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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Discrimination</title>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s &#8216;Operation Choke Point&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/obamas-operation-choke-point/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-operation-choke-point</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/obamas-operation-choke-point/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2014 05:40:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Banks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FDIC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gun manufacturer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[operation choke point]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247698</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the administration's crusade against lawful U.S. businesses won't be discontinued anytime soon.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/fdic.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247700" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/fdic-450x310.png" alt="fdic" width="350" height="241" /></a>Almost unbelievably, the Obama administration is involved in another scandalous abuse of power, one that has largely escaped the public’s attention. The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released a <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Staff-Report-FDIC-and-Operation-Choke-Point-12-8-2014.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">report</span></a> December 8 detailing the abuses by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), operating under the auspices of a program known as Operation Choke Point. Run by the Departments of Justice and Treasury, Operation Choke Point was supposed to target illegal businesses and prevent them from obtaining access to the U.S. financial system. Yet damning emails unearthed by investigators <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/08/these-7-revealing-emails-show-federal-agencies-scheming-to-target-legal-businesses/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reveal</span></a> regulatory officials were motivated by personal animus toward certain businesses. “It’s appalling that our government is working around the law to vindictively attack businesses they find objectionable,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said in a press release.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">&#8220;Internal FDIC documents confirm that Operation Choke Point is an extraordinary abuse of government power,” Issa. &#8220;In the most egregious cases, federal bureaucrats injected personal moral judgments into the regulatory process. Such practices are totally inconsistent with basic principles of good government, transparency and the rule of law.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Operation Choke Point was <a href="http://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/financial-fraud-enforcement-task-force-executive-director-michael-j-bresnick-exchequer"><span style="color: #1255cc;">publicly introduced</span></a> in March of 2013, when Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force Executive Director Michael J. Bresnickat bought it up in a speech at Washington D.C.’s Exchequer Club. Bresnickat assured his audience the reason the program was &#8220;focused on financial institutions and payment processors is because they are the so-called bottlenecks, or choke-points, in the fraud committed by so many merchants that victimize consumers and launder their illegal proceeds.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Five months later, the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323838204578654411043000772"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revealed</span></a> the troubling reality that one of the first targets of the program were payday lending operations. Peter Barden, spokesman for the Online Lenders Alliance, sounded the initial warning, noting government pressure forcing banks to stop payment processing &#8220;would cut off an important credit choice for millions of underserved consumers&#8221; and &#8220;send a troubling message to banks that at any point regulators can force them to stop processing legal transactions simply because they don&#8217;t like a particular merchant or industry.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In January 2014, Issa, along with Economic Growth Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), sent U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder a letter expressing concern that &#8220;both the goal and mechanisms of Operation Choke Point may constitute a serious mismanagement and abuse of the Department&#8217;s FIRREA [Financial Institution Reform and Recovery Act of 1989] authority.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Issa wanted answers. The DOJ felt it was under no obligation to provide them.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">By the end of May 2014, Issa’s concern had morphed into outrage. He issued a report <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/05/29/House-Committee-Report-DOJ-Must-Disavow-and-Dismantle-Operation-Choke-Point"><span style="color: #1255cc;">contending</span></a> Operation Choke Point was so “flagrantly illegal” it was beyond legal rehabilitation. &#8220;In light of the Department&#8217;s obligation to act within the bounds of the law, and its avowed commitment not to &#8216;discourage or inhibit&#8217; the lawful conduct of honest merchants, it is necessary to disavow and dismantle Operation Choke Point,” the report stated. It further noted that Holder knew about the program prior to its launch, that he knew it was aimed at targeting legal entities—and that he nonetheless fully supported its implementation. Furthermore, the report suggested that once the program became public, the DOJ may have attempted to cover up parts of its operation.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It was also discovered that Operation Choke Point had expanded beyond the payday lending industry, targeting manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of firearms and ammunition, as well as coin dealers. And it was also revealed that a January 23, 2014 deadline regarding Issa’s request for information came and went absent any indication the DOJ had fulfilled it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Three days later, <a href="http://myfoxdc.com/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">MyFoxdc.com</span></a> <a href="http://www.myfoxdc.com/story/25668177/holders-gun-grab-via-operation-choke-point"><span style="color: #1255cc;">issued</span></a> a report on Operation Choke Point alleging the program targeted the gun industry because Obama failed to get gun control legislation passed by Congress. If such an effort has a familiar ring, it’s because Obama has employed precisely the same Congress-bypassing tactic with regard to illegal immigration. At that time, The National Shooting Sports Foundation revealed many of its members in the firearms and ammunitions manufacturing industries had had their banking relationships wrongfully terminated by the program.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report released Dec. 8 put the pernicious scope of the program in full perspective. Its key findings reveal the FDIC “equated legitimate and regulated activities&#8230;with inherently pernicious or patently illegal activities,” via “circular argument policymaking”&#8211;an original list of high-risk merchants were determined by FDIC, who then justified formal guidelines for banks by claiming the categories “had been previously noted”—by the FDIC itself.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The most egregious revelations centered around FDIC policymakers whose “personal animus” towards the payday industry was so intense that their senior-most bank examiners &#8220;effectively ordered banks to terminate all relationships with the industry.” An email from Thomas Dujenski, FDIC’s Atlanta regional director, to Mark Pearce, director of the Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection underscores that personal animus:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">I have never said this to you (but I am sincerely passionate about this) … but I literally cannot stand the pay day lending industry … I had extensive involvement with this group of lenders and was instrumental in drafting guidance on stopping abuses.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Another damning email reveals that John Miller, <a href="https://www.fdic.gov/about/comein/bio-panelist/bio-fdic-miller.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Deputy Director</span></a> for Policy and Research in the Division of Depositor and Consumer Protection at the FDIC, was concerned about “taking pornography” out the equation in letters about targeted businesses to Congress. The redacted writer of the email expressed his concern that lumping pornography in with online gambling and payday loan companies might make it appear that the FDIC was making “moral judgments regarding the types of businesses with which our institutions deal.” The email continues:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Jonathan heard where we were coming from but nonetheless wants to retain a reference to pornography in our letters/talking points. He thinks it’s important for Congress to get a good picture regarding the unsavory nature of the businesses at issue. He repeated that ‘one is judged by the friends one keeps,’ and he seems to feel strongly that including payday lenders in the same circle as pornographers and on-line gambling businesses will ultimately help with messaging on this issue.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">If you feel there is legal argument beyond the one I made, and would like us to push back on this issue, please let me know.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">The report’s conclusions are unambiguous. &#8220;The practical impact of Operation Choke Point is incontrovertible: legal and legitimate businesses are being choked off from the financial system,” it states, further noting the experiences endured by firearms and ammunition dealers &#8220;is a testament to the destructive and unacceptable impact of Operation Choke Point.” The report’s last paragraph is a testament to the corrupt nature of the Obama administration and its power-abusing impulses:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">&#8220;At a minimum, Operation Choke Point is little more than government-mandated de-risking. FDIC, in cooperation with the Justice Department, made sure banks understood–or in their own language, &#8216;got the message&#8217;–that maintaining relationships with certain disfavored business lines would incur enormous regulatory risk. The effect of this policy has been to deny countless legal and legitimate merchants access to the financial system and deprive them of their very ability to exist. Accordingly, Operation Choke Point violates the most fundamental principles of the rule of law and accountable, transparent government.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">Last June, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/senator-rand-paul-tries-to-right-a-wrong-by-the-obama-administration"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filed</span></a> an amendment to the Science Justice Commerce Appropriations bill attempting to cut off the administration&#8217;s efforts to effectively shut down gun stores via Operation Choke Point. It followed the May 2014 passage of a House amendment sponsored by Rep. Blane Luetkeymeyer (R-MO) to <a href="http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2014/05/house-defunds-doj-choke-point-bullying-operation/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">defund</span></a> the program. It was ultimately <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2014/06/03/establishment-press-ignores-house-vote-defund-operation-choke-point"><span style="color: #1255cc;">approved</span></a> by 204 Republicans and 117 Democrats. An article published by Human Events on Nov. 17, 2014 <a href="http://humanevents.com/2014/11/17/if-it-walks-like-a-lame-duck/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">indicates</span></a> the program has yet to be addressed in the still Democratically-controlled Senate.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">After trying several senators’ offices, FrontPage contacted a source in Washington, D.C. who requested anonymity. He made a valiant effort to find any mention of the Operation Choke Point in the recently passed $1.1 trillion CRomnibus bill funding the federal government for FY2015. The search proved unsuccessful, indicating that it is more than likely Operation Choke Point remains alive and well. It behooves a GOP-controlled Congress to kill this egregious abuse of power as one of its first orders of business next year. The American public has no use whatsoever for public officials willing to trample the law to satisfy their personal worldview. In short, it’s time to strangle Operation Choke Point.</p>
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		<title>Judge Rejects the &#8216;Disparate Impact&#8217; Fraud</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/judge-rejects-the-disparate-impact-fraud/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=judge-rejects-the-disparate-impact-fraud</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/judge-rejects-the-disparate-impact-fraud/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Nov 2014 05:45:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[attorney general]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disparate impact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tom Perez]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244566</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Attorney General hopeful Tom Perez's race-based justice scheme surfers a major setback. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/113_2014_thomas-perez8201_c0-112-3670-2251_s561x327.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-244578 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/113_2014_thomas-perez8201_c0-112-3670-2251_s561x327-450x262.jpg" alt="113_2014_thomas-perez8201_c0-112-3670-2251_s561x327" width="352" height="205" /></a>On Monday, one of the Obama administration’s foremost racial arsonists was given his comeuppance by a federal judge. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, who is on the American left’s short list for replacing U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, was informed by Judge Richard J. Leon that his effort to find housing discrimination where none existed <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/222690-judge-tosses-hud-discrimination-rule"><span style="color: #1255cc;">amounted</span></a> to “wishful thinking on steroids.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perez sought to apply the policy of “disparate impact” to housing. Judicial Watch <a href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-sues-hud-for-records-of-obama-administration-involvement-in-controversial-minnesota-new-jersey-disparate-impact-discrimination-cases/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">explains</span></a> this contemptible concept. &#8220;Under the theory of &#8216;disparate impact,&#8217; a defendant can be held liable for discrimination for a race-neutral policy that <i>statistically</i> disadvantages a specific minority group even if that negative ‘impact&#8217; was neither foreseen nor intended,” they write. &#8220;In such cases, defendants can be forced to pay for harm caused not by their own actions, but by economic and statistical realities, even if beyond their control.” (italics original)</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Leon wasn’t buying it. He characterized the attempt to legitimize disparate impact as a vehicle to expand the possibility of filing discrimination cases as “hutzpah (sic) (bordering on desperation).” “This is yet another example of an administrative agency trying desperately to write into law that which Congress never intended to sanction,” he wrote, adding that the arguments made by Obama administration attorneys were “nothing less than an artful misinterpretation” of the law.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The law to which Leon referred is the <a href="http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/FHLaws/yourrights"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Fair Housing Act</span></a>, administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In February 2013, HUD <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/281997-hud-finalizes-discriminatory-lending-rules-opposed-by-financial-industry"><span style="color: #1255cc;">made</span></a> disparate impact a policy tool, one the administration employed to build discriminatory cases against mortgage lending institutions that garnered them hundreds of millions of dollars.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In July of that year, Wells Fargo paid a $175 million settlement after the Department of Justice (DOJ) accused the bank of discriminating against thousands black and Hispanic borrowers—based on loan analyses made by the bank and its independent brokers from the years 2004 and 2009. Wells Fargo admitted no wrongdoing, claiming it was settling to avoid even costlier litigation expenses. That windfall was topped by a record-setting $335 million settlement made by Bank of America in 2011, following allegations of discrimination by Countrywide Lending, purchased by Bank of America in 2008. Once again the feds used disparate impact to allege that minority borrowers had received less favorable borrowing terms than whites.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perez is an <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/051211-572091-holders-anti-bank-witch-hunt.htm?p=2"><span style="color: #1255cc;">old hand</span></a> at this shakedown racket. In 2011, the DOJ created the Fair Lending Unit staffed with more than 20 lawyers, economists and statisticians, determined to ferret out discriminatory lending practices at the more than 60 banks that were targeted at the time. The man in charge of that division was Special Counsel for Fair Lending Eric Halperin. Halperin ultimately answered to none other than Tom Perez, who headed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That would be the same Tom Perez who compared bankers to KKK Klansmen, insisting the only difference between the two groups was that bankers discriminate &#8220;with a smile&#8221; and &#8220;fine print,” but were nonetheless &#8220;every bit as destructive as the cross burned in a neighborhood.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That would also be the same Tom Perez who in 2010 <a href="http://www.mainjustice.com/2010/06/23/perez-calls-for-reining-in-wild-wild-west-in-lending/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">railed</span></a> against the housing meltdown &#8220;fueled in large part by risky and irresponsible lending practices that allowed too many Americans to get unsustainable or unaffordable home loans.” It was then he promised that once the Fair Housing Unit was up and running, it &#8220;will use every tool in our arsenal, including, but not limited to, disparate impact theory.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perez is determined to protect disparate impact theory from being adjudicated by the Supreme Court. On Nov. 7, 2011 the Court agreed to hear <i>Magner</i> v. <i>Gallagher, </i>a case about racial discrimination in housing. As the Weekly Standard <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/thomas-perez-makes-deal_724692.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reveals</span></a>, a Supreme Court decision on the theory was utterly anathema to Perez, whose effort to make the case “go away” became his self-admitted “top priority.” The case was about several property owners who alleged that St. Paul, Minnesota’s ramped up enforcement of the city’s housing code for rental units reduced the availability of low-income rentals, creating a disparate impact affecting black Americans. The district court tossed the suit, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reinstated it, complete with the concept of disparate impact. The city appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, which was poised to decide for the first time whether disparate impact cases pursued under the auspices of the Fair Housing Act can be brought before the courts.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perez, who has referred to disparate impact as the “lynchpin” of his civil rights agenda, didn’t want to take that chance. He managed to get the city to drop its case from the Supreme Court docket. Judicial Watch provided some of the sordid details, noting they had obtained documents &#8220;under the Minnesota Data Practices Act, showing that St. Paul City Attorney Sara Grewing arranged a meeting between the then-chief of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, current Secretary of Labor Tom Perez, and Mayor Chris Coleman a week before the city’s withdrawal from the case, captioned <i>Magner v. Gallagher</i>. Following Perez’s visit, the city withdrew its case and thanked DOJ and officials at HUD for their involvement.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In June of 2013, the Supreme Court agreed to hear another case revolving around disparate impact. <i>Township of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens</i> concerned the town’s efforts to redevelop a blighted neighborhood. A group of renters <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323566804578551270111594516"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filed suit</span></a> alleging the move violated the FHA because the majority of the renters were non-white and they were unable to afford the new mid-priced, single-family dwellings. The district court dismissed the argument ruling all the renters were equally affected. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed that ruling, basing their decision on disparate impact.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Once again Perez prevailed, <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/mount-holly-settlement-spares-fair-housing-act-for-now"><span style="color: #1255cc;">getting</span></a> Mt. Holly to drop the case, and once again preventing the Supreme Court from issuing a ruling on disparate impact.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Judge Leon noticed. In a stunning rebuke of Perez himself, Leon accused the Labor Secretary of gaming the system, timing cases and arranging the aforementioned settlements he found “particularly troubling.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It ought to trouble every American that the Obama administration remains determined to codify racial discrimination based on the idea that statistics can be a viable substitute for actual intent. To image how absurd this theory truly is, one need only apply it to the National Basketball Association where a “disproportionate&#8221; number of black American athletes, relative to the percentage of the nations’s overall population, earn a living.  Should white college basketball players who weren’t drafted by the NBA be able to file a lawsuit alleging discrimination, based on nothing more than that statistical discrepancy? Absent the necessity of proving intent to discriminate, the power of the government to file discrimination charges become virtually unlimited.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Leon noted there was nothing in the wording of the FHA or anything he read regarding Congress’s intent when it passed the FHA that supported HUD’s interpretation of the law. He further noted that complying with disparate impact theories would force various entities to compile information on a number of factors, including race, religion, gender, etc., that those entities are often banned from obtaining under state law.