Merry Christmas 2016

Remembering the Reason For The Season.
Christ's Birth!
To: All Patriots and Friends,
Merry Christmas!
From: Dr. Bill Smith, Editor & our Contributors
ARRA News Service
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Merry Christmas To Our Trooops: Biggest Pay Raise in Six Years

ARRA News Service: House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement on enactment of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes the largest pay raise for our troops in six years:“We can all be glad that our troops will finally receive their largest pay raise in six years. It is certainly well-deserved, and long overdue. This new law also takes important steps to rebuild our fighting force, streamline the defense acquisition process, and combat military sexual assault. Moreover, this ensures that, right up until his last hour in office, President Obama will not be able to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States. During this holiday season, let us all give thanks for the brave men and women who serve our country in uniform.”

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President-Elect Trump Intends To Dissolve Donald J. Trump Foundation

ARRA News Service: President-elect Donald J. Trump announced today that, as part of his ongoing transition efforts, he intends to dissolve the Donald J. Trump Foundation. In making this announcement, Mr. Trump stated: “The Foundation has done enormous good works over the years in contributing millions of dollars to countless worthy groups, including supporting veterans, law enforcement officers and children. However, to avoid even the appearance of any conflict with my role as President I have decided to continue to pursue my strong interest in philanthropy in other ways.”

President-elect Trump has directed his counsel to take the necessary steps to effectuate the dissolution.

The President-elect added, "I am very proud of the money that has been raised for many organizations in need, and I am also very proud of the fact that the Foundation has operated at essentially no cost for decades, with 100% of the money going to charity, but because I will be devoting so much time and energy to the Presidency and solving the many problems facing our country and the world, I don’t want to allow good work to be associated with a possible conflict of interest."

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Hucakbee Rips Obama Admin. Over U.N. Israel Vote

ARRA News Service: the following video Bruce Willas' YouTube channel captures the sentements of Former Governor Mike Huckabee over President Obama Admin. U.N. Israel Vote. An action which slammed our ally in the Middle East.

Donald Trump has vowed to change things at the United Nations when he takes over at the White House next month, after the UN Security Council's vote in favour of a resolution demanding the halt of settlement activity by Israel in occupied Palestinian territory.


Josh Feldman on Mediate noted: On Fox & Friends this morning, Mike Huckabee went on a tear against the Obama administration for the U.S.’ abstention at the U.N. vote condemning Israel settlements yesterday.

Huckabee said this shouldn’t be about left versus right, but about evil versus good, telling the Fox hosts he is “just beyond in a seething rage” over this:

“I mean, have some just common decency. If you’re gonna do this, do it upfront, but to do it in such a cowardly way just as you’re leaving office basically to say to the world here’s one more for you, good luck with it”

He also criticized current U.S. policy on Israel and said the idea of a two-state solution is “foolish policy.”

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With Friends Like These . . .

. . . After Obama said he had Israel’s back went ahead and abstained to vote against the U.N. Anti-Israel resolution.

Editorial Cartoon by AF Branco

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Grandma Got Run Over by Obama: SSA Finalizes New Gun Prohibition Rule

by NRA-ILA: On Monday, Barack Obama’s Social Security Administration (SSA) issued the final version of a rule that will doom tens of thousands of law-abiding (and vulnerable) disability insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients to a loss of Second Amendment rights under the guise of re-characterizing them as “mental defectives.” The SSA, for the first time in its history, will be coopted into the federal government’s gun control apparatus, effectively requiring Social Security applicants to weigh their need for benefits against their fundamental rights when applying for assistance based on mental health problems

Barack Obama’s political party and the presidential candidate he personally endorsed and campaigned forsuffered perhaps the most dramatic rebuke in the history of American politics with the election of Donald J. Trump. Far from being humbled or chastened, however, Obama is spending the waning days of his presidency releasing duly convicted felons from prison, making low-level appointments, and pushing pet policy projects, all to do something, anything, to leave his stamp after a lackluster tenure.

The Social Security rule is the final version of a proposal that we reported on earlier this year. Public outcry against the proposed rule was fierce, and the comment period drew over 91,000 responses, the vast majority of them opposing the plan.

The NRA itself submitted detailed comments, taking the proposed rule to task for its many legal problems, its lack of empirical support, and the way it would politicize the SSA’s functions and stigmatize its beneficiaries.

The SSA, however, essentially ignored the NRA’s comments and the tens of thousands of others pointing out problems with the plan and issued a final rule that in most key respects tracks the original proposal.

For example, the SSA did not attempt to answer most of the legal questions raised about its authority, instead deferring to an overbroad and problematic ATF regulation defining who counts under the federal Gun Control Act as a “mental defective” and to Department of Justice guidance on reporting. The SSA did not explain why, some two decades after the federal background check system came online, it was reversing its earlier determination about its reporting responsibilities and only now asserting a mandate to do so.

Incredibly, the SSA also brushed aside empirical evidence the NRA submitted suggesting that the proposed rule would have no public safety benefit. “We are not attempting to imply a connection between mental illness and a propensity for violence, particularly gun violence,” the SSA wrote. “Rather, we are complying with our obligations under the NIAA, which require us to provide information from our records when an individual falls within one of the categories identified in 18 U.S.C. 922(g).” This would seem to be the very definition of the sort of arbitrary and capricious rulemaking prohibited by the Administrative Procedures Act.

The SSA also insisted that it was not stigmatizing those who receive disability insurance or SSI for mental health conditions, arguing that the names of the beneficiaries reported to NICS would not be made public. What the administration ignores is that it would stigmatize the entire category of beneficiaries subject to reporting.

The administration further acknowledges that the rule would not provide those subject to its terms the ability to defend their suitability to possess firearms before the actual loss of rights took place. In other words, it offers no due process on the question of losing Second Amendment rights.

Instead, the rule forces affected beneficiaries to file a petition for “restoration” of rights and to somehow prove their possession of firearms would not harm public safety or the public interest, even though the government never established, or tried to establish, the contrary. Regarding the expense of the psychological and medical evaluations required for this purpose, the administration claims it should be “reasonable,” although it does not and cannot claim it will actually be affordable to those who are affected by the rule.

