Who's Unhinged?

Donald J. Trump
(Photo: Wikipedia)

By Eddie Howell

The left, the media, and the GOP establishment are furious over Donald Trump's proposal for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. Jeb Bush says Trump is “unhinged.”

Before jumping to ridiculous conclusions, voters should consider a few relevant points.

U.S. law provides that the president may block any or all aliens from entering the United States for as long as he chooses. Rush Limbaugh's website quotes 8 U.S. Code 1182:

Suspension of entry or imposition of restrictions by president.  Whenever the president finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, the president may, by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

As Limbaugh points out, President Jimmy Carter used this provision to block Iranians from entering the U.S. Before that, all legal immigration into the U.S. was blocked from 1924 to 1965 – 41 years!

What Trump proposes is a temporary ban on Muslim immigration until it can be established what kind of threat Muslim immigrants might be and how to deal with them, in view of the Paris and San Bernardino shootings and the perceived increased threat posed by ISIS. Or, in Trump's words, “until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on.”

The idea is not unreasonable and has these people in an uproar only because of their devotion to extreme political correctness. The House of Representatives has just passed bills to make visas more restrictive and to require other countries to provide information on known terrorist threats if they participate in the visa waiver program. A temporary halt to Muslim immigration is perfectly in order for the purpose Trump stated. If President Obama and Hillary Clinton could admit that there is a connection between these terrorist attacks and Islam, it is a very small step to Trump's proposal. It ain't Jews, Catholics, Baptists or Presbyterians doing these killings.

And Democrats want to bring in tens of thousands more Syrian “refugees” who cannot be vetted, and will surely include more terrorists, no matter what the government says. The governors who want them kept out of their states are wise to oppose their entry.

People can reasonably disagree with Trump's proposed ban, but it is not reasonable to characterize it as hate, bigotry, fascism, etc. Those who do so are much more likely “unhinged” than Mr. Trump, and certainly poor students of history. Trump's idea is not without precedent or good cause. But the left believes that their kind of overreaction is going to be effective in persuading people other than the GOP establishment, the MSM, and the Democrat base that Trump is wrong. Like some other statements of Trump that drove these folks to distraction, it is unlikely to persuade many GOP voters, or virtually any Trump supporters to agree that Trump is at all out of line.

Contrary to the wishes of those who loudly criticize Trump, he is not going away easily or, I believe, any time soon. He makes sense to many people outside the political class. Whether he eventually gets elected or not, he has made a lasting change in America's political landscape, and the establishment won't be the same again for quite a while. And our country will be better for the experience of Trump's campaign.

Barack Obama: Traitor, Liar, Murderer, etc.

By Eddie Howell

 Andrew McCarthy discusses Obama's lawlessness and the seriousness of the danger of the Iran deal.

My comments:

The Iran nuclear deal negotiated (if you can call it that) by the Obama Administration is about the worst kind of international agreement ever made for our country. In short, the Iranian mullahs got everything they wanted and we got nothing. No real inspections, no assurances, nothing. All we got was Iranian officials saying “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Obama pretends this is not harmful. The claim that the deal will prevent war is ridiculous on its face.

This is an agreement that gives aid and comfort to our sworn enemy, and is therefore an act of treason by Mr. Obama. Not only will Iran be able to proceed with their nuclear weapons development and conventional arms build up virtually unhindered (supposedly with the agreement of our “allies”), but Iran will also be generously provided with about $150 billion in released funds, which they can and will use to ramp up terrorist operations in areas where they are already very active, as well as new places. They will acquire long-range missiles capable of reaching the U.S. They already have missiles that can reach Israel. Ignoring their death threats is such an obviously ill-advised choice as to seem deliberately placing America and Israel in terrible danger.

It can hardly be otherwise than that Obama and his minions know that they have seriously harmed the national security interests of America and Israel. Apparently these interests are far different from their own. If this is not the case, then we have the most careless, inept, and stupid foreign policy negotiators in history.

