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Just in time for the quintessential American holiday Pew Research Center released the results of a survey to find out what people find most meaningful in their lives.

And as we gather around Thanksgiving tables across the country, it turns about family tops the list for most of us.

Pew conducted two surveys in late 2017; one asking open-ended questions to allow respondents to say in their own words what made life most meaningful and another that let them pick from a list of choices.

“Across both surveys, the most popular answer is clear and consistent: Americans are most likely to mention family when asked what makes life meaningful in the open-ended question, and they are most likely to report that they find “a great deal” of meaning in spending time with family in the closed-ended question,” Pew reported.

But aside from family, Americans had a wide range of what is important in their lives — one third cited career, nearly a quarter said stable finances and one in five named their religious faith, friendships, hobbies and activities as important to their happiness.

There were, however, more nuanced answers that reveal what makes Americans find meaning in their lives.

Pew reported: 

In the closed-ended question, the most commonly cited sources that provide Americans with “a great deal” of meaning and fulfillment (after family) include being outdoors, spending time with friends, caring for pets and listening to music. By this measure, religious faith ranks lower, on par with reading and careers. But among those who do find a great deal of meaning in their religious faith, more than half say it is the single most important source of meaning in their lives. Overall, 20 percent of Americans say religion is the most meaningful aspect of their lives, second only to the share who say this about family (40 percent).

Among the other key findings from the surveys:

• Americans with high levels of household income and educational attainment are more likely to mention friendship, good health, stability, and travel. A quarter of Americans who earn at least $75,000 a year mention their friends when asked to describe, in their own words, what makes life meaningful, compared with 14 percent of Americans who earn less than $30,000 each year. Similarly, 23 percent of higher-income U.S. adults mention being in good health, compared with 10 percent of lower-income Americans. And among those with a college degree, 11 percent mention travel and a sense of security as things that make their lives fulfilling, compared with 3 percent and 2 percent, respectively, who name these sources of meaning among those with a high school degree or less.

•  Politically conservative Americans are more likely than liberals to find meaning in religion, while liberals find more meaning in creativity and causes than do conservatives. Spirituality and faith are commonly mentioned by very conservative Americans as imbuing their lives with meaning and fulfillment; 38 percent cite it in response to the open-ended question, compared with just 8 percent of very liberal Americans – a difference that holds even when controlling for religious affiliation. By contrast, the closed-ended question finds that very liberal Americans are especially likely to derive “a great deal” of meaning from arts or crafts (34 percent) and social and political causes (30 percent), compared with rates of 20 percent and 12 percent among very conservative Americans.

• Regardless of their particular religious denomination, black Americans are more likely than others to mention faith and spirituality when describing (in the open-ended question) what gives them a sense of meaning.3 Fully three-in-ten black Americans (30 percent) mention spirituality and faith, compared with 20 percent of whites and 15 percent of Hispanics.

• Younger Americans less likely to mention religion, but draw more meaning from learning than older Americans. Just 10 percent of U.S. adults under age 30 mention spirituality, faith or God when describing (in the open-ended question) what affects their sense of meaning. By contrast, three-in-ten adults ages 65 and older mention religion when describing what makes their life meaningful and fulfilling.

You can find the methodology for the Pew survey here.

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European women are to blame for being raped by Muslim men.  Such is the latest position – the latest apologia – being offered by those dedicated to exonerating undesirable Muslim behavior, particularly in the context of accepting more Muslim migrants into the West.

On October 14, seven Muslim migrants raped a teenage German girl in a park, after drugging her at a disco in Freiburg.  (At least she survived; in a similar case that occurred a week earlier in Italy, the drugged rape victim was left murdered.)  Bernhard Rotzinger, the police chief of Freiburg, responded by saying, “We cannot offer citizens an all-risk insurance [against crime], but I can advise this: Don’t make yourself vulnerable by using alcohol or drugs.”

Similarly, after mobs of Muslim migrants sexually assaulted as many as one thousand women on New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne, Germany, the city’s mayor, Henriette Reker, called on the women, the victims – not their male rapists – to make changes: “The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don’t happen again.  This means they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up.  For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves.”

Such advice against alcohol, drugs, and reckless behavior would be more respectable had it not been made under duress.  As it is, it is a cop-out.  Or, as a November 8 report discussing the aforementioned rape in Freiburg puts it, “[t]he focus on prevention is a good thing, but also shows how German authorities and media barely hold the migrant crisis responsible for the disaster that is unfolding in Germany.  Political correctness has caused officials to put the blame for the criminal acts on the women instead of Merkel’s guests.”

