Stand up and legislate!

By Cathy Keim

Congress headed back to work right after the Labor Day weekend. This will be the last opportunity for the Republican controlled House and Senate to finally find their legs and stand up to President Obama’s out of control executive overreach. Sadly, I do not expect them to even try based on their previous performances.

With the presidential election looming in November, wouldn’t this be a great time for the House to remember that they control the purse strings? If they do not put the money in the budget that they will be approving in September, then they can bring programs to a screeching halt. Their fear of a government shutdown renders them incapable of using the only instrument left to stop a president run amok.

Our national debt is now over $19.5 trillion, but still our Congress cannot find it in themselves to defund anything that the president demands.

Obamacare is collapsing, as it was meant to do from the beginning, to force us into a single-payer national health scheme. Watching the United Kingdom struggle with their broken system should give our leaders the encouragement to stop this, but instead they have funded the demise of our health care.

The Iran deal has been shown to be a disaster with our government trading money for hostages and Iran increasingly ready to harass our Navy ships.

Or how about the president’s giveaway of our internet to China, Russia, and Iran!

Ann Corcoran has released a new video called “Changing America by Changing Its People.” In under five minutes, Ann explains the Refugee Resettlement Program and how it can be stopped. You guessed it! This program that was started by Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy could be halted by defunding it. All the Voluntary Agencies (VOLAGS) that are bringing in the refugees are funded with your tax dollars.

Many of the VOLAGS have religious names, but they are not allowed to speak the name of Christ to the refugees they import. They are on the government payroll as private contractors and thus are prohibited from proselytizing. Why would Christian and Jewish groups bring in thousands of Muslims who are bound by their religion to make every effort to institute sharia law instead of living under our Constitution? People whose religion teaches them to hate Jews and Christians and to subjugate or kill them? I have not been able to come up with a reasonable explanation for that.

Since the Democrats cannot get Americans to willingly agree to their progressive Utopian scheme, then they will overwhelm the current Americans with imported people that they hope to keep voting Democrat forever.

If our Congress would defund some programs, another one that could bear careful scrutiny would be the food stamp program. Once again, Ann Corcoran on her blog Refugee Resettlement Watch pulls together the information that is out there, but that our Congressional watchdogs don’t bother to notice. Baltimore, Maryland gets unflattering attention again for a huge food stamp fraud bust. Buffalo, New York, makes the news with this convenience store operator getting charged with fraud. The local convenience store operators buy the EBT cards from the food stamp recipients for 50% of the face value. Instead of food, the customer gets cash and the owner takes the other 50% to buy items to resell at his store. Sweet deal if you can get it, right?

I do not know if any of the convenience store owners are refugees, but Ann points out that their clientele most likely includes refugees: Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama stated on his website last September that more than 90% of recent Middle Eastern refugees are on food stamps and almost 70% are on cash welfare.

Put these statistics together with this interesting statement:

[T]he Koran encourage Muslims to collect jizya – blood tax – from kafirs, the non-Muslims, and welfare is looked upon as jizya. Collecting money from non-Muslims is considered a legal entitlement since the kafir is not entitled to any land or laws of their own anywhere, meaning their presence on a land or country of their own is a “theft” of “occupation” of what should be Muslim land.

Defrauding the welfare system becomes a type of jihad against the welcoming host country.

The list could go on and on with all the missed opportunities to block an imperial presidency and to recalibrate the separation of powers equation. What better time to grandstand against the president’s failed policies than the last session while the GOP still has control of both houses of Congress? Use every platform available to broadcast the deficiencies of the current administration that would be continued by the next Democrat president. Give speeches, hold hearings, give interviews, and hold the failed policies up to the public view during the entire budget process instead of acquiescing to the agenda and rubber stamping another omnibus spending bill.

Unfortunately, Paul Ryan and the House leadership don’t see the situation like I do. According to The Hill:

Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are pushing to extend government funding into early 2017, wary of a massive bipartisan spending deal in the lame-duck. But GOP leaders and House Democrats are already laying the groundwork for a short-term continuing resolution, or CR, that will set up a vote on a catch-all spending bill right before the holidays.

Once again, the GOP will cave, even if it means passing the omnibus bill with Democrat votes just like the last CRomnibus budget vote. And when they cave, they will not show the fortitude to fight to cut the funding for refugee resettlement, or any other item that President Obama desires.

The GOP leadership is already signaling defeat when “Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator and leadership ally, dismissed the Freedom group’s approach, saying it’s backed by Republicans who would rather create ‘some sort of massive showdown crisis.'”

We don’t even try to mount an offense. The House leadership has already begun attacking the conservatives in their own party before the session even opens. The leadership seems to think that the election is going to be a disaster, so they need to do the best deal now. It appears that they have already given up on maintaining control of the Senate and winning the presidency.
It is interesting that Paul Ryan would think that he can get a better deal with a lame duck President Obama rather than Trump or Clinton. Let’s see where Andy Harris goes on this budget vote.

What is particularly galling about this whole sham of not passing budget bills until the last minute so that they can all be rolled into one huge omnibus bill and rammed through is that the American people are being played by their elected representatives. This process of not functioning in order to push through a monstrosity has been perfected by our Congressional leaders as a means to keep the status quo. Since everything keeps being funded at previous levels, nothing ever changes. The American citizen is being played. This is why there is a revolt brewing. There is discontent on every side. The leaders will not be able to keep this scam going forever.

Children: a gift or our doom?

By Cathy Keim

Children? Those fleshy barnacles of snot and mutiny? Those extortionate burdens? Those shrieking, dribbling, bawling horrors? Not for me, thank you. – Calum Marsh

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. – Psalm 127:3 (KJV)

As you might guess, I am a believer that children are a heritage from the Lord, rather than a horror to be avoided at all costs. Calum Marsh is a writer for the National Post and he shared his views on childbearing in a rather horrific piece. He does not want children, his wife agrees with him, and they are happy with their lifestyle. He states: “We are quite sure that we don’t want kids. What we’d really like is for you to stop asking us about it.”

Calum goes on to give his reasons:

Let’s briefly address my reasons. I’m afraid they’re not especially insightful: I value my lifestyle, and I like having the means to maintain it. I value my free time. I’d like to re-read the complete works of Shakespeare, and get around to tackling Proust; I’m keen to learn Latin and modern dance; I wouldn’t mind visiting Locarno, Ankara and Bucharest. I also enjoy the freedom from responsibility childlessness affords me. I can’t begin to imagine the burden not only of time and money but of authority and influence – of being accountable for a human life. It’s lunacy that so many people are comfortable with it. I can no more picture myself raising a child as I can building a log cabin or captaining an aircraft carrier. Maybe it’s within my ability. But more likely I’d screw it up.

I must point out that Calum’s reasoning could be taken to be just a tad selfish. I am sure that he would rather have a more high-minded sounding reason, and I have just the solution for him.

He needs to read this piece from by Jennifer Ludden for NPR’s All Things Considered, “Should We Be Having Kids in the Age of Climate Change?”

Here he will find the solution to stop the old nags from questioning him about his future progeny. There is no need to look selfish, when you can instead turn the tables and make all those people that are procreating look like the selfish ones.

In her story, Ludden introduces us to Travis Rieder, a philosopher with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Rieder is so certain that climate change is going to be catastrophic for the earth that he is lecturing to convince students to not have children.

“Here’s a provocative thought: Maybe we should protect our kids by not having them,” Rieder says.

Rieder’s reasoning is that the world is expected to add several billion people in the next few decades, each one producing more emissions.

Ludden goes on to state:

In fact, without dramatic action, climatologists say, the world is on track to hit 4 degrees Celsius of warming by the end of the century, and worse beyond that. A World Bank report says this must be avoided, and warns of unprecedented heat waves, severe drought and serious impacts on ecosystems and “human systems.” Back in the classroom, Rieder puts this in less technical terms: 4 degrees of warming would be “largely uninhabitable for humans.”

“It’s gonna be post-apocalyptic movie time,” he says.

We then learn about the group Conceivable Future, a nonprofit founded on the notion that “the climate crisis is a reproductive crisis.”

One of the CF founders, Josephine Ferorelli told Ludden that “when she imagines raising a child…she can’t help but envision the nightmare scenarios that have dogged her since she first heard the term ‘global warming’ in elementary school.”

“Knowing that I gave that future to somebody is something that just doesn’t sit very well,” adds Ferorelli.

