Please read
current events from a variety of sources.
July
2018
Revolt
grows over Islamization of U.S. schools
Group already in court
over San Diego decision to let activists
define curriculum
Published: July 11, 2018
Bob Unrah
World Net Daily
An organization fighting
Islamic indoctrination in the San Diego
Public schools – it’s already in court over
the issue – is now insisting on access to
communications between Seattle school
officials and the Council on
American-Islamic Relations.
U.S. District Court Judge
Cynthia A. Bashant issued an order setting
July 17 as the hearing date regarding a
motion for a preliminary injunction in that
dispute. The organization alleges that
school officials improperly are giving CAIR,
and its “anti-Islamophobia” initiative,
undue control over school curriculum.
The case was brought by parents
in the district who are suing over the
pro-Islam instructional materials sold by
CAIR to the district.
Ocala will move to vacate First Amendment
violation ruling
By Katie Pohlman Posted June 20, 2018 Ocala Star Banner
U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan ruled in
May that the city of Ocala and Police Chief Greg
Graham violated the clause by organizing,
promoting and holding a prayer vigil in
September 2014.
The Ocala City Council has voted to file a
motion to vacate judgement in a federal case in
which a judge ruled the city and its police
chief violated the Establishment Clause of the
First Amendment.
In a May decision, U.S. District Judge Timothy
J. Corrigan ruled that the city of Ocala and
Ocala Police Chief Greg Graham violated the
clause by organizing, promoting and holding a
prayer vigil in September 2014 after a drive-by
shooting in which several children were injured.
The chief and city were ordered to pay $3 each
in damages ($1 to each plaintiff) plus attorney
fees and costs.
City Attorney Pat Gilligan said during an Ocala
City Council meeting on Tuesday that the motion
to vacate is based on other federal case law.
The city had the opportunity to appeal
Corrigan’s ruling, but decided against that.
Attorneys who represent the city and Graham in
the lawsuit did not immediately respond to an
email request for comment.
A group of four Marion County residents
originally filed the suit, claiming the prayer
vigil violated the constitution by having
uniformed police officers participate, having
government officials plan the event and having
the event promoted on OPD letterhead.
“Not only did they violate well-settled
constitutional rights ... but they did so in the
face of repeated actual warnings from counsel
that their conduct was violating the
Establishment Clause,” the plaintiff’s motion
for summary judgement read.
The Establishment Clause refers to the first 10
words of the First Amendment: “Congress
shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion.”
STOP RIGHT HERE.
What does a community's decision have to host a
prayer vigil have to do with the fact that
Congress is banned from making laws regarding
established religions???!!
Does it bother you, too, that a Judge who is
supposed to uphold the Constitution which is
written to protect WE THE PEOPLE from an ever
encroaching government, encroaches on a
community's natural right to gather in a
peaceful manner, whether they pray, or sing
songs, or eat ice cream??? Isn't this judge
overstepping??!!
Read
the articles in its entirety here, and
share it with organizations that are concerned
with our preserving our Constitution and basic
civil freedoms that it was meant to protect. June
1, 2018
There has been a fair amount of buzz recently
about the "morally straight" organization of
the Boy Scouts and the attempt to move gender
identity into the psychological realm, away
from the realm of the physical way that God
created people- man, and woman.
God loves all his children and wants us
to carry out loving-kindness for one another,
and God is full of forgiveness for all of us;
and who among us doesn't error in some
behaviors and omissions? When we ask, God is
ready to forgive us and point us to a
healthier and happy direction, for that is
what God wants all us children.
Wondering what the Scripture plainly says
about sexual behavior and morality, a
particular
website came to notice. It's worth your time
to read and ponder. In case you
need to save it to visit later, the website
is: http://www.livingout.org/the-bible-and-ssa
Trump’s latest appeal to evangelicals: a new
office to protect religious liberty
Trump will sign an executive order launching
the new White House Faith and Opportunity
Initiative today.
Published: May 3, 2018 Author: Tara Isabella Burton Vox.com
...The institution of faith-based initiatives is
not uncommon in the White House — Barack Obama
launched the Office of Faith-based and
Neighborhood Partnerships, and George W. Bush
instituted an Office of Faith-Based and
Community Initiatives. Both programs were
designed to provide faith-based charity
organizations with a clear avenue to get federal
funding for their work.
That said, Trump’s initiative seems to expand
previous offices’ remit in a number of ways. For
starters, the office isn’t just focusing on
community-based or charitable initiatives.
According to the Religion News Service, it’s
also charged with informing the administration
of “any failures of the executive branch to
comply with religious liberty protections under
law.” The Trump administration has consistently
been a champion of religious liberty,
particularly insofar as it pertains to
evangelical Christian causes. ... Please
click here to read the entire article at
Vox.com.
England Moves Submarines Armed With
Cruise Missiles Within Striking Range Of Syria
Theresa May Convenes ‘War Cabinet’
Geoffrey Grider Apr. 11, 2018 Nowthenedbegins.com
Theresa May was poised last night to
defy calls for a Commons vote on military action
in Syria. The Prime Minister summoned
ministers back to London to seek their
support for joining an American-led attack on
the Assad regime within days.
EDITOR’S NOTE: British
Prime Minister Theresa May is prepared to
act with or without the consent of
Parliament, sources are now saying. UK
submarines armed with Tomahawk cruise
missiles have already been positioned off
the coast of Syria to support the United
States just as soon as President Trump gives
the go ahead to launch the missile strike.
Kinda funny to think that a potential war of
such Biblical proportions could be waged
largely on Twitter and social media, yet it
is. The end times clock is ticking, the only
question is will it blink or go boom?
Clearing the way for action,
she declared the use of chemical weapons could
not go unchallenged and said ‘all the
indications’ suggested that Bashar Assad’s
forces were responsible for Saturday’s
atrocity near Damascus.
"Colonel Bohannon had the right to exercise his
sincerely held religious beliefs and did not
unlawfully discriminate." Please
click here to read the article in The
Patriot Post in its entirety.
Islamic intimidation of the secular British
school system
Click
here to read an interesting article
from the Gatestone Institute about
intimidation of the secular British school
system.
Islamist threats that would be unacceptable
coming from other groups, are not prosecuted
by law enforcement policies in Britain.
Policies do not defend school
administrators, or the general public. But
Brits do have a choice- they can be engulfed
by the misogenist totalitarian rule of Sharia,
or die.
What will be the tipping point in America?
The First Amendment Is In Far Greater
Danger Than The Second
Frank Cannon
Town Hall
March 1, 2018
Our nation’s elites are waging
war on the American people, wielding the
institutions they’ve spent several decades
capturing to punish those who disagree with
their preferred positions and to deny them
the ability to speak publicly, all in an
effort to stifle free and open debate. And
no, this isn’t a George Orwell novel — this
is the United States of America.
While many still mistakenly
view our political arena as a skirmish
between “liberals” and “conservatives”, it
would be more accurate to describe it as an
all-out war between “elitists” and
“populists”. As my late friend Jeff Bell
argued in his 1992 book, “Populism and
Elitism: Politics in the Age of Equality”,
elitists believe in a top-down approach
where a cadre of experts rule the country
and determine what is acceptable discourse
and what is not, while populists believe the
people should ultimately determine the
course of our politics and culture.
Traditionally, the “elitists”
have always had the upper hand in this
battle by controlling many of our cultural
institutions, but the respect for the will
of the people — exercised by the ability to
elect our political leaders — remained in
place. Over time, however, that respect
eroded, and today, it is completely gone.
Now the “elitists” find the “populists” to
be repugnant, backward, and bigoted, and
they believe the only way to defeat the
people is to use elite institutional power
in academia, corporate America, the
administrative state, and the mainstream
media to stifle debate, force-feed elite
opinions masquerading as facts, and stamp
out dissent.
For example, consider these
three widely held views by the American
people:
Young
children should not be taught about
transgenderism or changing their gender.
Abortion is
wrong, especially after the first
trimester.
The right to
bear arms shall not be infringed.
Despite their relative
popularity, these views are repulsive to our
elites, and in recent years, they have
sought to shut down debate on all three
topics by calling anti-gender ideology
activists “transphobic”, anti-abortion
activists “anti-women”, and defenders of the
Constitution “gun nuts” who have “blood on
their hands”. On the gender ideology issue,
elites have been wildly successful in
completely removing debate over
transgenderism from the public square and
even politics. On abortion, they have
largely failed as pro-life sentiment among
the people has proven too strong for elites
to overcome. And on guns, the jury is still
out, but elites are engaging in perhaps
their most brazenly outrageous effort to
silence opposing views to date.
It’s About Tactics, Not
Issues
The battle between elite
opinion and popular opinion is as old as
time, but the recent tactical change among
elites seeking to stifle dissenting speech
is a new, and frightening, development. In a
departure from the normal give-and-take of
American democracy, the elites have begun
using their clout within every major
institution of civil society to demonize and
punish their opposition — through public
shaming in the media, economic extortion and
retaliation by big businesses, and even
criminalization of certain protest
activities. And given their entrenchment
within these institutions, the elites face
little or no consequences for their blatant
illiberality.
A case in point of this change
has been the aftermath of the Parkland
school shooting. Despite the complexity of
the issues involved and the diversity of
views held by Americans as to the proper
response, the elites have pursued a scorched
earth campaign against those who do not hold
their black-and-white views on guns. In the
news media, a narrative emphasizing the
immediate necessity of national gun control
legislation has become a 24-hour rallying
cry, with victims of the tragedy exploited
to advance this narrative and brand those
who disagree as somehow complicit in the
violence. Meanwhile, corporations have begun
to sever ties with the NRA, sending a
message that only one side of the debate is
socially acceptable while the other is
deserving of punishment.
A similar strategy has been
playing out with the movement to normalize
the Left’s gender ideology. Despite a lack
of scientific evidence — and widespread
parental skepticism — regarding the
soundness of treating young, gender
dysphoric children with highly experimental
puberty blockers and hormonal treatments,
elites have slowly co-opted influential
medical associations in order to ensure that
these treatments are not only widely adopted
but also that alternative approaches to
gender dysphoria are marginalized and even
criminalized. Moreover, opponents of this
takeover, no matter how well-grounded their
opposition, are branded by the media and its
self-appointed experts as “transphobes” and
“bigots” while being denied any opportunity
to make their arguments in a respected
forum.
Most Americans Already
Understand What’s Happening
Make no mistake: an America
with total elite control over the population
and where dissent from their views is
vilified is not an America at all. The gun
debate is simply another battle in the
all-out war elites are waging on the
American people’s right to even have an
opinion, let alone speak out about it and
not be punished for it.
Fortunately, the American
people are fully cognizant of what is taking
place, which is why they voted for Donald
Trump in 2016. Instead of looking at Trump
and Clinton through the two lenses voters
typically use, moral character and issue
positions, voters applied a third lens:
would their views be allowed to be
articulated at all without dire consequences
under a Clinton administration?
We cannot keep pretending, like
so many Never Trumpers do, that we are
operating in an environment of normal
political give-and-take on issues. That time
has passed. We are instead operating in a
country now where elites demonize the
populist position with such ferocity that
many are afraid to voice their opinion at
all, which is, of course, the entire point
of their strategy. Our fight is no longer
just over political issues — it is a battle
against the very tactics being used by
elites to stifle debate and destroy the
essence of what makes America great.
Frank Cannon is the president
at American Principles Project.
Islamists seem to be
influencing the British school system with
ease: there is simply no solid opposition
to them. The government even stays silent
about the harassment and intimidation.
Islamists in Britain seem to
be intent on establishing regressive
requirements, such as the hijab for young
girls, wife beating, making homosexuality
illegal, death for apostates, halala
rituals in divorce, and exploitation of
women and children through Sharia courts
as part and parcel of British culture.
That St. Stephen's School
allowed itself to be blackmailed in this
way bodes ill for both Britain and its
education system.
St. Stephen's School in East London recently
imposed a ban on hijabs (Islamic
headscarves), but reversed its decision
after administrators received hundreds of
threats from enraged Muslims.
"This
is an important step in promoting religious
extremism, mob rule and refusing to give
#Muslim young girls equal gender equality
rights.... So much for choice and individual
liberty. Terribly sad day for a secular
democracy."
While
secular British values need to be upheld to
provide equal opportunities to everyone,
regardless of caste, creed, gender or color,
Islamists seem to be influencing the British
school system with ease: there is simply no
solid opposition to them. The government
even stays silent about the harassment and
intimidation.
Was
St. Stephen's forced to succumb to the
pressure of ignorant zealots, who either do
not know or choose to ignore that under
Islamic law (Sharia), girls are not required
to cover their heads until they reach
puberty? Ignorance also seems not to have
prevented them from accusing anyone who says
or acts otherwise of "Islamophobia." It is a
form of political blackmail used by Muslim
extremists against the Western institutions,
the values of which they abhor.
Parliamentary
Under
Secretary of State for the School System,
Lord Agnew of Oulton, pledged to support the
schools that are trying to ban hijabs as
well as obligatory fasting: in Islam, young
children are not subject to either.
Lord
Agnew said that the government should
support head teachers in making difficult
and "sensitive" decisions in the face of
vitriolic opposition. We have yet to see the
effects of his statement. Supporting head
teachers is one thing, but there is also a
dire need to confront these extremists on
all levels, including law enforcement, if
they try to harass or intimidate anyone.
Someone
please
needs to back up Lord Agnew: there are only
a few such policy-makers left willing to
offer rational help during such crises.
Islamists
in
Britain seem to be intent on establishing
regressive requirements, such as the hijab
for young girls, wife-beating, halala
rituals in divorce, making homosexuality
illegal, death for apostates, and the exploitation
of women and children through Sharia
courts as part and parcel with
British culture.
Instead of making statements,
the British government needs to take
concrete steps to stop the further
infiltration of these practices into
Britain's social fabric, the warping of
children's minds, and the harassment of
whoever disagrees with those plans.
That St. Stephen's allowed
itself to be blackmailed in this way bodes
ill for both Britain and its education
system.
Khadija Khan is a Pakistani
journalist and commentator, currently
based in Germany.
Under Islamic repression, 'Christianity has
ignited like a flame'
By Bob Unrah 19 February 2018 World Net Daily
Hopeful news out of Iran....
Has Iran taken on a fight that it can never
win?
Evidence suggests that might be the case, as
the internationally renowned American Center
for Law and Justice points out that the
Islamic regime now is becoming desperate to
extinguish a surging population of Christians
inside its borders.
Iran, after all, is a nation that has exported
terrorism for decades. It has the free world
worried about its nuclear-weapons program. It
routinely threatens to destroy Israel. It
interferes with Middle East conflicts and
engages in cyberwar against the West.
But the American Center for Law and Justice
reports Christianity “has ignited like a flame
across the country of Iran, making the Iranian
government so nervous they’re desperate to
extinguish it quickly.”
Iranians are converting to Christianity at a
record-setting pace, with an estimated 360,000
to 800,000 Christians in the country.
There were fewer than 500 back in the 1980s.
“It’s difficult to take an accurate census
because fears of retribution, arrest, and
violence keep many Christian converts from
self-identifying. Iranian authorities have
been raiding the homes of suspected
Christians, confiscating their books,
computers, and other media and arresting the
men,” ACLJ said.
The government has spent millions of dollars
to fight the growing interest in Christianity,
the mission group Elam Ministries told Mohabat
News, a website that reports on Christians in
Iran.
The money has gone toward Islamic propaganda,
jailing church members, confiscation of
Christian materials and more, the report said.
Ayatollah Alavi Boroujerdi, an official at an
Islamic seminary, has confirmed that
“youth are becoming Christians in Qom and
attending house churches.”
Christians are being forced to hide their
faith to protect themselves and their
families, because worshipping Jesus “will get
you arrested, and very possibly get you
killed,” a critic reported.
“This is something we at the ACLJ have
witnessed first hand, advocating for a number
of imprisoned Christians pastors in Iran –
including Youcef Nadarkhani, who we
successfully fought to free from multiple
false imprisonments for his faith. In each of
these cases, Iran has targeted pastors in an
attempt to squelch the Christian church. It
has failed each and every time. In fact, the
attempts to silence the church has only made
it louder as Christianity grows in Iran,” ACLJ
said.
What
'peace' means to Muslims; just ask Jefferson By Bill Federer
16 February 2018
World Net Daily
Bill Federer recounts brief history of
American conflicts with brutality of Islam
“The first nation to recognize my country was
Morocco,” stated President Obama in Cairo,
Egypt, June 4, 2009.
Morocco began recognizing American colonists in
1625. Governor William Bradford described the
incident in the History of the Plymouth
Settlement. In 1625, the Pilgrims sent two ships
back to England carrying dried fish and 800 lbs
of beaver skins to trade for much needed
supplies.
What happened next?
Bradford related the fate of one ship: “They …
were well within the England channel, almost in
sight of Plymouth. But … there she was unhapply
taken by a Turkish man-of-war and carried off to
Morocco where the captain and crew were made
slaves. … Now by the ship taken by the Turks …
all trade was dead.”
...
When America became independent, it was no
longer covered by the British extortion tribute
payment to the Muslim pirates. Morocco
“recognized” the United States in 1785 by
capturing two American ships and holding the
sailors for ransom. Thomas Jefferson worked to
free them, writing to John Jay, 1787: “There is
an order of priests called the Mathurins, the
object of whose institution is to beg alms for
the redemption of captives. They keep members
always in Barbary, searching out the captives of
their country, and redeem, I believe, on better
terms than any other body, public or private. It
occurred to me, that their agency might be
obtained for the redemption of our prisoners at
Algiers.”
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson wrote to William
Carmichael regarding Tripoli’s demand for
extortion tribute payment, 1786: “Mr. Adams and
I had conferences with a Tripoline ambassador,
named Abdrahaman. He asked us thirty thousand
guineas for a peace with his court.”
When Jefferson asked the Muslim Ambassador what
the new country of America had done to offend
them, he reported to John Jay, March 28, 1786:
“The ambassador answered us that it was founded
on the laws of the prophet, it was written in
their Qur’an, that all nations which had not
acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it
was the right and duty of the faithful to
plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman
(Muslim) who was slain in this warfare was sure
to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man
who was the first to board a vessel had one
slave over and above his share, and that when
they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship,
every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a
third in his mouth; which usually struck such
terror into the foe that they cried out for
quarter at once.”
Jefferson read the Qur’an, not out of admiration
but to understand why Muslims were attacking
Americans unprovoked.
Crisis Magazine
William Kilpatrick
January 2, 2018
Secularists like to advise
Christians that, for the sake of social
harmony, they ought to keep their religion to
themselves. Religion, they argue, is a private
affair between an individual and his
designated deity, and ought not to be dragged
into the public square. Moreover, they
helpfully add, it’s an imposition on others to
confront them with beliefs that they may find
offensive.
As for themselves, secularists
have no qualms about imposing their own values
on everyone within reach. They are convinced
of the rightness of their beliefs, and
consequently they don’t think twice about
forcing Christian bakers, florists, and
photographers to endorse gay weddings. They
are also convinced that they know what’s best
for your children. And what’s best for them,
they are quite certain, is that they learn all
the latest fashions in gender identity and
marriage equality. In his groundbreaking 1984 book,
The Naked Public Square, Richard John Neuhaus
argued that the public square can never be
naked for long. In other words, it cannot be
neutral about values: “If it is not clothed
with the ‘meanings’ borne by religion, new
‘meanings’ will be imposed by virtue of the
ambitions of the modern state.” In short, the committed
secularist won’t be satisfied with the removal
of the crèche from the town square. He’ll
insist that it be replaced with something that
more accurately reflects American
diversity—say, a monument to Margaret Sanger
or a statue of James Obergefell. Of course,
secular society’s reach extends well beyond
the town green. The religion of secularism is
constantly being advanced in a variety of
venues—in courtrooms, school rooms, and in the
newly remodeled bathrooms that accommodate the
newly invented genders. Fr. Neuhaus was right in
predicting that “a perverse notion of the
disestablishment of religion leads to the
establishment of the state as Church.” The
secular state quickly moves to enshrine
whatever values it currently smiles upon. And
it defends them as though they were divinely
revealed dogma. But, despite his prescience,
Neuhaus did fail to anticipate another
development—namely, that the Judeo-Christian
tradition might be displaced from the public
square not only by the state, but also by
another religion.
The possibility that Islam would
one day be a contender for control of the
public square probably didn’t enter his mind.
That’s no surprise. Except for the blip caused
by the Iranian Revolution, Islam wasn’t on
anyone’s radar in the early eighties. Yet
Islam is now well on its way to controlling
the public square in parts of Europe. And,
were it not for the election of Donald Trump
and the defeat of the Muslim
Brotherhood-friendly Clinton machine, the U.S.
would now be playing catch-up. As has often been observed,
Islam is a political religion. Some, like
Dutch MP Geert Wilders, contend that it is
almost totally political with only a thin and
deceptive veneer of religiosity. Whatever the
exact proportion of politics to religion, it’s
hard to deny that the political dimension
looms large in Islam. Muhammad, after all, was
a warlord. He conquered all of Arabia, and
within a relatively short time after his
death, his followers conquered an area larger
than the Roman Empire. Sayyid Abul A’la
Maududi, one of the most important
twentieth-century Islamic theorists, wrote
that “Islam requires the earth—not just a
portion, but the whole planet.”
ISIS Kills Scores of Christians in Retaken
Syrian Town: Report
By Conor Gaffey Newsweek.com 4/11/16
The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) killed
scores of Christians when they captured a Syrian
town recently liberated by the government, a
Syrian Christian leader has said.
ISIS swept into the town of Al-Qaryatain in
August 2015, kidnapping at least 230 civilians
including dozens of Christians in the central
Syrian town, which lies 104 kilometers (65
miles) southwest of Palmyra. The town had a
population of some 2,000 Syriac Catholics and
Orthodox Christians prior to the outbreak of
civil war in Syria in 2011, but this had dropped
to just 300 before ISIS took control.
Al-Qaryatain was retaken by Syrian government
forces with the backing of Russian airstrikes
earlier in April and reports are just beginning
to emerge of life under the extremist group for
civilians in the town. Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem
II, the head of the Syrian Orthodox Church, told
the BBC on Sunday that 21 Christians were
murdered when ISIS first captured the city.
Some died trying to escape while others were
killed for violating the terms of contracts they
had signed requiring them to submit to the
extremists’ interpretation of Islamic law.
Hundreds of Christians in Al-Qaryatain were
reportedly forced to sign so-called dhimmi
contracts, which enabled them to live under ISIS
rule in the town. The patriarch added that five
other Christians are missing and presumed dead,
while ransoms had been paid to ISIS to secure
the release of the rest of the Christians.
The civil war in Syria has had a devastating
impact on the country’s Christian contingent,
which made up approximately 10 percent of
Syria’s population before the outbreak of the
conflict. The European Parliament stated in
October 2015 that about 40 percent of Syria’s
Christian population—or 700,000 people—had fled
the country.
NOTE: Jesus Christ was crucified in Jerusalem,
was dead for three days, and rose from the dead,
and walked among us for forty days until his
Ascension. After the Pentecost, when the Holy
Spirit came to the Apostles, they spread out to
different areas of the land to spread the good
news, of our salvation. One of the first places
they went to was what is now Syria, which was
the home of Simon Peter. Not only does ISIS
eradicate people who do not bow down to their
cult they attempt to erase the ancient traces of
preceding times like in Palmyra which was a
Roman outpost in Syria, from the first or second
century after the year of our Lord. Click
here to view more about that.
R.I.P. Justice Scalia
Feb. 18, 2016
It is hard to imagine a
greater loss to Liberty in America than has
occurred in the passing of Justice Antonin
Scalia. His understanding of the
Constitution as a pact between free people
and government, and our protection from
oppressive government, was unparalleled.
The fact that 30% of Americans do not know
who he was, speaks volumes about the state
of our Union and our education system.
My words and thoughts are totally inadequate
but you can easily find more about the great
man's life and legacy. Click
here for a link to wikipedia. Or click
here to read the thoughts of the other
Justices on the Supreme Court about him.
R.I.P. Justice Scalia.
Shariah Law at work in the Obama
Administration
Obama DHS scrubs records of hundreds of
Muslim terrorists
Published: 7 Feb 2016 World Net Daily Pamela Geller
Not only did the
Obama administration scrub counter-terror
programs of jihad and Islam, now we find out
that his administration scrubbed the records of
Muslim terrorists. If the enemedia were not
aligned with the jihad force, this would be
front-page news across the nation.
An agent of the Department of Homeland Security,
or DHS, for 15 years, Philip Haney, reported
Friday that after the Christmas Day underwear
bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, tried to blow
up a crowded passenger jet over Detroit,
“President Obama threw the intelligence
community under the bus for its failure to
‘connect the dots.’ He said, ‘This was not a
failure to collect intelligence; it was a
failure to integrate and understand the
intelligence that we already had.'”
Haney revealed: “Most Americans were unaware of
the enormous damage to morale at the Department
of Homeland Security, where I worked, his
condemnation caused. His words infuriated many
of us because we knew his administration had
been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy
the raw material – the actual intelligence we
had collected for years, and erase those dots.
The dots constitute the intelligence needed to
keep Americans safe, and the Obama
administration was ordering they be wiped away.”
What Haney discloses is truly shocking: “Just
before that Christmas Day attack, in early
November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at
the Department of Homeland Security to delete or
modify several hundred records of individuals
tied to designated Islamist terror groups like
Hamas from the important federal database, the
Treasury Enforcement Communications System
(TECS). These types of records are the basis for
any ability to ‘connect dots.’ Every day, DHS
Customs and Border Protection officers watch
entering and exiting many individuals associated
with known terrorist affiliations, then look for
patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of
records of Muslims greatly affected our ability
to do that. Even worse, going forward, my
colleagues and I were prohibited from entering
pertinent information into the database.”
Who gave the order to scrub the records of
Muslims with ties to terror groups?
These new shocking revelations come fresh on the
heels of whistleblower testimony in the wake of
the San Bernardino jihad slaughter, revealing
that the Obama administration shut down
investigations into jihadists in America (and
quite possible the San Bernardino shooters) at
the request of the Department of State and the
DHS’ own Civil Rights and Civil Liberties
Division. Haney noted: “They claimed that since
the Islamist groups in question were not
Specially Designated Terrorist Organizations
(SDTOs) tracking individuals related to these
groups was a violation of the travelers’ civil
liberties. These were almost exclusively foreign
nationals: When were they granted the civil
rights and liberties of American citizens?”
How is this not impeachable? When did foreign
terrorists get civil rights?
Haney described how he began investigating
scores of individuals with links to the
traditionalist Islamic Indo-Pakistani Deobandi
movement, and its related offshoots,
prominently, Tablighi Jamaat.
I have reported on this infiltration for years.
I reported on it extensively in my book, “Stop
the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide
to the Resistance.” Obama has partnered with
terror-tied groups such as the Council on
American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society
of North America, the Muslim American Society
and others. The stealth jihad in the information
battle-space has led to the vigorous enforcement
of blasphemy laws under the Shariah, as Obama
ordered that counter-terror training materials
must avoid all reference to Islam and jihad.
Under Islamic law, it is prohibited to criticize
Islam.
The Obama administration is Shariah-compliant at
all costs. Its number one priority is to protect
Islam, even when it puts American lives at risk.
The cold-blooded slaughter of Americans in the
homeland by Muslims has not tempered Obama’s
Shariah enthusiasm. On the contrary, Garland,
Fort Hood, Chattanooga, UCMED, San Bernardino,
etc., have accelerated it.
My civil liberties and your civil liberties are
being abridged in accordance with the blasphemy
laws under Shariah. My organization is engaged
in 15 different free-speech lawsuits against
various cities. Our free-speech lawsuit against
Boston is heading to the Supreme Court, because
even though truthful, our ads violate the laws
of Shariah (“do not criticize Islam”). We are
being forced to adhere to Shariah mores, but
jihad murderers are given sanctuary and
protection – to slaughter Americans.
The moral, or in this case the immoral, of the
story is this: Jihad terror works.
Pamela Geller is the publisher of
AtlasShrugs.com and the author of the WND
Books title "Stop the Islamization of America:
A Practical Guide to the Resistance."
Wisconsin firm fires Muslims in prayer
dispute
Religious breaks disrupted production at
lawn mower, snowblower manufacturer
Published: 02/04/2016 (ABC News) A civil liberties group
said Wednesday that it plans to file federal
discrimination and harassment complaints after a
Wisconsin manufacturer fired seven Muslim
employees for violating a company break policy
that doesn’t provide extra time for prayer.
Ariens Co. terminated the workers in a dispute
that began last month when it moved to enforce
an existing rule of two 10-minute breaks per
work shift and dozens of Muslim staffers of
Somali descent walked off the job in protest.
Of the 53 employees involved, 32 have abided
with the policy, 14 resigned and seven were
terminated Tuesday, according to Ariens
spokeswoman Ann Stilp. The news of the
terminations was first reported by WLUK-TV in
Green Bay.
If shouting 'No!' doesn't work, then swat
attacker with purse
World Net Daily Published: 02/03/2016 by Leo Hohmann
A public-service advertisement running on
Finland TV instructs women in the Scandinavian
country on how to fend off a rapist.
But rather than pull out a handgun or even
pepper spray, the women of Finland are taught
to confront their attackers with bare hands
and a purse.
Rape epidemics have engulfed Finland, Sweden
and Germany in a sea of fear since the mass
influx of migrants from the Middle East and
North Africa began two years ago.
Alan Gottlieb, executive vice president
and founder of the Second Amendment
Foundation, said he found the video laughable.
Anti-Shariah activist and author Pamela Geller
posted the video on her website earlier this
week under the title "It just gets more
absurd."
Netanyahu: Islamic terrorism is
flooding the world from Jakarta to California
The prime minister says the struggle against
terrorism will take time but that Israel is
fighting hard.
Jerusalem Post by JPOST.COM STAFF BEN HARTMAN 02/04/2016
Islamic terrorism is flooding the world and
inciting millions from Jakarta to Africa and
all the way to California, said Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu during a trip on Thursday
to the Jerusalem hospital treating a Border
Police officer who was injured in yesterday's
attack at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old
City.
Netanyahu praised the courage of the security
forces and the courage and strength the Border
Police officer shown during Wednesday's
attack. He also expressed his condolences to
the family of Border Police officer Hadar
Cohen who was killed in the combined shooting
and stabbing attack.
Three Arab terrorists wielding machine guns,
pipe bombs and knives carried out the attack
on Wednesday killing Cohen, 19, who died of
her wounds shortly after being rushed to the
capital's Hadassa University Medical Center at
Mt. Scopus. Her partner, Ravit, was seriously
wounded and underwent emergency surgery at the
hospital. As of Thursday morning she was
considered to be in moderate condition.
"We are all saddened by the death of Hadar
Cohen, a real hero. We all embrace the
family," Netanyahu said.
The prime minister emphasized that a great
effort is being put into the fight against
terrorism, during the lengthy effort to defeat
it.
"It will take time, it is a long struggle,"
Netanyahu said. "We are in this fight, it is
not passing us by, but we are fighting it with
great force and will continue to do so."
