Is Brian Williams Crazy?

In the immediate aftermath of the ISIS terrorist attack in Munich, Germany, MSNBC anchor Brian Williams mused, “And why does it feel so strange to kind of root for it not being ISIS?”

Let me respond to his question. It should feel strange to root for such a thing. Why root for the enemy? Would Christian terrorists or crazy right-wingers be preferable culprits?

Can you imagine anyone during World War II saying, “It feels so strange to kind of root for that bombing of London not being the work of the Nazis?” How many different enemies does Williams want?

Williams explained his irrational rationale – his deep desire – “to break the cycle [of ISIS] even though every death is an absolute tragedy and this just means we have deranged people without the affiliation?”

He would prefer this attack had been committed by “deranged people” not affiliated with ISIS. Is Williams a “useful idiot” for a global terrorist network, a “fellow traveler” with those who seek to destroy Western Civilization?

Is Williams serious? In addition to being at war with a vast army of cruel barbarians intent upon destroying us to achieve their religious/ideological utopia based upon the Koran, Williams also wants more “deranged people” not affiliated with ISIS for us to combat.

Why? So he can feel good about being inclusive and dismiss the reality of Islamic jihad?

Williams’ sense of right and wrong requires believing that all religions are equal and all religions are capable of the barbarism on display almost daily in the news. No! They are not.

The Left’s constant moral equivalence during the Cold War between the West and the Evil Empire has shifted to an equally insane and suicidal moral equivalence between Muslim jihadists and Christian conservatives peacefully engaged in the political process.

Ever on the alert for mythical Christian terrorists to condemn, the Left is willfully blind to the Islamist threat we face every day.

But Williams merely follows in the footsteps of his ideological predecessors and comrades and who have been redefining terrorism for years.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, many commentators and members of the mainstream media jumped to the conclusion that that terrorist attack was committed by the “extreme right,” anti-government groups, or the Tea Party.

Few considered the most obvious culprit: a radicalized Islamic jihadist. An astonishing banner headline appeared on the Salon website: “Let’s Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American.” Williams’ musing mirror Salon’s perspective.

The time has come to end the identity politics and political correctness which have plagued our nation for so many decades. Identity politics and political correctness have weakened America in every area of life and placed our nation and our people in jeopardy.

Let’s stop this nonsense!

Let’s recognize the enemy, name him, and defeat him!

While we still can!

Take Jesus to the World

“These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

 

The last two months have been tough for America; we were horrified by the Orlando massacre and the Dallas assassinations. We sense evil amongst us and we can easily fall into despair.

What will happen next? How do we stop the carnage?

When senseless horrors like these occur, we are confronted with the reality that we live in a very imperfect world.

We are all broken people living in a broken world where every community, every profession, and every human system is broken.

But there is a solution to all of the chaos and healing for the brokenness.

That solution does not rely upon fallible human beings but upon our infallible Creator.

How do we mend a human heart? (We don’t. God does.)

No man-made laws (however well-intentioned) can change the human heart. Only Jesus Christ can change our hearts.

Jesus proclaimed, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)

Jesus has overcome the world and he is, moment by moment, person by person, changing hearts and transforming lives.

Even now, Jesus is fixing our broken world by fixing broken hearts one by one. As people are adopted into his kingdom, healing will spring forth into changed hearts, which in turn, will change the world.

Senseless violence will cease to exist when the whole world realizes the truth of who Jesus is and what he can accomplish.

Let us take Jesus to the world for healing and restoration. We can rely on him. He is, after all, the Savior of the world.

Vive la France!

Our hearts and prayers are with you.

Background/Related Links:

See “Obama Snubs Paris, Disses War on Terror” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-6S.

See “Benghazi-Paris Nexus” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-6Y.

See “We Are All Parisians!” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-71.

See “CPAC: Roman Genn – Solidarity for Liberty” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-8f.

See “ISIS Is Contained!” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-bX.

See “The Left Goes Gaga Over Paris Attack” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-c0.

See “Coulter Aghast at ISIS Coverage” at http://wp.me/p4jHFp-aK.

CPAC: Death by a 1,000 Pens

[Part I – “CPAC: Brits Seek Independence (and so should we)”[1] – highlighted Britain’s current rebellion against the European Union. Americans would do well to emulate their growing fervor for freedom.]

We have seen why so many Brits seek to flee the European Union, whose centralized, supranational government prevents Britain from protecting itself from the immigration crisis and terrorist threat contained therein.

