve of the Jewish holiday that marks that people’s resistance to savage pagan occupation (Chanukah), the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution that is stunning in its moral blindness. It condemned all Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — two regions where Jews lived for thousands of years before an Arab set foot in Palestine.

Those regions were captured from Jordan in one of Israel’s many wars of self-defense against genocide. They have never belonged to any Palestinian state, because one has never existed. Jordan doesn’t want them back. In a series of agreements, Israel has accepted that most of those conquered regions would form the basis of a Palestinian state, if it ever felt safe in granting one.

Jews are buying land and moving to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In theory, this shouldn’t be a problem for a new Palestinian state; these Jews would form a tiny minority of its citizens, much smaller than the Arab contingent of Israeli citizens. So why are Jewish settlements considered an obstructionist “barrier to peace”? Why condemn Israel for letting its citizens buy land and live there?

Need Palestine be Judenrein?

The answer, of course, is obvious: Because the Palestinians are viciously intolerant of Jews, and today only Israeli troops keep the Arab majority in the conquered territories from “driv[ing] the Jews into the sea,” as the charter of Hamas promises. (Hamas is the radical Islamist terrorist organization that most Palestinians support.) Jews were violently expelled from virtually every Muslim country in 1948, from ancient communities that long pre-dated the warrior cult of Islam.

So the assumption on which the UN based its resolution is that of course the Palestinians would do that to the Jews in these territories, the moment they got the chance. Therefore, because the Palestinians are so intolerant and wanna-be genocidal, to plant Jews in the territory which the Palestinians were promised is an obstacle to peace. Have you got that? Such is the moral logic that governs the “international community.”

Israelis, being realists, know this too — and they’re not going to hand over Jews to the tender mercies of a Hamas administration. So in a sense, you could say that by settling Jews in a region, Israel is laying permanent claim to it. That need not be true, of course — if a Palestinian government could be found that wouldn’t demand that every square inch of its territory be judenrein.

The U.N. Only Holds White People to Civilized Standards

The resolution condemning Israel was classic United Nations: A preening, self-congratulatory moralistic veneer that covers blank hatred and a vicious will to power.

Indeed, as Paul Johnson documents in his classic history Modern Times, passing such resolutions and promoting such bankrupt policies has largely been the function of the United Nations since the 1950s, when the loathsome Kantian moralizer Dag Hammarskjold transformed the international body into the action arm of the “non-aligned” nations — which were almost uniformly run by vicious dictators (Castro, Nasser, Idi Amin) who drove their people into unprecedented poverty and misery.

It was Hammarskjold who cozied up to post-colonial despots, some of them guilty of genocide, while damning the Europeans who were trying to leave their colonies in some kind of livable order. According to Johnson, Hammarskjold actually said that black-on-black genocide was none of the U.N.’s business; its job was simply to remove the white man from Africa. In other words, it seems that Hammarskjold invented multiculturalism — which boiled down, is the theory that only white people can be expected to hew to civilized standards. So only they should be condemned.

The U.N. Headquarters is Already a Madhouse

The latest piece of paper from the toxic United Nations applies the same logic to Jews. Of course they should be held to the very highest canons of civil rights legislation — while we take it for granted that Arab Muslims will slaughter Jewish women and children the first time they get the chance. Just accept that moral standard, as President Obama did when he waved the resolution through, and everything makes perfect sense.

The United Nations does not serve the high ideals of peaceful cooperation and human rights for which it was founded so much as it uses them as rhetorical masks for the exercise of power. Human rights panels are frequently chaired by intolerant tyrannies like Islamist Saudi Arabia. Western nations typically send to the U.N. their most utopian, ideological representatives, who use the institution to promote a “globalist” agenda that arrogates power from democratic governments into the hands of unaccountable committees.

Austin Ruse, who for decades has fought to defend the rights of unborn children and the family, has recounted here at The Stream how the U.N. tries to impose manufactured “rights” to abortion and “transgender” recognition on unwilling elected governments. It has invented global “crises” such as “overpopulation” and climate change catastrophe to serve as the pretext for U.N. agencies to grasp for ever more power over the wealth, laws and policies of nations such as ours.

