A Note from Prager University

Dear Friends,  

A man is sitting under a beach umbrella with his girlfriend. An attractive woman in a bikini walks by. The man notices her. His girlfriend notices him noticing her. The girlfriend is annoyed and starts to wonder just what is going on in her man’s head.

Dennis Prager tells you what’s going on. Watch Prager University’s latest video, He Wants You.

If you’re a woman, you’re probably thinking: “Well if he wants me, why does he look at other women?”

Dennis explains all that. He tells you exactly why men look, what it means to a committed relationship, and why women’s assumptions about men’s wandering eye is just not true.

Watch the video and see whether you agree. Then forward it to the men and women in your life who could use a common-sense perspective on this aspect of male nature.

Israel and Hamas: Easy to Explain, Hard to Solve

The violence in the Middle East is once again dominating the news cycle. As this email goes out, Israel and Hamas are under a cease fire, but tensions remain high.

In one sentence, can you describe what is happening between Israel and her neighbors? No? Then check out our video course, The Middle East Problem. In just five minutes, you’ll get the kind of clear, rational analysis of the Middle East conflict that you won’t find in most news reports. And you’ll be able to give an accurate, one-sentence description of the problem next time you’re discussing the Mideast with friends or co-workers. This video has been up for a while now, but it is just as relevant today as it was when it first appeared. Even if you’ve seen it before, take another look to remind yourself exactly what Israel is fighting for.  Then, forward it to family, friends, and curious teenagers so they, too, can understand what’s happening.

We want your feedback

As always, we value your opinion about any of our video courses at Prager University. Please take a moment to send us an email, telling us how a particular video has changed your mind or that of someone you know.

Giving during the Holiday Season

 

Ralph Reed’s “Must Read” for Republicans, the Unread Big Wigs in Particular

One will not find this Ralph Reed article in today’s Wall Street Journal among the listed a realclearpolitics.   

Reed fails for consideration.   He is not just another Protestant making noise, nor is he a fancilly robed prelate of some sort of  an American eastern metropolitan area.   He is an Evnangelical.

Nor am I.

I was born and raised a Christian.   I have not been churched  for 61 years, nor do I intend to be.   I  could think about questioning  such certitude if I lived within Sunday service distance to St. Nicolas Russian Orthodox Cathedral on Manhattan Island, but I live in a suburb just west of Minneapolis in our American Northland where women are exceedingly proud of themselves for being women.

My father fled  late 19th century North Dakota Methodist ‘purity’ trainings in favor of work before I was born.    He never spoke a word about religion of any kind in my presence.    Such matters were left to his wife, Hilma.

This Hilma ordered me to remember from early in life,  “Glenn Ray, you listen to me!!!!…..whatever you do, whatever you think, whatever you say, you can never escape  ‘your’ God.” 

I was impressed.    Her Germanness helped  me to never forget.    As I am approaching the year of my 79th birthday, filled with memories of life past, I look back fondly of my training years and daily ask myself what did I ever do to be so lucky in life?

Well, I was born in 1934, a great time for a know-nothing boy to be born.    I was born into a Christian ‘Godfearing’ family under my mother’s control and father’s example.    I attended schools who told me I had to become learned because:  1. It would make me a more perfect person, becoming closer to God, who knows all knowledge, and 2. It would aid me  to make better choices as a citizen when voting and therefore ‘keep American healthy”.

Teachers, parents,  relatives, neighbors, rich and poor, Democrats and Republicans believed  seeking truth was a major  American ideal then, and seeking truth was good.  

But, times have changed.   We live in an Obama world…..the world of the Marxist  university.

Ralph Reed is not approved by today’s American university of either coast and spaces in between.     They are Obamaland people who worship the State as god.   It is a female god.

Ralph Reed’s piece is worthy of reading by all Americans concerned about their  nation’s future.    The contest before us all is whether both political parties should abandon the practice of goodness as a social issue.     Didn’t this contest on November bury the ridulous Ralph Reed crowd with the ‘overwhelming,  victory of Marxist, Barack Hussein Obama?

Mr. Reed’s response, not to be seen in the American university indoctrinated media is as follows:

Ralph Reed in the WSJ:    Round Up

the Usual Social Conservative Suspects

Republicans have now lost four of the six presidential elections since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. A season of soul-searching will be healthy, and it is needed to retool and rebrand the party.