In the wake of the terrorist attack in Brussels (HQ of the EU), National Review noted the inescapable nexus between the E.U.’s policies and the fruit of those policies. The Editors wrote (emphasis added):

“In one part of the city reside EU bureaucrats who continue to promulgate their fanciful transnational ideals, increasingly against the evidence; in another part are roiling ghettos populated largely by Muslims from North Africa and the Middle East, many of whom have a very different vision for the future of Europe … A half century of effectively open borders, a refusal to require assimilation of immigrants into a robust notion of European culture, and an unyielding fidelity to multicultural pieties have resulted in cities fractured along ethnic lines and, as Brussels officials have admitted in the hours since Tuesday morning’s attack, overwhelmed by potential terror threats.”

Terrorism is not the only threat posed by edicts from the European Union. Freedom itself is at stake!

Prototype World Government

Steven Woolfe, a Member of the European Parliament, offered his insight into the dangers of a centralized government within a supranational context. Those insights are extremely relevant to the ongoing battle for power within the United States between the various branches of government as well as the struggle over federalism vs. statism. Hint: Liberty is losing.

According to Woolfe, the European Union has become a “super state in which control over the power of the laws is held in Brussels by unelected civil servants.” The bureaucratic state – unelected and unaccountable to the People – enjoys an ever-increasing degree of control over the lives of the citizens of the European Union.

I asked Woolfe how that came about. He explained, “After the Second World War, people quite rightly no longer wanted to have their children murdered in wars against each other. So they decided that they wanted to have an organization where countries come together to sort out their differences, a little bit like the United Nations.”

However, the founders of the European Union sought the abolition of “populist governments” who are elected by the people. To achieve that goal, they created “the European Union, in which the body called ‘The Commission,’ made of up civil servants, made the laws for the whole of Europe.”

Vaclav Klaus, former president of the Czech Republic,[2] highlighted the consequence of these “two interrelated phenomena” (emphasis added): “the European integration process on the one hand, and the evolution of the European economic and social system on the other – both of which have been undergoing a fundamental change in the context of the ‘brave new world’ of our permissive, anti-market, redistributive society, a society that has forgotten the ideas on which the greatness of Europe was built.”

Woolfe added, “What they did over a period of forty years, they slowly took powers, through different treaties, from each of the nation-states.” Woolfe contends, “The European Union is becoming like a colonialist empire. It’s almost like the prototype of a world government.”

The Unbridled Power of Bureaucrats

Who runs this proto-colonialist empire? Bureaucrats!

As Woolfe put it, “Imagine the idea that civil servants – not elected politicians – can make your laws. Imagine that those laws can never be changed, can never be repealed. Imagine that government lobbyists and government affairs are the ones that talk to these civil servants and tell them what laws to initiate. That’s exactly what happens in the European Union. There is no people power. It’s very much bureaucratic power.”

Woolfe argues that the European Union is in embryonic form what globalists have always wanted to achieve. Woolfe almost sounds like a Bernie Sanders because he discerns a collusion between corporate Europe and the bureaucrats who make the laws.

Woolfe put it this way: “Many of us would argue that the fact that you have the large corporations who can game the system by basically negotiating their own laws with civil servants who then pass it down to the nation-states to enact. And if you’re a citizen in Germany who wants to have controlled borders, as you can see people flooding into Europe from all over the world in the migration crisis that we have, you’ve got no one who can stop it because you have no governments who can control it. It’s the EU that does it. If you want to have lower taxation, if you want to have less regulation, you can’t change your politicians to do that because it’s the civil servants – the Commission – that is making those laws.”

Woolfe concluded with a warning to America, one that is, sadly, decades too late. He queried, “And just think how dangerous that is to the United States if this idea crosses the Atlantic.”

Origins of the Statist Welfare State  

In the 1870s, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck created the modern welfare state, with its byzantine bureaucracies and labyrinth of administrative laws. Bismarck’s model became the blueprint for Western European nations and also for progressives in the United States of America. At the heart of his model is centralized planning by elites made up of the self-anointed “best and brightest” who think that they know better than we do how to live our lives.

Philip Hamburger observed,[3] “This German theory would become the intellectual source of American administrative law. Thousands upon thousands of Americans studied administrative power in Germany, and what they learned there about administrative power became standard fare in American universities. At the same time, in the political sphere, American Progressives were becoming increasingly discontent with elected legislatures, and they increasingly embraced German theories of administration and defended the imposition of administrative law in America in terms of pragmatism and necessity.”

John Daniel Davidson has observed that “The father of American progressivism, Woodrow Wilson, saw this coming.” Wilson “thought the U.S. Constitution was outdated and that America needed a professional, Prussian-style administrative state, and that the chief hindrance to this in America was popular sovereignty.” Wilson believed that “expert administrators” were superior to the will of the People.

