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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Court</title>
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		<title>Supporting Terrorists&#8217; Families</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/supporting-terrorists-families/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=supporting-terrorists-families</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:02:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamoked]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[home demolition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lawyers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new israel fund]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Yehuda Glick]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246617</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel's NGO fifth column. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IMG_6091-1024x682.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246762" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IMG_6091-1024x682-450x337.jpg" alt="IMG_6091-1024x682" width="362" height="271" /></a>A few days ago <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/the-extremist-radical-new-israel-fund-and-its-funders/">I wrote about the radical, extremist New Israel Fund and</a> their support for groups that hurt the State of Israel.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Israel’s Supreme Court issued a stay and agreed to rule on the planned demolition of several terrorists&#8217; Jerusalem homes, including the terrorist who tried to kill American-born Rabbi Yehuda Glick, the terrorist who slammed his tractor into a bus, two who drove their cars into people near train stops, and those who murdered five Israelis a few weeks ago in a brutal massacre during morning prayers in Jerusalem.   The day after that synagogue attack in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered law enforcement to destroy the homes in question.  The following day, one murderers’ home was destroyed – until the radical extremist organization Hamoked petitioned the Supreme Court on behalf of the terrorists and their families.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><span style="color: #1255cc;"><a href="http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4598738,00.html">As this article in Yediot Achronot notes,</a></span> Hamoked is representing the families of terrorists. Hamoked is a grantee of the <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/torossian-extremist-radical-new-israel-fund">New Israel Fund</a>, which has provided $688,901 worth of grants from 2008-2013.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One can plainly see on Hamoked’s website their <span style="color: #1255cc;"><a href="http://www.hamoked.org/help-hamoked.aspx">New Israel Fund partnership</a></span>. Donors of New Israel Fund, which funds Hamoked, include Irwin and Joan Jacobs, the Fohs Foundation, the Bonnie and Marty Tenenbaum Foundation, the Edith and Henry Everett Foundation, The Irving Harris Foundation, Susie and Michael Gelman, and others.</p>
<p style="color: #1255cc;"><span style="color: #232323;">A few weeks ago, a major donor to the New Israel Fund, the Leichtag Foundation, responded to my criticism by saying that their donations &#8220;<a href="http://www.sdjewishworld.com/2014/11/18/leichtag-foundation-supporting-anti-israel-groups/">involves the prerogative</a> of a private foundation making determinations on best use of its resources. We are confident that our grant to the New Israel Fund was in line with our strategies and objectives and feel the money was well-spent.</span></p>
<p style="color: #232323;">They can spend their money how they want – yet Ms. Charlene Seidle, executive vice president of the Leichtag Foundation, is the incoming President and Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego and this is an inappropriate job for someone with these extremist viewpoints. The incoming CEO of a major Jewish organization helps fund causes which benefit the families of Arab terrorists who kill Jews in Jerusalem.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As <em>The Algemeiner Journal</em> reported New Israel Fund is “a controversial foundation that supports dozens of Israel related causes, many of which are considered hostile to the Jewish State.” <a href="http://observer.com/2014/11/new-israel-fund-supports-groups-that-hurt-the-jewish-state/">The New Israel Fund supports groups that hurt the Jewish State.</a> People give charity for many different causes – but those that help protect the families of terrorists would be the people Lenin spoke of when he called people who work against their people’s own best interests in support of their enemies &#8220;useful idiots.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">As Benjamin Netanyahu once said, “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.”</p>
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		<title>Obama DOJ Refuses to Release Fast and Furious Docs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/obama-doj-refuses-to-release-fast-and-furious-docs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-doj-refuses-to-release-fast-and-furious-docs</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 04:27:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[documents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Eric Holder]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Fast and Furious]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stonewall]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241322</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will the administration be able to run out the clock? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/holder-leaks-.jpeg-1280x9601.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241326" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/holder-leaks-.jpeg-1280x9601-382x350.jpg" alt="holder-leaks-.jpeg-1280x960" width="332" height="304" /></a>The &#8220;<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/283335-obama-this-is-the-most-transparent-administration-in-history"><span style="color: #1255cc;">most transparent administration in history</span></a>&#8221; is once again revealing the rank hypocrisy of President Obama&#8217;s assessment. In a motion filed Monday night, lawyers from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2014/09/holder-presses-delay-on-fast-and-furious-documents-195556.html?hp=r7"><span style="color: #1255cc;">asked</span></a> U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson to delay the transfer of documents related to the Fast and Furious gun-running scandal to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, until after her rulings requiring that transfer can be appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. If their bid is successful, it could push the appeals process past the Obama administration&#8217;s time in office. In short, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is trying to run out the clock.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Last July, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia <a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/federal-court-orders-obama-administration-release-fast-furious-information/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">ordered</span></a> the DOJ to turn over a &#8220;Vaughn index&#8221; of all Fast and Furious-requested documents sought by Judicial Watch, which had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in June 2012. The records sought by Judicial Watch were those withheld from the Oversight Committee when President Obama cited executive privilege in a transparent effort to protect his Attorney General. U.S. District Court Judge John D. Bates lifted the 16-month delay, despite contentions by the DOJ that turning over the records would interfere with litigation between the agency and the Oversight Committee, which had subpoenaed the same documents.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Bates&#8217; ruling was clear:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">In the [February 15, 2013] order granting the stay, this court explicitly noted that the DOJ ‘does not seek, and the court will not award, an indefinite stay pending ultimate resolution of the House Committee litigation,’ and  that ‘the benefits of delaying this case might well [become] too attenuated to justify any further delay …Because many of the issues to be resolved in this case do not overlap with the House committee, and because resolving those issues will not risk upsetting the delicate balance of powers in subpoena disputes between the political branches, the Court will require DOJ to produce a Vaughn index here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Bates also noted that no court has ever “expressly recognized” the executive privilege claims made by Obama preventing these documents from being seen by Congress and the American public.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">A month later, with the dispute now being adjudicated by Berman, the DOJ was also ordered to turn over a &#8220;privilege log,” a.k.a. a list of the documents being withheld. Both orders were supposed to be fulfilled by Oct. 1, 2014.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">On Monday the DOJ made it clear they will make yet another attempt to defy both orders. &#8220;The Department respectfully submits that it would be preferable for the parties, this Court, and the D.C. Circuit — if an appeal were taken — to have any injunctive order await the conclusion of the district court litigation to allow for orderly and complete appellate proceedings,&#8221; DOJ lawyers wrote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The additional documents run to 64,000 pages and relate directly to the operation that saw as many as 2000 firearms &#8220;walked&#8221; into Mexico &#8212; and into the hands of drug cartel leaders. These weapons have shown up at as many as <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Murdock/Fast-and-Furious-Mexico-Terry-guns/2012/07/11/id/445080/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">200 crime scenes</span></a> in Mexico, and are responsible for the murder or wounding of approximately 300 Mexicans, including 14 Mexican teenagers who were killed, along with 12 wounded, during a birthday party in Ciudad Juarez in January 2010. F&amp;F weapons were also used to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/10/us/fast-and-furious-sentence/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">murder</span></a> Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, who was killed December 14, 2010 while on night patrol in the Arizona desert near the Mexican border, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent Jaime Zapata, who was <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/request-to-justice-department-ig-investigate-ice-agent-zapata-murder/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">killed</span></a> on Feb. 15, 2011.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It is critical information about this trail of carnage the DOJ is desperately trying to suppress. Furthermore, as seen in the <a href="http://images.politico.com/global/2014/09/16/holderfandfnondisclosurerationale.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filing</span></a>, The DOJ may withhold the documents regardless of the court order, claiming that because it &#8220;is clearly injunctive in nature, the Department would be entitled to appeal it as a matter of right.&#8221; The DOJ further insists that such an appeal was a &#8220;temporal request&#8221; aimed at avoiding &#8220;intermediate injunctive orders that could generate multiple piecemeal appeals.&#8221; If the Court doesn&#8217;t buy it, Holder and company want an extension to December 15, 2014, using the rationale that the Court has extended the deadline for producing the log until November 3, 2014.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It should be noted that the mid-term elections occur on Nov. 4. It should also be noted that the DOJ has stonewalled the Fast and Furious investigation for three years, despite numerous subpoenas issued by Oversight Committee chairman Darryl Issa (R-CA), who began issuing them shortly after the GOP gained control of the House in the 2010 election. By June 2011 the DOJ&#8217;s delaying tactics were so transparent, Issa began threatening Holder with contempt citations. On June 28, 2012, Holder became the first sitting Cabinet member in history to be <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77988.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">held</span></a> in contempt of Congress. The vote of 255-67 included 17 Democrats who supported the criminal contempt resolution.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Twenty-seven months later, nothing has changed. The DOJ continues to subvert the law, even as Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media continue to insist &#8212; as they do with every scandal afflicting the Obama administration &#8212; that the investigation amounts to little more than a politically-motivated witch hunt.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) is approaching the problem in a different way. On Wednesday, he proposed <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/17/top-goper-says-its-time-dissolve-atf/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">completely eliminating</span></a> the agency at the heart of the scandal. The <a href="http://sensenbrenner.house.gov/uploadedfiles/atf_elimination_act_bill_text.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">ATF Elimination Act</span></a> seeks to &#8220;abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, transfer its functions relating to the Federal firearms, explosives, and arson laws, violent crime, and domestic terrorism to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and transfer its functions relating to the Federal alcohol and tobacco smuggling laws to the Drug Enforcement Administration, and for other purposes.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Sensenbrenner believes the benefits of the bill will be twofold, as in a chance to streamline government, and clean up a scandal-ridden agency. &#8220;Washington should be responsible stewards of the American taxpayers’ money,” he said in a statement about the bill. He continued:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">While all too often that is not the case, this is a good government bill to streamline agency activity at DOJ—increasing effectiveness while decreasing cost. The ATF is a largely duplicative, scandal ridden agency that lacks a clear mission. It is plagued by backlogs, funding gaps, hiring challenges and a lack of leadership. For decades it has been branded by high profile failures. There is also significant overlap with other agencies. At a time when we are approaching $18 trillion in debt, waste and redundancy within our federal agencies must be addressed. Without a doubt, we can fulfill the role of the ATF more efficiently.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Eliminating a chunk of the Executive branch might be a cathartic response for the kind of stonewalling routinely employed by Holder and company, but it doesn’t eliminate the problem. The Obama administration abides one rule of governance above all else: we’re going to do whatever we want, and we dare someone to stop us.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Pick any scandal, be it Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives, the lies at the heart of ObamaCare, the dropping of the Black Panther voter intimidation case, the seizing of AP reporter files, etc., etc., and the common thread is transparent. Aided and abetted by an in-the-tank mainstream media and see-no-evil Democrats, the Obama administration has employed an avalanche of lies, stonewalling, and disinformation aimed at producing one outcome: “scandal fatigue” among the American public.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Tragically, that strategy has been enormously successful. For the last six years, this administration has completely avoided anything resembling genuine accountability. For six years, everything has been &#8220;someone else’s fault.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Three hundred dead and wounded Mexicans and two murdered American agents deserve better. Much better.</p>
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		<title>Leftist Media Malpractice on Guatemala</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dr-armando-de-la-torre-and-steve-hecht/leftist-media-malpractice-on-guatemala/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=leftist-media-malpractice-on-guatemala</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:30:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dr. Armando de la Torre &#38; Steve Hecht]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Guatemala]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Paz y Paz]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[An international news organization turns PR agency for Guatemalan radicals.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/leoncillo-sabino.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-234725" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/leoncillo-sabino-450x337.jpg" alt="leoncillo-sabino" width="284" height="213" /></a>Guatemala has lately been a focus of international attention, and the present writers have<span style="color: #fe262c;"> </span>extensive knowledge of the politics of this country.  Even so, we were surprised when we were contacted by a reporter from the McClatchy news organization, which has a wide reach in U.S. news markets.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The reporter, a certain Benjamin Reeves, was based outside the capital, in the tourist enclave of Antigua. He said he was preparing a report on the controversy surrounding Guatemala’s attorney general, Claudia Paz y Paz, who was facing a reappointment challenge<span style="color: #151606;"> that she eventually lost</span>. As it happens, Paz y Paz has been a huge favorite among activists of the international left—including, most prominently, the Obama State Department. As Mr. Reeves described his dilemma to us, he easily found people to praise Dr. Paz y Paz but could not locate dissenting views, and he feared he was not getting the whole story. He had then learned of us and wanted to know in detail why we felt as we did.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Our surprise stemmed from the fact that, when international media cover Guatemala, they gladly do so in line with what are called progressive viewpoints. This is by now universal; even conservative media like The Wall Street Journal and Fox News have largely bought into the leftist playbook on Guatemala. No journalist anywhere is going to be in trouble for sticking to those views. Quite the opposite: danger lies in going against the canonized version of events, as we ourselves have experienced time and again.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Even so, we decided to work with Reeves. The invitation to speak with a journalist whose work reaches many thousands of people in the U.S. is not something that comes to us every day. So we opened our dossiers to Reeves; we saved him time and legwork. He talked to us with respect, and he promised to let us know when his article was published.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Reeves did not honor his word; it was only afterward that we were able to locate the <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/02/25/219352/guatemala-may-be-about-to-oust.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">article</span></a> he had written with our help. When we read his lead paragraph, we understood that this was not going to be a piece of courageous or insightful reporting: “Attorney General Claudia Paz y Paz is a small, soft-spoken woman with the quiet mannerisms of an academic, which she is. But she also displays a dogged perseverance that has made her a champion of human rights and the rule of law. And that may put her out of a job soon.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">This kind of encomium is distressingly typical of how Paz y Paz has been treated by the international press. She exemplifies those political figures who are far more popular outside their country than they are inside it. Indeed, she is the Eddie Haskell of international politics—easy to admire, as long as you don’t look around the sides.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">During her term as attorney general, Paz y Paz had a perfect understanding of her power base. It was the network of international bureaucrats who admired her statistics, and whose satisfaction became her first priority. She had no qualms about monkeying with lawful procedure for the purpose of keeping her statistics and her political profile up to snuff.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In Reeves’s account, Paz y Paz’s “most virulent critics are far right groups that say they promote the rule of law but oppose the application of human rights norms and the prosecution of crimes . . .” The facts we had shown to Reeves gave a strikingly different picture. During Paz y Paz’s tenure, her most determined critics were not rightists. They were people in her own ministry—prosecutors and other officers of the law whom the attorney general had thwarted in their efforts to apply the law fairly.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The norms of law enforcement did not support the attorney general’s agendas of statistics-padding or preferential treatment for so-called human rights groups <span style="color: #151606;">(in reality, </span>mostly<span style="color: #151606;"> left-wing militias</span>). For this reason, Paz y Paz was regularly in conflict with prosecutors whose priority was the law, rather than political maneuvering. Unlike the international bureaucrats with whom Paz y Paz played politics, those prosecutors saw the dark side of Eddie Haskell’s face; and numerous officials with long, distinguished records were forced out of the justice ministry, their careers and lives crushed by the Paz y Paz juggernaut.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Reeves’s reporting reflected none of this. It also showed a skewed understanding of human-rights issues. In an <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/05/28/228683/as-guatemala-replaces-attorney.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">article</span></a> of May 2014, decrying the appointment of Thelma Aldana as attorney general to replace Paz y Paz, he made this revealing statement: “ . . . Aldana may favor amnesty for crimes committed during the 1960-1996 civil war, and her selection is seen by many as a death knell for the genocide prosecution of Ríos Montt, who ruled 1982-1983 in a particularly brutal phase of the war.