Yet despite the stinging defeat and a post-electoral narrative that suggests otherwise, Republicans need not abandon their principles. They must resist the temptation to form a circular firing squad, especially one with evangelicals and their social-conservative allies in the middle.

Ralph Reed, chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, on why the GOP doesn’t need to dump social conservatives to become more inclusive. Photo Credits: Pool

Te media trope that the Grand Old Party resembles a Star Wars bar scene of theocrats and religious zealots has by now become a cliché. A Huffington Post columnist recently alleged that the Republican Party is “a rump parliament of Caucasian traditionalism: white, married, churchgoing—to oversimplify only slightly.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd claimed that Republicans lost in 2012 because they “tried to force chastity belts on women and made Hispanics, blacks and gays feel like the help,” leading voters to “give white male domination the boot.” Juan Williams of Fox News concluded that demography is destiny and “the cycles of history have turned against the GOP.”

We’ve seen this movie before. In 1992, when George H.W. Bush lost the White House, the political cognoscenti blamed the convention speeches of Patrick Buchanan and Pat Robertson and what one commentator called the “hate-fest in Houston.” A similar pattern prevailed after losses in 1996 and 2008. When Republicans lose, the chattering class always blames religious folk.

Conservative evangelicals are arguably the largest single constituency in the electorate. According to a postelection survey by Public Opinion Strategies, self-identified conservative evangelicals made up 27% of voters in 2012, voting 80% for Mitt Romney compared with 19% for Barack Obama. This represented a net swing of 14 points toward the GOP ticket since 2008 and made up 48% of the entire Romney vote. Mr. Romney, a lifelong Mormon, actually received more evangelical votes than George W. Bush did in 2004.

White Catholic voters, meanwhile, went to Mr. Romney by 19 points, the largest margin among that constituency for a GOP presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972. This was no doubt due in part to their revulsion over the Obama administration’s harsh mandate on religious charities to pay for health services, such as contraception, that assault their conscience and compel them to violate their faith. Catholics who frequently attend Mass (about one in 10 voters) broke two-to-one for Romney.

Contrary to the prevailing stereotype, evangelicals and Catholics aren’t single-issue voters. They care about jobs, taxes and the deficit, and their support for Israel rivals that of the Jewish community. They played an indispensable role in re-electing the Republican House majority, and in electing 30 Republican governors and hundreds of state legislators and local officeholders in recent years. Jettisoning these voters and their issues would be like a football coach responding to a big loss by cutting the team’s leading rusher.

To be sure, the Republicans need to build bridges to Hispanics and minorities, women and younger voters. But unlike the conventional wisdom, social issues properly framed are one of the keys to a stronger, more diverse Republican coalition.

According to Gallup, a majority of Americans now consider themselves pro-life, including one-third of Democrats. Younger voters are one of the most pro-life segments of the electorate, with 51% of college-age “millennials” stating that having an abortion is morally wrong. A 2012 survey of voters 30 years or younger by Naral Pro-Choice America found that pro-life voters were twice as likely as their pro-choice peers to say abortion is an important issue in determining their vote.

Despite the Obama campaign’s accusation of a Republican “war on women,” Mr. Obama actually won women by a narrower margin than he did in 2008; he lost married women by seven points. Nor did single women—who went heavily Mr. Obama’s way—vote on reproductive issues. Forty-five percent of single women voters listed jobs and the economy as their most important issues, while only 8% said abortion.

If the GOP is serious about reaching out to minorities, social issues are rich soil for finding common ground. Most minority voters are either evangelicals or Catholics. In Ohio in 2004, George W. Bush won 16% of the African-American vote, in part due to his support for traditional marriage. When California voters ratified a traditional-marriage amendment in 2008, support from African-American and Hispanic voters provided the margin of victory.

U.S. Hispanics aren’t monolithic. There are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Venezuelans and Hondurans, among others. But one of the most reliable predictors of Hispanic voting behavior is religiosity. Roughly 20% of Hispanics are evangelicals (their number increases by 600,000 per year), and 37% of Hispanic voters self-identify as social conservatives. These voters made up a disproportionate share when George W. Bush won 44% of the Hispanic vote in 2004.

