Ellison bolts New York Times interview to avoid questions about his ties to the Nation of Islam

Jihad Watch  "Imagine what he might have done if they had planned to ask him about his ties to the Muslim Brotherhood — an organization that is far larger, more powerful and more dangerous than the Nation of Islam. Ellison has spoken at a convention of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). Yet ISNA has actually admitted its ties to Hamas, which styles itself the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Justice Department actually classified ISNA among entities “who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood.”

"It gets worse. In 2008, Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” That’s from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb.

"Also, the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) raised large amounts of for Ellison’s first campaign, and he has spoken at numerous CAIR events. Yet CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups."  . . .

Carrier Plans to Automate Indiana Plant, Eliminating Many Jobs

The Resergent

"The Carrier deal in which Donald Trump negotiated with United Technologies to keep the company from moving jobs to Mexico continues to unravel. One of the terms of the deal was that Carrier would invest $16 million in its Indiana facility, but now it appears that much of that investment will involve automation that will ultimately cost many workers their jobs.

"Trump had claimed that the deal would save “over 1,100” jobs in Indiana. Union leaders and Carrier had previously said that only about 730 manufacturing jobs would stay in the US as a result of the deal. Now it appears that many of those jobs have been saved only temporarily.

"CNN Money reports that Greg Hayes, CEO of Carrier’s parent company, says that automating the plant is needed to keep it profitable. “We’re going to…automate to drive the cost down so that we can continue to be competitive,” Hayes said. “Is it as cheap as moving to Mexico with lower cost labor? No. But we will make that plant competitive just because we’ll make the capital investments there. But what that ultimately means is there will be fewer jobs.' ” . . .

Economics can be a hard master.

Israel Shows How to Stop Terrorists

"This is something American intelligence experts have been calling for since Obama became president – to capture instead of kill with drones.  Katz says the motto of the Border Guards is, "'We would rather snatch you than scratch you.' "

Elise Cooper   "Build a wall, secure the border, and vet Muslims to stop the infiltration of terrorists.  This is not Donald Trump speaking – it is what has actually been done in Israel.  Americans can take a page from Israel's Border Guard to protect themselves.

" 'American Thinker interviewed author Samuel M. Katz regarding his book The Ghost Warriors, about Israel's elite force of undercover operatives.  They are drawn from the nation's diverse backgrounds and ethnicities, united in their ability to walk among the enemy as no one else dared.  They are called Ya'mas and use many undercover tactics. 

" 'Katz wrote the book to emphasize how "Israelis learned about using counter-terrorism inside city, street, and neighborhoods.  The United States now realizes it is also something they will have to contend with, a struggle of civilizations.  The book covers a period of Israeli history and is relevant to Americans because both nations must battle terrorism on a daily basis.  It is a warrior's tale of a select group of individuals who accepted the challenge of going daily, nightly into enemy-controlled territory, usually in disguise.  The enemy wonders who to trust or where the Israelis are lurking.

"Part of the Border Guards' strategy is to inflict 'terror' on the terrorists.  They had to spend just as much time in watching their backs as planning terrorist attacks.  Part of the Border Guard's duties is to capture the extremists to ensure the flow of information continues."

School Orders Staffer to Remove “Charlie Brown” Christmas Poster

Todd Starnes  "One of the most poignant scenes in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is when Linus stands on a stage and recites a passage from the Holy Bible describing the Christmas story.

“ 'For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior which is Christ the Lord. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown,” Linus said.

"It really does sum up the true meaning – the true reason for the holiday season – the birth of our Lord.

"Dedra Shannon, a staffer at Patterson Middle School in Killeen, Texas, was so inspired by the scene she decided to use images to decorate the door to the nurse’s office

. . . "The decorations were installed on Dec. 5 and on Dec. 7 Ms. Shannon was confronted by the school’s principal.