"Kabatiya has been closed off while the IDF
and the Shin bet make widespread arrests of
wanted suspects, we have cancelled many work
permits and the attorney-general informed me
yesterday that he has added a number of houses
belonging to terrorists to be slated for
demolition," Netanyahu said of the West Bank
village, from where Wednesday's terrorists
hailed.
Police Commissioner Inspector General Roni
Alsheich paid a visit to the wounded Border
Police officer on Wednesday night.
During his visit, Alsheich praised the two
teenager Border Police officers who had
recently drafted into the force for preventing
a major terror attack.
Alsheich said “I have no doubt that a terror
cell that comes with an arsenal like this has
every intention of carrying out a massive
attack.”
Ravit and Cohen were part of a three-man
patrol along with their commander. They had
only been drafted a couple months before and
their deployment at Damascus Gate in East
Jerusalem was part of their training.
Since the attack yesterday, police and the
Border Police have drawn criticism for the
fact that the two women were posted at one of
the most dangerous flashpoints in the country
so soon after they were drafted.
The three terrorists were responsible for the
attack were identified as Ahmed Rajeh
Zakarneh, Muhammad Ahmed Kmail, and Ahmed
Najeh Abu al-Rub. All three were shot dead at
the scene. Their explosives did not detonate
and were later neutralized by a police bomb
disposal team.
No holds barred: Torrent of anti-Israel
advice found in Hillary’s emails
Jerusalem Post - Opinion By Shmuley Boteach 02/01/2016
Clandestinely stirring up potentially violent
protests in an attempt to try and force Israel
to go against its best interests? Advice like
this was par for the course with Clinton’s
advisers.
It’s already been established that one of
Hillary Clinton’s most trusted advisers, Sid
Blumenthal, sent her anti-Israel articles,
ideas and advice during her time as secretary of
state. But the stream of anti-Israel advice
received by Clinton was much more comprehensive.
In the entire forced dump of Clinton’s emails,
you will be hard pressed to find a single one
sympathetic toward the Jewish state from any of
the people she relied on. The negative,
poisonous approach to Israel throughout this
email expose shows the atmosphere that she had
established around herself. These emails seem to
demonstrate that a huge segment of her close
advisers and confidantes were attacking Israel,
condemning Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
strategizing how to force Israel to withdraw
from Judea and Samaria at all costs.
This was occurring against the backdrop of
Israel’s recent Gaza withdrawal, which led to
the takeover of Gaza by Hamas. There is almost
zero mention of the huge risks to Israel’s
security in withdrawing as Clinton and the Obama
administration did everything they could to
pressure Israel to capitulate to their demands.
Take a look at a sampling of the advice being
sent to Clinton from her many advisers that we
have now become privy to.
Sandy
Berger was Clinton’s foreign policy
adviser during her 2008 presidential campaign.
In September of 2010 he sent her ideas on how to
pressure Israel to make concessions for peace.
Berger acknowledged “how fragile is Abbas’s
political position,” and how “Palestinians are
in disarray,” and that “failure is a real
possibility.” Berger was well aware of, and
informed Hillary of, the very real possibility
that Israel would be placing its national
security at grave risk in a deal that would very
likely fail and lead to a Hamas takeover.
But Berger felt the risks to Israeli lives were
worth it.
He advised the need to make Netanyahu feel
“uneasy about incurring our displeasure....”
Berger emphasizes the need “to convince the
prime minister – through various forms of overt
persuasion and implicit pressure – to make the
necessary compromises” and talks of the
“possibility – to turn his position against
him.”
Astoundingly, Berger seems to accuse the Jews in
America of racism toward Obama. He writes, “At a
political level, the past year has clearly
demonstrated the degree to which the U.S. has
been hamstrung by its low ratings in Israel and
among important segments of the domestic Jewish
constituency....” He then adds, “Domestically,
he faces a reservoir of skepticism on this issue
which reflects many factors, including
inexcusable prejudice.”
Anne Marie Slaughter was Clinton’s director of
policy planning from 2009-2011. She wrote to
Clinton in September of 2010 and devised a
scheme to encourage wealthy philanthropists to
pledge millions to the Palestinians (which no
doubt would have been embezzled by Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his
cronies as were other funds).
She wrote: “This may be a crazy idea.... Suppose
we launched a “Pledge for Palestine” campaign...
Such a campaign among
billionaires/multi-millionaires around the world
would reflect a strong vote of confidence in the
building of a Palestinian state....”
She adds: “There would also be a certain shaming
effect re Israelis who, would be building
settlements in the face of a pledge for peace.”
Clinton’s response to this email: “I am very
interested- pls flesh out. Thx.”
Robert
Russo, one of Clinton’s aides and
currently her campaign’s “director of
correspondence and briefings” sent an email in
April of 2012 informing her of Netanyahu’s
father’s death and advising her to give him a
condolence call. Included with Russo’s
email is an extremely biased article attacking
both Netanyahu and his father, describing them
as virulently racist warmongers and calling the
elder Netanyahu “a behindthe- scenes adviser to
his son, the most powerful person in Israel.”
The article noted that “Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu repeatedly denied that his father was
a one-dimensional ideologue. He further
emphasized that he himself was a different
person from his father.”
But then it goes on to say, without providing
any proof whatsoever, “Israelis seemed in the
dark about the extent of paternal influence on
their leader,” and “To understand Bibi, you have
to understand the father.”
One might be forgiven for questioning Clinton’s
sympathy and sincerity when she later placed the
call and gave Netanyahu her condolences.
Thomas
Pickering, former US ambassador to Israel,
wrote to Clinton on December 18, 2011, and
suggested a secret plan to stir up major
Palestinian protests in an attempt to force the
Israeli government into peace negotiations.
He stated that the protests “must be all and
only women. Why? On the Palestinian side the
male culture is to use force.”
Pickering’s goal was to ignite protests that
would engulf the West Bank, “just like Tahrir
square.” He adds that the Palestinian
“leadership has shied away from this idea
because they can’t control it,” and they are
“afraid of being replaced.”
This idiotic reasoning that somehow only women
would participate and things would stay peaceful
is obviously absurd. As Pickering himself notes,
“Palestinian men will not for long patiently
demonstrate – they will be inclined over time
and much too soon to be frustrated and use
force. Their male culture comes close to
requiring it.”
Regardless, Pickering writes that the protests
could be used against Israel “to influence the
political leadership.”
The idea was as dangerous for the Palestinians
as it was for Israel. As Pickering himself
admits, widespread protests could overthrow
Abbas’ government, and if Palestinian men joined
in, widespread violence would inevitably break
out. It would obviously be impossible to prevent
men from participating in these demonstrations.
Yet Pickering felt this extreme risk was worth
taking, even if it meant the replacement of
Abbas with another Hamas-led government. And
even if meant violence breaking out across the
West Bank leading to a third intifada and the
murder of countless Jews. He also emphasizes the
need to hide all US involvement in this plot.
Clinton forwarded this email to Monica Hanley
and asked her to “pls print.”
Clandestinely stirring up potentially violent
protests in an attempt to try and force Israel
to go against its best interests? Advice like
this was par for the course when it came to
Clinton’s advisers.
In a follow-up column we’ll illuminate even more
anti-Israel advice that was given the
then-secretary of state. Sadly, there was just
so much of it.
The author, “America’s Rabbi,” is the
international bestselling author of 30 books
including his upcoming The Israel Warrior’s
Handbook. Follow him on Twitter @ RabbiShmuley.
Senate resolution calls for a US
constitutional convention
Posted: February 3, 2016 at 10:37 am
KFQD Radio Anchorage, Alaska
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – An Alaska Senate
committee is set to consider a resolution
calling for a convention of the states to
propose a countermand, or veto, amendment to
the U.S. Constitution.
The measure calls on legislators in the other
49 states to apply for a convention as well.
In his sponsor statement, Chugiak Republican
Senator Bill Stoltze says the resolution is
meant to restore the balance of power between
the states and the federal government.
The resolution calls for a convention of
states to amend the U.S. Constitution and
provide states with the power to vote on
nullifying federal laws.
Click here to realize that Alaska is not
the only state that has called for a
Constitutional Convention.
Turkish Court Rules Government Failed to
Protect Christians Killed in Malatya
Civil suit results in order to pay
damages to relatives of victims.
January 27, 2016
By Our Middle East Correspondent
Morning Star News
ISTANBUL, Turkey (Morning Star News) – A Turkish
court ruled on Tuesday (Jan. 26) that the
government was negligent in its duty to protect
three Christians who were tortured and killed in
2007 and ordered it to pay damages to the
victims’ families.
The Malatya Administrative Court ruled that,
nearly nine years ago, the Interior Ministry and
the Malatya Governor’s Office ignored reliable
intelligence that Turkish nationalists were
targeting the three Christians days prior to the
April 2007 killings.
At the present rate, it is doubtful what year
money might actually change hands
Man with Quran, guns arrested near
Disneyland Paris
Manhunt underway for female companion
CNN by Laura Akhoun and Jason Hanna Published: 01/28/2016
(CNN) French police are looking for a woman who
was with the Paris man who was arrested with
guns Thursday at a Disney hotel near Disneyland
Paris, police official Michael Le Provost told
CNN.
When security guards discovered the firearms,
they noticed the woman was with him, but she
eluded arrest, Le Provost said.
Bomb disposal experts are inspecting the man’s
car, Le Provost said.
Posted By David Barton On 01/27/2016 @ 10:32
pm In Education,Faith,Front
Page,Politics,U.S.,World World Net Daily
Democrats have long heralded Thomas Jefferson
(along with Andrew Jackson) as the founder of
their Party. They traditionally hold annual
Jefferson-Jackson Day fundraising dinners, and
President Obama is one of their most sought
after speakers. But this past year, Democrats
began to remove any mention of Jefferson’s
name from their functions. They claim
that this is because Jefferson was a bigoted
racist, iii but this excuse is historically
inaccurate, based on an errant modern
portrayal.
If you doubt this, ask yourself why black
civil rights leaders over the past two
centuries (such as Frederick Douglass, Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr, Benjamin Banneker,
Francis Grimke, Henry Highland Garnett, and so
many others) openly praised Jefferson as a
racial civil rights pioneer and champion, as
did abolitionists such as John Quincy Adams,
Abraham Lincoln, and others They recognized
that Jefferson led a vocal lifelong campaign
to emancipate all slaves in the United States,
but that the laws of Virginia prevented him
from freeing his own slaves. (All of this is
covered in my new book, “The Jefferson
Lies.”)
The real reason that Democrats should discard
Jefferson is that he held nearly no policy
position similar to those Democrats hold
today. Consider fifteen major categories
where the policies of Presidents Jefferson
and Obama are opposite.
Posted By Jeff Knox On 01/27/2016 @ 7:42 pm
In Commentary,Opinion
World Net Daily
The occupation of a remote wildlife
refuge turned violent yesterday when federal
agents stopped two vehicles carrying
protesters to a town hall meeting in John Day,
Oregon. Victoria Sharp, a passenger in one of
those vehicles, has reported that federal
agents opened fire on the group without
provocation after conflicting and confusing
demands for the protesters to surrender. Sharp
reported that shots were first fired at Ryan
Payne as he complied with orders to show his
hands out of the window of the vehicle in
which she was riding, but that the shots
missed. Payne was calling for police to not
shoot, as there were women in the vehicle, and
exited the vehicle, asking that the women be
allowed out.
At this point, LaVoy Finicum, one of the
spokesmen for the occupiers, who was driving
the vehicle in which Ms. Sharp was riding,
yelled out the window that they were going to
go talk to the sheriff (at the meeting in John
Day), or that agents could just shoot him. He
told the passengers to get down, and drove
forward, precipitating heavy gunfire from the
agents, and crashing the vehicle into a
snowbank.
Sharp said that Finicum then exited the
vehicle, hands in the air, yelling, “Just
shoot me then!” A volley of shots rang out,
and Finicum fell to his back, hands still over
his head, and was shot several more times on
the ground, Sharp said.
According to Sharp, agents continued shooting
at the car, striking Ryan Bundy in the
shoulder as he shielded her on the floorboard,
and deploying tear gas before finally taking
the rest of the group into custody. She also
claims that none of the protesters fired a
shot or even touched a gun during the
encounter.
The full audio of Victoria Sharp’s account is
posted on YouTube, and comes across as very
credible.
Listen to Victoria Sharp’s testimony:
Another report suggested that Finicum
"charged" at police after exiting the vehicle
but does not dispute the claim that his hands
were in the air. Cliven Bundy, father of Ammon
and Ryan Bundy, leaders of the occupation who
were both taken into custody during the
incident, has further charged that, not only
were Finicum's hands in the air, but he was
not armed at the time.
In interviews during the occupation protest,
Finicum, a soft-spoken rancher and father of
11 from Arizona, had insisted that he would
rather be killed than "put in a cement box"
prison. He said that some things were more
important than life, and that freedom was one
of those things.
The occupation was initiated in protest of the
re-incarceration of a pair of Oregon ranchers
who had been convicted of terrorism for
starting two controlled burns on their graze
lands back in 2001 and 2005. The ranchers,
father and son Dwight and Steven Hammond, were
initially sentenced to, and served short
sentences and fined $400,000 for their
actions, but a federal appeals court later
concluded that the judge in the case had
improperly waived a five-year minimum sentence
for the charges, and the two were resentenced
to that minimum and ordered to return to
prison.
I reported on the Hammond case and the
resulting protests a few weeks ago in this
column, pointing out that the stated objective
of the protest was being lost in the news
coverage of the protest itself. Ammon Bundy
and his compatriots appeared to be more
interested in generating a confrontation with
federal authorities than in drawing attention
to the Hammonds and the abusive practices of
federal agencies that led to their plight.
The death of LaVoy Finicum is a needless
tragedy.
Federal authorities had wisely been taking a
hands-off approach to the occupation, denying
Bundy and his friends the opportunity for the
tense stand-off they seemed to be seeking.
Unfortunately, politicians like Oregon's
Democrat Gov. Kate Brown, took the occupation
as a personal affront and were calling for law
enforcement to take more aggressive action to
put a stop to the flagrant defiance of federal
authority. The result is a martyr for the
fringe and escalation of the situation from a
nuisance to a volatile and dangerous level.
The strategy was clearly to "remove the head
of the snake" by capturing the leaders of the
occupation, but what if those leaders were the
cooler heads that were keeping the protest
calm and peaceful?
With the death of Finicum, in circumstances
that some are calling murder, a fuse has been
lit, and unless authorities can and do quickly
produce evidence that their actions were
clearly justified, this could blow up in a
very ugly way. And it all could have been
easily avoided.
Realistically, what harm were the protesters
doing? They were occupying buildings of a
remote wildlife refuge in a sparsely populated
area of the country in the dead of winter.
They were making no threats, harming no one,
and getting less and less attention from an
unsympathetic media. They were not supported
by any national or state militia
organizations, and their whole agenda had
pretty well fizzled.
I wish Ammon Bundy had taken my advice,
negotiated a peaceful end to the situation and
sent his supporters home to their families
weeks ago. That didn't happen, and what
happens next is anyone's guess. The remaining
occupiers must be concerned about what might
happen to them if they try to leave,
especially in light of the death of Finicum,
and by setting up roadblocks and checkpoints,
authorities have now committed manpower and
resources to potentially long, cold,
uncomfortable duty that can't help but
engender deeper frustration and resentment
between police and occupiers. Any trust that
might have developed is completely out the
window. Worse, the bloodshed may provoke other
groups to step in and escalate the mess even
further.
Perhaps this week's arrests will bring this
whole thing to a close, but I fear that it is
more likely signaling the beginning of
something much worse than protesters occupying
a wilderness outpost.
Christian persecution reached record high in
2015, report says
By William J. Cadigan, CNN Sun January 17, 2016
Christians flee persecution in the middle
east
(CNN)Last year was the most violent for
Christians in modern history, rising to "a
level akin to ethnic cleansing," according to
a new report by Open Doors USA, a watchdog
group that advocates for Christians.
In total, the survey found that more than
7,100 Christians were killed in 2015 for
"faith-related reasons," up 3,000 from the
previous year, according to the group's
analysis of media reports and other public
information as well as external experts. Open
Door's report is independently audited by the
International Institute of Religious Freedom.
Open Doors USA is an organization that works
with Christians worldwide to "equip and
encourage" those living under persecution
while also helping churches in America
advocate for the persecuted around the world.
The group's report defines Christian
persecution "as any hostility experienced as a
result of one's identification with Christ."
Open Doors found this persecution ranged from
imprisonment, torture, beheadings and rape to
the loss of home and assets, the loss of a
job, or even rejection from a community.
Speaking at the National Press Club on
Wednesday, David Curry, president and CEO of
Open Doors, introduced the annual ranking of
countries based on their severity of Christian
persecution, evaluating levels of violence
worldwide to formulate the global top 50. The
list, now in its 25th year, is topped by North
Korea for the 14th consecutive time. Curry
says that "pariah states" like North Korea are
especially hostile toward Christians.
According to the report, however, much of the
persecution faced by Christians occurs in
predominantly Muslim nations, many of which
are "failed states" that fail to protect any
of their citizens' religious liberty.
The presence of Islamic extremist factions
across the world in 2015 brought religious
persecution for not only Christians, but also
Muslims, Yazidis and other religious
minorities, the report found. Notably, Iraq
(No. 2) and Syria (No. 5) are the epicenter of
ISIS' so called "caliphate," while Afghanistan
(4), Pakistan (6), Iran (9) and Libya (10) all
have elements of Islamic extremism.
Curry said that while "Islamic extremism is
one of the driving forces" of Christian
persecution, "peace-loving Muslims can make an
impact on that part of their culture."
ISIS and other extremist groups are spreading,
the report highlights, not just in the Middle
East but around the world. Curry said he hoped
the list would bring attention to the plight
of Christians across the globe as they face a
"total lack of religious freedom," forced
migration and even genocide.
In fact, part of the reason for the annual
list, according to Curry, is to highlight for
U.S. policymakers the continued persecution of
Christians by our "geopolitical allies."
Countries such as Saudi Arabia and India are
key global partners for the United States, yet
Open Doors ranks both in its top 50 of
persecutors of Christians.
"We believe in religious freedom for all,"
Curry said, "and that does not happen in
countries that we do business with every day."
Open Doors also seeks to inspire and inform
Christians in America, using the annual watch
list "as a clarion call to pray, advocate and
remember their persecuted fellow Christians."
Number of Muslim-Americans born to Middle
Eastern migrants 'off the charts'
Leo Hohmann Published: 1/06/2016
So-called “home-grown” terrorists such as
Syed Farook, who slaughtered 14 people last
month in San Bernardino, or Muhammad
Abdulazeez, who gunned down five U.S.
servicemen in Chattanooga last summer, were
both second-generation Muslim-Americans whose
parents emigrated to the U.S.
Most of the terrorists who attacked Paris in
November, killing 130 people with guns and
bombs, were also described by the media as
“home grown jihadists” when in reality they
still represented a foreign culture, born of
Middle Eastern parents who migrated to Europe
and never fully assimilated. And now there is
fresh evidence that this segment of the U.S.
population is growing exponentially.
Buried in the Social Security data is a count
of babies born with the name Muhammad. While
offering a small sample, the Social Security
database is able to shed light on the growth
of second-generation Muslims in America. It is
highly reliable and accurate. It shows a huge
growth pattern.
“A boy named Mohammed born here is likely to
grow up in a Muslim environment and, at the
same time, be a U.S. citizen,” North writes.
“So we can get a rough proxy of the growth of
the population of second-generation Muslim
immigrants by noting how many of them carry
these names. (Third-generation babies are also
included.)”
The figures show the huge growth in this
population over the last 50 years, starting in
1964 when only 29 baby boys were named after
the Islamic prophet who lived in the seventh
century. By 2014 the number had soared to
2,931, a more than 100-to-one ratio.
Alabama 2nd state to sue feds over refugee
resettlement
Suit claims program too secretive
Leo Hohmann Published: 01/07/2016
Alabama has become the second state to
sue the federal government alleging that it
has failed to “consult” with state officials
while secretly placing foreign refugees into
communities. The suit claims the Obama
administration has violated the terms of the
Refugee Act of 1980, which says the federal
government “shall consult regularly”
with states before placing refugees.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Robert Bentley told the
Associated Press the lawsuit was filed
Thursday, following a similar suit by Texas a
month ago.
But an expert on the 1980 law governing
refugee resettlement told WND that neither
suit stands a chance of stopping the flow of
refugees into Texas or Alabama. Richard
Thompson, president and chief counsel of the
Thomas More Law Center, said his organization
is not involved in either the Texas or the
Alabama cases because he believes there is a
stronger case to be made on the grounds of the
10th Amendment.
“They filed a suit on the grounds that the
feds have failed to consult with the state on
the location of refugees in the state, and
failure to consult is a term that has no real
definition to it. Texas has filed a similar
suit that thus far has not gone anywhere,”
Thompson said. “Thomas More Law Center’s
position is that there is a constitutional
claim and that claim is based on the 10th
Amendment.”
Bentley is one of more than two-dozen
Republican governors who opposed the
settlement of Syrian refugees in their states
after the Nov. 13 jihadist attacks that killed
130 people in Paris.
About 80 GOP congressmen have also signed on
to co-sponsor a bill by Rep. Brian Babin,
R-Texas, which would halt all refugee
resettlement until the program can undergo a
full investigation into its costs and its
risks to national security.
But the U.S. State Department has continued
distributing Muslim refugees into more than
180 U.S. cities and towns. They come not only
from Syria and Iraq, but from Somalia,
Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo,
Burma and other countries with active jihadist
movements.
A stronger response is ready and waiting for a
taker. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Thomas
More Law Center has been working since June to
prepare a case that would challenge the
constitutionality of federal authority over
the refugee program. The program is
administered by the U.S. State Department
along with the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Expanding
special rights to the 2% who choose the LGBT
lifestyle in Jacksonville FL
with excerpts from Christopher Hong Jan 13, 2016 Jacksonville Florida Times-Union
"Jacksonville residents crowded Tuesday’s City
Council meeting to voice their stance on the
longstanding question of whether to expand
discrimination protections to the LGBT
community...
Tuesday’s meeting saw the formal introduction
of two bills on the issue. Councilman Tommy
Hazouri introduced a bill to expand the
discrimination protections, while Councilman
Bill Gulliford introduced a bill to let voters
decide.
Next month, the council will begin debating
those two bills.... the council defeated
similar legislation in 2012. Tuesday’s
discussion mostly remained civil, with council
members hearing many of the same arguments
voiced years ago and in a series of community
meetings that (Mayor) Curry hosted late last
year.
Supporters of expanding the law said the LGBT
community deserves the same rights and
protections afforded to other minority groups
and urged the council to vote on it.
Opponents, many citing their religious beliefs
that homosexuality is morally wrong, said
expanded protections amounted to a special
privilege that would interfere with small
business and could allow men into women’s
restrooms. Many urged council members to let
voters decide the issue.
The full council will debate Hazouri’s and
Gulliford’s bills during special meetings
scheduled for Feb. 4, Feb. 18 and March 3."
Has your voice been heard about this
expansion of Special Rights in Jacksonville
FL? Contact your Mayor and your
Council Representatives:
The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people.
Alabama chief justice tells judges to halt
same-sex 'marriages'
Posted By Bob Unruh On 01/06/2016
World Net Daily
Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme
Court on Wednesday ordered the state’s probate
judges, the only ones in the state who are
allowed to issue marriage licenses, to follow
the state’s Sanctity of Marriage Amendment and
its Marriage Protection Act until the full state
Supreme Court rules on the issue.
Please click here to read the article in its
entirety
January
7, 2016
Subject: URGENT: Stop the LGBT Law
Dear Jacksonville
Family,
This is URGENT. Please forward
this email to others.
Unless we do something about it,
just 10
City Council members will force a LGBT
favoritism law upon Jacksonville, Duval
County, Florida – a law which
will restrict Free Speech and religious
liberties and which will allow men,
claiming to be women, to enter women’s and
children’s dormitories, and dressing,
locker and rest rooms – to view them in
all stages of undress.
And, much more harm will
occur. Get more details at DefendJaxFamilies.
But, you can help
prevent this. How? LET THE
PEOPLE DECIDE this issue.
●Show your
support for the Public Referendum
proposed by Councilman Gulliford.
Complete and return the Petition found
here,
where there are instructions. The
Petition form can be filled out on your
computer and returned by email.
●Forward this
letter. Email it to as
many people as possible.
●Collect
Petition signatures.
Download the Petition
form, print copies and distribute them
at churches and other venues.
●Help fund the
campaign. And please
urge friends to donate
here . They will understand that
it takes funding to fight this battle.
●Attend key
City Council meetings.
The next City Council meeting is January 12,
2016 at 5:00 P.M. Followed by the Finance
Committee meeting on Jan 19 at 9:30 A.M. Click
here to view regularly scheduled City
Council meetings and plan accordingly.
Please act quickly.
Time is short. Please act now to complete
the forms and return.
Thanks for all your help, and for
your support in the past.
Non-Muslims encouraged to wear Islamic head
scarf at school
Click
here to read a thoughtful piece posted by
Leo Hohmann on WND 12/14/2015.This news
occurred courtesy of American educational
systems and Muslim Student Associations
(M.S.A.), a known front group for the Muslim
Brotherhood and an unindicted co-conspirator in
the largest terror-financing trial ever held on
U.S. soil.
(The above may more be correctly
filed under "How Political Correctness is
destroying our nation")
If your blood
pressure is not high enough yet, click
here to read about the Virginia high
school Geography class that passed around the
Koran and included a lesson practicing Arabic
calligraphy, or the California School with the
Muslim fight song. Wonder when is the last
time they sang "Onward, Christian Soldiers"
and passed around a Bible. (Thanks again
to wnd.com)
Facebook censors Michael Savage post of
Muslims protesting
Photos show demonstrators warning 'Behead
those who insult Islam'
Published: 12/10/2015 at 3:38 PM World Net Daily
When Muslims held a demonstration in London in
2006 in protest of cartoons depicting their
founder, Muhammad, many bore signs warning of
beheading and death for “those who insult
Islam.”
Talk-radio host Michael Savage thought that amid
a fierce national debate on whether or not to
allow Muslims to immigrate to the United States,
it would be worth considering what has been
happening in Europe.
So, he posted on his Facebook page photographs
of the Feb. 3, 2006, demonstration outside the
Embassy of Denmark in London. The focus of
protest was the publication of editorial
cartoons depicting Muhammad in the Danish
newspaper Jyllands-Posten. Snopes.com verified
that the photographs were taken at the London
demonstration, with the exception of one, which
was from a protest in the English city of Luton
(which is 33 miles away).
Wednesday night, Facebook removed Savage’s post,
explaining the social media site “determined
that it violated Facebook community standards.”
After Muslim Truckers
Refuse to Deliver Beer… Obama Does the
Unbelievable
From Top Right News on
October 27, 2015
by Bill Callen | Top
Right News
Barack Obama just sided with Muslims to
enforce Islamic Sharia Law on an American
business, leaving many outraged and two
FoxNews anchors absolutely stunned.
Two Muslim truck drivers — former Somali
“refugees” — refused to make deliveries
of beer to stores for their employer. So they
were understandably fired.
They claimed it was a violation of their
religious beliefs — even though Islam bars
only the consumption of alcohol. And, as
the employer pointed out, the workers
knew they would have to deliver alcohol
before they took the job.
So guess what Barack Obama did.
He SUED the employers it on behalf of the
pair, Mahad Abass Mohamed and Abdkiarim Hassan
Bulshale, claiming religious discrimination.
Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) represented them in the
case, providing tens of thousands of
taxpayer dollars in legal support, judicial
filings and court appearances against the
employer who was hopelessly outgunned by the
Federal government.
And this week the Muslims were awarded a
stunning $240,000 by a jury, presided over by
an Obama appointee who stunned analysts by
allowing the case to go forward at all.
Hard to believe, isn't it? Why would someone
accept a job knowing he is unable to perform
the work?? This has been fact checked
at this link and it is, sadly, true.
from the Washington Post (which commentator
and author Mark Levin colorfully refers to
as the "Washington Compost":
San Bernardino suspects identified; probe
turns to motive, planning
What we know about
the shooting in San Bernardino
Police
in San Bernardino, Calif.,
said heavily armed gunmen killed 14 people
and injured 17 others during a holiday
party for county employees. Here's what we
know about the mass shooting. (The Washington
Post)
By
William Dauber, Sarah Kaplan and Brian
MurphyDecember
3 at 9:46 AM
SAN BERNARDINO,
Calif. — Investigators grappled
Thursday on two main fronts after the
deadliest U.S. mass shooting since the Sandy
Hook Elementary School bloodshed: Seeking
clues on the motives and apparent
commando-style planning by a couple who
turned an office holiday party into a
killing field with at least 14 dead.
“I don’t think they grabbed the guns and
tactical gear on a spur-of-the-moment
thing,” said San Bernardino Police Chief
Jarrod Burguan hours after Wednesday’s
rampage and a police shootout that left both
alleged shooters dead several miles from the
attack.
In addition, at least 17 people were
wounded, some critically.
Bit by bit, profiles emerged of the
suspects: Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, a former
county health worker who was born in the United
States,
and a woman described as his Pakistani-born
wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27.
As
many as three people opened fire at a
nonprofit facility in San Bernardino
where a holiday party for county employees
was underway, killing at least 14 people
and injuring 17 others.
Also being pieced together were the
hour-by-hour events before police say the
suspects stormed a conference center wearing
black masks and armed with assault rifles
and handguns.
Earlier in the day, the suspects dropped
off their 6-month-old daughter with Farook’s
mother, saying they had a doctor’s
appointment, said Hussam Ayloush, executive
director of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations in Los Angeles.
Later, Farook attended the office party
hosted by the San Bernardino County
Department of Public Health, where he had
once worked as an inspector, earning more
than $71,000 in salary and benefits in 2013.
Farook then left the gathering “under
circumstances described as angry or
something of that nature,” said Burguan, the
police chief.
Police said Farook then returned with Malik
and the pair opened fire on the crowd before
fleeing in a black SUV, which was later
spotted about two miles from the shooting
site with the area under near-total
lockdown. Some unconfirmed reports quoted
police saying the attackers also were
outfitted with body cameras.
A shootout with police left both suspects
dead and the vehicle peppered with bullet
holes and with its windows shattered.
“They came prepared to do what they did, as
if they were on a mission,” Burguan said.
Muslim community leader Ayloush described
Malik as a Pakistani-born immigrant who
lived in Saudi Arabia
before marrying Farook. Two FBI officials
told The Washington Post that Farook was not
under FBI investigation. It’s not clear
whether he had links to any other people
under FBI investigation.
A third person seen fleeing the shootout
was also taken into custody, but it remained
unclear whether there was any link to the
suspect.
“Right now, as we continue to drill down
our information, it looks like we have two
shooters,” Burguan said. “We are comfortable
that the two shooters that went into the
building are the two shooters that are
deceased.”
But many other questions loomed.
Among them was whether the attack was
pre-planned and why the suspects amassed
assault-style gear and arms in a tidy
residential neighborhood about 50 miles east
of Los Angeles where the couple was often
seen relaxing in their back yard.
