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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; fire</title>
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		<title>Ferguson in Flames</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/ferguson-in-flames/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ferguson-in-flames</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:59:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Darren Wilson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[indictment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Riot]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The lynch mob is egged on by the Radical-in-Chief. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/APTOPIX-Ferguson_Schu29.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246026" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/APTOPIX-Ferguson_Schu29-450x298.jpg" alt="APTOPIX Ferguson_Schu(29)" width="350" height="232" /></a>Grand jurors in Ferguson, Mo., refused to indict local police officer Darren Wilson yesterday, heroically resisting pressure from President Obama on down to lynch an innocent police officer who fought off a violent attacker.</p>
<p>The decision is infuriating left-wingers across America because it rebuts the underlying assumption they embrace which is that white police racism caused the death of Michael Brown, a young black thug who tried to seize Wilson&#8217;s gun in an attempt to do the officer harm.</p>
<p>As fresh rioting was already underway in the St. Louis area, the decision also angered President Obama who could barely contain his hostility in a disgraceful, unprecedented television appearance following the release of the announcement about the non-indictments. Obama urged activists to refrain from using violence. The president himself bears direct responsibility for fomenting the combustible situation, however.</p>
<p>The county’s elected prosecuting attorney, Robert McCulloch, calmly explained the process in detail last night that the grand jury employed in choosing not to return indictments in five potential charges from first-degree murder to lesser offenses.</p>
<p>McCulloch is a white Democrat who has come under heavy fire from race-baiting members of his own political party. His partisans hate him because he does not share their antipathy for police officers, and presumably, because he is the wrong color. McCulloch easily secured the Democratic nomination for his office in a primary election four days before Brown was killed. In that contest, he handily beat former state public defender Leslie T. Broadnax, a black woman, by a margin of 71.4 percent to 28.6 percent.</p>
<p>McCulloch said many witnesses gave testimony that was not believable. Witnesses fabricated events, admitted they were in error, clung to discredited factual accounts, or gave evidence inconsistent with the physical evidence.</p>
<p>McCulloch said grand jurors were &#8220;the only people who heard every witness &#8230; and every piece of evidence.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;These grand jurors poured their hearts and soul into this process,&#8221; he said. The grand jury consisted of nine whites and three blacks and was meeting every week since Aug. 20 to hear evidence in the fatal shooting of Michael Brown. The panel convened for 70 hours and heard from 60 witnesses.</p>
<p>Perhaps in a conciliatory gesture to those who wanted Wilson strung up, McCulloch referred to the death of Brown and the events surrounding it as tragic. Obama too used the word <i>tragic</i>.</p>
<p>But that is the wrong word.</p>
<p>Recall that Brown, an 18-year-old black male, was killed in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9 by white police officer Darren Wilson after he attacked Wilson and tried to grab his handgun. Brown&#8217;s defenders characterize him as a gentle giant even though a few minutes earlier he was captured on video committing a strong-arm robbery at a convenience store, roughing up a much smaller clerk in the process. At autopsy Brown&#8217;s height was 6&#8242; 5&#8243; and his weight was 289 lbs. As previously reported, autopsy results were consistent with witness accounts that Brown reached for Wilson&#8217;s gun during their fateful altercation.</p>
<p>Brown&#8217;s death was not tragic. He was a villain. The evidence shows that he initiated potentially deadly force against an officer of the law and suffered the consequences of his actions. Grand jurors only needed a little bit of evidence to indict Officer Wilson. The evidence needed only to establish that probable cause existed to charge Wilson with a crime. The prosecution couldn&#8217;t even satisfy that low legal bar. The Wilson case may never have made it to a grand jury at all were it not for the antics of left-wing racial grievance groups working with and taking directions from the Obama administration.</p>
<p>The decision not to indict Wilson is not a tragedy. Far from it. The decision is just, proof that the grand jury system that was created to prevent governments from railroading unpopular defendants still works.</p>
<p>The tragedy is that Wilson had to be subjected to a three-month-long circus in which he was wrongfully accused of being a racist, murdering cop. He was demonized in the media day in and day out, a process that continues in the nation&#8217;s newsrooms even after last night&#8217;s announcement.</p>
<p>Petulant, as America&#8217;s childish Commander-in-Chief is wont to be when he fails to get his way, Obama sounded angry that grand jurors failed to indict Officer Wilson. The plot by Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and Obama operative Al Sharpton to lynch Wilson in the courts failed.</p>
<p>Coming across like a Latin American <i>caudillo</i>, Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/11/24/president-obama-delivers-statement-ferguson-grand-jurys-decision"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sounded disgusted</span></a> with Ferguson police and police forces across the nation in a press briefing last night.</p>
<p>Instead of accepting the grand jury&#8217;s wise decision, Obama set about stoking the flames. After spending months stirring up racial antagonism, Obama pontificated as if an innocent bystander of the events.</p>
<p>The decision &#8220;was going to be subject of intense disagreement not only in Ferguson, but across America, so I want to just say a few words suggesting how we might move forward,&#8221; he said, without noting that Wilson&#8217;s use of justifiable force against Brown became a national issue at his instigation.</p>
<p>Ignoring the fact that the death of Michael Brown had everything to do with his threatening, abusive behavior and absolutely nothing to do with his race, Obama implied cops hate minorities.</p>
<p>&#8220;We need to recognize that the situation in Ferguson speaks to broader challenges that we still face as a nation,&#8221; Obama said, even though no broader challenges that we face as a nation played a role in Brown&#8217;s death.</p>
<p>&#8220;The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color,&#8221; he said, without noting that he and his comrades-in-arms in the world of community organizing have created distrust and disharmony where none previously existed.</p>
<p>Obama then blamed white people for Michael Brown attacking Darren Wilson.</p>
<p>&#8220;Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country,&#8221; Obama said even though there is no evidence that the residue of racial discrimination played any role in Brown&#8217;s death.</p>
<p>&#8220;And this is tragic, because nobody needs good policing more than poor communities with higher crime rates,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;The good news is we know there are things we can do to help, and I’ve instructed Attorney General Holder to work with cities across the country to help build better relations between communities and law enforcement.&#8221; Obama said this even though the case at hand provided no evidence that there is a problem between communities and law enforcement.</p>
<p>The president then pivoted to make a pitch for affirmative action in police departments:</p>
<blockquote><p>That means working with law enforcement officials to make sure their ranks are representative of the communities they serve. We know that makes a difference. It means working to train officials so that law enforcement conducts itself in a way that is fair to everybody. It means enlisting the community actively on what should be everybody’s goal, and that is to prevent crime.</p></blockquote>
<p>These are mere policing platitudes Obama is lip-syncing as he advances the notion that only black police officers are suited to work in black communities. We do not know that it makes a difference. In fact, enforced diversity can be deadly.</p>
<p>We know that in the rush to furnish communities with cops of the correct skin color corners are likely to get cut and <a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-08-27.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">people will die</span></a> as a result. Economist John Lott found in a 2000 study that the apartheid approach to police staffing led to increases in violent crime, especially in black neighborhoods. This is because the forced lowering of standards put less-qualified officers of all skin colors on the streets.</p>
<p>Even though the justice system ultimately worked in Ferguson, Obama pretends there is still a problem because there aren&#8217;t enough blacks in the local constabulary, in his view. He urged communities &#8220;interested in working with this administration and local and state officials to start tackling much-needed criminal justice reform,&#8221; even though the Brown-Wilson saga does not prove any reform of the criminal justice system is needed.</p>
<p>Obama continued ignoring the facts, insisting there is a problem.</p>
<p>&#8220;We have made enormous progress in race relations over the course of the past several decades &#8230; but what is also true is that there are still problems and communities of color aren&#8217;t just making these problems up,&#8221; Obama said, again ignoring that there is no evidence of a problem.</p>
<p>&#8220;Those who are only interested in focusing on the violence and just want the problem to go away need to recognize that we do have work to do here, and we shouldn’t try to paper it over,&#8221; he said without proving there is any work to be done. &#8220;Whenever we do that, the anger may momentarily subside, but over time, it builds up and America isn&#8217;t everything that it could be.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is as if the <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/10/understanding_obamas_ebola_psychosis.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">psychosis</span></a> our troubled president suffers from regarding Ebola, the virus Obama is lovingly importing from West Africa, has spread to other issues as well. Only Obama and his fellow travelers say there is a problem in Ferguson.</p>
<p>The mass hysteria over Michael Brown&#8217;s death that Obama and his allies generated continues.</p>
<p>It is yet another success for America&#8217;s first Alinskyite president.</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>Hagel Takes the Fall</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-takes-the-fall</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/hagel-takes-the-fall/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:55:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Defense]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pentagon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resignation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245968</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama makes the Defense Secretary the scapegoat for his foreign policy failures.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245969" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992-450x337.jpg" alt="gty_chuck_hagel_obama_wy_141124_4x3_992" width="339" height="254" /></a>Chuck Hagel is out at the Department of Defense, and one administration official <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/25/us/hagel-said-to-be-stepping-down-as-defense-chief-under-pressure.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=first-column-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">explained</span></a> that it was because “the next couple of years will demand a different kind of focus” – apparently one that doesn’t shed such a bright light upon the smoking ruin that is Barack Obama’s foreign policy.</p>
<p>Hagel may have sealed his fate last week, when Charlie Rose asked him in an interview about the decline of the U.S. military. “I am worried about it,” Hagel responded with unexpected candor, “I am concerned about it, Chairman Dempsey is, the chiefs are, every leader of this institution” – as <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/24/hagel-unchained-departing-defense-secretary-fire-parting-shots-in-interview-last-week/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Bryan Preston of PJ Media has noted</span></a>, he perhaps pointedly left Obama and Joe Biden off this list of concerned officials.</p>
<p>Yet who is the single individual most responsible for the decline of the military? Hagel must have known the answer to that question when he added: “The main responsibility of any leader is to prepare your institution for the future. If you don’t do that, you’ve failed. I don’t care how good you are, how smart you are, any part of your job. If you don’t prepare your institution, you’ve failed.”</p>
<p>Did Obama take that as a reference to his steep defense cuts at a time when the world is on fire? Or did he object to <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120388/chuck-hagel-retires-despite-gop-attacks-he-became-israels-friend"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Hagel’s surprisingly cordial relations with Israeli officials</span></a>?</p>
<p>We may never know what the true story is. It may be that Obama chose Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, to be the one to take the blame for his spectacular misjudgment of the Islamic State, which he <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/07/barack-obama/what-obama-said-about-islamic-state-jv-team/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">famously dismissed</span></a> in January 2014 as a “JV team.”</p>
<p>Did Chuck Hagel whisper that notorious analogy in Obama’s ear?</p>
<p>Or maybe Hagel is walking the plank for Obama’s insistence upon referring to jihad terrorists in Syria as “vetted moderates.” “We have a Free Syrian Army and a moderate opposition that we have steadily been working with that we have vetted,” <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2014/09/obamas-vetted-moderate-free-syrian-army-collaborating-with-islamic-state"><span style="color: #0433ff;">said Obama</span></a> in September 2014. What was he working with them for? To get them to fight the Islamic State. Yet long before that, in July 2013, Free Syrian Army fighters <a href="http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/blog/2013/08/christians-massacred-by-free-syrian-army-terrorists-rebels/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">entered the Christian village of Oum Sharshouh</span></a> and began burning down houses and terrorizing the population, forcing 250 Christian families to flee the area.</p>
<p>This was not an isolated incident. <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/12470-free-syrian-army-massacre-christian-village"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Worthy News reported</span></a> that just two days later, Free Syrian Army rebels “targeted the residents of al-Duwayr/Douar, a Christian village close to the city of Homs and near Syria’s border with Lebanon….Around 350 armed militants forcefully entered the homes of Christian families who were all rounded-up in the main square of the village and then summarily executed.&#8221;</p>
<p>Then in September 2013, a day after Secretary of State John Kerry praised the Free Syrian Army as “a real moderate opposition,” the <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/09/07/Syrians-Rebels-Kerry-Called-Moderate-Post-Videos-Of-Their-Attack-On-Christian-Town"><span style="color: #0433ff;">FSA took to the Internet</span></a> to post videos of its attack on the ancient Syrian Christian city of Maaloula, one of the few places where Aramaic, the language of Jesus, is still spoken.</p>
<p>And <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/23/us-air-strikes-syra-driving-anti-assad-groups-support-isis"><span style="color: #0433ff;">now the U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic State are reportedly being used by FSA fighters as a pretext</span></a> to join the Islamic State. If this is true, they were never going to fight the Islamic State, and were never “vetted moderates.” Obama’s whole Syria strategy is based on fantasy.</p>
<p>Is that Hagel’s fault?</p>
<p>It is November 2014. It is extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for Obama at this late date to blame George W. Bush for his foreign policy disasters. Another scapegoat had to be found. Hagel, with his unexpectedly warm relations with Israel (in sharp contrast to the chill between Israeli officials and Barack Obama and John Kerry) and concern over the gutting of the military as the jihad rages more violently than ever and the JV team controls a land expanse larger than Great Britain, was the logical stand-in. He is even a Republican!</p>
<p>And so he will be gone from the Department of Defense, as soon as Obama peers at his gaggle of sycophants and chooses one of them for a big promotion. Likely gone with Hagel will be any remaining obstacle to an increasing chill with Israel, and any murmur of dissent from Obama’s mad plan of demolishing the military while simultaneously expecting it to hold back the Islamic State, Ebola, and a host of other threats.</p>
<p>Times are tough when Chuck Hagel looks like a voice of reasoned pro-American foreign policy. And times are indeed very tough, and about to get a great deal tougher.</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>Freedom from Speech</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/freedom-from-speech/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=freedom-from-speech</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/freedom-from-speech/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:23:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[First Amendment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[freedom from speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Greg Lukianoff]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241006</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new book exposes the Left's war on free expression -- and how universities led the way. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/freedom-from-speech-slider.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241131" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/freedom-from-speech-slider-438x350.jpg" alt="OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA" width="300" height="240" /></a>“Freedom From Speech,” a 61-page broadside written by Freedom for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) president Greg Lukianoff, deftly illustrates the evolving assault on free speech. “The public’s appetite for punishing attempts at candor gone wrong, drunken rants, or even private statements made in anger or frustration seems to be growing at an alarming rate,” Lukianoff warns.</p>
