Tunnel Wall

Monday, January 14, 2019

Is it OK for Congress to target Catholic groups?

Jewish World Review By Jonathan Tobin J

"There may be no membership organization with a more politically incorrect name than the Knights of Columbus. "Calling its members "knights" is bad because it reminds us of Medieval Europe and all the awful things that were committed them in the name of the church. But it's also named for the man who discovered the Americas for Europe — the natives already knew it was there before Christopher Columbus steered the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria to what is now the Dominican Republic on Oct. 12, 1492 — and therefore conjures up all the horrors of colonialism and imperialism that has caused the annual celebration in his name to be renamed "Indigenous Peoples Day" in many jurisdictions. But whatever we might think about the horrors of the Crusades or whether Columbus did far more harm than good, the Knights of Columbus (KofC) are not the advance guard of a new Spanish Inquisition. They are a Catholic service organization with 2 million members that has raised more than $1.5 billion for charities in the last decade. In the United States, it dates back to the 19th century and spoke out in favor of religious freedom at a time when discrimination against Catholics was widespread. Its stands were staunchly pro-immigration, but also — reflecting the views of its members — strongly anti-Communist, as well as socially conservative. " . . . Read more

For Tender, Heroic Men — the Knights of Columbus . . . "The Knights are far from an “extremist” organization that a judge ought to take leave of. To the contrary, we need more of the Knights. A judge needs the fraternity all the more. But every man, whatever his calling, can benefit. And we should be thankful that they’re a part of the life of our country. May they grow, and may we learn to treasure opportunities for virtuous fellowship and civic service, opportunities for encouraging one another to be our fullest and best." . . .

Kamala Harris’s Outrageous Assault on the Knights of Columbus

National Review

"No longer is the debate over Christianity in the public square. It is over Christians in the public square."

"Kamala Harris is set to announce her candidacy for president sometime around Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What sort of chief executive would she be? Well, here’s your first clue: On December 5, Harris posed a series of written questions to Brian Buescher, President Trump’s nominee for district court in Nebraska. The third question reads as follows:

Added by TD

Since 1993, you have been a member of the Knights of Columbus, an all-male society comprised primarily of Catholic men. In 2016, Carl Anderson, leader of the Knights of Columbus, described abortion as “a legal regime that has resulted in more than 40 million deaths.” Mr. Anderson went on to say that “abortion is the killing of the innocent on a massive scale.” Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?

"Harris wasn’t finished. Follow-ups included “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed marriage equality when you joined the organization?” and “Have you ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights?”
"Buescher, a Nebraska native and graduate of the Georgetown Law Center, replied that he joined the Knights when he was 18 years old; that his involvement includes charitable work; and that his job as a judge is to apply the law regardless of his personal convictions. Strong answers. That he had to offer them is a disgrace." . . .

Todd Starnes: Yes, Kamala Harris and Mazie Hirono are religious bigots . . . “This isn’t just about the Knights of Columbus or Catholics, this is an ongoing attack from the extremist left of the Democratic Party to silence people of faith and run them out of engaging in public service based on their religious beliefs,” Penny Nance, the president of Concerned Women for America, wrote in a statement.
"But I was especially encouraged to see Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, a newly announced presidential candidate, call out members of her own party for “weaponizing religion.”
“We must call this out for what it is – religious bigotry,” she wrote in a scathing op-ed in The Hill. “I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifies Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus. If Buescher is ‘unqualified’ because of his Catholicism and affiliation with the Knights of Columbus, then President John F. Kennedy, and the ‘liberal lion of the Senate’ Ted Kennedy would have been ‘unqualified’ for the same reasons.' ” . . .

11-Year-Old Docked Points for Not Bashing Trump

PJ Media

"To say that some people dislike Donald Trump may well be the understatement of the year. It's hard to imagine any duly elected president seeing so many protests, yet here we are.

"It's so bad that now an 11-year-old in Annadale, New York, was docked 15 points on a homework assignment because she failed to answer a question demanding students bash Trump:

Vincent Ungro, a dad from Annadale, New York, has an 11-year-old daughter who attends I.S. (Intermediate School) 75. She asked him for help with her vocabulary homework last Friday night because she was trying to fill in the blanks from a word bank to complete her assignment -- and was really puzzled.

