I had gone to bed Tuesday night without getting on my
computer one last time. So it wasn’t until after I was up Wednesday morning
that my husband gave me the news that our beloved Prophet, Thomas S. Monson,
had passed away late Tuesday night. He was 90, and the last couple of years
have seemed like a bonus—more time than we had a right to expect. What a life
he lived!
Pres. Thomas S. Monson, center, when called as Prophet, 2008 photo from newsroom.lds.org
There’s a description of a leader in the Book of Mormon,
Captain Moroni, that I think applies well to President Monson, so I’ll,
respectfully, replace his name in the verse, Alma 48:17:
Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and
were, and ever would be, like unto [Thomas Spencer
Monson], behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea,
the devil would never have power over the hearts of
the children of men.
The words that came to mind as I listened to news of his
passing were “love” and “delight.” He was so loving—so outgoing and friendly,
and able to connect to each individual. He had a sense of timing, and a twinkle
in his eye, that allowed you to laugh with him.
He was a storyteller, as a way to teach, often using stories
from his childhood, or young adulthood. One of the stories from childhood had
to do with setting a fire that got way out of hand. His delivery adds so much
to the humor. I recommend watching this video; the story is from 3:35-8:45.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, one of the Twelve Apostles, shared
this depiction of Pres. Monson three years ago:
The image of him I will cherish until I die is of him flying
home from then–economically devastated East Germany in his house slippers
because he had given away, not only his second suit and his extra shirts, but
the very shoes from off his feet. More than any man I know, President Monson
has “done all he could” for the widow and the fatherless, the poor and the
oppressed.[i]
Pres. Monson with Boy Scouts photo found at KSL.com
Thomas S. Monson was a champion for the Boy Scouts for many
decades--the longest-serving member of the Scout national BSA board. At a
ceremony in West Virginia, in which a building was named to honor him, he spoke
to the Scouts:
As you continue to participate in this fine program, your
abilities to think, to plan and to achieve will be heightened. This along with
your personal integrity and spirituality will help guide you and keep you on
the right path as you journey through life. If ever there were a time when the
principles of Scouting were vitally needed, that time is now.[ii]
I could probably do several posts of collected President
Monson quotes, but I’ll share just a few.
This is his code for life:
Never let a problem to be solved be more
important than a person to be loved.[iii]
I’ve had this one in a file for many decades. I don’t know
whether he originally said it or quoted it, but I heard it from him:
Work will win when wishy-washy wishing won’t
Good advice:
Choose the harder right, instead of the easier wrong.
Don’t limit
yourself, and don’t let others convince you that you are limited in what you
can do. Believe in yourself and then live so as to reach your possibilities.
You can achieve what you believe you can. Trust and believe and have faith.
We must develop the capacity to see men not as they
are at present but as they may become.[iv]
The sweetest
experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it, and later
find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer, or someone’s need.
And I always want the Lord to know that, if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson
will run that errand for Him.
There have been several tributes in media the past couple of
days. This one from KSL News in Salt Lake City, is good, with plenty
of photos and videos. This article from LDS
Living offers a nice list of memories, many with video clips.
The video tribute below, from the Mormon Newsroom, [ ] touched me. In it, President Monson
offers several of my favorite quotes:
[iii]
Pres. Monson said this in “Joy in the Journey” (Brigham Young University
Women’s Conference, May 2, 2008), http://ce.byu.edu/cw/womensconference/archive/transcripts.cfm
. The statement “Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a
person to be loved” has been attributed to Barbara Johnson (see “Quotable
Quotes,” Reader’s Digest, Jan. 1997, 161).
I’d been looking forward to the movie Darkest Hour for some time. Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale
College, and Churchill scholar and author of Churchill’s Trail: Winston Churchill and the Salvation of Free
Government, talked about it on radio with Hugh Hewitt a time or two.
I also went through the online Hillsdale course about Churchill a year or so ago. And in December, the Imprimis newsletter was by Larry Arnn about Churchill. So, in
addition to doing a bit of a movie review, I’ll also quote Dr. Arnn here and
there. The movie is a portrayal of history, so I hope you don’t consider this
piece as spoilers, but if you’re worried about that, see the movie first.
