Month: August 2018

Before the 2016 presidential election, countless “experts” predicted economic doom and gloom if Donald Trump were to win.

Now, coming up on two years since President Trump took office, a chain of positive economic news could be summarized in four words: Experts are often wrong.

First, even the president’s opponents were forced to admit that everything didn’t fall apart the moment he took office. As Trump has frequently reminded his critics, unemployment numbers for blacks and Hispanics are near record lows, even as he’s attacked as an enemy of minorities.

Now, there’s even more good news for the Trump economy. On Thursday, the nonpartisan Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that young people are doing very well on the job front.

“From April to July 2018, the number of employed youth 16 to 24 years old increased by 2.0 million to 20.9 million,” the BLS said.

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“The unemployment rate among young Americans fell to its lowest level in more than 50 years this summer,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Trump himself proudly shared that information via Twitter on Friday, in a post that was “liked” over 84,000 times.

Just announced, youth unemployment is at a 50 year low! @foxandfriends

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2018

Perhaps the most interesting observation is that many of the groups who have been reluctant to vote for Trump — black Americans and young people, for instance — are benefiting the most from his presidency.

The majority of millennials, 55 percent, voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton over Trump in the 2016 election, according to an analysis of exit poll data from USA Today.

At the same time, a stunning number of younger Americans seem enamored by political promises that would almost certainly be disastrous for jobs and the country overall.

“(M)ore Millennials would prefer to live in a socialist country (44%) than in a capitalist one (42%). … The percentage of Millennials who would prefer socialism to capitalism is a full 10 points higher than that of the general population,” said a 2017 Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation/YouGov survey, which we reported on last year.

“It seems that the majority of America’s largest generation would prefer to live in a socialist or communism society than in a free enterprise system that respects the rule of law, private property, and limited government,” the foundation said.

Maybe it’s a cliched statement, but the youth in America might not know how good they have it. By almost every measure, life for Americans of all backgrounds is better than it has ever been and offers dramatically more opportunities compared with world standards.

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The simple fact is that there are plenty of jobs for young people who want to make money and countless career options for almost anyone who is willing to show up and apply themselves.

Why so many young Americans are jaded and disenchanted despite living in a time of peace and opportunity may come down to a matter of messaging. If conservatives want to advance their ideas, communicating the principles that have made America great to the next generation is extremely important.

That may take a while … but pointing out how good things actually are in 2018 is definitely a strong start.

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During the August 18, 2018, airing of Breitbart News Saturday, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry explained that he  chose, in part, to withhold $600 million from Citigroup and Bank of America because they are “trying to become the social police.”

On August 16, 2018, Breitbart News reported Landry’s decision to withhold the $600 million, a decision shared by the Louisiana Bond Commission and State Treasurer John Schroder.

The decision to withhold the money came after Citigroup and Bank of America each unilaterally placed gun control demands on their customers, going so far as to stipulate that bank-sponsored gun regulations had to be followed if financing was desired.

Landry used his appearance on Breitbart News Saturday to explain:

About four months ago, Citigroup and Bank of America, like, unfortunately some big corporations are trying to become the social police, they put out policies trying to restrict American citizens’ ability to legally access firearms. They both have someone different policies, but they basically would not extend financing to gun manufacturers or retailers, some of whom may sell guns legally to persons under 21.

He continued:

At the same time that [Citigroup and Bank of America] put these policies out, the state of Louisiana was looking for underwriters for a $600 million infrastructure project here. And [Citigroup and Bank of America] applied for us to evaluate them to be one of the underwriters, and in a very strong statement, conservatives in Louisiana said no, we are not going to do business with corporations that infringe or restrict our citizens’ right to legally access firearms.

Landry said a Citigroup representative spoke at the Bond Commission and could not tell him how many firearm-related homicides there are a year in America. Landry pointed out there “10,000 to 12,000” firearm-related homicides, “in comparison to automobiles, which is like 36,000, compared to opioids, which is like 65,000.”

Yet Citigroup is not placing new regulations on car manufacturers or car dealers, not are they putting new regulations on pharmaceutical companies.

Landry summarized, “It’s an infiltration of the left into boardrooms of major boardrooms … [and] they want to become the social police. And in Louisiana, we’re just not going to stand for that.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” national security adviser John Bolton said the removal of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance by President Donald Trump was justified because “he and others in the Obama administration were politicizing intelligence.”

Bolton said, “It was my view at the time that he and others in the Obama administration were politicizing intelligence. I think that is a very dangerous thing to do.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

The Vatican released a statement expressing “shame and sorrow” Thursday about the hundreds of predator priests uncovered in Pennsylvania. This statement comes after two days of silence and offers no quote from Pope Francis.

