Leftist aggression escalating

An unhinged liberal movement is growing more violent, and now pro-life lawmakers are being placed under police protection after terrorist threats:

State Rep. Tony Tinderholt, R-Arlington, has been placed under the protection of the Texas Department of Public Safety after receiving death threats following his filing of a bill to criminalize abortion in Texas.

“Representative Tinderholt and his family have received multiple death threats leading to his family being placed under DPS protection on multiple occasions,” Micah Cavanaugh, Tinderholt’s chief of staff, said in a statement Monday. “Specifics to the threats cannot be discussed due to an ongoing investigation, and we do not intend to speak on behalf of law enforcement.”

Tinderholt’s bill, the Abolition of Abortion Act, would criminalize abortion in Texas to the extent that both abortion providers and women who receive an abortion could be charged with murder.

If there ever were a case to demonstrate how pro-abortion liberals value their own personal “choice” over another person’s life, it’s this one.

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Trump Refugee Order Balances Security and Compassion

James Carafano

Read any commentary on the just signed executive order on visa and refugee vetting from several countries in the Middle East and odds are the assessment will tell you more about the writer’s politics than be an analysis of the order.

I confess: I have a perspective as well. Mine comes from working on the presidential team on both foreign policy and homeland security from after the Republican convention up to the inauguration. I can’t share the detailed workings of the team. But what I can share, having worked on the issues, is what I believe guided the work.

And it all started with making America safe.

Not campaign promises, anger at any religion, or prejudice of any kind impacted our thinking on the transition team. What we were worried about were future threats.

As the space for the Islamic State, or ISIS, gets squeezed in the Middle East, the remains of the tens of thousands of foreign fighters will have to flow somewhere. Every nation, not just the U.S., believes they are most likely to flow to the countries cited in the order. That fact, and only that fact, is why those countries are included on the list. Indeed, when it comes to visa vetting, that’s why the European Union has restrictions that are comparable to the United States.

The reason why we all worry is because, from those countries, foreign fighters could well try to flow to the West, principally by using visas or posing as refugees. When they get to the West, they could carry out terrorist acts. We know that because they already have—specifically in Western Europe.

They haven’t come to the U.S.—yet. Right now, our primary threat is Islamist-related terror plots that are organized by terrorists who are already here.

What this administration is doing is making sure we are ready for the next wave of terrorism as well—the outflow of terrorists from the countries of conflict where the foreign fighters are likely to go first.

There are already cries that the precautions are unfair—creating hardships. Fair enough, but terrorists attacks (like those at the Bataclan in France by the followers of ISIS) create unbearable hardships as well—and the government has the responsibility to find the right balance between security and compassion for its citizens as well as consider how U.S. actions impact others around the world.

One area where the order tries to get that balance right is to ensure future refugee processing prioritizes addressing the plight of religious minorities. That is particularly crucial in the Middle East where the remnants of the region’s Christian communities are under severe threat.

Worldwide persecutions against Christian minorities have been rising for four straight years. It’s particularly problematic in the Middle East. The administration is making an extra effort to address that crisis.

While critics will continue to demonize the administration’s policies because they don’t fit their politics, Americans who crave a foreign policy that prioritizes American interests, puts a compassionate face on statecraft that reflects our values, and acts responsibly will find much to respect in the order.

SOURCE

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Fake news as media wilfully lie about Social Security gun ban

The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday repealed a discriminatory Social Security rule denounced by mental health experts and the anti-gun American Civil Liberties Union.

If you didn’t know that, it’s because liberal media outlets reported it with headlines like this:

BREAKING: US House of Representatives has voted to roll back background checks for gun ownership

The reaction was instantaneous, and intentional. Social media was flooded with rabid leftists hurling death threats at Republican lawmakers — accusing them of abolishing background checks at gun shows.

It was a complete lie.

There was no change whatsoever to background check requirements.