In a sane world, which perhaps President Trump will help to bring about, the U.S. would not fund the United Nations, host it, or even dignify it by being a member. New York City would be a much better place without the lavish consulates of starving Third World countries dotting the Upper East Side. Take the U.N. headquarters, that massive monument to hypocrisy and double standards, and put it to proper use: as a public mental hospital. (For more from the author of “Drive the U.N. Into the Sea” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

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.

30 Years Later, President Reagan’s 1986 Christmas Address Is More Relevant Than Ever

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On Dec. 20, 1986, President Ronald Reagan gave a national radio address, centering on the importance of family values. He thought the family unit had begun to lose its place in American society.

In his speech, Reagan made reference to Will and Ariel Durant, a married pair of Pulitzer Prize-winning philosophers who wrote a multi-volume work of history called “The Story of Civilization.”

“Will and Ariel Durant called the family ‘the nucleus of civilization.’ They understood that all those aspects of civilized life that we most deeply cherish — freedom, the rule of law, economic prosperity, and opportunity — that all these depend upon the strength and integrity of the family,” Reagan said.

“Yet, for all that,” he continued, “in recent decades the family has come under virtual attack. It has lost authority to government rule writers. It has seen its central role in the education of young people narrowed and distorted. And it’s been forced to turn over to big government far too many of its own resources in the form of taxation.”

Reagan’s remedy? Along with his honest, yet impactful, words speaking to the importance of the American family’s indispensable role, the president called on Americans to look toward the holy family in Bethlehem as a model: “[L]et us remember that in the midst of all the happy bustle of a season there is a certain quietness, a certain calm: the calm of one still night long ago and of a family — father, mother, and newborn child.”

Ronald Reagan’s message on family values is as relevant today as it ever was. Indeed, it is even more important today.

Consider: In 2015, over 40 percent of babies born in the U.S. were born to unmarried mothers. In 1986, the number stood around 25 percent.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 9.9 million single mothers raising children younger than 18 last year. In 1985, that number was 7.7 million. Further, among women who gave birth in 2015, over 415,000 were simply cohabitating with a partner (i.e. not married).

A lot of ink has been dedicated over the years about the unmistakable correlation between lower crime rates and offspring from a traditional household. And it only makes sense; kids growing up with single moms miss out on the immeasurable benefits such as confidence and discipline fathers provide.

Children from broken homes are also significantly more likely to live in poverty, and are more likely to suffer from mental health problems (especially in single-mother homes) as a result of the stress and anxiety they may face growing up in an unstable and/or unpredictable environment.

Raising children in broken households is not good for our communities, not good for our country, and not good for our world.

So, what’s to be done?

The real solution to this problem is something Pres. Reagan looked to in 1986: the perfect example of filial love, humility, and sacrifice, exemplified by the holy family — and which we celebrate on Christmas.

Of course, the holy family represents an ideal. But, religious or not, it’s an ideal we would all be better off striving toward. (For more from the author of “30 Years Later, President Reagan’s 1986 Christmas Address Is More Relevant Than Ever” 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)

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5 Selfless Acts of Christmas Charity That Will Make You Cry Tears of Joy

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Here are five stories of the most powerful acts of charity this Christmas season.

1. 5-year-old boy gives a homeless man a gift, and receives one in return

Five-year-old Dylan Hurt from Seattle wanted to help the homeless. So, with his dad’s help, he gave a man living in one of Seattle’s tent cities a one hundred-dollar bill, Q13 Fox reports.

The homeless man thanked Dylan with a hug … and with his own gift in return — a skateboard! The experience was so positive for young Dylan that he wants to continue the charitable acts.

2. 8-year-old boy gives up birthday presents to donate to Akron school

Second-grader Colin Roubic told his parents he didn’t want any presents for his birthday. Instead, Colin asked for footballs, soccer balls, basketballs, kick balls, and jump ropes to donate to the Akron Public School system, so other kids may play.

“I have lots of stuff and other people don’t, so I wanted to donate something,” Colin told News 5 Cleveland. That is the picture of charity.