<p>The author cites a range of incidents to make his initial point, covering a large and diverse cast of characters. They include former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, <i>Duck Dynasty’s </i>Phil Robertson, chef Paula Deen, actors Gary Oldman and Mel Gibson, media’s Don Imus and Juan Williams and others, all of whom elicit varying degrees of sympathy, even as they have all fallen prey to the “modern American censor” who demands that &#8220;there must be zero tolerance for anything that anyone might find offensive, regardless of the context.”</p>
<p>Using former Mozilla Corporation CEO Brendan Eich’s firing for opposing same-sex marriage in California in 2008—a position he reminds us was held by a majority of Americans, as well as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama before they “evolved”—Lukianoff outlines the difference between the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The former protects freedom of speech and the press as they relate to issues of the state, while the latter embraces a whole range of additional cultural values. Values that ought to be defined by the idea that a free and open exchange of ideas—no matter how upsetting—must be maintained. Lukianoff explains his focus is on free speech itself, and he believes that there is a growing hostility towards it as a cultural value.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, his first target is American higher education, and he notes that FIRE has been “busier than ever” during the 2013-2014 school year.</p>
<p>Yet while he believes there has been a &#8220;bleeding out&#8221; from the so-called ivory tower, he notes the phenomenon has spread across the globe. He concedes that suppressing speech is part of many nations’ DNA, but he is concerned that  countries that share America’s classic liberal tradition have been equally vulnerable to the assault. He is especially troubled by the European Court of Justice&#8217;s “right to be forgotten&#8221; ruling imposed on Google and other search engines, all of whom are now required to remove references about private parties unless the companies can present a public interest justification for the information. He notes the vagueness of the standard and the implications for a stunted free press that derives from it. The impetus behind the cultural hostility is chilling: “people all over the globe are coming to expect emotional and intellectual comfort as though it were a right,” Lukianoff explains.</p>
<p>The emanations of those expectations are chilling. The author begins noting that our advance in terms of science and technology has brought unparalleled wealth and comfort, that in turn drives our desire for intellectual comfort. It is an intellectual comfort “at odds” with the three pillars of modern society, namely democracy, capitalism and determining truth. And while he insists all ideological points of view can embrace censorship, he notes the divide between progressive and conservatives is based on morality. Conservatives have many sources for determining morality, such as sacredness, loyalty and respect for authority, while progressives embrace one: the &#8220;care ethic.”</p>
<p>It is this one dimensionality that explains why “the push for sensitivity based censorship increasingly comes from the left wing of the spectrum,” he writes.</p>
<p>Lukianoff cites several examples of the now-familiar speech codes that infest many universities, but he discusses other disturbing trends as well. One is the disinvitation phenomenon; Lukianoff chronicles several high-profile speakers whose disinvitations took three forms: either their invitations were revoked, they were forced to withdraw in the face of protests, or they were subjected to a &#8220;heckler’s veto” by students and faculty who didn’t want their sensibilities offended.</p>
<p>Yet the most daunting form of censorship cited by the author is “trigger warnings.” “Seemingly overnight, colleges and universities across America have been fielding student demands that their professors issue content warning before covering any material that might evoke a negative emotional response,&#8221; Lukianoff reveals. These trigger warning arose in Internet chat rooms and were initiated to help those who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) arising from experiences such as rape. They subsequently took root on college campuses and have evolved to the point where virtually any subject that elicits student discomfort of any kind is expected to have one. Lukianoff sounds the ominous warning. &#8220;The idea that we can tackle truly hard issues while remaining universally inoffensive—an impossible pipe dream even if it were desirable—seems to be growing increasingly popular,” he writes.</p>
<p>He also explains the daunting effect trigger warnings have on professors, who can face removal or the loss of tenure for subject matter that has the potential to offend. Seven professors penned an article for <i>Inside Higher Ed, </i>stating that the movement “has already had a chilling effect on [their] teaching and pedagogy.” Doubtless it has, but as Lukianoff notes that trigger warnings remain a &#8220;formidable weapon&#8221; because those who oppose them “are accused of being insensitive to the needs of &#8216;vulnerable groups.&#8217;” Furthermore, casting any doubt on <i>any</i> assertions of vulnerability constitutes “‘victim blaming’ which only a coldhearted monster would do,” Lukianoff explains. He see the future as a “global race to the bottom, and it is being run most fiercely in higher education. In the process, candor, discussion, humor, honest dialogue and freedom of speech are imperiled,” he contends.</p>
<p>His solutions for the problem include litigation, as well as re-igniting “the old-fashioned intellectual habits of epistemic humility, giving others the benefit of the doubt, and actually listening to opposing opinions.”</p>
<p>In conclusion, he tells us to expect more writing from him on the subject.  If “Freedom From Speech” is indicative of Lukianoff’s insight, readers would be well-advised to keep track of his future endeavors. Americans need to know what is threatening one of the bedrock principles of our nation’s birthright, and Greg Lukianoff is making it his mission to keep us informed. In short, “Freedom From Speech&#8221; is a highly worthwhile read &#8212; both for pleasure and for a better understanding of the grave threat on the march.</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>Israel Fights Back Against Gaza Terror</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/israel-fights-back-against-gaza-terror/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-fights-back-against-gaza-terror</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Mar 2014 04:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Israeli Defense Force shows its prowess once again. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/000_Nic6306697-635x357.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220966" alt="000_Nic6306697-635x357" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/000_Nic6306697-635x357-439x350.jpg" width="263" height="210" /></a>Thankfully yesterday, the holy rockets of the Israel Defense Forces hit 29 terror sites in Gaza.  This came in direct response to multiple rocket attacks against civilian targets inside Israel proper over the past few days. When Israel is attacked, there must be a strong response.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For the last four thousand years, Jews have been attacked – and these days are no different. While Arabs fire missiles from Gaza, anti-Semites talk about boycotting Israeli products – while 120,000 people have been killed in a civil war in Syria and it’s ignored &#8212; if teenagers fight in Jerusalem it&#8217;s world headlines. It won’t be long before Israel is condemned for defending itself – yet, the poor-oppressed Syrians, Cubans, Chinese and others will be ignored. And while we hear constant clamoring about the “West Bank,” there was no “occupied territories” in 1948 or 1967, when the Arabs attacked Israel.  And today, rest assured the Arabs want all of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The State of Israel is safe because there is a Jewish army which is dedicated to allowing the people of Israel to sleep safely. As the prayer for the Israel Defense Forces reads, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">May He Who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob &#8212; may He bless the fighters of the Israel Defense Forces, who stand guard over our land and the cities of our God, from the border of the Lebanon to the desert of Egypt, and from the Great Sea unto the approach of the Aravah, on the land, in the air, and on the sea. May the Almighty cause the enemies who rise up against us to be struck down before them. May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor. May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you to save you.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/11816">Ze&#8217;ev Jabotinsky</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> was a Revisionist Zionist leader, author, soldier, and founder of the Jewish Self-Defense Organization who spoke of situations like this where Israel must protect themselves, and as he said, </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We were not created in order to teach morals and manners to our enemies. Let them learn these things for themselves. We want to hit back at anybody who harms us. Whoever does not repay a blow by a blow is also incapable of repaying a good deed in kind. The Latin proverb says &#8220;of two evils choose the lesser.&#8221; When we are in a position where – through no fault of our own – physical force dominates, only one question can be asked: what is worse? To continue watching Jews being killed and the conviction grows that our lives our cheap, and among the whole world that we are spineless? &#8230; [T]he blackest of all characteristics is the tradition of the cheapness of Jewish blood, on the shedding of which there is no prohibition and for which you do not pay.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">[The Jew] is everywhere in reach; he can be pointed out at any street corner; and he can be insulted or assaulted with only the minimum of risk, or with none at all. &#8230; [O]ne permanent assignment that is entrusted to each of us, old and young, men and women, educated and ignorant, as a group and as individuals; this assignment is the defense of our people&#8217;s honor. &#8230;It is always aimed at us, and we must respond. We must end this abuse of ourselves, at all costs. And it is very easy. They spit in our faces without fear, &#8220;in passing,&#8221; for no reason – not because our insulters are blessed with courage and want to pick a fight with us, but because this pleasure is so cheap for them: they will spit at us and go on their way, and nothing will happen. We must accustom them to the thought that from now on this pleasure will come at a hefty cost. A new commandment must enter our hearts: that even where there is only one Jew, the word &#8220;Zhid&#8221; must not be heard without response.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Wise people will come and try to dissuade us &#8211; But it is not our purpose to win in every single incident. Our objective – to create about us the belief that a slur on our national feelings is no longer what it once was, a small diversion free of cost – but will rather, with an absolute certainty and a mathematical precision, result in a sharp and unpleasant confrontation.</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As Prime Minister Netanyahu has said, “The truth is that if Israel were to put down its arms there would be no more Israel. If the Arabs were to put down their arms there would be no more war.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The holy Israeli army protects all of the Jewish people – and fights the war for Jewish existence every single day. Hatred of the Jewish people remains. Israel is a source of greatness – and the Israel Defense Forces ensures the future and security of the State of Israel against anyone who seeks to harm the people of Israel. </span></p>
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		<title>Ukraine Bleeding</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/ukraine-in-flames/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ukraine-in-flames</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Feb 2014 05:56:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=219222</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Putin's stooges ruthlessly crack down on Ukrainians' cry for freedom and independence. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/bleeding.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-219228" alt="bleeding" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/bleeding-450x250.jpg" width="360" height="200" /></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Parts of the Ukrainian capital were on fire last night as protesters battled security forces of that nation&#8217;s repressive government &#8212; months after it announced Ukraine would align itself with Russia instead of the European Union.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">After a late-night pow-wow with opposition figures Vitaly Klitschko and Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych blamed the violent episodes on opposition leaders, but added that it was still &#8220;not too late to stop the conflict.&#8221;</span></p>
<p>Activists took over City Hall in Kiev yesterday and anti-riot police moved into Independence Square. BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26249330">reports</a> that at least 18 people were killed Tuesday, including seven police officers, in the worst outbreak of violence in weeks.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many Ukrainians came to the main protest camp, the Maidan, to support activists who have reportedly been trained to defend barricades from riot police. Supporters had to walk because authorities completely shut down Kiev&#8217;s metro, claiming that there is a danger of &#8220;terror acts.&#8221; It was the first time the metro was shuttered since Ukraine declared independence in 1991.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The explosion of anger comes a month after four anti-government protesters were killed in central Kiev.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It also comes at the worst possible time for Russian President Vladimir Putin who wants to resurrect Russia&#8217;s empire and is trying to make Ukraine a key component in the revival. Putin is under special pressure right now because the eyes of the world are fixed on the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, nearly 900 miles southeast of Kiev in the Islamist-infested Caucusus mountains. Opposition groups in Ukraine have reportedly called on Ukrainian athletes to stop competing in the ongoing Olympic competition to show solidarity with their cause.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116655/kiev-ukraine-protests-are-vladimir-putins-worst-nightmare">words of one commentator</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> yesterday &#8220;what is happening in Kiev tonight &#8230; is Vladimir Putin&#8217;s worst nightmare.&#8221; She continued:</span></p>
<blockquote><p>The last time that this many people came out to the Independence Square (the Maidan) in Kiev, nine years ago, protesters undid the election of Victor Yanukovich and brought to power a Western-friendly government. In the process, they scared the living daylights out of Putin.</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The initially peaceful protests in Independence Square first got underway back in November when President Yanukovych snubbed the European Union by embracing a closer relationship with Russia, a nation that has had what a polite diplomat might describe as a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">complex</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> relationship with Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ukrainians are also on edge because that nation&#8217;s public finances are in shambles. This year the country, which is the least creditworthy in Europe, has to refinance about $7 billion worth of foreign debt, which is difficult to do when investors view Ukraine as a likely deadbeat.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Russia announced yesterday that it would restart its $15 billion bailout of Ukraine, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-18/ukraine-s-one-hour-rally-shows-protests-beat-putin-cash.html">Bloomberg News</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> reports. The promise of cash spurred a Ukrainian bond rally. The euphoria lasted barely an hour as news of deadly protests continued to accumulate.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Investors don&#8217;t want to bail out the cash-strapped Ukrainian government whose debt already is rated well below investment grade, which makes them &#8220;junk&#8221; bonds in American parlance.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“Money from Russia is not a solution,” said Frankfurt-based money manager Dmitri Barinov of Union Investment Privatfonds. “The situation is out of control. I fear there will be more blood.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ukraine&#8217;s financial condition continues to deteriorate, no doubt aided by its </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25430980">lavish subsidies</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> for natural gas. Ukrainian consumers pay only about one fifth of the wholesale price of gas, which leaves the government with a huge bill and undermines the government-run energy monopoly Naftogaz Ukrainyi. Successive governments have refused to risk the wrath of voters by scaling back the subsidies that are driving that nation into bankruptcy.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To top it off, in 2009 Ukraine signed a 10-year deal with Russia, its main gas supplier. That pact has been described as &#8220;disastrous&#8221; because under it Ukraine pays significantly more than EU nations for gas.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many of the protesters are upset with President Yanukovych for rejecting an association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. Instead he ran into the arms of the Russian president who offered the struggling country a huge bribe in the form of a bailout.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Since 2010 Putin </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/18/brief-primer-vladimir-putin-eurasian-union-trade">been taking steps to create</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a Eurasian Union, a large trade and political alliance of former Soviet states to rival the European Union and the United States. It began that year with the formation of the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia, a kind of free trade, economic-integration zone.