These are hardly the first times officials “put the blame for the criminal acts [of Muslim men] on the women.”  Nor is this phenomenon limited to Germany.  For instance, after a 20-year-old Austrian woman waiting at a bus stop in Vienna was attacked, beaten, and robbed by four Muslim men – including one who “started [by] putting his hands through my hair and made it clear that in his cultural background there were hardly any blonde women” – police responded by telling the victim to dye her hair:

At first I was scared, but now I’m more angry than anything.  After the attack they told me that women shouldn’t be alone on the streets after 8pm.  And they also gave me other advice, telling me I should dye my hair dark and also not dress in such a provocative way.  Indirectly that means I was partly to blame for what happened to me.  That is a massive insult.

Likewise, Unni Wikan, a female professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo in Norway, insists that “‘Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes,’ because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative.  The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: ‘Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.'”

So much for the feminist claim that women are free to dress and behave as promiscuously and provocatively as they want – and woe to any man who dares cite this as justifying his sexual aggression.  Apparently, this feminist refrain does not apply to Muslim men.

But perhaps the greater irony of all these excuses is that, from the very start of Islam 14 centuries ago, European women – even chaste nuns – have always been portrayed by Muslims as sexually promiscuous by nature.

This is easily discerned by examining medieval Muslim perceptions – and subsequent treatment – of European women, as documented throughout Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (see American Thinker review here).  Consider Muslim views concerning neighboring Byzantine women, who came to represent all European or Christian women to Islam.

As one Western academic of Muslim origin (rather euphemistically) explains:

The Byzantines as a people were considered fine examples of physical beauty, and youthful slaves and slave-girls of Byzantine origins were highly valued. … The Arabs’ appreciation of the Byzantine female has a long history indeed.  For the Islamic period, the earliest literary evidence we have is a hadith (saying of the Prophet).  Muhammad is said to have addressed a newly converted Arab: “Would you like the girls of Banu al-Asfar [the yellow (haired?) or pale people]?”

Muhammad’s question was meant to entice the man to join the Tabuk campaign against the Romans and reap its rewards – in this case, the sexual enslavement of attractive women. In other words, as “white-complexioned blondes, with straight hair and blue eyes,” to quote another academic, Byzantine women were not so much “appreciated” or “highly valued” as they were lusted after.  (All quotes in this article are sourced from and documented in Sword and Scimitar.)

Any sense of compliment ends there.  Muslims habitually portrayed Europe’s Christian women, as contemptible and corrupt infidels, beginning with those they first encountered in neighboring Byzantium, as sexually promiscuous by nature – perhaps simply to support the fantasy that they were eager to be sexually enslaved.  Thus, for Abu Uthman al-Jahiz (b. 776), a prolific court scholar, the females of Constantinople were the “most shameless women in the whole world”; “they find sex more enjoyable” and “are prone to adultery.”  Abd al-Jabbar (b. 935), another prominent scholar, claimed that “adultery is commonplace in the cities and markets of Byzantium” – so much so that even “the nuns from the convents went out to the fortresses to offer themselves to monks.”

For all these reasons and more, European women, typified by neighboring Eastern Roman women, became Islam’s “beautiful femme fatale who makes men lose their self-control,” as Nadia Maria el-Cheikh, author of Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, explains:

Our [Arab-Muslim] sources show not Byzantine women but writers’ images of these women, who served as symbols of the eternal female – constantly a potential threat, particularly due to blatant exaggerations of their sexual promiscuity.  In our texts, Byzantine women are strongly associated with sexual immorality[.] … While the one quality that our [Muslim] sources never deny is the beauty of Byzantine women, the image that they create in describing these women is anything but beautiful. Their depictions are, occasionally, excessive, virtually caricatures, overwhelmingly negative.

Such fevered fantasies – which “are clearly far from Byzantine reality” – existed only in the minds of Muslim men and “must be recognized for what they are: attempts to denigrate and defame a rival culture. … In fact, in Byzantium, women were expected to be retiring, shy, modest, and devoted to their families and religious observances. … The behavior of most women in Byzantium was a far cry from the depictions that appear in Arabic sources.”

Clearly, little has changed some 1,400 years after the founding of Islam: European women continue to be seen as naturally promiscuous and thus provoking Muslim men into raping them.