Obama has often shown his disdain for America as we have known her. His “fundamental transformation” is an attempt to destroy the foundations of our nation and create a socialist society that soon ends up as a third world dictatorship. There must be resistance by states, citizens, and elected representative at all levels to the lawlessness and betrayal we are witnessing. Only Republicans, for all their weaknesses, timidity, and political laziness, represent any kind of political hope to halt this destruction. Hillary, like Obama, is an Alynskyite (only more dedicated) and Bernie Sanders not only wouldn't help, but would soon bring America to absolute bankruptcy through endless spending.

This kind of betrayal is in line with Obama's demonstrated character. He has no problem with the murders of babies in the womb. He promotes and champions abortion as do almost all Democrat politicians. He lies about practically every important issue that gets his attention. There is not enough space for this article to list all or even most of the ways Obama's policies and actions have done a grave disservice to the United States of America. From things as petty as punishing the Washington Redskins organization for their nickname, to encouraging the killing of thousands of birds with windmills, to the multi-billion-dollar boondoggle of Obamacare, to turning against Israel, and placing their and our lives in danger through deliberately America-weakening foreign policy and massively cutting the military, the Obama presidency is already disastrous, with the threat of much more destruction to come.

There must and will be resistance. We must pray that it will be enough.

PCers in a Frenzy: The Confederate Flag Flap

By Eddie Howell

Confederate battle flag

It's remarkable that the horrible shootings in Charleston, SC, by a demented lunatic are being used as an excuse for the PC police to pursue their worse-than-worthless agenda, i.e., cram their thuggish, bullying nonsense down everyone's throat. Now the moronic left is trying to remove all traces of the Confederacy from our history, because they find it unpleasant. Maybe they like the mottos in Aldous Huxley's novel Brave New World, “Most historical facts are unpleasant,” and Henry Ford's quote “History is bunk,” used by the authorities to discourage people from inquiring into the past.

The brainless attempt to eradicate the Confederate flag is one of their latest efforts, and now they have the Supreme Court's lawless decision to legalize gay marriage everywhere to work with as well, plus, of course, Donald Trump's comments about Mexican immigrants, which may have lacked tact, but not truth.

Gen. Robert E. Lee

Common sense is becoming rarer and rarer with these self-righteous, sanctimonious ninnies, whose main purpose in life seems to be just to be offended and scream out at things (e.g., the Confederate flag) which have nothing to do with what they're supposedly protesting (e.g., the shootings in SC by a deranged person). That flag has been around for a century and a half following the Union victory in the Civil War. All of a sudden, because of some crazy man's murder spree, now we're supposed to rewrite history and cleanse it of many important facts.

Lt. Gen, "Stonewall" Jackson

I'm not a racist, but I am a Southerner, and, like it or not, that flag represents things greater than the sins of slavery and racism. It calls to memory the thousands who fought and died for their homeland. It helps us remember men like Robert E. Lee, a great and honorable man who only reluctantly led the rebel forces, after concluding that it was his moral duty to do so; Lieutenant General Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson, brilliant commander, and other brave Confederate fighters who felt that it was worth putting their lives on the line to defend their homes. Yes, the South was wrong about slavery, and the Civil War settled the issue at great cost. Because the war was fought on American soil, unlike the World Wars, and involved Americans fighting each other, sometimes brother against brother, it left an emotional residue that was very slow to recede, and is still around today.

But the South has, to very great extent, grown away from racism, albeit with some unpleasant incentives (Reconstruction, Supreme Court rulings, National Guard deployments, etc.), but grow it has, and, especially since the end of legal segregation, the great majority of Southerners accept the fact that people of all races share equally in legal rights, and merit respectful treatment.

Removal of the Confederate flag brings to mind George Orwell's novel 1984, and the memory hole which was the destination of historical documentation to be removed and never seen again. The Soviets practiced their own version of this, revising history books and altering photographs to try to wipe out the memory of people or events they didn't like, as though they never existed.