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The U.S. officially opposes the Customs Union, arguing it is an attempt to recreate a Russia-controlled USSR-like federation among the former Soviet republics. In 2012 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://armenianow.com/commentary/analysis/41807/usa_against_ussr_clinton_armenia_relations_russia">did not approve</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of Russia&#8217;s effort to &#8220;re-sovietize&#8221; its former captive states.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“It’s not going to be called that [USSR]. It’s going to be called customs union, it will be called Eurasian Union and all of that,” she said. “But let’s make no mistake about it. We know what the goal is and we are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent it.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Clinton&#8217;s apparent hawkishness seems at odds with President Obama, who has made it his life&#8217;s mission to reduce the power and influence of the United States abroad.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It also seems at odds with her successor at the State Department, John Kerry.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Kerry spokeswoman Jen Psaki </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/18/obama-administration-calls-on-ukraine-president-to-de-escalate-violence-talk/">weakly called</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on President Yanukovych to “de-escalate” the situation and enter into peace talks with the opposition.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Secretary of State John Kerry “shares the grave concerns expressed by Vice President [Joe] Biden directly to President Yanukovych today regarding the unacceptable violence on the streets of Kyiv,” Psaki said. “Ukraine’s deep divisions will not be healed by spilling more innocent blood.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is unclear if Yanukovych and Putin will put any stock into what the Obama administration, font of left-wing weakness and mediocrity, has to say. As for the Ukraine, projections for de-escalation have consistently been defied. Now that violence has been let loose on the country in such a dramatic form, it is unlikely the genie will be able to be put back in the bottle. </span></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Military Purge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-military-purge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-military-purge</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Oct 2013 04:52:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The number of commanders fired under the president's watch reaches alarming levels.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si_.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208809" alt="israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/israeli_tv_obama_to_announce_possible_military_action_against_iran_during_trip_to_israel.si_-426x350.jpg" width="256" height="210" /></a>Is the Obama administration in the midst of a military purge? This year alone, nine senior commanding generals have been <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2013/10/report-obama-purging-military-commanders/?cat_orig=us">fired</a> by the administration, and retired generals and current commanders who have spoken to TheBlaze believe that political ideology is the primary impetus behind the effort. “I think they’re using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don’t agree with them or not toe the party line,&#8221; a senior retired general told website. &#8220;Remember, as Rahm Emanuel said, never waste a crisis.” The general spoke on the condition of anonymity because he still provides the government with services and believes this administration would retaliate against him.</p>
<p>The terminations have a distinctly political odor surrounding them in at least three cases. In all three of these cases, Benghazi is at root. U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham was heading the United States African Command when our consulate came under attack on September 11, 2012. Ham <a href="http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/10/top-africom-leader-general-carter-ham-was-never-ordered-to-save-us-men-in-benghazi-video/">told</a> Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) he was never given a &#8220;stand down&#8221; order preventing him from securing the consulate. Yet the <i>Washington Times,</i> <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/robbins-report/2012/oct/28/general-losing-his-job-over-benghazi/">citing</a> sources in the military, said he <i>was</i> given the order and immediately relieved of command when he decided to defy it. The <i>Times</i> further noted that Ham &#8220;retired&#8221; less that two years after receiving the command when all other commanders of similar stature have stayed on far longer. Sources told TheBlaze Ham was highly critical of the Obama administration&#8217;s decision not to send reinforcements to Benghazi.</p>
<p>Rear Adm. Charles Gaouette,<b> </b>Commander of Carrier Strike Group Three for the Navy, was <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/27/us/rear-admiral-charles-m-gaouette-is-disciplined-by-navy.html?_r=0">relieved of duty</a> for allegedly using profanity and making &#8220;racially insensitive comments.&#8221; Though he was cleared of criminal violations under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, administrative penalties have effectively ended his career. In testimony regarding Benghazi, Gaouette, who was in charge of Air Craft Carriers in the Mediterranean Sea on the night of the attack, told Congress there may not have been time to get flight crews to Libya. But under cross examination, he admitted he could have sent planes to that location.</p>
<p>Major General Baker, a two-star general who served as commander of the Joint Task Force-Horn at Camp Lamar in Djibouti, Africa, was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/04/general-fired-over-alcohol-sex-charges-officials_n_3018066.html">fired</a> for alcohol and sexual misconduct charges. The U.S. reportedly runs counter-terror operations out of Djibouti, and once again, military officials told TheBlaze Baker was involved in some aspect of Benghazi.</p>
<p>The other six were terminated for a variety of alleged offenses. Army Brigadier Gen. Bryan Roberts, commander of Fort Jackson beginning in 2011, was fired for adultery. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Gregg A. Sturdevant, director of Strategic Planning and Policy for the U.S. Pacific Command and commander of the aviation wing at Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, was terminated over a successful attack on that facility by the Taliban, resulting in two American deaths and the destruction of eight American planes. Sturdevant <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/afghanistan-attack-british-forces-screwed-2340921">claims</a> British forces were responsible for security at the base prior to the attack.</p>
<p>Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Charles M.M. Gurganus was terminated for questioning the &#8220;winning hearts and minds&#8221; policies that led to &#8220;green on blue&#8221; murders of American officers by &#8220;trusted&#8221; Afghan recruits. Other Afghan recruits led a platoon into an enemy ambush. Army Lt. Gen. David Holmes Huntoon Jr was “censored” for “an investigation” into an “improper relationship,” according to the Department of Defense. A blog written by a 26-year-old cadet medically discharged from West Point <a href="http://charlesclymer.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-congresswoman-vs-general_20.html">claims</a> the three-star general was under investigation because a West Point Superintendent &#8220;improperly used&#8221; his office, and because of an insufficient investigation of a lewd email chain perpetrated by the men&#8217;s rugby team. Nothing was officially released by the DoD regarding any of the charges.</p>
<p>The last commanders, three-star Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, and Major General Michael Carey, were fired <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-10-11/world/42926727_1_air-force-personal-misconduct-nuclear-arsenal">within 48 hours</a> of each other. Giardina was the deputy commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, an entity that oversees all nuclear-armed missiles, bombers and submarines. He was commander of the Submarine Group Trident, Submarine Groups 9 and 10, which comprise all 18 of our nuclear-armed submarines. He was fired for the alleged use of counterfeit gambling chips at an Iowa casino. Carey, commander of the 20th Air Force, a role that put him in charge of 9,600 people and 450 Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles at three operational wings, was fired &#8220;due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership and judgment,” said Air Force spokesman Brig. Gen. Les Kodlick. The decision to fire Carey was made by Lt. Gen. James Kowalski, the head of the Air Force Global Strike Command. Obama fired Giardina.</p>
<p>The firing of military leaders goes much further than top generals, however. On its <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Breitbart/95475020353">Facebook page</a>, Breitbart.com compiled a <a href="http://freepatriot.org/2013/10/23/full-list-197-officers-removed-obamas-military-purge/">list</a> of more than 197 military commanders, mostly at the rank of Colonel or above, who have been purged by the Obama administration since 2009.</p>
<p>According to <a href="http://military.com/">military.com</a>, allegations of sexual misconduct <a href="http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/01/21/sex-is-major-reason-military-commanders-are-fired.html">account</a> for the firing of 30 percent of military commanders over the past eight years. That figure that increases to 40 percent when &#8220;ethical lapses&#8221; such as sexual assault and harassment, pornography, drugs and drinking are lumped together. But there are other dubious reasons why these commanders have been terminated, ranging from unspecified dereliction of duty, to improper saluting.</p>
<p>One of the largest purges occurred on the last day of November in 2011, when the administration <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2011/11/25/military-advocates-decry-illegal-early-terminations-of-157-air-force-majors/">terminated</a> 157 Air Force Majors, a move the Chapman University of Military Law and its associated AMVETS Legal Clinic characterized as illegal. They noted that the Department of Defense specifies that absent extenuating circumstances, service members within six years of retirement would ordinarily be retained, and allowed to retire on time and collect benefits.</p>
<p>The Air force cited budget shortfalls as their primary reason for the terminations. Yet as institute director Maj. Kyndra Rotunda explained, based on the <a href="http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/132008p.pdf">Defense Department’s Instruction 1320.08</a>, &#8220;derogatory information&#8221; is the only reason officers can be terminated. “The defense department’s own regulation does not authorize what the defense department is doing,” Rotunda contended at the time. &#8220;The Airmen relied on the law when they entered service and now the Secretary wants to change that law, without authority.”</p>
<p>Earlier that same month, two-star Major Gen. Peter Fuller was <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/67653.html">relieved</a> of his command in Afghanistan, after he told <i>Politico </i>that Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other government officials in that country were &#8220;isolated from reality.&#8221; Ironically, Fuller was fired by Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who was himself the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/13/news/la-pn-john-allen-petraeus-jill-kelley-20121113">subject</a> of an FBI investigation a year later, for his role in the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA Director and retired general David Petraeus. Despite the FBI informing the Pentagon it had uncovered thousands of pages of emails between Allen and Florida socialite Jill Kelley, President Obama subsequently <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-backs-gen-john-allen-probe-connected-petraeus/story?id=17704438">expressed</a> &#8220;faith&#8221; in Allen&#8217;s ability to continue doing his job. It is impossible to determine whether Allen&#8217;s ideology played a role in maintaining that faith.</p>
<p>2012 also saw several terminations of officers based on questionable rationale. In May, Commander Derick Armstrong, commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS The Sullivans, was relieved of duty by Vice Adm. Frank Pandolfe &#8220;as a result of an unprofessional command climate that was contrary to good order and discipline,&#8221; <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/uss-the-sullivans-armstrong-is-10th-commanding-officer-fired-this-year-1.176692">according</a> to a Navy news release. A week earlier, the Navy relieved Cmdr. Dennis Klein of command of the submarine USS Columbia, citing a loss of confidence in his ability to serve effectively.</p>
<p>Stars and Strips <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/navy/navy-commanders-relieved-of-duty-in-2012-1.168999">listed</a> several other Navy commanders relieved of duty in 2012. While some on the list were terminated for seemingly legitimate reasons, a curious lack of specificity applied to others. They include Capt. James CoBell, commanding officer of Oceana Naval Air Station&#8217;s Fleet Readiness Center Mid-Atlantic, who was let go for &#8220;leadership issues&#8221;; Cmdr. Franklin Fernandez, commanding officer of Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 24, for a &#8220;loss of confidence&#8221; in his ability to command due to allegedly &#8220;driving under the influence&#8221;; Capt. Marcia Lyons, commander of Naval Health Clinic New England, for problems with her &#8220;command climate&#8221;; and Capt. Sean McDonell, commander of Seabee reserve unit Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 14 in Jacksonville, FL, for mismanagement and unspecified “major program deficiencies.” Several others were fired for &#8220;inappropriate personal behavior&#8221; or &#8220;personal misconduct.&#8221;</p>
<p>Theories for these purges run the gamut. One <a href="http://www.dailypaul.com/302620/list-of-us-military-generals-and-admirals-fired-by-obama">posits</a> that anyone associated with Benghazi had to go. Another states that many of these firings are an effort to clean up <a href="http://benswann.com/president-obama-fires-high-ranking-nuclear-chiefs/">&#8220;operational failures,&#8221;</a> most notably a 2007 incident in which six nuclear-tipped missiles <a href="http://baltimorechronicle.com/2007/112107Lindorff.shtml">went missing</a> for 36 hours. Retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, who has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration, believes it is part of the president&#8217;s strategy to reduce America&#8217;s standing in the world. “[Obama is] intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged,” he contended.</p>
<p>Vallely&#8217;s assessment was echoed by a source at the Pentagon who wished to remain anonymous because the source was not authorized to speak on the subject. He or she contended that &#8220;young officers, down through the ranks have been told not to talk about Obama or the politics of the White House. They are purging everyone and if you want to keep your job&#8211;just keep your mouth shut.&#8221;</p>
<p>This theory finds validation when one considers the Obama administration&#8217;s larger assault on the military. The military is the last organized bastion of conservative values, due in large part to the nature of the military itself. Yet in recent years, the push to embrace progressive values, such as openly gay servicemen, women in combat and diversity worship have been pursued with vigor. Even the aforementioned effort to &#8220;win the hearts and minds&#8221; of Islamists in Iraq and Afghanistan, as opposed to pursuing victory, marks a sea change from traditional military values.</p>
<p>Not only is the Obama administration apparently on a mission to undermine the integrity of the military in this way, but it has also revealed itself to be entirely intolerant of dissent of any kind. Whether it is reporters or domestic opposition groups such as the Tea Party, Obama has made clear he will aggressively pursue anyone who defies his agenda. Now it seems that chilling message his been sent to the military as well.</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>Torching Christians in Pakistan</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/frank-crimi/torching-christians-in-pakistan/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=torching-christians-in-pakistan</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:05:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Muhammed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistan]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=181151</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Muslim mob burns down over 150 Christian homes and two churches.   ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/frank-crimi/torching-christians-in-pakistan/pakistan-house-burning/" rel="attachment wp-att-181308"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-181308" title="pakistan-house-burning" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/pakistan-house-burning.jpg" alt="" width="259" height="194" /></a>In the latest act of bruising intolerance being perpetrated by Muslims against Pakistan’s besieged Christian community, a Muslim <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQve5zyY7wWan6fZX-9hbfosuDmw?docId=1510d7c7fbd340fc88b93ba87807d8b3">mob</a> recently burned down over 150 Christian homes and two churches over allegations that a Christian man had committed blasphemy.</p>
<p>The rioting, which occurred in the Pakistani city of Lahore, began after a Muslim man accused Sawan Masih, a Pakistani Christian, of insulting the Prophet Muhammad, an allegation punishable by death under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.</p>
<p>Even though Pakistani police had swiftly arrested Masih, Christian families nevertheless hurriedly fled the area in fear of Muslim reprisals, an exodus which proved fortuitous given the ensuing Muslim rampage.</p>
<p>Once the mob’s fury had been spent, Christians slowly made their way back to their burned-out homes, leaving one Christian surveying the destruction to lament, “Nothing is left here. I don’t know why this happened.”</p>
<p>The answer to that question, unfortunately, is exceedingly clear given the type of barbaric treatment routinely meted out by Muslims to those Christians and other religious minorities unfortunate enough to run afoul of Pakistan’s notorious blasphemy laws.</p>