This is, of course, the antithesis of the individual liberty for which the Founding Fathers fought and the apotheosis for all those who oppose the Constitution and the framework of our Republic as envisioned by its Framers. Dennis Prager recently noted, “The size of the federal government and its far-reaching meddling in and control over Americans’ lives are the very thing America was founded to avoid.”

Either the rule of law by representative government or law by executive and administrative fiat will prevail. They cannot coexist. Peaceful coexistence is a myth.

Absolute Power Wielded by Statists

In contrast to statists who favor administrative law, our Founders and Framers opposed the exercise of absolute power. Hamburger noted, “They feared this extra-legal, supra-legal, and consolidated power because they knew from English history that such power could evade the law and override all legal rights.”

Consequently, “Americans established the Constitution to be the source of all government power and to bar any absolute power. Nonetheless, absolute power has come back to life in common law nations, including America.”

Administrative law, wrote Hamburger, is extra-legal, supra-legal, and consolidated. It is in defiance of our system of checks and balances which is expressly designed to limit and diffuse power. According to Hamburger (emphasis added):

• “Administrative law is extra-legal in that it binds Americans not through law but through other mechanisms – not through statutes but through regulations – and not through the decisions of courts but through other adjudications.”

• “It is supra-legal in that it requires judges to put aside their independent judgment and defer to administrative power as if it were above the law – which our judges do far more systematically than even the worst of 17th century English judges.”

• “And it is consolidated in that it combines the three powers of government – legislative, executive, and judicial – in administrative agencies.”

Hamburger added, “Administrative adjudication evades almost all of the procedural rights guaranteed under the Constitution. It subjects Americans to adjudication without real judges, without juries, without grand juries, without full protection against self-incrimination, and so forth.”

Power of the Pen, Phone, and Judicial Activism

Jonah Goldberg concurs, writing, “The growth of the administrative state and the encroachment of federal law into every nook and cranny of local life has been a century-long project of the Left.”

What President Obama couldn’t get passed in Congress he has sought to enact through the power of his pen and his phone. He has bypassed Congress through unconstitutional executive actions on immigration and other matters. Further, he has politicized the IRS, EPA, HHS, Justice Department, Homeland Security, and other federal agencies to target his political foes and implement his contra-Congress agenda (the will of the People be damned!).

Even before the advent of Obama administration, Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn lamented[4] that “We live in a more liberated age, the age of bureaucratic government. Here rules abound in such profusion that they seem to overbear the laws of nature themselves. So it is with honoring the Constitution these days. We honor it more avidly than ever in the breach of its restraints, but at the same time we pay it the respect of mandatory, hectic, and empty observance. Except for our dishonoring of it, we have never honored it so much.”

Moreover, for decades, several activist Justices have tilted the Supreme Court away from the Constitution and toward unbridled power by non-elected bureaucrats. Goldberg noted, “in many respects the Supreme Court is now more powerful than the presidency. It’s certainly far, far, far less democratic. We appoint justices for life and many of their decisions cannot be overturned by the Congress, or the people, short of a constitutional convention.”

Death of Federalism and Freedom by the Stroke of a 1,000 Pens

Obamacare exemplifies and is representative of all that is wrong with administrative law. Case in point: The whole power of the federal government is intractably opposed to and wielded against charitable work performed by the Little Sisters of the Poor.

David French pointed out (emphasis added) “it’s important to understand that the Sisters are not challenging a law passed by Congress. Instead, the contraception mandate is a rule concocted by bureaucrats. When Congress passed Obamacare it intentionally passed the statute with a number of vague directives that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) interpreted and expanded through the regulatory rulemaking process. Thus, the Obamacare statute itself does not contain a contraceptive mandate. Instead, it merely requires employers to ‘provide coverage’ for ‘preventive services’ for women, including ‘preventive care.’”

These unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats have “exempted vast numbers of employers from its requirements – sometimes for mere convenience. It grandfathered existing plans that did not cover contraceptives, exempted small firms, and exempted ‘religious employers.’”

However, they define that term “so narrowly that it applied mainly to entities such as churches and synagogues, not to religious schools, hospitals, or charities – entities that are motivated by faith, often require employees to share the organization’s faith commitment, and ordinarily receive much the same level of religious-freedom protection as houses of worship.”

A Time for Choosing

Ronald Reagan’s famous 1964 speech, A Time for Choosing, should be revisited by all lovers of liberty. The 2016 election is of paramount importance and freedom itself hangs in the balance. Indeed, this election is about survival.[5] Will we elect a fraud and a mountebank, Donald Trump,[6] or an official Democrat candidate (Hillary Clinton[7] or Bernie Sanders) – statists all?

