Archive for February, 2010
Obama’s Terrorist-Shielding Envoy to the Muslim World
How much more proof do we need that Obama is sympathetic to our enemies, to the people who want to overthrow us and who want us dead? On Feb. 14, 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Rashad Hussain to his Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference.This is a man who publicly defended a terrorist.The terrorist being the Univ of South Florida professor who pled guilty to conspiracy to help Islamic Jihad and led the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization. He has also made several other pro-Islam statements. Read below for more details.
Obama has put more radicals in high gov’t positions than any other president and we are ignoring it. Let me rephrase that, the MSM and the liberals are ignoring it. What can we do about it????
Obama’s Terrorist-Shielding Envoy to the Muslim World
by Ben Shapiro
On Feb. 20, 2003, Professor Sami Al-Arian of the University of South Florida was arrested by the Department of Justice for his leadership of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization. Al-Arian was a radical supporter of Islamic terrorism, a man who announced at rallies that he sought “victory to Islam” and “death to Israel.” He created the organization in America, designed, at least in part, to bring terrorists to U.S. soil.
On Sept. 5, 2004, law student Rashad Hussain spoke at a Muslim Student Association (MSA) conference. The MSA is in and of itself a troublesome organization, which has been repeatedly linked to terror — but that wasn’t the main problem. The main problem was Hussain’s speech, in which he explicitly defended Al-Arian, calling his prosecution “a sad commentary on our legal system … a travesty of justice … [one incident in a] common pattern … of politically-motivated prosecutions.”
On Feb. 28, 2006, Sami Al-Arian pled guilty to conspiracy to help Islamic Jihad.
And on Feb. 14, 2010, President Barack Obama appointed Rashad Hussain to his Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference.
When news broke of Hussain’s 2004 statements, Hussain immediately called reports mistaken, explaining that he had not uttered those words. Unfortunately for Hussain, Politico.com quickly recovered a tape of the MSA conference. Hussain then backtracked, stating, “I made clear at the time that I was not commenting on the allegations themselves. The judicial process has now concluded, and I have full faith in its outcome.” Very reassuring.
Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration is standing by its man, the same way they originally stood by communism-friendly Green Czar Van Jones. This is troubling not only because Obama consistently elevates those who champion anti-American causes, including Jones and Hussain, but also because of his original selection of these people for powerful posts.
The simple fact is that Hussain is not a problem merely because of his 2004 comments. He is a problem because of what he believes about the Muslim world in general.
His views are laid out in a report he did for the Brookings Institution, entitled “Reformulating the Battle of Ideas: Understanding the Role of Islam in Counterterrorism Policy.” First, he states that those in the United States ought to drop the term “Islamic terrorism.” “The terms ‘Islamic terrorism’ and ‘Islamic extremism’ validate the terrorist claim that their ideology is, in fact, rooted in Islam,” Hussain writes. For the same reason, he wants to end the use of the terms “jihadist” and “Islamofascist.” This is pure bunkum, implying as it does that the Muslim world takes its cues on how to interpret Islam from Christians in the United States. But Hussain knows that. His intent isn’t to protect the United States — it’s to protect Muslims globally (including radical Muslims) from having to face additional scrutiny at the airports or in the press.
Hussain’s argument quickly becomes more pernicious. He argues that Americans should quit asking the Muslim world to value freedom and democracy, and instead focus on working with non-terrorist imams to convert Muslims to a non-terrorist version of Islam. In practice, this means that the U.S. should “work with Muslim governments, religious leaders … on the ground in the Muslim world.” In short, cash and public relations help for governments like the Saudis, and imams sponsored by those governments. Again, this is ludicrous on its face — the idea that Muslims around the world will accept American non-Muslims or Christian-backed Muslims preaching about the true meaning of Islam is laughable. We don’t have the legitimacy to preach about Islam. We do have the legitimacy to preach about freedom and democracy.
Putting the most benign spin on Hussain’s writings, he is a Muslim who hopes to convert terrorist-leaning Muslims to non-terrorist Islam. But it is not enough to convert them to non-terrorist Islam if that version of Islam is also antidemocratic and fascistic. It is far too easy for non-terrorist, freedom-and-democracy-rejecting Muslims to slip over into terrorist Islam. Hussain provides the best example of that — after all, he himself slipped over that line in 2004 by endorsing the terrorist Al-Arian and ripping the U.S. justice system.