Since this is a fuzzy touchy feely NPR piece, the author does allow that many women want to have babies. It is actually hard for them to give up childbearing for the good of the planet.

Ahh, see how the tables have turned. Calum doesn’t need to be callous. He just needs to advise all his friends with children that they are responsible for dooming the planet, while he is sacrificing to save the planet.

It is worth noting that reducing the world’s population has been a popular theme with many countries, most notably China. Their one child policy has recently been modified, but years of selective abortion or infanticide to ensure that the one child was a son has left China with a serious shortage of women.

In Europe the birthrate has fallen so precipitously that many countries are facing shrinking populations and are looking to immigrants to fill the void. Seeing masses of young males invading Europe does not give me confidence that the void will be filled peacefully.

But one nation is leading the way in the childless revolution. David Sim reports in the International Business News about a Japanese village which has resorted to a unique way of boosting its population.

Nagoro, like many villages in the Japanese countryside, was hit hard by the migration of its younger residents to cities, leaving the elderly behind. Its greying community is a microcosm of Japan; the country’s population has been falling for a decade and is projected to drop from 127 million to 87 million by 2060.

One of the younger residents of the village of Nagoro is 65 years old.

Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden. She created a life-sized straw doll that resembled her father, and was inspired to make more. And more…

Today, the tiny village in is populated by 150 of Ayano’s hand-sewn creations.

I suppose that scarecrow people are better than empty houses and streets, but it seems rather sad.

People were afraid to have children during world wars and the Great Depression. Then the Cold War brought fears of nuclear annihilation, and now climate change is presented as the reason to not have children.

What is your worldview? Do you accept Calum Marsh’s ideas or Travis Rieder’s?

I will stand with the premise that children are a gift from God. I am not fearful of climate change. However, the increasingly tyrannical shift in our country and the staggering debt give me more worry than the temperature. I am not sure that we will make it to 2036, the year that represents the apocalypse to Travis Rieder, as a free nation, but even that is not a reason to refuse to bear children. We are called to be faithful, not to take the easiest path. We can continue to fight the good fight for our nation, but it will be our children and grandchildren who will carry it on.

Racist

By Cathy Keim

(Editor’s note: Cathy thought I should share the credit, but all I did was add a few finishing touches. She did the hard part.)

The fear of being called a racist has frozen people into a defensive crouch for most of my lifetime. In modern America it is a ridiculous threat – yet it still keeps people immobilized from taking any action that might open them to being called racist.

Why is it a ridiculous threat? Because it just hasn’t been true for many years now. It is hard to find a family that isn’t filled with in-laws, stepchildren, adopted children, cousins, and more that are from a different race or ethnic group. Being old enough to have attended a segregated public school and then living through integration and finishing my public school education in an integrated high school, I can attest to the huge strides forward made in this country towards a color blind society.

Sadly, that is all being turned back by the purposeful hyping of our society into tribalism. It is more beneficial for some politicians to divide us by race or ethnicity than it is to emphasize our common beliefs as Americans.

These common beliefs are what made America so unique in the world. We were not bound together by our tribe; instead we were bound together by our consent to believe in the principles and laws set out by our Constitution and Founding Fathers. Despite the obvious concession we have to make that America has not been perfect and that there have been blemishes on our record, we can admit to those flaws but as a whole still be proud of our principles and our nation. After all, no nation led by human hearts and minds will ever be perfect – but we are charged in our Constitution to strive “to form a more perfect Union.”

Unfortunately, our youth are not being taught the good that is America, but to magnify the flaws and warts that are still items to be worked on – a distorted picture of the truth. This cultural manipulation of our story has been going on for decades in order to benefit those politicians that want to keep power over the people.

When I first became active in the Tea Party, I quickly recognized that being called a racist, bigot, or homophobe (and combinations of the three) would come with the territory. It didn’t take me long to learn that, rather than trying to defend myself from the spurious charges, it was better to keep on making the case for the rational ideas and policies that I believed in. One’s defense against being called a racist usually falls flat, anyway, because how can you prove a negative or defend yourself against liars? No matter what you tell them, they will continue to lie and even make up new charges if necessary.

It would seem that some of the Republicans are waking up to this idea. Recently the front page stories have been the ones between Trump and Hillary, but I was interested in the sidebar story on the governor of Maine refusing to be called a racist.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage went ballistic Thursday after several Democratic politicians labeled him a “racist” over comments he made about the demographic makeup of drug trafficking suspects in his state.

LePage went on a profanity-laced tirade in a voicemail message in which he challenged Democrat state legislator Drew Gattine to prove he was a racist, the Portland Press Herald reported.

“Mr. Gattine, this is Gov. Paul Richard LePage,” a recording of the governor’s phone message says. “I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you (expletive). I want to talk to you. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist (expletive). You… I need you to, just friggin. I want you to record this and make it public because I am after you. Thank you.”

It would seem that GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump is leading the way for others to take the offense when accused of racism, as Michael wrote on Friday:

But speaking Wednesday in Jackson, Mississippi, Trump took a more accusatory approach. “Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future,” he shouted. It’s an approach that won’t win any friends at The Washington Post, but the message wasn’t aimed at them.

The race baiters have frequently called for the need for a dialogue on race, but they have wanted to control the terms of the discussion – otherwise, we are a “nation of cowards” on race. In light of the incitement to tribalism from our elites, it is past time for regular Americans to have the discussion publicly.

I want for people to respond to each other as fellow citizens based on their actions. If you obey the laws, work hard to support your family, contribute to your community, and stay out of trouble, then we can all get along together. Notice that none of that depends on your tribal affiliation.

The recent upturn in protests by La Raza (the Race) and Black Lives Matter point to the urgent need for Americans to embrace our common heritage before we descend into the full-blown tribalism that has plagued the rest of the world for centuries. Americans of all races have enjoyed a higher standard of freedom, security, and living than any other nation, while other nations – particularly those deemed “Third World” countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas – have all been plagued with violence, graft, and corruption as warring factions seek control of their natural resources and people.

Over the last few years we have seen the rise of factions in our nation as well. Both Black Lives Matter and La Raza are inherently racist and un-American. They are being manipulated to further destroy the fabric of America.

Moreover, the Democrat party has thrived for years by fomenting the distress of the minority Americans. They have not alleviated the problems, but instead have created further issues on so-called “poverty plantations” while calling conservatives or Republicans racists, bigots, and haters, accusing them of holding minorities back.

But take a look at the cities that are boiling over with hatred – they are all controlled by Democrats and have been for decades. The liberal Great Society policies of the 1960s served to dismantle the black family and replace the father with government subsidies, and they have been the most devastating attack on the inner cities possible. More recently, the government policies of bringing in low-skilled immigrants through the refugee resettlement program, the H2B temporary workers visas, and illegal immigration have all contributed to the loss of jobs for minority workers and have caused wages to stagnate.

There are many Black and Hispanic citizens that are integrated into our communities and are thriving, but the focus is always on fomenting the discontent and exploiting the rage of the minorities that are trapped in the underclass. Trump is finally asking those Americans what the politicians have done for them? It is about time that more leaders stand up and state the truth: our current government is not here to help you, because it is to their advantage to keep you down.

All of America loses if we revert to ethnic and racial tribalism rather than joining together to declare that in America all men are created equal and all can participate in our society.

I will close with a quote a recently-published book my son enjoyed and recommended, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger. He begins this passage by quoting neuroscientist and traumatic stress expert Dr. Rachel Yehuda of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City.

‘If you want to make a society work, then you don’t keep underscoring the places where you’re different – you underscore your shared humanity… I’m appalled by how much people focus on differences. Why are you focusing on how different you are from one another, and not on the things that unite us?’

The United States is so powerful that the only country capable of destroying her might be the United States herself, which means that the ultimate terrorist strategy would be to just leave the country alone. That way, America’s ugliest partisan tendencies could emerge unimpeded by the unifying effects of war. The ultimate betrayal of tribe isn’t acting competitively – that should be encouraged – but predicating your power on the excommunication of others from the group. That is exactly what politicians of both parties try to do when they spew venomous rhetoric about their rivals. That is exactly what media figures do when they go beyond criticism of their fellow citizens and openly revile them.

Reviling people you share a combat outpost with is an incredibly stupid thing to do, and public figures who imagine their nation isn’t, potentially, one huge combat outpost are deluding themselves.

The totalitarian religion of peace?

By Cathy Keim

Totalitarian

adj.