Or will we choose the only constitutional conservative in the race, Ted Cruz?[8]

[BrotherWatch has endorsed Ted Cruz[9] and the Cruz-Fiorina ticket.[10]]

Update: The current tyrannical nature of the Obama administration and its rule imposed by unelected bureaucrats to force the American people to adopt a radical agenda foisted on them is perfectly illustrated by the Justice Department’s edicts regarding transgender-friendly bathrooms. Rich Lowry calls it the Bathroom Putsch. Lowry decries “middling bureaucrats [who] impose their will on the nation,” writing, “The transgender edict is a perfect distillation of the Obama administration’s centralizing reflex, high-handed unilateral rule, and burning desire to push the boundaries of cultural change as far as practical in its remaining time in office.”

Update: The absurdity of the bureaucratic state is epitomized by federal, state and local governments who are currently waging a war on illegal lemonade stands run by children! Kevin Williamson notes, “We are ruled by power-mad buffoons.”

Update: Wesley J. Smith writes: “The political left loves the Bureaucratic State because it allows unelected and democratically unaccountable “experts” to be in control–for our own good, of course.” Smith exposes how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is invading your privacy and intruding into your health care!

Endnotes:

[1]               See “CPAC: Brits Seek Independence (and so should we)” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-eT.

[2]               Vaclav Klaus, “The Crisis of the European Union: Causes and Significance,” Imprimis, Hillsdale College, July/August 2011, http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-crisis-of-the-european-union-causes-and-significance/.

[3]               Philip Hamburger, “The History and Danger of Administrative Law,” Imprimis, Hillsdale College, September 2014, http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-history-and-danger-of-administrative-law/.

[4]               Larry P. Arnn, “A Return to the Constitution,” Imprimis, Hillsdale College, November 2007, http://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/a-return-to-the-constitution/.

[5]               See “CPAC: This Election is About Survival” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-dO.

[6]               See “Coulter Admits Trump is a Fraud” at http://wp.me/p4jHFp-cf.

[7]               See “HRC: A Caricature of the Left” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-94.

[8]               See “CPAC: Ted Cruz in Control” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-8b.

[9]               See “BrotherWatch Endorses Ted Cruz” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-dw.

[10]             See “Cruz and Fiorina Are Dream Ticket” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-eQ.

CPAC: Brits Seek Independence (and so should we)

Many Brits seek independence from the European Union. Barack Obama and other statists oppose that effort. Why? Because they favors transnational, big government at the expense of national sovereignty and individual liberty.

Steven Woolfe, a Member of the European Parliament, is leading the charge for British independence and freedom lovers everywhere should support him.

(Just prior to our interview, Woolfe had spoken with the chiefs of staff of both the Trump and Cruz campaigns.)

Woolfe told me that the “main concern in the United Kingdom is something we call Brexit [British exit], which is a referendum which is being held in the United Kingdom on June 23^rd, to determine whether Britain will be a member of the European Union.” (The Daily Caller provides a handy reference regarding the Brexit referendum.)

National Sovereignty and National Security

Power, not economics, is at the core of the European Union and the reason so many Brits want to leave it. Woolfe explained, “Many American citizens think that the European Union is simply a group of all the countries of Europe coming together over free trade. There is nothing further from the truth.”

Woolfe continued, “The truth is, this is a new European Union super state in which control over the power of the laws is held in Brussels by unelected civil servants. People can’t vote for them, can’t remove them, but they have 75% of the laws. Control of your law, your freedom, your liberty, your democracy is in the hands of civil servants, not in the hands of politicians.”

John O’Sullivan observed that the issue of national sovereignty favors Brexit supporters since the U.K. only has “one-28th of the EU’s decision-making authority, and thus power.” Therefore, it is in the best interests of those who want more freedom and more say in how to live their own lives to pursue freedom from the European Union.

Moreover, per O’Sullivan, “former chancellor, Nigel Lawson, pointed out that on all the 72 occasions when an issue was voted on in the EU Council of Ministers, Britain had been outvoted every time.” In other words, national sovereignty has been subordinated to supranational authority.

Europe’s refugee crisis and the rise of terrorism on the continent are of major concern to the British people. The European Union’s present open-door policy is anathema to those who want to protect Britain. Woolfe links the escalating terrorism seen in Europe with the immigration crisis[1] which has deluged so many European nations. According to Woolfe, the European Union prevents Britain and other EU nations from securing their borders. He seeks a revamping of the current open-door system to “a managed migration system.”