“ 'She said, ‘please don’t hate me, but unfortunately you’re going to have to take your poster down,” Ms. Shannon said. “I’m disappointed. It is a slap in the face of Christianity.”

"The principal went on to explain that the poster violated the U.S. Constitution.

“ 'She said my poster is an issue of separation of church and state,” Ms. Shannon told me. 

“ 'She said the poster had to come down because it might offend kids from other religions or those who do not have a religion.”  . . . 

A sequel to this story.  . . . "But it turns out the principal may have inadvertently broken the 2013 “Merry Christmas” law. That law stipulates no school official in Texas can silence a Biblical reference to Christmas.

“ 'I am proud to have voted for the Merry Christmas law in 2013, when I was a member of the Legislature,” Paxton said. “We passed that law precisely because of this type of discrimination against people of faith.”

"Paxton minced no words in describing what happened in that hallway at Patterson Middle School.

. . . 

"The school board has a long history of standing up for religious liberty.

"Terry Delano, president of the school district’s board of trustees, told me they voted to change the name of “Winter Break” to “Christmas Break.” And last year they defied the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s demand to cease praying before meetings.

"The school district also ignored the Department of Education’s demand that they open all bathrooms to the opposite gender.

“ 'These strong stances for Christianity and morality often go unreported and unnoticed, but they represent important victories in a time when our culture seems to be rotting in a cesspool,” Mr. Delano wrote to me.

"It sounds as if the good people of Killeen are being well-served by the school board and I’m certain they will resolve this incident at the middle school – whether it was intentional or a misunderstanding.

"Either way, Attorney General Paxton dropped a great big yuletide truth bomb on the Killeen Independent School District: Don’t mess with Texas and don’t mess with Christmas. Otherwise, you might just find your tinsel in a twist." . . .

On Campus, Trump Fans Say They Need ‘Safe Spaces’

Ouch. Bad choice of words.

NY Times

"Amanda Delekta, a sophomore at the University of Michigan and political director of the College Republicans, was ecstatic when her candidate, Donald J. Trump, won the presidential election.

But her mood of celebration quickly faded when students held an evening vigil on campus — to mourn the results — and her biology teacher suspended class on the assumption, Ms. Delekta said, that students would be too upset to focus.

"She was outraged. “Nobody has died,” Ms. Delekta said. “The United States has not died. Democracy is more alive than ever. Simply put, the American people voted and Trump won.' ” . . .

More here:  The political divide on college campuses isn’t healing any time soon  . . . "Let’s be honest here for a moment. Do you believe that a single one of these schools would have cancelled classes and set up safe spaces and workshops for distraught conservatives if Hillary Clinton had won? Would there be special grief counselors hired to console the weeping Republicans? You already know the answer. They would not. In fact the only classes being cancelled in that event would have been the ones taking up space in the halls allocated for the victory party." . . .

Reading list for you

What Are Hillary Clinton Chances of Stealing the Election?  

"Interestingly, Hillary’s group wants to recruit the “Never Trump” crowd to upend the election results.  Let’s go ahead and remind everybody about Hillary Clinton’s chastising of Trump during the campaign for not accepting the results of the election."

Liberals Refuse To Stop Whining!!! Get Over It Already!!!
Kelly Ann Conway: Nobody wanted Hillary Clinton in Office not because she is a Woman but because she is Evil and Corrupt just like Obama. I didn’t vote for Gender I voted for a Person to try and get our Country back on track where Obama has got it drug down in the sewer with him. Hillary and Obama are the Scum at the bottom of the barrel. Why don’t these young millennials start reading and learn what is going on in our Country. I guess they don’t teach about the electoral college in schools anymore like I was taught.

Muslim Family In Robes and Burqas Refuses to Stand for National Anthem

U.S. Naval Academy to Offer Transgender Training for Midshipmen
"This should come as no surprise after the Obama administration has spent eight years letting our military infrastructure crumble as they used our armed forces as a laboratory for experiments in social policy."