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Contrary to what Reeves suggests, amnesty in Guatemala is not a retrograde notion. It is the law of the land, a key provision of the 1996 peace accords. It reflects the fact that crimes in the fighting were committed on all sides. In the interest of national reconciliation, it grants a general pardon. The amnesty does not apply to exceptional crimes like genocide, but no genocide was observed or reported during the conflict; members of all ethnic groups had fought on different sides. That has been the Guatemalan reality.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It is most certainly not the international leftist point of view, however. In this view, to which Reeves and his bosses at McClathy subscribe, the only<a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dr-armando-de-la-torre-and-steve-hecht/power-struggle-in-guatemala/"><span style="color: #1255cc;"> crimes in Guatemala </span></a>were committed by the army and its bosses. Since former military and political leaders like Ríos Montt could not be convicted of crimes under the amnesty law, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dr-armando-de-la-torre-and-steve-hecht/obama-revealed-in-guatemala-policy/?utm_source=FrontPage+Magazine&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=c72ce1cc97-Mailchimp_FrontPageMag&amp;utm_term=0_57e32c1dad-c72ce1cc97-156990833"><span style="color: #1255cc;">the charge of genocide was fabricated </span></a>and imported after the fact. Such was Paz y Paz’s view of how to resolve the legal issues left over from the conflict. The ex-<i>guerrilla</i> faction was to be the beneficiary of reconciliation, while former military and political leaders were to be the victims of it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Reeves’s reporting, in sum, reflects a standard of shoddy journalism that admits careless political judgments as only one of its failings. The essence of the matter is this: aside from Paz y Paz herself, whom Reeves obviously interviewed, all the sources for his stories about the attorney general, with a single exception, are foreign to Guatemala.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The sources have these addresses: the University of Washington (Seattle); the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights (Washington, DC); the Open Society Foundations (New York); the Due Process of Law Foundation (Washington, DC); Human Rights Watch (New York); and George Mason University (Fairfax, VA). The author also cites statements by the Embassy of the United States and by the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, an arm of the United Nations. While those last two groups have postal addresses in Guatemala, they are not Guatemalan.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Here’s the ironic exception: the only Guatemalan group whose views are reflected in Reeves’s reporting is ours: the Pro-Patria League of Guatemala, a nonprofit association. In his report, Reeves labeled the Pro-Patria League as an organ of the extreme right—precisely the way Paz y Paz herself has described us. But our purpose, over several decades, has been to build support for the rule of law in Guatemala. In politics that is a liberal goal, not a rightist one.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It might well be that Reeves wanted to have us in his report because he needed to include <i>some</i> indigenous viewpoint. In any case, the balance is revealing. In Reeves’s journalism, as in life itself, extravagant praise for Paz y Paz came from foreigners, while skepticism came from the home ground. Paz y Paz’s defeat, which Reeves lamented, was entirely fitting, but to the international left she remains a victim and a heroine whose spirit lives on. Call it the Eddie Haskell principle; it’s alive and well and living in this country.</p>
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		<title>Hezbollah and Israel’s Lawyers-in-Chief</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/hezbollah-and-israels-lawyers-in-chief/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hezbollah-and-israels-lawyers-in-chief</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 13 Jun 2014 04:51:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233985</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How Israeli civilian interests are being subordinated to the interests of their enemies. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-233988 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600-450x300.jpg" alt="0205-Lebanon-Bulgaria-Attack-Hezbollah-fighters_full_600" width="270" height="180" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Column-One-Hezbollah-and-Israels-lawyers-in-chief-358212">Jerusalem Post</a>.</em></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">The Middle East is rapidly changing. Indeed, it is convulsing. After generations of stasis, where strong, despotic central governments ruled with an iron fist and everyone knew who he was and who he was not, today everything – borders, regimes, identities – is in flux.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Take Iraq. Last week, residents of Mosul lived under Iraqi government control. On Tuesday, they lived under al-Qaida control.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today national governments throughout the Islamic world are incapable of defeating strategically minded and aggressive jihadist militias like al-Qaida and proxy forces for the likes of Iran.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The most prominent example of an organization that is strategically flexible and capable of evolving and learning is Hezbollah. Since Iran founded the Shi’ite terrorist organization in 1982, Hezbollah has operated on multiple levels simultaneously.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Today it is an international terrorist organization with cells throughout the world. It is Iran’s foreign legion. It is a member of the Lebanese government.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">It controls south Lebanon. And it fields its own formidable military force that now serves as the core of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s military forces in the Syrian civil war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">All of these disparate tasks require an enormous capacity for organizational flexibility and learning.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This brings us to Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Leaving aside Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Hezbollah is the greatest looming threat Israel faces. In his address this week before the Herzliya Conference, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz said that Hezbollah has the sixth most powerful military in the world.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Not only does it have a missile arsenal capable of destroying strategic targets in Israel including air force bases and electrical stations, Hezbollah’s experience in Syria has provided its commanders with the capacity to carry out sophisticated ground operations unlike any Israel has seen.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet according to an article published in the latest issue of the IDF’s journal Ma’arachot by IDF intelligence officer Lt.-Col. N., the IDF’s assessment of Hezbollah’s war-fighting strategy remains frozen in time.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to N., Israel’s preparations for a future war with Hezbollah have been focused on improving its responses to Hezbollah’s operations in the Second Lebanon War eight years ago. In that war, Hezbollah was unfettered by military commitments in Syria or elsewhere. It had all the time in the world. And so, its goal was to wait Israel out and maintain the capacity to continue attacking it with missiles and rockets until the last moment of the fighting. That is, Hezbollah’s aim was to win the war by not losing it.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And as N. explains, Hezbollah accomplished its mission.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Since then, Israel has focused its efforts and resources on preventing Hezbollah from repeating its achievement by developing the means to destroy hundreds of targets at the same time.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The problem, N. explains, is that Hezbollah has moved on. Hezbollah is not the same organization it was eight years ago. It has new capabilities and new responsibilities. There is no reason for Israel to assume that Hezbollah will operate by the same playbook today that it used in 2006.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Based on speeches by Hezbollah commanders in recent years in which they called for a conquest of the Galilee, and given their expanded responsibilities and capabilities in Lebanon and Syria, N. argues that Hezbollah may prefer a short war involving a combination of missile assaults on military targets and a ground invasion of the Galilee.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">N. pointed to a number of vulnerabilities in Israel’s defenses that owe to some degree to our leadership’s focus on winning the last war rather than adapting to our to enemies’ changing capabilities and developing a full spectrum of options for defeating them.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">His article has received wide attention. But it is far from clear that his wake-up call will be heeded.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Adapting the IDF’s strategic concept to one capable of confronting Hezbollah today requires the IDF’s senior commanders to be flexible and willing to take risks. Yet Israel’s General Staff is conservative, rigid and, most importantly, risk averse.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">N. wrote that most IDF officers and soldiers were deeply disappointed and distressed about Israel’s performance in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, because they recognized that the IDF’s failure to defeat Hezbollah rendered the jihadist force the victor.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">But one faction of Israeli society viewed the war as an out-and-out victory. That faction is the legal fraternity.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Due to the widespread outrage over the war’s progression, then-prime minister Ehud Olmert was compelled to form the Winograd Commission to study the military and political leadership’s stewardship of the war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In testimony before the Winograd Commission, then-attorney-general Menahem Mazuz extolled the war as “the most ‘lawyerly’ in the history of the State of Israel, and perhaps ever.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">It wasn’t that IDF commanders put legal considerations ahead of operational and strategic goals. It was worse than that. </span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">According to Mazuz, the generals and the political leaders limited their goals from the outset to what they hoped would conform with perceived legal restrictions. This restraint, he bragged, was “the result of a sort of education and internalization that have taken place over the years.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">“I remember periods when there was a great deal of friction with the senior military level regarding what is allowed and what is prohibited. But today I think there is more or less an understanding of the rules of the game, and I can’t identify any confrontation… or… demands to ‘let the IDF win.’” According to then-IDF military advocate-general Brig.-Gen. Avi Mandelblit and Mazuz, legal advisers were present at all levels of command in all the relevant service arms and in the security cabinet.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">At each level the lawyers were asked to judge the legality of all the proposed targets and planned operations before they were carried out. And as the two explained, in their decisions, these lawyers were informed not by the goal of winning the war but by their interpretation of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Law professor Ruth Gavison, who was a member of the commission, found their testimony deeply disturbing.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">“I find this analysis harsh,” she chided. “I think that you have ignored the fact that international law is plagued with problems of selective enforcement and that the application and use of international law in the context of international conflicts is very biased and very political…. Therefore, [reliance on international law] seems to me to be a position that is possible to argue on a rhetorical level, but to internalize it as a real position, that looks to me like a strategic danger.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Unfortunately, Gavison’s warning fell on deaf ears. Not only has the power of radicalized lawyers with a distorted view of the laws of war not been rolled back in the intervening years. It has expanded, to the point where today, staff officers in the military refuse to carry out lawful instructions from the government.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">For instance, according to Haaretz, on Sunday Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was scheduled to meet with the heads of the military government’s Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria to consider ways of sanctioning the Palestinian Authority, which is now led by a Fatah- Hamas government in material breach of the agreements the PLO signed with Israel.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The civil administration was supposed to present recommendations for such sanctions for Netanyahu’s approval. But last Thursday, the civil administration’s staff officers rebelled. At a preparatory meeting, they decided to offer the prime minister no recommendations. According to Haaretz, among other things, they said they couldn’t sanction the Palestinians because it is their duty to help them. They further argued that sanctions “will be difficult to defend from a legal standpoint.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, radicalized staff levels of the IDF openly defy the government when it tries to provide for the common defense by taking action against Israel’s enemies. They then justify their actions by hiding behind amorphous and contrived legal restrictions.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Consider the long-term consequences of the Mavi Marmara incident.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In May 2010, IDF naval commandos boarded the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara to prevent it from unlawfully breaching Israel’s maritime blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Terrorists aboard the ship attacked the soldiers with knives, clubs and other weapons with the intent of killing them. The soldiers defended themselves and killed nine terrorists.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The blame-Israel-first crowd, otherwise known as the international community, accused Israel of committing war crimes.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Rather than simply reject the slanderous accusation, led by the legal fraternity, Israel played along.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As a consequence, Israel formed the Turkel Commission charged with determining whether Israel’s system of investigating charges of war crimes meets the requirement of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In the event, in February the commission submitted a 1,000-page report to Netanyahu. It concluded that Israel’s system does abide by the requirements of international law.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Yet, despite this fact, it recommended removing the authority to investigate war crimes allegations from the IDF and transferring it to the attorney- general and the military advocate-general who would no longer be subordinate to the IDF chief of General Staff.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">Moreover, the commission recommended that Israel’s political leadership and General Staff be held criminally culpable “for violations committed by their subordinates, if they do not take all reasonable measures to prevent these violations or do not bring those responsible to justice when they find out about violations after the fact.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">The strategic implications of the Turkel Commission’s recommendations are earth shattering.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">They mean that from now on, when defending Israel from its enemies, both government ministers and generals will be at the mercy of a self-appointed, radical, unaccountable legal fraternity whose interpretation of the laws of war has but a glancing relationship with the laws of war.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">As Mazuz explained its interpretation back in 2007, “The laws of war, or international humanitarian law doesn’t concern itself with relations between two states, but with the relationship between civilians and states. That is, it places the two warring states on one side of the divide and the citizens of the two states on the other side, and the goal of international law is to protect the citizens of the two states and to say: You’re big kids. You want to fight, go fight, you have rules… and the rules aim to minimize as much as possible the consequences of the war.”</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">In other words, just as the civil administration officers argued, following international law means caring more about enemy populations than you care about your own. Civilian and military leaders who seek to secure Israel are now being subordinated to lawyers whose primary concern is the enemy.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">This is a recipe for disaster.</span><br style="color: #000000;" /><br style="color: #000000;" /><span style="color: #000000;">At a time when the threats against us quickly change, grow and change again, we need political and military leaders who are courageous, creative and willing to take calculated risks. But due to our leaders’ unwillingness to challenge our imperial legal guild, we find ourselves at this dangerous juncture with no means of adjusting to strategic shifts.</span></p>
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		<title>Education Victory in California: Teacher Tenure Ruled Unconstitutional</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/education-victory-in-california-teacher-tenure-ruled-unconstitutional/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=education-victory-in-california-teacher-tenure-ruled-unconstitutional</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Jun 2014 04:40:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The court decision sending teachers unions across the country into a tailspin. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/kid_raising_hand_in_classroom_page-bg_15285.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-233739" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/kid_raising_hand_in_classroom_page-bg_15285-450x281.jpg" alt="kid_raising_hand_in_classroom_page-bg_15285" width="296" height="185" /></a>In a <a href="http://studentsmatter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Tenative-Decision.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">ruling</span></a> with major implications for the rest of the nation, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge has <a href="http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2014/06/10/37844/court-decides-vital-california-education-case/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">declared</span></a> that tenure, teacher disciplinary policies and seniority-based job protection as they currently exist in California public schools are unconstitutional. “Evidence has been elicited in this trial of the specific effect of grossly ineffective teachers on students,” Judge Rolf M. Treu wrote in his ruling. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Part of the compelling evidence in <i>Vergara v. California</i> was a “massive study” conducted in 2013 by <a href="http://studentsmatter.org/ai1ec_event/vergara-trial-day-3/?instance_id="><span style="color: #1255cc;">Dr. Raj  Chetty</span></a>, a William Henry Bloomberg Professor of Economics at Harvard. Treu noted that according to Chetty’s testimony, “a single year in a classroom with a grossly ineffective teacher costs students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings per classroom.” Harvard Professor Dr. Thomas Kane, who <a href="http://studentsmatter.org/ai1ec_event/vergara-trial-day-9/?instance_id="><span style="color: #1255cc;">based</span></a> a study of his own on Chetty’s groundbreaking work, came to equally damning conclusions. He testified that students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) taught by a teacher whose competency level is in bottom 5 percent “lose 9.54 months of learning in a single year compared to students with average teachers.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Tenure and disciplinary policy work hand in glove in that regard. Attorneys for the advocacy group Students Matter, who <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/01/27/students-sue-calif-over-teacher-tenure-seniority-policies/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filed</span></a> the lawsuit on behalf of nine public school students in 2012, successfully argued that teachers protected by tenure laws are virtually impossible to fire, no matter how bad they are. LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy reinforced that reality when he testified that it takes more than two years on average to fire a bad tenured teacher, with some cases taking as long as a <i>decade </i>to resolve. He further noted the costs for doing so can run between $250,000 and $400,000 per teacher.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Plaintiffs also insisted that the state’s tenure system, which grants teachers permanent employment after <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_25935432/l-judge-strikes-down-californias-laws-teacher-tenure"><span style="color: #1255cc;">approximately 18 months</span></a> on the job, is an inadequate amount of time to determine a teacher’s effectiveness. Dr. David Berliner, Professor of Education at Arizona State University, reinforced that notion <a href="http://studentsmatter.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/SM_Plaintiffs-Closing-Argument-Presentation_03.27.14.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">testifying</span></a> that a probationary period of &#8220;three or even five years” would be far more effective. In his ruling, Treu noted that Berliner estimated as many as 1-3 percent of California teachers are “grossly ineffective.” Since there are approximately 275,000 teachers statewide, 2,750 to 8,250 of them fall into that category. Treu ruled that such a reality has &#8220;a direct, real appreciable and negative impact on a significant number of California students now and well into the future for as long as said teachers hold their positions.