President Obama Weighs In

President Obama actually  threatened Britain should the British people leave the European Union. Obama said, “I think it’s fair to say that maybe some point down the line there might be a UK-US trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen any time soon because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done. The UK is going to be in the back of the queue.”

Members of the British Parliament and European Parliament beseeched Obama “to stay out of Britain’s referendum.” In a letter to the President, they wrote, “With so much at stake, it is imperative that the question of exiting the European Union is not one answered by foreign politicians or outside interests, but rather by the British people who must ultimately live with change or the status quo.” They rightly notes that “issues of national sovereignty must be decided exclusively by the people of the United Kingdom.”

Presidential Candidates Respond

Naturally, those who favor statism and the advancement of a big government agenda oppose Britain’s efforts to leave the E.U., while those who favor freedom, limited government, and national sovereignty support Britain’s desire for independence.

Hillary Clinton backed Obama. Her senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, said, “Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.”

Bernie Sanders waffled: “I think the European Union obviously is a very, very important institution. I would hope that they stay in, but that’s their decision.”

Donald Trump equivocated, saying that the Brits “may leave” the European Union but refused to say whether that would be good or bad.

In contrast, Ted Cruz sided with our allies, declaring, “This was nothing less than a slap in the face of British self-determination as the president, typically, elevated an international organization over the rights of a sovereign people.” Cruz pledged, “If Brexit takes place, Britain will be at the front of the line for a free trade deal with America, not at the back.”

Cruz added: “The British people will shape their destiny, and we will stand with them regardless of the outcome of the referendum. As president, I will work to ensure that our special relationship is reinvigorated – and the Obama doctrine of coddling tyrants while castigating democratic allies will finally be at an end.”

[BrotherWatch has endorsed Ted Cruz[2] and the Cruz-Fiorina ticket.[3]]

[Part II – “Death by a 1,000 Pens”[4] –addresses the broader implications of the Brexit movement as it pertains to Americans and our own need for independence from an increasingly tyrannical government.]

Update: Congratulations to our cousins across the pond for their stunning victory for Liberty. Will Brexit mark the beginning of the demise of the European Union just as the Soviet Union, one by one, lost its satellite states?

Update: Good commentary by Ian Tuttle on the globalist worldview and animus of those just defeated by Brexit:

“Liberal cosmopolitanism, regnant since the end of the Cold War, has bought completely into its own rightness. It is entirely devoted to an increasingly borderless political future carefully managed by technocrats and tempered by ‘compassion’ and ‘tolerance’ – all of which aims at the maximal amount of material prosperity. It sees no other alternative than that we will all, eventually, be ‘citizens of the world,’ and assumes that everyone will be happier that way.”

“The inability of our political leaders to envision political futures other than the one to which they are wedded has facilitated the polarization, and the unresponsiveness, of our politics. That people are now looking for alternatives is, in fact, entirely reasonable.”

Brexit is a victory for freedom and a blow to progressive statism and supra-nationalism.

Endnotes:

[1]               See “Member of European Parliament Links Terrorism with Immigration Crisis” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-e8.

[2]               See “BrotherWatch Endorses Ted Cruz” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-dw.

[3]               See “Cruz and Fiorina Are Dream Ticket” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-eQ.

[4]               See “CPAC: Death by a 1,000 Pens” at http://wp.me/p4scHf-eV.

Member of European Parliament Links Terrorism with Immigration Crisis

Terrorism strikes Brussels, puzzling the Left while validating the Right.

Steven Woolfe, a Member of the European Parliament, linked the escalating terrorism seen in Europe with the immigration crisis which has deluged so many European nations.

Over a million unexpected migrants entered Europe last year, among them, criminals and also Islamists who seek to commit jihad in Europe. In an exclusive interview at CPAC, Woolfe warned, “it is the people traffickers – led by ISIS, Boca Haram, and gangsters – who are making over $2 billion a year at the moment.”

According to Woolfe, Europe desperately needs to end its “open-door [immigration] system that Angela Merkel from Germany permitted,” a system which has swamped Europe with millions of unassimilated people who drain the welfare state and potentially endanger the citizenry.

Woolfe would replace that “open-door” with “a managed migration system.” He acknowledges that “some immigration is useful for a country,” but argues that each nation in Europe should have the right to control its own borders based upon its own priorities.

While welcoming refugees from migration camps is one thing, European citizens are coming to see that unrestricted migration poses a clear and present danger to European citizens. Therefore, Woolfe proposes dramatically limiting the influx of refugees and other migrants, declaring that Europeans “must turn back the boats – back to Libya, back to Lebanon, back to Turkey – to ensure that this crisis stops.

