The uprising

Saturday could be an interesting day in Salisbury.

I’m sure you know I am writing a book on the TEA Party (more on that in a bit) so one restore point I like to return to in my political memory was the first Tax Day TEA Party we had out in front of the Government Office Building. On a rainy Wednesday afternoon there were probably 400 to 500 people in attendance. Three months later we celebrated Independence Day with a gathering of perhaps 200 to 300. (Sadly, I wrote great pieces on both events but the demise of my photo repository means the photos are dead links. Someday I will rectify that – but I have to find the photos on my old external hard drive, which I also have to find! *sigh*)

Anyway, Saturday could be the flip side of the TEA Party since there’s a completely different protest planned, called the “No Ban No Wall No Registry” Salisbury rally. And unlike the TEA Party of yore, this one will have a counter-protest called the “Resist the Resistance” rally. I’m guessing that the opposition to Trump will have the larger numbers, if only because they’ve secured a little bit of publicity for their event and it’s something that indeed unites certain segments of the community.

Yet I have to question their sincerity, since they haven’t batted an eyelash when the last six presidents have put up a similar ban of some type against particular countries, not to mention the recent change in policy toward Cuban refugees. (However, I may give them the benefit of the doubt if they chastise Trump’s predecessor for that change.) I also have to question their reasoning as to why we should not secure our borders, which is our right as a sovereign nation. Once upon a time we were more secure in the fact that two oceans and inhospitable terrain shielded us from the world, but no more. By the same token, is it not our right to know who is visiting the nation and for what purpose? If only they were against a registry for firearm owners, we may be on to something.

While I agree that Donald Trump is a lowering of the standard one should expect from the President, so was Hillary Clinton. (Thus, I voted for the Constitution Party nominee.) I can’t promise anything because I also have a family commitment that day, but if I have the chance I may wander down there to see what’s going on and maybe play reporter once again. Lord knows I haven’t been much of a blogger lately because I’ve spent a lot of time working on The Rise and Fall of the TEA Party.

So it’s on that front I’m going to make my final point of the night. I had envisioned the book being done by this fall, but recently I have had a different opportunity placed before me that I think is worth pursuing for some other personal and professional goals I have. At this time, it will take a significant portion of my already limited free time so in order to give this a fair shake I think a more realistic timetable for the book is now the first half of 2018. I’m going to put it on pause for a few months, with the hope that this opportunity may morph into something else that would give me the time back.

One other benefit: it can give me a chance to see how this resistance movement pans out and how it compares to the grassroots TEA Party. So there is that, and Saturday will be the first chapter of that story.

A discussion on immigration

By Cathy Keim 

The topic of immigration is huge because we have so many areas to cover. Just for starters, there is legal immigration, asylum seekers and refugees, temporary visa holders for work or education, and illegal immigration. Then we could go deeper into family reunification policies, green cards, health issues, and security issues. Despite reading on the topic for years, I am not an expert, but I have formed some opinions and probably you the reader have too.

First and foremost, it is okay to discuss this issue despite the elites, the media, the politicians, and the academics trying to make it taboo. If you raise any concern, no matter how small, about immigration you are instantly labeled xenophobic, Islamophobic, and all the other usual epithets like racist, bigot, and hater.

It is the government’s job to protect its citizens. One of the ways to protect the citizens is to control who comes in and out of the country. For the open borders types, I would ask them if they lock their doors on their houses? I can remember when most of us didn’t bother to lock our doors, but that was a long time ago when I was a child. Today, most people lock the doors to their home whether they are home or away because they want to control access to their possessions and more importantly to themselves.

In most of our nation, a simple lock is sufficient, although security systems are popular if you go by the signs posted discreetly in front yards. In the Middle East, South America, and Mexico homes of the upper class are more like forts with walls, iron bars on the windows and even armed guards for protection. May we never reach the point where each of us must build a fortress to feel safe.

However, that day may come if our government continues to fail in its duty to secure our borders and control who comes into our country. So now is the time to have the discussion about immigration and to speak our minds freely without regard to the “pure of heart” liberals that try to impose their “religion” of tolerance upon us.

Christianity is hated by the liberals and yet they whip it out of the bag to beat us over the head with how we should be kind and loving to the refugees. They are hypocritically calling upon us to obey their interpretation of Christianity which just happens to mean open the gates and let everybody in.

Christians are called to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, but that is an admonition to individuals, not for government policy making. The liberals purposely blur the lines between the government’s duty to protect its citizens and the Christian obligation to be kind.

The Bible is clear that it is the duty of the Christian to take care of their own family, then to reach out to others. One way of taking care your family is to be sure that they are fed, housed, and safe. Even the liberals would call in child protective services if you left your child (or dog) in an unsafe environment, yet they want to turn the entire country into an unsafe environment by bringing in refugees that cannot be vetted due to the turmoil in their home countries.

