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May 8, 2017 - The Ben Shapiro Show
22:03
Ep. 297 - It’s Trumpcare Day!
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On Monday, a columnist at Salon.com named Brittany DeLaCretaz authored an article titled, Trump-Era Anti-Semitism Changed My Family, We Started Going to Synagogue.
The author says that until recently she had, quote, considered myself a non-practicing Jew, a reformed atheist who found my way back to some sort of spirituality and began to embrace the cultural history of Judaism that I was raised with.
But she hadn't stepped into synagogue in years.
Until Trump.
De La Cretas writes, quote, But then a news alert came across the screen of my phone three days before Trump's inauguration.
The Jewish community center a few miles from my home had been evacuated following a bomb threat.
I felt my palms begin to sweat as I stared at the notification in disbelief, jaw slightly slack.
Not here.
Not now.
Anti-Semitism, which until this time in my life has been only a theory, instantly became incredibly real.
Even here in the liberal bubble of Massachusetts, hatred is alive and well.
The JCC bomb threat suspects, it turns out, were a leftist journalist and a Jewish teenager with mental problems.
But the JCC threats were merely an entree for de la Cretas to target the real anti-Semites.
Quote, Quote, Quote, Quote, Quote, Jewish cemeteries have been vandalized.
And while President Trump may have reminded us about his Jewish family members, and assured us at a recent press conference that we're going to see a lot of love under his administration, so far, I don't see it.
Never mind we don't have any suspects in the cemetery vandalisms yet.
Never mind that Bannon isn't an anti-Semite, I should know, since I'm an Orthodox Jew who worked with him for two years daily, and think he's a garbage human being for other reasons.
Now, I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't upset by the level of anti-Semitic vitriol I received from some Trump supporters during the last election cycle.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, I was the top journalistic recipient of anti-Semitism on Twitter by a wide margin.
I received thousands upon thousands of overtly anti-Semitic tweets during the campaign.
But that was not why I went to shul, and kept kosher, or turned off my computer for Shabbat.
I did all of those things because Judaism is my religion and my way of life.
I practice Judaism not in opposition to antisemitism, but because Judaism has real, true value.
Delacritus isn't actually interested in Judaism.
She's interested in redefining Judaism to mean leftism, and then saying that she's rededicated to her leftism because of Trump.
To her, Judaism is social justice warrior stuff, an excuse to virtue signal and push leftist values.
Here's how she describes Judaism, quote, Our faith has a long history of resistance.
No matter how many times history has tried to erase us, to wipe us out, we have survived.
We have resisted our own demise and we have fought for the rights of others.
Our people were active in the civil rights movement and fighting alongside black folks in the 1950s and 60s.
Today, my family has Black Lives Matter signs in our home and on our shirts.
Before my oldest daughter could even walk, she marched with me as a Jew for the liberation of Palestine, strapped to my chest in a sling.
It is through complacency that we can become perpetuators of the oppression we were once victims of via a vote for Trump or belief in marginalized people's ability to bootstrap their way to success.
It is through turning towards instead of turning away that we connect to our roots as oppressed people.
And it is this Judaism, the one that centers the fight for justice that I connect to, it is the one that finally makes sense.
Instead of turning away from our community, we are choosing to become part of it for the first time in our adult lives." This is horse crap.
Judaism is about a particular set of beliefs and practices.
It's wonderful that Jews were active in the civil rights movement, and they certainly called upon the Bible for support.
So did Martin Luther King Jr., of course.
But marching for the liberation of Palestine, while Palestinians murder Jews in the streets and elect Hamas, is not Judaic.
It's anti-Judaic.
Neither is marching for the Black Lives Matter movement, which castigates police and makes innocent black Americans more vulnerable to the predations of crime.
And it's certainly not a Judaic concept to shirk personal responsibility and suggest that people can't rise in a free society.
Dilakrita's article is only important because it demonstrates that for the secular left, religious practice is a charade.
It's just a way to claim marginalization and minority status, rather than abiding by the dictates of a religion that actually demands something of its adherents.
If Dilakrita truly wants to participate in Judaism, she should start with the synagogue and let it shape her, rather than the other way around.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
This has turned into a very, very busy news day.
President Trump has signed an executive order on religious freedom.
I thought I would be celebrating.
Unfortunately, I cannot because it's a crappy executive order.
Honestly, God, President Trump, do better than this.
He's also not doing a great job on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, which I will talk about.
Plus, Trumpcare is going to be rammed through the house, and we'll go through the details on what this crap sandwich looks like.
