A Hindu Defends Catholics

For John, BLUF:  It is a stretch, but not much of a stretch, to say US Progressives are becoming Communist China-like in terms of resistance to Christianity.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Democratic Congresswoman Calls Out Fellow Democrats for ‘Religious Bigotry’

From National Review, by Ms Alexandra DeSanctis, 9 January 2019.

Here is the lede plus four:

Representative Tulsi Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, published an op-ed in The Hill yesterday, implicitly criticizing two of her fellow Democratic congresswomen for subjecting a judicial nominee to a religious test as a result of his Catholic faith and his long-time membership in the Knights of Columbus.

Though she doesn’t mention them by name, Gabbard was referring to Democratic senators Kamala Harris (Calif.) and Mazie Hirono (Hawaii), both of whom have targeted federal judicial nominee Brian Buescher for his Catholicism, and the latter of whom has demanded that he drop his membership in the Knights and recuse himself from any case on which the organization has taken a position.

Gabbard does explicitly cite the controversial comments of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), who in the fall of 2017 questioned circuit-court nominee Amy Coney Barrett about her Catholic faith during her confirmation hearing, saying, “The dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” Feinstein’s remark received significant backlash from the right, and from Catholics in particular, who rightly noted the senator’s obvious implication that practicing Catholics are not suited to serve on U.S. courts as a result of their faith.

“While I oppose the nomination of Brian Buescher to the U.S. District Court in Nebraska, I stand strongly against those who are fomenting religious bigotry, citing as disqualifiers Buescher’s Catholicism and his affiliation with the Knights of Columbus,” Gabbard went on. More from her op-ed:

The party that worked so hard to convince people that Catholics and Knights of Columbus like Al Smith and John F. Kennedy could be both good Catholics and good public servants shows an alarming disregard of its own history in making such attacks today. We must call this out for what it is – religious bigotry. . . . Elected leaders engaging in religion-baiting are playing with fire.

This activity Representative Gabbard has called out is just wrong, but not without precedent.  Remember the Know Nothing's?

The Progressives, the Secular Humanists, can drive religious people out of the public square, but only by destroying the First Amendment.  And it won't succeed in destroying belief in God.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Fight, Mr President

For John, BLUF:  Some don't wish for the President to back down.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Presidential Trump MUST Stand Firm On the Wall and Comprehensive Border Security For the Sake of His Presidency...

Here is the sub-headline:

....AND THE LONG-TERM SECURITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.  IT WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.

From Webutante, 8 January 2018.

And this from Fox News:

Sen. Graham:  Republicans 'Deserve to Be Punished' If They Give in on Border Security

Here is the lede plus three:

President Trump now needs to back up his very fine speech tonight in favor of legal immigration by controlling illegal entry to the United States.

He must not back down. Congress certainly has as it has dilly dallied on this issue for decades, making promises, passing bills to fund a border wall which has never been implemented.  Mr.Trump has drawn the line for the American people and forced a crisis that's long, long overdue.  Good for him.  Now the president must not let this crisis go to waste.  He must not back down. Real leadership is taking a stand and letting the chips fall where they may.

President Trump is doing the right thing for the American people.  He's doing the right thing for his presidency.  Trump needs to hang tough for as long as it takes.  He must not back down.

He can not back down now.  Thank you President Trump for taking this tough, hard stand against the entrenched powers and principalities of the air.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Truancy

For John, BLUF:  We have to do a better job of teaching parenting.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Immigrant Truancy in America:  'No One Wants to Talk About It'

From Real Clear Investigations, by Ms Helene Stapinski, 7 January 2019.

Here are two key paragraphs:

Chronic absenteeism plagues public education in general across the United States.  The U.S. Department of Education recently reported that about one in seven students missed 15 days or more during the 2013-14 school year.  Although these numbers are not broken down by race, ethnicity and class, experts say that the problem is especially acute in high-poverty schools, including those where many students take English as a second language.  The stakes for these children are especially significant because school is often a gateway to American culture as well as career opportunities. 

But because of the highly charged atmosphere surrounding immigration, hardly anyone wants to talk about the problem of truancy.  [David] Ishibashi [executive director of the Youth Success Network] was one of the few officials who would even agree to be quoted by name regarding the problem among immigrant families.  Most school advocates and immigration experts interviewed by RealClearInvestigations would speak only on condition of anonymity.

One of the issues here is parental responsibility, and how to instill it.  Another is adaptation to the nominal American Culture. Otherwise, why did you come here?

Read the whole short article!

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

The Democratic Party Future

For John, BLUF:  Where is the Democratic Party and where is it going?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The House Democrats’ Best Path Forward

Here is the sub-headline:

To counter Donald Trump, and to prepare for 2020, the Party needs to think big.

From The New Yorker, by Ms Margaret Talbot, 14 January 2018.