Of, relating to, being, or imposing a form of government in which the political authority exercises absolute and centralized control over all aspects of life, the individual is subordinated to the state, and opposing political and cultural expression is suppressed: “A totalitarian regime crushes all autonomousinstitutions in its drive to seize the human soul” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.)

Totalitarian government. (n.d.) American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. (2011).

We are used to thinking of totalitarian ideologies as the two horrors that the United States fought in the 20th Century: Nazism, which we defeated in WWII, and communism, which we supposedly defeated through the Cold War. We now face a third form of totalitarian ideology, but due to our advanced immersion into politically correct thinking we are no longer able to mount a coherent defense. The new threat is Islam – not radical Islam, but Islam.

As I was researching this piece, I was looking for people that were willing to state that Islam is a totalitarian ideology equal to, but not the same as, communism and Nazism. What I found was that when these two ideologies first popped up, they were compared to Islam to explain their totalitarian thrust.

In an excellent article, Geert Wilders, Western Sages, and Totalitarian Islam, Andrew Bostom, who I had the pleasure of meeting last January at a conference, shows that contemporaneous with the advent of Bolshevism and Nazism, people were making the connection. I find this interesting because due to the PC mindset we are currently controlled by, you don’t see many of our political leaders or media personalities being willing to admit to this rather obvious connection.

Why do I find this connection so important? Because this gives us an historical precedent for resisting a totalitarian ideology. Our current leaders are unable to state the truth. The George W. Bush administration hid behind the Radical Islam moniker, stating that Islam was a religion of peace and the radical jihadists were not reflective of the great world religion, Islam. Under President Obama, this concept has morphed into the more ridiculous position that we cannot even call terrorist attacks perpetrated in the name of Allah, Islamic terrorism. Jihad is transformed into an internal spiritual battle rather than the violent struggle to subdue the kafir that it really is.

The distinction as to whether Islam is a religion of peace being perverted by evil men or whether Islam is a totalitarian ideology committed to subduing the entire world to a one world government (caliphate) under sharia law makes a huge difference in how you deal with practical matters, particularly immigration.

If it is the former, then you can try to screen out potential terrorists by checking on their backgrounds like you would a criminal. If it is the latter, then you have a much different problem on your hands. Would it be wise to bring in thousands and thousands of adherents to this totalitarian ideology and hope that they will become peaceful Americans?

First, let’s look at a lengthy quote from Dr. Bostom’s article where Karl Jung and then Karl Barth compare Nazism to Islam:

[D]uring an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Karl Jung was asked: “ … had [he] any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany:

We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future.

Also published in 1939 was Karl Barth’s assessment (from The Church and the Political Problem of Our Day) of the similarity between Fascist totalitarianism and Islam:

Participation in this life, according to it the only worthy and blessed life, is what National Socialism, as a political experiment, promises to those who will of their own accord share in this experiment. And now it becomes understandable why, at the point where it meets with resistance, it can only crush and kill — with the might and right which belongs to Divinity! Islam of old as we know proceeded in this way. It is impossible to understand National Socialism unless we see it in fact as a new Islam, its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new Allah’s Prophet.

Next Dr. Bostom presents the contemporary comparison between Communism and Islam:

Jules Monnerot’s 1949 Sociologie du Communisme was translated into English and published asSociology and Psychology of Communism in 1953. Monnerot elaborated at length upon a brief but remarkably prescient observation by Bertrand Russell, published already in 1920, which compared emerging Bolshevism to Islam. Russell had noted in his The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism:

Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam. … Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated. … Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism [Islam] rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.

These quotes show that prior to our politically correct environment, Islam was viewed as a totalitarian ideology on par with fascism and communism. So, how did we deal with them?

We fought WWII to crush the evil of fascism and we waged the Cold War for decades to curb the expansion of communism, declaring victory with the dissolution of the USSR and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After the 9/11 attacks, the United States attacked Afghanistan and Iraq to destroy the governments that were giving shelter to terrorists. Due to our need for oil, we never identified the correct problem, nor the correct solution. Instead our leaders spoke of bringing democracy to the Middle East. We ousted the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq and installed new governments with constitutions based on sharia law.

If our leaders had bothered to understand the problem, they would not have ever uttered the words democracy and sharia law in the same sentence. Next came the Arab Spring, which was hailed as a breaking out of democracy all over the Middle East. In the ensuing years, the chorus of joy on the parts of our elites has changed to the cry to bring in refugees by the thousands as they flee the war, chaos, and starvation that has followed.

Libya is a dysfunctional state now controlled by terrorist factions. Syria is rent by a brutal civil war. Iraq is being ravished by ISIS with its Christian and Yazidi populations facing genocide. Egypt was sinking under the control of the Moslem Brotherhood until the military seized control. Turkey is faltering as Erdogan pushes it ever closer to sharia fundamentalism. Iran has made kidnapping pay and is released from any restraints on its rush to nuclear weapons.

Islam, like the Nazis and the communists, is never content to peacefully coexist with its neighbors. Its only mandate is to conquer, kill, subjugate, and then move on to the next territory until the entire world is prostrate beneath them.

Dr. Bostom continues with a quote from Bernard Lewis explaining the goals of Islam and Communism.

Quite obviously, the Ulama [religious leaders] of Islam are very different from the Communist Party. Nevertheless, on closer examination, we find certain uncomfortable resemblances. Both groups profess a totalitarian doctrine, with complete and final answers to all questions on heaven and earth; the answers are different in every respect, alike only in their finality and completeness, and in the contrast they offer with the eternal questioning of Western man. Both groups offer to their members and followers the agreeable sensation of belonging to a community of believers, who are always right, as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong. Both offer an exhilarating feeling of mission, of purpose, of being engaged in a collective adventure to accelerate the historically inevitable victory of the true faith over the infidel evil-doers. The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, two necessarily opposed groups, of which the first has the collective obligation of perpetual struggle against the second, also has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. There again, the content of belief is utterly different, but the aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same. The humorist who summed up the Communist creed as “There is no God and Karl Marx is his Prophet” was laying his finger on a real affinity. The call to a Communist Jihad, a Holy War for the faith – a new faith, but against the self-same Western Christian enemy – might well strike a responsive note.

Now that the Middle East is in shambles and hordes of refugees are overwhelming Europe and heading towards the United States, it would be helpful if our leaders would find the backbone that our forefathers had and would come up with a strategy based on the reality before them to deal with Islam, rather than continuing to murmur lies about a religion of peace and how we should welcome the stranger.

Immigration: the downstream problems

By Cathy Keim

The whole immigration debate is being presented by the elites and the media as a simple choice: The big hearted Americans should open their cities and homes to welcome the underprivileged, needy people from around the world, but especially from areas like Syria that are wracked by war. Liberal churches jump on the bandwagon preaching the need to love the stranger and welcome him.

If anyone tries to mention any concerns or ask for caution, they are shouted down and denounced as racists, bigots, haters, un-Christian, and selfish. The debate is especially problematic for Christians, as Christians in America are under attack on every front. The conservative Christian’s stance on abortion, marriage, and gender ensure that he is already classified as a hypocritical, bigoted hater. The politically correct war on religious speech is in full attack mode to silence anybody who dares to resist the prescribed agenda.

Due to this tenuous position, Christians are leery of pointing out that Islam is not compatible with American principles. Although America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, the elites in control now prefer to reject that information. The new attitudes on gay marriage, gender identity, and the sanctity of life are being used to portray Christians as dangerous right-wing kooks capable of blowing up buildings and people. At the same time those same elites are pushing Islam on America in the form of immigrants and refugees. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, since the Sharia adhering Muslims are against gay marriage and transgender individuals. It does begin to fit together when you realize that the elites are not concerned with the welfare of the gays, transgenders, or the Muslims. They are merely using them to gain positions of power by destroying the existing social order.

Since this nation was founded on Christian principles, then it follows that to destroy our nation the Christian foundation must be destroyed. While the number of gay and transgender people is relatively small, I think that the elites may be making a strategic error in their importation of Muslims to change America by changing her people. Muslims show no sign of assimilating and becoming decadent progressive westerners.

Christians know that religious liberty is under assault. They realize that if they make any moves to restrict the growth of Islam, the elites will be all too ready to try and restrict the liberties of the Christians. The key difference that needs to be repeated and repeated is that Islam is a totalitarian political ideology not a religion, a subject I will address in my next blogpost.