“President Trump speaks in a very superior and _________ manner insulting many people. He needs to be more __________ so that the American people respect and admire him,” read one homework sentence.

The next question was: “Barack Obama set a _________ when he became the first African-American president.”

And what were the choices for the two questions, you ask? These three words: “haughty,” “humble,” and “precedent.” You can guess which ones were meant to be the “correct” answers in this teacher’s mind.

Ungro, 46, told his daughter not to fill in those blanks -- and wrote a note to the teacher, Adria Zawatsky, on the homework sheet, as The Post noted. “Please keep your political views to yourself and do not try to influence my children on them. Thank you,” he wrote.

"The teacher docked the points -- which Ungro called "vindictive." . . .

Get this: the teacher said she was evaluating Trump's personality and not his ability to govern.

Related: When a Classroom Door Closes, a Liberal Assault Begins; How to safeguard your child's rights and education.
"As conservative parents, we have an uphill fight — whether against the biased media, our current progressive government, or our increasingly liberal educational system. The deck is stacked against us by liberals and leftists, something we successfully voted to change come Jan. 20.
Sometimes, pure incompetence rules the day, as schools do away with traditional measure of academic success." . . .

If President Trump is really a racist or a Nazi, then please explain these facts

Alicia Colon "I recently watched that insane viral video of a Millennial snowflake losing his mind when a Trump-supporter walks into a store where he works. He shouts, "F‑‑‑ your f‑‑‑‑‑‑ president! He's a racist, stupid piece of s‑‑‑!" Always we hear that accusation hurled at Trump by anchors in the mainstream media and congressional Democrats. But has that ever been true?
. . . My husband worked for Trump when he took over the Old Commodore Hotel on 42nd Street and transformed it into the Grand Hyatt.

What politician could do this?

. . . He was then married to Ivana Trump, and for twelve years, my husband watched him completely salvage the dying Midtown area of Manhattan.  Not only did he never see a hint of racism in the man, but he was convinced he was completely colorblind.  He staffed the hotel with a majority of minority workers in all positions, from executive managers to housekeeping.
. . . My husband was raised in the Deep South and knows what a racist looks and acts like, and it ain't our president.  In 1998 and 1999, Jesse Jackson was praising Trump for a lifetime of help to the black community.  Trump had been involved with Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and was instrumental in opening Wall Street to it.  Of course, Jesse Jackson has never been one to adhere to deep convictions.  He was against abortion and redefining marriage before succumbing to the Democrat left wing.
. . . If, as critics allege, Trump is truly a Nazi, then why has he been heralded as Israel's biggest supporter?  Why was he the only president to move our embassy to Jerusalem?  Why didn't he object to his daughter's conversion to Judaism?  It's so easy to hurl accusations of racism and Nazism because frankly, the brain-dead mobs are interested only in vandalism and mayhem and totally disinterested in truth.  They also have no idea what racism and Nazism historically mean.
. . . What on Earth did Donald Trump do to deserve these unfair labels?  Apparently, he told the truth about what was happening to the country he loves so much.  The fact is that Trump has never been against immigrants or immigration – just the abuse of our laws.
. . . It's amazing how the Dem politicians and media anchors keep a straight face every time they use the phrase "this country was built by immigrants" to condemn President Trump's war against illegals invading our borders.  These anti-Trump demagogues absolutely refuse to use the word "illegal" instead use the euphemistic term "undocumented."  Sorry, but this great country of ours was built by settlers and (legal) immigrants from all over the world who wanted to become citizens.  Those massing at the border today are nothing but invaders seeking to take advantage of whatever benefits they can con out of misguided communities that have forgotten the obligation they have to Americans already here. " . . .
Even more here...