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Kane’s study revealed that most of those students affected by bad teachers are black and Hispanic. Black students are 43 percent more likely than white students to have a teacher in the bottom 5 percent of competency inflicted upon them, while Hispanic students are 68 percent more likely than whites to endure the same fate. The educational “deficits” arising from such “disparate impact” amount to 1.08 months of schooling lost every year for black students, and 1.55 months of schooling lost every year for Hispanic students, relative to their white counterparts. Kane noted that these disparities occur even when schools do not have predominantly minority student populations.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Kane further testified that the so-called “achievement gap” is exacerbated by this ongoing reality. “Rather than assign them more effective teachers to help close the gap with white students they’re assigned less effective teachers, which results in the gap being slightly wider in the following year,” he explained.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Seniority-based job protection, more familiarly known as “first in, last out,” contributes to the overall problem as well. It is the policy whereby any teacher layoffs are based on seniority rather than the competency of the teachers involved. Superintendent Deasy and former mayor Antonio Villaraigosa spoke out against the practice. So did Treu, who cited the iconic case of<em> Brown v. Board of Education</em> while tying seniority to tenure and discipline policies to reach his decision. “Substantial evidence makes it clear to this Court that the Challenged Statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students,” Treu wrote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">After ruling the statutes unconstitutional, he stayed all injunctive issues until they could be reviewed by an appellate court. He further noted it was the job of the state legislature, not the courts, to replace the current laws with new ones that “pass constitutional muster, thus providing each child in this state with a basically equal opportunity to achieve a quality education.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Unsurprisingly, the two teachers unions involved in the case plan to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/california-teacher-job-protections-struck-down-in-students-suit-1402422428"><span style="color: #1255cc;">appeal</span></a> the decision. &#8220;We don&#8217;t believe the court is the place to be making these kinds of policy decisions,&#8221; said Frank Wells, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association who added that the ruling &#8220;is not going to help kids in badly managed school districts; it&#8217;s only going to make things worse. We are confident that we will prevail on appeal,” he added. Joshua Peshtal, President of the California Federation of Teachers, was also <a href="http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2014/06/10/judge-rules-calif-teacher-tenure-laws-unconstitutional/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">upset</span></a>. “We believe the judge fell victim to the anti-union, anti-teacher rhetoric of one of America’s finest corporate law firms,” he declared. Alex Caputo-Pearl, the president-elect of the Los Angeles teachers union, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-teacher-protections-ruling-20140610-story.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">called</span></a> the decision &#8220;an attack on teachers, which is a socially acceptable way to attack children,” adding that instead of providing for smaller classes or more counselors, “you attack teacher and student rights.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Attorneys from both sides also voiced their opinions. “This is a monumental day for California’s public education system,” said plaintiff’s attorney Theodore Boutrous. “By striking down these irrational laws, the court has recognized that all students deserve a quality education. Today’s ruling is a victory not only for our nine plaintiffs; it is a victory for students, parents, and teachers across California.” Union lawyer James Finberg insisted the statutes prevent favoritism and politics from determining who is hired and retained, further claiming that three months is all that is necessary for administrator to make a “well-informed decision” regarding whether a probationary teacher should be kept on the job. Other lawyers representing teachers echoed the former sentiment, adding that socio-economic inequalities and school funding are far more important factors in determining the quality of an education.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Parties have 15 days to file objections. The California Attorney General&#8217;s office was non-committal. &#8220;We are reviewing the tentative ruling and consulting with our clients,&#8221; said Nick Pacilio, spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris. A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown declined to comment on the ruling.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Beatriz Vergara, for whom the suit was named, was one of nine students who said they filed the litigation because they were given teachers who lost control of their classrooms, and came to those classrooms unprepared to teach. The students also insisted that on occasion, some teachers told them they’d never amount to anything.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Both sides in this case do agree on one thing: this ruling will reverberate far beyond California. David Welch, a Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and founder of Students Matter, has indicated his willingness to take on teachers unions in other states, especially states where teachers unions have been powerful enough to thwart legislative efforts to change the status quo. It is a status quo long defined by the symbiotic alliance between the Democratic Party and the teachers unions whose campaign contributions to the party elicit what is arguably the most transparent and despicable jobs-protection racket in the nation. A jobs-protection racket that has consigned millions of students, an increasing percentage of which are <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1812"><span style="color: #1255cc;">inner-city minorities</span></a>, to decade after decade of sub-par education. It is a sub-par education that unequivocally “shocks the conscience.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Canada On Verge of Banning Christians from Professional Life</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/lea-singh/canada-on-verge-of-banning-christians-from-professional-life/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=canada-on-verge-of-banning-christians-from-professional-life</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 May 2014 04:15:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lea Singh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Trinity Western University]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Private Christian universities await a tense court battle. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/image1.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226520 alignleft" alt="image" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/image1-450x340.jpg" width="315" height="238" /></a>An intense struggle is happening in the realm of professional licensing in Canada. The religious freedom of Christians and others is colliding on a grand scale with the “equality rights” of the LGBTQ identity group, and as the tide turns in favor of equality rights, we are starting to witness socially accepted ostracism of Christians by professional bodies.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On April 24th, the law society of Canada’s largest province </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/trinity-western-law-school-rejected-by-ontario-law-society-1.2621211">voted against</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> admitting among their ranks graduates of Trinity Western University, for the sole reason that the school’s </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://twu.ca/studenthandbook/university-policies/community-covenant-agreement.html">community covenant</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, which students (and teachers) voluntarily sign upon admission or hiring, reserves sexual intimacy for heterosexual marriage. </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/n-s-law-society-grants-conditional-approval-for-trinity-western-grads-1.2622367">Nova Scotia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> followed suit, wording their rejection as approval on the condition that TWU change its community covenant or allow students to opt out. In British Columbia, where the school is located, the law society voted on April 11th </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/trinity-western-university-s-law-school-approved-by-b-c-law-society-1.2606964">to admit</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> TWU graduates to the bar, but momentum is building for the law society to reverse that decision in a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/page.cfm?cid=3912&amp;t=Special-General-Meeting-June-10,-2014&amp;loc=banner">special meeting</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on June 10th.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Supreme Court of Canada will likely soon have a chance to settle this matter, since Trinity Western University has just </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/trinity-western-launches-court-action-to-defend-law-school-1.2633816">launched lawsuits</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> against the law societies of Ontario and Nova Scotia, rightly alleging that they failed to stick to the law and follow an earlier Supreme Court decision that approved TWU’s covenant. That 2001 decision, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://scc-csc.lexum.com/decisia-scc-csc/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1867/index.do"><i>Trinity Western University v. BC College of Teachers</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, is still good law, but many of our country’s top lawyers have become convinced that a shift in public opinion and the legalization of same-sex marriage have altered the climate enough to overturn the Court’s earlier opinion.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Such lawyers might well be right. With same-sex marriage legalized, the public debate is now strongly weighed against Christians who believe in traditional marriage, and they face rapidly mounting charges of unreasonable intolerance. During the April 11th debate by the B.C. law society (read the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/docs/newsroom/TWU-transcript.pdf">transcript</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> online), some Benchers considered TWU’s covenant discriminatory because it requires gay students to abstain from intimacy “even within a legal marriage,” and because it prevents gay students “from being married by the State, a right that was hard fought and hard won.”</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Christians Belong in the Closet</b></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As equality rights have been gaining ground, religious freedom has been on the retreat. Many lawyers now argue that even a private religious school like TWU must not be allowed to “discriminate” in its hiring practices by choosing teachers who abide by its moral tenets or by expecting students to conform their behavior to the beliefs that the school espouses.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This new “balance” between religious freedom and equality rights essentially asks TWU to enter the proverbial closet. It would mean that gay students or teachers could openly live out lifestyles that directly violate TWU’s religious values, while TWU would effectively be disabled from creating a campus life reflective of its religious beliefs.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The new reasoning holds that even as religiously-based morality is pushed out of the realm of action and into the confines of our minds, religious freedom is not being impacted. As B.C. Bencher Joe Arvay put it: “No one is asking any of their religious students or faculty to abandon their beliefs.” As long as no mind control is being applied, we are apparently free. But the mere freedom to think religious thoughts is a very narrow religious freedom indeed.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Such a restrictive understanding of religious freedom led Bencher Dean Lawton to caution the B.C. Law Society not to become “Pharisees of secularism,” and Bencher David Crossin agreed: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">[T]he right to assemble and the right to freely and openly practice religious belief&#8230;is a fundamental right in this country that is to be jealously guarded&#8230;a response that sidesteps this fundamental Canadian freedom in order to either punish TWU for its value system or force it to replace it&#8230;would risk undermining freedom of religion for all and&#8230;would be a dangerous over-extension of institutional power.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">Christians Are the New Racists</b></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Just a few years ago, it would have sounded absurd to say that Christians who believe in traditional heterosexual marriage are akin to racists. Today this opinion is quite seriously held by an increasing number of our most prominent lawyers. B.C. Bencher Cameron Ward put it this way: “I remember that in the 1960s some people in the deep south of the United States were made to feel unwelcome at lunch counters, at the fronts of buses and, indeed, in some universities&#8230;TWU’s community covenant is an anachronism, a throwback that wouldn’t be out of place in the 1960s.” Other Benchers asked “whether we would have the same debate over discrimination against other equity-seeking groups, like women, people with disabilities or racial minorities.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">What is perhaps most concerning about these comparisons of Christianity to racism and other heinous intolerance is that they lead directly to the belief that Christians are simply not capable of practicing their professions without imperilling the rights of minority groups. Just as they would feel justified in excluding those who hold racist or misogynistic beliefs from positions of influence, so many Benchers also found it right and good to exclude Christians from the legal profession. For such lawyers, Christians have become synonymous with bigots who represent a public threat.</span></p>
<p><b style="line-height: 1.5em;">What Is Next for Canada?</b></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Trinity Western University has started the process of bringing this whole matter back to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the outcome of that legal journey is far from certain. The climate has steadily shifting in favour of equality rights, and significant factions in the legal community now believe that religious freedom should be far more limited. Ontario’s law society is the largest and most influential in Canada, and its ostracism of TWU may well be heralding a new trend of exclusion of Christians from public and professional life.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If the Supreme Court decides against TWU, then surely other professional bodies will not stay far behind Ontario and Nova Scotia in excluding the graduates of TWU. Teachers already tried to do this in 2001, and emboldened by a new ruling they would surely try again. Nurses, dentists, accountants and other professionals could well follow suit.</span></p>
<p>Other Christian schools need to get ready for the domino effect. There are various independent religious schools in Canada, and many of them have covenants. Such schools should get ready for difficult decisions about putting their faith into practice. While they may be allowed to keep their covenants for the time being, they could be limiting the job opportunities of their graduates by doing so.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the future, even foreign-trained students may not find welcome in Canada if their schools profess the sanctity of traditional marriage. Many international law students arrive in Canada each year, and currently the law societies do not look at the belief systems of the schools they came from but rather, they examine the academic training these students received. All this may change if our law societies proceed further in the direction of excluding students from schools like TWU. Even American students studying at private religious schools with covenants that profess the sanctity of traditional marriage might find their future career options curtailed in Canada.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The current developments in Canada bring to mind a quote from Princeton Professor Robert George, who recently </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.catholicprayerbreakfast.com/robert_george_remarks_2014.pdf">warned</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Catholics in Washington, D.C. of a nascent persecution of Christians in our society:</span></p>
<blockquote><p>To be a witness to the Gospel today is to make oneself a marked man or woman. It is to expose oneself to scorn and reproach. To unashamedly proclaim the Gospel in its fullness is to place in jeopardy one’s security, one’s personal aspirations and ambitions, the peace and tranquility one enjoys, one’s standing in polite society. One may in consequence of one’s public witness be discriminated against and denied educational opportunities and the prestigious credentials they may offer; one may lose valuable opportunities for employment and professional advancement; one may be excluded from worldly recognition and honors of various sorts; one’s witness may even cost one treasured friendships. It may produce familial discord and even alienation from family members. Yes, there are costs of discipleship—heavy costs.</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These are the costs that Christians in Canada may indeed now have to bear, much sooner than they perhaps expected.</span></p>
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		<title>Judge Blocks Anti-Conservative Witch-Hunt in Wisconsin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/judge-blocks-witch-hunt-against-wisconsin-conservatives/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=judge-blocks-witch-hunt-against-wisconsin-conservatives</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 08 May 2014 04:50:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Conservative advocacy groups win key court battle -- but the Left vows to keep up the fight. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/scott-walker-cover-why-we-chose-620x395.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225037" alt="scott-walker-cover-why-we-chose-620x395" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/scott-walker-cover-why-we-chose-620x395-450x341.jpg" width="315" height="239" /></a>The relentless efforts by Wisconsin leftists to undermine Gov. Scott Walker and his fellow conservatives—by any means necessary—has taken another hit. In a </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://media.jrn.com/documents/doeruling.pdf">26-page decision</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Randa granted a preliminary injunction </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/05/07/judge-halts-secret-probe-wisconsin-conservative-groups-in-win-for-walker/">halting</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a politically-motivated John Doe investigation that probed campaign spending and fundraising by Gov. Scott Walker&#8217;s campaign, Eric O&#8217;Keefe, his Wisconsin Club for Growth (WCFG), and other conservative entities. &#8220;The Defendants must cease all activities related to the investigation, return all property seized in the investigation from any individual or organization, and permanently destroy all copies of information and other materials obtained through the investigation,” Randa wrote.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Randa illuminated his contempt for the investigation. &#8220;The defendants are pursuing criminal charges through a secret John Doe investigation against the plaintiffs for exercising issue advocacy speech rights that on their face are not subject to the regulations or statutes the defendants seek to enforce. This legitimate exercise of O‘Keefe‘s rights as an individual, and WCFG‘s rights as a 501(c)(4) corporation, to speak on the issues has been characterized by the defendants as political activity covered by Chapter 11 of the Wisconsin Statutes, rendering the plaintiffs a subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker (―FOSW‖) and requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution. This interpretation is simply wrong.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As a result, Randa </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://watchdog.org/143058/john-doe-judge-injunction/">ordered</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that the plaintiffs “and others” are “hereby relieved of any and every duty under Wisconsin law to cooperate further with Defendants‘ investigation. Any attempt to obtain compliance by any Defendant or John Doe Judge Gregory Peterson is grounds for a contempt finding by this Court.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The ruling completely undermines the efforts of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, who launched the probe in mid-2012, shortly after Democrats’ failure to remove Walker in a recall election prompted by the passage of </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/wisconsins-legacy-for-unions.html?_r=0">Act 10</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. That piece of legislation limited the power of unions to collectively bargain, setting the stage for a ferocious pushback that included Democratic state legislators fleeing the state to prevent a vote on the issue, an </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/news/201358491.html">effort</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to effect a liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for the purpose of overturning the law, and the attempt to remove Walker in the aforementioned recall vote that ultimately </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/guvrace06-ku5ld5b-157364555.html">failed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The unseemly probe, led by special prosecutor Francis Schmitz, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://capitolcityproject.com/homes-raided-subpoenas-issued-targeting-conservative-groups-and-allies-of-scott-walker/">targeted</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Walker and 29 conservative groups. Dozens of subpoenas </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304799404579155953286552832">were issued</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> demanding documents related to the 2011 and 2012 campaigns aimed at recalling Walker and several Republican state legislators. The probe itself expanded into a five-county investigation as a result of cooperation with the Government Accountability Board (GAB), that operates as Wisconsin’s election and campaign speech regulator. Besides Walker and the WCFG, other targeted groups included the League of American Voters, Wisconsin Family Action, Wisconsin Manufacturers &amp; Commerce, Americans for Prosperity—Wisconsin, American Crossroads, the Republican Governors Association, and the Republican Party of Wisconsin.