There are an estimated 60 million refugees around the world. Exactly how many of those refugees do the open borders people want to bring to America? What are the principles that they use to select who should come? Why do they tell themselves that they are “pure of heart” for wanting to save the refugees, when they do it with money that is confiscated from taxpayers by force?

We the taxpayers are xenophobic, etc. etc. ad nauseum, if we do not cheerfully pay our taxes and watch them be used to bring in people that do not want to assimilate and live by our laws and customs. Why are the feminists that were so nasty at the Women’s March not protesting against Sharia law which says that women are not equal to men, that honor killings are fine, and the female genital mutilation is great? Why, as a Christian, should I stand aside so that these great evils can be brought into our culture on equal footing with our Judeo-Christian Western values?

All cultures are not equal. All religions are not equal. This must be acknowledged before we can have a reasonable discussion of how our nation should proceed. I absolutely want my elected representatives to have the backbone to state clearly that America is founded on Judeo-Christian principles and we want to continue to function under them. That implies that we should not import people en masse who do not believe in our country’s laws and customs and have no intention of assimilating.

Because we are a good and kind nation, we can most certainly send aid to war torn countries including doctors, nurses, teachers, and missionaries that volunteer to go. We have done exactly that throughout our history. At present, we are being hectored by the nine non-governmental agencies that bring in refugees to continue and even increase the number. If you will look at Ann Corcoran’s Refugee Resettlement Watch blog, you will see that Ann has documented over and over again that these NGO’s are almost completely funded by the American taxpayer and therefore, they cannot share the gospel of Jesus Christ with any of the refugees they help.

One of the arguments being foisted upon Christians by the left is that because we are bringing Muslims to America in great numbers, we can more easily preach the gospel to them, except that the supposed Christian organizations bringing them cannot speak the name of Christ due to the government funding. Besides, where does it say in the Bible that preaching the gospel should be convenient?

John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, spoke about Islam almost two hundred years ago. If we were more aware of history we would realize that this assault by jihadists upon Western culture is nothing new.  His observations are still worth heeding.

The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God. The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute; the victorious may be appeased by a false and delusive promise of peace; and the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective. The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force.

I will acknowledge that many Muslims do not want to be constantly warring with their neighbors, but that doesn’t change the truth that this is baked into their belief system.

I will close with an illustration from an incident I read about in Tampa, Florida years ago. You may remember Sami Al Arian, who was finally deported to Turkey for helping fund terrorists. Before he became a well known name for his terrorist activities, he came to Florida to teach at the University of South Florida. He and his fellow jihadists went to a nice little neighborhood mosque and beat up the faithful and took over the mosque. The Muslims who had started the mosque were forcibly removed from leadership and the mosque became the al Qassam Mosque as it is still named. Al Qassam was a Palestinian terrorist, an apt name for a mosque that was taken by terror from its rightful owners.

This article in the St. Petersburg Times states:

In May 1987, more than a dozen people stormed a Ramadan service at the mosque that would later become a spiritual and political base for Sami Al-Arian, accused of being the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

The dissidents tried to drive out the worshipers, according to a Hillsborough County sheriff’s report. A woman identified as Hala Al-Najjar swung a large purse, knocking over a pregnant woman who later miscarried.

At the time, this newspaper called it a “scuffle between two Moslem sects.” In hindsight, the “scuffle” was one in a dramatic series of struggles at mosques throughout the country between fundamentalist and moderate Muslims.

(snip)

It is unclear whether Al-Arian would call himself a Wahhabist, but in taking over the Tampa mosque, his disciples appeared to follow the Wahhabi script. They drove out moderates, handed title of the mosque to the Islamic trust, and received secret funding linked to Saudi Arabia, documents show.

My point in relating this incident from almost 30 years ago is that when push comes to shove, it is the violent sect of Islam that rules. The bully rules the schoolyard. Thus by importing Muslims en masse into our country, no matter how peaceful the first ones are, we are opening our doors to increasing strife.

In fact, Nonie Darwish, the director of Former Muslims United, says:

Muslims need to know that the world does indeed have a justifiable and legitimate concern about Islam and actions done in the name of Islam by Muslims. Muslims need to look at themselves in the mirror and see the world from the point of view of their victims. Instead, the West is sacrificing its culture, values, laws, pride and even self-respect. Muslim culture needs a wake-up call telling them that, sooner or later, non-Muslim nations will close their doors to any kind of Muslim immigration if the jihad culture continues. That will also be a strong message to Muslims already in the West who still believe in jihad.

Unfortunately, Islam does not lend itself to a reformation.  To the jihadists, Islam still exists as John Quincy Adams described it:

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE. (capitals in the original.)

The immigration debate needs to be held publicly and it looks like the Trump administration is going to do so. Each citizen needs to be informed and contact their leadership from the president down to local officials as to what they think the correct policy should be.

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.

What is The Donald’s attraction?

By Cathy Keim

Editor’s note: Since I had my say on Trump yesterday Cathy decided to follow up.

I think that a lot of people are missing a primary reason many voters are flocking to Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign. They’re concerned about immigration, but not just illegal immigration as in Mexicans and Central Americans flooding our southern border. They also seek answers on legal immigration.