The Obama legacy

David Limbaugh: Obama's National Security Report Card — Unsatisfactory  "In his speech at MacDill Air Force Base, President Obama bragged that he has made America safer while preserving America’s values.

"The incessant self-absorption is annoying enough, but the self-delusion puts it over the top. Whether he’s talking the economy or national security, he always paints a picture of his performance that contradicts reality." . . .

Trump Meets with Ohio State Terror Victims and Hero Officer While Obama Makes Plans to Go on the Daily Show  "Still six weeks until he’s sown in, but he’s already acting presidential. Meanwhile, Barack Obama continues to be Barack Obama." . . .

Trump's picks promise a new national security direction.
"One thing that has become patently obvious with President-elect Donald Trump’s national-security selections to date: The era of apology tours is over. With General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as secretary of defense, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security advisor, and General John Kelly as secretary of homeland security, there’s a distinct message being sent: America’s back, and we’re not putting up with certain crap any longer." . . .
.  .  . "It’s safe to say that the highly restrictive rules of engagement under which our troops have labored will be history."

The Supreme Court oral argument that cost Democrats the presidency

"In short, many religious Christians of a traditionalist bent believed that liberals not only reduce their deeply held beliefs to bigotry, but want to run them out of their jobs, close down their stores and undermine their institutions."

Volokh Conspiracy

"The presidential election was so close that many factors were “but-for” causes of Donald Trump’s victory. One that’s been mostly overlooked is Trump’s surprising success with religious voters. According to exit polls, Trump received 81 percent of the white evangelical Christian vote, and Hillary Clinton only 16 percent. Trump did significantly better than the overtly religious Mitt Romney and the overtly evangelical George W. Bush. He likely over-performed among other theologically conservative voters, such as traditionalist Catholics, as well. Not bad for a thrice-married adulterer of no discernible faith.

"To what can we attribute Trump’s success? The most logical answer is that religious traditionalists felt that their religious liberty was under assault from liberals, and they therefore had to hold their noses and vote for Trump. As Sean Trende of RealClear Politics noted, since 2012:" . . .

How to Answer a False Accusation of Racism

Mike Adams

"Yesterday, a student contacted me with a concern that is common among those taking courses in the social sciences and humanities. This particular student is enrolled in an online criminology class taught by a leftist professor. During a discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement, one of the more conservative students in her class used the phrase “all lives matter.” Predictably, the leftist professor objected. But he went even further by repeatedly accusing the student of racism. To make matters worse, the ad hominem attacks were made in front of all the students enrolled in the course. It was part of an online class “discussion.” 

"Although the student who contacted me was not the one attacked, she wanted to know how to confront the professor who was so clearly out of line. She was understandably reticent to express her own views after seeing a fellow student attacked in the middle of class discussion. Given the importance of the issue, I am printing my response to the student to help other students who are similarly attacked or intimidated in the classroom: " . . .

Mike Rowe Questions Campus Culture and the Higher Ed Bubble

Legal Insurrection  "Television host Mike Rowe spoke with Tucker Carlson about the value of college, hard work, and alternate paths to a four year degree last night.

"Their conversation began with the social justice warrior from Hampshire College who recently appeared on the show but quickly moved on to other topics.

"One of the most fascinating aspects of their discussion was when Rowe brought up the massive amount of student debt in America today and pointed out how that affects all of us, not just students.

From the FOX News Insider:

Old Glory was taken down from a flagpole and burned around Veterans’ Day and Daniel Vogel defended the flag’s removal to protest discriminatory behavior in America and to show his support for perceptively underprivileged workers.

“Nobody’s disputing the right to do any of this stuff,” Rowe said, asking rhetorically whether it was persuasive to desecrate a symbol that so many people care so much about." . . .