The "General Lee" from "The Dukes of Hazzard"

Today, we have some genius ordering that “The Dukes of Hazzard” be taken off the TV Land channel. John Schneider and others are right in their criticism. They can do what they want with their network. The market will respond, “Dukes” will likely find another TV home, and TV Land's ratings will be affected. But it was a dumb decision, helping nothing.

Now Al Sharpton wants the military to remove all traces of the Confederacy. How he can be taken seriously any more, given his track record, is beyond me. He owes millions in taxes, but has access to the White House of President Obama, our Deceiver-in-Chief. What Sharpton asks is ridiculous on its face, and to comply would take extremely stupid, un-American, and unconstitutional orders. We may hope our generals have better sense, but I'm not so sure about Obama.

This July Fourth, let's celebrate and exercise our freedom. We're going to have to defend it against the leftists.

Related articles

• The Strange Demise of the Confederate Flag
• National Cathedral In The Crosshairs

Southern Baptist Convention President: Bible Is Final Authority about Marriage

The United States Supreme Court -- Top row: Associate Justices Sotamayor, Breyer, Alito, and Kagan; Bottom row: Associate Justices Thomas, Scalia, Chief Justice Roberts, and Associate Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg

Dr. Ronnie Floyd

Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd recently spoke to the Convention meeting in Columbus, Ohio. Anticipating the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, he set a strong standard for resistance to the ruling, and urged the denomination to stand against it. The Columbus Dispatch reports,

“This could be a watershed moment in our history, possibly changing the trajectory of our nation unlike anything we’ve seen since 1973 in the Roe v. Wade decision,” Floyd said. “This decision could add fuel, more fuel, to the already sweeping wildfire of the sexual revolution and move it beyond anyone’s control locally, statewide, nationally and globally...

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Our first commitment is to God and his word — nothing else and no one else. And I want to remind everyone today, humbly, the Supreme Court of the United States is not the final authority, nor is the culture itself, but the Bible is God’s final authority about marriage, and on this book we stand,” Floyd said to applause.

He reminded the audience of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident who is quoted as saying, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak, and not to act is to act.”

“This is a Bonhoeffer moment for every pastor in the United States,” Floyd said. “While some evangelicals ... may be bowing down to the deception of the inclusiveness of same-sex marriage or marriage in their churches, we will not bow down, nor will we be silent.”

It should be noted that Bonhoeffer was executed by the Nazis.

The evil we face is not the same as Bonhoeffer faced, but it is evil nonetheless. It remains to be seen to what extent churches and people of faith will be pressured to cooperate with this immoral ruling.

As a matter of faith, believers in Christ should follow the example of Peter and John when they were

confronted by the religious authorities of their day about healing a man in the name of Jesus:

“Peter and John answered and said to them,'Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.'” (Acts 4:19-20). In following such an example, believers must be prepared for the consequences of their actions. In this biblical instance, the apostles were taken into custody and threatened, then released.

In the political realm, the United States Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, specifically guarantees freedom of religion. The federal government, liberals, atheists, and the gay rights movement have already acted in ways that show they don't mind restricting religious freedom. Consider the Obamacare contraceptive rules, and the bakers who are losing their business for not baking a cake for a gay wedding. This, despite constitutional protection of freedom of religion. Preachers against homosexuality may see efforts to silence them, despite constitutional freedom of speech.

It's going to be an interesting decade.

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• America Unplugged
• Texas Attorney General: Marriage Ruling 'Lawless'

Ted Cruz Analyzes Washington, D.C. Cronyism and Corruption

In this recent speech at the Heritage Foundation, Senator Ted Cruz makes a strong case for his presidential candidacy by demonstrating his understanding of the problem of Washington cronyism, corporate welfare, and corruption by both parties that continually benefit the well-connected at the expense of the American taxpayer. The situation he describes should be shocking, but maybe we're not tuned in to politics enough to realize what a problem this is. Senator Cruz is willing to take on these issues and is one of the very few who will.