Thus, in the United Kingdom, a Muslim man explained to a British woman why he was raping her: “you white women are good at it.”  Another Muslim man called a 13-year-old virgin “a little white slag” – British slang for “loose, promiscuous woman” – before raping her.

In Germany, a group of Muslim “refugees” stalked a 25-year-old woman, hurled “filthy” insults at her, and taunted her for sex.  They too explained their logic to her – “German girls are just there for sex” – before reaching into her blouse and groping her.  A Muslim man who almost killed his 25-year-old German victim while raping her – and shouting “Allah!” – asked afterward if she enjoyed it.

In Austria, an “Arabic-looking man” approached a 27-year-old woman at a bus stop, pulled down his pants, and “all he could say was sex, sex, sex,” prompting the woman to scream and flee. 

In Australia, a Muslim cabbie groped and insulted his female passengers, including by saying, “All Australian women are sluts and deserve to be raped.“

In short, the ancient Islamic motif concerning the alleged promiscuity of European women is alive and well – irrespective of the latter’s behavior – and continues justifying the Muslim rape of Western women. 

Yet, even in this, Islam can turn to those “progressive,” godless elements that dominate Western society for cover.  For, just as “the Left” has worked long and hard to portray Islamic intolerance, violence, and terrorism as the West’s fault – because of the crusades, because of colonialism, because of cartoons, because of Israel, because of freedom of speech – it now adds “because of Western promiscuity” to the list of reasons that “provoke” Muslims to behave like Muslims.

(For many more examples of Muslims sexually objectifying Western women throughout history, see the author’s new book, Sword and Scimitar.)

European women are to blame for being raped by Muslim men.  Such is the latest position – the latest apologia – being offered by those dedicated to exonerating undesirable Muslim behavior, particularly in the context of accepting more Muslim migrants into the West.

On October 14, seven Muslim migrants raped a teenage German girl in a park, after drugging her at a disco in Freiburg.  (At least she survived; in a similar case that occurred a week earlier in Italy, the drugged rape victim was left murdered.)  Bernhard Rotzinger, the police chief of Freiburg, responded by saying, “We cannot offer citizens an all-risk insurance [against crime], but I can advise this: Don’t make yourself vulnerable by using alcohol or drugs.”

Similarly, after mobs of Muslim migrants sexually assaulted as many as one thousand women on New Year’s Eve 2016 in Cologne, Germany, the city’s mayor, Henriette Reker, called on the women, the victims – not their male rapists – to make changes: “The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don’t happen again.  This means they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up.  For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves.”

Such advice against alcohol, drugs, and reckless behavior would be more respectable had it not been made under duress.  As it is, it is a cop-out.  Or, as a November 8 report discussing the aforementioned rape in Freiburg puts it, “[t]he focus on prevention is a good thing, but also shows how German authorities and media barely hold the migrant crisis responsible for the disaster that is unfolding in Germany.  Political correctness has caused officials to put the blame for the criminal acts on the women instead of Merkel’s guests.”

These are hardly the first times officials “put the blame for the criminal acts [of Muslim men] on the women.”  Nor is this phenomenon limited to Germany.  For instance, after a 20-year-old Austrian woman waiting at a bus stop in Vienna was attacked, beaten, and robbed by four Muslim men – including one who “started [by] putting his hands through my hair and made it clear that in his cultural background there were hardly any blonde women” – police responded by telling the victim to dye her hair:

At first I was scared, but now I’m more angry than anything.  After the attack they told me that women shouldn’t be alone on the streets after 8pm.  And they also gave me other advice, telling me I should dye my hair dark and also not dress in such a provocative way.  Indirectly that means I was partly to blame for what happened to me.  That is a massive insult.

Likewise, Unni Wikan, a female professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo in Norway, insists that “‘Norwegian women must take their share of responsibility for these rapes,’ because Muslim men found their manner of dress provocative.  The professor’s conclusion was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western norms, but the exact opposite: ‘Norwegian women must realize that we live in a Multicultural society and adapt themselves to it.'”

So much for the feminist claim that women are free to dress and behave as promiscuously and provocatively as they want – and woe to any man who dares cite this as justifying his sexual aggression.  Apparently, this feminist refrain does not apply to Muslim men.

But perhaps the greater irony of all these excuses is that, from the very start of Islam 14 centuries ago, European women – even chaste nuns – have always been portrayed by Muslims as sexually promiscuous by nature.