Mr. Rowe took particular aim at university President Jonathan Lash, who explained at the time that the decision to remove the flag would allow the school to “focus our efforts on addressing racist, misogynistic, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and behaviors.”“I couldn’t help but wonder if President Lash was unaware that billions of people around the world are routinely subjected to horrific levels of racism, misogyny, and bigotry that far exceed any injustice in modern-day America,” Mr. Rowe wrote. “Furthermore, I was curious to know if President Lash really believed that removing our flag is a better way to assuage the fears of his frightened students, than simply educating them about the undeniable fact that no country on the planet affords its citizens more liberty than this one?

One more example of Trump thinking two steps ahead of the Trump-haters

"The fact that Trump was able to talk Governor Branstad out of continuing to break the record for longer-serving governor shows me that big plans are afoot with China. This appointment did not occur to Trump after the Taiwan phone call.Once again, Trump is thinking at least two chess moves ahead of the haters."

 

Thomas Lifson  "Remember when Trump supposedly blundered into a diplomatic minefield he had no comprehension of by taking a phone call from the President of Taiwan? The same media that dismissed his presidential run as comedy were dead certain that disaster lay ahead in a complex and delicate diplomatic relationship.

"So committed are Trump haters to the idea that he cannot possibly have outsmarted them that they never bother to consider that a plan may be at work.  Average Americans understand that the devastation of our manufacturing sector is in large part the result of that delicate diplomatic balance, and the notion that it might be disrupted sounds as satisfying as watching stuffy rich lady Margaret Dumont receive her comeuppance at the hands of Groucho Marx.

"Yesterday, Donald Trump revealed a brilliant choice for Chinese ambassador on Facebook, bypassing the media once again.

President-elect Donald J. Trump today announced his intent to nominate Governor Terry Branstad of Iowa, the longest-serving governor in American history, to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to China.

Gov. Branstad's relationship with President Xi Jinping dates back to the mid-1980s, when President Xi was a young county official seeking a closer relationship with Iowa's robust agriculture sector.

. . .

 "Gov. Branstad is the longest serving governor in American history, having served from 1983 to 1999 and again from 2011 until the present. Since leading his first delegation to Hebei Province in 1984, the Governor has led six trade missions to China meeting with numerous provincial governors, ministerial leaders and local officials.
"Gov. Branstad is considered an “old friend”, a culturally significant title, by President Xi and has a long-standing relationship with the Chinese Ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai." . . .

China and Donald Trump  . . . "Trump must counter the Chinese challenges, especially in the South China Seas and the Spratly Islands, more than 100 small islands or reefs, 500 miles from the Chinese mainland, where China is building and expanding reefs to provide radar and military facilities, and where it claims almost all the potentially resource rich waters.

"Trump must also consider a shift in diplomatic relations with Taiwan, strengthening its democratic character, and also expanding the U.S. Navy in the East and South China Seas. This will take more than a 10-minute phone call. " 

After a mere 25 years, the triumph of the West is over

Charles Krauthammer

"Twenty-five years ago — December 1991 — communism died, the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union disappeared. It was the largest breakup of an empire in modern history and not a shot was fired. It was an event of biblical proportions that my generation thought it would never live to see. As Wordsworth famously rhapsodized (about the French Revolution), “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven!”

"That dawn marked the ultimate triumph of the liberal democratic idea. It promised an era of Western dominance led by a preeminent America, the world’s last remaining superpower.

"And so it was for a decade as the community of democracies expanded, first into Eastern Europe and former Soviet colonies. The U.S. was so dominant that when, on Dec. 31, 1999, it gave up one of the most prized geostrategic assets on the globe — the Panama Canal — no one even noticed.

"That era is over. The autocracies are back and rising; democracy is on the defensive; the U.S. is in retreat. Look no further than Aleppo. A Western-backed resistance to a local tyrant — he backed by a resurgent Russia, an expanding Iran and an array of proxy Shiite militias — is on the brink of annihilation. Russia drops bombs; America issues statements.