THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
Nureddin Yıldız said: “Women should be grateful to God because God allowed men to beat women and be relaxed.”
This is a sarcastic reflection of what is actually stated in the Qur’an: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them.” — Qur’an 4:34
Will Nureddin Yıldız be arrested for insulting Islam? It could easily happen in Erdogan’s rapidly re-Islamizing Turkey.
“Don’t stain women in the name of Islam: Erdoğan,” Hürriyet Daily News, March 9 2018:
The commandments of Islam can and will never change, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has said, amid criticism over his earlier comments on the necessity for an “update” of Islamic regulations.
“It is wrong for some individuals, who have no relation to the realities of life, to utter some words and confuse people. Nobody has the right to accuse our religion,” Erdoğan said at an event in Ankara on March 9.
He had criticized specific preachers on March 8, following Social Fabric Foundation head Nureddin Yıldız’s controversial comments about violence against women. “Women should be grateful to God because God allowed men to beat women and be relaxed,” Yıldız said on March 3 in a video posted online, stirring outrage….
“We do not seek reform in religion, which is beyond our capability … Our holy Quran has and will always have words to say. Its commandments will never change. But the independent reasoning derived from them, the developed rules and their implementation will surely change according to the time, the conditions and the possibilities,” Erdoğan said.
Erdoğan also reiterated his call for the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) to take a more active role in addressing the issue.
“I do not have the authority to speak on such matters. But as a president, as a Muslim, and as a person who has responsibility, I cannot tolerate such discord brought to my religion,” he said.
“We cannot ignore the stain and the shadow that such people’s random words about women and youths have brought to Islam. Nobody has the right to cause such confusion and caricature our religion as such,” he added.
Last Friday’s numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) were predicted a day earlier by ADP/Moody’s Analytics, which said that private payrolls in February jumped by 235,000. But few expected the BLS to report what one surprised forecaster called “unbelievably strong” new jobs numbers. Further, the Labor Department said that its jobs reports for December and January understated the reality, adjusting those two months’ reports upward by another 54,000 jobs.
The economy continues to gain strength. U.S. employers have added new people to their payrolls for 89 straight months, way ahead of 2017’s monthly average. The gain in February was the strongest of any month since July 2016. And the gains were all across the board: mining, construction, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, transportation, warehousing, financial services, education, health services, and leisure and hospitality employment all jumped in February.
Unemployment is at 4.1 percent — a record low — as more people are entering the workforce to take those new jobs. Although neither ADP nor the BLS track those coming off of welfare rolls, it is clear that many are deciding to go back to work and earn a real paycheck. That includes more than a million women who have entered the workforce over the past year. The BLS reported that the number of long-term unemployed dropped by 369,000 in February, reflecting the reentry of many back into the labor force. And the labor force “participation” rate understandably increased reflecting those new entrants.
Mark Zandi, the establishment economist who is always asked for his opinion when the ADP/Moody’s reports come out (he works for Moody’s), was the only “expert” to warn about the economy possibly becoming “overheated.” On Thursday he said “the job market is red hot and threatens to overheat.”
What he’s looking for is wage increases that portend price increases that he incorrectly defines as inflation. Inflation is a tool of the Federal Reserve System used to “juice” the economy, according to Keynesian ideology. But the Fed has been remarkably quiet since 2014, and is slowly unwinding a little of its enormous balance sheet by not repurchasing bonds when they mature. Effectively, then, the Fed is actually slowly removing excess credit from the economy rather than adding to it.
Its reticence shows up in quiescent price increases that average just under two percent annually at present. With wage increases year-over-year of 2.6 percent, according to the BLS, workers are staying ahead of those price increases.
Add in bonuses, tax breaks, and new capital investment as billions that were headed to Washington as tax revenues are being reinvested in the economy, and the economy — and the stock market — are both likely to continue to move higher.
March 9 is the ninth birthday of the recovery from the Great Recession. At its lowest, the Dow was at 7,380, while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was at 773. Today, the Dow is trading above 25,000, while the S&P 500 Index is closing in on 2,800.
Looking at all these numbers, market watcher Akane Otani claims that “it’s tough to argue that the end of the bull run [in stocks] is imminent.” According to FactSet, companies in the S&P 500 Index are on track to report earnings growth of 15 percent ahead of last year. And that doesn’t include the tailwind provided by those tax breaks: bonuses and reinvested capital by companies enjoying a much lower tax rate on their profits.
For those who believe Otani and FactSet, the future looks rosy. So far this year, even after the recent sharp selloff in stocks, the S&P 500 Index is up 2.4 percent for the year while the Nasdaq (more heavily weighted toward technology stocks) is ahead by 7.6 percent. Extending those gains on a straight line into the future, 2018 could generate returns close to those enjoyed by investors last year. Add in some upside surprises — such as foreign capital coming into the United States as the nation offers more favorable tax rates — and investors and workers are likely to be amply awarded.