The nexus between terrorism and “open-door” immigration is very real. It is, indeed, a major reason why Britain is seeking to leave the European Union. Woolfe supports a referendum, called Brexit [British exit], which will be “held in the United Kingdom on June 23^rd, to determine whether Britain will be a member of the European Union.”

CPAC: This Election is About Survival

With the White House and its supporters in denial over the existential threat that Islamic jihadists pose to Americans at home and abroad, Brigitte Gabriel, the Founder and President of Act for America, calls the 2016 election an “election about survival.”

Just as world leaders united after the Charlie Hebdo attack, Americans need to be united against this jihadist threat, boldly speaking out and confronting evil.

Act for America is providing just such an opportunity this September, empowering citizens from across the country to let their voices be heard on Capitol Hill.

National Security Conference

Gabriel announced that, “Act for America is holding our annual National Security Conference in Washington, D.C., the week of September 11^th. We thought, what better time to hold a national security conference than the week of September 11^th, in Washington, D.C., reminding our elected officials what’s at stake and why we need to secure the country.”

She pointed out that, despite differences on various political issues, we must stand united against the savages who seek our destruction. Those who have died at the hands of Islamists bent upon creating a global caliphate can do nothing. Those of us who are still alive live to fight both in their memory and for our own lives and liberty.

In Gabriel’s words:

“I don’t see any of the dead 3,000 Americans that died on September 11^th, 2001 demonstrating right now for either pro-Obamacare or anti-Obamacare, pro-gay or anti-gay, pro-abortion or anti-abortion. They are as dead as dirt.”

Making the contrast, Gabriel continues, “Let’s make sure we stay alive so our children can have the freedoms and live in a safe country where they can express their opinion about whatever issue they feel so strongly about.”

Our Survival is at Stake

Will we defeat this jihadist threat or will Western Civilization as we know it be destroyed? If the answer matters to you, then heed Gabriel’s words: “Right now, the national security issue is the most important issue so I urge people to join us, this year more than ever. This election is about survival.”

Act for America exists to provide education that leads to action. Therefore, it is hosting its National Security Conference with the intent of national and cultural survival.

“We need to be in D.C.,” says Gabriel. “Our elected officials need to see our faces. We need to get tens of thousands of people to Washington, D.C. for the conference. We already have 18 members of Congress scheduled to speak at our national conference. It’s going to be an amazing time to be in D.C.”

Let Your Voice Be Heard

It is easy to think that one person cannot make a difference. This is a defeatist attitude. Act for America exists on the belief that an organized constituency – consisting of individuals from across the country – can make a difference.

Gabriel hears that defeatist attitude all the time, with people telling her, “What is my congressman going to do? He’s not going to listen to me. He needs to hear from 50,000 people.” In response, Gabriel encourages them, advising that if they participate in the National Security Conference, then their voices will be heard – where it matters!

Act for America is doing all it can to let your voice be heard.

“Not only do we want people to come, but we schedule appointments for them with their elected officials. If you are coming to D.C. as part of our national conference, and you want to meet with your senator, and you want to meet with your congressman, we will call your senator or congressman, we will line up a meeting for you. All you have to do is show up. You don’t have to lift a finger. Who else can give people this opportunity to sit down with your congressman or senator on Capitol Hill and let them know how you feel?”

Gabriel promises: “We’re lining up an appointment for you to sit down in front of him or her, in his or her office, on Capitol Hill. If for nothing else, this is your opportunity to make your voice heard. This is a time when people need to come to Act for America’s national conference.”

Gabriel concludes: “Go to ActForAmerica.org. Sign up now. We have the early registration, the Early Bird Special. … It will be the most important decision you made this year.”

[This is the last in a four-part series. See Part I – “CPAC: Exclusive Interview with Brigitte Gabriel,” Part II – “CPAC: Homegrown Terrorism is Greatest Islamist Threat,” and Part III – “CPAC: Islamic State Really is Islamic!”]

CPAC: Islamic State Really Is Islamic

Even as Americans face an existential threat from Islamic jihadists, the Obama administration and many on the Left deny that threat and act as appeasers and useful idiots for the enemy.

Brigitte Gabriel, the Founder and President of Act for America, addressed this suicidal insanity in an exclusive interview at CPAC.

Asked why the White House and so many on the Left are so loathe to even name Islamic terrorism, Gabriel observes, “This White House does not believe that Islam has anything to do with terrorism.”

False Narratives

This administration bases America’s foreign and national security policy on false narratives which deny the reality that everyone else observes. Gabriel notes that these policies began from the very beginning of Obama’s presidency.