President Obama clearly agrees with Hussain’s plans for the Muslim world. But we in the real world do not have the luxury of pretending that such plans are either realistic or morally righteous. They are neither. They justify continued repression and evil in the Muslim world, and they leave us wide open to attack in the Western world by failing to properly recognize the enemy.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )The Bloody Cost of “Diversity”: The Fort Hood Massacre
The more I hear about this incident at Fort Hood, the angrier it makes me. They KNEW this man was a radical and they did nothing about it!! That’s when ‘diversity’ and ‘political correctness’ gets us killed. It really disgusts me that this kind of thinking has seeped into the upper levels of our military. It needs to be stopped. Read below for more details on how much the army really knew about this terrorist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. Numerous lives could have been saved if they had done the RIGHT thing instead of the POLITICALLY CORRECT thing!!!
The Bloody Cost of “Diversity”
Posted by Calvin Freiburger
Feb 24th, 2010
frontpagemag.com
We’ve known from the start that there were warning signs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan’s Islamic fanaticism well before the Fort Hood shootings, signs we suspected were ignored due to political correctness. But the other night, Sean Hannity called attention to a recent Boston Globe report confirming our worst fears. The report claims that Army officials knew Hasan was a radical, but “did not act in part because they valued the rare diversity of having a Muslim psychiatrist.”
Examples of Hasan’s radical behavior have previously been disclosed in press accounts based on interviews with unnamed Army officials […] But the Pentagon’s careful documentation of individual episodes dating back to 2005 and the subsequent inaction of his superiors have not been made public before. The Globe was permitted to review the Army’s more complete findings on the condition that it not name supervisory officers who did not act, some of whom are facing possible disciplinary action.
In searching for explanations for why superiors did not move to revoke Hasan’s security clearances or expel him from the Army, the report portrays colleagues and superiors as possibly reluctant to lose one of the Army’s few Muslim mental health specialists. The report concludes that because the Army had attracted only one Muslim psychiatrist in addition to Hasan since 2001, “it is possible some were afraid” of losing such diversity “and thus were willing to overlook Hasan’s deficiencies as an officer.”
[…]
In one classroom incident not previously described by the Army – which parallels another episode around the same time that has received press attention – Hasan gave a presentation in August 2007 titled “Is the War on Terrorism a War on Islam: An Islamic Perspective.” But the presentation was “shut down” by the instructor because Hasan appeared to be defending terrorism. Witnesses told investigators that Hasan became visibly upset as a result. “The students reported his statements to superior officers, who took no action on the basis that Major Hasan’s statements were protected by the First Amendment,” the investigation found. “They did not counsel Hasan and consider administrative action, even though not all protected speech is compatible with continued military service.’’
Words are almost insufficient to convey the contemptible sickness of this situation. Thirteen American heroes are dead because of certain minds that held “diversity” to be of more worth than human lives. They wanted someone with the “potential to inform our understanding of Islamic culture and how it relates to the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
The question must then be asked: If you want to be informed, why not do the research yourself? Study the messages of extreme and moderate Muslims alike. Consult with experts on the subject from within and without the faith, like Irshad Manji, Brigitte Gabriel, Robert Spencer, and others. To suggest that these peoples’ only option in learning about Islamic culture was from one unstable soldier with known jihadist tendencies is beyond absurd. How useful did these people expect Hasan’s lessons to be anyway?
It’s hard to imagine a clearer, more damning indictment of leftist thought than the tragedy that we find at Fort Hood. The current commander-in-chief deserves serious blame for not doing something about this twisted dogma that has infected military officials. But the hard truth is that it didn’t start on his watch. For years, many people, like Lieutenant Colonel Robert “Buzz” Patterson (keeper of the “nuclear football” during the 1990s) have been sounding the alarm on the sorry state that President Bill Clinton left our armed forces in, and how, in many ways, military effectiveness has taken a backseat to political correctness. And for all the good President George W. Bush did in the War on Terror, this particular crisis evidently wasn’t on his radar screen.
In the wake of 9/11, President Bush and many of his conservative supporters rightfully said we could not succumb to a pre-9/11 mindset, that we had to wrap our heads around the reality that our nation was at war. But, nine years later, with a jihadist killing spree on one of our own military bases and the Army’s top man worried not about how it happened but about “a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers,” it seems we have to ask ourselves if we really meant it.
LINK: http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/24/the-bloody-cost-of-%E2%80%9Cdiversity%E2%80%9D-2/
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Organizing Kids for Obama
I don’t even know what to say about this. It honestly just makes me sick!! It makes me want to puke! GAG!! Obama, get your hands off of our kids!! We, the parents, will teach them and guide them, so you don’t need to!
This really just gives me an icky, creepy feeling.
Organizing Kids for Obama
by Phyllis Schlafly
President Barack Obama’s budget has added more than $100 billion of federal taxpayers’ money to what is called “education,” so that means it will be spent by alumni of the Saul Alinsky school of radical community organizing and/or the Chicago Democratic machine. We’re indebted to Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com for exposing the shocking use of some of these funds.
Obama is using the public schools to recruit a private army of high-schoolers to “build on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda.” We now know that Obama’s “agenda” is to move the United States into European-style socialism.