The movie was about the time in Britain when the mollifying
foreign policy of Neville Chamberlain was seen for what it was, and a vote of
no confidence removed him as Prime Minister of England, opening up the position
for an unpopular but determined Winston Churchill.
Almost immediately after his acceptance, Churchill finds the
country in the unacceptable position of having nearly its entire army—about 300,000
soldiers—stranded on the northern French beach of Dunkirk following Hitler’s
swift sweep across France. If you saw the recent movie Dunkirk, things will start to fit into place. It was about to be an
unmitigated disaster. Churchill was the one who ordered the civilian boats to be recruited to
cross the channel to rescue the soldiers. The heroic “win” at Dunkirk was the
rescue, against great odds, that allowed Britain to fight another day.
Churchill was under tremendous pressure, including from his
own party. Chamberlain and his ally, Lord Halifax, maneuver against Churchill;
they seem to think diplomacy at all costs is the answer, and if they can prove
Churchill isn’t open to that option, they can step down from the war council
Churchill has appointed them to, leading to a no confidence vote again—possibly
opening the position for Halifax.
King George VI—the father of Queen Elizabeth, who was
portrayed in the movie The King’s Speech—had
been a longtime friend of Chamberlain and Halifax. It was distasteful to him to
be forced to work with Churchill. But there’s a turning point. And it comes on
a very good question.
The King is wondering whether he will need to flee, with his
family, to Canada, and live out his reign in exile, because it is assumed by so
many that, if the Germans invade the Isle of Britain, they could conquer.
Halifax and Chamberlain are saying, wouldn’t it be better to get the best terms
possible, by negotiating through Mussolini, than risk a bloody war they might lose?
But Churchill, feeling the heavy weight of his people on his
shoulders, can’t imagine any terms with Hitler that would mean anything but
complete subjugation to that monster.
It is a discussion with the King, and then a discussion with
some everyday common folk that, according to the movie, lead to Churchill’s
decisive speech—which in the process gains full support of Parliament and the
British people, and outmaneuvers Halifax and Chamberlain. I’ll leave out the
details because, though I really don’t like political maneuvering in literature
(or in real life), it’s the crux of the story here. It's hard to imagine a movie about leading up to a speech being all that interesting, but it is.
Here are a couple of memorable passages from that speech, often called “We shall fight on the beaches”:
I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined
this Government: "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and
sweat." …
We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We
have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask,
what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with
all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war
against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue
of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in
one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror,
victory, however long and hard the road may be….
Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous
States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious
apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end.
We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight
with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our
island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight
on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we
shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for
a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and
starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British
Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World,
with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of
the old.
That kind of frank determination against tyranny will always
be needed.
bust of Churchill
in the US Capitol building
If there’s something I didn’t like in the movie, it is how
much drinking Churchill does—and possibly more importantly, how often they point
it out. He probably did drink quite a lot, but there was never any evidence it
was affecting his mind—which was determined and sharp up to age 90 when he
died. He was both quick and sharp witted.
One of my favorite Churchill quotes, from the English major
world, has to do with grammar. A woman commented to him that he had incorrectly
ended a sentence with a proposition. He retorted, “Madam, that is the sort of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put.” It makes me laugh; maybe you
have to be a word person.
Churchill was a word person. He wrote some 50 books in his
lifetime, about battles in war—colorfully told. About political philosophy, history. and
more. He had a prodigious mind, and a flair for being able to say what was on
it.
There’s talk of Gary Oldman getting an Oscar for his
performance; I’d be agreeable to that. He captured the swiftness, the push
forward nature, the energy. And also made the force of nature that was Churchill seem human.
Also good in the movie was Lily James (who played Cinderella beautifully a couple of years ago), portraying his
personal secretary, Elizabeth Layton. Churchill’s wife, Clemmie, played by
Kristin Scott Thomas, was also good for humanizing him—she corrects him for
scaring off the secretary in her first hour (she returns), and tells him to
better behave himself, so that people can think well of him, as she does.