<p>Those statutes, first introduced in 1986 by Pakistani military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, can earn sentences of death or life in prison for those found guilty of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad or desecrating its holy book, the Koran.</p>
<p>To that end, 20 Pakistanis convicted of blasphemy are currently serving life sentences while another 16 are sitting on death row awaiting their appointed date with the executioner.</p>
<p>Among those currently slated to die is Younis Masih, a Christian father of four who has been on death row since 2007 and Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five, who in 2010 was the first Pakistani woman convicted for blasphemy and sentenced to death by hanging.</p>
<p>Younis Masih’s heretical act occurred in September 2005 when he was <a href="http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2013/s13010125.htm">arrested</a> after he had reportedly asked a group of Muslims who were holding a religious service one evening in a nearby house to turn their music down.</p>
<p>Bibi’s transgression against Islam came in 2009 after a verbal disagreement with some Muslim women in her village led Bibi to claim that Christians and Muslims are equal before God, an affront apparently stinging enough to lead to her being <a href="http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2013/s13010125.htm">accused</a> of having blasphemed against Mohammad.</p>
<p>It should be noted, that while Muslim nations throughout Africa, the Mideast and Asia &#8212; such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Iran &#8212; have similar blasphemy laws, few enforce those laws with the zeal of Pakistanis.</p>
<p>Perhaps that fervor stems from the fact that under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws the burden of proof required to convict someone is exceedingly weak given there are no guidelines as to what constitutes blasphemy, no evidentiary standards, and no requirement to prove intent.</p>
<p>Moreover, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws also contain no provisions to punish a false accuser or false witness. As a result, the laws are often used to settle personal scores rather than to defend against perceived slights to Islamic piety</p>
<p>In fact, the Muslim rampage in Lahore reportedly had less to do with offending Islamic sensibilities than it had to do with personal score settling. <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jQve5zyY7wWan6fZX-9hbfosuDmw?docId=1510d7c7fbd340fc88b93ba87807d8b3">According</a> to a bishop in Lahore, Masih’s Muslim accuser had levied the blasphemy charge against Masih the day after the two men had gotten into a fight while drinking.</p>
<p>Perhaps not surprisingly, those accused of blasphemy, more often than not, never see their cases settled by a Pakistani court but instead are forced into hiding or killed by mobs before they even stand trial.</p>
<p>Since 1990 at least 60 Christians accused of blasphemy have been killed by enraged mobs or individuals, extra-judicial justice perhaps best explained by the fact many Pakistani Muslims believe killing a blasphemous person earns a heavenly reward.</p>
<p>While Pakistan’s religious minorities, such as Christians, Hindus and Ahmadis, have been the disproportionate targets of blasphemy allegations, Muslims who violate the blasphemy laws aren’t immune to mob reprisal.</p>
<p>For example, in December 2012 several hundred Muslims in the Pakistani province of Sindh dragged a man suspected of burning pages of the Koran from police custody, where they summarily beat him before then <a href="http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Pakistan,-not-just-Asia-Bibi:-Muslim-lynched-and-burned-alive-for-blasphemy-26700.html">burning</a> him alive.</p>
<p>That display of Islamic tolerance was preceded in July 2012 when Ghulam Abbas, a 40-year-old mentally impaired Muslim man, was accused of burning a copy of the Koran in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur.</p>
<p>Incited by local Muslim clerics, a mob numbering in the thousands stormed the police station where Abbas was being held, whereupon they dragged Abbas to the spot where he purportedly desecrated the Koran, poured gasoline over him, and then <a href="http://ahmadiyyatimes.blogspot.com/2012/08/vigilante-justice-in-pakistan.html">burned</a> him to death as he screamed for help.</p>
<p>So given all that it’s not terribly surprising that Pakistan’s religious minorities, as well as some Muslims, are attempting to amend the blasphemy laws, efforts which can carry some deadly consequences.</p>
<p>In 2011, two Pakistani Christian politicians attempting to repeal the blasphemy laws were assassinated: Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, the only Christian minister in Pakistan’s Cabinet, was shot and killed by one of his own guards; two months later Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minority Affairs, was gunned down by Islamists.</p>
<p>Yet, there are those in Pakistan who contend that tentative signs are emerging that signal a weakening of support for the blasphemy laws, change prompted in part by the international outrage generated by the case of Rimsha Masih.</p>
<p>Rimsha, a 14-year-old Pakistani Christian girl afflicted with Down syndrome, was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19311098">arrested</a> in August 2012 after she had been accused by a local cleric of burning 10 pages of the Koran.</p>
<p>Rimsha, who worked as a maid, denied any blasphemous wrongdoing, claiming through her attorney that she was simply burning garbage and “did not know a Koranic book was among the papers because she cannot read.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, Pakistani police quickly brought Rimsha into custody, persuaded less by her illiteracy and mental impairment and more by a swelling Muslim mob gathered outside her home bent on torching the entire Christian community if the young girl was not immediately arrested.</p>
<p>Yet, while imprisoned, the cleric who accused Rimsha was himself arrested and charged with planting the burned pages, the result of which led Pakistan’s Supreme Court in January 2013 to <a href="http://www.christiantoday.com/article/closure.for.blasphemy.accused.rimsha.masih/31473.htm">acquit</a> Rimsha of all charges of blasphemy.</p>
<p>Then, shortly after Rimsha’s acquittal, Barkat Masih, a Hindu who had converted to Christianity and spent 18 months in prison after he was accused of blasphemy in 2011, was acquitted in February 2013 by Pakistan’s Supreme Court and <a href="http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/archives/2013/02/renewed-hope-for-asia-bibi-as-pakistan-acquits-second-christian-of-blasphemy.html">released</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, in March, Karma Patras, a 55-year-old Christian pastor charged in October 2012 with blasphemy, was released on <a href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/pastor-in-pakistan-released-on-bail-after-blasphemy-accuser-admits-to-mistake-90975/">bail</a> as he was awaiting his trial because his accuser had acknowledged that he had mistakenly accused Patras of committing blasphemy</p>
<p>Still, while that decision was a stunning rarity given that victims of false accusations of blasphemy are usually denied bail, Patras is still mired deep in the Pakistani judicial woods.</p>
<p>Specifically, an accuser cannot drop the charges once they have been filed, so Patras will still have to stand trial, where if convicted he will face up to ten years in prison.</p>
<p>Moreover, being granted bail may not be the act of judicial mercy it appears to be on the surface given that after his arrest, Muslims in his village tried wrest Patras from police custody. Failing that, the mob settled instead on forcing his five married sons and their families to leave the area by threatening to burn them alive.</p>
<p>Tragically, for Pakistan’s Christian and other religious minorities, that Muslim bellicosity is more than a menacing threat but a terrifying reality come to fruition.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Obama’s War on American Generals</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-war-on-american-generals/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-war-on-american-generals</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Feb 2013 04:55:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[General Dempsey]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Generals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[McChrystal]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Firing a few good men.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/obamas-war-on-american-generals/picture-18-13/" rel="attachment wp-att-178169"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-178169" title="Picture-18" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Picture-18.jpg" alt="" width="280" height="216" /></a>During the Bush administration there were only two American commanders of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan. Under Obama there have so far been five. There has been a new ISAF commander nearly every single year that Obama has been in office. The only exception is 2012 when Obama was too busy trying to win an election to bother further sabotaging a losing war.</p>
<p>The parade of musical chair generals began when Obama demanded the resignation of General McKiernan. The Washington Post called the firing of a wartime commander a “rare decision.” It was the first time since the days of General Douglas MacArthur that a four-star commanding general had been purged during a war.</p>
<p>The decision may have been rare, but it was not unexpected. General McKiernan was fired for the same offense that General McArthur had been targeted during the Korean War: He had demanded competency from an incompetent Democrat.</p>
<p>McKiernan had embarrassed Obama by demanding more troops to fight the war. The situation came to a head as General McKiernan pressed an indecisive Obama to make a decision. It was a devastating scene for an administration which had covered its pivot away from Iraq with concern trolling about winning in Afghanistan. The troops would be delivered, but McKiernan would pay the price.</p>
<p>General McKiernan’s firing was put down to the need for fresh ideas. McKiernan was deemed too “old school” because he wanted to fight an old-fashioned war against the Taliban while Obama Inc. believed that the war couldn’t be won by beating the Taliban, but by winning the hearts and minds of Afghans. It was a fashionable and doomed strategy that required sacrificing the lives and limbs of thousands of American soldiers to political correctness.</p>
<p>The old-school general who had once said, “I don&#8217;t understand ever putting your men and women in harm&#8217;s way, without their having the full ability to protect themselves. That also means operating on actionable intelligence to defeat insurgents, and protect your forces. That&#8217;s how you keep your soldiers alive,” was clearly not the man for that job.</p>
<p>Replacing him as ISAF commander was General McChrystal. McChrystal was everything that McKiernan wasn’t. He was hip fresh blood. He voted for Obama, listened to the right music and was a big fan of counterinsurgency. He hooked up with Greg Mortenson and handed out copies of Three Cups of Tea to his staff. The book proved to be a fraud and so did the COIN strategy for winning over the Afghans.</p>
<p>American soldiers were prevented from defending themselves to avoid offending the Afghans and the war was not moving forward. McChrystal claimed that he had presented a plan to Washington for defeating the Taliban, but Washington only wanted their capabilities degraded. The relationship between McChrystal and Obama also degraded, and McChrystal was fired over a negative Rolling Stone article that revealed that the ISAF commander held Obama and his cronies in contempt.</p>
<p>Urgently, Obama swapped out General McChrystal for General Petraeus, a former enemy now turned wartime ally. In only two years, Obama had gone through three generals and fired two wartime four-star generals, setting a new record for mismanaging a war.</p>
<p>Petraeus’s move from Central Command to commanding the ISAF was unprecedented and did not last long. With the Taliban undefeated and the conflict shifting from a military war to a campaign of drone strikes and targeted assassinations, General Petraeus shifted over to the CIA to command the new fallback position of the war effort as Director Petraeus. But a year later, Petraeus met the same fate as McKiernan and McChrystal after alienating the CIA top brass which enmeshed him in a scandal.  It did not help matters any that Republicans were salivating over the idea of a Petraeus candidacy in 2016.</p>
<p>Petraeus had been replaced by General Allen, who became enmeshed in the same scandal, and the confirmation hearings of his replacement, General Dunford, were sped up. This month, Dunford has taken command of an ISAF in retreat as Afghanistan has become the new Iraq. And Dunford has become the fifth ISAF commander under Obama. Of his four predecessors, all have ended their careers under a cloud.</p>
<p>The War in Afghanistan has been lost and so have the careers of most of its commanders. Obama has constantly swapped out generals, and unlike the rotating allied ISAF commanders during the Bush era, many of them were fired because they threatened Obama politically in some way.</p>
<p>The record is an ugly one, but it is not limited to the war theater in Afghanistan. After the Benghazi disaster, General Carter Ham of AFRICOM was reportedly edged out after telling a Republican Congressman that he had not received any requests for support. His replacement, General Rodriguez, had earlier taken over part of McKiernan’s job after Obama had forced him out.</p>
<p>More recently General Mattis, the commander of United States Central Command, Petraeus’s old job, was booted out without even a personal phone call for being too hawkish about Iran. The insult was unprecedented and the reason was the same. Like McKiernan and McChrystal, Mattis had offended important people in the Obama administration. And for that he paid the price.</p>
<p>General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, exemplifies the costs of career survival in the age of Obama. Dempsey echoes everything that the civilians tell him. He never disagrees with them in public and likely not in private. Whatever new gimmick comes out of the White House, whether it’s Green Energy or homosexuality, he’s right there behind it and out in front of it.</p>
<p>Dempsey has no ideas of his own and he doesn’t need any. He has nothing to bring to the table except a willingness to act as Obama’s pet parrot in a uniform. When McChrystal first met Obama, he recalled thinking that Obama was “uncomfortable and intimidated” by the room full of military brass. That observation helped get McChrystal fired and these days it’s the military brass that feels uncomfortable and intimidated by Obama Inc.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank">Click here</a>.  </strong></p>
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		<title>Business Rejects Obamacare</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/business-rejects-obamacare/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=business-rejects-obamacare</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/business-rejects-obamacare/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Nov 2012 04:44:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Applebee's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Darden restaurants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Employees]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hiring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jimmy John's]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Papa John's]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=164789</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How the law will slash low-wage worker hours while failing to provide them with health insurance.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/business-rejects-obamacare/assets-2012-article_2231328_15f8c5f3000005dc_765_634x510_180348621/" rel="attachment wp-att-164790"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-164790" title="assets-2012-article_2231328_15F8C5F3000005DC_765_634x510_180348621" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/assets-2012-article_2231328_15F8C5F3000005DC_765_634x510_180348621-450x310.jpg" alt="" width="315" height="217" /></a>Elections, as it is often said, have consequences. As a result of the president&#8217;s reelection, the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, will be fully implemented. Unsurprisingly, several businesses are <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/applebee-s-papa-john-s-darden-restaurants-threathen-employees-over-obamacare">looking for ways</a> to avoid the costs associated with the law. Just as unsurprisingly, American leftists consider such efforts to keep one&#8217;s business profitable&#8211;or solvent&#8211;unseemly.</p>
<p>Zane Tankel, chairman and CEO of Apple-Metro, an Applebee&#8217;s New York-area franchise, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/zane-tankel-applebees-obamacare_n_2094568.html">explains</a> the obvious. &#8220;We&#8217;ve calculated it will [cost] some millions of dollars across our system,” Tankel told Fox Business Network last Thursday. &#8220;So what does that say&#8211;that says we won&#8217;t build more restaurants. We won&#8217;t hire more people.&#8221; Apple-Metro runs 40 Applebee&#8217;s restaurants and employs from 80 to 300 people at each of its locations.</p>
<p>Jimmy John Liautaud, founder of Jimmy John&#8217;s sub franchise, echoed that sentiment. Like a number of smaller businesses, he is considering cutting employee hours to 28, to get under the Obamacare cap of 30 hours that defines full-time employment. Under the law, a full-time employee must be given healthcare insurance, or the company must pay a $2000 fine, if it fails to do so. Part-time employees don’t have to be covered. &#8220;We have to do that, said Liautaud. &#8220;There&#8217;s no other way we can survive it, because we think it will cost us 50 cents a sandwich. That&#8217;s just the actual cost. If you have 40 or 50 employees at a restaurant, and the penalty is $2,000, and you&#8217;re going to pay an $80,000 or $100,000 penalty, there goes the profit in your restaurant,&#8221; he added.</p>
<p>John Arensmeyer, CEO and founder of Small Business Majority, a national small business advocacy organization, <a href="http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/about-small-business-majority/team.php">served</a> on a panel at the White House summit on healthcare reform in 2009. He contended that it is &#8220;counterproductive to criticize&#8221; the law at this point. &#8220;Now that the election is over, if there&#8217;s any political motivation behind it, I&#8217;m not sure what the objective is,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s the law of the land, and there&#8217;s no chance it&#8217;s going to be repealed after the reelection of the president and the Supreme Court decision earlier this year, and we think it&#8217;s time for all businesses to come together and figure out how to make this work.&#8221;</p>