Obama’s Internet outreach during his campaign, Obama for America, has been renamed Organizing for America (OFA) in order to recruit students to join a cult of Obama and become activists for his goals.
Geller discovered that the teacher of an 11th-grade government class in Massillon, Ohio, passed out the sign-up sheet, headed with Obama’s “O” logo, asking students to become interns for Organizing for America.
These interns will be given an intensive nine-week training course using comprehensive lesson plans. Assigned readings include Saul Alinsky’s notorious “Rules for Radicals,” “Stir It Up: Lessons From Community Organizing and Advocacy” by the left-wing activist Rinku Sen, and particular sections of “Dreams From My Father” dealing with Obama’s days as a community organizer in Chicago.
Republican students will be filtered out of the intern program by requiring applicants to answer questions that reveal their politics. One example is, “What one issue facing our country is important to you and why?”
Geller said the purpose of this training to become Alinsky-style community organizers is, “of course, to elect more Democrats.” The internship program is specifically geared to get the kids working in the 2010 elections.
The sign-up sheet for Organizing for America starts with this instruction: “Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda of change.” The application explains that this national internship program is “working to make the change we fought so hard for in 2008 a reality in 2010 and beyond.”
This is not the first time Obama has tried to enlist schoolchildren into an Obama cult. Last fall, the instructions mailed to every school by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan added a very political dimension to Obama’s speech that was broadcast to public school children on Sept. 8.
Geller explained the extensive political dimension of the new intern program. The OFA student interns will be trained in the goals and language of the left: “antiwar agitation, anti-capitalism, Marx, Lenin, (Bill) Ayers, LGBT agenda promotion, global warming, soft-on-jihad and illegal immigration.”
Another item on OFA’s reading list is “The New Organizers” by Zack Exley. It brags about “an insurgent generation of organizers” inside the Obama campaign that has “almost without anyone noticing … built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people’s organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.”
The 10-page “National Intern Organizer Curriculum” is very specific in describing the tactics that interns will be taught. It includes these components: “Using Story as an Organizing Tool, Building Relationships and Building Teams, Mobilizing to Win on the Issues (issue advocacy), Health Care Service Project.”
Passage of Obamacare is one of this intern project’s major goals. The curriculum promises to provide “insight on the strategy and plan behind the health care campaign” and “further motivate them to work on the issue.”
The sign-up sheet states that the “purpose” of training these students is “to build community” among the interns and teach them “to be leaders in OFA’s organizing work.” After all, Barack Obama knows a great deal about being a community organizer — that was his only real job before he got into politics.
Job prospects may be bleak for many Americans, but they will be rosy for alumni of Obama’s intern program. After the students have been fully trained as Alinsky-style community organizers, they will be eligible for jobs in Senior Corps, AmeriCorps or Learn and Serve America.
Those three so-called “service” organizations, which annually dole out millions of dollars to left-wing groups, are overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service. The U.S. Senate just confirmed this Corporation’s new chief executive, Patrick Corvington, who was a senior official of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which has given over a million and a half dollars to the ACORN network of organizations.
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/PhyllisSchlafly/2010/02/23/organizing_kids_for_obama
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )5 Reasons Illegal Immigrants Shouldn’t be Given American Citizenship
Once again John Hawkins speaks the truth. I totally agree!!
5 Reasons Illegal Immigrants Shouldn’t Be Given American Citizenship
by John Hawkins
Over the last few months most conservatives have quite naturally been distracted by Barack Obama’s frightening incompetence, his elephantine spending, and his zealous attempts to swallow as much of the private sector as the government beast can stuff down its gaping maw. But while the cat’s away, the mice will play. The little feet you may have been hearing pitter-patter back into the public square? They belong to advocates of amnesty for illegal aliens. Oh, they don’t necessarily call it that. They call it comprehensive immigration reform, earned legalization, a path to citizenship — but, it all amounts to the same thing: rewarding people for breaking our laws.
On behalf of the overwhelming majority of the conservative movement and the American people, let me say, “Not just ‘no,’ but ‘Hell, no’” to giving illegal immigrants American citizenship.
Now, I know what the response to this will be: “You must hate Hispanics!” Actually, it doesn’t matter where the illegals are from; they’re not welcome here. But, but, but…it’ll help the GOP with Hispanics to support amnesty! Tell that to John McCain, who bombed with Hispanics despite being the Republican most associated with amnesty. Well, then you must not want any immigrants in this country! What a despicable argument. Comparing an illegal alien to someone who loves and respects this country enough to come here the right way is like comparing a burglar to an adopted son.
Let me tell you exactly why illegal immigrants shouldn’t be given American citizenship.