Until the elites notice their error, the rest of the country must live with an increasingly belligerent Muslim population. There are two factors which the elites may be missing or ignoring:

  1. Muslims are commanded to migrate to spread Islam. This is called the hijrah.
  2. Second generation Muslims, even though assimilated more so in America than in Europe, are still more likely to become radicalized than the first generation Muslims.

All of the talk about vetting the Syrian refugees to screen out ISIS plants is not going to solve the bigger issue of the hijrah. The FBI has already acknowledged that they cannot screen the refugees well since they are refugees. They have fled cities that were razed, bombed, and burned and they didn’t bring their birth certificates with them as they fled for their lives. However, they do bring their belief in sharia law and their centuries old prejudices against Christians, infidels, women, and homosexuals.

The first generation of refugees or immigrants may be happy to have escaped from the terror and deprivation that was their homeland, but many in the American-born second generation show a distinct desire to embrace radical jihadism. The FBI has over 900 active cases of people they are watching, and we don’t know how many more need to be watched. The Orlando nightclub killer was a second generation Muslim. The San Bernardino killer was a second generation Muslim. One of the Garland, Texas attackers was a second generation Muslim. The Ft. Hood massacre was perpetrated by a second generation Muslim.

Clearly, just vetting the people that we let into the country does not prevent the second generation from becoming jihadists. Since we can show that in America we have not forced the Muslims into ghettos and not allowed them to partake fully in our society as is the excuse given for the Muslim attacks in France, then what are we to do to protect ourselves?

First, our elites need to educate themselves on what is really happening and quit believing that since their hearts are pure and they want to feel good about themselves and how generous and unselfish they are that it will all turn out well. The progressives that think that their generous thoughts are all that matter and the catastrophic consequences that follow their foolish policies are not their problem, need to wake up. Equally guilty are the other elites who believe that crony capitalism is their ticket to power. They facilitate the influx of Muslims as cheap labor for industry. This group really irritates me because they are selling us out for money and power while lying to us that they are pro-Constitution and will fight for American values.

These two groups of elites have flooded our country with illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers since 1965. We are a big country, but we cannot absorb all the illiterate, unhealthy masses that have been flooding the USA for decades when the elites are tearing down all American patriotic beliefs. The invaders are not asked to adhere to the principles that define America. We are a diverse people, but we are united by our belief in the American Dream, the laws of the land, and our founding documents. This is being replaced by the centuries-old ethnic, racial hatreds that separate us into warring tribes.

We need to halt immigration until we can assimilate those that are here. We need to enforce our immigration laws that are on the books. We need to revise the refugee system. Currently, the UN is picking our refugees for us from their camps. The Christians that are fleeing from ISIS do not go to the UN camps because they are persecuted there by the fleeing Muslims. Since the Christians do not go to the UN camps, the UN doesn’t pick them to come to America.

Now you know why hardly any Christians have been amongst the refugees that have arrived already and why there will not be any in the future unless our politicians wake up. Politicians never wake up until they are forced to do so. Our political system has succumbed to crony capitalism and progressive utopian schemes. There are very few leaders in DC speaking for the common man.

Woe unto them that call evil good: a frank discussion about life issues and the party platforms

By Cathy Keim and Michael Swartz

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Isaiah 5:20, KJV

This fall in Maryland we will have four parties on the ballot: not just the Republicans and Democrats, but also the Libertarians and the Green Party. All four of them are represented on the Presidential ballot, with three also contending for United States Senate and for our First District Congressional seat. (There is no Libertarian running for Senate and no Green Party candidate in the First District. Around the state, there are six Libertarians and five Greens running for the House.)

As one who has a passionate interest in the subject, Cathy Keim sat down to take a look at the four parties and where they stand on life issues, particularly abortion. Most of us aren’t single-issue voters, but I think I speak for Cathy when I contend we are both convinced that the way a party looks at the subject of life is an indicator of how it interprets the intersection of liberty on the one hand and faith on the other – or, as I would put it, the location of the guardrails on America’s path.

The Declaration of Independence states our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. One cannot partake of these unalienable rights if they are murdered in the womb, so to us it is just that simple that an American that believes in the founding principles of our nation must also embrace a pro-life position.

To approach this, we have decided to lay out each party’s platform on the subject and provide our take on it afterward. These will be placed in alphabetical order so the Democrats go first.

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Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice

Democrats are committed to protecting and advancing reproductive health, rights, and justice. We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion – regardless of where she lives, how much money she makes, or how she is insured. We believe that reproductive health is core to women’s, men’s, and young people’s health and wellbeing. We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people. We will continue to oppose – and seek to overturn – federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment. We condemn and will combat any acts of violence, harassment, and intimidation of reproductive health providers, patients, and staff. We will defend the ACA, which extends affordable preventive health care to women, including no-cost contraception, and prohibits discrimination in health care based on gender.

We will address the discrimination and barriers that inhibit meaningful access to reproductive health care services, including those based on gender, sexuality, race, income, disability, and other factors. We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care, evidence-based sex education and a full range of family planning services help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

And we strongly and unequivocally support a woman’s decision to have a child, including by ensuring a safe and healthy pregnancy and childbirth, and by providing services during pregnancy and after the birth of a child, including adoption and social support services, as well as protections for women against pregnancy discrimination. We are committed to creating a society where children are safe and can thrive physically, emotionally, educationally, and spiritually. We recognize and support the importance of civil structures that are essential to creating this for every child. (Page 37 here.)

Also, on Page 46:

We will support sexual and reproductive health and rights around the globe. In addition to expanding the availability of affordable family planning information and contraceptive supplies, we believe that safe abortion must be part of comprehensive maternal and women’s health care and included as part of America’s global health programming. Therefore, we support the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to health care information and services, including the “global gag rule” and the Helms Amendment that bars American assistance to provide safe, legal abortion throughout the developing world. (Emphasis ours.)

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Cathy: How can the Democrat Party write such drivel with a straight face?  They define reproductive health as including abortion and proceed to say that reproductive health is core to women’s,  men’s, and young people’s health and wellbeing.  Except for the baby that is murdered in the womb.  The aborted baby’s health and wellbeing is certainly not benefited by legal abortion.

Once upon a time, they pretended that the baby was just a blob of tissue, but now they declare that even if life begins at conception, they would still demand that abortion be legal. Despite their claim that they want abortions to be safe, they have blocked and overturned any laws that have been passed to require abortion mills to conform to accepted standards of safety. You would be horrified if your vet subjected your dog to the kind of unsanitary, unsafe conditions that abortion mills routinely conduct their procedures under.

The Democrat Party plank on abortion definitely falls under the category of calling evil good.

Michael: What I can’t get over is the sheer hypocrisy of the Democrats standing for “creating a society where children are safe” when the one place you would think would be the safest is fair game for a mother’s ill-informed “choice.” And does it not reek of the same sort of eugenics made famous by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) that the Democrats want to promote abortion “throughout the developing world?” Why not just call them “human weeds” while you are at it?

And once again they give their whole-hearted support to Planned Parenthood by claiming they “provide critical health services.” So do thousands of other facilities that don’t make millions of dollars performing abortions or stand accused of selling baby parts for profit.

Next we will turn to the Green Party, which recently finalized its 2016 platform.

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Women’s rights must be protected and expanded to guarantee each woman’s right as a full participant in society, free from sexual harassment, job discrimination or interference in the intensely personal choice about whether to have a child.

Women’s right to control their bodies is non-negotiable. It is essential that the option of a safe, legal abortion remains available. The “morning-after” pill must be affordable and easily accessible without a prescription, together with a government-sponsored public relations campaign to educate women about this form of contraception. Clinics must be accessible and must offer advice on contraception and the means for contraception; consultation about abortion and the performance of abortions, and; abortion regardless of age or marital status.

We endorse women’s right to use contraception and, when they choose, to have an abortion. This right cannot be limited to women’s age or marital status. Contraception and abortion must be included in all health insurance policies in the U.S., and any state government must be able to legally offer these services free of charge to women at the poverty level. Public health agencies operating abroad should be allowed to offer family planning, contraception, and abortion in all countries that ask for those services. We oppose our government’s habit of cutting family planning funds when those funds go to agencies in foreign countries that give out contraceptive devices, offer advice on abortion, and perform abortions.

We encourage women and men to prevent unwanted pregnancies. It is the inalienable right and duty of every woman to learn about her body and to be aware of the phases of her menstrual cycle, and it is the duty for every man to be aware of the functions and health of his and his partner’s bodies. This information is necessary for self-determination, to make informed decisions, and to prevent unintended consequences. Unplanned conception takes control away from individuals and makes them subject to external controls. The “morning-after” pill and option of a safe and legal abortion need to remain available. (This is under the heading of “Civil Rights.”)