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perez may be forced to work overtime yet again. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear <i>Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project.</i> State officials have been <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-02/texas-housing-bias-case-gets-u-s-supreme-court-review.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">sued</span></a> by the Inclusive Communities Project, a Dallas-based group advocating integrated housing. The ICP alleges the state allocated a disproportionate number of federal low-income housing tax credits to minority neighborhoods, a practice that “makes dwellings unavailable in particular areas, thereby perpetuating residential segregation in the Dallas area,” the group said in court papers. The federal appeals court that ruled in favor of the plaintiffs is one of 11 that have determined the Fair Housing Act allows disparate-impact claims. Texas officials, led by Attorney General Greg Abbott, are eager to have the Supreme Court hear the case. “The far-reaching scope of disparate-impact liability makes this a question of exceptional importance,” they said in their appeal.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The Equal Credit Opportunity Act used to hammer Wells Fargo and Bank of America may also be affected by the ruling. Miami attorney Paul Hancock, who filed a brief backing the Lone Star state on behalf of business groups led by the American Bankers Association, illuminated the implications if the Court decides to leave the theory of disparate impact intact. “It really pushes more toward advancement of racial quotas as the only way to avoid legal claims,” he said in a phone interview.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Disparate impact may do <i>far</i> more than that. After the election, the Obama administration intends to push its “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” agenda. It requires HUD to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/08/obama-administration-using-housing-department-to-compel-diversity-in/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">gather data</span></a> on segregation and discrimination. That data that will be used to racially diversify every city and suburb in America, <a href="http://nypost.com/2014/10/26/obamas-plans-for-a-secret-radical-agenda-after-the-elections/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">superseding</span></a> all local zoning ordinances and forcing those cities and suburbs to accept subsidized housing. “Geospatial data” will pinpoint alleged segregation hotspots that will be forced to comply with HUD&#8217;s efforts to racially balance the entire nation. &#8220;Unfortunately, in too many of our hardest hit communities, no matter how hard a child or her parents work, the life chances of that child, even her lifespan, is determined by the zip code she grows up in. This is simply wrong,” said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan when he unveiled the federal rule at the NAACP convention in July.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That’s nothing less than an <i>exponential expansion</i> of the disparate impact theory.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">By the time you read this, it is likely we will know which party controls the Senate. If it is Republicans, one of the first orders of business should be making it clear that Tom Perez’s chance of succeeding Eric Holder are zero. It will send a clear message that racial huckstering based on dubious legal theories will no longer be tolerated. After that, pruning as many race-addled zealots from HUD as possible would be a nice follow up.</p>
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		<title>Opposing Illegal Immigrant Warehousing Is &#8216;Racist&#8217;?</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:20:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Central America]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=242266</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Obama administration's lawsuit against one small town -- and how leftists will profit from it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/immigration-secure-border.jpeg7-1280x960.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-242268" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/immigration-secure-border.jpeg7-1280x960-450x337.jpg" alt="immigration-secure-border.jpeg7-1280x960" width="336" height="252" /></a>Last June, community outrage forced the federal government to cancel plans to house hundreds of illegal alien children at a closed college in Lawrenceville, VA. A <a href="http://www.phonehome.org/Portals/0/Images/PDF/pressrelease/St%20Pauls%20Press%20release%209-25-14.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">complaint</span></a> filed by St. Paul&#8217;s College and nonprofit Housing Opportunities Made Equal (HOME) of Virginia with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) alleges the move was racially motivated. Both entities also <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/28/virginia-illegal-immigrant-children-housing-site-f/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&amp;utm_medium=RSS"><span style="color: #1255cc;">filed</span></a> a separate complaint against the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) for canceling the lease, citing another alleged violation of anti-discrimination laws. “No one should block someone’s housing opportunity based on race or national origin,” said Helen O’Beirne Hardiman, fair housing director for HOME. “It’s unfair, and it’s completely illegal for government officials to step in to a private deal and say we don’t want Central American children coming to this community.&#8221;</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Make that <i>illegal alien</i> Central American children who were part of the nine-month border border-busting surge that began last October. Approximately 66,000 Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs) were detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). HHS has <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2743817/Revealed-Where-37-000-illegal-immigrant-children-released-guardians-Connecticut-Kentucky-feds-hiding-tens-thousands-more.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">released</span></a> 37,000 of them to relatives and guardians in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The rest have been left in 116 temporary shelters in 16 states. The reason for the scope of the dispersal became obvious last Friday, when the Associated Press reported that <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e2da7d75d8654743bd5cab186931bddb/apnewsbreak-immigrant-families-ignore-follow"><span style="color: #1255cc;">70 percent</span></a> of illegal aliens families released, never showed up for their scheduled follow-up appointments.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Since this manufactured crisis has been occurring—and there is no other way to described the wholesale and willful abandonment of border security by the Obama administration&#8211;the feds have been under enormous pressure to find shelters for the thousands of children they were unable to place. At the suggestion of Virginia Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel and Secretary of Education Anne Holton, they pursued a deal with St. Paul’s College, which stood to receive $160,000 a month to house approximately 500 children, mostly males age 15 to 17, at the facility.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">College President Millard Stith was enthused by the prospect, and claims town and county officials whom he alerted gave him no indication they would resist it. “This is like manna from heaven,” he told the <i>Washington Times.</i> “I’m walking around with my chest sticking out, because I’m saying me and my partners in the county and town are going to be benefitting from this project. Silly me.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Hope for the hefty payout was dashed by the other entity involved in this equation &#8212; namely, the people of Lawrenceville. Nearly 1,000 of the town’s total <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=population,+Lawrenceville,+VA&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;aq=t&amp;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&amp;client=firefox-a&amp;channel=sb"><span style="color: #1255cc;">population</span></a> of 1,300 showed up at a town hall meeting on June 19, and the <a href="http://wtvr.com/2014/06/19/public-meeting-about-st-pauls-college-immigrants/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">overwhelming majority</span></a> made it vehemently clear they were opposed to the deal. They expressed concerns ranging from disease and crime, to government overreach and the Obama administrations’s misguided spending policies. They were also <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/19/323346848/plan-to-house-immigrant-teens-prompts-a-backlash-in-virginia-town"><span style="color: #1255cc;">angered</span></a> that the ostensible deal had been orchestrated without their knowledge.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts echoed that concern. &#8220;I was just shocked,” he said at the time. &#8220;The way this process has been handled puts more fear in our eyes, because it&#8217;s been shoved down our throat.&#8221; At the meeting, Kenneth Tota with the Office for Refugee Resettlement admitted as much. “We do apologize for the fact that you heard about this project too far along,” he told the crowd.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">A day after the meeting the feds <a href="http://wtvr.com/2014/06/20/feds-scrapping-plan-to-house-illegal-immigrant-children-at-st-pauls-college/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">backed down</span></a>. “We have heard the concerns of many of the residents and leaders of Lawrenceville about the proposal to temporarily care for unaccompanied children at the now-closed Saint Paul’s College. We have taken this proposal off the table and will move on quickly to identify other sites to temporarily house these vulnerable children,” HHS said in statement. Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner said HHS made the right decision. “Collaboration and local support is absolutely key for the success of a project like this,” he contended.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The twin lawsuits make it clear that collaboration and local support are irrelevant when there’s an agenda that must be served. In the complaint filed with HUD, the plaintiffs allege that elected and employed officials of the town of Lawrenceville and Brunswick County “orchestrated and implemented a plan to block the deal. Purported concerns by these individuals are grounded in false stereotypes about Latinos and reflect discrimination based on race, color, creed and/or national origin,” the complaint states.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Sheriff Roberts was singled out for &#8220;discriminatory statements,” because he told the media, “There is this negative perception of gang violence—these people are coming from Central America.” The townspeople were accused of making statements that were “facially discriminatory” and of using “thinly veiled coded language” to express animus towards national origin.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Hardiman pushed the envelope even further. Despite the reality that there was no vote on the project by local officials, she contends their vocal influence with regard to the eventual outcome is sufficient to pursue the complaint. &#8220;The officials really organized the backlash and they provided this platform for townspeople to voice their opposition. And, ultimately, I think that the officials are really responsible for the deal being squashed,” she told <a href="http://watchdog.org/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Watchdog.org</span></a>. She also claimed that documents HOME procured under the Freedom of Information Act indicate officials stirred up the residents’ resistance via “unofficial actions behind the scenes.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Roberts wasn’t buying it. He believes the complaint has “zero merit” and College President Stith is &#8220;just grasping for anything to create controversy.” He further insisted that everyone &#8220;has a constitutional right to have an opinion and express a position,” and that issues of race &#8220;never came up until this complaint.” He once again pointed his finger at the feds. “That whole fiasco was really the federal government and just pure mishandling,” he contended. “Lack of communication, lack of transparency, lack of consistency. Everything was a train wreck.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Stith put out a press release stating the school had been “severely injured” by the failure to procure a deal. Yet the historically black college founded in 1888 filed for bankruptcy in June 2013, following the failure of a deal that would have allowed Saint Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C. to acquire it. <a href="http://newpittsburghcourieronline.com/2013/06/18/the-death-of-saint-paul-s-college"><span style="color: #1255cc;">According</span></a> to the <i>New</i> <i>Pittsburgh Courier</i>, the deal &#8220;collapsed under the weight of Saint Paul’s debt.” Stith apparently believes he’s entitled to a taxpayer-funded windfall to give the college &#8220;the much-needed funding to complete necessary improvements to the campus and repay creditors,” the statement added.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Hardiman claims the children who were never sheltered at St. Paul’s were also &#8220;dramatically injured,” and that HHS should reconsider the deal &#8220;to prevent further injury, if possible.” She also issued a warning to other localities who might have the temerity to resist having illegal alien shelters imposed upon them, insisting these complaints serve as a lesson in that regard. “We want municipalities to know that they can’t step in and block housing opportunities for people based on their race, color and national origin,” she said.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">According to HUD, the Fair Housing Act <a href="http://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/Immigration_Discrimination_FAQ_ENG.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">prohibits</span></a> discrimination “in the sale, rental and financing of dwellings, and in other housing-related transactions based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. Such discrimination is illegal regardless of the victim’s immigration status.” Furthermore, HUD “does not inquire about immigration status when investigating claims of housing discrimination.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In this case, the immigration status is a known quantity. All that remains to be seen is whether legitimate concerns of people exercising their First Amendment rights in various incarnations at a town hall meeting can be construed as “racial discrimination.” It also remains to be seen if the Obama administration is now willing to pursue a policy of imposing illegal alien shelters wherever they choose, whether local residents want them or not.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Lawrenceville Mayor William H. Herrington wants to reserve comment on the complaint until he is officially served with it. But he had no problem with the town hall meeting that scuttled the deal. “We do live in America,” he explained. It is an America where border security is virtually non-existent, and illegal aliens apparently have the right to be sheltered at taxpayer expense in locations contrary to the wishes of citizens who inhabit them &#8212; lest they be threatened with litigation. &#8220;America In Name Only&#8221; may be closer to the truth.</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>Ferguson and the Thirteenth Amendment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/ferguson-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ferguson-and-the-thirteenth-amendment</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:30:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[thirteenth amendment]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How a constitutional loophole could enable a Democratic power-grab.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238993" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting.jpg" alt="2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting" width="282" height="235" /></a>The events in Ferguson, Missouri this past week have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/opinion/syed-ferguson-racial-profiling-issue/">triggered</a> calls for President Obama to push for an anti-race profiling-bill to prevent police from “disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities for investigation, interrogation and arrest” – Obama has helped pass such <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Barack-Obama-and-Racial-Profiling-215986531.html">legislation</a> when he was a state senator –Senator <a href="http://www.cardin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/cardin-statement-on-michael-brown-and-ferguson-missouri">Ben Cardin</a> (D-Md.) has urged Congress to introduce legislation that would “once and for all prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement officials.”</p>
<p>In spite of “racial profiling” more naturally being a state matter (insofar that it’s regulatable), such a power grab by the federal government is entirely possible due to the gradual <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol39_1/carter.pdf?q=combating-test-panic">expansion</a> of the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery. Although relatively dormant during the first 100 years of its passage, the Thirteenth Amendment’s Section 2 enforcement power, which authorizes Congress to enact “appropriate legislation” to end the “badges and incidents of slavery,” has dramatically widened since the 1960s and could “justify” such a bill.</p>
<p>But Senator Cardin and his supporters, like <a href="http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm/2013/7/conyers-joins-senator-cardin-and-civil-rights-groups-in-calling-for-passage-of-the-end-racial-profiling-act">Rep. John Conyers</a>, may have to act quickly. Next term, the Supreme Court will likely take up <em><a href="http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5cpub%5c12/12-20514-CR0.pdf">US v. Cannon</a></em>, a case which legal commentators say may result in the culling of this disconcertingly imprecise “badges and incidents”standard and pare back further legislative overreach by the federal government.</p>
<p>Ever since the Supreme Court began signaling to Congress that there may be some limits to what they can pass under the Commerce Clause, <a href="http://columbialawreview.org/thirteenth-amendment-optimism/">liberal legal scholars</a> have argued that Section 2 can be used to justify everything from hate speech regulations and minimum-wage laws to bans on payday lending and even the regulation of environmental problems in black communities. The source of this overreach comes from the fact that Congress during the Amendment’s enactment failed to flesh out what exactly they meant by “badges and incidents” of slavery. Still, <a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/sleeping-giant-section-two-of-the-thirteenth-amendment-hate-crimes-legislation-and-academias-favorite-new-vehicle-for-the-expansion-of-federal-power">cases</a> from that era treated the clause as narrowly relating to Section 1’s general ban on slavery; over and over again courts decided that legislation passed under Section 2 had to relate to “incidents” that could specifically lead to the re-establishment of slavery.</p>
<p>This was the approach until the racially charged 1960s when the Supreme Court decided in <em><a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/sleeping-giant-section-two-of-the-thirteenth-amendment-hate-crimes-legislation-and-academias-favorite-new-vehicle-for-the-expansion-of-federal-power">Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer &amp; Co</a>.</em>, a case involving housing discrimination, that the power to ban “badges and incidents” included the power to forbid anything that Congress determines might be “rationally related” to those badges and incidents; a standard that, according to critics, is deferential enough to give Congress the power to legislate on topics with little connection to slavery.</p>
<p>It was under this interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment that Congress in 2009 passed the <em>Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act</em> (HCPA) which sought to criminalize acts that “cause bodily injury to any person … <em>because of</em> the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person.” In <em>Cannon</em>, three white homeless males were charged under the Act because they used racial slurs after drunkenly assaulting another homeless male who was black – Apart from the nightmarish abuse one envisions from such a vague and flexible standard, this area of criminalization generally falls under the policing powers of individual states. Federalizing this part of the law is not only unnecessary and in violation of states’ rights, say critics, but it also raises double jeopardy concerns in that it allows for the federal government to re-prosecute a defendant already acquitted in state court. As was seen in the Zimmerman trial, this danger is especially serious when hysterical subjects like white-on-black “hate crime” are involved.</p>
<p>Since the passage of the HCPA, courts have expressed concern about its constitutional validity. Judges in <em><a href="https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/12/12-2040.pdf">Hatch v. US</a></em>, a Tenth Circuit case involving white-on-Native American violence, acknowledged that, post-<em>Jones</em>, there were “few limits” on what conduct might be prohibited under the Act and that given slavery’s lasting effects, “nearly every hurtful thing one human could do to another and nearly every disadvantaged state of being might be analogized to slavery.” Last year’s landmark decision in <em>Shelby County</em>, a voting rights case involving a nearly identical enforcement power in the Fifteen Amendment, the Supreme Court noted that although Congress has the power to enforce the right to vote, it is not unlimited. Like the police power, the Court noted that states, not the federal government, have historically been given voting law powers and that “<a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Shelby_Cnty_v_Holder_No_1296_2013_BL_167707_US_June_25_2013_Court">exceptional conditions</a>” would have to exist to justify such an “extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government.”</p>