1) It will only encourage more illegal immigrants to come here. We’ve already had a “one time only” amnesty deal for illegals. It occurred during the Reagan Administration and the idea was supposed to be that we’d allow the illegals who were here to become citizens and we’d simultaneously beef up security to try to keep the problem from occurring again. Well, guess what? That very bipartisan sounding compromise didn’t work. To the contrary, it failed miserably. So why in the world would anyone who actually wants to stop illegal immigration want to try something that has already been proven to be counterproductive? We have far more illegals in America today than we did when the “one time” amnesty went through. Do we want 20 million illegals here when the next amnesty goes through? 30 million? Are we going to be accused of racism if we say the next huge wave of illegals shouldn’t be given citizenship either? Where does it end?
2) Illegal aliens take jobs from American citizens. The economy stinks. American citizens are out of work. People are going out every day looking for jobs to support their family and they’re coming home empty handed. Meanwhile, there are illegal aliens in this country holding jobs that American citizens would otherwise have. “Oh, but those are jobs Americans won’t do!” There’s no such thing. There’s no job in this country that couldn’t be filled if every illegal disappeared tomorrow — but, here’s the catch: the crooked business owners who are knowingly hiring the illegals might have to pay what the job is worth instead of hiring people who let everyone else pay their health care, pay their car insurance, and pay their share of the taxes.
3) We’re importing poverty. It’s no secret that the majority of illegals are uneducated manual laborers. In fact, that’s supposed to be one of their selling points, isn’t it? Don’t advocates of amnesty say we need illegals to do the dirty, hard, manual labor that “Americans won’t do?” But even if that were true, which it’s not, people with very limited skills often turn into liabilities for a society as they age. There aren’t a lot of people picking oranges and scrubbing floors at fifty years old. In other words, in order to help crooked business owners get cheap labor today, the rest of society has to be burdened with people who are going to cost society far more than they ever pay in taxes. Are American taxpayers so unburdened that we want to actually bring in even more people to carry on their backs?
4) It rewards bad behavior. It’s against the law to enter this country illegally. It’s against the law to buy fake documents or steal someone’s social security number. It’s against the law not to pay your taxes. So after all of that, we’re going to give people citizenship? What message does that send to all the immigrants filling out reams of paperwork, paying out significant chunks of their paychecks, and waiting for years in their home countries to finally achieve their dream of becoming an American citizen? Here’s the message it sends: You’re a chump! This is something you don’t normally have to say to people north of five years old, but it’s not smart to reward bad behavior and punish good behavior.
5) It cheapens and demeans our country. Is this Cuba? Is this Afghanistan? Is this Rwanda? Are we such a garbage dump of a nation that we have to desperately give citizenship to anybody and everybody we can find? Newsflash: This is the greatest nation God has seen fit to raise up in the history of mankind. We can not only have the cream of the crop from other nations; we can ask them to wait in line, obey our laws, and prove themselves — and the ones worth having will do it because this is the place people all over the world dream of coming one day. American citizenship is a precious thing and it shouldn’t be given to people whose first act upon American soil was to violate our laws.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )How to Stifle Speech
When will we realize that the terrorists are using our own laws against us? They speak up and promote hate towards us and we call it ‘free speech’, meanwhile WE can’t say speak out against them and their radical views or it’s called hate speech. Somebody in power needs to have the guts to call them out on this and put a stop to it. Unfortunately our president is more on their side than ours.
How to Stifle Speech
by Cliff May
There’s an old Soviet joke in which an American tells a Russian: “In my country we have freedom of speech. I can stand in front of the White House and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!’ and nothing will happen to me. The Russian replies: “In my country, we have the same freedom. I can stand in front of the Kremlin and yell, ‘Nixon is an idiot!’ and nothing will happen to me either.
Updated for the 21st century, the joke might go like this: A Christian tells a Muslim: “In the West, we have freedom of speech. I can go to the Vatican and yell ‘Christianity is a crock!’ and nothing will happen to me.” The Muslim replies: “We have just as much freedom in the Muslim world. I can go to Mecca and yell: ‘Christianity is a crock!’ and nothing will happen to me either.
The fact is very few Muslim-majority countries are free countries. A Muslim who wants to speak his mind without fear, practice his religion as he chooses, and vote for or against politicians in fair elections is better off living in the West than in any of the more than four dozen nations that hold membership in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
But even in the West, freedom is an endowment, not an entitlement. Generation after generation must have the courage to defend what we used to call, without embarrassment, “the blessings of liberty.”
That means recognizing that a war is being waged against what we used to call, also without embarrassment, the Free World. This war is being waged by an enemy many are reluctant to name: Islamists. They are fighting not only with AK-47s and I.E.D.s in such places as Afghanistan and Somalia. They also are fighting with actions, ideas and laws in such places as Europe and America. They are fighting a pitched battle against freedom of speech — the right without which other rights cannot be protected.