This is easily discerned by examining medieval Muslim perceptions – and subsequent treatment – of European women, as documented throughout Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West (see American Thinker review here).  Consider Muslim views concerning neighboring Byzantine women, who came to represent all European or Christian women to Islam.

As one Western academic of Muslim origin (rather euphemistically) explains:

The Byzantines as a people were considered fine examples of physical beauty, and youthful slaves and slave-girls of Byzantine origins were highly valued. … The Arabs’ appreciation of the Byzantine female has a long history indeed.  For the Islamic period, the earliest literary evidence we have is a hadith (saying of the Prophet).  Muhammad is said to have addressed a newly converted Arab: “Would you like the girls of Banu al-Asfar [the yellow (haired?) or pale people]?”

Muhammad’s question was meant to entice the man to join the Tabuk campaign against the Romans and reap its rewards – in this case, the sexual enslavement of attractive women. In other words, as “white-complexioned blondes, with straight hair and blue eyes,” to quote another academic, Byzantine women were not so much “appreciated” or “highly valued” as they were lusted after.  (All quotes in this article are sourced from and documented in Sword and Scimitar.)

Any sense of compliment ends there.  Muslims habitually portrayed Europe’s Christian women, as contemptible and corrupt infidels, beginning with those they first encountered in neighboring Byzantium, as sexually promiscuous by nature – perhaps simply to support the fantasy that they were eager to be sexually enslaved.  Thus, for Abu Uthman al-Jahiz (b. 776), a prolific court scholar, the females of Constantinople were the “most shameless women in the whole world”; “they find sex more enjoyable” and “are prone to adultery.”  Abd al-Jabbar (b. 935), another prominent scholar, claimed that “adultery is commonplace in the cities and markets of Byzantium” – so much so that even “the nuns from the convents went out to the fortresses to offer themselves to monks.”

For all these reasons and more, European women, typified by neighboring Eastern Roman women, became Islam’s “beautiful femme fatale who makes men lose their self-control,” as Nadia Maria el-Cheikh, author of Byzantium Viewed by the Arabs, explains:

Our [Arab-Muslim] sources show not Byzantine women but writers’ images of these women, who served as symbols of the eternal female – constantly a potential threat, particularly due to blatant exaggerations of their sexual promiscuity.  In our texts, Byzantine women are strongly associated with sexual immorality[.] … While the one quality that our [Muslim] sources never deny is the beauty of Byzantine women, the image that they create in describing these women is anything but beautiful. Their depictions are, occasionally, excessive, virtually caricatures, overwhelmingly negative.

Such fevered fantasies – which “are clearly far from Byzantine reality” – existed only in the minds of Muslim men and “must be recognized for what they are: attempts to denigrate and defame a rival culture. … In fact, in Byzantium, women were expected to be retiring, shy, modest, and devoted to their families and religious observances. … The behavior of most women in Byzantium was a far cry from the depictions that appear in Arabic sources.”

Clearly, little has changed some 1,400 years after the founding of Islam: European women continue to be seen as naturally promiscuous and thus provoking Muslim men into raping them.

Thus, in the United Kingdom, a Muslim man explained to a British woman why he was raping her: “you white women are good at it.”  Another Muslim man called a 13-year-old virgin “a little white slag” – British slang for “loose, promiscuous woman” – before raping her.

In Germany, a group of Muslim “refugees” stalked a 25-year-old woman, hurled “filthy” insults at her, and taunted her for sex.  They too explained their logic to her – “German girls are just there for sex” – before reaching into her blouse and groping her.  A Muslim man who almost killed his 25-year-old German victim while raping her – and shouting “Allah!” – asked afterward if she enjoyed it.

In Austria, an “Arabic-looking man” approached a 27-year-old woman at a bus stop, pulled down his pants, and “all he could say was sex, sex, sex,” prompting the woman to scream and flee. 

In Australia, a Muslim cabbie groped and insulted his female passengers, including by saying, “All Australian women are sluts and deserve to be raped.“

In short, the ancient Islamic motif concerning the alleged promiscuity of European women is alive and well – irrespective of the latter’s behavior – and continues justifying the Muslim rape of Western women. 

Yet, even in this, Islam can turn to those “progressive,” godless elements that dominate Western society for cover.  For, just as “the Left” has worked long and hard to portray Islamic intolerance, violence, and terrorism as the West’s fault – because of the crusades, because of colonialism, because of cartoons, because of Israel, because of freedom of speech – it now adds “because of Western promiscuity” to the list of reasons that “provoke” Muslims to behave like Muslims.