I urge everyone who is interested in these issues to watch and listen to the complete video. America will not benefit from the continuation of these unacceptable practices, and it will take some doing to really start correcting things.

I found this video at Lexington Libertarian, via Liberty Tree on Twitter.

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Sen. Sessions: Senate Should Slow Fast-Track Before It's Too Late

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Who knows what's in the Trans-Pacific Partnership proposed agreement? It's many pages of something mysterious and likely detrimental to American sovereignty. With fast track, it's like a blank check to President Obama to whatever he wants with little to no say-so from Congress. It's not like a normal treaty. Congress is voting on a bill that they're hardly allowed to see, let alone read. Shades of NancyPelosi's famous Obamacare statement: "We have to pass this bill so you can find out what's in it." Ninety-nine percent of those voting on it do not know what's in it.

I hope Sen. Jeff Sessions' op-ed at Breitbart Big Government is being read by a lot of people. Seems he's the one of the very few that has enough basic caution to be concerned about this potentially disastrous bit of legislation, if you can call it that. As he notes, it's a shell game, and, I would add, a hat trick. For the Congress to pass any legislation of so many pages and having never read, let alone understood it, we the people are being very poorly represented on very large-scale matters.

Bravo, Senator Sessions!

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Mayor Giuliani Is Correct

“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” the former New York mayor said at a dinner attended by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

From the mayor's subsequent appearance on "Fox and Friends" is the following:

Liberals are acting as though they're horrified by the recent comments by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani that he doesn't believe that President Obama loves America. Of course, the left is probably thrilled that he said something that they think they can use as political ammunition against the GOP. It seems startling that the former mayor would say such a thing about the president, until one considers the facts as he explained them and as we have heard about them before. When we examine Obama's rhetoric before and during his presidency, his opinions as stated in his book Dreams from My Father, and his known influences in his younger days, it's not such a surprising thing for Mr. Giuliani to say. What makes it a little surprising is that this statement comes from such a well-known and respected source.

Far from “tarnishing his legacy,” he has merely stated the obvious.

It is true that the young Obama was mentored by communists, domestic terrorists and anti-Semites. Giuliani points out that he was in Jeremiah Wright's church for 17 years. But of course, Obama was never present to hear one of Wright's anti-American tirades. Really? We're supposed to believe that?

A CNN reporter dismissed all the criticisms of Obama's ties with radical leftists with the simple statement that they are “getting old,” not that they aren't true. The anchorwoman says “good reporting” in response, but it isn't really reporting at all. Another CNN commentator incorrectly refers to Dinesh D'Souza's well-researched documentary 2016, which asserts that Obama was and is influenced by the extreme anti-colonialism of his father and others, as “fictionalized.”

The fact that Obama cannot bring himself to say to “Islamic terrorism” defies not only reason but honesty. Both Charles Krauhammer and George Will have referred to this as “pathological.”

Radio host Mark Levin has a good analysis of Giuliani's comments:

These things, plus Mr. Obama's constant apologies for America, his refusal to consider the United States an exceptional nation, his kowtowing to Arab leaders while disrespecting the prime minster of Israel to the point of working against his reelection, do not reflect the views of someone who loves America. While we cannot fully know Obama's inner motivations, we can tell a lot by his words and actions. “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

ISIS Murders 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya: Egyptian President Responds, Obama Doesn't

By Eddie Howell

The barbaric Islamic terror group ISIS on Sunday beheaded twenty-one Egyptian Coptic Christians in Libya, releasing a video of the murders as well as a statement of their further intentions. This is said to be their worst mass execution outside of Syria and Iraq. And yet it has raised hardly a ripple among MSM outlets or even the White House.