“This is why President Obama, as soon as he became President, when he issued the Threat Assessment Plan in 2009 – which was the first Threat Assessment Plan he had to issue as a president – he purged all references out of our Counterterrorism Training Manuals and our Threat Assessment Plan, any references to radical Islam, Islamic terrorism, Islamic jihadism, jihad – all of it. He took it all out.”

Yes, reality was jettisoned down the memory hole. And in its place, as Gabriel notes, nonsensical Orwellian constructions have been employed:

“That’s when they replaced everything with ‘manmade disasters’ or ‘violent extremism.’ What does ‘violent extremism’ mean? What does ‘manmade disasters’ mean? Who is making the disasters? Which group of people are making these disasters right now? This is something that the White House does not want to address. They have avoided it.”

Willful Blindness to Reality

Indeed, the Obama administration and its willing surrogates in the media and on college campuses across this nation have created false rationalizations to explain away the Islamic terrorism which has engulfed the Middle East, Europe, and, increasingly, other areas of the world, including America.

According to these phony theories, ISIS arose as a result of poverty (though not in America during the Great Depression), ISIS can be negotiated into peace, ISIS is just like any other violent group, and, shockingly, ISIS is contained.

Even after the Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, the Left denied reality.

Islamic Jihadists are Islamic

Indeed, the truth is so obvious, and Gabriel expressed it so well when she said:

“President Obama, unfortunately, does not see Islam as a threat to the United States right now, despite the fact that the Islamic State is Islamic. When we look at all terrorism organizations around the world, today, put ISIS aside. When you look at Boko Haram in Nigeria – Islamic. When you look at Lashkar-e-Taiba in India – Islamic. When you look at al-Shabab in Somalia – Islamic. When you look at Ansar al-Sharia in Libya – Islamic. When you look at Al Ikhwan al Muslimun in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood – Islamic.”

Gabriel continues:

“The one common denominator in all these groups that I mentioned – no matter where they live, no matter what language they speak, no matter what nationality they hold, what passport they hold, no matter what the color of their skin (you’ve got from blacks to brown skin to whites) – the only common denominator is the fact that they are all Islamic.”

A Metastasizing Cancer

Yet, despite this existential threat, and the nature and origins of that threat, the President continues to enable those who would destroy us. Gabriel urges the opposite course, contending:

“This is something our President must address. We cannot bury our head in the sand, pretending that the problem does not exist anymore, hoping it will go away. At this point, it’s not going away. It’s like cancer, metastasizing throughout the world.”

[This is the third in a four-part series. See Part I – “CPAC: Exclusive Interview with Brigitte Gabriel,” Part II – “CPAC: Homegrown Terrorism is Greatest Islamist Threat,” and Part IV – “CPAC: This Election is About Survival.”]

CPAC: Homegrown Terrorism is Greatest Islamist Threat

I asked Brigitte Gabriel, the Founder and President of Act for America, what the greatest Islamist threat is that America faces right now? She replied with two words: “Homegrown terrorism.”

She continued, “This is something that everybody walks around concerned about – what’s the next attack? We had San Bernardino and, after San Bernardino, people really started thinking: ‘Wow, this could have been my co-worker!’”

Heartless Terrorists

Speaking of the San Bernardino attack, an outraged Gabriel observed, “Here’s a co-worker that goes in there – at a Christmas party, no less, where we are celebrating love and gifts and the season of giving – to kill the same co-workers that gave him a baby shower the week before!”

In tune with a growing sense of urgency across this nation, Gabriel pointed out the chilling truth about this jihadi menace: “When you realize that we now have been infiltrated with cold-hearted killers that have no conscience, that have no heart, that have no values – or at least they don’t share our values – that’s the greatest threat right now.”

Even through the filtered lens of the media and denials by the government, Americans are well aware that they are endangered by radical Islamists intent upon their destruction. Combating jihadists in every sphere is crucial.

Consequently, Gabriel advocates for grassroots efforts to achieve national unity in combating this national, indeed, civilizational threat.

“Americans need to come together and understand how we can secure our community, how we can pressure elected officials to make the right decisions and pass the right bills to protect national security, and how our government can make the right decisions as a player in the global world that is now threatened by the rise of radical Islam worldwide.”

We Are No Longer Invulnerable

Our world in this 21^st century is vastly different from the end of the last. Cutting-edge technology and social media have transformed the way we think and live. Travel and migration gave increased exponentially, and concerns over border security have reached new heights.

“Let’s face it,” Gabriel cautions, “We are no longer operating on an island. We are no longer separated from the rest of the world. Airlines, Internet, the way we travel nowadays, this is a different world from the world of the 1950s. So the enemies are coming here to our shores. They hold our passports, or they came here by a refugee visa, or they came by a visa they obtained at one of our embassies in any country around the world.”

