A timely post about from www.jihadwatch.org about Pope Francis. This follows this post about "hate crimes" against Muslims. This follows this post about Steve Bannon and Keith Ellison. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more, you can read two very interesting books HERE.You can follow me here.

Raymond Ibrahim: Pope Francis vs. Saint Francis on Islam

 By Raymond Ibrahim

When Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the new Catholic pope in 2013, he chose the name of Francis to indicate that his pontificate would be one of mercy and compassion for the poor and needy—for such is the reputation of his eponym, Saint Francis of Assisi: “the man of poverty, the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation,”explained Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, as to why he chose that name.
St. Francis (1182-1226) is indeed known for all those qualities.  But he was known for something else that his modern day namesake fails to live up to: unapologetically confronting Islam.
According to St. Francis of Assisi and the Conversion of the Muslims by Frank M. Rega:

Fully aware of the dangers, Francis was determined to go on a mission to the unbelievers of the Muslim nations.  The primary sources are in agreement that he was now ready to sacrifice his life and die for Christ, so there can be little doubt that the intent of his journey was to preach the Gospel even at the risk of martyrdom (p. 43).

Along with saving souls, he sought to save lives as well; to help bring peace to the turbulent world he lived in, where Christians, responding to centuries of Islamic invasions and conquests of Christian lands, had gone to war with Islam, that is, the Crusades:

Converting the Muslims by his preaching was the ultimate goal of Francis’ efforts, and a peaceful end to the war would be a consequence of their conversion.  In the words of scholar Christoph Maier, “Francis, like the crusaders, wanted to liberate the holy places in Palestine from Muslim rule.  What was different was his strategy….   He wanted their total submission to the Christian faith” (p. 63).

In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis and a fellow monk traveled to the Middle East and sought audience with Sultan al-Kamil—despite al-Kamil’s vow that “anyone who brought him the head of a Christian should be awarded with a Byzantine gold piece” (p. 57).  St. Francis’ contemporaries also warned him that Muslims “were a mean people who thirst for Christian blood and attempt even the most brazen atrocities,” (p. 34).  The determined monks continued their journey, only to experience the inevitable:

The early documents are unanimous in agreeing that the two Franciscans were subjected to rough treatment upon crossing Muslim territory.  The men of God were seized in a violent manner by the sentries, assaulted, and bound in chains.  Celano reports that Francis “was captured by the Sultan’s soldiers, was insulted and beaten” yet showed no fear even when threatened with torture and death (p. 58).

