New York Times resident conservative columnist Ross Douthat, who was a “NeverTrump” pundit during the 2016 election, has acknowledged President Donald Trump’s success in defeating the so-called “Islamic State” — and says Trump deserves credit for his foreign policy overall.

In a column titled “The War Trump Won,” Douthat writes that “if you had told me in late 2016 that almost a year into the Trump era the caliphate would be all-but-beaten without something far worse happening in the Middle East, I would have been surprised and gratified.”

Last October, with Election Day looming, Douthat had written that “the risks of Trump are so distinctive as to throw the perils of a Clinton presidency into relative eclipse.” He warned of the possibility of “a rapid escalation of risk in every geopolitical theater.”

A year later, Douthat is surprised — and impressed — by Trump’s performance: “[F]or now, the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East has been moderately successful, and indeed close to what I would have hoped for from a normal Republican president following a realist-internationalist course.”

Douthat faults the press — including himself — for ignoring the victory over ISIS and “not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.”

He explains further:

In particular, Trump has avoided the temptation often afflicting Republican uber-hawks, in which we’re supposed to fight all bad actors on 16 fronts at once. Instead he’s slow-walked his hawkish instincts on Iran, tolerated Assad and avoided dialing up tensions with Russia. The last issue is of course entangled with the great collusion debate — but it’s still a good thing that our mini-cold war has remained relatively cool and we aren’t strafing each other over Syria.

…

And the Trump strategy on Israel and the Palestinians, the butt of many Jared Kushner jokes, seems … not crazy? The relatively mild reaction to recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital may be a case study in expert consensus falling behind the facts; the Arab world has different concerns than it did in 1995, and Trump’s move has helped clarify that change.

He concludes: So very provisionally, credit belongs where it’s due — to our soldiers and diplomats, yes, but to our president as well.

Read Douthat’s full column here.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Democrats have long fought for the minimum wage hike, claiming it’s necessary in the fight against income inequality.

While states like California have paved the way for so-called “progressive” ideas like raising the minimum wage, they have clearly failed to think through the logical consequences of these policies.

In California’s case, that could turn out to be a costly mistake.

A report published Thursday by the Employment Policies Institute warned of an upcoming economic disaster in California, estimating that the state could lose almost half a million jobs by 2022, when the $15 minimum wage is to be fully implemented.

The study analyzed data from California beginning in the 1990s, when the state began to deviate from the federal standard minimum wage.

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Over the past three decades, economists found that for every 10 percent increase in the state’s minimum wage, 5 percent of jobs have been lost.

Based on California’s history, experts estimated that the state would lose approximately 400,000 jobs by 2022 when the $15 per hour wage is implemented.

The report asserted that retail and food service industries would be hit the hardest, with almost half of all job losses coming from those industries.

While the study acknowledged that businesses could respond to higher wages in ways that could have varying effects, one point that could not be disputed was the fact that the rising wage has “depressed employment opportunities in the most heavily-impacted industries.”

Last year, California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that would see an increase in the minimum wage beginning Jan. 1. The wage will increase to $11 per hour for companies with 26 employees or more. The wage will continue to increase $1 per year through 2022.

“This is about economic justice, it’s about people, it’s about creating a little, tiny balance in a system that every day becomes more unbalanced,” he said of the bill, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Sadly, Brown and his liberal buddies have yet to actually see the real economic justice that will result from forcing companies to pay workers a $15 minimum wage.

It is never wise to make business decisions based on emotions rather than logic. It may feel good to raise the minimum wage, but the long-term effects hurt more people than they help.

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The problem is that a higher minimum wage means rising costs in other significant areas. Businesses raise the cost of goods and services to offset the burden of paying workers more — or they fire the workers because the burden is too great on the business.

It’s not rocket science.

As we have already seen, businesses will do what they need to do to stay afloat, and that never seems to work out well for people who need jobs.

In five years, California will have an economic crisis on its hands, and it can blame its leftist leadership for that.

H/T The Daily Wire

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“End the war on women!” That was the chant from liberals that was used back when Mitt Romney ran for president.

It has since been recycled to go after Donald Trump, along with new slogans like “YesAllWomen” and “MeToo.” Social justice keyboards seem to be missing their space bars.

We’ve been told — well, lectured — that all women must be believed when they make sexual harassment accusations. Unfortunately, it looks like the Democrats don’t entirely believe their own rhetoric.

Three out of four members of Congress who are refusing to resign in the face of sexual misconduct allegations are Democrats… and the hesitation to back their words with actions has raised many skeptical eyebrows.

In no particular order, here are the four congressmen who have decided to go down with their ships.