“There are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow,” the statement reads. “The Holy See treats with great seriousness the work of the Investigating Grand Jury of Pennsylvania… The Holy See condemns unequivocally the sexual abuse of minors.”

“Victims should know that the Pope is on their side. Those who have suffered are his priority, and the Church wants to listen to them to root out this tragic horror that destroys the lives of the innocent.”

In the middle of these platitudes, comes this: “By finding almost no cases after 2002, the Grand Jury’s conclusions are consistent with previous studies showing that Catholic Church reforms in the United States drastically reduced the incidence of clergy child abuse.”

This is what stood out to me… “Almost no cases after 2002.”

We are talking about the kind of sexual abuse against children that would make Harvey Weinstein blush and the Church is using the words “almost no” in its defense.

Let’s read that another way…

Ford Motor: “Almost no Ford Pintos exploded and killed their occupants after 2002.”

The FBI: “Almost no FBI agents were involved in manipulating presidential elections after 2002.”

The local mosque: “Almost none of our Imams sought to radicalize terrorists after 2002.”

CNN: “Almost none of our reporters spread fake news after 2002.”

the Catholic Church: “Almost no children were raped by our priests after 2002.”

And then there is the whole “fool me once” aspect of all this.

These are the kinds of statements we heard 15 years ago when the first child abuse scandal exploded on the Church, and I am afraid empty words are just not good enough anymore.

I joined the Church in 2008 in large part because I was assured this was behind us, assured an unforgivable blot on the 2,000-year-old institution had been eradicated, assured this would not and could not happen ever again. And yet here we are in 2018 with the discovery that the coverup has been ongoing and that the standard when it comes to predatory priests raping children is “almost no[ne].”

Just as unacceptably is this sentence in the Vatican’s statement, “The Holy See also wants to underscore the need to comply with the civil law, including mandatory child abuse reporting requirements.”

You have child rapists in your own home and a gangster mentality protecting those child rapists… How can you not be proactive? How can you not be calling on every attorney general in all 50 states to launch investigations — with the FULL cooperation of the church — in all 50 states?  How can you not be demanding these “secret archives” (incredibly, that was the Pennsylvania Church’s term for the secret files detailing the abuse and cover-ups) be released to the public in very diocese, not only here in America but throughout the world?

As a practicing Catholic, someone who loved the Church, who joined the Church as a 42-year-old adult, who was proud to call himself a Roman Catholic, I am horrified, not only by this report (which I intend to read in full), but by a powerful institution’s passive response to an unspeakable evil breeding within its own home.

And how are we to define this passiveness as something other than it is own kind of evil?

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

Democrats will elect several new representatives to Congress in November who hold staunchly anti-Israel views.

That will happen whether or not Democrats win overall, and manage to re-install Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as speaker. The anti-Israel members-of-Congress-to-be are running in solidly Democratic districts where they are certain to be elected.

As such, Americans must brace for the kind of extreme anti-Israel politics that has, until now, stayed on campus, in the mosque, in Europe, and in the Third World.

The leader of the pack is Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the new heroine of the Democratic Party grass roots. Ocasio-Cortez — or AOC, as some of her fans now call her — is neither Muslim nor Palestinian. But she is a “democratic socialist.”

Despite Israel’s socialist roots, the far-left now identifies with the Palestinians, overlooking the brutality of Palestinian terror, the pervasive antisemitism of Palestinian society, and the authoritarian rule of both the Islamist Hamas regime in Gaza and the secular Palestinian Authority.

In May, after Hamas used a phony “mass protest” to in an effort to breach the Gaza border and attack Israeli civilians, AOC sided with the terrorist group, calling the Israeli response a “massacre” — even though nearly all of the 62 killed were Hamas operatives. In July, she stated that while she believed “absolutely in Israel’s right to exist,” she was opposed to the “occupation of Palestine.” She could not, when pressed, explain what she meant by the term, which the far-left often uses to refer to all of the State of Israel.

But there are two incoming representatives even more hostile to Israel than AOC.

One of them is Ilhan Omar, a Somali-born state representative who won the Democratic Party primary for Minnesota’s 5th congressional district — the seat being vacated by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) — this week. In the past, Omar has referred to Israel as an “apartheid regime.” In 2014, during a war in Gaza, Omar tweeted: “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.”

More recently, like AOC, Omar has deployed pro-Israel boilerplate to placate voters, donors, and critics. Earlier this month, she told a candidate forum: “I support a two-state solution. It is going to be important for us to recognize Israel’s place in the Middle East and the Jewish people’s rightful place within that region.” She also said that she opposed the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” (BDS) movement.

