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March,
2013
When the government demands silence -- the ugliness of the Patriot Act
Published March 21, 2013
FoxNews.com
In 1798, when John Adams was president of the
The feds used these laws to torment their adversaries in the press and even successfully prosecuted a congressman who heavily criticized the president. Then-Vice President Thomas Jefferson vowed that if he became president, these abominable laws would expire. He did, and they did, but this became a lesson for future generations: The guarantees of personal freedom in the Constitution are only as valuable and reliable as is the fidelity to the Constitution of those to whom we have entrusted it for safekeeping.
We have entrusted the Constitution to all three
branches of the federal government for safekeeping.
But typically, they fail to do so. Presidents have
repeatedly assaulted the freedom of speech many times
throughout our history, and Congresses have looked the
other way. Abraham Lincoln arrested Northerners who
challenged the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson arrested
Americans who challenged World War
In our own post 9/11 era, the chief instrument of repression of personal freedom has been the government’s signature anti-terror legislation: the Patriot Act. It was born in secrecy, as members of the House of Representatives were given 15 minutes to read its 300 pages before voting on it in October 2001, and it operates in silence, as those who suffer under it cannot speak about it.
The Patriot Act permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants and gives those warrants the patriotic and harmless-sounding name of national security letters (NSLs). This authorization is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that that security can only be violated by a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based upon probable cause of crime.
The “probable cause” requirement compels the feds to acquire evidence of criminal behavior about the person whose records they seek, so as to prevent politically motivated invasions of privacy and fishing expeditions like those that were common in the colonial era. Judges are free, of course, to sign the requested warrant, to modify it and sign it, or to reject it if it lacks the underlying probable cause.
The very concept of a search warrant authorized by law enforcement and not by the courts is directly and profoundly antithetical to the Constitution -- no matter what the warrant is called. Yet, that’s what Congress and President Bush made lawful when they gave us the Patriot Act.
When FBI agents serve the warrants they’ve written for themselves -- the NSLs as they call them -- they tell the recipient of the warrant that he or she will commit a felony if he or she tells anyone -- a lawyer, a judge, a spouse, a priest in confessional -- of the receipt of the warrant. The NSLs are typically not served on the person whose records the FBI wants; rather, they are served on the custodians of those records, such as computer servers, the Post Office, hospitals, banks, delivery services, telephone providers, etc.
Because of the Patriot Act’s mandated silence, the person whose records the FBI seeks often never knows his or her records have been seized. Since October 2001, FBI agents and other federal agents have served more than 350,000 search warrants with which they have authorized themselves to conduct a search. Each time they have done so, they have warned the recipient of the warrant to remain silent or be prosecuted for telling the truth about the government.
Occasionally, recipients have not remained silent.
They have understood their natural and
constitutionally protected right to the freedom of
speech and their moral and fiduciary duty to their
customer or client, and they have moved in federal
court either to suppress the warrant or for the right
to tell the customer or client whose records are being
sought that the FBI has come calling. Isn’t that odd
in
What’s even more odd is that the same section of the Patriot Act that criminalizes speaking freely about the receipt of an agent-written search warrant also authorizes the FBI to give the recipient of the warrant permission to speak about it. How un-American is that -- asking the FBI for permission to tell the truth about the government?
Last week in San Francisco, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston held that the section of the Patriot Act that prohibits telling anyone about the receipt of an FBI agent-written search warrant and the section that requires asking and receiving the permission of the FBI before talking about the receipt of one profoundly and directly infringe upon the freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment. And the government knows that.
We all know that the whole purpose of the First Amendment is to encourage open, wide, robust debate about and transparency from the government. Our right to exercise the freedom of speech comes from our humanity, not from the government. The Constitution recognizes that we can only lose that right by consent or after a jury trial that results in conviction and incarceration.
But we can also lose it by the tyranny of the majority, as Congress and the president in 1798 and 2001 have demonstrated.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the
Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial
analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has
written seven books on the
Click here view the original article and comments
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/03/21/when-government-demands-silence-ugliness-patriot-act/
Obama urged: act
tough on Israel
By Chris McGreal, US correspondent
The Guardian,
19 March 2013
Barack Obama begins his first
official visit to
The White House has played
down expectations that Obama will put any real
effort into pressing
But there is increasing
concern among some of
Among those sounding the
warning is the
The inclusion of hardline
pro-settler ministers in Netanyahu's new
government, who are expected to press for the
continued expansion of Israel's colonies in the
West Bank, has heightened concerns in Washington
that physical realities on the ground are making
the prospect of a negotiated agreement ever more
difficult.
Others have pointed up a
recent Hebrew University demographic study, which
showed that Jews are now in a minority in the
territory covered by Israel, Gaza and the West
Bank – suggesting that Israel's democratic and
Jewish character are threatened by its reluctance
to give up territory to an independent Palestine.
That led David Aaron Miller –
a negotiator in efforts by the Clinton
administration to broker an Israeli-Palestinian
agreement and an adviser on Middle East policy to
six US secretaries of state – to advise Obama to
"take a quick tour around Israel's demographic
neighbourhood" in order to understand the issue
that might be most persuasive in pressuring
Israeli leaders to take negotiations with the
Palestinians seriously.
"Demographic trends mean that
"The demographic imperative
probably appeals to Obama, a rational thinker who
understands the importance of acting in the
present to avoid future catastrophes. He has at
least once referred to the demographic realities
in his speeches on the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. But the president also knows from his
own political choices that getting politicians to
take risks now to prevent disasters and gain
rewards later isn't so easy."
It is a warning echoed earlier
this month by S Daniel Abraham, a
"Obama should realize that
"Right now – not in five or 10
years, but right now – only 50% of the people
living in the Jewish state and in the areas under
its control are Jews. The dreaded tipping point –
which advocates of the two-solution have been
warning about for years – has finally arrived."
That is a warning reinforced
by an Oscar-nominated documentary, The Gatekeepers
– in which former heads of the Israel's internal
security organisation, the Shin Bet, warn that the
occupation is endangering Israel – which has
shaken up the assumptions among some in the Jewish
community and among Israel's other supporters in
the US.
Martin Indyk, a former
"My sense is that this is the
view of Secretary Kerry – that there's an urgency
to try to not just resume negotiations but to
resolve at least some of the critical issues in
the conflict because the two-state solution is in
danger of cardiac arrest. I think there is an
urgency, but I don't actually think that if the
window closes it can't be prised open again," he
said.
"The simple reason for that is
there is no alternative to the two-state solution
– except no solution. And no solution for the time
being may suit both sides… in preference to the
kind of compromises and the hard decisions that
have to be made in order to achieve a solution. We
are fond of saying, and our leaders are fond of
saying, the status quo is not sustainable. But if
you go out there on both sides, especially
compared to what is going on around them – in
Syria to the north and Egypt to the south – the
status quo, it's OK."
Indyk said there will not be
movement until leaders on both sides are prepared
to make hard decisions, and that Obama is probably
unwilling to force that after his "searing
experience" of dealing with Netanyahu over the
Jewish settlements four years ago.
"I think that there is
something achievable, and I actually think it's
very important. And that is that President Obama
has the opportunity to reintroduce himself to the
Israeli public. The first time he introduced
himself to them was in
"It is hard to imagine that
the president himself is going to do much more
than make this visit. There are greener pastures
that beckon him in Asia, and you can see, from a
variety of other actions that he's taken or hasn't
taken in the
Ian Black's analysis after the President’s key speech of his trip
(March
21,
2013)
"It was a very clever
speech” says the Guardian’s
First he pressed all the buttons that matter to a mainstream Israeli Jewish and Zionist audience. He went to great lengths to recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist dream ...
He attacked all of
But having done all
that, he then moved to the second message of trying
to achieve a just and viable solution for the
Palestinians.
There was nothing in this speech that gives us any practical pointers as to how the long-stalled peace process can be revived ... It gave positive messages to Israelis, it made important points about the need to resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, it provided no obvious ways forward, but will I am sure have created a positive mood in Israel towards the message he was trying to put across.
He set out quite a
compelling vision of a country that needs to come to
terms with an existential problem for itself, and a
matter of fundamental justice for the people who are
suffering from it at the moment.
Click
here to see source of this speech analysis
FLORIDA ETHICS
This “Truths That Free” section of “Ethics” has not
been updated for quite some time... that is not for
want of material. Located in
Growing up with my parents included the “larning” that honesty and abiding by the law were virtues to be cultivated if at all possible. “if at all possible” has caveats. Don't forget or neglect the value and importance of CIVIL disobedience or as Gandhi called it, “satyagraha” nonviolent resistance, or obedience to truth- THE TRUTH AND RIGHT IS- independant, inalienable, and proceeding before all institutions of people- although no one said that was always easy or convenient.
Why do citizens have an expectation
of good character and ethical behavior from those we
elect or appoint to govern or to head
unions, or to populate our many civic departments?
Surely part of the reason is that we are their bosses,
we pay their salaries (often higher than their
counterparts in the private sector) and they are
accountable to us.
If
you have not felt your blood pressure rise, or your
anger mount often enough today here are a couple links to a few
articles about our finest in
http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=538987
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2013/mar/07/carl-hiaasen-leadership-at-florida-citizens-has/
After reading these articles consider shooting off (er... maybe that is not a good metaphor anymore) sending an email or making a phone call to one of your representatives and let them know that you back their honest effort (in a few rare cases) or that you demand that they make an effort to discourage graft, dishonesty, waste, and corruption from among their own ranks.
Hearing on Religious
Freedom Next Week
By Peter Kirsanow
from The National Review
March 13, 2013
The U.S. Commission on Civil
Rights will hold a public hearing next week on recent
developments involving the intersection of religious
freedom and anti-discrimination laws. The hearing will
take place on Friday March 22, at 9:30 a.m. at the
Commission’s headquarters, located at
Witnesses will address, among other things, the HHS mandate, the implications of Christian Legal Society v. Martinez and Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, and religious-liberty claims under First Amendment provisions other than the religion clauses.
Interested members of the public are invited to attend. Further, members of the public may also submit comments until April 21 on any of those topics by sending them to the above address or emailing them to publiccomments@usccr.gov.
This may be one of the few opportunities members of
the public will have to address comments on the
above topics to an agency of the federal
government. Note that there’s no page limit on
comments — they may range from a short paragraph to a
treatise.
Click
here to see the notice in the National Review
Debating the 'religious freedom' bill Rejection would be serious blow
from Louisville
Courier-Journal
MARTIN COTHRAN
Senior Policy Analyst
March 13,
2013
The campaign against the bill being conducted by the ACLU, the Fairness Alliance, and a small minority of lawmakers has sadly turned into an ugly and virulent campaign of hateful rhetoric and misinformation.
If there had been no evidence before of the
anti-religious sentiment that now threatens religious
freedom in
The Religious Freedom Act is a response to a decision last year in which the state’s high court ruled against several Amish men who were being forced to put brightly colored orange reflectors on their buggies in violation of their religious strictures. The court ruled against them. In doing so, the justices announced that the former standard courts applied to religious freedom cases, called “strict scrutiny,” would now be replaced by a lower standard.
They made it easier for the government to violate someone’s First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.
Previously, the government had been required to show that it had a compelling interest in overturning someone’s religious rights. It also required the government to use the least restrictive means to accomplish its purposes. This bill would simply restore these requirements.
The bill’s language is almost identical to the language in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1993 after the U.S. Supreme Court lowered the religious freedom standard in a 1990 decision.
RFRA, whose protections were later limited only to the federal government, was passed almost unanimously by the U.S. Congress, signed by Bill Clinton, sponsored by Ted Kennedy — and supported by the ACLU.
Given what this bill is really about, it is sad and disappointing that the groups opposing it have chosen to misrepresent the nature of the bill to the public and to malign the many good people involved in supporting the legislation.
When HB 279 passed the State House in a bipartisan 82-7 vote, Rep. Kelly Flood, D-Lexington, took to the floor and attacked the Catholic church, charging them with wanting to protect abusive priests. And when the state Senate passed the measure in a 29-6 vote, state Sen. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, charged that the bill would promote racism.The ACLU and several gay rights groups also argue that the bill would be used to gut civil rights protections.
But if this is true, then why did none of this ever happen before Oct. 25 of last year, when the standard this bill reinstitutes was in force? If there were any such cases, these groups would have produced them, but they haven’t — and they can’t.
Because they don’t exist.
The bill has absolutely nothing to do with the sexual abuse of children and nothing to do with federal civil rights protections. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that preventing racial discrimination is a compelling state interest — the very standard used in this bill.
No one supporting the bill has used one hateful word in arguing for it. Not a single person speaking for the bill has maligned the character of those who oppose it. And not a single supporter has misrepresented the nature of the bill.
Ironically, the group leading the charge against the bill, the ACLU, was the very group who represented the Amish in the case before the Supreme Court four months ago. They argued their case under the standard of strict scrutiny, the same standard they are now opposing.
If Gov. Beshear succumbs to pressure from the ACLU
and other groups and vetoes HB 279, it will be a
serious blow to religious freedom in
To
view the article in its entirety in the
Courier-Journal, click here
Jihad? What Jihad? Media
Shrug At Islamic Threat
Posted 03/01/2013
An Investors Business Daily
Editorial
Homeland Insecurity: The attorney general
says the threat from local jihadists is now worse than
terrorist plots hatched overseas. He warned Americans
not to grow "complacent." Tell it to the media.
The major news gatekeepers have ignored the jihadist
element in no fewer than four recent cases of
sensational killings of non-Muslims by mostly young
Muslim men inside the
• Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Egyptian immigrant who
on Feb. 5 allegedly beheaded two Coptic Christians
living in
• Ali Syed, a 20-year-old Muslim who allegedly
randomly killed three people in
• Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, a 26-year-old reported
black Muslim convert who on Feb. 21 is said to have
killed three people in
• Ali Salim, a 44-year-old Pakistan-born doctor who
is accused of raping and killing a pregnant woman and
her 9-month-old fetus last year in his Ohio office.
This rash of homicides by Muslims has triggered a
giant media yawn, despite telltale signs of jihadist
motive. Jihad? What jihad? Reporters seemed to be
collectively shrugging in another fit of extreme PC.
Here's another key piece of information denied the
average American watching the evening news: the
majority of convicted terrorists in the
Equally stunning, more than half of the 171 terror
convicts analyzed by the London-based Henry Jackson
Society are college-educated. Many are black converts.
Nearly half were born and raised here, according to
the report prefaced by former CIA director Mike
Hayden.
Yet they want to kill fellow Americans simply because
they believe that's what their creed tells them to do.
But instead of confronting this homegrown threat, our
society is fig-leafing it, even glorifying it.
Even in red-state
This isn't an isolated event. There's a coordinated
effort by leftist do-gooders and multiculturalists to
de-link Islam from violence and terror and rewrite
history.
When educators, journalists and politicians hear no
Islamic violence, see no Islamic violence and report
no Islamic violence, beware, it's Sept. 10, 2001,
again.
Read article in its entirety
at
Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised
by Stephen DinanMarch 5, 2013
The Washington Times
The White House announced Tuesday that it is
canceling tours of the president’s home for the
foreseeable future as the sequester spending cuts
begin to bite and the administration makes good on its
warnings of painful decisions.
In the internal email, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service official Charles Brown said he asked if he could try to spread out the sequester cuts in his region to minimize the impact, and he said he was told not to do anything that would lessen the dire impacts Congress had been warned of.
“We have gone on record with a notification to
Congress and whoever else that ‘APHIS would eliminate
assistance to producers in 24 states in managing
wildlife damage to the aquaculture industry, unless
they provide funding to cover the costs.’ So it is our
opinion that however you manage that reduction, you
need to make sure you are not contradicting what we
said the impact would be,” Mr. Brown, in the internal
email, said his superiors told him
Neither Mr. Brown nor the main APHIS office in
Washington returned calls seeking comment, but
Agriculture Secretary Thomas J. Vilsack, who oversees
the agency, told Congress he is trying to give
flexibility where he can.
“If we have flexibility, we’re going to try to use it
to make sure we use sequester in the most equitable
and least disruptive way,” the secretary told Rep.
Kristi L. Noem, a South Dakota Republican who grilled
Mr. Vilsack about the email. “There are some
circumstances, and we’ve talked a lot about the meat
inspection, where we do not have that flexibility
because there are so few accounts.”
Ms. Noem told Mr. Vilsack that the email made it
sound like the administration was sacrificing
flexibility in order to justify its earlier dire
predictions.
“I’m hopeful that isn’t an agenda that’s been put
forward,” the congresswoman told Mr. Vilsack.
Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/5/email-tells-feds-make-sequester-painful-promised/#ixzz2Mswed6KN
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Published March 5,2013
Fox News
A Florida legislator wants anyone trying to buy ammunition to complete an anger management program first, in what critics say is the latest example of local lawmakers reaching for constitutionally-dubious solutions to the problem of gun violence.
The bill filed Saturday by state Sen. Audrey Gibson,
D-Jacksonville, would require a three-day waiting
period for the sale of any firearm and the sale of
ammunition to anyone who has not completed anger
management courses. The proposal would require ammo
buyers to take the anger management courses every 10
years.
“This is not about guns," Gibson said. "This is about ammunition and not only for the safety of the general community, but also for the safety of law enforcement.”
Gibson said she’s concerned with citizens stockpiling ammunition, potentially creating dangerous situations should those individuals ever come in contact with law enforcement agencies or criminals.
“It’s about getting people to think, really, about how much ammunition they need,” Gibson said. “It’s a step, I think, in a safer direction. It’s about getting people to think before they buy.”
Benghazi Documents Reveal White House 'Specifically Warned of Imminent Attack
March 6, 2013Jason Howerton
The Blaze
CBS News investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson on Tuesday night reported that the Obama adminsitration has turned over documents relating to the Benghazi terrorist attack to the Senate Intelligence Committee. She made a number of revelations that don't bode well for the White house via her official Twitter account.
She also reported that an “official familiar with the
docs” said there were advanced warnings in the days
leading up to the attack, including ones that
“specifically warned of an imminent attack on the
The CBS reporter also
referenced another source familiar with the
“A source who viewed
the docs says the few that mentioned a protest” on
night of
Click
here to read the article in its entirety on The Blaze
Christian Science Teacher
Fired Over Creationism to Head to Ohio
By Leonardo Blair , Christian Post Contributor
February 26, 2013|
A 20-year Ohio
middle school science teacher who was fired in 2011
for teaching creationism in his class will have his
day in the Ohio
"In oral arguments before the Ohio Supreme Court tomorrow, February 27, The Rutherford Institute will defend the right to academic freedom of a science teacher fired for encouraging students to think critically about the school's science curriculum, particularly as it relates to evolution theories," said the Rutherford Institute in a statement released in response to questions from The Christian Post on Tuesday.