Our country has been bringing in immigrants legally in huge numbers from primarily Muslim countries for years. There are 57 Muslim states in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), but every time there is a clash and Muslims “need” to be resettled, they are directed not to another OIC country where they could be expected to fit in more easily, but to the West, and by the largest numbers to America.

I have written on the Refugee Resettlement program and its problems, highlighted most recently by the Syrian refugee issues, but that is only one of the vast array of immigration vehicles that our government has been using to flood our country with Muslim immigrants. There are student visas, work visas, tourist visas and the lottery system.

The USA does not have an exit visa tracking system. Once the immigrants arrive, even if it is supposedly only for a ninety-day tourist visit or as a student, no one ever checks to see if they leave!

According to this Breitbart summary of a report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS):

Overall, the report notes, immigrants made up 13.3 percent of the population in the U.S. in 2014, the highest percentage in more than a century. CIS compared that level to immigrants’ 6.2 percent share of the population in 1980. The Census Bureau projects that the immigrant share of the population will reach its highest level in history in 2023, at 14.8 percent and continue to increase through 2060 if current admissions levels continue.

(snip)

As of 2010, the countries of origin with the highest percentage increase in the number of immigrants in the U.S. were Saudi Arabia, which saw an increase of 93 percent. Bangladeshi immigrants increased 37 percent, Iraqi increased 36 percent, Egypt was up 25 percent and Pakistan, India, and Ethiopia all increased by 24 percent.

The immigrant population is over 42.4 million people out of about 322 million Americans according to best estimates. People are seeing this in their local communities and their schools. Americans are not xenophobic or racists, but they are concerned about the changing landscape around them. The social costs of bringing in so many people so rapidly are staggering.

Many of these immigrants are from Third World countries and are not equipped to function in a modern society. The stress that this causes for the immigrant families and for the community where they live is enormous. Instead of honestly looking at the problems associated with the rapid rate of immigration without time or effort to assimilate them, the elites just label anyone who questions the influx as racist.

Further, most of the immigrants are from countries that have big government and would be heavily inclined to vote for more of the same. This fact makes them an attractive demographic for the Democrats who are building their bloc of “safe” votes while preening publicly as the “nice people” who are concerned for the downtrodden.

The Republicans are no less guilty in keeping the numbers up as they bring in cheap labor, but they are less insightful as they are undermining their own voting base. They are not called the Stupid Party for nothing.

So where does Donald Trump come in?

For all his shrill rhetoric, I have no idea whether Donald Trump will actually do anything about legal or illegal immigration because I have no confidence that anybody can be sure what he will do if elected. He is not running on principles, but on his fame as a celebrity. However, he is the only candidate to bring up the immigration issue initially. If he had not done so, then it would not have been the topic of discussion that it has been.

Trump has addressed directly the problem of Muslim immigration:

“Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what the hell is going on,” he said, adding the word “hell” for emphasis this time.

I believe that this is the primary reason that many of his supporters are going to stick with him no matter how many reckless or crude statements he makes. If you understand the concept of civilizational jihad by hijra, then you just may decide the Donald is worth taking a risk on since he is the only one that is willing to touch the problem.

Monica Crowley writes:

Hijra is a core part of jihad going back to the Prophet Muhammad that involves Islamic conquest through migration. The objective is to overwhelm non-Muslim territories with Muslim populations until they achieve domination through sheer numbers. No weapons necessary — until they gain enough control.

She continues regarding the flood of people arriving in Europe:

Let’s be clear: Some of them may be fleeing war and persecution, but most are not. In fact, only about 10 percent of the new arrivals are from Syria; the other 90 percent are from elsewhere in the Middle East, North Africa and countries like Pakistan and Indonesia who are using the European Union’s open doors-open borders policy to reach the West for social welfare and the longer-term goal of spreading Islam.

The USA has been bringing in floods of people from Muslim countries with no thought to the practice of hijra. Instead of restricting Muslim immigration after 9/11, we have opened the floodgates.

Many thoughtful people see this as cultural suicide and they are willing to risk the Donald to stop this from happening. I acknowledge that this is not the only reason people are supporting Trump, but it is the reason why some exceedingly thoughtful, intelligent people are choosing him.

Next time you speak to a politician about immigration do not let them get away with the meme: Illegal immigration bad/legal immigration good. This is a cheap and easy way to dodge the difficult issues that face our country. Our leaders need to get serious about the problems that are before us and are growing larger with each new immigrant that arrives, whether Muslim or not. If they are not coming here because they want to share in the ideas that made us Americans, then perhaps they should not come.

If immigrants want to come for civilizational jihad or for our generous welfare benefits, then why should we allow that? America is a great country because of the ideas that it was founded upon: Liberty and freedom as God-given rights. We cannot continue to be America if we do not embrace these principles. A desire for big government benefits or for sharia law are not consistent with our Constitution.

