90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, June 11, 2015

When you think of religious discrimination, you think of Saudi Arabia, a country that bans churches dating back to Mohammed’s ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians under the mandate that two religions may not exist.

Except these days, Muslims are the perpetual victims. So Saudi Arabia hosted a conference on religious discrimination. And by religious discrimination, Muslims just mean Islamophobia expressed in bans on terrorism and forcing women to veil or have acid thrown in their faces.

You know, discrimination.

Saudi Arabia hosted a two-day conference in Jeddah last week, which was attended by the president of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), where members convened to discuss measures to thwart religiously-motivated violence and discrimination.

And the perfect place to discuss religiously motivated violence is in the home of a state sponsor of Islamic terror.

Country representatives convened at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation headquarters in Jeddah, discussing how the “Istanbul Process” would be most effective in achieving a result that would “encourage religious leaders and civil society members in addressing the root causes of discrimination based on religion.”

The Koran?

It is the Koran and the Hadiths that...

There was a lot to celebrate in the Magic Kingdom this year. The Disney Corporation had its most profitable year ever, with profits of $7.5 billion—up 22 percent from the previous year. Disney’s stock price is up approximately 150 percent over the past three years. These kinds of results have paid off handsomely for its CEO Bob Iger, who took home $46 million in compensation last year.

Disney prides itself on its recipe for “delighting customers,” a recipe it says includes putting employees first. They tout this as a key to their success in creating “a culture where going the extra mile for customers comes naturally” for employees. One method of creating this culture is referring to its employees as “cast members.” In fact, Disney is so proud of its organizational culture that it’s even created an institute to share its magic with other businesses (for a consulting fee, of course).

So, you would expect a firm that puts its employees first to share the vast prosperity that’s been created with the very employees who went above and beyond to help generate those record profits.

Well, how did Mr. Iger repay his workers—sorry, I mean cast members—for creating all this profit? Not with bonuses and a big raises. Instead, as the New York Times just detailed in a major report, he forced hundreds of them to train their own replacements—temporary foreign workers here on H-1B guestworker visas—before he laid them off.

What motivates a company to replace its American workers with H-1B guestworkers? One word: Profit. H-1B guestworkers are cheaper than American workers and don’t have much bargaining power, and any company would be foolish not to take advantage of this highly lucrative business model that has been inadvertently created by Congress and multiple presidential administrations. Of course, this business model is paid for by destroying the livelihoods and dignity of tens of thousands of American workers. The costs are also borne by American taxpayers, through foregone tax revenue and the additional social services that need to be provided for those newly unemployed American workers.

When it comes to using the H-1B to cut costs, Disney is far from...

Girls With Guns

Joseph Rivers put his life savings on the line. With help from his mother, Rivers had saved $16,000 to pursue a career as a music video producer.

In April, Rivers, 22, boarded a train bound for Los Angeles, never expecting his dream to be literally taken away from him.

At a train stop in Albuquerque, N.M., an officer from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) seized the $16,000 from Rivers.

After Rivers answered multiple questions about his travel plans, the officer then asked to search Rivers’ bag.

“Upon him asking me to search my luggage, I told him, ‘Yes,’” Rivers told The Daily Signal. “He found the bank envelope with my money.”

The officer then...