But before we get to all of that enlightening and uplifting news, we have to, and I would like to, say thank you to our advertisers over at Wink.
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In any case, let's say it's there's a lot breaking...
In the news today.
Let's start with the Trump executive order.
So yesterday I talked in startling terms about this executive order that was going to come from President Trump on religious liberty.
Giant fail.
So, he brings out the actual executive order.
The executive order, if it had looked like the one that they were looking at a couple of months ago, would have attempted to protect religious bakers and photographers from people attempting to crack down on them for not operating for same-sex weddings, baking cakes for same-sex weddings.
It would have tried to exempt religious organizations from the overt Antipathy of the IRS trying to crack down on religious organizations because religious organizations aren't pro-LGBT enough.
That's what the original order was supposed to do.
Instead, this order only touches the so-called Johnson Amendment.
The Johnson Amendment is this amendment that basically says that it's a piece of legislation that says that the IRS is supposed to remove non-profit status from churches that speak overtly politically and No one pays attention to the Johnson Amendment.
It hasn't really been enforced in decades.
It's not something that has a long history of brutal repression attached to it.
It's not great, but it's not a huge thing.
And Trump, that's all Trump has done.
So as I say, the originally drafted executive order would have attempted to get rid of a lot of these regulations that stop religious people from operating in the public sphere.
So there are federal anti-discrimination laws that say that grants—this is something that Obama did—that grants from the federal government and contracts from the federal government can only go to firms that do not, quote, discriminate against the LGBT community.
This would have stopped that for religious business owners because if you're a Christian and you own a business that's like a defense contractor and you don't want to pay for somebody's same-sex wedding or somebody's same-sex health benefits, That should not be your fault.
You're a religious person.
You have the ability to do that in the United States.
Nobody has a right to health care from you because this is a free country still.
I never understood why this is a religious argument as opposed to a freedom of association argument.
You should be allowed to do business with whoever you want to do business with and not allowed to do business with whoever you don't want to do business with.
That's what the free market is for.
If you discriminate against people, they will form their own businesses.
There are other businesses out there to take care of them.
Honestly, if you can't find a baker that will cater your gay wedding, then you're not living in the real world.
There are lots of bakers and a lot of them are gay themselves.
And the vast majority of bakers will provide for your gay wedding.
The same thing is certainly true of wedding gown designers and photographers and florists.
It's all ridiculous.
But in any case...
Trump comes forward with this executive order, and it's just garbage.
So CBS News reports, the executive order allows the IRS, when IRS officials choose, okay, so now they've got selective prosecution going on, not to enforce the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofits such as churches and charities from directly or indirectly engaging in a political campaign, but the order does not provide blanket relief for tax-exempt religious organizations Opening the possibility the IRS could pick and choose whom to penalize.
Ed Morrissey, who's sort of a fan of President Trump, he explains that this policy is actually the worst of both worlds.
He says, which churches will have to worry about the IRS in a Trump administration?
Which churches will have to worry about the IRS in a future Democratic administration?
This arbitrariness does not provide stronger religious liberty.
It takes us further from the rule of law and closer to the rule of executive whim.
Trump is out there today talking about how his cardinals love it.
That's his words.
He says, my cardinals.
They're not his cardinals, but this, again, is just a bad piece of policy pushed by President Trump.
So, that's bad.
In other bad news, I want to talk about the Trumpcare thing in just a second because that, of course, is the big news of the day.
In other bad news, President Trump has now announced that he is going to Israel.
He's going to visit Israel.
While he's in Israel, he's going to visit with Mahmoud Abbas, the terrorist leader of the Palestinian Authority.
He has a long history of associating with, promoting, promulgating, partnering with terrorists.
He wrote his entire thesis when he was a young man on, I believe it was Holocaust denial.
In any case, Mahmoud Abbas is one of the grosser figures in the world, and Trump is going to meet with him in Bethlehem, which is a propaganda coup for Abbas.
He met with him at the White House yesterday, and when he met with him at the White House, he flew the Palestinian flag, which is really gross.
He shouldn't be flying the flag of a state that doesn't exist, and if it were to exist, it would be a terrorist state.
And the fact is that, in meeting with him in Bethlehem, this is one of the propaganda things that Abbas and the Palestinians try to say, is that Jesus was a Palestinian.
Jesus was a Jew, gang.
Jesus was not a Palestinian.
And the idea that the Jews in Israel are just like the Herodian villains in the New Testament is asinine.