"In coming to veteran
science teacher John Freshwater's defense, Institute
attorneys argue that the
The Mount Vernon School
Board had spent almost $1 million fighting John
Freshwater's case when they decided to end his
contract, according to a report in the Mount Vernon
News. Board president Margie Bennett told the Mount
Vernon News at the time that Freshwater's fired was a
difficult decision.
Freshwater, however, appealed his termination in state court arguing that the firing violated his rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and constituted hostility toward religion. The Board's decision was upheld by a Common Pleas judge as well as the Fifth District Court of Appeals. But according to the Rutherford Institute, these decisions were made without an analysis of the constitutional claims. The appeal was made to the Ohio Supreme Court to examine theme. According to the Institute, the Mount Vernon School Board attempted to have the court strike the First Amendment claim from the lawsuit but they were unsuccessful.
"Academic freedom was once the bedrock of American education. That is no longer the state of affairs, as this case makes clear," said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, in the release. "What we need today are more teachers and school administrators who understand that young people don't need to be indoctrinated. Rather, they need to be taught how to think for themselves. By firing John Freshwater for challenging his students to think outside the box, school officials violated a core First Amendment freedom – the right to debate and express ideas contrary to established views."
In June 2008, the Mount
Vernon City School District Board of Education in
The Rutherford
Institute is a nonprofit civil liberties
organization that provides legal assistance at no
charge to individuals whose constitutional rights
have been threatened or violated.
Click
here to read the article on the Christian Post web
site in its entirety
Constitution 201: Founders vs. Progressives
December 3, 2012
The Hawaian Reporter
By Stephen Zierak
This lesson is taught by Dr. Thomas West, the
Paul & Dawn Porter Professor of Politics at
The Founders believed that the purpose of government was to secure the unalienable rights of American citizens to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by protecting against violations by foreign or domestic enemies. The Progressives believe that the purpose of government is to give you the benefit of government programs, while changing you into a more socially responsible individual.
As we watch the Founder’s vision slip away with the advent of big government and the welfare state, we might wonder what went wrong. Some American conservatives blame the language of the Founding. They believe that the equality and rights talk has led to Obama, that Progressivism was derived from expressions in our revolutionary documents. Actually, nothing could be farther from the truth. Progressivism was a radical departure from the Founding, as can be seen in comparisons around six points of contrast: (1) What is freedom? (2) Purpose of government? (3) Domestic policy? (4) Foreign policy? (5) Consent of the governed? (6) Government limited or unlimited?
Click here to view and read this lesson in its entirety at the Hawaiian Reporter.
Open Doors: Violence
Targeting Christians Increasing in
Contact: Jerry Dykstra, Open Doors USA, 616-915-4117,
jerryd@odusa.org
"The car bomb in Jaramana was targeting the Christian
and Druze community as a group, since the area has no
political ties or buildings," a local Christian source
explained about the large bomb blast in the
According to contacts in the neighborhood, 11
Christians where killed and one Muslim killed in the
explosion. The blast left 69 people, all Christians,
wounded. Twenty are in critical condition.
Open Doors' country coordinator for
A believer from
Situation in
An Open Doors contact in
Last week Open Doors received a report from a
believer in
Another believer reports that in some of the
predominantly Christian villages in the
In a village in the
The Open Doors country coordinator for
Jerry Dykstra, media relations director for Open
Doors, says the request for prayer from Syrian
Christians comes as the International Day of Prayer
for the Persecuted Church (IDOP) will be observed in
the
Click here to see entire article at http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/7527470787.html
Global News Blog
All politics is local, even the US
Villagers in the home
Kenyans are closely watching the
US President Barack Obama’s reelection bid is
preoccupying the people in Nyang’oma Kogelo, his
Kenyan father’s home village, as challenger Mitt
Romney’s run is invigorating Mormons in the East
African country.
Mr. Romney’s candidacy has thrust the Christian group
into the spotlight here, with its leaders on
Monday unveiling a website called Kenya Mormon
Newsroom to help answer questions ignited by the
American political process. Leaders say the church
maintains a firm political neutrality.
“In the most recent past, questions have been asked
about who we are. The reasons is we have a member of
the church running as president of the
Elder Thomas Hatch, a former
Hatch says Mormons would relish the idea of a Romney
presidency, hoping it would bring the church out of
obscurity. However, he cautioned that there could be
many downsides as well as upsides, since presidents
have to make tough decisions.
“If Mr. Romney is seen as a Mormon president,
there could be retaliation by other countries against
our church and missions,” he says.
Meanwhile, in Nyang’oma Kogelo, the western Kenyan
village that is home to the president's
step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, the community is
organizing daily prayers for Obama, with special
prayers reported in churches and mosques. Often
gathering in small groups to listen to news and
discussions on FM radios from mobile phones, the
residents say they have learned Obama was facing a
stiff challenge.
“We would like to organize bigger meetings to show
support, but we fear the security is not good.
Terrorists may attack us because of our Obama links.
The threats and attacks in
For them, the interest in the American election is
driven by pride more than economic or material gains,
since Obama is viewed as a grandson there.
“We are proud because we have seen he can make a good
global leader. People now know us globally because of
him. We are praying that he continues,” says Mr.
Ogombe.
But since Obama’s election in 2008, Kogelo can also
count material gains. Electricity has been installed
in the area and infrastructure improved. Micro-finance
organizations and nongovernmental organizations have
also moved here to help improve the community’s living
standards. The local people say they are better since
he became president.
For Jesse Mugambi of the University of Nairobi,
America foreign policy on
“The voters out there will decide what is good for
them, and Kenyans will put up with whoever wins. That
is what democracy demands,” he says.
Some analysts have also considered an Obama loss.
Charles Onyango-Obbo, in an opinion in the Daily
Nation today, analyzed why an Obama loss would be good
for him and the world.
“Obama has the energy and smarts to be an influential
international citizen and non-state actor to join
Clinton and Gates as the non-white face at the top of
international NGO priesthood. To do that, he has first
to lose the election,” wrote Mr. Onyango-Obbo.
Click here to see article at the CSM
Sixty Percent of US Muslims
Reject Freedom of Expression
RIGHT SIDE
NEWS.com
Thursday, 01 November 2012
Dr. Andrew
Bostom
After
violent Muslim reactions to the amateurish “Innocence
of Muslims” video, which simply depicted a few of the
less salutary aspects of Muhammad’s biography,
international and domestic Islamic agendas have openly
converged with vehement calls for universal
application of Islamic blasphemy law. This demand to
abrogate Western freedom of expression was reiterated
in a parade of speeches by Muslim leaders at the UN
General Assembly. The US Muslim community echoed such
admonitions, for example during a large demonstration
in
Now the results of polling data collected by Wenzel Strategies during October 22 to 26, 2012, from 600 US Muslims, indicate widespread support among rank and file American votaries of Islam for this fundamental rejection of freedom expression, as guaranteed under the US Constitution. The first amendment states, plainly,
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
When asked, “Do you believe that criticism of Islam
or Muhammad should be permitted under the
Constitution’s First Amendment?, 58% replied
“no,” while only 42% affirmed
this most basic manifestation of freedom of speech,
i.e., to criticize religious, or any other dogma.
Indeed, oblivious to
Also, consistent with such findings 43% of these US
Muslims rejected the right of members of other faiths
to proselytize to adherents of Islam, disagreeing,
“…that
These alarming data remind us that despite intentionally obfuscating apologetics, Sharia, Islamic law, is not merely holistic, in the general sense of all-encompassing, but totalitarian, regulating everything from the ritual aspects of religion, to personal hygiene, to the governance of a Muslim minority community, Islamic state, bloc of states, or global Islamic order. Clearly, this latter political aspect is the most troubling, being an ancient antecedent of more familiar modern totalitarian systems. Specifically, Sharia’s liberty-crushing and dehumanizing political aspects feature: open-ended jihadism to subjugate the world to a totalitarian Islamic order; rejection of bedrock Western liberties—including freedom of conscience and speech—enforced by imprisonment, beating, or death; discriminatory relegation of non-Muslims to outcast, vulnerable pariahs, and even Muslim women to subservient chattel; and barbaric punishments which violate human dignity, such as amputation for theft, stoning for adultery, and lashing for alcohol consumption.
And the US Muslim data mirror global Islamic trends. Previously, the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (subsequently renamed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC])—the largest voting bloc in the UN, which represents all the major Muslim countries, and the Palestinian Authority—had sponsored and actually navigated to passage a compromise U.N. resolution insisting countries criminalize what it calls “defamation of religion.” Though the language of the OIC “defamation of religion” resolution has been altered at times, the OIC’s goal has remained the same—to impose at the international level a Sharia-compliant conception of freedom of speech and expression that would severely limit anything it arbitrarily deemed critical of, or offensive to, Islam or Muslims. This is readily apparent by reading the OIC’s supervening “alternative” to both the US Bill of Rights and the UN’s own 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, i.e., the 1990 Cairo Declaration, or Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Islam.
The opening of the preamble to the Cairo Declaration repeats a Koranic injunction affirming Islamic supremacism (Koran 3:110, “You are the best nation ever brought forth to men . . . you believe in Allah”); and its last articles, 24 and 25, maintain [article 24], “All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Sharia”; and [article 25] “The Islamic Sharia is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.” The gravely negative implications of the OIC’s Sharia-based Cairo Declaration are most apparent in its transparent rejection of freedom of conscience in Article 10, which proclaims:
Islam is the religion of unspoiled nature. It is prohibited to exercise any form of compulsion on man or to exploit his poverty or ignorance in order to convert him to another religion, or to atheism.
Ominously, articles 19 and 22 reiterate a principle stated elsewhere throughout the document, which clearly applies to the “punishment” of so-called apostates from Islam, as well as “blasphemers”:
There shall be no crime or punishment except as provided for in the Sharia. Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia. Everyone shall have the right to advocate what is right, and propagate what is good, and warn against what is wrong and evil according to the norms of Islamic Sharia.
Information is a vital necessity to society. It may not be exploited or misused in such a way as may violate sanctities and the dignity of Prophets, undermine moral and ethical values or disintegrate, corrupt or harm society or weaken its faith.
Institutional Islam in
Finally, it should be noted, 81% of this sample of Muslim Americans were either “definitely for Obama,” or “leaning Obama”.
Source: and All Articles Copyright © Dr. Andrew Bostom | All Rights Reserved
Click here to read at rightsidenews.comhttp://www.rightsidenews.com/2012110117312/editorial/rsn-pick-of-the-day/sixty-percent-of-us-muslims-reject-freedom-of-expression.html
Malala Yousafzai taken to specialist hospital
Girl
shot by Taliban in
The Guardian, Thursday 11 October 2012
A Pakistani schoolgirl fighting for her life after
being shot by Taliban gunmen has been transferred to a
specialist hospital in the army garrison town of
Malala Yousafzai, 14, was unconscious and in a critical condition after being shot in the head and neck as she left school in the Swat region on Tuesday, but doctors said she had moved her arms and legs slightly overnight.
On Wednesday surgeons at an army hospital in the
regional capital,
A Taliban spokesman said Malala had been targeted for trying to spread western culture, and that they would try to kill her again if she survived. Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who runs a girls' school, said his daughter had defied threats for years, believing the good work she was doing for her community was her best protection.
The regional governor, Masood Kausar, said officials had identified the attackers. The local government has posted a 10m rupee reward for their capture. "The security agencies are closely working with each other and they have a lot of information about the perpetrators. We hope they will soon capture them and bring to justice," Kausar said.
The attack outraged many in
Malala had spent the last three years campaigning for
girls' education after the Taliban shut down girls'
schools. She received
This
article can be seen at the UK Guardian by clicking
here
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/11/malala-yousufzai-specialist-hospital
or
click here to read more about this young person in
the Christian Science Monitor
The Islamic Threat
Doctrine and 9/11/2012
by ALAN KORNMAN
October 9, 2012
Family Security
Matters
A dark feeling of betrayal and stunned disbelief washed over me as I read the newspaper headline, "Jordanians press for democratic reforms" in the October 6, 2012 Orlando Sentinel.
The Myth of Islamic Democratic Reforms
The mainstream media,
U.S. State Department, and President Obama fed us a
steady stream of news in 2011 that Egyptian youth were
protesting in the streets for an Arab Spring of
democratic reforms in
While the press was printing gallons of ink reporting the Muslim Brotherhood would pursue democratic reforms in Egypt, Mohammad Morsi was consolidating his political base with the Salafi Islamist fundamentalist, whose objective was to institute a Sunni led Shariah compliant Islamic State in Egypt by overthrowing the colonialist dictator and friend of the United States, Hosni Mubarak.
The utopian mantra from
the liberal left of democratic reforms blooming in
When will our mainstream
press learn that Shariah compliant political Islam and
our Jeffersonian democracy are not compatible?
Understanding the PLO's failed coup of
Black September in
In September of 1970,
the Nobel Peace Prize recipient Yasser Arafat, nephew
of Nazi collaborator Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini,
tried unsuccessfully to violently overthrow the
Arafat's PLO
organization lost over 2,000 Muslim men in the
attempted Black September coup of their Jordanian
Muslim brothers and were violently expelled from their
native
History seems to be
repeating itself again, except now The Muslim
Brotherhood is making a play to wrestle control of
If King Abdullah II tries to appease The Muslim Brotherhood he will find himself either dead or in exile wondering how he lost his throne. King Abdullah II need look no further than Qaddafi, Mubarak, and Assad to see his future, if he continues on his current path.
Understanding The Islamic Threat Doctrine
Understanding the Islamic Threat Doctrine is essential in predicting events as they unfold on the ground and anticipating what to expect will happen in the future. Fortunately for the American people, our Islamist adversaries are more than happy to tell us exactly what their doctrine and objectives are.
We will now learn the
Islamic Threat Doctrine from a well respected Islamic
Jihadist who was tops in his class amongst his Jihadi
peers. Today's teacher of the doctrine is Sheikh
Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi or by his title, "Emir of Al
Qaeda in the Country of Two Rivers." On June 7,
2006 Mr. Zarqawi was killed when a USAF F-16 dropped
two 500 pound guided bombs on his safe house in
Shortly before his death, Mr. Zarqawi conducted an in depth interview with the Al-Furican Foundation for Media Production, an entertainment arm of Al-Qaeda. Hidden deep in the interview Mr. Zarqawi explains clearly what the Islamic Threat Doctrine is and it's objectives.
These two paragraphs below should change your life forever and how you view the world around you. Al-Qaeda terrorist Musab Al-Zarqawi says,
"We fight in the way of Allah, until the law of Allah is implemented, and the first step is to expel the enemy, then establish the Islamic state, then we set forth to conquer the lands of Muslims to return them back to us, then after that, we fight the kuffar (disbelievers) until they accept one of the three.
"I have been sent with the sword, between the hands of the hour"; this is our political agenda."
"It is necessary to accept the fact that it is an obligation for every Muslim to rush to help each other and it is also very necessary to agree that the houses of Muslims are just one house. The enemies (the disbelieving nations) have imposed boundaries and divided the lands of Muslims to tiny nations however we do not believe in them and the boundaries of Sax Bacon do not restrict us. We, the Muslims are one nation and the lands of Islam are one land, we fight for the sake of "there is no god but Allah".
The Muslim Brotherhood
in the Middle East and Northern Africa are "expelling
the enemy" and establishing an Islamic State as they
did in
The Islamic Threat Doctrine Mr. Zarqawi articulated above is being implemented in coordinated steps to achieve their short term objective of unifying, "Muslims to rush to help each other...and Muslims are of one house." The coordinated attacks on 9/11/12 on U.S. interests in the Middle East and Northern Africa was the real warning to America, not the red herring of an internet movie.
When the Islamist
enemies of the
What Our Islamist Enemies Fear Most
The one thing our
Islamist adversaries fear most is an American public
that understands the basics of The Islamic Threat
Doctrine. Thomas Jefferson read the Qur'an to
fight and defeat the Muslim Barabary Pirates in
Conclusion
The future of
We, the Muslims are one nation and the lands of Islam are one land, we fight for the sake of "there is no god but Allah".
What we believe as Americans and our man made laws is of small concern to our Islamist enemies. The followers of Islam believe "there is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger" and that was the message on the black flags that flew above our overrun embassies and consulates when they were attacked on 9/11/2012.
God Bless
Family Security Matters Contributing Editor Alan
Kornman is the regional coordinator of The United
West-Uniting Western Civilization for Freedom and
The morality of Paul Ryan’s budget
By Babette Francis - posted Thursday, 4 October 2012In Onlineopinion.com
Recent
polls on the
Perhaps the USCCB needs to take some responsibility for the confusion among Catholic voters, so many of whom seem to be willing to vote for the most pro-abortion President in US history - and the first to support same-sex "marriage" - because the message from the bishops has been somewhat mixed.
In April before Congressman Paul Ryan (Republican, Wisconsin's lst District) was chosen by Mitt Romney to be his Vice-Presidential candidate in the US November elections, Ryan proposed a budget plan which was adopted by the Republican-majority House of Representatives Budget Committee, 21-9. However, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) was been critical of Ryan's budget implying that it 'failed a basic moral test':
....The Catholic bishops of the
The USCCB was specifically concerned about alterations to the Child Tax Credit to exclude immigrant families (it is not clear whether this cut is targeted primarily at illegal immigrants), cuts in the food stamps and the Social Services Block Grant.
While the USCCB mentions serious deficits, I wonder
if they can get their heads around the 16 TRILLIONS of
Not all bishops agree with the USCCB statement.
Bishop Boyea,
Archbishop Joseph Naumann,
Archbishop Allen Vigneron,
Warm support for Paul Ryan came from Cardinal Dolan of New York who described Ryan as a "great public servant" and praised his “call for financial accountability, restraint and a balanced budget” as well as his “obvious solicitude for the poor.” He emphasized there are differences in “prudential judgment” over how to assist the poor.
Ryan's diocesan Bishop Morlino,
... I am proud of Paul Ryan's accomplishments as a native son, and a brother in the faith, and my prayers go with him and his family as they endure the unbelievable demands of a presidential campaign .....
Click here
to see this article in its entirety and
read more
August 2012: 969
People Slaughtered by by Muslims - one person
every 46 minutes
Welcome to Islam
Sept.
5, 2012
No
additional commentary required.
Rising anti-Islamic
sentiment in America troubles Muslims
By Moni Basu, CNN
Sept. 5, 2012
(CNN) – When the nation pauses
to remember 9/11 next week, a group of Tennesseans
will gather at the Embassy Suites Hotel in
On the program, called "The Threat in Our Backyard," is a lecture on Islam in public schools and a short film on Sharia finance.
It's a program organized by people who feel the American way of life is threatened by Islam - in particular, Sharia, or Islamic law.
Sharia would bring ruin to
He says he has nothing against Muslims, but he takes issue with the tenets of Islam.
Sharia, he believes, would mean that practicing homosexuals would be put to death, women would not be educated and would be married off to men chosen by their fathers, and non-Muslims would become kafirs - nonbelievers - relegated to second-class citizenship.