Alas, that is why we are in trouble, not just with a potential Trump presidency, but also because half of our population is considering a full-blown socialist candidate in Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton due to their desire for big government.

But that will have to be dealt with in another post.

Immigration: “The issue is never the issue.”

By Cathy Keim

Editor’s note: Once again, Cathy is combining her series on immigration with more coverage of the Turning the Tides conference earlier this month.

James (Jim) Simpson, an investigative journalist, followed Clare Lopez’s talk with equally distressing information. He has a short book called The Red-Green Axis Refugees, Immigration and the Agenda to Erase America, which is available online for free.

Simpson began with the statement, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” The issue only matters as a means to advance the Left’s true agenda. This hit me as particularly eye-opening for those who could not connect the dots between the continual, never-ending string of social ills which we have been forced to endure for the last fifty years. The attack on the family through no-fault divorce, the sexual revolution, women’s lib, and abortion has morphed into the gay issue and then transgender concerns. Never satisfied with the concessions wrung from an exhausted public, the issues just keep on coming, ever weakening and degrading our culture.

Now the issue is immigration. Adhering to the quote, it is easy to see that the elites are not pushing through immigration because they care about the people. They care about how immigrants further the elites’ quest for power and wealth.

Jim listed six ways that refugee resettlement and immigration undermine us.

  1.  Dilutes American culture
  2. Undermines the rule of law
  3. Sucks up welfare resources
  4. Creates chaos: racial/ethnic tension, fiscal stress, unemployment
  5. Cultivates loyal voters for leftist politicians seeking permanent majority
  6. Refugee Resettlement is a vehicle for Hijra

A new fact that I had not heard before was that the UN at the 1976 Conference on Human Settlements laid the groundwork for Agenda 21.

The universal goals were to abolish private property, seek “equitable” distribution of land, resources, and populations worldwide, and a foundation for open borders agenda.

Jim traced out the sanctuary movement from from its beginning when radical leftists were assisting Salvadorans fleeing civil war to the tragic death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco last year. In addition, Simpson researched and came up with the following crime statistics about aliens:

  • 22% of U.S. prison population in 2009 were aliens.
  • The annual incarceration costs were approximately $6 billion.
  • Between 2004 – 2008 249,000 aliens were convicted: 25,064 for murder, 69,929 for sex crimes, 14,788 for kidnapping, and 213,047 assaults.
  • In North Carolina in 2014: 752 illegals arrested on a total of 3,696 sex crime charges against children.

Jim pointed out that while attention is on the Syrian refugee issue right now, there are many other programs such as Temporary Protected Status, asylum seekers, parole, and visa waivers adding up to more than 100,000 Syrians here since 2012.

He then listed the Volunteer Agencies (VOLAGs) that are government contractors to bring in the refugees. He contends that radical leftists infiltrated the VOLAGS. They are not Christians despite their names, they are not religious, and they are not charitable, Simpson added.

I agree with Jim on this. The VOLAGs bring in refugees and deposit them in inner-city slums where they are left to shift for themselves. They often place warring groups next door to each other with no regard for safety. Added to the mix is the fact that the people that already live there are struggling for jobs without being undercut by cheap immigrant labor. Many times the refugees don’t even know how to use indoor plumbing, electricity, or a modern kitchen. The VOLAGs are paid by the head so they are only interested in bringing in as many people as they can, not in helping the ones already here to acclimate.

Jim listed some of the refugee problems that the communities that host them must address. Manchester, NH, has 82 languages. Amarillo, TX, has 911 calls in 36 languages. In Minnesota the Somali unemployment rate is 21%. In Texas, 25% of skin tests are positive for TB. Then add in gangs, drugs, and terrorism to this troubling mix.

The White House Task Force on New Americans pushes “Welcoming Communities and Fully Integrating Immigrants and Refugees” where the “welcoming” goal is to force Americans to accept mass immigration and the welcoming method is “Culture Shaping” where we “recognize the role everyone must play in furthering the integration of recent immigrants.”

(I wrote a piece on the White House Task Force on New Americans back in March.)

Jim Simpson ate lunch at my table, so I was able to question him further on some of his ideas. He pointed out that the communists have always used proxies to fight their wars when they could. He felt that the jihadists are the new proxies for the communists in the current situation, and made a compelling case for his theory.

It certainly explains why the leftists in our government are so eager to join sides with the Muslim Brotherhood and its numerous affiliates despite the rather glaring disparity between the progressives’ rhetoric and the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-feminist, anti-gay agenda. How can the feminists swallow their vociferous promotion for equal rights and not peep about the horrors of female genital mutilation, honor killings, women being treated as property by men, and as being less than equal in worth to a man? Or how can progressives not complain about gay rights in Muslim controlled areas?

We go back to the quote that Jim started with, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” The progressives believe that they will use the Islamists to destroy America and then they, the progressives, will be in charge.

I am not so sure that the Islamists agree with that conclusion, but it is undeniable that the progressives in our country are working hand in hand with the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR, and numerous other entities to undermine our country.