Getting back to Larry Arnn’s Imprimis speech, he lists three lessons
we learn from Churchill:
1.It
is not trends but choices that matter most at the key moments of history…. [Of that important speech] No one else on
that day was either inclined to make or capable of making that speech, and
Churchill had only become prime minister by a series of narrow chances. No
story better illustrates one of Churchill’s favorite lessons—a lesson valuable
for us to keep in mind: both chance and choice play a large part in human
affairs.
2.The
second lesson concerns the limits of war, of politics, indeed of all human
action. Churchill helped to save his country by his willingness to fight to the
death and to inspire others to joining him. He also saved it by his reluctance
to do that.
3.Strategy
must be rooted in the purposes of the nation: it aims to preserve the nation in
pursuit of those purposes. This means that strategy is not confined, when it is
pursued by the statesman, to war alone. Churchill wrote: “The distinction
between politics and strategy diminishes as the point of view is raised. At the
summit true politics and strategy are one.”
Dr. Arnn goes on to say (and note that “liberal society”
means classical liberalism, or free society, not a democrat party that is
exactly opposite to that),
Churchill lived, loved, and fought for the liberal society.
Liberal societies protect the rights of their peoples; their right to make
their livings, to raise their children, to speak their minds. These are the
elements of a fully human life. Under a free and limited government, the right
of all to pursue this life is recognized and defended. The justice of this kind
of government is the reason that Churchill, the grandson of a duke, was not an
aristocrat but a defender of democracy.
That’s a pretty good description of what we’re talking about
in the northern hemisphere of the Spherical Model, up out of tyranny and into
the freedom zone.
Here in Houston we had a hurricane with an epic flood of 50+ inches of rain. That was the end of August, just days
after a total eclipse across the continent (we only got a partial eclipse here,
though). We’re still working on recovery from the flooding here, four months
later. But in the meantime a couple more hurricanes made landfall, harming
Florida, and then serious damage to Puerto Rico. And fires started burning in
the West, everywhere from California to Montana.
Less disastrous for Houston was having the Astros win the
World Series, and we had an actual snowstorm a couple of weeks ago. In Houston,
that brings on a sort of spontaneous celebration.
In the larger nation, there has also been good news this year.
We got a Supreme Court justice, Neil Gorsuch, who actually reads and
understands the Constitution. We got a healthy number of other judges appointed
that we think will adjudicate according to the law. (One third of all sitting circuit judges were Obama appointees, so there's a ways to go.) We have an ambassador to
the UN, Nikki Haley, who is standing up to that corrupt body of miscreants.
ISIS has lost nearly all of its territory. Illegal immigration is down, even
without a wall, which is at least an improvement. Unemployment is down, and
incomes are beginning to rise.
I don’t know that we can credit President Trump with all of
this, but having him in office makes all of those pieces of good news possible,
whereas having a Democrat—any Democrat—in office this past year would have
meant we would have none of that good news, and probably a lot more bad news
that we don’t want to imagine.
A piece from American
Thinker, “Trump’s Momentous First Year,” lists Trump’s first year
accomplishments, if you’d like something more complete. I’m sure there will be other similar lists as we approach the new year, or the
anniversary of inauguration in a few weeks.
But the big good news lately has been about Congress finally
passing a tax reform bill, officially called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
Speaker Paul Ryan, after the passing of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI/Newscom, found here
News
surrounding that—because news comes mostly through distorted sources—has been
fear-mongering, at best. Nancy Pelosi called it Armageddon. Apparently,
Democrats think people will be dying in the streets if they have a little more
of their money in their own hands, instead of in government’s clutches. And it’s
on the backs of the middle class, they claim. But almost everybody will be
getting a tax cut. Those few that aren’t are all above the middle class.
Business Insider offers this estimate, showing what happens
in 2018 (and it gets better in 2025):
·Bottom quintile (Incomes less than $25,000 a
year): On average, this group would receive a tax break of $60, increasing
after tax incomes by 0.4%. This would account for 1% of the federal tax change.