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Because the investigation took place under the state’s John Doe law, prosecutors were empowered to issue subpoenas and conduct searches, even as gag orders prevented the targets of the probe from publicly defending themselves.While the investigation was ongoing, O’Keefe told the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Wall Street Journal</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that he was aware of at least three of the investigation’s targets being subjected to dawn raids of their homes, with law-enforcement officers seizing computers and files.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In a testament to Democratic relentlessness, this was the second probe of Walker in the last four years. In 2010, Chisholm spearhead a Joe Doe effort to investigate whether staffers used their offices for political purposes when Walker was Milwaukee County Executive. After three years Walker </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/report-scott-walker-probe-closed-with-no-new-charges-qh8vsfb-194194091.html">emerged</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> unscathed when retired Appeals Court Judge Neal Nettesheim </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://media.jsonline.com/documents/DA+Press+Release+wAtt+2013-03-01.pdf">signed an order</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> shutting down that secret investigation.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Randa </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.humanevents.com/2014/05/07/federal-judge-shuts-down-wisconsin-witch-hunt/">described</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the heavy-handed tactics employed by law-enforcement officials in the second probe. “Sheriff deputy vehicles used bright floodlights to illuminate the targets’ homes,” he wrote. “Deputies executed the search warrants, seizing business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices, while their targets were restrained under police supervision and denied the ability to contact their attorneys. Among the materials seized were many of the Club’s records that were in the possession of Ms. Jordahl and Mr. Johnson,” Randa continued. “The warrants indicate that they were executed at the request of GAB investigator Dean Nickel.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The latest injunction was a response to the civil rights lawsuit </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://watchdog.org/128317/conservative-lawsuit-civil-rights/">filed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> in February by O’Keefe and the WCFG against Chisholm, two of his assistant DAs, Schmitz, and an investigator contracted by the Government Accountability Board. That suit alleged that the John Doe investigation constituted a violation of the targeted groups&#8217; First Amendment rights in what amounted to a partisan witch-hunt aimed at punishing Walker, et al., for their recent political success. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The prosecutors-turned-defendants attempted to derail Randa’s ruling with an emergency stay </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://watchdog.org/143044/john-doe-federal-prosecutors/">filed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Monday with the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. It followed Randa’s </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://watchdog.org/128037/civil-rights-john-doe-speech/">rejection</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the previous week of a motion to stay his ruling that allowed the civil rights suit against these prosecutors to move forward. In that ruling, Randa contended the effort was nothing more than an attempt to “derail” his decision, and that he was “inclined to agree” with O’Keefe’s contention that efforts to obtain relief were frivolous. Prosecutors had contended that the federal court had no jurisdiction in the matter, citing the U.S. Constitution’s </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxi">Eleventh Amendment</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> limitation on federal judicial powers with regard to the states.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Randa didn’t buy it, asserting that “if the defendants are violating the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, the Eleventh Amendment does not apply and the plaintiffs are entitled to injunctive relief.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In this latest ruling, Randa shot down the John Doe investigators’ assertion that, even though issue advocacy that rightfully omits direct advocacy for or against a candidate is permissible, it “does not create a free-speech safe harbor when expenditures are coordinated between a candidate and a third-party organization.” They sought to portray the WCFG and other targeted organizations as a &#8220;subcommittee of the Friends of Scott Walker,&#8221; and thus subject to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/11">Chapter 11 of Wisconsin campaign finance statutes,</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> &#8220;requiring that money spent on such speech be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“This interpretation is simply wrong,” the judge wrote drawing on the recent Supreme Court decision in </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/mccutcheon-v-federal-election-commission/"><i>McCutcheon</i> v. FEC</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that invalidated </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/08/supreme-court-takes-up-the-sequel-to-citizens-united/">aggregate limits</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on campaign donations. Describing that ruling as a “a ringing endorsement of the full protection afforded to political speech,” Randa explained that while issue advocacy may involve like-minded entities sharing the same political philosophies as a candidate, such advocacy does not constitute quid quo pro. </span></p>
<p>“O‘Keefe and the Club obviously agree with Governor Walker‘s policies, but coordinated ads in favor of those policies carry no risk of corruption because the Club‘s interests are already aligned with Walker and other conservative politicians,” the ruling states. “Such ads are meant to educate the electorate, not curry favor with corruptible candidates.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">He further characterized the prosecutors’ attempt to conflate issue advocacy and express advocacy as “interpretive legerdemain.” “If correct, this means that any individual or group engaging in any kind of coordination with a candidate or campaign would risk forfeiting their right to engage in political speech,” Randa wrote.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Schmitz said late Tuesday he expects to challenge the decision by appealing to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago. &#8220;I&#8217;m virtually assured we will appeal this decision,” he declared. &#8220;I have to consult with the others and my attorney&#8221; before making a &#8220;final decision.” His attorney, Randall Crocker, issued a statement saying he &#8220;will carefully review the decision of Judge Randa and address with our client his responsibilities pursuant to his appointment and his options.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">University of Wisconsin professor Donald Downs, who was stunned by the decision, predicts a reversal of Randa’s ruling could prompt a move to the U.S. Supreme Court. &#8220;If the Seventh Circuit reverses, it&#8217;ll go to the Supreme Court, believe me. And they&#8217;ll take it because they&#8217;re hot to trot on these issues right now,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the meantime, another effort to derail Gov. Scott Walker has crashed and burned. Moreover, he remains favored in the 2014 race against Democrat Gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke by an </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/governor/wi/wisconsin_governor_walker_vs_burke-4099.html">average margin</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of 5.2 percentage points. It will be interesting to see what happens to that margin now that Judge Randa has unshackled conservative advocacy groups from their would-be oppressors—oppressors who have never put Democratic advocacy groups under the same prosecutorial microscope, or subjected them to the same paramilitary raids conducted here.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;The plaintiffs have been shut out of the political process merely by association with conservative politicians,” Randa wrote. &#8220;This cannot square with the First Amendment and what it was meant to protect.” Exactly.</span></p>
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		<title>Muslim Rape Culture</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-rape-culture/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=muslim-rape-culture</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-rape-culture/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2014 05:36:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217818</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Taliban and their views on women are now here.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/islamr.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217864" alt="islamr" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/islamr.jpg" width="280" height="269" /></a>No one knows the real name of the <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/muslim-refugee-gropes-women-blames-cultural-differences-avoids-jail/">Port Hills Groper</a>, the Muslim refugee who stalked and attacked over a dozen women jogging in Port Hills, even though he was arrested, tried and sentenced. Instead the New Zealand court gave him “permanent name suppression” to protect his status in his Muslim community.</p>
<p>Judge Jane Farish, who had told a Maori rapist who had lured an Australian tourist into a dark street and beat her while trying to tear off her clothing “If I had my way I would release you today,” let the groper off with community service because his actions were caused by “cultural ambiguities.”</p>
<p>The Muslim groper had blamed his serial assaults on “a misunderstanding of cultural differences” claiming that he had just been trying to be friendly. In his Middle Eastern Muslim culture, friendliness apparently consisted of forcibly groping female joggers while telling them “Happy New Year.”</p>
<p>In neighboring Australia, Muslim cultural misunderstandings have become a big problem for women.</p>
<p>Esmatullah Sharifi, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/australian-judge-finds-muslim-cultural-differences-valid-excuse-for-rape/">an Afghan refugee</a>, offered an Australian woman a ride home and then put his right hand around her neck and his left hand over her mouth and raped her. Sharifi’s lawyers claimed that due to cultural differences he was confused about the nature of consent.</p>
<p>This wasn’t Sharifi’s first misunderstanding of the difference between rape and sex. He had already been sentenced to 7 years in jail for raping an Australian teenager on Christmas Day in 2008.</p>
<p>The sentencing judge rejected Sharifi’s excuse, but a court of appeals judge found that claiming cultural differences was a valid basis for an appeal.</p>
<p>This wasn’t the first case of Muslim cultural misunderstanding assault in Australia.</p>
<p>Last year, an <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-cleric-who-groped-aussie-women-claims-cultural-misunderstanding/">Egyptian Muslim cleric was arrested for groping women</a> on a beach. The spokesman for the Dee Why Mosque said that by groping a grandmother pushing a stroller and an underage girl, Ahmed Alkahly had been “showing love and compassion but had misunderstood the cultural differences between Australia and Egypt.”</p>
<p>In Muslim Egypt, 99.3% of women and girls have been sexually harassed. What is ordinary behavior in Egyptian Muslim culture is a criminal act in Australia where women are considered to be human beings.</p>
<p>Almahde Ahmad Atagore made his own effort at showing love and compassion by sexually assaulting seven women and girls. The youngest of his victims was only 13 years old. Afterward he laughed.</p>
<p>Atagore’s lawyers blamed cultural differences and Judge Margaret Rizkalla agreed, telling the Libyan Muslim rapist, &#8220;It seems you were very ill prepared to deal with cultural differences.&#8221;</p>
<p>That was 3 years ago. Atagore will be eligible for parole this year.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/gang-rapist-claims-right-to-assault/2005/12/09/1134086806845.html">In the Ashfield rapes</a>, four Pakistani brothers raped eighteen women and girls. Their father urged that his sons be pardoned because they “did not know the culture of this culture.”</p>
<p>One of the brothers appealed his sentence arguing that he had committed the rapes based on cultural differences with how Pakistani girls behaved. The older brother said in court that only now that he had gained a &#8220;better understanding of Australian culture&#8221; did he finally realize that rape was wrong.</p>
<p>Explaining why he had raped one girl, he said, “She was not related to us and she was not wearing any Purdah, like she was not… covered her face, she was not wearing any headscarf.”</p>
<p>Purdah refers to the practice of keeping women isolated and locked up at home. The Hijab and the Burka are <a href="http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/05/banning-burqa-to-protect-women.html">forms of mobile Purdah</a>; clothing that acts as a symbolic &#8220;partition&#8221; keeping women &#8220;fenced in&#8221; even in public.</p>
<p>The father of the rapist brothers said of the victims, &#8220;What do they expect to happen to them? Girls from Pakistan don&#8217;t go out at night.”</p>
<p>And when enough Pakistanis migrate to their country neither will Australian girls; especially now that at least one of the brothers has already been released.</p>
<p>The cultural differences between the Muslim world and the Western world behind these rape cases were highlighted when Australia’s Grand Mufti<a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/edited-transcript-of-sheik-hilalis-speech/story-e6frg6nf-1111112425808">, the infamous Sheikh Hilaly, had said</a>, in response to an earlier Muslim gang rape case, that in sexual matters, “it&#8217;s 90 per cent the women&#8217;s responsibility.”</p>
<p>Quoting al-Rafihi, the Grand Mufti said, “If I came across a rape crime. I would discipline the man and order that the woman be arrested and jailed for life.”</p>
<p>Then the Grand Mufti went on to compare rape victims to uncovered meat. “If you take uncovered meat and put it on the street, on the pavement, in a garden, in a park or in the backyard, without a cover and the cats eat it, is it the fault of the cat or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem.”</p>
<p>“If the woman is in her boudoir, in her house and if she&#8217;s wearing the veil and if she shows modesty, disasters don&#8217;t happen.”</p>
<p>It’s no wonder that Pakistani girls don’t go out at night.</p>
<p>In Muslim culture, women face a choice between Purdah and rape. And now so do women in Western countries who come face to face with Muslim rape culture.</p>
<p>Back in the UK, Muslim cultural differences are also becoming a problem for women and an excuse for multicultural judges.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-who-raped-13-year-old-uk-girl-spared-jail-because-he-didnt-know-it-was-wrong/">Muslim pedophile in Nottingham</a> was given a suspended sentence after he claimed that he had attended a Muslim school where he was taught that women are worthless.  Adil Rashid told a psychologist that his Muslim school had taught him that, “Women are no more worthy than a lollipop that has been dropped on the ground.”</p>
<p>The lollipop is a common teaching tool in Muslim culture. Muslim girls are told that they should wear a Hijab <a href="http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/archive/why-some-muslim-women-dont-wear-hijab/">because no one wants an unwrapped</a> lollipop. An <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/16/AR2008081602063.html">Egyptian ad campaign</a> about sexual harassment contrasted <a href="http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2010/11/the_myth_that_veiling_protects_women_from_assault.html">a chastely wrapped lollipop</a> with an uncovered lollipop swarming with flies.</p>
<p>Lollipops may be new, but the idea in Islam is old. The Hijab and the Burka have nothing to do with female modesty or dignity. Not according to the Koran.</p>
<p>“O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks all over their bodies that they may thus be distinguished and not molested,” Allah tells Mohammed.</p>
<p>The context of Koran chapter 33 verse 59 is even grimmer if you put it in the context of verse 50 which allowed Mohammed’s army to enslave and rape captured women and the use of the <a href="http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/khurshedCh/hijab.htm">Burka to distinguish between wives</a> and slaves.</p>
<p>Qadri’s Irfan-ul-Quran translation comments on 33:59 that “It is more likely that this way they may be recognized (as pious, free women), and may not be hurt (considered by mistake as roving slave girls.)”</p>
<p>When Mohammed captured Safiyya bint Huyayy, a Jewish teenager, during his campaign of ethnic cleansing against the region&#8217;s Jewish population, he told his followers, &#8220;Tomorrow if you see her covered with a veil then she is my wife; if you see her without a veil then she is a slave girl.&#8221;</p>
<p>That is the cultural difference between the Muslim world and the Western world.</p>
<p>There are no “free women” in Islam. There are women who belong to one man and there are women who belong to all men. There are wives and daughters or women who can be enslaved by any man.</p>
<p>Women can be covered meat or uncovered meat, but they cannot be considered people. When they are raped, the deciding question is whether they were at home or outside, whether they were covered meat or uncovered meat, whether they were acting like good Pakistani girls or bad Western women.</p>
<p>The Taliban aren’t just in Afghanistan and Pakistan anymore, they are everywhere in the West that Pakistani, Afghani and other Muslim migrants settle. Expecting them to respect the rights of Western women is asking them to turn their backs on their culture and religion and that is as likely to happen in Muslim settlements in the UK, France and Australia… as it is in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>The Taliban and their views on women have come to the West. And Western judges are choosing to respect Muslim rape culture over the rights of women.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.   </b></p>
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		<title>Reid Goes Nuclear</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/reid-goes-nuclear/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=reid-goes-nuclear</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/reid-goes-nuclear/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 22 Nov 2013 04:40:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=211294</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On to packing the court system with Obama's radicals. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/reid_1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-211339" alt="Harry Reid" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/reid_1.jpg" width="281" height="232" /></a>On Thursday, 225 years of Senate tradition was cast aside by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) when he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html">invoked</a> the so-called &#8220;nuclear option&#8221; and eliminated filibusters against most presidential nominations. &#8220;The American people believe Congress is broken. The American people believe the Senate is broken. And I believe they are right,&#8221; Reid <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/11/21/harry-reid-nuclear-senate/3662445/">said</a> Thursday on the Senate floor. &#8220;The need for change is so very, very obvious.&#8221; What&#8217;s just as obvious is the primary motive behind this effort: to tilt an evenly-divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decidedly to the left.</p>
<p>The historic rule change was passed by a vote of 52-48, with three Democrats, Sens. Mark Pryor (D-AK), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Carl Levin (D-MI), opposing the alteration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) was incensed, not only by the change itself, but the fact that a simple majority of 51 votes was used to change the rule itself, rather than a supermajority of 60 votes that normally applies to Senate rule changes. After accusing Democrats of a power grab, McConnell suggested they will regret their decision when Republicans regain control of the chamber. “We’re not interested in having a gun put to our head any longer,” McConnell said addressing his colleagues form the Senate floor. “Some of us have been around here long enough to know that the shoe is sometimes on the other foot.” Addressing Democrats directly he predicted that they will regret their decision &#8220;a lot sooner than you think.”</p>
<p>As of now, the change does not apply to Supreme Court nominations. But on Wednesday, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-IA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned Democrats that if they insisted on changing the rules, the GOP will up the ante when they attain majority status, leaving Democrats no opportunity to filibuster appointments to the nation&#8217;s highest court.</p>
<p>The move marks quite a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/191042-dems-reid-may-go-nuclear-thursday">change of heart</a> by Reid. In 2005, when Republicans had a Senate majority and threatened to invoke the nuclear option over stalled nominees, Reid argued passionately against the very same procedure he used yesterday. “They are talking about doing something illegal. They are talking about breaking the rules to change the rules, and that is not appropriate,&#8221; he said in April of that year. &#8220;That is not fair, and it is not right.” A month later he remained just as adamant. “To change the rules in the Senate can&#8217;t be done by a simple majority. It can only be done if there is extended debate by 67 votes,” he insisted.</p>