I will close with a quote from Frank Gaffney and remind you that you can read Jim’s book online. The final chapter is especially helpful in listing ideas of how to respond to this threat.

Center for Security Policy President, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. states:

Jim Simpson has done a characteristically exacting investigation of the extent to which the red-green axis – the radical left, with its activists, contractors, philanthropies and friends in the Obama administration, and Islamic supremacists – have joined forces to use U.S. refugee resettlement programs as a prime means to achieve the ‘fundamental transformation’ of America. His expose is particularly timely against the backdrop of the government sponsored effort to ‘Welcome New Americans’ and suppress those who understand the imperative of “resisting” the migration to and colonization of this country, or hijra, that Shariah-adherent Muslim believed they are required to undertake.

Transcending the political

First off, welcome to 2016. As a politically-minded blogger, even-numbered years in America always seem to draw more interest in my site so I hope it begins today.

But to begin 2016 I want to write about something which on its face would appear to be political but goes beyond party politics. It comes from the 9-12 Delaware Patriots, a conservative political group and one that has its interest in pushing Delaware in a different direction than its leadership tends to want to go – a recent example was their opposition to Syrian refugees entering the state.

However, a conservative movement is well-served in branching out beyond politics so I thought this part of their New Year’s message was appropriate in that regard:

Many of our members face challenges this year; health, financial, employment, etc.  We hope to build a network of support throughout this new year for our members to bring resources to bear.  One of the exciting things we’ll be doing is developing a directory of members who provide goods and/or services in the community.  We also will be setting up resources for people to receive donated items and to donate items to our members or the community at large.  If you are familiar with setting up and managing one of these “Needs & Seeds” programs, please contact Karen Gritton.

Perhaps the best places to learn more about their particular program are their social media page and website. This, though, brings up a larger point about the willingness of political groups to help out.

I have been involved to some degree or another with party politics for over two decades. Many people who are connected to a party – speaking from experience as a Republican, but assuming it’s not uncommon among Democrats, Libertarians, Greens, or anyone else – also spend a lot of time helping out in the community on an individual level. They may be Jaycees, volunteer and donate their time to lead the local Relay for Life, be a deacon in a local church – whatever the case, they aren’t creatures of the party. On the other hand, while individual members of a political party may be community leaders, the party itself by definition serves solely as a vehicle to get their favored or voter-selected candidates elected to public office.

So there are interest groups which try and straddle the line between politics and community. To use an example I’m familiar with, the Wicomico County Republican Club has a scholarship they give to a local high school senior. While there is competition to win it, the most basic requirement is that the recipient be a registered Republican – so it’s not inclusive of the entire community. (This is true of many other scholarships and awards as well, such as those only available to public school students.) In previous years, the WCRC also had a food stand at the old Salisbury Festival. But as a group their primary goal and interest is to elect Republicans.

On the other side of the coin are interest groups that aren’t necessarily political, but have a strong common interest and desire to do politically-based things. Foremost in my mind in that regard is the Free State Project, which is a movement to gather 20,000 liberty-minded people who promise to move to the state of New Hampshire, deemed to be the most advantageous pro-liberty state. (As of this writing, they are at 18,406. Once the 20,000 goal is reached, which could be this year, those who signed pledge to move to New Hampshire within five years. Almost 1,900 already have.) It’s likely that this group would be politically active upon arrival, but as it stands they are more of a community.

As the TEA Party movement evolves away from the label that was unfairly tarnished by half-truths and innuendo, it also needs to become more attuned to how it can be of assistance in a broader sense. I don’t think it’s unfair to consider the 9-12 Delaware Patriots a TEA Party group, but by rule they do not endorse candidates and it’s rare that anyone left-of-center would come be a speaker at their meetings. (Kudos to those who do.) What they seek in this call to action is sort of a mini-Free State Project in the regard that it would be encouraged for them to patronize the businesses members own and help each other out in times of need. To me, that echoes some of the functions of the religious community, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a disproportionate percentage of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots are church members compared to the population at-large.

At the heart of all this is the question of where we want to go as a nation. There are many in this society who would be perfectly happy to cede their decision-making to an all-powerful government in return for subsistence, almost to the point of needing assistance to wipe their behinds. Sadly, I suspect that number is growing because the Millennials and beyond aren’t being educated in the concept of American exceptionalism and the progress to which our laissez-faire capitalist system has led the world.

Yet there are still a fair number of us who desire the limited government we were taught the Constitution guaranteed to us. We may argue about whether or not certain functions are legitimate and proper, such as our role to combat radical Islam, but the overall idea is to be self-reliant and to try and obey the Golden Rule. Some argue that the 2016 election may be our last stand, and we don’t want Custer in charge of it. (Many portray Donald Trump as Custer, while others believe any politician with Washington ties will lead us straight to that ambush.) Regardless, they have been disappointed with the political trends ever since the TEA Party movement began in 2009 as the opposition to statism.