1.2% of tax units would see an increase in their tax burden, while 53.9% would
receive a cut.
·Middle quintile (Incomes from $49,000 to
$86,000): On average, this group would receive a tax break of $930, increasing
after-tax incomes by 2.9%. This would account for 11.2% of the federal tax
change. 7.3% of tax units would see an increase in their tax burden, while
91.3% would receive a cut.
·Top quintile (Income of $149,400 and above): On
average, this group would receive a tax break of $7,640, increasing after-tax
incomes by 1.6%. This would account for 65.3% of the federal tax change. 6.2%
of tax units would see an increase in their tax burden, while 93.7% would
receive a cut.
·95th to 99th percentiles (Incomes from $308,000
to $733,000): On average, this group would receive a tax break of $13,480,
increasing after-tax incomes by 4.1%. This would account for 22.1% of the
federal tax change. 9.3% of tax units would see an increase in their tax
burden, while 90.7% would receive a cut.
It’s hard to give tax cuts to people who aren’t paying
taxes, so, naturally, people who are paying higher taxes are going to benefit
more from a tax cut. Unless you’re really into coveting, that’s understandable
and fine with everybody.
So, for the sake of those opposing tax cuts, and the media,
and anyone else worried about lessening government’s stranglehold over people’s
lives, maybe we need to do a little mini lesson on the related economics of tax
cuts.
Taxes are money that the government confiscates by force
from its citizens—preferably with the approval of the citizens, to be used for
essential government services. Taxes, are, then, the people’s money that has
been entrusted to government.
Government only spends money; it does not create wealth. Any
“revenue” government generates is actually collecting taxes and tariffs—taking money
from the people. So, when we’re talking about a budget, we want it large enough
to cover the proper role of government—protecting life, liberty, and
property—but not so large that our money is wasted. Early on it was assumed
about $20 a year ought to do. Really.
I’ve written a number of times about government
overspending [here and here]. We do not have a problem with not bringing in enough tax dollars;
we have an overspending problem.
This tax bill doesn’t address that underlying problem. But
cutting taxes is likely to raise
government revenue. That’s because of a thing we call the Laffer Curve. [I wrote about it here and here.] According to Laffer’s theory, there’s a
sweet spot for getting maximum revenue. Too high or too low and you don’t get
that maximum amount. If revenue goes up after a tax cut, then you know taxes
were too high.
In complete ignorance of the Laffer Curve, there’s this
weird rule requiring any tax cuts to be offset, or “paid for.” The purpose is
to keep from increasing the deficit, but it doesn’t really do that. And it’s a
futile exercise, since we know from experience what happens when taxes are
lowered. Here’s how Philip Bump at the WashingtonPost put it:
[Speaker Paul] Ryan on Wednesday morning offered his nebulous
assessment: “Nobody knows” if the cuts will pay for themselves. That’s true,
given the uncertainty that surrounds the models. But that’s a bit like saying
“nobody knows” if it’s going to rain when the forecasters say there’s a 90
percent chance: You still will probably grab an umbrella.
So even big government spenders ought to be in favor of
lower taxes in order to increase revenue. It’s odd that they don’t; it makes it
look like they would rather control larger portions of each individual’s money
than have more money to work with.
It has been a rough week for Democrats, who stood against
tax cuts for the American people. Afterward, what can they say? “We tried to
save you from having more of your own money to spend as you see fit”? Well,
they’ve been saying the tax cuts aren’t enough (even though they were against
any at all). And they’re complaining that they’re not permanent (they sunset in
10 years, as the Bush tax cuts did, but only if Democrats are in power when the
sunset comes).
Bernie Sanders, for example, admitted on CNN that tax cuts
for nearly all middle-class American taxpayers “is a very good thing.” But then
he added, “That’s why we should have made the tax cuts for the middle class
permanent.” Of course, it was the refusal of Democrats to discuss any tax cuts
at all that led to the ten-year sunset compromise. So Ted Cruz reached out to
Bernie by Twitter, saying,
I agree, @BernieSanders -- let's make the middle-class tax
cuts permanent. Join me, we'll co-sponsor legislation (I've already got it
drafted) that does exactly that, and we'll get it passed in January!