This is in line with President Obama's usual way of doing things, i.e., he sees little need to respond to Islamic persecution of Christians in numerous countries around the world, or, for that matter, the worsening anti-Semitism going on in Europe and elsewhere. But don't let anyone complain too much about about the Muslims. That could get his dander up.

In response to the murder of the twenty-one Christians, the White House released a statement that failed to acknowledge that the victims of this foul deed were Christians. Maybe the administration thought that if that were mentioned, someone might notice the elephant in the room, that is, that the executioners were Islamic jihadists. The statement:

The United States condemns the despicable and cowardly murder of twenty-one Egyptian citizens in Libya by ISIL-affiliated terrorists. We offer our condolences to the families of the victims and our support to the Egyptian government and people as they grieve for their fellow citizens.

ISIL’s barbarity knows no bounds. It is unconstrained by faith, sect, or ethnicity. This wanton killing of innocents is just the most recent of the many vicious acts perpetrated by ISIL-affiliated terrorists against the people of the region, including the murders of dozens of Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, which only further galvanizes the international community to unite against ISIL.

Some people, including this writer, find it offensive that the White House didn't mention that those who died were Christians.

Even the official media of Egypt acknowledged that they were Christians and citizens of Egypt.

...President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned that his country would respond to the deaths as it saw fit. Speaking on national television hours after the release of the video, Sisi said Cairo would choose the "necessary means and timing to avenge the criminal killings." Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead...

Sisi has spoken out before about the evil of Islamist terrorism and therefore has been condemned by ISIS.

President Obama was so moved and shaken by the news that he had to play golf Sunday with the billionaire founder of Oracle. He did not find the murders sufficiently important to warrant a statement from himself personally, but left that matter to the press secretary.

These events and responses seem to follow now-well-established patterns. The president and his administration will have little to say about, let alone try to do anything about, the persecution of Christians or Jews, and there can be no connection acknowledged between Islam and terrorism. As mentioned in a previous post, the required words have been, in effect, removed from the Newspeak Dictionary, so such thoughts are no longer possible. Like it or not, believe it or not, that is the thinking, or lack thereof, at the White House.

Related articles

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Charles Krauthammer on Obama's Prayer Breakfast Lecture to Christians

By Eddie Howell

At the annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, February 5, the President Obama's remarks included criticism of “ISIL,” but also the following:

Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

In response,columnist and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer on Fox's Hannity gave a brief and accurate analysis of President Obama's recent prayer breakfast comments.

The president lectured on the past evils of Christianity, i.e., the Crusades and the Inquisition, seeming to make a moral equivalence to the barbaric atrocities now committed daily by jihadist Muslims, including the burning alive of a Jordanian pilot. Never mind that the bad things he referred to about Christians took place centuries ago. In the president's outlook, terrorism and barbaric practices must not in any way be associated with Islam. In other words, let's not live in the world of reality about this. For Obama, the Newspeak Dictionary does not allow that kind of thinking because the required words have been removed.

This is just one more incident of Obama's reckless and ill-advised polices, by which he insults the American people and our allies (Netanyahu, for example) and is very timid about criticizing any aspect of Islamic terror without comparing it to Christianity. It is jihadist Muslims who are burning churches and killing Christians in several countries. It is not the other way around. Many Muslims oppose this behavior, and some leaders are speaking out, but we don't hear many Muslim clerics complaining about it. In fact, they and their radical followers are up in arms (sometimes literally) about “Islamophobia” if anyone mentions something negative about Islam or if authorities don't go out of their way to accommodate their wishes. Fortunately, most Americans of all faiths reject senseless violence.

I might add that Obama, who claims to be a Christian, has championed the sins of Romans 1 as his party's political platform, as pointed out not long ago by a prominent preacher.

Further reading I recommend: “Obama Newsflash: Terrorism Has NOTHING To Do With Islam, Folks. But, Hey, Let’s Blame Christianity For Crusades A THOUSAND Years Ago” at Michael Eden's Start ThinkingRight blog. 