(For many more examples of Muslims sexually objectifying Western women throughout history, see the author’s new book, Sword and Scimitar.)

An illegal immigrant, who was back in the country after being deported in 2016, is being charged in the murder of a convenience store clerk during an armed robbery in Houston.

Jose Bonilla-Ortiz, 18, was arrested on Saturday in the fatal, Nov. 10 shooting of 48-year-old Faruk Bhuiya, according to local KTRK-TV.

Bonilla-Ortiz was caught on surveillance video entering the convenience store with another unidentified man, the station reported.

Our Homicide investigators have released surveillance video of the suspects wanted in the fatal shooting of a convenience store employee at 1600 Witte on November 10. Call HPD Homicide at 713-308-3600 or @CrimeStopHOU if you recognize them #hounews pic.twitter.com/qcDNwqLyRu

— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) November 14, 2018

TRENDING: Watch: Crazed Antifa Woman with Purple Hair Punches, Spits at, Tries To Assault #HimToo Activist

Bonilla-Ortiz and Bhuiya struggled over a security door that the Bhuiya tried to close, according to prosecutors.

Then, Bonilla-Ortiz fired once and struck Bhuiya in the face, who then died at the scene.

Bhuiya’s widow, Phyllis Bhuiya, offered her sympathy for the suspect’s mother, according to The Houston Chronicle.

“I feel bad for this boy’s mother. His life is ruined. Ruined for nothing, absolutely nothing,” Bhuiya said.

However, Bhuiya wants Bonilla-Ortiz to pay for the crime.

“I want him punished for what he did. He didn’t just take my husband. He took someone’s son, someone’s stepfather,” she said. “He wasn’t just my husband. He was a lot of things to a lot of people.”

Bonilla-Ortiz, who is being held at a $250,000 bond, was previously deported two years ago, according to the Chronicle.

He is originally from Honduras, KTRK reported.

RELATED: Video: Furious Mexicans Protest Caravan Illegals, Head to Shelter To ‘Kick Them Out’

Yet he was back in the country, to allegedly kill a man who was also an immigrant to the United States — from Bangladesh.

While not all illegal immigrants are violent criminals, it’s undeniable that this senseless tragedy could’ve been avoided with proper immigration control.

There is absolutely no reason to be permissive toward illegal immigration, especially when some of them are bound to be violent.

This isn’t the only tragedy that could have been avoidable with proper immigration policy.

On Sunday, a police officer was shot at by an illegal immigrant in Arkansas during a traffic stop. Thankfully, he survived, but that’s not the case for many other victims.

Previously, President Donald Trump came under fire from the left-wing establishment media for a campaign ad showing an illegal immigrant bragging about murdering two police officers.

“Who else will Democrats let in?” the ad asked.

It is outrageous what the Democrats are doing to our Country. Vote Republican now! https://t.co/0pWiwCHGbh pic.twitter.com/2crea9HF7G

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2018

After every single tragedy, Democrats remain unconcerned about who illegally enters our country.

It’s time to stop the madness and take control of our borders.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

All about feelings.

Via Law and Crime:

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, commonly known as ICE, is no longer welcome at the Seattle University School of Law due to its “current policies and practices.” The school has announced that it has suspended an externship program law students were previously able to participate in for course credit and work experience after concerns were raised to school administrators that ICE’s presence on campus could frighten undocumented students.

According to the Seattle Times, a third-year law student named Alex Romero, who hopes to become an immigration lawyer, spotted ICE reps at an externship fair table in September and was unnerved by it. The Romero complained to administrators that this might scare undocumented students and said ICE’s presence runs counter to the school’s mission.

The school, a Jesuit Catholic private university, didn’t immediately make a decision about the program. Romero told the school newspaper, the Seattle Spectator, that he “prepared arguments on why this is inappropriate at our school and contrary to our mission and a list of other arguments.”

“The law school weighed the argument [that] the school has an ample responsibility to provide different options for different students and weighed it heavier than my arguments,” he added. Romero, however, started a petition and heightened pressure from additional students resulted in the school siding with his argument.

Externship program director Jill Dutton explained that after students raised concerns that the “ICE presence at our annual Externship Fair caused them to feel unsafe” it was concluded that there was a “real possibility” that placing a student with ICE “may force them to act unethically or unlawfully.”