"And I don't want that coming to
He's not alone in his fears.
A tide of anti-Islam sentiment has been swelling across America in recent months, strong enough to prompt one imam to wish for the days immediately after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks when President George W. Bush declared that Muslims were not our enemies; that the war on terror was against a select few who acted upon their hate for America.
"In the 11 years since, we have retreated," says
Abdullah Antepli, the Muslim chaplain at
Muslims make up less than 1% of the
Hate crimes against Muslims spiked 50% in 2010, the
last year for which FBI statistics are available. That
was in a year marked by Muslim-bashing speech over the
Islamic center near ground zero in
Antepli likens the current climate to McCarthyism. Left unchecked, he says, anti-Muslim fervor, like racism and anti-Semitism, has the potential to evolve into something dangerous.
This year's holy month of Ramadan, which ended August
19, was marred by a spate of violence at
At least seven mosques and one cemetery were attacked
in the
Particularly visible on the anti-Muslim radar has
been the state of
Also in
State senatorial candidate Woody Degan's website also mentions Sharia:
"VOTE CONSERVATIVE! VOTE Anti-Sharia, VOTE Against Internet Taxes, Vote FOR Gun Carry Rights! VOTE for your PERSONAL RIGHTS!"
And Gov. Bill Haslam recently came under fire for
hiring lawyer Samar Ali, a Muslim woman from
Ali's critics called her Sharia-compliant and a website called Bill H(Islam) attacked the governor for pursuing "a policy that promotes the interest of Islamist (sic) and their radical ideology."
The website links to another that discusses, among other things, Islamic infiltration of public schools.
"I cannot stress enough the seriousness of their push
to spread their religion to all non-Muslims throughout
our country," says website author Cathy Hinners,
another speaker at next Tuesday's 9/11 event in
"Why? Why are Muslims so adamant that we accept their
religion? The answer is simple. The answer is in black
and white. The answer is in the Muslim brotherhoods
"Strategic Goal for
In November 2010, more than 70% of voters in
The amendment died after a federal court ruled it discriminatory.
"That was very explicitly anti-Islamic," says Glenn
Hendrix, an
This year, 33 anti-Sharia or international law bills
were introduced in 20 states, making it a key issue.
Six states -
Two
The Council on American-Islamic Relations says the
anti-Sharia bills are based on draft legislation
promoted by David Yerushalmi, an anti-Islamic lawyer
from
Yerushalmi founded the Society of Americans for National Existence, an organization devoted to promoting his theory that Islam is inherently seditious and Sharia is a "criminal conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. government," according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.
"Ideally," says the center, "he would outlaw Islam and deport its adherents altogether."
Hendrix says anti-Sharia legislation is not necessary
since
But it sends a strong message to the Muslim community.
The American Bar Association, which opposes federal or state laws that impose blanket prohibitions on foreign laws, says such legislative initiatives stigmatize an entire religious community and "are inconsistent with some of the core principles and ideals of American jurisprudence."
Valarie Kaur, a legal advocate and hate crimes specialist, says proponents of anti-Sharia bills are battling an imaginary threat.
"There is no push to install Sharia law in the
An attack at a Wisconsin Sikh temple last month
killed six people. Many believe the shooter mistook
Sikhs for Muslims. A Sikh gas station attendant in
Kaur blames tough economic times and an amplification of hateful speech for incidents like the temple shooting and the momentum behind the anti-Sharia campaign.
For Muslims, Sharia - which means "path to the watering hole" in Arabic - is the divine law revealed centuries ago in the Quran that governs all aspects of life. More often than not, it's the most sensational parts of Sharia - like cutting off a thief's hand - that garner the most publicity.
A trial court in
That's the kind of ruling that fuels anti-Sharia activists.
"If you wanted to pray to a large rock and that was your God, I could care less," he says. "But the minute you want to put a gun to my head and say you will pray to this large rock and your family will or you will pay the price, that's when I see a bully. I see an overbearing ideology that wants to force and coerce people.
Miller describes himself as a tolerant person but not when it comes to people dictating how others will live.
"That's antithetical to the freedoms that we value, the liberty we value," he says.
The message that Islam is evil has been repeated so many times - sometimes directly, sometimes in a more subtle fashion - that it has sunk in as reality in the hearts and minds of many Americans, says Antepli, the Duke chaplain.
Part of it is fear of the unknown, he says.
"I, too, would have a monstrous image of Islam if I did not know any better."
But another part of it is orchestrated, he says, referring to "well-organized and polished" anti-Islam websites that have sprouted in recent years. Marry that with ignorance and the end result is lethal, Antepli says.
The Center for American Progress, a liberal research and advocacy organization, published a report last year that attributed the rise of Islamophobia to a "small, tightly-networked group of misinformation experts."
The report called "Fear, Inc." lists seven foundations that gave $42.6 million to think tanks to promote anti-Islamic thought.
It describes "deeply intertwined individuals and organizations" that "manufacture and exaggerate threats of 'creeping Sharia,' Islamic domination of the West, and purported obligatory calls to violence against all non-Muslims by the Quran."
The issue of Sharia, say some Muslims, has become a political hot potato in an election year.
GOP candidates Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann mentioned Sharia in their campaign speeches. This year's Republican Party platform makes mention of foreign laws:
"Subjecting American citizens to foreign laws is
inimical to the spirit of the Constitution. It is one
reason we oppose
That's the message Miller hopes people will take away
from next week's 9/11 meeting; that the tenets of
Islam go against the constitution of the
It's diametrically opposed to what people like
Antepli and Kaur will be saying as
This
blog read be seen in its entirety at:
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/05/rising-anti-islamic-sentiment-in-america-troubles-muslims/
The
Growing Islamic Threat IN
from
The Strategy Page
September 4, 2012: Despite all the publicity about
increased defense spending, there is much less talk on
how to solve the growing problem with Islamic
terrorism. This is a war going on inside
August 29, 2012: In the Caucasus (
August 28, 2012: In the Caucasus (Ingushetia) several police raids left three Islamic terrorist dead, several more arrested, and large quantities of weapons and ammunition seized.
Also in the Caucasus, a group of Islamic terrorists
crossed the border from Dagestan into
August 27, 2012: A Russian shipyard launched the
first of six Kilo class submarines
August 26, 2012: In a rural part of southern
August 22, 2012: In the United States there was
an unsubstantiated news story about a Russian Akula
class nuclear submarine cruising through the
August 21, 2012: In the Caucasus (Kabardino-Balkaria)
an Islamic terrorist died in a gun battle with police.
In nearby
This
article can be read in its entirety at:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/russia/articles/20120903.aspx
From THE
FOUNDRY
Religious Freedom Means
“Sticking up for All Believers”
Ken McIntyre Aug. 21,
2012
The crowd erupted into disarmed laughter when Kevin J. “Seamus” Hasson got to the point. “I have to say when it comes to religious freedom and the other great constitutional questions at the moment that are at stake: However bad you think things are, however bleak it looks, however dire it may seem—it’s almost certainly worse than you think.”
That’s as good a reason as any to be better equipped for the debates ahead. Hasson, founder and president emeritus of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, made those remarks nearly four months ago upon receiving The Heritage Foundation’s Salvatori Prize for American Citizenship.
His acclaimed 2005 book, The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America, is just out in a timely paperback reprint from Image (with a new afterword).
Examples of government’s intolerance toward personal faith in the public square have multiplied since Hasson’s “it’s almost certainly worse” crack—from Obamacare’s Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate that employers get over their faith and provide employees with “free” abortion-inducing drugs, to elected officials who threaten to make an entrepreneur’s religion a reason to deny a building permit in their cities.
Hasson’s The Right to Be Wrong, overflowing with real-life cases and reflecting the life’s mission of this Notre Dame-trained lawyer and theologian, is about why we need to protect religious freedom from tyranny in all shapes and sizes.
“We are manning the believer’s side of the barricades against the forces who believe in nothingness,” the essayist and scholar said in accepting the Salvatori Prize during an April 26 luncheon in Colorado Springs opening Heritage’s 35th annual Resource Bank gathering. He added:
“Therefore, we need to
defend the rights of other people who believe in
something—even if we think they believe the wrong
thing. In so doing, we are sticking up for all
believers against the nihilists. We are standing
tall for those who are convinced there is a truth,
against those who are opposed to the very idea of
anybody making truth claims in public. That is the
fight that we are in the middle of—repelling an
assault by people who believe in nothing against the
very idea of believing in anything.”
This
article can be read in its entirety at
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/08/21/religious-freedom-means-sticking-up-for-all-believers/
Obama
Administration's War On Persecuted Christians
Friday, 03 August 2012 Right Side News
The Investigative Project on Terrorism
The Obama administration's support for its Islamist
allies means a lack of U.S. support for their enemies
or, more properly, victims—the Christian and
other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world.
Consider the many recent proofs:
According to Pete Winn of CNS:
The U.S. State Department removed the sections
covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on
Human Rights that it released on May 24, three
months past the statutory deadline Congress set for
the release of these reports. The new human
rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss
the status of religious freedom in each of the
countries covered—are also the human rights
reports that include the period that covered the Arab
Spring and its aftermath.
Thus, the reports do not
provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to
Christians and other religious minorities in
predominantly Muslim countries in the
The CNS report goes on to
quote several
In "Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution," James Walsh gives more examples of State Department indifference "regarding the New Years' murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the ravaging of a cathedral," including how the State Department "refused to list Egypt as 'a country of particular concern,' even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. "
And the evidence keeps mounting. Legislation to create a special envoy for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia—legislation that, in the words of the Washington Post, "passed the House by a huge margin," has been stalled by Sen. James Webb, D-Va.:
In a letter sent to Webb Wednesday night, Rep. Frank Wolf [R-Va, who introduced the envoy bill] said he "cannot understand why" the hold had been placed on a bill that might help Coptic Christians and other groups "who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death."
Yet the ultimate source of opposition is the State Department. The Post continues:
Webb spokesman Will Jenkins explained the hold by saying that "after considering the legislation, Senator Webb asked the State Department for its analysis." In a position paper issued in response, State Department officials said "we oppose the bill as it infringes on the Secretary's [Hillary Clinton's] flexibility to make appropriate staffing decisions," and suggested the duties of Wolf's proposed envoy would overlap with several existing positions. "The new special envoy position is unnecessary, duplicative, and likely counterproductive," the State Department said (emphasis added).
But as Wolf explained in his letter: "If I believed that religious minorities, especially in these strategic regions, were getting the attention warranted at the State Department, I would cease in pressing for passage of this legislation. Sadly, that is far from being the case. We must act now…. Time is running out."
There was little doubt among the speakers that, while Webb is the front man, Hillary Clinton—who was named often—is ultimately behind the opposition to the bill. (Videos of all speakers can be accessed here; for information on the envoy bill and how to contact Webb's office, click here).
Even those invited to
speak about matters outside of
In light of all this, naturally the Obama administration, in the guise of the State Department, would oppose a bill to create an envoy who will only expose more religious persecution that the administration will have to suppress or obfuscate?
Bottom line: In its
attempts to empower its Islamist allies, the current
This article can be read in its entirety at:
http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012080316785/editorial/rsn-pick-of-the-day/obama-administrations-war-on-persecuted-christians.html
Federal Court finds Obama appointees interfered with New Black Panther prosecution
July 30, 2012
By Conn
Senior Editorial Writer
The
A federal court in
The ruling came as part of a motion by the conservative legal watchdog group Judicial Watch, who had sued the DOJ in federal court to enforce a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents pertaining to the New Black Panthers case. Judicial Watch had secured many previously unavailable documents through their suit against DOJ and were now suing for attorneys’ fees.
Obama’s DOJ had claimed Judicial Watch was not entitled to attorney’s fees since “none of the records produced in this litigation evidenced any political interference whatsoever in” how the DOJ handled the New Black Panther Party case. But United States District Court Judge Reggie Walton disagreed. Citing a “series of emails” between Obama political appointees and career Justice lawyers, Walton writes:
The documents reveal that political appointees within
DOJ were conferring about the status and resolution of
the New Black Panther Party case in the days preceding
the DOJ’s dismissal of claims in that case, which
would appear to contradict Assistant Attorney General
Perez’s testimony that political leadership was not
involved in that decision. Surely the public has an
interest in documents that cast doubt on the accuracy
of government officials’ representations regarding the
possible politicization of agency decision-making.
…
In sum, the Court concludes that three of the four fee
entitlement factors weigh in favor of awarding fees to
Judicial Watch. Therefore, Judicial Watch is both
eligible and entitled to fees and costs, and the Court
must now consider the reasonableness of Judicial
Watch’s requested award.
The New Black Panthers case stems from a Election Day
2008 incident where two members of the New Black
Panther Party were filmed outside a polling place
intimidating voters and poll watchers by brandishing a
billy club. Justice Department lawyers investigated
the case, filed charges, and when the Panthers failed
to respond, a federal court in
“The Court’s decision is another piece of evidence showing the Obama Justice Department is run by individuals who have a problem telling the truth,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The decision shows that we can’t trust the Obama Justice Department to fairly administer our nation’s voting and election laws.”
This article can be viewed in its entirety at
http://washingtonexaminer.com/federal-court-finds-obama-appointees-interfered-with-new-black-panther-prosecution/article/2503500
NAPOLITANO:
Restraining Arizona
High court allows president discretion in upholding law or not
By Andrew P Napolitano
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
When the Obama
administration decided it had no interest in
preventing the movement of undocumented aliens from
The legislation created two conflicts that rose to the national stage. The first is whether any government may morally and legally interfere with freedom of association based on the birthplace of the person with whom one chooses to associate. The second is whether the states can enforce federal law in a manner different from that of the feds.
Regrettably, in addressing all of this earlier in the week, the Supreme Court overlooked the natural and fundamental freedom to associate. It is a natural right because it stems from the better nature of our humanity, and it is a fundamental right because it is protected from governmental interference by the Constitution. Freedom of association means that without force or fraud, you may freely choose to be in the presence of whomever you please, and the government cannot force you to associate with someone with whom you have chosen not to associate, nor can the government bar anyone with whom you wish to associate from associating with you.
Without even addressing the
now-taken-for-granted federal curtailment of the right
to associate with someone born in a foreign country
and whose presence is inconsistent with arbitrary
federal document requirements and quotas, the Supreme
Court earlier this week struck down three of the four
challenged parts of the Arizona statute, which
attempted to supplant the federal regulation of
freedom of association with its own version. It did so
because the Constitution specifically gives to
Congress the authority to regulate immigration, and
Congress, by excluding all other law-writing bodies in
the
The court specifically
invalidated the heart and soul of this misguided
Federal law cannot have a different meaning in different states, the court held. And just as the feds must respect state sovereignty in matters retained by the states under the Constitution (though they rarely do), so too, the states must respect federal sovereignty in matters that the Constitution has unambiguously delegated to the feds.
The court neither upheld nor invalidated Section 2B of the Arizona statute - which permits police inquiry of the immigration status of those arrested for non-immigration offenses - because the court found that, just as when the police stop a person for a violation of state or local law they may check their computers for outstanding warrants for the person they have stopped, so, too, they may check their computers for the person’s immigration status.
Shortly after the opinion
came down, the Obama administration announced that it
will cease providing Arizona police with the
immigration status of persons in that state, and it
will not detain anyone arrested by Arizona police for
immigration violations unless those violations rise to
the level of a felony, which undocumented presence in
the United States is not. Thus, this constitutional
rebuke to
So, because the
Have we lost sight of the perpetual tension between human freedom and human law? Either freedom is integral to our nature, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, or it comes from the government, as the president and the Supreme Court demonstrated they think this week. If it is integral to our nature, no government can tell us with whom we may freely associate. If it comes from the government, we should abandon all hope, as the government will permit the exercise of only those freedoms that are not an obstacle to the contemporary exercise of its powers.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. He is the author of “It Is Dangerous to Be Right When the Government Is Wrong: The Case for Personal Freedom” (Thomas Nelson, 2011).
Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution
Thursday,
24 May 2012
Coptic Christians
have resided in Egypt since the 1st century A.D.,
some 600 years before Muhammad began preaching and
630 years before he solidified Islam in the
Muslims entered Egypt in the year 639 and by the
13th century, Islam had taken over. By the 20th
century, Christians, who formed only 10 percent of
the Egyptian population, were finding themselves
victims of on-again-off-again pogroms conducted by
Muslim radicals.
Even so, under Sharia (Islamic law), non-Muslim
“infidels” have to pay a tax called the Jizya for
living in a Muslim country, even those whose
families predated the Muslims.
Egyptian Christians and U.S. citizens of Egyptian
ancestry feel abandoned by the United States,
which currently refuses to acknowledge persecution
of Christians by Muslims, lest it offend the
Muslim world.
President Barack Obama banks on Egyptian
Christians being too genteel to take to the
streets in protest as the radical leftists do.
On June 4, 2009, when President Obama delivered
his “New Beginnings” speech in
These terrorist acts, which began in earnest in the 1970s, escalated to a crescendo during the Arab Spring of 2011-2012 in
In February 2011, then Presidential Press Secretary Robert Gibbs pulled an Obama two-step by deflecting to the U.S. State Department questions regarding the New Years’ murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the ravaging of a cathedral.
The State Department’s answer was silence. Human Rights Watch, however, did note growing religious intolerance and violence against Christians in
The 2011 State Department Annual Report on International Religious Freedom refused to list
In May 2012, Christians fear that Islamists will be the finalists in the field of 13 presidential candidates for the June presidential run-off election. The candidates who happen to be Islamists are supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists.
The Salafists and the MB seek Islamic law as the basis for a new Egyptian constitution, which will consider all non-Muslims as infidels subject to persecution as third-class citizens.
During the Obama presidency, 31 major Islamist attacks have occurred worldwide, not counting those in
It is time for a new foreign policy.
©
2012 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
View article in its entirety at Newsmax.com: Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution
Commentary: Making the Fifth Amendment optional
The
By Dale
McFeatters
May 23, 2012
The framers of the U.S. Constitution were admirably clear, or so they and we thought, when they wrote in the Fifth Amendment that no person shall "be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law ..."
Note that the framers didn't specify that the person
had to be a
So important was this right to due process that the 14th Amendment reiterated that its protections also applied to the states.
Clear enough? Perhaps not.
The U.S. House recently affirmed the government's
power to detain indefinitely in military custody
suspected terrorists, even if they are
This provision does away with the presumption of innocence. If the detainee is deemed an "illegal combatant," the prisoner is 90 percent of the way toward being declared guilty without the technicality of a trial.
A coalition of Democrats and tea party-movement Republicans, skeptical about the ever-increasing power of a central government, failed to roll back that power, their amendment losing by the dismaying margin of 238 to 182.