Eventually brought before Sultan al-Kamil, the monks sought to “demonstrate to the Sultan’s wisest counselors the truth of Christianity, before which Mohammed’s law [Sharia] counted for nothing: for ‘if you die while holding to your law, you will be lost; God will not accept your soul.  For this reason we have come to you.’”
Intrigued by the cheeky monks, “the Sultan called in his religious advisers, the imams.  However, they refused to dispute with the Christians and instead insisted that they be killed [by beheading], in accordance with Islamic law (p. 60).”
The sultan refused: “I am going counter to what my religious advisers demand and will not cut off your heads… you have risked your own lives in order to save my soul.”
During their disputation and in reference to “the centuries-old Muslim conquest and occupation of lands, peoples, and nations that had once been primarily Christian,” Kamil sought to trap the monks with their own logic: if Jesus had taught Christians to “turn the other cheek” and “repay evil with good,” he inquired, why were “Crusaders … invading the lands of the Muslims?”
Francis quipped by also quoting Christ: “If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”
Francis then explained: “That is why it is just that Christians invade the land you inhabit, for you blaspheme the name of Christ and alienate everyone you can from His worship”—a reference to Islam’s dhimmi rules which, along with debilitating Christian worship, make Christian lives so burdensome and degrading that untold millions had converted to Islam over the centuries to ease their sufferings.
There are more interesting aspects concerning St. Francis’ encounter with Sultan Kamil, including those that find parallels in the modern world, such as Sharia’s strict bans on blasphemy against Islam and evangelizing for Christianity (often seen as one and the same) and call for the execution of apostates from Islam.  They are discussed in this brief article.
For now, consider some important differences between St. Francis and his modern day namesake, Pope Francis.
While the saint accused Islam of persecuting Christians, and sought to bring them succor—to the point of putting his life on the line—Pope Francis refuses to confront Islam.  When he has the attention of the world he habitually fails to condemn or even shed light on the nonstop Muslim persecution of Christians, including millions of Catholics.
Last year he delivered a nearly hour long speech before the United Nations.  Only once did Francis make reference to persecuted Christians—and he merged their sufferings in the very same sentence with the supposedly equal sufferings of “members of the majority religion,” that is, Sunni Muslims.   In reality, of course, Sunnis are not being slaughtered, beheaded, enslaved, and raped for their faith; are not having their mosques bombed and burned; are not being jailed or killed for apostasy, blasphemy, or proselytization.   That’s because the terrorists—whether al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, or ISIS—are Sunnis.
And before that Francis issued his first encyclical—an important document meant to be relayed to the world’s Catholics—with no mention of persecuted Christians.
More recently, after a journalist asked Pope Francis about the slaughter of an 85-year-old priest in France, and how he was clearly “killed in the name of Islam,” the pope disagreed and proceeded to offer a plethora of absurd and silly rationalizations in defense of Islam.  
Nor did St. Francis preach passivity before aggression:

A foremost expert on Francis and the Fifth Crusade, Professor James Powell, wrote: “Francis of Assisi went to Damietta [Egypt, where Sultan Kamil was] on a mission of peace. There can be no question about this.  We should not however try to make him a pacifist or to label him as a critic of the crusade.”  Another leading crusade scholar, Christoph Maier, was even more explicit: “Francis thus accepted the crusade as both legitimate and ordained by God, and he was quite obviously not opposed to the use of violence when it came to the struggle between Christians and Muslims.”  At one time Francis had remarked to his friars that “… paladins and valiant knights who were mighty in battle pursued the infidels even to death…”  Francis admired the deeds of such brave men because “… the holy martyrs died fighting for the Faith of Christ” (p.70).

This is why those who know the true biography of St. Francis deplore his modern day transformation into some sort of Medieval “hippy”—or, in Pope Francis’ words, “the man of peace, the man who loves and protects creation.”  In 1926 Pope Pius XI issued the following statement:

What evil they do and how far from a true appreciation of the Man of Assisi [St. Francis] are they who, in order to bolster up their fantastic and erroneous ideas about him, image such an incredible thing … that he was the precursor and prophet of that false liberty which began to manifest itself at the beginning of modern times and which has caused so many disturbances both in the Church and in civil society!

In the context of confronting Islam, Rega laments that, “for the revisionists, the ‘real’ Francis was not a bold Evangelist, but a timid man, whose goal was to have the friars live passively among the Saracens [Muslims] and “to be subject to them” (p.95).
A final important point: while St. Francis did not mock Muhammad—though apparently not enough to dissuade the pious from calling for his head—he unequivocally portrayed the Muslim prophet’s message as false.  Unlike the diplomatic Pope Francis, who never seems to preach Christ to Muslims but rather confirms them in and validates their religion, the sincere saint was actually more concerned with the souls of Muslims, to the point of putting his own life on the line. This used to be one of the chief concerns of all popes, the “Vicars of Christ.”  But apparently not for Pope Francis.
In short, there’s a fine line between St. Francis’ compassion and Pope Francis’ cowardice—or worse, complicity.  When it comes to confronting Islam and standing up for the faith and persecuted Christians, Pope Francis woefully fails to live up to the brave monk whose name he appropriated.

Belgium: Son of imam was planning jihad attack on Christians with chainsaw in mall

Egyptian Christian teens sentenced for "defaming Islam" flee to Switzerland

A timely post about from http://www.debbieschlussel.com about Donald Trump. This follows this post about Pokemon Go. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more, you can read two very interesting books HERE.You can follow me here.