Under “Health Care“:

The Green Party unequivocally supports a woman’s right to reproductive choice, no matter her marital status or age, and that contraception and safe, legal abortion procedures be available on demand and be included in all health insurance coverage in the U.S., as well as free of charge in any state where a woman’s income falls below the poverty level.

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Cathy: The Green Party seems to think that reproduction refers to the right to prevent or terminate a child. This is changing the meaning from good to evil. A child is to be prevented from being conceived (I find this hard to believe) by the woman knowing her menstrual cycle! This sounds rather like the rhythm method. Why bother when you can have a free morning after pill or a safe abortion on demand? Every part of this plank is geared towards preventing future citizens. Women are only equal if they do not get pregnant.

“Unplanned conception takes control away from individuals and makes them subject to external controls.” I would think that that sentence should read makes them subject to internal controls since the baby is inside the mother’s womb!

This whole conversation is ignoring the right of the baby to exist. They try to hide that by talking about prevention, but in the end, the right to abort the baby must be universal. Since any baby can be aborted, then there can be no protection for a baby that has Down’s syndrome or any other problems. This means that there is no call to prevent sex-selection abortions. What if the baby has a cleft palate which can fixed by surgery? Once the sanctity of life is broken, there is no end to the mischief that results.

The Green Party fails completely on the abortion issue, but that didn’t surprise you, did it?

Michael: The scariest part of their platform to me is the fact that they actually say abortion is a “right (that) cannot be limited to women’s age or marital status.” As I read this, they are perfectly fine with a 10 year old getting an abortion, whether the parent knows or not. There IS a surefire way to prevent unwanted pregnancies, but then it would eliminate the choice a woman would have to sleep with a man. If the choice is made to engage in sexual activity, then there is a risk of pregnancy. Even if a woman is “aware of the phases of her menstrual cycle” there’s no guarantee that a time she thinks she’s safe is really a safe time. (Nor does this account for the inevitable failure of contraceptives.)

In essence, they are perfectly willing to absolve the women of all responsibility for their actions in the name of “individual rights.” And that leads us to the Libertarian Party.

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1.5 Abortion

Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.

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Cathy: The Libertarian Party takes a dive with their disingenuous attempt to leave abortion up to the individual.  If life is an unalienable right, then you cannot leave the choice up to the individual.  We do not leave it up to the individual to decide whether to murder someone, so why should we suddenly pretend that this is different?  The only difference is the size of the citizen.

Michael: They definitely punt on this question, and not in the least because “people can hold good-faith views on all sides.”

I believe that the Founders placed “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” in that order intentionally. It is difficult, if not impossible, to pursue happiness without liberty, but it is impossible to enjoy liberty without life. And this is why I believe a true libertarian would by necessity be pro-life. Rather than argue about the point of viability for the unborn, I presume that they enjoy the right to life upon conception and their right to life trumps the mother’s liberty, as expressed in the phony “right to privacy” the majority in Roe v. Wade made out of thin air.

I can agree that the federal government should be kept out of the abortion matter, because I believe it’s properly debated and adjudicated in the several states.

Finally, we get to the Republican Party, which has been traditionally the home of the pro-life movement.

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The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life  

Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Republican leadership has led the effort to prohibit the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion and permitted States to extend health care coverage to children before birth. We urge Congress to strengthen the Born Alive Infant Protection Act by enacting appropriate civil and criminal penalties on healthcare providers who fail to provide treatment and care to an infant who survives an abortion, including early induction delivery where the death of the infant is intended. We call for legislation to ban sex-selective abortions – gender discrimination in its most lethal form – and to protect from abortion unborn children who are capable of feeling pain; and we applaud U.S. House Republicans for leading the effort to protect the lives of pain-capable unborn children in the District of Columbia. We call for a ban on the use of body parts from aborted fetuses for research. We support and applaud adult stem cell research to develop lifesaving therapies, and we oppose the killing of embryos for their stem cells. We oppose federal funding of embryonic stem cell research.

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Cathy: The Republican Party plank is pretty good.  It covers a lot of areas that need to be protected.  However, it stops short of stating that from conception to natural death, life should be protected.  This includes children with Down’s syndrome, birth defects, and babies conceived by rape.  The baby should not be punished for the sins of the father.

Michael: It’s a very comprehensive platform. I think Cathy’s concern is covered somewhat by the opposition to “withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment…from people with disabilities.” But I especially like the mention of judges, who are vital in the effort to provide protection to the unborn – how many common-sense laws have been overturned by the unelected federal judiciary? Ask the state of Texas, which had a perfectly valid law regarding abortion clinics overturned by judicial fiat.

Yet with such a great platform one has to ask just how much the nominee believes in it, given his statements on Planned Parenthood and relatively recent conversion to a pro-life stance. I understand people can honestly change, but the proof is in the pudding and this nominee sometimes has difficulty keeping a story straight.

Cathy: If you are a person that believes that abortion is wrong, then the party platforms reduce the viable candidates immediately.  If you further look at which party has a chance of winning, then there is only one party that works for the pro-life individual.

Voters that are concerned with “social issues” are frequently reprimanded for being single issue voters or for holding the party back from success.  I hear those arguments, but they don’t hold much water if you are not allowed to ever draw your first breath.  The pro-life position is so basic that it leaves no room to discuss other policies.  Once we have determined that our future citizens have the right to safety in their mother’s womb, then we can talk about the other issues.

The Republican Party does many things that I do not always agree with, but they have still managed to hang onto their pro-life plank.  I also understand that not every candidate will fully support every plank, but from my survey of the candidates listed on the Maryland ballot, they all claim to stand on abortion where their parties’ plank would put them.

Consider this as you choose which candidate will receive your vote.

On modern-day tyranny

By Cathy Keim

In the last few years, I have frequently pondered what it must have felt like to live in the 1930s. As much as people might have tried to ignore what was happening around them, the signs were there that a major upheaval was coming with shifts of power and subsequent grabs for land, resources, and control. As a baby boomer, I grew up with the USA being at its zenith of power. There were uneasy episodes along the way such as the Vietnam War protests, the hippie drug culture, the gas lines in 1973, and the Nixon Watergate scandal, but we were a superpower and no one thought otherwise.

However, the world seems a much less certain place today. As in the 1930s, one can see signs of global shifts of power. Which miscalculation by a diplomat or a politician will be the event that triggers an avalanche from which there is no turning back?

The totalitarian impulses which propelled the world into World War Two are showing up all around us. The difference between authoritarian control and totalitarian control are immense. A banana republic is authoritarian where the generalissimo forces people to do his will, but he does not control their thoughts. A Hitler or a Stalin demands that not only you conform to his will, but that you agree with him also. Obedience is not enough: you must like doing what you are told to do.

The progressive movement in the USA has reached this point of totalitarian control. We must conform to their demands not only outwardly, but we must inwardly accept their premises. Those of us that refuse are reviled as homophobes, bigots, racists, misogynists, haters, Islamophobes, etc. The progressives believe that they are pure of heart. They really do want what is best for us, so it is their duty to force us to do their will. Since they are pure of heart, they cannot do anything that is bad. Even if things turn out poorly, their pure motives mean they never have to say they are sorry.

In addition, you must remember that the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution. The run of the mill progressives may really be pure of heart useful idiots, but the powerbrokers understand that everything is about power.

It is only when you put the events of the day in this rubric that you are able to make sense of the insane situations that you regularly confront in daily news. Occasionally you may have to pinch yourself to remember that you still live in America.

The Washington Times states: The Portland Public Schools board unanimously approved a resolution this week that bans textbooks and other teaching materials that deny climate change exists or cast doubt on whether humans are to blame.

If a mom or dad questions a book that they feel is inappropriate for their child to read in a school library, they are ridiculed for wanting to ban books, but here we have a school board denying skeptics the right to question anthropogenic global warming. So much for encouraging critical thinking.

Of course, the precedent was already set when a group of 16 state Attorney Generals announced on March 29, 2016, “an unprecedented campaign to pursue companies that challenge the catastrophic climate change narrative, raising concerns over free speech and the use of state authority to punish political foes.”