The major parameters of the final rule are the same as those we detailed in an earlier alert on the proposal. It will affect those who receive SSI or disability insurance because of a listed mental health impairment and who have been assigned a representative payee to manage the benefits because of the person’s mental condition. The bottom line, however, is that tens of thousands of completely harmless, law-abiding people will lose their rights every year under the rule, a premise the SSA did not even try to refute.

The NRA has already prepared proposals for corrective action, and we certainly hope they will be given favorable consideration by the incoming administration.

In the meantime, this is one more reminder of the petty, partisan politics of Barack Obama, and one more reason to be thankful that in a few short weeks, he will no longer wield the power of the presidency against the nation’s law-abiding gun owners.

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Hope And Blessings

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author:  Christmas is a time of hope and blessings, a celebration of life and salvation. The Scriptures teach us that children are a blessing from God. It has also been said that the birth of each new child is a sign that God has not yet given up on this world.

That was never more true than the night two thousand years ago when the Son of Man was born in Bethlehem; born to bring the hope of salvation and the blessing of eternal life. When the Christ Child came into the world, his cry pierced the night and split all of human history in half.

No one can predict the headlines in the weeks and months ahead, but we can rest assured that one day every head will bow and every knee will bend before the King of Kings.

Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a Christmas greeting to Christians around the world. Below are some excerpts of his remarks:"To all of our Christian friends. . . Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. . . I'm so proud of our relations with our Christian brothers and sisters.

"I wonder for many of you if you remember the experience you had when you first visited Israel, when you saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Via Dolorosa or the Sea of Galilee or Nazareth. I'm sure it moved you deeply.

"And it moves us deeply to have this bond with you because we all know that this land of Israel is the land of our common heritage. It changed the story of humanity, it changed civilization. What a magnificent heritage it is.

"Yet, we also know that it is under attack these days, that the forces of intolerance, of barbarism that attack all religions attack Christians with particular vehemence. We stand with you and I'm proud of the fact that in Israel, this is the one place in the Middle East that the Christian community not only survives but thrives and it's no accident.

"It's because of our commitment to religious freedom; it's because of our embrace of our heritage; it's because of our embrace of our common future."My friends, I thank God for each and every one of you. Your prayers and encouragement sustain me as we continue to fight the good fight for faith, family and freedom.

Merry Christmas! And may you enjoy all of God's richest blessings in the year ahead. 
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Boozman Condemns UN Security Council Measure Attacking Israel

Join us @ Reject the U.N.

ARRA News Service – U.S. Senator John Boozman (R-AR) released the following statement related to the U.N. Security Council's passage of a resolution criticizing Israel for its construction of settlements in the West Bank:

“I am deeply disappointed in the United Nations Security Council's vote condemning Israel. More concerning is the failure of President Obama to use the United States’ veto to stop this attack. The United States has long maintained that any viable solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict must be the result of direct, bilateral negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority, whose leadership has purposefully and continually obstructed efforts to reach peace. The United Nations’ attempt to unilaterally impose a one-sided ‘solution’ undermines decades of work that has been put into the two-state solution.

“We cannot turn our back on Israel, our greatest and sole democratic ally in the region. I am vehemently opposed to this decision, and will continue to work with my colleagues in Congress and President-elect Trump to reinforce our commitment to Israel."

Update: 5:00 PM:  U.S. Representative French Hill (AR-2) statement on Anti-Israel vote:  “Down to the bitter end, the Obama Administration continues to undermine and threaten our relationship with Israel. Ambassador Power’s abstention vote might as well have been a vote in favor of this anti-Israel resolution. For decades, the cornerstone principle of American diplomatic policy toward Israel and Palestine has been that only through direct negotiations between the two countries can peace be achievable. Today, with the help of the Obama Administration, the United Nations delivered a major blow to the possibility of peace. The Republican led House, Senate, and new administration must now work to undo this harm, and restore our unshakeable alliance with Israel.”

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Right and Wrong

by Tom Balek, Contributing Author: Throughout our nation’s history there has been conflict between religion and government. In fact, our nation came to be largely because of this conflict. And our founders established, through the first amendment to our Constitution, that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The USA was born as a Christian nation; developed by Christians, and governed by Christians. Still, the separation of church and state has been, and remains, the subject of considerable debate. That’s partly because we view most offenses in terms of severity. A crime, in the eyes of government, might fall anywhere in the range of “not so bad” to “extremely bad”. Some crimes are rigidly enforced by the government; others are completely overlooked. Sometimes overlooking a minor crime can lead to one that is unthinkable.

When it comes to that “extremely bad” category, we Americans pretty much unanimously agree on one thing. Regardless of religious or political affiliation, we do not tolerate the murder of innocent people. Period. Anybody disagree with that? Anybody?

It’s the ultimate “right” and “wrong”. Most of us believe we’re born with an understanding of it. Still, we allow a few excuses for murder. Insanity. Crime of passion. Capital punishment? Abortion? War, maybe?

What happens when another culture or religion has a different view of “right” and “wrong”? Some radical Muslims are raised and required to believe that the murder of non-Muslims is not only acceptable, it is righteous. Their treatment of women, children, and minorities is abhorrent to us.

Should we non-Muslims accept their religious belief that the murder of innocent people is okay, in the name of tolerance? Conversely, if a non-Muslim kills a Muslim terrorist to protect innocent lives, is that righteous? What about killing a communist (that’s government, not religion) to protect innocent lives?

What sometimes seems simple (right vs. wrong) seldom is. There comes a time when tough decisions must be made, by our mortal American men and women – soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen and political leaders. All we can do is base them on who we, as a nation, are and what we believe to be true and right.

Maybe that’s why “our” God gave his only son to die for our forgiveness, and to grant us peace.

Merry Christmas and God bless our military men and women and our leaders.
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Tom Balek is a fellow conservative activist, blogger, musician and contributes to the ARRA News Service. Tom resides in South Carolina and seeks to educate those too busy with their work and families to notice how close to the precipice our economy has come. He blogs at Rockin' On the Right Side

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Ohio Gov. Kasich Signs the 'Guns Everywhere' Bill

Ohio Gov. John Kasic also signed HB 234
(Allows Noise Suppressors While Hunting)

by Liz Sheld: Ohio Governor John Kasich has signed a bill that expands the state's current laws for concealing and carrying a firearm.Senate Bill 199 lifts the blanket prohibition on firearms at those locations [colleges campuses and day care centers] and the public area of airport terminals, before security checkpoints. College boards of trustees would have to vote to allow concealed firearms; child care centers and in-home daycare would have to post a sign if firearms aren't allowed. [ARRA Editor Note: OH House pased bill 68-25; OH Senate passed bill 22-8]The law also allows active-duty military to carry concealed guns without a permit and prohibits employers from banning permit holders from bringing guns into company parking lots. It takes effect in 90 days.