Public Disdain For Russia Probe Intensifies, Trump Approval Climbs — IBD/TIPP Poll

Tony Branco

Investor's Business Daily . . . "Politicized Investigation
The IBD/TIPP Poll found that 51% agree that "the president's opponents are using the ongoing special counsel investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion as a way to delegitimize the 2016 election."
That includes most independents (52%), as well as the vast majority of Republicans (70%). The poll found that almost a third of Democrats (31%) agree with that statement.
Overall, 44% disagreed with that statement.
"Americans can see through this charade and recognize the 'open secret' — that the real goal of the opposition and the media is to delegitimize the outcome of the 2016 election and remove Trump from office one way or the other," said Raghavan Mayur, president of TechoMetrica who directed the poll.

"Trying To Rein In Trump
"In addition, a plurality believe that the special counsel investigation has less to do with finding Trump campaign connections with Russia, and more to do with reining Trump in as president.
"When asked if "the Department of Justice launched the special counsel investigation to rein in President Trump," 48% agreed, and 45% disagreed." . . .

Women Don’t Belong in Combat Units

Never entrust our national safety to Democrats. They tend toward being surrender monkeys.

Heather MacDonald (Entire article posted here): "The Obama-era policy of integrating women into ground combat units is a misguided social experiment that threatens military readiness and wastes resources in the service of a political agenda. The next defense secretary should end it.
"In September 2015 the Marine Corps released a study comparing the performance of gender-integrated and male-only infantry units in simulated combat. The all-male teams greatly outperformed the integrated teams, whether on shooting, surmounting obstacles or evacuating casualties. Female Marines were injured at more than six times the rate of men during preliminary training—unsurprising, since men’s higher testosterone levels produce stronger bones and muscles. Even the fittest women (which the study participants were) must work at maximal physical capacity when carrying a 100-pound pack or repeatedly loading heavy shells into a cannon.
Ignoring the Marine study, then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened all combat roles to women in December 2015. Rather than requiring new female combat recruits to meet the same physical standards as men, the military began crafting “gender neutral” standards in the hope that more women would qualify. Previously, women had been admitted to noncombat specialties under lower strength and endurance requirements.
Only two women have passed the Marine Corps’s(sp) fabled infantry-officer training course out of the three dozen who have tried. Most wash out in the combat endurance test, administered on day one. Participants hike miles while carrying combat loads of 80 pounds or more, climb 20-foot ropes multiple times, and scale an 8-foot barrier. The purpose of the test is to ensure that officers can hump their own equipment and still arrive at a battleground mentally and physically capable of leading troops. Most female aspirants couldn’t pass the test, so the Marines changed it from a pass/fail requirement to an unscored exercise with no bearing on the candidate’s ultimate evaluation. The weapons-company hike during the IOC is now “gender neutral,” meaning that officers can hand their pack to a buddy if they get tired, rather than carrying it for the course’s full 10 miles.
Lowering these physical requirements risks reducing the American military’s lethality. A more serious effect of sex integration has become taboo to mention: the inevitable introduction of eros into combat units. Putting young, hormonally charged men and women into stressful close quarters for extended periods guarantees sexual liaisons, rivalries and breakups, all of which undermine the bonding essential to a unified fighting force.
A Marine commander who served in Afghanistan described to me how the arrival of an all-female team tasked with reaching out to local women affected discipline on his forward operating base. Until that point, rigorous discipline had been the norm. But when four women—three service members and a translator—arrived, the post’s atmosphere changed overnight from a “stern, businesslike place to that of an eighth-grade dance.” The officer walked into a common room one day to find the women clustered in the center. They were surrounded by eager male Marines, one of whom was doing a handstand.
Another Marine officer, who was stationed on a Navy ship after 9/11, told me that a female officer had regular trysts with an enlisted sailor in the engine room. Marine Cpl. Remedios Cruz, one of the first women to join the infantry, was discharged late last year after admitting to a sexual relationship with a male subordinate. Army Sgt. First Class Chase Usher was relieved of his leadership position for a consensual relationship with a female soldier that began almost immediately after she arrived at his newly gender-integrated unit in Fort Bragg, N.C.
Long before infantry integration became a feminist imperative, evidence was clear that a coed military was a sexually active one. In 1988 then-Navy Secretary Jim Webb reported that of the unmarried enlisted Navy and Air Force women stationed in Iceland, half were pregnant.
President Trump’s first defense secretary, Jim Mattis, had seemed a good candidate for reversing the integration of women in combat units. A former Marine commandant, Mr. Mattis had previously addressed the incompatibility of eros and military discipline. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand challenged him about these politically incorrect views during his confirmation hearings, but he left enough wiggle room to preserve his options.
Unfortunately, Mr. Trump chose to ban transgender people from serving in the military rather than tackling gender integration. Mr. Trump cited the cost to taxpayers of sex-reassignment surgery for soldiers, but those costs are minute compared with the future medical bills for women’s combat-battered bodies. And women pose a far greater challenge to combat-unit cohesion than do transgender troops, because of their numbers and the nature of sexual attraction.
The argument for putting women into combat roles has always been nonmilitary: Combat experience qualifies soldiers for high-ranking Pentagon jobs. But war isn’t about promoting equality. Its objective is to break the enemy’s will through precise lethal engagement, with the lowest possible loss of American life. The claim that female combat soldiers will perform as lethally as men over an extended deployment entails a denial of biological reality as great as the one underlying the transgender crusade.
Female engineers and others did return fire when attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan. But performing well in incident-related combat is a far cry from serving in a dedicated ground-combat unit, with its months of punishing physical demands.
The incoming Pentagon chief can expect an aggressive grilling on gender integration from the Senate Armed Services Committee. He should promise to resolve the claim that, when it comes to combat, there are no significant physical differences between men and women. He could do it by pitting an all-female infantry unit against an all-male unit and seeing how they measure up.
Ms. Mac Donald is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and author of “The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture.”