Burguan declined to comment on what may
have precipitated the attack. But, he said,
the couple seemed too well-prepared for the
shooting to be viewed as a spontaneous act.
He added: “We have not ruled out
terrorism.”
“I have no idea why he would do something
like this,” Farhan Khan, who is married to
Farook’s sister, said at a news conference.
“I cannot express how sad I am today.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives said it recovered two rifles
and two handguns and is conducting “urgent
traces” on their origins.
An ATF official, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said two of the weapons were
purchased legally, and investigations
continued into the other two.
“Whatever the results of this investigation
... one thing is clear: Violence like this
has no place in this country,” said Attorney
General Loretta Lynch, speaking at a White
House event on incarceration and poverty.
Recent mass shootings in the United
States
have typically involved a lone gunman, often
someone mentally unstable or consumed with
rage. Multiple-shooter events are extremely
rare: According to a recent FBI report on
160 “active shooter incidents” between 2000
and 2013, all but two involved a single
shooter.
“One
of the big questions that will come up
repeatedly is: ‘Is this terrorism?’ ” said
David Bowdich, assistant director in charge
of the FBI’s Los Angeles
office, said at an earlier news conference.
“It is a possibility. We are making some
adjustments to our investigation. It is a
possibility. But we don’t know that yet. And
we are not willing to go down that road
yet.”
The two left behind little in the way of a
paper trail — no apparent criminal record,
no Facebook page or Twitter account.
An online dating profile for a
“farooksyed49” from Riverside, Calif.,
resembles the suspect described by law
enforcement. The profile, on the “Indian
matrimonial and dating service” iMilap.com,
describes a 22-year-old man from a
“religious but modern family.”
“I work for county as health, safety and
environmental inspector,” it reads. “Enjoy
working on vintage and modern cars, read
religious books, enjoy eating out sometimes
travel and just hang out in back yard doing
target practice with younger sister and
friends.”
The man in the profile picture is tall and
bearded, posed jauntily in front of a
nondescript building flanked by palm trees
and a smooth, green lawn. He writes that he
is interested in “matrimonial.”
Speaking to the Los Angeles Times,
co-workers who knew Farook described him as
a quiet and polite man who held no obvious
grudges against people in the office. They
said he recently traveled to Saudi
Arabia
and returned with a woman he met online.
The officer had recently held a shower for
the couple’s new baby, and the two seemed to
be “living the American dream,” said Patrick
Baccari, a fellow inspector who shared a
cubicle with Farook.
Griselda Reisinger, who worked with Farook
before leaving the agency in May, and other
colleagues told the Los Angeles Times that
Farook was a devout Muslim but not vocal
about his religion.
The site of the shooting, the InlandRegionalCenter,
is a three-building complex that houses a
conference center and serves more than
30,000 people with developmental
disabilities. Nearly 700 staff members work
there, according to the organization’s
Facebook page, promoting “independence,
inclusion, and empowerment.” The
organization says that it is committed to
eliminating barriers for individuals with
developmental disabilities so that they can
“live a typical lifestyle.”
The center held its own holiday party
Tuesday, and a brief video clip showed
staffers and clients in wheelchairs dancing
to the 1980 mega-hit “Celebration” by Kool
& the Gang.
On Wednesday, the city’s public health
department had rented out the conference
center’s first-floor banquet room for a
holiday party, complete with Christmas trees
and other decorations. The event was in full
swing when the first reports of gunfire
came, at 10:59 a.m.
Dauber is a freelance writer. Kaplan and
Murphy reported from Washington.
Freelance writer Martha Groves in San Bernardino
and staff writers Joel Achenbach, Mark
Berman, Adam Goldman, Lindsey Bever, Niraj
Chokshi, Ann Gerhart, Sari Horwitz, Elahe
Izadi, Wesley Lowery, Kevin Sullivan,
Julie Tate, Justin Wm. Moyer, Yanan Wang
and Alice Crites in Washington
contributed to this report.
Sarah Kaplan is a
reporter for Morning Mix.
Brian Murphy joined
the Post after more than 20 years as a
foreign correspondent and bureau chief for
the Associated Press in Europe and the Middle East. He
has reported from more than 50 countries
and has written three books.
November
19. 2015
FROM A
CONCERNED CITIZEN OF JACKSONVILLE
It's
baaack!It's
the so-called “Human Rights
Ordinance” (H.R.O.- not to be
confused with the Holy Roman Empire
which failed centuries ago), a
second attempt to introduce another
"SPECIAL" group with "SPECIAL"
rights un-accorded to you- the
average moral citizen of our city.
Evidently, it is notenough to have EQUAL
rights and EQUAL justice...
at least that is what the paid
lobbyists trolling around city hall
seem to indicate.
My
consternation is that as a
color-blind, sexual orientation-blind,
class-blind person, now the city wants
to FORCE me to look at the
private sexual inclinations
of others, whether I choose to or not,
and then may misinterpret my response,
putting me at risk of criminal actions
against me!
We
have inalienable God-given
rights- Life, Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness to
mention a few. These are specifically
mentioned in the U.S. Constitution
which purpose was to limit the
power and control of
general government. As if that was not
enough to confirm the “fully-worthy”
status of all, there is also a Florida
Commission on Human Relations, and
Civil Rights. We need the city to
spend time and our money on this also?
The
Mayor of Jacksonville, Lenny Curry,
has mandated three fact finding
meetings, “Community Conversations”,
so that all sides of the
H.R.O. proposal can be heard.
The
first meeting has taken place.... the
topic was "Supporting the Needs
and Well-Being of Families"-not
ALL families, evidently- not military
families or racially mixed families or
families with one partner living out
of town, or single parent families.
Why a meeting about this little LGBT
segment of families?? Don't all
families have challenges? All
households? Is it the City’s balliwick
to give this SPECIAL
consideration, at the expense
of our public safety, roads, and
pensions for those who keep us safe?
The
first meeting was composed of a panel
of six, four of whom were “for” the
LGBT Special Privilege bill. The
meeting was attended by several
busloads of LGBT supporters who were
shipped in from outside of the city.
Arriving first, it was only they who
were allowed to comment during the
first-come-first served portion of the
meeting. Needless to say, the first
meeting did not prove to be a
successful format to hear “all sides”
of the proposal.
Religious
Freedoms, Thoughts & Beliefs,
Dec.3 at 6 p.m.
EdwardWatersCollege
Milne Auditorium at 1658
Kings Road, Jacksonville,
FL32209
and
Understanding
the
Law & its Effects on Business,
Dec. 15 at 6 p.m.
Jacksonville
University
Policy Institute at 2800
University Blvd. N.,
Jacksonville,
FL32211.
Jacksonville
is a city struggling to pay
the costs and pensions of our public
safety professionals at JFRD and JSO,
to maintain our infrastructure, and to
promote the general welfare and safety
of ALL of our citizens, yet our
elected leaders are spending our
resources discussing how you and I should
respond to the sexual
choices of others, allowing them
into public restrooms frequented by my
family and neighbors. If this should
pass, will the city also spend my
money to retrofit bathroom facilities
so my kids will be safe? Will the city
require private businesses to do
likewise?
So
give this some thought. It's your city
and your tax money.If
you say No No! NO! to this, please
contact your Mayor, Lenny Curry at
This is the time to make your voice
and your priorities for your city of Jacksonville,
heard.
WND EXCLUSIVE
Houston faith leaders
gear up for new transgender fight
'We will work with
Dallas pastors to determine how to
appropriately respond'
Bob Unruh 11/11/2015
The coalition of
pastors from Houston who defeated lesbian
Mayor Annise Parker’s transgender-rights
ordinance – a fight that included her
subpoenas of sermons – now are volunteering to
help pastors in Dallas oppose a similar
measure.
“We will work with Dallas pastors to determine
how to appropriately respond to the wholesale
catering by city council to the radical,
anti-faith, anti-family agenda of the LGBT
Human Rights Campaign,” said Rev. Dave Welch,
president of the Texas Pastor Council.
Welch said Dallas’ change to its existing
nondiscrimination ordinance “not only opens
but essentially removes the doors of women’s
restrooms, showers and locker rooms in Dallas,
as well as criminalizes businesses, employees
as well as eventually, churches who attempt to
keep men out.”
WND has reported extensively on the Houston
fight, which took nearly two years. It ended
last week when citizens, by order of the state
Supreme Court, were allowed to vote on the
measure and soundly rejected it, 62 percent to
38 percent.
The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance would have
banned discrimination against transgender
people, allowing, for example, men who
perceive themselves to be women to use women’s
restrooms, locker rooms and other
gender-specific facilities in the city. Anyone
opposing or obstructing them could have been
fined $5,000.
“Outlasting the Gay Revolution” spells out
eight principles to help Americans with
conservative moral values counter attacks on
our freedoms of religion, speech and
conscience by homosexual activists
The Texas Pastor Council’s Welch condemned the
change in the Dallas ordinance as an attack on
society’s foundation.
“There are many issues that our city
governments should be focused on to improve
the city, and this ordinance patently rejects
cornerstones of our civilization that family
is built upon the covenant of marriage between
a man and a woman, that our sex is embedded in
our chromosomes, and this beautiful created
order is a gift from God.”
Welch added, “A bad tree cannot produce good
fruit and a law based on elevating gender
confusion to being a protected class equal
with race can only produce harm, not good.”
The Dallas law protecting “gender identity and
expression” says the places of public
accommodation that must grant a man who
defines his gender as female full access to
women’s facilities are any inn, hotel,
temporary lodging, restaurant, cafeteria,
lunchroom, soda facility, motion picture
house, theater, concert hall, and retail or
wholesale establishment selling goods or
services.
The measure, Welch said, is a “bottomless
Pandora’s Box.”
“Definition A plus Definition B equals
exposing girls and women to violation of their
privacy as well as their safety,” he said.
He said city officials in Dallas should have
paid attention to the Houston vote and learned
that pastors and citizens will react
negatively to such a social agenda.
“As our very ethnically diverse coalition of
pastors in Houston stated and showed for the
last eighteen months, every one of us are for
equal rights for all, however we cannot allow
special rights for a tiny fraction of society
to endanger the safety and freedom for the
rest,” he said.
Stephen Young at the Dallas Observer wrote
that Dallas didn’t pass an ordinance but
“adjusted the language of an ordinance that’s
existed since 2002 in a way that made very
little change to how anyone in the city is
treated.”
He said in Houston, voters denied “protection”
to their fellow residents.
Young said the Dallas ordinance “doesn’t even
have the word restroom in it, and the failed
Houston law only allowed opposite-gender
restroom use in a fantasy world in which trans
people don’t exist.”
At the Advocate, Dawn Ennis explained that
while “sexual orientation” has been a
protected class for years, “gender identity”
was a class left unprotected.
She noted there was no organized opposition to
the expansion of the sexual identity
protections, but critics say that was because
there was very little notice to the public of
the looming change.
Texas Values Action blasted the Dallas law and
its quick adoption.
“This Dallas bathroom ordinance will allow men
into women’s bathrooms and that’s why the
Dallas city council is deliberately trying to
avoid the people,” said a statement released
by the group’s president, Jonathan Saenz.
“Their fast track method of passing this
dangerous bill that threatens the safety of
women and children is the same strategy used
in Houston to disenfranchise voters with their
failed bathroom bill. Creating law behind
closed doors and forcing it onto the people
the next morning is a recipe for disaster.
These Obama and D.C. style tactics will not
work in Texas. Get ready for a Texas-sized
response.”
“Outlasting the Gay Revolution” spells out
eight principles to help Americans with
conservative moral values counter attacks on
our freedoms of religion, speech and
conscience by homosexual activists
The strategy in Houston was to move the
ordinance through the city council quickly.
City officials then tried to invalidate a
petition demanding a public vote.
After a months-long court fight, the state
Supreme Court stepped in and ordered the city
to repeal the ordinance or put it on the
election ballot in compliance with the city
charter.
Some of the pastors who were targeted by the
mayor’s subpoena have filed a lawsuit charging
her with violating their rights.
It is hard to know where to catalogue the
following ... under Politics? Religious
Liberties? Islamic Threat? Christian or Cult?
Perhaps "Know They Enemy"? You be the judge.
40 Mind-Blowing Quotes
From Barack Hussein Obama On Islam And
Christianity
by Geoffrey Grider nowtheendbegins.com
Oct 2, 2013
When someone shows you
who they are, believe them
Since 2009, NOW THE END
BEGINS has brought you story after story in
detailed accounts of exactly how Obama feels
about Islam, and how he views Christianity and
the Bible. So today, in light of recent events
in Washington, we feel it important that you
know exactly where your president stands in
regards to his faith and his god. Below are 20
quotes he has made about Islam, and 20 quotes
he has made about Christianity. Nothing edited
or mashed up, just exactly in the context he
originally spoke them in with fully-sourced
links so you can see where they come from.
Police Confiscate Mohammed Cartoons At Dutch
Anti-Islam Rally
by Nick Hallett 9 Nov 2015
Police seized “offensive” Mohammed cartoons
during a demonstration by the Dutch branch of
the Patriotic European Against the Islamisation
of the West (PEGIDA) movement in the city of
Utrecht this weekend.
The rally, which attracted around 150
supporters, criticised the “Islamisation” of the
Netherlands, with demonstrators also expressing
their support for the Freedom Party of Geert
Wilders, a noted critic of Islamism.
DutchNews reports that police arrested 32 people
at the demonstration for a variety of offences
including failing to carry IDs, not following
police orders and displaying “insulting
banners”.
One such banner said the “Koran is poison”,
while another claimed “Islamisation is
EU-thanasia”.
Video footage emerged of police removing
Mohammed cartoons, although their ultimate fate
is unknown.
Utrecht City Council had banned the
demonstrators from marching through the city so
they gathered instead in a park on the outskirts
of the city.
The PEGIDA marches started in Dresden, Germany
last year as “evening strolls” through the
streets every Monday to protest against militant
and political Islam. The marches soon grew and
spread across the country, but died down again
at the start of this year to point where most
commentators assumed the movement had petered
out.
However, as the migrant crisis intensifies in
Europe, especially thanks to German Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s relaxed border policies, the
marches have started again and are growing.
Authorities have hit back, however, charging
founder Lutz Bachmann with hate speech for
comments he made in Facebook posts back in 2014.
State prosecutors in Saxony claim private posts
in which Mr Bachmann uses terms such as
“livestock” and “scum” to refer to migrants
risked causing disturbances.
This weekend in the German capital Berlin,
supporters of the anti-mass migration Alternativ
für Deutschland (AfD) party also held a rally
criticising Mrs Merkel’s immigration policy and
calling for her to resign.
The rally passed off largely peacefully,
although violent scuffles broke out between
police and pro-migrant counter-demonstrators.
Thousands Of
German People Chant ‘Merkel Must Go’ At
Anti-Mass Muslim Migration Rally
by Geoffrey Grider
November 7, 2015
The AFD has seen its popularity surge as Germany
struggles to deal with the huge influx of Muslim
migrants, and is currently campaigning in local
elections in the Saxony-Anhalt region that will
be seen as an indicator of public sentiment on
the issue.
The anti-mass Muslim migration Alternativ für
Deutschland (AfD) party held a rally in the
German capital Berlin this afternoon, demanding
the resignation of Chancellor Angela Merkel and
calling for the country to adopt a strong policy
on immigration.
German paper Handelsblatt estimates that 5,000
people joined the rally this afternoon, calling
for the immediate closure of Germany’s borders
and introduction of visa requirements from
migrants from the Balkan states, including
Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Montenegro.
Angry demonstrators chanted “Merkel must go” and
“traitor to the people” under the banner “Asylum
has its limits – red card for Merkel”.
Addressing the crowd, Beatrix von Storch, member
of the European Parliament, accused the German
chancellor of causing "asylum chaos” in Germany.
This was a rally in German from about two weeks
ago, as the German people are being forced to
rise up and do what their government refuses to
do.
Although the main protest was largely peaceful,
several counter-protests by pro-migrant
activists descended into violence, with around
40 arrests. Around 800 counter-demonstrators
showed up, far lower than organisers had hoped.
Yesterday, it was reported that the German
government had agreed the downgrade the status
of Syrian migrants, reducing the amount of time
they could stay in the country and banning them
from bringing their families. Today, however,
the government did a U-turn on the plans.
Court rules
against Little Sisters of the Poor in
Contraceptive Coverage Case
By Nigel Duara
L.A. Times
July 14, 2015
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that
there is a limit to how far the government
must bend to accommodate religious objections
to the federal healthcare exchange.
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled
that if the Colorado-based Little Sisters of
the Poor want to refuse contraceptive coverage
to their employees, they must sign a waiver to
be exempted, and that such a waiver is not a
substantial burden on the nuns' religious
freedom.
The 2-1 decision is one of the few victories
the U.S. government can claim in defense of
the healthcare law in the contraceptive
mandate debate.
Hobby Lobby, a business run by evangelical
Christians, successfully argued before the
U.S. Supreme Court last year that a mandate to
provide contraception to female employees
violated their belief that life begins at
conception.
The high court agreed that for-profit
organizations like Hobby Lobby required
protection, but did not say how far such
protections would go.
In response, on Aug. 27, 2014,
Affordable Care Act administrators created a
waiver for religious nonprofits that would
grant them an exemption from contraceptive
coverage.
But the Little Sisters of the Poor, who run
the Mullen Home for the Aged in Denver, argued
before a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit
that the waiver itself both crosses the nuns’
moral boundary by endorsing contraceptives and
gives control of their healthcare program to
the government.
“Most religious liberty claimants
allege that a generally applicable law or
policy without a religious exception burdens
religious exercise,” according to the
decision, noting that most cases begin with
prisoners demanding a religious right.
But in the Little Sisters of the Poor case
and accompanying suits by self-insured
religious objectors and religious
universities, the government made clear
attempts to offer a religious exemption, the
judges wrote.
“Although plaintiffs allege the
administrative tasks required to opt out of
the mandate make them complicit in the overall
delivery scheme, opting out instead relieves
them from complicity,” according to the
opinion.
The judges said the difference between Hobby
Lobby and the Little Sisters of the Poor is
that Hobby Lobby faced fines for every day of
noncompliance. Ihe Little Sisters of the Poor
faced no such burden, the judges ruled.
10th Circuit Judge Bobby R. Baldock, the lone
dissenter, agreed with the decision on the
Little Sisters of the Poor but said other
self-insured groups were indeed substantially
burdened when they faced fines for refusing to
provide contraceptives because of their
religious belief.
May 9, 2015
Dr. Gene A. Youngblood, Pastor
First Conservative Baptist Church
12021 Old St Augustine Rd
Jacksonville, Florida 32258
TO: All news media outlets
It has come to my attention
that there are some in our community, as
well as, a few media that have expressed
questions or concerns relating to our
Church-Ministry campus/outdoor marquee,
changeable copy sign and its current
message. This marquee generally has a
message change each week. Generally the
message relates in some fashion to those
things and events taking place in our city
or nation. As a pastor and ministry we feel
it needful to keep our citizens informed and
at the same time be relevant through the
Word of GOD.
FIRST:
Let me state my deep love and concern for
our great city, state, and nation. I
am a Bible believing patriot with a deep
concern over the moral declension. I am
deeply saddened to see the morals and family
values under attack on a national basis. I
have invested the past 50 years of my life
in the defense of the WORD of GOD through
religious-theological studies, pastoral,
pulpit, and classroom academic instructional
responsibilities.
SECOND: We are profoundly committed to the
preaching-teaching of God’s Word. God’s Word
commands that I “Preach the WORD” (11Tim
4:1-3) which in the text includes
confronting sin. I do not have the authority
OR permission to change any text of GOD’S
Word-THE BIBLE.
THIRD: Our ministry marquee has been used as
a tool to educate, inspire, and caution for
over 30 years. We have dealt with multiple
Biblical-Theological issues that caution and
confront sin of whatever kind. Our prayer is
that in our small way we may make a
difference in the lives of all those who
pass by. We do realize that any scriptural
absolute may cause conviction resulting in
the attack on the messenger as well as the
message.
FORMALLY: The present message (caution)
comes from the WORD of GOD, The BIBLE as
found in a multitude of Scripture
references:
• Romans 1:24-32, deals
with several kinds of Sin, with the focus on
those believing that they are wise and God
says that they are unwise. God then deals
with the specific sin of homosexuality and
firmly condemns it.
• I Corinthians 6:9-10,
warns that all (including homosexuals) that
commit sin and DO NOT REPENT will die and go
to HELL.
• OTHER text include and
is NOT limited to: Leviticus 20:13,
Leviticus 18:22, Deuteronomy 23:17-18,
Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 21:8,
Revelation 22:15
Needless to say, the Scriptures are replete
with GOD’S warnings to all of us that SIN
must be confessed and repented of or HELL is
GOD’S judgment upon sin. The wonder of it
all is that God through Jesus Christ will
forgive “ANY” confessed sin that is repented
of.
BECAUSE we love people (yet, as directed in
Scripture to hate the sin), we therefore
want to warn them of the coming Judgment of
God on the sin of Homosexuality (and any
other sin that is NOT repented of). ALL SIN
that is not confessed and repented will
cause a person to GO TO HELL (God says it, I
did not originate the Word), God did. In
fact, according to several of the heretofore
mentioned Biblical text remind us of other
sin specifically mentioned in Scripture
including; “All Liars, Prostitutes, Sexually
Promiscuous, Idolaters, Adulterers,
Homosexuals, Revilers, Extortioners, WILL GO
TO HELL unless they repent and seek God’s
forgiveness.
It is my sincere prayer that perhaps “ONE”
practicing Homosexual will have read our
sign and will REPENT before it is too late
and they are cast into HELL. HELL is a real
place and anyone not believing in the
reality of HELL will not change the
temperature of the FLAMES a single degree.
I am eternally grateful to God for allowing
me to preach HIS WORD at a time when our
Religious FREEDOMS are being challenged and
FREEDOM of speech is being challenged, as
well as, our (all of us) Constitutional
Liberties are under ATTACK.
Notwithstanding all of the above, I do
understand and sympathize with SOME that are
not well instructed or versed in the BIBLE
and thus will consider our marquee’s message
to be incorrect or un-spiritual. PLEASE
allow me to state forthrightly; we stand on
SOLID Biblical TRUTH, therefore we pray for
each person that reads our message (changes
weekly), and prayerfully considers its TRUTH
and Caution.
FURTHERMORE, I pray that the media will NOT
attempt to thwart or interfere with our
FREEDOM OF RELIGIOUS SPEECH. We also pray
that the media will be cautioned NOT to in
any way interfere with or disrupt ANY
worship or other programs or services
conducted in and through FIRST CONSERVATIVE
BAPTIST CHURCH.
May God bless and use all in the MEDIA as an
instrument to preserve society and help
protect AMERICA and our great document THE
CONSTITUTION.
Signed;
DR. GENE A. YOUNGBLOOD
Pastor
Obama blocks Iraqi nun from describing
Christian persecution
Posted By Leo Hohmann World Net Daily 05/01/2015 @ 11:52 am In Faith,Front Page,U.S.,World
Sister Diana Momeka is a Dominican
Catholic nun who fled her home in Iraq last
August along with 50,000 other Christians and
religious minorities escaping ISIS.
A leading conservative is asking why the Obama
State Department is barring a persecuted Iraqi
nun from entry into the United States to share
her message about the brutal treatment of
Christians in her country.
Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute’s Center for
Religious Freedom, writes in a National Review
op-ed that Sister Diana Momeka is “an
internationally respected and leading
representative of the Nineveh Christians who
have been killed and deported by ISIS.”
Yet this nun is being “barred from coming to
Washington to testify about this catastrophe?”
Sister Diana was the only Christian in the
delegation and the only member blocked from the
trip, the Washington Times reported, leading
some of her American supporters to question why
she was singled out.
Shea, in her op-ed titled “With Malice Toward
Nun,” exposed the real reason why Obama denied
the visa for Sister Diana.
“Sister Diana Momeka of the
Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine of Siena
was informed on Tuesday by the U.S. consulate in
Erbil that her non-immigrant-visa application
has been rejected.
“The reason given in the
denial letter, a copy of which I have obtained,
is:
‘You were not able to
demonstrate that your intended activities in the
United States would be consistent with the
classification of the visa.’”
Shea further explains:
“She told me in a phone
conversation that, to her face, consular officer
Christopher Patch told her she was denied
because she is an ‘IDP’ or Internally Displaced
Person. ‘That really hurt,’ she said.
Essentially, the State Department was calling
her a deceiver.”
Shea states that the State Department officials
made the determination that the Catholic nun
“could be falsely asserting that she intends to
visit Washington when secretly she could be
intending to stay. That would constitute illegal
immigration, and that, of course, is strictly
forbidden. Once here, she could also be at risk
for claiming political asylum, and the U.S.
seems determined to deny ISIS’s Christian
victims that status.”
Shea then outlined Sister Diana’s reasons for
her visit and the endorsements she received from
two politicians – one Republican and one
Democrat — among others:
“In reality, Sister Diana
wanted to visit for one week in mid-May. She has
meetings set up with the Senate and House
foreign-relations committees, the State
Department, USAID, and various NGOs. In support
of her application, Sister Diana had multiple
documents vouching for her and the temporary
nature of her visit. She submitted a letter from
her prioress, Sister Maria Hana. It attested
that the nun has been gainfully employed since
last February with the Babel College of
Philosophy and Theology in Erbil, Kurdistan, and
is contracted to teach there in the 2015–16
academic year.”
Sister Diana also submitted an invitation from
her sponsors, two respected Washington-area
think tanks, the Institute for Global Engagement
and former congressman Frank Wolf’s (R., Va.)
21st Century Wilberforce Initiative.
None of this was good enough for the Obama State
Department.
Yet, as Matthew Balan points out in an article
for News Busters, even as the administration
denies a visa to a persecuted Christian nun, it
has created a “special envoy for the human
rights of LGBT persons.”
“One wonders if any of the major news media
outlets will pick up the story of Sister Diana,”
Balan muses. Just over a month ago, on 60
Minutes, CBS’s Lara Logan refreshingly brought
new attention to ISIS’s genocidal campaign
against the ancient Christian communities in
Iraq. But since then, there has been scant
coverage of the Islamic extremist group’s
persecution of the religious minority. ”
Sister Diana, along with the town’s 50,000
other, mostly Christian, residents, were forced
out of their homes by ISIS in the second week of
August and fled for their lives to
Kurdish-controlled areas.
“Since then, the 30-something religious woman
has served as a spokesperson for this community,
as well as for the over 100,000 other Christians
driven into Kurdistan under the ISIS ‘convert or
die’ policy,” Shea writes.
“Mr. Wolf, who met her in Kurdistan a few months
ago, explained, ‘We had hoped to facilitate her
trip to the States so that she could speak with
great candor, as is her custom, to policymakers.
Perhaps just as significantly, we viewed her as
a critical voice to awaken the church in the
West to the suffering of Christians and other
religious minorities in Iraq.’”
Muslim
congressmen try to boot Islam critic Geert
Wilders
Posted By Art Moore On
04/30/2015 @ 7:38 pm In Front
Page,Politics,U.S.
Reps. Andre
Carson, D-Ind., Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., and
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., in Washington,
D.C., protesting Geert Wilders visit to
the U.S. (Twitter @RepAndreCarson)
As one of the world’s most prominent
critics of Islam, Dutch lawmaker Geert
Wilders doesn’t go anywhere without his
security detail of as many as six
plainclothes police officers, and he rarely
crosses international borders without
causing political uproar, having already
been banned in Britain at one time.
So it was of little surprise that three
U.S. congressmen urged Secretary of State
John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland
Security Jeh Johnson to deny him a visa
ahead of his planned visit to the U.S. this
week, due to his alleged ongoing
“participation in inciting anti-Muslim
aggression and violence.”
Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and André
Carson, D-Ind., who both are Muslim, along
with Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., wrote a
letter April 23 citing “the International
Religious Freedom Act which allows the
Department of State to deny entry to a
foreign leader who is responsible for severe
violations of religious freedom.”
Nevertheless, Wilders – who insists he
doesn’t hate Muslims but believes Western
civilization is threatened by adherents of
the Islamic supremacy taught in the Quran –
showed up on Capitol Hill Wednesday and
spoke at two events at the invitation of
Reps. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and
Steve King, R-Iowa
King’s communications director, Sarah
Stevens, told WND the congressman invited
Wilders a month or so ago to speak at the
weekly Conservative Opportunity Society
breakfast he chairs. Wilders spoke Wednesday
on his latest book, “Marked for Death:
Islam’s War Against the West and Me,” and
also attended an evening reception with
Congress members and staff along with
representatives of foreign-policy groups on
Capitol Hill.
Ellison, Carson and Crowley showed up
Thursday at a news conference King and
Gohmert held for Wilders in front of the
U.S. Capitol and voiced their opposition to
the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in a video
interview.
“Personally, I find it disturbing, but
mostly sad, because, you know, the people of
the Netherlands are a good people, and this
is absolutely true, with a great history of
tolerance, great history of giving art to
the world and great gifts,” Ellison said.
“And it’s unfortunate,” the Minnesota
congressman continued, “that someone such as
this would come over here and sort of
represent himself as a member of that
society.”
Wilders, for his part, would contend that
Ellison actually is drawing attention to the
central issue: It’s the intolerance of
Muslim immigrants and their refusal to
assimilate, Wilders argues, that threatens
the historic Judeo-Christian Dutch culture
that forms the basis of a tolerant,
pluralistic society capable of “giving art
to the world and great gifts.”
As for whether or not Wilders represents
his country, in 2009 he remarked: “Half of
Holland loves me and half of Holland hates
me. There is no in-between.”
King was unable to speak to WND due to
schedule constraints, but he was
interviewed by the De Telegraaf reporter in
front of the Capitol Thursday, who asked him
for his view of Wilders.
“I think he’s solid and courageous. I
introduced him yesterday as a man who will
stand up and speak the truth – even if he’s
under death threats, speak the truth,” King
said in the video interview.
“He’s done that consistently for a decade.”
Wilders is scheduled to be the keynote
speaker at an event Sunday in the Dallas
area called the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and
Contest.” Held at the venue where Muslims
hosted a “Stand with the Prophet in Honor
and Respect” conference one week after the
Paris Charlie Hebdo massacre in January, the
event’s organizers, the American Freedom
Defense Initiative, see Wilders as
representative of their aggressive defense
of freedom of speech.
ADI is run by author and Atlas Shrugs
blogger Pamela Geller, and author and Jihad
Watch Director Robert Spencer, who
themselves have been branded by Ellison,
Carson and their allies as “Islamophobes.”
Geller and Spencer argue their work amounts
to citing the justifications from the Quran
and other Islamic texts used by Muslims who
employ violent acts and other means to
assert Islamic supremacy.
Comparing cultures
Summarizing their complaint, the three
protesting congressmen told Kerry and
Johnson that Wilders’ “policy agenda is
centered on the principle that Christian
culture is superior to other cultures.”
“He justifies his desire to ban the Quran
and Islam from the Netherlands with depraved
comments like, ‘Islam is not a religion,
it’s an ideology, the ideology of a retarded
culture.’ We should not be importing hate
speech,” they write.