The bill faced fierce opposition from the likes of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, Ohio Council of Retail Merchants, Ohio Manufacturers' Association, Ohio Municipal League, Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association and Ohio Association of Chiefs of Police, as well as the usual suspects involved in the national gun control movement.

Also included in the bill is a prohibition on employers who want to ban employees from carrying a firearm in their car.The law also stipulates that a business entity, property owner, or public or private employer may not establish, maintain, or enforce a policy or rule that prohibits or has the effect of prohibiting a person who has been issued a valid concealed handgun license from transporting or storing a firearm or ammunition inside the person's privately owned motor vehicle.The harpies over at Moms Demand released a statement after Kasich signed the bill. "Governor Kasich ignored the concerns of law enforcement, business leaders, gun violence survivors, moms, daycare providers, campus stakeholders and students," Michele Mueller, leader of the Ohio chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, said in the statement. "By signing Senate Bill 199, Governor Kasich is siding with gun lobby interests over public safety."

Kasich didn't ignore the 4 million+ gun owners in Ohio.
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Liz Sheld is Editor-at-Large at PJ Media. Follow her on twitter @starchambermaid.

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Christian Worship Is ‘worse Than Murder And Bloodshed’ . . .

. . . Another Islamic teaching behind the slaughter of Christians.

by Raymond Ibrahim: For an idea on why Egypt’s Coptic Christians and their churches are constantly under attack—most recently last Sunday, when a church was bombed, killing at least 25 Christians—one need merely listen to the words and teachings of some of the nation’s Muslim preachers.

Take Dr. Ahmed al-Naqib, for instance. He has studied at the best Islamic madrassas, including Al Azhar, authored numerous books on doctrine, received awards and decorations for his academic achievements, and regularly appears on television. In one video he appears discussing an earlier Muslim mob attack on a church in Egypt, which the media and government always denounce as fitna, an Arabic word that means temptation or discord and which Islam commands Muslims to oppose.

Citing revered Islamic texts including the Koran, Dr. Naqib explained that the open display of shirk—the greatest sin in Islam, associating someone else with God, which the Koran accuses Christians of doing via the Trinity—“is the worst form of fitna, worse than murder and bloodshed.”

In other words, and as he went on to make perfectly clear in the remainder of the video, fitna (or discord) is not when Muslims attack Christian churches—far from it—but rather when Christians are allowed to flaunt their shirk (or “blasphemies”) in churches near Muslims. Fighting that—even to the point of “murder and bloodshed”—is preferable.

Then there’s Dr. Yasser Burhami, the face of Egypt’s Salafi movement, who is as well credentialed and prolific as Naqib: he’s on record saying that, although a Muslim man is permitted to marry Christian or Jewish women, he must make sure he still hates them in his heart—and always shows that he hates them—because they are infidels; otherwise he risks compromising his Islam.

As for churches, Burhami once issued a fatwa forbidding Muslim taxi and bus drivers from transporting Christian priests to their churches, which he depicted as “more forbidden than taking someone to a liquor bar.”

But it’s not just “radical” or Salafi sheikhs who make such hateful pronouncements. Even so-called “moderate” Islamic institutions, such as Al Azhar’s Dar al-Ifta, issued a fatwa in August 2009 likening the building of a church to “a nightclub, a gambling casino, or building a barn for rearing pigs, cats or dogs.”

Such analogies are not original to the Salafis or Dar al-Ifta but rather trace back to some of Islam’s most revered doctrinaires, including Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim. They taught that “building churches is worse than building bars and brothels, for those [churches] symbolize infidelity, whereas these [bars and brothels] represent immorality.”

One can go on and on with examples of Muslim clerics and institutions inciting—with absolute impunity—against Christians and their churches in Egypt. Many secular and/or moderate Egyptians agree. For instance, back in 2014, Muslim Brotherhood supporters mauled and murdered a woman after her cross identified her as a Christian. Soon thereafter, an Egyptian op-ed titled “Find the True Killer of Mary” argued that:

Those who killed the young and vulnerable Mary Sameh George, for hanging a cross in her car, are not criminals, but rather wretches who follow those who legalized for them murder, lynching, dismemberment, and the stripping bare of young Christian girls—without ever saying [the word] “kill.” [Islamic cleric] Yassir Burhami and his colleagues who announce their hate for Christians throughout satellite channels and in mosques—claiming that hatred of Christians is synonymous with love for God—they are the true killers who need to be tried and prosecuted.One can say the same thing about the suicide-bombing of St. Peter’s cathedral.

In short, until such time comes that the Egyptian government removes the “radical” sheikhs and their teachings from the mosques, schools, television stations and all other positions of influence, Muslims will continue to be radicalized, churches will continue to be bombed, and Christians will continue to be killed.
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Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Friedman Rosen Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a CBN News contributor.

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Tags: Raymond Ibrahim, David Horowitz Freedom Center, FrontPage Mag, Islamic teaching, slaughter of Christians, fitna, fatwa To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Messianic Prophecy

by Kerby Anderson, Contributing Author: On this Christmas week, I thought it would be appropriate to reflect on the coming of the Messiah. The Old Testament contains hundreds of prophecies that give specific details about the “anointed one” who is the Messiah. The prophets proclaimed that He would come to save the people.

The Bible is unique in many ways, especially when it comes to fulfilled prophecy. At the time when it was written, 27 percent (1800 verses) of the Bible was prophetic. Large portions of those prophecies have been fulfilled, and that is a powerful argument for the inspiration of the Bible.

What is the probability that these Messianic prophecies could be fulfilled in the life of one person by chance? Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, calculated the probability of just eight Messianic prophecies being fulfilled by chance. These included the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Another was Malachi 3:1 that predicted that a messenger would prepare the way for the Messiah. Four of the prophecies were from Zechariah. They predicted that the Messiah would be betrayed: by a friend, for 30 pieces of silver, and it would be used to buy a potter’s field. Another prophecy said that the Messiah would die by being pierced (crucified).