Basically, the House reaffirmed a provision in a defense bill that President Barack Obama signed on Dec. 31.
In a statement accompanying the bill, Obama wrote, "My administration will not authorize indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a nation."
That's a commendable notion. But a right is not truly a right when someone else gets to decide whether and when that right should apply.
The Associated Press noted, "In a face-saving move, the House voted 243-173 Friday for an amendment that reaffirms Americans' constitutional rights."
It says something about our current crop of lawmakers that 173 of them would vote "no" on the Bill of Rights. Maybe for the past 220 or so years, the Constitution wasn't as clear as we thought.
Dale McFeatters’ column is distributed by the Scripps Howard News Service.
Article can be read in its
entirety at
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120523/OPINION01/205230316#ixzz1vi6NH2EC
A
RESPONSE TO ORDINANCE 2012-296
A
Response By Dr. Gene A. Youngblood
Presented at City
Council Meeting of 5/22/2012
WHEREAS Our City
council has introduced ordinance 2012-296. This bill
is cloaked under the disguise of equal
opportunity and non-discrimination in the
marketplace.
WHEREAS This
bill states that the city of
WHEREAS
Jacksonville, Florida as well as other cities and
states across America already have multiple
layers of federal, state and local laws,
boards, and commissions that prohibit
discrimination based on race, religion, sex,
or national origin.
This bill would add any “perceived sex”
(perceived sex, gender identity, or expression as
found on pages 3 (lines 7 and 20) and page 4 (lines
1-2)) and would abridge free speech.
WHEREAS The U.S.
Constitution, Florida Constitution, the EEOC, and
several other civil rights laws, all provide more
than adequate oversight and protection
against discrimination in every area in the
workplace.
WHEREAS
Ordinance 2012-296 provides and would codify
rules and regulations that would surpass
and/or circumvent our U.S. Constitution,
Florida Constitution, and present laws- thus, the
bill is unconstitutional.
WHEREAS Lines
22-24 on page 3 would bring about chaos,
major additional workplace expenses,
and confusion.
This provision would force every business
to provide unisex restrooms. States
such as
WHEREAS
Ordinance 2012-296 clearly recognizes that
the requirements of this bill go beyond
the U.S Constitution as revealed in lines
1-5 of page 3, wherein the reference to the bill’s
constitutionality has been stricken.
WHEREAS Page 4,
lines 1-3, provides for a person’s actual or perceived
sexuality, it would be impossible to
legislate or police.
This will cause a major increase in tax
money to investigate and/or enforce. This means
that a man may “only” perceive he
is a woman and can enter a woman’s
restroom or demand special exceptions. This would
also allow pedophiles and multitudes of
other perverts to file discrimination
charges against businesses.
WHEREAS Ordinance
2012-296 will be costly and prohibitive
making the end result a net
loss of business or industry coming to
WHEREAS
Ordinance 2012-296 would be overreaching and
overly encompassing by forcing a business
owner to go against his moral
conscience, to comply with the essence
of law that would be contrary to his moral,
ethical beliefs.
WHEREAS
Ordinance 2012-296 will create a special “super
class” of protected people that the
U.S. Constitution, Florida Constitution, and state
laws do not recognize as having “special
privileges.”
Remember: “Thou shalt
not lie with a man, as with a woman; it is an
abomination.” (Lev. 18-22).
WHEREAS Section
406.102 of ordinance 2012-296, “Declaration of
policy” is clearly overstepping the
bounds of the U.S. Constitution and the Florida
Constitution. Furthermore,
the major cost for the city to be in
compliance will further increase our $58
million budget deficit. The moral,
ethical property owners will be charged
increased fees and taxes to pay
for this immoral law that would circumvent
free speech.
WHEREAS Page 10
lines 7-16 of ordinance 2012-296 will further increase
the cost of providing housing in our
city. This
section will also cause very serious escalation
of tax dollars for the city to be in compliance
of this bill.
WHEREAS Page 2,
lines 1-6 make it clear that 2012-296 is designed
for more than just an equal rights
bill for labor.
This bill would “in fact” make it illegal
for anyone speaking out about any
religion in any “antagonism.” This bill
would impose regulations on free speech
in the public arena.
This bill is unconstitutional!
WHEREAS It is
the position of the undersigned patriots, clergy
and moral leaders that this bill should not
be approved in any form or part
thereof, based on the following summary:
1. This
bill would establish a “special class”
of citizens, contrary to our Constitution.
2. This
bill would provide for broad application and
enforcement of a law that is not in compliance
with the U.S. Constitution. This bill
is unconstitutional!
3. This
bill would greatly infringe Constitutional
Rights in the free exercise of one’s moral
conscience.
4. This
bill would bring about a major tax
increase for
5. This
bill would criminalize free speech as
relates to various religions or homosexuality
as prescribed in God’s Word, the Bible. The
Bible declares “sodomy,
and those who practice this vile,
evil, lifestyle; God has given
them over to a reprobate life.”
6. This
bill would marginalize Christians
and “all” moral, ethical citizens of
7. This
bill would reduce, not increase the
desirability and social climate for businesses
to settle in
8. This
bill uses a “straw man,” false premise
that businesses have in history past refused
to come to
9. This
bill will create division, discord,
debate and declension in our city
that is not welcomed or wanted.
10. This
bill is in conflict with and contradicts
everything moral, ethical, and Biblical. We do not
want Jacksonville, Florida to be another San
Francisco.
Remember, a human law,
regardless of good intentions, cannot circumvent
or nullify God’s law. God’s Word
both in Old and New Testament is replete
with God’s condemnation of sodomy! Remember: “Righteousness
exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach (shame,
insult) to any people!” Prov. 14:34
DISCRIMINATION
IN
May 22,
2012
Introduction:
Bill
2012-296 is introduced as a works bill, but
it is, in fact, a far-reaching, overreaching,
unconstitutional effort to develop and codify
a “special class” of citizens under
the cloak of “anti-discrimination.”
Do we
have discrimination in
Do we
have discrimination in
Yes, We
do!
What is
discrimination?
1.
Discrimination is:
When a
Christian teacher in a government controlled school
is threatened with dismissal just
because as a Christian, he had his personal
Bible on his desk.
2.
Discrimination is:
When a
teacher is forbidden to say, “God bless
you,” or “We are praying for you,” to a
student.
3.
Discrimination is:
When a
student is not allowed to wear a t-shirt
with a Christian symbol, yet immoral or anti-God
slogans are accepted.
4.
Discrimination is:
When a second
grader is forbidden to thank Jesus
over her lunch because the teacher said she was on government
property.
5.
Discrimination is:
When
moral ethical parents are not told when the
schools planned a recognition day for
sodomites in our schools
6.
Discrimination is:
When
Christians are not allowed to have Christian
clubs (after school) in most public schools,
yet all other non-Biblical, ungodly clubs are
allowed to meet.
7.
Discrimination is:
When we
are told that we cannot pray in Jesus’ name,
yet, Islamic-jihadists are free to worship
and pray to Allah in public schools in
8.
Discrimination is:
When
small startup churches are not allowed to
meet in school buildings for services in many
states.
9.
Discrimination is:
When
YouTube pulls Christian videos, but allows
the ungodly garbage over the same
internet system.
10.
Discrimination is:
When a Christian
school is persecuted by city government
in
11.
Discrimination is:
When Christian
teachers in
12.
Discrimination is:
When a
Christian worker is forbidden to put
a verse of Scripture on her
private cubicle wall or be fired.
13.
Discrimination is:
When
Christians are required to pay taxes
which are then used to support a “special class”
of individuals who have chosen to
live ungodly, dissipated lifestyles
and demand acceptance.
14.
Discrimination is:
When our
city will not allow any religious ads to be
purchased on the side of city buses,
but will allow any other ads.
15.
Discrimination is:
When street
preachers are arrested in some cities for “disturbing
the peace,” when Islamics, homosexuals,
pedophiles and other deviants are
free to assemble.
16.
Discrimination is:
When any
city council or branch of government
codifies “any” law that is unconstitutional
just to appease the “sodomites” in their
chosen lifestyles.
THEREFORE:
We publicly reject
this entire bill and go on record
that we will vote against any council
person running for re-election
or any public office in
WND EXCLUSIVE
Holder
orders women's restrooms open to male
University caves in
after warning from Obama DOJ
On orders from Barack Obama’s Department of Justice,
officials with the
The report comes from Campus Reform.org, which explained that the individual also is seeking to have someone pay for a sex reassignment surgery to change from male to female.
Already living as a female, the individual, identified in the report as Jennifer Braly, started using women’s restrooms on campus, but quickly was the subject of complaints from women who saw him there.
The university had tried to make accommodations, designating gender-neutral restrooms in some buildings.
Not good enough, however.
Braly filed a complaint with the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder, school officials reported. The DOJ contacted the school.
“[T]he office of civil rights basically made its expectations through the attorney and the decision was made to respond to that direction,” said Mark Horn, the vice president of university relations. “[T]he DOJ complaint caused revisiting of our thinking.
“In the eyes of the law this individual [Braly] is entitled to use the bathroom that she identifies with,” Horn said.
The DOJ complaint was filed by Braly after the university told him to use any of the gender-neutral restrooms on campus.
“One problem to this is there are not unisex bathrooms in every building,” Braly wrote in an online essay about how other people should contribute to his surgery costs. “Especially the two main buildings where most of my classes are, so I have to go to a completely different building to use the restroom.”
While the university offered to convert other restrooms to gender-neutral, Braly said that wasn’t satisfactory.
The Campus Reform report said while anatomy matters little to the DOJ, it still remains a concern for other students.
“‘I disagree with allowing a male to use the female restrooms,” Amanda Shook, a senior at UA, told Campus Reform. “Even if they are a transgendered person, they are still a man, and should have to use the men’s restroom.”
The DOJ and school both have declined to release the letter giving the school directions on the dispute, Campus Reform reported.
The DOJ told Campus Reform that the records “pertain to a currently active Civil Rights Division enforcement and access to the records should therefore be denied pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A) since disclosure thereof could reasonably be expected to interfere with Civil Rights Division enforcement proceedings.”
While Braly did not respond to Campus Reform requests for comment, there is an extensive monologue by Braly on the fundraising website WePay.
That reflects that $75 has been contributed to the estimated $18,500 costs of the surgery.
Braly writes that his finances are depleted because when a second marriage ended, a custody battle “drained all my funds.”
“I am now a full-time student at the
Braly explains that the choice to use women’s restrooms was unnoticed for a time.
“Then I took General Psychology and had asked the professor if I could give a lecture on Gender Identity Disorders for some extra credit. She not only allowed me to speak to my class but her other 2 classes as well. She also referred me to another professor and I spoke in his class too.
“I was excited I was educating people about being a transsexual and the other types of Gender Identity Disorders. Those lectures would be the beginning of all my problems. As I did get many great responses from students how my lectures greatly changed their perspective of what transsexuals are, some students were not so accepting.
“Some saw me using the womens public restrooms and complained to the university that they didn’t think I should be using the restroom with them.”
The report also complains that Braly didn’t get special accommodations in living arrangements.
“There came a problem that they would not let me room with males, and I could not room with females either unless I became friends with them and disclosed all my medical information to them…” the report continues.
“I tried to be creative and work with them on this, but to no prevail (sic),” the report said.
“Regardless of where I am at in my transtion (sic) I should have the same rights as every other female.”
Part of the reason for requesting donations for the
surgery is because Braly’s income goes partly toward
the monthly costs of hormone treatments as well as
“required psychotherapy for transsexuals.”
To
read this article in its entirety at World Net
Daily, click here.
A
Sanctuary Amid Fears of Persecution at Home
By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: May 16, 2012
Some of the Indonesian Christians seeking to avoid deportation wear ankle monitors to ensure compliance with court orders.
Many Indonesians came to
Now, the church is taking on another role: sanctuary for five Indonesian Christians facing deportation and fearful of religious persecution in their homeland.
“When I got here, I felt safety,” said Arthur Jemmy,
36, an Indonesian who had been scheduled to be
deported on April 30. “I feel really terrified to go
back to
The situation has challenged the church’s co-pastor, the Rev. Seth Kaper-Dale, to weigh the law against his moral and religious beliefs.
“You can read all sorts of stuff about the trouble you can get in if you prevent the government from doing its job on immigration,” Mr. Kaper-Dale, 36, said. “We have to stand with the oppressed even if the law of the land sometimes doesn’t exactly coincide with the teachings of peace and justice and love found in Scripture.”
Indonesian Christians in central
In 2009, Mr. Kaper-Dale, who has been the church’s co-pastor, with his wife, Stephanie, since 2001, brokered an unusual agreement with immigration authorities: The Indonesians, then numbering 72, would be allowed to stay temporarily and work, but the permission could be rescinded at any moment.
With the extra time, Mr. Kaper-Dale hoped, the
Indonesians would be able to secure permanent legal
status, either through the courts or changes in
immigration laws in
In any case, he said, the Indonesians should be eligible for long-term relief under the Obama administration’s policy of focusing its deportation efforts on serious criminals and immigrants who pose a threat to public safety.
But late last year, the Department of Homeland
Security began ordering the Indonesians to appear at
its
Despite aggressive lobbying by Mr. Kaper-Dale and
other advocates for immigrants, the deportations
began. On Jan. 3, a member of the group, Freddy
Pangau, was sent back to
On March 1, the day Saul Timisela was scheduled to be deported, Mr. Kaper-Dale opened the doors of the church to him. Mr. Timisela was wearing an electronic monitor that immigration officials had attached to his ankle weeks earlier to ensure compliance with court dates and the deportation order.
“Today, we will cry out to God, and cry out to the president, asking that he stop deporting Indonesian Christian refugees who are neither criminals nor egregious immigration offenders,” Mr. Kaper-Dale wrote in an e-mail to reporters.
In interviews, the Indonesians said they were eager
to find a path to legal status in the
Mr. Timisela, 45, said that in 1998, several months
before he left
“I hope they understand what we’re doing here,” he said of the American government. “We’re looking for a better life, freedom of worship.”
Immigration officials said they were reviewing
appeals for prosecutorial discretion on a
“case-by-case basis,” suspending the deportation of
some of the Indonesians who posed no threat to public
safety and had strong familial and community ties in
the
Ross Feinstein, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Homeland Security Department, said the agency had extended stays of removal for 25 of the Indonesian Christians in central New Jersey since last fall “due to the specific circumstances” of their cases.
Mr. Kaper-Dale is banking on the passage of a bill in the House of Representatives that would allow certain Indonesians who fled persecution in their homeland from 1997 to 2002 to resubmit asylum claims that had been denied because they missed the one-year filing deadline.
On the bulletin board in his office, the pastor has posted a large spread sheet. It lists all the Indonesian Christians who have sought his help and the status of their cases, from their immigration registration numbers to the citizenship of their children, the status of their spouses and the date of their scheduled deportations.
“I used to have to keep very careful track, but now I have it in my head,” Mr. Kaper-Dale said. “I know their lives — inside and out.”
This article may be read in its entirety at
The United Church Observer
Compassion for the
persecuted?
By Mike Milne
May,
2012
In the
years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution,
At the United Nations last fall, Canada’s Foreign
Affairs Minister John Baird cited the plight of Iran’s
Baha’is, women, Christians and dissident Muslims while
announcing plans for a Canadian Office of Religious
Freedom. Six months later, it’s still not entirely
clear how the office will operate or what it will do
beyond a vague mandate to address religious
persecution around the world. Baird continues to hold
consultations with religious leaders in
Many of them have high hopes that the new office will
fulfil Baird’s pledge at the UN “to defend the
vulnerable, to challenge the aggressor, to protect and
promote human rights and human dignity, at home and
abroad.” Amid the hopeful voices, though, are
accusations that consultations haven’t been broad or
transparent enough, and fears that the office may
simply be a ploy to lure religious voters.
Few dispute that religious persecution is a problem.
According to the U.S.-based Pew Forum on Religion and
Public Life, restrictions on and hostilities over
religion affect 2.2 billion people, a third of the
world’s population.
Religious persecution ranges from hostility between
faiths — such as attacks by radical Islamists on
Coptic Christians in Egypt — to state-sanctioned
suppression of all religions (as in North Korea),
minority religions (Christians in Saudi Arabia) or any
believers seen as enemies of the state (Jehovah’s
Witnesses and some evangelical Christians in Eritrea).
Official restrictions on religion range from
In
In 2010, Christians were estimated to comprise 33
percent of the world’s population. The Pew Forum study
found that Christians were harassed in more countries
— 130 — than any other faith group. Muslims, harassed
in 117 countries, were second. And although Jews make
up only about one percent of the world’s population,
they are fourth on the list, harassed in 75 countries.
Don Hutchinson, vice-president of the Evangelical
Fellowship of Canada (EFC), was a panelist at the
Department of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade’s initial consultation on the proposed Office of
Religious Freedom in
The notion that Stephen Harper’s Conservative
government has teamed up with Christian conservatives
is not new. In her 2010 book, The Armageddon
Factor, author Marci McDonald outlines how
Harper — who grew up in the
Hutchinson, a lawyer with a long record of
pro-Christian human rights work, brushes off those
concerns and denies reports that the consultation was
closed or secretive. He also says it’s natural that as
a Christian and the chair of a group of evangelicals
working on the issue of persecution (the Religious
Liberty Commission), he is mainly concerned about
Christians. “So, we’re out engaging on the persecution
of Christians,” says
Len Rudner, director of community relations and
outreach for the newly created Centre for
“This is certainly more than simply speaking out
because we believe our community has something to
gain,” he says. “It’s not just about us.”
If Baird’s office is attempting to push only the
concerns of certain groups, it’s covering its tracks
exceptionally well. In his speech to the UN, after
promising to stand up for persecuted minority
Buddhists and Muslims in
Joining Christian, Jewish and Baha’i groups at last
fall’s consultation were Shia, Sunni and Ahmadiyya
Muslims, plus Hindus and Buddhists. Due in part to
travel budget cutbacks, the Canadian Council of
Churches monitored the event by Internet. The
Still, says Imam Abdul Hai Patel, past co-ordinator of
the Canadian Council of Imams, mainstream Muslim
groups like his were not invited to the
In the government’s defence, Muslim groups are
numerous and varied. Reaching all of them is not easy.
The Muslim Canadian Congress, which did attend the
consultation, claims to represent the majority of
Canadian Muslims — who, according to the group’s
founder, Toronto-based author and radio host Tarek
Fatah, defy stereotypes by rarely attending mosques,
by opposing Shariah law and by not wearing the hijab.
Fatah, who bills himself as an enemy of militant
Islam, says the proposed Office of Religious Freedom
is “quite timely.” And he’s blunt about why. “The main
issue here is we’re not talking about the mistreatment
of, say, Muslim immigrants in
Announcing the beginning of World Interfaith Harmony
Week earlier this year, United Church Moderator Mardi
Tindal quoted the United Nations’ acknowledgment that
“Our world is rife with religious tension and, sadly,
mistrust, dislike and hatred.” Yet, as Fatah suggests,
the
As Allan also points out,
“I have been challenged by the Jewish community . . .
over the years for a general Christian inattention to
the persecution of Christians around the world,” says
Canadian Council of Churches general secretary Rev.