What Donald Trump Should’ve Said & Still Needs to Say to Khizr Khan, Muslim Grandstander

By Debbie Schlussel
Like you, I’ve been watching the non-stop crazy train surrounding Donald Trump’s comments to and about Khizr Khan, the father of a fallen soldier in Iraq who used his son’s death for a grandstanding speech at Hillary Clinton’s coronation convention a/k/a the DNCon. And I think Donald Trump could have used this moment to educate America about the real “contributions” of Muslims in the U.S. Armed Forces and about the “contributions” of the Clintons.






I think Donald Trump made a mistake questioning the “emotions” of Khizr Khan and his wife, Ghazala Khan. And that doesn’t mean that I don’t believe their motives are suspect. They are very suspect. They used their son’s death and their grief for politics. And by the way, their son died well over a decade ago (in 2004), not recently. They used their son’s death to endorse a political candidate. That’s what Trump should have pointed out. They aren’t the first to do so.
While it is the ultimate sacrifice when your child dies in service to America, that doesn’t mean you are pure as the driven snow and whatever you say is the gospel. We’ve seen many such suspect parents of the fallen. There is anti-Semitic Cindy Sheehan a/k/a “Jihad Cindy #2,” who used her son’s death in Iraq for far-left politics and Jew-hatred. There’s the family of Pat Tillman, who used his death for endless Pat Tillman Trutherism, as if his death–whether from the bullets of friendly fire or that of the enemy–was any less tragic and valorous in battle.
And then there are the Khans.
If I were Trump, I would have turned Khizr Khan’s most soundbited statement around. Khan told Trump, “You have sacrificed nothing and nobody” for America. Instead of giving the silly, braggadocious, and tone-deaf response that Trump gave about how he’s sacrificed to create businesses and jobs, I would have asked, “Mr. Khan, what have Bill and Hillary Clinton sacrificed for America?” I might have added, “Hillary sacrificed her basement bathroom closet for a server to jeopardize American national security and the identities of our foreign operatives. Is that your idea of sacrificing for this country?” Whitewater, cattle futures, the Rose Law Firm records, Monicagate, e-mails, the McDougals, the Iran deal sell-out of which Hillary was the chief architect, Benghazi, etc., etc., etc., ad nauseam, ad absurdum, ad infinitum–is that your idea of how Hillary Clinton sacrificed for America? Trump should have turned this on Hillary and challenged the Khans to answer these questions and tell him what exactly is Hillary’s sacrifice for America, when her whole life is a textbook example of me-me-me narcissistic selfishness.
I also would have added that any of the Gold Star parents who spoke at the Republican National Convention could have also asked that same question of Hillary in their speeches, that it’s a zero-sum game on that front. I would have pointed out that the parents of Benghazi murder victims sacrificed their lives at the hands of Hillary because she ignored their cries for help; that Hillary Clinton sacrificed the lives of others–others’ like the Khans’ son–for no reason because she couldn’t bother to answer their calls in the middle of the night when they were being hunted by members of Mr. Khan’s religion.
And then, there is Mr. Khan’s religion–the sole reason he and his wife were on the podium at Hillarypalooza. The Khans were up there to show us that, “you see, Mr. Trump, we Muslims died serving America, while you want to keep us out.” Sadly, Trump doesn’t want to keep them out, and he has now updated his phony position on this for the (by my count) 17th time, saying he’ll only ban those from “terror countries,” which means that the French-born Muslims who murdered the Catholic priest at the Normandy Church would have been able to come here prior to their bloody beheading of this elderly cleric.
Despite Khan’s fiery speech, the truth is that few Muslims and few Muslim families have sacrificed for America. In fact, the vast, vast, vast majority of those who’ve died for America are Christian. The next largest number of those who’ve died for this country are those most reviled by the Khans’ religion: the “evil Zionists,” the Jews. The number of Muslims who’ve died for America is a tiny, tiny, infinitesmal fraction of a fraction of a fraction. The Khans are an anomaly.