Multiplying all of these probabilities together, Peter Stoner came up with a number of 10 to the 17th power. In other words, the chance that just eight prophecies could be fulfilled by chance is one in one hundred quadrillion. In order to illustrate this, he says imagine we could fill the state of Texas with silver dollars two feet deep. Put a red mark on one and then ask a blindfolded person to travel anywhere in the state. The chance that he would pick up the marked silver dollar on the first try would be one in one hundred quadrillion.

The conclusion is simple. Jesus is indeed the Messiah predicted by the prophets.
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Kerby Anderson is a radio talk show host heard on numerous stations via the Point of View Network endorsed by Dr. Bill Smith, Editor, ARRA News Service

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Secret ISIS List Ids U.S. Churches For Attack During Holidays

St. Peter & Paul Chapel in Cairo Bombed by
Muslims in Nov. 2016 killing 25 Christians

by Leo Hohmann: The Islamic State has allegedly published a secret list in Arabic of thousands of churches in all 50 states and called on its followers to attack them during the holidays.

ISIS, according to a report by Vocativ.com, posted the list late Wednesday night in the group’s “Secrets of Jihadis” social media group using the encrypted app Telegram.

WND asked several Arab speakers to search for the list and after an exhaustive search online they came up empty, leading some question whether such a list even exists. If it does, it is well hidden within the encrypted app.

A user going by the name of “Abu Marya al-Iraqi” posted an Arabic-language message calling “for bloody celebrations in the Christian New Year” and announced the group’s plans to utilize its network of lone wolf attackers to “turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie,” Vocative reported.

The names and addresses, distributed in a number of posts, were all previously available online and include a public directory of churches across all 50 states.

‘Sons of Islam’ exhorted to attack large gatherings
In another group post, a member summoned “the sons of Islam” to target “churches, well-known hotels, crowded coffee shops, streets, markets and public places,” and shared a list of addresses in the United States, as well as in Canada, France and the Netherlands.

Of course, none of this should come as a surprise. Last month, the St. Peter and St. Paul chapel of the Coptic Christian Church in Cairo, Egypt, was bombed by Muslims, killing 25 Copts and injuring several more.

In July, an elderly Catholic priest had his throat slit on the altar while he was saying mass in Normandy, France. ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack by two of its “soldiers.”

Then on Monday, a Christmas market was targeted by a Muslim jihadist from Tunisia who stole a truck and rammed it into the crowded market. Christmas, as a Christian holiday, is a symbol of Europe’s and America’s Christian identity, regardless of whether many Christians in these countries still take their faith seriously, terrorism experts say.

ISIS claimed responsibility for the Christmas market attack in Berlin that killed 12 and injured 48, while the suspected jihadist, a Muslim migrant who entered Europe from Tunisia, is still on the loose.

Surveillance of churches reported
Former FBI counter-terrorism agent John Guandolo’s Understanding the Threat blog has received reports in the last several weeks from law enforcement, pastors and citizens that Muslims are conducting pre-operation surveillance inside U.S. churches during services.

The information received by UTT from multiple states indicates the manner of the surveillance is similar in each case.

Guandolo says two Muslim males will enter during the service and sit together in the back of the church. They will often take pictures and record video. When approached by concerned ushers, they will either tell their questioners they are “interested” in becoming Christians or they will run.

“This information has been passed to the appropriate law enforcement officials, and UTT is aware of a joint investigation between local police and the FBI in at least one of the cases,” according to Guandolo.

One planned attack already foiled
In February, the FBI interrupted a plot to pull off a mass shooting at one of Detroit’s largest Catholic churches in a case reported by WND involving a Muslim convert, Sebastian Gregerson, who had amassed an arsenal of military-grade weapons including AK-47s, a howitzer and tactical knives similar to those used by ISIS. Gregerson, who changed his name to Abu-Rayyan, reportedly received money to acquire the weapons from an imam in Maryland. Court documents showed the FBI was concerned that imams could be financing similar plots around the country.

Dr. Mark Christian, a former Muslim imam from Egypt and expert on the Muslim Brotherhood, said churches need to take precautions.

Big churches will be seen as the most prime targets, he said, as ISIS will be looking for the highest number of casualties they can inflict.

“To be honest, in every place where there are public gatherings, there are metal detectors at the front, and I hate to say it but I feel it is time for movie theaters and churches too, they need to have that, to detect guns and knives and explosives … I think it’s time to do it,” said Dr. Christian, who changed his name from Muhammad Abdullah and converted to Christianity in 2005.

“It’s going to be very expensive for a smaller church, so you have to have volunteers in those churches,” he said, adding that these volunteers should be proficient in defensive actions up to and including handgun usage.

“Metal detectors are not expensive for larger congregations, and they are a must at this time, along with trained volunteers” he said. “You are talking about a couple of grand for a metal detector, but they will save lives.

“We live in a time where, even if you are going Christmas shopping, you need to pack heat when you go. This is not the way you should have to live,” he added. “But we have awakened the giant. We give them the space to run and to expand, so I hate to say it but this is the beginning of this kind of threat.”

The invasion of Iraq and Obama promoting radical Sunni religious regimes in Syria, Egypt and Libya have helped to awaken the sleeping giant, but Christian says that’s not the only problem. After all, America was attacked on 9/11 even before the invasion of Iraq.

The biggest problem is the Islamic texts and Muslims who are taught to emulate their seventh-century prophet, Muhammad, a warlord who is seen as the “perfect man.” He advocated taking slaves, raping women, torturing and slaughtering men and taught that Islam was to reign supreme over all other religions whenever the numbers in a society were in favor of Islam. Christians and Jews, if they were allowed to live at all, were to be subjugated as second-class “dhimmis.”

Until imams stop teaching doctrines modeled after the seventh-century warlord’s example, violent jihad will always be a problem, he said.

“So there has to be a multi-level approach to fix this problem. You can use extreme vetting and require a strict assimilation, cleansing the educational and religious institutions of Islam of radical elements,” he said. “You can’t do one and not the other, or it will just get worse.”

Too many foreign imams entering U.S.?
“If you do extreme vetting and let the imams preach hatred in the mosques, they are going to create more feelings of victimhood, and you will have more attacks,” Christian said. “You have to block those not worthy of coming here, and then you have to set some rules and regulations on the institution of Islam itself. I would recommend educational programs for imams to understand our Constitution and what America stands for. Then you have to monitor the religious leaders who come here from other countries to preach.”