Wilders’ defenders point out that the Dutch
word he used to describe Islamic culture can
be translated as “backward” rather than
“retarded,” insisting that while Wilders
doesn’t mince words, he is no hater of
people.
“I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam,”
explains Wilders, the leader of the Party
for Freedom, the fourth-largest party in the
Dutch parliament.
That sentiment apparently is of little
consolation to many of the more than 1
billion people who identify as Muslim, but
Wilders contends the orthodox teaching of
Islam derived from Muhammad is an
existential threat to Western civilization.
While he puts the percentage of Islamic
extremists at about 5 to 15 percent of
Muslims, he contends “moderate Islam”
doesn’t exist and notes the Quran itself
states that Muslims who accept the Islam’s
holy book in part are “apostates.”
As evidence of the failure to assimilate,
in a speech to parliament last year he cited
a study showing that nearly three-quarters
of ethnic Turks and Moroccans in the
Netherlands regard those who leave the
European nation to join jihadists in Syria
as “heroes.” Wilders pointed out that the
same percentage of Dutch Muslims condoned
the 9/11 attacks.
Wilders has been under constant security
protection since November 2004, when two
North African Muslims were accused of
planning to murder him and another outspoken
critic of Islam in the parliament, Ayaan
Hirsi Ali. The attack at the Hague came
shortly after the murder of Dutch filmmaker
Theo van Gogh by a Moroccan national.
Wilders was banned from the U.K. as an
“undesirable person” under Prime Minister
Gordon Brown in February 2009, two days
before he was scheduled to show his short
film “Fitna” at the invitation of two
members of the House of Lords. Wilders
appealed the ban to Britain’s Asylum and
Immigration Tribunal, which overturned it in
October 2009.
Wilders writings and film “Fitna” warning
of the “Islamization” of the Netherlands and
Europe prompted Turkish, Moroccan and
Antillean organizations in the country to
bring charges against him of criminally
insulting religious and ethnic groups and
inciting hatred and discrimination.
In June 2011, he was acquitted of all
charges. Judge Marcel van Oosten called
Wilders’ statements about Islam “gross and
denigrating” but ruled they didn’t
constitute hatred against Muslims and,
therefore, were “acceptable within the
context of public debate.”
Limiting free speech
In their letter, Ellison, Carson and
Crowley assert Wilders’ right to speak
freely in the U.S. under the First Amendment
is limited because he allegedly incites
violence and “prejudicial action” against
protected groups.
They write:
In the U.S., freedom of speech is a
bedrock principle that distinguishes free
societies from ones living under
oppressive regimes. Freedom of speech,
however, is not absolute. It is limited by
the legal and moral understanding that
speech that causes the incitement of
violence or prejudicial action against
protected groups is wrong. As Mr. Wilders
continues his pursuit of political power,
granting him entry will embolden him to
engage in further incitement of violence
and discrimination against Muslims.
Legal analyst Eugene Volokh noted the
incitement exception to free speech,
according to Supreme Court precedent, is
“limited to speech intended to and likely to
produce imminent lawless conduct — conduct
in the coming hours or maybe few days.”
Wilders’ statements, Volokh wrote in a
Washington Post blogpost, appear to be
constitutionally protected, he said, because
they “don’t urge any imminent conduct (or
even any criminal conduct, as opposed to
long-term changes in the law). Such
statements’ are “incitement” in the
Congressmen’s opinion only because the
Congressmen apparently view constitutionally
unprotected “incitement” (or, as they term
it earlier, “hate speech”) much more
broadly."
It's hard to say if the following somewhat
abbreviated article should be filed under the
truthsthatfree.com category of
Freedom of Speech, Islamic Threat, Israel and
the Land, Religious Liberty or perhaps
Politics. So it is place in our monthly
archive.
‘Killing Jews is Worship’ posters
will soon appear on NYC subways and buses
Washington Post
Michael Miller
April 22, 2015
‘Killing Jews is Worship’ posters will soon
appear on NYC subways and buses
New Yorkers are used to aggressive
advertising. Banners for breast implants.
Billboards for condoms. But a federal judge’s
ruling has opened the door for far more
controversial posters on buses and subways
across the city.
“Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close
to Allah,” reads one such ad next to the image
of a young man in a checkered headscarf.
“That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?”
The poster is at the center of heated legal
debate over public safety and free speech. On
Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled
that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA) cannot stop the controversial
ad from running on scores of subway cars and
buses.
The MTA has argued that the ad could incite
violence against Jews, but Koeltl rejected
that idea.
MTA officials “underestimate the tolerant
quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the
potential impact of these fleeting
advertisements,” he ruled. “Moreover, there is
no evidence that seeing one of these
advertisements on the back of a bus would be
sufficient to trigger a violent reaction.
Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may
be — are still entitled to First Amendment
protection.”
Making the case all the stranger is that the
posters are not the work of an Islamist group,
but rather a pro-Israel organization.
“This is a triumph for liberty and free
speech,” tweeted Pamela Geller, the president
of the American Freedom Defense Initiative
(AFDI), the group that purchased the ads and
sued the MTA to run them.
New Yorkers are used to aggressive
advertising. Banners for breast implants.
Billboards for condoms. But a federal judge’s
ruling has opened the door for far more
controversial posters on buses and subways
across the city.
“Killing Jews is Worship that draws us close
to Allah,” reads one such ad next to the image
of a young man in a checkered headscarf.
“That’s His Jihad. What’s yours?”
The poster is at the center of heated legal
debate over public safety and free speech. On
Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Koeltl ruled
that New York’s Metropolitan Transportation
Authority (MTA) cannot stop the controversial
ad from running on scores of subway cars and
buses.
The MTA has argued that the ad could incite
violence against Jews, but Koeltl rejected
that idea.
MTA officials “underestimate the tolerant
quality of New Yorkers and overestimate the
potential impact of these fleeting
advertisements,” he ruled. “Moreover, there is
no evidence that seeing one of these
advertisements on the back of a bus would be
sufficient to trigger a violent reaction.
Therefore, these ads — offensive as they may
be — are still entitled to First Amendment
protection.”
Making the case all the stranger is that the
posters are not the work of an Islamist group,
but rather a pro-Israel organization.
“This is a triumph for liberty and free
speech,” tweeted Pamela Geller, the president
of the American Freedom Defense Initiative
(AFDI), the group that purchased the ads and
sued the MTA to run them.
AFDI is not your traditional free speech
organization, however. The “about” section on
its Web site starts out pretty
straightforward, then takes a very hard turn.
Whatever you make of the group, AFDI has been
remarkably successful in bringing its message
to America. AFDI has filed at least nine
lawsuits across the country, often against
cities or their contractors that refuse to
display their messages.
Those messages include a poster depicting
Adolf Hitler meeting with “the leader of the
Muslim world” and demanding that the United
States cut off all aid to Islamic countries.
“In any war between the civilized man and the
savage, support the civilized man,” reads
another AFDI poster. “Support Israel. Defeat
Jihad.”
AFDI’s ads have also drawn objections from
Muslims. The Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR), a civil liberties group that
promotes the rights of Muslims and better
relations between Muslims and non-Muslims,
launched its own public relations campaign to
combat AFDI. In 2012 and 2013, CAIR ran
posters in several U.S. cities promoting
peaceful versions of Islam. “‘#MyJihad is to
build friendships across the aisle.’ What’s
yours?” But the ads never ran in New York due
to a disagreement between CAIR and MTA.
The poster attributes the “Killing Jews” quote
to “Hamas MTV,” apparently a reference to the
Palestinian group’s odd blend of violence and
music videos. The ad also has a disclaimer at
the bottom noting that it is “a paid
advertisement sponsored by” AFDI and “does not
imply MTA’s endorsement.”
But MTA Security Director Raymond Diaz worried
that the poster would nonetheless incite
violence, primarily against Jews. “What
matters is not AFDI’s intent, but how the ad
would be interpreted,” he wrote. The line
“What is yours?” could be considered a “call
to violence,” particularly because the CAIR
posters it was mocking never appeared in New
York. When AFDI pointed out that the exact
same poster had not caused any problems in
Chicago or San Francisco, Diaz argued that New
York was different because it is “the prime
terror target” and that the “terrorist
security threat” had grown worse since 2013.
On Tuesday, however, Judge Koeltl tossed out
those arguments and sided with AFDI. The ads
could not reasonably be considered an
incitement to violence, even if someone didn’t
understand them.
“The defendants admit that the actual
intention of the advertisement is not to
advocate the use of force, but to parody the
CAIR ‘My Jihad’ campaign and to criticize
Hamas and radical Islam. However, they argue
that a reasonable New Yorker would not read
the advertisement this way, but would instead
read it as advocating the killing of Jewish
people,” Koeltl wrote. “The defendants’ theory
is thoroughly unpersuasive.”
After AFDI’s victory, Geller posed for photos
outside the federal courthouse while holding
the “Killing Jews” advertisement.
“With our NY win, our ads will make their
debut on New York buses in the coming weeks,”
AFDI’s Web site promises above a “donate”
button. “We want to run 100. Help us make that
happen.”
But even if the ads don’t incite violence in
New York City, they could overseas. Earlier
this month, Egypt’s top religious authority
called AFDI’s posters “racist” and issued a
fatwa, or official edict, against them. “This
hazardous campaign will leave the gate of
confrontation and clashes wide open instead of
exerting efforts towards peaceful coexistence
and harmony,” according to the edict.
Hamas, the group cited on the ads, has not
said whether it approves of the message.
Navy
Official Bans Chaplain From Ministering To
Bereaved Families And Sailors
GOOSE CREEK, S.C.,
March 24, 2015
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today,
Liberty Institute announces that Chaplain
Modder's commanding officer, Captain Jon R.
Fahs, issued a "no contact" order to Chaplain
Wes Modder (the military version of a
restraining order), forbidding him from
counseling or ministering to members of his
unit. The order comes on the heels of a tragic
death in Modder's unit, banning him from
ministering to grieving sailors and the
deceased sailor's family members.
After a sailor in his unit unexpectedly
passed away, Chaplain Modder immediately
sprung into action to fulfill his usual
chaplain duties of providing comfort and
support to the deceased sailor's grieving
family. But just as Chaplain Modder was about
to perform those duties, the Navy informed him
of the "no contact" order, banning him from
having any contact with any personnel from his
unit, depriving him of the ability to comfort
them during a time of grief and mourning.
Captain Fahs also banished Chaplain Modder
from the Naval base where Modder is stationed
on the day of the memorial service for the
fallen sailor. The order also comes just days
after Captain Fahs denied Chaplain Modder's
request for a religious accommodation to
provide pastoral counseling in accordance with
his faith. (See Captain Fahs' denial letter at
https://www.libertyinstitute.org/ModderFacts)
"This Navy official is using the 'no contact'
order as a weapon to punish and humiliate a
decorated military chaplain," said Mike Berry,
Liberty Institute Senior Counsel and Director
of Military Affairs. "I am stunned that he
would deny Chaplain Modder the ability to
minister to a grieving family and other
sailors."
Liberty Institute President and CEO Kelly
Shackelford said, "Of the most critical times
for chaplains, the death of a colleague is
near the top of the list. For this Navy
official to bar a chaplain from comforting and
ministering to sailors and families is a
reprehensible violation of religious freedom
and common human decency."
Case Background: Chaplain Wes Modder is a
Navy chaplain and former Marine who previously
served as the Force chaplain for Naval Special
Warfare Command. He has deployed overseas
multiple times during the War on Terror,
including in support of Navy SEAL Teams. In
October 2014, Chaplain Modder's commander
called him a "consummate professional leader,"
"the best of the best," and said he sets the
"clear benchmark" for chaplain
professionalism. Now, the Navy is threatening
Chaplain Modder with career-ending punishment
because, when asked, he expressed faith-based
views on marriage and human sexuality in
private counseling sessions. Liberty Institute
is defending Chaplain Modder and asserts that
censoring his religious expression is
unconstitutional religious discrimination. The
"no contact" order comes only days after the
Navy officially denied Chaplain Modder's
request for religious accommodation, in
violation of federal law and Department of
Defense (DoD) regulations. (Read more about
Modder's case at https://www.libertyinstitute.org/ModderFacts)
About Liberty Institute
Liberty Institute is the largest nonprofit
legal organization in the nation dedicated
solely to defending religious liberty in
America. Liberty Institute protects freedom of
religious expression in our military, schools,
churches, and throughout the public arena. For
more information, visit
www.LibertyInstitute.org.
March 12, 2015 In mid February of this year Navy
Chaplain Wesley Modder received a
"detachment for cause" letter after commanders
concluded he was "intolerant" and "unable to
function in the diverse and pluralistic
environment" of his current assignment. Lt Cmdr.
Modder has served more than 19 years with
commendations as "best of the best" and a
"talented and inspirational leader. Click
here to read the March 11 article in the
Military Times.
Muslim
Brotherhood princess' used Clinton email
server
03/11/2015 @ 9:10 pm WND.com In Front Page,Politics,U.S.
Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin
At least three of Hillary Clinton’s top aides –
including one with ties to the Muslim
Brotherhood – used emails hosted on Clinton’s
private server while she was secretary of state,
according to several reports.
At a news conference Tuesday at the U.N.,
Clinton directly addressed media about the
revelation that she conducted her business as
secretary of state using a private email account
instead of the secure and archived government
system.
She acknowledged she deleted thousands of
personal emails and said she turned over hard
copies of messages to the State Department that
she deemed to be work related.
But Clinton apparently wasn’t the only one at
the State Department using private email.
Weekly Standard senior writer Stephen Hayes told
Fox News, “Two of Hillary Clinton’s top aides
used personal email while they were employed at
the State Department.”
Hayes specifically named Clinton Chief of Staff
Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, who served as
Clinton’s longtime deputy chief of staff. Abedin
and Clinton worked closely together for nearly
20 years.
“The State Department has evidence of this,” he
said.
In another report, the gossip website Gawker
claimed both Abedin and Phillippe Reines,
Clinton’s communications strategist, used the
private email addresses.
The London Daily Mail confirmed one of Abedin’s
email addresses was listed as
Huma@clintonemail.com.
Abedin’s emails would be of particular interest
because she has known ties to the Muslim
Brotherhood – a group that’s bent on “destroying
Western civilization from within” – and other
Islamic supremacists.
Hayes said, “The question, I think becomes: Were
they emailing with Hillary Clinton from their
personal email addresses to her personal email
address about State Department business, about
Benghazi, including sensitive classified
information?
“Those are questions that I think (Rep.) Trey
Gowdy and the House Benghazi Committee is going
to want to look at very carefully.”
What do YOU think? Will Hillary’s email troubles
delete her run for president? Sound off in
today’s WND poll
Government watchdog Judicial Watch has filed a
lawsuit against the State Department seeking all
emails from 2009 to 2013 between Clinton, Abedin
and Nagla Mahmoud, wife of Muslim Brotherhood
leader Mohammed Morsi.
“Now we know why the State Department didn’t
want to respond to our specific request for
Hillary Clinton’s and Huma Abedin’s
communications,” Judicial Watch President Tom
Fitton said in a statement. “The State
Department violated FOIA law rather than admit
that it couldn’t and wouldn’t search the secret
accounts that the agency has known about for
years. This lawsuit shows how the latest Obama
administration cover-up isn’t just about
domestic politics but has significant foreign
policy implications.”
Get the details about what really happened in
one of America’s biggest foreign operations
failures, in “The REAL Benghazi Story.”
Transforming America
Abedin and Clinton worked closely together for
nearly 20 years. As WND has extensively
reported, the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic
supremacist connections not only extend to
Abedin’s mother and father, who are both deeply
tied to al-Qaida fronts, but to Abedin herself.
Major news media profiles of Abedin report she
was born of Pakistani and Indian parents,
without delving much further into her family’s
history.
As WND reported, a manifesto commissioned by the
ruling Saudi Arabian monarchy places the work of
an institute that employed Abedin at the
forefront of a grand plan to mobilize U.S.
Muslim minorities to transform America into a
Saudi-style Islamic state, according to
Arabic-language researcher Walid Shoebat.
Abedin was an assistant editor for a dozen years
for the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs for
the Institute for Muslim Minority Affairs. The
institute – founded by her late father and
currently directed by her mother – is backed by
the Muslim World League, an Islamic organization
in the Saudi holy city of Mecca that was founded
by Muslim Brotherhood leaders.
The 2002 Saudi manifesto shows that “Muslim
Minority Affairs” – the mobilizing of Muslim
communities in the U.S. to spread Islam instead
of assimilating into the population – is a key
strategy in an ongoing effort to establish
Islamic rule in America and a global Shariah, or
Islamic law, “in our modern times.”
WND reported Abedin also was a member of the
executive board of the Muslim Student
Association, which was identified as a Muslim
Brotherhood front group in a 1991 document
introduced into evidence during the
terror-financing trial of the Texas-based Holy
Land Foundation.
At her father’s Saudi-financed Islamic think
tank, WND reported, Abedin worked alongside
Abdullah Omar Naseef, who is accused of
financing al-Qaida fronts.
Naseef is deeply connected to the Abedin family.
WND was first to report Huma’s mother, Saleha
Abedin, was the official representative of
Naseef’s terror-stained Muslim World League in
the 1990s.
Shoebat previously reported that as one of 63
leaders of the Muslim Sisterhood, the de facto
female version of the Muslim Brotherhood, Saleha
Abedin served alongside Nagla Ali Mahmoud, the
wife of Muslim Brotherhood figure Mohammed
Morsi, Egypt’s now ousted president.
Saleha Abedin and Morsi’s wife both were members
of the Sisterhood’s Guidance Bureau, Shoebat
found.
Huma worked with al-Qaida front man
Abdullah Omar Naseef is secretary-general of the
Muslim World League, an Islamic charity known to
have spawned terrorist groups, including one
declared by the U.S. government to be an
official al-Qaida front.
The institute founded by Huma Abedin’s father
reportedly was a quiet, but active, supporter of
Naseef.
The institute bills itself as “the only
scholarly institution dedicated to the
systematic study of Muslim communities in
non-Muslim societies around the world.”
Huma served on the Journal of Muslim Minority
Affairs’s editorial board from 2002 to 2008.
Documents obtained by Shoebat revealed that
Naseef served on the board with Huma from at
least December 2002 to December 2003.
Naseef’s sudden departure from the board in
December 2003 coincides with the time at which
various charities led by Naseef’s Muslim World
League were declared illegal terrorism fronts
worldwide, including by the U.S. and U.N.
The MWL, founded in Mecca in 1962, bills itself
as one of the largest Islamic non-governmental
organizations.
But according to U.S. government documents and
testimony from the charity’s own officials, it
is heavily financed by the Saudi government.
The MWL has been accused of terrorist ties, as
have its various offshoots, including the
International Islamic Relief Organization, or
IIRO, and Al Haramain, which was declared by the
U.S. and U.N. as a terror financing front.
Indeed, the Treasury Department, in a September
2004 press release, alleged Al Haramain had
“direct links” with Osama bin Laden. The group
is now banned worldwide by U.N. Security Council
Committee resolution 1267.
There long have been accusations that the IIRO
and MWL also repeatedly funded al-Qaida.
In 1993, bin Laden reportedly told an associate
that the MWL was one of his three most important
charity fronts.
An Anti-Defamation League profile of the MWL
accuses the group of promulgating a
“fundamentalist interpretation of Islam around
the world through a large network of charities
and affiliated organizations.”
“Its ideological backbone is based on an
extremist interpretation of Islam,” the profile
states, “and several of its affiliated groups
and individuals have been linked to
terror-related activity.”
In 2003, U.S. News and World Report documented
that accompanying the MWL’s donations,
invariably, are “a blizzard of Wahhabist
literature.”
“Critics argue that Wahhabism’s more extreme
preachings – mistrust of infidels, branding of
rival sects as apostates and emphasis on violent
jihad –laid the groundwork for terrorist groups
around the world,” the report continued.
An Egyptian-American cab driver, Ihab Mohamed
Ali Nawawi, was arrested in Florida in 1990 on
accusations he was an al-Qaida sleeper agent and
a former personal pilot to bin Laden. At the
time he was accused of serving bin Laden, he
also reportedly worked for the Pakistani branch
of the MWL.
The MWL in 1988 founded the Al Haramain Islamic
Foundation, developing chapters in about 50
countries, including for a time in Oregon until
it was designated a terrorist organization.
In the early 1990s, evidence began to grow that
the foundation was funding Islamist militants in
Somalia and Bosnia, and a 1996 CIA report
detailed its Bosnian militant ties.
The U.S. Treasury designated Al Haramain’s
offices in Kenya and Tanzania as sponsors of
terrorism for their role in planning and funding
the 1998 bombings of two American embassies in
East Africa. The Comoros Islands office was also
designated because it “was used as a staging
area and exfiltration route for the perpetrators
of the 1998 bombings.”
The New York Times reported in 2003 that Al
Haramain had provided funds to the Indonesian
terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, which was
responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that
killed 202 people. The Indonesia office was
later designated a terrorist entity by the
Treasury.
In February 2004, the U.S. Treasury Department
froze all Al Haramain’s financial assets pending
an investigation, leading the Saudi government
to disband the charity and fold it into another
group, the Saudi National Commission for Relief
and Charity Work Abroad.
In September 2004, the U.S. designated
Al-Haramain a terrorist organization.
In June 2008, the Treasury Department applied
the terrorist designation to the entire
Al-Haramain organization worldwide
Bin Laden’s brother-in-law
In August 2006, the Treasury Department also
designated the Philippine and Indonesian branch
offices of the MWL-founded IIRO as terrorist
entities “for facilitating fundraising for
al-Qaida and affiliated terrorist groups.”
The Treasury Department added: “Abd Al Hamid
Sulaiman Al-Mujil, a high-ranking IIRO official
[executive director of its Eastern Province
Branch] in Saudi Arabia, has used his position
to bankroll the al-Qaida network in Southeast
Asia. Al-Mujil has a long record of supporting
Islamic militant groups, and he has maintained a
cell of regular financial donors in the Middle
East who support extremist causes.”
In the 1980s, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Osama bin
Laden’s brother-in-law, ran the Philippines
offices of the IIRO. Khalifa has been linked to
Manila-based plots to target the pope and U.S.
airlines.
The IIRO has also been accused of funding Hamas,
Algerian radicals, Afghanistan militant bases
and the Egyptian terror group Al-Gamaa
al-Islamiyya.
The New York Post reported the families of the
9/11 victims filed a lawsuit against IIRO and
other Muslim organizations for having “played
key roles in laundering of funds to the
terrorists in the 1998 African embassy bombings”
and for having been involved in the “financing
and ‘aiding and abetting’ of terrorists in the
1993 World Trade Center bombing.”
‘Saudi government front’
In a court case in Canada, Arafat El-Asahi, the
Canadian director of both the IIRO and the MWL,
admitted the charities are near entities of the
Saudi government.
Stated El-Asahi: “The Muslim World League, which
is the mother of IIRO, is a fully
government-funded organization. In other words,
I work for the government of Saudi Arabia. I am
an employee of that government.
“Second, the IIRO is the relief branch of that
organization, which means that we are controlled
in all our activities and plans by the
government of Saudi Arabia. Keep that in mind,
please,” he said.
Despite its offshoots being implicated in terror
financing, the U.S. government never designated
the MWL itself as a terror-financing charity.
Many have speculated the U.S. has been trying to
not embarrass the Saudi government.
Huma’s mother represented Muslim World League
Saleha Abedin has been quoted in numerous press
accounts as both representing the MWL and
serving as a delegate for the charity.
In 1995, for example, the Washington Times
reported on a United Nations-arranged women’s
conference in Beijing that called on governments
throughout the world to give women statistical
equality with men in the workplace.
The report quoted Saleha Abedin, who attended
the conference as a delegate, as “also
representing the Muslim World League based in
Saudi Arabia and the Muslim NGO Caucus.”
The U.N.’s website references a report in the
run-up to the Beijing conference that also lists
Abedin as representing the MWL at the event.
The website posted an article from the now
defunct United States Information Agency quoting
Abedin and reporting she attended the Beijing
conference as “a delegate of the Muslim World
League and member of the Muslim Women’s NGO
caucus.”
In the article, Abedin was listed under a
shorter name, “Dr. Saleha Mahmoud, director of
the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs.”
WND confirmed the individual listed is Huma
Abedin’s mother. The reports misspelled part of
Abedin’s name. Her full professional name is at
times listed as Saleha Mahmood Abedin S.
Hillary praise
Saleha Mahmood formerly directed the Institute
of Muslim Minority Affairs in the U.K. and
served as a delegate for the Muslim World
League, an Islamic fundamentalist group Osama
bin Laden reportedly told an associate was one
of his most important charity fronts.
In February 2010, Clinton spoke at Dar Al-Hekma
College in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where Abedin
was an associate professor of sociology at the
time.
Clinton, after she was introduced by Abedin,
praised the work of the terror-tied professor.
“I have to say a special word about Dr. Saleha
Abedin,” Clinton said. “You heard her present
the very exciting partnerships that have been
pioneered between colleges and universities in
the United States and this college. And it is
pioneering work to create these kinds of
relationships.
“But I have to confess something that Dr. Abedin
did not,” Clinton continued, “and that is that I
have almost a familial bond with this college.
Dr. Abedin’s daughter, one of her three
daughters, is my deputy chief of staff, Huma
Abedin, who started to work for me when she was
a student at George Washington University in
Washington, D.C.”
The Clarion Project was founded
in 2006 by Raphael Shore. It is dedicated to
"exposing the dangers of Islamic extremism
while providing a platform for the voices of
moderation and promoting grassroots activism."
Shore produced the 2008 documentary The
Third Jihad: Radical Islam's Vision For
America.. (View
at this link.)
The main web page of the Clarion Project is www.clarionproject.org.
They are currently sponsoring an email
campaign to your elected officials "No Nukes
For Iran".
As Prime Minister Netanyahu stated in his
speech to the U.S. Congress on March 3,
2015, "for over a year, we've been told
that no deal is better than a bad deal (with
Iran). Well, this is a bad deal. It's a very
bad deal. We're better off without
it." Visit this
link to quickly send an email to your
elected officials in Washington
www.acttoimpact.com. ~>~>~>~>~>~>~>~>
File Under the category of
"Unintended Consequences"
Side effects of a Nuclear Deal with
Iran: A Middle East Arms Race?:
According
to two FCC commissioners, those new
regulations are bad all around
By Brad
Matthews
Watchdog.org
March 4, 2015
The Obama administration and proponents
of the FCC’s version of net neutrality
may be ecstatic at the passing of
regulations that make the Internet a
public utility on Feb. 26th, but not all
FCC members are so sunny in their
outlook for the future.
TechFreedom held a fireside chat on Feb.
27th with two FCC commissioners, Ajit
Pai and Mike O’Rielly, and the two of
them concurred that the new regulations
are far-reaching, largely unchecked and
pose a threat to consumer bills and to
innovation in the industry.
Ajit Pai openly questioned what the
problem was, saying, “There’s never been
a systemic analysis of what the problem
with the Internet is. In this order, you
see scattered niche examples [Comcast
and BitTorrent, Apple and FaceTime,
others] all of which were resolved, mind
you, through private sector
initiatives.” He continued, saying that
the FCC’s net neutrality regulatory
regime is a solution that won’t work in
search of a problem that doesn’t
exist.” Essentially, this is,
contrary to the assertion of activists
and others, a vaguely justified power
grab by a government agency.
Mike O’Rielly added, in a bit of humor
that “there is a problem, and it’s the
document we adopted [Feb. 26].” Neither
of them were reticent in explaining
exactly how and why the document was the
problem. For one, the document was, as
Commissioner Pai pointed out, written to
solve a problem that wasn’t readily
apparent. O’Rielly said the document is
“guilt by imagination, trying to guess
what will go wrong in the future”;
instead of tackling a readily apparent
and current issue, the FCC proposal is
instead stumbling forward, trying to
find future, hypothetical transgressions
to retroactively justify its own
regulations.
This conspiratorial and wide-ranging
thinking on the part of FCC is not a
bug, but rather a feature. O’Rielly
openly said that “it’s intended to catch
everybody”. Pai noted that the FCC was
going to centralize powers over what
infrastructure was deployed and where
through the use of statutes and other
laws; O’Rielly mentioned specifically
that the FCC was going to “use Section
201 [of the Communications Act] to do
it’s dirty work.”
Pai continued, saying that the FCC was
largely focused on the ends of Internet
regulation rather than the means, and
that “a lot of these promises of
regulatory restraint are pretty
ephemeral.” O’Rielly mentioned that
mobile data policies were likely to be
subsumed by the new regulations into
policies on the wider Internet as a
whole. This one-size-fits-all approach
ignores the differences in how mobile
data is used versus the way the Internet
is used by a normal computer or other
devices. Many features of mobile
service, the two said, could be
construed as a company favoring one app
or one site over another in terms of
data, which would violate the FCC’s
standards.
The consumer will inherit many of these
new costs and burdens. O’Rielly outright
told the audience that “Rates are going
to go up because of this.” The new
regulations also fail to recognize the
burden of local telecommunications
taxes, especially in major cities where
tax rates on mobile service are often
incredibly high. The new regulations,
combined with the laws of local
governments, stand to impose even more
costs onto consumers.
The outlook the two gave was anything
but bright–the worries of small
government advocates seem justified. The
new FCC regulations will, in concert
with other laws and under the directive
of an organization looking for future
problems rather than current problems,
give more power to government, more
restrictions to innovators, and more
costs to the people.
Commissioner Pai summed it up best:
“This issue has been largely fact-free
for the better part of a decade, and I
think it’s frankly shocking that
decision-making on something as
important as this has been thrown by the
wayside in favor of what I consider to
be an ideological agenda.”
The net may be “neutral” but the FCC is
most certainly not.
Islamic
state: Fears Grow For Abducted Syrian
Christians United Kingdom BBC Wednesday 25 Feb 2015
There are fears that more members of an
Assyrian Christian community in north-eastern
Syria were abducted by Islamic State militants
than at first thought. Initial reports had put
the number of missing at 90, but one activist
said as many as 285 people had been seized on
Monday in Hassakeh province. Efforts to try to
negotiate their release are reported to be
under way.
Some 1,000 local Assyrian families are
believed to have fled their homes in the wake
of the abductions.
Kurdish and Christian militia are battling IS
in the area, amid reports of churches and
homes having been set ablaze.
Thousands of Christians in Syria have been
forced from their homes by the threat from IS
militants.
In areas under their control, Christians have
been ordered to convert to Islam, pay jizya (a
religious levy), or face death. IS militants
in Libya also recently beheaded 21 Egyptian
Coptic Christians.
The Assyrians were seized by the militants as
they swept into 12 villages along the southern
bank of the Khabur river near the town of Tal
Tamr before dawn on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a
UK-based activist group, said at least 90
people had been abducted, most of them women,
children and the elderly.
However, the Syriac National Council of Syria
put the figure as high as 150, while Afram
Yakoub of the Assyrian Federation of Sweden
said sources on the ground had told him that
up to 285 people were missing, including 156
from the village of Tal Shamran and 90 from
Tal al-Jazira.