To win their support, Republicans must favor a secure border without sounding anti-immigrant. They should welcome those who come to this country legally and play by the rules, while stressing education reform, economic opportunity and lower taxes and regulation on minority-owned businesses.

Republicans were once accused of using “wedge issues” to divide voters based on race, gender and religion. In 2012 it was the Democrats’ turn, and they did so with the hearty applause of the mainstream-media chorus. When Mr. Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, Daily Beast blogger Andrew Sullivan approvingly noted the “cold politics behind it,” aimed at winning young voters and re-engaging disaffected gay fundraisers.

This is the new world. Even in an election about the economy, social issues won’t go away, and denial isn’t a strategy.

Therefore, Republicans should resist the catcalls urging them to give the cold shoulder to evangelicals and other voters of faith who make up the overwhelming majority of their voters. Instead, they must do more: They must practice the politics of addition by reaching out to Hispanics, Asians, women and young people, millions of whom share these same time-honored values.

Mr. Reed is chairman and CEO of Century Strategies and chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Saudi Women to be Electrically Monitored When Out and about Crossing Borders

By Jennifer O’Mahony     at  the Telegraph:

Saudi husbands ‘alerted by text’

if their wives leave the country

Women in Saudi Arabia are now monitored by the government using an electronic system that tracks any cross-border movements, alerting their male guardians by text if they attempt to leave the country.

As of last week, Saudi women’s male guardians began receiving text messages on their phones informing them when women under their custody leave the country, even if they are travelling together.

Saudi women’s rights activist Manal al-Sherif, who last year urged women to defy a driving ban, said a man had contacted her to say he had received a text from the immigration authorities while at the airport with his wife.

“The authorities are using technology to monitor women,” said Saudi author and journalist Badriya al-Bishr, who criticised the “state of slavery under which women are held” in the kingdom.

“This is technology used to serve backwardness in order to keep women imprisoned,” she added.

Under laws influenced by the strict Wahabi interpretation of Islam, women are not allowed to leave Saudi Arabia without permission from their male guardian (a husband, father or brother), who must give consent by signing what is known as the “yellow sheet” at the airport or border.

Islamophile Obama Stares Down Israel to Strengthen Hamas

Why did Obama broker a victory for Hamas?

by  Paul Mirengoff      at   PowerLine:

With unusual candor, the Washington Post declares in its top headline that “Hamas’ tactics garner support” and that “Palestinians see path to victory through fighting.” This strengthening of Hamas is the entirely predictable consequence of the cease fire that the Obama administration worked to impose on Israel. Because Hamas waged war against Israel and the Israelis backed down, it is (to quote) the Post “the commonly held view in both territories (the West Bank and Gaza) that the Islamist militants of Hamas — who refuse to recognize Israel — defeated their enemy, and that they did it with weapons, not words.”

Since this consequence flows so naturally from he U.S. arranged cease fire, it is very difficult to believe that the U.S. did not intend it. But the Post does not even consider this possibility (its candor has limits). Instead the Post suggests that Israel wanted to strengthen Hamas at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, which looks increasingly irrelevant following Hamas’ victory. The notion is that Israel will find it easier to avoid making peace with Hamas.

However, the Israelis are fixated on Iran, not the PA. Stengthening Hamas strengthens Iran’s hand. So it is highly unlikely that Israel would have handed Hamas victory had the U.S. not applied pressure.

But why does Obama want to strengthen Hamas? Probably because he views it, not unreasonably, as the authentic and rising voice of Palestinian aspirations. This has long been the view of the American left — for example, Obama one-time adviser Robert Malley — and of European policy makers. In 2009, a very senior European diplomat told me (and some other bloggers) that Hamas, which he characterized as “moderate,” is the party with which Israel must ultimately settle. (The word “moderate” in this context has nothing to do with ideology; rather it means, precisely, the party with which Israel is expected to settle).

So through the cease fire Obama was, I think, trying to give history (as he sees it) a nudge. He did so by (1) pushing a used up force (the PA) off of the stage and (2) giving Hamas the boost it needs to treated by Israel as an entity with whom peace needs to be made.

Meanwhile, however, the Palestinians are more than ever convinced, as the Post says, that the “path to victory is through fighting.” And Iran now has an undefeated, confident ally on Israel’s southern border.