Karen Hamilton. “That’s not to say there are any easy
answers, but maybe we need to pay a little more
attention.”
This abbreviated article may be read in its entirety at
http://www.ucobserver.org/features/2012/05/compassion/
From
Officials: Expanded drone
strikes approved
Associated
Press
| Posted: Thursday, April 26, 2012
The
Prior
practice required militants to be identified as part
of a lengthy legal vetting process. Now, tracking an
individual in the act of commanding al-Qaida fighters
or planning an attack on
"What
this means in practice is there are times when
counterterrorism professionals can assess with high
confidence someone is an AQAP leader, even if they
can't tell us by name who that individual is," one of
the officials said, referring to al-Qaida in the
Arabian Peninsula.
The White
House did not approve wider targeting of groups of
al-Qaida foot soldiers, a practice sometimes employed
by the CIA in
The new
policy will widen the war against AQAP,
The past
year of political turmoil in Yemen, since the start of
revolts linked to last year's Arab Spring, is "making
it harder for them (the Yemeni government) to take a
focused effort against al-Qaida" one of the officials
said. "So these are counterterrorism tools designed to
protect
The
expanded strikes would not be used in support of the
Yemeni government's fight against internal opponents,
the official added.
The
Copywrite 2012 AP
This article can be read in its entirety at
The war is over?
Tribune Media Services
April
26, 2012
Really? Well, if the war is over, I must have missed
the peace treaty signing ceremony. I also haven't
noticed a decline in incendiary rhetoric, or the
disarmament -- or at least laying down of arms -- that
usually accompanies the end of war. Does this mean we
can do away with full-body scanners and TSA pat-downs?
DFLers
want U.S.
By Joe Kimball
MinnPost.com
04/23/12
It's not only Republicans looking for constitutional amendments these days.
DFLers (Democratic Farmer Labor Party members) in the Minnesota House and Senate have introduced bills asking Congress to call a constitutional convention to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would clarify that corporations are not people.
There's been much consternation on this point, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a corporate political spending case that corporations have a First Amendment right to free speech.
The bill introduced by DFLers wants the constitutional amendment to say:
- (1) The
rights protected by the Constitution of the
- (2)
Artificial entities, such as corporations, limited
liability companies, and others established by the
laws of any state, the
- (3) The privileges of artificial entities shall be determined by the people, through federal, state, or local law, and shall not be construed to be inherent or inalienable.
- (4) Federal, state, and local government shall regulate, limit or prohibit contributions and expenditures, including a candidate's own contributions and expenditures, for the purpose of influencing in any way the election of any candidate for public office or any ballot measure.
- (5) Federal, state, and local government shall require that any permissible contributions and expenditures be publicly disclosed.
- (6) The judiciary shall not construe the spending of money to influence elections to be speech under the First Amendment.
- (7) Nothing contained in this amendment shall be construed to abridge the freedom of the press.
In the state House, the bill was introduced and referred to committee.
This article can be seen in its entirety atCatholic Bishops Urge
‘Campaign’ for Religious Freedom
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
In New York Times
Published April 12, 2012
The nation’s Roman Catholic bishops issued a proclamation on Thursday calling for every priest, parish and layperson to participate in “great national campaign” to defend religious liberty, which they said is “under attack, both at home and abroad.”
In particular they urged every diocese to hold a “Fortnight for Freedom” during the two weeks leading up to the Fourth of July, for parishioners to study, pray and take public action to fight what they see as the government’s attempts to curtail religious freedom.
“To be Catholic and American should mean not having to choose one over the other,” said the statement, issued by the bishops ad hoc committee on religious freedom.
For more than half a year, the bishops have put the religious liberty issue front and center, but it has not yet galvanized the Catholic laity and has even further polarized the church’s liberal and conservative flanks. In an election year, liberal Catholics have accused the bishops of making the church an arm of the Republican Party in the drive to defeat President Obama — an accusation that the bishops reject.
“This ought not to be a partisan issue,” the bishops say in their statement in a section addressed to political leaders. “The Constitution is not for Democrats or Republicans or Independents. It is for all of us, and a great nonpartisan effort should be led by our elected representatives to ensure that it remains so.”
In the document, the bishops seek to explain that their alarm is not only about the mandate in the health reform act that requires even Catholic colleges and hospitals to have insurance plans that cover birth control. They cite seven examples of what they say are violations of religious freedom, including immigration laws in several states that they say make it illegal to minister to illegal immigrants.
They also assert that the government has violated the religious freedom of Catholics by cutting off contracts to Catholic agencies. Several states have denied financing to Catholic agencies that refused to place foster children with gay parents. And the federal government refused to reauthorize a grant to a Catholic immigration organization that served victims of sex trafficking because as a Catholic group, it would not provide or refer women to services for abortion and birth control.
Quoting from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” the bishops say that
unjust laws should be either changed or resisted. “In
the face of an unjust law,” the bishops wrote, “an
accommodation is not to be sought. If we face today
the prospect of unjust laws, then Catholics in
Article
can be seen in its original entirety at
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/13/us/catholic-bishops-urge-campaign-for-religious-freedom.html
Pastor
Youcef Nadarkhani Spends 35th Birthday Behind Bars
By Tiffany Barrans
April 11, 2012
Today, is Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani’s birthday, and
our sources in
This is the third birthday that Pastor Youcef has
been forced to celebrate behind bars, condemned to
death in
Tomorrow, marks exactly two and a half years of imprisonment – 913 days illegally held in prison for his faith.
Both the Iranian Constitution and the International
Declaration of Human Rights, of which
Today, Christians and supporters of Pastor Youcef all
around the world are holding a fasting and prayer
vigil for the persecuted pastor to bring attention to
his plight. Just last week, hundreds of Christians and
supporters of religious liberty attended a vigil and
march for Pastor Youcef’s release in
These are just a few examples of the increasing
international pressure being placed on
The ACLJ’s Tweet for Youcef campaign is now reaching
nearly 1.5 million Twitter accounts around the world
each day with updates about Pastor Youcef. His story
has reached over 91 percent of the United Nations
member states, including
Even with this increasing international pressure on
Please continue to pray for Pastor Youcef. As a Birthday present for Pastor Youcef and symbol of solidarity for those persecuted for their faith, please let the world know that you support Pastor Youcef by signing up to Tweet for Youcef today.
Happy Birthday Pastor Youcef.
Article can be seen in its original entirety at
http://aclj.org/iran/pastor-youcef-nadarkhani-spends-birthday-behind-bars
Obama’s supremely damaging court battle
His accusations of judicial activism are off the markNEW YORK
Thursday,
April 5, 2012
By Andrea Tantaros
After
years of barely mentioning Obamacare due to its
unpopularity in the polls, it is now seemingly all
President Obama and his aides find themselves talking
about. But instead of defending the mandate’s
constitutionality — the main issue in question for the
Supreme Court — the President unwisely decided to
launch an attack on the court itself.
At a press conference on Monday, Obama expressed the
belief that the Court would not take an
“unprecedented, extraordinary step” by overturning the
law. He then went on to caution the “unelected” court
against reaching any other conclusion, and spoke of
concerns about judicial activism.
In fact, overturning unconstitutional laws is exactly
the job of the Supreme Court.
But the real story is how he went after the justices.
This is rare behavior for a President, but it’s not
the first time Obama has ventured into this taboo
territory. In January 2010, the President complained
in his State of the Union Address about the court’s
decision in Citizens United v. the Federal Election
Commission, holding that the government may not keep
corporations or unions from spending money to support
or oppose candidates in elections.
Judicial activism is seeing things in the
Constitution that aren’t there just to get a specific
result. The Commerce Clause is in the Constitution,
but so is the 10th Amendment, meaning that whatever
isn’t written down here is left to the states. While
Obama might think he has no option but to demagogue
the Supreme Court should his law get struck down, he
has no business in meddling in its affairs, playing
politics with matters of pure law.
The Constitution is designed to limit the vast growth
of government. The Founders put many checks and
balances in place to protect liberty and impede the
progressive agenda of expanded government. The real
activism is on the part of liberals who want to
subvert the original meaning of the Constitution.
The judicial system, it should be noted, isn’t taking
the President’s comments lightly. Following the
President’s controversial comments, a three-judge
panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th
Circuit, ordered the Justice Department to answer by
Thursday whether the Obama administration believes
that the courts have the right to strike down a
federal law (Marbury v.
It makes for a real conundrum for the President in a
tough election year, but it’s one of his own making.
Obama is asking the court to radically rethink the
Constitution and read the Commerce Clause as giving
him unprecedented power. He is turning the 10th
Amendment into a guideline. And he is now putting the
court in a position where it is reviewing two
centuries of established precedent, all while he
criticizes that same court.
If this mandate is struck down, he will have to defend more than his words. He’ll have to defend how he spent the last four years wasting his time, and ours, with a law that was never really constitutional.
This
article can be read in its original entirety at
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/obama-supremely-damaging-court-battle-article-1.1056570
Is the Health Care Law Constitutional? No, Strike It Down
DAVID J. PORTER, VISION FOR CENTER & VALUES
Editor’s note: A version of this article
first appeared in the
This summer, the Supreme Court will decide whether Congress violated the Constitution when it enacted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which contains an “individual mandate” requiring virtually every American to purchase health insurance. Based on the Constitution’s text and structure, and judicial interpretations of the relevant provisions, the mandate should be struck down.
The framers and those who ratified the Constitution withheld from Congress a plenary police power to enact any law that it deems desirable. Instead, the powers granted to Congress in Article I of the Constitution are limited and enumerated. The 10th Amendment emphasizes this structure by affirming that all powers not given to Congress “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Given that background, the states’ argument against ACA is simple: Even under the broadest interpretation, Congress’ enumerated powers do not authorize a federal law that forces individuals to purchase health insurance.
ACA’s defenders argue that Congress’ authority to impose the mandate is granted by any of three constitutional provisions: the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, or the Taxing Clause. However, under the original understanding of those provisions and the more expansive interpretation given to them by the Supreme Court in recent decades, the mandate is an unprecedented assertion of federal control that violates the framers’ constitutional design.
As Congress itself said in the ACA, the mandate purports to regulate each individual’s “economic and financial decision” whether to purchase health insurance. But if that is a valid exercise of Commerce Clause power, then there is literally no end to Congress’ power over individuals.
Finally, ACA’s defenders argue that even if the individual mandate is not supported by the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause, it is nevertheless constitutional because it is a tax. For example, the penalty for noncompliance is calculated as a percentage of household income for income tax purposes, and it is self-declared on the taxpayer’s income tax return.
Congress foreclosed this argument by separating the
individual mandate from the penalty. The mandate
itself offends the constitutional separation of
powers; it cannot be saved by pointing to a penalty
for noncompliance. In any event, the monetary fine was
deliberately structured as a “penalty” and not as a
“tax.” Congress could have provided health insurance
for all Americans by invoking its Article I power
“[t]o lay and collect Taxes,” but following President
Barack Obama’s lead, it refused to do so for political
reasons.The federal government's Taxing clause
argument has been rejected by every court that has
reviewed the ACA, and the Supreme court is not likely
to adopt it, either. Nor should it.
The Moral Liberal Guest
Contributor, David J. Porter, J.D., is an
attorney with Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC, a
trustee of
This article may be read in it’s entirety at:
http://www.themoralliberal.com/2012/03/28/is-the-health-care-law-constitutional-no-strike-it-down/
Speech
delivered
by Dr. Gene A. Youngblood
3/23/12
In
front of Federal Courthouse,
Our Constitution (Amendment I) says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Ladies and gentlemen, our government, under the leadership of a socialist agenda that is determined to shred our beloved Constitution, thus destroying our freedoms.
We live in a very dark era, our national media have determined not to present real truth in news, or they report with such bias as to nullify the facts. We are watching a complicit Senate give right-of-way to the Executive Branch of Government to control our nation.
We now have a nation being directed and dictated to by about 200 un-elected czars that are proud socialists and/or sodomites. God help us to stand up, speak up, and act as the ethical, moral nation we once were. Believers are to be salt and light.
What is Freedom? Where do we get our freedoms? God has given us our freedoms and we have codified them, “…All men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”
Senator Rand Paul said, “Without the right to life, there can be no liberty or pursuit of happiness.”
Ladies and gentlemen, God has provided us with the greatest nation and Constitution on the face of the earth. He has charged us with the responsibility of vigilance, commitment and involvement in the protection of our freedom.
What is freedom?
FREEDOM IS a raw milk farmer not fearful of the Gestapo breaking into his home.
FREEDOM IS praying in Jesus’name without fear or intimidation.
FREEDOM IS a child who can take a sack lunch to school without fear of it being taken.
FREEDOM IS being able to fly the American flag without breaking a law.
FREEDOM IS to be able to read the Bible in a public classroom without arrest.
FREEDOM IS being able to reject Shariah Law as unconstitutional without threats from C.A.I.R.
FREEDOM IS going to be at night
without fear of invasion by
FREEDOM IS openness of our
government in
FREEDOM IS deciding our own food menu, diet and medical care without governmental intervention or directive.
FREEDOM IS allowing every child conceived to have “life” protection under our Constitution.
FREEDOM IS living in a land where the government cannot intrude into the church.
Separation of church and state is Biblically God-based rather than mandated by a law of rulers. King Uzziah entered into the temple to offer sacrifice though eighty one priests begged him not to, as is the fitting duty and responsibility of the church. Uzziah did it anyway, and God killed him, therefore we must say, “Government! Hands off God’s church! Stop the marginalization of believers!”
FREEDOM IS the ability to render
to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and unto God,
without the government (city, state or national)
using back door fees to rob God’s offering plate.
Where would
FREEDOM IS having a government that is restrained by the U.S. Constitution: American law and NO international, foreign, or Koranic-Shariah law in our courts.
FREEDOM IS having our educational
system returned to our state and local leaders from
the czars in
FREEDOM IS not having the government mandate faith/religious, Christian people to have to choose between conscience, constitution or confiscation by government. Our churches, church schools and universities should not be forced to provide abortion or contraception against our Biblical, theological or spiritual convictions.
FREEDOM IS not being forced to provide murder by abortion at taxpayers’ expense.
FREEDOM IS having Presidential candidates provide a legitimate birth certificate and proof of citizenship before running for office.
FREEDOM IS knowing that we have Constitutional Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
FREEDOM IS knowing that our children in school are being taught TRUE American history without the distortions, deletions, and the promotions of Islam in our textbooks.
FREEDOM IS knowing that our fee simple title dees to our properties are secure without fear of the EPA Gestapo seizing it to protect a snail or rodent.
FREEDOM IS in the final analysis knowing God, through His Son, Jesus Christ, and NOT being fearful to call the name of Jesus from the highest mountain.
FREEDOM IS not apologizing for breaking things and killing people in a just war.
The book of Daniel, Chapter Three tells us of three young men who refused to bow to a law. They were thrown in the fiery furnace, but because of their faith in God, they did NOT burn! Daniel was thrown into the den of lions for refusing to obey a godless law. The lions became his pillow- God delivered him!
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I read you some quotes from our founding fathers-
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as liberty without freedom of speech.” –Benjamin Franklin
“Those who would give up essential liberties to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
“If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a republic? The answer would be an inviolable respect for the Constitution and laws- the first growing out of the last- a sacred respect for the Constitutional law is the vital principle, th sustaining energy of a free government.”
- Alexander Hamilton
“When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when government fears the people, there is liberty. – Thomas Jefferson
“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance” – Thomas Jefferson
“In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand firm like a rock. – Thomas Jefferson
Ladies and Gentlemen- Let’s send
a message to
WE WILL not surrender our Constitution on the account of convenience.
WE WILL not sacrifice our convictions on the altar of coercion.
WE WILL not submit our church
rights to the rule of unelected czars in
WE WILL not be silent and allow socialism to subvert our Constitution.
WE WILL be vigilant, visible, vocal and vote in every election.
WE WILL have “Revolution” at the Ballot Box.
The Bible is very clear in Acts 5:29 that “we ought to obey God rather than man.”
Christian Missions Play Key Role Amid Rumors of 'New
Darfur ' Genocide
From The Christian Post
By Luiza Oleszczuk, Christian Post Reporter
March 13, 2012
As reports coming from Sudan paint an increasingly
gruesome picture of the Khartoum government allegedly
planning to wipe out the country's ethnic populations
and non-Muslims in the southern region of the Nuba
Mountains, local Christian missions are playing an
important role, as even the United Nations has no
access to the country's embattled southern regions.
Experts have been warning that
The south of overwhelmingly Muslim Sudan used to be
traditionally Christian and ethnically tribal African,
as opposed to the mostly Arab north. Most of the south
seceded in 2011 and formed
While the Islamist government forces were ravaging
the south, including burning churches and killing
pastors, foreign missionaries started entering the
region. One of them was Samaritan's Purse, one of the
most prominent missionary ministries in the world,
administered by the Rev. Franklin Graham, his
daughter, Cissie Graham Lynch told The Christian Post
recently.
This mission, related to Billy Graham's Evangelistic
Association (BGEA), opened a Bible school in the
"They built Bible college there because during the
war the northern part of
The Bible school was bombed on Feb. 1 this year by
the Sudanese air force, the ministry claims. The
mission also has a camp in
Many people of the
"It's horrific what these Christians in southern
"We need to be praying for these people because this
is a serious issue that cannot be ignored," she added.
Samaritan's Purse offices are in a constant state of
prayer for the missionaries who risk their lives on
the ground in
"That is the major part of our ministry – praying for
our staff members. Praying for the situation and
praying for the people of
Another U.S.-based Christian mission with a prominent
presence in
The presence of foreign missionaries seems
particularly important given that the
"I recently returned from several days in South Sudan
– specifically Yida refugee camp, where I
encountered bone-chilling stories of the nightmare
unfolding in the Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile
states just north of the border in Sudan," Rep. Frank
R. Wolf (R –Va.) who visited a refugee camp in
southern Sudan (featuring 25,000 people at the time) wrote in a blog last week. "In
speaking with the refugees in the camp, I heard echoes
of
Wolf recounted stories the local Nuba people told
him, including those of rape and murder, as well as
soldiers saying: "We don't want anyone who says they
are a Christian in this village."
A former top U.N. humanitarian official in Sudan,
Mukesh Kapila, warned last week that Khartoum's
military is carrying out crimes against humanity in
the region that remind him of Darfur. Kapila
reportedly recalled seeing military planes striking
villagers, the destruction of food stocks and
"literally a scorched-earth policy," upon his recent
visit.