• Obama: I'll meet your ISIS, and raise you The Crusades
• Obama Basically Equates ISIS With Christianity In Prayer Breakfast Speech
• Obama: Christians Did Horrible Things, Too
• Obama Under Fire for Prayer Breakfast Quip

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Needed: Effective Opposition to the Democrats by the GOP

President and Mrs. Obama

By Eddie Howell

Ever-increasingly for the last several years, it has become evident that people who truly cannot be trusted with political power have been the ones in charge. Barack Obama has shown himself to be the communist-mentored socialist-fascist that he actually is, as well as, it seems, a race-baiting hate monger not much different from his “spiritual” mentor “Rev.” Jeremiah Wright. As a Christian, the president is a strange specimen indeed. If all this weren't enough, he has actively worked to undermine the American economy with his crackpot schemes on “climate change” (such as the failed cap and trade bill, and now the evil new EPA regulations), weird financial regulations that keep “too-big-to-fail” in place while making things tougher on smaller banks.

His administration has seen a mind-boggling increase in public debt (which can never be paid) and annual deficits. He has been a far bigger promise breaker and liar than Bill Clinton, which is really saying something. (“If you like your health-care plan you can keep your plan,” just for starters.)

Jonathan Gruber should be thanked for shedding some light on the thinking of the administration during the development of Obamacare: it was designed to be sold to the “stupid” American people, who were smart enough to recognize that it was not a good plan, and mostly did not support it. Yet they suffered from it in millions of cases by receiving a severe downgrade of their insurance coverage and are set to receive even more insulting and injurious blows from it as time goes on.

Obama presided over an IRS that deliberately went after his political enemies. His claims of ignorance are not believable. He fiddled while the American outpost in Benghazi burned. Nor did his secretary of state Ms. Clinton bother to respond to repeated requests for security help there. And why was Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi on September 11 anyway? That episode in itself should have resulted in deep apologies and major resignations, but the administration basically blew it off, and lied to the families of the dead Americans that some cockamamie video was responsible, then went after the producer of the video with a vengeance.

Political careers should have ended over the items mentioned above. Obama and his cronies have shown themselves unfit to serve in public office. And so far, I haven't even mentioned Michelle Obama's school lunch disasters, by which it's hard not to think of her as just mean. And her endless vacations. I have suggested before that the president and his family be budgeted for about a billion dollars annually for vacations in the hope that they would stay out of the country more of the time.

* * *

Meanwhile, the GOP has some troubles of its own. As Rush Limbaugh pointed out, the leadership doesn't like their base. Just when Republicans, fresh from strong mid-term election victories, need to be at their best, the leaders are afraid that something conservative might happen if the dissenters get their way and that would, well, mess up some things for the cocktail-circuit “leaders.” Apparently, most of the House members didn't want to upset the apple cart, so they were contented to support Speaker John Boehner. I would prefer to see Louie Gohmert as speaker. But all that is minor stuff in the big picture compared to the disaster the Democrats have foisted upon us.

Patrick Buchanan points out that Democrats have plenty to worry about regarding their people, some of whom, including the president, to the chagrin of most Democratic voters, miss few opportunities to stir up racial turmoil, and who regard “Rev.” Al Sharpton as a guiding light on racial matters. Most Americans, as Buchanan says, have sided with the police (even more so after two officers were murdered in New York) and against the rioters whose “protests” were often far from “peaceful,” and against DeBlasio, Sharpton, etc.*

So, except for the things mentioned here and some others, like ISIS terrorists, Iranian leaders playing Obama for a sucker in the worst way, the mistreatment of Israel, and a good many other issues, things aren't too bad. Republicans have an opportunity to show some backbone and some leadership in Washington if they so choose. I hope they have the courage to be the opposition party they're supposed to be.

*Paragraph updated 01/13/15. Highlighted portion was corrected. Previously, it read as though I was painting Democrats in general as race hustlers, which, of course, they are not. The leaders who are represent a problem for the party.