<p>As civil rights expert Gail Heriot has <a href="http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/pdf/WestlawDoc090328.pdf">noted</a>, the approach the Supreme Court took in the late sixties “essentially interprets the Thirteenth Amendment as giving Congress a general police power over all conduct concerning race.” Given the cynical abuse of racial issues by the White House, the Democrats in Congress and groups like the ACLU and <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/king-fearmongers_714573.html">SPLC</a>, it’s critical that the power to define what constitutes “incidents of slavery” or “racial profiling” always be closely scrutinized and kept away from potential politicization as much as possible.</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>The Myth of Ethnic Inequality in Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/steven-plaut/the-myth-of-ethnic-inequality-in-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-myth-of-ethnic-inequality-in-israel</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 05 Jun 2014 04:05:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233328</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The data that dismantle the leftist lies. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_233329" style="width: 342px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/458.jpg"><img class="wp-image-233329" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/458.jpg" alt="458" width="332" height="234" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Ethnicity in Israel is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both Jews and Arabs are subdivided into ethnic sub-groups, and there are important differences in socioeconomic status among Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Arab Druze.</p></div>
<p><em>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/3839/israel-inequality">Middle East Quarterly</a>. </em></p>
<p>It is commonplace to attribute much of Israel&#8217;s domestic tensions to supposed Jewish discrimination against the country&#8217;s Arab citizens.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[1]</span> Nearly every Israeli Arab nongovernmental organization insists that such discrimination characterizes the Jewish state in general and its labor markets in particular.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[2]</span> The Israeli media routinely interview Israeli Arabs (and non-Ashkenazi Jews) who claim to have been victims of discrimination. These allegations are echoed by Jewish Israeli academics, think tanks, and journalists, especially on the political Left, not to mention the international anti-Israel movement and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign. Indeed, the U.S. Department of State has even joined the growing outcry concerning Israel&#8217;s alleged racist discrimination against its Arab citizens.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[3]</span></p>
<p>Of course, in reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern entity that is not an apartheid regime, and the apartheid slander holds no water whatsoever save in the minds of the Jewish state&#8217;s enemies and defamers. Yet discrimination is a scientifically empirical question subject to testing and not a matter of subjective personal opinion. Stripping away the venomous anti-Israel rhetoric, the legitimate question remains whether and how much discrimination really exists in Israel.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Inequality Myths</b></p>
<p>Ethnicity in Israel is a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Both Jews and Arabs are subdivided into ethnic sub-groups, making exploration and analysis of ethnic disparities a complex challenge. In official statistical data on income, Israeli Arabs are treated as a single population group, but this is somewhat misleading. There are important differences in socio-economic status and performance among Arab Christians, Arab Muslims, and Druse. Those sub-categories are in fact amalgams of even smaller divisions. For example, there are interesting differences between &#8220;ordinary&#8221; Arab Muslims and Bedouins. The Israeli Income Survey sample does not include the Arab population of the &#8220;occupied territories,&#8221; except for East Jerusalem and the small population of the Golan Heights, both of which are formally annexed to Israel.</p>
<p>Ethnicity among Jews is even more complex. It is commonly measured in Israel for statistical purposes based upon the continent of birth of the person or the person&#8217;s father. Jews born in Asia and Africa (or the children of fathers born there) correspond roughly to Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews. Those born in Europe, the United States, or Australia (and their children) correspond roughly to Ashkenazi or Western Jews. These distinctions are imperfect as there are Ashkenazi Jews who come from Asia and Africa (including South Africa and some Egyptian Jews) and Sephardic Jews who come from Europe (including from Greece, Yugoslavia, and Bulgaria). Over time this &#8220;continent of birth&#8221; criterion for defining ethnicity is losing its validity because of the rapid increase in native-born Israelis who are themselves sons and daughters of native-born Israelis. In addition, the high intermarriage rate among Jews in Israel from different communities is blurring ethnic distinctions.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[4]</span></p>
<p>Before tackling the specific patterns of ethnic inequality and discrimination in Israeli labor markets, it is necessary to dispose of certain myths and superstitions, beginning with the assumption that heterogeneity proves discrimination. It is a common but mistaken belief that, in the absence of discrimination, the numerical representation in any profession or wage range for all groups in a society should be the same as the proportion of that group in the general population. This might be called the false axiom of &#8220;natural homogeneity.&#8221; Thus if Group A is over-represented in a profession, compared with its weight in the general population, then it must be the beneficiary of discrimination in its favor. If Group B is under-represented, it must be suffering from discrimination against its members. Many then conclude that affirmative action quotas are needed to remedy the problem. This is known as the &#8220;disparate impact&#8221; standard or pseudo-evidence.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[5]</span></p>
<p>But the axiom of natural homogeneity is completely specious. Nowhere in the real world does fair competition produce homogeneous representation in any market. Indeed, the only way in which such homogeneity can be achieved is through a rigid anti-competitive system of assignments in hiring or admissions by quota, one that suppresses individual interests, skills, culture, economics, family, educational and regional backgrounds, and meritocracy.</p>
<p>The world is full of examples of radical departures from numerical homogeneity in representation that clearly have nothing at all to do with discrimination: Jews around the world are over-represented among those admitted into universities relative to their numbers in the general population even in countries that have official policies of discriminating against Jews. Asian Americans are also over-represented among U.S. college students but not because these colleges discriminate against non-Asians. American blacks are not prominent in sports because of anti-white discrimination. About 60 percent of the medical students in Israel are women, and this is not because the medical schools discriminate against men. Israeli Arabs are grossly over-represented among students in schools of pharmacy, and it is not because these schools discriminate against Jews. Men are enormously over-represented among the prison populations in all countries, and it is not because of gender discrimination. And so on and so forth.</p>
<div id="attachment_233331" style="width: 290px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/459.jpg"><img class="wp-image-233331" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/459.jpg" alt="459" width="280" height="214" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">About 60 percent of Israeli medical students are women while Israeli Arabs are over-represented in schools of pharmacy. This is not because these schools discriminate against male Jews. Israeli Arabs own proportionately twice as many cars as Israeli Jews; no one has suggested that this attests to discrimination against Jews.</p></div>
<p>The fallaciousness of the idea that discrimination is proven by deviation from numerical homogeneity in representation cannot be over-emphasized. It crops up in almost every debate about ethnic or gender discrimination. When feminists, media commentators, and even many academics wish to prove that discrimination exists, their proof usually consists of presenting numbers that show departure from homogeneity. Such figures are selected when they serve the agenda of the commentator or advocate. Yet it turns out that Israeli Arabs own proportionately twice as many cars as Israeli Jews;<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[6]</span> no one has suggested that this attests to discrimination in Israel against Jews.</p>
<p>In 2013, the Israeli newspaper <i>Haaretz</i> ran an exposé about supposed discrimination against Israeli Arabs by Israeli banks, which quickly became the focus of a parliamentary investigation.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[7]</span> The alleged evidence was that Israeli Arabs were paying, on average, higher bank fees than Jews for certain services. But a closer look showed that Arab bank accounts tend to be held in small rural banks with higher per-unit costs and may both be smaller on average and in different sorts of accounts than those held by Jews. For example, Arabs hold fewer long-term provident savings or retirement accounts, in part because the age structure of the Arab population is younger than its Jewish counterpart. All this results in different arrays of fees being charged but has nothing to do with discrimination. However, such an explanation would provide little sensationalist grist for the media or headline-grabbing power for politicians.</p>
<p>If numerical representation and deviation from natural homogeneity add nothing in terms of understanding discrimination, what about analyzing differences in wages and salaries directly? It would seem that if discrimination does indeed exist in a society, the most promising arena to seek it out is the labor market. But here, too, problems exist.</p>
<p>Analysis of possible discrimination as reflected in labor market wages has the advantage of being able to utilize a rich data set, unlike other markets in which discrimination is alleged. It also matters more. Few, including Arab leaders, would care very much if, after controlling for all the other possible explanations, Israeli Arabs were really paying higher bank fees than Jews. But everyone would think it is important if Arabs were the victims of wage discrimination. Having noted this, it still needs to be emphasized that the mere documentation of a disparity in wages between Jews and Arabs does not in and of itself prove anything, much less discrimination.</p>
<p>Consider the following situation: Suppose that it is found that 45-year-old Israeli Jewish software engineers with postgraduate degrees earn several times the wages of 20-year-old Arab youths who never finished high school. Would this datum be evidence of discrimination against Arabs in the labor market?</p>
<p>Of course, 45-year-old engineers in any ethnic population generally earn far more than 20-year-old high school dropouts. Their labor is simply worth more, and the market prices it accordingly. If one controls for education, age, and field of study, it is possible to compare 45-year-old Jewish engineers with Arab engineers, or 20-year-old Jewish with Arab high school dropouts, to see if there are any residual gaps in wages. There could also be other factors not yet taken into account that explain observed residual disparities, for example, disparities between wages in rural/peripheral labor markets and those in metropolitan areas. Any suspected ethnic discrimination is tentative and needs to be assessed in light of many other non-ethnic factors that affect wages.</p>
<p>Special attention needs to be paid to differences in labor force participation rates. Arab women in Israel, especially married Muslim women, have very low participation rates. This means that most employed Arab women are young and not yet married, which in turn generates a considerable gap in earnings levels when compared with Jewish women (and men of all groups). Gender differences in wages must be separated out to understand patterns of ethnic inequality.</p>
<p>It has been demonstrated in other countries that something as innocuous as age structure may often explain a considerable portion of disparities in earnings across ethnic/racial groups. For example, the eminent economist Thomas Sowell has demonstrated that one of the major causes for racial inequality in the United States is age difference, with the black and Hispanic population considerably younger than the white population for a variety of demographic reasons. He pointed out that &#8220;Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans have median ages of less than twenty years while the average Irish American or Italian American is more than thirty years old, and Jewish Americans are over forty.&#8221;<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[8]</span> Since 40-year-olds invariably earn far more than 20-year-olds, a significant portion of earnings disparities among American ethnic groups reflects nothing more than age structure differences.</p>
<p>Age structure also explains part of the earning differences in Israel since Israeli Jews are on average considerably older than Israeli Arabs, particularly Israeli Muslims. It is estimated that the median age of Muslim Israelis is 19 while the median age of Jewish Israelis is 31.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[9]</span> (Interestingly, Christian Arabs have an age structure similar to that of Jews, with median age 30, and also have mean earnings very close to those of Jews.) So an age-explained earnings gap similar to that in the United States arises where age explains part of ethnic inequality.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Data and Raw Inequality Patterns</b></p>
<p>The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) conducts an annual survey of income and wages. It is a large, scientifically-designed, representative survey that covers the entire Israeli population excluding the population in the &#8220;occupied territories,&#8221; foreign temporary workers, and tourists. The CBS is staffed with professional statisticians of the highest caliber, and its operations are in line with international standards of professionalism and integrity.</p>
<p>Part of the income survey is based on households (N = 14,996) and measures income at the household level from various sources. Another is based on income from salary and other sources for individual earners (N=35,680) aged over 15. A household can have multiple earners. Income measured includes that from salaries, self-employment, capital, pension, alimony, social insurance, governmental support, and other categories.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[10]</span> Other variables contained in the survey include age, marital status, schooling, ethnicity, occupation, and location of residence.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[11]</span></p>
<p>What does the income survey show about ethnic inequality in Israel? One can begin to digest the data starting with the raw numbers and measures of earnings, not adjusted for variables such as age and years of schooling. These numbers explain little about actual patterns of income inequality in Israel but offer a starting point for exploration.</p>
<p>In the Israeli &#8220;Income Survey of 2011,&#8221; the average salary for the entire population of Israeli Arab males was 50.2 percent of the mean for the entire population of Jewish males. Jewish females on average earned salaries that were 61.8 percent of those of Jewish males. Arab females earned only 34 percent of the salaries of Arab males and 28 percent of the salaries of Jewish females,<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[12]</span> but this was no doubt in part because of part-time employment common among Arab women. Raw household income disparities follow a somewhat different pattern because salaries are only one component of household income. Household income for Arabs was about 55 percent that of Jews. While these raw disparities appear large, they are not unusual when comparing across ethnic populations within countries. The real question remains what is causing them.</p>
<p>There are also disparities in the raw figures among subgroups of Jews, to some extent caused by age structure. The groups with the highest salaries and household incomes are native-born Jews. Those born elsewhere are usually divided between recent immigrants and earlier immigrants. The dividing line for distinguishing recent immigrants is necessarily arbitrary; in the discussion here, the cutoff used is 1990. In the last two decades, the largest group of new immigrants has been from the former Soviet Union. A separate smaller group, about whose economic performance relatively little is known, consists of Jewish immigrants from Ethiopia. These will be separated out here from other immigrants by distinguishing them as recent immigrants born in Africa. This, too, is an imperfect measure, and some Jews from North African countries and from South Africa are probably mixed into this sub-sample definition as well.</p>
<p>Among native-born Israelis, the Ashkenazi males earn 16 percent more than the Mizrahi/Sephardic males. Ashkenazi and Mizrahi females earn exactly the same average salaries, which are about 40 percent lower than for native-born Ashkenazi males. Among foreign-born Jews, Mizrahim earn average salaries 32 percent lower than Ashkenazim for males, and 39 percent lower for females. Women in all population groups earn less than men in the same groups.</p>
<p>So the starting point is a set of seemingly wide disparities in average earnings across Israeli ethnic groups. Jews earn more than Arabs, in fact twice as much on average; women earn less than men; Mizrahim earn less than Ashkenazim. Two additional caveats need to be mentioned. First, these numbers are based on reported salaries. While survey respondents were told the information was confidential and would not be passed on to the tax authorities, it is possible that some of the salary numbers are in fact under-reported. Israel is thought to have a significant underground or unreported economy where cash is earned under the table. For a variety of reasons, including concentrations in occupations in which non-reporting is easier and more common, it is generally believed that non-reporting of income is higher among Arabs than among Jews.</p>
<p>An additional caveat is that disparities across ethnic groups in salaries and in household income are different from disparities in household expenditures. Standards of living are ultimately measured in real consumption rather than in monetary terms, and in Israel, gaps in levels of expenditure among the ethnic groups are considerably smaller than those in salaries or incomes. In addition, intentional under-reporting of income is unlikely to affect reported levels of expenditure, and so these data may be more reliable. The bottom line is that raw inequality among Israeli ethnic groups is considerably smaller when measured in terms of expenditures rather than incomes.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Analysis of Individual Salary and Earnings</b></p>
<p>To understand properly the role of ethnicity in explaining disparities in earnings, one needs to take into account other non-ethnic factors that affect earnings, notably gender, age, education (measured in several different ways), marital status, number of persons in household, immigration status (new immigrant vs. not), membership in certain elite professions such as manager or engineer, and geographic variables (residence in one of the large cities, in medium-sized towns, etc.). Statistical estimates of the impact upon earnings by individuals of a variety of ethnic, demographic, and other factors are presented in Table 1 below.</p>
<p>First, after controlling for age, education, and other non-ethnic explanatory variables, is it really the case that Arabs underperform in the Israeli labor market when compared with Jews? The answer is generally, no. It does depend on which definition of earnings is being used.</p>
<p>When estimating only salaries for both men and women together (not shown in the table), Arabs do indeed underperform when compared with Jews. The difference is not very large (approximately 450 shekels a month or a bit over $100), and this is very small when compared to the raw disparity between earnings of Jews and Arabs, seen above as being approximately a 100 percent difference. The disadvantage in salary earnings for Arabs is about the same as that experienced by Jewish new immigrants in Israel.</p>
<p>But salaries are only one component of individual earnings. Salaries are what employees receive from employers while &#8220;all individual earnings&#8221; include things such as self-employed income by artisans or shop-owners or owners of proprietary establishments. Such self-employed and proprietary income is probably more common among Arabs than Jews, the latter being more likely to be salaried employees. The numbers in the table here show the results when analyzing all individual earnings from all sources, including such non-salary sources. When controlling for age, schooling, and the other non-ethnic factors, Israeli Arabs outperform Jews on average, earning more than Jews of similar age and schooling levels. Indeed, on average Arabs earn more than both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, about 9 percent higher, other things being equal.</p>
<p>The fact that the labor market disadvantage of Israeli Arabs disappears entirely when total individual earnings (as opposed to salaries alone) are analyzed may be because many Arabs are self-employed.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[13]</span> In any case, it turns out that not only do non-ethnic factors explain the bulk of the raw disparity in earnings between Israeli Arabs and Jews, but in many cases they explain more than the total disparity. In the case of total individual earnings income, they explain more than 100 percent of the raw disparity (meaning that, after controlling for explanatory variables, Arabs actually outperform Jews).</p>
<p>The picture becomes clearer when men and women earners are analyzed separately. This has the advantage of removing gender differences in labor force participation rates from the analysis of the role of ethnicity. The gap in earnings for Arab women compared with Jewish women is quite small when controlling for other variables; it is only about 2 percent to the advantage of Jews. But for males, Arabs are at a 10 percent advantage over Jews in total individual earnings. Again, Arabs outperform Jews.</p>
<div id="attachment_233332" style="width: 318px" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/460.jpg"><img class="wp-image-233332 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/460.jpg" alt="460" width="308" height="232" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">It is important to distinguish between salaries and earnings. For example, Israeli Arab males may make on average 50 percent less than Israeli Jewish males in salary, but in earnings (which include income sources such as self-employment), they out-perform Israeli Jews by approximately 9 percent on average.</p></div>
<p>Arabs also have a disadvantage compared with Jews when it comes to total household earnings (not shown in the table), as opposed to total individual earnings. But the wider gap at the household earnings level is due to factors outside the labor market. Jews have higher savings rates than Arabs, and thus have higher levels of household capital income.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[14]</span> Jews are also older and so receive on average higher amounts of retirement income. These disparities in non-labor income at the level of households largely reflect differences between Jews and Arabs in savings behavior and household composition and cannot be attributed to labor market discrimination.</p>