<p>Thus, it was no surprise that Republicans accused Reid of hypocrisy. Democrats countered that McConnell was ready to support the nuclear option when former Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) wanted to strip the power to filibuster from the Democrat minority eight years ago. The most obvious flaw in the Democrats&#8217; argument is that it never actually happened.</p>
<p>Now that it has happened, courtesy of Reid&#8217;s about-face, the three nominations blocked by Republicans from sitting on the nation&#8217;s second most powerful court will undoubtedly be confirmed. Those nominees are Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins.</p>
<p>Patricia Millet is by far the most <a href="http://www.msjdn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/MilSpouseJD-Network-Faith-and-Family-Patricia-Millett-Profile-OCT-2013.pdf">reasonable</a> pick for a spot on the DC Court. She is a former member of the Solicitor General&#8217;s Office under both Democratic and Republican administrations, and magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School. She has argued more than 30 cases before the Supreme Court, has advocated for members of the military and their spouses (she is married to a Naval Reservist) and is a woman of faith.</p>
<p>Nina Pillard and Robert Wilkins are entirely different stories. Pillard is a radical feminist who wrote a 2007 law review <a href="http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1191&amp;context=facpub&amp;utm_source=NAEA+-+Media&amp;utm_campaign=20b9cc8e8aPress_Release_Vital_Signs&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_ad71f7ead5-20b9cc8e8a-233038341">article</a> contending that abstinence-only sex education is not only &#8220;permeated with stereotyped messages and sex-based double standards about acceptable male and female sexual behavior and appropriate social roles,&#8221; but that it is <i>unconstitutional</i>. She defines ultrasounds as “deceptive images of fetus-as-autonomous-being that the anti-choice movement has popularized since the advent of amniocentesis.”</p>
<p>Yet perhaps the best <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/354112/dc-circuit-nominee-cornelia-pillard-part-5-ed-whelan">example</a> of her radical mindset was her discussion of the Supreme Court case &#8220;Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church v. EEOC&#8221; at a September 2011 press briefing for Georgetown’s Supreme Court Institute. The case was about the right of the Lutheran Church to choose their religious ministers. She characterized the Church&#8217;s position as “a substantial threat to the American rule of law,” and predicted the Court would be unlikely to uphold it. The Court ruled <i>9-0</i> in the Church&#8217;s favor. Thus, it would not be unreasonable to assume Pillard is to the left of even the most leftist judges on the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Robert Wilkins&#8217; <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2012/03/08/breaking-radical-cronyism-sit-in-leader-nominated-as-judge-by-pres-obama/">press release</a> reads like a dream. He received his B.S. from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in 1986 and his  J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1989. <i>The Legal Times </i>has named him one of the 90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years, and he currently practices &#8220;corporate defense/white collar, technology, and commercial litigation.&#8221;</p>
<p>What Wilkins&#8217; press release fails to mention is that he led an illegal occupation of a Harvard law school building. He and his fellow students <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/05/12/us/black-students-end-occupation-of-office-at-harvard-law-school.html">demanded</a> a commitment from Harvard to hire 20 women or minority group members over the next four years as tenured or tenure-track professors. Seven of the professors, including four women, were to be black. That protest was undertaken in support of radical bigot Derrick Bell, whose Critical Race Theory posits that America is, and always has been, an <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/03/derrick_bell_controversy_what_s_critical_race_theory_and_is_it_radical_.html">intrinsically</a> racist society.</p>
<p>Democrats were primarily frustrated by the Republicans&#8217; use of the filibuster to hold up these nominations, along with the main reason they cited for doing so, which was the assertion that the DC appellate court&#8217;s light work load didn&#8217;t require additional judges. Republicans further asserted that their aggressiveness with regard to filibustering nominations was exactly the same approach Democrats have taken when they were in the minority.</p>
<p>Harry Reid has now altered the equation entirely.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, President Obama <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/21/harry-reid-likely-to-go-nuclear-today/">supported</a> the move. &#8220;A deliberate and determined effort to obstruct everything, no matter what the merits, just to re-fight the results of an election is not normal, and for the sake of future generations, it cannot become normal,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Just as unsurprisingly, Obama, like Reid, took the <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obama-in-2005-if-republicans-kill-filibuster-gridlock-will-only-get-worse/">exact opposite</a> position in 2005. “I sense that talk of the nuclear option is more about power than about fairness,” Obama said in a speech before the Senate in April of that year. “I believe some of my colleagues propose this rules change because they can get away with it rather than because they know it’s good for our democracy.”</p>
<p>He also issued a warning. “The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster&#8211;if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate&#8211;then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse,” Obama said.</p>
<p>Now that the filibuster has been eliminated, Republicans are equally pessimistic. “When you start, it’s like wars&#8211;there’s no end to this. I don’t know where it goes,” said Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) had an even darker perspective. “In my view this is the most important and most dangerous restructuring of Senate rules since Thomas Jefferson wrote them at the beginning of our country,” he warned.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most cogent understanding of the consequences was <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/11/21/how-the-button-was-pressed-on-nuclear-option/">presented</a> by Richard Arenberg, an adjunct lecturer at Brown University. Arenberg also served as a Senate staffer for 34 years. “For more than 200 years, the Senate has protected the privileges of the minority to debate and to amend legislation,” he explained. &#8220;As poisonous as it gets sometimes, lines of communication between the majority and the minority are always open.” With the change, he believes it&#8217;s only a matter of time before the filibuster is eliminated completely, destroying the fundamental way the Senate operates.</p>
<p>Sen. Mark Pryor, one of the three Democrats who opposed the measure, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/senate-nears-vote-curbing-filibusters-20960653?page=2">echoed</a> Arenberg&#8217;s central assertion, contending in a statement that the Senate was &#8220;designed to protect&#8211;not stamp out&#8211;the voices of the minority.&#8221;</p>
<p>Nonetheless, progressives were ecstatic. &#8220;This was not a decision made easily or taken lightly. There was no choice. The Republican minority had turned the existing rules into weapons of mass obstruction,&#8221; said Alliance for Justice President Nan Aron. Conservatives were disgusted. &#8220;For Harry Reid and President Obama, this is not about a couple circuit court judges; this is an attempt to remake America to reflect their unworkable and unpopular progressive vision,&#8221; said Michael Needham of Heritage Action.</p>
<p>Many Republicans <a href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/11/21/reid-tries-distract-obamacare-disaster-breaks-senate-rules-and-goes-nuclear">contend</a> the move was designed to distract from the most unpopular progressive vision currently before the public, namely ObamaCare. &#8220;Today we face a real crisis in the confirmation process, a crisis concocted by the Democrat majority to distract attention from the ObamaCare disaster and, in the process, consolidate more power than any majority has had in more than 200 years,&#8221; said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) in a statement.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) concurred. &#8220;It sounds to me like Harry Reid is trying to change the subject and if I were taking all the incoming fire that he&#8217;s taking over ObamaCare, I&#8217;d try to change the subject too,&#8221; he contended.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it doesn&#8217;t matter why Reid did what he did. What matters is that the congressional chamber long described as &#8220;the world&#8217;s greatest deliberative body&#8221; can no longer lay claim to that mantle. Reid who is every bit the bully Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/rand-paul-harry-reid-nuclear-option-100215.html?hp=f1">described</a> him as, has opened up a Pandora&#8217;s Box destined to radicalize Congress&#8217;s upper chamber. Each switch of party control is likely to strip away more minority rights as a tit-for-tat consolidation of power is played out over and over, with no end in sight. As that happens, each side will become even more hardened than they are now.</p>
<p>Currently, progressives are happy with that development. Ironically, their elation may be far more short-lived than they imagine. Most Americans have yet to experience the full scope of the debacle ObamaCare represents. But when the next round of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/20/second-wave-health-plan-cancellations-looms/">cancellations</a> that await employees with &#8220;ungrandfathered&#8221; policies hits&#8211;beginning a month before the 2014 mid-term elections&#8211;there is a good possibility that Reid and company may find themselves as neutered as they are making Republicans right now. In other words, what goes around, comes around.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Islamic ‘Racism’: Muslim Blood Superior to Infidel Blood</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/raymond-ibrahim/islamic-racism-muslim-blood-superior-to-infidel-blood/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islamic-racism-muslim-blood-superior-to-infidel-blood</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Nov 2013 04:30:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why should the followers of Islam pay for the death of American diplomat John Granville?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/640x392_94006_87773.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-211056" alt="640x392_94006_87773" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/640x392_94006_87773-450x348.jpg" width="284" height="220" /></a>Arguing that Muslim blood is more precious than infidel blood, Muslim clerics in and out of Sudan are outraged because a Sudanese court has condemned a Muslim man to death—simply because he murdered American Diplomat John Granville on January 1, 2008. </span></b></p>
<p>A 2009 <a href="http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/10/12/87773.html">report</a> offers context:</p>
<blockquote><p>The court had sentenced the men [originally four] to death in June for killing Granville and his driver in January 2008, but the sentence was cancelled in August after [his Muslim driver] Abbas&#8217;s father forgave the men.</p>
<p>Under Islamic law, the victim&#8217;s family has the right to forgive the murderer, ask for compensation (fedia) or demand execution.</p>
<p>Granville&#8217;s mother, Jane Granville, at the time had asked for the men&#8217;s execution, but her letter was rejected because it was not notarized.</p>
<p>The judge said the sentence was confirmed because Granville&#8217;s family, from Buffalo, in northern New York State, had requested it.</p></blockquote>
<p>Then, in 2010, the four men convicted of murder, in the words of the <a href="http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1307/S00209/terrorist-designation-abd-al-raouf-abu-zaid-mohamed-hamza.htm">U.S. State Department</a>, “escaped from a maximum security prison” in Khartoum. One of the men, Abdul Ra’uf Abu Zaid Muhammad Hamza, was recaptured and is currently in prison awaiting execution.</p>
<p>Finding the punishment unjust, several international Islamic organizations, most recently, the London-based Islamic Media Observatory, have been trying to commute the death sentence, mostly by arguing for Abdul Ra’uf’s “human rights.”</p>
<p>However, the Legitimate League of Scholars and Preachers in Sudan (an influential body of Muslim clerics) issued a statement last month titled “Let no Muslim be killed because of an infidel”—a verbatim quote, in fact, from Islam’s prophet Muhammad—revealing the true reason why so many Muslims are trying to overturn the death sentence.</p>
<p>The Arabic language statement begins by asserting that “Allah has honored human beings over creation and multiplied the Muslim’s honor over the infidel’s, because Islam elevates and nothing is elevated above it. The value of the blood of Muslims is equal, or should be, but not so the value of the blood of others.”  (The Koran itself, e.g., 2:221, confirms this idea that even the lowliest Muslim is superior to any non-Muslim.)</p>
<p>Next, the statement quotes the clear words of Islam’s prophet, Muhammad, as recorded in a canonical hadith: “Let no Muslim be killed because of an infidel.” It then elaborates on the meaning of this statement by quoting from “the consensus of Islamic scholars,” or <i>ijma‘</i>, a legitimate source of Islamic jurisprudence.</p>
<p>The Legitimate League of Scholars and Preachers then elaborate on the prophet’s injunction as meaning that under no circumstances are Muslim rulers ever permitted to execute Muslims—even if Muslims murder non-Muslims in cold blood, including those groups that are “protected” by Islamic law, such as <i>dhimmis</i> (subjugated, tribute-paying non-Muslims) and foreign non-Muslims granted <i>aman</i>, or a pledge of security to enter Muslim lands.</p>
<p>Finally, after chastising the offending judge of North Khartoum’s felony court, Sayed Ahmed al-Badri, the statement concludes by warning all Muslim rulers and judges “to fear Allah, to apply Allah’s law in every matter, whether big or small, to seek justice according to the consensus of Islamic scholars, not to seek to please the infidels, not to rush the verdict, and to know that <i>Allah prefers the annihilation of the entire earth over the spilling of the blood of one innocent Muslim</i>” (emphasis added).</p>
<p>When American soldiers desecrated copies of the Koran—a book—media maelstroms occurred and grandstanding politicians condemned.  But when the scholars of Islam, quoting the words and teachings of their prophet, openly assert that the blood of non-Muslims is cheaper than the blood of Muslims—and hence the murder of an American “infidel” by a Muslim cannot be punished blood-for-blood—this is not even deemed worth reporting by Western media or condemned by Western politicians.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Jamie Glazov&#8217;</strong>s video interview with <strong>Raymond Ibrahim</strong> about how Obama enables Islam&#8217;s new war on Christians:</em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/i-UBjuUOBHw" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>A New Court Battle for ObamaCare</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/a-new-court-battle-for-obamacare/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-new-court-battle-for-obamacare</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Oct 2013 04:35:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The killer loophole the Obama administration didn't see coming. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/00_GOV_shutterstock_49894069_gavel_659px.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208297" alt="00_GOV_shutterstock_49894069_gavel_659px" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/00_GOV_shutterstock_49894069_gavel_659px-443x350.jpg" width="310" height="245" /></a>In a bombshell development that could potentially cripple ObamaCare, U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/22/us-usa-courts-obamacare-idUSBRE99L14E20131022">ruled</a> that the lawsuit aimed at blocking health care subsidies in states not running their own healthcare exchanges could move forward. The judge denied a request by U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to dismiss the suit, but also declined to grant a preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs in the case. Friedman has promised to rule on the overall merits of case by mid-February.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs in <a href="http://cei.org/halbig-v-sebelius">Halbig v. Sebelius</a> contend that the Affordable Healthcare Act offered states a series of &#8220;carrots and sticks&#8221; to encourage them to set up healthcare exchanges. According to the suit, the biggest carrot was the offer of insurance premium subsidies, in the form of refundable tax credits from the U.S. Treasury, to low- and moderate-income resident in states that set up the exchanges. If a state refused, the stick was a federally-established, federally-run exchange with no subsidies at all.</p>
<p>The suit notes that, despite clear statutory language limiting premium assistance to states that set up their own exchanges, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) established its own regulation, the Subsidy Expansion Rule, authorizing subsidies in states with federally-run exchanges. In doing so, the IRS ignored the text of the law, as well as &#8220;the clear limitations Congress imposed on the availability of federal subsidies.&#8221;</p>
<p>Thus, despite the fact that only <a href="http://obamacarefacts.com/state-health-insurance-exchange.php">16 states</a> and the District of Columbia have set up their own exchanges, the IRS expanded the availability of subsidies to the other 34 states that didn&#8217;t. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/21/federal-judge-to-rule-obamacare-subsidies-quandary/">According</a> to DOJ attorney Joel L. McElvain, they did so because Congress never intended to favor some states over others with regard to ObamaCare. He insisted the Department of Health and Human Services was prepared to “stand in the shoes” of states that decided to let the feds run their exchanges. He further contended the failure to do so would &#8220;extinguish&#8221; the rights of those seeking affordable healthcare in those states.</p>
<p>One of the plaintiffs&#8217; attorneys, Michael A. Carvin, contended the federal government&#8217;s approach amounted to giving each state “an offer you can’t refuse,” tempting them with generous subsidies to get them to set up state-run exchanges. When they refused to do so, the administration chose to ignore the law.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs take their argument one step further. They note that, according to the law, there are individuals who are exempt from buying health insurance if it is determined its purchase is &#8220;unaffordable.&#8221; Without the subsidies engendered only by state-run exchanges, many more people would be exempt from buying insurance. As a tangential result, they would also be exempt from paying the fine associated with failing to do so.</p>
<p>Moreover, if employees in those same states are ineligible for subsidies, employers who would otherwise be on the hook for &#8220;assessable payments&#8221; triggered by the employer mandate part of the bill would also be exempt. For these reasons, the lawsuit contends the Obama administration is attempting to illegally administer ObamaCare, subjecting millions of individuals and businesses to fines who shouldn’t have to pay them.</p>
<p>Section 1311 of the healthcare law <a href="http://docs4patientcare.org/_blog/Blog_and_News/post/IRS_Rewrites_Obamacare_To_Increase_Taxes,_Center_For_Individual_Freedom/">allows</a> tax credits to certain people in state-run exchanges. Section 1321, which regulates federally run exchanges does not. Furthermore, the actual wording contained in <a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-111hr3590enr/pdf/BILLS-111hr3590enr.pdf#page=58">Section 1311</a> of the law is clear: &#8220;An Exchange shall be a governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a State,&#8221; <i>not</i> through one set up by the federal government.</p>
<p>An IRS already enmeshed in a burgeoning scandal stayed true to form. On May 23, 2012 the agency <a href="http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/obamacare-federal-exchange_at-odds-with-the-law">finalized</a> its <i>own</i> rule, completely bypassing Congress in the process, allowing subsidies to be implemented on both exchanges. The IRS insisted that “the relevant legislative history does not demonstrate that Congress intended to limit the premiums tax credit to State Exchanges. Accordingly, the final regulations maintain the rule in the proposed regulations because it is consistent with the language, purpose, and structure of section 36B and the Affordable Care Act as a whole.”</p>
<p>Note the critical difference in the two arguments being presented to Judge Friedman. The plaintiffs are demanding that the law be enforced <i>as written</i>. The Obama administration is arguing about what the law was <i>intended</i> to mean. They argue that Congress intended the online exchanges to be uniform, and that they weren&#8217;t expecting states would fail to set up their own exchanges, or opt out of doing so for political reasons.</p>
<p>That the administration and Democrats couldn&#8217;t imagine passing a massive entitlement without a single Republican vote against the wishes of a majority of the electorate would engender resistance is a testament to the unbridled hubris of the American left. It is a hubris buttressed by the reality that only 16 states of 50 decided to set up their own exchanges.</p>
<p>Ironically, the urgency of the administration&#8217;s fight may be intensified due to the government shutdown. Subsidies, which are available to Americans with <a href="http://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-subsidies.php">annual incomes</a> up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, or $94,200 for a family of four, are a critical component of the healthcare bill. Without them, health insurance becomes unaffordable for many Americans.</p>