"
The former U.N. official also said the
Recently U.N. has called upon the governments of
But the
In 2008, the prosecution of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) filed 10 charges of war crimes
against
http://www.christianpost.com/news/christian-missions-play-key-role-amid-rumors-of-new-darfur-genocide-71350/
Judge:
Insulting Islam Grounds for Beating
Updated 2/29/2012
A legal expert, a former Navy chaplain, and a
pro-family leader agree that a
Judge Mark Martin is an
Judge Martin threw out video evidence of the assault,
dismissed the testimony of an eyewitness officer, and
then lectured the atheist victim about the
sensitivities of the Muslim culture. He stated in
court that Elbayomy was obligated to attack the victim
because of his culture and religion.
"They are so immersed in it," Martin says in a
recording made available to the media. "And what
you've done is you've completely trashed their
essence, their being. They find it very, very, very
offensive. I'm a Muslim. I find it
offensive." [Editor's note: Judge Martin has told
Associated Press that he has received hundreds of
calls, many under the mistaken impression he is a
Muslim. He says he is, in fact, a Lutheran.]
Gordon Klingenschmitt is a former Navy
chaplain who was forced out of the service for
publicly praying in Jesus' name while in uniform. He
now runs "The Pray In Jesus Name Project" and says the
judge is basically conveying the message that if you
mock Muhammad, you deserve to get beaten.
"He freed the Muslim attacker and said basically it's
okay to choke atheists if they insult Islam," he
comments.
Klingenschmitt also finds it outrageous that Judge
Martin told Perce that mocking Muhammad in Muslim
countries is punishable by death.
"This is a different country. We live in
So he believes Martin should be removed from the
bench, and Mat Staver of Liberty
Counsel agrees. The latter tells OneNewsNow Judge
Martin's decision an indication of what may be coming
if sharia is used in the
"This particular
judge actually had the audacity to rule in favor of
the attacker, saying that the attacker was compelled
to attack this individual because it was an insult to
Islam and the Prophet Muhammad," Staver reports.
And Diane Gramley, head of the American Family
Association (AFA) of
"That definitely changes everything, because if he's a
Muslim convert, then that definitely has tainted his
view of the law, and he is looking at sharia law and
making his decision," she offers. "You cannot look at
a situation where a Muslim has physically harassed,
physically attacked an atheist -- granted the guy's an
atheist who's in a parade; he's dressed as a Muslim --
but that's not against the law."
Staver finds the ruling to be almost unbelievable.
"This situation is one involving a judge that needs to
be removed from the bench," the attorney suggests. "He
is clearly instituting sharia from the bench, using
sharia law as a basis to ultimately acquit a person
who actually committed an assault and a battery
against an individual."
Professor Turley also notes that another atheist,
dressed as a zombie Pope, was marching beside the
zombie Muhammad, but no outraged Catholics attacked
him.
"If a Christian had been doing the harassing, I don't
believe the judge would have dismissed those charges,"
Gramley contends. "I think in this case, Judge Martin
is showing preference to the Muslim."
Staver concludes that this is the type of case that
has prompted several states, including
This article can be found in its entirety at
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=1544716
Stop Feeding the Islamic Crocodile
February 27,
2012 by
“To sit back hoping that someday, some way, someone will make things right is to go on feeding the crocodile, hoping he will eat you last — but eat you he will.” — Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan was the consummate collector of great quotations. The one about the crocodile was borrowed and adapted from Winston Churchill. “Winston Churchill took a dim view of neutrals. For him there were only two options in the face of Hitler: fight or surrender. Each neutral, Churchill said on 20 January 1940, ‘hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear — I fear greatly — the storm will not pass.’”
What was true of Hitler and Nazism is equally true of radical Islam. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought the crocodile story up to date when he spoke before the 66th session of the General Assembly at the United Nations on September 23, 2011, following Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ speech:
And these critics continue to press
Appeasers to the Islamic worldview keep telling us that only a small percentage of Muslims are radicals. Some say it’s about ten percent. I’m not great at math, but I do know that ten percent of one billion is 100 million. That’s a lot of radical Muslims who want to see every aspect of Western culture destroyed.
What has President Obama’s apology for burning
already Muslim-desecrated Qurans done for
He then added: “Their apology can be accepted only by hanging their commanders; hanging their commanders means an apology.”
The Islam world always saw President Obama as a dupe,
a useful idiot, who would believe that appeasement
toward a sworn enemy of the
President Obama’s June 4, 2009 speech in
All of this reminds me of the long out-of-print book by John Ames Mitchell (1848–1918) — The Last American (1889) — that I have in my library. There is a sobering message on the dedication page and the book’s closing words:
“To those thoughtful Persians who can read a warning
in the sudden rise and swift extinction of a foolish
people [the Americans] this volume is dedicated. . . .
Again upon the sea. This time for
There are several ink etchings in The Last
American. One shows “The Ruins of the
This article can be read in its entirety at
http://godfatherpolitics.com/3927/stop-feeding-the-islamic-crocodile/
LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER
Homeschoolers can't be taught 'gay' sex sinful
You won't believe latest intrusion by government
Published: February 27, 2012
Homeschooling families will soon be forbidden from
teaching that homosexual sex is sinful as part of
their schooling program, according to the government
of
Under the province’s Education Act, homeschoolers and religious schools will be banned from “disrespecting” people’s differences, Alberta Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk’s office told LifeSiteNews just last week.
“Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences,” said Donna McColl, Lukaszuk’s assistant director of communications. “You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life, you just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction.”
Paul Faris, president of the Home School Legal Defence Association of Canada, told the news website the Ministry of Education is “clearly signaling that they are in fact planning to violate the private conversations families have in their own homes. A government that seeks that sort of control over our personal lives should be feared and opposed.”
According to the report, a government spokesman said, “You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life. You just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction.”
HSLDA and other homeschool organizations have expressed concerns that the new Alberta Education Act would to force “diversity” education on all schools – including private and home schools.
The legislation, known as Bill 2 in the Legislative
Assembly of Alberta, requires that all schools
“reflect the diverse nature and heritage of society in
LifeSiteNews reports that the Human Rights Act has been used to target Christians and conservatives across the country, especially those who hold traditional beliefs about homosexuality.
McColl added that Christian homeschooling families can teach biblical lessons on homosexuality in their homes, “as long as it’s not part of their academic program of studies and instructional materials.”
“What they want to do about their ideology elsewhere, that’s their family business,” she said. “But a fundamental nature of our society is to respect diversity.”
According to the report, when McColl was asked by LifeSiteNews to explain the distinction between homeschoolers’ education and their family life, she replied that the question involved “real nuances” and said she would need to get back to reporter with specifics.
In a second interview, McColl explained that the government “won’t speculate” about specific examples and said she hadn’t been given a “straight answer” on what precisely constitutes “disrespect” – adding that families “can’t be hatemongering, if you will.”
The news site reports several Canadian provinces –
including
Patty Marler, government liaison for the Alberta Home Education Association, told the website she was astonished at the Ministry’s candor. She wondered how the government would stipulate the difference between homeschoolers’ school and family time.
“We educate our children all the time, and that’s just the way we live. It’s a lifestyle,” she said. “Making that distinction between the times when we’re homeschooling and when we’re just living is really hard to do.”
She added, “Throw in the fact that I do use the Bible as part of my curriculum, and now I’m very blatantly going to be teaching stuff that will be against [the Alberta Human Rights Act].”
In 2009, the Alberta Human Rights Act was amended to classify marriage as an institution between two “persons,” rather than a man and a woman.
“When I read Genesis and it talks about marriage being one man in union with one woman, I am very, very clearly opposing the human rights act that says it’s one person marrying another person,” Marler said.
Faris noted that the most troubling issue is how government is attempting to control homeschoolers and how they teach their own children in their own homes.
He added that many homeschoolers have been receiving misleading information when they call the Minister’s office, which has been saying, “‘Look, there are no changes here. We’re not going to do anything differently,’ and other things like that.”
“The long arm of the government wants to reach into family’s homes and control what they teach to their own children in their own homes about religion, sexuality and morality,” Faris said. “These are not the words of a government that is friendly to homeschooling or to parental freedom.”
LifeSiteNews noted that the Progressive Conservative government has 67 of the 83 seats in the Alberta Legislature, so the bill is almost certain to pass. However, with an election coming up, the new right-wing Wildrose Alliance Party may have a strong showing.
Concerned
individuals
may email Alberta Education Minister Thomas
Lukaszuk or contact
his
office by phone, fax or mail.
This article can be read in its entirety at
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/homeschoolers-cant-be-taught-gay-sex-sinful/print
Canada law would forbid homeschoolers to teach the Bible
For those who would like a snapshot of where liberalism and Statism lead, they need only look to our northern neighbor Canada. LifeSiteNews.com reports on Alberta’s new proposed law forbidding even homeschoolers from teaching what the Bible plainly says:
Under Alberta’s new Education Act, homeschoolers and faith-based schools will not be permitted to teach that homosexual acts are sinful as part of their academic program, says the spokesperson for Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk.
“Whatever the nature of schooling – homeschool, private school, Catholic school – we do not tolerate disrespect for differences,” Donna McColl, Lukaszuk’s assistant director of communications, told LifeSiteNews on Wednesday evening.
“You can affirm the family’s ideology in your family life, you just can’t do it as part of your educational study and instruction,” she added.
Reacting to the remarks, Paul Faris of the Home School Legal Defence Association said the Ministry of Education is “clearly signaling that they are in fact planning to violate the private conversations families have in their own homes.”
“A government that seeks that sort of control over our personal lives should be feared and opposed,” he added.
I mildly disagree: such a government is indeed a tyranny, but it should not be “feared.” It should be opposed with legitimate organization, without fear, and resisted. We must stand for freedom and live without fear.
By the way, we have such liberals already stateside as well. I wrote about this very agenda—leftists wanting to pass legislation to control the curricula of homeschoolers—already a few years ago. Here’s a section from the longer article:
In fact, some recent leftists have come out openly in favor of controlling even homeschooling. I spoke at American Vision’s Worldview Superconference in 2007 on the topic “There’s an Atheist After Your Child!” I quoted from recent outspoken atheist Daniel C. Dennett:
We should have a national curriculum on world religions that is compulsory for all school children, from grade school through high school, for the public schools, for the private schools, for the home-schooling.…
“National curriculum”? “Compulsory”? Well, of course, we already have that in regard to some things: math, science, reading, etc. But Dennett wants in your house, and wants to control the content of the religious education of your children as well. He continues, “because if we taught the young people of a country this, then you could teach them whatever else you wanted and I wouldn’t worry about religions.”
The atheist wants to insulate your children against whatever you may add in catechizing them. Of course, this assumes that you catechize your children. These atheists hate the idea of religious catechism. Atheist Richard Dawkins, in a tirade against baptism, refers to the participation of “a superstitious and catechistically brainwashed babysitter.”[2] In these guys’ minds, religious catechism is “brainwashing,” but of course, it’s OK for them to call for a compulsory national curriculum of religion as they see it.
Dennett goes on: “I think any religion that can flourish under those conditions would be a benign, a valuable, a wonderful religion.”
I guess, for him maybe. Of course, he just assumes that he by default knows truly what is valuable. Truth is, he’s got no real standard by which to judge that which is benign, or valuable, or wonderful. “Valuable”? Valuable for whom? Who decides what is valuable and what is not valuable in education or in general? If you believe like Dennett that there is no transcendent Creator God, then aren’t words like “valuable” and “wonderful” left up to each individual to determine? In that case, “valuable” and “wonderful” will be determined politically and culturally by either a dictator (like Franco or Stalin), or a group of dictators (think Roe-v-Wade, 5–4 decision). You might just as well hear Franco say, “Any leftist who can flourish under my conditions would be ‘a benign, a valuable, a wonderful leftist.’”
So, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let the atheists or leftists define for me what kind of religious instruction is benign, or valuable, or even acceptable. But Dennett wants this, and he continues to say,
I think … if you look at the “toxic” religions, they are all of the religions that survive by the enforced ignorance of their young; and all we have to do, I think, is, we can tell people, “You can home-school your kids, you can give them 30 hours a week of religious instruction, but you’ve also got to teach them what the people that are not of your faith believe, and you have to teach them about the history of all faiths in question, including your own.”[3]
Now, like I said, I have no problem teaching my child about other religions, and I (we) certainly have no problem teaching them the History of our faith (we can do it better than they can). But I sure am not going to sit by while this atheist assumes he has the right to tell me whether I can or cannot home-school, or how to do it, or what I “have to” include.
So who does he think he is? Where does he think he gets the right to assume that kind of authority? (Well, it’s because he’s an atheist and an intellectual, and he thinks there’s no One higher than him, and he’s smarter than most people.) But how does this work out? Dennett says,
Children below the age of consent are a special case . . . parents are stewards of their children. They don’t own them—you can’t own your children—You have a responsibility to the world, to the state, to them, to take care of them right. You may, if you like, teach them whatever creed you think is most important, but I say you have a responsibility to let them be informed about all the other creeds in the world, too.[4]
Children are a special case? Why are they being singled out? Because the atheists have realized the power of capturing the next generation. They’ve chosen the path of least resistance, which is the indoctrination of children. But they have to get around the influence of home-schools and private schools.
Other atheists such as Richard Dawkins argue “in favor of censorship” of family education for this so-called “special case of children” (that’s a direct quote from his book: notice the use of the same rhetoric by both guys). Dawkins quotes fellow atheist Nicholas Humphrey:
[M]oral and religious education, and especially the education a child receives at home, where parents are allowed – even expected – to determine for their children what counts as truth and falsehood, right and wrong. Children, I’ll argue, have a human right not to have their minds crippled by exposure to other people’s bad ideas – no matter who these other people are. Parents, correspondingly, have no God-given license to enculturate their children in whatever ways they personally choose: no right to limit the horizons of their children’s knowledge, to bring them up in an atmosphere of dogma and superstition, or to insists they follow the straight and narrow paths of their own faith.
In short, children have a right not to have their minds addled by nonsense, and we as a society have a duty to protect them from it. So we should no more allow parents to teach their children to believe, for example, in the literal truth of the Bible or that the planets rule their lives, than we should allow parents to knock their children’s teeth out or lock them in a dungeon.[5]
So, this group of
atheists is unanimous in pushing that children are a
special case, require special attention by the state,
they should not be left to parents for their education
without state supervision, even to the extent of State
control of religious education in the home.
The child has a “right” to be protected from these
“toxic” beliefs such as belief in the literal truth of
the Bible, which is equivalent, for the atheist, to
physical abuse and masochism. Again, unduly
associating conservativism with violence, all the
while really just wanting more power over other
people’s children than any genuine conservative ever
has.
This article was
originally found at
http://americanvisionnews.com/2056/canada-forbids-homeschoolers-to-teach-the-bible
Freedom — and four fallacies
Religious liberty is
a frail thing, easily abused or neglected
February 15, 2012
Think what you wish of President Barack Obama's attempt Friday to end a fierce skirmish over insurance coverage of drugs that prevent conceptions and induce abortions.
The president said he would guarantee that coverage, without cost to female recipients. Under his modified mandate, he said, "religious organizations won't have to pay for these services, and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly." It's the "directly" — and the persistent distinction between "religious organizations" and "religious institutions" — that's sure to keep this controversy aflame.
In Obama's scenario, that is, religiously affiliated institutions such as schools, hospitals or charities would supply insurance for their workers' other health services; employees who also want contraceptives would get them from the insurers. What's unclear is who actually pays for the drugs — the insurers or the employers? If insurers simply divert money from health premiums paid by the religious institutions to cover contraceptive costs, then employers who have religious objections to buying these drugs will end up footing the bill. We'll all learn, as more details come forward, whether this new directive is a full recognition of religious rights, or a shell game.
Our previously stated opinion, offered Feb. 3, hasn't changed: The Obama administration, by not providing a broad conscience exemption for this insurance mandate, is denying Roman Catholic and other religions their right — the first right enumerated in the First Amendment — to freely live by their faith.
This is, though, a useful debate: Mandated contraception coverage is but the latest twist in an endless American discussion about religious freedom. In the course of this debate, though, the White House and some proponents of compulsory coverage have relied on four fallacies that ought to give all of us pause — not only in this instance, but in the next, and in all that come after that:
Even Catholics say ... : While leaders of many faiths have objected to any contraceptive coverage mandate, no one has spoken more vociferously than the U.S. Conference of Catholics Bishops. Last week, though, The New York Times reported that a majority of Catholics favor the contraceptive mandate, according to "recent polls which Obama officials were pointing to on Tuesday ... " Problem already. What a majority of self-described Catholics (or Presbyterians or Sunni Muslims) thinks is of great importance to discussions, maybe disagreements, within each faith. But disagreement within the faith doesn't abrogate the constitutional right to practice that faith free of government interference.
Public opinion polls find ... : Planned
Parenthood and other supporters of a mandate pointed
last week to broader polling results showing that a
majority of all Americans, not just Catholics, agree
with mandated coverage. That's good to know. But to
the extent this argument suggests that public opinion
should dictate government policy in matters of
conscience, no other questions asked, then this is
perilous turf. Example: Should opponents of capital
punishment surrender their objections because, in the
most recent polling reported on its website,
We offered a grace period: White
House spokesman Jay Carney, among others, has noted
that the original mandate included a one-year
enforcement delay. The stated intent was to give
religiously affiliated employers time to adjust.
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Archbishop Timothy
Dolan of
If you keep to yourselves, you're exempt: Obama's
continuation
Friday to distinguish between "religious
organizations" and "religious institutions" suggests
that he still sees the latter as different, because
they serve many people of other faiths, or of no
faith. By that reckoning, the University of Notre Dame
isn't exempted from a mandate that might exempt, say,
the offices of
We don't yet know every detail of the Obama administration's evolving policies on contraception. We do, though, take seriously the concerns — from the Constitution forward — that religious freedom is a frail thing, easily abused or neglected. Given that American heritage, the White House may have a difficult time establishing in federal courts that the policy separation of religious organizations and religious institutions is anything more than a distinction without a difference.
The right thing for President Obama to do is to exempt from his rules any entity that would be forced to contravene its religious teachings and beliefs. The president needs to consult what should be, in this and future similar disputes, our nation's guiding principle:
Make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
Sound familiar? Many people gave their lives to protect those words — especially the unequivocal "no."
Copyright © 2012,
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-freedom-20120215,0,6126011.story
King Barack’s power grab
Posted: January 05, 2012
President Obama yesterday played a violent game of kickball with the US Constitution, making a number of high-level “recess” appointments — even though the Senate isn’t actually in recess.
He named former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board, a nomination Republicans have been fighting.
And then he named three new members of the pro-union activist National Labor Relations Board.
Presidents have the
right to make temporary appointments when Congress is
away from
But Obama is the first president to declare that he, and he alone, can decide whether the Senate — which must confirm his appointments — is actually meeting.