3. Doctors said young girl would never walk. Now she runs to bring Christmas gifts to needy children

Faith Russell was born with spina bifida and doctors feared she would never walk. But the 10-year-old girl beat the odds, and now runs monthly 5k races. She invites everyone to come and see her race, but on one condition: They must bring shoe-box supplies for Operation Christmas Child.

NBC News reports that Faith and her donors filled 500 shoe boxes with supplies for needy children last year. This year, her goal was an ambitions 20,000 boxes. “Wow, we have been working for at least eight weeks, three to four days a week,” said Faith’s mom, Robin. “It has taken a village.”

Faith exceeded her goal, packing an amazing 20,001 shoe boxes for needy children all around the world.

“I just want to let them know that they are not forgotten,” Faith said. “And that they’re loved.”

4. 9-year-old student mows lawns to buy presents for strangers

Charles Howard is doing what many young entrepreneurial kids do — mowing lawns for an extra buck. But he’s not keeping the $10 he makes for every yard for himself.

No, Charles is laboring in order to buy “dozens” of Christmas presents for less fortunate kids in his community. “They’re going to a Toys For Tots place,” Charles told Tampa’s WTSP. “It feels really good inside. It makes my heart feel really good.”

Charles’ mother set up an Amazon wish list for anyone who wants to contribute to Charles’ mission.

5. Secret Santa pays off $46K in layaway items at a Pennsylvania Walmart

A small Pennsylvania town of about 1,700 people recently received a big unexpected Christmas blessing.

Walmart store manager Ryan Kennedy received an anonymous phone call from “Santa B.” On that phone call, the mysterious stranger told Kennedy he wanted to pay off all the Everett store’s layaway accounts, which allow financially strapped customers to pay off items over time. Santa B’s check came out to be over $46,000 for the 194 people with layaway accounts.

“It was complete disbelief,” Kennedy told CNN. “It was definitely a great gesture. I was completely shocked.”

Tearful shoppers wanted to know who the donor was to express their gratefulness, but the secret Santa remains secret. (For more from the author of “5 Selfless Acts of Christmas Charity That Will Make You Cry Tears of Joy” please click HERE)

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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)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Is Yahoo! Serious With This Absurd Ivanka Trump’s Alleged Pre-Flight Harrassment?

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More airline harassment. More media malfeasance.

Reports emerged Thursday afternoon that Ivanka Trump was accosted by a man while on a JetBlue flight. According to TMZ, an “out-of-control passenger” on the plane allegedly began “verbally berating” Ms. Trump and “jeering” at her children:

Ivanka was on a JetBlue flight leaving JFK Thursday morning with her family when a passenger started screaming, “Your father is ruining the country.” The guy went on, “Why is she on our flight? She should be flying private.” The guy had his kid in his arms as he went on the tirade.

The unruly man was reportedly escorted off the plane by JetBlue personnel. But wait, there’s more.

Twitchy collected a series of since-deleted tweets from one Matthew Lasner, a professor at Hunter College in New York City, who said it was his husband who was the man kicked off the plane.

“Ivanka and Jared at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil,” Lasner tweeted (preserved via screengrabs from Twitchy).

“Ivanka just before @JetBlue kicked us off our flight when a flt attendant overhead my husband expressing displeasure about flying w/ Trumps,” read another one of his tweets.

“Ivanka and Jared on our flight. My husband expressed displeasure in a calm tone, JetBlue staff overheard, and they kicked us off the plane,” read a third.

A statement from JetBlue explains that the decision to remove a passenger “is not taken lightly,” explaining: “[I]f the crew determines that a customer is causing a conflict on the aircraft, the customer will be asked to deplane, especially if the crew feels the situation runs the risk of escalation during flight.”

So, let’s review the facts.

JetBlue policy is to remove a passenger pretty much as only a last resort. The husband of the alleged offender tweeted that his husband was going to “harass” the future first daughter, and her husband Jared Kushner. And TMZ’s report confirms that Ivanka and her children were verbally abused by this passenger before JetBlue personnel were forced to deplane him.

Now, let’s look at how Yahoo! News reported the story.

“Man kicked off JetBlue flight for questioning why Ivanka Trump was on it.” Are you kidding, Yahoo!?