And, at this moment, the West is putting up a feeble defense. We are accepting government prohibitions on the thoughts we may express, we are allowing extremists to shout us down and shut us up, and we are self-censoring out of fear or faux-sensitivity. A few examples?
Start with the Dutch government’s prosecution of Geert Wilders, a Member of Parliament who has expressed unfavorable opinions of the Islamic faith and the Koran. Such views may cause offense. But they cannot be criminalized in any country that values freedom.
Would anyone consider prosecuting a Muslim or an atheist for making hostile comments about Christianity or Jesus or the Bible? In 1987, Andres Serrano offended many people with “Piss Christ,” his photograph of a crucifix submerged in a container of urine. Not only was he not prosecuted – he was awarded a prize in a contest sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts (which speaks volumes not only about American freedom but also about the tastes of the “arts community”).
And when Louis Farrakhan, after a visit to Libya, called Judaism a “gutter religion” was there anyone – no matter how outraged – who proposed sending the Nation of Islam leader to prison?
Those who defend the prosecution of Wilders contend that his statements amount to “hate speech.” And that, they assert, is dangerous and therefore must be outlawed. They point to the existence of “hate crimes” in the United States and say it’s more or less the same thing.
But it’s not. The idea behind “hate crimes” is that the law should differentiate between someone who hits you on the head because he wants your wallet, and someone who hits you on the head because you’re black, or Jewish, or Muslim or homosexual. The latter, it is argued, is worse than the former and so merits additional punishment. I have always been doubtful about that proposition. But more to the point: There has been from the start the concern that hate crimes would lead where they have led in the Netherlands and elsewhere: to justifying the criminalization of thought and expression — even in the absence of any act of violence.
Meanwhile, as Mark Steyn notes, a film titled “The Assassination of Geert Wilders” has been produced and promoted – by a Dutch government-funded radio station. No one is being prosecuted for hate speech as a result of that.
Another battle against free speech was called to my attention by Ali H. Alyami, Executive Director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Human Rights in Saudi Arabia. He sent me a video of Michael Oren, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S., at the University of California, Irvine. Alyami suggested I watch it because, he said, it represents a “threat to our freedom of expression.”
It shows a lecture hall in which Oren is to give a talk. A group of students, many but not all foreign and Muslim, have taken seats around the hall. Every few seconds one rises and begins to shout at Oren. Guards lead that individual out. Oren begins again – and another individual stands up, shouts and is led out. The goal is to prevent Oren from completing a single thought – and prevent the audience from hearing what he has to say.
University officials insist such behavior is intolerable – but do you think they’ll actually take the tough measures necessary to prevent such brown-shirt tactics in the future? And what do such episodes say about the values the students are learning from their professors? Is there any reason to believe they – the students or their professors – understand anything about the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
One more battle to consider before I let you go: Last year, Yale University Press published The Cartoons that Shook the World, a book about the controversy over the 12 drawings ridiculing Islamist terrorism which were published in a Danish newspaper, the Jyllands-Posten, in 2005.
Soon after, the OIC demanded that the United Nations impose international sanctions on Denmark and it circulated a dossier that contained not just the cartoons but examples of other European insults – most of which were fabricated. Especially memorable was a picture of a man wearing a pig mask, captioned: “Here is the real image of Mohammed.”It was eventually revealed that this was a photo of a Frenchman at a pig-squealing contest; nothing to do with Mohammed. Nevertheless, coupled with the cartoons, it enraged Muslims in many countries, some of whom took to the streets, rioting, setting fires, assaulting anyone who looked European. More than 100 people were killed.
With this as backdrop, Yale decided to exclude the cartoons from the book on the cartoons, and to omit, as well, any images of Mohammed, including those by the 19th century French artist Paul Gustave Doré and the 20th century Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí. Was that because Yale’s executives feared violence? Or, as Roger Kimball has suggested, was it out of deference to Saudi Arabian donors? Either way, it’s hard not to view Yale’s decision as an act of pre-emptive surrender.
The OIC, in its 1990 “Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” declares that “Everyone shall have the right to express his opinion freely — but then adds: “in such manner as would not be contrary to the principles of the Sharia,” which is to say Islamic law as interpreted by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya and other despotic members of this international religious/political alliance.
Theirs is not a different view of freedom of speech: It is a death sentence for freedom of speech. And it is what they intend not only for the lands they now rule but globally. What does it tell us that they are finding so many people in the West willing – indeed, eager — to assist them?
LINK: http://townhall.com/columnists/CliffMay/2010/02/25/how_to_stifle_speech
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Corruptocrat Eric Holder’s National Security Cover-Up
CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION!!! It’s unbelievable how crooked this administration is and how the MSM gives it a free pass no matter how many rules it breaks. This is clearly a conflict of interest.
