Washington Post:
It should have been one of the most congenial calls for the new commander in chief — a conversation with the leader of Australia, one of America’s staunchest allies, at the end of a triumphant week.Trump gets the bear for this:
Instead, President Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over a refugee agreement and boasted about the magnitude of his electoral college win, according to senior U.S. officials briefed on the Saturday exchange. Then, 25 minutes into what was expected to be an hour-long call, Trump abruptly ended it.
At one point Trump informed Turnbull that he had spoken with four other world leaders that day — including Russian President Vladimir Putin — and that “This was the worst call by far.”
...“This is the worst deal ever,” Trump fumed as Turnbull attempted to confirm that the United States would honor its pledge to take in 1,250 refugees from an Australian detention center. Trump, who one day earlier had signed an executive order temporarily barring the admissions of refugees, complained that he was “going to get killed” politically and accused Australia of seeking to export the “next Boston bombers.”
But when you look closer about Trump's refugee complaint, combined with his executive order banning immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations, another picture starts to emerge from the fog.
And then it becomes this:
Reuters:
The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government program designed to counter all violent ideologies so that it focuses solely on Islamist extremism, five people briefed on the matter told Reuters.Even with as much leeway as Trump gives Islam as a whole, it is becoming obvious that his administration is more dedicated to the war on Islam than the last two administrations. Trump can protest that he has nothing against Islam as much as he wants, but he comes off sounding like FDR saying he has nothing against Germans or Japanese.
The program, "Countering Violent Extremism," or CVE, would be changed to "Countering Islamic Extremism" or "Countering Radical Islamic Extremism," the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.
Such a change would reflect Trump's election campaign rhetoric and criticism of former President Barack Obama for being weak in the fight against Islamic State and for refusing to use the phrase "radical Islam" in describing it. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for attacks on civilians in several countries.
However, having said that:
Fox News:
The advocacy group Open Doors USA recently released the latest edition of its annual World Watch List, which ranks countries based on the treatment of their Christian populations. The group said the increase in incidents considered persecution was alarming and only getting worse.
"It is appalling that Open Doors has to report that persecution has increased again in 2016 and we are still at the worst levels of persecution in modern times," David Curry, president and CEO of Open Doors USA, said to Fox News. "The spread of persecution has gotten worse, now hitting nearly every continent in the world. There were 23 Christians killed in Mexico specifically because of their faith.”
The report comes on the heels of another study by the Center for Studies on New Religions that showed nearly 90,000 Christians were killed for their faith in 2016 and that as many as 600 million were prevented from practicing their faith through intimidation, forced conversions, bodily harm or even death.So why would Christian persecution be on the rise? How about hundreds of thousands of dead Muslims?
Don't get me wrong: Islam isn't kind to anyone who doesn't follow their faith, especially in countries that adhere to Sharia Law. The great irony here is how Leftists defend Islam with a broad brush, ignoring all the sexism, homophobic beliefs, and general denial of human rights such as freedom of speech and religion. Islam is as much a political philosophy as it is a religious one.
Should we be at war with Islam? The answer to that question is the answer to whether Trump is doing the right thing or not.
In other news...
Shareblue:
A line sneakily inserted into the new House rules package exempts the Congressional Budget Office from doing a standard 10-year cost analysis on a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, thus seeking to conceal the cost to taxpayers of taking away their health insurance.
As House Republicans voted on the new congressional rules package for the 115th Congress, many passages drew controversy, including a provision to unconstitutionally fine legislators for taking video footage on the House floor, and an attempt to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics.
But one passage made it through without attention from the corporate media: A provision that distorts the analysis of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for political gain.The Republicans should be screaming this to the rooftops: "This is how much the Democratic takeover of the healthcare industry cost you to fix!" Instead, they act like the weasels they are.
...the new Republican rules package specifically instructs the CBO not to say how much it would cost to repeal Obamacare.
It is worth pointing out that the last time the CBO did a cost analysis of repealing Obamacare, in 2015, they found that it would increase the deficit by $353 billion. That is important, because Republicans are hoping to repeal much of Obamacare using budget reconciliation, which requires any legislation that increases the deficit to expire after 10 years.
(hat tip to Giphy for the GIF)
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