<p>Apparently it hasn&#8217;t dawned on Mr. Arensmeyer that the CEOs of Apple-Metro and Jimmy Johns are doing precisely that.</p>
<p>They are not alone. John Schnatter, CEO of the Papa John’s pizza franchises, also <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/applebee-s-papa-john-s-darden-restaurants-threathen-employees-over-obamacare">revealed</a> he would most likely begin reducing employees’ hours. Back in August, he told Politico why. &#8220;Our best estimate is that the Obamacare will cost 11 to 14 cents per pizza, or 15 to 20 cents per order from a corporate basis,&#8221; Schnatter said, even as he noted that &#8220;our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare.&#8221; Despite that reality, Schnatter remained defiant. &#8220;If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders&#8217; best interests,&#8221; Schnatter vowed.</p>
<p>He <a href="http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/nov/07/papa-johns-ceo-obamacare-likely-to-raise-costs/">reinforced</a> that argument at Edison State College&#8217;s Collier County campus the day after the election. After conceding that all Americans having health insurance is a good idea, he calculated that the implementation of the law would cost his company $5 million to $8 million in additional costs&#8211;year in, year out. Thus, he expects <em>individual franchise owners</em> will reduce employee hours in order to avoid covering them. &#8220;That&#8217;s probably what&#8217;s going to happen,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s common sense. That&#8217;s what I call lose-lose.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Darden chain of restaurants, owners of owns Red Lobster, Olive Garden, LongHorn Steakhouse, Bahama Breeze, Seasons 52, The Capital Grille, Eddie V&#8217;s and the Yard House, is also looking for a way to avoid the costs associated with ObamaCare. In October, the restaurant group <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-10-07/business/os-darden-part-time-workers-20121007_1_darden-restaurants-health-insurance-olive-gardens">began</a> conducting a test at a select number of its restaurants in four markets, emulating a common theme: limiting employee shifts to get under the 30 hours that mandates converge. Ironically, the company, one of the nation&#8217;s 30 largest employers, already offers health insurance to all its approximately 185,000 employees. Yet the limited-benefit plan they offer is a type of coverage being phased out under Obamacare, which will ban annual limits for most plans. Three other restaurant chains, White Castle, McDonald’s and Denny’s, are also looking for ways to avoid the employer mandate scheduled to go into effect in 2014.</p>
<p>The leftist backlash is predictable. Prior to the election, Washington, D.C., employment law attorney Robert B. Fitzpatrick claimed that if the president won, “I would think aggressive enforcement people within the administration would pursue cases like that. And say listen, you&#8217;re just playing with the numbers, playing with the hours to try to avoid compliance with providing health care to employees,” he told Fox News. “And there are going to be consequences.”</p>
<p>The Huffington Post was <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/08/obamacare-layoffs-georgia-obama_n_2095162.html">upset</a> that employers notified employees that their votes might have consequences, noting that employers who &#8220;sent notices to workers urging them to vote for Romney, or warning of potential problems if Obama won,&#8221; might face charges of &#8220;intimidation” &#8212; even as they were forced to concede that the Supreme Court&#8217;s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission">Citizen United</a> decision protected employers&#8217; rights to do so. Prior to that decision unions could promote candidates. Corporations could not.</p>
<p>The Huffington Post was also trolling for people who think they were fired because Obama got re-elected. In bold print, in two different articles at their website, the following message appeared: &#8220;Has your boss fired workers as a result of President Obama&#8217;s reelection? Email <a href="mailto:Jillian.Berman@huffingtonpost.com">Jillian.Berman@huffingtonpost.com</a> and tell us about it.&#8221;</p>
<p>And then there was Twitter. The prevailing <a href="http://twitchy.com/2012/11/09/applebees-targeted-after-franchisee-mulls-hiring-freeze-in-response-to-obamacare/">sentiment</a> was that decisions to limit hours or lay off workers are &#8220;selfish,&#8221; &#8220;ridiculous,&#8221; &#8220;unpatriotic,&#8221; and worthy of a <a href="http://twitchy.com/2012/08/09/papa-johns-becomes-latest-boycott-target-after-opposing-obamacare-class-warfare-ensues/">&#8220;boycott.&#8221;</a></p>
<p>Such fascist characterizations may be emotionally satisfying, but they miss the point. A Las Vegas business owner who fired 22 of his 144 employees after the election, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/333089/obamacare-layoffs-begin-jillian-kay-melchior#">counters</a> such perceptions with a dose of reality in an anonymous phone call to a local radio station. &#8220;I have always put my employees first,&#8221; said the employer. &#8220;I always made sure that when I went without a paycheck that I made sure they were paid. And I explained that I always put them first and unfortunately I’m at a point where I’m being forced to have to worry about me and my family now and a business that I built from just me to 114 employees&#8230;Elections do have consequences, but so do choices. A choice you make every day has consequences and you know what, I’ve always put my employees first, but unfortunately today I have to put me and my family first, and you watch what’s gonna happen.&#8221;</p>
<p>No doubt for many on the left, the idea that an employer might put his family&#8217;s interests ahead of his employee&#8217;s is little more than selfishness run amok. And in a burst of even more unrealism, these same, self-professed champions of the middle class apparently can&#8217;t comprehend (or don’t care) that a boycott of &#8220;offending&#8221; businesses will result in even <em>more</em> employees getting laid off.</p>
<p>Yet perhaps the most remarkable disconnect demonstrated by the left has to do with the election campaign itself. Barack Obama couldn&#8217;t run on an economic record that included 43 months of joblessness above 8 percent, the weakest recovery on record, or record numbers of Americans who became attached to government programs such as Food Stamps, welfare or Social Security disability. Thus, he chose to run against the “fat-cat bankers on Wall Street,&#8221;  private sector businesses who &#8220;didn’t build that” and the rich who aren&#8217;t paying their “fair share” and are <a href="http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-07-11/news/sns-mct-editorial-obamas-plan--demonize-wealth-20120711_1_entire-economy-hostage-tax-cuts-president-obama">&#8220;holding the economy hostage&#8221;</a> as a result. He demonized wealth-producers in general, and Mitt Romney in particular.</p>
<p>Now, he and his followers not only expect the entire business community to fall in line behind them, but absorb the extra, and perhaps ultimately debilitating, costs of Obamacare&#8211;without so much as a whisper of protest, no less.</p>
<p>It is bad enough the left can demonstrate such a profound ignorance regarding human nature and economics. Yet what is far more unsettling is the premise on which such ignorance rests: in short, the American left apparently believes that the essence of free-market capitalism, namely &#8220;incentive,&#8221; is interchangeable with the essence of socialist-driven, redistributionist impulses, namely &#8220;coercion.&#8221; Nothing could be further from the truth, elusive as that truth may be to those who never seem to tire of finding ways to spend other people’s money. One suspects it will become glaringly and grimly apparent over the next four years.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>How Derrick Bell Beat Martin Luther King Jr.</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/dgreenfield/how-derrick-bell-beat-martin-luther-king-jr/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-derrick-bell-beat-martin-luther-king-jr</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 12 Mar 2012 04:55:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Allen Coon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Black Racism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Derrick Bell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fire]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[martin luther king jr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Segregation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=125269</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The legacy of racial hatred reigns among black leaders and role models. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-8.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-125275" title="Picture-8" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Picture-8.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a>“History proves that the white man is a devil,” said Malcolm X. “Whites are liars,” said Jeremiah Wright. “I love to harass white folks,” said <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2175">Derrick Bell</a>.</p>
<p>“This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy,” a black teenager said to <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/03/was_boy_in_kc_fire_attack_a_victim_of_his_schools_racist_teaching.html">Allen Coon</a>, a white student on the porch of his own home, as he set him on fire.</p>
<p>“Don’t tell me words don’t matter,” Obama once said. And he was right. Words do matter. The words of his mentors that have rooted hate so deep in the black community that it has become a cancer, a sore that bleeds violence, a stain on the soul.</p>
<p>While white racism continues to decline year by year, black racism has advanced to the White House and into the hearts and minds of millions. It leads to everything from discrimination to murder. It led to a thirteen-year-old boy screaming as fire ate at the flesh of his face, burning away the white skin that his attackers had been taught to hate so much.</p>
<p>“While city officials, state agencies, white liberals, and sober-minded Negroes stand idly by, a group of Negro dissenters is taking to street-corner step ladders, church pulpits, sports arenas, and ballroom platforms across the United States, to preach a gospel of hate that would set off a federal investigation if it were preached by Southern whites.”</p>
<p>The year was 1959 and the voice was that of Mike Wallace. Since then the “Gospel of Hate” has become mainstream in parts of the black community. Black leaders like Jeremiah Wright have discarded the Black Muslim origins of their hate, along with the tales of UFOs  and Mohammed, but have retained its deep-seated venomous racism.</p>
<p>The Nation of Islam, the subject of Wallace’s documentary, has won. Its Million Man March was the largest organized show of political force by the black community in decades. Its breakaway activist, Malcolm X, has displaced Martin Luther King, as a political role model in the black community. Most of all its hate has become distilled into the rhetoric and beliefs of even non-Muslim clergy and scholars.</p>
<p>While we look at the hateful words of a Jeremiah Wright or a Derrick Bell who preach from the pulpit or propound from their ivory tower desks, we often ignore their impact on the ground floor of public life and what happens when their teachings trickle down to create an atmosphere of oppression and hate.</p>
<p>Allen Coon, a 13-year-old boy, was set on fire as a consequence of the mainstreaming of racism in the black community to the extent that hatred for white people became a regular feature of his classes at school.</p>
<p>“You&#8217;ve got to be taught, to hate and fear,” Lieutenant Cable hummed in Rodger and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. “You&#8217;ve got to be taught, from year to year.”</p>
<p>Allen Coon’s assailants, who followed him home from school, poured gasoline on him and flicked the lighter, had been carefully taught to hate by teachers in the Kansas City public school system. Those teachers had also been taught to hate from year to year. The burns on the face of a thirteen-year-old white boy did not emerge out of thin air. They are marks of the bigotry of men like Jeremiah Wright and Derrick Bell, of words that collect like rainwater in the gutter, seeping into the hearts and minds of those in the black community who consider those bigots leaders, until it overflows and torture, rape and murder follow.</p>
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		<title>Tibetan Buddhist Monks Set Themselves on Fire to Protest Chinese Oppression</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/stephenbrown/tibetan-buddhist-monks-set-themselves-on-fire-to-protest-chinese-oppression/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=tibetan-buddhist-monks-set-themselves-on-fire-to-protest-chinese-oppression</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Oct 2011 04:03:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Stephen Brown]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Left ignores attempted suicides of Vietnam War-era tactic they once admired. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/tibetan.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110645" title="tibetan" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/tibetan.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="374" /></a></p>
<p>It is not a cause the leftist ‘Occupy Wall Street’ crowd would ever espouse, since its life-or-death issues would shame theirs and show where true evil and oppression resides.</p>
<p>Largely ignored by the Western media, nine Tibetan Buddhist monks and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8833257/Buddhist-nun-sets-herself-on-fire-as-Tibet-protests-intensify.html" target="_blank">one nun</a> have attempted suicide by self-immolation since last March in China’s eastern Sichuan province, a hotbed of unrest against perceived Chinese government oppression. Eastern Sichuan is largely inhabited by ethnic Tibetans and was once historically <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham" target="_blank">part of Tibet</a>.</p>
<p>It is unknown how many of the ten perished in their suicide attempts, since Chinese authorities never say whether a monk survived. But it is believed <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8849665/Tenth-Tibetan-monk-sets-himself-on-fire.html" target="_blank">five</a> have died from their injuries, the nun, Tengzin Wangmo, 20, being one of them. The <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8849665/Tenth-Tibetan-monk-sets-himself-on-fire.html" target="_blank">latest attempted self-immolation</a>, reported by the Free Tibet group, occurred only last week outside a monastery in Ganzi in Sichuan, when a monk set himself alight after dousing himself with an accelerant. It is also not known whether he survived.</p>
<p>“The unrest in Tibet is escalating and widening,” <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8833257/Buddhist-nun-sets-herself-on-fire-as-Tibet-protests-intensify.html" target="_blank">said</a> Stephanie Brigden of Free Tibet. “The number and frequency of self-immolations is unprecedented.”</p>
<p>The latest fatality, whose <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8849665/Tenth-Tibetan-monk-sets-himself-on-fire.html" target="_blank">name is unknown</a>, is the eighth Buddhist monk to attempt suicide by fire in the past two months. This increase in self-immolation numbers indicates the Tibetans’ level of desperation and despair concerning the survival of their people, culture and religion, which they see threatened by Han Chinese immigration and repressive government measures. Beijing gained control of Tibet, which is now labelled an autonomous region, after it successfully invaded its neighbour in 1950.</p>
<p>Self-immolations, like those occurring in Tibet, are a sign of a people reaching the end of its tether. It is the only weapon the powerless and brutalised Tibetans feel they have left that could make a difference against a monstrous dictatorship that has already murdered 70 million people. The employment of this ultimate measure is also an indication that Tibetans believe their situation and conditions are becoming so hopeless, they would rather perish than continue living in their present state.</p>
<p>Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, self-immolations also occurred in European communist countries to protest the unbearable and horrific results of decades of socialism. A self-immolation also triggered the ‘Arab Spring’ when a man set himself alight in Tunisia to protest bureaucratic corruption. While it is doubtful whether the recent self-immolations of Buddhist spirituals will lead to such regime-changing events, especially in the face of continued, massive Chinese police oppression, Brigden believes they are sparking discontent.</p>
<p>“The acts of self-immolation are not taking place in isolation, protests have been reported in the surrounding region and calls for wider protests are growing,” she <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8833257/Buddhist-nun-sets-herself-on-fire-as-Tibet-protests-intensify.html" target="_blank">said</a>.</p>
<p>The center of the recent Tibetan suicide protests, and of anti-Beijing sentiment in general, is the Kirti monastery in eastern Sichuan. The majority of monks involved in the fiery suicide attempts this year were from Kirti, the first one taking place last March. The monk was <a href="http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/asia/Sentencing-Of-Tibetan-Monks--129108458.html" target="_blank">16-years-old</a>. Two other Kirti monks, accused of assisting with the March attempt, were both given long jail terms.</p>
<p>Before the self-immolations, the Kirti monastery had a population of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/tibet/8833257/Buddhist-nun-sets-herself-on-fire-as-Tibet-protests-intensify.html" target="_blank">2,500 monks</a>; that has now dwindled to 600 due to arrests, police persecution and “brutal” security raids.” With police now stationed inside the monastery itself, the religious institution is reported to have been turned into “a virtual prison.” Several hundred monks may also have been sent away for “patriotic re-education.”</p>