Dean Annette Clark sent out a statement to say that “as educators, lawyers, and soon-to-be-lawyers, we hold particular power and bear a special responsibility to be peacemakers and to assist those who are suffering due to the unjust operation of our legal system, laws, and their enforcement.”

As a result, Clark said, that the externship placement program was suspended.

Keep reading…

President Donald Trump fired back at Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday for denying the partisan differences between appointed judges.

“Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country,” Trump wrote.

Roberts criticized the president’s description of a San Francisco judge appointed by former President Barack Obama as an “Obama judge” on Tuesday after he ruled against Trump’s effort to restrict asylum entry for migrants crossing illegally through the Southern border.

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

Roberts said that Americans should be “thankful” for the “independent judiciary” in the United States.

Trump said he supported the idea of an independent judiciary, but that the Ninth Circuit Court continued to rule against his authorities on border security, despite their rulings being overturned by the Supreme Court.

“Please study the numbers, they are shocking,” Trump wrote. “We need protection and security – these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!”

Trump also criticized the left-leaning Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, noting that it always ruled against him.

“It’s a disgrace when every case gets filed in the 9th Circuit,” Trump said at the White House. “That’s not law. Every case in the 9th Circuit we get beaten and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court like the travel ban and we won.”

 

Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have “Obama judges,” and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country. It would be great if the 9th Circuit was indeed an “independent judiciary,” but if it is why……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

…..are so many opposing view (on Border and Safety) cases filed there, and why are a vast number of those cases overturned. Please study the numbers, they are shocking. We need protection and security – these rulings are making our country unsafe! Very dangerous and unwise!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 21, 2018

The following post is sponsored by The Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy (CRFP).

Lawmakers and foreign policy experts gathered in Washington, DC, on Thursday for a day-long conference to discuss the need for a more restrained American foreign policy.

The conference, which took place in the Senate Hart Capitol Building, featured Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) as the keynote speaker, and panels discussing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and East Asia, defense spending, and military readiness. It was hosted by The American Conservative magazine.

Watch Rand Paul’s Keynote Address:

 

“I’m convinced that there is a majority of American people who believe as I do and as many of you do that we’ve been at war too long, and in too many places. I think there is a possibility for changing things, and I will continue to agitate for that,” Paul said during his remarks.

The American Conservative Editor Jim Antle began the conference by noting that two consecutive presidents — Trump and former President Barack Obama — had questioned U.S. foreign policy post-9/11. Yet, he said, the same wars are still ongoing. He called for Congress to regain and reassert their constitutional powers over matters of war and peace. “Will they rein in the executive branch in this area as the constitution requires it?” he asked.

Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Ken Buck (R-CO), who spoke on a bipartisan panel, called for more members of Congress to take back control over declaring war, particularly in Yemen. The U.S. has since 2015 supported a Saudi-led coalition fighting against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Watch Congressman Khanna and Buck:

 

“I don’t think our founders would have imagined the extent we have abdicated our influence on foreign policy,” Khanna said.

He slammed administrations going back to former President George W. Bush, calling foreign interventions “one blunder after another.” He said when presidents have campaigned on a message of peace, Americans “seem to like the message.” “But presidents don’t make the changes they promise when they campaign.”

Buck said his fellow Republicans failed to take tough votes on authorizing wars, out of concern of keeping their majority. “I have more faith that the Democrats will raise this issue in the Congress and force this debate,” he said. Khanna said Democrats have also been unwilling to raise the issue out of concern over looking weak on foreign policy.

Buck called on the American people to force Congress to make tough decisions: “I have no faith that Congress will move in a direction that puts members at risk until the Americans forces us to.”

Defense experts, who also served in the military, discussed how much foreign policy has been militarized today, and how that has affected troops.

Gil Barndollar, director of Middle East Studies at the Center for the National Interest and a Marine veteran, criticized putting young U.S. troops in foreign countries expecting them to engage in nation building.

“They’re out there in the front lines, they are not trained, selected or prepared to be ambassadors of America,” he said. “If you ask them to be ambassadors, one, that’s not going to happen. If you try to make it work, you’re going to compromise the lethality of the force.”

Watch the panel Veterans and the Forever War: Recent Vets on Military Reform and U.S. Foreign Policy: 

 

Dan Grazier, the Jack Shanahan military fellow at the Project for Oversight of Government and a Marine veteran, argued that the U.S. military is being used to fight wars that have no military solution. “There is no military solution for a political problem in Afghanistan. Definitely not one in Syria, Yemen,” he said. “We have absolutely proven that.”