Prominent lawyer sought donor cash for two Trump accusers

The Hill "A well-known women’s rights lawyer sought to arrange compensation from donors and tabloid media outlets for women who made or considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential race, according to documents and interviews.

"California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.

"The women’s accounts were chronicled in contemporaneous contractual documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The Hill, including an exchange of texts between one woman and Bloom that suggested political action committees supporting Hillary Clinton were contacted during the effort.

"Bloom, who has assisted dozens of women in prominent harassment cases and also defended film executive Harvey Weinstein earlier this year, represented four women considering making accusations against Trump last year. Two went public, and two declined" . . .

Sunday, January 13, 2019

Obama tried to make every shutdown as painful as possible; here’s how Trump’s team is doing the opposite

Herman Cain

The last thing Obama wanted to do was apply skilled management tactics to minimize the pain for the public. He wanted everyone hurting, freaking out and upset because he knew the media would keep telling people the Republicans caused the shutdown.

. . . "But Obama exploited his shutdowns shamelessly for political purposes. The first thing that would always happen would be barricades and CLOSED signs at popular tourist attractions. Next you’d hear the sordid tales of furloughed workers and spoiled meat that would end up on your grocery shelves because there were no FDA inspectors to intercept it. (That’s now how it really works, but who cares when the narrative is working?)"
. . .

Photo added by TD

"Trump has done exactly the opposite. He has dispatched his budget people and his legal team to find every legal and administrative way possible to keep things running smoothly. There are limits to what the law allows, and there are limits to the resources available. But everywhere they can minimize the pain, they’re doing it.

"Is Trump going to get credit for this in the media? Of course not. They’re going to portray the 25 percent shutdown as Armageddon regardless of what the facts really are. They’re going to blame Trump for what’s happening – even though it takes two sides to make a deal or not to make one – and they’re not going to make any distinction between a well-managed shutdown and one exploited baldly for political purposes." . . .

Lift Up Your Hearts: The Democrats Are in a Shambles

"America is truly blessed in unsuspected ways. Sleep soundly, Mr. President."

Conrad Black "It is time to rekindle our political spirits in this new year, and to take stock of the subjects of encouragement.

"First, the takeover of the House of Representatives by the Democrats was, on balance, not as jarring to the vital organs as was feared. As a figure of horror, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has become almost like Bette Davis, one can believe she just acts the part, though she acts it convincingly. And she has earned her spurs as a Democratic legislator with staying power, the first speaker to serve non-consecutive terms since Sam Rayburn (D-Texas). She certainly didn’t get much back-talk from all those bushy-tailed Democrats who were going to send her off to knit antimacassars for her grandchildren. She does not, however, appear to be an effective spokesperson as leader of the opposition, and is strangely inarticulate for someone who must have spent more time in public speaking for the last 40 years than almost anyone in the country.