Corruptocrat Eric Holder’s National Security Cover-Up
by Michelle Malkin
The White House wants to play Transparency Olympics with the Tea Party movement. President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer Andrew McLaughlin dared Tea Party activists and conservatives last week to “push the administration to make its policies more open” and make it a “political competition … to see who can be more radical in their openness,” The Hill reported. So, let’s start by knocking down Attorney General Eric Holder’s national security stonewall at the Department of Justice, shall we? Let the sun shine in.
For more than a year, I’ve been writing about the looming national security and conflict-of-interest problems posed by Holder’s status as a former partner at the prestigious law firm Covington and Burling. The company currently represents or has provided pro bono representation and sob-story media-relations campaigns in the past to more than a dozen Gitmo detainees from Yemen who are seeking civilian trials on American soil.
The firm wasn’t just a bit player. It led the charge, contributing more than 3,000 hours to Gitmo litigation in 2007, according to The American Lawyer. At least one known Covington big shot and fellow former Clintonite, Lanny Breuer, now works for Holder as head of the DOJ’s criminal division. Though he himself did not participate in the detainee cases, Holder’s celebrity undoubtedly boosted company-wide prestige.
How many of Holder’s former colleagues and associates are now on the DOJ payroll? How many like them, who worked at other law firms or for left-wing lobbying groups, now inhabit DOJ offices? How many of them have been allowed to work on government terrorism cases related to their past crusades for al-Qaida-tied clients? How many have had to recuse themselves — and have those recusals been full and forthcoming? How can the public judge whether these lawyers are representing America’s best interests — or those of the jihadis?
GOP Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa has been trying to get answers. DOJ information suppressors have snubbed him repeatedly. As the Washington Examiner’s Byron York reported on Friday, Holder has now acknowledged that “at least” nine Obama appointees in the Justice Department “have represented or advocated for terrorist detainees before joining the Justice Department.” But the tight-lipped, taxpayer-funded litigators at the agency won’t name names or cough up any relevant details.
Grassley asked for “the names of political appointees in the Department who represented detainees (or) worked for organizations advocating on behalf of detainees … the cases or projects that these appointees worked on with respect to detainees prior to joining the Justice Department … and the cases or projects relating to detainees that they have worked on since joining the Justice Department. …” Beyond two DOJ appointees whose work for jihadi defendants had already been made public, Holder gave up nothing. Zip. Zilch.
It’s not even clear that the Gitmo Nine are the end of the line. The list is not a comprehensive tally of DOJ appointees, Holder told Grassley and other GOP senators who pressed for public disclosure. Why not? What are they trying to hide? Who are they trying to spare?
Americans have a right to know whether they are subsidizing jihadi sympathizers, and whether their Justice Department is now a sanctuary for human rights transnationalists and little terrorists’ helpers in the mold of Lynne Stewart, who was convicted of abetting Muslim terrorist mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman and spreading messages inciting violence on his behalf while representing him.
Americans have a right to know whether Holder — who put political interests ahead of security interests at the Clinton Justice Department in both the Marc Rich pardon scandal and the Puerto Rican FALN terrorist debacle — has made hiring decisions that provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.
Tellingly, Holder has treated the GOP’s national security concerns dismissively. He’s hoping his nonresponsive blow-off of Grassley’s request will die on the vine. And just as he used his past lapses in judgment during the Clinton era to argue that they made him more qualified for the job he holds now, Holder argues that the phantom jihadi lawyers on the DOJ payroll are a good thing for the country, so we should just shut up:
“A prosecutor of white-collar fraud cases may have previously represented defendants in such cases. This familiarity with and experience in the relevant area of law redounds to the government’s benefit.”
As usual, Holder puts ordinary civilian crimes on the same footing as terrorism plots and acts of war against our country. But why not let the people decide for themselves whether his staff decisions redound to their benefit? “The American people have the right to information about their government’s activities,” Holder himself said in a press release trumpeting new freedom of information rules last year. Put up or shut up, Mr. Attorney General.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )The Evangelical Left’s Anti-Israel Slant
I just don’t get this at all!! I have never cared for Brian McLaren and I care for him even less now!! His anti-Israel stand is very disturbing!
The evangelical left’s anti-Israel slant
Chad Groening – OneNewsNow – 2/1/2010
The head of a Protestant renewal organization is calling out a prominent member of the so-called “evangelical left” for leading a delegation on an anti-Israel pilgrimage.
Brian McLaren is the founding pastor of the Cedar Ridge Community Church in the Baltimore area, which is part of the “Emergent Church” movement. He recently led a delegation through Israel and the West Bank decrying alleged pro-Israel partiality.