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Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York)

Rep. Gregory Meeks is a Democrat from New York. A former staffer named Andrea Payne filed a lawsuit against Meeks, which claimed that she blew the whistle on the lawmaker for an alleged sexual assault against a different woman.

After Payne filed the official complaint about the incident, she was fired just weeks later. The lawsuit by Payne against Meeks was quietly settled using taxpayer funds back in 2006.

Ironically, the congressman is one of the liberal voices demanding an investigation into unproven sexual harassment accusations against President Trump.

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas)

Like his colleague from New York, Congressman Farenthold used taxpayer money to settle a lawsuit filed by a female staffer… $84,000 of it, to be exact.

Congressman Farenthold was accused of fostering a hostile and discriminatory work environment in a 2014 lawsuit. A staffer named Lauren Greene claimed that the lawmaker and his chief of staff frequently made lewd comments, and then fired her when she complained.

Despite the settlement, the Office of Congressional Ethics did not find any wrongdoing on the part of Farenthold, and he promised to pay back the taxpayer funds. The Texas representative refused to step down, but has decided that he won’t seek reelection when his term is up.

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Rep. Ruben Kihuen (D-Nevada)

Yes, it’s starting to become a theme: Congressman Kihuen is accused of sexually harassing his female campaign finance director and demanding sex from her repeatedly.

In a bit of Democrat Party drama, Nancy Pelosi has called on Kihuen to step down, but he has in turn accused her of knowing about the scandal yet supporting his candidacy anyway. He has refused to resign.

Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-Florida)

Rep. Hastings is a bit infamous within congressional circles. He has been impeached previously, as well as convicted of bribery and perjury. That barely made a dent in his political ambitions.

Now, he’s facing accusations of sexually harassing a female staff member and settling her lawsuit for $220,000 of — you guessed it — taxpayer money. Several women in congress, including Reps. Lois Frankel and Frederica Wilson, have sided with Hastings over his accuser.

It’s hard not to notice the glaring inconsistency between the demand that we “believe all women” and the abject refusal of these congressmen to step down.

You cannot have your cake and eat it, too. Either the left truly believes that all female accusers are telling the truth — in which case these men should resign — or they quietly admit that an accusation does not equal certain guilt.

They can’t have it both ways… and it seems increasingly obvious that their outrage is directly connected to the political affiliation involved.

H/T The Daily Caller

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Residents in England are in an uproar over a flyer they received from the Church of England. In an apparent attempt to please everybody — what postmodernism would deem “inclusion” — the flyer announced that the church would host a joint birthday party for Jesus Christ and the prophet Muhammad.

As reported by World Net Daily, “The ‘Milad, Advent and Christmas Celebration’ took place Sunday, Dec. 3, at All Saints Church in Kingston upon Thames and was organized with the Kingston Inter-Faith Forum and the South London Inter-Faith Group.”

The flyer mentioned that the event was “marking the birthday of Prophet Muhammad and looking forward to the birthday of Jesus.”

It continued with the date, time, and location of the event, and then said, “With provision for prayer at Asr and Maghrib and followed by the cutting of the birthday cake and Rizwan’s ‘High Tea.’”

As previously noted, people weren’t too happy about this “all-inclusive” measure. WND reported that Adrian Hilton, publisher of Archbishop Cranmer, slammed this particular party.

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“Note how this event is ‘Marking the birthday of Prophet Muhammad,’ but not looking forward to the birthday of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,” he said.

“Muhammad gets his prophethood, while Jesus gets neither his prophethood nor his priesthood; neither his kingship nor his messiahship. It’s the exalted Prophet Muhammad along with plain old Jesus, because to have added any of his claims to divinity would, of course, have alienated many Muslims (if they hadn’t already been alienated by the haram celebration), which wouldn’t have been very interfaith or sensitively missional, would it?”

He wasn’t finished there, though. Hilton noted that this church acknowledging Muhammad as the “Prophet” is no small thing.

“Every time a church accords Muhammad the epithet ‘Prophet,’ they are rejecting the crucifixion, denying the resurrection of Christ, and refuting that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, for Muhammad denied all of these foundational tenets of the Christian faith,” Hilton.

This isn’t the first time, however, that pluralistic England has made an attempt to intertwine Christianity and Islam.

Earlier this year, in a service held at St. Mary’s Episcopal in Glasgow, a Muslim woman read a passage from the Quran stating that Jesus was not the Son of God.

The sad thing is, though, this was read on the Feast of the Epiphany — a feast that “celebrates the revelation of God incarnate as Jesus Christ.”