"A second source of happiness, despite the Democrats’ window-rattling ululations of joy, is that they have no mandate to do anything, and they have taken the bait the president dangled to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Pelosi at the White House three weeks ago. The Democratic leadership seems to think they can convince the country that the well-being of 800,000 federal employees, which could be ameliorated without capitulating on the spending bill, is more important than dealing with the protracted shambles in immigration, which most Americans acknowledge to be the country’s greatest problem.

"Third, the official debut of Schumer and Pelosi as leaders of the opposition where one of them is actually at the head of part of a branch of government, following the president’s address from the Oval Office on Monday, was a hilarious fiasco. They made an American Gothic apparition with forked tongues rather than a pitchfork and looked like an off-duty pantomime horse doing straight-up. They aren’t making it. They failed to convince anyone that a few weeks of furlough for government employees is more worrisome than the unarmed invasion of the United States by millions of unskilled foreigners.

"Fourth, Speaker Pelosi is shutting down her caucus-members who were calling for impeachment of the president, the surest sign that the whole idea is made of straw and hot air." . . . Full article.

Proof that most leftist critics of Israel don’t give a damn about Palestinians, they just hate Jews

Thomas Lifson "One of the best and most conclusive tests of antisemitism among Israel’s many critics is whether or not they apply the same standards to others that they apply to the Jewish homeland. Virtually every time Israel responds to violence launched from Palestinian enclaves, we read and see stories damning it as “not proportional” or “callous” or ‘racist.”
"But what about when Palestinians are responded to by other nations?
"Writing in The Forward last year, Elizabeth Tusrkov published a very enlightening, and pretty conclusive examination of this question:
. . .

And yet, despite these horrors, no significant protests took place anywhere in the West or Arab world. The traditional champions of the Palestinian cause — those same people who have protested Israeli attacks on Gaza — have remained silent as the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus in Syria was shelled by Russian and Syrian air forces, while militias loyal to the Assad regime enforced a brutal siege.

"If there was a chorus of condemnation of these attacks, and lionization of the Palestinians as anti-imperialists, it must have escaped my attention."

Exasperated Democrats try to rein in Ocasio-Cortez

Politico

The effort is part carrot, part stick. But it's far from clear the anti-establishment political novice can be made to play ball.

But man, can she dance.

Govern; maybe not so much.

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already making enemies in the House Democratic Caucus — and some of its members are mounting an operation to bring the anti-establishment, democratic socialist with 2.2 million Twitter followers into the fold.
"The effort, described by nearly 20 lawmakers and aides, is part carrot, part stick: Some lawmakers with ties to Ocasio-Cortez are hoping to coax her into using her star power to unite Democrats and turn her fire on Republicans. Others simultaneously warn Ocasio-Cortez is destined for a lonely, ineffectual career in Congress if she continues to treat her own party as the enemy.

Story Continued Below

"Incumbent Democrats are most annoyed by Ocasio-Cortez’s threat to back primary opponents against members of their ranks she deems too moderate. But their frustration goes beyond that: Democratic leaders are upset that she railed against their new set of House rules on Twitter the first week of the new Congress. Rank and file are peeved that there’s a grassroots movement to try to win her a top committee post they feel she doesn’t deserve." . . .

h/t to Nikki Lund

Donald Trump to Jim Acosta: ‘Good Job! I Appreciate the Sales Pitch’

I worry that this newest kerfuffle can affect the Trump-Acosta relationship in a negative way.

Breitbart

“ 'Good job yesterday,” Trump said to Acosta after spotting him at the White House. “I appreciate your sales pitch.”

"Acosta filmed a video of a “steel slat” barrier on the Southern border, noting that there was no crisis there, which prompted wide-spread mockery on Twitter from Trump supporters." . . .

De Blasio builds ‘privacy fence’ around Gracie Mansion