<p>What about disparities across ethnic sub-groups of Israeli Jews? The first notable pattern is this: The main group that over-performs compared with others is native-born Israeli Jews or <i>sabra</i>s. Being born in the country confers a distinct earnings advantage in Israel as it does in most other countries. There is a modest advantage in income, about 8 percent for men and 2 percent for women, for those who are native-born Israeli Jews, compared with those who are foreign-born. And this is true for both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews.</p>
<p>When controlling for other non-ethnic factors, Ashkenazim have a small advantage over Mizrahim among men, about 2 percent for total individual income and 4 percent for salary alone, much smaller than the gap in the raw earnings numbers, and much smaller than the premium enjoyed by native-born Jews. For women, Ashkenazim slightly underperform Mizrahim. More generally, because of the advantage of being a <i>sabra</i>, a native-born Mizrahi Jew would generally outperform a non-native Ashkenazi Jew, other things being equal. When men and women are separated in the analysis of earnings, the &#8220;natives&#8221; retain an earnings advantage among both genders. Mizrahi Jewish women are outperforming the Ashkenazi Jewish women.</p>
<p>Recent immigrants in Israel are at an earnings disadvantage compared to the other population groups. Controlling for age, education, and the other non-ethnic factors, recent immigrants earn about 5.5 percent less in total individual earnings while for salary alone (not shown in the table), they earn 10-14 percent less than other Israelis. The earnings disadvantage is larger for men than for women. Interestingly, immigrants from Africa (mainly Ethiopians) do not suffer from any special earnings disadvantage as compared with the earnings levels of all recent immigrants. All immigrants are at a modest disadvantage in the labor market, but Ethiopians no more so than non-Ethiopian immigrants. When men and women are analyzed separately, Ethiopians slightly outperform the other immigrants.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Are Israeli Arabs Disadvantaged Because of Schooling?</b></p>
<p>Economists like to describe schooling and degrees as &#8220;human capital,&#8221; and it is possible to measure the returns or market rewards to this capital using statistical methodologies. One issue that has frequently been debated in Israel is whether educated Arabs are at a market disadvantage, since—because of discrimination—they are less capable of capitalizing upon their educational achievements.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[15]</span></p>
<p>Once again, the presumption of discrimination does not survive empirical statistical analysis. The truth is quite the opposite: The return on schooling for Israeli Arabs is generally considerably higher than it is for Israeli Jews. In almost every estimate, using different measures of schooling and of earnings, the return on education appears to be higher for Arabs after controlling statistically for other variables.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[16]</span> This is true both for salaries and for all individual earnings. Since the reward for educational achievement is, if anything, higher for Arabs than for Jews, this rules out the claim of systematic discrimination against Arabs who accumulate human capital and capitalize upon it in the labor market.</p>
<p>The return on schooling is not the same, however, as the reward for membership in elite professions. Arabs, like Jews, who are members of managerial or other professional groups (lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc.) enjoy a significant earnings advantage over those who are not members of these groups. The bonus or premium for Arabs, however, is lower than that for Jews. Discrimination cannot be ruled out as a causal factor here although other factors unrelated to discrimination could also explain these disparities, including differences in distribution among professions within the broader elite professional categories.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Where Is the Apartheid?</b></p>
<p>The most surprising conclusion from the econometric analysis of ethnic earnings disparities in Israel is how many of the stereotypical characterizations of Israel turn out to be false. Ethnicity in Israel simply does not play a large role in the labor market, in contrast with gender or schooling.</p>
<p>While it is widely presumed that the Arab minority underperforms in the labor market of the Jewish state, either because of discrimination or other structural or cultural disadvantages, this turns out not to be so. That accusation is central to the claim that Israel is some sort of apartheid regime. While the raw mean earnings of Arabs are considerably lower than those of Jews, the two populations differ in many significant ways, including age and schooling, and little can be concluded from this raw comparison on its own. When education, age, marital status, geographic location, and professional group membership are taken into account, Arab-Jewish earnings disparities all but disappear, and in some cases, they even invert, so that the Arabs outperform the Jews. This is particularly true of male earners.If the data fail to show a clear pattern of Arab underperformance in earnings compared with Jews with similar levels of schooling, the stereotype of Ashkenazi Jews outperforming Mizrahi or Sephardic Jews appears just as inaccurate. Once education and the other explanatory variables are controlled, there is very little difference between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim earnings, and in a few cases, particularly for women, Mizrahim outperform Ashkenazi women. The Ashkenazi-Mizrahi distinction certainly appears to be less important in explaining earnings differences than the distinction between native-born Jews and foreign-born Jews or recent immigrants. Here again, there are differences between men and women. Ashkenazi women slightly underperform Mizrahi women, other things being equal, while Ashkenazi men slightly outperform compared with Mizrahi men. The bottom line is that the data do not support the presumption that Mizrahim are systematically disadvantaged in Israeli labor markets.</p>
<p>While new immigrants underperform relative to other Jewish Israelis, other things being equal, Ethiopians do not appear to suffer from any special earnings disadvantage compared with other immigrants. If Ethiopian immigrants earn low levels of salary, it is because they have low levels of schooling. But given their level of schooling, they earn the same on average as immigrants from Russia, South Africa, and Argentina. When estimating total individual income separately for men or for women, the Ethiopians even slightly outperform the other immigrants.</p>
<p>In spite of what statistical analyses have to show, the subject of discrimination in Israel continues to fill the media, which seem to be obsessed with it even while refusing to examine actual data. For example, in the summer of 2013, a television documentary on Israel&#8217;s Channel Ten, produced by popular journalist Amnon Levy, triggered considerable media debate inside Israel. It claimed to have investigated and discovered that anti-Mizrahi discrimination is as bad as it had been back in the early decades of Israeli independence.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[17]</span> Real data show otherwise.</p>
<p>The problem is not just in the media. The academic careers of many in Israel, particularly in sociology, have been constructed entirely upon unsubstantiated allegations of Israeli racism. Israeli sociologists in general tend to accept at face value the notion that any documented disparity in earnings or numerical representation between Israeli Jews and Arabs must be due to discrimination.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[18]</span> Perhaps the most notorious example is that of Yehouda Shenhav, a sociologist at Tel Aviv University. Shenhav is father of the notion that &#8220;Oriental Jews&#8221; are in fact &#8220;Arabs of the Mosaic faith,&#8221; and together with Arabs, share a victimhood imposed upon them by racist Ashkenazi Zionists.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[19]</span> Shenhav and those of similar ideological orientation operate the Mizrahi Democratic Rainbow, dedicated to liberating &#8220;Oriental Jews&#8221; from Ashkenazi bigotry and capitalism.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[20]</span></p>
<p>In Israel&#8217;s media, it is considered common knowledge that Arabs, Mizrahim, and Ethiopians are victims of harsh discrimination.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[21]</span> The accusations of apartheid may be malicious, disingenuous, and over-the-top—or so most Israeli commentators and sociologists would agree—but the presumption of an underlying widespread pattern of discrimination is, to their minds, undeniable. The extent to which some in Israel go to manufacture evidence of discrimination can be awe-inspiring. For example, the ordinarily prestigious Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), a left-wing think tank, published a study in May 2013 that claimed to have discovered unambiguous proof of widespread discrimination in Israel against Arabs.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[22]</span> Composed by IDI legal staffer Tanya Steiner under the supervision of Hebrew University professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, the study&#8217;s evidence was the number of complaints about discrimination submitted to the Israeli Commission on Equal Opportunities in Employment. Yet while numerous complaints from women reached the commission, only 3 percent of the complaints it received were from Israeli Arabs, who represent about 18 percent of the labor force. Of these, only three of the complaints received in the entire 2011 year by the commission about alleged anti-Arab discrimination were deemed worthy of investigation. So instead of concluding that the evidence points to an absence of discrimination, the IDI&#8217;s conclusion was that it all proves how badly discriminated Israeli Arabs are in Israel; after all, they are so victimized that they do not even file complaints about discrimination.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Conclusion</b></p>
<p>There is no evidence that points to ethnic discrimination against Israeli Arabs or Mizrahi Jews in Israeli labor markets. Recent immigrants appear to be the one group in the country at an earnings disadvantage. But it would be difficult to make a case that even their disadvantage is due to discrimination since immigrants in all societies are at a competitive disadvantage compared with natives.</p>
<p>There could be other groups in Israeli society that are victims of discrimination, but the data are not available in a form that allows for investigation. In particular, a plausible case for such discrimination may be that against ultra-Orthodox Jews. Gender discrimination also cannot be ruled out, but that is a separate and difficult methodological question beyond the scope of the discussion here.</p>
<p>The nearly complete absence of evidence of ethnic discrimination in Israeli labor markets does not, of course, preclude its existence in other markets or aspects of society. As was shown here, Arabs earn a higher return on education than Jews. But this does not rule out possible discrimination against Arabs in admissions to universities and colleges. It should be noted, however, that Israeli universities routinely implement affirmative action preferences in favor of Arabs and sometimes in favor of Mizrahim (and women).<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[23]</span> The only other documented university discrimination is that which grants some preferences to army veterans, a practice found in most countries.</p>
<p>There have also been allegations that Israel discriminates in its fiscal allocations and revenue sharing where Arab towns and villages are underfunded. But an empirical analysis of the question found just the opposite; if anything, the Arab local authorities were being over-funded.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[24]</span> Evidence regarding other alleged forms of discrimination by Israel tends to be just as skimpy. Some accusations are based upon Israel&#8217;s granting automatic citizenship to Jews under its &#8220;Law of Return.&#8221; But such citizenship entitlements are not unusual in the world and can be found in many other countries, such as Armenia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, and are guaranteed under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Covenant_on_Civil_and_Political_Rights"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</span></a>.<span style="color: #2a69a1;">[25]</span> Another indictment of Israel concerns the discriminatory nature of its military conscription. Jews and Druse are conscripted into the Israeli military while Arabs may volunteer for service but are not conscripted. Again, this practice may indeed constitute discrimination but that discrimination is against Jews, not against Arabs.</p>
<p>None of this proves that discrimination never exists in Israel against Arabs, against Mizrahi Jews, or anyone else. But the very fact that empirical evidence of discrimination is so hard to discern or observe must itself serve as an important warning indicator about its magnitude or lack thereof.</p>
<p><b>Steven Plaut</b> teaches at the Graduate School of Management at the University of Haifa.</p>
<p style="color: #ad3031;"><b>Table 1: Impact Effect of Various Factors on Salary Earnings for Men and Women</b><span style="color: #2a69a1;"><b>[26]</b></span></p>
<table style="color: #000000; height: 1618px;" border="1" width="566" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154"></td>
<td valign="top" width="115">
<p align="center">(3)</p>
<p align="center">Individual&#8217;s Total Income (includes self-employ and &#8220;other&#8221; income)<br />
– Males and Females</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">
<p align="center">(1)</p>
<p align="center">Individual&#8217;s Total Income from all Sources<br />
– Males Only</p>
</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">
<p align="center">(3)</p>
<p align="center">Individual Total Income<br />
from all Sources<br />
– Females Only</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Age</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 1.3% for each extra year</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 1.1% for each extra year</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 1.5% for each extra year</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Effect of adding one extra year of schooling</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">&#8211;</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">&#8211;</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 6.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for having matriculation diploma (only)</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 6.0%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 7.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">&#8211;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">College graduate dummy (increment over matriculation alone)</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 39.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 42.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">&#8211;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Postgraduate degree (increment over having BA)</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 10.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 12.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">&#8211;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being married</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 44.9%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 56.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 35.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being male</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 35.3%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">&#8211;</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">&#8211;</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Adding one person to household size</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 3.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 3.4%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 3.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being Arab</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 8.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 9.8%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 2.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being native born (<i>sabra</i>) Israeli Jew</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 7.3%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 8.3%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 2.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being Ashkenazi</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 0.1%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 1.8%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 3.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for residence in Jerusalem</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 7.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 15.4%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 3.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for residence in Tel Aviv</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 17.2%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 15.0%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 20.6%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for residence in Haifa</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 13.5%.</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 12.0%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 15.0%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being new immigrant (arrived since 1990)</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by 5.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Decreases by 7.5%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Decreases by 4.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Increment for being new immigrant from Africa (over previous increment for being immigrant)</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Decreases by additional 2.9%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases by 0.3%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increase by 8.1%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Dummy if employed in &#8220;academic&#8221; profession</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 45.7%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 45.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 45.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Dummy if employed as &#8220;professional&#8221;</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 31.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 36.3%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 23.7%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Dummy if employed as &#8220;manager&#8221;</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">Increases 75.6%</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">Increases 72.2%</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">Increases 75.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154"></td>
<td valign="top" width="115"></td>
<td valign="top" width="104"></td>
<td valign="top" width="117"></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="154">Size of sample used for estimates</td>
<td valign="top" width="115">20,069</td>
<td valign="top" width="104">10,424</td>
<td valign="top" width="117">9,703</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr style="color: #000000;" align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[1]</span> See, for example, Ayal Kimhi, &#8220;Jewish Households, Arab Households, and Income Inequality in Rural Israel: Ramifications for the Israeli-Arab Conflict,&#8221; <i>Defence and Peace Economics</i>, Aug. 2010, pp. 381-94.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[2]</span> For example, &#8220;<a href="http://adalah.org/upfiles/2011/Adalah_The_Inequality_Report_March_2011.pdf"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">The Inequality Report</span></a>: The Palestinian Arab Minority in Israel,&#8221; Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Haifa, Mar. 2011.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[3]</span> <i>Digital Journal</i> (Toronto), <a href="http://digitaljournal.com/article/349233"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">May 1, 2013</span></a>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[4]</span> Yinon Cohen, Yitzhak Haberfeld and Tali Kristal, &#8220;Ethnicity and Mixed Ethnicity: Educational Gaps among Israeli-born Jews,&#8221; <i>Ethnic and Racial Studies,</i> Sept. 1, 2007, pp. 896-917.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[5]</span> Knesset member Zehava Galon of the leftist Meretz party recently introduced a bill that would require all proposals of new legislation in Israel to contain estimates of disparate impact. See<i> Haaretz</i> (Tel Aviv), Apr. 17, 2014.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[6]</span> Ibid.<i>,</i> Sept. 12, 2012.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[7]</span> Ibid., <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/business/.premium-1.531396"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">June 23, </span></a>July 30, 2013; <i>The Jerusalem Post</i>, <a href="http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Meretz-MK-Farij-attacks-racism-in-banking-system-322205"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">June 8, 2013</span></a>.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[8]</span> Thomas Sowell, &#8220;<a href="http://cascourses.uoregon.edu/geog471/pdfs/1206/sowell.pdf"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">The American Mosaic</span></a>,&#8221;<i> Ethnic America: A History</i> (New York: Basic Books, 1981).</p>
<p style="color: #2a69a1;">[9]<span style="color: #000000;"> <a href="http://www1.cbs.gov.il/popisr/table5.pdf">&#8220;Projections of population in Israel for 2010–2025, by sex, age and population group,&#8221;</a> Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (Jerusalem and Tel Aviv); &#8220;<a href="http://www1.cbs.gov.il/www/statistical/arab_pop08e.pdf">The Arab Population in Israel</a>,&#8221; idem, p. 2.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[10]</span> &#8220;<a href="http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/?MIval=cw_usr_view_SHTML&amp;ID=405"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Economic Characteristics</span></a>,&#8221; Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, accessed Dec. 19, 2013.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[11]</span> &#8220;Income Survey, 2010,&#8221; Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Feb. 2012. Only people earning at least 100 NIS per month in salary are counted in the analysis below, with the others presumed to be absent from the labor force.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[12]</span> Percentages computed by author from data found here: &#8220;<a href="http://www1.cbs.gov.il/reader/?MIval=cw_usr_view_SHTML&amp;ID=419"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Income of Individuals (Income survey)</span></a>,&#8221; Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, Table 25.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[13]</span> Yossi Shavit and Ephraim Yuchtman-Yaar, &#8220;<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/20628611"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Ethnicity, Education, and Other Determinants of Self-Employment in Israel</span></a>,&#8221; <i>International Journal of Sociology</i>, Spring, 2001, pp. 59-91.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[14]</span> <i>Haaretz</i>, June 23, 2013.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[15]</span> See, for example, &#8220;Israel Must End Discrimination against Arab College Graduates,&#8221; <i>Haaretz</i>, June 15, 2012.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[16]</span> Pnina O. Plaut and Steven E. Plaut, &#8220;Income Disparities by Ethnicity in Israel,&#8221; <i>Israel Affairs</i>, forthcoming.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[17]</span> <a href="http://panim.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=995592&amp;sid=267"><span style="color: #2a69a1;"><i>Panim Amitiyot</i></span></a>: <i>Pirakim Milayim</i>, Aug. 22, 2013, Nana 10 web site.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[18]</span> See, for example, Noah Lewin-Epstein and Moshe Semyonov, <i>Stratification in Israel: Class, Ethnicity, and Gender</i> (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 2003), pp. 175-281; idem, &#8220;Local labor markets, ethnic segregation, and income inequality,&#8221; <i>Social Forces</i>, June 1992, pp. 1101–19; Sammy Smooha and Yohanan Peres, &#8220;The Dynamics of Ethnic Inequalities: The Case of Israel,&#8221; in Ernest Krausz, ed., <i>Studies of Israeli Society</i> (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1980), vol. no. 1.</p>