Over this year, the electoral process will play out and hopefully the side of liberty will prevail. In the meantime, though. the idea behind the 9-12 Delaware Patriots’ initiative will be worth following. Perhaps it can lead to a local resurgence in the TEA Party movement that faded away a couple years ago.

Resettlement concerns on Delmarva

After the 11/13 Paris massacre and San Bernardino Islamic terror attack, the concerns about the resettlement of Syrian refugees were understandable. After a few days to think about it, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan opted to cooperate as little as possible with the federal government’s attempts to bring in thousands of refugees, who are primarily male and of fighting age. Even so, the request by Hogan is non-binding and Montgomery County, home to about 1/6 of Maryland’s population, has put out its own welcome mat in the shadow of the nation’s capital.

Perhaps more worrisome for Delmarva residents concerned about the proximity of these barely-vetted Muslims in search of a peaceful locale to wage jihad (oops, did I say that?) is that Delaware Gov. Jack Markell has joined most of his Democratic counterparts in saying this army of refugees would be welcome. Sussex County is a possible destination, which leaves some in the First State unsettled.

On Thursday a coalition of groups will come together in front of Legislative Hall in Dover for a press briefing to express their opposition to Delaware’s putting out the welcome mat so quickly.

A Concerned Coalition of Delaware residents, representing thousands of concerned citizens is holding a press briefing in Dover at noon on Thursday, December 17, 2015. Alliance leaders will meet in front of Legislative Hall. The leadership of various groups will present their collective “Open Letter to Governor Markell” regarding his stated plans to resettle some undetermined number of Syrian refugees in the state of Delaware.

These groups are united in opposition to the Governor’s plan and will present their views to the media and the public. The alliance represents the concerns of their memberships totaling in excess of 10,000 Delaware families and individuals. All are welcome who wish to join in support of these shared concerns. Spokespersons will be in attendance from the various allied groups and will be available for comments.

The alliance is a coalition of the 9-12 Delaware Patriots, Faith and Freedom Coalition Delaware, the NAACP – Central Delaware, the Frederick Douglass Foundation – Sussex County, IOTC Delaware, Reverend Shaun Greener, (and) other individual citizen supporters.

This came to me from my friends at the 9-12 Delaware Patriots.

Obviously the concern is that a percentage of these refugees aren’t coming here to escape the pandemonium of Syria’s civil war but to assist in spreading the jihad of the Islamic State, which has its unofficial “capital” in the eastern Syrian city of Raqaa. With the continuing revelations of how the San Bernardino killers were able to plan their attack and the more recent news about mass cell phone purchases and propane tank thefts in rural Missouri, people are understandably on edge.

While Maryland may get refugees whether Governor Hogan likes it or not, the chances are they will settle in the Baltimore or Washington areas. Similarly, Delaware refugees would likely migrate to the Wilmington area but the rural character of southern Delaware and the Eastern Shore may have more appeal as training or staging grounds for mischief. We may be making something out of nothing, but a neighbor noticed the San Bernardino couple were getting a lot of packages and opted not to call authorities for fear of “profiling.”

People in this coalition may be profiling these prospective refugees, but the track record suggests its for good reason.

A modest proposal: pause all immigration into the USA while we sort things out

By Cathy Keim

Due to the Paris attacks a week ago Friday, immigration is a hot topic – especially the Refugee Resettlement Program which brings in about 65,000 refugees annually Now it is being primed to bring in 10,000 Syrians or more this year.

About 30 governors have requested that Syrian refugees not be admitted to their states. Speaker Paul Ryan is bringing a proposal to the House to stop admitting Syrian refugees. This sudden light shining on the Refugee Resettlement Program caused the Volunteer Agencies (VOLAGS) to have a conference call last week to tell the press how safe the program is.

I joined in on the call and heard some interesting information. The VOLAGS were condescending, insulting, and deceptive in their information but also attempted to tug at the heartstrings with sad stories and shame anyone who questioned bringing Syrians into the USA.

Keep in mind that the VOLAGS are paid by the head to bring the refugees in and to get them settled somewhere. Several of the VOLAGS have religious names such as Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, but they cannot share their faith because they are supported in the 90%+ range by federal tax dollars. So one has to ask why is a “religious” organization working as a government contractor when that explicitly rules out any ability to share their religious faith with the refugee? They might as well remove the deceptive “religious” title.

I missed the first few minutes of the call, but when I joined the reporters were being assured that many refugees have been resettled for many years and we have never had an incident so our record is good. In fact, the VOLAG representative stated that their refugees are vetted much more thoroughly than other visa holders such as students, tourists, and businessmen. Hold that thought, as we will come back to it.

Addressing the governors’ moves to refuse refugees, the representative stated that the refugees are legal residents so they can move wherever they want. The governors cannot stop them once they are in the country. Later she stated that refugees must always inform Homeland Security of their new address every time they move until they become citizens, but they can move wherever they wish. (Many do migrate a second time to be closer to family or other of their countrymen. Baltimore has had a difficult time retaining the refugees that they have brought in to repopulate the inner city.)