Mark Tooley, president of The Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD), says McLaren’s positions are clearly anti-Israel. He says that according to McLaren, the Jewish nation is “a western imperialist power that is oppressing the Palestinians — who are, in contrast, an impoverished Third World victim…suffering because of American economic and military support for Israel.”
In addition, says Tooley, McLaren believes in a moral equivalency between Israel defending itself and Palestinians launching terrorist attacks.
“For example, Brian McLaren — like many on the evangelical left — gives a great deal of attention to Israel’s security fence, which of course has been largely successful in keeping suicide bombers from infiltrating Israel,” says the IRD president. “But as McLaren and others on the evangelical left portray it, it’s a tragic and terrible symbol that is inflicting untold suffering on the Palestinians.”
In a recent blog, McLaren described that security fence as a “segregation wall.”
Tooley says McLaren and his ilk do not favor a two-state solution, but rather a one-state solution that dissolves the Jewish state of Israel and replaces it with one where Muslims are in the majority.
LINK: http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=878808
Here are a couple of other sites where you can get more info on this:
http://www.prophecynewswatch.com/2010/January28/2851.html
http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/27/the-anti-israel-revelation/
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Mall to Christians: God Talk Banned!
Christians, is this enough to wake you up?? This happens to be a mall near me so it hits home even more.
“Under the mall’s rules, shoppers are not allowed to engage in conversations about potentially controversial topics like religion or politics, unless they already know the person they are talking to. Another mall rule bans the wearing of any clothing with religious or political messages.”
Mall to Christians: God talk banned!
Rules challenged as violating ‘principles of free expression’
Posted: January 30, 2010
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
Arguments have moved to the appellate court level in a California case in which a man who talked to two willing strangers in a shopping mall was arrested because the subject of the conversation was God.
The case developed several years ago when a youth pastor was arrested at the Galleria Mall in Roseville, Calif., for having a conversation about religion with two other people.
Matthew Snatchko, who works with youth at his church, was interrupted in the middle of the conversation by a security guard. A second guard joined the confrontation and told Snatchko he was being placed under citizen’s arrest for “trespassing.”
The pastor said he agreed to leave but instead, the guards grabbed him, roughly shoved him against a storefront window and handcuffed him tightly enough to draw blood. Snatchko later was taken to the police station where he was booked on charges of battery and trespassing.
A short time later the charges were dropped, but the Pacific Justice Institute decided to pursue a case against the mall over the impact of the policy on free speech.
After a Placer County Superior Court judge in 2008 affirmed the mall’s regulations, an appeal was launched to the 3rd Appellate District in Sacramento, and the briefs have just now been completed for that court’s review.
“It’s surprising that mall owners think they can arrest patrons for engaging in casual conservations,” said PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds. “While a ‘don’t talk to strangers’ rule may be good for kids, enforcing it against adults is absurd, and we think it violates California’s free speech guarantees.”
The case is being pursued under the state’s constitutional provision for free speech, which extends protections to private locations, because the First Amendment to the Constitution deals directly with government restrictions.
McReynolds said had the case been argued in federal court, it would have had to focus on the discriminatory nature of the mall’s restrictions.
“Singling out religious speech for punishment violates our most basic principles of free expression,” said PJI President Brad Dacus. “If anyone can be arrested for wearing a Christian T-shirt or mentioning God in a shopping mall, we have lost not only our freedom, but our sanity as a society.”
PJI affiliate attorney Timothy Smith of the Sacramento firm McKinley & Smith served pro bono as Snatchko’s lead counsel in the trial court and continues to serve as part of the appellate team.
McReynolds told WND the case focuses on the “draconian” limits set by the mall that were used to arrest the youth pastor. While those charges were dropped, the result of that case wasn’t a court-adjudicated precedent that could be used to protect others.
He said while reasonable regulations certainly are allowed, such as volume limits, targeting speech for banishment because of its subject is not.
“What they cannot do and did in this case [is target] political and religious speech,” he said. “They originally chose to arrest the youth pastor for striking up a casual conversation. Since then, they’ve dug in their heels and are standing firm in their belief they can do whatever they want.”
Oral arguments haven’t been scheduled by the court in the case, and there’s no time frame available yet for when a decision might be reached, McReynolds said.
But PJI’s brief to the court explained the issue.
“The underlying interest of defendants clearly relates to content. While the act of speaking is not generally prohibited, the act of speaking a particular message without a permit is,” the brief said. “Defendants argue that if they do not disagree with the message of the speech, and if the applications are accepted on a first come, first selected basis, the regulation is content neutral.
“Even if the defendants determined that the recipients of the speech might be uncomfortable due to the speech, such a basis for restricting plaintiffs speech is not content neutral.”
The mall’s regulations, besides disallowing commercial speech and speech about religion or politics, also include an exception for those subjects if a speaker knew the other person previously.