Jeff Groom, author of American Cobra Pilot: A Marine Remembers a Dog and Pony Show and a Marine veteran, discussed how continuous wars combined with the desire to maintain an oversized military has hurt the nation’s ability to fight and deter adversaries.

He said flying military aircraft past their service life and outside of their intended purposes has contributed to aviation mishaps, and last year, more troops dying in aviation mishaps than war. He said the concept that the military had to be large enough to fight two wars simultaneously was to justify military largesse after the Cold War, and as a result, the U.S. has a hollow military where a fraction of its units are combat ready and a sizable portion of the budget is going to personnel costs.

“We just don’t have enough bread to feed all the mouths,” he said. “Something has to give.”

Former National Security Council spokesman Michael Anton, who is now a lecturer at Hillsdale College, said President Trump would rather be the president known for solving the North Korea problem rather than the “guy who turned places into glass or parking lots.”

He said other than the two strikes in Syria after the regime’s use of chemical weapons, Trump has gone against interventionist ideas. He said the establishment “really, really wanted to get boots on the ground in the Syria civil war. He resisted all along.”

Watch the panel Trump Politics and Foreign Policy Realism: A Media View: 

 

However, Antle noted that Trump’s anti-war instincts “have not yet broken with the foreign policy status quo” in Washington.

Experts also slammed the U.S.’s foreign policy in the Middle East. Joshua Landis, author of Syria Comment and director of the Center for Middle East Studies and the University of Oklahoma, said the U.S. is trying to make Syria under the Assad regime and Iran so poor that they collapse.

“Beggar your enemies to the point where they collapse” is the abandonment of the “most American principles,” Landis said, that ultimately people will buy into the values of the U.S. He said this policy would condemn the region to poverty, which would only increase terrorism over the long run. Furthermore, he said, squeezing Iran would lead to more dependence on Russia and China, and less dependence on Europe.

Watch the panel Middle East (In)stability: Telling the Difference Between Friends and Enemies: 

 

Abbas Kadhim, non-resident senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute at John Hopkins University, said there is no Iraq policy. The Iraq policy is really the Iran policy, he said.

Paul Pillar, a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and a contributing editor to The National Interest, called American foreign policy in the Middle East too black-and-white.

“It’s unfortunate that we have this uber Manichean approach…all the good guys are on one side of the line, the bad guys are on the other side of the line,” he said.

On East Asia, experts argued for a realistic, non-militaristic approach to North Korea.

Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, argued that North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons. “If you have a more realistic approach, there’s a lot of things we can do.”

Kazianis said one problem with foreign policy is that there is a bias towards action. “Action is praised,” he said. “Doing something is praised … . Everything’s about doing something, pushing back.”

He said there needed to be a way to “operationalize” the idea of restraint. “Make them as sexy as action, because action is what everyone respects.”

Watch the panel The Future of Asian Power Politics: Is Trump Gaining or Losing Ground for the U.S.? 

 

The Committee for Responsible Foreign Policy is a 501(c)(4) organization with the mission of pursuing a more restrained foreign policy that adheres to the Constitution. The organization aims to increase awareness of Congress’ Article I responsibility to oversee war. For more information on CRFP, please visit http://responsibleforeignpolicy.org.

By listening to the liberal media, one would assume that the election of President Donald Trump transformed the United States of America into an authoritarian and dictatorial hellhole, one that all good and morally upstanding people would want to flee from.

That, coupled with the oft-promised but rarely followed through on vows to leave Trump’s America by angry Hollywood celebrities, would naturally result in some people anticipating a mass exodus of anti-Trump Americans fleeing for their lives to the safety of more democratic nations, such as Canada.

Yet, as noted, few if any of those Hollywood celebs who’ve threatened to leave America have actually done so, and there hasn’t been a mass exodus of American citizens fleeing the scourge of Trump’s oppressive regime. In fact, fewer Americans are renouncing their citizenship and leaving the country than during the previous administration.

In an op-ed published by The Daily Caller, Rudy Takala reported that the number of Americans who renounced their citizenship and left the country during the third quarter of 2018 has declined from the number who fled the country in 2017, which was also lower than the number who’d left during the same time period in former President Barack Obama’s final year in office.

Takala cited data published by the Internal Revenue Service in the Federal Register and said that at least 1,107 American citizens or Green Card holders renounced their citizenship or long-term residency in the third quarter of 2018.