<p>Prior to the shutdown, the Obama administration was prepared to follow through with another <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2532747">“tweak”</a> to the law they unilaterally pushed through in July, when they announced the ObamaCare&#8217;s requirement that the exchanges would have to verify the income of each enrollee was no longer operable. Instead, they were prepared to implement an honor system whereby the exchanges could &#8220;accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in eligible employer-sponsored plan . . . without further verification.” As part of the deal to end the shutdown, the requirement was <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/22/breaking-judge-refuses-to-dismiss-case-blocking-irs-enforcement-of-obamacare-n1729818">reinstated.</a></p>
<p>Thus, another effort by the administration to play fast and loose with the law was extinguished. A challenge to yet another administration tweak has ended up in court as well. A Boca Raton orthodontist, characterized by the leftist <i>Palm Beach Post</i> newspaper as a &#8220;conservative activist,&#8221; has filed suit <a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/local/boca-dentist-sues-over-obamas-delay-of-employer-ma/nbCk8/">challenging</a> President Obama&#8217;s unilateral decision to suspend the employer mandate part of ObamaCare until 2015. Larry Kawa, who is being represented by Judicial Watch filing suit on behalf of Kawa Orthodontics, contends that he “expended substantial time and resources, including money spent on legal fees and other costs” preparing his 70-employee practice for a law that was supposed to be implemented beginning Jan. 1, 2014. The plaintiffs contend the delay “exceeded the Obama administration’s statutory authority, is arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to the law, and is otherwise unlawful,” according to Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton. The U.S. Treasury, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, the IRS and IRS Acting Director Daniel Werfel have been named as defendants.</p>
<p>“I have standing because I have made investments of both time and money, as a law abiding citizen and a local business owner to make sure that my business was in compliance with the law,&#8221; says Kawa. “And as soon as I did that, this president moved the goal posts.” The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://findlaw.com/">findlaw.com</a> website <a href="http://blogs.findlaw.com/free_enterprise/2013/10/employer-sues-over-obamacare-mandate-delay.html">contends</a> the suit is unlikely to succeed because the Obama administration&#8217;s <a href="http://dictionary.findlaw.com/definition/rational-basis.html">&#8220;rational basis&#8221;</a> for delaying the law, as in giving employers more time to comply, will be persuasive enough to prevail in court. If that is the case, one is left to wonder when the chaos surrounding the implementation of the <i>individual</i> mandate&#8211;ironically complicated even further by the additional numbers of Americans forced onto the exchanges by the delay in the business mandate&#8211;will be subjected to the same reasoning in a court of law.</p>
<p>In short, the cracks engendered by this hastily written, hastily passed mess of a law are beginning to widen. Yet in keeping with their normal modus operandi, the Obama administration will attempt to strong-arm its way through the legal minefields that await. It is up to the courts to put the brakes on its &#8220;by any means necessary&#8221; implementation of ObamaCare. It is up to Republicans to inform Americans that respect for the rule of law &#8220;as written&#8221; as opposed to what a particular administration from either party contends was &#8220;intended,&#8221; is the only thing that keeps us from becoming a banana republic.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Death For Hasan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/why-justice-will-not-likely-be-done-in-hasan-case/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-justice-will-not-likely-be-done-in-hasan-case</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Aug 2013 04:41:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The jihadist murderer gets the death sentence -- but will he end up with a cushy life in prison?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/AP_nidal_hasan_jef_130806_16x9_992.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-202561" alt="AP_nidal_hasan_jef_130806_16x9_992" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/AP_nidal_hasan_jef_130806_16x9_992-444x350.jpg" width="266" height="210" /></a>On Wednesday a panel of 13 military officers <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2404766/Fort-Hood-shooter-Major-Nidal-Hasan-sentenced-death-2009-shooting-rampage.html">handed down a death sentence</a> for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who at Fort Hood in November 2009 killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. One of the survivors applauded the verdict and said Hasan doesn’t deserve to live. But in all likelihood the mass murderer will escape the death penalty and live on as a hero to his fellow jihadists.</p>
<p>The U.S. military has not executed an active-duty soldier since 1961, a span of more than half a century. The appeal process is lengthy and the final call goes to the president of the United States. The current incumbent is Barack Obama and the Hasan case served as a showcase for the president’s absurd and dangerous policies, such as decoupling terrorism and Islam. In the president’s view the problem is not imperialist Islam but stereotypes of Islam and “Islamophobia,” anything less than worshipful of the notion that Islam is a “religion of peace.”  Nidal Hasan calls that stereotype into question.</p>
<p>As Andrew McCarthy noted in <i>Spring Fever</i>, Hasan was a “five-alarm jihadist,” and self-described “Soldier of Allah.” That raised legitimate concerns for the safety of U.S. troops, but it was not the only problem with the American-born Muslim. The Walter Reed Army Medical Center evaluated Captain Hasan as supremely incompetent. Even so, Captain Hasan gained promotion to major, the rank he held while making meticulous preparations to kill American soldiers.</p>
<p>Those preparations included emails to Anwar al-Awlaki, which the government possessed. The interception of emails is supposed to prevent terrorism but in the case of Hasan the authorities did nothing. Hasan bought a high-capacity handgun with laser sights and practiced diligently. On November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center, U.S. troops were preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Hasan opened fire on them, discharging more than 200 rounds. Private Francheska Velez, 21, was pregnant and as she pleaded for the life of her baby Hasan gunned her down, one of three women he killed that fateful day.</p>
<p>Predictably, President Obama’s first response to Hasan’s mass murder was brief, low key, and failed to ascribe any responsibility to Islamic terrorism. “We cannot fully know what leads a man to do such a thing,” the president said. Such breathtaking denial soon <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/lloyd-billingsley/is-the-election-delaying-nidal-hasans-trial/">became official policy.</a> The Obama administration’s Department of Defense issued <i>Protecting the Force: Lessons from Fort Hood</i>, which contains not a single reference to jihad or jihadists.</p>
<p>In a clear reflection of President Obama’s policies, the U.S. Army refused to call Hasan’s killing spree terrorism, even though his victims outnumber those killed in the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. He used a privately purchased handgun but the Army did not call his actions “gun violence.” His victims included blacks, Hispanics and non-Muslims, but the Army did not charge him with any hate crime. Rather, the government proclaimed the mass murder spree a case of “workplace violence,” which <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/no-justice-for-victims-of-nidal-hasans-terrorism/">prevented the survivors from getting the medical treatment they needed</a>. But while awaiting trial, Hasan continued to receive full pay, more than $278,000 since his arrest in 2009.</p>
<p>Hasan handled his own defense and wanted to plead guilty but under military rules was not allowed to do so. He claimed he was acting to protect the Taliban but Col. Tara Osborn, the Army’s replacement for judge Col. Gregory Gross, barred Hasan from making that claim in court. He got the guilty verdict he wanted and the 13 officers deliberated less than two hours before delivering the death sentence. But as civilian lawyer John P. Gilligan <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nidal-hasan-sentenced-to-death-for-fort-hood-shooting-rampage/2013/08/28/aad28de2-0ffa-11e3-bdf6-e4fc677d94a1_story.html">told the <i>Washington Post</i></a>, “In all honesty, he [Hasan] stands a far more likely chance of dying from medical reasons than dying because he’s been sentenced to death.” Even so, the trial was not a waste of time.</p>
<p>It did confirm that you can be an open jihadist in the U.S. Army and still get promoted. You can correspond freely with the most bloodthirsty foreign terrorists, and those conducting the surveillance will do nothing to stop you from killing American soldiers. You can kill 13 of them and the government will call it workplace violence and continue to pay you while denying benefits to your injured victims. You can announce that you are fighting for the Taliban, but the government will not let you say that in court, nor plead guilty. While a member of the U.S. Army, you can kill Americans for Allah, escape with your own life, and continue to campaign for jihad from prison.</p>
<p>As <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/tsarnaev-hasan-and-deadly-political-correctness/">Rudy Giuliani warned</a> in recent testimony, political correctness now trumps sound investigative practice. The Hasan case confirms that justice is another casualty.</p>
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		<title>Judge Throws Out Discrimination Charges Against Paula Deen</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/the-bogus-discrimination-charges-against-paula-deen/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-bogus-discrimination-charges-against-paula-deen</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 14 Aug 2013 04:40:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[But the civil rights lynch mob achieves its damage.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gty_paula_deen_mi_130624_wblog.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-200512" alt="gty_paula_deen_mi_130624_wblog" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/gty_paula_deen_mi_130624_wblog.jpg" width="280" height="213" /></a>In a 20-page opinion released Monday, U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr. <a href="http://tv.msn.com/tv/article.aspx?news=822688">tossed</a> out race discrimination claims made by former Savannah restaurant manager Lisa Jackson against celebrity chef Paula Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers. According to the Moore, Jackson, who is white, was at best, &#8220;an accidental victim of the alleged racial discrimination.&#8221; This inconvenient reality will matter little to the civil rights lynch mob and their media enablers who have dedicated themselves to destroying Deen&#8217;s career. A <i>USA Today</i> story <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2013/08/12/paula-deen-legal-woes-diminish-but-career-damage-is-done/2645967/">announcing</a> Deen&#8217;s victory exemplifies the success of that effort. It was entitled, &#8220;Experts: Paula Deen is done despite legal win.&#8221;</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.tmz.com/2013/06/19/paula-deen-n-word-racist-deposition-sexual-harassment-oyster-house/3/#comments-anchor">testimony</a>, Deen admitted using the &#8220;n-word&#8221; over a quarter-century ago in a private conversation with her husband, following an armed robbery. When questioned further, she couldn&#8217;t recall any other specific instances of usage, but admitted the possibility that she had probably used it, or tolerated its usage, in joking. “But that’s just not a word that we use as time has gone on,” Deen said. “Things have changed since the ’60s in the South. And my children and my brother object to that word being used in any cruel or mean behavior. As well as I do.”</p>
<p>As a result her testimony, Deen&#8217;s career was dealt a severe blow. She was dropped by the Food Network after 11 years, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2390832/Race-discrimination-claims-ruined-Paula-Deens-career-thrown-judge.html">along with</a> pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, Wal-mart, QVC, Smithfield Foods, Home Depot, Target, Sears, and others. Despite her 15th cookbook reaching number one at <a href="http://Amazon.com/">Amazon.com</a> in pre-order sales, her former publisher, Random House&#8217;s Ballantine Books, canceled it.</p>
<p>Her current status is best described by David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision, a public relations and branding agency based in Suwanee, GA. &#8220;The narrative has been set,&#8221; he said, referring to a <i>New York Times</i> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/us/paula-deens-soul-sister-portrays-an-unequal-bond.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=0">story</a> attempting to further denigrate Deen regarding her long-term relationship with black Deen employee Dora Charles. Yet despite their best efforts, the paper was forced to reveal that an investigation by Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition found that while some employees at the Lady and Sons, where Mrs. Charles works, said there was bias against blacks, others insisted that it was a terrific place to work. And despite the reality that Mrs. Charles has only a ninth grade education, she currently earns around $71,000 per year.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the so-called narrative is a capricious one, as it relates to taboo remarks. For instance, despite actress Gwyneth Paltrow <a href="http://www.gossipcop.com/gwyneth-paltrow-n-word-twitter-jay-z-kanye-west-watch-the-thone-niggas-in-paris-tweet/">tweeting</a> a photo of herself onstage at Jay-Z and Kanye West&#8217;s 2012 “Watch the Throne” concert in Paris with the caption, “Ni**as in paris for real,” there has been no discernible damage done to her career as a result. Actor Alec Baldwin allegedly <a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/alec_fast_slur_ious_tzxXtwrX49oGHN1VaG08hM">called</a> a black <i>NY Post</i> photographer a &#8220;coon,&#8221; and a &#8220;crackhead&#8221; in February, followed by a rant in June when he <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/entertainment/2013/06/alec-baldwin-explodes-after-wife-accused-of-tweeting-at-gandolfini-funeral/">referred</a> to <i>Daily Mail</i> reporter George Stark as a “toxic little queen” and “little bitch” on Twitter. For his &#8220;penance,&#8221; Baldwin will reportedly be <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/tv/alec-baldwin-set-to-host-new-msnbc-primetime-show/">getting</a> his own weekly show on cable network MSNBC’s primetime lineup.</p>
<p>That would be the same MSNBC where racial arsonist Al Sharpton also has his own show, despite his own track record of both racist and anti-Semitic references. It was Sharpton who <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/rev-al-caught-protest-tape-called-mart-owner-white-interloper-article-1.693222">referred</a> to the owner of Freddie&#8217;s Fashion Mart in Harlem as a &#8220;white interloper,&#8221; after which, he denied any responsibility for the ensuing massacre committed by protest attendee Roland James Smith, Jr. Smith <a href="http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2012/03/when-al-sharpton-incited-massacre-at.html">killed</a> seven people plus himself after ordering black people to leave the store prior to setting it on fire. Sharpton also <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/al-sharpton-true-role-crown-heights-yankel-rosenbaum-brother-speaks-article-1.945812">referred</a> to Jews as &#8220;diamond merchants&#8221; during the anti-Semitic Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn, which led to the death of Australian Jew Yankel Rosenbaum. Yet Sharpton&#8217;s chief claim to fame was his participation in the racially-charged Tawana Brawley hoax that <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/080513-666449-tawana-brawley-pays-for-false-rape-charge.htm?ven=rss">resulted</a> in a defamation judgment against him for accusing former New York prosecutor Steven Pagones of kidnapping and raping Brawley.</p>
<p>For Sharpton, a genuine track record of racism appears to be a career enhancement<i>.</i> So, too, for Jesse Jackson, whose career as as media-anointed spokesman for black America has never been derailed by his anti-Semitic <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/frenzy/jackson.htm">reference</a> to New York City as &#8220;Hymietown,&#8221; his 2008 off-air comment on Fox News during which he <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/2420533/Jesse-Jackson-forced-to-apologise-again-for-racist-slur.html">accused</a> Barack Obama of &#8220;telling niggers how to behave,&#8221; or his most recent outburst, <a href="http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/blogs/political-pulse/os-scott-to-jesse-jackson-say-youre-sorry-20130731,0,3054331.post">accusing</a> the entire state of Florida of being racist, and comparing its Governor Rick Scott to hard-core segregationist George Wallace, because George Zimmerman was acquitted of murder.</p>
<p>Rod Dreher, writing for the American Conservative, <a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/alec-baldwin-is-not-paula-deen/">offers</a> up the most convincing explanation for why the likes of Sharpton, Jackson, Paltrow and Baldwin get a pass, while Deen does not. &#8220;Alec Baldwin, New York liberal, is of the media’s world; Paula Deen, Southern grits-chomper, is not,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;He can be forgiven for a slur he uttered the day before yesterday; she must be professionally destroyed for something she said years ago. She’s not one of us, dear.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Paltrow, whose obsession with <a href="http://gawker.com/5873449/gwyneth-paltrow-now-sells-goop-colon-cleanses">body cleansing</a> includes hawking her own kit for $425, stands in stark contrast to the traditional Southern recipes of Deen, who was derisively <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/06/21/why_hasnt_paula_deen_apologized/">labeled</a> the &#8220;cholesterol-loving chef&#8221; by <i>Salon. </i>Such recipes are utterly antithetical to the left&#8217;s preoccupation, <a href="http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/56245">led</a> by Michelle Obama, of controlling the diet of every American, irrespective of their personal desires. Add Deen&#8217;s Southern and <a href="http://www.collegiatetimes.com/stories/22244/deens-slurs-come-from-past">devoutly Baptist</a> roots to the mix, two elements which also offend the elitist sensibilities of East and West Coast progressives, who see the rest of nation as &#8220;flyover country&#8221; filled with Americans who &#8220;cling&#8221; to their guns and religion, and her ex-communication becomes even more understandable.</p>
<p>Judge Moore refused to play along. He <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/12/race-based-claims-that-led-to-destruction-of-paula-deens-reputation-career-thrown-out-by-judge/">dismissed</a> Lisa Jackson&#8217;s claim that she had suffered from racially offensive talk and employment practices allegedly aimed at black workers at Uncle Bubba’s Seafood and Oyster House. Moore also didn’t buy Jackson’s charge that such prejudices were “more personally offensive” to her because her nieces are biracial. The judge then <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/us/racial-bias-claim-dismissed-for-paula-deen.html?_r=1&amp;">explained</a> that letting Jackson&#8217;s claim continue would “serve to conscript federal courts as human-resources departments that are responsible for imposing and monitoring a federally created standard for harmony in the workplace.”</p>
<p>One suspects progressives would like nothing better than to use the power of the federal government to create a &#8220;standard of harmony&#8221; for the entire nation. But for now, they will have to content themselves with the reality that Deen&#8217;s career may never be fully resurrected, irrespective of the <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/12/race-based-claims-that-led-to-destruction-of-paula-deens-reputation-career-thrown-out-by-judge/">numerous</a>, high-profile apologies she has made. Such a fate may be insufficient for the racial grievance industry, still reeling from the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman murder case. Their reflexive charge of racism, based on Deen&#8217;s use of a single word that virtually every one of the &#8220;civil rights&#8221; leaders have undoubtedly uttered themselves, reeks of hypocrisy.</p>
<p>&#8220;We are pleased with the court&#8217;s ruling today that Lisa Jackson&#8217;s claims of race discrimination have been dismissed,&#8221; said Deen spokeswoman Elana Weiss in a statement e-mailed to the Associated Press. &#8220;As Ms. Deen has stated before, she is confident that those who truly know how she lives her life know that she believes in equal opportunity, kindness and fairness for everyone.&#8221; In a nation where maintaining a racial divide among Americans remains an extremely lucrative enterprise, Deen’s confidence is misplaced.</p>
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		<title>“Allah Made Me Do It”</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 04:10:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A new accepted criminal defense. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Islam.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-186814" alt="Islam" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Islam.jpg" width="280" height="188" /></a>Writing in <i>Islamist Watch</i> for April 17, 2013, David Rusin draws our attention to a <a href="recent%20case">recent case</a> in an Australian court which would beggar belief if we had not grown inured to such outrages through repetition and cultural submission. As Rusin writes, “Esmatullah Sharifi, an Afghan refugee who came to Australia in 2001 and launched a career as a sexual predator, has been <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/12804/sex-attacker-wins-right-to-appeal-over-cultural">granted leave to appeal</a> his sentence for raping an intoxicated young woman in 2008. Robert Redlich, an appellate judge, explained that the sentencing judge had focused primarily on ‘the protection of the community’ and improperly ‘rejected any suggestion [Sharifi] didn&#8217;t have a clear concept of consent in sexual relations’ due to cultural differences.” Rusin suggests that a double standard is in effect, “whereby a Muslim upbringing can excuse horrible behavior that would never be tolerated from non-Muslims.”</p>