<p style="color: #2a69a1;">[19]<span style="color: #000000;"> Yehouda Shenhav, <a href="http://972mag.com/spineless-bookkeeping-the-use-of-mizrahi-jews-as-pawns-against-palestinian-refugees/56472/">&#8220;Spineless Bookkeeping: The Use of Mizrahi Jews as Pawns against Palestinian Refugees</a>,&#8221; <i>+972 e-magazine</i> (Israel), Sept. 25, 2012.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[20]</span> &#8220;Hakeshet Hademocratit Hamizrahit,&#8221; web site, accessed Dec. 10, 2013.</p>
<p style="color: #2a69a1;">[21]<span style="color: #000000;"> For example, Yitzhak Laor, &#8220;<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/the-glorious-state-of-israel-and-its-anti-arab-discrimination.premium-1.515462">The Glorious State of Israel and Its Anti-Arab Discrimination</a>,&#8221; <i>Ha&#8217;aretz</i>, Apr. 15, 2013.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[22]</span> Talya Steiner, <a href="http://en.idi.org.il/analysis/idi-press/publications/hebrew-policy-papers/combating-discrimination-against-arabs-in-the-israeli-workforce"><span style="color: #2a69a1;"><i>Combating Discrimination against Arabs in the Israeli Workforce</i></span></a>, Policy Paper No. 97 (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute, 2003).</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[23]</span> <i>Haaretz</i>, <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/2-000-students-owe-university-place-to-affirmative-action-1.3883"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Nov. 19, 2009</span></a>; John Rosenberg, &#8220;Affirmative Action … In Israel,&#8221; Discriminations Blog, Sept. 3, 2002; Noga Dagan-Buzaglo, &#8220;<a href="http://www.adva.org/uploaded/Affirmative%20Action%20in%20Israel%20in%20the%20Area%20of%20Employment.pdf"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Non-discriminatory hiring practices in Israel</span></a> towards Arab Citizens, Ethiopian Israelis and new immigrants from Bukhara and the Caucasus,&#8221; Adva Center, Tel Aviv, Nov. 2008.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[24]</span> Tal Shahor, &#8220;<a href="http://www.stat-d.si/mz/mz7.1/shahor.pdf"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Fiscal Allotment Policy vis á vis Minorities</span></a>: An Empirical Measurement of the Way in Which Israel&#8217;s Majority Government Makes Its Fiscal Allotments to the Arab Minority,&#8221; <i>Metodološki zvezki</i> (Ljubljana, Slovenia), no. 1, 2010, pp. 73-93; Efraim Karsh, &#8220;Israel&#8217;s Arabs: Deprived or Radicalized?&#8221; <i>Israel Affairs</i>, Jan. 2013, pp. 1-19.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[25]</span> <a href="http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/"><span style="color: #2a69a1;">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</span></a>, United Nations General Assembly, New York, Dec. 10, 1948, art. 14.</p>
<p><span style="color: #2a69a1;">[26]</span> The effects of isolated changes in individual factors while holding all other factors constant. The &#8220;default&#8221; or base case upon which the ethnic increments are computed is for &#8220;Foreign-born Mizrahi Jews.&#8221; The figures in the table should be taken as the best estimate for changes in earnings caused by isolated changes in each individual explanatory factor (ethnicity, gender, and so on) while holding all other factors constant. This shows the isolated effect for Arabs, for example, on earnings while holding schooling, age, and other factors constant. The schooling variable is measured differently for the men-only column (where the effects of achieving degrees are estimated) than for the women-only column (where the effect of an additional year of schooling is estimated). The estimates allow us to see the &#8220;clean&#8221; effects or impacts of ethnicity and other factors upon earnings in Israel because these effects are statistically isolated from the many intermingled effects of the other variables. Estimates taken from regression analysis equations that are elaborated and appear in full in Pnina O. Plaut and Steven E. Plaut, &#8220;Income Disparities by Ethnicity in Israel,&#8221; <i>Israel Affairs</i>, forthcoming.</p>
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		<title>The Truth about &#8216;Wage Discrimination&#8217;</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 22 Apr 2014 04:25:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The government's futile attempt to combat "inequality." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1e120686562e69a46fcdf51a22673b2e.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223915" alt="1e120686562e69a46fcdf51a22673b2e" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/1e120686562e69a46fcdf51a22673b2e-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>&#8220;President Obama Vows Zero Tolerance on Gender Wage Gap,&#8221; read one headline. Another read, &#8220;Women Still Earned 77 Cents On Men&#8217;s Dollar In 2012.&#8221; It&#8217;s presumed that big, greedy corporations are responsible for what is seen as wage injustice. Before discussing the &#8220;unjust&#8221; wage differences between men and women, let&#8217;s acknowledge an even greater injustice — which no one seems to care about — age injustice.</p>
<p>According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, workers ages 16 to 24 earn only 54 cents on every dollar earned by workers 25 or older (http://tinyurl.com/n6puf6j). This wage gap is 43 percent greater than the male/female gap. Our president, progressives, do-gooders, academics and union leaders show little interest in big, greedy corporations ripping off the nation&#8217;s youth. You might say, &#8220;Whoa, Williams! There&#8217;s a reason younger people earn less than older people. They don&#8217;t have the skills or experience.&#8221; My response would be — if I shared the vision of the president, media elite and do-gooders: Just as there can be no justification for big, greedy corporations paying women less than they pay men, there&#8217;s no justification for them to exploit the nation&#8217;s youth.</p>
<p>The 77 percent median income statistic, used in discussions about male/female differences in earnings, tells us nothing about differences that might explain the differences in income, and it leads to stupid discussions. Let&#8217;s use some common sense and look at some differences between men and women that may have a bearing on earnings.</p>
<p>Kay S. Hymowitz&#8217;s article &#8220;Why the Gender Gap Won&#8217;t Go Away. Ever,&#8221; in City Journal (summer 2011), shows that female doctors earn only 64 percent of what male doctors earn. But it turns out that only 16 percent of surgeons are women, whereas 50 percent of pediatricians are women. Even though surgeons have put in many more years of education and training than pediatricians and earn higher pay, should Obama and Congress equalize their salaries? Alternatively, they might force female pediatricians to become surgeons.</p>
<p>There are inequalities everywhere.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Asian men and women have median earnings higher than white men and women. Female cafeteria attendants earn more than their male counterparts. Females who are younger than 30 and have never been married earn salaries 8 percent higher than males of the same description. Among women who graduated from college during 1992-93, by 2003 more than one-fifth were no longer in the workforce<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, and another 17 percent were working part time. That&#8217;s to be compared with only 2 percent of men in either category. Hymowitz cites several studies showing significant career choice and lifestyle differences between men and women that result in differences in income.</span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">According to 2010 BLS data<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, the following jobs contain 1 percent or less female workers: boilermakers, brick masonry, stonemasonry, septic tank servicing, sewer pipe cleaners and trash collectors. By contrast, women are 97 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers, 80 percent of social workers, 82 percent of </span>librarians and 92 percent of dietitians and nutritionists and registered nurses.</span></p>
<p>For people having limited thinking skills, differences in earnings cannot be explained away. For them, Congress has permitted — and even fostered — a misallocation of people by race, sex and ethnicity. They&#8217;ll argue that courts have consistently concluded that &#8220;gross&#8221; disparities are probative of a pattern and practice of discrimination. So what to do? Maybe President Obama and Congress should require women, who are overrepresented in preschool and kindergarten teaching, to become boilermakers, garbage collectors and brick masons and mandate that male boilermakers, trash collectors and brick masons become preschool and kindergarten teachers until both of their percentages are equal to their percentages in the population. You say, &#8220;Williams, to do that would be totalitarianism!&#8221; I say that if Americans accept that Congress can force us to buy health insurance, how much more totalitarian would it be for Congress to force people to take jobs they don&#8217;t want?</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>Saudi Arabia: The Middle East’s Real Apartheid State</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/saudi-arabia-the-middle-easts-real-apartheid-state/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=saudi-arabia-the-middle-easts-real-apartheid-state</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Feb 2014 05:50:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[apartheid]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A country whose black population is deprived of civil rights. Where are the boycotts?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/356-saudi.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219518" alt="356-saudi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/356-saudi-450x320.png" width="315" height="224" /></a>There is a country in the Middle East where </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/15/The_execution_of_the_Saudi_Seven">10 percent of the population is denied</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> equal rights because of their race, where black men are not allowed to </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09/22/opposition-saudi-kings-son-promotes-racist-policy-against-nations-blacks/">hold many government positions</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, where black women are put on trial for witchcraft and where the custody of children is granted to the parent with the most “racially superior” bloodline.</span></p>
<p>This Apartheid State is so enormously powerful that it controls American foreign policy in the Middle East even as its princes and princesses bring their slaves to the United Kingdom <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/11/news/la-ol-saudi-princess-human-trafficking-irvine-20130711">and the United States</a>.</p>
<p>That country is Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1962 under pressure from President Kennedy, who accomplished what the Ottoman Empire and the League of Nations had not been able to, but that hasn’t stopped its citizens from <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/saudi-offers-castrated-african-slave-for-sale-on-facebook/">selling castrated slaves on Facebook</a> or its princes from beating their black slaves to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9674420/Saudi-prince-who-killed-manservant-to-be-allowed-home.html">death in posh London hotels</a>.</p>
<p>The Saudis had clung to their racist privileges longer than anyone else. When rumors reached Mecca that the Ottoman Empire might be considering the abolition of African slavery and equal rights for all, the chief of the Ulema of Mecca issued a fatwa declaring “the ban on slaves is contrary to Sharia (Islamic Law)&#8230; with such proposals the Turks have become infidels and it is lawful to make their children slaves.&#8221;</p>
<p>But Saudi Arabia’s oil wealth eventually made slavery economically unnecessary. Early on, African slaves worked for foreign oil companies which paid their masters, but they were a poor fit for the oil economy. The Kingdom no longer needed agricultural slaves and pearl drivers; it needed trained technicians from the West and international travel made it cheaper to import Asian workers for household labor and construction than to maintain its old trade in slaves.</p>
<p>The Saudis replaced the 450,000 slaves of the 1950s with 8.4 million guest workers. These workers are often treated like slaves, but they are not property and are therefore even more disposable than the slaves were. Exact numbers are hard to come by, but Nepal alone reported 265 worker deaths in Saudi Arabia in a single year.</p>
<p>Human Rights Watch has described conditions for foreign workers in Saudi Arabia as <a href="http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2012/world-report-2012-saudi-arabia">resembling slavery</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the three million Afro-Saudis are denied equal rights, prevented from serving as judges, security officials, diplomats, mayors and many other official positions. <a href="http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09/22/opposition-saudi-kings-son-promotes-racist-policy-against-nations-blacks/">Afro-Saudi women are not</a> allowed to appear on camera.</p>
<p>“There is not one single black school principal in Saudi Arabia,” the Institute for Gulf Affairs, a Saudi human rights group, reported.</p>
<p>Kafa&#8217;ah, equality in marriage, is used to establish that both sides are free from the “taint” of slave blood. The blood of Takruni, West African slaves, or Mawalid, slaves who gained their freedom by converting to Islam, is kept out of the Saudi master race through genealogical records that can be presented at need.</p>
<p>Challenges to the Kafa&#8217;ah of a marriage occur when tribal members uncover African descent in <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&amp;contentid=20140218196064">the husband or the wife</a> after the marriage has already occurred. The racially inferior party is ordered to present “proof of equality” in the form of family trees and witnesses. If the couple is judged unequal, the <a href="http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&amp;contentid=20140218196064">Saudi Gazette reported</a>, “Children’s custody is usually given to the ‘racially superior’ parent.”</p>
<p>These Saudi efforts at preventing their former slaves from intermarrying with them have only accelerated their incestuous inbreeding. In parts of Saudi Arabia, the percentage of <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/apartheid-saudi-arabia-forces-husbands-and-wives-to-divorce-over-racial-inferiority/">marriages among blood relatives</a> can go as high as 70%.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has the second highest rate of birth defects in the world, but a Saudi Sheikh <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2013/09/28/Driving-affects-ovary-and-pelvis-Saudi-sheikh-warns-women.html">blamed this phenomenon on female drivers</a>, even though women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Equality has always been a foreign concept to the Saudis whose tribal castes determine the right to rule. In Saudi Arabia everyone has their place, from the Afro-Saudi, to the non-Muslim guest worker to the Saudi woman.</p>
<p>On <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christian_Bypass.jpg">the road to Mecca</a>, a sign points one way for “Muslims” and another for “Non-Muslims.” Only Muslims are allowed into the holy cities of Islam. A Christian truck driver from Sri Lanka who wandered into <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2007/05/a-christian-caught-in-mecca-what-fate-awaits">Mecca was arrested and dispatched</a> for trial to a Sharia court of Islamic law.</p>
<p>Likewise, women are barred from many jobs, kept from driving and <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jVmdMCkfcY0mi6bg-RVAJ0scaxSg?docId=CNG.08f465f0502f24565a5e31b0b7b8211b.141&amp;hl=en">even electronically tracked</a> to prevent them from leaving the country. Guest <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/tag/foreign-workers-in-saudi-arabia-treated-like-slaves/">workers in Saudi Arabia are treated as slaves</a>, their identity papers held by their employers, preventing them from leaving without permission.</p>
<p>The guest workers however, if they survive the witchcraft accusations and sexual assaults, will escape back to Ethiopia, Sri Lanka or the Philippines with a fraction of the money that they were supposed to earn. The Afro-Saudis however have nowhere to return to. Saudi Arabia is the only home they know.</p>
<p>The Arab slave trade was longer, crueler and far more enduring than anything Europeans and Americans are familiar with and left behind large numbers of Afro-Arabs across the Middle East and Afro-Turks in Turkey. While African-Americans are prominently represented in American life, Afro-Arabs and Afro-Turks suffer from an inferior status which keeps them away from political power and out of public view.</p>
<p>American soldiers in Basra were surprised to discover large numbers of Afro-Iraqis. The hundreds of thousands of Afro-Iraqis are a legacy of the Zanj slave rebellion when 500,000 African slaves rose against their Arab masters. The Afro-Iraqis are free, but <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/world/middleeast/03basra.html?_r=0">relentlessly discriminated against</a>. In Gaza, 10,000 Afro-Arabs face daily discrimination. But it is the Afro-Saudis who are the Middle East’s best kept secret.</p>
<p>Nawal Al-Hawsawi was dubbed the Rosa Parks of Saudi Arabia when she took three women to court who insultingly called her “Abd” or slave. Nawal dropped the court case after she received an apology, but the taunt of “slave” is one that Afro-Saudis have to live with daily in Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>“The monarchy’s religious tradition still views blacks as slaves,” Ali Al-Ahmed, the Director of the Institute for Gulf Affairs, <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/15/The_execution_of_the_Saudi_Seven">wrote in Foreign Policy Magazine</a>.</p>
<p>The Institute blames Deputy Saudi Foreign Minister Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah, the son of the Saudi king, for being the architect of the Saudi apartheid state, but Saudi apartheid predates any one man.</p>
<p>Saudi slavery was intertwined with Islam, receiving sanction from the Koran and the Hadiths while relying on the Saudi role as the guardians of Mecca and Medina to lure African Muslims into slavery. African Muslims who made the pilgrimage to Mecca were defrauded and forced to sell their children into slavery to afford the return trip home. Slave traders lured African Muslims from Sudan, Mali and Burkina Faso by promising to take them to the holy places of Islam and teach them to read the Koran in Arabic.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/11/saudi-religious-leader-calls-for-slaverys">Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan</a>, a leading authority on Islam in Saudi Arabia, bluntly stated, “Slavery is a part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.” The linkage between slavery, Jihad and Islam dates back to Mohammed whose followers were compensated with human property.</p>
<p>In <i>The Legacy of Arab-Islam in Africa</i>, John Alembillah Azumah writes that, &#8220;In pre-Islamic Arabia blacks were held in high esteem and did marry Arab women … the discrimination on account of the colour of their skin is a development within the Islamic period.&#8221;</p>
<p>Racism was a necessary prerequisite to the expansion of Islam through Jihad. The land that is today known as Saudi Arabia was at the center of those conquests, growing rich in slaves and loot. Today it is once again at the center of the new Jihad, its every atrocity justified by its role in the holy wars of Islam.</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>The Islamic State of Iran and Gender Discrimination</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/majid-rafizadeh/the-islamic-state-of-iran-and-gender-discrimination/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Feb 2014 05:35:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hanging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Human Rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oppression]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Women]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219504</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why is the international community silent about Iran's atrocities against women? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-Hanging-Iran-2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219505" alt="Woman Hanging Iran 2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Woman-Hanging-Iran-2-300x350.jpg" width="240" height="280" /></a>Only a few days after a United Nations Special Rapporteurs announcement on the situation of human rights in Iran, a woman was hanged by the Iranian regime in the Lorestan province, as the local media reported.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Even with the seemingly moderate President Hassan Rouhani leading the Islamic Republic of Iran, no action has been taken to address the discriminatory legal and social laws regarding women and young girls. Women are not allowed to exercise basic civil rights in Iran as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To be more specific, some of the laws in the Islamic Republic totally contradict internationally accepted human rights standards, reinforcing the superiority of men over women. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In verse 34 of the Quran, which is increasingly cited by Islamic officials, “men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband's] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance &#8211; advise them; forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This verse has been applied to various areas of Iranian law. For example, when it comes to criminal law in the Islamic law of Iran, girls can be held criminally responsible at the ages of 8-9 years old, while criminal responsibility for boys begins at 15 years old. Why should girls be regarded as mature adults at 8-9 years old?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If a woman is killed in Iran, her blood money (money the family receives in compensation) is not equal to that of man. Women are worth half of that of a man. For criminal laws, according to Islamic Sharia law, sexual intercourse outside of marriage is punishable through the stoning of men and women. However, evidence indicates that women have been stoned at a greater proportion than men.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Honor killing is still practiced in provinces such as Eilam, Khuzestan, Kordestan, Fars, Lorestan, Azerbaijan, and Kermanshah, while the Iranian regime ignores these cases. In addition, a woman’s testimony in court is worth half that of a man’s testimony, based on criminal law.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In addition, while women are required to wear a Hijab, backed by Article 683, which states: “Those women that appear in the streets and public places without the Islamic hijab, shall be sentenced from ten days to two months’ imprisonment or fined from fifty thousand to five hundred thousand Rials,” there is no similar law and penal code for men.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Regarding family law, girls are legally allowed to marry at 8-9 years old, while boys must be at least 15 years old. Further, the father is the natural guardian who can marry off his daughter; even if the girl is an adult, she cannot marry someone on her own. Wives and daughters cannot leave the country without the official permission of their husbands or natural guardian. They also cannot obtain a passport without the consent of their husbands.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Muslim men can marry women from other religions (religions of the book), while women cannot marry a non-Muslim unless the man converts to Islam.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Also under family law, it goes without saying that the woman can only contract one marriage at one time, but there is no restriction on the number of wives a man can have. Though many follow Quranic verses that allow four wives, under the Shia Islamic belief system, a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mut’a</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> (temporary marriage) can provide a loophole.  In </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mut’a</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Muslim men are allowed contract an unlimited number of temporary marriages, for a fixed period of time.</span></p>