"These were peaceful villages that had nothing
to do with the battles," Nasir Haj Mahmoud, a
Kurdish official in the YPG militia in
north-eastern Syria, told the Reuters news
agency.
There are conflicting reports as to where the
families have been taken.
Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the Syriac
Military Council - a Christian militia
fighting alongside the Kurdish Popular
Protection Units (YPG) - told the BBC that it
believed the captives had been taken to Abdul
Aziz mountain.
Osama Edward of the Sweden-based Assyrian
Human Rights Network told the AFP news agency
that the captives had been taken to the IS
stronghold of Shaddadi, as did Syria's state
news agency, Sana.
Another report said they were in Raqqa, 145km
(90 miles) to the west, the de facto capital
of the "caliphate" declared by IS last June.
The BBC's Jonny Dymond in Beirut says the
motive for the seizure of so many Assyrians is
not yet clear. Our correspondent says it may
be that the captives are to be used as part of
a swap with the Kurdish forces.
Hundreds of Assyrians who were living in
villages on the north bank of the Khabur river
and elsewhere are reported to have fled
following the attack to the largely
Kurdish-controlled provincial capital of
Hassakeh, to the south-east, and Qamishli,
another city to the north-east.
Mr Edward said two historic churches had been
burned down in captured villages - one in Tal
Hurmiz and the other in Qaber Shamiya. The
Syrian Observatory also reported that a church
in Tal Shamran had also been damaged.
Mr Gabriel said IS had moved a big force into
the area and were trying to take control of
Tal Tamr.
The Syriac Military Council had about 400
fighters in the area and at least four had
been killed in clashes with the jihadists, he
added. The YPG has deployed between 1,000 and
1,500 fighters.
The YPG is also continuing a major offensive
launched on Sunday against IS some 100km (60
miles) to the east, near the border with Iraq
- an area of vital importance to the
jihadists.
ISIS
beheading of Coptic Christians on
Libyan beach brings Islamists to the
doorstep of Europe
United Kingdom The Independent, Thursday 19 Feb 2015
The beheading of 21 Coptic Christians on a beach
in Libya has brought ISIS to the doorstep of
Europe.
The mass murder, which provoked a volley of
Egyptian air strikes on the group’s Libyan
stronghold of Derna, realised long-held fears of
militants reaching the Mediterranean coast.
ISIS started in Iraq and now controls swathes of
adjoining Syria, including along the Turkish
border, as part of its so-called Islamic State.
Its ideology has spread much further, with
pledges of allegiance from terrorist groups in
Egypt, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,
Tunisia, Yemen and now Libya.
Days before ISIS released its gory video
depicting the Egyptians’ beheadings, Libya’s
former Prime Minister warned that the group
would soon reach the Mediterranean and even
Europe if order was not restored in the country.
Ali Zeidan said Libya’s fractured government and
easy access to weapons seized during the fall of
Colonel Gaddafi made it more susceptible to the
activities of jihadists, according to The Times.
“(ISIS) are growing. They are everywhere,” he
added.
“In Libya, the situation is still under control.
If we leave it one month or two months more I
don’t think you can control it.
“It will be a big war in the country and it will
be here in Europe as well.”
Libya has seen fierce fighting between rival
militias since Gaddafi was overthrown during the
2011 Arab Spring.
Mr Zeidan, who fled to Europe after losing a
parliamentary vote of confidence, reported that
ISIS had a growing presence in some of the
bigger cities and was trying to recruit fighters
from rival Islamist groups.
Libya's former Prime Minister Ali Zeidan warned
that Isis would reach the Mediterranean Aref Ali
Nayed, Libya’s ambassador to the United Arab
Emirates, also said Isis’s presence in Libya was
increasing “exponentially”.
Its military gains last summer sparked a rush by
other Islamist groups in the Middle East and
North Africa to ally themselves with the group
by pledging allegiance and changing their names.
The jihadists behind the beheadings in Libya
call themselves the Tripoli Province of the
Islamic State.
As the turmoil in Libya continued last year,
they gained control of the port city of Derna
and nearby Sirte, where Isis seized the murdered
Coptic hostages in December and January.
The location of their murders could not be
confirmed but footage showed them dressed in
orange jumpsuits kneeling on a beach. Behind
each of them were masked militants who wielded
their knives to kill the bound hostages
simultaneously.
ISIS affiliates have also claimed responsibility
for attacks on the Egyptian military and police
in the Sinai Peninsula, further along the
Mediterranean coast between Egypt and Gaza.
England and Europe's greater concern than the
United States is evident in this article, due to
their proximity to the menacing Radical Islamic
peril. Learn more about this with accompanying
links at the UK's INDEPENDENT
website by clicking here.
ISIS burn 45
people to death in captured Iraqi town of
al-Baghdadi as Islamists attack the homes
of security forces' families
United Kingdom's Daily Mail
Dailymail.com
Karen Pickles for Mailonline
February 17, 2015
ISIS burn 45 people to death in captured
Iraqi town of al-Baghdadi as Islamists
attack the homes of security forces'
families
Western town
al-Baghdadi captured by ISIS fighters last
week
Victims thought to be
members of security forces and their
families
Follows barbaric video
of Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath
al-Kaseasbeh
Attack is only five
miles from air base with 320 US Marines
Militants from Islamic State have burned 45
people to death in the western Iraqi town of
al-Baghdadi, according to the local police
chief.
Col. Qasim al-Obeidi said the motive was unknown
but he believed some of the victims were members
of the security forces.
He has pleaded for help from the government and
international community and said the compound,
which houses the families of security personnel
and local officials, was now under attack.
It follows the capture of al-Baghdadi, near Ain
al-Asad air base, by ISIS fighters last week.
The unconfirmed reports have haunting
similarities to the video published earlier this
month, showing militants burning alive a
Jordanian air force pilot, whose plane crashed
in Syria in December.
Al-Baghdadi had been besieged for months by
Islamic State fighters before its fall. It had
been one of the few towns to still be controlled
by the Iraqi government in Anbar province, where
IS and allied Sunni Arab tribesmen launched an
offensive in January 2014.
On Friday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm John
Kirby, played down its capture, telling
reporters it was the first time in the last
couple of months that the jihadist group had
taken new ground.
But with 320 US Marines stationed just five
miles away at the Ain al-Asad air base, training
members of the Iraqi army's 7th Division, it
will cause concern.
The base was attacked by several suicide
bombers, on Friday with the militant repelled by
Iraqi troops backed by US-led coalition
aircraft.
In a separate development on Tuesday, the
influential Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr announced
he was withdrawing his forces from an umbrella
group of Shia militia fighting IS alongside the
Iraqi army.
He cited what he called the bad behaviour of
other militia within the Popular Mobilisation
Forces, whom he accused of 'wreaking havoc
through murdering, kidnapping and violating
sanctuaries'.
Shia militia have been accused of kidnapping and
killing scores of Sunni civilians since Islamic
State launched an offensive in northern Iraq
last June that saw it seize large swathes of the
country.
Elsewhere, there are reports at least 35
more Egyptian Christians are feared to have been
kidnapped by jihadists in retaliation for air
strikes on targets in Libya.
Militants from the Islamic State and Ansar
Al-Sharia are understood to have rounded up
dozens of farm workers in the wake of bombings
by Cairo, it was reported by local media.
The move is believed to be a direct response to
strikes by Egyptian warplanes yesterday which
came after fanatics released a horrific video
showing the beheading of 21 Christians on a
beach.
Netanyahu: Israel is standing by
Europe, Europe must stand by Israel
January 8, 2015
The Jerusalem Post
By HERB KEINON
In meeting with Norwegian FM, Netanyahu says
radical Islam is a "threat to our common
civilization."
Israel is being attacked by the same forces
attacking Europe, and just as Israel stands
with Europe, so too Europe must stand with
Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said Thursday.
Netanyahu, speaking following a meeting with
visiting Norwegian Foreign Minister Børge
Brende, said that Wednesday’s terrorist
attack in Paris “clearly demonstrates the
disdain of radical Islam for the values we
hold dear. We cherish freedom and tolerance;
they worship tyranny and terror. And through
this terror they seek to impose a new dark
age on humanity.”
Netanyahu said the terrorists were “part of
a global movement and this necessitates a
global response. I believe that with the
strength of our resolve and the unity of our
action, we can defeat this threat to our
common civilization. And what the battle
against terror requires is courage, clarity
and consistency.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Tzahi Hanegbi said
in an Israel Radio interview that precisely
that type of determination has been missing
up until now in France and elsewhere in
Europe in the battle against terrorism.
Hanegbi said the French in the past tried to
delude themselves regarding the true nature
of threat, saying “maybe it was only
sporadic incidents, maybe it is only
anti-Semitism, maybe it is only against the
Jews.”
He said that the French at times tried to
understand the terrorists motivations, and
at other times tried to downplay their ties
to Islam. The sheer brutality of Wednesday
attack, especially the murder of the
policeman on the sidewalk, will compel the
French government to “look at the reality
square in the face” and realize there is a
serious danger at their gates, he said.
Hanegbi predicted that France will be
forced, like the US was after the September
11, 2001 attacks, to empower the security
establishment with tools to effectively deal
with the threats.
“France must deal with the threat coming
from within,” he said. Hanegbi added that
Israel, unfortunately, has quite a
deal of experience dealing with terrorism,
and that “anyone who cooperates with a
county as experienced [in dealing with
terrorism] as Israel, only benefits.”
He said that Israel has the capability to
help France a lot more than the French have
requested in the past. Now, he said, France
“ will have an interest in being helped by
anyone who can help them, including israel.”
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman,
meanwhile, took the Paris attack and used it
to prove a point regarding domestic Israeli
policies.
If there was an important lesson to be
learned from the attack, he said, it is that
extremist movements must be dealt with
early, and that there are only small legal
and semantic differences separating those
organizations from terrorist groups.
Those who demonstrate tolerance toward those
organizations, he said, will ultimately pay
a high price in blood, as well as in threats
to their very democracies that allows those
organizations to work.
Israel's lesson, he said, must be not to
tarry and to stop the activities of Raed
Salah and the northern branch of the Islamic
Movement in Israel.
Liberman said Salah's organization was an
inseparable link in the chain of terrorist
organizations that includes Hamas, Islamic
Jihad, al-Qaida and the Islamic State. He
said the organization “shares exactly the
same values of the perpetrators of the
massacre in Paris and its intolerance of
criticism and of anything inconsistent with
its extreme world view.”
Liberman said the the northern branch is a
threat to Israeli democracy and the
country's citizens, and that it needed to be
outlawed.
Houston Subpoenas Pastors’ Sermons in Gay
Rights Ordinance Case
By Sarah Pulliam Bailey
Religion News Service
October 15, 2014
Evangelical
leaders are angry after city officials in
Houston subpoenaed sermons given by local
pastors who oppose an equal rights ordinance
that provides protections to the LGBT
community.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker, who drew
headlines for becoming the first openly
lesbian mayor of a major American city, led
support for the ordinance. The measure bans
anti-gay discrimination among businesses
that serve the public, private employers, in
housing and in city employment and city
contracting.
Under one of the hotly contested parts of
the ordinance, transgender people barred
access to a restroom would be able to file a
discrimination complaint.
The ordinance, which exempted religious
institutions, was passed in May, though its
implementation has been delayed due to legal
complaints.
Opponents were hoping to repeal the
ordinance through a ballot measure and
claimed the city’s attorney incorrectly
determined they had not gathered enough
signatures to qualify for a ballot.
Supporters of the repeal reportedly gathered
50,000 signatures, well over the 17,269
needed for inclusion on the November ballot.
Opponents of the repeal have questioned the
validity of the signatures.
A group of Christians sued the city. In
response, city attorneys issued subpoenas to
five local pastors during the case’s
discovery phase, though the five pastors
were not involved in the lawsuit.
The subpoenas sought “all speeches,
presentations, or sermons related to HERO,
the Petition, Mayor Annise Parker,
homosexuality, or gender identity prepared
by, delivered by, revised by, or approved by
you or in your possession,” according to the
Houston Chronicle.
“The subpoenas were issued to pastors who
have been involved in the political campaign
to organize a repeal of Houston’s new equal
rights ordinance,” said Janice Evans, chief
policy officer to the mayor, in a statement.
“It is part of the discovery process in a
lawsuit brought by opponents of the
ordinance, a group that is tied to the
pastors who have received the subpoenas.”
An Arizona-based religious liberty group,
Alliance Defending Freedom, has filed a
motion on behalf of the pastors seeking to
halt the subpoenas. The ministers call the
subpoenas “overbroad, unduly burdensome,
harassing, and vexatious.”
“The pastors made their sermons relevant to
the case by using the pulpit to do political
organizing,” Evans said in her statement.
“This included encouraging congregation
members to sign petitions and help gather
signatures for equal rights ordinance foes.
The issue is whether they were speaking from
the pulpit for the purpose of politics. If
so, it is not protected speech.”
The lawsuit is scheduled for trial in
January.
“It’s procedural — it’s common to ask for a
wide range of documents — but the mayor is
playing real hardball,” said David Skeel,
professor of law at the University of
Pennsylvania. “The fact that she’s
subpoenaing pastors seems quite unusual in a
case that’s mostly about politics, and the
fact that she’s going inside the church is
even more radical. It would be easy enough
to get sermons, of course, but asking for
them is clearly meant to send a signal.”
City Attorney David Feldman argues the
subpoenas are justified because the churches
are where opponents of the ordinance met to
organize.
“We’re certainly entitled to inquire about
the communications that took place in the
churches regarding the ordinance and the
petitions because that’s where they chose to
do it,” Feldman told KTRH News. “It’s
relevant to know what representations and
instructions were given regarding these
petitions.”
The issue has angered evangelicals
nationwide, prompting outcry from people
such as Russell Moore, president of the
Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious
Liberty Commission.
“The separation of church and state means
that we will render unto Caesar that which
is Caesar’s, and we will,” Moore wrote. “But
the preaching of the church of God does not
belong to Caesar, and we will not hand it
over to him. Not now. Not ever.”
More than 1,800 pastors participated in
ADF’s seventh annual Pulpit Freedom Sunday
event on Oct. 5, daring the Internal Revenue
Service to prosecute them for endorsing
political candidates. Under IRS regulations,
tax-exempt churches are not allowed to
engage in partisan politics.
The Khaleej
Times - a daily U.S. language
newspaper published in United Arab
Emirates.It
is the second most popular English
language newspapers published in the UAE.
Armageddon Can
Wait
Mahir Ali
Kaleej Times
3 September
2014
Global
threat is used to deflect attention
from domestic woes
Barack Obama’s recent confession that his
country did not so far have a strategy as
far as the so-called ISIS
is concerned has been pilloried as a gaffe.
It could, however, also be seen as the plain
truth.
The United States did not really have a
strategy a decade or so ago either, when the
administration of George W. Bush decided to
invade Iraq, evidently expecting that the
various pieces would magically fall into
place once Saddam Hussein was toppled. The
tactic represented a disastrous combination
of hubris and ignorance.
The extent to which the subsequent
implosions and explosions in the region are
a direct consequence of that particular
debacle is arguable, but there can be little
doubt that the big picture would have been
decidedly different, and in all probability
considerably less unpleasant, in the absence
of that monumental neoconservative folly.
Of course, what’s done cannot be undone,
and the present crisis demands a resolute
response. It’s by no means undesirable,
however, for that response to take account
of all that has gone wrong in the recent
past.
Obama has come under attack, for instance,
for hesitating to strike Syria
in the early days of the revolt against the
Bashar Al Assad dictatorship, and thereby
purportedly facilitating the expansion of
Islamist outfits such as ISIS and Jabhat Al
Nusra. Too many of the critics are inclined,
however, to ignore in this context the
consequences of NATO’s role in Libya.
Washington
allowed itself to be catapulted into that
conflict, partly on the basis of Paris and London’s
aggressive
enthusiasm, and NATO’s mission was a success
in terms of achieving the overthrow of
Muammar Gaddafi’s regime. But Libya
today is being torn apart by rival militias,
many of them distinguishable not so much by
ideology as by tribal affiliations.
Under similar circumstances, would the
outcome the Syria
have been remarkably different? Who can
claim with any confidence that Assad’s early
overthrow would have prevented Islamist
forces from sooner or later gaining the
upper hand?
The US
has lately been thinking aloud about
launching airstrikes in Syria with
the ostensible aim of undermining ISIS
rather than Assad, based on the assumption
that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi’s troops cannot be
quelled by focusing on Iraq
alone. That may be so, but there is the
wider question of whether they can
effectively be tackled at all mainly through
air assaults.
There have evidently been some tactical
successes in Iraq
in this respect, beginning with the besieged
Yazidis stranded on SinjarMountain
— most of whom appear to have made it to
relative safety in Iraqi Kurdistan, although
the reported numbers are open to question.
Then there was the recapture of Mosul Dam,
and most recently the apparent rescue of
Amerli.
In the latter instance, the US
airstrikes were effectively in aid of Shia
militias spearheading the assault against
ISIS — the same militias, with links to Iran, that
not many years ago were dedicated to
undermining the American occupation of Iraq.
“Should such military actions continue,” The
New York Times noted on Monday, “they could
signal a dramatic shift for the United States
and Iran,
which have long vied for control in Iraq.”
Naturally, neither Washington
nor Tehran
is keen to emphasise this aspect of the
emerging situation. Matters are further
complicated by the fact that some of the
militias betray a penchant for sectarian
brutality that, although no match for the
revolting atrocities that ISIS is so keen to
broadcast, nonetheless provides cause for
concern.
The United Nations this week decided to
investigate “acts of inhumanity on an
unimaginable scale” by ISIS,
as well as atrocities by Iraqi government
forces. Whether or not such an investigation
serves any practical purpose in the murkily
unfolding circumstances, the ostensible
even-handedness of the approach is
interesting.
Meanwhile, there has been considerable
concern across several nations in Europe as
well as in the US and Australia
over young Muslim citizens’ tendency towards
jihadist adventurism, with thousands — the
numbers are again uncertain — travelling to
Syria
or Iraq
as Islamist volunteers.
This is hardly a novel trend — it can be
traced back at least to Afghanistan
in the 1980s. The worries over it are
understandable, although there is thus far
no clear evidence of returnees planning
domestic acts of terrorism. It is at the
same time difficult to altogether dispense
with the notion that projecting ISIS as an
unprecedented global threat helps some
Western governments to deflect attention
from domestic woes.
The ISIS
threat should not be underestimated, but
exaggerations can have the perverse effect
of increasing its cachet both within and
outside the region. Nobody has a clear idea
of precisely how this story will unfold, let
alone end. But there’s not much value in
pretending it portends some kind of
Armageddon.
The Western insistence on “no boots on the
ground” is open to interpretation as
insufficient commitment or even cowardice.
But in fact it’s a welcome augury, not least
in the light of recent experience. When,
since the Second World War, have Western
boots on the ground produced positive
consequences in the Middle
East (or, for that matter,
anywhere else)?
The ideal response
to the regional dilemmas of the moment would
be an unprecedented level of cooperation,
coordination and collaboration between
Middle Eastern states, notwithstanding
longstanding rivalries in some cases. That,
unfortunately, cannot be described as an
imminent prospect, despite the tentative
emergence of intriguing alliances. But
there’s never been a better time for it.
by Martin Chulov
at theguardian.com
Thursday 7 August 2014
Thousands of Yazidi and Christian people flee to
Erbil after the latest wave of Isis advances.
Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Iraq's largest Christian city was all but
abandoned on Thursday as the jihadist advance
through minority communities in the country's
north-west rampaged towards the Kurdish
stronghold of Erbil.
UN officials said an estimated 200,000 new
refugees were seeking sanctuary in the Kurdish
north from Islamic extremists who had pursued
them since the weekend. The city of Qaraqosh,
south-east of Mosul, home to around 50,000
Christians was the latest to fall, with most
residents fleeing before dawn as convoys of
extremists drew near.
Other Christian towns near Mosul, including Tel
Askof, Tel Keif and Qaramless have also largely
been emptied. Those who remained behind have
reportedly been given the same stark choice
given to other minorities, including Yazidis:
flee, convert to Islam, or be killed.
Christians, Yazidis and Turkmen have been at the
frontlines of Iraq's war with the Islamic State
(Isis) ever since the jihadist group stormed
into Mosul and Tikrit and mid-June. The Iraqi
army capitulated within hours, with at least
60,000 officers and soldiers fleeing on the
first day of the assault alone.
Ever since, the jihadists have continued to make
advances, while Iraqi troops have concentrated
on defending Baghdad and the Shia south, leaving
the defence of minorities in the north to the
Kurdish peshmurga.
However, even the much vaunted Kurdish forces
were no match for the heavy weapons wielded by
the jihadists as they advanced in recent days.
Peshmurga officers ordered troops to withdraw to
areas administered by the Kurdish regional
government – a clear sign of priorities and of
where the battle lines are being drawn.
Without any protection, Yazidis, Christians and
Turkmen are being uprooted from communities they
have lived in for millennia and the geo-social
fabric of Iraq is being rapidly shredded.
While those who have managed to flee the
Christian areas have so far had a relatively
safe passage to Erbil, tens of thousands of
Yazidis remain besieged on a mountain top near
Sinjar, with little food or water.
The UN said on Thursday it was able to get some
supplies overland to the stranded hordes –
avoiding Isis fighters who have surrounded most
of Mount Sinjar. Turkish foreign minister Ahmet
Davutoglu announced that Turkish helicopters had
dropped food and water on the mountain top.
Iraqi helicopters have also made food drops, but
stranded Yazidis say they do not have enough to
survive.
The Chaldean
archbishop of Kirkuk, Joseph Thomas, described
the situation in northern Iraq as "catastrophic,
a crisis beyond imagination". He demanded urgent
intervention to save what remained of the area's
Christian heritage.
Kurdish officials on Thursday demanded more help
in catering for refugees. The Kurdish
administered areas have seen staggering numbers
cross their notional border since the original
Isis onslaught two months ago. In the first week
alone, some 500,000 people are thought to have
fled towards Erbil.
The capital of the Kurdish north is already home
to a new Chaldean Christian community, which
fled Baghdad in the wake of an Isis-led massacre
inside a cathedral in October 2010. Many fleeing
Christians have headed for the Ainkawa
neighbourhood, which is home to Baghdad's
Christian exiles.
The past 11 years of war and insurrection since
the US invasion have led to most of Iraq's
Christians fleeing. Numbers have plummeted
starkly from an estimated one million before
2003 to around 150,000 now. A large number of
those who remain are now displaced.
Miriam Dagher, 53, from Qaraqosh, said churches
in the city had already been torched and
religious insignia smashed. "We stayed as long
as we could," she said. "But nothing could save
us. This is the end of our community.
If the federal government were a person, if
Congress were subject to the laws they create,
they would face fines, prison or both for many
of their actions. The ENLIST Act, being touted
as a “pathway” to citizenship for illegal aliens
may be one of those actions. It could be argued
that the very act itself violates federal law.
Consider this:
Immigration law, 8 US Code 1324 states that it
is a crime to, either knowingly or recklessly,
“conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, or
attempt to conceal, harbor, or shield from
detection… transport, or move or attempt to
transport or move” or to even “encourage or
induce” an illegal alien “to come to, enter, or
reside in the United States, knowingly or in
reckless disregard of the fact that such coming
to, entry, or residence is or will be in
violation of law.”
It is not only a crime to actually commit these
offenses, but it is a crime to even attempt to
do so. Anyone found guilty of violating 8 US
Code 1324 is subject to fines, prison or both.
However, if it can be proven that this person
has committed this act for personal gain, the
fines go up and the prison sentence can be as
much as ten years.
By David Boaz From The Cato Institute May 8, 2014 2:19PM
In the Washington Post, Paul Kane reports
that recent experiences with
ultra-conservative Senate candidates have
made Republican leaders fearful of
candidates like Rep. Paul Broun in Georgia.
There may be reasons for party leaders or
voters to have doubts about Broun, but I
hope they aren’t actually concerned about
the purported problem that Kane identifies:
Broun is prone to fiery speeches invoking
the Founding Fathers and applying those 1789
principles to issues 225 years later.
Seriously? He thinks the Constitution is
still the law of the land? And that the
framework it established for individual
rights and limited government is still
relevant today? Do Republican leaders
really think that’s a bad message? Or does
the Washington Post?
Thomas Jefferson and his followers hailed
“the principles of ‘76” or “the spirit of
‘76” in their battles with Federalists. As
historian Joseph Ellis put it, “Jefferson’s
core conviction was that what might be
called ‘the spirit of ‘76’ had repudiated
all energetic expressions of government
power, most especially power exercised from
faraway places, which included London,
Philadelphia or Washington.” Good thing
there isn’t an actual Jeffersonian running!
But the principles of 1789, or actually of
1787, also protect freedom from government
power and are just as essential today as
they were at the Founding. The Framers knew
their history. They knew that people with
power tend to abuse it and to restrict
freedom. In his last letter, 50 years after
the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson
wrote:
All eyes are opened, or
opening, to the rights of man. The general
spread of the light of science has already
laid open to every view the palpable truth,
that the mass of mankind has not been born
with saddles on their backs, nor a favored
few booted and spurred, ready to ride them
legitimately, by the grace of God.
Because they feared the exercise of power,
the Framers wrote a Constitution that
established a government of delegated,
enumerated, and thus limited powers. Then
the people insisted on a Bill of Rights to
further protect their rights even from the
very limited federal government established
in the Constitution. Then, after identifying
specific rights that individuals retained,
they also added, “for greater caution,” as
James Madison put it, the Ninth Amendment to
clarify that “The enumeration in the
Constitution, of certain rights, shall not
be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.”
One would hope that all members of Congress
– and voters, and political reporters –
believe that those principles and those
constitutional rules should be applied to
issues of today. Surely the First Amendment
remains relevant. And the Fourth. And the
limits on unconstrained power in the basic
structure of the Constitution. The merits of
any particular candidate aside, support of
the Constitution and the principles it
embodies seems like a good, even minimal,
qualification for public office.
"Thus saith the
LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for
the old paths, where is the good way, and walk
therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Jeremiah 6:16
Dr. Robert G Lee was the pastor of Bellevue
Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee for
thirty-two years. During his lifetime he was a
strong leader in the Southern Baptist
Convention, known as a preacher’s preacher, and
was highly respected among his peers. This
sermon has been accepted as a classic by all
that have heard and read it, and through its
message, the Lord still speaks to mankind.
Dr. Lee originally published the following
message in 1926. It is said that he developed it
following the suggestion of a deacon at a prayer
meeting in 1919 and that he preached it at least
once a year at his home church. All total, it is
related that he preached the messsage over 1,000
times. Like many Baptists, Lee was known more as
a preacher than a theologian but his doctrine
was sound to the core. Lee believed in and
preached a doctrine often overlooked in our day,
that of the necessity of regeneration.
Ala.
Supreme Court: 'Unborn Child Has
Inalienable Right to Life From its
Earliest Stages
By
Michael W Chapman
CNSNews.com
| Apr 23, 2014
In a case about a pregnant woman who used
cocaine and endangered her unborn child, the
Alabama Supreme Court affirmed (8-1) that
the word "child" includes "an unborn child,"
and that the law therefore "furthers the
State's interest in protecting the life of
children from the earliest stages of their
development."
In his concurring opinion, Alabama Chief
Justice Roy S. Moore wrote that "an unborn
child has an inalienable right to life from
its earliest stages of development," and
added, "I write separately to emphasize that
the inalienable right to life is a gift of
God that civil government must secure for
all persons - born and unborn."
The court decision on April 18 was in
reference to Sarah Janie Hicks v. State of
Alabama. Hicks had been charged in 2009 with
violating Alabama's chemical-endangerment
statute, which in part says that a "person
commits the crime of chemical endangerment"
by "knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally
causes or permits a child to be exposed to,
to ingest or inhale, or to have contact with
a controlled substance, chemical substance,
or drug paraphernalia," a felony.
In Hicks' case, she was charged with using
cocaine while pregnant. Her child, "J.D.,"
tested positive for cocaine "at the time of
his birth," reads the court document.
In January 2010, Hicks pleaded guilty to the
crime but also "reserved the right to appeal
the issues" she and her attorneys had
presented earlier in trying to get the
charges dismissed. Hicks got a three year
suspended prison sentence and was placed on
probation.
Hicks appealed to the Court of Criminal
Appeals in Alabama, arguing that because the
chemical-endangerment statute did not
specifically use the words "unborn children"
or "fetuses," the law was ambiguous and
could not have applied to her unborn child.
The Appeals Court ruled against Hicks,
stating that "the plain language of
26-15-3.2 [chemical-endangerment statute]
was clear and unambiguous and that the plain
meaning of the term 'child' in [the statute]
included an unborn child or viable fetus.'"
Hicks then petitioned the Alabama Supreme
Court in 2012 to review the Appeals Court
decision. Last Friday's ruling
affirmed the judgment of the Court of
Criminal Appeals.
In their conclusion, eight of the nine
Alabama Supreme Court justices said:
"Consistent with this Court's opinion in
Ankrom [a similar chemical-endangerment
case], by its plain meaning, the word
'child' in the chemical-endangerment statute
includes an unborn child, and, therefore,
the statute furthers the State's interest in
protecting the life of children from the
earliest stages of their development."
The law to protect the life of unborn
children "is consistent with many statutes
and decisions throughout our nation that
recognize unborn children as persons with
legally enforceable rights in many areas of
the law," said the justices.
In his own concurring opinion, Chief Justice
Moore argued that natural rights come from
God, not from the government. He cited the
Declaration of Independence that there is a
"self-evident" truth that "all Men are
created equal, [and] that they are endowed
by their creator with certain unalienable
rights," particularly "life."
The Declaration of Independence
"acknowledges as 'self-evident' the
truth that all human beings are endowed with
inherent dignity and the right to life as a
direct result of having been created by
God," said Chief Justice Moore.
He also cited Sir William Blackstone's
Commentaries on the Laws of England, which
says, "This law of nature, being co-eval
[beginning at the same time] with mankind
and dictated by God himself, is of course
superior in obligation to any other. It is
binding over all the globe, in all
countries, and at all times: no human laws
are of any validity, if contrary to this."
Chief Justice Moore went on to explain how
at the Nuremburg Trials at the end of World
War II, Nazi criminals could not argue that
they were only following orders or just
following the laws of the German government
because there is a higher law, the "very law
of nature."
"Although the Nuremberg defendants were
following orders and the laws of their own
officials and country, they were guilty of
violating a higher law to which all nations
are equally subject: the laws of nature and
of nature's God," wrote Justice Moore.
That law binds all nations, including the
State of Alabama, said Justice Moore. "In
2006, the AlabamaLegislature amended the
homicide statute to define 'person' to
include 'an unborn child in utero at any
stage of development, regardless of
viability," he wrote, "thus recognizing
under the statute that, when an 'unborn
child' is killed, a 'person' is killed."
In conclusion, he wrote, "The Equal
Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment
provides that a state may not 'deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws. Unborn children are
a class of persons entitled to equal
protection of the laws."