One happy detail in the tax cut bill is the elimination of the Obamacare mandate, which, we can hope, will lead to the demise of that monstrosity, hopefully before the demise of the health care sector of our economy.
The best news is that business taxes, which have been the
highest in the developed world, were lowered from around 35% to 20%. That’s
still quite a lot higher than Ireland (11%) or Russia (12%), where lower
business taxes have spurred growth, and would have been a good example to
follow, but it’s a good improvement.
There has been some concern that businesses won’t invest the
money—that they’re already flush with cash that they’re not putting to use.
That isn’t likely true. The Great Recession has gone on too long to keep
holding onto money. But there is a hesitation to invest in business when there’s
uncertainty—such as regulations being added on that they couldn’t have planned
for. But regulatory reform is going pretty well under this administration, so
there’s less uncertainty.
Ed Fuelner, at the Heritage Foundation, spread this good
news:
AT&T said it plans to give a $1000 bonus to more than
200,000 employees, and to invest $1 billion in the economy. Boeing announced a
$300 million investment. FedEx said it’ll hire more workers, as did CVS—3,000,
to be specific. Comcast reacted to the tax bill and to the repeal of net
neutrality by saying that 100,000 of its employees will get a $1,000 bonus.
There were others—and more to come, you can be sure. “This is
just the first wave of many such stories,” tax expert Adam Michel told The
Daily Signal. “These announcements show that businesses across America will put
their tax cut to good use.”
We’ll have to wait and see, to know for sure. But, instead
of dread going into 2018, we might as well enjoy some hopeful anticipation for
a change.
This year's Christmas card photo,
featuring two of my grandchildren
Merry Christmas!
We’re celebrating a holy day, to honor our Savior Jesus
Christ. We’re asked to become more like Him.
So, what does that mean? What does a life look like, when
following His example? We can get some of these qualities from scriptures,
among them the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and in I Corinthians 13, which defines
His love:
·Loving
·Kind
·Meek
·Humble
·Seeking righteousness
·Merciful
·Pure in heart (honest, integrity, without guile)
·Peacemaker
·Longsuffering
·Without envy
·Not easily provoked
·Seeks truth
·Avoids iniquity
·Gentle
·Self-sacrificing
And we could add a few extras that don’t come up as often:
·He sees a person’s heart, always knowing what a
person really means or intends, and works with that person, as a friend would,
to encourage living better.
·He always knows God’s will and makes that His
own will.
·He combines truth and kindness, but He doesn’t
modify the truth to avoid offending.
·He doesn’t mollify. He doesn’t accept evil, even
when He deeply loves the person doing the evil.
Imagine if all the people on earth lived the way Jesus did—or at least were earnestly striving to. On the Spherical Model, Jesus Christ leads to way to Civilization. He moves us ever northward, toward Him.
One of my favorite speakers, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, says,
Considering the incomprehensible cost of the Crucifixion and
Atonement, I promise you He is not going to turn His back on us now. When He
says to the poor in spirit, “Come unto me,” He means He knows the way out and
He knows the way up. He knows it because He has walked it. He knows the way
because He is the way.[i]
Above all other lives, His birth, life, death, and
resurrection, are most worth celebrating.
His birth story shows us beauty in humble circumstances. Many
of my favorite Christmas carols tell the story. I’ll share just a few verses.
This is the final verse of the Alfred Burt carol, “We’ll
Dress the House with Holly Bright”:
And ye who would the Christ Child
greet,
Your heart also adorn,
That it may be a dwelling meet
For Him who now is born.
Let all unlovely things give place
To souls bedecked with heavenly grace,
That ye may view His holy face,
With joy on Christmas morn.
Here’s another Alfred Burt carol, the ending of “Some
Children See Him”:
O lay
aside each earthly thing,
And
with thy heart as offering,
Come
worship now the infant King,
‘Tis
love that’s born tonight!
I’m noticing endings of a lot of songs. This is the final
verse of the Christina Rosetti poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter”:
What can I give Him, Poor as I am? — If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man I would do my part, — Yet what I can I give Him, — Give my heart.