Victory or Dark Ages

Therefore, warns Gabriel, “we have to be very careful, and our next president has to be very careful, in what contracts we sign with what countries, whether they have our best interests at heart. That’s why Americans have to make very important decisions coming up the next election.”

Indeed, Gabriel asserts, “the next election is an election about survival! It is no longer about [differing political points of view]. Right now, the decisions we are making for the next election is a decision about the survival of not only the United States but the survival of Western Civilization.”

According to Gabriel, Americans are presented with a stark choice between survival and destruction. She conveys a sense of urgency as she warns, “America stands as the vanguard, as the protector of Western Civilization. America is the superpower of Western Civilization and the next four years are going to be the deciding factor whether we survive as a nation and as a civilization, or we die and go back to the Dark Ages driven by ISIS.”

[This is the second in a four-part series. See Part I – “CPAC: Exclusive Interview with Brigitte Gabriel,” Part III – “CPAC: Islamic State Really is Islamic!” and Part IV – “CPAC: This Election is About Survival.”]

CPAC: Exclusive Interview with Brigitte Gabriel

Brigitte Gabriel is as dynamic and passionate in person as she is on TV. Despite a hectic media schedule at CPAC, Gabriel, Founder and President of Act for America, graciously granted a sit-down interview at the conference.

I asked Brigitte about her mission to save America from Islamic jihadists. Gabriel explained how Act for America came into being. She said,

“I started Act for America because I realized that while there is a lot of education about radical Islam, people were hungry for information. They wanted to be informed. There’s plenty of information out there and I realized that in the 14 years since September 11, there have been books written, mine included – two New York Times best-sellers – and articles out there. People forward emails to each other.”

Coupling Education With Action

But then, people would ask her, “What can I do? Give me something to do!” So, she realized “very quickly that while education is important, education by itself is not sufficient. Education must be coupled with action.”

A Scripture came to my mind validating her conclusion. The apostle James exhorts Christians not to deceive themselves by only hearing the word, but not doing anything about it. James wrote, “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was” (Jas. 1:23-24).

Far too many people have witnessed the dangers facing America without addressing those dangers. Brigitte Gabriel is not one of those people. She couples education with action. It is not surprising that the first word in her organization’s name is “Act.”

Empowering Americans

With her characteristic fervor, Gabriel “launched Act for America to not only educate the American public about the threat of radical Islam, but also to inspire and empower average citizens to become engaged and involved and make a difference on their level, in their own community, no matter where they are.”

Act for America is “now the largest national security grassroots organization in America,” she said. “We have 300,000 members. We have 1,000 chapters nationwide. We have a full-time Director of Government Relations on Capitol Hill.”

Through her organization and her advocacy, Gabriel empowers citizens to engage their elected representatives by providing them with Action Alerts concerning impending legislation and giving them a means to interact with those who have the power to pass or defeat those bills. Gabriel explains the process:

“We monitor what bills are coming down for a vote. We send the bill number out to our members who are signed up on our emails and say, ‘Here is the bill number. Here is the name of the sponsor – Congressman So-And-So, Senator So-And-So. This bill is coming down for a vote. Make sure you call your elected officials and get them to vote for it or sponsor it, or to co-sponsor it.’ And this is how the average citizen can make their voice heard before a bill is voted on.”

The best way to enact good laws or defeat bad ones is to be proactive and preemptive, to get involved while the laws are being crafted and deliberated.

An Organized Constituency

As Brigitte put it, “A lot of people always ask, ‘Oh, my gosh, I cannot believe they voted for that stupid bill. How can my congressman do something so crazy?’” Gabriel urges them to get involved and express their views before it is too late.

Gabriel advises them to bombard their elected officials with phone calls and emails, explaining, “When 25,000 phone calls coming from all over your state saying, ‘Don’t you dare vote for this bill or we will oust you next time on election day, don’t you think that makes a difference? Of course, it makes a difference. That’s what elected officials fear the most and that is the voice of an organized constituency that can impact the election on election day. That’s why they listen to what their constituents have to say.”

The power of an organized constituency can be effective and get things done. As Gabriel notes, everyone can be involved and no one is too inconsequential to make a difference. She says, “we empower constituents. We empower the average American, no matter where they are, no matter what little county they live in, no matter where they live. We make their voice powerful.”

Let us all act before it is too late!

[This is the first in a four-part series. See Part II – “CPAC: Homegrown Terrorism is Greatest Islamist Threat,” Part III – “CPAC: Islamic State Really is Islamic!” and Part IV – “CPAC: This Election is About Survival.”]