"States have an obligation to provide to
unborn children at any stage of their
development the same legal protection from
injury and death they provide to persons
already born," wrote Justice Moore. "Because
a human life with a full genetic endowment
comes into existence at the moment of
conception, the self-evident truth that 'all
men are created equal and are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable
rights' encompasses the moment of
conception."
"Legal recognition of the unborn as members
of the human family derives ultimately from
the laws of nature and of nature's God, Who
created human life in His image and
protected it with the commandment: 'Thou
shalt not kill,'" wrote Chief Justice
Moore. "Therefore, the interpretation
of the word 'child' in Alabama's
chemical-endangerment statute, § 26-15- 3.2,
Ala. Code 1975, to include all human beings
from the moment of conception is fully
consistent with these first principles
regarding life and law."
Former British Prime Minister
Tony Blair gave a landmark speech yesterday
calling on the world to unite against
Islamism.
Tony Blair, the Former British Prime Minister,
delivered a keynote speech at Bloomberg HQ in
London entitled 'Why the Middle East Still
Matters.' In it he described radical Islam as
the greatest threat facing the world today.He
argued "there are four reasons why the Middle
East remains of central importance and cannot
be relegated to the second order."
Blair rapidly moved on to the fourth and
most important reason: Islamic extremism also
known as Islamism.
He identifies the conflict in the Middle East
as one between an open and tolerant viewpoint
and a fundamentalist Islamist ideology. He
said "wherever you look – from Iraq to Libya
to Egypt to Yemen to Lebanon to Syria and then
further afield to Iran, Pakistan and
Afghanistan – this is the essential battle."
Addressing those who regard these conflicts as
distinct he said "there is something frankly
odd about the reluctance to accept what is so
utterly plain: that they have in common a
struggle around the issue of the rightful
place of religion, and in particular Islam, in
politics." It is this central point that he
hammered home again and again over the course
of his 40 minute speech.
He argued that this struggle does not end at
the borders of the region. Rather, "The reason
this matters so much is that this ideology is
exported around the world."
More
Attacks on the Freedom of
Speech, In the Form of Religious
Persecution
Of our Air Force Cadets
From The
Traditional Values Coalition:
Earlier
this month, an Air Force Academy cadet was
forced to remove a Bible verse on his
personal white board after the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation claimed
offense.
"I
have been crucified with Christ, and I no
longer live, but Christ lives in me. The
life I now live in the body, I live by faith
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave
himself for me." - Galatians 2:20
MRFF
President Michael "Mikey" Weinstein, self
proclaimed "undisputed leader of the
national movement to restore the obliterated
all separating church and state" in the
military, described the student's white
board quoting of scripture as pouring
"fundamentalist Christian gasoline on an
already raging out-of-control conflagration
of fundamentalist Christian tyranny,
exceptionalism, and supremacy."
The
Air Force Academy complied with Weinstein's
demands, having the scripture removed. But
that's not enough -- Weinstein is demanding
that not only should the cadet be punished,
but that their entire chain of command
should be as well.
At
least a dozen cadets responded in support of
religious freedom, posting Bible verses on
their personal white boards. Please join me
and thousands of others in standing with our
cadets for their right to express their
religious beliefs without fear of
persecution <http://capwiz.com/traditional/utr/1/KTQOTSLPVY/KFTWTSLUWE/10253908236>
.
No
one, especially those who volunteer to risk
their lives to defend our freedoms, should
be denied their constitutional rights and
religious freedoms. Groups like the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation are seeking to
silence those who profess their faith,
stripping them of their religious liberties
in the name of political correctness.
Our
Constitution protects the free exercise of
religion. Yet that doesn't seem to be enough
for some groups.
The
Clash of Law: Parsing the Modern War against
Catholics, Catholicism and the Church
FromCatholicCulture.org
ByDr.
Jeff Mirus
Date March
25, 2014
Opposition to Catholicism in the modern
West is brought to a head almost universally
through the pressure of today’s legal
systems. .... what bother us are the
increasing restrictions on the exercise of
our Christian duties by bureaucratic laws
and regulations, administered by people who
otherwise do not care much about our
religious identity one way or another.
This is the result of a utopian vision of
the future implemented at the highest levels
of the social order. It is not the
cruel and unthinking persecution of those
who have simply been raised, in their local
enclaves and neighborhoods, to hate
Catholics. It is rather a relatively high
brow and carefully orchestrated process of
civic improvement. As such, the
anti-Catholic prejudice today wears a mantle
of utter reasonableness and courtesy.
Whatever is done is portrayed as necessary
for the noblest of reasons, to serve an
exalted vision of human good. As we will see
shortly, this is a deception which even its
proponents probably do not understand.
Consider how varied are the pressure points
which have been attacked in exactly this
way. There is the progressive public
pressure for Catholic social service
agencies to conform to the values of our
secular elites. There is the growing
impossibility of running Catholic
organizations as a part of student life on
college campuses. There are the battles over
freedom of conscience in an ever-widening
array of professions, beginning with
doctors, nurses and pharmacists and
extending now to anyone who might provide
business services to same-sex couples. There
are escalating battles over religious
liberty. There is the HHS Mandate in the United
States
and similar rules in other Western nations
which force even private individuals to
actively participate in mandated actions
which they find deeply immoral.
Meanwhile, in another part of the world,
there is the unending pressure against
Catholic life imposed by the theocratic laws
of Islamic states, called Shari’a law. This
alternative form of coercion is in the
process of entering the West through Europe, where the
presence of high percentages of Islamic
immigrants raises the question of
alternative legal systems for different
communities and regions. Almost nowhere can
we any longer find a legal system which
is not essentially hostile to
Catholicism, with its own transcendent
source of moral knowledge.
A Striking Parallel
Interestingly, in his Regensburg Address in
2006, Pope Benedict XVI drew a close
parallel between the habits of thought which
underlie Islamic law and those that lie at
the basis of contemporary European (or
Western) law. Benedict saw that neither
Islam nor the contemporary West (any longer)
assigns to reason the role of identifying
natural moral principles which can allow
people of different beliefs and cultural
backgrounds to share a common good and a
common polity. Islam believes Shari’a Law
covers all of life and is rooted purely in
the will of God, completely unbound by any
rational characteristic of consistency or
fairness. Similarly, the old natural law
tradition of the West—in which rational
consistency and fairness were perhaps the
most easily-grasped components—has given way
to the sovereignty of the human will to
remake reality according to whatever happens
to be desired by those who have political,
social and cultural power.
One of the greatest Christian gifts to the
world has been the distinction between two
fonts of law which arise without any
possible contradiction from the same
profoundly rational Divine source. On the
one hand, there is the natural law, which is
accessible to human reason and which opens
to the human community a common ground of
morality as the basis for human flourishing
in the social order. On the other hand,
there is the law derived from Revelation,
equally rational but containing mysteries
which are accessible only by faith. While in
no way conflicting with the natural law—and
in fact presupposing it in the created
order—this Revelation enables the believer
to rise to greater perfection through grace,
in a direct relationship with God Himself,
expressed in voluntary service to others.
.......
Fortunately, reading through the material
has at least enabled me grasp the central
issue more clearly, and to stress three
important principles which might be used to
guide our thinking and our response to the
characteristic anti-Catholic pressures of
our time. First, the practical points of
serious clash and conflict are now primarily
creations of law. Second, when it comes to
law, the primary problem is not an attack on
Faith but an attack on reason—the
presumption that law derives its authority
from the specific will of those in power,
and is not limited by clear and consistent
natural or supernatural principles. Third,
and precisely because rational consistency
is lacking, it will take great
creativity to navigate this increasingly
repressive legal landscape.
In closing, I should emphasize one even
deeper truth: The will darkens the intellect
by ordering it to cease its independent
explorations in order to serve what the will
desires. This is not something that we can
expect to counteract naturally; it is in
fact the mechanism which human nature uses
to refuse cooperation with grace. Yet
paradoxically the pandemic loss of
the recognition of reason, and even of
nature itself, must be remedied by grace.
And so, in the midst of growing suffering
and sacrifice for Catholics, it is not only
arguments and creativity that we need, but
prayer.
From The Canada Free Press
By Jim Yardley
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Checking to make sure that there was an easily
understandable definition of the word, the
dictionary defines Constitution as “the
fundamental political principles on which a
nation-state is governed, especially when
considered as embodying the rights of the
subjects of that nation-state and the statute
embodying such principles.”
One would think that the President of the first
nation to create that very thing, a legal
statute that embodied the fundamental political
principles, and who also was a college level
lecturer on the topic of the Constitution, would
have absolutely no problem in dealing with the
concept.
Unfortunately for us, and for several other
nations, Mr. Obama seems to view constitution to
be infinitely malleable, and are subject to
change upon a change in his whims of the day.
As far back as 2001, Barack Obama said in a
radio interview with Public Radio station
WBEZ-FM that the U.S. Supreme Court (under Chief
Justice Earl Warren)
“…didn’t break free from the
essential constraints that were placed by the
founding fathers in the Constitution, at least
as it’s been interpreted and Warren Court
interpreted in the same way, that generally the
Constitution is a charter of negative liberties.
Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what
the Federal government can’t do to you, but
doesn’t say what the Federal government or State
government must do on your behalf…”
So even at that time, the President announced
clearly that he disagreed with the judgments of
the Founding Fathers and two centuries of
successfully working within the framework of the
U.S. Constitution. He had a different view
of how the Constitution should have been
written, and that had he been alive in 1789, he
would have made sure it was different.
Of course he would have been limited to having
only a pen at that time, since his Blackberry
wasn’t even a science fiction fantasy at that
time.
Apparently Obama’s disdain for Constitutions is
not limited to only home grown ones, or limited
to only with regard to “negative
liberties.” Fast forward to June 2009 and
look at Honduras.
Manuel Zelaya, who was then in his second term
as president of Honduras, violated that
country’s Constitution (specifically Article
239) which bans presidents from holding office
if they even propose to alter the constitutional
term limits for presidents.
Apparently Mr. Zelaya really liked being
president of Honduras, and wanted to change his
country’s Constitution so that he could continue
in the job. Note again that any president
of Honduras loses the right to serve as
president if he even proposes a change like
that. The Honduran Supreme Court,
expressly had the right to remove the president
for seeking to alter the constitutional term
limit, under Article 272 of the Honduran
Constitution.
But apparently this made Obama upset, so he
declared the Constitutional crisis in Honduras
to have been a “coup”. It wasn’t, of
course. Sadly, for Obama, if he were to snivel
that he didn’t like that part of the Honduran
Constitution it probably would have been a
public relations nightmare for him.
One might infer that Obama personally wanted
that presidential term limit article to be
ignored by the citizens of Honduras because it
might set a bad precedent if he wanted to run
for a third term himself. Then Senator
(and now Secretary of State) John Kerry agreed
with Obama’s idea that the removal of a
president who had acted contrary to the clear
language of his nation’s Constitution must have
been a “coup.” This view was vocally
supported by the then Secretary of State,
Hillary Rodham Clinton who lusts after the idea
of being Obama’s replacement.
Mr. Obama’s disdain for the U.S. Constitution
has been demonstrated on a continuing basis over
the five years that he has been in office, with
“recess appointments” to the NLRB when the
Senate was not in recess, the innumerable
delays, waivers, interpretations and so on
related to the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act, and so on.
Given Obama’s disdain for any constitutional
limits on doing whatever pops into his head at
any time, his reaction to the situation in
Ukraine becomes almost comical. Sadly, even the
always irreverent magazine The Onion couldn’t
have seen the idea that Obama would leap to the
defense of Ukraine by saying that the Crimean
referendum was illegitimate and (wait for it)
unconstitutional. Even Nancy Pelosi was
probably tempted to ask “Are you serious?”
The idea that Barack Obama would demand
deference to any nation’s constitution is on a
par with, well, nothing readily comes to mind.
Well perhaps it would be like seeing Dr. Jack
Kervorkian leading a Right-to-Life rally, or
perhaps seeing Willy Sutton doing an infomercial
telling people how safe banks are.
It’s possible I suppose that Obama’s defense of
Ukraine’s constitutional authority would be
equivalent to listening to Bill Clinton
lecturing on the benefits of sexual abstinence.
But given his history on the subject of
adherence to constitutional principles, is it
any wonder that no one, anywhere in the world,
believes one word of what the man is saying?
Click here to read the original article in its
entirety
Trust, but
Verify
March,
2014
They are still at it. I am thankful for the
newsletters of people like Dave Gaubatz who
report current affairs that are ignored or
overlooked by most news sources. It is hard to
imagine how people like Dave can be so
vilified for reporting well documented
FACTS. Although the truth may set one free it
can also become tiring to be a target and
cause grey hairs and ulcers. But enough about
the messenger.... on to the message.
There are many Muslim organizations in
America, raising money that sometimes end up
supporting known terrorist organizations (viz:
the well documented CAIR connections).
Recently a united alliance of these
organizations was formed, with the purpose of
becoming more influential. Our presidential
election of 2016 was the example cited, once a
consensus would be agreed upon by individual
members.
Dave's recent newsletter linked to the
report about this new alliance at
religiousnews.com. Click
here to read it.
While I wouldn't bet the farm on it, my
prayer is that the uniting voice of American
Muslims is the foremost recognition of
individual freedom and opportunity that has
drawn so many families to America. EACH
individual's freedom of beliefs, associations,
and speech (to mention a few of our
inalienable God-given freedoms) are worthy
principles that all Americans should
recognize, be thankful for, and do our level
best to protect and preserve. In the meantime
I will continue to "Trust, but verify."
To
find Mr Gaubatz blogspot, click here,
and you can send him an email to
subscribe to his newsletter.
The Brave German Woman
February 14, 2014
One
can recognize that sometimes well
meaning people and institutions can
err in the side of trying to "be
nice". However the mentality of
automatic acceptance and
accommodation, when institutionalized,
can, and has, placed free societies in
peril; it is the dangerous side of
"political correctness." Please
click here to view the video of
Heidi Mund, who has become known as
"The Brave German Woman" for speaking
the truth. If more people spoke
the "Truths that Free" we would go far
in ridding this old world from the
inroads of the evil tentacles of that
totalitarian philosophy that goes by
the name of Islam, which does not
condemn murder in the name of Allah.
Many of us are aware
of hostility toward Christians in
foreign countries.
But has there even been a more
Biblically-hostile administration in
Washington DC, towards its own citizens?
David Barton of WallBuilders doesn't
think so.
After reading his list (and
documentation) of the many dozens of
offensive hostile acts towards Bible
believers in America ask yourself- how
can this be? We are a God fearing
people living in a free country that was
founded on the recognition that our
life and liberty originates from God (NOT
at the whim of some officeholder or
bureaucrat!)
The encroachment by the current
administration does not resemble actions
of a government "of the People, by
the People, and for the People".
Offer a prayer for protection by our
Father above. Ask Him to throw light
upon the hearts and minds of those in
power and those who elect some of those
bureaucrats. Be vigilant and protect our
children and their future. Click
here to read David Barton's December
article and list.
Military Priests Face
Arrest For Defying Shutdown And Celebrating
Mass
Huffington
Post
Posted:
10/07/2013
Updated:
10/08/ 2013
Is
religious freedom the latest casualty of
the government shutdown?
Some priests are
being actively prevented from ministering
to service members and their families,
even on a volunteer basis, and they run
the risk of arrest if they disobey. As a
result, military families serving at home
and abroad who depend on the government
for their religious services, are now
actively being denied communion on bases
that are served by civilian priests.
Active-duty priests are still holding
services.
John Schlageter,
General Counsel for the Archdiocese for
the Military Services, wrote in an op-ed,
"With the government shutdown, many GS and
contract priests who minister to Catholics
on military bases worldwide are not
permitted to work – not even to volunteer.
During the shutdown, it is illegal for
them to minister on base and they risk
being arrested if they attempt to do so. "
He told The
Huffington Post that many civilian priests
had contacted him to say that Mass had
been cancelled on their local
installations, because non-active-duty
priests are deemed "non-essential
personnel" under the terms of the
shutdown. Schlageter wrote the op-ed in
order to encourage members of the faithful
to contact Congress and get their
attention about the issue, which he called
"a residual effect of the government
shutdown that no one contemplated."
His efforts have not
been in vain, as the House of
Representatives passed a resolution on
Saturday 400 to 1 which will allow GS and
contract priests to return to work once
passed by the Senate.
Schlageter went on to
explain in his op-ed that the First
Amendment guarantees the "free exercise"
of faith, and because military personnel
are considered a "captive audience," the
laws requires the government to provide
access to their faith. This particularly
applies to military families stationed
abroad who may not be able to attend
services regularly, depending on the
religious rules of their host country.
Those that have active-duty chaplains will
not be affected.
"Until the Federal
Government resumes normal operations, or
an exemption is granted to contract and GS
priests, Catholic services are
indefinitely suspended at many of those
worldwide installations served by contract
and GS priests," Schlageter wrote. He told
the Huffington Post that some priests that
contacted him had been informed that they
could be arrested if they returned to base
to administer services during the
shutdown.
The Antideficiency
Act prevents those on furlough from
volunteering their services, and violators
may be subject to disciplinary action,
suspension, fines, and imprisonment. It
was passed in 1870 in order to stop the
government from "incurring any monetary
obligation for which Congress has not
appropriated funds."
“The
powers not delegated to the United
States
by the Constitution, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are reserved to
the States respectively, or to the
people.”
NEW STATE
LAW BANS CALIFORNIA
FROM COOPERATING WITH FEDS ON INDEFINITE
DETENTION
Sweeping
measure also applies to other laws that
violate Constitution or state law
By
Miriam Raftery
October 7, 2013
(Sacramento)
– In a rare show of bipartisanship,
Governor Brown has signed into a law
that passed the Legislature almost
unanimously. The measure makes California
the third state to nullify provisions
of the National Defense Authorization
Act (NDAA) allowing indefinite
detention of citizens.
However California’s
law goes farther, banning state
cooperation with federal authorities on
enforcement of any federal law that
violates the U.S. Constitution, the
California Constitution or California
law. The bill also prohibits use
of state funds for such purposes.
Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood to Coptic Christians: Convert to
Islam, or pay ‘jizya’ tax
By
Jessica Chasman
The
Washington
Times
September
10, 2013
The Muslim Brotherhood and its supporters
have began forcing the roughly 15,000
Christian Copts of Dalga village in Egypt
to pay a jizya tax as indicated in Koran
9:29, author and translator Raymond
Ibrahim reported on Sunday.
Jizya is the money, or tribute, “that
conquered non-Muslims historically had to
pay to their Islamic overlords ‘with
willing submission and while feeling
themselves subdued’ to safeguard their
existence,” Mr. Ibrahim explained.
According to Fr. Yunis Shawqi, who spoke
yesterday to Dostor reporters in Dalga,
all Copts in the village, “without
exception,” are being forced to pay the
tax.
“[The] value of the tribute and method of
payment differ from one place to another
in the village, so that, some are being
expected to pay 200 Egyptian pounds per
day, others 500 Egyptian pounds per day,”
Mr. Shawqi said, according to the
translator.
In some cases, families not able to pay
have been attacked. As many as 40
Christian families have now fled Dalga,
Mr. Ibrahim reported.
The taxes are not unique to Egypt
either.
Just over the weekend Syrian rebels went
into a Christian man’s “shop and gave him
three options: become Muslim; pay $70,000
as a tax levied on non-Muslims, known as
jizya; or be killed along with his
family,” Christian Science Monitor
reported.
Egypt's Christians
under attack since Morsi's ouster
Rights groups
say Egypt
not doing enough to stop the violence.
Sarah
Lynch, Special for USA
TODAY August
15, 2013
CAIRO
– Stained glass windows generated a luminous
glow inside a Coptic Christian church one
recent morning as prayers were chanted in
steady hums and incense wafted through the
nave, soothing worshipers.
But the serenity only masked the unease here.
Since the July 3 coup that ousted former
president Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim
Brotherhood, Christians have faced a spike in
violent attacks that Egyptian authorities have
not prevented, rights groups allege.
"I'm very afraid, and I'm afraid for my
daughter," said Mona Roshdy, 55, as she left
the church with her family.
She had reason to be. On Wednesday, as the
police in Cairo
assaulted two protest camps of the Muslim
Brotherhood's, Morsi supporters directed their
anger at Christians.
Churches, houses, monasteries, orphanages,
schools and businesses belonging to Copts were
attacked in nine provinces "causing panic,
losses and destruction for no reason and no
crimes they committed except being
Christians," the Maspero Youth Union, a Coptic
activist group, said Thursday.
As if sensing trouble, just two days before
Wednesday's violence, Egypt's
Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II called on all
Egyptians to prevent bloodshed.
"With all compassion I urge everyone to
conserve Egyptian blood and ask of every
Egyptian to commit to self-restraint and avoid
recklessness and assault on any person or
property," Tawadros wrote on his official
Twitter account Monday.
Youssef Sidhom, editor-in-chief of the
Christian weekly Watani, said the
recent attacks are painful and vicious but it
could be worse if they are allowed to divide
the two faiths.
"Christians shouldn't be moved by this,
shouldn't be dragged to fulfill the target
that lies behind this, which is segregating
the national solidarity between Christians and
Muslims in the very difficult time Egypt is
passing through," Sidhom said.
Christians make up about 8 million of Egypt's
population of 80 million and have been victims
of Muslim attacks for years. Some Christians
were worried when Islamists took over Egypt's
government
in 2012 and relieved when the military ousted
them from power last month.
But the ancient Coptic communities here that
predate Islam by centuries say they now see a
new wave of violence against them since the
ouster.
In Upper Egypt – a swath of arid land from
south of Cairo to Sudan that is home to many
hard-line Islamist Egyptians – four Christians
were killed when a mob of several hundred
people in the Luxor governorate attacked with
knives, tree limbs and hammers two days days
after the overthrow of Morsi, Amnesty
International said.
They also vandalized Christian homes and set
properties on fire, Amnesty said.
In a village in Upper Egypt's province
of Minya,
an argument erupted between Muslim and
Christians over a pro-military song playing in
a coffee shop last week. The next day
thousands of people ransacked Christian homes
and stores, the Associated Press reported.
And in the north Sinai
Peninsula, a hotbed for growing
militant activity, an orthodox priest was
murdered last month. There were attacks in Port Said
and Marsa Matrouh as well.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Mohammed
Ibrahim said Morsi supporters damaged or
torched seven churches nationwide. They also
stormed 21 police stations, he said.
Many Christians participated in massive
protests against Morsi at the end of June, and
Tawadros sat with a row of officials behind
Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi when the army chief
gave his speech that overthrew Morsi.
In a 15-minute audio recording posted online
earlier this month, al-Qaeda chief Ayman
al-Zawahri accused Coptic Christians, the
military and secular-minded elites of
conspiring against Morsi because he is an
Islamist.
In Egypt,
human rights groups accused Egypt's
Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists of
inciting violence.
Ibrahim said incendiary speeches indicate
Islamist leaders think Copts were heavily
involved in anti-Morsi protests.
"I'm not scared, but I'm very sad about the
situation in the country – the relationship
between Muslims and Christians," said Margaret
Naby as she walked into church on Sunday.
"There is so much fanaticism."
Egypt
is home to wider sectarian unease that
authorities don't control. In June, four
Shiite Muslims were beaten to death by a mob
of Sunni Muslims, apparently for their
beliefs, in a village near the capital, in Giza.
"The Egyptian government should make ending
sectarian violence a priority, or risk letting
this deadly problem spiral out of control,"
Nadim Houry, acting Middle East director of
Human Rights Watch, said in a recent report
about attacks on Christians.
"Prosecutors should thoroughly investigate
and prosecute those responsible, including
security forces, if they want to show they are
capable of preventing future bloodshed," he
said.
Last week, 16 human rights groups condemned
rhetoric used by the Muslim Brotherhood and
its allies that the organizations said incited
violence and religious hatred for political
gain. They also denounced state agencies for
failing to protect Christians, confront
sectarian attacks and enforce the law by
holding responsible parties or individuals
accountable.
"This negligence reveals that the pattern of
impunity which spread during the Mubarak era
and remained in place throughout the rule of
the Muslim Brotherhood continues to this day,
even after both of these regimes were
overthrown," a statement by the groups said.
In
Coptic Cairo, which was a Christian stronghold
until the 7th-century rise of Islam, Zarour
Ayzut Dawoud propped her son on her hip as she
visited the place where Mary, Joseph and baby
Jesus are believed to have stayed when they
escaped King Herod's execution of young male
children in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
"I want to go to America,"
said
Dawoud. "The situation in Egypt
is no good."
Peter Fakhry, 22, said the feeling is shared
by non-Christian Egyptians.
"Many people want to leave – Christians and
Muslims, too, because of the situation and
lack of work," he said.
"Do you see this? There are no tourists," he
said about the Coptic site that is no longer
as much a residential space as it is a place
for visitors, who come to see relics of an
almost forgotten past in which Egypt
was dominated by Christians.
By Tenth
Amendment on August 5, 2013 in Featured, Founding
Principles
by Jacob Hornberger,
Future of Freedom Foundation
Keep in mind
that this amendment is directed to federal
officials, specifically those in the
executive and congressional branches. Our
American ancestors knew that the federal
government would inevitably attract the
types of people who would do the things
proscribed by the amendment. Thus, to deal
with that threat our ancestors made it clear
that whoever was elected or appointed to
federal office would be prohibited from
engaging in the type of conduct prohibited
by the amendment.
What does the
Fourth Amendment do? It prohibits federal
officials from searching people’s homes,
businesses, and personal effects
indiscriminately. If a crime has been
committed, the feds cannot simply go out and
search every house and business in the
neighborhood to seek out evidence of the
crime. And they cannot search everyone’s
things with the aim of preventing a crime.
Instead, the
Fourth Amendment requires that to conduct a
search of a person’s home or business, they
have to first go to a member of the third
branch of the government— the federal
judiciary — and seek out a search warrant from
a judge or magistrate. In order to get such a
warrant, law-enforcement officers have to
swear out an affidavit specifying the exact
nature of the evidence that is being searched
for. Moreover, they have to provide sworn
evidence that rises to the level of “probable
cause” for the judge to consider. If they fail
to do those two things, the judge’s
responsibility is to deny the application for
the search warrant.
Like it or not,
that’s the system that our American ancestors
put into place with the Fourth Amendment.
That’s obviously
not the system that we have been living under
for many years, given the massive secret
surveillance scheme that has now come to light
thanks to former NSA employee Edward Snowden.
We now know that the U.S.
national security state is doing — and has
been doing — precisely what the Fourth
Amendment was designed to prohibit. It has
been gathering and compiling massive amounts
of information about the private affairs of
hundreds of millions of people, most of whom,
needless to say, have never made the target of
a specific search warrant request.
U.S.
officials say that such a massive surveillance
scheme on everyone is necessary to keep
Americans “safe.”
Well, let’s see.
If we go back and read the Fourth Amendment,
we immediately notice one important thing: Our
American ancestors did not provide an
exception to the restrictions based on keeping
Americans “safe.”
That is, the
amendment doesn’t have the following sentence
at the end of it: “The provisions of this
amendment are null and void in cases where the
government is keeping people ‘safe.’”
If our ancestors
had added such a provision, then the NSA and
its supporters might have a point. But they
didn’t.
Is there
anything to prevent the advocates of the NSA’s
surveillance scheme from seeking a
constitutional amendment that modifies the
Fourth Amendment to include such a safety
exception?
No, there isn’t.
Then why shouldn’t the supporters of such a
scheme be required to go that route — the
route of seeking a “keep people safe”
amendment to the Fourth Amendment, rather than
the super-secret, illegitimate route that they
have taken?
Proponents also
say that the 9/11 terrorist attacks provided
the feds with the authority to avoid the
Fourth Amendment.
Well, let’s see.
If we go back and read the amendment, we
notice something else important: There is no
exception for terrorist attacks in the
amendment.
If the amendment
had provided such an exception, then the
proponents of the NSA’s massive secret
surveillance scheme might have a point. But
they didn’t. Our ancestors provided no
exceptions for terrorist cases or any other
crime. So, if proponents of such a scheme
don’t like what our ancestors did, why
shouldn’t they be required to seek a
constitutional amendment seeking the
modification of the Fourth Amendment?
Our American
ancestors knew exactly what they were doing.
When you see people like Barack Obama, Dianne
Feinstein, Peter King, Mike Rogers, and others
who are coming to the defense of the massive,
secret NSA surveillance scheme that is
searching, gathering, and compiling personal
information on millions of innocent Americans,
you are seeing precisely the types of people
that our ancestors knew would end up serving
in the federal government and doing the types
of things the Fourth Amendment expressly
prohibits. You are also seeing precisely why
our ancestors believed the Fourth Amendment
was absolutely necessary to our freedom,
privacy, and well-being.
Remember the
wise and immortal words of Justice Louis
Brandeis in his dissent in the case of Olmstead
v. United States:
Experience
should teach us to be most on our guard to
protect liberty when the government’s purposes
are beneficent. Men born to freedom are
naturally alert to repel invasion of their
liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest
dangers to liberty lurk in insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but
without understanding.
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.” AMENDMENT #2-“And
the Right to Keep and Bear
Arms!” Our Constitution: 56 men
who pledged their Lives, Fortunes,
and Sacred Honor.
Ladies
and gentlemen, our government,
under the leadership of Obama’s
socialist agenda that is determined to shred
our beloved Constitution, thus destroying
our freedoms and liberties.
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, out of the White House! ILLU:
National Scandals as IRS, NSA, Benghazi,
etc.
We now have
a nation
being directed
and dictated
to by about 200
un-elected czars that are proud
socialists and/or active
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.”
We have
seen the NSA, IRS,BATF,
HOMELAND SECURITY, FBI,
and other Federal
Agenciesstrangle
Americansand Demandus to Bow
in Fear!
WHAT
IS FREEDOM?Where
do we get our freedoms?
God has
given us our freedoms and we have codified
them in our Constitution, “...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...”
·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:
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.
3.FREEDOM
IS – a child that can take a sack
lunch to school without fear
of it being taken.
FREEDOM
IS – being able to fly
the American flagwithout
breaking a law.
FREEDOM
IS – to be able to read
the Bible in a public classroom
without arrest.
6.FREEDOM
IS – being able to rejectShariah
Law as unconstitutional
without threatsfrom
C.A.I.R.
7.FREEDOM
IS--Being able to make
a phone call, without
the Government Listening.
8.FREEDOM
IS—Being FREE
to travel
without the Feds
Tracing Your Movements.
9.FREEDOM
IS – to be able to go to
bed at night without fear
of invasion
by U.S.
officials under the NDAA,
which will give the president sole authority without
Congress’ approval, if deemed a “national
emergency.”
10.FREEDOM
IS—NotBeing
Forced
to AcceptSodomiteMarriages!
11.FREEDOM
IS – to have openness in Washington
in our government, not “provda-style”
dictatorship.
12.FREEDOM
IS—Allowing the Voice
of the
Moral Majority to be
Heard!
13.FREEDOM
IS—Having aRight
to Confront
and Evil-IllegalPresidency!
14.FREEDOM
IS – to be able to decide our own
food
menu, our own diet and medical
care without
governmental intervention
or directive.