“Questioning”?

Ivanka Trump was, reportedly, verbally assaulted. She was allegedly harassed — her innocent children yelled at. The entire incident and deplaning did not revolve around some questions.

And, of course, Yahoo! is not alone in this egregious distortion of the facts. ThinkProgress editor Judd Legum’s attempt at spinning the story said the passenger was “kicked off Jet Blue flight for talking to Ivanka Trump.”

No, he wasn’t kicked off for “talking”; he was kicked off for harassing a fellow traveler simply due to her familial association. But facts don’t matter to many on the Left. Over and over again, they demonstrate they don’t care much for inconvenient truths.

And that is, ladies and gentlemen…

(For more from the author of “Is Yahoo! Serious With This Absurd Ivanka Trump’s Alleged Pre-Flight Harrassment?” please click HERE)

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This 7-Year-Old Got a Job at Mcdonald’s. The Reason Why Will Inspire You

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This 7-year-old is putting all of us to shame this Christmas.

Trenton Gardner, hailing from Bicknell, Indiana, is the newest employee at his local McDonald’s. So great is his work ethic, he begged for a job there, despite his young age.

“He asked for a job and they told him he was too young, and he burst into tears because he was so upset,” General Manager Rhonda Butler told WTHI. But Trenton persisted. He kept coming back and asking for a job until he was hired as an “honorary employee.”

Now Trenton cleans tables for just $1. And he loves it. “You see, when I wipe tables and customers are at the tables, I get paid for it,” he said, “It’s the coolest job I’ve ever done.”

His manager loves it too.

“Just to see someone so young have that kind of ethic, and just want to help and be a part of something, and he’s like ‘McDonald’s is the best place ever!’,” Butler said, “So it’s good to know that hey, this could be one of my future employees.”

But the coolest part of this story is Trenton didn’t want a job for himself. He’s saving the money he makes to buy Christmas presidents for less fortunate children in his community. His family has even donated his own toys to the Toys For Tots charity.

“When Toys For Tots bins started coming out, he wanted to know what it was,” Trenton’s mother explained. “Me and his dad explained to him that not every kid is fortunate enough to get toys like he did for Christmas, and that made him very upset and very sad.”

“We’ve always raised Trenton that not everything in life is handed to you and you have to work hard for what you get,” she said, “So low and behold that led him to asking his Grandpa Terry if he could take him to McDonald’s to get a job.”

Wow. What a great kid. His parents should be proud. (For more from the author of “This 7-Year-Old Got a Job at Mcdonald’s. The Reason Why Will Inspire You” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE.

Weiner Delivered Clinton’s October Surprise, Not the FBI

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Bill Clinton says that FBI Director James Comey cost his wife the 2016 election.

Has he met Anthony Weiner?

Weiner, after all, is the reason why FBI Director Comey went to Congress in October, notifying lawmakers that investigators had discovered emails on Weiner’s computer that could be related to its investigation of Clinton’s off-the-books email arrangement while she served as secretary of state.

Had Weiner, married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, not sent sexually explicit text messages to a minor, the FBI would have never had a reason to seize his laptop in the first place. There would have never been any “October surprise.”

It’s not as if this is the first time Weiner has gotten, literally, caught with his pants down, either. He resigned from Congress in 2011 after he was caught posting a lewd image on Twitter. Then in 2013, during his failed New York City mayoral bid, the Hollywood gossip site TMZ posted explicit messages he sent to women in 2012 under the alias “Carlos Danger.” Then, he exchanged more messages with a minor in 2016, which elevated his scandalous behavior to a felony level.

So, how is Comey to blame exactly? Clinton wasn’t “schlonged” by the FBI, as Trump may say. She was “Weinered.”

Yet, the Clintonistas are far more outraged at the man who investigated disgusting sexually deviant behavior toward a young woman than the man who actually conducted the disgusting sexually deviant behavior toward a young women.

Hm. Sounds … familiar.

Some things never do change. Definitely not the Clintons. (For more from the author of “Weiner Delivered Clinton’s October Surprise, Not the FBI” please click HERE)

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