As a family, we’ve been retelling the nativity story as part
of our Christmas Eve tradition for thirty years. We have a script. We dress up
in costumes, and we all take part. Every time there’s a new baby, we use a real
baby instead of a doll to be the baby Jesus.
My Christmas card is always a depiction of some part of the
nativity story. This year we had my new granddaughter and her big brother play
the parts of the baby Jesus and a shepherd (above).
Many of my Christmas decorations are depictions of the
nativity. I like the goodies and presents and fun as much as the next person,
but the real celebration is what is at the core of this holy day, and that is
Christ.
If you want a beautiful visual retelling of the Christmas
story, spend eight minutes on this video, produced by The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints:
[i]
Jeffry R. Holland, “Broken Things to Mend,” Ensign,
May 2006, p. 71.
There was a Politico story earlier this week, investigative reporting by Josh Meyer. It hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in
regular media, as you might expect from such a big story, probably because it
doesn’t portray Obama and his administration in a positive light. I heard of
it, instead, from conservative commentators Hugh Hewitt and Ben Shapiro.
The piece, titled “The secret backstory of how Obama let Hezbollah off the hook,” is very long—about 14,500 words, which looks like more
than 40 pages, even with a lot of the illustrations removed. I recommend reading
it in full, but I’m going to quote just a few bits, enough so I can make a
couple of comments about it.
Here’s the intro:
In its determination to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, the
Obama administration derailed an ambitious law enforcement campaign targeting
drug trafficking by the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, even as it
was funneling cocaine into the United States.
Project Cassandra, as it was called, was launched in 2008,
under Pres. Bush:
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret
DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and
informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and
foreign security agencies.
They followed cocaine shipments, some from Latin America to
West Africa and on to Europe and the Middle East, and others through Venezuela
and Mexico to the United States. They tracked the river of dirty cash as it was
laundered by, among other tactics, buying American used cars and shipping them
to Africa. And with the help of some key cooperating witnesses, the agents
traced the conspiracy, they believed, to the innermost circle of Hezbollah and
its state sponsors in Iran.
But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of
the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly
insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way,
Here’s an example of things looking really bad:
Lebanese arms dealer Ali Fayad, a suspected top Hezbollah operative
whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key
supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, was arrested in Prague in the spring of
2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama
administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech
government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying
aggressively against it.
Fayad, who had been indicted in U.S. courts on charges of
planning the murders of U.S. government employees, attempting to provide
material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to acquire,
transfer and use anti-aircraft missiles, was ultimately sent to Beirut. He is
now believed by U.S. officials to be back in business, and helping to arm
militants in Syria and elsewhere with Russian heavy weapons.
We’re all supposed to believe that President Trump, as a
candidate, colluded with the Russian government to “steal” the 2016 election.
There’s no serious evidence to that effect, despite a massive FBI
investigation, a Congressional investigation, and a special counsel
investigation initiated by the Department of Justice.
But there is clear
evidence that the Obama administration colluded with the Russian government to
free an Islamic terrorist responsible for the deaths of Americans—all in order
to appease Iran to pave the way for the Obama administration’s surrender to the
burgeoning Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s escalating regional ambitions.
Obama’s team must have their side of the story, right?
[Kevin] Lewis, speaking for the Obama administration,
provided a list of eight arrests and prosecutions as proof [that the
administration had taken actions against Hezbollah]. He made special note of a
February 2016 operation in which European authorities arrested an undisclosed
number of alleged members of a special Hezbollah business affairs unit that the
DEA says oversees its drug trafficking and other criminal money-making
enterprises.
But…
Project Cassandra officials, however, noted that the European
arrests occurred after the negotiations with Iran were over, and said the task
force initiated the multinational partnerships on its own, after years of
seeing their cases shot down by the Justice and State departments and other
U.S. agencies.
The Justice Department, they pointed out, never filed
corresponding U.S. criminal charges against the suspects arrested in Europe.