<p>There have been a growing number of cases throughout the West, in which Muslim felons, charged with various crimes that would normally entail vigorous sentencing, have seen their cases dismissed or subject to appeal on the grounds of differing cultural norms, customs and assumptions. While convictions can sometimes be made to stick, even then the authorities are prone to react with reluctance and only after charges cannot be reasonably deferred. As Soeren Kern <a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3068/muslim-child-rape-gangs-britain">reports</a> at <i>The Gatestone Institute</i>, in a case involving a gang of Muslim “groomers” in Manchester, the Crown Prosecution Service was provided with DNA evidence of rape but “twice decided not to prosecute” while government lawyers also refused to proceed.</p>
<p>Even a brief internet search will yield innumerable such episodes. The distinction seems to apply only to Islamic offenders; immigrants from non-Islamic countries can generally expect the full weight of the law to be levied against them. But Muslim cases are far more often regarded as special cases and Muslim perps granted unique prerogatives in the eyes of the law.</p>
<p>Thus a Muslim who attacks an American citizen for insulting the Prophet has the assault case <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/penn-judge-muslims-allowed-attack-people-insulting-mohammad-210000330.html">thrown out of court</a> by a sympathetic judge. The judge, Mark Martin, claimed that the accused, a certain Talaag Elbayoni, was justified and even obligated by his religion to respond to perceived provocation with violence. Apparently, in the opinion of this Pennsylvania judge, Sharia law trumps the First Amendment. Similarly, a Muslim who rapes a 13-year-old girl receives a suspended sentence because, in the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/muslim-who-raped-13-year-old-uk-girl-spared-jail-because-he-didnt-know-it-was-wrong/"><i>words</i></a> of the presiding judge, “it is quite clear from the reports that you are very naive and immature when it comes to sexual matters.” Indeed, Muslim rape of young girls has become a veritable epidemic in <a href="Scandinavia">Scandinavia</a>, the <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/the-truth-about-gang-rape-in-the-u-k/">U.K</a>. and elsewhere, and Muslim assaults of one sort or another—workplace harassment, physical beatings, intimidation, unpatriotic and even treasonable acts and utterances—are legion. Yet in far too many of these instances our judicial system may be plausibly described as double-jointed, two-tiered, and appallingly lenient—in a word, <i>Islamophiliac</i>.</p>
<p>Such conduct on the part of our judiciary leads to an inevitable question and a logical conundrum, namely, where does it end? If rape, physical assault, and other crimes are dismissed as instances of different cultural values that need to be acknowledged and that generate privileges and exemptions pertaining to no other group or cohort, why stop there? Islam requires its adherents to behave in certain specific ways, the Koran and the ancillary literature prescribe right and permissible forms of conduct and proscribe others, the religion excuses and vindicates particular acts that many of us find intolerable and reprehensible. Nevertheless, the paradigms and ideals inherent in the faith are considered by an increasing number of judges and lawmakers to be sacrosanct.</p>
<p>If that is the case, why should an Islamic terrorist be held to account by Western jurisprudence for flying a plane into a skyscraper or detonating bombs among a civilian population? Does not the Koran, in innumerable pssages, enjoin the believer to <a href="http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/023-violence.htm">slay the infidel</a>? (See, for example, suras 2:191, 193; 8:39; 9:5; 9:29; 9:73; 47:4; 66:9; etc. etc.) Is not violence and slaughter an intrinsic part of a canonical imperative when it comes to Islam and its holy scriptures? Unlike in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, the commands to maim and kill in the Koran are truly extraordinary. The major passages dealing with violence in the two Testaments are chiefly narrative and descriptive, whereas in the Koran they are largely hortatory and prescriptive. The disparity is critical. “Islam,” <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/nonie-darwish/the-nice-muslim-family-next-door/">writes</a> former Muslim Nonie Darwish, “is the only religion that requires its followers to kill those who do not believe in Allah.”</p>
<p>The question remains. If a man is acting according to his faith, that is, his Muslim faith—raping women and assaulting passersby and demonstrators—for which he is frequently reprieved by the courts for reasons of cultural and religious practice and doctrine, why should he be punished for wreaking havoc among unbelievers and skeptics and targeting those by whom he feels offended or whom he has been taught to regard as fair game? After all, he is not individually responsible for his ostensible depravity or malfeasance; educated under different auspices, he is innocent of malice aforethought. He is the product of a society, religion or civilization which we must perforce respect within the multicultural context we have embraced.</p>
<p>Where, in short, does one draw the line between the perpetrating of a presumably “minor” offense—raping, beating, burning cars—and the infliction of a major cataclysm—blowing people up—<i>if the exonerating factor is cultural usage or religious dogma, or both?</i> What principle is in place that would allow us to escape the aneurysm of cognitive dissonance and evade the charge of palpable hypocrisy? For if “principle” is interpreted as the embodiment and expression of a policy of consistent extenuation, then there is no moral or legitimate principle at work whatsoever. Principle has been waived in the interests of expediency and collusion. With respect to Islam, such is the scandal of Western jurisprudence, which tends to act as the domestic arm of Western diplomacy, foreign adventurism and political appeasement of a clever and remorseless adversary.</p>
<p>If God is dead, said Dostoevsky’s <a href="Ivan%20Karamazov">Ivan Karamazov</a>, all is permitted. Whether or not one agrees with this dictum, there can be no doubt that when pride in one’s civilization and gratitude to the precursors who built and defended it weaken and erode, the spirit of the culture is broken and all is permitted to the enemy who would destroy us. He can violate the common law and receive only a mild reprimand or be acquitted wholesale. He can preach subversion and jihad in the mosque and be allowed to pass under the radar. He can kill the innocent in their thousands and be defended by a decadent but influential elite as a holy warrior extracting justice from a colonial oppressor. He is the beneficiary of a selectively applied multicultural ethos that allows him, quite literally, to get away with murder.</p>
<p>Such is the cultural pathology that heralds the decline and fall of a civilization. Given our indifference, our passion for conciliation, our frivolous disregard of both reality and conscience, and the attendant corruption of our judiciary, the Muslim <a href="http://www.islamreview.org/korankafir/chapter14.html"><i>ghazzua</i></a> on our way of life seems likely to succeed.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>U.S. Aid Funding Palestinian Terrorism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/u-s-aid-funding-palestinian-terrorism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-s-aid-funding-palestinian-terrorism</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Apr 2013 04:22:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[aid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[authority]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[case]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=186579</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration tries to dismiss a lawsuit that threatens to expose how  American  taxpayers' money ends up in terrorists' hands.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/hamas.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-186580" alt="hamas" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/hamas.jpg" width="246" height="164" /></a>The Tel Aviv-based Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, representing 24 Americans living in Israel, filed a civil action lawsuit against the State Department last November claiming that the U.S. government is funding Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza.</span></b></p>
<p>The plaintiffs, some of whom have been victims of Palestinian terrorism, &#8220;are fearful that the money that is going to the Palestinian Authority eventually winds up in the hands of the terrorist organizations that can be facilitated to carry out attacks against them,” Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the director of the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center and one of the lawyers on the case, told The Daily Caller. “So they find themselves in a very weird situation where their tax money is going actually to attacks against them,” she added.</p>
<p>The Obama administration, not surprisingly, has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.  It argued that the plaintiffs do not have legal standing to bring the suit &#8211; i.e., they did not suffer direct personal injury traceable to the actions alleged to be illegal. The Obama administration also argued that the courts have no business getting involved in foreign policy decisions that are inherently &#8220;political questions.&#8221; These are nothing more than pretextual arguments to prevent discovery of the truth whether the Obama administration is violating express congressional conditions on the granting of aid to the Palestinian Authority and for the West Bank and Gaza.</p>
<p>The plaintiffs are Americans living in Israel.  Some were physically injured by past Palestinian terrorist attacks. All of them face the daily danger of being the victims of more attacks by Palestinian terrorist organizations. They deserve to have their day in court to hold the Obama administration accountable for allegedly violating laws designed to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money is not diverted to those terrorist organizations.</p>
<p>The lawsuit, <i>Bernstein vs. Clinton</i>, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, claims that the State Department has failed to observe congressional safeguards, transparency, and reporting requirements in its funding of the Palestinian Authority and United Nations Refugee Worker’s Administration (UNRWA). In addition, the plaintiffs claim that the White House has not been complying with the regulations and reporting obligations governing presidential waivers which facilitate emergency funding to the Palestinians. As a result, the suit alleges, American taxpayer money has ended up in the wrong places, directly or indirectly supporting Palestinian terrorist causes.</p>
<p>Since the mid-1990s, the United States has given the Palestinians over $4 billion. During the last four fiscal years alone, average aid has been roughly $600 million per year. The Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are among the largest per capita recipients of U.S. foreign aid worldwide.</p>
<p>Last month, the U.S. State Department announced that nearly $500 million in aid had been unblocked for transfer to the Palestinian Authority, months after Congress froze the funds in late-2012. But the Obama administration has no way of guaranteeing that at least some of the money it plans to lavish on the Palestinian Authority won&#8217;t find its way from Palestinian Authority coffers to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations. That should be of concern, especially after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said during an interview aired last month on Russian Today TV that there was “no difference between our policies and those of Hamas.” Moreover, according to a report released by Palestinian Media Watch, a portion of the Palestinian Authority’s monthly budget, which the Obama administration is so anxious to fund, is used to provide salaries for Palestinians who have been imprisoned for acts of terrorism.</p>
<p>Additionally, the United States is the largest single-state donor to UNRWA, to which it gives more than $200 million each year.  UNRWA was originally set up as a temporary relief agency for the original refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.  It has morphed into a bottomless money pit to support their descendants, several generations removed—now comprising approximately 5 million Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, and Gaza.</p>
<p>In 2011, UNRWA’s total budget for its core programs, emergency activities and special projects was $1.2 billion. U.S. contributions in 2011 constituted approximately 25% of the total budget. Aggregate contributions from the Muslim world constituted approximately 15% of the total budget. U.S. contributions totaled $233.3 million for fiscal year 2012 ($125.4 million for the general fund, $103.8 million for emergency funds and special projects).</p>
<p>UNRWA claims that it screens its staff and contractors every six months for terrorist ties, but its terrorist screening list does not include Hamas, Hezbollah, or most other militant groups that operate in UNRWA’s surroundings. A former UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen admitted, without any show of concern, “Oh I am sure that there are Hamas members on the UNRWA payroll and I don’t see that as a crime.”</p>
<p>A group affiliated with Hamas, known as the Islamic Bloc, has controlled the teachers’ section of the UNRWA union in Gaza, enabling the Islamic Bloc to run its indoctrination programs in the UNRWA schools that U.S. taxpayers may be helping to fund.  UNRWA schools use classroom materials that glorify terrorists, and which contain maps in which Israel has been erased.</p>
<p>Against this murky background, the complaint alleges that the defendants in the Obama administration have &#8220;authorized, sanctioned, encouraged, and/or facilitated funding to the Palestinian Authority without imposing the controls and oversight mandated by federal statute&#8230; and allowed the Palestinian Authority to evade transparency safeguards mandated by American law.&#8221;</p>
<p>The result, the plaintiffs claim in their complaint, is to allow &#8220;federal dollars into the hands of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (both recognized foreign terrorist organizations), the Palestinian Liberation Organization (a terrorist organization), employees of the Palestinian Authority who are barred access to federal funds pursuant to federal statute, and other supporters of terrorism against civilians who live in Israel.&#8221;</p>
<p>The plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction requiring the defendants to comply with federal anti-terrorism laws and cease all funding to the Palestinian Authority, UNRWA, and others in the West Bank and Gaza, until they can be sure that federal funds will not be diverted to support terrorism.</p>
<p>&#8220;Rather than defend the government&#8217;s foreign aid policy on its merits and provide proof that it truly knows where taxpayer money to the PA [Palestinian Authority] is going, the government&#8217;s lawyers are trying to dismiss the lawsuit on legal technicalities. They are saying that it is pure speculation that Americans can be injured by terrorism in Israel and that the issue of funding is a foreign policy power reserved to the US President and cannot be reviewed by the courts,&#8221; Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center&#8217;s director, said. &#8220;This lawsuit does not challenge the President and the State Dept&#8217;s right to conduct foreign policy nor fund the Palestinians. These plaintiffs simply object to the executive branch&#8217;s funding of the PA without oversight. It is a legitimate objection by two dozen Americans, who are the class of individuals Congress sought to protect through their safeguards.&#8221;</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Obama administration will probably prevail in court because the judicial branch is generally reluctant to second guess executive branch foreign policy decisions and assumes that Congress&#8217;s oversight and appropriation powers will provide a sufficient political check.</p>
<p>Whatever happens to the lawsuit, Congress needs to step up immediately and investigate the Obama administration&#8217;s handling of U.S. aid to the Palestinians through bilateral and United Nations channels. It should hold hearings on whether its current oversight, vetting, monitoring, and evaluation requirements are being met or whether they need to be further tightened. It should assess whether it is time to scale back or end those Palestinian aid programs that are most vulnerable to abuse. Even one dollar of U.S. taxpayers&#8217; money that is allowed to be diverted to pay for support of Palestinian terrorists because of lax oversight is one dollar too much.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Childish Defense of Bradley Manning</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/alan-w-dowd/the-childish-defense-of-bradley-manning/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-childish-defense-of-bradley-manning</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Mar 2013 04:18:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan W. Dowd]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arrest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bradley Manning]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leak]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[secrets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wikileaks]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Why "anti-secrecy" activists only cause war and conflict, not peace. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/alan-w-dowd/the-childish-defense-of-bradley-manning/gty_bradley_manning_dm_121108_wg/" rel="attachment wp-att-179745"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-179745" title="gty_bradley_manning_dm_121108_wg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/gty_bradley_manning_dm_121108_wg-450x340.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="204" /></a>Army Pfc. Bradley Manning has confessed to providing military and diplomatic secrets to WikiLeaks, pleading guilty to 10 criminal counts for what he once braggingly—and erroneously—called “the largest data spillage in American history.” In fact, what Manning perpetrated was the purposeful, premeditated and arguably treasonous publication of stolen national-security secrets. This was not a leak or a spill.</p>
<p>It pays to recall that this poster-child hero of the anti-war left gave U.S. military and diplomatic secrets to an anarchist group. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange openly admits that he wants to “bring down many administrations that rely on concealing reality—including the U.S. administration.” Likewise, Manning once <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/28/how-us-embassy-cables-leaked">boasted</a> about “worldwide anarchy in CSV format,” a reference to the kind of files he surrendered to Assange.</p>
<p>Over the years, Assange and his anarchists have published operations manuals for the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay; classified reports on the Battle of Fallujah; detailed information on U.S. military equipment, by unit, in Iraq; gun-camera footage of a U.S. helicopter attack in Baghdad; a U.S. Special Forces manual for bolstering allied governments; CIA strategies to shore up public support among allied populations for the war in Afghanistan; Social Security numbers of U.S. military personnel; and private diplomatic exchanges.</p>
<p>In addition, as <em>USAToday</em> reports, WikiLeaks has exposed U.S. efforts to remove nuclear materials from Pakistan, State Department plans to use diplomatic personnel as spies, quid-pro-quos offered by the Obama administration to persuade foreign governments to take on Gitmo detainees, cover-ups of missile attacks in Yemen, and support among Arab leaders to strike Iran.</p>
<p>While serving in Iraq, Manning downloaded classified videos, thousands of battlefield reports and 251,287 diplomatic cables. “I listened and lip-synched to Lady Gaga,” he bragged in a text exchange, “while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history.”</p>
<p>Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called WikiLeaks’ publication of secret diplomatic cables “an attack on America’s foreign policy interests.” According to Clinton, Manning’s WikiLeaks time bomb “puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.”</p>
<p>Manning <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/us/bradley-manning-admits-giving-trove-of-military-data-to-wikileaks.html?pagewanted=all">says</a> he stole and transferred the data to illustrate “how the world would be a better place if states would not make secret deals with each other.”</p>
<p>What a silly, childish notion.</p>
<p>In fact, we all know from personal experience that secrecy often serves an important purpose. For instance, if Assange and Manning—both in serious legal trouble—really believed secrecy was so bad, why wouldn’t they post their consultations with counsel on YouTube or share their defense strategies with the world on WikiLeaks?</p>
<p>The answer is the very same reason why nation-states keep some things secret. Indeed, it is often secrecy—not transparency—that keeps the world from spinning out of control.</p>
<p>The Assanges and Mannings of the world will never accept it, but shadows and secrets are necessary to conduct diplomacy and carry out the sort of national-security strategy that deters and ends wars.</p>
<p>That’s one of the sad ironies of Assange’s WikiLeaks. By exposing secret decisions and actions that relate to foreign policy and national security, he thinks he is promoting peace. But in truth, his handiwork is doing the very opposite: It has a chilling effect on the very sorts of exchanges that avert war or limit its effects, thus increasing isolation—and decreasing understanding—between governments.</p>
<p>History shows us the benefit of shadows.</p>
<p>Working in the shadows, TR prevented a war over Venezuela and ended a war between Russia and Japan.</p>
<p>The Allies used shadows to orchestrate their deception before D Day.</p>
<p>Thanks to the shadow of secrecy, FDR launched the Manhattan Project, and Truman used its fruits to end World War II.</p>
<p>Quoting Gen. Stonewall Jackson, Ike once advised, “Always surprise, mystify and mislead the enemy.” He employed this formula to end the Korean War and prevent a war over Taiwan.</p>
<p>JFK and Khrushchev negotiated a way around World War III, thanks to shadows and back-channel diplomacy.</p>
<p>Reagan won the Cold War by waging an economic, intelligence, technological and propaganda war against the Soviet state—largely in the shadows.</p>
<p>To be sure, we know about these episodes today—and can learn from them—because secret records, cables and diaries have been declassified. But if they had been revealed in real-time—or if the principals thought what they were saying, doing and promising would be exposed in short order—history would be very different.</p>