Now if we deny climate change, we can be punished for not thinking correctly. Orwell wrote about thoughtcrime in a work of fiction, but this is getting scarily close to a totalitarian state and climate change is by no means the only issue which demands the correct viewpoint.

Child abuse is considered to be a bad thing, but now it is hard to know what is considered child abuse. If I expect a male child to use the boys’ bathroom and a female child to use the girls’ bathroom, then this qualifies as child abuse if the child in question thinks that he is a girl. If I try to help this child to understand his gender, then I am a horrible person. However, if I teach little children that their gender is fluid and that they can choose whether they are a girl or a boy, then I am a progressive, pure-of-heart caring person and all is well. The chaos and destruction that will come from this pure-of-heart nonsense is not their problem. The pure-of-heart are never called to account when things go awry.

The key factor in all of this is the turning of the world upside down and ridiculing those that resist. I realize more and more that every issue I address has me sounding like a hateful, bitter clinger to the old ways. This was pressed home to me vividly when I collected signatures to defeat gay marriage in Maryland. I was moved by Christian values that place the family at the center of society. As I talked to people, I watched the tide turn against marriage between one man and one woman because the progressives used the gambit that every person has the right to marry the one that they love. Why would I deny a man the right to marry the man that he loved?

Those of us that stand for the ultimate child protection that is a stable family with a mother and a father raising their children were washed away by the lie that “love” is more important. This is the same kind of upside down thinking that progressives promote when they say that it is better to abort a child than to have them enter the world unwanted. How is murder better? Who is to say that nobody wants the child, even if the mother does not?

When the world reaches the current state of affairs where there is no right to dissent from the progressive’s agenda, then it is time for people of courage and conviction to dig in and refuse to bow the knee to their self-proclaimed masters. The cognitive dissonance that surrounds us will overwhelm us and our children unless we clearly and bravely state the truth to ourselves, our families, and our communities.

Hope dies when the truth dies. People cannot live without hope. All tyrants everywhere seek to squelch the truth because then they can truly control those around them. As a free people it is our duty to speak out against the insanity that the progressives are pushing upon us. State the truth clearly and often. To do less is to acquiesce to tyranny.

The case for homeschooling

By Cathy Keim

In the long ago year of 1988, my husband and I made the decision to homeschool our children. I had previously made up my mind that I would teach my children to read figuring that if they could read, then they would be able to handle whatever came at them in school. Even in those faraway times, we had serious concerns about what and how things were being taught in the government schools. Our plan progressed to the point that we enrolled our first child into a small church school where the parents all participated in the school in various professional or volunteer positions. Since I had a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, I was given the sixth grade science class four days a week. This meant that my younger children had to go into the nursery manned by other volunteer parents.

I had taught our oldest child to read at age four, which I told the teachers when they were testing him for grade placement. They scoffed at me and said that he had just memorized the books from me reading them to him. They whisked him away to test him and came back to inform me with great wonder that he could read.

That should have tipped me off that trouble lay ahead as I was openly discounted from having any knowledge of my own child since I was just a parent. They wanted to push him ahead to the first grade class, but I didn’t want him to be with older children. They allowed him to enter kindergarten and I began teaching sixth grade science.

Within days, my sweet little son came home from school swaggering and bossing around his younger sisters. They were beneath him now that he was a big guy that went to school! I was astonished at the change. Next I found out that the kindergarten teacher was having my son read to the other children while she took care of other matters.

I was diligently preparing science lessons and science experiments to wow my sixth graders. Instead, I found that they had a pecking order firmly in place as to who was the smartest student and who was the dumbest student and they were not interested in learning for the joy of learning.

I was blown away that as early as sixth grade this very small class of students being taught by loving Christian teachers and parents was jaded and uninterested in learning for the sake of learning. I began to question why I was depositing my little ones in a nursery while I taught uninterested students and my own son was getting an inflated ego, but not learning much.

That was the end of our schooling experience. We became homeschoolers and never looked back. For many years, I did not encourage parents to homeschool. I figured it was a personal choice and I knew how much time and effort it took, so I didn’t push it on people. If anyone asked, I would wax lyrical on the many benefits of homeschooling. The benefits were many and well worth the hard work that I put into the homeschooling, but I didn’t push people to join me.

Times have changed though. If my husband and I thought the schools were bad in 1988, we had no idea what was coming down the pike. Now, whenever anybody asks, I am quick to tell them that homeschooling is the best choice. If they cannot homeschool, then their next option is a private Christian school. I would not send my child to a government school, not for the magnet program, the sports team, or the IB program. The indoctrination, the mediocrity, and the violence make it impossible for me to advise anybody to go to a government school.

My husband and I wanted our children to love to learn and to know how to find the information they needed to learn whatever they needed to learn. In the lower grades I taught to completion (that was how I described it). It meant that they didn’t move ahead until they were rock solid on the foundational knowledge. It is hard to do algebra if you don’t know your basic math facts. You can’t write well if you don’t know grammar.

I could write on and on about this, but I don’t have to since my friend, Sam Sorbo, just wrote They’re Your Kids: My Journey from Self-Doubter to Home School Advocate. With her usual incisive wit and to the point plain speaking she makes the case for homeschooling. I have written a few pieces on the ills of Common Core, but Sam puts the information at your fingertips in a quick-to-read, but devastating review of our government schools. Then she picks you up and puts your feet on the path to success as she encourages you to join her and her family on the daily adventure that is homeschooling.

I laughed out loud when she told about her son becoming the swaggering big man after a short time at school. I had witnessed the same unhappy transformation in my own son back in 1988. Happily, I can join Sam in telling you that your children can come home and shed these unwanted changes.

Sam explains how you can pick up your homeschool and travel for work or vacations without missing a beat. We found this particularly helpful since my husband would have conferences in wonderful locations like Boston, San Francisco, or Sanibel Island. We would study up on what museums, zoos, aquariums, historical sites, or geological wonders were going to be available at the conference location.

Each family will have their own unique homeschool style based on their interests and their needs. Parents, you will know your children and the bonds will be deeper between your children since they will not be separated from you and from each other for most of their waking hours. When you identify a problem area for your children, you will deal with it because they are with you and it must be done. Too many parents send their children off to let the teacher fix the problem.

This book is like hearing myself talk as Sam hits one point after another that I dealt with as a homeschooling mom. She addresses the insecurity that I believe all homeschooling moms feel from time to time (or let’s be honest: daily!). When you ship your children out each day, you can blame the school or the teacher or their peers when things go wrong. When you are the teacher, you feel that it all is on your head. The truth of the matter is that as parents we are responsible for our children’s education, so whether you homeschool or get somebody else to educate your child, you as the parent are still where the buck stops.

As Sam puts it: “Let’s not fool ourselves: homework is home school, just with more pressure, later in the day, when everyone’s tired, hungry, and grouchy.” So why not skip outsourcing the most important job you can ever have and bring it home. Read Sam’s book and if you have questions, just drop me a comment. You can start your own family’s adventure.

Here is a clip of Sam’s interview on Fox and Friends about her book.

Musings on yesterday’s National Day of Prayer

By Cathy Keim

Yesterday morning I attended the 6th Annual National Day of Prayer Breakfast at the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center. The Midway Room was packed with about 500 guests, and the event was the usual mix of local dignitaries, pastors, and citizens. There was the Presentation of Colors by the Color Guard of the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office and the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance led by Sheriff Mike Lewis. The Salisbury Christian School Concert Band provided breakfast music and an assortment of local leaders led the invocation, prayers, Bible readings, and singing.

All in all, it was a pretty standard ecumenical religious event. However, I know that I felt a difference. Instead of taking it for granted that we were meeting with the general approval of the majority of the citizens in our county, I wondered how many of our fellow citizens would view the event with derision or suspicion? In fact, a fellow guest shared that he had heard some folks poking fun at the gathering.

It is not just my imagination that the public’s attitude towards Christians has shifted from acceptance to suspicion. Where politicians would once attend church (at least for public view), now there is no need for that.

I was speaking to a young man about a character reference for a job just last week. In the past, his pastor would have been petitioned for a letter, but now that might not be who you want to write your reference.

The guest speaker at the prayer breakfast was Randy Singer, a lawyer and pastor, from Virginia Beach. He addressed the change in our nation by comparing us to Rome in the time of Nero and the Apostle Paul’s imprisonment. Even those of us with public school educations know that Nero was one of the very worst Roman emperors. From that unflattering comparison, Mr. Singer assured us that while our country is in distress, we are not without hope.

