Articles

December 15, 2015
ISIS and Social Media

WASHINGTON — When a lonely Virginia teenager named Ali Amin got curious about the Islamic State last year and went online to learn more, he found a virtual community awaiting. It had its own peculiar language, stirring imagery and just the warm camaraderie, sense of adventure and devotion to a cause that were missing from his dull suburban life. At…

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December 15, 2015
A Word About the Polls

Everyone today is freaking out about a poll from Monmouth University that purports to show Donald Trump getting 41% of the Republican vote. There’s a lot to note about exactly how garbage this poll is. It is so bad that Monmouth’s own polling director is basically disavowing it. If you are interested in a relatively robust writeup of the methodological…

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December 15, 2015
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump in Iowa

Donald Trump is all about winning. “If we win Iowa, we run the table,” he told a Des Moines rally on Friday. “It will be over quickly; we win virtually every state in the union.” But how will he handle defeat if the Superman of the Polls suddenly starts losing? Now there are three respected polls (Monmouth, Des Moines Register,…

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December 14, 2015
Dangerous Demagogue

There’s a demagogue loose in the land. He uses immigration and the war on terror to drive a wedge into the American populace. He traffics in absurd conspiracy theories about foreign influence, he mocks his political opponents, and he inspires friends and allies to lash out, lawlessly, against them. He compares patriotic Americans to jihadists, and he endangers our national…

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December 10, 2015
Muslims: By the Numbers

Among the many criticisms of Donald Trump’s ban-Muslim-immigration proposal is that it is based on bogus data. In his statement announcing the proposal, Trump cited a survey from Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy showing that “25 percent of [Muslims] polled agreed that violence against Americans here in the United States is justified as a part of the global jihad”…

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December 10, 2015
Two Types of PC: Public Concerns vs. Political Correctness

The more analysts try to figure out Donald Trump’s appeal, the more they sound baffled. Pundits cite Trump’s verbal sloppiness and ridiculousness as proof that he must soon implode. But Trump sees his daily bombast as an injection of outrage for a constituency now hooked on someone who finally voices their pent-up anger. The more reckless Trump’s doses of scattergun…

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December 10, 2015
National Security Profiling?

Calm down and think, America. While everyone’s undies are in a bunch over Donald Trump’s proposal for a Muslim immigration moratorium, it is undeniable in a time of “heightened alert” — when violent jihadists have no problem targeting their enemies here and around the world — that national security profiling is imperative to our survival. Yes, that means taking politically…

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December 10, 2015
Most Hostile Year for Religious Liberty

As a Liberty Watch subscriber and reader, you’re someone with a special insight into the critical question that will define the future of our nation: Will we remain “one nation, under God,” a nation whose national motto “In God We Trust” continues to describe our best aspirations? Or will we descend into spiritual sterility, with the unraveling of our social…

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December 10, 2015
Ignore Gun Laws?

Hell-raising is fine — for a time. It isn’t even St. Patrick’s Day, but we are all Irish now: In Connecticut, the boneheaded state government passed a law demanding the registration of certain firearms, and the people of Connecticut, perhaps communing for a moment with their independent-minded Yankee forebears, mainly refused to comply. On the other side of the country…

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December 10, 2015
No Room for Christian Refugees

At the end of World War II, the Jewish survivors of Europe’s Holocaust found that nearly every door was closed to them. “Tell Me Where Can I Go?” was a popular Yiddish song at the time. Decades later, the Christians of the Middle East face the same problem, and the Obama administration is keeping the door shut. America is about…

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December 10, 2015
Donald Trump’s Strategy

How many political insiders do you know who are opposed to Barack Obama and his nefarious works — IRS abuses, corporate bribes, climate fantasies, bailouts for Iran, importing saboteurs — yet save their peak agitation for Donald Trump, a presidential candidate they say “can’t” be nominated? If it “can’t” happen, why sputter to the point of apoplexy? Perhaps because “it”…

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