Here’s a bit of the history:
Project Cassandra had its origins in a series of
investigations launched in the years after the 9/11 attacks which all led, via
their own twisted paths, to Hezbollah as a suspected global criminal
enterprise.
Hezbollah, according to John Brennan, Obama’s counterterrorism
adviser, isn’t just a group of bad guys anymore; they’re an actual party. So we
should respect them. But, in reality, that’s a pretty naive assessment:
“Hezbollah operates like the Gambino crime family on
steroids, and [Safieddine] is its John Gotti,” said [Jack] Kelly [DEA agent
overseeing Hezbollah cases], referring to the infamous “Teflon Don” crime boss
who for decades eluded justice. “Whatever Iran needs, Safieddine is in charge
of getting it for them.”
The connection you need to understand is this one:
Because Hezbollah’s drug trafficking was bankrolling its
Islamic Jihad military wing and joint ventures with Iran, as [David] Asher
[expert on illicit finance, sent from the Pentagon to work on Project
Cassandra] would later testify before Congress, it represented “the largest
material support scheme for terrorism operations” the world had ever seen.
Money Laundering paths, map from here Red = Used cars bought in US, shipped to West Africa, proceeds to Lebanon Yellow = Drugs from Colombia and Venezuela are shipped to the US through Mexico, and to Europe via West Africa Green = Freshly laundered money returned to US to buy used cars
When Kelly couldn’t get the White House to take action on
any of the mounds of evidence they’d compiled, he started asking questions:
Kelly said, he ran into one of the unit’s top prosecutors and
asked if there was “something going on with the White House that explains why
we can’t get a criminal filing.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” the prosecutor replied,
according to Kelly. “Right now, we have 50 FBI agents not doing anything
because they know their Iran cases aren’t going anywhere,” including
investigations around the U.S. into allegedly complicit used-car dealers.
For example:
By the end of 2012, senior officials at the Justice
Department’s National Security and Criminal divisions, and at the State
Department and National Security Council, had shut down, derailed or delayed
numerous other Hezbollah-related cases with little or no explanation, according
to Asher, Kelly, Maltz and other current and former participating officials.
Agents discovered “an entire Quds force network” in the U.S.,
laundering money, moving drugs and illegally smuggling Bell helicopters,
night-vision goggles and other items for Iran, Asher said.
“We crashed to indict” the elite Iranian unit, and while some
operatives were eventually prosecuted, other critically important indictments
“were rejected despite the fact that we had excellent evidence and testifying
witnesses,” said Asher, who helped lead the investigation.
So, to summarize, Obama was so intent on making the Iran nuclear deal, that he was willing to sacrifice pretty much anything to get it.
And what did the US get in the deal? We got a guarantee that Iran would be
facilitated in developing nuclear weapons (in about a decade), we would give
them $150 billion for allowing us to lift the sanctions—the lifting of which
they have not earned—and, as Senator Ted Cruz said, ahead of the disapproving vote from
Congress that Obama ignored,
[I]t will facilitate and accelerate the nation of Iran
acquiring nuclear weapons. There is no greater threat to the safety and
security of America. There is no greater threat to the safety and security of
Israel, than a nuclear Iran. I agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu that a
nuclear Iran poses an existential threat to the nation of Israel. And let me be
clear, when he says existential, he doesn’t mean a bunch of Frenchmen in black
berets chain smoking. He means literally going to the very existence of Israel.
There’s a PragerU video on the Iran deal you might want to
watch as a refresher:
I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say that Obama has done more
to harm the United States of America than any president—and arguably more harm
than any other American traitor. It is hard to imagine doing worse.
Is it just because he is short-sighted, ignorant, and
unwilling to see reality? Or is it intentional? I don’t know. In the end, God knows,
and Obama will, in eternity, be held accountable. In the meantime, we live in a
perilous world in which all known paths of corruption and collusion feed efforts
to annihilate civilization.