Christian said nearly 70 percent of the clergy in American mosques are supplied from countries in the Middle East. Most come from Egypt’s Al Azhar University, but some also come from Saudi Arabia, Syria and other nations.

“This is the way imams want to make some money and come to America. The Coptic Church does the same thing, but we don’t have a problem with the Coptic Church,” he said. “For an imam to be an imam, he has to study Islamic law from a university. … Harvard and a few other places have these Islamic studies programs, but the majority come from Egypt and some from Saudi Arabia.”
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Leo Hohmann is a news editor for WorldNetDaily. He has been a reporter and editor at several suburban newspapers. His latest book is "Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest Through Immigration And The Resettlement Jihad."

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Tags: Leo Hohmann, WND, Secret ISIS List, US Churches, for attack, holidays To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Capturing Christmas

by Paul Jacob, Contributing Author: The festival of Hanukkah begins tomorrow at sundown; Christmas is on Sunday. It’s the most wonderful time of the year, a time to spend with family and friends, to appreciate what’s most important in life.

And maybe even to forget about politics for a bit. But remember one political or historical thing this holiday season: in addition to its religious significance for Christians, Americans share an excellent historical reason to celebrate on Christmas day.

Back in January of 1776, Thomas Paine published his runaway bestseller and our namesake, “Common Sense.” His pamphlet was read publicly throughout the colonies, galvanizing opinion in favor of the Revolution that had begun the previous year at Lexington and Concord with the shot heard ’round the world.

Later, in July, the Declaration of Independence was written, signed and proclaimed to the new nation by the Continental Congress.

But by December of the same year, the prospects for the American cause were looking bleak.

British forces, along with their mercenary Hessian reinforcements, had manhandled the Continental Army. Gen. George Washington’s troops were routed at Long Island, pushed out of Manhattan, forced to retreat across the Hudson to New Jersey, and then run out of Jersey across the Delaware River to Pennsylvania “exhausted, demoralized and uncertain of [their] future.”

Soon, the British believed, the American revolt would be extinguished.

“To compound Washington’s problems,” recounts the EyeWitnesstoHistory.com website, “the enlistments of the majority of the militias under his command were due to expire at the end of the month and the troops return to their homes.”

Yet, on Christmas night, Washington marshaled his ragtag soldiers and crossed the icy Delaware, then marched his men nine miles to Trenton. In the wee hours of that Dec. 26th morning, the Continentals attacked, catching more than 1,000 Hessian soldiers by surprise and capturing nearly all of them.

In strictly military terms, the victory was not terribly significant. But in terms of American morale, as well as the perception of important potential allies (think France), the military success was absolutely the perfect Christmas gift for the new Republic.

Our Republic, always in the hearts and hopes of the people dedicated to liberty and justice for all, continues to this day.

And today, you and I are left to defend it — just like the barefoot minutemen who walked through the snows at Valley Forge and faced their world’s most powerful military force.

Without smart phones.

And best wishes for a safe and happy 2017. Let's hope we freedom-loving folks find even more success.

Merry Christmas, America! Happy Hanukkah! Peace and good will to all.

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Paul Jacobs is author of Common Sense which provides daily commentary about the issues impacting America and about the citizens who are doing something about them. He is also President of the Liberty Initiative Fund (LIFe) as well as Citizens in Charge Foundation. Jacobs is a contributing author on the ARRA News Service.

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Merry Christmas Deplorables!

“Merry Clinton Christmas” Hillary Clinton’s dreams of returning to the white house have fallen and they can’t get back up.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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President-Elect Trump On Letter From Vladimir Putin

ARRA News Service: President-elect Donald J. Trump released the following statement in response to the attached letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"A very nice letter from Vladimir Putin; his thoughts are so correct. I hope both sides are able to live up to these thoughts, and we do not have to travel an alternate path."

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Europe’s Future — Merkel or Le Pen?

by Patrick Buchanan: The terrorist who hijacked a truck in Berlin and ran over and killed 12 people, maiming and wounding 48 more, in that massacre in the Christmas market, has done more damage than he could imagine.

If the perpetrator is the jihadist from Tunisia who had no right to be in Germany, and had been under surveillance, the bell could begin to toll not only for Angela Merkel but for the European Union.

That German lassitude, and the naivete behind it, allowed this outrage validates the grim verdict of geostrategist James Burnham in “Suicide of the West“: “Liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.”

Both the transnational elite and populist right sense the stakes involved here. As news of the barbarous atrocity spread across Europe, the reactions were instantaneous and predictable.

Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, leading candidate for the presidency in 2017, declaimed: “How many more people must die at the hands of Islamic extremists before our governments close our porous borders and stop taking in thousands of illegal immigrants?”

Geert Wilders, the Party for Freedom front-runner for prime minister of Holland, echoed Le Pen: “They hate and kill us. And nobody protects us. Our leaders betray us. We need a political revolution.

“Islamic immigration/Is an invasion,” he went on, “An existential problem/That will replace our people/Erase our culture.”

“These are Merkel’s dead,” tweeted Marcus Pretzell of the far-right Alternative for Germany about the victims in the Christmas mart.

Nicholas Farage, who led the campaign for British secession from the EU, called the Christmas massacre “the Merkel legacy.”

Europe’s populist right is laying this act of Islamist savagery at the feet of Merkel for her having opened Germany in 2015 to a million migrants and refugees from Syria and the Middle East wars.

Before Berlin, she was already on the defensive after mobs of migrants went about molesting and raping German girls in Cologne last New Year’s Eve.

Even admirers who share her belief in a Europe of open borders, that welcomes immigrants and refugees from Third World wars and despotisms, sense the gravity of Merkel’s crisis.

“Germans should not let the attack on a Christmas market in Berlin undermine liberal values,” ran the headline on The Washington Post editorial Dec. 22. Alarmed, the Post went on:

“What Germany cannot and must not do is … succumb to the siren song of the anti-foreigner right-wing, which has been gaining strength across Europe and moved immediately to exploit the attack ahead of the September 2017 national elections.”

The New York Times delivered its customary castigation of the European populist right but, in a note of near-desperation, if not of despair, implored Europe’s liberals not to lose faith.