People can endure much, but when hope is lost, people languish. Mr. Singer pointed to the lengthy difficulties under which Paul had suffered for years and yet this is what Paul wrote from prison in Philippians 1:3-8 (NIV):

I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart and, whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God’s grace with me. God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus.

Christians in America, we are to have hope that whether we are in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, we all share in God’s grace with the Apostle Paul. I do not know how many more public meetings of Christians will be endorsed by our elected leaders. The need for Christians to stand firm on multiple principles such as marriage, gender, pro-life, assisted suicide, and freedom of speech, just to name a few, will be put to the test if you have escaped thus far.

Just stating the Biblical truth that marriage is between a man and a woman can jeopardize your employment. Countless companies and organizations are coercing employees to submit to seminars to prevent “discrimination.” If somebody objects, then they are forced to take more courses or be fired. We can lament the change in our country and feel discouraged, or we can emulate the Apostle Paul and look to our Lord Jesus Christ with hope that we are living exactly in the time that God intended and that He will see us through the murky path ahead.

Yes, America has changed and many of us would say not for the better, but we are to share the hope that is within us, not to obsess on the decline of the nation that we love.

Where once the civil religion and Christianity were viewed as the almost the same thing, now Christianity is portrayed as repressive, old-fashioned, boring, or worse. The materialists, atheists, and progressives do not need to wrap themselves in a civil religion to gain acceptance. We are in a new time and place in our country or so the materialists, atheists, and progressives would say.

However, God gave this promise to King Solomon in ancient Israel because He knows that proud men will overreach and when they do this is what must be done:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

II Chronicles 7:14

Christians, continue to pray, work, and engage in your community, not with fear or a sense of loss for what was, but with the hope of our Lord Jesus Christ that we are living right where we are meant to be.

The culture of death strikes again

By Cathy Keim

As Michael has mentioned already, #ProtestPP is having another nationwide protest on April 23, 2016, to keep attention on Planned Parenthood’s disgusting practice of harvesting baby parts from the babies aborted in their facilities. The protests are also to bring attention to the indictment of the undercover citizen journalist that made the videos exposing PP, David Daleiden, by the Harris County, Texas, District Attorney Devon Anderson. I covered that miscarriage of justice here.

Now there is even more reason to protest because David Daleiden’s home in California was raided on the orders of California Attorney General Kamala Harris.

On Tuesday, in what appears to be a politically motivated move, officials from Harris’s office raided the home of David Daleiden, the undercover investigator who exposed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking of aborted babies’ body parts. These officials took personal property from Daleiden – including camera equipment and copies of unreleased Planned Parenthood videos.

As was the case with Harris County DA Devon Anderson, it turns out the AG Kamala Harris has received campaign contributions from pro-abortion entities. Kamala Harris is currently running for the US Senate.

Also according to LifeNews, California Planned Parenthood organizations and their board members have contributed $81,000 to Harris’s election campaigns, both for Attorney General and her current campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.

David Daleiden worked for three years to expose Planned Parenthood’s nationwide racket to profit from the babies that they murder in their facilities. His videos showed that not only was PP selling the baby parts for profit, but that they were illegally changing the abortion procedure to obtain more profitable parts to sell. Instead of prosecuting PP for their illegal activities and making efforts to protect the women being subjected to altered abortion processes, the DA and AG have gone after the man who exposed the illegal activity.

If David Daleiden had been a whistleblower exposing corruption in any other industry, he would be hailed as a hero. However, since he is a Christian seeking to protect unborn babies, the political regime in place is seeking to crush him. Every citizen should be appalled at the overreach and abuse of power exhibited by the government officials in their attack on free speech, freedom of the press and our guarantee of equal protection under the law.

Increasingly our government is acting as Leviathan to crush all resistance rather than acting according to the will of the people. None of us has the ability to resist the power that the government can exert by using our own taxpayer funded entities against us.

David Daleiden has been indicted, had his home raided, and his personal property confiscated. How long is it before his taxes are audited? I am sure that the IRS would love to bring a good dose of their terror to the mix.

Go here to find the #ProtestPP location nearest to you. (Editor’s note: By my count there are 200 to choose from, even in locations without PP offices.) Join us as we let our voices be heard while we still can.

This kind of abuse by government officials is to teach the rest of us a lesson and to scare us into conforming to their rules. If we silence ourselves because of fear, then the abusive officials will continue to overreach their authority.

I am not a huge Ayn Rand fan, but she did get this right:

We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.

Everyone of us breaks a myriad of government laws, regulations, or rules every day. The government has become so large that no one can possibly avoid doing something wrong. When you file your taxes you just hope that you or your accountant got everything correct. If you own a business, you are just one regulatory agency visit away from disaster.

You can be sure that if the decision is made to go after you because you annoyed a government official by being pro-life or Christian or pro-traditional marriage or maybe you spoke out on immigration, or opined that the safety of children requires that the transgender laws be blocked, then the government can make your life very difficult. In fact, that is the root of political correctness: fear of social shaming or worse for not conforming to the standard position on any of the many topics that the elites have deemed sacred.

This has reached the ridiculous point where Attorney General Loretta Lynch told the Senate Judiciary Committee in March, 2016 that “not only has she discussed internally the possibility of pursuing civil actions against so-called ‘climate change deniers,'” but she has “referred it to the FBI to consider whether or not it meets the criteria for which we could take action.”

Lynch is apparently following the lead of Harris and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, “both of whom have opened up investigations of ExxonMobil for allegedly lying to the public and their shareholders about climate change.”

Ah, the absurdity! But notice that California Attorney General Kamala Harris is in on this game. Harris is exhibiting a contempt for the citizen once again by using the power of the government to terrorize by way of investigating corporations for conducting their business.

Today, David Daleiden and Big Oil. Tomorrow it may be you!

Building mosques to establish dominion

By Cathy Keim

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Obama used to be best friends, but this week when Erdogan invited President Obama to join him in Lanham, Maryland, for the opening of the $100 million mosque that Turkey paid for, he was rebuffed.

In fact, this very week all Anerican military and diplomatic dependents were pulled out of Turkey in a mandatory evacuation.

The Pentagon is ordering nearly 700 military family members to leave Incirlik Air Base and two smaller military installations in Turkey because of concerns over the deteriorating security environment there.

(snip)

The dramatic move to get families out of Turkey comes several weeks after Americans at Incirlik were put on base lockdown, when the force-protection level was raised to the military’s highest threat condition.

The situation in Turkey has been tense for months, but our State Department didn’t want bring attention to it by pulling out the dependents so they just locked them down on base since last fall. Finally, after not allowing the children to attend the DOD school for two weeks because of concerns with having almost 300 children in one convenient location for an attack, the State Department did the right thing and pulled out all dependents.

This is the same Department of State that is responsible for Benghazi. While the dependents are now out of Turkey, our military personnel are still there. Flights take off from Incirlik Air Base, a Turkish base that has American, British, and Saudi forces stationed there, to attack different groups in Syria. The Americans attack certain factions and the Turks attack others. The only agreed-upon goal is to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The multiple jihadist groups that are fighting are difficult to follow and the end game for who gains control of Syria is uncertain.

While President al-Assad is undoubtedly a horrible person, responsible for much death and destruction, under his secular regime many minority groups such as Christians and Druze were able to live safely. Much like the other secular monsters that the USA has brought down including Saddam Hussein and Moammar Qadhafi, the so called Arab Spring that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported has resulted in the toppling of secular regimes only to be replaced by jihadist terror groups, mass slaughter, and anarchy.

President Obama’s biggest foreign policy “success” has been in destabilizing the Middle East through his support of the Arab Spring. The realignment that is occurring in the Middle East may be beyond the ability of the United States to have much influence at this point.

The current shifting of alliances between Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt will not change the hijra or mass exodus of Muslims from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Far East. In fact, immigration is a method of spreading Islam which dates back to Mohammad’s flight to Medina.

Saudi Arabia has been funding the building of mosques and schools for decades to ensure the dominance of their brand of Islam around the world. Turkey has entered the mosque building project worldwide to enhance their claim as the leader of Islam.

Why would Turkey pour $100 million into building a huge mosque and Turkish Cultural center close to DC? As Daniel Greenfield wrote at FrontPage Mag, it’s part of a nationwide trend:

Erdogan had made his agenda clear when he recited the Islamist poem proclaiming, “The minarets are our bayonets, the mosques are our barracks, the believers are our soldiers.”