<p>In short, some things need to be classified. And it’s not Bradley Manning’s or Julian Assange’s responsibility or right to determine what to declassify.</p>
<p>Tellingly, this war on secrecy waged by Manning, Assange and WikiLeaks is one-sided. They’ve aired the military strategy, diplomatic planning and dirty laundry of America and its allies—but not that of America’s enemies. There is no Iranian, North Korean, Taliban or al Qaeda equivalent to WikiLeaks. And whereas much of the Western world tolerates and some even applaud people like Assange and Manning, the Russian and Chinese governments simply erase people who expose their secrets.</p>
<p>In other words, WikiLeaks, whether unintentionally or purposely, puts the United States and its allies at a disadvantage. Some will say this has always been true of democratic governments vis-à-vis their dictatorial foes. But timing is everything. And WikiLeaks is shrinking the amount of time between policy formation, policy execution and public airing—and thus shrinking the shadows where American foreign and defense policy can work.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>35 Years in Prison for 166 Dead</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:40:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Coleman Headley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[India]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mumbai]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[American scout for Mumbai terrorist attack gets off light.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/35-years-in-prison-for-166-dead/david-coleman-headley-2/" rel="attachment wp-att-175317"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-175317" title="david-coleman-headley" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/david-coleman-headley1.jpg" alt="" width="278" height="197" /></a>The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, claimed 166 victims from many nations, including six Americans: Ben Zion Chroman, Gavriel Holtzberg, Sandeep Jeswani, Alan Scherr, his daughter Naomi Scherr and Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum. David Coleman Headley, the American who helped plan the attacks, avoided the death penalty or even life imprisonment and has been <a href="http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_22445525/american-plotter-mumbai-attack-sentenced-35-years">sentenced to 35 years</a>. As one report noted, that works out to one year in prison for nearly every five people killed. The case raises questions about Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism and the collaboration of Americans in the attacks.</p>
<p>Headley, 52, was born Daood Gilani to a Pakistani father and American mother. He made five trips to Pakistan to train at camps operated by the terrorist organization <em>Lashkar e Tayyiba, </em>(LeT)<em> </em>which he later testified <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13506041">coordinated their operations with Pakistan’s intelligence service</a>, the ISI. In 2006 Gilani changed his name to Daniel Coleman Headley to facilitate travel to India. Between 2006 and 2008 he made five trips to Mumbai. There he shot surveillance videos of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, the Chabad House Jewish community center, a train station and a children’s hospital. After each trip he traveled to Pakistan and gave the videos to LeT.</p>
<p>That intelligence work enabled 10 LeT terrorists to kill innocent civilians at random while being guided from Pakistan. The Chabad House Jewish community center was a primary target. Much of the three-day rampage was captured on video and <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/11/mumbai-attacks.html">PBS Frontline aired a documentary</a> on the attacks.</p>
<p>Headley was arrested in 2009 and testified against Tahawwur Rana, a Chicago businessman who aided  LeT and plotted to attack Danish newspaper <em>Jyllands-Posten</em> for cartoons of Muhammad. Rana has been sentenced to 14 years in prison. In Rana’s trial Headley testified that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/24/mumbai-terror-trial-isi-let">coordinated with LeT</a>. Pakistan denies the charge.</p>
<p>In the style of 9/11 the Mumbai attacks took India off guard but their Black Cats special forces eventually took down the terrorists and captured one alive, Mohammed Ajmal Kasab. India hanged him last year and Indian officials were disturbed by Headley’s light sentence in American courts.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/india-wants-american-david-coleman-headley-be-extradicted-so-he-can-face-harsher-sentence-he-1038522">Indian prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told reporters</a> that the sentence was “very meager, inadequate, insufficient” and that India would have imposed the death penalty. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber agreed that Headley is a terrorist and deserved the death penalty. American Mumbai survivor Linda Ragsdale, shot in the back by one of the terrorists, testified that Headley has “lost his right to live as a free man” and that a sentence of 35 years would be an “appalling dishonor.”</p>
<p>As far as Pakistan’s involvement, innocent civilians everywhere have good reason never to believe anything until it has been officially denied. Pakistan was protecting Osama bin Laden and is doubtless smoldering over the U.S. operation to kill him, now being celebrated on film in <em>Zero Dark Thirty</em>.</p>
<p>Last September, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/325094/was-pakistan-behind-camp-bastion-attack-jonathan-foreman">an attack on Camp Bastion</a> in Helmand province of Afghanistan destroyed six Harrier jets and damaged two others. The attackers were well equipped, wore U.S. Army uniforms, and the operation was clearly well planned rehearsed beyond what one would expect from the Taliban. That has led some observers to suspect official Pakistani involvement.</p>
<p>The attackers doubtless had inside information from someone who played a spotter role in the manner of David Coleman Headley. Though he escaped just punishment for collaboration in the Mumbai attacks, Headley was at least put on trial and sentenced to a long term in prison, from which he may never emerge.  Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.kcentv.com/story/20373056/accused-fort-hood-shooter-nidal-hasan-to-keep-beard-for-trial">no trial date</a> has yet been set for Major Nidal Hasan, the U.S Army psychiatrist and jihadist who killed 13 and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood in 2009.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>How Two Al-Qaeda Fundraisers Were Set Free</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/how-two-al-qaeda-fundraisers-were-set-free/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-two-al-qaeda-fundraisers-were-set-free</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 04:38:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Al-Qaeda Fundraisers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Emadeddin Z. Muntasser]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[osama bin laden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Samir Al-Monla]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=133935</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A slap on the wrist for two Jihadists.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/al-qaeda.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-134127" title="al qaeda" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/al-qaeda.jpg" alt="" width="312" height="208" /></a>What do you get for being a terrorist fundraiser? If you’re Emadeddin Z. Muntasser, then you grin after walking away with six months of home confinement.  And if you’re, Samir Al-Monla, then you get off with eight months of home confinement.</p>
<p>The jury had convicted Muntasser and Al-Monla back in 2008 of conspiracy and of scheming to cover up their Islamic terrorism charity, but District Court Judge Dennis Saylor IV had thrown out the jury’s verdict. From there the case had gone to the United States Court of Appeals, <a href="http://www.leagle.com/xmlresult.aspx?page=2&amp;xmldoc=In%20FCO%2020110901123.xml&amp;docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&amp;SizeDisp=7">which rejected</a> Saylor’s willful disregard for the justice system and reinstated the jury’s verdict, and from there it bounced right back into Saylor’s court, where last week he gave the two men <a href="http://www.telegram.com/article/20120529/NEWS/120529428/0/COLUMN24&amp;TEMPLATE=MOBILE">the expected slap on the wrist</a>.</p>
<p>Muntasser and Al-Monla <a href="http://www.alyssaalappen.org/2006/10/20/care-international-and-misinformation/">had co-founded their group</a>, Care International, together with Abdullah Azzam. Azzam was Bin Laden’s mentor and a co-founder of Al-Qaeda and Hamas. Care International had been started up after the World Trade Center bombing as a successor to Al-Kifah, which operated under the aegis of Maktab al-Khidamat, founded by Osama bin Laden and Abdullah Azzam as a precursor to Al-Qaeda. Al-Kifah had fed money to the Mujhadeen in Afghanistan and its operatives had been closely connected to the World Trade Center Bombing. Its assets were frozen after September 11, but those of Care International were not.</p>
<p>Care International published its own Jihadist magazine, which carried over from the Al-Kifah days, named, <a href="http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/prosecuting-terrorism-beyond-material-support">“Al-Hussam” or “The Sword.”</a> Al-Hussam’s calls for beheading unbelievers and spilling rivers of their blood were as subtle as its name and its message encouraged Muslims to either join the terrorist campaign or donate to the terrorists. Care had directly transferred money to Maktab al-Khidamat while pretending to be a charity and had distributed Jihadist materials.</p>
<p>Muntasser and Al-Monla had signed a written pledge of support to Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an associate of Osama bin Laden, who claimed credit for rescuing Bin Laden from Tora Bora, had called for a Jihad against the United States and put bounties on the heads of American soldiers.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2008/January/08_nsd_021.html">The pledge read</a>, “We those who love you in the Boston office, write to you asking for direction and looking for explanation on what you see fit and appropriate for us in matters concerning serving Jihad for the sake of Allah. . . . We are prepared to abide by your commands and we are forever in the fold of obedience and military service.”</p>
<p>All that should have made the case against Al-Monla and Muntasser a simple affair; instead after nearly ten years of raids, investigations and trials— two terrorist fundraisers have, for all intents and purposes, gone free.</p>
<p>Al-Monla and Muntasser have one man to thank for their freedom. Judge Saylor, a Massachusetts Federal Judge, who did his best to set the defendants loose. Judge Saylor could have very easily <a href="http://www.telegram.com/article/20120530/NEWS/105309924/1246">added seven months</a> to Muntasser’s sentence and made him eligible for deportation. He chose not to do that either.</p>
<p>During the trial, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2007/12/boston-islamic-charity-officials-linked-to-padilla-killer-of-kahane-other-jihadists.html">Judge Saylor had ruled off limits</a> any references to Osama bin Laden or September 11 and instructed the jury that the case was not about terrorism or Islam. The jury nevertheless did the right thing. The judge however did not.</p>
<p>What should be equally disturbing is that last year, Judge Saylor was appointed to the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a seven year term. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court reviews classified evidence and authorizes electronic surveillance in cases that primarily involve terrorism. For the next six years, Judge Saylor will have a great deal of power in denying or authorizing investigations of Islamic terrorists with very little oversight or outside knowledge of his decisions.</p>
<p>Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke S. Chakravarty has criticized Judge Saylor’s handling of the case and warned that he was, “opening up the floodgates to creating more bin Ladens.” In rejecting Saylor’s acquittal, the United States Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.leagle.com/xmlresult.aspx?page=24&amp;xmldoc=In%20FCO%2020110901123.xml&amp;docbase=CSLWAR3-2007-CURR&amp;SizeDisp=7">had said that</a>, “the evidence against both defendants on the relevant charges was simply overwhelming.”</p>
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		<title>Yoo Ruling Upholds Definition of &#8216;Enemy Combatant&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/david-meir-levi/how-john-yoo-and-the-9th-circuit-court-reversed-the-obama-non-doctrine/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-john-yoo-and-the-9th-circuit-court-reversed-the-obama-non-doctrine</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 May 2012 04:30:11 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Meir-Levi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bush]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[combatant]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[john yoo]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ruling]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=131259</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the 9th Circuit Court reversed misguided Obama administration policies on the war on terror. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/yoo.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-131423" title="yoo" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/yoo.jpg" alt="" width="289" height="217" /></a>The story told <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304746604577381841940350560.html">by</a> and <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304743704577380262141049178.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">about</a> Professor <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/04/john-yoo-vindicated/print/">John Yoo</a> reveals an unexplainable irrationality on the part of those who should be leading our country to victory against the Islamofascist assault upon Western civilization that some call World War 4 (World War 3 was the Cold War).</p>
<p>To understand this irrationality and the importance of Professor Yoo, we must go back to the 1990s when Osama first began attacking US persons and property, and to al-Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole (12 October 2000). President Clinton’s response was that <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing1/witness_sofaer.htm">these were criminal acts</a> and the US would prosecute the criminals, working in partnership with nations having access to the perpetrators, in order to hunt them down and bring them to justice.</p>
<p>Such an approach to terrorist attacks and asymmetrical warfare stood in sharp contradistinction to the <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing1/witness_sofaer.htm">doctrine of “active defense</a>” developed in the Reagan era by George Schultz, which included “active prevention, preemption, retaliation, and deterrence.”</p>
<p>With Clinton’s less aggressive approach, the FBI was dispatched to Yemen and Arabia to hunt down and bring to justice the perpetrators of the USS Cole bombing. Needless to say there was much consternation in the FBI, the State Department and White House when, much to their surprise, Saudi Arabia and Yemen were unwilling to cooperate.  Such was the Clinton Doctrine.</p>
<p>After 9/11, President Bush formulated a different doctrine, relating back to Schultz and Reagan, but going farther:</p>
<blockquote><p>The <a href="http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing1/witness_sofaer.htm">President adopted a set of principles</a> to guide US policy: first, that serious terrorist attacks should be treated as acts of war, not merely as crimes; second, that states are responsible for terrorism emanating from within their borders; and third, that we must preempt attacks where possible, because of their potentially devastating consequences.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama has taken us back to Clinton, and beyond.  He has not actually verbalized a doctrine.  Rather he has a general style of foreign policy that eschews America’s uniqueness and status as a world power and relies on engagement, negotiation and collaboration.   None the less, it seems clear that he has revived Clinton’s doctrine by dismantling the Bush Doctrine. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obama_Doctrine">When he proposed the closing</a> of the American detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and the use of American civil courts (instead of military courts) to try Guantanamo detainees, ordered discontinuing the use of the term &#8220;Global War on Terror,&#8221; prohibited  government publications from associating Muslim terrorist attacks with Islam, and <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/02/01/pandering-to-the-persians/">delayed substantive response to Iran’s WMD progress</a> by pressing instead for engagement, Obama was reversing the Bush Doctrine and, <em>de facto</em>, giving terrorist prisoners the status of American civilian criminals whose rights and person are protected by our constitution and centuries of social and criminal legislation.</p>
<p>And the status of terrorist prisoners is what <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/04/john-yoo-vindicated/print/">Professor Yoo’s story</a> entails.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, May 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted unanimously to reject the Obama doctrine and return to the Bush doctrine.  The court <a href="http://www.law.com/jsp/ca/PubArticleCA.jsp?id=1202551071249">dismissed</a> the case against former Bush administration lawyer John Yoo, filed by convicted terrorist Jose Padilla.  The case focused on Yoo’s immunity from the lawsuit and the definition of torture, since <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-torture-20120503,0,6944364.story">Padilla claimed that he was tortured</a> while in military detention; and it was Yoo who had argued to the Bush administration that the interrogation techniques used on Padilla did not qualify as torture.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304743704577380262141049178.html?mod=googlenews_wsj">ruling vindicates the principle</a> that government officials are immune from private litigation for their national-security decisions. The ruling is also a watershed for repudiating sham tort claims whose goal is to intimidate government personnel who deal with terrorists as enemy combatants rather than as common criminals.  But even more important, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/04/john-yoo-vindicated/print/">the court’s ruling</a> reinforces the legal definition of enemy combatant as it applies to terrorists; and it is in this legal arena that the ruling reverses Obama.</p>
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		<title>Lars Hedegaard&#8217;s &#8220;Racism&#8221; Case Goes Before Supreme Court</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/lars-hedegaards-racism-case-goes-before-supreme-court/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=lars-hedegaards-racism-case-goes-before-supreme-court</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/frontpagemag-com/lars-hedegaards-racism-case-goes-before-supreme-court/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 16 Apr 2012 04:31:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Court]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lars Hedegaard]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trial]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=128839</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[President of the Danish Free Press Society stands firm on his fight in "the most important political struggle of our time."]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/lars-hedegaard.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-128848" title="lars-hedegaard" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/lars-hedegaard.jpg" alt="" width="406" height="253" /></a><em></em></p>
<p><em>On Friday, April 13, 2012, President of the Danish Free Press Society Lars Hedegaard had his day in the Danish Supreme Court &#8212; to which he has appealed his previous conviction for so-called &#8220;hate speech.&#8221; Below is an English translation of his final words to the Court:</em></p>
<p>Honourable Supreme Court,</p>
<p>My attorney has presented juridical arguments to the effect that I must be acquitted and I shall refrain from elaborating.</p>
<p>However, allow me to express my quiet bafflement that somebody can claim that it has been my intention to accuse every last Muslim father in the world of abusing his children – particularly in light of the fact that I have carefully explained that it was never my intention to disseminate such an absurd contention.</p>
<p>For precisely that reason, I would have welcomed an opportunity to review the statements I now stand accused of having uttered before they were placed on the Internet. If the interviewer had fulfilled this basic journalistic obligation, I would have demanded that my remarks be corrected so as to reflect my true opinions and the prosecutor could have saved the trouble of dragging me through the courts.</p>
<p>I am even more baffled at one of the claims about my person that has been circulated in connection with this case, namely that I am a racist. I have never been, I am not now and I shall never be a racist. On the contrary, all my life I have opposed racist attitudes, by which I mean hatred towards and denigrating speech about people due their descent, skin color or other so-called racial characteristics – in other words, antipathy against or ill treatment of people due to circumstances over which they have no control.</p>
<p>Islam is not a race and therefore criticism of Islam cannot be racism.</p>
<p>Islam, which lurks behind this entire case, has been described from a variety of viewpoints. Some say that it is a religion, others that is an all-encompassing ideology that contains a religion, still others emphasize its cultural norms, its culturally transmitted customs and practices. Some even maintain that Islam is so multifaceted that it is impossible to describe it.</p>
<p>But regardless of one&#8217;s approach, it must be clear that Islam is not a hereditary human attribute.</p>
<p>If our Western freedom means anything at all, we must insist that every grown-up person is responsible for his or her beliefs, opinions, culture, habits and actions.</p>
<p>We enjoy political freedom and we enjoy freedom of religion. This implies a largely unlimited right to disseminate one&#8217;s political persuasion and religious beliefs. That is as it should be. But the price we all have to pay for this freedom is that others have a right to criticise our politics, our religion and our culture.</p>
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