But in the state legislature, she opposed a bill against boycotts of Israel and urged divestment from Israel bonds.

The other is Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American who won the crowded Democratic Party primary for the 13th congressional district of Michigan last week. She promptly launched a series of anti-Israel tweets, apparently in response to events in the Middle East, where Hamas launched nearly 200 rockets at Israeli civilians and the Israeli air force responded by targeting Hamas military infrastructure.

In the past, Tlaib supported Palestinian terrorist Rasmea Odeh’s bid to fight deportation, and is backed by anti-Israel Palestinian-American activist and Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour, who called for “jihad” against the Trump administration.

Curiously, Tlaib seems to be facing an onslaught of criticism from within the Palestinian-American community, for whom ordinary participation in American politics is seen as a form of selling out. One of her defenders tweeted that for Tlaib, “The first fight was for Palestine, always Palestine.”

Tlaib herself appealed to her community in a Facebook post that concluded: “#FreePalestine.” For Palestinian activists, and for the far-left, that slogan refers to the dismantling of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian state.

For now, AOC, Omar, and Tlaib will retreat to the safe harbor of the “two-state solution” — enough to placate the Democratic Party establishment and nervous liberal Jewish donors. But in a crisis, they are likely to side against Israel, as in the past — even when the enemy is Hamas, Hezbollah, or Iran.

No matter the November result, this is what Democrats are bringng to Washington.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

The relationship between the suicide bomber who killed 22 at a concert in Manchester, England and the mosque he attended is coming under fresh scrutiny after recordings emerged of an apparently extremist sermon preached just months before the attack.

The words of the sermon, which have been analysed by Islamic scholars and are being investigated by police, amount to a call to violence according to British state broadcaster the BBC, which quotes the remarks of experts Usama Hasan and Shaykh Rehan who said the preaching called for “military jihad”.

In the recording, Imam Mustafa Graf is alleged to pray “We ask Allah to grant them mujahideen [Islamist fighters] – our brothers and sisters right now in Aleppo and Syria and Iraq – to grant them victory”, and to claim “Jihad for the sake of Allah is the source of pride and dignity for this nation.”

In an apparent call to action, the Imam also said: “brothers and sisters, it is time to act. Not only to talk.”

Usama Hasan of the anti-extremism think tank the Quilliam Foundation told the broadcaster about the comments by Imam Mustafa Graf that: “From the context and the way these texts are used they are clearly referring to military jihad, to armed jihad.

“I have known the Islamic discourse for pretty much 40 years… and the mujahideen are the group fighting armed jihad.”

Shaykh Rehan said of the speech: “He’s giving them the narrative of them against us. He is psychologically and practically brainwashing young people into either travelling or to do something to take action.”

The mosque itself, housed in a former Victorian church, has denied extremism is preached within its doors, and told the BBC that words used like “mujahideen” and “jihad” had merely been misinterpreted. Greater Manchester Police are reviewing the new material to determine whether an offence has been committed.

Imam Graf also denied on camera preaching hate speech — footage that the BBC contrasted with archive footage of him in 2011, wearing military uniform in Libya, talking to camera about “awaiting orders to attack” while men around him loaded ammunition into an armoured fighting vehicle.

The BBC report also claimed five men who attended the mosque have either travelled to Syria or been jailed for serving the Islamic State, a further claim that the mosque denies. The Guardian reports the Mosque said in a statement that: “We do not tolerate or instigate any form of preaching that breaches both Islamic principles and the laws of England and Wales.”

BREAKING: Latest named victim of Manchester attack is 8-year-old Saffie Rose Roussos https://t.co/Xf4w03JYoK pic.twitter.com/bDwiBN6MQL

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 23, 2017

It is not known whether Abedi and his family, who were frequent worshippers at the Mosque, were present when the sermon was delivered. However, Abedi bought a ticket for the Ariana Grande concert where he detonated a suicide bomb the following year just ten days after the sermon was given.

Salman Abedi, the Manchester Arena bomber was 22-years-old at the time he detonated a home-made explosive device loaded with shrapnel in the foyer as an Ariana Grande concert finished, killing 22 parents and children leaving the event, and himself. British born to Libyan parents, a British Royal Navy ship had “rescued” Abedi from the Libyan civil war in 2014 where it is alleged he had been engaged in militant activity.

The victims of Abedi’s attack included ten peopel under the age of 20, the youngest being just eight years old. Over 800 were injured “physically or psychologically” in addition to the dead, with many receiving life-changing wounds.