There’s a term for this type of collusion used in the Book
of Mormon: secret combinations. It means colluding with others, murdering to
get power and money. It’s a grave evil. I was reading a section about it just
this week, where we see the rise and fall of a civilization in a relatively
short book. This is Ether 8, prophesying of our day:
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see
these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful
situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo
be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from
the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to
overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to
pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the
father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea,
even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning;
who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and
stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.
The hope is that, if we awake to see our danger, we will
turn to God and live. I don’t have a better, or more exact, response to this
piece.
I was looking through the quote file, to see what I’d been
adding lately. There were quite a number of quotes about freedom, the
Constitution, and how those are both gifts from God. I get quotes from all
over, but these I'm going to share, with a few exceptions, are from leaders of my religion,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s a worldwide church, with
more members living outside the US than in it. But the words apply to all people anywhere in the world who wish
to live free and happy lives. Religion has to speak up, because it takes a good
people to choose to live freely. And the evidence is that God wants us all to move
away from tyranny, poverty, and savagery, so we can enjoy freedom, prosperity,and civilization.
[Satan] plans to
destroy liberty and freedom—economic, political, and religious, and to set up
in place thereof the greatest, most widespread, and most complete tyranny that
has ever oppressed men. He is working under such perfect disguise that many do
not recognize either him or his methods.—Heber J. Grant, General Conference,
October 1942
There
has been a tendency among some Latter-day Saints, even when the Constitution is
mentioned, to say, “There he goes talking politics.” I am not talking politics.
I am quoting the words of the Lord. Certainly, it is not meet that we should
bring politics into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but just
as certainly, it is meet that every member of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints take the doctrine of Christ into his politics, and that he
evaluate every candidate and every platform under any and every political
banner in the terms of the gospel of Jesus Christ. —Joseph F. Smith, Conference
Report, April 1946
If we are
content to let others do the work of replenishing and defending liberty while
we consume the benefits, we will someday run out of other people’s willingness
to sacrifice—or even out of courageous people willing to make the
sacrifice.—Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas
The building of public sentiment begins with a few earnest
voices. I am not one to advocate shouting defiantly or shaking fists and
issuing threats in the faces of legislators. But I am one who believes that we
should earnestly and sincerely and positively express our convictions to those
given the heavy responsibility of making and enforcing our laws. The sad fact
is that the minority who call for greater liberalization, who peddle and devour
pornography, who encourage and feed on licentious display make their voices
heard until those in our legislatures may come to believe that what they say
represents the will of the majority. We are not likely to get that which we do
not speak up for.—Gordon B. Hinckley, “In Opposition to Evil,” Ensign, September 2004
What
goes unappreciated is just why America's leftists' movement attacks the
Founders. If they can delegitimize the Founders themselves, it goes a long way
toward their agenda of delegitimizing the founding principles of our nation. If
the leftists can convince the nation that men such as George Washington, Thomas
Jefferson and James Madison were good-for-nothing slave-owning racists, then
their ideas can be more easily trashed.—Walter Williams, 10-28-2017,
“Undermining America”
The Constitution of the
United States of America is just as much from my Heavenly Father as the Ten
Commandments.—George Albert Smith, General Conference, April 1948.
Unless
we members of the Church do all we can to preserve the freedoms we have, within
the bounds of the laws of God, we will be held accountable.—Joseph Smith, Principles of the Gospel, pp. 135-136,
pp. 146-147, published 1991
Unless we as
citizens of this nation forsake our sins, political and otherwise, and return
to the fundamental principles of Christianity and of constitutional government,
we will lose our political liberties, our free institutions, and will stand in
jeopardy before God of losing our exaltation.—Ezra Taft Benson, General
Conference, April 1976
The
laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm
only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such
laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they
serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be
attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.—Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century
criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
It's really a wonder that I
haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to
carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe
that people are really good at heart.—Anne Frank, Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl
Liberty cannot be established
without morality, nor morality without faith.—Alexis de Tocqueville
If we are
content to let others do the work of replenishing and defending liberty while
we consume the benefits, we will someday run out of other people’s willingness
to sacrifice—or even out of courageous people willing to make the
sacrifice.—Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas
Relying on God has to begin all over again every day as
if nothing had yet been done.—C. S. Lewis