“With each new attack, whether on a Christmas market or a mosque, the challenge to Europe to defend tolerance, inclusion, equality and reason grows more daunting. If Europe is to survive as a beacon of democratic hope in a world rent by violent divisions, it must not cede those values.”

But less and less does Europe appear to be listening.

Indeed, as Europe has been picking up its dead and wounded for over a decade, from terrorist attacks in Madrid, London, Paris, Berlin and Brussels, the peoples of Europe seem less interested in hearing recitals of liberal values than in learning what their governments are going to do to keep the Islamist killers out and make them safe.

Salus populi suprema lex.

Liberals may admonish us that all races, creeds, cultures are equal, that anyone from any continent, country or civilization can come to the West and assimilate. That discrimination against one group of immigrants in favor of another — preferring, say, Lebanese Christians to Syrian Muslims — is illiberal and undemocratic.

But people don’t believe that. Europe and America have moved beyond the verities of 20th-century liberalism.

The cruel experiences of the recent past, and common sense, dictate that open borders are Eurail passes for Islamist terrorists, who are anxious to come and kill us in the West. We have to deal with the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be.

In our time, there has taken place, is taking place, an Islamic awakening. Of 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide, hundreds of millions accept strict sharia law about how to deal with apostasy and infidels.

Scores of millions in the Middle East wish to drive the West out of their world. Thousands are willing to depart and come to Europe to terrorize our societies. They see themselves at war with us, as their ancestors were at war with the Christian world for 1,000 years.

Only liberal ideology calls for America and Europe to bring into their home countries endless numbers of migrants, without being overly concerned about who they are, whence they come or what they believe.

Right-wing and anti-immigrant parties are succeeding in Europe for a simple reason. Mainstream parties are failing in the first duty of government — to protect the safety and security of the people.
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Patrick Buchanan is currently a conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior advisor to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000. He blogs at the Patrick J. Buchanan.

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Christmas is in the Constitution

by Bryan Fischer: All the hysterical bloviating and bleating we hear from the ACLU this time of year about whether school choirs can sing "Silent Night" is just gas, sound, and fury, but signifying nothing.

The bigots and bullies of secular fundamentalism will yammer on about the separation of church and state, and the horrors of recognizing Christmas in public settings, as if democracy itself will fall if anybody so much as mentions the name of the Prince of Peace, let alone sings a song or two in his honor.

Well, they can save their breath, for Christmas is clearly, flatly, unequivocally, and unambiguously constitutional.

In fact, Christmas itself is in the Constitution.

This is not even a matter for debate, for the Framers themselves dated this document, one of the two most important political documents in human history (along with the Declaration of Independence), from the very first Christmas. You could look it up.

In fact, I'll look it up for you. Here's how the Framers concluded:

"...done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names...." (Emphasis mine.)

By dating the foundational document of the greatest nation in history to the birth of Jesus Christ, the Founders essentially celebrated Christmas as they signed their names. Since the Declaration was also dated from the first Christmas, you can even say that the two most important political documents in history are in the nature of Christmas cards from the Founders to us.

It's worth noting how deliberate and how majestic this all is. Jesus is referred to as "Lord." They were acknowledging Jesus Christ as the true and rightful sovereign of this fledgling nation.

And they did not identify Jesus as "the" Lord, but rather as "our" Lord, each signer acknowledging his own submission to him as master over his own life. And since they were acting on behalf of the whole American people, the Founders in essence were entering into a covenant with Jesus Christ as our rightful lord and liege.

Some will say, "You can't attach any significance to that. That's the way they dated everything in those days." This just makes the case much worse for secularists, because it is an explicit admission that the advent of Jesus Christ was so widely accepted as the dividing line of human history that every document without hesitation or question was dated from the year of his birth.

There was a time when claiming that the earth revolved around the sun rather than the reverse was a controversial, worldview-transforming declaration. Now we all accept that routinely. The very lack of controversy is an evidence of how widespread it is now to accept what was once a radical breakthrough and a giant leap forward.

The very ordinariness of dating the document to the birth of Christ, the utter lack of any controversy over including Christ in the Constitution, is the most compelling evidence of all that the Founders saw him as the pivotal figure in all history.

For this reason, we can't commemorate the Constitution without at the same time commemorating the Nativity. And every time we do something as mundane as sign a check, we bear silent witness to the influence of the God-man in history. Civilization is divided into two epochs: the era before his incarnation and the era after. Jesus himself is the center point of human history.

But we must note that this dating may not, in fact, be as routine as our secularist friends want us to think. For the Founders did not just date the Constitution from the birth of Christ but also from the birth of the nation: "in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth."

This quite obviously was a dating decision that was deliberate, thoughtful, and intentional.

Bottom line: for the Founding Fathers, the two most important dates in all human history were the birth of Jesus Christ and the birth of the United States of America. I'm inclined to agree.

So celebrate Christmas this season content in the knowledge that Christmas is not only perfectly constitutional, it is IN the Constitution itself and will be until the end of time. Merry Christmas, everybody, from me and every signer of the Constitution of the United States.
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Bryan Fischer (@BryanJFischer) is the host of the daily 'Focal Point' radio talk program on AFR Talk, a division of the American Family Association. H/T RenewAmerica

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Why I Took My Daughter to Lay Wreaths at Arlington National Cemetery

by Cully Stimson: Capt. Loyal Ray Blackwood, U. S. Navy, was laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery on a sweltering day last summer.

Born in 1925 in Alabama, he enlisted in the Navy in 1942, later received his commission, and served aboard the USS Compton in the South Pacific where he and his crewmates provided anti-submarine and anti-aircraft support during the Battle of Okinawa.

After World War II, Blackwood earned a law degree, married Sue Jones, and joined the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He retired after 30 years of active duty. He was a loyal and devoted churchman, played golf, loved watching the Crimson Tide play football, and sang in a barbershop quartet.

I served as the senior escort commander at his dignified funeral last summer. Wearing my ceremonial full dress (choker) white uniform, with sword and black mourning sash, large medals and white gloves, I had the honor of being the senior military officer at the time-honored event—one of over two dozen at Arlington that day.

After the church ceremony, I walked alongside the petty officer in charge, and in front of the horse-drawn caisson that carried Blackwood to his final resting place in Section 8 of the hallowed cemetery. It was 91 degrees and extremely humid.

