Monday, January 4, 2016
To: Friends & Supporters
From: Gary L. Bauer
Personal Note
Our end of year fundraising drive is over. (Stop cheering.) And I am happy to report that we met our budget goal! (Now you can cheer.)
Many thanks to all of you who generously donated and helped American Values reach its goal. We appreciate you!
Recruiting Jihadists
The radical Islamic terror group al-Shabaab released a recruitment video over the weekend. It features Malcolm X, stokes racial tensions and urges black Muslim Americans to rise up against our country. It sounds like it could have been written by Louis Farrakhan, the Nation of Islam leader once honored by Obama’s Chicago church.
But what the media focused on was footage of Donald Trump calling for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration to America until we can sort out the peaceful Muslims from those who hate us.
Since the left-wing media are trying to revive the meme that conservative rhetoric is helping the Islamists, let me again put this ludicrous lie to rest. Jihadists don’t care about our immigration policies. They don’t need an excuse to attack us.
Radical Islam’s goal is to create a worldwide caliphate in which everyone will follow Islam, be killed or live a life of subservience to Islamic rulers. The suggestion that we need a pause in Muslim immigration in no way gives al-Shabaab the moral high ground or a recruiting tool.
Much of the video attacks U.S. drone strikes. Do leftists want to stop drone strikes because Islamists object to them and use the strikes to recruit more jihadists?
The left always wants to blame something else other than radical Islam. Barack Obama says we need to shut down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay because the Islamists are using it for recruitment. But we were attacked on 9/11 before Gitmo was used to hold jihadists.
There is a reason the Marine Corps hymn has a line about the “shores of Tripoli.” It is a reference to the First Barbary War in 1805. Muslim pirates attacked American ships off the coast of Libya just years after we become an independent nation.
In the left’s world, Islamophobia causes radical Islamism. But in reality, radical jihadism causes Islamophobia.
Iran Unleashed
When people think about Barack Obama’s promise to fundamentally transform America, they often think of Obamacare and other domestic policies. But Obama has done much to fundamentally transform America’s foreign policy too. And neither the U.S. nor the world is a safer place for it.
When Obama took office in January 2009, Iraq was a relatively stable nation. Iran was contained and ISIS did not exist. Now there is chaos throughout the Middle East. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is in Syria trying to fix Obama’s mess. And the Iranians have been unleashed.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry pinned their hopes on cutting a nuclear deal with the mullahs in Tehran. They claimed a deal would strengthen moderates, open Iran to trade and lead to Iran becoming a responsible state.
Obama got his deal. Congressional liberals guaranteed that. The left embraced it. But did Iran open its doors to U.S. goods? No. The ayatollah banned them.
Did Iran renounce its support for terrorism? No. It renewed support for Hamas, sent troops to Syria and armed rebels in Yemen.
Is Iran acting like a responsible regional power? No. In blatant violation of U.N. sanctions, Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles and firing rockets near U.S. ships.
And when the U.S. threatened to respond to Iran’s missile violations, did Iran back down? No. Iran’s “moderate” president ordered his military to accelerate Iran’s missile program.
Astonishing! The Iranians believe Obama is a total pushover. He is. Apparently, the administration is now retreating from its plans to impose even minor sanctions against the Iranian regime.
Obama says he is promoting peace, but he is really projecting weakness and the world’s dictators are taking notice. He has deconstructed decades of bi-partisan policies in the Middle East and, in the process, he has unleashed the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Scalia’s Warning
Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking to a Catholic high school over the weekend, reminded conservatives about the high stakes in America’s culture war. He said God has blessed America because we have honored Him.
“God has been very good to us,” Scalia said. “That we won the revolution was extraordinary. . . I think one of the reasons God has been good to us is that we have done him honor.” The justice added that nothing in the Constitution requires the government to be indifferent or hostile to religious expression.
He said if the country wants an agnostic government, then the people should vote on it. But, Scalia warned, the left is now trying to “cram” aggressive secularism “down the throats of the American people” through the courts.
“To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition,” he said.
My friends, Justice Scalia is exactly right!
He also happens to be the longest-serving current justice on the Supreme Court, appointed 30 years ago this year by President Ronald Reagan. He turns 80 in March, and while I wish Justice Scalia many, many more happy birthdays, I know that someday he will no longer be on the Supreme Court.
These two issues alone — the fate of religious liberty in America and the composition of the Supreme Court — should cause every man and woman of faith to get off the sidelines and redouble their efforts to make sure our values prevail in America’s culture war.
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