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		<title>Free Speech Under Assault at Sinclair Community College</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/free-speech-under-assault-at-sinclair-community-college/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=free-speech-under-assault-at-sinclair-community-college</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2011 04:28:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[breast cancer awareness]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92717</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education challenges another college speech code.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NoFreeSpeech.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92720" title="NoFreeSpeech" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NoFreeSpeech.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="270" /></a></p>
<p>Yet another assault on First Amendment rights on college campuses is taking place in Dayton, Ohio. Last October, <a href="http://www.sinclair.edu/" target="_blank">Sinclair Community College</a> (SCC) prohibited a paralegal studies student, Ethel Borel-Donohue, from distributing pamphlets to her fellow students after a class. <a href="http://onemoresoul.com/pdfs/PBCA.pdf" target="_blank">The pamphlets</a> focused on the link between abortion and the use of oral contraceptives to higher rates of breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but Judge Michael Brigner, Paralegal Program Chair, banned the distribution after receiving a complaint from a student who had had an abortion, telling Borel-Donohue she “had no right to hand out any materials to students in the classroom.” Borel-Donohue, contacted the <a href="http://thefire.org/" target="_blank">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a> (FIRE) for help, claiming she was worried about repercussions from the incident. FIRE has taken up her cause.</p>
<p>Last Friday I spoke with Madeline Iseli, newly-appointed Vice President of the Sinclair College Advancement Division, who explained to me that SCC has restrictions contained in the <a href="http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/8daf60e09b1752ce2e6ddcce82c40584.pdf?direct" target="_blank">Sinclair Community College Campus Access Policy</a> which allows the &#8220;Board of Trustees of Sinclair Community College to regulate access to such property in such a manner that the purposes of the Community College are adequately served.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sounds reasonable enough. Yet in &#8220;Section IV, SOLICITATIONS AND LITERATURE DISTRIBUTION:&#8221; paragraph 3, the restrictions become problematic: &#8220;Literature may not be distributed in working areas, including: classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls, gymnasiums, libraries, offices, work stations, conference rooms, and corridors leading directly thereto which are an integral part of the work areas.&#8221; Ms. Borel-Donohue reveals the Constitutional dubiousness of such restrictions. &#8220;So you can distribute literature, but you just can&#8217;t do it anywhere. I&#8217;ve been to several universities, but Sinclair, it seems, is really totalitarian in their control,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>Enter FIRE. In February, the organization sent a letter to Sinclair President Steven Lee Johnson, noting that campus policies restricting distribution of literature outside of class time are unlawful. FIRE cited a 1979 federal district court decision, <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6940002100596951157&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" target="_blank">Solid Rock Foundation v. Ohio State University</a> to back up its contention. In that case, the court ruled that Ohio State&#8217;s attempt to &#8220;regulate the distribution of plaintiffs&#8217; publication so that the campus will be &#8216;aesthetically pleasurable,&#8217;&#8221; was &#8220;likely not to pass constitutional muster&#8221; and that distribution of [of literature] is not the kind of activity which &#8220;materially disrupts classwork or involves a substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.&#8221; Furthermore, in addressing the issue of complaints as a basis for restricting the distribution of literature, the court noted that  &#8220;[T]here may be complaints from those in the campus community who desire not to be subjected to plaintiffs&#8217; views, such as appear to have prompted the University action in the first place. But the University may not, in the interest of protecting particular persons from an unpopular viewpoint, substitute its judgment for the judgment of the individual, who has a right to determine whether or not he is willing to receive plaintiffs&#8217; message.&#8221;</p>
<p>FIRE president Greg Lukianoff whittled the ruling down to plain language. &#8220;If someone&#8217;s claim to be offended by speech were all it took to overrule the First Amendment, we would all be reduced to silence&#8230; the Constitution does not recognize a &#8216;right not to be offended,&#8217;&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Yet Sinclair College attorney, General Counsel Lauren M. Ross, who is also the state of Ohio&#8217;s assistant attorney general, insists such restrictions do not violate the First Amendment. &#8220;Sinclair embraces the principles of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the right of free speech &#8230;Citizens are free to peacefully share their thoughts and distribute literature on campus in common areas such as atriums, eating areas, and much of the Physical Activities Center and the outdoor plazas,&#8221; she said. She also sent a <a href="http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/f87aca7f8865c7734d5b6145e2e98e8f.pdf?direct" target="_blank">letter</a> to FIRE vice president Adam Kissel citing both the aforementioned College Campus Access Policy and the  <a href="http://www.sinclair.edu/student/leader/pub/handbook/sjh10.pdf" target="_blank">Student Judicial Affairs Code of Conduct</a> as reasons for restricting Borel-Donohue.</p>
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		<title>Turning Point in Syria</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/turning-point-in-syria/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=turning-point-in-syria</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/ryan-mauro/turning-point-in-syria/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:50:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bashar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daraa]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[hafez al assad]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform party of syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[regime change from]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90833</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Iranian ally placates protesters with reforms -- but prepares to perpetrate a massacre. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/SyriaProtests.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90884" title="SyriaProtests" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/SyriaProtests.gif" alt="" width="375" height="285" /></a></p>
<p>The Syrian regime is in deep trouble. The Friday protests against the regime are much larger with each passing week, forcing President Assad to seek help from Iran to crush the uprising. The use of violence has only enlarged the crowds, and now, according to the <a href="http://reformsyria.org/">Reform Party of Syria</a>, the Syrian army has <a href="http://reformsyria.org/youth-revolution-2011/syrians-are-on-the-move-203">surrounded</a> the third largest city of Homs and has told its Sufi sheikhs that it faces destruction if the protests there do not end.</p>
<p>At least 17 protesters were killed in Homs on Sunday alone, provoking thousands of demonstrators to chant in support of regime change. “From alleyway to alleyway, from house to house, we want to overthrow you, Bashar,” marchers were <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110419/wl_nm/us_syria">heard</a> saying. Residents also <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/syrian-day-of-protest-called-largest-yet/2011/04/15/AFdTc1jD_story.html">destroyed</a> a statue of Hafez al-Assad, the ruling president&#8217;s late father and predecessor. On Tuesday, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOktpBal_Oc">video</a> hit the Internet of heavy fire in Homs, and a three-day strike has begun in which all shops and businesses have closed. The regime is now blocking roads to the main square with fire trucks, snipers are seen on roofs, and the city is being <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/04/201141913265961588.html">described</a> as looking like “a war zone.”</p>
<p>Homs is now surrounded, and the Fourth Armored Division, led by Maher Assad, Bashar’s brother, appears ready to enter the suburb of Talbisseh at any moment. At least four tanks have been seen nearby. An eyewitness <a href="http://reformsyria.org/youth-revolution-2011/syrians-are-on-the-move-201">told</a> Al-Jazeera that the security forces have beards, indicating they may belong to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards or Hezbollah. This is very possible, as the IRGC base that is now overseeing the crackdown is nearby.</p>
<p>The city of Banias has also been surrounded, and the Syrian regime is justifying action against these two cities. “[The events] are an armed insurrection by armed groups belonging to Salafist organizations, especially in the cities of Homs and Banias,” a <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42651711/ns/42641498">statement</a> from the Syrian government said. The regime is laying the groundwork for massive bloodshed by labeling the protesters as Islamist terrorists.</p>
<p>Another objective of these measures is to send a message to the West and the population that Islamists would benefit from any weakening of the regime. The regime has closed its first casino, ended the ban on teachers wearing face veils, and a close friend of Assad named Ayman Abdel Nour has been <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/world/middleeast/07syria.html">tasked</a> with creating a “moderate Islamist party loyal to the regime” and setting up an Islamist satellite station. This also serves to undermine secular opposition by emphasizing the threat of an Islamist takeover.</p>
<p>The regime has also “lifted” the state of emergency as the vast majority of Syrians wanted. However, the killings continue unabated, and on the same day, legislation was passed to “regulate the right of peaceful protest” that will require prior approval from the Interior Ministry for demonstrations. A State Department spokesman <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110419/ts_nm/us_syria_usa">said,</a> “This new legislation may prove as restrictive as the emergency law it replaced.” More accurately, this new law sets the stage for more bloodshed.</p>
<p>The massive protests on Friday that continue today present a monumental challenge for Assad. Leading up to the protests, hundreds were arrested. In Banias alone, 200 were arrested. On that day, 37 were killed at the very least, with 27 deaths in Daraa, 4 in Banias, 3 in Homs, 3 in Harasta, and 1 in Douma. Tens of thousands protested in the capital of Damascus and were violently attacked to prevent marchers from uniting in Abbasside Square. Posters of Assad were ripped and trampled, and in the area of Jawber, protesters caused a bus of security personnel to retreat. On Sunday, 17 were killed in Homs and five were killed in Latakia. Videos surface on a daily basis showing the beatings and killings performed by the security services, including the shooting of a medic and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSk7Ur5jE00">head wound of a child from the bullet of a sniper.</a></p>
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		<title>Unrest for Iran’s “Festival of Fire”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ryan-mauro/unrest-for-iran%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%9cfestival-of-fire%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=unrest-for-iran%25e2%2580%2599s-%25e2%2580%259cfestival-of-fire%25e2%2580%259d</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Mar 2010 04:03:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ayatollah khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cell phone networks]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55706</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Iranian people challenge the regime yet again.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/bonfireofthemullahsx.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55714" title="bonfireofthemullahsx" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/bonfireofthemullahsx.gif" alt="" width="460" height="345" /></a></p>
<p>The media declared that the Iranian opposition had lost steam when demonstrations rivaling those of last summer did not materialize on February 11. The survival of the regime was no longer in doubt. On and around March 16, the pre-Islamic “Festival of Fire” holiday was held, and the Iranian people again challenged the government and the media has missed the story.</p>
<p>The “Festival of Fire” holiday dates from Persia’s Zoroastrian days and includes jumping over bonfires, setting off homemade firecrackers and explosives and dancing to keep away demons. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the celebrations have had more political meaning as a way of defying the theocracy that seeks to eliminate the tradition. This year was no different. The police <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8571001.stm">admit</a> to arresting 50 people, but that is certainly a fraction of the real number.</p>
<p>The extreme measures taken by the regime must be documented in order to appreciate what the Iranians were able to accomplish. The regime warned that anyone involved in disturbances would be harshly punished. Political activists, as usual, were rounded up and arrested. Thousands of security forces were deployed, including agents dressed as civilians to infiltrate any crowds forming. Cameras were set up to identify those involved, and shops in the market were closely watched to make sure explosives were not sold.</p>
<p>According to sources in Iran, the speed of the Internet was dramatically slowed beginning on March 9 to prevent information from leaking out. Political websites and Internet groups were hacked, and messages appearing to come from activists called on readers not to assemble. Tehran University was closed for the entire week, and some areas where people clashed with security forces had cell phone networks shut down. Forces were deployed to gas stations to make sure fuel wasn’t given to any civilians that could then be lit. Posters of Khamenei were removed to prevent them from being ripped apart.</p>
<p>In Babolsar, electricity was <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2224">shut off</a> after a crowd of over 1,000 gathered in a park and began setting off firecrackers and chanting against Ayatollah Khamenei. One eyewitness said that in Tehran, an eight-year old child was even arrested. On Kaj Boulevard in Tehran, street lamps were smashed so that video of clashes between the security forces and a crowd estimated in one report as above 10,000 could not be clearly taken. Several thugs were injured and the use of homemade explosives enabled the fight to continue for an hour and a half.</p>
<p>Some of the preparations were laughable in their extremity and did nothing but show the fear of the regime. As Michael Ledeen has <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2010/03/15/the-supreme-leader-tries-to-put-out-the-fire/">reported</a>, the regime is trying to wage a war on the color green. There is <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wgRD5mxWtA&amp;feature=sub">video</a> of green lines on sidewalks in Tehran being painted over.</p>
<p>The stories from inside Iran show that the regime’s tough stance did prevent a massive uprising on the scale of the post-election demonstrations last summer, but the disobedience and bravery of the Iranians shows their passion has not dissipated. Tehran and Mashhad were described as being a “war zone.” Despite the regime’s efforts to confiscate explosives, “the purchasing of combustible materials and explosives has escalated. Streets, sidewalks, Bazaar markets and central regions of the capital are flooded with such materials,” a report sent to me <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2219">said.</a></p>
<p>In Tehran, three of the motorcycles belonging to security forces were seized and set on fire. Kaj Square, the reports said, was actually under the control of the demonstrators for an hour and a half. In several areas of Tehran and around the country, security forces were overpowered and fled or stood by idly, allowing the people to control the scene until backup arrived.</p>
<p>In Rasht in northwestern Iran, a government building was set on fire. In Babol, females who tore down a poster of Khamenei were <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2230">assaulted</a> by security forces, resulting in a clash between them and the demonstrators. Leading up to the “Festival of Fire,” 600 students staged a protest at Babol’s Noshirvani University demanding the release of political prisoners. In western Iran, the people <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2230">reportedly</a> controlled Khoramabad for 20 minutes and beat three members of the Basiji militia.</p>
<p>The regime’s weakness was apparent according to these reports. A member of the security forces reportedly said that they were ordered to not enter dark, narrow sidestreets where fighting was most likely to occur. They were told to avoid arresting people and “not to aggravate the crowd” for fear of causing a confrontation. One member of the security forces was <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2222">arrested</a> by his colleagues for refusing to attack those lighting off fireworks. West Azerbaijan Province was <a href="http://www.worldthreats.com/?p=2224">described</a> as having its largest celebrations in years, with eggs being thrown at security cars and fires in alleys and streets.</p>
<p>The Iranian people will be grateful for President Obama’s Nowruz <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/21/now-change-is-brought-to-obama/">message</a> to Iran this year. Unlike last year’s message, he slammed the regime for rejecting the West’s overtures and devoted the majority of his message to praising the struggle of the Iranian people. Last year, their fight was given not a word of encouragement. It is time to match those words of support with concrete action.</p>
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		<title>A Day in the Life of a Coptic Christian in Egypt</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-puder/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-coptic-christian-in-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-day-in-the-life-of-a-coptic-christian-in-egypt</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Abu]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Attacks on the Christian-Coptic minority by incited Muslim mobs have become a way of life.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/copt.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51179" title="copt" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/copt.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>On Wednesday, January 6, 2010, following the Coptic Christmas Eve celebrations in the Southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, masked gunmen opened fire on the exiting worshipers, <a href="blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/...orthodox_christ_1.html">killing seven Copts</a> and injuring scores of others.  The gunmen, most likely a radical jihadist offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood intended to assassinate the <a href="http://www.asianews.it/index.php?/=en&amp;art=17293">Coptic Bishop Kirollos</a>. Attacks in Egypt on the Christian-Coptic minority by incited Muslim mobs have become a frequent occurrence in recent years.</p>