There are very very few Crescent-marked tombstones at Arlington National Cemetery–a relative handful among hundreds of thousands bearing Crosses and Stars of David. Much media attention is being paid to legions of liberal morons going to visit the Khan son’s grave at Arlington, but the truth is he’s a blip among legions of Christians and Jews (and, yes, more Wiccans than Muslims) who died for America. I called Arlington’s PR people months ago (when Marco “Kinky Boots” Boobio Schmubio Rubio was blathering on at every debate about all the Muslim graves there), and they couldn’t tell me how many Muslim graves there are there, but they acknowledged it’s a very tiny number among hundreds of thousands of others.
And here’s another truth: while the Khans are Sunni Muslims, most among the microscopically tiny number of Muslims who enlisted and went to Iraq were Shi’ite Muslims who wanted to “liberate” Iraq from Sunnis and kill Sunnis. They weren’t there for us. They were there for their own religious jihad and to be rewarded in “paradise.”
Then, there are the parents of Muslims in the U.S. military who weren’t at DNCon to speak for Hillary, but should have been. How ’bout the parents of Nidal Malik Hasan? We saw how he appreciated America and the every chance our country and military gave him–putting him through college and medical school and promoting him every step of the way despite his jihadist ways. Thirteen Americans’ lives were sacrificed at his altar of Islam. Did the Khans apologize for their religion’s actions in the U.S. military as perpetrated by him? Nope. And we saw many, many other Hasans in our military since 9/11. Remember John Allen Muhammad, the Beltway Sniper? Yup, he served.
And don’t forget Noureddine Malki a/k/a “Mr. X.” We don’t know his real name (because–shocker!–he lied and was never properly vetted because it’s impossible), but he’s a Muslim immigrant, just like the Khans. And he served as a U.S. Army translator, telegraphing our troop movements to Al-Qaeda, so the group could inflict maximum damage. A lot of American soldiers died because of the “service” of this Muslim who “sacrificed” for America.
And there are so many others I’ve written about on this site over the years–Muslims who served in America’s Armed Forces and murdered our military personnel or murdered other Americans later. Here are just a few of the names: Wassef Ali Hassoun (who faked his kidnapping in Iraq, went AWOL, twice, and was on the NCIS Most Wanted List), Assan Akbar (who shot at fellow American soldiers in the name of Islam) and a host of similar others, such as Ahmad Al-Halabi, Ali Mohamed, Ryan Anderson, Semi Osman, Jeffrey Leon Battle, Hassan Abujihaad–all of them Muslim and all of them engaged in jihad against fellow troops and fellow Americans. Mr. Khan, why is your son the outlier and the anomaly, and why are these traitors the norm for those of your religion who serve?
That’s what Trump could have–and should have–asked, but he has neither the balls nor the knowledge and basic research skills to do so.
And then there are the Khans themselves. Will they condemn Hezbollah? Will they condemn HAMAS? Will they speak out–as Muslims who lost a son to the terrorism of their fellow Muslims–against the Hezbollah bombing and mass murder of nearly 300 Americans at the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983? Will they condemn the ongoing HAMAS murder of Americans, including New Jersey college student Alisa Flatow? Don’t bet on it. But Trump should have asked them. Trump should have challenged them. Then, the ball would be in their court.
Trump could have scored a lot of points with any of these questions, any of these rejoinders. The Khans wouldn’t have an answer. They’d be in a Catch-22 position. And the tables would have been turned on them. Plus Trump would have educated a lot of ignorant Americans about the real behavior of many American Muslims who claim to be American patriots but are patriots only to the four corners of the koran.
Sadly, Trump blew it. And instead, he’s in a silly sandbox war of words with the Khans that he can’t win. And maybe he doesn’t want to win.
***
One other thing I must add: I couldn’t help but notice that Mrs. Khan’s hair was showing (and under Islam, she might turn some guy on and he would be justified in raping the “uncovered” woman). Devout Muslim women cover their hair completely–usually with a hijab–and she did not. I wonder how devout the Khans actually are. But, at the same time, I wonder if Mrs. Khan wore a loose scarf instead of a hijab to make herself look more human and palatable, less oppressed. Either way, it raises a lot of questions.
Being “uncovered” like that in most Muslim countries could get her killed. And that’s the real Islam, not the “sacrifice” of her son.