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That was a significant decline from the 1,376 who renounced their citizenship or residency in the third quarter of 2017, which in turn was down just a tick from the 1,380 who made a similar renouncement during the same time frame in 2016.

In all, the third quarter total for citizenship renouncement was down some 20 percent from a record high of 1,426 who had fled the country during the third quarter of 2015.

Indeed, the decline in Americans renouncing their citizenship is a welcome change from the Obama years, which saw a surge in the number of Americans who decided it was in their best interest to no longer hold U.S. citizenship.

That surge was fueled in large part by a tax bill passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by the former president in the early years of his administration, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

That particular law required all American citizens and Green Card-holders who lived outside of the U.S. to file reports with the IRS detailing their financial accounts and transactions in foreign lands for tax purposes, which prompted a surge in renunciations to avoid that additional tax burden.

To combat the sudden exodus of American citizens, the Obama administration in 2014 actually increased the renunciation fee — a sort of exit tax — from a mere $450 to an incredible amount of $2,350, but even that failed to dissuade the thousands who had decided it was time to go.

It is worth noting that, prior to Obama signing the FATCA bill into law, fewer than 1,000 people renounced their citizenship on an annual basis. Sadly, that number grew to reach a record high of 5,411 total citizenship renunciations in 2016, a number that began to decline once Trump took office.

In 2017, a total of 5,133 individuals renounced their citizenship. Thus far over the first three quarters of 2018, a total of 3,296 people have renounced their citizenship, meaning that other than a sudden last-minute surge of renunciations over the remainder of the year, the total number of those who’ve fled the U.S. will have declined again.

Despite all of the dire predictions from the liberal media — they were certain that 2017 renunciation totals would dwarf those of the Obama years — Americans are not fleeing in droves during Trump’s presidency. No, that is what happened between 2011 and 2016, while the media’s idol Obama held power.

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Contrary to the media’s wishful thinking, the vast majority of Americans are not living in fear of their lives or their rights, and the form of “democracy” we practice in this constitutional Republic remains alive and well, not dying darkness, as some would have you believe.

Americans renounced their citizenship and fled the country in record numbers during Obama’s tenure in office to avoid his punitive tax policies, but as Trump has changed all of that, far fewer Americans are deciding to skip the country than before and more are inclined to remain here and reap the benefits of less punitive tax policies and a much-improved economy, which is really what this is all about.

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A pro-life Australian senator sarcastically declared himself to be a woman last week after his views on abortion were belittled.

“I’m going to declare my gender today, as I can, to be a woman, and then you’ll no longer be able to attack me,” Australian Sen. Barry O’Sullivan told representatives at parliament on Nov. 14.

O’Sullivan was, of course, referring to the effort from pro-abortion leftists to silence men who are pro-life.

The proclamation came after O’Sullivan was criticized by Greens Sen. Larissa Waters for his views on abortion earlier in the week, Catholic News Agency reported.

“Senator O’Sullivan needs to get his hands and his rosaries off my ovaries and those of the 10,000 Queensland women who have an abortion each year,” Waters said, according to the Australian Associated Press. “10,000 women who have the right to make a decision about their own bodies without the opinion of senator O’Sullivan getting in their way.”

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It’s a common tactic from the left. Rather than actually make an argument, they vilify their opponents, mock their values and attempt to silence them.

But O’Sullivan didn’t back down from the fight.

“These people come and attack me for my religion the other day, using words like using words like ‘rosary beads,’ because I had the audacity to raise issues around late-term abortions, where babies who are only minutes away from getting a smack on the arse and a name, are being aborted under the policies of the Australian Greens,” O’Sullivan said.

Here’s the video of Nationals senator Barry O’Sullivan saying he is declaring his gender “to be a woman” so the left-wing people can no longer “attack” him over his anti-abortion views. pic.twitter.com/YzbOCWp0YC

— Alice Workman (@workmanalice) November 14, 2018

“I will stand silent,” he continued.

“I will not stand mute while these people continue to marginalize politics and ideas … that I think are largely supported still by the majority of the nation.”

O’Sullivan is absolutely right.

Many, many people — both men and woman — support the right to life for the unborn, despite attempts from the left to marginalize them.

RELATED: To Feminists’ Horror, Trump Delivers 2 Major Pro-Life Victories

Good for O’Sullivan for standing up for the innocent, and refusing to be beaten into silence.

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