15.FREEDOM
IS – to allow every child conceived
to have “life”
protection
under our Constitution.
16.FREEDOM
IS—Not having IRS
Enforcement AgentsStealing
our Hard-EarnedIncome
and Sending
it to Islamic
Nations!
17.FREEDOM
IS—Having a President
that Honors God, and OurConstitutionalControls
on Government!
18.FREEDOM
IS—Having Pastors
with Backbone
to PubliclyStandon IssuesWithout
Fear of Government!
19.FREEDOM
IS—When Government
is Afraidof the People
–NotPeopleFearful
of Government.
20.FREEDOM
IS—Where the Tea
Party, Patriots,
and Conservatives
Are NotTargeted
by our Government,Directed
by the President!
21.FREEDOM
IS – to live in a land where the governmentcannotintrude
into the church.
Separation
of church and state is Biblical.
(Not
found in our Constitution.)
King Uzziah
entered into the temple
to offer sacrifice (81 priests begged
him not to).It is the 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.
22.FREEDOM
IS – to be able to render
to Caesar what belongs
to Caesar, and render
unto God
what belongs to God, without
the government—(city, state or national)using back door fees
to rob God’s
offering plate.Where
would America
be today without our churches?
23.FREEDOM
IS – to have a government that is
restrained
by the U.S. Constitution: American
law and NO international,
foreign,
or Koranic-Shariah
law in our courts.SB-58
& H.B.
351 Defeated by Pressure
on FL.
Lawmakers by Islamic
Terrorists!
24.FREEDOM
IS – to have our educational
system returned
back to our state
and local leaders, NOTczars
in Washington.
25.FREEDOM
IS – to not
have 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 spiritualconvictions.
FREEDOM
IS – not to be forced
to provide murder
by abortion at taxpayer’s expense.
56
MillionMurdered
since 1973
–Roe
vs Wade!
27.FREEDOM
IS – is to have presidential
candidates provide a legitimate
birth certificate and proof of
citizenship before running for
office.
28.FREEDOM
IS—To be Able
to Go
to a Public Park, Beach,
or Public
Venue and ProclaimTruth,
IncludingPreaching
the Gospel.
29.FREEDOM
IS – knowing that we have the Constitutional
Second
Amendment right to keep
and bear arms, notJust
forHunting,
But
to Protect U.S. From
the Intrusions
and Tyrannies
of Government!
30.FREEDOM
IS – knowing that our children in
school are being taught TRUE
American History without
the distortions,
deletions
and promotion
of Islam in our textbooks.
31.FREEDOM
IS – knowing
that our fee
simple title deeds
to our properties are securewithout
fear of the EPA
Gestapo seizing
it to protect a snail
or rodent.
32.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.
o
ILLU:
Daniel Chapter 3 tells us of three
young men that refused
to bow
to a law.They
were thrown
in the fiery
furnace, but because
of their faith
in God, they wouldNOTburn!
They Did NotBow
to the Godless
Law, When Threatened
They Did
Not Bend, and Throwninto
the FurnaceThey
Did NotBurn!!!
oDaniel was thrown
into the den
of lions for refusing to obey
a godless
law.The
lions became
his pillow—God
delivered him! (Daniel,
Chapter 6)
·Ladies and Gentlemen—may I read you some
quotes from our founding fathers:
·“Without
freedom of thought there can be no
such thing as libertywithoutfreedomofspeech.”
Benjamin Franklin
·“Those
who wouldgive upessentialliberties to purchasetemporary
safety deserveneither
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
firstgrowing out of the last---a
sacredrespect for the Constitutional
law is the vitalprinciple,
the sustainingenergy 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, standfirmlikearock.”Thomas
Jefferson
·Ladies
and Gentlemen—let’s send a message
to Washington, LOUD
AND CLEAR—“We
the People.”
oWe will notsurrender
our Constitution
on the account
of convenience.
oWe will notsacrifice
our convictions
on the altar of coercion.
oWe will notsubmit
our church
rights to the rule
of unelectedczars
in Washington.
oWe will not
be silent
and allow socialism
to subvert
our Constitution.
oWe will bevigilant,
visible,
vocal,
and vote
in every election.
oWe will have “revolution”
at the “ballot”
box.
oThe Bible
is very clear (Acts 5:29) we ought
to obey Godrather
than man.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND
MAY GOD BLESS AMERICA!
4 Ways the Fourth
Amendment's Already Being Pummeled in a Non-Top
Secret Way
The
government will always insist it's acting
within the law.
Ed
Krayewski
reason.com
June
11, 2013
Last week The
Guardian and The Washington Post
reported that the National Security Agency
collects information on the phone and Internet
habits of millions of Americans. Since then
we've seen President Barack Obama
argue against the strawman of combining
“100 percent privacy and 100 percent
security.” We've seen the Director of National
Intelligence and apologists point to
federal statutes that allegedly permit the
behavior. And, on the brighter side, we've
seen Sen. Rand Paul introduce the Fourth
Amendment Restoration Act.
Our View: Illinois, meet U.S.
Constitution
Journal Star article
Posted May 20, 2013
Last update May 21, 2013
So Chicago
doesn’t want concealed carry of handguns to be
the law in the Land of Lincoln.
Obviously.
Nonetheless, last time we checked, Chicago is
a city in the United States of America, which
has a Second Amendment that permits the
citizens of this country — even those living
in Chicago — the right to gun ownership. The
U.S. Supreme Court specifically told Chicago so in 2010 in
striking down its ban on guns (McDonald v.
City of Chicago).
Then late last year, the U.S. Seventh Circuit
Court of Appeals informed the state of
Illinois, in which Chicago sits, that its
prohibition on guns carried outside the home
also was unconstitutional.
We have not always been thrilled by the
prospect of people packing heat everywhere you
go, either, but fundamentally, the federal
courts carry a bigger gavel than the city of Chicago and the state
of Illinois
here. The June 9 deadline established by the
court for state government to come into
compliance with the U.S. Constitution is a
solid one.
Yet that has not stopped Chicago-area
legislators from doing everything they can to
drag this thing out and neuter it as much as
possible. Case in point is state Sen. Kwame
Raoul, D-Chicago, sponsor of the concealed
carry measure (House Bill 183, which is
sponsored by Lou Lang, D-Skokie, in the
House).
Raoul initially wanted to give Chicago’s
police chief and county sheriffs the authority
to veto these gun permits, with applicants
having to show “proper reason” for carrying
and “good moral character” to get law
enforcement’s “endorsement.” He has since
dropped the latter, but the former remains. In
any case, who defines “proper reason” or
“moral character,” and how do you implement
that on a consistent basis? Those are so vague
as to be unworkable, if also ripe for abuse.
The Second Amendment doesn’t say that “the
right of the people to keep and bear arms
shall not be infringed ... unless the police
chief or some other government official says
so.” It really is no wonder that the National
Rifle Association objected to that. Moreover,
it’s hardly in keeping with the spirit of the
federal appellate court’s ruling that “to
confine the right to be armed to the home is
to divorce the Second Amendment from the right
of self-defense.”
Meanwhile, Raoul also wants to give home-rule
communities — like Chicago and Peoria — the
ability to expand the state’s list of gun-free
zones, which critics have charged would create
a “patchwork” of regulations that virtually no
one can follow and that risks making criminals
of people who are not. We feel strongly that
any concealed carry law should be uniform
throughout the state.
(Reuters) - Prime Minister David Cameron said
the brutal killing of a soldier who was hacked
to death in London by
two men shouting Jihadist slogans was a
betrayal of Islam.
"We will never give in to terror or terrorism
in any of its forms," Cameron told reporters
outside his Downing
Street residence on Thursday.
"This was not just an attack on Britain
and on the British way of life, it was also a
betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim
communities who give so much to our country.
There is nothing in Islam that justifies this
truly dreadful act."
Comment:
Thatis
like calling the Fort Hood Texas incident
over three years ago, of
anIslamist
Major who yells 'AllahuAkbar’
fires,
and kills twelve soldiers and one civilian
“Workplace Violence”.
No
wonder modern Western “Civilizantion” is
in deep trouble.
Top Senate Democrat:
DOJ action against AP ‘inexcusable’
By Chris Moody, Yahoo
News, Tue, May 14, 2013
While the White
House remains quiet about whether the Justice
Department was right to seize the phone
records of Associated Press reporters, on
Capitol Hill the top Democrat in the Senate
was unequivocal about his opposition.
In his weekly
press briefing on Tuesday, Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., blasted the DOJ for
its behavior, which included tracking
reporters' phone records within the House
press gallery over a leak related to an
attempted terror plot last year.
"I have trouble
defending what the Justice Department did in
looking at the AP," Reid said. "I really
believe in the First Amendment. I think it's
one of the great things we have as a country.
I don't know who did it or why it was done,
but it was inexcusable. There is no way to
justify this. In my career, I've stood
consistently for freedom of the press."
Reid added that
he would make a determination about whether
"legislative action" is needed in response.
Attorney General
Eric Holder on Tuesday defended the
department's tactics, saying that the AP's
reporting about a foiled airline bomb plot in
2012 "put the American people at risk." He
called the information the AP received from
undisclosed sources the “top two or three most
serious leaks I’ve ever seen.”
Pentagon:
Proselytizing Punishable by Court-Martial
CBNNews.com
Thursday, May 02, 2013
The Pentagon says soldiers
can be prosecuted for sharing their faith.
The Defense Department
released the statement to Fox news, which
reads, "Religious proselytization is not
permitted within the Department of
Defense" and punishments can include
court-martial.
This comes after Pentagon
officials met with Mikey Weinstein of the
Military Religious Freedom Foundation, who
said even the presence of a Bible on a desk
can amount to proselytizing.
He added that even a
Christian bumper sticker on an officer's car
or a Bible on a desk can amount to "pushing
this fundamentalist version of Christianity on
helpless subordinates."
Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry
Boykin told CBN News he believes there's an
agenda to get Christians out of the military.
"It's not just about
officers or commanders sharing their faith,
it's about every individual soldiers, sailor,
airmen or marine being able to exercise their
faith," Boykin said.
"The First Amendment talks about the 'free
exercise, thereof,' speaking of our faith.
This will destroy our military because mom and
dad in the central part of the U.S.
are not going to want Johnny and Janie to join
the military knowing that they would not be
able to exercise their faith at the same time
that they are protecting those constitutional
rights to do so," he warned.
Rhetoric heats up
in debate over proselytizing in the military
By Matthew Brown, Deseret News
Published: Wednesday, May 1
2013
A war over the religious freedom of military
chaplains and the troops they serve is being
waged in the Pentagon.
The latest salvo came this week when
conservative blogger Todd Starnes wrote on Fox
News and the Christian Post that the Pentagon
confirmed that "religious proselytization is
not permitted within the Department of
Defense."
The regulation is not new. In August, the Air
Force issued a policy telling its chaplains
that they must balance an airman's right to
religious exercise with a prohibition against
government establishment of religion. A
violation of the policy could result in a
court-martial.
What is new
is a recent demand to enforce the rule.
It came after a private meeting last week
between Pentagon officials and Larry
Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin
Powell, former Ambassador Joe Wilson and civil
rights attorney Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein.
Conservative Christians are particularly
upset that the Department of Defense is taking
advice from Weinstein, who heads the Military
Religious Freedom Foundation.
"God help us now when someone with such
visceral hatred of conservative Christians —
literally tens of millions of Americans — who
says sharing this gospel is 'spiritual rape'
is helping develop policies for how to deal
with Christians in the military," wrote Ken
Klukowski, director of the Center for
Religious Liberty at Family Research Council.
He draws his conclusions about Weinstein's
view of Christianity from a Huffington Post
blog in which Weinstein referred to so-called
fundamentalist Christians as monsters, bigots,
bandits and evil, among other things.
Weinstein told Washington Post columnist
Sally Quinn that “there is systematic
misogyny, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in
the military.” He called such a culture "a
national security threat. What is happening
(aside from sexual assault) is spiritual rape.
And what the Pentagon needs to understand is
that it is sedition and treason. It should be
punished.”
Tony Perkins, president of the Family
Research Council, reacted by saying the
military meeting with Weinstein on religious
freedom is "like consulting with China
on how to improve human rights."
The FRC has launched a petition drive urging
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to "not to
proceed with the purge of religion within the
ranks called for by anti-Christian
activists." (Click
here to sign petition)
Ron Crews, the executive director of the
Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, told
the Christian Post that deciding "a service
member cannot speak of his faith is like
telling a service member he cannot talk about
his spouse or children.
"I do not think the Air Force wants to ban
personnel from protected religious speech, and
I certainly hope that it is willing to listen
to the numerous individuals and groups who
protect military religious liberty without
demonizing service members."
Two other stories this week signaled that
military chaplains are on edge over what they
can and cannot say to the troops they advise.
Barry Black, the U.S. Senate chaplain and a
former military chaplain, said military
chaplains could be accused of "hate speech"
for teaching what scripture says about
homosexuality, according the Christian Post.
"I can see many military chaplains having
some problems because, to teach the passages
of Paul with exegetical integrity would mean
being accused of engaging in hate speech,"
Black told a Heritage Foundation audience.
"So, this is a challenge that I think we're
going to have to deal with going forward."
Same-sex marriage may affect more than what a
chaplain preaches, says a candidate for the
chaplaincy, who wrote under a pseudonym in
American Thinker for fear of hurting his
chances to become a military chaplain.
"What will happen when a military chaplain
turns down gay soldiers who want the chaplain
to marry them?" he asked hypothetically. "The
military has already seen a major shift in
policy towards homosexuals as well as
significant rules towards political
correctness. If the Army decides that gay
marriage is more valuable than the religious
beliefs of their chaplains there will likely
be a significant change to the Chaplain
Corps."
The
United States Army has blocked the website
of the Southern Baptist Convention from some
of its computers — a move that family values
groups say is a disturbing continuation of
the Pentagon’s hostile attitude towards
religion.
The
Defense Department insists the blocking is a
“glitch’’ in the system which is being
corrected.
But the
American Family Network, which is affiliated
with the American Family Association, says
the issue comes just weeks after an Army
email called Christian ministries like the
Family Research Council and American Family
Association “domestic hate groups.’’
“This is
just another example of the Christian faith
coming under attack in the military,’’ Tim
Wildmon, president of American Family
Network,’’ told The Tennessean newspaper,
which broke the story.
Roger
Oldham, a spokesman for the Southern Baptist
Convention, said he has been assured the
problem is “a random event with no malicious
intent.’’
But he
added: "This is deeply disturbing . . . The
First Amendment exists to protect the church
from governmental censorship of or
infringement upon religious speech and the
free exercise of religion."
Lieutenant
Col. Damien Pickart, a department of defense
spokesman, told the newpaper the military is
working to resolve the problem and is “not
intentionally blocking access.’’
American Family
Association Notified: U.S.
Army Now Labels Southern Baptist Convention
‘Hostile’
By
Mel Fabrikant
Thursday,
April 25, 2013
The
Paramus Post (New Jersey)
Congressman Speaks out on Behalf of
Christians in Military
The United
States Army has blocked the website of the
Southern Baptist Convention from government
computers, saying the Christian site contains
“hostile content.”
An Army officer assigned to a U.S.
base said he tried to access SBC.net from his
government computer, but instead, he got a
message that said the site was being blocked
by “Team CONUS.” The message he received read:
The
site you have requested has been blocked by
Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RECERT-CONUS) due to
hostile content.
Team Conus is the Department of Defense
management and computer network overseer of
the military’s Continental US Theater Network
Operations and Security Center (CTNOSC)
Regional Computer Emergency Response Team.
“So the Southern Baptist Convention is now
considered hostile to the U.S. Army…it just
corroborates the recent string of events
highlighted by AFA,” the officer wrote in an
email to American Family
Association.(www.afa.net)
According to Tim Wildmon, president of
American Family Network, “This is just another
example of the Christian faith coming under
attack in the military. Earlier this month, an
Army email labeled prominent Christian
ministries like the Family Research Council
and American Family Association as ‘domestic
hate groups.’ Their list continues to grow as
is evidenced by their new addition of the
Southern Baptist Convention as ‘hostile.’”
This prompted Congressman Randy Forbes (R-VA)
to question Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel
about religious liberty issues during a House
Armed Services Committee meeting just two
weeks ago.
For more information on American Family
Association, visit www.afa.net .
Kansas
set to enact life-starts-"at fertilization"
abortion law
By
Kevin Murphy
KANSAS CITY, Kansas
| Apr 6, 2013
(Reuters) - Kansas
is set to enact one of the most restrictive
abortion laws in the nation which defines life
as beginning "at fertilization" and imposes a
host of new regulations.
The Kansas House of Representatives passed
the bill 90-30 on Friday night, a few hours
after the Senate backed it on a 28-10 vote.
Strongly anti-abortion Republican Governor Sam
Brownback is expected to sign it into law.
Republicans hold strong majorities in both
houses.
In addition to the provision specifying when
life begins, the bill prevents employees of
abortion clinics from providing sex education
in schools, bans tax credits for abortion
services and requires clinics to give details
to women about fetal development and abortion
health risks. It also bans abortions based
solely on the gender of the fetus.
The Kansas
bill comes on the heels of anti-abortion
measures passing in states across the country,
including one in Arkansas
banning abortions in the 12th week of
pregnancy and a law in North Dakota
that sets the limit at six weeks.
The Kansas
language stating that life begins "at
fertilization" is modeled on a 1989 ruling of
the U.S. Supreme Court, said Kathy Ostrowski,
legislative director of Kansans for Life,
anti-abortion group.
Ostrowski said the language protects the
rights of the unborn in probate and other
legal matters.
If the bill is signed into law, Kansas
will become the eighth state declaring that
life begins at fertilization, said Elizabeth
Nash, state issues manager of the pro-choice
Guttmacher Institute, which researches
abortion-related laws nationwide.
While it would not supplant Kansas
law banning most abortions after the 22nd week
of pregnancy, it does set the state up to more
swiftly outlaw all abortions should the U.S.
Supreme Court revisit its 1973 ruling making
abortion legal, Nash said.
"It's a statement of intent and it's a pretty
strong statement," Nash said. "Should the U.S.
Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade or should
the court come to some different conclusion,
the state legislature would be ready, willing
and able to ban abortions."
States that already have such language are Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Illinois, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio,
Nash said.
The Kansas
bill prohibits use of public funds, tax
preferences or tax credits for abortion
services. It prevents state-provided public
health-care services from being used in any
manner to carry out abortions, according to a
summary.
Taking away tax benefits would amount to 12
tax increases for abortion providers, women
and their families, said Elise Higgins, Kansas
coordinator for the National Organization for
Women. Even abortions to save a mother's life
would not be a deductible cost, she said.
The bill bars school districts from letting
abortion providers offer, sponsor or furnish
course materials or instruction on human
sexuality or on sexually transmitted diseases.
Higgins said that creates an unfair stigma for
employees of abortion providers.
(Reporting
by Kevin Murphy; Editing by Greg McCune, Doina
Chiacu and Gunna Dickson)
China:
House church accused of being religious cult
raided
By: Release International
1 April 2013
Christians in remote Xinjiang province have
been interrogated on suspicion of being a cult
after a violent armed raid on their house
church.
One Christian named as Sister Xu remains in
detention after being arrested during a raid
in which police armed with guns and electric
batons ransacked her home and seized property.
Another Christian, house church leader Brother
Shen, was summoned for interrogation
separately, which caused him to suffer an
'episode' relating to a heart condition, says
Release partner China Aid. A second leader
named as Sister Cao fled the area, fearing she
too would be detained.
All three are members of a house church in QimoCounty, Kurla
city, in north-west China.
On March 15, 21 Public Security Bureau
officials visited Sister Xu's home while she
was hosting a prayer meeting. The 14 assembled
Christians did not answer the door and
officials departed without forcing entry 90
minutes later.
However, that evening, armed police arrived.
As well as confiscating property, they took
fingerprints and blood samples from Xu, her
son and husband, and took all three to the
local police station for written statements.
It was there that Xu's husband saw information
on a computer alleging links between the house
church and a Chinese religious cult.
Xu's son and husband were both released the
following day, after the latter claimed he was
not a Christian. Brother Shen, who was
interrogated on March 18, was released within
three hours, after his health deteriorated.
'The police made his family guarantee that
there was nothing seriously wrong with his
health,' says China Aid.
JERUSALEM —
Israeli-Palestinian tensions rose sharply on
Wednesday, with a resumption of clashes at the
Gaza border as
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails
declared a three-day hunger strike to protest
a fellow inmate’s death, saying Israel
was responsible.
In response to rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel,
apparently in support of the Palestinian
prisoners, the Israeli military said it
carried out an airstrike in Gaza
late Tuesday night, its first since a
cease-fire that ended eight days of fierce
cross-border fighting in November. Warplanes
struck two open areas in northern Gaza,
causing no damage or casualties, the military
said.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, the
Islamic militant group that controls Gaza,
called the airstrikes a clear violation of the
cease-fire. “We call on international parties
to intervene immediately to end the Israeli
escalation and also the violations against the
prisoners,” he said in a statement.
The rocket fire from Gaza
was the third such violation of the cease-fire
brokered by Egypt
in November, evidence of its fragility. There
have also been several episodes of Israeli
gunfire directed at fishermen and farmers
approaching newly relaxed security perimeters,
sometimes with deadly consequences.
An Islamic extremist group in Gaza, the
Mujahedeen Shura Council — Environs of
Jerusalem, claimed responsibility for the
rocket fire, saying in a statement that it was
in support of the Palestinians held by Israel.
The group criticized other Palestinian
factions for their inaction on the prisoner
issue.
On Wednesday morning, Gaza
militants fired two more rockets into southern
Israel.
One landed at the entrance of the Israeli
border town of Sderot,
according to the police, and the other fell on
open ground. No one was hurt.
The death of the prisoner has also stirred
unrest in the West Bank.
On Wednesday night, a Palestinian youth was
fatally shot and three others were wounded in
a clash with Israeli soldiers near the West
Bank town of Tulkarem,
according to Palestinian news reports.
The Israeli military said that several
Palestinians had attacked a military post with
firebombs and that soldiers responded with
live fire. A spokeswoman said the episode was
being reviewed.
The United Nations special coordinator for
the Middle East
peace process, Robert H. Serry, called the
situation volatile and said it was “of
paramount importance to refrain from violence
in this tense atmosphere and for parties to
work constructively in addressing the
underlying issues.”
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon of Israel
said in a statement on Wednesday, “We will not
allow shooting of any sort, even sporadic,
toward our citizens and our forces.”
He added, “As soon as we identify the source
of the fire, we will take it down without
hesitation, as we did last night and in
previous cases.”
But analysts said that neither Israel
nor Hamas appeared eager to escalate the
situation and that both sides were acting to
restore the calm.
The highly charged issue of Palestinian
prisoners came to the fore again after the
Palestinian leadership accused Israel
of deliberately delaying the treatment of the
prisoner who died, Maysara Abu Hamdiya, 64. He
had received a diagnosis of throat cancer two
months ago and died in an Israeli hospital on
Tuesday.
Mr. Hamdiya, a resident of the West Bank city
of Hebron and
a retired general in the Palestinian Authority
security services, was detained by Israel in
2002, at the height of the second Palestinian
uprising, and was serving a life term for
attempted murder after sending a suicide
bomber to a cafe in Jerusalem,
Israeli officials said. The bomb failed to
detonate.
Mr. Hamdiya’s death came amid efforts by the
Western-backed Palestinian leadership to place
the prisoner issue high on the diplomatic
agenda, with Secretary of State John Kerry
expected in the region next week to press for
a renewal of peace talks. Emotions over the
prisoner issue have been running high among
Palestinians in recent months, leading to
protests in support of prisoners on hunger
strikes and over the death of a prisoner in
February under disputed circumstances.
Israel’s
Ministry
of Health said in a statement that an autopsy,
held on Wednesday in the presence of a
Palestinian expert of forensic medicine,
showed that Mr. Hamdiya had died from
complications of cancer and noted that he had
been a heavy smoker, a factor that it said
contributed to throat cancer.
The Palestinian Authority distributed a copy
of an affidavit that it said was signed by Mr.
Hamdiya’s lawyer, Rami Alami, who visited him
in jail on March 12. Mr. Alami said he found
Mr. Hamdiya to be tired and weak and unable to
walk without help.
New U.N. arms treaty
faces rough road in U.S.
Senate
By
Patricia Zengerle
WASHINGTON
| Wed Apr 3, 2013
(Reuters) - The new global arms trade treaty
was overwhelmingly approved by the United Nations,
with U.S.
backing, but it was clear on Wednesday it
faces a tough fight for ratification by U.S.
senators who contend it could affect
Americans' gun rights.
The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly approved
the pact by a vote of 154-3 on Tuesday, with
23 abstentions, many by major weapons
exporters.
Washington
was one of the 'yes' votes, but to go into
effect for the United States
it must win at least 67 votes - a two-thirds
majority - in the 100-member Senate. Last
month, the Senate supported a measure calling
for the treaty's rejection even before U.N.
negotiations on its text were completed.
The powerful National Rifle Association gun
industry lobby promised to fight against
ratification. Several senators, mostly
Republicans, quickly issued statements
opposing the pact.
The United States
is the world's largest gun exporter,
accounting for 30 percent of global volume. Russia,
No. 2, accounts for 26 percent. Moscow, which along
with China
abstained from the U.N. vote, said it would
take a hard look at the treaty before deciding
whether to sign it.
The treaty, the first of its kind, seeks to
regulate the $70 billion business in
conventional arms and keep weapons out of the
hands of human rights abusers.
A U.S.
commitment to the treaty is important to get China,
Russia
and other big arms producers on board,
diplomats and activists say.
The United
States is already in
compliance with the treaty's terms because of
its weapons export and import laws, they said,
but U.S.
approval could put pressure on other nations
to adopt similar limits.
The White House said on Wednesday it had not
yet decided whether President Barack Obama
would sign the pact, and gave no timeline for
doing so. Such a signing seems likely,
however, given White House support for the
pact at the United
Nations.
If Obama signs, government agencies would
review the treaty before the administration
decides whether to seek ratification by the
Senate.
"Timelines for the treaty review process vary
and given that we're just beginning the
review, I wouldn't want to speculate about
when we'll make a decision," said Caitlin
Hayden, spokeswoman for the National Security
Council.
The Senate voted 53-46 on March 23 for a
nonbinding amendment to its budget resolution
calling for the treaty's rejection. Supporters
said they were worried it would infringe on U.S.
gun rights.
'DON'T EXPECT A CAKEWALK'
Winning 67 votes for ratification would
require the support of all Democrats,
including eight who voted for the amendment,
as well as at least 12 Republicans, or a
quarter of the entire Republican caucus, which
strongly opposes almost any limits on gun
sales.
"Don't expect a cakewalk," one Democratic
Senate aide said.
The U.S. Senate has often been skeptical of
international treaties, seeing them as
limiting U.S.
power. Among the unratified pacts signed by a
U.S.
president is the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, which bans all nuclear explosions.
As with some other unratified treaties,
however, Washington
has implemented that treaty's terms,
refraining from nuclear testing.
Several senators issued statements after the
U.N. vote reiterating their opposition.
"The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty ... would require
the United States
to implement gun-control legislation as
required by the treaty, which could supersede
the laws our elected officials have already
put into place," said Senator James Inhofe,
the top Republican on the Senate Armed
Services Committee, who sponsored the budget
amendment.
He, fellow Republican Jerry Moran and
Democratic Senator Max Baucus issued a press
release objecting to the treaty after the U.N.
vote.
(Additional reporting by Lou Charbonneau at
the United Nations and Doug Palmer and Roberta
Rampton in Washington;
Editing by Warren Strobel and Mohammad
Zargham)
Islamist
terrorists and fanatics are methodically
exterminating the 2,000-year-old Christian
civilization of the Middle
East through oppression,
threats, appropriations and deadly violence.
Our media ignore
the intensifying savagery against Christians
in Muslim Brotherhood-controlled Egypt.
Unconfirmed reports assert that, last month,
Muslim Brothers dragged Christian protesters
to a mosque and tortured them — but our
reporters won’t look into an Islamist Abu
Ghraib.
For a century
and a half, the varied strands of Middle East
Christianity have faced increasingly fierce
pogroms and, for the Armenians, outright
genocide. But with the rise of Wahhabi and
Salafist terror, the long, slow-motion
Holocaust accelerated.
Another attack on Egypt’s
10 million Coptic Christians: Firemen dousing
a blaze at a New Year’s car bombing outside a
Coptic church.
Western liberals
romanticize barbaric cultures but have no
interest in the destruction — before their
averted eyes — of a great and brilliant
religious civilization. It’s as if they accept
the Islamist creed that Christians don’t
belong in the realms of Islam.
But the Middle East was more
than just Christianity’s birthplace. The faith
we know matured in the Middle East and
North Africa, from Ephesus
and Antioch to
Alexandria
and beyond. St. Augustine,
the most influential church father after St. Paul,
was a North African.
Rome
was a latecomer to Christian authority.
Through the Middle Ages, substantially more
Christians lived east of Constantinople (now Istanbul) than in Europe, the faith’s
backwater, whose northern reaches had yet to
be evangelized.
Christianity’s
greatest thinkers, greatest monuments and
greatest triumphs for its first 1,000 years
rose in the Middle East.
Even the Muslim conquest and relative
servitude could not dislodge Christianity. In
the worst of times, Christianity turned the
other cheek and endured. Some Christians
flourished.
Today, the end
is in sight.
In Iraq, cities
such as Mosul and
Saddam’s hometown, Tikrit, were once vital
centers of Christianity. But the country’s
Christian population, estimated at up to 2
million a decade ago, has fallen by half —
perhaps by three-quarters.
Over 2 million
Christians in Syria
dread Islamist terror and religious cleansing
so much, they lean toward the vicious Assad
regime, which at least shielded minorities.
Those who can, flee the country.
Christians were
early supporters of Arab nationalism. One of
the fiercest Palestinian leaders, George
Habash, was a Christian, as was the wife of
Yasser Arafat. Their thanks? Two-thirds of the
West Bank’s and more of Gaza’s
Christians have been driven out. They’re now a
small minority even in Bethlehem.
Egypt
has the region’s largest remaining Christian
population, at least 10 million Copts. With
rare exceptions, they’ve long been confined to
squalid quarters and treated as third-class
citizens. Now the Salafist fanatics have been
unleashed. The nation’s Muslim Brotherhood
rulers could put a stop to anti-Christian
violence, but appear willing to let the
Salafists do the dirty work for them. They’re
playing bad cop, not-so-bad cop.
And we’ll send
the regime at least a billion dollars this
year — with no stipulations or conditions
except that military-related funds must
purchase US-made or US-licensed equipment.
With Egypt’s
economy in desperate straits and the
Brotherhood’s popularity fading, we’re
propping up religious-cleansing bigots.
Christians in Iran?
Gone. Turkey?
Almost gone. Saudi Arabia?
The once-thriving Christian and Jewish
populations of Mecca
and Medina
were finished off centuries ago.