<p>An unnamed eye witness to the shootings told the Coptic News Bulletin at the Nag Hammadi hospital that the situation was critical for the injured because of shortages of blood for transfusions. He quipped that, “The Muslims promised us a wonderful Christmas, and I think the message has now been received&#8230;”</p>
<p>Bishop Kirollos accused the security services of negligence in dealing with the events which led to the massacre and added: “Not one single security man intervened to prevent casualties.&#8221; He criticized the absence of adequate State Security forces guarding the church, which is customary during such events and especially in light of the unrest which took place in the area in November 2009.</p>
<p>Bishop Kirollos had recently received a death threat for criticizing the Egyptian authorities and speaking out in defense of the Christian victims of the November 2009 attack, in the areas of Farshout, Abu Shusha, Aerky, and Alshokeify, all part of the Nag Hammadi parish.</p>
<p>In a letter sent to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak by Dr. Monir Dawoud, President of the American Coptic Association he wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>The failure to protect the lives and properties of the Christians, to implement Presidential decrees and to uphold the law not only defeats the leadership’s efforts to improve the human rights situation of the Copts, but also embarrasses Egypt in a time when more States than ever are making leaps forward towards protecting human rights. As the tide of democratization ushers in our region, Egypt is called upon &#8211; through your Excellency &#8211; to take all necessary practical measures: constitutional, legal, political and social to respect the rights of all its citizens.”</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>The letter to President Mubarak enumerated all the recent attacks on Copts:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>We are writing to you to express our deep concern over the latest attacks on Coptic churches in Sinnouris of Fayoum preceded by that of Shebin El-Kom, Menoufia where the churches had been set on fire leading to complete destruction. This has been going on for a very long time and the security forces and government have been closing their eyes. To mention some of these attacks we may go back to a few of them. The attacks on the defenseless Christian citizens in the churches of Alexandria, on April 14, 2006, resulted in the death of one man and later another, besides seriously injuring several dozens of the worshippers inside their churches.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Dr. Dawoud added:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>These attacks were preceded by other attacks couple of months ago at the same city.  These followed attacks on the Christians of Al-Udeisat village in Luxor, which took place on January 18, 2006.  The attacks left behind two dead, scores injured, many lives shattered and properties destroyed. To anybody’s astonishment, the violence &#8211; according to Egyptian press &#8211; was instigated by some members of the National Democratic Party, local government and security officials.” </em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>While hosing Mubarak in the White House last August, President Obama described the Egyptian president as a “<a href="http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3417.cfm">force of stability</a>,” deliberately ignoring an abysmal human rights record and turning a blind eye to the persecution of the Christians in Egypt. And while the Obama administration has given the Egyptian regime unqualified support, the Egyptian government has practiced a two-faced policy towards the U.S.</p>
<p>To assuage the growing influence and power of Islamists in Egypt, and to counter the political ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Mubarak regime has implemented a more Islamic educational system, and the “Vatican of Sunni-Islam”- Al Azhar Islamic University in Cairo has been allowed to become even more radical in its rulings.</p>
<p>The Egyptian government including its Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit incited anti-western (Christian) demonstrations in the Muslim world when he circulated a report on the Danish cartoons labeling them as anti-Islamic. This same government outwardly condemned the Hezbollah in the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese War while portraying the group as a heroic band who defeated Israel.  Mubarak also called for an unconditional cease-fire in direct opposition to the U.S. policy.</p>
<p>The Mubarak regime has encouraged the violent campaign against Coptic Christians as a diversion from its oppressive domestic policies, which have stifled democratic opposition groups, human rights and religious freedom.  By maintaining the status-quo with Egypt, the Obama administration is endorsing the continued suppression and discrimination policies against the Copts.</p>
<p>Coptic-Christians are denied social, economic, and educational opportunities.  Although Copts comprise over 10% of the Egyptian population, Christians are under-represented in government positions, are discriminated against in courts, and denied due process as well as basic civil rights.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has given Mubarak a free pass.  Egypt’s aid package of $2.2 Billion in U.S. taxpayers’ money is secure, all in the name of preventing Egypt from becoming another radical Muslim state.  But, Mubarak’s police state and lack of accessibility to power by legitimate means, makes the future of the regime uncertain.  To appease the Islamists who threaten his regime, Mubarak has made the Coptic-Christians the scapegoat for the frustrations of the Muslim masses.</p>
<p>The attacks against Copts and Christian churches as demonstrated by the Christmas Eve attack in Nag Hammadi must not be allowed to continue.  American must use its aid dollars as leverage in applying pressure on the Mubarak regime so that Copts gain equality and protection under the law.</p>
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		<title>Imprisoned for Saving American Lives</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-l-work/imprisoned-for-killing-terrorists-in-iraq-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=imprisoned-for-killing-terrorists-in-iraq-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:10:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John L. Work]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Former U.S. Army Master Sergeant John Hatley is now serving a forty year sentence for allegedly killing terrorists in Iraq.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/john.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51192" title="john" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/john.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="499" /></a></p>
<p>Former U.S. Army Master Sergeant John Hatley is now serving <a href="http://www.groesbeckjournal.com/news/2009-06-04/Front_Page/Hatley_family_Johns_still_a_hero.html">a forty year sentence</a> in Leavenworth prison. He was convicted by a 2009 Court Martial of murdering four Iraqi insurgent arrestees in Baghdad following a 2007 ambush and firefight, and dumping the bodies into a Baghdad canal.  Two other Sergeants with the Alpha Company 1-18 1<sup>st</sup> Infantry were also convicted and sent to prison.</p>
<p>Hatley&#8217;s wife, Kim Hatley, is leading a crusade to win clemency for her husband. I recently spoke with her by telephone. A veteran of six years as an Intel-analyst and Crypto-analyst with the U.S. Army 18<sup>th</sup> Airborne Corps, Mrs. Hatley has a nineteen-year-old son in the United States Marine Corps in Afghanistan.  She related some details of events that led up to the firefight, the shootings and the investigation that sent her husband to prison:</p>
<p>John Hatley was a highly decorated combat veteran of nineteen years and six months military service. He was deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo, Panama, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, Operation Desert Storm and three tours of duty in Iraq.  The soldiers of Alpha Company 1-18 1<sup>st</sup> Army Infantry knew him to be the first into a hot spot and the last to come out.  Mrs. Hatley says that her husband was a legend in Alpha Company and treated the soldiers under his command as though they were family.</p>
<p>During daily 2007 patrol operations in the West Rasheed area of Baghdad, Hatley’s soldiers often found themselves under enemy fire.  The post-Hussein sectarian “insurgency” was well under way.  Hatley’s soldiers killed some of the attackers and captured many others.  Over the length of the insurgency, snipers and roadside bombs (IEDs) killed or crippled thousands of Americans.</p>
<p>As the war dragged on, tens of thousands of jihadists who were taken prisoner during or after fire-fights in Baghdad went to the Detention Holding Area Annex (DHAA), which is military terminology for a jail.  Astonishingly, the DHAA personnel released nearly all of them shortly after their arrests, for “lack of sufficient evidence to detain.”  Most of the prisoners were released.  The newly-freed insurgents immediately returned to the streets to resume killing and maiming American soldiers.  This insanity became known as the Catch and Release Program.</p>
<p>Adding to the stress of war, Hatley and his soldiers collected the scores of dead bodies that were regularly dumped onto Baghdad streets by terrorists.  Most of the dead were non-combatant civilians who had been tortured and mutilated prior to their executions.</p>
<p>Then, on February 27, 2007, an insurgent sniper killed Staff Sergeant Karl Soto-Pinedo, who was like a beloved son to Hatley.  Mrs. Hatley told me that her husband was grief-stricken to the point of dysfunction by Soto-Pinedo’s death.  On March 17, Spc. Mario Guerrero was killed by a road-side bomb explosion.  All the same, the patrols went on ceaselessly, from 4:00 a.m. to 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. – every day.  For months on end Hatley and his soldiers fought the war on three or four hours of sleep per night.</p>
<p>On a particular April day in 2007, Hatley’s unit once again came under fire. Four insurgents ran from a house where they hid during the fire-fight and the Americans soon captured them.  U.S. troops found small arms, sniper rifles and ammunition within that house. All of the captured insurgents field-tested “positive” for gunshot residue on their hands.</p>
<p>Hatley radioed the DHAA that he was en-route with the four detainees.  The DHAA refused to receive them, citing a “lack of sufficient evidence to hold.”  Hatley was ordered to release these terrorists who had tried to kill American soldiers.  Now, as the alleged story that came out in court goes, he discussed the DHAA release order with two of his subordinates, Sgt. Michael Leahy and Sgt. Joseph Mayo.  The Sergeants decided they had just about had their fill of Catch and Release, and that these four insurgents were not going free to return to kill and maim Americans. They subsequently drove the four terrorists to a nearby canal, fired one shot each into the backs of their heads, and dumped the dead bodies into the water.  Sgt. Jesse Cunningham, seated inside their parked vehicle, apparently watched all of it in the rear-view mirror. The bodies, however, were never found.  No local residents reported anyone missing.</p>
<p>By 2009, the Hatleys were stationed in Germany.  Sgt. Jesse Cunningham got himself into a jam with the Army for assaulting another non-commissioned officer and for falling asleep at his post – both serious offenses if proven.  Under investigation, Cunningham talked to a JAG lawyer and decided to trade what he knew about the 2007 Baghdad shootings to get himself off the hook.  He became “the snitch.”</p>
<p>Using Cunningham’s statement, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division (CID) extracted confessions from both Leahy and Mayo.  Hatley refused to admit having done anything wrong.  The military trial was in Vilseck, Germany, from April 13 through 16, 2009.</p>
<p>Cunningham, Leahy and Mayo all took the witness stand against their former First Sergeant.  Mrs. Hatley, who was present for the entire trial, told me that Leahy and Mayo, who had already been convicted, looked to be in great distress on the stand during testimony and appeared to everyone that they did not want to testify against their First Sergeant. Both received bad conduct discharges and prison time.  Hatley received a dishonorable discharge to go along with his life sentence.  Members of the press openly wept when the sentence was handed down.</p>
<p>Mrs. Hatley now spends endless hours on the internet and the phone, mustering support for her husband’s release.  She sounds optimistic, despite the terrible situation.  She says that even in prison her husband has received meritorious staff reports, once for saving a choking prisoner’s life by administering the Heimlich maneuver.</p>
<p>The endless conflict goes on.  Soldiers and Marines deal with Rules of Engagement (ROE) that tie their hands and prolong the national agony of our overseas involvement in the eternal war that Islam declared against infidels nearly fourteen-hundred years ago.</p>
<p>Many officers in the military’s upper echelons remain willfully ignorant of Islamic doctrine and oblivious to its dynamics in the war.  They write the crippling ROE and the Catch-and-Release policies that have caused the deaths of innumerable American soldiers and Marines &#8212; and they sit comfortably behind their desks at the Pentagon.  In the meantime, men like John Hatley sit in prison.</p>
<p><strong>[For those wishing to help Kim Hatley win clemency for her husband, visit <a href="http://defendjohnhatley.com/">DefendJohnHatley.com</a>.]</strong><em><br />
</em></p>
<p><em>John L. Work is a contributor to <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/">NewsReal Blog</a>.  He is a retired Colorado Law Enforcement Officer and a free-lance writer.</em></p>
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		<title>A New Threat to Free Speech on Campus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/john-perazzo/a-new-threat-to-free-speech-on-campus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-new-threat-to-free-speech-on-campus</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:06:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[John Perazzo]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50886</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Campus lefists and administrators discover the academic equivalent of the poll tax.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/wilders1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50889" title="wilders" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/wilders1.jpg" alt="" width="447" height="304" /></a></p>
<p>This past fall, a student group known as “Temple University Purpose” (TUP) invited the controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders to give a speech on campus.  Wilders, one of the leading European critics of Islamism and a possible future prime minister in the Netherlands, was slated to show <em>Fitna</em>, his provocative documentary showing how Muslim jihadists draw their inspiration from the Koran not by distorting its message but  by taking its mandates literally. When finalizing the arrangements for Wilders&#8217; appearance, TUP&#8217;s student leaders and Temple administrators agreed that the university would cover the necessary security costs for the event, as it does for all speakers.  But as campus leftists stepped up attacks on administrators for allowing Wilders’ appearance, the university began to look for the exit sign.  It settled on a back handed way of throttling free speech that is increasingly being employed by other schools,  USC and  UC Santa Barbara among them—forcing conservative student groups to pay costs for controversial speakers whose appearances become security problems because the campus left threatens violently to disrupt them.</p>
<p>When word of Wilders&#8217; scheduled appearance was made public, Temple&#8217;s <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6175">Muslim Students Association</a> (MSA) pressured the administration to cancel the event.  Despite its pedigree as a descendant of the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386">Muslim Brotherhood</a>, Temple’s MSA has standing with school administrators as an ethnic grievance group.  But it was the implied threat behind their aggrieved protests about the speech that got the university’s attention—to raise hell if Wilders was allowed to appear.  Yet Temple was in a bind because it had already okayed the event.  Wilders might be controversial, but he was a figure of international stature.  However provocative his message, suddenly reversing course and subjecting it to heavy handed censorship would cast the university in a bad light.</p>
<p>Temple let the Dutch politician complete his presentation, though the question-and-answer session had to be cut short when a number of students <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2009/10/heavily-indoctrinated-student-thugs-shout-down-wilders-at-temple-university.html">shouted threats at him</a>, forcing security men to escort him from the stage. But six weeks after the event, on December 3, TUP received an unexpected $800 invoice from Temple University – to cover the costs associated with having provided extra security personnel &#8220;to secure the room and building&#8221; for Wilders’ appearance. When TUP&#8217;s interim president Brittany Walsh reminded Temple administrators, in writing, that they had agreed to pay any extra security costs associated with Wilders&#8217; appearance, she was stonewalled. Walsh and TUP turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the free speech rights of students.</p>