When we finally got to the gravesite, following a prayer, and after the 21-gun salute, I received the carefully folded American flag from the head casket bearer, walked over to Mrs. Blackwood, kneeled in front of her, and, with a lump in my throat, said, “On behalf of the president of the United States, the United States Navy, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.”

With tears welling up in her eyes, she nodded and whispered, “Thank you.” I stood, stepped back one step, and rendered a solemn hand salute for seven seconds, and marched off.

Five months later, last Saturday, I found myself back at Arlington National Cemetery on a cold, icy morning in Washington, D.C.

My family and I joined my daughter’s scout troop and tens of thousands of other people to lay fresh Christmas wreathes on the tombstones of the over 400,000 active-duty service members, veterans, and their families laid to rest in our most revered military burying ground.

Volunteers ranged from very young children to very senior citizens, Americans and foreigners, along with active-duty U.S. service members and their counterparts from other countries, some in full uniform.

Men, women, and children of every race, religion, political persuasion, and walk of life gathered in the freezing rain and cold to pay respect to those loyal men and women who served and now lay in peaceful repose at Arlington.

As we bundled up for the morning ritual, I reminded the girls of the significance of what they were about to do. As a third generation naval officer, and the son of a World War II vet, I thought they should know why what they were about to do was important.

I reminded them that it happened to be the 72nd anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, one of the bloodiest and most brutal battles in Europe, pitting a quarter-million German troops in the Ardennes against Lt. General George Patton’s battered divisions. I explained how Adolf Hitler’s counteroffensive ultimately failed, but it cost the U.S. Army over 100,000 casualties.

When we got to Arlington and walked into the cemetery, we walked to the first of many 18-wheeler semis loaded with boxes of fresh wreathes, each of which had a red ribbon tied into a bow at the top. The girls walked up to the back of the open trucks, stuck out their arms, and a volunteer placed a pine-scented wreath on each tiny arm.

We were directed to a section of Arlington, and we showed the girls how to place the wreaths, gently, at an angle, leaning up against the tombstone, with the red bow at the top.

Some girls, mimicking other adults, placed the wreaths gingerly against the white stones, stood silently, and made the sign of the cross. Others, as they laid the sticky pine wreath against the stone, said the name of the fallen out loud, as other adults were doing around them.

Thinking about Blackwood and the funeral last summer, I told the girls that each tombstone told a story about a real person, where and how they served, and sometimes who they were married to.

Inspired by Blackwood, I challenged each of the girls to tell the story of one of the fallen. One by one, the girls found a tombstone, kneeled down, and told the rest of their troop the story, which went something like this:This is the story of Private First Class … he was born on … he fought in World War II, earned the Purple Heart, and was married to ...At one tombstone, one of the girls observed that the soldier’s wife died on her birthday, at the age of 90, and remarked, “That is so sad. But she lived a long, good life.

Indeed.

In this fast-paced world in which we live, with the 24/7 news cycle and the internet, the elation or depression experienced by the recent national election, and now the run-up to Christmas and Hanukkah, it is really difficult to step back and be thankful for the most important things in our lives—family, faith, friendship, and the profound blessing of living in the United States and being an American citizen.

To those who have worn her uniform, and those who wear it proudly today—thank you. And thank you, Blackwood, and the millions like you, who did your duty with loyalty and honor.
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Charles “Cully” Stimson (@cullystimson) is a leading expert in national security, homeland security, crime control, immigration and drug policy at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the Center for National Defense.

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What Is the "Invisible Hand"?

by Art Carden:
“As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” — Adam Smith, Wealth of NationsWhich better guides the use of a society’s decentralized knowledge: the invisible hand of the market or the visible fist of the state? Adam Smith began An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by explaining that people have become more productive because they have been able to specialize and divide labor. He identified and explained something really marvelous. The invisible hand of the marketplace helps us make use of others’ knowledge and encourages us to help ourselves by helping others. The invisible hand of market exchange—and voluntary action more generally—generates the ordered use of social knowledge according to the visions, plans, and expectations of the many members of that society, rather than according to the visions, plans, and expectations of state functionaries.

The "Invisible Hand" Describes the Communal Benefits of Personal Actions
In the passage above, Smith makes one of his most bracing, important, and often misunderstood claims. The invisible hand of the marketplace converts our self-interest into the public interest. We intend to make the world a better place according to our preferences, with the result being an unintended increase in others’ capacity to make the world a better place according to their preferences. By working to maximize our own well-being, “every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as we can.”

Smith observes a pattern and an outcome. An investor, entrepreneur, or manager directs his time, talent, and treasure toward the industries that will yield the largest revenue. To the extent that he supports “domestic industry,” it is not because he wishes to do so per se but because this is most conducive to “his own security” as measured by his desire for profit and his tolerance for risk.

He encounters four problems, though.

First, his wants are unlimited. No matter how much he has, he can almost certainly think of ways he could use even more. This needn’t be selfishness or greed. I enjoy traveling, for example, and I plan to do more of it as my income increases. I can also think of spiritual, humanitarian, and intellectual causes I would support more generously if I had more money.

Second problem: Resources are scarce. If Adam takes a bite of an apple, that is a bite Eve cannot take. The baker cannot knead bread dough and chop firewood in the same instant. That blob of plastic can become a coffee stirrer or a guitar pick, but not both at the same time. Material resources are scarce.

Third problem: He doesn’t share others’ talents, tastes, and values. Should the land be used to grow apples in the first place, or should it be used to grow oranges? Should the baker knead dough or chop firewood? Guitar players and coffee drinkers might have very different views about how specific bits of plastic should be used. That is not to say there should be only guitar picks to the exclusion of coffee stirrers or only coffee stirrers to the exclusion of guitar picks. Rather, a given unit of plastic of a given type, composition, and quality can only be used for one or the other.

Fourth problem: The investor, entrepreneur, or manager doesn’t share others’ knowledge. In thinking about examples for the previous paragraph, I reflected on how little I know about chemical engineering and plastics. If I wanted to make coffee stirrers or guitar picks, I wouldn’t know where to begin. Maybe “buy some plastic,” but I don’t know what kind of plastic is most appropriate for coffee stirrers and what kind is most appropriate for guitar picks. There are people in the world who do know—and some of them are probably reading this article—but I’m almost totally in the dark.