“Under the exemption, the plaintiff would have been allowed to have the same conversation in the same exact place if only he had previously met the people with whom he was speaking,” the brief challenged.
“The notion that an individual is not allowed to speak with a stranger about a non-commercial topic without first having their speech examined is preposterous, and is truly silencing in every sense of the word,” the brief said.
The mall’s rules require “a submission of the subject matter of the spoken or written speech,” the brief continued. “Defendants’ licensing process as a whole has a great deal to do with speakers’ message. Not only does the application process require an examination of the subject matter, but plaintiff was actually referred to the licensing application process only after the security guard listened to the content of plaintiff’s speech.”
Officials with Westfield Group, the corporation that owns the mall, did not respond to a WND message requesting comment.
The company’s website says it entered the U.S. market in 1977 by purchasing a single shopping center and today has 55 centers across the U.S. in key markets such as northern California, Chicago, southern Florida, Los Angeles, New Jersey, New York, San Diego and Washington.
“The Westfield Group is the world’s largest listed retail property group by equity market capitalization. The Group has interests in and operates a global portfolio of 119 high-quality regional shopping centers in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, valued at more than $62 billion. Westfield works with over 23,600 retailers across more than 10 million square meters of retail space,” it boasts.
Pacific Justice said Snatchko originally was confronted during a casual conversation with two other shoppers about faith when a store employee listened to the conversation and alerted mall security guards.
Besides the ban on conversations with strangers about religion or politics, the mall also bans any clothing with religious or political messages.
LINK: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=123535
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Seven Huge Flaws in the Way That Liberals Think
I could not agree more!!!!
Seven Huge Flaws in the Way That Liberals Think
By John Hawkins
ChronWatch
1) Liberals believe they can change human nature. Sure, human beings can be shaped and molded to a certain extent. Any parent who has spanked a child can tell you that. However, most people care more about what they’re having for lunch today than an earthquake that kills ten thousand people on the other side of the world. We’re just built that way and no amount of sensitivity training, preschool classes, or Michael Moore documentaries is going to “fix” it.
2) Liberals believe we can talk everything out with our enemies. One of the weirder quirks of liberalism is their belief that many of our bitterest enemies have rational reasons for disliking us and that can easily be talked away if they realize we’re good people. Hence, the common liberal refrain of, “Why do they hate us?” The reason this is a particularly odd belief is that liberals don’t even believe this about conservatives in the United States. The average liberal thinks that if we’re nice enough, we can reach an understanding with Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck can’t be reasoned with.
3) Liberals don’t have enough respect for our culture and traditions: To liberals, our cultural, economic, and political norms were formed by backwards troglodytes making arbitrary decisions based on superstition and racism. Unfortunately for them, as a general rule, that’s not so and proceeding as if it is, will often lead to exactly the same difficulties that our ancestors already dealt with in times past. No matter how smart we are, as Thomas Sowell would say, our wisdom is often no match for the “distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.” Truly wise people are aware that there is a great deal that they do not know.
4) Liberalism is a fundamentally immoral political philosophy. Ironically, given all their talk about “shades of gray,” liberals have a very Manichean view of the world. They consider their fellow travelers to be on the side of the angels, while the people who disagree with them are treated as evil. This leads to an “anything goes” mentality when dealing with their foes: ignoring the law via a “living constitution,” politically based prosecutions, shouting down opposing speakers, and treating lying about their agenda or opponents to be moral. On the other hand, liberals will support other libs, no matter how corrupt, sleazy, or vile they are as long as they’re politically useful to the left. See Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, John Murtha, and Robert Byrd for examples of that. In other words, as Margaret Thatcher has said of the Left, “For them, the end always seems to justify the means.”
5) Liberals believe merely being liberal makes them good people. Liberals who’re obsessed with money think they’re compassionate because they give away other people’s tax dollars. They believe they care more about the earth than other people, even as they fly around in private jets, because they babble on about global warming. They can be dumb as a rock, but believe they’re smarter than most other people because they’re liberals. In other words, in the minds of most liberals, liberalism is an all-purpose substitute for actual virtue instead of just another political philosophy.
6) Liberals have too much faith in government. Even most liberals would admit that government regularly fails the people. If you don’t believe that, just ask them about the Bush administration and they’ll give you an earful. However, liberals tend to believe that with the right person in charge, government won’t be so slow, stupid, inefficient, and badly run. Human history proves that they’re wrong about that.
7) Liberals have minimal interest in whether the programs they support work or not. To most liberals, whether a government program betters people’s lives is completely irrelevant to whether they’ll support it. A program that doesn’t work and costs billions, but sounds compassionate and helps Democrats politically is a huge success in the eyes of the left. Once you understand that liberals think this way, their baffling support for programs that make no “common sense” is much easier to understand.
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