Trump is forwarding that propaganda by visiting with Abbas.
It really is quite gross.
Abbas totally played Trump yesterday.
It's obvious that he played Trump yesterday.
Again, I wish that I had good things to say about Trump today, but he needs to do a good job in order for me to say good things about him.
So, Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian terrorist leader, he sits with Trump and he says that the Palestinian children are raised in a culture of peace.
And that we strive to live in security and freedom and peace like the rest of the children of the world, them and the Israeli children.
Mr. President, I affirm to you that we are raising our youth, our children, our grandchildren on a culture of peace, and we are endeavoring to bring about security, freedom, and peace for our children to live like the other children in the world, along with the Israeli children, in peace, freedom, and security.
And Trump replies to that.
Here's what Trump has to say about it.
Let's see if we can find the solution.
It's something that I think is frankly, maybe not as difficult as people have thought over the years, but we need two willing parties.
We believe Israel is willing.
We believe you're willing.
And if you both are willing, we're going to make a deal.
This is absolute horse crap.
It's not so hard, okay?
The Middle East is not so hard.
You mean a religious conflict that has now been going on for over a millennium is not that hard?
I'm so glad that President Trump is here, just like Andrew Jackson to solve the Civil War.
I'm glad that President Trump is here to solve Middle East peace.
By the way, Abbas is totally playing him.
This is from Palestinian TV last year, okay?
If you haven't seen this, it's from Palestinian TV.
Dear viewers, we want to talk about the number of martyrs in Palestine.
This is children's television.
Compared to the number of dead Israelis, this is an indication of the tyranny of the Israelis.
The occupation killed many of us who are martyrs.
These are young teenagers wearing the hijab.
People are talking in a children's setting.
This points to the violence and tyranny of the occupation.
They executed many Palestinians in cold blood.
And then the occupation claims that they had stabbed soldiers.
It has become almost like a game.
This is on children's TV.
It's become almost like, again, this is on children's TV.
They're telling outright propagandistic lies about what the Israelis do.
They're claiming that the Israelis Israelis plant the knives on the Palestinian kids, even though they're on film doing this stuff.
Glory and it's herding to our murders.
We salute their families and we revere the young heroes who sacrificed their lives.
This is what's on Palestinian TV, okay?
This garbage is what's on Palestinian TV.
And the fact that President Trump is sitting there going, well, I think we can solve it.
I think it's easy to solve.
No, it's not easy to solve.
And he says, well, we have two willing parties, and I believe you're willing.
What makes you believe that they're willing?
What makes you believe that?
Why are you even having Abbas to the White House?
Abbas is clearly presiding over a terrorist regime.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Palestinian Authority are in a joint government.
But Trump, because he thinks that he's smarter than everybody else, and in fact is really, really dumb on these kinds of issues, is getting himself in trouble.
It's very, very frustrating.
We'll get to Trumpcare.
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The really big story of the day, beyond these kind of smaller fails from the Trump administration, is of course Trumpcare.
So Trumpcare is supposed to be up for a vote today.
It is unclear whether it is going to pass.
It is very, very close.
Right now, it's coming down to one or two votes.
Is it something people should vote for?
You know, I'm split on this.
On the one hand, I agree with the National Review crowd that says that it's better than Obamacare.
On the other hand, it's still a piece of garbage legislation and now you own it.
I don't think that you should vote for this.
I think that what you should do is you should vote for a straight repeal of Obamacare and then a piecemeal replacement of Obamacare.
Having these omnibus packages where you redo the entire health insurance system and then suggest that it's yours, this is a big, big, big mistake.
So the fact that you have them voting for a couple of good things like Medicaid reform and eliminating some but not all of Obamacare's taxes, those are good things.
But that's outweighed by the fact that you're not getting rid of the key Obamacare regulations, those stay in place, about pre-existing conditions.
You're not getting rid of the mandate.
Everybody who talks about the individual mandate goes away.
There's a backdoor mandate.
If you miss a year of coverage and then you want to re-enroll, the federal government forces insurance companies now to charge you a 30% surcharge in order to punish you so that you don't drop off your insurance plan until you're sick and then re-buy it when you're healthy.
It retains that new Ryan Trump entitlement program.
This, of course, is the refundable tax credits to buy health insurance.
So if you're poor, then we just give you some money to buy health insurance, which is basically an entitlement program.
And it funds people not to buy health insurance while healthy.
So one of the new provisions in this particular bill It comes from Representative Fred Upton.