Postmodernism has done a lot to hurt today’s society, and now we are seeing words like “inclusion” creep into the church. Make no mistake about it: Christianity and Islam are not the same religion.

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The God of the Bible and Allah are not the same, despite what many postmodernists will tell you. It’s a core tenant of the Islamic faith, in fact, that Jesus is not God, and that he didn’t die on the cross.

To mix the two religions, like this church did, does not help ease relations. This is nothing more than an attempt to please Muslims in an area that has seen an uptick in the Muslim population.

It’s apparent that, especially in England, Islam has taken control of the wheel, and Christianity has been told to take the backseat.

H/T WND

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A 14-year-old girl who began to transition to “become” a boy had a message for kids who question their sexuality, and it is one worth hearing.

In an interview with 4thWaveNow.com, Noor Jontry, who once wanted to be a boy, shared her story and explained how confusion and trauma made her believe that she wanted to transition.

Gentry explained that her dysphoria, or unease with her own body, was just a “feeling.”

“Feelings are feelings. Feeling something doesn’t mean it is true or real. I didn’t understand that at first,” she explained.

“I learned that being female isn’t a feeling. It’s a biological reality, and I could feel however I feel without it meaning I was male,” she said.

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Through her own research, and talking with her mother and other adults about her dysphoria, she began to realize that her problems would not likely be solved by becoming a boy.

Life is simply going to be uncomfortable at times, regardless of one’s biological sex.

Jontry has come to terms with the idea that some people may truly be transgender, but thinks that most young people who think they are transgender are simply confused or going through a tough time transitioning into adulthood.

When asked what she would say to other girls who thought they might be boys, Jontry had a candid answer.

“There’s nothing wrong with your body. To be straightforward, you will never be male. You will never have a Y chromosome. You will never have a real penis,” she said.

Jontry realized that no amount of hormones or surgery would ever change the fact that she was female.

“Not wanting to be female doesn’t mean you’re really male,” Jontry continued.

“You weren’t born in the wrong body because that’s not possible,” she added.

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That is a cold, hard truth that this young woman discovered before she made a horrible mistake she could never take back.

We are glad Jontry realized that feelings should not influence every decision she makes — especially one like transitioning to a male.

In today’s pro-transgender society, Jontry’s message needs to be heard.

H/T The Federalist

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Bing Crosby may have been dreaming of a “White Christmas,” but liberals in London sure aren’t.

The University College of London issued a tweet on Monday regarding a potential snow day college students were anticipating.

Dreaming of a white campus? Our campuses will be open and operating fully today, Monday 11 December, so please make your way in as planned. (We can’t guarantee snow but we’ll try!) #snowday #londonsnow

— UCL (@ucl) December 11, 2017

The tweet read, “Dreaming of a white campus? Our campuses will be open and operating fully today, Monday 11 December, so please make your way in as planned. (We can’t guarantee snow but we’ll try!) #snowday #londonsnow”

The post was a play on Irving Berlin’s popular Christmas song “White Christmas.” The tweet talked about snow at the end, and even included the hashtag #snowday.

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Because of its multiple references to snow in the post, one can hardly wonder how anyone could ever mistake this tweet as anything other than a snow day announcement.

However, for liberals who see race in everything, this was a racist tweet that needed to be denounced.

This UCL Alumni is not dreaming of a white campus, thanks

— Aman Thakar ? (@AmanTsays) December 12, 2017

Delete!

— JKJöze (@DaleyBlind_fan) December 12, 2017

Come on guys. Really?

Eventually, the UCL went back to Twitter to apologize and clarify its comments.

We chose our words very poorly yesterday when thinking of this song: https://t.co/G5ZthTn8NT We’re sorry and we’ll choose our words more carefully in the future.

— UCL (@ucl) December 12, 2017

Some on Twitter, however, took the opportunity to make fun of those who were offended by the tweet.

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You guys know they’re talking about SNOW right? Good grief

— Rebecca Morgan (@BeccaMorgs) December 14, 2017

Breaking news – the people of Twitter are offended by something inoffensive ?

— Becky (@plucky__penguin) December 14, 2017

I’m thoroughly convinced that liberals walk around in a state of offense. Racism and sexism will be found by liberals in anything these days. I have to say though, guys, it’s a miserable way to live.

So, here’s a thought for you liberals who found this tweet offensive. Instead of throwing a temper tantrum over a harmless post, be the “compassionate” people you claim to be and actually make a difference in someone’s life this Christmas season.

No one’s life will change by your pointless rants on Twitter. Try being kind, serve others rather than yourself, and spread a little love this Christmas. That’s how you can truly make a difference.

And in case you just wanted to have one more thing to be offended by, have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

H/T Breitbart

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