The rule in question automatically listed Social Security and Veterans Administration beneficiaries as banned gun owners if they had named someone else to handle their finances.

Under this Obama administration proposal, bureaucrats within the SSA and VA would automatically deem someone as “mentally incompetent” if they had a fiduciary handling their benefits and they would be entered into the National Instant Check System as prohibited persons.

According to Federal law, those deemed “mentally incompetent” are prohibited from purchasing, owning or possessing firearms.

The rule would strip 4.2 million Americans of their right to keep and bears arms, just among those on the Social Security list.

Millions of Americans would be denied their constitutional rights, without a medical examination or due process of law.

It brought the immediate denunciation of mental health experts, who are among the most anti-gun of any profession. They slammed the Obama administration for falsely concluding that problems performing math or balancing a checkbook made one “mentally incompetent” or a threat to others.

It also brought challenges from the ACLU, another reliably anti-gun group.

“All individuals have the right to be judged on the basis of their individual capabilities, not the characteristics and capabilities that are sometimes attributed (often mistakenly) to any group or class to which they belong. A disability should not constitute grounds for the automatic per se denial of any right or privilege, including gun ownership,” the ACLU wrote in an announcement endorsing the congressional bill.

None of that mattered to the mainstream media, who used the vote as another opportunity to spread Fake News intended to escalate threats against the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers.

SOURCE

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Be Careful What You Wish For (especially if it is Hitler)

By Scott Adams (Dilbert author)

As a trained persuader, I’m seeing a dangerous situation forming that I assume is invisible to most of you. The setup is that during the presidential campaign Trump’s critics accused him of being Hitler(ish) and they were sure other citizens would see it too, thus preventing this alleged monster from taking office.

They were wrong. The alleged monster took office.

Now you have literally millions of citizens in the United States who were either right about Trump being the next Hitler, and we will see that behavior emerge from him soon, or they are complete morons. That’s a trigger for cognitive dissonance. The science says these frightened folks will start interpreting all they see as Hitler behavior no matter how ridiculous it might seem to the objective observer. And sure enough, we are seeing that.

To be fair, Trump made it easy this week with his temporary immigration ban. If you assume Trump is Hitler, that fits with your hypothesis. But of course it also fits the hypothesis that he’s just doing his job. We’re all seeing what we expect to see.

But lately I get the feeling that Trump’s critics have evolved from expecting Trump to be Hitler to preferring it. Obviously they don’t prefer it in a conscious way. But the alternative to Trump becoming Hitler is that they have to live out the rest of their lives as confirmed morons. No one wants to be a confirmed moron. And certainly not after announcing their Trump opinions in public and demonstrating in the streets. It would be a total embarrassment for the anti-Trumpers to learn that Trump is just trying to do a good job for America. It’s a threat to their egos. A big one.

And this gets me to my point. When millions of Americans want the same thing, and they want it badly, the odds of it happening go way up. You can call it the power of positive thinking. It is also the principle behind affirmations. When humans focus on a desired future, events start to conspire to make it happen.

I’m not talking about any new-age magic. I’m talking about ordinary people doing ordinary things to turn Trump into an actual Hitler. For example, if protesters start getting violent, you could expect forceful reactions eventually. And that makes Trump look more like Hitler. I can think of dozens of ways the protesters could cause the thing they are trying to prevent. In other words, they can wish it into reality even though it is the very thing they are protesting.

In the 3rd dimension of persuasion, the protesters need to be proven right, and they will do whatever it takes to make that happen. So you might see the protesters inadvertently create the police state they fear.

If you are looking for the tells that this dangerous situation is developing, notice how excited/happy the Trump critics seem to be – while angry at the same time – that Trump’s immigration ban fits their belief system. If you see people who are simply afraid of Trump, they are probably harmless. But the people who are excited about any Hitler-analogy-behavior by Trump might be leading the country to a police state without knowing it.

So watch for that.

SOURCE

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Time tells



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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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