The secular West is being swiftly Islamized. Vacant churches become mosques. The barracks of Islam fill with believers who batten on the hate and go out one day to behead a soldier or shoot up a recruiting office. Minarets hatefully thrust their bayonets at the sky warning of a larger war to come.

Our “leaders” have lost their confidence in our culture. President Obama denies at every opportunity that the United States is unique among nations for subscribing to founding beliefs that are based on inalienable rights from our Creator. Furthermore, “Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent… Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.'”

Mr. Obama may find the sound pretty, but having been in Turkey and hearing the prayers blasted out from mosques on loudspeakers, I find it to be the sound of an alien culture that demands to be heard. The use of loudspeakers to force the sound as far as possible is a way of claiming dominance over the area where the call to prayer is broadcast. The building of the mosque itself is a claiming of the land for Islam. It is like an embassy whose soil belongs to a foreign power, not to the country where it is located.

For centuries, Islam has converted churches to mosques or built mosques wherever they have conquered territory. Look at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem built on the Temple Mount or the Hagia Sophia, built by Justinian I, that was converted to a mosque after Constantinople was conquered.

As Greenfield pointed out, all over America and Europe churches are being converted to mosques as immigrants are pouring in and displacing the locals. Sadly, many of these churches became vacant because the westerners have lost their faith in God, leaving them ready to be colonized by a new people who are not plagued by cultural doubt.

We as a nation need to realize that we are being colonized.

Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director International Christian Zionist Center, gives a brief history to explain how Muslims see the world.

Islam has conveniently divided the whole world into two spheres: ‘Dar al-Harb’ and ‘Dar al-Islam.’ Dar al-Islam being the house or region of peace that means all lands and peoples already conquered by Islamic forces; and Dar al-Harb being those lands and people in the world that still need to be conquered by Islam which is therefore the whole remaining world.

In The Dhimmi Bat Ye’or writes (page 45):

The jihad is a global conception that divides the peoples of the world into two irreconcilable camps: that of the dar al-Harb, the “Territory of War,” which covers those regions controlled by the infidels; and the dar al-Islam, “the Territory of Islam,” the Muslim homeland where Islamic law reigns. The jihad is the normal and permanent state of war between the Muslims and the dar al-Harb, a war that can only end with the final domination over unbelievers and the absolute supremacy of Islam throughout the world.

Once the forces of Islam conquer a land or territory, it is to remain under Islamic dominion forever (‘for generations’), and it is a mortal affront to the supremacy of Islam when such territories would ever be lost to the dominion of Islam and revert to previous – infidel – ownership as was the case in Palestine.

Our muddled Middle East policy has helped cause the immigration tsunami that is overwhelming the West. Whether Muslims arrive by refugee status or other visas, we must face the fact that we are being colonized. The president of Turkey came to Maryland to celebrate the opening of a mosque that his country funded. He would not have paid out such an enormous amount of money unless he was getting something for it. That something is that he is claiming dominion over the land that the mosque is built on is as a beachhead for Islam.

We need for our “leaders” to wake up and stop these immigration policies. Unfortunately, unless we can find some leaders that understand the problem and are willing to say that our culture is superior to Islam, then we will only get more of the same pusillanimous pandering that we have seen for decades.

Islam: A totalitarian ideology spreading destruction globally

By Cathy Keim

Enough about Islam being a religion of peace. Islam means submission, not peace. Islam is a totalitarian ideology that demands that all people be brought into submission to Sharia, the immutable law handed down from Allah to Mohammed. Mohammed is the perfect man and all Muslims look to him as their example in every area of their lives.

Our Western elites pretend that they understand Islam better than the adherents to Islam. They lecture us on how this religion of peace is not the reason for the terror attacks even as the jihadists scream “Allahu Akbar,” which translates to “Allah is Greater.”

At this very moment, while survivors of the jihadist terror bombings in Belgium are still screaming in their pain and the families of the dead are crying in their sorrow, our brilliant elites continue to castigate anyone who says stop the influx of Muslims into this country as bigots and stupid.

We are bringing in our own destruction. Every country that has tried to coexist with Islam has eventually become an Islamic country or has fought a bloody war to cast them out. It may take years and generations, but countries like Turkey that were Christian eventually became Muslim and stamped out the last few Christians with episodes like the Armenian genocide. Spain fought for 770 years to oust the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula.

Instead of listening to our elites, it is time for them to listen to Americans who are concerned that our country, founded on our Judeo-Christian heritage, is being sabotaged from within by the increasing number of Muslims being brought in as refugees, students, family reunification schemes, lottery visas, and simply overstaying their tourist visas.

The FBI is overwhelmed with the need to monitor so many people that are legally in our country. They know that ISIS is working to radicalize Muslims that are already here, as well as slipping jihadists in amongst the refugees.

Here is a simple plan: stop bringing in Muslims. Since we cannot know which ones are of a jihadist persuasion or will become radicalized, then just don’t bring any Muslims into the country.

This is not as “radical” a concept as it might sound at first. As stated previously, Muslims are expected to support sharia. Sharia is incompatible with our Constitution. Sharia does not allow for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equality of women, equality of people that are not Muslims, and on and on. We should not be bringing into our country people who cannot assimilate because their core beliefs are antithetical to our core beliefs.

Sadly, our elites are convinced that our core beliefs do not matter and are not worth defending anymore. If you try to defend the Constitution, then you are mocked as stupid, racist, and the worst insult of all: a patriotic jingoist.

However, we can go back to World War II to see that our country knew how to face down a totalitarian ideology not that long ago. The Nazis were a supremacist ideology that taught that the Aryan race was superior and all others were inferior. The USA had no problem identifying this horrific ideology as worth defeating completely. Nazism was named and defeated.

Then came the Cold War against communism. Once again, the USA named communism as the evil that it is and fought to contain it and eventually we saw the Berlin Wall come down.

Communism was not as thoroughly defeated as Nazism was, though, so the communist threat lives on in countries like China and Cuba and continues to spread its false promises in Central and South America.

Indeed, we have the Democratic Party presidential nomination contest being fought between Bernie Sanders, an avowed socialist who honeymooned in the USSR, and Hillary Clinton, a radical progressive. When you study their positions, you cannot find a hair breadth’s difference between them and communist ideology.

It would seem that the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has become the Land of the Entitled and the Home of the Blind.

The Progressives (Communists) have a long history of deception and using other groups to achieve their means. At the moment, it seems that the Progressives have joined hands with the Muslims to weaken America from within. Hillary Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, has worked for Islamic organizations that promote Islamic ideology. Her parents moved to Saudi Arabia when she was a child. Her father is deceased, but her mother still teaches at an Islamic Women’s College in Saudi Arabia and her brother is in Islamic leadership in London.

If we elect Hillary Clinton as our president, we will be installing Huma Abedin at the right hand of power, just as she was while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.

The rioters that are currently disrupting Donald Trump’s political rallies consist of anarchists, Black Lives Matter, Islamic groups that are supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, La Raza, and other disaffected troublemakers.

We have imported the seeds of our own destruction in the form of La Raza which means the Race. The more militant of the Hispanic activists use the motto: “For the race, everything, outside the race, nothing.” Unite that toxic brew with Black Lives Matter and now add in the Islamic groups that are joining ranks and you have a completely anti-American mix of racial supremacy and grievances boiling over. Never mind that their ideologies would have them at each other’s throats if they ever came to power. For now, like all good Communist pawns, they will work together to disrupt and fray the American fabric even more.

Sadly, they cannot see that the uniting principles of the American experiment were to bring all people together through the God given rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Any person embracing the American principles can assimilate and become an American, but people that refuse to embrace these principles and who seek to destroy them and replace them with totalitarian ideologies have no place in this country.

At this time, we need to stand for our principles and defend our country by placing a moratorium on immigration. Let us work together to assimilate the millions of immigrants that we have accepted in the last fifty years. Let us embrace our national heritage and work to ease the mounting tensions fed by the race baiting tactics and economic disruptions foisted upon us by our “leaders” who use these lies to manipulate us while they stay in power.

It will take time and effort to wrench back our institutions from the elites who despise us and our American principles. The first step is to be willing to state the facts instead of being shut down by the fear of being called a racist, bigoted jingoist.

Start reading history and learn your facts. Do not be cowed by the media and the elites. Closing our borders to assimilate our current immigrants is perfectly legal and constitutional. Continuing to overwhelm our society with indiscriminate immigration, both legal and illegal, is what is anti-American.