In order to block recess appointments, the Senate intentionally has been holding pro forma sessions every few days, each of which lasts only a few seconds.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid — with then-Sen. Obama’s support — did the same thing in 2007 to block any recess appointments by President George W. Bush.
But now Obama, with Reid’s concurrence, contends that such sessions are actually “gimmicks” — and that the Senate actually is in recess.
So much for the
separation of powers and the carefully calibrated
system of checks and balances that are hallmarks of
the
Obama, of course, plans to run for re-election against Congress, painting it as Wall Street’s puppet.
But what he did yesterday was no shot across the bow; it was, rather, a direct hit — with the Constitution taking the brunt of the blow.
Moreover, as the Cato Institute’s Mark Calabria notes, the Dodd-Frank bill, which calls for the creation of the CFPB, explicitly requires that its director be “confirmed by the Senate.”
That means that Obama’s nonrecess “recess” appointment may well violate the law, in addition to coming as part of a blatantly unconstitutional overreach.
Then again, this is not the first time Team Obama has sidestepped Congress; just consider some of its aggressive regulatory measures done with no legislative authorization whatsoever.
Democrats like to criticize anything that smacks of an “imperial” presidency — but now it seems they’ve got one.
Read article in the New York post at: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/king_barack_power_grab_FQVJqAlOM3eplEuV7fNxDN#ixzz1ibwIqIMd
Christian
Persecution Increased Most In Sudan , Nigeria
Written
by: Compass Direct News
January 4, 2012
By Jeff M. Sellers
“Nigeria continues to be the country where the worst atrocities in terms of loss of life occur, with over 300 Christians losing their lives this year, though the true number is thought to be far higher,” according to the Open Doors report, noting that the Islamic extremist Boko Haram (literally, “Western learning is forbidden”) became increasingly violent across the reporting period through most of 2011.
As it has the previous nine years,
Both
In terms of ranking,
“As the 2012 World Watch List reflects, the persecution of Christians in these Muslim countries continues to increase,” said Carl Moeller, president/CEO of Open Doors USA. “While many thought the Arab Spring would bring increased freedom, including religious freedom for minorities, that certainly has not been the case so far.”
In the case of
“In response to the loss of the south, he has vowed to make his country even more Islamic, promising constitutional changes,” the report states. “On the ground, however, Christian communities have been attacked in complex battles over resources, and estimates of thousands killed by the Sudanese military are known of, yet impossible to verify.”
Territorial violence flared on border areas with
South Sudan in the provinces of Abyei, South Kordofan
and
In Egypt, a bomb attack on a Coptic church in Alexandria killed at least 21 Christians on New Year’s Day, 2011, and the Feb. 11 ouster of President Hosni Mubarak was followed by a series of Islamic extremist attacks on Christians that culminated in the Maspero massacre in Cairo on Oct. 9, “when the military turned on its own citizens,” killing 27 Coptic Christian demonstrators, the report notes.
“Some were shot by soldiers or ran over by tanks, while others were killed by Muslim extremists,” the report states. “At the closing of 2011, Islamist parties flourished in the November elections, prompting some to speak of an Arab Winter instead of an Arab Spring for Christians.”
A new addition to the list is
After
http://www.eurasiareview.com/04012012-christian-persecution-increased-most-in-sudan-nigeria-report-says/
December 14, 2011
by Clare M Lopez
www.RadicalIslam.org
SAUDI ARABIA - MODERATE VOICE OR
DRACONIAN MONARCHY?
Saudi Arabia’s hardline ultra-conservative religious council, the Majlis al-Ifta’ al-A’ala working in conjunction with Kamal Subhi, a former professor at the King Fahd University, have just released a ‘scientific study’ that has come to some rather outlandish conclusions.
In response to the growing pressure
from women’s groups in
Just a few weeks earlier, the Kingdom’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has proposed a law to stop women from revealing their "tempting" eyes to the public. Should this law be passed, it would in effect, force Saudi women to more or less cover their entire bodies from head to toe – including their eyes.
The
This is the absurdity of
A new book “Saudi Arabia and the Global Islamic Terrorist Network: America and the West’s Fatal Embrace,” presents a disturbing look at the realities of the Saudi Kingdom, whose rigid Wahhabist Islamic code locks it into a bigoted, jihadist, misogynist world view grounded in anti-Western animus and Jew-hatred. Without the Saudis’ key role in the global oil-based economy and calculated largesse to policymakers, think tanks, and universities to help smooth the way, it surely would be an uphill slog otherwise for their armies of well-heeled lobbyists. As it is, for decades the Saudis have counted on petro-dollars and Western cupidity to ensure official submissiveness in the face of blatant financial support to Muslim terrorist groups, mega-mosques and Islamic Centers, and the shariah-promoting literature and textbooks that stoke jihad in all of them.
Before the well-organized onslaught
of the so-called “Arab Spring” in 2011, the
Only the lack of an organized opposition characterized by the total absence of political parties or trade unions and real fear among the Saudi urban middle class that revolt against the House of Saud could set loose chaos that would split apart the country’s regional, religious, and sectarian fault lines have kept the place together this long. But it is Western, especially American, willingness to turn a blind eye to Saudi terror funding, support for the Da’wa stealth jihad campaign led by the Muslim Brotherhood, and backing for the spread of Shariah Compliant Finance that enables the charade of Saudi “partnership” to stand.
A few crumbs like King Abdullah’s September 2011 decree that Saudi women will be allowed to serve in parliament in 2012 and vote and stand as candidates in 2015 municipal elections are hardly enough to satisfy the pent-up energy of the 50% of the Saudi population whose every move in life remains chained to primitive, misogynistic and often violent notions of gender roles. Even as Saudi society deprives itself of intellectual and professional contributions from half its population, its aging, hypocritical rulers indulge in polygamous and hedonistic lifestyles According to a WikiLeaks cable from 2008, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh reported that King Abdullah "remains a heavy smoker, regularly receives hormone injections and 'uses Viagra excessively.'"
Change is coming to the Saudi desert kingdom whether the Saudis are ready or not. All things considered, trends already in motion do not look good over the long-term for the House of Saud, no matter how many hundreds of billions the King hands out. Foreign policy outreach to establish a network of economic and political ties with potential global partners such as China, Japan, and Russia is not a bad idea either, just inadequate to deal with what is essentially an internal problem: how to unleash the potential of all Saudis to compete in the modern world and loose the shackles that have hobbled them since the dawn of Islam.
Saudi youth, both male and female, have some choices to make, choices their diminishingly lucid elders probably cannot make, about what kind of society they want to live in. U.S. and Western leaderships have some shackles of their own to cast off, beginning with energy dependence and willful blindness about the Saudi commitment to shariah Islam, jihad, and the subjugation of Dar al-Harb (the non-Muslim world) to Dar al-Islam (the Muslim world) Absent is the realization that equality, individual liberty, minority protection, pluralism, rule of man-made law, and tolerance are the building blocks of civil society that undergird a true democracy, and that these things are not necessarily genetically coded in human beings but must be defended and nourished, neither the House of Saud nor American exceptionalism can expect to weather intact the storms ahead.
Clare M. Lopez, a senior
fellow at the Clarion Fund, is a strategic policy
and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle
East, national defense, and counterterrorism
issues.
US Government to apply
peer pressure to your Islamophobia
December 14, 2011
by J.E. Dyer
from Hotair.com/greenroom/archives
Hillary Clinton’s promise on this matter has been out
there for months, but a virtually unadvertised
conference in
Back in July, at a conference of the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in
It’s worth taking a moment to reflect on that.
The
And it is worth taking another moment to remember why we determined to allow such free speech. We didn’t do it because it is “good,” in any positive sense, for people to say vile things about each other’s beliefs. It may be perfectly good, or at least not repulsive, for people to say reasonably critical things about religious beliefs. But whether it’s ridiculous allegations about Jews, absurd accusations against Catholics, or today’s fresh-milled 20-something atheists calling Christians “Christofascists,” the point of free speech was never to encourage idiocies of this kind on the theory that we need more of them.
The point of free speech is to keep the government out of the business of deciding whether they’re “bad” or “good.” Government is incompetent to decide such questions, and they should therefore not be within its scope of authority. Precisely because government has civic authority, its involvement in classifying critical speech should be somewhere between severely limited and non-existent. The step from government having an opinion to government repressing intellectual freedom is perilously short. Government can’t wave a magic wand to kindly and gently fix people’s thoughts; it has only the hammer of force and punishment, and that means making every unapproved thought into a “nail.” The American Founders understood this about government, and insisted therefore on keeping its powers limited, constitutionally explicit, and federally divided.
So when Hillary Clinton promises the following, she is on wholly un-American, anti-liberal ground (emphasis added):
In the
OK, so the
What exactly is it that we abhor? Elizabeth Kendal has an excellent summary at her Religious Liberty Monitoring website of the history behind the UN push to “combat religious intolerance,” and it is worth talking the time to understand how a number of terms – Islamophobia, “defamation” of religion, and “incitement” against religion – have been conflated over the last decade. Getting forms of intellectual discretion wrapped up in “what we abhor” is an ongoing project in the misnamed effort to “combat religious intolerance.”
But another entry point is the definition of “Islamophobia” cited by the typical Islamophobia watchdog. The definition was produced by a British think tank, The Runnymede Trust, in the 1990s, and was consciously constructed as an analogue to definitions of Judeophobia or anti-Semitism. These are its basic elements:
1) Islam is seen as a monolithic bloc, static
and unresponsive to change.
2) Islam is seen as separate and “other.” It
does not have values in common with other cultures, is
not affected by them and does not influence them.
3) Islam is seen as inferior to the West. It is
seen as barbaric, irrational, primitive and sexist.
4) Islam is seen as violent, aggressive,
threatening, supportive of terrorism and engaged in a
“clash of civilizations.”
5) Islam is seen as a political ideology and is
used for political or military advantage.
6) Criticisms made of the West by Islam are
rejected out of hand.
7) Hostility towards Islam is used to justify
discriminatory practices towards Muslims and exclusion
of Muslims from mainstream society.
8)Anti-Muslim hostility is seen as natural or normal.
Most of these elements are susceptible of extremely ambiguous interpretation. Credentialed academics like Samuel Huntington and Victor Davis Hanson would be indicted by some of them. And in almost any case you can think of, deciding that these criteria correctly classify the actions of non-Muslims is a matter not of objective judgment but of partisan opinion.
Regarding #6, for example, both non-Muslims and Muslims are likely to reject some criticisms from each other out of hand – because our beliefs about some things are fundamentally different. There are Muslim leaders, after all, who constantly reject Western criticisms of sharia out of hand. And there are Muslim leaders who don’t. There is no valid reason why any Westerner should be charged with “Islamophobia” for ignoring or rejecting criticisms of Western practices by Muslims.
Consider the practice of veiling women. When an imam criticizes Western society for failing to veil women, I have no heartburn whatsoever in rejecting that criticism as invalid and inapplicable to my life and my society. How absurd to suggest that I am being “Islamophobic” by doing this.
I recognize, of course, that many Muslim women don’t wear a veil, and many clerics are fine with that. Muslims don’t do the same things in every part of the world. And I prefer civic approaches in the West that seek to live with the practice of veiling where it is important to some citizens. I disagree with the veil being imposed on women, but 99% of the time, the issue isn’t one that affects me directly or requires me to register an official political opinion.
But the fundamental issue here is the status of women. Declaring it to be a “phobia” when people adhere to their original opinions about that is something no government should be in the business of doing.
At what point would a government decide that it was not Islamophobia when a person “rejected out of hand” criticisms of the West made by “Islam”? Where would the line be drawn? Can I reject, for example, Islam’s criticism that the West doesn’t accept Mohammed as a prophet of God? Or does this criterion indicate that I am allowed to reject it, but only after giving some positive display of having considered it without “prejudice”? And if so, how will that work, exactly? Will I carry a card with me, certifying that I was observed by a competent authority to give due consideration to the criticisms of my society made by Islamic leaders?
This is not a laughing matter; the 20th century was a vast, vicious playground for exactly such measures of control over the intellectual lives of peoples and societies. The criticism we should be leveling here is not against “Islam” or “Muslims,” it is against our own government, and the factions of our own, Western/American political spectrum that conceive of government as a method of administering anti-phobia measures.
The idea of government, for too many in
Judaism and Christianity are, along with Western philosophy, the progenitors of that idea of liberty. The positive, absolute good of liberty is what we must proclaim and defend. And in our nation, on our terms, Islam has the opportunity to thrive as Judaism and Christianity have, by being consistent with it. It cannot be the other way around.
J.E. Dyer’s articles
have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,”
Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own
blog, The Optimistic Conservative.
Read this article in its entirety at
Nov 1, 2011
ABC News
GOP
Ad Turns Obama’s Words Against Him
If you want an indication of how Republicans – whoever
their presidential nominee is – will run against
President Obama, check out this slick new video from the
Republican National Committee.The video is made up largely of Obama’s own words;
from his ’08 campaign and his Yahoo/ABC News interview
with George Stephanopoulos when he said Americans
“aren’t better off than they were four years ago.”
Also note the use of images from the Occupy Wall
Street protests to make it look as though the primary
target of the movement is President Obama.
Watch the video here.
Click here to see the original article on abcnewsBurma Crackdown On Local
Bible Studies, Worship, report
October 31, 2011
By BosNewsLife Asia Service
RANGOON, BURMA (BosNewsLife)-- Authorities in Burma, also known as Myanmar, are imposing new restrictions on Christian and other religious activities in the Kachin State region, an influential religious rights group said Monday, October 31.
Britain-based Christian Solidarity
Worldwide (CSW), which has investigated the situation
in
CSW told BosNewsLife that the letter titled
“Concerning Christians conducting cultural training"
was send on October 14 by the government's Chairman of
Maw Wan Ward in
The document "refers to an order by the General
Township Administration Department requiring
Christians in Phakant Township to submit a request at
least 15 days in advance for permission to conduct
"short-term Bible study, Bible study, Sunday school,
reading the Bible, fasting prayer, Seasonal Bible
study and Rosary of the Virgin Mary Prayer," CSW
explained.
MORE BUREACRACY
"A request for permission must be accompanied by
recommendations from other departments, and must be
submitted to the Township Administration Office."
CSW said it had obtained a copy of the document in
Burmese, and a translation, last week. Churches in
CSW's East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said
that “For many years, successive Burmese regimes have
suppressed freedom of religion and imposed serious
restrictions on Christians and other religious
minorities."
He claimed that
"EXTREME RESTRICTION"
"To impose a requirement on churches and individuals
to seek permission to read the Bible, pray, fast and
hold a Sunday school is an extreme restriction and an
extraordinary further violation of freedom of
religion,"
He added that his group had urged Burmese authorities
to withdraw this requirement, in
Additionally CSW has urged the Burmese government to
invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur for
Freedom of Religion or Belief to visit the country,
"and conduct an independent investigation.”
Burmese officials have not reacted to the latest
allegations. However
Click here to read the original article in its
entirety.
Look who's behind uprising in Orlando
Who'da
thunk
this group would be pulling strings?
Posted:
October 19, 2011
By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND
A lawyer linked through the Council on American Islamic Relations to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood has been identified as the driving force behind the Occupy Orlando protests that have been staged in Johnson Park, according to a video report from Tom Trento of the Florida Security Council and The United West.
The report from the organization that "educates and activates freedom minded people" to strategize the propagation of the exceptionalism of Western civilization over "the totalitarian choke-hold of Shariah Islam" explains that the same attorney who represented the Islam-bent parents in the famous Rifqa Bary dispute obtained the permit for the Occupy Orlando event and was on scene giving directions.
"You're not going to believe ... the evidence ... that links this movement with a key Muslim individual who's associated with CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood," Trento explains on the video. "This individual has assumed a leadership [role] if [he is] not the leader of this movement in Orlando."
The "Muslim activist lawyer" was identified as Shayan Elahi, who was the losing counsel for the parents of Rifqa Bary in a custody dispute that developed in Florida.
Bary fled the Ohio home of her Muslim parents because she accused them of threatening her after they discovered her conversion to Christianity. She traveled as a teenager on her own to friends in Florida, and ultimately gained her independence when she turned 18.
Elahi was counsel for Bary's parents when they were seeking to have her returned home. CAIR also was integral to the parents' strategies regarding their daughter and the various parties cooperated on the effort.
Trento’s video report about Elahi's activities at Occupy Orlando:
The presence of Elahi at the events, and his signature on the permit that was issued for the gathering are not the only indications of a radical element behind the "occupations."
Trento noted that the "Occupy Orlando" FaceBook page reads; " ... we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America."
The group Mass Resistance reported that old-stream media reports on the Occupy Boston protests, "the flood of communist, anarchist, anti-Israel, and similar literature that permeates ... is simply ignored."
The organization's visit to the scene of the protests found "political ideology of communism, socialism and anarchism, with additions of anti-Israel, pro-Muslim, law-breaking, and other radical advocacy.
"Plus, like so many left-wing venues after a few days, the park they've taken over is now filthy and smells of urine."
In Egypt and in several other countries of North Africa in recent months, uncontrolled demonstrations and protests have led to upheaval, and those factions have been blamed for the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and other leaders friendly to the West.
Their replacements have been almost without exception those groups and organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, a faction that has a worldwide Islamic caliphate as one of its goals.
The Florida Independent was able to reach Elahi, who confirmed he was at the protests, "volunteering [his] legal services as just another proud American and a member of the movement."
Trento reveals in his video how Elahi repeatedly tried to intimidate his crew at the Orlando protests, pointedly calling him a "bigot" and a "racist bigot."
"Anyone think attorney Elahi, who lost the Rifqa Bary case, lost the race for a judgeship, is looking for a place to mark up his first win by co-opting an incoherent movement primarily made up of 'hippies and anarchists' so that he can build a political base for his Islamic goals?" Trento asked.
"We attended the 'Occupy Orlando' event to analyze and understand this movement, but the anger of an insecure Muslim attorney may have provided for us an important component to understand and defeat the cultural jihad of the Muslim Brotherhood, right here in beautiful, sunny Florida," he wrote.
Tom Tillison from the Florida Political Press also reported what Trento discovered: that the permit for the event was signed by Elahi.
Tillison also raised the issue of the city's concessions for the group, noting that while the permit was supposed to be submitted three days in advance, it actually was submitted and approved for a protest within 24 hours. And the application states the time was supposed to be from 8 a.m. until 8:59 p.m. on Oct. 15, yet the group remains camped there days later.
"Does this mean that the protesters are in violation of city ordinances government the use of city owned park facilities?"
Finally, he wondered about the extended stay, since there are no restrooms on site.
Click here to read the article in its entirety
Burma
Crackdown
On Local Bible Studies, Worship, report
October 31, 2011
By BosNewsLife Asia Service
RANGOON, BURMA (BosNewsLife)-- Authorities in Burma,
also known as Myanmar, are imposing new restrictions
on Christian and other religious activities in the
Kachin State region, an influential religious rights
group said Monday, October 31.