And in Lebanon,
the only Middle East country that until
recently had a Christian majority, Christian
rights have been so threatened by Sunni
fanaticism that some Christians have reached
out to Shia Hezbollah in their desperate hunt
for allies.
Far to the east,
in Pakistan,
Christians face trumped-up charges of
insulting Islam or rape, beatings, murder and
church bombings. And we still pour
billions into Pakistan.
It’s the end of
a world as we know it.
If Islam is a
“religion of peace,” it’s time to show the
evidence to the endangered Christians of the Middle East.
Of course, not
all Christians are angels, nor are all Muslims
demons. Most humans of any faith just want to
get through the day. And some Christians have
collaborated with odious Baathist regimes
(usually, to ensure their community’s
survival). Nor are most Muslims active
supporters of the religious cleansing of
Christians from their shared homelands.
But
disappointingly few Muslims actively defend
religious minorities. It’s not unlike Nazi
Germany, where most Germans didn’t want to
murder Jews, but were complicit through their
silence.
If a Michigan mosque is
defaced with graffiti, it makes national
news and the Justice Department views it as
a hate crime. It’s time for our government
and media to apply the same standard abroad
on behalf of Christians.
When the government demands silence
-- the ugliness of the Patriot Act
By
Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Published
March 21, 2013
FoxNews.com
In 1798, when John Adams was president of the
United States,
the feds enacted four pieces of legislation
called the Alien and Sedition Acts. One of
these laws made it a federal crime to publish
any false, scandalous or malicious writing --
even if true -- about the president or the
federal government, notwithstanding the
guarantee of free speech in the First
Amendment.
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 I. FDR arrested
Americans he thought might not support World
War II. LBJ and Richard Nixon used the FBI to
harass hundreds whose anti-Vietnam protests
frustrated them.
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 America
-- asking a judge for permission to tell the
truth about the government?
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.
Obama
urged: act tough on Israel
or risk collapse of two-state solution
By
Chris McGreal, US correspondent
The
Guardian,
19
March 2013
Barack
Obama begins his first official visit to Israel on
Wednesday amid growing warnings among some
of its leading supporters in the US that
the president needs to act more forcefully
to save Israel
from itself.
The White
House has played down expectations that
Obama will put any real effort into
pressing Israel
toward the creation of a Palestinian state
after he was burned by an attempt early in
his first term to pressure the prime
minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, into halting
Israeli settlement construction in the
occupied territories.
But there
is increasing concern among some of Israel's
backers in the US that
without White House intervention the much
promised two-state solution is doomed –
and that will endanger Israel.
Among
those sounding the warning is the US
secretary of state, John Kerry, who said
earlier this year that "the possibility of
a two-state solution could shut on
everybody and that would be disastrous, in
my judgment".
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 Israel
can't have it all. It can't be a Jewish
state, a democratic state*,
and a state in control of its whole
historical land. It can only have two of
its objectives at a time," he wrote
in Foreign Policy.
"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 US
billionaire, confidante of American and
Israeli leaders, and founder of the Center
for Middle East Peace in Washington, who
chided the president for not using his
visit to press Israel's
leaders
to confront the looming "tipping point".
"Obama
should realize that Israel's
continued presence in the West Bank is an
existential threat to its continuity as a
democratic, Jewish state — and time is not
on Israel's
side," he wrote in the Atlantic.
"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 US
ambassador to Israel
and now vice-president of the Brookings
Institution, said it is clear there is a
growing sense of alarm among some
policymakers in the US.
But he said it may be misplaced.
"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 Cairo, wherein he
gave his speech in June 2009, which was,
of course, addressed to the Arab world and
not to Israel
… And (Israelis) got the impression that
he wants to distance the United
States from Israel
in order to curry favour with the Arab
world," he said.
"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 Middle East, that
he would rather turn away from this
region. John Kerry has exactly the
opposite instinct. He wants to engage in
the Middle East
and, in particular, he wants to take on
the Israeli-Palestinian challenge, and
it's a high priority for him."
*Democratic"Straw
man" word and argument. Forget
Democracy. How about a Republic? where
people as diverse as the people spanning
the United States can live in relative
peace and freedom. Caveat: A Republic can
only work to the extent that The
People have the ability to think and
access information and knowledge, an
emphasis that is fading from the
government educational system.
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 Middle East editor
Ian Black.
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 Israel’s
enemies: Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
He made a link, very interestingly, between
Iran’s
nuclear program and the holocaust something
that the Israeli prime minister Binyamin
Netanyahu often does.
But having
done all that, he then moved to the second
message of trying to achieve a just and
viable solution for the Palestinians. Israel
must recognize the right of Palestinian self
determination, he said. It should look at
the world through Palestinian eyes ... He
talked about settler violence that went
unpunished. All very very hot-button issues.
Again cleverly using a phrase that’s very
resonant for Israelis, he said Palestinians
have a right to be a free people in their
homeland. That’s a phrase that is taken
directly from the Israeli national anthem.
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.
This “Truths That Free” section
of “Ethics”
has not been updated for quite some time...
that is not for want of material. Located in Jacksonville, Florida, in the United States,
one doesn’t have to look far to find
corruption, among elected or appointed
officials and/or leaders or local
organizations. That includes organizations
with the power to arrest, detain and generally
make your free life miserable.
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 Jacksonville and the
state of Florida.
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 1331
Pennsylvania Avenue
in Washington,
DC.
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.
Debating the
'religious freedom' bill Rejection would be
serious blow
fromLouisville
Courier-Journal
MARTIN COTHRAN
Senior
Policy Analyst
March
13, 2013
In Kentucky,
the Religious Freedom Act (HB 279) has been
passed by both chambers of the state legislature
and is now on Gov. Steve Beshear’s desk awaiting
his signature. The bill would return
long-standing legal protections to people of
faith that the Kentucky Supreme Court took away
in a decision last October. But some groups are
urging Gov. Beshear to veto it.
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 Kentucky,
these groups have provided it.
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
Kentucky.
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 U.S.,
including:
• Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Egyptian
immigrant who on Feb. 5 allegedly beheaded two
Coptic Christians living in New Jersey.
• Ali Syed, a 20-year-old Muslim who
allegedly randomly killed three people in Southern California on
Feb. 18 before killing himself.
• Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, a 26-year-old
reported black Muslim convert who on Feb. 21
is said to have killed three people in Las Vegas.
• 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 U.S.
are American citizens. A study found the
terrorist threat is increasingly in our
backyard.
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 Texas,
educators are indoctrinating kids into the
Islamic faith. At Lumberton High School, a
geography class was recently told to dress up
in Islamic garb — including burqas — and refer
to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as
"freedom fighters."
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.
Email tells feds to
make sequester as painful as promised
by Stephen
Dinan March 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.
Announcement of the decision — made n an email
from the White House Visitors Office — came
hours after The Washington Times reported on
another administration email that seemed to show
at least one agency has been instructed to make
sure the cuts are as painful as President Obama
promised they would be.
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.
Florida bill would
require anger management courses for bullet
buyers 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, 2013 Jason
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 U.S. compound
in Benghazi.”
The CBS
reporter also referenced another source
familiar with the Benghazi
documents that said nearly all communication
between Libya
and Washington,
D.C.,
since the attack began referenced al-Qaeda as
being the likely “instigators.” That portion
is significant because there are still
unanswered questions as to why the Obama
administration initially blamed the attack on
an anti-Muslim YouTube video.
“A source who
viewed the docs says the few that mentioned a
protest” on night of Benghazi
“were not first hand references,” Attkisson
reports.
Christian Science
Teacher Fired Over Creationism to Head to Ohio
Supreme Court
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
Supreme Court on Wednesday when his lawyers
will argue that his firing was a violation
of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights
to free speech and religion.
"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 Mount
VernonCitySchool District
violated John Freshwater's academic freedom
rights – and those of his students – by firing
him in January 2011," said the statement.
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 Ohio
voted to suspend John Freshwater citing
concerns about his conduct and teaching
materials, particularly as they related to the
teaching of evolution. Freshwater, who had
served as the faculty appointed facilitator,
monitor, and supervisor of the Fellowship of
Christian Athletes student group for 16 of the
20 years that he taught at the school, was
ordered to remove "all religious items" from
his classroom. Freshwater agreed to remove the
items except for his Bible, which spurred a
sequence of events that led to his eventual
firing.
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.
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 HillsdaleCollege.
Dr. West teaches courses in American
politics, focusing on the U.S. Constitution,
civil rights, foreign policy, and the
political thought of the American
Founding. He also teaches the
political philosophy of Aquinas, Hobbes, and
Locke. Dr. West is a Senior Fellow of
the Claremont Institute, and he has
previously taught at the University
of Dallas.
He received his BA from Cornell, and his PhD
from ClaremontGraduateUniversity.
Those interested in seeing and hearing this
lecture, or any of the others in the series,
may register at
constitution.hillsdale.edu. There is
no fee.
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?
Open Doors:
Violence Targeting Christians Increasing
in Syria
Contact: Jerry Dykstra, Open Doors USA,
616-915-4117, jerryd@odusa.org
SANTA ANA, Calif., Nov. 1,
2012 /Christian Newswire/ -- The
targeting of Christians in war-torn Syria
is increasing, according to Open Doors
sources.
"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 Damascus
suburb on Monday.
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 Syria
says: "The attack took place during the final
day of Eid al-Adha (Muslim holiday). Observers
hoped the four-day holiday would mark a
temporary ceasefire, but that hope proved to
be false. I see this as another example that
Christians are increasingly targeted."
A believer from Damascus
reports that last Sunday a car bomb was found
in a Christian neighborhood in the old part of
the city. The car was parked next to two
churches, a Maronite and Latin church. The two
churches were warned and church officials
instructed all their parishioners to go home
in case the bomb exploded. Authorities were
successful in disabling the bomb.
Situation
in Aleppo, Homs and ChristianValley
An Open Doors contact in Aleppo
reports that, "the situation is not getting
any better, but we are hoping the situation
will cool down."
Last week Open Doors received a report from a
believer in Aleppo,
the largest city in Syria,
that about 100 insurgents infiltrated a main
street in a Christian area of the city. Aleppo
is one of the hot spots in the 21-month civil
war between rebels and the Syrian government.
According to the report, the Syrian army
quickly surrounded the insurgents and drove
them out.
Another believer reports that in some of the
predominantly Christian villages in the Homs
area there is not a threat against the entire
Christian community, however, individual
Christians are being targeted.
In a village in the ChristianValley,
a region west of Homs
and Hama,
three Christian men were kidnapped and one
killed. "One of my contacts is stuck there,
waiting to find a way back to Damascus.
The roads are the worst now," the believer
shares.
The Open Doors country coordinator for Syria
adds: "The violent situation deeply hurts the
entire Syrian population, the Christian
community as well as other people groups. But
about two or three weeks ago we observed an
increase of violence that specifically is
targeting Christians or Christian
neighborhoods. Bombs now are placed in
Christian areas where there is no strategic or
military target at all. We are deeply
concerned about our brothers and sisters and
call all churches and all Christians to
continue praying for this dangerous situation
for Christians."
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 United States
on Sunday, Nov. 11.
All politics is local, even the US
election as seen by Kenyans
Villagers in the
home village of President's
Obama's father are cheering on the
Democrat, while Kenyan Mormons are excited
by challenger Mitt Romney’s run.
By
Fredrick Nzwili, Correspondent
November
1, 2012
Nairobi,
Kenya
Kenyans are closely watching the US
presidential election, with two groups in
particular rooting for each of the
candidates.
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 UnitedState
of America,”
said
Elder Hesbon Usi, an official here with the
Mormons' Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints. “Since people do not have
the right source of information and truth they
are looking for, a lot tend to go to other
websites that are misleading. They get
information that is not correct.”
Elder Thomas Hatch, a former Utah
state senator who now serves as the church’s
deputy director of public affairs for the
region, said questions the church has
encountered have prompted leaders to share
more through a network of websites.
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 Kenya
make use very cautious,” says Vitalis Ogombe,
the chairman of a community group called the
Obama Kogelo Cultural Committee.
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 Africa remains the
same, irrespective of whoever is the "boss."
“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.
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 Dearborn,
Michigan,
and in a press release by the Islamic Circle
of North America.
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 US
constitutional law, as opposed to Islam’s
Sharia, a largely concordant 45% of
respondents agreed “…that those who criticize
or parody Islam in the U.S.
should face criminal charges,” while 38% did
not, and 17% were “unsure”. Moreover,
fully 12% of this Muslim sample even admitted
they believed in application of the draconian,
Sharia-based punishment for the non-existent
crime of “blasphemy” in the US
code, answering affirmatively, “…that
Americans who criticize or parody Islam should
be put to death.”
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 U.S.
citizens have a right to evangelize Muslims to
consider other faiths.” Additional
confirmatory data revealed that nearly
two-fifths (39%) agreed “…that Shariah law
should be considered when adjudicating cases
that involve Muslims,” while nearly
one-third (32%) of this American Muslim
sample believed “…Shariah law should be the
supreme law of the land in the US.”
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 North
America—epitomized by the
Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America
(AMJA)—also endorses and promotes this Sharia
supremacism. AMJA’s mission statement
maintains that the organization was, “founded
to provide guidance for Muslims living in North America. . . .
AMJA is a religious organization that does not
exploit religion to achieve any political
ends, but instead provides practical solutions
within the guidelines of Islam and the
nation’s laws to the various challenges
experienced by Muslim communities. ” It is
accepted by the mainstream American Muslim
community, and regularly trains imams from
throughout North America.
Notwithstanding this mainstream acceptance,
AMJA has issued rulings which sanction the
killing of apostates, “blasphemers,”
(including non-Muslims guilty of this
“crime”), and adulterers (by stoning to
death); condoned female genital mutilation,
marital rape, and polygamy; and even endorsed
the possibility for offensive jihad against
the U.S.,
as soon as Muslims are strong enough to wage
it.
Finally, it should be noted, 81% of this
sample of Muslim Americans were either
“definitely for Obama,” or “leaning Obama”.
Girl shot by Taliban
in Pakistan
remains in critical condition, and local
government posts reward for attackers' capture
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 Rawalpindi.
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, Peshawar,
removed a bullet from Malala's head. She has
been taken to the Armed Forces Institute of
Cardiology in Rawalpindi
for further treatment."Pray for her," her
distraught uncle, Faiz Mohammad, said before
the ambulance left Peshawar.
Two British doctors who were attending a
seminar in Pakistan
at the time of the attack joined local
surgeons in treating Malala on Thursday. One
of the two other girls shot with Malala is out
of danger, the other remains in a critical
condition.
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 Pakistan,
and there were small, impromptu rallies in
many cities. Schools closed across Swat in
protest over the shooting, and a small
demonstration was held in her home town,
Mingora. Pakistan's
president,
prime minister and the heads of various
opposition parties joined the human rights
group Amnesty International and the United
Nations in condemning the attack.
Malala had spent the last three years
campaigning for girls' education after the
Taliban shut down girls' schools. She received
Pakistan's
highest civilian award but also a number of
death threats. In 2009 the army pushed the
Taliban out of Mingora, but the attack showed
the militia's ability to strike even inside
heavily patrolled towns.
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 Egypt.
Fast forward to 2012 and we learned The Muslim
Brotherhood orchestrated the propaganda of
democracy in Egypt
to get support from the Obama Administration
in the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak.
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 Egypt
on a warm and sunny Arab Spring day were
proven wrong. Now these same journalists
and politicians are falling for the same lie
again out of Jordan.
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 Jordan in the
1970's will help you to see what Jordan
can expect from the Muslim Brotherhood in
2012-2013.
Black September in Jordan
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 Kingdom
of Jordan
from King Hussein.
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 Jordan.
History seems to
be repeating itself again, except now
The Muslim Brotherhood is making a play to
wrestle control of Jordan from
the colonialist dictator and friend of the United
States,
King Abdullah II.
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 Baqubah, Iraq
prematurely ending his career of violence and
butchery to achieve his political objectives.
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 Egypt.
Al-Qaeda
and the Muslim Brotherhood consider the muslim
colonialist dictators as enemies of Shariah
compliant political Islam.
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 United States
tell you exactly what they want to do and why
- believe them. When the soldiers of
Allah conducted 20+ coordinated attacks on U.S.
interests in the Middle East and Northern Africa on
9/11/2012, they were telegraphing they
can recreate these coordinated attacks at any
time of their choosing -- in law enforcement
circles they call that a clue, as John
Guandolo likes to say.
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 Tripoli
back in 1801. Now you must learn The
Islamic Threat Doctrine to understand the
Islamists who attacked our embassy in Tripoli
on 9/11/2012.
Conclusion
The future
of America rests on how
many Americans learn The Islamic Threat
Doctrine as articulated by Mr.
Zarqawi. Then you must teach your
friends, family, and community what Mr.
Zarqawi and his Islamist ideological
brothers consider their definition of
Victory.
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 America
and God Bless Our Troops.
Family Security Matters Contributing
Editor Alan Kornman is the regional
coordinator of The United West-Uniting
Western Civilization for Freedom and Liberty.
His email is: alan@theunitedwest.org
By Babette
Francis - posted Thursday, 4 October 2012
In Onlineopinion.com
Australia’s
ejournal ofsocial and political debate
Recent
polls on the US
presidential elections show that Obama is
leading Romney by a few percentage points, and
crucially is leading in the "swing" states,
notably Ohio,
which Romney needs to win to have any hope of
becoming President of the US.
Obama gets 95% or more of the African-American
vote, which is understandable given the US
history of slavery and discrimination against
African-Americans. However what is not so
understandable is why Obama in recent polls
appears to be leading among Catholic voters,
despite the US Conference of Catholic Bishops
(USCCB) having lobbied strenuously against
Obama's Health Care mandate pointing out its
moral flaws and attack on religious freedom
and conscience rights.
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 United
States
recognize the serious deficits our country
faces, and acknowledge that Congress must
make difficult decisions about allocating
burdens and sacrifices and balancing
resources and needs. However, deficit
reduction and fiscal responsibility efforts
must protect and not undermine the needs of
poor and vulnerable people. The proposed
cuts in the budget fail this basic moral
test.
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 US
debt, and that some economists estimate that
by 2020 the US
may be unable to pay the interest on this
debt. I have difficulty in imagining a
trillion but then I am just a housewife who
knows one cannot "spend one's way out of debt"
- a strategy which appears to be President
Obama's rescue plan.
Not all bishops agree with the USCCB
statement. Bishop Boyea, Lansing,
said “There have been some concerns raised by
Catholic economists about what was perceived
as a partisan action against Congressman
Ryan’s proposed budget .... Statements that
endorsed specific economic policies revealed a
lack of humility. We need to learn far more
than we need to teach in this area. We need to
listen more than we need to speak...."
Archbishop Joseph Naumann, Kansas City,
agreed the USCCB committee neglected the
principle of subsidiarity which calls for
solutions to be provided close to people in
need. He suggested drafters of the statement
needed to rethink a tendency to advocate for
government assistance, and USCCB proposals
should not ignore the ballooning national
deficit. “Sometimes we’re perceived as just
encouraging government to spend more money,
with no realistic way of how we’re going to
afford this”.
Archbishop Allen Vigneron, Detroit,
echoed Archbishop Naumann’s suggestion that
the proposed document focus more on the family
as the central social institution and spoke of
how the “disintegration of the family” had
fueled the demand for government assistance.
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, Madison,
wrote:
... 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 .....
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 Franklin
for a commemoration. But it will be more than
that.
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 America, says
Greg Johnson, vice president of the 9/12
Project Tennessee,
a sponsor of the event that advocates for
shifting government back to the intent of the
Constitution's authors.
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 America,"
Johnson says.
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
DukeUniversity
who likes to call himself the Blue Devil Imam.
Muslims make up less than 1% of the U.S.
population. Yet, say Muslim advocates, they
are a community besieged.
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 Manhattan
and Florida Pastor Terry Jones' threats to
burn Qurans.
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 U.S.
Islamic centers that included a fire, a
homemade bomb and pig parts. The incidents
were unprecedented in scale and scope, says
the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
At least seven mosques and one cemetery were
attacked in the United States
during Ramadan, according to the council and
other groups that track such incidents.
Particularly visible on the anti-Muslim radar
has been the state of Tennessee,
where a mosque opened during Ramadan after two
years of controversy. The new Islamic center
in Murfreesboro
opened a few weeks ago after delays caused by
legal wrangling, community protests and
vandalism.
Also in Tennessee,
incumbent congresswoman Diane Black found
herself publicly opposing Sharia after her
opponent Lou Ann Zelenik made it a campaign
issue.
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 Tennessee,
to work in the international division of the
state's economic development department.
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 Franklin.
"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 North America."
It's called a global caliphate. One religion,
one government, one law... called Sharia."
In November 2010, more than 70% of voters in
Oklahoma
approved a ballot initiative to amend the
state's constitution that banned courts from
looking at "legal precepts of other nations or
cultures. Specifically, the courts shall not
consider international law or Sharia law."
The amendment died after a federal court
ruled it discriminatory.
"That was very explicitly anti-Islamic," says
Glenn Hendrix, an Atlanta
lawyer who specializes in international law.
"It specifically referenced Sharia."
This year, 33 anti-Sharia or international
law bills were introduced in 20 states, making
it a key issue. Six states - Louisiana, South Dakota, Kansas, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee
- adopted such laws prior to 2012.
Two Tennessee
lawmakers attempted to pass a bill this year
that would have made it a felony to practice
Sharia, but it failed.
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 New York.
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 U.S.
courts ultimately are beholden to U.S.
law.
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 U.S.,"
she says. "Anti-Sharia bills target the
religious principles of Muslim Americans and
fuel anti-Muslim rhetoric and bias. As a Sikh
American whose community has too often become
the target of hate, I believe it's time to
stand against all forms of racism and
religious bigotry."
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 Arizona
was the first victim of reprisal after the
9/11 attacks.
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.
U.S.
courts bump up against it in cases of
divorces, inheritance, child custody,
enforcement of money judgments and commercial
disputes or tort actions.
A trial court in New Jersey,
for instance, ruled that a husband, who was
Muslim, lacked the criminal intent to commit
sexual assault on his wife because Sharia
permits a man to have sex with his wife
whenever he wants.
That's the kind of ruling that fuels
anti-Sharia activists.
Nashville
health-care investor Andrew Miller says
there's no room for democracy within Islamic
ideology. All you have to do is look to any
Islamic state, he says.
"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 U.S.
participation in the International Criminal
Court. There must be no use of foreign law by
U.S.
courts in interpreting our Constitution and
laws. Nor should foreign sources of law be
used in State courts' adjudication of criminal
or civil matters."
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 United States.
It's diametrically opposed to what people
like Antepli and Kaur will be saying as America
remembers the horror of terrorism. Hateful
sentiment, they say, is not the answer.
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 Russia
and it has been getting worse in the last
decade. There are over eight million Moslems
in Russia,
most of them outside the Caucasus
(where most of the Islamic terrorist activity
is taking place). But Islamic conservatism and
radicalism is becoming more popular with
Russian Moslems, and this is the usual
precursor for the formation of Islamic terror
groups. There are also a growing number of
Moslem migrants from Central Asian countries
that were part of the old Soviet Union but are
now independent and less well off than Russia.
These illegal economic migrants are not
welcome and have become fertile recruiting
grounds for Islamic terror groups. Russians
tend to be hostile to Islam, mainly because of
centuries of conflict between Christian Russia
and various Moslem states. This has created a
culture of resentment among Russian Moslems,
which is made worse by the pervasive
corruption.
August 29, 2012: In the Caucasus (Dagestan) a female
suicide bomber killed Sheikh Said Afandi, a
prominent Moslem leader who opposed Islamic
terrorism. Six others died in the explosion.
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 Georgia
and kidnapped ten villagers. Georgian police
responded and in a gun battle killed 11 of the
invaders, with the loss of three policemen.
The captives were freed. It's unclear why the
Islamic terrorists crossed the border and
sought to kidnap people from a foreign
country. For many years Georgia
tolerated Chechen rebels hiding out in
northern Georgia,
just across the border from Chechnya.
But a decade ago the U.S. and Russia
persuaded the Georgians to expel the Islamic
terrorists and other foreign gunmen. For the
last nine years the foreigners have been
absent, or very covert if they were there. Now
there is this incident, which has so far been
unexplained.
August 27, 2012: A Russian shipyard launched
the first of six Kilo class submarines Vietnam
ordered three years ago.
August 26, 2012: In a rural part of
southern Siberia
several people were infected with Anthrax, and
one of them died. Anthrax is found naturally
in this area and several infected animals (who
pick up the disease while grazing in areas
where the Anthrax spores are active) were
destroyed. Anthrax is also found in some parts
of the United States
and other parts of the world where climate and
geographic conditions are right for it. In
rural areas of the United States
where Anthrax is found, people liable to be
exposed are usually vaccinated against the
deadly disease. Animals are also vaccinated,
as it is the cattle and sheep that usually
spread Anthrax to humans. Vaccination is much
less common in Russia
but over a hundred people and all animals in
the area were vaccinated in order to contain
this outbreak.
August 22, 2012: In the United States
there was an unsubstantiated news story about
a Russian Akula class nuclear submarine
cruising through the Gulf
of Mexico undetected for several
weeks in July. The United States
does not monitor submerged submarine activity
in that area and the American Department of
Defense responded that it had no record of any
Akulas in the area. The Russian Navy refused
to comment.
August 21, 2012: In the Caucasus
(Kabardino-Balkaria) an Islamic terrorist died
in a gun battle with police. In nearby Dagestan, two
policemen were killed by Islamic terrorists.
Religious Freedom
Means “Sticking up for All Believers”
Ken
McIntyreAug. 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.”
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 Middle East
that saw the rise of revolutionary movements
in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an
instrumental role. For the first time
ever, the State Department simply eliminated
the section of religious freedom in its
reports covering 2011… (emphasis added).
The CNS report
goes on to quote several U.S.
officials questioning the motives of the Obama
administration. Former U.S.
diplomat Thomas Farr said that he has
"observed during the three-and-a-half years of
the Obama administration that the issue of
religious freedom has been distinctly
downplayed."
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 Egypt,
such as Nigerian lawyer and activist Emmanuel
Ogebe, wondered at Obama's position that the
ongoing massacres of Christians have nothing
to do with religion. After describing the
sheer carnage of thousands of Christians at
the hands of Muslim militants, lamented that
Obama's response was to pressure the Nigerian
president to make more concessions, including
by creating more mosques (the very places that
"radicalize" Muslims against infidel
Christians).
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 U.S.
administration has taken up their cause by
waging a war of silence on their despised
enemies—the Christians and other minorities of
the Islamic world.
Federal Court
finds Obama appointees interfered with New
Black Panther prosecution
July 30, 2012
By
Conn
Carroll
Senior
Editorial Writer
The Washington
Examiner
A federal court in Washington, DC, held
last week that political appointees appointed
by President Obama did interfere with the
Department of Justice’s prosecution of the New
Black Panther Party.
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 Philadelphia
entered a “default” against all the Panthers
defendants. But after Obama was sworn in, the
Justice Department reversed course, dismissed
charges against three of the defendants, and
let the fourth off with a narrowly tailored
restraining order.
“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.”
High court allows
president discretion in upholding law or not
The Washington Times
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 Mexico
into the southwestern United States,
Arizona
decided to take matters into its own hands.
Based on a novel theory of constitutional law
- namely, that if a state is unhappy with the
manner in which federal law is being enforced
or not being enforced, it can step into the
shoes of the feds and enforce federal law as
it wishes the feds would - Arizona
enacted legislation to accomplish that.
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 U.S.
from enacting laws on immigration, has
pre-empted the field.
The court
specifically invalidated the heart and soul of
this misguided Arizona
law by ruling definitively that in the area of
immigration, the states cannot stand in the
shoes of the feds just because they disapprove
of the manner in which the feds are or are not
enforcing federal law. The remedy for one’s
disapproval of the manner of federal law
enforcement is to elect a different president
or Congress; it is not to tinker with the
Constitution.
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 Arizona
has become a personal license for the
president. He has demonstrated that he will
not faithfully enforce federal law as the
Constitution requires. He will only enforce
the laws with which he agrees.
So, because the Arizona police cannot
arrest and incarcerate anyone for undocumented
presence and because they cannot deliver
anyone so arrested to the feds, what
legitimate governmental purpose will be served
by what remains of Arizona’s
law? None. But the police still will harass
any dark-skinned person in Arizona
as they please.
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).
What do you
think about this article? Does the Judge
glide over the governments enumerated
responsiblity to "protect and defend" at the
expense of individual sovereignty? See the
article at the Washington
Times website, and see readers reactions.
Obama Overlooks
Christian Persecution
Thursday,
24 May 2012
By
James Walsh
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 Arabian Peninsula.
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.
The
current turmoil in Egypt is
increasing the number of Egyptian
Christians seeking asylum in the West and
especially in America.
Most of these asylees are educated men and
women who are professionals and
entrepreneurs. Banking in Egypt
historically has been in the hands of
Christians.
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 Cairo,
Egypt,
he addressed the Islamic world. As with
his other speeches, this one had an air of
campaign rhetoric well-delivered with
apology, empathy, and accolades for Islam.
The “We love you” chants for Obama in Cairo,
however, cannot erase the terrorist acts
committed against Christian “infidels.” These terrorist acts, which
began in earnest in the 1970s, escalated
to a crescendo during the Arab Spring of
2011-2012 in Egypt
and other Muslim countries. The chant in
Egyptian streets is now “Allah Akbar” (God
is great) and “We love death,” as radical
Islamists take center stage. 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 Egypt
— after additional murders of Christians
and burning of churches. The 2011 State Department
Annual Report on International Religious
Freedom 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.
The Obama administration played politics
by failing to acknowledge this terrorist
behavior. 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
Israel,
India,
and Russia.
Yet the Obama administration and the
Democrat Party continue to mislead U.S.
citizens, claiming the need for empathy to
assuage Muslim sensibilities. It is time for a new
foreign policy.
James H.
Walsh was
associate general counsel with the U.S.
Department of Justice Immigration and
Naturalization Service from 1983 to 1994.
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 U.S.
citizen. And by "due process" they meant the
right to be formally charged, to challenge
those charges before a judge and to have
defense counsel present.
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 U.S.
citizens on U.S.
soil, without charge or trial. All that is
required is suspicion.
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.
Jacksonville’s Moral Constitutional Patriots
Speak
A
Response By Dr. Gene A. Youngblood
Presentedat
City Council Meeting of 5/22/2012
WHEREASOur
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 Jacksonville
seeks to build a reputation as a welcoming
community for bright and talented
members of the workforce, and seeks
to be competitive in attracting new
industries to the region.However,
the bill seems to focus only on a “special
class,” ignoring the U.S.
Constitution and religiousliberties.
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 California
among others, that
have instituted such practices
are now watching industry, trade
and new businessesleave
their state, thus causing an extra
burden on homeowners being required to
pay higher property taxes.Is
this what we want in Jacksonville?
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’sconstitutionality 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.
WHEREASOrdinance
2012-296 will be costly and prohibitive
making the end result a net
loss of business or industry
coming to Jacksonville.This
is clear, based on requirements in the bill
as found on page 4, lines 6-8.
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).
WHEREASSection
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!