An interesting story from www.lifenews.com about Hillary Clinton's abortion stance.  This follows this post about abortion as genocide.For two very interesting books click HERE.
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NewsAbortion, Politics - U.S.

Hillary Clinton promises to enact the greatest expansion of abortion funding in history

2016 presidential election , abortion , hillary clinton

PHILADELPHIA, July 29, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – In a nearly hour-long acceptance speech largely excoriating her opponent, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton promised to enact the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand in history.
Wearing an all-white pantsuit, Clinton spent much of her speech telling delegates inside Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center that Donald Trump would divide Americans and debuted the slogan, “Stronger Together.”
However, she first had to sew up the rift in her own party between herself and supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
She implored his followers to join her campaign in a display of Democratic unity.
“That's the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America,” she said. “We wrote it together – now let's go out there and make it happen together!”
The 2016 Democratic Party platform, drafted in concert between Clinton and Sanders delegates, has been described as the most pro-abortion platform in the party’s history.
“We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people,” it says. “We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment,” as well as the Helms Amendment, which protect taxpayers from funding abortion-on-demand in the United States and worldwide, respectfully.
The 2016 Democratic platform upsets some party moderates. President Obama’s former religious outreach director called it “morally reprehensible,” and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin called it “crazy.”
Otherwise, the speech’s references to abortion were few and far between, from a candidate who began and ended her primary campaign before the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, staffed her campaign with former employees of the abortion lobby, and said her presidential campaign “belongs” to Planned Parenthood. The nationally televised speech was an opportunity to draw a contrast with Trump, whom she implied was a racist megalomaniac.
During a litany of issues, she said, “If you believe we should protect a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions, then join with us.” She added, “We will defend all our rights – civil rights, human rights and voting rights, women's rights and workers' rights, LGBT rights and the rights of people with disabilities!”
Both terms in pro-abortion circles imply unrestricited, taxpayer-funded abortion and “no-cost contraception,” which is also endorsed by the platform.
Aside from a handful of references, Clinton left most of the abortion advocacy on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention to surrogates.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington recalled how Clinton fought President George W. Bush’s efforts “to block women's access to Plan B contraception.”
“We refused to back down until the FDA did their job and put science, and women, first,” she said. “Now, women across America are free to choose safe emergency contraception,” which has the capacity to act as an abortifacient.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York – who began by acknowledging his late father, Mario – warned that Republicans would take America back to an era “before Roe v. Wade.”
Nancy Pelosi told delegates “what is on the line in what truly is the most important election of our lifetime” is “the future of the Supreme Court” as well as “women’s reproductive rights.”
She closed, “Onward to victory!”
There had been no shortage of abortion talk, as the DNC heard from the leaders of every major abortion lobbying organization in the United States: Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue, and EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock.
“Hillary Clinton has made a bet that American voters – and especially women and Democrats – put a premium on abortion," said Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannelfelser. "This week she doubled down, trotting out the abortion industry’s most vocal advocates to make the case that our country wants and needs abortion on-demand, up until the moment of birth, paid for by taxpayers. But this bet is belied by the data, including a new Marist poll released this week which found a majority of Americans (62 percent) oppose taxpayer funding of abortion."
As Democrats wrapped up their convention, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence told a crowd in Grand Rapids that he is still confident one day “we’ll see Roe v. Wade consigned to the ash heap of history where it belongs.”