<p>Article 1105 of the Civil Code states, “In relations between husband and wife, the position of the head of the family exclusively belongs to the husband.”</p>
<p>One of the most appalling laws is <i>Tamkin</i>,<i> </i>meaning submission or obedience. To be more specific, <i>Tamkin</i> has been defined as the full accessibility and unhampered sexual availability of the woman to her husband. Sexual availability is considered a woman’s duty and a man’s right.</p>
<p>When it comes to employment laws, Article 1117 of the Civil Code indicates “The husband can prevent his wife from an occupation or technical profession which is incompatible with the family’s interests or the dignity of him or his wife.” Men can initiate a unilateral divorce.</p>
<p>In family law and inheritance rules, women only receive half as much as their brothers or other male relatives. Even if a husband dies, the wife will receive only one-eighth of the inheritance if she has a child. The law also prevents women from being judges.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The protection of every person’s human rights “without distinction of sex” are enshrined in Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hypocritically, while the Islamic Republic of Iran is a signatory of the ICCPR, and while there is a so-called moderate president in power, the discriminatory laws against women remain intact.</span></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>Cornell Diversity Group &#8216;Lost&#8217; $8,000 But Cuts Deemed Discriminatory</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/sara-dogan/cornell-diversity-group-lost-8000-but-cuts-deemed-discriminatory/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cornell-diversity-group-lost-8000-but-cuts-deemed-discriminatory</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Dec 2013 05:39:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sara Dogan]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Campus Roundup]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[American Studies Association]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[boycott]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Campus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cornel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Diversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[University]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214123</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Punishment for missing funds may be racially insensitive. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Harvard-University-Campus-006.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214125" alt="Harvard-University-Campus-006" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Harvard-University-Campus-006.jpg" width="282" height="218" /></a>Top Stories:</strong></p>
<p>• Attempts by the student government at Cornell to cut the budget of the African, Latino, Asian, Native American Students Intercultural Programming Board (ALANA) <a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15684/">were rejected</a> and characterized as discriminatory despite drastic overspending by the group and the outright loss of $8,000 in unaccounted funds. While the Cornell Student Assembly recommends a funding limit of $10 per attending student at events, ALANA funded some events at a cost of up to $92 per student and wasted student funds on trivialities such as $450 for pins for the group’s executive board. Ultimately, ALANA’s budget was reduced only slightly to $108,000 for the next two years as opposed to $118,000 for the 2012-2014 allocation after attempts to dramatically reign in the budget were characterized by supporters as failing to be “sensitive to the needs of cultural umbrella and programming organizations like ALANA.”</p>
<p>• As part of an art project on racism, a black student at Sacramento State University designed an outdoor exhibit featuring the <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/black-student-stages-fake-lynching-of-white-people-in-highly-offensive-art-stunt/">apparent lynching of two white people</a>. The white individuals were actors who were displayed dangling from a tree on campus with nooses encircling their necks. Student Christina Edwards who designed the piece stated that it was meant “to bring to light social injustices and the issue of inequality that impacts me and my community as a whole.” Edwards did not seek University approval to set up her display and administrators are looking into whether any campus rules were violated.</p>
<p>• The American Studies Association (ASA) voted in December to support a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/16/u-s-academic-group-votes-to-boycott-israeli-universities/">boycott of all academic institutions in Israel</a>, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, while taking no action against the numerous tyrannical states and dictatorships across the globe.  The resolution stated that the ASA “endorses and will honor the call of Palestinian civil society for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. It is also resolved that the ASA supports the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine and in support of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement.” Dozens of colleges and universities in America, including Harvard and Yale, have spoken out opposing the ASA’s vote as prejudiced and several have withdrawn from ASA membership entirely.  Among the testimony considered by the ASA was that of Communist terrorist Angela Davis who compared the situation of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South and Richard Falk, a 9/11 “truther” and anti-Semite.</p>
<p>• The University of Michigan chapter of Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian campus group, has <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/23/libertarian-students-sue-umich-for-political-discrimination/">filed a lawsuit</a> alleging that the University’s decision to deny them funding constitutes unconstitutional political discrimination. Officials from the university stated that they were ineligible for university funding because their events and activities were “political.”  But other campus groups with a clear left-wing political agenda, including the NAACP and Immigrant Rights Advocacy do receive university funding. The lawsuit against the University was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian legal group, on behalf of Young Americans for Liberty.</p>
<p><strong>Further News from the Campuses:</strong></p>
<p><b>False Threats Graduate to The Ivy League </b>[TheCollegeConservative.com]</p>
<p>This past Monday morning, students at Harvard University had more than just the stress of finals to deal with.</p>
<p>Harvard University Police were given an <a href="http://www.harvard.edu/emergency">unconfirmed tip that explosives</a> were placed in four academic buildings on campus.</p>
<p><a href="http://thecollegeconservative.com/2013/12/20/false-threats-graduate-to-the-ivy-league/">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>University of Colorado May Cut Hours on Student Jobs Due to New Obamacare Regs</b> [CampusReform.org]</p>
<p>Officials at the University of Colorado (CU) are scrambling to figure how new regulations stemming from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) may negatively affect student employees, top administrators told <i>The Scribe</i> this month.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=5310">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>California College Suspends Speech Restrictions Amidst Settlement Talks </b>[TheFire.org]</p>
<p>FRESNO, Calif., Dec. 18, 2013—Modesto Junior College (MJC) has agreed to suspend enforcement of its “free speech zone” as it negotiates an end to a federal <a href="http://thefire.org/article/16327.html"><b>lawsuit</b></a> filed by a student prevented from handing out copies of the Constitution on campus on Constitution Day.</p>
<p><a href="http://thefire.org/article/16588.html">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>Black student Stages Fake Lynching of White People in Highly Offensive Art Stunt </b>[DailyCaller.com]</p>
<p>A black student at Sacramento State University staged a fake lynching of two white people as part of an art project exploring racism.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, students at the public university campus saw two white people hanging from a tree with nooses around their necks. They were actors who had been hired by Christina Edwards, an artist and senior at the college.</p>
<p><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/18/black-student-stages-fake-lynching-of-white-people-in-highly-offensive-art-stunt/">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>Were Vassar Hoax Bias Perps Also Involved in a False Rape Prosecution? </b>[Daily Caller]</p>
<p>The two former Vassar College students who were expelled for creating hoax bias incidents and then filing false reports about them were also actively involved with the college’s Sexual Assault and Violence Prevention committee, which currently faces a lawsuit for prosecuting a wrongful rape conviction.<br />
<a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/12/11/were-vassar-hoax-bias-perps-also-involved-in-a-false-rape-prosecution/">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>Speech Codes of the Year: 2013</b> [TheFire.org]</p>
<p>While all of 2013’s Speech Codes of the Month flagrantly violated students’ or faculty members’ right to free expression, two of them were so egregious that they deserve special mention as 2013’s Speech Codes of the Year.<br />
<a href="http://thefire.org/torch/">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>ACLU: College Cancelled Concert Because Band Members were &#8216;Not Black Enough&#8217; </b>[Campus Reform]</p>
<p>Administrators at Hampshire College (Hampshire) cancelled a Halloween concert last month because the lead singer of the band scheduled to perform was &#8220;not black enough,&#8221; the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) alleged in a letter to the school&#8217;s president.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=5291">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>Notre Dame Renews Litigation Against HHS Mandate </b>[The Irish Rover]</p>
<p>On December 3, Notre Dame announced that it has refiled its lawsuit to seek judicial protection relief from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) insurance mandate that would require Notre Dame to provide, either through its insurance plans or a third party administrator, various drugs and products which the government describes as “contraceptive,” but which include abortifacients (such as Ella and the IUD).</p>
<p><a href="http://www.irishrover.net/?p=4573">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>University of Michigan Student Group Files Lawsuit Over Unconstitutional Funding Decisions </b>[TheFire.org]</p>
<p>Last Friday, a student group at the University of Michigan (UM) filed a <a href="http://www.adfmedia.org/files/YALcomplaint.pdf">federal lawsuit</a> (PDF) against the university, claiming that UM violated the First Amendment when it refused to grant the group student fee funding for one of its activities on the basis that it was a “political activity.” The suit is being brought by Alliance Defending Freedom.</p>
<p><a href="http://thefire.org/article/16603.html">Read more</a></p>
<p><b>Kenyon College Withdraws from ASA, Citing Call to Boycott Israel </b>[The College Fix]</p>
<p>Kenyon College is <a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15732/">the latest institution</a> to reject the American Studies Association’s call for an academic boycott of Israel. But Kenyon has taken its response a step further and is actually withdrawing from the ASA.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/15741/">Read more</a></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>Sheila Jackson-Lee: Constitution Gives Me Immunity to Discriminate Against the Disabled</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/sheila-jackson-lee-constitution-gives-me-immunity-to-discriminate-against-the-disabled/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sheila-jackson-lee-constitution-gives-me-immunity-to-discriminate-against-the-disabled</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/sheila-jackson-lee-constitution-gives-me-immunity-to-discriminate-against-the-disabled/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Nov 2013 02:23:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[The Point]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[disabled]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sheila Jackson-Lee]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209104</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sheila Jackson-Lee is one of the dumbest people in America and the fourth dumbest person in Congress.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/judiciary-committee-hearing16.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-209106" alt="U.S. Rep Sheila Jackson Lee shows a bag of Skittles during her remarks at a public forum on the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, on Capitol Hill in Washington" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/judiciary-committee-hearing16-450x326.jpg" width="450" height="326" /></a></p>
<p>Sheila Jackson-Lee is one of the dumbest people in America and the fourth dumbest person in Congress. If Sheila Jackson-Lee and Joe Biden played chess, the pieces would come to life and run away.</p>
<p>Sheila Jackson-Lee thought that America planted a flag on Mars and won the Vietnam War. Apparently she also thought that when she was passing discrimination laws, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/22/judge-discrimination-suit-against-rep-jackson-lee-/">the Constitution would keep them from applying to her</a> because she was a politician.</p>
<p>Worse still, <a href="http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=210475">she found lawyers who would actually</a> make that argument for her.</p>
<blockquote><p>A judge has refused to dismiss a federal lawsuit accusing Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of discriminating against and mocking a disabled staffer — charges the Texas Democrat denies.</p>
<p>Mrs. Jackson Lee’s legal team sought to have the complaint dismissed, arguing in part that actions concerning her staff are protected under the Speech or Debate clause of the Constitution. In a lengthy ruling, the judge disagreed.</p>
<p>“Decisions about whether to allow an employee to rest or to have additional time to complete an assignments are not legislative acts for which the representative enjoys constitutional immunity from suit,” U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras wrote in a Sept. 30 opinion.</p></blockquote>
<p>Just so you can understand how dumb Sheila Jackson-Lee really is, she thought <a href="http://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/27/speech-and-debate-clause">that the Speech and Debate clause </a>let her break the law.</p>
<blockquote><p>They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.</p></blockquote>
<p>How stupid did Sheila Jackson-Lee have to be to think that this would free her from following employment laws?</p>
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		<title>Barneys&#8217; &#8216;Racism&#8217; Threatens Jay-Z&#8217;s Street Cred</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/larry-elder/barneys-racism-threatens-jay-zs-street-cred/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=barneys-racism-threatens-jay-zs-street-cred</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/larry-elder/barneys-racism-threatens-jay-zs-street-cred/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2013 04:10:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Elder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barney's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jay-Z]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sharpton]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=209143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Race demagogue Al Sharpton goes in for the kill. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/jayz-1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209144" alt="jayz-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/jayz-1-431x350.jpg" width="259" height="210" /></a>&#8220;World War II Vets Under Attack by Blacks.&#8221; Can you imagine such a headline in The New York Times — or anywhere else, except perhaps some in underground racist tract?</p>
<p>But for the second time in three months, an 80-plus-year-old WWII veteran was murdered by black suspects. In Washington, 88-year-old Delbert Belton, who fought and took a bullet to the leg at the Battle of Okinawa, was beaten to death by two black teen suspects. The motive? Police describe the killing as a random attack. In Mississippi, 87-year-old Lawrence E. Thornton, a WWII vet who served as a Navy fireman on a minesweeper, was beaten to death by four black suspects. The motive was robbery.</p>
<p>Even if the vets were racially targeted — and there is no evidence that they were — it would be absurd to say that white World War II vets &#8220;are under attack&#8221; by &#8220;black people&#8221; because of the bad behavior of some individuals who happen to be black. Yet this is the reasoning the Rev. Jesse Jackson applied following the black teen&#8217;s death in the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case. Jackson, angry when he heard the news of Martin&#8217;s death, said, &#8220;Blacks are under attack.&#8221;</p>
<p>This brings us to the accusation of &#8220;blatant prejudice and discrimination&#8221; by the upscale department store, Barneys New York.</p>
<p>In February, plainclothes NYPD cops stopped a black woman and falsely accused her of credit card fraud after she bought a $2,500 Celine handbag. The shopper filed a &#8220;notice of claim,&#8221; announcing her intention to sue. And in April, a black shopper used a debit card to buy a $349 Ferragamo belt. He, too, was falsely accused of fraud.</p>
<p>Now things get even more interesting.</p>
<p>Rapper and hip-hop mogul Jay-Z had entered into a deal with Barneys. A Jay-Z curated, limited-edition collection of designer clothes and accessories rolls out this holiday season, with part of the proceeds going to charity.</p>
<p>A hyper left-wing organization called Color of Change put out an &#8220;open letter&#8221; appealing to Jay-Z. Another group, Change.org, set up an online petition that calls on Jay-Z to denounce Barneys&#8217; &#8220;blatant prejudice and discrimination.&#8221; Some Jay-Z fans now call him a &#8220;sell-out&#8221; and &#8220;Uncle Tom&#8221; for giving cover to a racist institution for money. Through his website, Jay-Z said that before he reacted with &#8220;emotion,&#8221; he wanted to get the &#8220;facts.&#8221;</p>
<p>Enter the Rev. Al Sharpton, who never lets &#8220;facts&#8221; get between him and a race card.</p>
<p>Sharpton, of course, shot to fame by falsely accusing a white man of raping a black teenager; was in the middle of the Crown Heights riots (&#8220;If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house&#8221;); once called the black mayor of New York an &#8220;N-word whore&#8221;; and spoke of whites moving into Harlem as &#8220;interlopers&#8221; and Jews as &#8220;diamond merchants.&#8221; He steps in to calm the waters?!</p>
<p>&#8220;Some people want to make this about Jay-Z,&#8221; Sharpton told reporters, &#8220;No, this is about Barneys first.&#8221; He demanded Barneys &#8220;bring the data&#8221; to prove that when expensive purchases are made, the store investigates white and minority shoppers equally.</p>
<p>Barneys, warned Sharpton, better gather the information quickly and not use the busy holiday season as an excuse. &#8220;We&#8217;ll march all the way down to your store,&#8221; said Sharpton. &#8220;I&#8217;ll serve turkey right on the corner.&#8221;</p>
<p>For race hustlers and the eternally aggrieved, Barneys did not unfairly treat a handful of shoppers. No, it&#8217;s an institutional problem. Anecdotes equal evidence. The election and reelection of President Barack Obama has not stopped so-called &#8220;civil rights leaders&#8221; from treating America like it&#8217;s still the back-of-the-bus &#8217;50s.</p>
<p>For those who argue racism remains a deep and persistent problem, consider this. Attorney Johnnie Cochran argued that the LAPD had it out for O.J. Simpson because, according to Cochran, Simpson broke the final taboo by marrying a blond, blue-eyed white woman. A few years ago, &#8220;Desperate Housewives&#8221; ran a sex-themed promo during Monday Night Football. It featured blond actress Nicollette Sheridan and prominent football wide-receiver Terrell Owens. Clad only in a white towel, Sheridan teased and flirted with Owens.</p>
<p>The Federal Communications Commission claimed it received 50,000 complaint letters — a tiny amount compared to total viewership. But a Freedom of Information request discovered that, in fact, the FCC received fewer than 2,000 letters, with less than 100 — or less than 5 percent of that total — saying anything about race.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s do the numbers. Out of 17,000,000 viewers, 2,000 bothered to write. Of that, only 100 complained about the promo being racially offensive. That comes to about 5 percent of the .01 percent that wrote — or a little over .0005 percent of viewers.</p>