A reporter asked if the VOLAGS keep crime statistics on the refugees. The representative cheerfully replied, “No, but I can count on one hand the crimes committed by refugees and I have worked with them for years!” This is an astonishing claim since Ann Corcoran at Refugee Resettlement Watch frequently reports on crime issues among refugees.

The spokeswoman sneered at Texas and Alabama for saying they didn’t want any Syrian refugees. She said Texas had received 238 refugees in 3 years and Alabama had received 105 refugees last year, which had an insignificant impact in her words. She compared states denying access to state services with George Wallace refusing to integrate the University of Alabama.

The reps said that the poor attitude exhibited by these governors would have a negative impact on how the refugee community interfaces with the community. Here was the example given: In Minneapolis – St. Paul where they have a huge Somali population, they have had problems with refugees trying to travel abroad to fight. The FBI meets regularly with the community and has a good rapport with them, so the families contact the FBI to stop their young men when they try to leave to fight. If the governors keep acting in an unwelcoming way, this kind of trust with be disrupted!

Wow, that is a real success story. Young men that have been raised most or all of their lives in America want to go abroad to join the jihadists, but mom calls the FBI to keep them home. Why do I not find that comforting?

In a bid for sympathy that had a threatening edge to it, the rep told how these refugees have suffered greatly due to terror and war. It is wrong to deny them the ability to join family members in the states these governors represent. Prohibiting them from joining families that are already here working, paying taxes, and being good neighbors is wrong, but these are survivors won’t be stopped. They will join their families no matter what the governors said.

The final threat was that these refugees have been through so much and have had to wait for so long in refugee camps, that if the process is delayed anymore then they may just undertake the risky trek to Europe rather than wait for America to let them in. The trek is dangerous and it will be our fault if they don’t survive it.

She also pointed out that we couldn’t deny access just to Syrians. How can you tell if they are Syrian, not Lebanese, or Jordanian? This implies that if we try, then they will just declare themselves to be from another country and who can tell? That seems to refute the thorough vetting claims, but we won’t quibble here.

Now let’s address a few points that the VOLAGS didn’t mention.

It appears that out of 2 million Christians and 80,000 Yazidis in Syria, the Refugee Resettlement Program has brought in 53 Christians and 1 Yazidi and less than 10 Druze, Baha’is and Zoroastrians combined. The reason for this is that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees decides which refugees come to the USA. The UNHCR chooses refugees from people that are in the camps that they sponsor. The minorities do not dare go to those camps because the other inhabitants will persecute them, thus they have no access to apply to the refugee program. Now you know why we are not helping the persecuted Christians.

Here is another interesting fact. If we bring a refugee to the USA, it will cost about $64,000 to take care of him for five years, but it would only cost about $5,300 for five years if he relocated in his native region, thus we could help twelve times as many people for the same cost. Since our money is limited, would it not be better to spend it more wisely?

Now back to those student visas that the rep so correctly pointed out as being dangerously unvetted. The numbers of foreign students are huge.

The Institute of International Education recently wrote regarding student visas for the academic year of 2014/2015. Here are some highlights:

  • 974,926 foreign students were admitted for this past academic year, almost double the overall level before 9/11.
  • After China, India, and South Korea, the leading country of origin is Saudi Arabia with 59,945 student visas. In addition, we took in 10,724 from Turkey, 11, 338 from Iran, and 9,034 from Kuwait.
  • Using the 44 predominantly Muslim countries we identified in our piece on green cards from Muslim countries, I counted 156,781 student visas from those same predominantly Muslim countries. This means that Muslims likely account for 16% of the foreign students, and that doesn’t include India. Roughly 10% of the Indian population is Muslim and we bring in a whopping 138,000 students from there.

Is there any wonder why U.S. college campuses are replicas of some European countries in terms of the anti-Jewish activity and pro-Palestinian activism?

Even more amazing is that in 2010 President Obama unilaterally shut down the National Security Exit-Entry Registration System (NSEERS), which was implemented after 9/11 to properly vet and track those who come here from risky countries on a student visa.

Daniel Horowitz asks,

(W)hat is tolerant about importing an ideology that is stridently intolerant, incompatible with democracy, and promotes ethnic and religious supremacism? What is humanitarian about transforming America into Europe where Jews, ironically and tragically, are forced to flee because of the growing Islamic intolerance?

We need to pause immigration and take the time to have this discussion rather than continuing heedlessly onward with ever increasing numbers of unassimilated immigrants.

The soul of the GOP

By Cathy Keim

I wrote a piece on Thursday night about John Boehner’s upcoming problem with the continuing resolution. To my surprise, Speaker Boehner announced on Friday morning that he would resign at the end of October. He claims that he had the votes to survive Rep. Mark Meadows’ (R-NC) motion to vacate the chair, but we will never know now if that was true.

At his resignation press conference he stated:

But more than anything, my first job is — as Speaker, is to protect the institution.