It's an amendment that gives states $8 billion over the next five years to fund high-risk pools, but essentially what it's for is people who are trying to, who have pre-existing conditions, didn't buy health care, didn't buy health insurance, and now want to re-enroll, and they're going to pay that 30% fine, now we're going to pay that for them.
So we're now incentivizing people to stay out of the marketplace so they can be eligible for that sort of grant.
It's not going to be enough.
It's a fig leaf.
It's just...
There's so much wrong with this, and it's all because the reality is that Republicans lost this issue the minute that they lost the argument about the government's involvement in healthcare to begin with.
A free market healthcare system is still the best option here, but nobody is willing to say that because a free market healthcare system says that you are responsible For your own health insurance and that your community and not the government is going to help you out if you come up short on all of this.
That has lost the argument and the reason that that has lost the argument is because of this emotional argument that everyone quote-unquote has a right to health care.
Jimmy Kimmel made that case the other night.
I talked about it at length on the show.
Sean Spicer at the White House responded to that and he said well Jimmy Kimmel is why we're fighting to improve Trumpcare.
Well, I think we share that concern for the Kimmel's child, as well as any child that needs care.
And that's, frankly, why the President fought so hard to improve the bill, like he did this morning, to make sure that there was that extra layer of protection for anybody with a pre-existing condition, no matter their stage in life.
That's why we're fighting so hard for this.
But I think most importantly, and I think at the end of You know, Jimmy Kendall's monologue, he said that there is no, you know, we need to have some of these things that aren't Republican or Democrat, that they're American policies.
And I think that's what the president is fighting for right now.
Okay, the president is not really fighting for what conservatives would like.
He's certainly not fighting for a free market in healthcare.
He has always made promises that are not true, and the minute that you say that the government is responsible for your healthcare, you're in trouble.
The left has successfully made the case that free market health insurance, which is the way that the vast majority of people in the United States still get their health insurance, that it doesn't work.
MSNBC's Jason Johnson is a good example of this.
Here's what Jason Johnson said about healthcare and the government.
You want to talk about elitism, right?
You want to talk about, oh, is Jimmy Kimmel an elite?
You're an elite if you don't have to depend on the government at some point in your life.
There are sick people out there.
There are seniors who need federally funded cars to take them to and from places.
There are people who have student loans.
There is cancer research from the NSF that helps people throughout the entire country.
So if you can say, I don't care about the government, that must be great and fine for you if you're that rich, and maybe the people in the White House feel that way.
But regular people, Republicans and Democrats, realize how stupid this is.
I can't wait for them to make this mistake so they get wiped out in 2018 and we can have some competent Republicans and Democrats running the country.
Okay, so this is the idea the left wants to push, is that we are all inherently dependent on government.
This is not even true in the healthcare sphere.
So all the talk about pre-existing conditions ignores one rather crucial point.
This is a point that Avik Roy, who is an expert on healthcare policy, has made.
His basic point is that 90% of healthcare policies already covered pre-existing conditions.
You know this, because if you're covered by your employer health care, how many of you actually had to get physicals in order for you to get health insurance at this company?
The answer is no.
If you are an employee of this company, then you did not have to take a physical in order to get health insurance.
That's because employers bargain with health insurance companies for group coverage, right?
This is why you have group coverage.
Group coverage covers pre-existing conditions.
90% of people who have health insurance in this country are getting it through their employer, and those people Do not have to worry about pre-existing conditions because of this collective bargaining arrangement that employers have with insurance companies.
That's basically a backdoor pre-existing conditions ban that exists in the free market.
The free market does work.
It does work.
And when it comes to the individual market, first of all, Medicaid already covers pre-existing conditions, but there's no evidence that Medicaid actually increases people's lifespan or health outcomes.
So the idea that Medicaid is what we should have, Medicaid for all, as Bernie Sanders likes to say, Medicaid for some isn't even that good.
So I'm not sure exactly why you would want Medicaid for all.
Again, it's bad policy, but because Republicans lost the conversation, they're now going to lose the policy.
And the fact is they're coming up with this sort of Frankenstein's monster of legislation that keeps the central provisions of Obamacare, turns them into Trumpcare.
So somehow the Republicans have come up with a magic trip that turns Obama's crap into Trump's crap.
They've now done it with the budget, and now they're doing it with Obamacare as well.
Again, conservatism would be a nice response to all of this, but unfortunately I'm not sure we're going to get it.
I do want to talk about some stuff that was kind of bombshell that James Comey dropped at the hearing yesterday, plus we have the mailbag coming up.
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