<p>Now the discriminated Barneys&#8217; customers have already sought legal counsel. Barneys has announced an investigation. Without waiting for the results, Barneys&#8217; CEO issued an apology. To ensure that the store keeps its &#8220;commitment to fairness and equality&#8221; and &#8220;zero tolerance for any form of discrimination,&#8221; Barneys has retained a respected &#8220;civil rights expert.&#8221;</p>
<p>Just tell us it isn&#8217;t Sharpton.</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>Obama&#8217;s War on the Christian &#8216;Extremist&#8217; Threat</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/obamas-war-on-the-extremist-christian-threat/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-war-on-the-extremist-christian-threat</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/obamas-war-on-the-extremist-christian-threat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:43:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bias]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=208530</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A concerted campaign to portray Christians as domestic enemies comes to light. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/military-chaplain-ap.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208531" alt="military-chaplain-ap" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/military-chaplain-ap-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>President Obama proclaimed to the United Nations General Assembly in September 2012: &#8220;The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.&#8221;</span></b></p>
<p>In keeping with this sentiment, his administration decided to scrub all federal law enforcement training materials in order to eliminate the use of such words or phrases as jihadists or Islamic terrorists, since the use of such terms could be viewed by Muslims as evidence of Islamophobia.</p>
<p>By contrast, the Obama administration, including the military over which President Obama presides as commander-in-chief, is engaging in a pattern of behavior targeting traditional Christian believers and their groups as extremists and mocking their beliefs.</p>
<p>For example, according to an October 23, 2013 report by Fox News, “Soldiers attending a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood say they were told that evangelical Christians and members of the Tea Party were a threat to the nation and that any soldier donating to those groups would be subjected to punishment under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”</p>
<p>Fort Hood, let’s not forget, was the site of the massacre committed by the radicalized Muslim soldier Nidal Hasan, shouting “God is great” in Arabic (Allahu Akhbar) as he proceeded with the slaughter of his unarmed fellow soldiers.</p>
<p>Yet, during the pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood, barely a word was said about Islamic extremism. As one soldier put it, “Our community is still healing from the act of terrorism brought on by Nidal Hasan – who really is a terrorist. This is a slap in the face. The military is supposed to defend freedom and to classify the vast majority of the military that claim to be Christian as terrorists is sick.”</p>
<p>Fox News&#8217; Todd Starnes reported last April that, while briefing an Army Reserve unit in Pennsylvania, an instructor said that Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism were examples of religious extremism, equating followers with the KKK, al Qaeda and Hamas. The training materials also listed “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.</p>
<p>In yet another example, Todd Starnes reported last January that “the U.S. military ordered soldiers to remove a cross and a steeple from atop a chapel and to board up cross-shaped windows at a remote American forward operating base in Afghanistan.” Whatever justification might be given for removing the very visible Christian cross symbol from atop the chapel, boarding up windows that happen to be cross-shaped is a step too far to rationalize on grounds that the design of windows in an American facility might offend Afghan Muslims whom our soldiers are risking their lives to defend.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/10/23/Military-Training-Doc-Anti-Christian-SPLC-a-Trusted-Source-to-Define-Extremism">Breitbart News has recounted still other examples of anti-Christian bias</a> in the military under President Obama’s watch. These are not isolated examples. A Defense Department training document entitled “Extremism” was cited by Breitbart News to demonstrate the document’s reliance on an organization as an approved source of information &#8211; the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) – that has an anti-Christian, anti-Tea Party bias. For example, SPLC has labeled such traditional Christian groups as the American Family Association and the Traditional Values Coalition as domestic hate groups.</p>
<p>This bias appears to reflect the Obama administration’s thinking at the highest levels. Indeed, as reported by Breitbart News, rather than embrace an amendment passed last June in the House Armed Services Committee protecting religious speech of service members in the military, the White House released a Statement of Administration Policy with a threat to veto the bill if it passes the full House and Senate.  “In other words,” Breitbart News concluded, “Obama says he will veto any bill that forbids his appointees or officers from telling a soldier that he cannot mention Jesus during prayer or have a Bible on his desk, or that keeps those appointees from telling a chaplain (who is an ordained clergyman) what religious teachings he is allowed to give in worship services, or what spiritual counseling he can give to another soldier.”</p>
<p>The Obama administration bends over backwards to avoid hurting the sensibilities of Muslims, even referring to Hasan’s jihadist attack at Fort Hood as merely “workplace violence.” But traditional Christians are a subject of mockery and disrespect by this administration.</p>
<p>The White House acknowledged, for example, that it asked Georgetown University, a Catholic institution, to cover up prominent Christian symbols for President Obama&#8217;s economic speech there in 2010. Is it any wonder that the military followed the example of its commander-in-chief in going overboard to remove anything that looked like a Christian symbol in the chapel at the Afghan base?</p>
<p>President Obama sets the tone for his administration’s dismissive attitude towards traditional Christians. Indeed, he came into office with a snide view of traditional Christian believers.</p>
<p>During the presidential campaign for his first term, Obama condescendingly dismissed those persons of faith whom he said “cling” to their “religion.”</p>
<p>Moreover, as the Christian evangelist James Dobson reminded us back in 2008, Senator Obama had delivered a speech mocking the Bible a couple of years earlier.</p>
<p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology,&#8221; Dobson said, adding that Obama is &#8220;dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.&#8221;</p>
<p>Once Barack Obama became president, Dobson no doubt had a target on his back. In fact, the Obama Internal Revenue Service went after the radio ministry, Family Talk, run by Dobson. His ministry was given the run around in its application for a tax-exempt status, including having to deal with burdensome paperwork requirements and demands for disclosure of Dobson’s political views. Only after a threat to bring the IRS to court did the tax agency relent and approve the application.</p>
<p>Sadly, the Obama Administration is evidently waging a concerted campaign to cast traditional Christians as extremists, while ignoring the real extremist threat to our way of life posed by jihadists.</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 Lost Freedom of Association</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/walter-williams/the-lost-freedom-of-association/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-lost-freedom-of-association</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Sep 2013 04:00:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[association]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Race]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203122</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Where we went wrong. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/iStock_000005218304Small.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203123" alt="iStock_000005218304Small" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/iStock_000005218304Small-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>Here&#8217;s a question: What is the true test of one&#8217;s commitment to freedom of expression? Is it when one permits others to express ideas with which he agrees? Or is it when he permits others to express ideas he finds deeply offensive? I&#8217;m betting that most people would wisely answer that it&#8217;s the latter, and I&#8217;d agree. How about this question: What is the true test of one&#8217;s commitment to freedom of association? Is it when people permit others to freely associate in ways of which they approve? Or is it when they permit others to freely associate in ways they deem despicable? I&#8217;m sure that might be a considerable dispute about freedom of association compared with the one over freedom of expression. To be for freedom in either case requires that one be brave enough to accept the fact that some people will make offensive expressions and associate in offensive ways. Let&#8217;s explore this with an example from the past.</p>
<p>In 1958, Richard Loving, a white man, and Mildred Jeter, a black woman, two Virginia residents, traveled to Washington, D.C., to marry. Upon their return to Virginia, they were charged with and found guilty of violation of Virginia&#8217;s anti-miscegenation laws. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, held that laws banning interracial marriages violated the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment. The couple&#8217;s conviction was reversed. Thus, Virginia&#8217;s anti-miscegenation laws not only violated the U.S. Constitution but also violated the basic human right of freedom of association.</p>
<p>Now let&#8217;s ask ourselves: Would Virginia&#8217;s laws have been more acceptable if, instead of banning interracial marriages, they had mandated interracial marriages? Any decent person would find such a law just as offensive — and for the same reason: It would violate freedom of association. Forced association is not freedom of association.</p>
<p>Before you say, &#8220;Williams, where you&#8217;re going with this discussion isn&#8217;t very good,&#8221; there&#8217;s another case from our past.</p>
<p>Henry Louis Mencken, writing in The Baltimore Evening Sun (11/9/48), brought to light that the city&#8217;s parks board had a regulation forbidding white and black citizens from playing tennis with each other in public parks. Today most Americans would find such a regulation an offensive attack on freedom of association. I imagine that most would find it just as offensive if the regulation had required blacks and whites to play tennis with each other. Both would violate freedom of association.</p>
<p>Most Americans probably agree there should be freedom of association in the cases of marriage and tennis, but what about freedom of association as a general principle? Suppose white men formed a club, a professional association or any other private association and blacks and women wanted to be members. Is there any case for forcing them to admit blacks and women? What if it were women or blacks who formed an association? Should they be forced to admit men or whites? Wouldn&#8217;t forced membership in either case violate freedom of association?</p>
<p>What if you wanted to deal with me but I didn&#8217;t want to deal with you? To be more concrete, suppose I own a private company and I&#8217;m looking to hire an employee. You want to deal with me, but I don&#8217;t want to deal with you. My reasons might be that you&#8217;re white or a Catholic or ugly or a woman or anything else that I find objectionable. Should I be forced to hire you? You say, &#8220;Williams, that&#8217;s illegal employment discrimination.&#8221; You&#8217;re absolutely right, but it still violates peaceable freedom of association.</p>
<p>Much of the racial discrimination in our history was a result of legal or extralegal measures to prevent freedom of association. That was the essence of Jim Crow laws, which often prevented blacks from being served in restaurants, admitted into theaters, allowed on public conveyances and given certain employment. Whenever one sees laws or other measures taken to prevent economic transactions, you have to guess that the reason there&#8217;s a law is that if there were no law, not everyone would behave according to the specifications of the law.</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>Humanitarian Tragedy: Iran&#8217;s Beleaguered Jewish Community</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/majid-rafizadeh/humanitarian-tragedy-irans-beleaguered-jewish-community/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=humanitarian-tragedy-irans-beleaguered-jewish-community</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 03 Sep 2013 04:20:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Majid Rafizadeh]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[community]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jews]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=202948</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What genuine apartheid looks like. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3834054413.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-202950" alt="3834054413" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/3834054413.jpg" width="277" height="196" /></a>One of the crucial humanitarian tragedies- that the world and the mainstream media has failed to focus on- is the fate and current living situation of Jewish communities in the Muslim-dominated countries, particularly the Shiite-Islamist country of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Jewish community in the Islamic state of Iran has been subject to little scholarly work and research. Largely due to the fact that the Islamist theocratic regime of Iran has not granted access to scholars, journalists, and other researchers to deeply investigate the conditions of the Jewish community under Islamist rule in Iran.</p>
<p>Although the Jewish community has long faced discrimination, inequality, and intolerance in Muslim communities such as Iran (for example in March 1839 many Jews in Iran were horrifically forced to convert to Islam in what is known as the Allahdad incident), the persecution of the Jewish people exponentially increased since the Shiite-Islamist and Sharia law-based ruling cleric came to power under the rule of the Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini. The Jewish community of Iran is a staple of the nation’s history though, as the Jews of Iran trace their history back 2,800 years, when communities of the tribes of Israel were taken into captivity by the Assyrian king and sent into exile. The Jewish community primarily settled in the Giliard region of Damavand, near Tehran.</p>
<p>When Ayatollah Khomeini began galvanizing the Iranian people against Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, he issued statements on the condition of Iran’s Jewish community. Before ascending to power; Khomeini claimed that he believed the Jewish people in Iran should enjoy the same citizenship rights as every other citizen. This classic Machiavellian strategy was intended to gain the support of influential Jewish social groups in Tehran, which comprised approximately 150,000 members.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, when the Ayatollah Khomeini was capable of overthrowing the Shah’s government, and when the Islamist state of Iran was established, he and the ruling clerics immediately arrested some of the most prominent Iranian-Jewish community leaders and businessmen, including Habib Elghanian. The Jewish community leaders were tortured and executed. Since the onset of the persecution, the Israeli flag has been repeatedly torched, and the Star of David desecrated, in Palestine Square in Tehran. The Jewish community found their survival threatened and humanitarian rights repressed. These actions forced them to flee the area after calling the area home for thousands of years. The Iranian-Jewish population decreased to approximately 10,000 people who chose to remain in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Jewish community that was unwilling to flee from Iran was made up of devout and committed people aiming to protect their sacred places and synagogues regardless of the threats and persecutions, as well as seniors who were unable to resettle elsewhere.</p>
<p>When I lived in the city of Esfahan in Iran— a place where a few hundreds of Jewish people still reside— I met a young intelligent, cheerful, and kind girl called Zahra. After time I realized that her real name, what she was called at home, was indeed Abbey. She explained the reason for having two names:  “I feel as if we live two different lives. We have to keep everything secrets about our faith, religion, and family from the public. We even have to have different names in the public. All my family members have two names. My parents always tell me that these times will pass.”</p>
<p>As the Islamist party of Iran came to power, verses of the Quran claiming the inferiority of the Jewish and Christian peoples became popular slogans for the Shiite-Islamist ruling clerics. The several verses of the Quran include:</p>
<p>“5:51- O you who believe! Do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people”,  “4:91- If the unbelievers do not offer you peace, kill them [The Jews] wherever you find them. Against such you are given clear warrant”, “5:59-Jews and Christians are evil-livers”, and “9:30- Christians and Jews are perverse. Allah himself fights against them.”</p>
<p>Disregarding the public persecution, intolerance, and inequality that other religions face, the constitution has been used to safeguard the rights of the Muslim population in Iran. Article 12 of the Iranian Constitution states:</p>
<p>“The official religion of Iran is Islam and the Twelver Ja&#8217;fari school, and this principle will remain eternally immutable.  Other Islamic schools are to be accorded full respect, and their followers are free to act in accordance with their own jurisprudence in performing their religious rites.  These schools enjoy official status in matters pertaining to religious education, affairs of personal status (marriage, divorce, inheritance, and wills) and related litigation in courts of law.  In regions of the country where Muslims following any one of these schools constitute the majority, local regulations, within the bounds of the jurisdiction of local councils, are to be in accordance with the respective school, without infringing upon the rights of the followers of other schools”</p>
<p>Currently, Jewish people are not allowed to take key governmental positions in Iran. According to the constitution, the Jews cannot hold decision-making positions such as being a member of the influential Guardian Council, a Commander in the Iranian Army, and serving as the President of the nation, among others. More fundamentally, the Jewish people can neither become judges at any level nor assist in the judicial and legislative systems. Furthermore, Jewish-Iranians are banned from becoming members of parliament (The Consultative Assembly) through general elections.</p>
<p>In addition, <i>qisas </i>or the right to equal retaliation has not been specified in the Penal Code for the Jewish people. Meaning that in the case of murder, the right of a family member to demand execution of the murderer would be totally left to the discretion of the Islamist judges. Furthermore, the <i>diya</i>, or blood money (compensation for the family of a victim) is half for the Jews and women.</p>
<p>These few Islamist rules and laws based on the Quran, Shiite-Iranian clerical and Shari’a law only begin to encompass the deep-rooted religious inequality of the region. Western Muslim scholars who enjoy their lives in the majority Christian societies, must look more closely at how other minorities, particularly the Jews, are being treated in nations such as Iran under majority Islamic and Shiite rule.</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>Liberals Ignore Middle East Racism &amp; Discrimination</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/liberals-ignore-middle-east-racism-discrimination/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=liberals-ignore-middle-east-racism-discrimination</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/liberals-ignore-middle-east-racism-discrimination/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Apr 2013 04:15:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=184070</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It's time the Left end its bigotry against the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/liberals-ignore-middle-east-racism-discrimination/attachment/002/" rel="attachment wp-att-184071"><img class=" wp-image-184071 alignleft" title="002" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/002.jpg" alt="" width="240" height="181" /></a>Racism, discrimination and lack of freedoms in certain parts of the Middle East are deemed acceptable to the media and major corporations.</p>
<p>Some prime examples can be found even recently: SNC-Lavalin Group is the largest<strong> </strong>engineering and construction company in Canada, one of the five largest global design firms in the world – and indeed racism is acceptable for them.  As <a href="http://www.aaalobaid.com/careers1.php?job=15">they state on a partner&#8217;s website</a> in a recent help wanted spot, they are seeking a Public Relations officer in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – but only Arab nationals are free to apply. As the job post states- “Non-Arabs: please excuse.” <em>Is discrimination acceptable to SNC-Lavalin?</em> The very clear answer is yes.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s a step up for the company which paid $160 million in bribes to win business in Libya, including purchasing luxury yachts for Gadhafi’s son. So, if they are only discriminating in favor of Arabs rather than bribing murdering dictators, clearly it’s an improvement for SNC-Lavalin.</p>
<p>In a move which even the most ardent apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood can’t ignore, Bassem Youssef, a leading Egyptian talk show host, was arrested and questioned for five hours, facing charges of &#8220;insulting Islam,&#8221; &#8220;insulting the President,&#8221; and &#8220;spreading false news with the aim of disrupting public order.”</p>
<p>Much of the free world supported the “Arab Spring,” and now one wonders if in Egypt the people – or Western interests – are in better shape than they were previous to the rule of Muslim Brotherhood.   Meanwhile, the anti-Israel and anti-American Muslim Brotherhood government is implementing Shariah law. Its new constitution strips religious liberty from Egypt&#8217;s Christians and is an increased threat to the West.</p>
<p>While worldwide media attacks Israel regularly, they ignore the fact that Christians face tremendous danger throughout the Arab Middle East.  Christians in Egypt face terrible hardships and discrimination and in Gaza, churches are few and far between. Christians in the Middle East face many difficulties, dangers and hardship. This <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/">PR firm</a> owner asks why don’t liberals demand the freedom of prayer for non-Muslims in the Middle East?</p>