He seemed to think that by resigning he was protecting the institution. Actually, I believe that he was not protecting the institution by his continual acquiescing to President Obama’s desires, nor has he stopped the infighting amongst the House members by his resignation.

His self-deception will continue, it appears. In the corporate world when an employee is terminated, they are often escorted to the door immediately. Here, the Speaker is resigning before he can be fired, but he has decided to hang around for another month to help with the transition and has already said that House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would be a good Speaker of the House.

Since he is resigning due to conflict, perhaps it would be better if he left posthaste and didn’t try to influence the election of the next Speaker.

Here is my original piece. I still think that many of the points are worth reading since Boehner’s resignation has not fixed anything. Unless a new Speaker is elected that will replace the failed GOP leadership model, then there will be no improvement and the conflict between the conservative and moderate GOP House members will continue.

(Editor’s note: I slightly revised the original piece to refer to Boehner in the past tense as appropriate.)

Original piece:

It is possible that we are seeing the end of the Republican Party. We are rapidly approaching another continuing resolution battle where the fight is between two factions of the GOP rather than between the Democrats and the Republicans. The conservative portion of the House of Representatives would like to stand up and fight even to the point of shutting down the government. The mainstream portion would prefer that they go along to get along.

There are two potential sources of members refusing to go along with the party line: the Defund Planned Parenthood group and the no to Syrian refugee resettlement group (both of which may overlap.)

We may have to call this the Carly Fiorina dilemma: shut the government down to stop the attack on our physical security by importing thousands of Syrians who cannot be vetted by the FBI to ensure that they are not jihadists or shut down the government to stop the destruction of our moral character by the killing of our babies and selling their body parts for profit.

Personally, I am for attaching amendments to the CR to achieve both of these goals. However, as we have seen with the CRomnibus bill and numerous other opportunities, the leadership would rather throw in the towel before the fight begins than stand up to the President.

I am not a gambler, but as Kenny Rogers sang, “You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em.” Speaker Boehner seemed to have one policy and that was to fold ‘em and run away.

His refusal to fight resulted in the relinquishing of the power of the purse and the complete abandonment of any check on the executive branch of the government.

Speaker Boehner is leaving in part because he was in the unenviable position of being squeezed between the unhappy conservative members. If he insisted on the clean CR he would lose at least 50 conservative Republican votes – meaning he will need Democrat votes to pass his CR.

Had this come to pass, it would have caused Congressman Mark Meadows (R-NC) to call for his motion to vacate the chair. At that point, it is possible that the Speaker would have only been able to retain his position if he had support from the Democrats. He would have retained control as Speaker, but at the cost of being beholden to the opposition party for saving his speakership. There was even talk that Boehner would give subcommittee chairmanships to Democrats.

At some point, you have to ask, is it really worth being the Speaker of the House if it would require destroying your party to retain power? For Boehner, the answer was no.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-LA, is trying to woo the conservative bloc by offering to use reconciliation as a method to defund Planned Parenthood. Reconciliation only requires a simple majority, as we remember from the Obamacare fight. By using reconciliation, the amended CR could make it to President Obama’s desk, where he would promptly veto it and that would be the end of that since the GOP could not get the 67 votes necessary to override a veto.

So what does that get us? Nothing. Planned Parenthood would continue to receive 41% of its funding from taxpayers. Although they cannot directly use the money to fund abortions, we all know that they just shift money around and pretend that it didn’t enable them to do exactly what they want to do. PP would continue to abort babies. They would perform about 440,000 more abortions before President Obama would finish his last day in office.

If the GOP leadership would stand up and fight, there could be a chance to save some of those 440,000 babies. If they would refuse to allow thousand of “refugees” into the USA, they would not have to be concerned about jihadists gaining entry through the refugee programs.

Despite the clear and present danger to the lives of our unborn citizens and of violent jihadists gaining entry to our country, Speaker Boehner showed every sign of weepily folding without a fight. And by his staying through October, a grand bargain may well be set in motion.

Rather than hoping that the next president will be a Republican who will fix everything by undoing executive orders, I plead with our current leaders to do what we sent them to DC to do: fight.

Do not brag to me about how many bills you passed in the House when we all know they never made it through the Senate, so they never achieved anything. Stop passing bills that never go anywhere and get a strategy that will actually advance our cause. If we must shut the government down to get the president’s attention, then let’s do it. All essential personnel are required to work anyway, so the government never really shuts down.

This president has already shown his vindictive streak the last time there was a government shutdown when he “closed” the World War II Memorial and national parks. We know what he will do. Let’s prepare an offensive strategy.

We have many vocal Presidential candidates who can very ably make the case to the public that the President is the one that is shutting down the government by his veto. This may be the best possible time to have this battle since the Presidential candidates can use their public time to advance the cause.

Wouldn’t you like to see Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and even Donald Trump explain why we needed to pass the CR with the defund Planned Parenthood amendment and the no refugee amendment?

Speaker Boehner and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell should welcome the help since they have been silent far too long.