Britain-based Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW),
which has investigated the situation in
CSW told BosNewsLife that the letter titled
“Concerning Christians conducting cultural training"
was send on October 14 by the government's Chairman of
Maw Wan Ward in
The document "refers to an order by the General
Township Administration Department requiring
Christians in Phakant Township to submit a request at
least 15 days in advance for permission to conduct
"short-term Bible study, Bible study, Sunday school,
reading the Bible, fasting prayer, Seasonal Bible
study and Rosary of the Virgin Mary Prayer," CSW
explained.
MORE BUREACRACY
"A request for permission must be accompanied by
recommendations from other departments, and must be
submitted to the Township Administration Office."
CSW said it had obtained a copy of the document in
Burmese, and a translation, last week. Churches in
CSW's East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said
that “For many years, successive Burmese regimes have
suppressed freedom of religion and imposed serious
restrictions on Christians and other religious
minorities."
He claimed that
"EXTREME RESTRICTION"
"To impose a requirement on churches and individuals
to seek permission to read the Bible, pray, fast and
hold a Sunday school is an extreme restriction and an
extraordinary further violation of freedom of
religion,"
He added that his group had urged Burmese authorities
to withdraw this requirement, in
Additionally CSW has urged the Burmese government to
invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur for
Freedom of Religion or Belief to visit the country,
"and conduct an independent investigation.”
Burmese officials have not reacted to the latest
allegations. However
http://www.bosnewslife.com/18890-burma-crackdown-on-local-bible-studies-worship-report
WND Exclusive
Congressman to keynote CAIR
fundraiser with terror co-conspirator
D.C.
group identified by FBI as Hamas-front features
workshops on countering 'anti-Shariah campaign'
Posted:
October
13, 2011
1:00 am Eastern
Democratic Rep. Jim Moran of Virginia is headlining a fundraiser this weekend for the controversial Council on American-Islamic Relations along with an imam tied to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing who urges the violent overthrow of the "filthy" U.S. government and the establishment of Islamic law.
CAIR's 17th annual banquet Saturday at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., features the theme "Making Democracy Work for Everyone."
Imam Siraj Wahhaj, designated by the Justice Department as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the WTC bombing, is promoted as a keynote speaker along with Moran.
The evening banquet concludes a day-long leadership conference offering workshops on subjects such as "counteracting Islamophobia," "challenging scapegoating of Muslims in the 2012 election" and countering "the anti-Shariah campaign," referring to state legislative efforts to ensure Islamic law is not implemented in the U.S.
As WND reported, Moran, a longtime supporter of CAIR, was forced to step down from his leadership role as regional whip in 2003 after he blamed the influence of the Jewish community for the U.S. war in Iraq.
Wahhaj's presence at CAIR's 2009 annual banquet prompted an activist group to launch a campaign to urge the hosting hotel, the venue for this year's event, to cancel.
As WND reported, Wahhaj, a regular CAIR fundraiser and a former member of its advisory board, initially was a featured speaker but ended up giving only a short fundraising appeal at the banquet.
As late as nine days prior to the 2009 banquet, CAIR featured Wahhaj and White House adviser Dalia Mogahed in its promotions as its two marquee names. But on the eve of the event – after WND reports of Wahhaj's radical views as documented in WND Books' best-seller "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America" – a press release did not even mention them.
'Filthy' U.S.
Wahhaj is one of many Muslim leaders affiliated with CAIR who have been named or prosecuted in U.S. terrorism-related investigations. CAIR itself was named by the Justice Department as an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Holy Land Foundation probe in Texas, the largest terrorism-finance case in U.S. history.
An imam at Masjid Al-Taqwa in Brooklyn, Wahhaj is on record urging a violent overthrow of the "filthy" U.S. government assisted by jihad warriors armed with Uzis.
In a videotaped May 8, 1992, sermon obtained by the authors of "Muslim Mafia" titled "Stand Up for Justice," Wahhaj makes it clear that, contrary to CAIR's media guide, he believes jihad means "holy war," not merely a "struggle to better oneself."
"If we go to war, brothers and sisters – and one day we will, believe me – that's why you're commanded [to fight in] jihad," the Brooklyn-based Wahhaj says. "When Allah demands us to fight, we're not stopping and nobody's stopping us."
Wahhaj preaches that Islam teaches violent insurrection in "infidel lands" such as America, points out the "Muslim Mafia" co-authors, counterterrorism investigator Gaubatz and "Infiltration" author Paul Sperry.
"Believe me, brothers and sisters, Muslims in America are the most strategic Muslims on Earth," Wahhaj says in the 1992 sermon, arguing the government can't drop bombs on warring Muslims in the U.S. without causing collateral damage.
The American government's "worst nightmare is one day that the Muslims wake these people up in South Central Los Angeles and other inner-city areas," he says in the video.
Wahhaj exhorts the faithful to go into the "hood and the prisons and convert disenfranchised minorities, and then arm them and train them to carry out an Uzi jihad in the inner cities."
"We don't need to arm the people with nine-millimeters and Uzis," he says. "You need to arm them with righteousness first. And then once you arm them with righteousness first, then you can arm them [with Uzis and other weapons]."
CAIR tells the public in its media guide, however, "There is a common misperception among Westerners that the Quran teaches violence."
Wahhaj makes it clear, nevertheless, he sees Islam as a uniquely militant religion.
Counterterrorism expert Steven Emerson obtained a video of a Wahhaj speech in Toronto Sept. 28, 1991, titled "The Afghanistan Jihad" in which the imam declared:Those who struggle for Allah, it doesn't matter what kind of weapons, I'm telling you it doesn't matter! You don't need nuclear weapons or even guns! If you have faith in Allah and a knife! If Allah wants you to win, you will win! Because Allah is the only one who fights. And when his hand is over your hand. whoever is at war against my friends, I declare war on them.
Citing Emerson, "Muslim Media" notes Wahhaj once likened the U.S. to a trash bin and prayed it would "crumble" and be replaced by Islam.
"You know what this country is? It's a garbage can," Wahhaj said. "It's filthy."
Click
here to view and read the article in its entirety
Texas School District Fully Vindicates Christian Student After Wrongful Suspension
October 11, 2011
Liberty Alerts, Liberty Counsel
The Fort Worth Independent School District has issued a letter to Liberty Counsel fully vindicating high school freshman Dakota Ary, who was given in-school suspension for telling another student that he believes homosexuality is wrong because of his Christian faith. The letter is in response to Liberty Counsel’s demand letter requesting full vindication and a full retraction of the suspension. The district’s letter will be placed in Dakota’s permanent file to further clear his record. Liberty Counsel is representing Dakota in this case.
The District’s letter apologized for the delay in returning Dakota back to the classroom, and stated that “Dakota has the right to express an opinion in a manner consistent with law and policy.”
Dakota was in Kristopher Franks’ German language class at Western Hills High School when the topic of homosexuality arose. Dakota said to one of his classmates, “I’m a Christian and, to me, being homosexual is wrong.” Franks overheard the comment, wrote Dakota an infraction, and sent him to the principal’s office. The class topic was religious beliefs in Germany. During the discussion, one student asked what Germans thought about homosexuality in relation to religion. Another student then asked to hear some translated terms such as “lesbian.” These questions provoked the conversation about Christianity and Dakota’s expression of his opinion to one classmate.
The discipline referral form says the comment was out of context, even though the lesson for the day was on religious beliefs. Franks charged Dakota with “possible bullying” and indicated, “It is wrong to make such a statement in public school.” Two weeks prior to this event, Franks displayed a picture of two men kissing on a “World Wall” and told his students that homosexuality is becoming more prevalent in the world and that they should just accept it. Many of the students were offended by Franks’ actions and his continually bringing up the topic of homosexuality in a German language class. Franks was temporarily placed on administrative leave with pay last week.
Mathew D. Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty
Counsel, commented: “We are pleased that the school
district vindicated Dakota Ary. No public school
teacher should use the position of authority to bully
students to accept homosexuality. That is what this
teacher did, and he got his hand caught in the cookie
jar. We want to make sure this never again happens to
any student.”
US Bishops Defend the Freedom of Religion in the Face of Growing Threats
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops Office of Media Relations
4 October 2011
WASHINGTON, DC (USCCB) - The U.S. bishops
have established a new Ad Hoc Committee for Religious
Liberty to address growing concerns over the erosion
of freedom of religion in America. Archbishop Timothy
M. Dolan, president of the United Sates Conference of
Catholic Bishops (USCCB), established the ad hoc
committee after consulting with the USCCB
Administrative Committee during the Committee's
September 13-14 meeting in Washington.
The Administrative Committee meets three times a year and conducts the work of the bishops' conference between plenary sessions. He announced formation of the ad hoc committee in a September 29 letter to the U.S. bishops Archbishop Dolan also named Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to chair the new committee.
Support for ad hoc committee work will include adding two full-time staff at the USCCB, a lawyer expert in the area of religious freedom law, and a lobbyist who will handle both religious liberty and marriage issues.
Bishop Lori said he welcomed "the opportunity to work with fellow bishops and men and women of expertise in constitutional law so as to defend and promote the God-given gift of religious liberty recognized and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States."
"This ad hoc committee aims to address the increasing threats to religious liberty in our society so that the Church's mission may advance unimpeded and the rights of believers of any religious persuasion or none may be respected," he added.
In a letter to bishops to announce the ad hoc committee, Archbishop Dolan said religious freedom "in its many and varied applications for Christians and people of faith, is now increasingly and in unprecedented ways under assault in America."
"This is most particularly so in an increasing number of federal government programs or policies that would infringe upon the right of conscience of people of faith or otherwise harm the foundational principle of religious liberty," he said. "As shepherds of over 70 million U.S. citizens we share a common and compelling responsibility to proclaim the truth of religious freedom for all, and so to protect our people from this assault which now appears to grow at an ever accelerating pace in ways most of us could never have imagined."
Archbishop Dolan said the committee will work closely with national organizations, charities, ecumenical and interreligious partners and scholars "to form a united and forceful front in defense of religious freedom in our nation," and its work will begin immediately.
He added that "the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee is one element of what I expect to be a new moment in the history of our Conference. Never before have we faced this kind of challenge to our ability to engage in the public square as people of faith and as a service provider. If we do not act now, the consequence will be grave."
Archbishop Dolan said that, although he and his predecessor as USCCB President, Cardinal Francis George, had sent private letters to President Obama on religious liberty in the context of redefining marriage, none of those letters received a response.
"I have offered to meet with the President to discuss these concerns and to impress upon him the dire nature of these actions by government," Archbishop Dolan said.
Archbishop Dolan listed six religious liberty concerns arising just since June:
-Federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations that would mandate the coverage of contraception (including abortifacients) and sterilization in all private health insurance plans, which could coerce church employers to sponsor and pay for services they oppose. The new rules do not protect insurers or individuals with religious or moral objections to the mandate.
-An HHS requirement that USCCB's Migration and Refugee Services provide the "full range of reproductive services"-meaning abortion and contraception-to trafficking victims and unaccompanied minors in its cooperative agreements and government contracts. The position mirrors the position urged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in the ongoing lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of MRS's contracts as a violation of religious liberty.
-Catholic Relief Services' concern that US Agency for International Development, under the Department of State, is increasingly requiring condom distribution in HIV prevention programs, as well as requiring contraception within international relief and development programs.
-The Justice Department's attack on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), presenting DOMA's support for traditional marriage as bigotry. In July, the Department started filing briefs actively attacking DOMA's constitutionality, claiming that supporters of the law could only have been motivated by bias and prejudice. "If the label of "bigot" sticks to us-especially in court-because of our teaching on marriage, we'll have church-state conflicts for years to come as a result," Archbishop Dolan said.
-The Justice Department's recent attack on the critically important "ministerial exception," a constitutional doctrine accepted by every court of appeals in the country that leaves to churches (not government) the power to make employment decisions concerning persons working in a ministerial capacity.In a case to be heard this term in the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department attacked the very existence of the exception.
-New York State's new law redefining marriage, with
only a very narrow religious exemption. Already,
county clerks face legal action for refusing to
participate in same-sex unions, and gay rights
advocates are publicly emphasizing how little
religious freedom protection people and groups will
enjoy under the new law.
Click
here
to
see
the
original
article
More allegations heaped upon Iranian pastor
Yousef Nardarkhani faces execution on trumped-up charges
Posted: 4 October, 2011
Mission Network News
Iran (MNN) ― The life of an Iranian pastor continues to hang in the balance as the Iranian state media is now getting involved in the case. 34-year-old Pastor Yousef Nardarkani was arrested two years ago this month for protesting Muslim education for his children because he is a Christian. He was convicted of apostasy, but now new false charges are being leveled against him.
Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs says, "Now they're saying that what he's actually going to be executed for is not apostasy, not becoming a Christian, but actually rape and extortion that are the charges that he will be executed for. So it's really a 180-degree turn for the Iranian government."
According to Nettleton, this is mindboggling. "After an initial court hearing, an appeal to the Supreme Court, and then another hearing back at the local court -- after all those hearings where they never talked about extortion and never talked about rape, now they're saying he's actually going to be executed for rape and extortion."
A bit of good news about this case, according to Nettleton, is that "the international pressure is working. The Iranian government is hearing from people around the world, including regular people like you and me, as well as government officials and government agencies. They're saying, 'Listen, you cannot put this man to death for being a Christian. That's a complete violation of human rights.' The Iranian government is hearing that, and it's having an effect."
Please help Pastor Nardarkhani. Nettleton by praying for him as he continues to be in prison. You can also "go to PrisonerAlert.com [where] you can write Pastor Yousef himself and also send e-mails to Iranian government officials, including the office of President Ahmodinejad. So we can pray first, and then we can also have a voice for him, as well."
This article can be found in its entirety at
http://www.mnnonline.org/article/16304
Land without peace: Why Abbas went to the U.N.
October 03, 2011
WASHINGTON — While diplomatically inconvenient for the Western powers, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' attempt to get the U.N. to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state has elicited widespread sympathy. After all, what choice did he have? According to the accepted narrative, Middle East peace is made impossible by a hard-line Likud-led Israel that refuses to accept a Palestinian state and continues to build settlements.
It is remarkable how this gross inversion of the truth has become conventional wisdom. In fact, Benjamin Netanyahu brought his Likud-led coalition to open recognition of a Palestinian state, thereby creating Israel's first national consensus for a two-state solution. He is also the only prime minister to agree to a settlement freeze — 10 months — something no Labor or Kadima government has ever done.
To which Abbas responded by boycotting the talks for nine months, showing up in the 10th, then walking out when the freeze expired. Last month he reiterated that he will continue to boycott peace talks unless Israel gives up — in advance — claim to any territory beyond the 1967 lines. Meaning, for example, that the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem is Palestinian territory. This is not just absurd. It violates every prior peace agreement. They all stipulate that such demands are to be the subject of negotiations, not their precondition.
Abbas unwaveringly insists on the so-called right of return,which would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs, thereby turning the world's only Jewish state into the world's 23rd Arab state. And he has repeatedly declared, as recently as last month in New York: "We shall not recognize a Jewish state."
Nor is this new. It is perfectly consistent with the long history of Palestinian rejectionism. Consider:
•Camp David, 2000. At a U.S.-sponsored summit, Prime Minister Ehud Barak offers Yasser Arafat a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza — and, astonishingly, the previously inconceivable division of Jerusalem. Arafat refuses — and makes no counteroffer, thereby demonstrating his unseriousness about making any deal. Instead, within two months, he launches a savage terror war that kills a thousand Israelis.
•Taba, 2001. An even sweeter deal — the Clinton Parameters — is offered. Arafat walks away again.
•Israel, 2008. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the ultimate capitulation to Palestinian demands — 100 percent of the West Bank (with land swaps), Palestinian statehood, the division of Jerusalem with the Muslim parts becoming the capital of the new Palestine. And incredibly, he offers to turn over the city's holy places, including the Western Wall — Judaism's most sacred site, its Kaaba — to an international body which sit Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
Did Abbas accept? Of course not. If he had, the conflict would be over and Palestine would already be a member of the United Nations.
This is not ancient history. All three peace talks occurred over the past decade. And every one completely contradicts the current mindless narrative of Israeli "intransigence" as the obstacle to peace.
Settlements? Every settlement remaining within the new Palestine would be destroyed and emptied, precisely as happened in Gaza.
So why did the Palestinians say no? Because saying yes would have required them to sign a final peace agreement that accepted a Jewish state on what they consider the Muslim patrimony.
The key word here is "final." The Palestinians are quite prepared to sign interim agreements, like Oslo. Framework agreements, like Annapolis. Cease-fires, like the 1949 armistice. Anything but a final deal. Anything but a final peace. Anything but a treaty that ends the conflict once and for all — while leaving a Jewish state still standing.
After all, why did Abbas go to the U.N. last month? For nearly half a century, the United States has pursued a Middle East settlement on the basis of the formula of land for peace. Land for peace produced the Israel-Egypt peace of 1979 and the Israel-Jordan peace of 1994. Israel has offered the Palestinians land for peace three times since. And been refused every time.
Why? For exactly the same reason Abbas went to the U.N.: to get land without peace. Sovereignty with no reciprocal recognition of a Jewish state. Statehood without negotiations. An independent Palestine in a continued state of war with Israel.
This is the reason that, regardless of who is governing Israel, there has never been peace. Territorial disputes are solvable; existential conflicts are not.
Land for peace, yes. Land without peace is nothing but an invitation to suicide.
Washington Post Writers Group
Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist.
See what Obama promises Arabs after 2012 election
Democrats fear treatment of Israel is voting liability
Posted:
September
28, 2011
By Aaron Klein
© 2011 WND
The Obama administration told the Palestinian Authority it cannot significantly help advance a Palestinian state until after the 2012 presidential elections, a top PA official told WND.
The official, however, said the U.S. will press for a Palestinian state quickly if President Obama is re-elected.
"The main message we received from the U.S. is that nothing will happen in a serious
The PA official said Obama "will not accept the Palestinian request of a state at the (U.N.) Security Council and cannot help on the ground for now."
"We were told to wait for Obama's reelection, and that before then nothing serious will happen for a state," the official continued. "But after the reelection, the U.S. said the schedule will be short to reach a Palestinian state."
Obama's policies toward Israel have been highlighted in local and national campaigns, with many Democrats fearing voters will oppose them due to the perception the president is anti-Israel.
Obama's treatment of Israel was a significant issue in the recent election of Republican Bob Turner to former Rep. Anthony Weiner's seat in a district that had not elected a GOP candidate since 1923.
Also, presidential contenders such as Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., have been strongly criticizing Obama on Israel.
This article can be read in its entirety at:
See what Obama
promises Arabs after 2012 election http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=349705#ixzz1ZMSYgbmM