<p>While media focus on Israel day after day after day, it’s far from headline news that <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/01/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBRE9300C920130401">March 2013 saw 6,000 documented deaths in Syria</a> &#8211; including nearly 300 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.  Since the start of the civil war, there have been more than 62,500 deaths.  Naturally, the student association of York University, Canada’s third largest university, saw fit to pass a resolution endorsing the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. They made no statement whatsoever about Syria – nor do media focus around the clock on the deaths which occur day after day in Syria.</p>
<p>Media reports on Jerusalem did discuss the $1 billion dollar fund which Qatar has purportedly set up for “Arab Jerusalem.” Meanwhile, Jews are condemned for purchasing property in Eastern Jerusalem. One wonders why discrimination is considered acceptable in the Middle East? If Jews are allowed to live anywhere they choose in Moscow or Mexico City, Paris or Chicago, then why can’t they live anywhere they choose in Jerusalem?</p>
<p>It’s damn well time that the world stops accepting discrimination in the Middle East.  Why is it that all these bastions of liberal co-existence ignore this policy when it comes to the Middle East?</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>Sabotaging Black Education</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/sabotaging-black-education/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sabotaging-black-education</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/sabotaging-black-education/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 Aug 2012 04:00:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arne Duncan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Black]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[discipline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schools]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=141088</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the left-wing education establishment has betrayed the struggle to achieve educational equality for black students.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/blackStudents1.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-141095" title="blackStudents1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/blackStudents1.gif" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a>If I were a Klansman, wanting to sabotage black education, I couldn&#8217;t find better allies than education establishment liberals and officials in the Obama administration, especially Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who in March 2010 announced that his department was &#8220;going to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement.&#8221;</p>
<p>For Duncan, the civil rights issue was that black elementary and high school students are disciplined at a higher rate than whites. His evidence for discrimination is that blacks are three and a half times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers. Duncan and his Obama administration supporters conveniently ignored school &#8220;racial discrimination&#8221; against whites, who are more than two times as likely to be suspended as Asians and Pacific Islanders.</p>
<p>Heather Mac Donald reports on all of this in &#8220;Undisciplined,&#8221; appearing in City Journal (Summer 2012). She writes that between September 2011 and February 2012, 25 times more black Chicago students than white students were arrested at school, mostly for battery. In Chicago schools, black students outnumber whites by four to one.</p>
<p>Mac Donald adds, &#8220;Nationally, the picture is no better. The homicide rate among males between the ages of 14 and 17 is nearly ten times higher for blacks than for whites and Hispanics combined. Such data make no impact on the Obama administration and its orbiting advocates, who apparently believe that the lack of self-control and socialization that results in this disproportionate criminal violence does not manifest itself in classroom comportment as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>According to the National Center for Education Statistics, nationally during 2007-2008, more than 145,000 teachers were physically attacked. Six percent of big-city schools report verbal abuse of teachers, and 18 percent report non-verbal disrespect for teachers. An earlier NCES study found that 18 percent of the nation&#8217;s schools accounted for 75 percent of the reported incidents of violence, and 6.6 percent accounted for 50 percent.</p>
<p>So far as serious violence, murder and rapes, 1.9 percent of schools reported 50 percent of the incidents. The preponderance of school violence occurs in big-city schools attended by black students.</p>
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		<title>What Economics Can’t Tell Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/what-economics-can%e2%80%99t-tell-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-economics-can%25e2%2580%2599t-tell-us</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/walter-williams/what-economics-can%e2%80%99t-tell-us/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2012 04:05:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Better]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[economics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[objective]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[subjective]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[theory]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=137228</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The difficulties of a subjective world. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/economics.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-137229" title="economics" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/economics.gif" alt="" width="375" height="242" /></a>One of the more difficult lessons to teach economics neophytes — and, many times, trained economists — is that economic theory cannot say anything definitive about subjective statements, such as what&#8217;s better, good, bad or worse. Let&#8217;s try a few examples to make the point.</p>
<p>Cabernet sauvignon wine is better than fume blanc. Turkey is better than pork. Matter in the solid state is better than the plasma state. Each of those statements begs the question: Where&#8217;s the proof? With subjective statements such as those, disagreements can go on forever. It&#8217;s simply a matter of personal opinion. One person&#8217;s opinion of what&#8217;s better or worse is just as good as another&#8217;s.</p>
<p>Contrast those statements with objective ones, such as: Water is 2 parts hydrogen and 1 part oxygen. Scientists cannot split the atom. The distance in degrees from the equator to the North Pole is 90. With positive statements such as those, if there&#8217;s any disagreement, there are facts to which one can appeal to settle the disagreement. For example, if one person says scientists can split the atom and another says they cannot, a trip to Stanford&#8217;s linear accelerator to watch atoms being split settles the matter. However, if you say fume blanc is better than cabernet sauvignon and I say cabernet sauvignon is better, our disagreement can go on forever because there are no facts or figures to which we can appeal.</p>
<p>A useful clue as to whether a statement is subjective is the use of words such as should, ought, better and worse. I tell my students that though it&#8217;s important for thinking properly to know whether a statement is subjective or not, by no means do I suggest they purge their vocabulary of subjective statements. Subjective statements are very useful in fooling others into doing something you want them to do; however, in the process of fooling others, one need not fool himself. For example, President Barack Obama said that college is &#8220;an economic imperative that every family in America should be able to afford.&#8221; There&#8217;s absolutely no evidence to support such a claim, but it&#8217;s a good way to trick others into paying for someone else&#8217;s education.</p>
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		<title>The Glass Ceiling Myth</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/the-glass-ceiling-myth/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-glass-ceiling-myth</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ben-shapiro/the-glass-ceiling-myth/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 06 Feb 2012 04:23:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Carol Hymowitz]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Feminism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mark Zuckerberg]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=121569</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It isn’t sexism, it’s reality – for the most part.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/fb.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-121573" title="fb" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/fb.jpg" alt="" width="420" height="280" /></a></p>
<p>On Thursday, Bloomberg News ran a piece by Carol Hymowitz lamenting Facebook’s supposed sexism.  “Most of Facebook Inc.’s more than 800 million users are women,” she wrote.  “You wouldn’t know it from looking at the board, whose seven directors are all men.”  Hymowitz pointed out that other companies, including LinkedIn and Google, have at least one female director, and only 11.3 percent of public companies have male-only boards.</p>
<p>So what?  Facebook is hardly female adverse.  Its COO is Sheryl Sandberg, and she’s paid almost $31 million per year.  She’ll likely own $1.7 billion worth of the company after it goes public.  Some sexism!</p>
<p>This is just the media’s favorite narrative about Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook – he’s a female-hating loner, as portrayed in the movie <em>The Social Network</em>.  And it happens to back up another of their favorite narratives: the notion that females have to face a glass ceiling at big companies.</p>
<p>I’m no defender of Zuckerberg – I’m happy to see that outspoken Obama backer facing the wrath of the liberal morals police.  But the glass ceiling is largely a myth.  Normally, feminists point to the supposed pay gap between women and men for doing the same work. But they always neglect to factor in time off women take for maternity leave and life decisions many women make to go into less demanding careers to leave time for family.  Correcting for those factors, there&#8217;s virtual pay equality.</p>
<p>Recently, the Government Accounting Office did find a pay differential between men and women … in the federal government.  Now, this is a bizarre situation because the government runs on pay schedules, meaning that everyone is put on a certain sliding scale.  There are no arbitrarily-defined salaries or bonuses.  The GAO discovered an unexplainable 7 percent pay gap between men and women.  “We cannot be sure why a persistent unexplained pay gap remains &#8230; but this may be due to the inability to account for certain factors that cannot effectively be measured or for which data are not available,&#8221; Andrew Sherrill, director of education, workforce and income security issues with the GAO, wrote. &#8220;Factors for which we lacked data or are difficult to measure, such as work experience outside the federal government and discrimination, may account for some or all of the remaining seven-cent gap.&#8221;</p>
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		<title>Rethinking Victimhood</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/rethinking-victimhood-3/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rethinking-victimhood-3</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/rethinking-victimhood-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 28 May 2010 04:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[banfield]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[child]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[class families]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[college admission]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conception]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[development]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Discrimination]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Edward Banfield]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fact]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[identical twins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[innate ability]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mental capabilities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[moment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[nutrition]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[racists]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social differences]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social injustices]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social statistic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[weight]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=61372</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why family matters. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/5schoolboy_lowres.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-61377" title="73400760" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/5schoolboy_lowres-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a></p>
<p>A heartbreaking social statistic is that children on welfare have only about half as many words per day directed at them as the children of working-class families— and less than one-third as many words as children whose parents are professionals. This is especially painful in view of the fact that scientists have found that the actual physical development of the brain is affected by how much interaction young children receive.</p>
<p>Even if every child entered the world with equal innate ability, by the time they were grown they would nevertheless have very different mental capabilities. Innate ability is the ability that exists at the moment of conception, but nobody applies for a job or for college admission at the moment of conception. Even between conception and birth, other influences affect the development of the brain, as well as the rest of the body.</p>
<p>The mother&#8217;s diet and her intake of alcohol or drugs affects the unborn child. Differences in the amount of nutrition received in the womb create differences even between identical twins. Where one of these identical twins is born significantly heavier than the other, and the lighter one falls below some critical weight, the heavier one tends to have a higher IQ in later years. They may be the same weight when they become adults, but they didn&#8217;t get the same nutrition back when their brains were first developing.</p>
<p>Inequalities have so many sources that this fact undermines the simple dichotomy between believing that some people are innately inferior and believing that discrimination or other social injustices account for economic and social differences. Yet people who are afraid of being considered racists, or believers that the lower classes are born inferior, often buy the notion that only the sins of &#8220;society&#8221; can explain why some people end up so much better off than others.</p>
<p>Decades ago, Edward Banfield pointed out how the different ways that children from different classes are raised helps or hinders them in their later life. Yet he was demonized by the intelligentsia for saying what most people would consider only common sense.</p>
<p>While it is heartbreaking to think of the large differences in ability and behavior that can be created by the way different parents raise their children, it is no less heartbreaking to think of other social differences that go back to the way kids are brought up.</p>
<p>For example, anyone who watches the television program &#8220;Cops&#8221; will see an endless succession of real losers who wreck their lives and the lives of others through sheer irresponsibility and lack of self-control.</p>
<p>When one of these losers is being chased on the highway by a couple of police cars, and with a police helicopter overhead, you wonder why he doesn&#8217;t just stop and give it up before his crazy driving kills himself or someone else. But you also have to wonder what his parents were doing while he was growing up that they couldn&#8217;t raise him to become a rational adult.</p>
<p>A majority of the men in prison came from fatherless families. In some cosmic sense, it may not be entirely their fault that they took the wrong road. But that doesn&#8217;t change the fact that it was the wrong road— or make it any less dangerous to turn them loose.</p>
<p>No doubt such concerns are behind efforts to &#8220;rehabilitate&#8221; prisoners or substitute &#8220;crime prevention&#8221; programs instead of incarceration. But magic words do not create magic realities. Innocent people have been killed by &#8220;rehabilitated&#8221; criminals who had been set free. And &#8220;prevention&#8221; programs do not prevent anything other than putting dangerous people behind bars.</p>
<p>The pretense of having solutions can be more dangerous than the problem. Yet there are whole armies of shrinks and social workers, whose jobs depend on pretending that they have answers, even when no one has answers.</p>
<p>In terms of broader social policy, we need to make a sharp distinction between saying that some people are victims of a tragic fate and saying that they are victims of discrimination by employers, bias in the courts or the sins of other individuals they encounter. Scapegoating other people is not likely to help— and it can distract attention from the real problems, which are too serious to misdiagnose.</p>
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		<title>Rashad Hussain’s Samigate</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/rashad-hussain%e2%80%99s-samigate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rashad-hussain%25e2%2580%2599s-samigate</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/rashad-hussain%e2%80%99s-samigate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Feb 2010 05:05:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[An Obama appointee’s defense of jihad leader Sami al-Arian is covered up.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/gk27.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-50639 alignnone" title="gk27" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/gk27.jpg" alt="" width="440" height="351" /></a></p>
<p>Someone is covering up for Rashad Hussain. But who?</p>
<p>And what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it?</p>
<p>Rashad Hussain is the Obama administration’s newly appointed special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the thuggish international organization that is engaged in a full-scale campaign to intimidate Western governments into adopting hate speech codes that will effectively quash criticism of Islam – including jihad violence perpetrated in its name. Rashad Hussain is an apposite choice for this position, since several years ago he defended a notorious U.S.-based leader of a jihad terrorist group.</p>
<p>But someone doesn’t want you to know that, and made a clumsy attempt to cover it up.</p>
<p>In 2004, Rashad Hussain, then a Yale law student, declared that the investigation and prosecution of University   of South Florida professor Sami al-Arian, who ultimately pled guilty to charges involving his activities as a leader of the terror group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was a “politically motivated persecution” designed “to squash dissent.”</p>
<p>Journalist Patrick Goodenough of Cybercast News Service reports that Hussain’s remarks in support of Al-Arian were published in the jihad-enabling <em>Washington Report on Middle East Affairs</em> in November 2004. But now all that has gone down the memory hole. The <em>Washington Report</em>’s archived version of this November 2004 article lacks two paragraphs that were included in the original version: the ones quoting Rashad Hussain. Otherwise the article is unchanged.</p>
<p>The <em>Washington Report</em> editors, caught red-handed, decided to brazen it out, and blame their accusers – a tried-and-true tactic that is also frequently employed by jihadists in the West. They insist that there was no cover-up, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a venomous Islamophobe: according to Goodenough, “WRMEA news editor and executive director Delinda Hanley denied there was a ‘cover-up,’ and implied that anti-Muslim discrimination was behind the fact this was now being raised.”</p>
<p>Sure. It’s just “anti-Muslim discrimination” to be concerned about Rashad Hussain’s support for Al-Arian, a vicious suicide-bombing supporter who chanted “Death to America” and “Death to Israel,” and clearly meant it. When two Islamic Jihad suicide bombers killed eighteen people in Israel in 1995, Al-Arian called them “two mujahidin martyred for the sake of God.”</p>
<p>But there was no cover-up! It was all a mistake, you see: according to the <em>Washington Report</em> now, Sami Al-Arian’s daughter, Laila Al-Arian, actually said the words that were attributed to Rashad Hussain.</p>
<p>But this explanation doesn’t make sense, since the article was altered just to remove the quotes, not to change the name of the person quoted. Also, the author of the original story, Shereen Kandil, contradicts the <em>Washington</em><em> Report’s</em> explanation, telling Goodenough:</p>
<blockquote><p>“When I worked as a reporter at WRMEA, I understood how important it was to quote the right person, and accurately. I have never mixed my sources and wouldn’t have quoted Rashad Hussain if it came from Laila al-Arian. If the editors from WRMEA felt they wanted to remove Rashad Hussain from the article, my assumption is that they did it for reasons other than what you’re saying. They never once contacted me about an ‘error’ they claim I made.’”</p></blockquote>
<p>Was the <em>Washington Report</em> covering for Rashad Hussain at its own discretion, or at the behest of someone else? Did Barack Obama himself know about this cover-up? Did  someone in the White House or the State Department find out about Hussain’s defense of Al-Arian, and act to cover for the bright young special envoy before this defense was discovered and he became known as a terror apologist?</p>
<p>Or is the Obama Administration wholly uninvolved – and unaware of the fact that the President has chosen as an envoy to the world’s leading organization of Islamic states a man who has openly declared his support for an admitted leader of a jihad terror group? Alternatively, is Hussain’s disdain for the war on terror and support for Al-Arian precisely what Obama thought might make him appealing to the OIC? In 2007 Hussain declared that federal law should prohibit “the targeting of non-citizens solely on the basis of their racial, religious, or ethnic backgrounds.” In other words, airport security officials should keep on pretending that eighty-year-old Iowa grandmothers present just as much of a terror risk as do young Muslim males. It’s an outrage to common sense and a waste of resources, but it pleases Barack Obama, Rashad Hussain, and the Islamic countries to which the Administration is so desperately and fruitlessly reaching out.</p>
<p>Whoever is covering up for Rashad Hussain should come clean. And in the process, Obama should reevaluate the wisdom of sending a man like Hussain, with the views that he holds, to an organization such as the OIC – as should question whether he should really be sending an envoy to the OIC in the first place.</p>
<p>But Obama is in far too deep for that.</p>
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