Free Markets Allow Us to Trade Freely and to Divide Labor Based on Our Wants and Talents
This is where the invisible hand of the market comes in. Voluntary market exchange reveals the patterns of specialization, division of labor, and production most consistent with consumers’ preferences. Others’ talents, tastes, values, and knowledge constitute the invisible hand. I convey information about my own talents, tastes, values, and knowledge with offers to buy or sell. Others convey their knowledge by their willingness to accept my bids and offers. I am being led by the invisible hand of others’ knowledge toward patterns of specialization and production that leave us most satisfied, given that we are all free to accept or reject any offer.

As the economist Paul Heyne put it in his book Are Economists Basically Immoral?, market exchange means “everyone wins, or at least everyone with the right to be consulted.” The parties to the transaction are the ones who have skin in the game, and they are the only ones who have the right to be consulted.

Observers who disapprove of others’ actions and exchanges too often want to substitute the visible fist of the state for the invisible hand of the market and prohibit the buying and selling of goods and services of which they do not approve. In doing so they destroy potentially valuable knowledge about, for example, the risks I am prepared to take. Furthermore, the state allows observers to substitute their own reasoning without paying a meaningful price beyond simply having an opinion about something. It’s easy to conjure up a vivid nightmare scenario in which I am breathing my last in a hospital room, the air heavy with my regret at having eaten genetically modified almonds, for example. Just because we can imagine it happening doesn’t mean it is probable enough for us to worry about. When we substitute the visible fist of the state for the invisible hand of the market, we essentially say that some knowledge as expressed by some voices has no place in the social conversation—and more important, we divert resources away from the patterns of specialization and production that yield maximal social output, or an increase in well-being for all.

Art Carden is grateful to James Otteson for an e-mail exchange that clarified his thinking on some of these points.
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Art Carden is Associate Professor of Economics at Samford University’s Brock School of Business. H/T Intercollegiate Review (IR) who shared this article with the editor. IR is published by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) and is dedicated to advancing the principles that make America free, virtuous, and prosperous.

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Fake News, Speaking Of Hate

by Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Fake News - As we head into the holidays, it is getting hard to keep track of how many of the election-related "hate crimes" have been proven false. Not only are they false, but they are almost always perpetrated by leftists.

Here are the latest examples of false hate crimes that made big headlines.

Police in Ann Arbor, Michigan, yesterday said that a female university student lied about her claim that a white Trump supporter had threatened to set her on fire unless she removed her hijab. This story got major press coverage -- here, here and here -- and was repeatedly cited as evidence of a massive spike in bigotry against Muslims after the election. It never happened.

Remember the horrific reports -- here and here -- about the black church that was torched and the words "Vote Trump" were spray painted on the building? I recoiled in disgust when I heard the shocking news.

Well, I'm pleased to say the police have made an arrest in the case. Sadly, the arsonist was a member of the church's congregation.

Now think about this for a moment. These people are part of a movement that is pushing the narrative that America is a horribly racist and bigoted country. When there is no evidence of it, they make it up.

They must know that they are creating the very "atmosphere of fear" that they claim to be against. And they are the ones who are pushing the country closer and closer to a disaster.

Sadly, we have seen this sort of false propaganda in the past. Left-wing totalitarian regimes like the Nazis and the Soviets often exploit "false flag" events.

There is enormous irony here. The left thinks that crimes motivated by hate are particularly egregious and deserve greater punishment. Yet making up a false hate crime is its own form of hate -- hate against white people or conservatives, smearing innocent people to advance a political agenda. How twisted is that?

Don't get me wrong, folks. I am not suggesting there is no problem in America with racism. We should always be working toward racial reconciliation.

I believe that one of the best ways to achieve that goal is through the understanding that we are all made in God's image, and because of that, skin color is beside the point. Unfortunately, the left fights against God and any vestige of faith in the public square too.

Speaking Of Hate. . . As we approach Christmas, it is heart breaking to see what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Muslims nations around the world. The barbarism of ISIS is almost impossible to imagine. Sadly, too many of our political and cultural elites are in denial.

Today there are disturbing reports that ISIS has published a list of churches in America. It is urging its followers to "turn the Christian New Year into a bloody horror movie." Yet our elites insist that such terror has nothing to do with religion.

They are lying to us.

When the jihadists yell, "Allahu akbar!" it has EVERYTHING to do with religion.

When ISIS instructs its followers to attack churches and Christmas markets, it has EVERYTHING to with religion.

Journalist Graeme Wood recently spoke with NPR about his new book on the Islamic State. Here are some excerpts of his remarks:"I think that there is a strong urge to say that [Islamic terrorism] has nothing to do with religion, that ISIS is a bunch of psychopaths. . . Unfortunately that's just not true. ISIS has looked into Islamic history with historical accuracy, with intellectual rigor. . .

"You'll find some who will say the violence is temporary. 'We are Muslims who are reviving the faith and we have to do this in a fallen world. . .' That's what you find with the nicer ones.

"The less nice ones just say, 'This is a wonderful thing. The violence is not something that needs to be explained except to say that our scripture says it must be so. And so when it happens, we should celebrate it.'"There is no doubt that major parts of Islam are at war with Christendom, as has been the case for centuries. There is tremendous hate in the hearts of Islamic supremacists. How does a mother kiss and hug her young daughter before blowing her up as a suicide bomb?

But it goes beyond that. Even if you eliminate the extremists of ISIS, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab (Ever stop to wonder why there are so many radical Islamic groups?), Christian minorities are under siege in Muslim-majority nations.

There is a reason that 12 of the 17 worst violators of religious freedom are Islamic nations.

There is a quickening within the Islamic world. In Indonesia, a fatwa has been issued against Christmas. The Christian governor of Jakarta is on trial for blasphemy against Islam.

While our Justice Department is suing every local community for discrimination any time a permit for a mosque is denied, very few churches are being built in the Muslim world.

Please remember to pray for Christian believers as well as our Jewish brothers and sisters around the world. We are going to have major projects in the coming year to draw attention to the issue of religious persecution and to spur action by the Trump Administration. The genocide against Christians must end.

Happy Chanukah - Carol and I extend our warmest wishes to all our Jewish friends and supporters. As an evangelical Christian, I have tremendous respect and admiration for the Jewish faith and the state of Israel. As the celebration of the miracle of lights begins this weekend, I promise to continue to fight against the darkness of anti-Semitism and to work for the safety and security of America's friend and ally Israel.
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Gary Bauer is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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