No, Mr. Zandi, the economy isn’t becoming “overheated.” It is just now regaining its footing after years of suffering under politicians who viewed it as a milk cow for government spending. Instead, the U.S. economy is the engine driving a higher standard of living for everyone who is involved in it.
An item posted on the White House website on March 8 stated that two evenings earlier, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the State of California “to save lives and keep dangerous criminal aliens off our streets.” The message continued by saying: “For far too long, California has obstructed Federal law and put the interests of criminal aliens ahead of the well-being of American citizens.”
The White House message noted that when a foreign national who is in the United States illegally is arrested on criminal charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can issue a “detainer” — a request that local law enforcement notify ICE before the illegal alien is released from custody.
However, as a sanctuary state, California refuses to honor these detainers and instead releases criminal aliens back onto the streets.
The White House report provided a few examples of dangerous criminal aliens who California has set free, despite the lawful detainer requests of ICE agents.
In one cited case, on August 2, 2017, the Santa Rosa Police Department arrested a citizen of Guatemala, on charges of inflicting corporal injury to a spouse/cohabitant, and booked him into the Sonoma County Jail in Santa Rosa, California. ICE lodged a detainer the same day. The next day at approximately 8:12 p.m., a Sonoma County Jail sergeant called ICE and advised that the suspect would be released shortly. However, “shortly” turned out to be almost immediately. At 8:36 p.m., the Sonoma County Jail emailed ICE indicating that the suspect had been released. As the report noted:
The jail provided ICE with only 24 minutes notice before it released the alien, despite the fact that the jail is located about 65 miles from the nearest ICE field office. ICE did not arrest the alien due to insufficient time given to respond. On Aug. 18, 2017, the Santa Rosa Police Department in California arrested the same individual as a suspect in the murder of his alleged girlfriend. He remains in Sonoma County Sheriff’s custody with an ICE-lodged immigration detainer.
In a more egregious case, a citizen of Guatemala who was an alleged gang member was arrested by the San Francisco Police Department more than 10 times between 2013 and 2017 for charges including rape, domestic battery, second-degree robbery, assault, and vehicle theft. On each occasion, ICE requested notification of his release or transfer of the individual to ICE custody. Each time, SFPD declined to honor ICE’s request.
In another case in San Francisco, on February 26, 2018, a citizen of Mexico, was arrested at his residence by ICE. On August 22, 2017, he was convicted of battery and was sentenced to three years of probation and three years of confinement. On February 8, 2018, he was booked into the San Francisco County Jail and charged with a DUI. ICE filed a detainer, which was not honored.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions delivered a speech at a gathering of the California Peace Officers Association in Sacramento on March 7, during which he denounced officials who support so-called sanctuary city policies, describing them as “extremists” promoting “open borders.”
Sessions had harsh words in particular for Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who issued a public warning on Twitter on the night of February 24 that immigration raids in her city were upcoming. “[Schaaf’s] actions support those who flout our laws and boldly validates illegality,” Sessions said. “There’s no other way to interpret those remarks.”
“So here's my message to Mayor Schaaf: How dare you?” Sessions continued. “How dare you needlessly endanger the lives of law enforcement to promote an open borders agenda.”
We reported recently that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) acting director Thomas Homan, speaking on Fox & Friends on February 28, said that Schaaf’s public warning that immigration raids were imminent was “beyond the pale.” He continued: “What [Schaaf] did is no better than a gang lookout yelling ‘police’ when a police cruiser comes in the neighborhood, except she did it to a whole community.”
Homan said in a prior statement on February 27: “The Oakland mayor’s decision to publicize her suspicions about ICE operations further increased that risk for my officers and alerted criminal aliens — making clear that this reckless decision was based on her political agenda with the very federal laws that ICE is sworn to uphold.”
Later in the day, Sessions participated in an interview with Fox News, during which he said: “Federal law determines immigration policy. The state of California is not entitled to block that activity. Somebody needs to stand up and say, ‘No, you’ve gone too far. You cannot do this.’ This is not reasonable. It is radical, really.”
Sessions said that California’s sanctuary state policy could be interpreted “that we should not have immigration laws, that we should have open borders because whenever anyone is apprehended, it seems that we have persons who want to block their removal from the country no matter what the circumstances.”
“We can’t allow this to happen,” the attorney general said. “California has placed us in the position and the Governor, by signing the [sanctuary state] bill, has placed us in the position where we cannot accept this and we have got to challenge it.”
The Sacramento Bee reported that shortly after Sessions’ appearance, the Trump campaign sent out an e-mail promoting the administration’s lawsuit against California. The White House also confirmed that Trump would visit the Golden State next week. It will his first trip to the state since being elected.