<p>FIRE vice president Robert Shibley was shocked by the way Temple had used the fees to cast a chill on campus free speech and also, in effect, to bankrupt TUP and make it unable to bring other conservative speakers to campus.  &#8220;In our nation,” Shirley said, “it is unconstitutional to charge a student group extra fees for security simply because a speaker&#8217;s views are controversial or don&#8217;t meet with the approval of Temple  University administrators.&#8221; In a letter to Temple president Ann Weaver Hart, FIRE cited the U.S. Supreme Court&#8217;s 1992 decision in <em>Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement</em>, which determined that a local government could not charge higher-than-customary fees for police protection at events simply because they were controversial – reasoning that &#8220;speech cannot be financially burdened, any more than it can be punished or banned, simply because it might offend a hostile mob.&#8221; As a public university, Temple was bound to abide by the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision. Just last week Valerie I. Harrison, Temple&#8217;s associate university counsel, notified FIRE that the school was waiving the $800 fee for TUP, though she offered no explanation for the decision.</p>
<p>But Temple’s retreat does not mean that this novel means of throttling free speech has been abandoned by administrators anxious to placate campus radicals. A similar controversy arose last November at the University of Southern California (USC), when the College Republicans hosted an appearance by guest speaker David Horowitz. The group was subsequently billed $1,400, ostensibly to cover the cost of additional security that the university had unilaterally arranged for the event. Ultimately a few angry trustees were able to convince the administration to drop these extra charges, although, in a manner reminiscent of the Temple case, USC&#8217;s administrators offered no explanation as to why they had reversed course.</p>
<p>Now <a href="http://www.dailynexus.com/article.php?a=20244">another confrontation</a> is brewing, this time at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), where former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove is slated to speak (and introduce his new book, <em>Courage and Consequence</em>) on February 25, at the invitation of the school&#8217;s College Republicans. Up to now, the projected cost of the event was expected to be $25,000, of which more than half ($12,933) would be covered by Associated Students, a nonprofit organization funded by undergraduate fees. But now, a local group known as SB Anti War, characterizing Rove as a “war criminal,&#8221; has announced that it plans to protest the event; some members have threatened to throw paint on Rove, leaving the implication that significant violence was possible if the event went forward.</p>
<p>According to Ryan McNicholas, the College Republicans’ event coordinator, the protest being organized by the left has caused security costs for Rove&#8217;s appearance to skyrocket. “Because of protester threatens to throw paint on Rove,” he says, “we have had to redirect more of the funds we received into security costs&#8230;. It’s costing us somewhere around $900 an hour to have all the Campus Security Officers and UCPD officers necessary to secure the area. And it’s absolutely ridiculous to force a small organization, like College Republicans, to foot that bill.”</p>
<p>In addition to its plans to demonstrate against Rove&#8217;s appearance, SB Anti War has been collecting signatures in an effort to rescind the funding that Associated Students has pledged for the event. The vice president of Associated Students, Chris Wendle, says the original decision to fund the Rove event was unrelated to latter&#8217;s character or political persuasion. Rather, it was in accordance with the legal code of even handedness that governs Associated Students. “We have to follow the rules,” Wendle explains. “We’re not going to debate the political opinion of an event, regardless of whether or not it’s Karl Rove. Basically, our decision to provide funding was objective.”</p>
<p>It remains to be seen whether the UCSB College Republicans, like Temple University Purpose and the USC College Republicans before them, will be able to fight off a campus left and its enablers in the administration trying asphyxiate their first amendment rights by a technique morally akin to the poll tax in the Jim Crow South.  But even if they do, the era of fees and assessments to keep conservative groups from bringing another point of view onto the monochromatic university is upon us.</p>
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		<title>The New Israel Fund&#8217;s View of a &#8220;New Israel&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jacob-shrybman/the-new-israel-funds-view-of-a-new-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-new-israel-funds-view-of-a-new-israel</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jacob-shrybman/the-new-israel-funds-view-of-a-new-israel/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Feb 2010 05:02:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Shrybman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=50375</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The anti-Israel organization shares Hamas' dream for Israel's future.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nif.gif"><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-50380" title="nif" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nif.gif" alt="" width="470" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>When it was reported that the New Israel Fund (NIF) was paying around $8 million to organizations that provided the Goldstone Report with all of its condemnations of Israel, it became clear that the “New Israel” desired by the New Israel Fund is one with more than 9 years of consistent rocket fire.</p>
<p>Our organization, <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sderotmedia.org.il/" target="_blank">Sderot Media Center</a> (SMC), with a yearly budget of close to $200,000, worked tirelessly on a formal report that was requested by the Goldstone Commission itself, which encompassed the impact of the rocket fire on the residents of the Sderot region. We sent this <a rel="nofollow" href="http://sderotmedia.org.il/bin/content.cgi?ID=484&amp;q=3,6" target="_blank">formal report</a> accompanied by photographs and videos to depict to this UN committee, which did not visit Sderot, what it is like to live under either daily rocket fire or the threat of daily rocket fire over the course of then eight years. The Goldstone Committee then flew our director, Noam Bedein, to the UN Headquarters in Geneva to give a <a rel="nofollow" href="http://sderotmedia.org.il/bin/content.cgi?ID=489&amp;q=2,3,6" target="_blank">30-minute presentation/testimony</a> in front of the committee on this daily reality lived in Sderot.</p>
<p>The New Israel Fund paid around $8 million to organizations that provided information to the Goldstone Report. As a cited provider of information for the Goldstone Report, I guess our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail.</p>
<p>As the only organization providing the human story of the near decade of rocket fire on Israeli men, women and children, the NIF clearly had no intention of helping sponsor our work.</p>
<p>A clear majority of the organizations mentioned in the Goldstone Report, 77%, are organizations that were paid by the NIF. Amongst those organizations, an overwhelming majority of the ones that were in favor of the report, 92%, are organizations that were paid by the NIF.</p>
<p>The New Israel Fund, an organization that supposedly prides itself on democracy and human rights, <em>“We fight inequality, injustice and extremism because we understand that justice is the precondition for a successful democracy</em>,” as defined in their “<em>About Us</em>” &#8212; strategically and financially ignores the human rights of Sderot men, women, and children that have endured this rocket lifestyle since 2001. The one organization located in Sderot that was paid by the NIF was an organization called the Other Voice &#8212; that led a bike ride from Sderot to the Gaza border. Apparently, organizations in Sderot are only worth NIF money if they are speaking out for Gaza residents and riding a bike.</p>
<p>The head of the NIF, Naomi Chazan, has led the response to this Im Tirtzu report by touting terms like “democracy” to describe what she is supporting, and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149056.html" target="_blank">“fascists”</a> is what she has called those who criticize the NIF. A well educated professor like herself should know that democracy is not achieved by Hamas viciously controlling a prisoner population and using them as shields from a sovereign army and paying the UN to enable Hamas to further persevere doesn’t help. A democracy does not put over 100,000 Gaza children through summer military training camps. So, in attempting to bring down the only democracy in the world with international war crimes, Chazan hopes to create her “New Israel” democracy where Hamas can cause the death of more of their children, train more of them to fight Jews, and freely fire rockets at neighboring Israeli children.</p>
<p>A well educated professor like herself, Chazan should know that calling people and organizations that criticize the NIF “fascists” is embarrassingly hypocritical &#8212; while she pays and supports the ongoing actions of terrorists who use their own civilians to target other civilians. The Sderot Media Center criticizes the NIF and Naomi Chazan. So are we that risk our lives day-in and day-out to show the world that rockets are targeting civilians, and whom the popular liberal newspaper <em><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135894.html" target="_blank">Haaretz described as a</a></em> “tiny organization that fights to make Sderot’s voice heard” &#8212; are we fascists? Our center runs a therapeutic drama program, in which traumatized high school girls share and express themselves with psychology professionals. Are these traumatized Sderot girls fascists?</p>
<p>If one reads the report put out by Im Tirtzu about the NIF paying for 77% of the Israeli condemning UN Goldstone Report, one will see how NIF paid more than half a million dollars to Physicians For Human Rights-Israel to send an Israeli condemning report to the Goldstone Committee that completely ignored the over 9,000 psychological patients in Sderot. This is just one example of the strategic financing of biased information that shaped the Goldstone Report.</p>
<p>If the public and donors of the New Israel Fund allow this organization to continue, it will be an upside-down “New Israel” where girls expressing  their trauma are considered fascists and a democracy is where children are put through terrorist training and used as human shields.</p>
<p>I guess, along with an invitation to last week’s Islamic Revolution anniversary rally in Teheran, our New Israel Fund check got lost in the mail.</p>
<p><em>Jacob Shrybman is a writer for the Sderot Media Center <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.sderotmedia.org.il/" target="_blank">(SderotMedia.org.il).</a></em></p>
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		<title>Fighting the Goldstone Report</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/alan-m-dershowitz/fighting-the-goldstone-report-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fighting-the-goldstone-report-2</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 02 Feb 2010 05:08:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Alan M. Dershowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48458</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Israel’s military investigation can establish the truth about Gaza and Hamas terrorism. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-48459" title="n500134185_776885_2974" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/n500134185_776885_2974.jpg" alt="n500134185_776885_2974" width="604" height="453" /></p>
<p>In its most recent response to the Goldstone report, the Israeli government has catalogued the investigations being conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Of the 150 incidents, so far 36 have been referred for criminal investigation. To date, criminal investigators have taken evidence from almost 100 Palestinian complainants and witnesses, along with approximately 500 IDF soldiers and commanders. The Paper describes some of the challenges encountered in the conduct of the investigations, including accessing evidence from battlefield situations and the need to make arrangements, together with non-governmental organizations such as B’Tselem, to locate and interview Palestinian witnesses. To address these challenges, special investigative teams have been appointed and are currently investigation complaints arising from the Gaza Operation.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Some charges being investigated derive from the Goldstone report. Others go beyond the report. The Israeli response explains the extensive investigatory mechanisms employed by Israel, several of which are completely independent of the military chain of command. It compares the Israeli investigatory mechanisms with those of other democratic nations, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.</p>
<p>It then discloses the results of investigations regarding several of the charges made in the Goldstone report, proving by photographic and other evidence that they are unfounded or exaggerated. Of the 150 charges investigated, “36 criminal investigations [were] opened thus far.” The investigations are ongoing.</p>
<p>No other democratic country in the world, with comparably thorough investigative mechanisms, would be told that it had to do more—that a<em> judicial</em> investigation was also required. Neither the United States nor United Kingdom have been told that a judicial inquiry, beyond the investigations already underway, must be conducted. But the Goldstone report demands that Israel and Israel alone must go beyond its normal investigative mechanism and bring in outside judges. This reflects yet another double standard.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, it would be prudent for Israel to conduct a completely independent judicial review. Not that its results would ever satisfy the world’s numerous Israel-bashers. It ought to be conducted to satisfy Israel and supporters of Israel that no stone has been left unturned.</p>
<p>Such a review could include the issuance of subpoenas to soldiers, commanders and policy makers, as in a trial. Or it could be limited to traditional “judicial review” of the findings of military investigators, as in an appeal. That should be up to the Israeli government to decide.</p>
<p>Whatever type of review is decided upon, it will be real—as distinguished from the so-called “investigation” conducted by Hamas, which has already decided that those who fired rockets into Israel had no intention to kill Israeli civilians. Why then did they fire the rockets when children were on the way to school? Why did they fire them in the direction of cities and towns?</p>
<p>What will happen if Israel conducts a probing investigation and Hamas conducts a whitewash? According to the Goldstone report, that should result in referring Hamas, but not Israel, to the International Criminal Court and other tribunals. Will that happen? Don’t hold your breath.</p>
<p>The reality, which any truly independent investigation of Hamas and Israel would disclose, is that many of the civilians who were killed during Operation Cast Lead were, in fact, the victims of a deliberate and willful policy of killing Palestinian civilians in order to gain a non-military advantage. The real question is who killed these civilians and who should be held responsible for their deaths.</p>
<p>Any fair assessment of the evidence leads to the following conclusion: Hamas deliberately conducted its terrorist activities against Israel in a manner calculated by Hamas to produce Palestinian civilian deaths from Israeli weapons. Any fair assessment of the evidence also leads to the conclusion that, while Israel loses from the death of every Palestinian civilian, Hamas gains from every such death. As Golda Meir once put it: “We can perhaps forgive you for killing our children, but we can never forgive you for making us kill your children.”</p>
<p>The last thing Israel wants to do is kill innocent Palestinian civilians. But every democracy is obligated to protect its own civilians from rocket attacks. The truth is that Hamas deliberately fired rockets at Israeli civilians from densely populated civilian areas precisely to put Israel to a Hobson’s choice: either do nothing and allow Israeli civilians to be subject to indiscriminate rocket attacks; or attack those who are firing the rockets, thereby assuring that there will be some Palestinian civilian deaths. The Goldstone report inverted these conclusions because of the evidentiary bias it showed in evaluating the facts. It falsely blamed Israel rather than Hamas for the civilian deaths caused, both factually and morally, by the longstanding Hamas tactic.</p>
<p>It is a well-accepted principle of law, both domestic and international, that when a terrorist fires from a crowded area at innocent people, and the only way the police have of stopping the terrorist from endangering innocent lives is by shooting at him—if the policeman, despite his best efforts, shoots and kills innocent civilians, the <em>terrorist</em> is responsible for those deaths, not the policeman. Any fair assessment of the events in Gaza must begin with that principle—a principle totally ignored by the Goldstone report.</p>
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		<title>FIRE &#8211; Temple University Charges Unconstitutional ‘Security’ Fee for Geert Wilders Event; Dutch Trial Begins Today over Controversial Expression</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/terrorism-awareness-project/fire-temple-university-charges-unconstitutional-%e2%80%98security%e2%80%99-fee-for-geert-wilders-event-dutch-trial-begins-today-over-controversial-expression/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=fire-temple-university-charges-unconstitutional-%25e2%2580%2598security%25e2%2580%2599-fee-for-geert-wilders-event-dutch-trial-begins-today-over-controversial-expression</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:18:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Terrorism Awareness Project]]></dc:creator>
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Temple University Charges Unconstitutional ‘Security’ Fee for Geert Wilders Event; Dutch Trial Begins Today over Controversial Expression
January 20, 2010

Dutch politician Geert Wilders' trial begins today in Amsterdam over his controversial remarks about terrorism and Islam. While such a trial would be unconstitutional in the United States thanks to the First Amendment, students at Temple University in Philadelphia are nevertheless facing an unconstitutional, after-the-fact security fee levied by the university for hosting a presentation by Wilders.
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Temple University Charges Unconstitutional ‘Security’ Fee for Geert Wilders Event; Dutch Trial Begins Today over Controversial Expression<br />
January 20, 2010</p>
<p>Dutch politician Geert Wilders&#8217; trial begins today in Amsterdam over his controversial remarks about terrorism and Islam. While such a trial would be unconstitutional in the United States thanks to the First Amendment, students at Temple University in Philadelphia are nevertheless facing an unconstitutional, after-the-fact security fee levied by the university for hosting a presentation by Wilders.</p>
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