Here is the lede plus two:

One of the worst side effects of Trumpism is the way that it drives its opponents into reactive mode, amid an atmosphere of cooked-up chaos.  Donald Trump wants to build a “great, great wall,” and last week he considered declaring a national emergency to do it, despite the fact that illegal border crossings have drastically decreased since 2000, and that many of those trying to cross these days are women and children who are not evading border guards but seeking them out, to ask for asylum.  At the outset of 2019, we’re in the second week of a partial government shutdown—which Trump said could last for months or years—because congressional Democrats have had to take his fixation seriously and insist that they won’t allocate the five billion dollars that he wants for the wall.  (The actual costs of a concrete barrier could climb as high as forty billion dollars, according to an analysis in M.I.T. Technology Review, and a report from the Government Accountability Office warns that the wall could “cost more than projected, take longer than planned, or not fully perform as expected.”)

Democrats are offering two compromises that would reopen government agencies and give the Department of Homeland Security $1.3 billion to improve border-security technology and other measures, including fortified fencing.  Meanwhile, some sense of the psychological vagaries that Democrats have to contend with can be derived from the increasingly peculiar way that Trump talks about the wall, as though it were not a policy but a totem—for the protection of his own ego, perhaps.  “The wheel, the wall, some things never get old,” he said last week, at a rambling Cabinet meeting.

Still, whatever compromise is eventually reached to reopen the government, the best path forward for the Democrats as they take over the House of Representatives—the most effective way to counter the Administration’s frantic, unmoored agenda-setting, while also motivating voters for 2020—will be to pursue ambitious ideas.  These could include the once utopian-sounding Medicare for All; a Green New Deal, to combat climate change while creating jobs; a national fifteen-dollar minimum wage; and a Voting Rights Advancement Act, to revive some of the protections that the Supreme Court eradicated in 2013, in Shelby County v. Holder.

Of course this depends on the individual Democrats being able to stay sane and stable, but they don't seem to have a good track record in that area.

There is, also before us, the Example of Senator E Warren, who seems to be combining her left wing experience with a sense of the issues of flyover land, perhaps based upon her experiences growing up in Oklahoma and time living in Texas.

I am wondering when we will see a like item from The New Yorker with regard to the GOP.

Regards  —  Cliff

Countering Extremism

For John, BLUF:  I think these are ideas (at the article) that Congress should look at.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Congress should learn from Canada on preventing extremist violence

From The Brookings Institution, by Mr Eric Rosand, 4 January 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Democrats taking control of the U.S. House today with the start of the 116th Congress have a long and growing list of policy (as well as investigative) priorities. Included on it should be the development of an appropriate national framework for preventing extremist violence of any type in the United States, whether committed by a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi, or someone inspired by ISIS or al-Qaida propaganda. The Trump administration ignored the request from the 115th Congress to submit such a framework by June 2018 and has cut funding for locally-led prevention efforts. The new Congress should act.

Plenty has been written about the shortcomings in the United States in this area. The focus is typically on the unhelpfully labelled “CVE” (countering violent extremism) efforts in this country, which lag behind those of most U.S. allies. Some place the blame on the executive branch; some argue for more leadership and solutions from civil society and other non-governmental organizations; some simply say CVE doesn’t work.

Yet few point to the absence of any bipartisan congressional leadership on this topic. That dereliction of duty has been striking, particularly given the steady rise in anti-Semitic incidents, hate crimes, and far-right extremist attacks. The 115th Congress passed legislation and appropriated funds ($10 million) to the U.S. Institute of Peace to develop a comprehensive plan to prevent violent extremism in Africa and the Middle East. But what about violent extremism at home?

His five ides make some sense, but I am not sure they will work here as well as they work in Canada.  Remember, Canada doesn't have a First Ameendment.

Regards  —  Cliff

Blame For Shutdown

For John, BLUF:  Is President Trump winning the "long game" on shutdown?  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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The Public Blamed Trump For The Shutdown — But That May Be Changing

From The FiveThirtyEight Blog, by Mr Nathaniel Rakich, 4 January 2019.

Before Christmas those polled tended to blame the President for the partial Federal shutdown.  Subsequently, there has been a shift to Congress, but with Congressional Republicans leading in taking blame.

Regards  —  Cliff

Will House Take Up Impeachment?

For John, BLUF:  Impeachment is just the opening round.  Getting a conviction in the Senate is a harder row to hoe.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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#YOLO: Dems To Introduce Impeachment Measure On Day 1

From Hot Air, by [Captain] Ed Morrissey, 3 January 2019.

Here is the lede plus one:

It was the question of the 2018 midterms: will Democrats use a House majority to pursue impeachment of Donald Trump?  The answer was always consistent — That would be “premature.”  We need to wait for Robert Mueller to finish up.  No, no, no …

Er … yes

Well, there is this headline from today's LA Times:

California’s Rep. Brad Sherman to introduce impeachment measure

It reads, in part:

Rep. Brad Sherman plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump on Thursday, the first day of Democratic control of the House.

Sherman (D-Northridge) is reintroducing a measure that he first rolled out in 2017.  But this year it carries more political significance:  The decision of whether to act on it rests with Democrats — not Trump’s Republican allies.

Sherman’s articles of impeachment accuse Trump of obstructing justice by firing former FBI Director James B. Comey, among other wrongdoing.

All they have to do is be calm and deliberate and they can't even do that.

By the way, Mr James Comey needed to be fired and it is possible a President Clinton would have done the same.  I believe Rep Sherman is either not well informed about the clue bag or he is just hiding behind a Democratic Party Wall, build to keep out, not illegal aliens, but, the truth.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff