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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Funding</title>
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		<title>An Ominous Omnibus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/an-ominous-omnibus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=an-ominous-omnibus</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:49:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cromnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[omnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The mammoth spending bill would fund amnesty and Obamacare --- and could be voted on today.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/boehner-mcconnell.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247246" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/boehner-mcconnell-407x350.png" alt="boehner-mcconnell" width="329" height="283" /></a>A mammoth spending bill aimed at preventing a repeat of the last government shutdown is coming under heavy fire from conservative groups for green-lighting President Obama&#8217;s executive immigration amnesty and continuing to fund Obamacare.</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress are inexplicably rushing through a catch-all $1 trillion-plus spending bill to prevent the government from running out of money at midnight tonight. The measure, which would keep the government funded through the end of the federal fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2015), is being called a <i>cromnibus</i>, which is a portmanteau of <i>CR</i>, as in continuing resolution, and <i>omnibus</i>, as in omnibus legislation.</p>
<p>The measure contains hundreds of policy provisions including a new prohibition on the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia and new funding to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Ebola virus in West Africa. It would continue funding two wildly unpopular Obama initiatives, Obamacare and President Obama&#8217;s extra-legal immigration amnesty. The Department of Homeland Security would be funded only for a few months, allowing lawmakers to delay a fight over amnesty until springtime.</p>
<p>&#8220;Importantly, the bill does nothing to block President Obama&#8217;s unilateral, unlawful actions which include granting quasi-legal status, work permits and Social Security numbers to those who are in the country illegally,&#8221; said Heritage Action for America spokesman Dan Holler.</p>
<p>&#8220;I suppose we shouldn&#8217;t be surprised that it&#8217;s taken the Republicans all of 35 days to drop that ball in spectacularly disappointing fashion,&#8221; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots said in a statement. &#8220;Make no mistake, this bill DOES fund Obama&#8217;s executive amnesty, and so much more.&#8221;</p>
<p>The measure makes sure that illegal aliens benefiting from Obama&#8217;s amnesty receive Social Security benefits and spends almost $1 billion to help illegals integrate into communities across the country. It also blows apart the budgetary ceilings agreed upon by House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).</p>
<p>There is, of course, no reason for Republicans to pass in a frenzied rush an all-encompassing bill funding almost all of the federal government. They could easily draft a stopgap spending bill to carry them over to January when Republicans will control both chambers of Congress and have greater bargaining power in negotiations with President Obama.</p>
<p>But conservative critics say House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have ulterior motives. Using the boogeyman of an impending government shutdown to keep lawmakers in line, the GOP leadership has been generating a false sense of urgency in order to get the omnibus legislation through. Boehner and McConnell, they say, have no intention of repealing Obamacare, so they are kicking the can into 2015.</p>
<p>Most elected Republicans still seem blissfully unaware that the the last shutdown in October 2013 was an unmitigated public relations success for Republicans even though it might not have felt that way at the time. Setting aside the relentless media propaganda that falsely painted the shutdown as a massive Democratic tactical victory, the episode sent the unmistakable message that GOPers were champions of freedom of choice in health care.</p>
<p>The shutdown boosted GOP public approval numbers all the way through the election this month, helped to revive the fight against Obamacare as millions of Americans were having their health insurance policies abruptly canceled, and helped to set the stage for the Republicans’ historic trouncing of the Democrats in congressional elections. The shutdown was an extended, cost-free infomercial for the GOP that reminded Americans that Republicans were on their side on an issue that mattered to them. In other words, it derailed what had seemed like an unstoppable leftist narrative that the always-unpopular Obamacare was a done deal and that resistance to it was futile.</p>
<p>Those gun-shy Republicans who oppose a government shutdown at all costs are never quite able to explain why, if the shutdown was so bad for the GOP, Republicans are now on the march. On Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning 54 seats. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 246 out of 435 seats.</p>
<p>Opposition to the spending measure has grown steadily since the bill was unveiled Tuesday night but Republican leadership in the House says it is confident it can get the bill passed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, 10 grassroots conservative groups have <a href="http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/12/grassroots-revolt-10-conservative-groups-call-for-boehner-mcconnell-to-resign/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">signed a letter</span></a> demanding that Boehner and McConnell be removed from their posts for collaborating with the president on amnestying 5 million illegal aliens.</p>
<p>William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, said the pending bill betrays the values held by more than 70 percent of the people who cast ballots in the congressional elections last month.</p>
<p>“They’re mocking the public, and it’s a huge deception. We can’t allow that deception to prevail. What we need right now is, we need the phones ringing off the hook,” said Gheen. “Word in D.C. is Boehner is hell-bent on getting his plan through to help Obama with the budget, and American citizens out there now have less than 48 hours to respond and take action to change that.”</p>
<p>&#8220;Christmas has come early for the big spenders in Congress who have been experiencing long-term withdrawal from the earmark ban,&#8221; said Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs at the Club for Growth (a group that did not sign the letter). &#8220;This 1,603-page bill provides a &#8216;fix&#8217; for these jonesing politicians who carry water for their special interest buddies.&#8221;</p>
<p>A final vote on the spending legislation could come today.</p>
<p>Members of organized labor have come out against the bill. Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/10/BLOOD-IN-THE-WATER-TEAMSTERS-JIMMY-HOFFA-JR-TO-CONGRESS-KILL-THE-OMNIBUS-BILL"><span style="color: #0433ff;">railed</span></a> against the measure because it &#8220;will slash the pensions of thousands of retirees who worked years for a pension that they thought would provide them financial security in their retirement years. That promise is now busted.”</p>
<p>“To add insult to injury, this Omnibus bill compromises highway safety by rolling back Hours-of-Service regulations, allowing truck drivers to work more than 80 hours per week – twice the normal 40-hour work week,” Hoffa added.</p>
<p>Yesterday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi expressed reservations about the measure. “Once more, Republicans are working to stack the deck for the special interests against everyone else,” Pelosi said. She continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>Buried in the more than 1,600 pages of the omnibus package Republicans posted in the dead of night are provisions to put hard-working taxpayers back on the hook for Wall Street’s riskiest behavior. This provision, allowing big banks to gamble with money insured by the FDIC, opens the door to another taxpayer-funded bailout of big banks – forcing middle class families to bear the burden of Wall Street’s mistakes.</p></blockquote>
<p>Even Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), normally a hyper-partisan member of the Democratic leadership, now opposes the bill. He is opposed to the proposed increases in caps for individual donors in elections that was slipped into the omnibus legislation.</p>
<p>Some of the more extreme left-wing members of Congress such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/warren-leads-liberal-democrats-rebellion-over-provisions-in-1-trillion-spending-bill/2014/12/10/c5c915e4-80b5-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">are opposed</span></a> to the omnibus for their own ideological reasons.</p>
<p>Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), currently the fringe-left favorite for the 2016 presidential nod, called the bill &#8220;the worst of government for the rich and powerful.&#8221;</p>
<p>The measure would ease some restrictions on derivatives trading which Warren says would help Wall Street and big banks. On the Senate floor she offered a self-serving version of history, saying the bill “would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”</p>
<p>“These are the same banks that nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs,” she said, ignoring the role that meddlesome regulations and left-wing public policies played in inflating the mortgage bubble that deflated around that time.</p>
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		<title>The Extremist, Radical New Israel Fund and Its Funders</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ronn-torossian/the-extremist-radical-new-israel-fund-and-its-funders/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-extremist-radical-new-israel-fund-and-its-funders</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 28 Nov 2014 05:00:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[donations]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Extreme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new israel fund]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246199</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The immense funding campaign behind the anti-Israel organization. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/money-rolls.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246200" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/money-rolls.jpg" alt="money-rolls" width="351" height="262" /></a>During these sensitive times, as the world is a kinder-box due to Muslim extremists, Jewish extremists must also be rejected. As Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor recently said in United Nations speech, “Most people believe that at its core, the conflict is a battle between Jews and Arabs or Israelis and Palestinians. They are wrong. The battle that we are witnessing is a battle between those who sanctify life and those who celebrate death.” The Ambassador is right – which means organizations like the New Israel Fund (NIF) which empower terrorists must be shunned. <span style="color: #1255cc;"><a href="http://observer.com/2014/11/new-israel-fund-supports-groups-that-hurt-the-jewish-state/">The New Israel Fund supports groups that hurt the Jewish State.</a></span></p>
<p style="color: #232323;">An NIF grantee, the Executive Director of the Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF), received $332,625 from 2011-2013 in grants from the New Israel Fund and recently called Israel “racist,” and “murderous,” and described the country as a “temporary Jewish apartheid state.” She actively promotes the Palestinian ‘right of return.’ Other NIF grantees demand boycotts of the State of Israel, and contribute to gross Anti-Semitism by funding campaigns for Breaking the Silence who tour college campuses to accuse Israel of war crimes.  These organizations are outside the consensus. As The <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/11/26/birthright-israel-terminates-partnership-with-controversial-new-israel-fund/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Algemeiner Journal</span></a> reported New Israel Fund is “a controversial foundation that supports dozens of Israel related causes, many of which are considered hostile to the Jewish State.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Thankfully today it was revealed that Birthright and Young Judea will no longer work with New Israel Fund. New Israel Fund is associated with funding boycotts of Israel and programs to support the Israel Defense Forces, hence the Jewish community is rejecting these extremists. As Algemeiner added, “NIF <a href="http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/new_israel_fund"><span style="color: #1255cc;">actively supports organizations</span></a> like Machsom Watch, which harass Israeli soldiers while on duty at checkpoints, Breaking The Silence which dispatches former Israeli soldiers on international tours accusing the IDF of human rights violations and war crimes, and +972 magazine, which offers a ready stream of anti-Israel articles and opinions pieces. During the recent Gaza war, New Israel Fund dispatched emergency grants to fund anti-Israel protests in Israel.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">NIF donors support extremists’ viewpoints with barely any support amongst the democratic electorate of Israel. While one constantly hears about donors on the right, why is the left given a pass when they help fund anti-democratic behavior?</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Irwin Jacobs, a co-founder of Qualcomm is a major donor to The New Israel Fund, as is his fellow San Diegoan, The Leichtag Foundation.  While The Fohs Foundation claims that their position is “not to look back, not to criticize Israel or place blame, but rather to promote opportunity going forward,”, yet by supporting the New Israel Fund, they stand with calling Israeli soldiers war crimes.  That is out of bounds – and responsible donors <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/celebrating-anti-israel-extremists/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">must reject these extremists</span></a>.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">From the Edith and Henry Everett  Foundation who fund The Jewish Book Council, Joint Distribution Committee, American Friends of Israel Sci-Tech Schools and others, one fails to comprehend why they would want to be associated with the New Israel Fund, which Professor Gerald Steinberg recently described as an organization that “..claim to support Israel and human rights principles, they enable the highly destructive activities that do the opposite. By the time these funders acknowledge this failure and end their support, the damage will be done.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">From the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund to The Irving Harris Foundation, Arnold Hiatt to many others, <a href="http://www.nif.org/about/financials"><span style="color: #1255cc;">The New Israel Fund annual report</span></a> is a study in those who seek to fund campaigns which support boycotts of Israel, supporting Anti-Semitism on campus, and prosecuting Israeli war crimes.  The supporters of these causes are all visible in the New Israel Fund annual report.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The New Israel Fund has decreased in funding from $37 Million in 2010 to $27 Million in 2013. This dangerous extremist organization neglects the reality on the ground and the will of the people. America’s closest Middle East ally, Israel, faces a grave enemy of terrorists and despots, and supporting organizations which undermine the Israel Defense Forces and encourage boycotts of Israel are simply dangerous.</p>
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		<title>Intifada in Ferguson</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/intifada-in-ferguson/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=intifada-in-ferguson</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Nov 2014 05:45:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conviction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ferguson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[groups]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Brown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rasmieh Odeh]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorist]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245173</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why supporters of Palestinian terrorists have made common cause with the rioters in MO.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ferguson-palestine-occupation-ap.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245174" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/ferguson-palestine-occupation-ap-450x337.jpg" alt="ferguson-palestine-occupation-ap" width="336" height="252" /></a>The same violent protesters in Ferguson, Missouri demonstrating against the killing of Michael Brown have also been taking it to the streets in Detroit and elsewhere to press for the release of a Palestinian terrorist who killed two Israelis.</p>
<p>Activists are blackmailing the grand jury that is now hearing evidence against Wilson. If the grand jurors refuse to indict Wilson, radical activists are promising even more mayhem. The message is unmistakable: indict the cop, and there will be peace; don&#8217;t, and Ferguson will burn.</p>
<p>Brown is the young, black, 6&#8217;4&#8243;, 292-pound man who was killed by white police officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9. When media outlets describe Brown they usually omit the fact that he viciously assaulted Wilson and tried to seize his handgun, presumably in an effort to do the officer harm. Journalists also tend to downplay the fact that minutes before Brown attacked Wilson he robbed a convenience store.</p>
<p>The Palestinian terrorist is Rasmea (also spelled Rasmieh) Odeh who was convicted by a Detroit jury on Monday of immigration fraud. Prosecutors accused Odeh of killing Israelis in the Sixties and then lying about it in U.S. immigration papers.</p>
<p>Odeh <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/case/652"><span style="color: #0433ff;">was previously convicted</span></a> in Israel &#8220;for her role in the 1969 bombings of a supermarket and the British Consulate in Jerusalem, which were carried out on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a designated terrorist organization,&#8221; according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Prosecutors said one of the supermarket bombs killed two people and injured others. Odeh received a sentence of life imprisonment but was released after 10 years as part of a prisoner swap.</p>
<p>Odeh used to live in Michigan and resided in Chicago until her bail was revoked Monday. In Chicago she was employed as associate director of the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6462"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Arab American Action Network</span></a> (AAAN), which was founded by terrorist promoter Rashid Khalidi and his wife, Mona. Khalidi, a Columbia University professor and former director of the PLO&#8217;s press agency, is a well-known friend of Barack Obama. AAAN, which is hostile to Israel, claims &#8220;to challenge government policies that violate the civil, political and human rights of the Arab American and Arab immigrant community.&#8221;</p>
<p>The seditious collaboration in Ferguson between anti-American left-wingers, some of whom are well-funded, and anti-American Islamofascists isn&#8217;t all that unusual in U.S. politics but it receives scant attention from the media.</p>
<p>Leftist and Islamist groups routinely work together in the U.S. Not many on the activist Left are wary of their comrades&#8217; working relationship with Muslim totalitarians who would joyfully slit their atheist, infidel throats upon coming to power. One such leftist, Meredith Tax, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/a-leftists-harsh-words-for-the-unholy-alliance/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">acknowledged</span></a> in a book last year that aligning with Islamic fundamentalists was a terrible idea.</p>
<p>But Tax is a very rare bird. Most leftists see America&#8217;s enemies as their natural allies, so when an opportunity for a working partnership arises they seize it with gusto. As they see things, whatever it takes to advance so-called social justice is justified.</p>
<p>As a Sixties radical once wrote, &#8220;The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.&#8221;</p>
<p>In other words, whatever the cause, whether inner city blacks or illegal aliens or women, it is merely a pretext for action. It is an opportunity to advance the real cause which is the accumulation of the power needed to foment and effectuate revolutionary change.</p>
<p>Rana Baker, a writer at Electronic Intifada, <a href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rana-baker/palestinians-express-solidarity-people-ferguson-mike-brown-statement"><span style="color: #0433ff;">explained</span></a> the Marxist, identity politics-driven rationale for this cooperation between American leftists and Islamic supremacists in Ferguson. In an article filled with politically correct drivel she wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>Unsurprisingly, many of the police deployed to crush unarmed protesters demanding justice for the brutal murder of eighteen-year-old black American Mike Brown are Israel-trained. Despotic tactics Palestinians largely associate with Israel’s colonial military, such as teargassing protesters and harassing journalists, have all been implemented in Ferguson. Although Ferguson and Palestine are two different contexts, both places and their people are fighting against white supremacist regimes of oppression which continue to view them as &#8220;disposable others&#8221; and act accordingly &#8230; it is the moral responsibility of every Palestinian to support and foster relations with the struggles of the oppressed all over the world.</p></blockquote>
<p>No one who follows the Left should be shocked to learn that Ferguson has been dominated by rent-a-mobs in recent weeks, complete with leftist astroturfers determined to stir the pot.</p>
<p>Groups endorsing Ferguson October, last month&#8217;s festival of leftist looting and self-righteous posturing in the beleaguered St. Louis suburb, included a hodgepodge of activist organizations &#8211;many of them Saul Alinsky-inspired pressure groups &#8212; that have little or nothing to do with Ferguson, Michael Brown, or Darren Wilson. The only thing these labor movement and Occupy Wall Street activists had in common was that they were left-wing.</p>
<p>Among them were: Action for the Common Good; Advancement Project; Alliance for a Just Society; Amnesty International; CAAAV: Organizing Asian Communities (Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence); ColorOfChange.org; Catholic Worker; Chinese Progressive Association; Coalition of Black Trade Unionists; Code Pink; Divestment Student Network; Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation; Fighting Against Natural Gas (FANG); Gamaliel Foundation; International Socialist Organization (ISO); Juvenile Urban Multicultural Program (at Syracuse University); Korean American Resource &amp; Cultural Center; LeftRoots; Million Hoodies Movement for Justice; National Domestic Workers Alliance; National Network for Arab American Communities; National Organization for Women (NOW); New Black Panther Party; New Economy Coalition; PICO National Network; Progressive Democrats of America; Sierra Student Coalition (a project of the Sierra Club); St. Louis Palestine Solidarity Committee; Universal African Peoples Organization; United for Peace and Justice; US Action; US Palestinian Community Network; Veterans for Peace; and Working Families Party.</p>
<p>Many of these groups <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/viewSubCategory.asp?id=1237"><span style="color: #0433ff;">have taken money</span></a> from radical billionaire George Soros. Those on his payroll include Advancement Project, Gamaliel Foundation, NOW, and US Action.</p>
<p>Lee Cary has also <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/11/behind_the_dont_shoot_coalition_in_ferguson_.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">painstakingly detailed</span></a> at American Thinker the 45 organizations that are now placing demands on police agencies in the St. Louis area. The groups, which are part of the Don&#8217;t Shoot Coalition, are <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/11/ferguson-protestors-deliver-rules-of-engagement-to-police/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">attempting to define</span></a> the rules of engagement between law enforcement and activists to make it easier for radicals to set Ferguson on fire in the event Wilson is not indicted.</p>
<p>Remnants of the ACORN activist empire are involved in organizing unrest in Ferguson.</p>
<p>Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (<a href="http://organizemo.org/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">MORE</span></a>), a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, is the rebranded Missouri branch of the former Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) which filed for bankruptcy in late 2010. That ACORN state chapter reconstituted itself in December 2009 as MORE under orders from ACORN&#8217;s national headquarters. President Obama used to work for ACORN and he represented it in court as a lawyer.</p>
<p>MORE <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/10/is_acorn_behind_violent_unrest_in_ferguson.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">has been active</span></a> in the protests and in efforts to free jailed demonstrators so they can continue vandalizing businesses, intimidating perceived adversaries, setting fires, throwing projectiles and urine at cops, and engaging in the Left&#8217;s usual modes of so-called nonviolent protest. MORE believes that protesters should be given a blank check to inflict whatever harm they wish on the community in pursuit of social justice.</p>
<p>MORE is also a recipient of taxpayer funding &#8212; and to no one&#8217;s surprise &#8212; it is not a good steward of those dollars. MORE received $21,000 for its &#8220;foreclosure prevention&#8221; efforts but &#8220;did not fully comply&#8221; with the rules, according to the St. Louis city comptroller&#8217;s &#8220;fiscal monitoring review&#8221; <a href="https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/comptroller/documents/audits/upload/3586_001.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">released</span></a> a few days before Brown was shot.</p>
<p>MORE&#8217;s executive director is longtime ACORN organizer <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-ordower/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Jeff Ordower</span></a>. Ordower, an outspoken vote fraud apologist, previously ran Missouri ACORN and oversaw ACORN&#8217;s Midwest operations. He was also an SEIU organizer in Texas.</p>
<p>The Working Families Party, founded in New York State in the 1990s by ACORN members, is also involved in Ferguson. It endorsed Ferguson October but the extent of its on-the-ground involvement was unclear at time of writing.</p>
<p><span style="color: #222222;">All these superficially distinct groups have come together in Ferguson to pay homage to violent criminals &#8211;a murderer of Israelis and a would-be murderer of a police officer&#8211; for two reasons.</span><br style="color: #222222;" /><br style="color: #222222;" /><span style="color: #222222;">First, because Rasmea Odeh and Michael Brown are model citizens, according to the leftist worldview. Radical activists see them and their disruptive, antisocial behavior as representing the best that humanity has to offer.</span><br style="color: #222222;" /><br style="color: #222222;" /><span style="color: #222222;">Second, because banding together and pooling their power to disrupt society helps to create strife and chaos. The subsequent crises can be leveraged to promote the kinds of change that leftists would like to see.</span><br style="color: #222222;" /><br style="color: #222222;" /><span style="color: #222222;">As the old radical said, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.</span></p>
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		<title>Hatred Masquerading as Scholarship in the Classroom</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/sarahnstern/hatred-masquerading-as-scholarship-in-the-classroom/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hatred-masquerading-as-scholarship-in-the-classroom</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 04:35:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Sarah N. Stern]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[... And how your tax dollars fund it. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1508654364.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241258" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/1508654364-425x350.jpg" alt="1508654364" width="304" height="250" /></a></i></p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;[T]hey will bomb Gaza back to the Stone Age they said, and that they did&#8211;and yet there are very few spots on planet earth today nobler to the human spirit of resistance to tyranny and injustice than Gaza&#8211;now held like a shining jewel on the loving ring of humanity around the globe&#8211;I kiss that noble ground and hold it dearer than cities full of ignoble postmodern architecture built on the stolen land of other people.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8211; Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, referring to Israel&#8217;s Operation Protective Edge; Facebook, August 6, 2014. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/dabashi/photos/a.268551769831776.65317.267326509954302/795332067153741/?type=1"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>(link to source)</i></span></a></p></blockquote>
<p>The above quote, replete with biases and omissions, does not simply represent the viewpoint of one lone professor. It represents an extensively held perspective that has become a rigid orthodoxy that permeates through many of our nation’s Middle Eastern Studies Departments. This bias is being spoon-fed to our nation’s college students and sold to them as scholarship. As American parents who save for years for their youngsters’ college tuitions, many of us should be outraged that this bigotry is masquerading as solid erudition to our youngsters. As American citizens, we should be outraged that this sort of thinking is being subsidized by the American government in the form of Title VI grants to universities, and is shaping the thinking of our current and future American thinkers and leaders.</p>
<p>In fact, so blatant are the biases of the program, that 218 scholars from Middle Eastern Studies programs across the country, ranging from Columbia University and New York University on the East, the University of Chicago University of Illinois, and Michigan State University in the Mid-West to University of California in Los Angeles, Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, San Diego, Riverside, Santa Cruz, and hundreds of points in between, have all recently signed a petition for an academic boycott of Israeli Universities and any joint program with Israeli scholars.</p>
<p>How did this come about?</p>
<p>Title VI of the Higher Education Opportunities Act, which had formerly been known as The National Defense Education Act was implemented in 1958, during the height of the Cold War, in order to ensure that we were prepared to confront the challenges of the Soviet threat.  At that time, it was felt that our students were woefully ill-equipped to be competitive in the world against the Soviets in their knowledge of foreign languages and regions. It was then determined that certain universities were to be granted sizeable sums of money from the federal government in order to establish and help maintain regional or area studies centers, such as African Studies, Asian Studies, Latin Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies etc. in order to ensure that our nation had a generation of well-trained regional experts to meet the national security and defense challenges arising out of the former Soviet Union.</p>
<p>Our government therefore provided tax payers’ dollars to give birth to a regional studies industry in order to meet a specific national and security need. However, with the ensuing years, the original legislative intent of Title VI was totally ignored, and the universities simply took the money without any sort of oversight.</p>
<p>Universities have always been the vanguard of the latest political fashions and trends. The very first institutions in Germany to willfully adopt Nazism were the universities. Indeed, Martin Heidegarr who was a famous philosopher and a Nazi sympathizer, fired the James Husserl, the father of phenomenology because he was a Jew.</p>
<p>Many products of the ‘70s, who had been profoundly affected by the anti-Viet Nam war movement, have ended up teaching on college campuses, where a rigid liberal orthodoxy has set in and dominated the classroom instruction.  This was reflected in a classic survey by Prof. Robert Lichter of George Masson University, Professor Stanley Rothman of Smith College and Professor Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto,  which was based on a survey of 1,643 full-time faculty at 183 four-year schools.</p>
<p>The survey found that 72 percent of those teaching at American universities and colleges are liberal and 15 percent are conservative, says the study being published this week. The imbalance is almost as striking in partisan terms, with 50 percent of the faculty members surveyed identifying themselves as Democrats and 11 percent as Republicans. In elite universities, the disparity is even greater, with 87 per cent of faculty describing themselves as “liberal” and only 13 per cent describing themselves as “conservative.”</p>
<p>Another study that came out in 2012 by Professor Yoel Inbar and Professor Jorris Lammers, indicated that more than one third of the respondents said that they would discriminate against a conservative candidate for a faculty position. One respondent openly admitted that “if faculty members could figure out who was conservative, they would never have hired them.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Middle Eastern Studies programs have enthusiastically embraced this liberal orthodoxy as a knee-jerk sympathy for the Palestinian cause, as the under-dog. Most classes reflect no appreciation for the struggles of the state of Israel, which they often describe in the most distorted, vulgar and hateful of terms, as “racist,” “imperialist,” “colonialist,” even as “war criminals” and “Nazi-like.”</p>
<p>Much of what passes for scholarship in the Academy in the United States has emanated from a simplistic treatise by the late professor of comparative English literature of Columbia University Edward Said, entitled, “Orientalism.”  “Orientalism,” which came out in 1978, is considered a foundational text of post-colonial theory that revolutionized the field. It tends to regard as suspect any scholar who, himself, is not a native of the Arab world. So that means scholars such as Bernard Lewis or Efraim Karsh are castigated as “orientalists” who have no <i>real </i>understanding of the field, and Edward Said, and his disciples, such as Joseph Mossad and Rashid Khalidi, are considered to be the <i>genuine </i>experts.</p>
<p>Much of the scholarship is oriented along this rigid, one-sided political agenda and is of an inferior quality, replete with errors of omission and commission. Students who are Jewish or whose beliefs do not conform to this agenda are often made to feel marginalized, as though their beliefs are antiquated and bigoted. Many students have reported being singled out for harassment in the classroom by professors when they challenge any of these ideas.</p>
<p>On the campus, this pseudo-scholarship has given an intellectual patina for the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism. We see this every year as the “Divest-Boycott-Sanctions,” (BDS) movement grows, and “Palestinian Solidarity Week” or “Israel Apartheid Week” grows in popularity on our nations’ college campuses.</p>
<p>A one-sided political agenda, at taxpayer’s expense, has often become a paltry substitute for a good, solid education in regional studies. Many of this is reported in the late Dr. Gary Tobin’s excellent book, “The Uncivil University: Politics &amp; Propaganda in American Education.”</p>
<p>In many of these departments, not only is Israel portrayed as the cause for all the problems in the Middle East, the United Sates is depicted as “the mother of all ills” in the world. Many students who are graduates of Title VI programs tend to be more sympathetic to some of our nation’s foes than to their own nation. It is almost reflexive to blame America first in these programs for our “colonialism” or “imperialism.”</p>
<p>They are equally likely to blame Israel first when anything, whatsoever, erupts in the Middle East, including the Sunni-Shiite conflict, or ISIS taking over parts of Iraq, saying that this is &#8220;the underlying root cause of the problem,” and “our relationship with Israel is the source of our resentment, overseas.”</p>
<p>Of course, the more one studies the Middle East, the more one realizes that this is wholly ludicrous; that the region is replete with many ancient, tribal and atavistic rivalries that are not easily remedied. Yet, when one speaks to most graduates of Middle Eastern programs, they predictably pin the blame for everything that goes awry in the Middle East on this, or as a minimum say, “We will be more likely to win the favor of the parties if we get to the root cause, if we first resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.”</p>
<p>One doubts that it is ever mentioned in the classroom that the Palestinians have been taught to despise and to vilify the Israeli, the Christian and the Jew, and that since 1993, they have been fed a steady diet of anti-Semitism that has metastasized like a cancer throughout the Palestinian body politic. When one of the parties can’t even say they recognize Israel’s right to live as a Jewish state, without choking over the words, that makes the odds of resolving this conflict rather low.</p>
<p>Almost as reflexively, when the United States is forced to enter into any conflict, the United States is almost reflexively blamed in the university classroom for meddling and inflaming the region. President Barack Obama’s policies seem to be almost wholly reflective of this sort of rigid analysis</p>
<p>One readily sees therefore, how the original intent of the Title VI legislation has been turned on its head. By now, many of the students who are graduates of these programs have already entered into positions of leadership, and one does not have to search any further than these programs when one fears that America is in a period of decline in our international standing in the world. Practically any step the United States takes as a moral leader is automatically looked upon with cynicism.</p>
<p>What makes this even more pernicious is that in order to get the Title VI grant from the government, the university professors in these departments must conduct “teacher training workshops” for teachers of kindergarten through twelfth grade, ensuring that these biases get transferred to our most vulnerable and impressionable youngsters who lack critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>From 2004 through 2008, I had been privileged to work with two of the most renowned experts in the field, Martin Kramer, author of many books including the seminal study on Title VI centers, “Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America,” and Stanley Kurtz, himself a former scholar of Indian Studies and renowned columnist for National review Online, in order to work with Congress to correct this.</p>
<p>We were successful in passing certain amendments to Title VI in 2008. These included a statuary requirement for: 1.) The Secretary of Education to develop a survey from a wide range of Federal agencies to find out what it is that they need for expertise in world regions and languages 2.) The Secretary of Education is to assist the universities who were recipients of Title VI funding in developing a survey to students to determine their areas of employment or post-graduate study. This survey should be administered by the university once every two years, and the results of the survey should be reported to the Secretary of Education. And most importantly: 3.) Each university which receives Title VI funding is to reflect “an explanation of how the activities funded by the grant will reflect diverse perspectives and a wide range of views and generate debate.”</p>
<p>The funding for this program is up for congressional renewal this year. From our discussions with educational congressional staffers on Capitol Hill, it appears as though it will automatically be put on “continuous resolution,” (which means, that because they don’t have the time or the inclination to take it up, the program, and its funding will remain in place).</p>
<p>However, it does not appear that any of these legally mandated requirements have been taken seriously. There has been zero congressional oversight, zero accountability and zero transparency to the revisions in the law that I had helped to enact.</p>
<p>I strongly suspect that all of these requirements, particularly the one which asks the university to describe what steps they have taken  “to encourage diverse perspectives,” are wholly glossed over, and that the DOE is simply rubber-stamping any university that applies for a grant from this program.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the use of our taxpayers’ dollars to fund these programs which trade flimsy propaganda as a paltry substitute for firm scholarship continues unabated. Much of this has simply served to give an intellectual patina to the ancient virus of antisemtism, a virus that has survived centuries of mutations, and for which there is no known antidote.</p>
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		<title>Ramadan Charity: Funding Atrocities</title>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jul 2014 04:25:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Enza Ferreri]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236801</guid>
		<description><![CDATA['Tis the season. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4770-90988336.400w.tn_.png"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-236802" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/4770-90988336.400w.tn_.png" alt="4770-90988336.400w.tn" width="260" height="200" /></a>It&#8217;s Islam&#8217;s holy month of Ramadan, and many advertising boards on the streets of London &#8212; or, more appropriately, Londonistan, as it befits a city with such a large, influential and radical Muslim population &#8212; invite Mohammedans to pay their zakat (Muslim obligatory charity).</p>
<p>Zakat donations in the UK have greatly increased in the last few years, and Ramadan is traditionally a time when zakat giving grows.</p>
<p>The posters portray cute kids and people in distress, reminding Muslims of their duty to help them.</p>
<p>How nice. Are these truthful reflections of the philanthropic nature of the &#8220;religion of peace&#8221;?</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s see. The problems with zakat are essentially two:</p>
<p>The first is that Islamic charity should benefit only other Muslims. Not exactly a generous spirit embracing all humanity.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/048-qmt.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Quran</span></a> teaches:</p>
<blockquote><p>Muhammad is the messenger of Allah; and those who are with him are strong against Unbelievers, (but) compassionate amongst each other. (48.29)</p></blockquote>
<p>This is after all consistent with the rest of <a href="http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/003-qmt.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Islamic teaching</span></a>, which cautions Muslims against befriending infidels:</p>
<blockquote><p>Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution, that ye may Guard yourselves from them. But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah. (Quran, 3.28)</p></blockquote>
<p>Islamic law forbids zakat from being used to help non-Muslims.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur%27an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Zakat">WikiIslam</a></span> reiterates:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is scholarly consensus (ijma`) that zakat cannot be given to non-Muslims, as mentioned by Ibn al-Mundhir, Kasani, Ibn Qudama, Buhuti, and others.</p>
<p>Muwaffaq Ibn Qudama, a great Hanbali Imam, says in his Mughni:</p>
<p>&#8216;We do not know of any difference of opinion among the people of knowledge (ahl al-`ilm) that zakat on wealth cannot be given to a kafir&#8217; Ibn al-Mundhir said, &#8216;There is consensus of all those whose positions we know from the people of knowledge that a non-Muslim (dhimmi) cannot be given any zakat.&#8217;</p></blockquote>
<p>Christian refugee victims of the flood that devastated Pakistan in 2010 know this part of Islamic doctrine all too well. They were <a href="http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=7460"><span style="color: #0433ff;">denied aid</span></a> largely donated by the post-Christian West &#8212; which didn&#8217;t seem to care very much about this politically correct form of discrimination &#8212; unless they converted to Islam.</p>
<blockquote><p>“The tireless work of Caritas continues in all directions, in every diocese and without discrimination on the recipients,” said Bishop Max John Rodrigues of Hyderabad. “In the diocese, we help everyone. Many religious and Catholic volunteers are working in the area. I see a lot of solidarity: Muslims, Christians, and Hindus are united in suffering.</p>
<p>“<b>As far as the aid brought by Islamic charity groups, they defend themselves by saying that according to their doctrine, the money from the zakhat (Islamic alms) should go only to Muslims</b>,” he added. [Emphasis added.]</p></blockquote>
<p>Similarly, the prohibition also explains why the <a href="https://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/islamic-charity-to-haiti-helps%e2%80%a6mosques/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">contribution</span></a> from Muslim countries to the Haiti 2010 earthquake relief effort &#8212; since Haiti has almost no Muslims &#8212; was puny, and the aid from one of the US&#8217;s largest Islamic charities, LIFE for Relief and Development, was used just <a href="http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2010/10/04/islamic-charity-uses-earthquake-relief-to-push-mosque-expansion-in-haiti/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">to build mosques</span></a> in the Caribbean country.</p>
<p>And that&#8217;s not all. Non-Muslims can in some cases be allowed to receive charity donations, but only <a href="http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/009-qmt.php"><span style="color: #0433ff;">to attract them to Islam</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Alms are only for the poor and the needy, and the officials (appointed) over them, and <b>those whose hearts are made to incline (to truth)</b> and the (ransoming of) captives and those in debts and in the way of Allah and the wayfarer; an ordinance from Allah; and Allah is knowing, Wise. (Quran, 9.60) [Emphasis added]</p></blockquote>
<p>Shaykh Muhammad Saalih al-Munajjid <a href="http://islamqa.info/en/21384"><span style="color: #0433ff;">says</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is permissible to give regular charity – not obligatory charity (i.e., zakaah) to poor kaafirs, and to exhange gifts and with them and treat them well <b>to soften their hearts towards Islam</b>. [Emphasis added]</p></blockquote>
<p>This is a candid peace appeared in the United Arab Emirates’s <a href="http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/zakat-fund-to-give-dh1-million-for-100-converts"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>The National</i></span></a>, for example:</p>
<blockquote><p>One hundred new converts to Islam will each receive an equal share of Dh1 million donated by the Zakat Fund. Zakat, the third pillar of Islam, is a mandatory tax for every Muslim who is financially able to contribute. It is calculated at 2.5 per cent of financial assets, but has different rates for a variety of other sources of wealth, such as livestock and minerals.</p>
<p>New converts are one of eight broad categories defined as deserving recipients of zakat in Islam.</p></blockquote>
<p>The second problem with zakat is even more serious. It&#8217;s not enough that Muslim charity does not do any good to the rest of the human species; it&#8217;s also meant to do it harm.</p>
<p>Of the eight broad categories of recipients of zakat referred to in the above quotation, one merits our close attention.</p>
<p>The Quran&#8217;s verse 9.60 quoted before lists as recipients those &#8220;in the way of Allah.&#8221; And this is <a href="http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/zakat.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">what it means</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Zakat can be given in the path of Allah. By this is meant to finance a Jihad effort in the path of Allah, not for Jihad for other reasons. The fighter (mujahid) will be given as salary what will be enough for him. If he needs to buy arms or some other supplies related to the war effort, Zakat money should be used provided the effort is to raise the banner of Islam.</p></blockquote>
<p>The classic manual of Islamic law <a href="http://www.shafiifiqh.com/maktabah/relianceoftraveller.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Reliance of the Traveller</i></span></a> couldn&#8217;t be clearer:</p>
<blockquote><p>THE EIGHT CATEGORIES OF RECIPIENTS</p>
<p>h8.7 It is obligatory to distribute one&#8217;s zakat among eight categories of recipients (O: meaning that zakat goes to none besides them), one-eighth of the zakat to each category&#8230;</p>
<p>THOSE FIGHTING FOR ALLAH</p>
<p>h8.17 The seventh category is those fighting for Allah, meaning people engaged in Islamic military operations for whom no salary has been allotted in the army roster (O: but who are volunteers for jihad without remuneration). They are given enough to suffice them for the operation, even if affluent; of weapons, mounts, clothing, and expenses (O: for the duration of the journey, round trip, and the time they spend there, even if prolonged. Though nothing has been mentioned here of the expense involved in supporting such people&#8217;s families during this period, it seems clear that they should also be given it).</p></blockquote>
<p>One of the most prominent Islamic scholars, Shaykh Dr Yusuf al-Qaradawi, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Union_of_Muslim_Scholars"><span style="color: #0433ff;">chairman</span></a> of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, currently listed as 31st among the world’s most influential Muslim figures according to <a href="http://themuslim500.com/profile/sheikh-dr-yusuf-al-qaradawi"><span style="color: #0433ff;">The Muslim 500</span></a> (an annual <a href="http://www.5pillarz.com/2013/11/15/al-azhar-grand-sheikh-named-worlds-most-influential-muslim/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">publication compiled</span></a> by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan in cooperation with Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University) was quoted in an article entitled <a href="http://www.onislam.net/english/ask-the-scholar/international-relations-and-jihad/jihad-rulings-and-regulations/174504-spending-zakah-money-on-jihad.html?Regulations="><span style="color: #0433ff;">&#8220;Spending Zakah Money on Jihad&#8221;</span></a> as saying:</p>
<blockquote><p>If war is waged anywhere to achieve this goal, namely to free the occupied lands of the laws and the tyranny of disbelievers, it is undoubtedly a case of Jihad for the sake of Allah. It thus needs to be financed from the money of Zakah&#8230;</p></blockquote>
<p>During a BBC <i>Panorama</i> program of a few years ago &#8212; whose interesting title <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/5234586.stm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">&#8220;Faith, hate and charity&#8221;</span></a> left no doubt concerning what faith we were talking about &#8212; Qaradawi was described as &#8220;a favourite of the [then] London Mayor&#8221; Ken Livingstone, who truly welcomed this supporter of jihad to London, &#8220;a city of all faiths&#8221; (and no hope).</p>
<p>Qaradawi&#8217;s followers in London, the BBC reporter John Ware explained, included the fugitive Hamas commander Mohammed Sawalha (no doubt a title of honor), and his following in the Middle East was so big that the good doctor had his own talk show on Al Jazeera. &#8220;He makes no bones about the relationship between charity and politics,&#8221; Ware added.</p>
<p>During the documentary Qaradawi volunteered:</p>
<blockquote><p>I don&#8217;t like this word &#8220;donations.&#8221; I like to call it jihad with money. Because God has ordered us to fight enemies with our lives and our money.</p></blockquote>
<p>This is the theory. The practice is even more explicit.</p>
<p>Earlier this month it emerged from India’s Intelligence Bureau that the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa has been diverting for terror activities the funds it raises and has used charity money to fund the <a href="http://m.rediff.com/news/report/charity-money-was-used-to-fund-2611-mumbai-attacks/20140701.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Mumbai 26/11 attacks</span></a> of 2008, in which over 160 people died. This dossier is even more significant in the light of the recent ban on Jamaat-ud-Dawa imposed by the United States.</p>
<p>Among the recipients of &#8220;jihad charity&#8221; is also <a href="http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2014/06/15/isis-funded-by-donations-crime/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">ISIS</span></a>.</p>
<p>Recently, British-based charity <a href="http://www.islamic-relief.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Islamic Relief Worldwide</span></a> (IRW) has been <a href="http://www.islamic-relief.com/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">banned</span></a> from operating in Israel as suspected of funnelling cash to Hamas. According to Israeli officials, IRW activities in the Palestinian territories are run by Hamas operatives.</p>
<p>IRW receives money from institutional donors, government funding, individual zakat donations and affiliates around the world, including Islamic Relief USA (IR-USA), praised by Obama.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not the first time that IR-USA, the largest US Muslim charity and <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/israels-fbi-links-islamic-relief-usa-charity-hamas"><span style="color: #0433ff;">sponsored</span></a> by major American corporations like Microsoft and General Electric, has been accused of <a href="https://moneyjihad.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/doj-source-implicates-islamic-relief/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">funding Hamas</span></a>.</p>
<p>In America, the majority of the charities that have been investigated for financing terrorism were <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/eric-golub/excuses-for-islamists/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">found guilty</span></a>. According to <a href="http://www.shariahfinancewatch.org/blog/2014/06/04/islamic-charities-in-great-britain/"><span style="color: #0433ff;"><i>Shariah Finance Watch</i></span></a>,</p>
<blockquote><p>The largest Islamic charities in the US were shut down and prosecuted for funding terrorism.</p>
<p>The fact is, Islamic charities fund Jihad through the system of zakat simply because Shariah–Islamic Law–says they must.</p>
<p>It is not unlikely that we’ve just brushed the surface on this activity in the West.</p>
<p>Only recently, for instance, has the British Charity Commission begun to earnestly scrutinize Islamic charities for material support of terrorism.</p>
<p>How widespread might the problem be?</p></blockquote>
<p>How indeed?</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>Time to Rethink Government Unions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mitchell-langbert/time-to-rethink-government-unions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=time-to-rethink-government-unions</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jul 2014 04:25:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mitchell Langbert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How university unions secretly funnel member dues to left-wing political causes and candidates. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236476" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo.png" alt="logo" width="227" height="199" /></a>It is time to introduce markets into the states’ public sector labor relations systems by eliminating agency fees and allowing public employees to join competing unions or no union at all. In <i>Harris v. Quinn</i>, decided on June 30, the Supreme Court held that an Illinois law that forced home healthcare workers to join the Service Employees International Union or else pay an agency fee violated their First Amendment rights.  Dicta in the case suggest that some members of the court are now open to asking more general questions about agency fees. State governments should seize the initiative.</p>
<p>Agency fees are charged to nonmembers who work in unionized, public sector settings; they typically equal the union dues. Their rationale is that nonmembers are otherwise free riders who benefit from the union without paying.  That argument assumes that unions benefit all public sector workers, but they do not. Some public employees are forced to contribute to unions that reduce their pay.</p>
<p>In the 1977 precedent of <i>Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, </i>the Supreme Court held that dissenting agency fee payers can request a refund of the portion of the agency fee charged for political lobbying, for forcing employees to pay for political advocacy with which they disagree violates their First Amendment rights.</p>
<p>In the recent <i>Harris</i> case the court wrote that <i>Abood</i> failed to anticipate “the practical administrative problems” in determining whether political expenditures are chargeable or nonchargeable.  As well, <i>Abood</i> failed to consider the difficulties in assessing where politics ends and collective bargaining begins. The key issue in <i>Harris</i> was that the employees were in the private and not the public sector, but the court is now questioning the more general role of agency fees.</p>
<p>Public sector university unions are a good example.   Contrary to the <i>Abood </i>court’s opinion, university unionism has hindered rather than helped universities.  Studies of faculty don’t find clear benefits, and some studies find impediments to effectiveness.  The studies don’t consider that public sector faculty unions are increasingly not labor representatives but lobbyists on behalf of what Steve Malanga has called the new new left.</p>
<p>The bellwether faculty union at the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress, is a case in point.  By cloaking the large share of its budget that supports new new left causes, the PSC leverages New York’s public sector bargaining law to funnel public money to leftwing causes. The union siphons dues from public employees’ state paychecks; it then siphons the dues money to political candidates. Employees cannot fully opt out because the union hides the donations.</p>
<p>Much of the PSC’s delegate assembly’s time is spent debating political resolutions. The May 2014 delegate assembly meeting, for instance, considered resolutions to end US militarized foreign policy, to support the Mayday 5K national movement for job stability, to address the legacy of slavery in the founding of American colleges, to support the full restitution of pensions for Detroit municipal employees, to stop Coca Cola’s abuse of children and human rights, and to oppose ROTC.  A similar list is discussed at each meeting.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.psc-cuny.org/delegate-assembly-resolutions-2014"><span style="color: #0463c1;">union’s website</span></a>, in 2014 the assembly passed resolutions opposing climate change, supporting Illinois strikers, supporting taxes on the wealthy to be used for kindergartens, and opposing a New York State Senate bill opposing boycotts of Israel.</p>
<p>The PSC has chosen to affiliate with the Working Families Party. This choice has is not linked to wage-and-benefit negotiation.  The WFP’s goal is to push the Democratic Party to the left.  The PSC’s affiliation with it limits the incentives for mainstream Democrats and Republicans to support the faculty.  As a result, the union has not won a collective bargaining agreement since 2007.  CUNY’s faculty salaries lag those of neighboring nonunion colleges.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.elections.ny.gov/ContributionSearchB_Name.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">New York State Board of Elections,</span></a>  in 2013 the PSC made $23,250 in political donations, of which $22,500 went to the Working Families Party. However, that understates by millions of dollars the extent to which the union’s resources go to political activity. For instance, in the November 7, 2013 minutes of the union’s executive council meeting President Barbara Bowen thanked Vice President Steve London for “his leadership, strategy, and coalition-building efforts that supported the election of [WFP-backed] Bill de Blasio.”</p>
<p>The PSC’s March 2014 financial statement indicates that of its $17.4 million budget, $9.3 million is paid as dues to umbrella organizations such as the New York State Union of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Association of University Professors, all of which engage in lobbying.</p>
<p>Over the years the PSC has held teach-ins against the war on terrorism, donated $5,000 to support the legal defense of Marxist Lori Berenson, supported convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian, passed a resolution sympathizing with Hugo Chavez, and supported New York City Labor Against the War.</p>
<p>A lone Brooklyn College geology professor, David Seidemann, brought a law suit for a refund of political monies. The case was settled in 2009. The courts awarded his pro bono attorney $250,000 in legal fees, but the time and cost of further pursuing the case are prohibitive.    In the course of the case, among the activities that the PSC improperly claimed were contract related were a forum on an anti-war resolution, public rallies, picket lines, concerts, and letter-writing campaigns. Many of these were charged under &#8220;office supplies.&#8221;</p>
<p>Seidemann states that in 2001 the PSC claimed only $15,387 in political expenses out of a total budget of $6,471,530. As the case proceeded and the court made rulings, by 2008 the PSC had raised the amount to $880,301 in political expenses out of a total of $6,243,044, or 14.1%. Seidemann says that the real percentage is probably closer to 20%.</p>
<p>It is time to introduce freedom choice. There is nothing stabilizing to the American economy about compelling individuals to support extremist political causes.  Giving public employees choice will contribute to stability because it will help to reduce the political opportunism.</p>
<p><em>Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College, a campus of the City University of New York.</em></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>Big Labor Taking Over Soros Piggybank</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/big-labor-taking-over-soros-piggybank/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=big-labor-taking-over-soros-piggybank</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 08 May 2014 04:55:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Democracy Alliance scrambles to prevent a right-wing electoral tsunami.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-20120515-at-42616-PM.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225062" alt="Screen Shot 20120515 at 42616 PM" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Screen-Shot-20120515-at-42616-PM.png" width="286" height="210" /></a></span><b>[To order David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin&#8217;s<i> &#8220;The New Leviathan: How the Left-Wing Money Machine Shapes American Politics and Threatens America’s Future</i>,&#8221; <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/productlist.html?key=QXL3SUOKZ05M" target="_blank">click here</a>.]</b></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">An ultra-secretive left-wing money machine for super rich radicals is bringing more representatives of Big Labor into the fold in order to prevent the likely Republican takeover of the U.S. Senate this November.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thanks to a Democracy Alliance member&#8217;s oversight, Americans are getting a sense of what the nation&#8217;s wealthy left-wingers have in store for the fall elections and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/jonathan-soros-left-a-confidential-document-at-his-donor-conference/">reported</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, leftist billionaire George Soros&#8217;s son Jonathan left behind a partial membership list of the Democracy Alliance at a meeting in a fancy Chicago hotel last week.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The names on the document suggest that organized labor is becoming increasingly influential within the left-wing plutocrats&#8217; invitation-only club.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">New Democracy Alliance members from the labor movement include Noel Beasley, president of Workers United, a textile union affiliated with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and Keith Mestrich, president of the union-owned Amalgamated Bank. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Other new members from Big Labor include Larry Cohen, president of the Communications Workers of America, and Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. CWA senior director George Kohl and Michelle Ringuette, Weingarten’s assistant, also secured memberships in the Democracy Alliance.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But not all new members are professional parasites. Business people joining the Democracy Alliance recently include Adam Abram (insurance and real estate), Rick Segal (financial services), and Paul Boskind (psychology, behavioral health).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Alliance has also added a slew of limousine liberals to its membership ranks. Heirs and heiresses to get the nod from the gold-plated leftist piggybank include Amy Goldman (real estate) and Henry van Ameringen (manufacturing). Trust fund baby </span>and New School professor Philip Munger, son of Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charles Munger, became an Alliance member.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The group&#8217;s leadership was not pleased. Former George Soros lieutenant Gara LaMarche, now president of the Democracy Alliance, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/liberal-dark-money-group-accuses-free-beacon-of-practicing-journalism/">whined</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that some members were &#8220;not wild about&#8221; their names being published.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Those donors are “determined not to be distracted by sideshows,” and they “knew the Free Beacon was sniffing around at our conference, and they are under no illusions about what kind of ‘journalism’ they practice. It’s annoying, but unfortunately that’s the world we live in.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Meanwhile, there seems to be an effort underway to depict the scores of billionaires and multi-millionaires of the Democracy Alliance as underdogs struggling heroically against the Koch brothers, the billionaire siblings who fund conservative and libertarian causes.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/liberal-donors-eye-new-long-term-investments-in-states-and-new-voters-to-boost-democrats/2014/05/04/0433e53a-d20f-11e3-9e25-188ebe1fa93b_story.html"><i>Washington Post</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> misleadingly observes:</span></p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;The [Democracy Alliance] has pumped an estimated $500 million into an array of organizations on the left over the past nine years, according to the alliance. The group’s leaders had originally hoped the sums would be larger by now. By comparison, a network of politically active nonprofits backed by the Kochs and other conservative donors raised $400 million just in the 2012 elections.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The problem is we have no way of knowing if the $500 million figure, which sounds low &#8212; the Democracy Alliance has been batting that number around for years &#8212; is accurate or meaningful. It (probably) does not include its members&#8217; personal contributions to candidates and causes. So much money may not appear in the final tally because it wasn&#8217;t the subject of a formal giving recommendation from the Alliance. Shouldn&#8217;t it count as well?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">When George Soros gave $1 million Media Matters for America, was that sum included in Democracy Alliance totals? Nobody outside the group knows because the Alliance is not transparent. We have no idea what the numbers they provide actually mean.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And then there&#8217;s the weaselly wording of the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Washington Post</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> article that suggests that the comparison between the Kochs and the Democracy Alliance is apples and oranges. There is no entity comparable to the Democracy Alliance on the Right, yet the article speaks of &#8220;a network of politically active nonprofits backed by the Kochs and other conservative donors&#8221; that raised $400 million for the 2012 elections. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance is a consortium of donors. This phantom conservative &#8220;network&#8221; that is referenced is apparently a group of grant recipients. You can&#8217;t compare the two sets of actors &#8212; unless you&#8217;re a political propagandist.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Besides, it is well established that the Right is </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/hillary-the-left-wing-money-machine-and-a-new-irs-crackdown/">severely outgunned</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> on the philanthropic battlefield. The collective assets of liberal-progressive grant-making foundations are in fact 10 times the size of the assets of conservative foundations. Left-wing nonprofit groups vastly outspend conservative groups, which tend to rely more on grassroots donations. Leftist organizations operate with almost complete impunity nowadays, unimpeded as they influence and pervert American politics in an effort to fundamentally transform our republic.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Left is Goliath; the Right, David.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance itself is a collection of more than 100 socialist venture capitalists, spoiled brat rich kids, heirs and heiresses, Hollywood moguls, and unethical bankers that funds left-wing groups that aspire to smash the American system. It was created following the 2004 elections, which brought stinging defeats to the Left in battles for the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives &#8212; long before most in the media had even heard of the Koch brothers. Leftist blogger Markos Moulitsas has called the Alliance “a vast, Vast Left Wing Conspiracy to rival” the conservative movement. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">George Soros, the preeminent funder of the Left in the United States, was a huge player in the formation of the Democracy Alliance. His financial contributions to left-wing groups dwarf what the Kochs have given to right-leaning groups. Quite appropriately, &#8220;Saturday Night Live&#8221; has mocked the octogenarian Gordon Gekko as the “owner” of the Democratic Party.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Soros openly favors American decline and has said European-style socialism “is exactly what we need now.” The radical philanthropist praises Communist China effusively, saying the totalitarian nation has “a better-functioning government than the United States.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance is registered as a taxable nonprofit (in the District of Columbia) in order to prevent public scrutiny of its finances and internal affairs. The organization has been promising to become more transparent in its operations for years but has never delivered. This is understandable considering its close ties to anti-American charities such as the Tides Foundation which the Alliance&#8217;s leadership would never want to become the focus of the media&#8217;s spotlight. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As Markay </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/jonathan-soros-left-a-confidential-document-at-his-donor-conference/">notes</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">,</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;The group emphasizes secrecy in all of its operations, even as its members and the DA &#8216;favored organizations&#8217; to which they donate decry the role of &#8216;dark money&#8217; in American politics. DA does not disclose details of any of the transactions it facilitates, and its members and donation recipients are prohibited from speaking publicly about the organization and its operations.&#8221;</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But the Democracy Alliance is only secretive when doing so serves its interests. Officials recently told the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/liberal-donors-eye-new-long-term-investments-in-states-and-new-voters-to-boost-democrats/2014/05/04/0433e53a-d20f-11e3-9e25-188ebe1fa93b_story.html"><i>Washington Post</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that 11 new donors became members of the group in the last few months. San Francisco hedge fund manager Tom Steyer and Houston trial lawyers Steve and Amber Mostyn became members in recent years, they added.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Clinton administration official Rob Stein founded the Democracy Alliance with the aim of creating a permanent political infrastructure of nonprofits, think tanks, media outlets, leadership schools, and activist groups—a kind of “vast left-wing conspiracy” to battle the conservative movement. The donors group has channeled its members’ funds to fairly well-established pressure groups, watchdogs and think tanks, get-out-the-vote operations, and political action committees (PACs). It is intensely secretive. Members of the group meet twice a year to decide which causes to support with their checkbooks. The money is not funneled through Democracy Alliance bank accounts; members send it directly to the approved recipient organizations.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance is expert in the use of capitalist vocabulary to advance socialism. The group&#8217;s New Media Ventures project has &#8220;invested&#8221; upwards of $4 million into &#8220;startups&#8221; that use media and technology to force &#8220;progressive change&#8221; on an unwilling nation.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The project&#8217;s website </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newmediaventures.org/about/">boasts</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;Entrepreneurs we work with are revolutionizing the political landscape — expanding the reach of progressive ideas in everything from media distribution and content consumption to online organizing and small dollar fundraising.&#8221;</span></p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It needs to be pointed out that the Democracy Alliance’s original mission was to focus on building political infrastructure and to center its energies on long-term organizational issues as opposed to the more mundane task of helping Democrats get elected every election cycle.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance has been experiencing mission creep at an accelerated pace since the lead-up to the 2012 election. To make sure the most radical president that America has ever had got reelected, Alliance members largely abandoned their commitment to funding long-term left-wing political infrastructure &#8212; as opposed to electoral campaigns &#8212; and this angered some members. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The recently deceased billionaire Peter B. Lewis, CEO of Progressive Insurance, ditched the Alliance because in his view it had become just another Democratic Party fundraising outfit interested only in short-term projects like elections. He was reportedly especially incensed by the group&#8217;s support for big money super PACs.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Lewis was no fool. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Democracy Alliance is becoming a much more partisan and far less ideological organization. It remains committed to advancing and expanding the same old radical left-wing social engineering schemes, entitlements, and welfare programs that are destroying America. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But Alliance members know that an electoral tsunami that threatens to reverse the progress they&#8217;ve made in undermining the American way of life and shredding the Constitution could be just a few months away. They&#8217;re terrified that the American people are fed up with the lawless regime in Washington that so accurately reflects their ugly values that are alien to the American experience &#8212; and they should be. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It appears that a great reckoning is coming and it is not at all clear that cash injections from George Soros and his merry band of Daddy Warbucks will be able to prevent a changing of the guard.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>The ZOA’s Leadership Challenge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/caroline-glick/the-zoas-leadership-challenge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-zoas-leadership-challenge</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:49:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The most important American Jewish organization and how it can shape the future. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ShowImage.ashx_.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-220236" alt="ShowImage.ashx" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/ShowImage.ashx_.jpg" width="295" height="223" /></a>Originally published by the <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Our-World-The-ZOAs-leadership-challenge-344166">Jerusalem Post</a>. </em></p>
<p>The Zionist Organization of America is not the biggest American Jewish organization. It is not the most powerful American Jewish organization.</p>
<p>And it is not the most high-profile American Jewish organization. But it is the most important American Jewish organization.</p>
<p>Under the leadership of its president Morton Klein, the ZOA emerged over the past two decades as the only Jewish organization in the US that refuses to budge on its principles no matter how much pressure is applied.</p>
<p>Those principles of strong, unapologetic support for the Jewish state and the rights of the Jewish people to the land of Israel used to form the common denominator shared by most mainstream American Jewish organizations. But beginning in the 1980s, more and more US Jewish groups began abandoning this consensus position as liberal opinion shifted further and further away from Israel.</p>
<p>Today the American Jewish community is in a state of unprecedented crisis. And the need for a strong, vibrant, accessible and responsive ZOA is arguably greater than at any time in the past.</p>
<p>As last October’s Pew Survey of American Jews made clear, the American Jewish community is adrift. For most American Jews, being Jewish has come to mean being a liberal. This conviction is having a corrosive impact on major Jewish groups whose membership reflects the general sense of the community.</p>
<p>As Alexander Joffe explained in a recent article in The Times of Israel, the community’s equation of leftism with Judaism has made it impossible for Jewish organizations to withstand subversion by anti-Israel, and at times anti-Semitic forces.</p>
<p>As Joffe put it, these forces “take advantage of what has become a defining characteristic of the American Jewish community, an obsession with fairness and balance, an eagerness to listen to and internalize the narratives of others, to be ‘other directed,’ guided by external trends and standards.”</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” he explains, “this is justified as a Jewish value, akin to the ever-malleable concept of ‘tikkun olam,’ and sometimes as an American value.”</p>
<p>The result of this Jewish organizational determination to open Jewish doors to the communities’ foes is witnessed today among other things by the push on the part of some student Hillel groups to reject the ban on anti-Zionist and pro-BDS speakers, and the penchant of Jewish institutions like the 92nd Street Y, Ramaz Jewish Day School and New York’s Jewish Museum to invite virulently anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic speakers to address their Jewish members.</p>
<p>In Joffe’s words, today, “There is no institution, no space, no conversation that is immune from anti-Zionism.”</p>
<p>On the other hand, as he notes, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel groups feel no reciprocal need to invite speakers who support Jewish rights, power and the Jewish state.</p>
<p>The American Jewish community’s pathological desire to embrace its worst enemies is bad enough. But it is far from the only challenge that the Jewish organizational world faces. There is also the partisan political challenge.</p>
<p>Led by President Barack Obama, the American Left has exploited the Jews’ desire to remain in the leftist camp to dramatically weaken the power of American Jewish organizations to advance Jewish interests.</p>
<p>Take AIPAC, for instance. As Richard Baehr pointed out this week in <em>Yisrael Hayom</em>, Obama has used AIPAC’s commitment to bipartisanship to scuttle its goal of passing sanctions against Iran.</p>
<p>Baehr explained that over the past five years, Obama has shown his fellow Democrats that AIPAC’s campaign funding is far less important than funding from radical leftist groups like the public sector unions, teachers’ unions and environmental groups.</p>
<p>Obama’s actions have led the party away from Israel.</p>
<p>Since most of AIPAC’s members are committed Democrats, by decreasing their party’s support for Israel, Obama has forced AIPAC to choose between keeping its Democratic members and abandoning its agenda, or remaining faithful to its agenda and risk alienating its members by opening itself to criticism that it is becoming a mouthpiece of the Republican Party.</p>
<p>With 56 percent of American Jews claiming that pursuing justice and equality is essential to their Judaism and only 43% of American Jews saying that supporting Israel is essential to their Judaism, it is clear that over time, the challenge that AIPAC faces will only grow more acute, until the organization either becomes something else, or ceases to exist.</p>
<p>And this brings us back to the ZOA.</p>
<p>Like AIPAC, the ZOA is in crisis today. But the ZOA’s crisis isn’t about its direction. It is about its leadership.</p>
<p>Next Sunday the ZOA will hold its annual convention in Philadelphia and for the first time since Klein was first elected the group’s president, he is facing a challenge in his reelection bid. Steven Goldberg, a national vice president, is challenging Klein’s leadership.</p>
<p>As Goldberg points out, over the past several years, Klein has made financial decisions that seem improper on their face. They involve among other things Klein’s personal salary which appears unreasonably generous, and his less than transparent behavior following a temporary suspension of the ZOA’s non-profit status.</p>
<p>To be sure, these are not insignificant issues. And certainly, Klein owes the ZOA’s members and supporters an explanation for his actions.</p>
<p>But right now, the most important thing for the ZOA and for the American Jewish community as a whole is for Klein to be reelected. He needs to be reelected not because he is the only one who can do what the ZOA has been doing in recent years. He needs to be reelected because he is far better suited than Goldberg to maintain the ZOA’s current level of funding so that the organization can undertake a radical transformation over the next four years.</p>
<p>As more and more American Jewish organizations suffer from communal disengagement and political isolation, those Jews who remain committed will be seeking to affiliate with organizations with a clear message capable of inspiring them and their children.</p>
<p>The ZOA must be that organization.</p>
<p>But for that to happen, the ZOA needs to change its organizational focus and its organizational model.</p>
<p>Today the ZOA is very much a twentieth century, topdown organization. Over the next four years, it has to become a grass-roots, decentralized organization. The role of the national offices must change from leadership to guidance as the focus shifts to regional offices and local branches.</p>
<p>The ZOA needs to build a strong and always growing presence on the Internet. It needs to use social networking tools and viral videos to extend its reach to committed young American Jews who want to be part of a proud, inspiring Jewish community. And it needs to use its local branches to provide the educational, advocacy and social outlets for American Jews of all ages.</p>
<p>Mort Klein has led the ZOA unscathed through the 20 years of Israel’s attempt to escape reality through the phony peace process. Over the next four years his primary goal must be to recreate the ZOA organizationally so that the same principles and values can guide his successors as they follow his example of unapologetic, proud Zionism and Judaism as they lead the American Jewish community in the coming generation.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>A Killing Frost for Green Bosses</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/a-killing-frost-for-green-bosses/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-killing-frost-for-green-bosses</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 08 Jan 2014 05:51:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Climate Change]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[environmentalist]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214871</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What explains the sudden wave of retirements among enviro elites?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/pq.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214872" alt="pq" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/pq-450x335.png" width="315" height="234" /></a>Does a record-setting cold wave have anything to do with massive upheaval among the fear-mongering elite of professional left-wing environmentalism?</p>
<p>As the endlessly referenced Polar Vortex of Doom keeps the fruited plain in a deep freeze, it turns out several major environmentalist lobbies are <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/new-year-ushers-in-changing-of-the-guard-for-green-groups-20140104">shedding</a> their current leadership.</p>
<p>This is happening despite the media&#8217;s nonstop, years-long, global warming propaganda assault, the presence of a radical, lawless left-winger in the White House and a Democratic stranglehold over the Senate. The voters can&#8217;t be bothered to care about this silly global warming issue.</p>
<p>In an amazing non-coincidence, Maggie Fox, CEO for Al Gore&#8217;s Climate Reality Project, is leaving her organization in the spring. Formerly known as the Alliance for Climate Protection, the group changed its name after a hard-fought push to enact cap-and-trade legislation fizzled.</p>
<p>National Wildlife Federation CEO Larry Schweiger, Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) President Frances Beinecke, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) President Eileen Claussen, and Greenpeace USA&#8217;s youthful Executive Director Phil Radford are also decamping from their respective posts this year. (The Pew Center on Climate Change was relaunched as the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions in 2011.)</p>
<p>Could it be that the career eco-extremists, con artists, and meteorological Machiavellians selling global warming doom and gloom are finally beginning to realize that their current approach isn&#8217;t working?</p>
<p>Evidence abounds that whatever the environmentalists are doing to try to scare the bejeezus out of the citizenry, it is failing to hit the mark. Environmentalism remains a low priority for voters.</p>
<p>Although many Americans are convinced that global warming is real, they don&#8217;t believe it is enough of a problem to justify spending cold, hard cash on a supposed solution, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/key-data-points/climate-change-key-data-points-from-pew-research/">according</a> to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. &#8220;The American public routinely ranks dealing with global warming low on its list of priorities for the president and Congress.&#8221; In 2013 &#8220;it ranked at the bottom of the 21 [issues] tested.&#8221;</p>
<p>Global warming skepticism abounds &#8212; and not just in America. Last year a poll by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) <a href="http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2013/09/poll-appears-to-show-growth-in-climate-skepticism-but-what-kind-is-it/">suggested</a> &#8220;the proportion of people in the UK who don&#8217;t think the world&#8217;s climate is changing has more than quadrupled since 2005.&#8221;</p>
<p>The problem can&#8217;t be a lack of money on the enviro Left.</p>
<p>As David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/irs-targeting-of-conservatives-indisputably-political/">reported</a> in their recent book, <i>The New Leviathan</i>, in the world of environmental activism, there are 32 major conservative groups that “promote market-friendly solutions” and 552 progressive groups that “promote radical views that are anti-business.”</p>
<p>Collectively, the conservative groups have net assets of $38.24 million, a figure that seems insignificant compared to the $9.31 billion figure representing the progressive groups’ combined net assets. The progressive environmental groups enjoy a 37 to 1 advantage over conservative environmental groups in revenues ($3.56 billion compared to $96.17 million).</p>
<p>While many global warmists sincerely believe that science supports their theory of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change, they are lying when they claim to be outgunned by <i>eeevil</i> corporations in the fight over this issue.</p>
<p>These green groups allege that &#8220;vast amounts of untraceable special interest money fund[s] global warming skeptics and give[s] skeptics an unfair advantage in the global warming debate,&#8221; writes James Taylor at <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/01/02/dark-money-funds-to-promote-global-warming-alarmism-dwarf-warming-denier-research/">Forbes</a>.</p>
<p>But the &#8220;undeniable truth is global warming alarmists raise and spend far more money – including far more untraceable special interest &#8216;dark money&#8217; – than global warming skeptics.&#8221;</p>
<p>Big businesses that stand to benefit from carbon controls or other greenhouse gas mitigation strategies are among the green movement&#8217;s biggest funders.</p>
<p>The Environment Defense Fund, for example, goes out of its way to work with mega-corporations.</p>
<p>EDF, by the way, has the blood of millions of dead malaria victims on its hands. EDF boasts that it was instrumental in banning the highly effective insecticide DDT in 1972, an act that has since led to the <a href="http://junkscience.com/2012/03/09/it-was-a-mistake-to-ban-ddt-in-1972/">deaths</a> of as many as 60 million people &#8212; largely children in poor tropical countries. EDT and others, egged on by works of paranoid fiction like <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=1866">Rachel Carson</a>&#8216;s 1962 book, <i>Silent Spring</i>, grossly exaggerated the dangers of DDT and helped to create the mass hysteria that was necessary to achieve an international DDT ban.</p>
<p>Environmentalists groups are drowning in oceans of money. As Forbes reports,</p>
<p>&#8220;Two environmental activist groups – Greenpeace and The Nature Conservancy – raise more than $1 billion cumulatively per year. These two groups raise more money than the combined funding of &#8230; 91 conservative think tanks &#8230; Just as importantly, these two groups raise money solely for environmental causes and frequently advocate for global warming restrictions. Their $1 billion is not diluted addressing issues such as economic policy, health care policy, foreign policy, etc.</p>
<p>Five environment-specific groups alone raise more than $1.6 billion per year (Greenpeace, The Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, National Wildlife Federation, and the Sierra Club). All five focus solely on environmental issues and are frequent and prominent advocates for global warming restrictions.&#8221;</p>
<p>As scientific evidence continues to mount that global warming is a colossus-sized nothing burger for the ages, those bad people who want to use the weather and climate to attack capitalism and the American way of life, and those pathetic people who are in it only for the corporate and government money, aren&#8217;t giving up.</p>
<p>In recent years alarmists of both species have been trying to move the goalposts in what reasonable people can only pray is a doomed, eleventh-hour effort to remain relevant. Now many of these tireless, annoying do-gooders speak of <i>climate change</i> and its hazards instead of merely squawking about the more specific phenomenon <i>global warming</i>.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a slippery move because the climate is by its nature always changing. The definition of <i>climate</i> is hugely important. Climate is different than weather. Weather refers merely to the short-term conditions of variables in a specific area.</p>
<p>Nature is constantly adjusting weather patterns and its future actions are often difficult to predict. Water levels rise and fall. Deserts come and go. The wind blows and then it doesn&#8217;t. Sometimes there is much precipitation; other times, hardly any. The ways in which the various elements interact with each other is always changing, sometimes by a lot, sometimes by only a little.</p>
<p>Climate is &#8220;weather writ large,&#8221; according to the <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dqIBqiNoB9wC&amp;pg=PA1&amp;lpg=PA1&amp;dq=Climate+is+weather+writ+large&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=uyH0g37R5Q&amp;sig=OmamGJeMeOh_rFMpaV6nKlMMEss&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=BtHMUtziH4j-2gWl34CwBw&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ">most useful definition</a> of the term this writer could find online. &#8220;Climate is determined by a complex combination of geographic conditions and latitude. It is weather writ large, which is to say, weather patterns considered over a long time &#8212; years, decades, even centuries.&#8221;</p>
<p>How can one argue against a truism called <i>climate change</i>? Climate change is a fact. That and two and a half bucks will get you a ride on New York City&#8217;s subway.</p>
<p>Weather is always changing, has always been changing, and will always be changing. By the same token climate is always changing, has always been changing, and will always be changing. Change is perhaps the only constant in the study of climate and changes in climate are not always bad.</p>
<p>Moving from the specific to the general by making a political issue out of climate change, instead of global warming, affords alarmists infinite flexibility to keep spinning, misdirecting, and changing the parameters of the debate.</p>
<p>It is an irrevocable license for bloviators, demagogues, science-hating misanthropes, and enemies of freedom.</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>What&#8217;s Right about Ted Cruz &amp; the Tea Party</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/whats-right-about-ted-cruz-the-tea-party/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=whats-right-about-ted-cruz-the-tea-party</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Oct 2013 04:56:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Republican Party can’t win if it won’t fight.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/OB-ZG871_cruz_G_20131014105859.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-208538" alt="OB-ZG871_cruz_G_20131014105859" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/OB-ZG871_cruz_G_20131014105859-424x350.jpg" width="297" height="245" /></a>If you believe the Democrats (and some Republicans) the biggest threat to the Party of Abe is a man named Ted. It’s tempting for the GOP to believe that all it needs to do is practice some Cruz Control and wait around for Americans to wake up and realize that it is the sensible party with the moderate solutions.</p>
<p>And if that doesn’t work… there are always the elections of 2020 or 2024… or 2124.</p>
<p>If you don’t fight, you can’t win. That’s what the Party of Lincoln, a party that tested its mettle in a devastating national conflict, has forgotten. Instead it has become a party of good losers who would rather lose easy than fight hard.</p>
<p>The GOP would like to win without fighting. It wants to wait for the voters to come around and recognize that it’s the better choice because it compromises.</p>
<p>Like the nerd waiting for the pretty girl to recognize his niceness, the Republican Party is futilely courting an American voter who barely even knows it’s there… at least until he watches the next Saturday Night Live skit depicting Republicans as crazy evil billionaires who want to power Christian nuclear plants with the corpses of minorities.</p>
<p>And he’ll believe that is what the Republican Party really stands for because the elephant no longer roars loud enough to be heard, it moderately whispers, and is outbrayed by every jackass.</p>
<p>The Republican Party has allowed its enemies to define it. Its moderation has convinced voters that it’s crazy and dangerous because without raising its voice and fighting back, the only things they know about it comes from its enemies.</p>
<p>Complacency has made it impossible for the Republican Party to compete. It’s so busy being reasonable that it unreasonably fails to realize that no one is paying attention to its displays of moderation.</p>
<p>Its reasonable and moderate candidates were shot down twice. Meanwhile the last Republican to sit in the Oval Office was a man that the media tarred and feathered much more thoroughly than McCain or Romney as an illiterate Texas hick who loved killing black people and bombing countries.</p>
<p>George W. Bush was not all that conservative, but he was pugnacious, and that is a quality that Americans admire more than moderation. Ted Cruz is an actual Texas conservative and he is also pugnacious.</p>
<p>The Republican Party has forgotten that it did not win the midterm elections in 2010 because voters saw how moderate and reasonable it was. If those were qualities that impressed voters we would be tuning in to another speech from President Romney about the improving economy.</p>
<p>The midterm reversal happened because a bunch of people wearing costumes and waving yellow flags began arguing with Democratic politicians trying to sell their constituents on a disastrous health plan. The plan is still disastrous and the people with the costumes are still out there, but the GOP would like them and Ted Cruz to go away and stop interrupting their plan to win in 2014 by impressing the public with their moderate program of reasonable compromises.</p>
<p>And if that doesn’t work there’s always 2224… or 3224.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz isn’t the biggest threat to the Republican Party. He’s the only hope for the Republican Party. Cruz understands that you have to fight to win. You don’t get points for compromise. Compromise is what it takes to run the system, but voters elect candidates to do specific things for them. They want politicians who will represent their interest to the best of their abilities.</p>
<p>Not compromisers.</p>
<p>No one hires a lawyer to settle a court case. The court case may have to be settled, but a client expects his lawyer to get him the best terms by fighting as hard as he can. A lawyer who advertises his reasonable and moderate willingness to make a deal as soon as possible will have no clients. A party that advertises its eagerness to settle on any terms it can get will have no voters.</p>
<p>While the Republican Party worries about Ted Cruz alienating voters, it might want to consider the voters that Ted Cruz is bringing in. Conservative voters have been staying home from elections that don’t inspire them.</p>
<p>Passion wins elections. Passion feeds turnout. Passion makes voters feel like it’s their fight, not just another election.</p>
<p>Instead of bringing passion to their fight against the left, Republicans misdirect their passion into circular firing squads. There have been more passionate Republican attacks aimed at Ted Cruz in a single month than there have been against Barack Obama in an entire year.</p>
<p>The deluded establishment still believes that it would have won even bigger in 2010… if not for that pesky Tea Party. It believes we would be listening to President McCain explaining to the nation why we’ve been bombing Syria… if only it wasn’t for Sarah Palin. And it believes that Mitt Romney would have won in 2012 if it wasn’t for… that’s the question.</p>
<p>The Tea Party was out of the picture. The Republican Party had two men up front who could quietly, calmly and reasonably make their case to the nation. And their case was good. It was a story about the American Dream, about small businesses becoming big businesses in an economy driven by vision, ambition and individual striving.</p>
<p>And it went nowhere.</p>
<p>American voters had a choice between two men. One was passionate. The other was reasonable. One was applying for a job interview. The other was warning that their children would starve in the streets and their daughters would take wire hangers to themselves if he wasn’t reelected. Despite the poll numbers, the turnout favored the passionate candidate. It favored the teleprompter demagogue warning that the sky, the phones and the food stamps were about to fall.</p>
<p>Elephants never forget. That may be true of Loxodonta Africana, but Loxodonta Americana never remembers. Ted Cruz is the new Tea Party, the new Sarah Palin, the man in the middle of a circular firing squad that is taking its targeting orders from Democratic Party political operatives in the media. African elephants aren’t cannibals, but American elephants eagerly eat their own.</p>
<p>The Tea Party was right about what it takes to win. Sarah Palin was right. Ted Cruz is right.</p>
<p>The Republican Party has two options. It can learn to fight or it can give up. A political party that fails to compete abandons itself to the tender mercies of its enemies. And the left has no mercy.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz tried to teach the elephant to stop eating grass and switch to a diet of red meat. The American elephant can either evolve into a predator or devolve into a rhino and be preyed upon by the wild asses of the Socialist desert.</p>
<p>The Republican Party will never win by out-moderating its enemies. Its last three presidents who won reelection were not known for being mild-mannered and soft-spoken types.</p>
<p>Politics is not a game for the weak. It is not the sport you play if you are afraid of hitting or being hit. It has moments of greatness that bring nations together and uplift peoples… but those moments will never be achieved by those who fear to fight for what they believe in.</p>
<p>Ted Cruz is not afraid to fight. The Republican Party could stand to learn from his example.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Attack on Families of Fallen Soldiers</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/obamas-attack-on-families-of-fallen-soldiers/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-attack-on-families-of-fallen-soldiers</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:50:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207012</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Patriotic generosity disrupts the president's disturbing abuse of our troops. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207013" alt="article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/article-2451252-18A3403D00000578-988_634x395-450x324.jpg" width="315" height="227" /></a>The Obama administration&#8217;s despicable attempts to make the government shutdown as painful as possible for Americans has finally hit bottom. Until a charitable foundation <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/09/hagel-accepts-private-offer-to-pay-families-of-kia-says-hes-offended-outraged-at-congress/">stepped</a> in to fill the gap, the Department of Defense (DoD) was more than willing to deny death benefits to the families of fallen soldiers. The Pentagon claimed that a law <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pentagon-foundation-pay-death-benefits-20521172">passed</a> just prior to the government shutdown allowing the military to be paid did not cover the benefits. In truth, an Obama administration, whose hallmark is selective law enforcement, has relied on the flimsiest of technicalities to inflict unnecessary pain on families already shattered by the deaths of their sons and daughters.</p>
<p>Just before the government shutdown began, Congress <a href="http://www.stripes.com/news/obama-signs-law-to-pay-servicemembers-during-shutdown-1.244356">passed</a> the “Pay Our Military” act, allowing servicemen to continue receiving paychecks on time during the shutdown. It was passed unanimously in the House, approved without dissent in the Senate, and signed by the president. The bill ostensibly provided “such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to members of the Armed Forces” on active duty, as well as “essential” civilian personnel and contractors.</p>
<p>So what happened? A 2011 Pentagon report sent to Congress titled <a href="http://thehill.com/images/stories/news/2013/10_october/10/dodpay.pdf">&#8220;Pays and Allowances Summary&#8221;</a> lists a $100,000 &#8220;Death gratuity&#8221; originally put there in 1908. On the other hand, the <a href="http://comptroller.defense.gov/defbudget/fy2014/fy2014_m1.pdf">2014 Pentagon Personnel Budget</a> lists the death gratuity under the heading “other military personnel costs,” not “pay and allowances.” Defense Department attorneys and budget officials contend that the &#8220;Pay Our Military Act&#8221; only authorized pay and allowances, not other military personnel costs. “Given the wording of the ‘Pay Our Military Act,’ DOD is only allowed to spend money on ‘pay and allowances,’ and the death gratuity does not fall under that section of the budget,” said Todd Harrison, a defense budget analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. “If that’s not what Congress intended, they should not have used the phrase ‘pay and allowances’ in the bill.”</p>
<p>On the basis of that technicality, death benefits were denied to the families of dead soldiers.</p>
<p>Yet there are a number of other factors in play here. Several members of Congress from both parties were <a href="http://pjmedia.com/blog/lawmakers-say-military-pay-bill-should-have-covered-kia-payments-frozen-by-hagel/">shocked</a> by the DoD&#8217;s interpretation of the law. So much so, a bipartisan group of seven Senators, including Roy Blunt (R-MO), Chris Coons (D-DE), Joe Manchin (D-WV), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), John Boozman (R-AK), Tom Carper (D-DE) and Jerry Moran (R-KA) sent a <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57606695/government-shutdown-hitting-veterans-military-families-hard/">letter</a> to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel calling for the death benefits to be restored. &#8220;Any delay in providing families with this essential benefit is absolutely unacceptable,&#8221; it said.</p>
<p>Moreover, the idea that the DoD would favor the 2014 Pentagon Personnel Budget interpretation of death benefit eligibility over the 2011 Pays and Allowances Summary apparently rests on another technical reality, namely that the federal government&#8217;s <i>fiscal</i> year begins on Oct. 1, 2013 and runs to Sept. 30, 2014. That the government shutdown has effectively suspended the beginning of FY2014, at least with respect to some of its obligations, would seem to provide the DoD with some wiggle room&#8211;wiggle room made even more palatable when one factors in the reaction of Congress, which thought it had left the death benefits intact. Instead, the DoD chose to embrace an uncompromisingly rigid interpretation of the law.</p>
<p>Perhaps the DoD had some &#8220;help.&#8221; House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon (R-CA) believes the Department of Justice and Eric Holder were involved as well. “The Pentagon isn’t totally autonomous. They have to deal with the Justice Department. I think the Justice Department attorneys were interpreting it differently. I think [they are] probably the ones that muddied this up,” McKeon <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1310/09/cnr.08.html">told </a>CNN.</p>
<p>There is little doubt that this administration is more than willing to &#8220;muddy&#8221; up the law to advance its agenda. One need only to remember that the president completely <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-05-23/opinion/ct-edit-war-20110523_1_libya-war-war-powers-act-moammar-gadhafi">ignored</a> the War Powers Act of 1973 to prosecute the war in Libya, unilaterally <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-14/opinions/41408610_1_affordable-care-act-president-obama-employer-mandate">defied</a> the healthcare law as written to delay the employer mandate for a year, and has done everything he can to <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/23/new-obama-policy-warns-agents-not-detain-illegal-i/?page=all">circumvent</a> immigration law.</p>
<p>Furthermore, a host of administration officials have been involved in stonewalling investigations of the the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal, Benghazi, the IRS&#8217;s targeting of conservative Americans, and the DOJ&#8217;s wiretapping of journalists. Thus, the idea that this president and his administration have suddenly discovered a newfound respect for the precise letter of the law &#8212; as a means of inflicting further pain on the families of fallen heroes, no less &#8212; is utterly contemptible.</p>
<p>That contempt is revealed by the sequence of events in this sordid drama. After public outrage reached a crescendo, the House of Representatives <a href="http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/oct/09/house-vote-death-benefits-military/">agreed</a> to restore the death benefit in a 425-0 vote on Wednesday. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451641/Chuck-Hagel-ceremony-soldiers-death-benefits-shutdown.html#ixzz2hLL65tiA">announced</a> that the president was &#8220;disturbed&#8221; when he found out about the suspension of benefits. &#8220;The commander in chief, when he found out that this was not addressed, he directed that a solution be found, and we expect one today,&#8221; Carney said.</p>
<p>That solution involved a non-government entity. Later in the day, Hagel announced he had reached an <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/09/hagel-accepts-private-offer-to-pay-families-of-kia-says-hes-offended-outraged-at-congress/">agreement</a> with the Fisher House Foundation. Fisher House, an organization that provides flights and accommodations to families who want to see their relatives in VA hospitals or other military medical facilities, offered to restore the benefits.</p>
<p>While accepting the generous donation (one that Fisher House initially made with no expectation of being reimbursed) Hagel couldn&#8217;t resist injecting politics into the event, attempting to insulate himself from criticism in the process. “I am offended, outraged, and embarrassed that the government shutdown had prevented the Department of Defense from fulfilling this most sacred responsibility in a timely manner,” he said. “In the days before the shutdown, we warned Congress and the American people that DoD would not have the legal authority to make these payments during a lapse in appropriations. In the days after the shutdown, Departmental lawyers and budget officials pursued every tool and option at our disposal in an effort to provide these benefits. Even under the Pay Our Military Act, we found that we lacked the necessary authority to make payments to the families directly.”</p>
<p>On Thursday, despite Majority Leader Harry Reid&#8217;s contention that the issue was now moot, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/pentagon-foundation-pay-death-benefits-20521172">pushed</a> for passage of a similar resolution in the Senate. Cornyn wanted to make sure that the DoD and Fisher House would get bogged down figuring out their work-around. The Senate approved the measure by a voice vote.</p>
<p>Thus, all that remained for the issue to be put to rest was President Obama&#8217;s signature. Initially, Carney refused to say whether or not the present would sign the legislation. Later on, he revealed that Obama has no intention of signing the bill. &#8220;We don&#8217;t need legislation,&#8221; Carney <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/jay-carney-says-we-dont-need-legislation-to-pay-military-death-benefits/article/2537106">contended.</a> &#8220;The president directed that this be resolved and it has been. What is preposterous is this notion that we should, piecemeal, fix all the consequences caused by shutdown.&#8221;</p>
<p>What is even more preposterous is a president more than willing to use dead soldiers and their families as political pawns. Remarkably, no one in the media has apparently bothered to ask an essential question: what is the extent of Obama&#8217;s powers as Commander-in-Chief? Why couldn&#8217;t the same president who rewrote the healthcare bill via executive order use that same power to order the DoD to pay death benefits? Why didn&#8217;t he even make the <i>attempt </i>to do so?</p>
<p>The answer is obvious: the progressive agenda must be served, no matter what the cost. Toward that end, WWII veterans in their 70s and 80s must be prevented from accessing an open-air memorial erected in their honor, even as illegal immigration activists are <a href="http://therightscoop.com/kelly-file-immigration-rally-allowed-on-the-national-mall-while-vets-cant-get-into-wwii-memorial/">welcomed</a> at the same National Mall. American patriots fighting for their survival in Benghazi can be abandoned, and their deaths are blamed on a video, so that the fiction of the Arab Spring can be maintained. The American public can be frightened enough to believe the only fiscal choices the nation has are giving the administration a unlimited amount of borrowed money to spend, or enduring default and ruination. Our healthcare system must be transformed into a government fiefdom run by bureaucrats and monitored by the IRS. The Republican Party must not be the voice of spirited opposition, but the epitome of everything the American people should hold in contempt.</p>
<p>And because that agenda is so “noble,” it can be imposed by any means necessary.</p>
<p>Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale let the ideological cat out of the bag when Rep. Mike Coffman (R-CO) criticized him yesterday at a House Armed Services hearing regarding the denial of benefits. When Coffman insisted that the Hale&#8217;s objective was to &#8220;inflict as much harm as you possibly could in your own department,&#8221; while the DoD &#8220;took it upon itself to disregard the will of American people and violate the law,” Hale became indignant. “I resent your remarks,” Hale told Coffman. “I acted on the advice of attorneys and our best reading of a loosely worded law, and we did our best. It was not a political judgment.”</p>
<p>The best reading of a loosely worded law would have provided grieving mothers and fathers a measure of comfort when they were tasked with burying their sons and daughters. If this administration ever had anything resembling a moral compass, it no longer exists. Whether he knows it or not, Barack Obama owes the entire nation an apology for an atrocious debacle. One that could have been very easily avoided. That it wasn&#8217;t speaks volumes.</p>
<p><strong>Update:</strong> Finally, after enduring <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/10/senate-approves-bill-to-pay-military-death-benefits/" target="_blank">withering criticism</a> from Sen. Cornyn, who noted that his failure to sign the bill represented a &#8220;dereliction of duty by our commander in chief,&#8221; Obama signed the bill late Thursday.</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>CAIR’s Islamophobia Meltdown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/cairs-islamophobia-meltdown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cairs-islamophobia-meltdown</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 30 Sep 2013 04:56:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=205714</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A terrorist organization attacks its critics.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/thumbRNS-CAIR-REPORT091913-427x293.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205715" alt="RNS-CAIR-REPORT" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/thumbRNS-CAIR-REPORT091913-427x293.jpg" width="298" height="234" /></a>Two days after the release of a CAIR report claiming to expose the network financing “Islamophobia”, Charles C. Johnson ran his own report documenting CAIR’s convoluted financing schemes.</p>
<p>While the CAIR report attempted to stigmatize terrorism research by reporting on the straightforward funding of organizations and individuals such as Robert Spencer; <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/cair-collects-millions-from-foreign-donors-thanks-to-non-profit-shell-game/2/" target="_blank">the Johnson report showed that CAIR</a>, <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/1854/doj-cairs-unindicted-co-conspirator-status-legit" target="_blank">described by the Justice Department as an unindicted</a> co-conspirator in financing terrorism, had engaged in convoluted methods to conceal its financing sources while laundering money from abroad.</p>
<p>Unlike the groups it is targeting, whose language and ideas it criticizes, CAIR went well beyond words, doing everything from helping fund terrorists to obstructing government investigations of terrorism.</p>
<p>Despite its theatrics, CAIR’s Islamophobia report showed nothing except that American organizations researching Islamic terrorism were funded by other Americans. The Johnson report however showed that CAIR had received millions from foreign governments, including Qatar which is notorious for funding terrorist groups like Hamas, and used a shell game to hide the foreign sources of its financing.</p>
<p>CAIR’s attempt to smear terrorism researchers, many of whom have paid a great deal of attention to its terrorist ties, has an obvious motive. It is not reporting on bigotry as a national phenomenon. Instead its report is a clumsy attempt at silencing its critics by denouncing them as bigots.</p>
<p>The targets of the CAIR Islamophobia report include not only terrorism researchers, but also Muslim groups like the American Islamic Forum for Democracy that have been critical of CAIR and its Saudi backers in the past, as well as Voice of the Copts, an organization advocating for the rights of Coptic Christians persecuted by the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>CAIR, like Hamas, was created by the Muslim Brotherhood. Its attempt to silence liberal Muslim critics and the Coptic Christians whose churches it is burning down as “Islamophobes” is self-serving cynicism.</p>
<p>But the dishonesty doesn’t end there. CAIR’s critics, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a feminist and ex-Muslim, are smeared with out of context quotes.</p>
<p>CAIR’s Islamophobia report claims that Ayaan Hirsi Ali “asserted that Breivik ‘had no other choice but to use violence’ because his ‘views were censored.’” The very Think Progress source that CAIR footnotes the quote with however shows her saying, “He says, he had no other choice but to use violence.”</p>
<p>The omission is important. Ayaan Hirsi Ali isn’t giving her own view; she’s quoting Breivik while calling him abhorrent, but warning that silencing people is not the answer.</p>
<p>David Yerushalmi gets the same treatment with CAIR’s report claiming that “Yerushalmi also says he finds truth in the view that Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.” The <a href="http://blog.americanfreedomlawcenter.org/cair-continues-smear-campaign-against-aflc-senior-counsel-david-yerushalmi.html" target="_blank">full quote has</a> Yerushalmi speaking of the anti-Semite who “simply professes to uncover the many and varied ways Jews destroy their host nations like a fatal parasite.”</p>
<p>The only possible defense for such a brand of malicious quote mangling is sheer incompetence. And the CAIR Islamophobia report is so sloppily put together, its 136 pages packed with so many errors, that it’s clear that the millions of dollars from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf oil terror sponsors did not go to fund its research department.</p>
<p>For example, CAIR attacks Dr. Zuhdi Jasser’s Third Jihad film by claiming that “Police Commissioner Ray Kelly called it ‘wacky’”. In fact it was Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne who said that. The report mentions him later, but manages to misspell his name as “Brown”. CAIR has spent a great deal of time attacking the NYPD, but can’t even be bothered to check its own claims against its own footnotes.</p>
<p>CAIR lazily revives the Breivik smear charging that “Breivik repeatedly quotes Robert Spencer, Walid Shoebat, Pamela Geller, the ‘Gates of Vienna’ blog and Daniel Pipes.” In fact, Breivik often pasted massive documents into his 1,500 page manifesto without regard for individual quotes. Most of the Spencer quotes came from a single pasted document that also quoted Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice.</p>
<p>CAIR acts as if its report should be treated as a fact-based analysis and an urgent call to action by elected officials, when it is little more than a collection of dishonest attacks against its critics that relies on secondhand smears  assembled by those incapable of taking the time to get even the most basic facts right.</p>
<p>That’s not surprising because CAIR is clearly not in the fact business. Challenging a report on mosque radicalization from the American Freedom Law Center, it responds by quoting a Southern Poverty Law Center blog post that mocks the organization. This Mean Girls style of journalism recurs throughout the report as CAIR smears its critics with petty attacks from allied organizations instead of countering them with fact-based rebuttals.</p>
<p>It’s obvious why CAIR wants to silence its critics; because it is incapable of debating them.</p>
<p>Despite CAIR’s efforts, its latest report has been largely ignored even by the media. The Sacramento Bee ran two press releases, likely paid, from CAIR. Aside from Middle Tennessee Public Radio, the Detroit News, the Religion News Service and the Oklahoma Gazette, its report went mostly unnoticed.</p>
<p>It may have been a matter of bad timing.</p>
<p>CAIR’s report was not only released a few days before the far more damning Johnson report, but also released two days <a href="http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/2013/e0707r.pdf" target="_blank">after a Justice Department report criticizing</a> the FBI for not maintaining proper distance from CAIR “to ensure that the FBI is not supporting individuals who support extremist or terrorist ideologies.&#8221;</p>
<p>There’s nothing that deflates an organization’s claim that its critics are Islamophobes like a Justice Department report telling the FBI that it needs to curtail non-investigative interactions with CAIR.</p>
<p>And the bad timing didn’t end there. The CAIR report slammed Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s criticism of Mohamed Elibiary. Then Elibiary took to Twitter to blame Coptic Christians for promoting Islamophobia after changing his Twitter picture to include <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dawn-perlmutter/a-new-muslim-brotherhood-symbol-r4bia/" target="_blank">the R4BIA symbol of the Muslim Brotherhood</a>thugs who were murdering Coptic Christians in Egypt.</p>
<p>CAIR’s report attempts to silence the critics calling attention to such atrocities and to their root causes in the Islamic Supremacism of the Muslim Brotherhood.</p>
<p>After the Muslim Brotherhood’s carnage, some of its former members and leaders have broken with the organization. Unfortunately CAIR insists on sticking to the same ideological commitments that originally landed it a spot as an unindicted co-conspirator in the funding of a Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group.</p>
<p>Instead of breaking with the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR has redoubled its efforts to smear terrorism researchers, Muslim liberals and Coptic Christians as Islamophobes. Even as its money laundering is exposed, as the FBI is rebuked for including it in its outreach efforts, it retreats behind the walls of a fortress of “Islamophobia” accusations.</p>
<p>CAIR might do well to consider the fate of its Muslim Brotherhood parent organization. All the Muslim Brotherhood’s lies couldn’t keep the Egyptian people from waking to what it truly stood for. Does CAIR really believe that what didn’t even work in Egypt will somehow work in America?</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don’t miss Jamie Glazov&#8217;s video interview with Steven Emerson about The Sordid World of CAIR:</em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SaNMPpgPCh4" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></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>ObamaCare on the Edge</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-thurlow/obamacare-on-the-edge/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-on-the-edge</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/tom-thurlow/obamacare-on-the-edge/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Sep 2013 04:15:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Tom Thurlow]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[filibuster]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ted Cruz]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The nation's revolt against the health care overhaul could come sooner than we think. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/41188240001_2636975066001_vs-521f9fd2e4b068e86c06344e-86366013001.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205502" alt="41188240001_2636975066001_vs-521f9fd2e4b068e86c06344e-86366013001" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/41188240001_2636975066001_vs-521f9fd2e4b068e86c06344e-86366013001.jpg" width="212" height="160" /></a>Recall from history that one of the Eastern Block’s longest-serving and brutal dictators, Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, fell from power after a single <a href="http://youtu.be/uv7-LVFgd8U">speech</a> in front of his subjects.  On December 21, 1989, President Ceausescu spoke from a balcony in Bucharest to a group of about 80,000 Romanians, during which opposition to Ceausescu’s rule galvanized.  A few people in the crowd began booing and jeering, totally unheard-of during Ceausescu’s rule.  The booing spread, then the crowd began chanting opposition slogans, and eventually charged the presidential building en mass.</p>
<p>The popular opposition galvanized despite unanimous support of the military and state-run media.  Within three days of the speech, Ceausescu and his wife had been deposed and executed, and Romania became a newly-freed, former communist country.  It was a staggeringly-swift turn of events.  And it all began and gathered momentum during a single speech, now known as the Ceausescu Balcony Speech.</p>
<p>Metaphorically, Obamacare has just now walked onto the balcony and has begun to speak to its subjects, us Americans, who will be held captive by its new regime of laws, regulations and distortions.  Despite widespread positive coverage from the mainstream media, liberal <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/307821-celebs-you-might-see-promoting-obamacare">celebrities</a>, and even politicians who accuse opponents of <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/29/louisiana-democratic-chair-opposition-to-obamacare-is-about-race/">racism</a>, doubts are coalescing.  Popular support has <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/repeal_of_health_care_law_favoroppose-1947.html#polls">never</a> been that strong, and people are only now coming face to face with the real problems of Obamacare, and they don’t like them.</p>
<p>The media is starting to cover horror stories of healthcare premiums doubling and tripling, and thousands of workers getting laid off or converted to working less than 30 hours a week.  Doctors are <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/19/thanks-to-obamacare-doctor-shortages-set-to-quintuple/">retiring</a> to avoid having to deal with it.  Retired workers are <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-15/news/chi-emanuel-to-shift-retired-city-workers-to-obamacare-20130515_1_retired-city-workers-health-care-health-insurance">losing</a> their insurance and told to go to the Obamacare exchanges or coverage.  Health insurance companies are <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2013/07/02/obamacare-impact-another-insurer-leaves-california-market/">exiting</a> states.  A new problem has also emerged: Americans are being told of a newly-discovered Obamacare “<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/09/23/aca-family-glitch-issues/2804017/">family glitch</a>,” in which many workers will be able to keep their healthcare coverage but their spouses and children will be dropped.</p>
<p>The hundreds of millions of dollars <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/hhs-obamacare-navigators-95575.html">spent</a> by the Obama administration to provide paid “navigators” to “get the word out,” and help from liberal celebrities can only sugar-coat things so long.  Within the next few weeks Americans will receive notices in the mail describing the true, terrible details of changes to their healthcare coverage.</p>
<p>A few lucky Americans, like some unions and members of Congress and their staffs, will be exempt from Obamacare.  Agents at the IRS, who will enforce Obamacare on the rest of us, are <a href="http://capwiz.com/nteu/issues/alert/?alertid=62634726&amp;type=CO&amp;utm_source=Illinois+Policy+Institute&amp;utm_campaign=7790111647-0613_ecompass&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_term=0_0f5a22f52c-7790111647-10830129">urging</a> Congress to vote against a <a href="http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/1780">proposal</a> that will place them in the same healthcare boat as the rest of us.  Seems like the healthcare that is good enough for the rest of us is not good enough for the IRS.</p>
<p>And whatever happened to President Obama’s promises?  Remember when he <a href="http://youtu.be/1LRcLMScEqo">told</a> us &#8220;if you like your doctor or healthcare plan, you can keep it”?  The White House doesn’t want us to remember those comments.  President Obama also probably wants us to forget when he <a href="http://youtu.be/N8Jfku9aL_c">said</a> that under Obamacare a typical family’s healthcare premium will decrease by $2,500.  The <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/obama-s-affordable-care-act-looking-a-bit-unaffordable-20130829">reality</a> is that for most Americans, their health insurance premiums will <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/23/its-official-obamacare-will-increase-health-spending-by-7450-for-a-typical-family-of-four/">rise</a> dramatically, and they may not be able to keep their current insurance coverage at all.</p>
<p>The dynamics in Congress are just beginning to change.  A few days ago the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government <i>except</i> for Obamacare.  Even some Democrat representatives voted for it.  Only a few weeks earlier, this would have been unthinkable.</p>
<p>While the Democratically-controlled Senate is expected to pass a resolution that will fund Obamacare, Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid is trying his best to pass the resolution in such a way that vulnerable Democrat Senators up or re-election in 2014 do not need to publicly show their support for Obamacare.  Voters back home in Alaska, Arkansas or North Carolina, for example, might not approve of their senators voting to keep Obamacare in place.</p>
<p>Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s filibuster did not win a vote on defunding Obamacare, but he was at least successful in presenting to the general public some of the arguments against Obamacare that are usually ignored by the mainstream press, and Democrats in general are on the defense.</p>
<p>Yes, the bottom is falling out of Obamacare support, and like the end of Nicolae Ceausescu, it could be very quick.</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>CAIR&#8217;s Money Laundering Scheme</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/cairs-money-laundering-scheme/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=cairs-money-laundering-scheme</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Sep 2013 04:50:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civil rights]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exposed]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Non-profit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The Islamist trojan-horse group finally appears to be on the ropes.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/nihad-awad.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205192" alt="nihad-awad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/nihad-awad-450x300.jpg" width="315" height="210" /></a>The Muslim Brotherhood’s front group in the United States conceals donations from Islamist governments overseas by maintaining a complex web of shell organizations, according to a new report.</p>
<p>Right under President Obama&#8217;s nose, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) engages in an ACORN-like game of corporate musical chairs with its convoluted corporate structure and head-spinning funding machinations, Charles C. Johnson <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/cair-collects-millions-from-foreign-donors-thanks-to-non-profit-shell-game/?print=1" target="_blank">reports</a> in the Daily Caller. Among the bombshell allegations, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/revealed-the-obama-fbis-illicit-partnership-with-cair/" target="_blank">previewed</a> Friday in FrontPage, are that CAIR has been &#8220;washing&#8221; millions of dollars from oil-rich nations without disclosing the donations to the U.S. government, as the law appears to require.</p>
<p>CAIR, a social welfare and lobbying organization recognized under 501c4 of the federal tax code, is the Islamofascist group in the United States most favored by leftists, Islamist fellow-travelers, dupes, and useful idiots. While CAIR&#8217;s parent organization is the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, it also has ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda. CAIR is a <i>de facto</i> agent of hostile foreign powers, including those in the business of exporting terrorism to our shores.</p>
<p>Since its creation nearly 20 years ago, CAIR has posed as a civil rights organization in order to immunize itself from criticism and has enjoyed remarkable success in infiltrating the American political establishment. Indeed, the Obama administration has gone out of its way to aid CAIR over and over again.</p>
<p>Court documents indicate CAIR took in at least $2,792,203 in contributions, income and money from foreign principals, including &#8220;a $2,106,251 mortgage loan from a foreign principal for CAIR’s Washington, D.C. headquarters and at least $54,500,000 in pledges from foreign principals,&#8221; the Daily Caller <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/21/cair-collects-millions-from-foreign-donors-thanks-to-non-profit-shell-game/?print=1" target="_blank">reports</a>.</p>
<p>The government of Qatar gave CAIR $405,000 over five years. CAIR&#8217;s lobbying arm gave CAIR a little over $1 million in the same period. It&#8217;s unclear where that money came from.</p>
<p>CAIR has also received $199,980 from the Kingdom Holding Company of Saudi Arabia. Organizations in the United Arab Emirates have also been generous to CAIR. The UAE embassy gave CAIR $219,563. Other UAE donations include $100,000 from the National Bank of Fujairah, $99,985 from Red Crescent of Abu Dhabi, and $44,985 from Bin Hammodah Properties of Abu Dhabi.</p>
<p>CAIR holds itself out publicly as a single entity, soliciting donations for its itself, a 501c4 nonprofit, but then funnels the funds to other entities in its network. This is similar to what the corrupt radical group ACORN did with its 300-plus affiliates, as I showed in my 2011 expose of ACORN and President Obama, <i><a href="http://tinyurl.com/vadumbook" target="_blank">Subversion Inc.</a></i></p>
<p>David Reaboi, vice president for strategic communications at the Center for Security Policy, says what CAIR does is part of &#8220;a thinly-disguised money laundering operation.&#8221; Reaboi added that CAIR’s &#8220;undisclosed and hidden foreign donations amount to violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act as well.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Daily Caller also reports that CAIR has &#8220;met and coordinated with foreign principals on at least 35 occasions and engaged in more than 100 political influence operations on behalf of foreign principals in the United States.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Obama administration has <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/08/administration-admits-to-hundreds-of-meetings-with-jihad-linked-group/" target="_blank"><i>admitted</i></a></span> to &#8220;hundreds&#8221; of closed-door meetings with CAIR. It was revealed last week that CAIR also works with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even though it is not supposed to do so.</p>
<p>A government watchdog&#8217;s <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/revealed-the-obama-fbis-illicit-partnership-with-cair/" target="_blank"><i>report from last week</i></a></span> takes the FBI to task for violating its own policies by continuing to work with CAIR.</p>
<p>The Justice Department&#8217;s inspector general faults FBI headquarters for repeatedly providing its field offices with conflicting information and pinpoints five examples in which FBI field office special agents-in-charge ignored or deliberately defied FBI policy.</p>
<p>As recently as June of last year, the FBI <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/12/justice-dept-inspector-general-investigates-fbi-cair-ties/" target="_blank"><i>denied</i></a></span> working with CAIR after Tracy Schmaler, a hyper-partisan political operative then heading up the FBI’s Office of Public Affairs, issued instructions to ignore the policy.</p>
<p>J. Christian Adams, author of <i>Injustice</i>, a best-selling expose on the politicization of the Obama Justice Department, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2013/09/20/fbi-instructed-to-break-rules-banning-interactions-with-terrorist-co-conspirator-cair/" target="_blank"><i>notes</i></a></span> that the inspector general&#8217;s report faults the FBI for doing things such as bringing in CAIR officials to provide “diversity training” for FBI officials in New Haven, Conn.</p>
<p>The inspector general&#8217;s report came as CAIR issued <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://o.dailycaller.com/thedailycaller/#%21/entry/cair-attacks-fox-news-limbaugh-levin-as-islamophobic,523b4dfbda27f5d9d022f22f/1" target="_blank"><i>a new report</i></a></span> of its own denouncing the so-called &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; of the Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, David Horowitz Freedom Center, and others who dare to engage in an honest discussion of Islam and the politics surrounding it. <i>Islamophobia</i> is a concept invented to intimidate critics of Islam by implying that any and all skepticism of the Muslim religion is animated by bigotry or ethnic animus. CAIR has urged Muslims not to cooperate with the FBI which it characterizes as corrupt.</p>
<p>CAIR previously applauded CIA director John Brennan and President Obama for following its recommendations by avoiding the perfectly useful word <i>Islamist</i>. “Islamist is a stealth slur,” the group says. “It exists as a piece of coded language.”</p>
<p>CAIR has been appropriately compared to the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American_Bund" target="_blank"><i>German American Bund</i></a></span>, a U.S.-based organization created before World War Two to promote a favorable view of America&#8217;s eventual enemy, Nazi Germany. The Bund, like CAIR, was a fifth-column organization created with the assistance of unfriendly foreign powers.</p>
<p>CAIR was <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6176" target="_blank"><i>founded</i></a></span> in 1994 by Nihad Awad and Omar Ahmad, both of whom worked for a pro-Palestine group established by senior Hamas operative Mousa Abu Marzook, and functioned as Hamas’ public relations and recruitment arm in the United States.</p>
<p>Things haven&#8217;t been going well for CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, its parent organization, in recent days.</p>
<p>Last week, a senior Muslim Brotherhood official who is also a member of the Clinton family&#8217;s political network was <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/clinton-muslim-brotherhood-operative-arrested-in-egypt/" target="_blank"><i>arrested</i></a></span> in Egypt in an ongoing roundup of seditious Islamist militants. Charged with inciting violence, Gehad el-Haddad worked for the Bill, Hillary &amp; Chelsea Clinton Foundation from mid-2007 to mid-2012. <i>Gehad </i>is the Egyptian version of the Arabic word <i>Jihad</i>.</p>
<p>In Cairo, a court issued an order reportedly <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/82304/Egypt/Politics-/BREAKING-Court-bans-Muslim-Brotherhood.aspx" target="_blank"><i>banning</i></a></span> &#8220;all activities&#8221; by the Muslim Brotherhood. The ruling Monday applies to the Brotherhood, its nongovernmental organization, and &#8220;any organization derived from it,&#8221; judges said. It is unclear if the order extends to the Brotherhood&#8217;s partisan arm, the Freedom and Justice Party. The Brotherhood, which has thrived despite being banned for most of the 85 years it has existed, is expected to appeal the ruling.</p>
<p>The court also directed Egypt&#8217;s interim government to confiscate the Brotherhood&#8217;s funds and create a panel to oversee its frozen assets until an appeal has been heard.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/23/egypt-court-bans-muslim-brotherhood-orders-its-assets-confiscated/" target="_blank">court decision</a> &#8220;opens the door for a wider crackdown on the vast network of the Brotherhood, which includes social organizations that have been key for building the group&#8217;s grassroots support and helping its election victories,&#8221; according to Fox News.</p>
<p>On the weekend, Muslim terrorists <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/23/world/africa/kenya-mall-attack/index.html" target="_blank">attacked</a></span> Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, reportedly killing at least 62 people. Police have reportedly captured or killed several of the terrorists in the siege at the mall which was in its fourth day at press time.</p>
<p>The assault was orchestrated by Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen (&#8220;Mujahideen Youth Movement&#8221; in Arabic), or <a href="http://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/al_shabaab.html" target="_blank">al-Shabaab</a> for short, which is al-Qaeda&#8217;s Somalia-based cell. Al-Shabaab claimed on its since-suspended Twitter account that several of the attackers were from outside Africa, including three from the U.S., and one from each of Canada, the United Kingdom, and Finland.</p>
<p>Abdirizak Bihi, a Minnesota-based Somali community leader, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/23/somali-american-leader-i-tried-to-warn-america-about-homegrown-radicalization/" target="_blank">told</a></span> the Daily Caller that he “tried to warn America,” about the dangers that the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group posed to the Somali-American community but CAIR has worked to undermine his efforts. Minnesota residents were reportedly among the mall attackers.</p>
<p>Bihi has worked with the FBI and testified before Congress about the dangers of homegrown radicalization. CAIR has tried to blacken his reputation with law enforcement agencies and calls him &#8220;an Islamophobe.&#8221;</p>
<p>“They say that I am a bad person, that I am anti-Muslim, and that I don’t represent a hundred percent the Somali community,” Bihi said. “They lie about my life most of the time and try to destroy my character, my capability, and my trust in the community.”</p>
<p>There&#8217;s probably no point in Bihi complaining further about CAIR to the Justice Department, at least not while Barack Hussein Obama remains in the White House.</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>Halal: A Taste of Terror</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/enza-ferreri/halal-a-taste-of-terror/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=halal-a-taste-of-terror</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 08 Aug 2013 04:10:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Enza Ferreri]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Britain]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The growing alarm over where the funds of the multi-billion-dollar industry end up. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/halal-meat-460.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199710" alt="halal-meat-460" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/halal-meat-460.jpg" width="279" height="201" /></a><a href="http://www.restoreaustralia.org.au/beware-halal/">&#8220;Beware! Halal food funds terrorists.” Stickers</a> with this slogan were sold in July by a candidate of the <a href="http://www.caboolturenews.com.au/news/one-nation-candidate-linked-islam-sticker-terroris/1958615/">Australian political party One Nation</a>, and condemned by the country’s Multicultural Affairs Minister Glen Elmes as &#8220;offensive, grotesque and designed to inflame hatred.&#8221; He added: &#8220;People are encouraged to put the stickers on food products in supermarkets, which isn&#8217;t just racial discrimination, it&#8217;s also vandalism.&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joe-kaufman/can-buying-food-contribute-to-terrorism/">What the sticker says, though, is apparently taking place in the USA</a> and <a href="http://pointdebasculecanada.ca/articles/10002592-muslim-association-of-canada-a-contributor-to-hamas-fund-collector-controls-halal-certification-in-quebec.html">Canada</a> where Campbell’s Soup and other companies have paid the <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2008/07/isna-nait-admit-ties-to-muslim-brotherhood-hamas.html">Hamas-linked</a> Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) for their halal certification, in <a href="http://www.cbn.com/tv/1397750218001">France,</a> where it is claimed that 60% of halal food is controlled by organizations belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and the so-called <a href="http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/halal-tax.html">“halal tax”</a> is the organization&#8217;s main source of funding. In <a href="http://www.boycotthalal.com/boycott-morrisons-for-directly-funding-zakat/">the UK,</a> major supermarket chain Morrisons is not only indirectly but even directly giving money to the Islamic National Zakat Foundation. I’ll explain what that is about in a minute.</p>
<p>“Ritual slaughter” is the slaughter of animals for food following religious prescriptions. The Muslim method to produce halal (“lawful” or “permissible”) meat consists of cutting fully conscious animals’ throat while the name of Allah is uttered and letting them bleed to death. The Jewish method of producing kosher meat shares with the Muslim one the fact that the animal is not stunned before being killed.</p>
<p>Laws of Western countries generally require that animals are stunned to render them unconscious before slaughter, but allow exceptions for both Jewish and Muslim ritual slaughter.</p>
<p>Government advisory bodies, like the Farm Animal Welfare Council and the British Veterinary Association in the UK, have produced reports and made declarations saying that ritual slaughter causes ”intolerable cruelty” and have repeatedly demanded that it be banned.</p>
<p>The Muslim Council of Britain claims that most halal meat comes from stunned animals, but in reality a very low voltage is used in their electrocution, resulting in inadequate stunning.</p>
<p>This makes it objectionable to most non-Muslims on animal welfare grounds. Christians and others – Sikhs in Britain currently have an anti-halal petition &#8211; also consider the utterance of Allah’s name at the moment of slaughter as idolatry.</p>
<p>And a major concern is that halal meat is just no longer for Muslim consumption, but is sold to “infidels” in ever greater quantity the world over.</p>
<p>To get an idea of the extent of this phenomenon, one of the most influential halal certification bodies, the Halal Food Authority, now estimates that <a href="http://www.academia.edu/2290093/The_development_of_halal_and_kosher_meat_markets_in_the_UK">a staggering 25% of the entire UK meat market is halal</a>. But Muslims are about 5% of the UK population, therefore there is as much as 5 times more halal meat than Muslims.</p>
<p>In Britain halal meat is routinely served and sold to non-Muslims who don’t even know that they’re eating it, let alone want to do so. Schools, hospitals, hundreds of restaurants and pubs, sporting venues like Wembley football stadium and Ascot race course, all the main supermarkets chains – none excluded &#8211; fast-food and pizza chains have been drawn into what commercially must look like a win-win situation for them: Muslims complain and demand halal, non-Muslims don’t complain, adapt and tolerate. Especially if they’re not informed and food is not properly labelled.</p>
<p>In dhimmi Britain, when pork or other non-halal food is accidentally discovered in school menus, as recently happened,  it causes a fervor, hits headlines, <a href="http://meatinfo.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/15616/Halal_lamb_burgers_removed_from_school_menus.html">the food is immediately removed</a> and the responsible sacked, but it&#8217;s nearly impossible to have halal meat &#8211; which non-Muslims don&#8217;t want &#8211; removed from schools or at least not served to unbelievers. <a href="http://www.guardian-series.co.uk/news/10334813.Halal_meat_served_in_three_quarters_of_council_supported_schools/">In an increasing number of schools halal is the only meat served</a>. Is the only way to ban halal food in schools to &#8220;contaminate&#8221; it with pork, as someone suggested?</p>
<p>What’s happening with halal is that we are experiencing for the first time in the West Islamization on a large scale. Great numbers of people are forced to live according to Sharia law whether they like it or not, which is the essence of Islam and its supremacist nature.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.christianconcern.com/our-concerns/islam/petition-against-halal-meat">Christian Concern</a> reported the words of the Operation Nehemiah Halal Campaign, run by the Barnabas Fund:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is an open campaign by Islamic food agencies to integrate halal into the mainstream market and to extend it to non-Muslims. The World Halal Forum held its annual conference in London earlier this month (November), and has identified the UK as a pilot project for halal in Europe…</p>
<p>The spread of halal is often part of the commitment to Islamic mission (dawa) and the Islamisation of non-Muslim societies. The imposition of sharia practices on non-Muslims may be interpreted as an act of Islamic supremacy.”</p></blockquote>
<p>That it is a question of supremacy and economic profit and not religious compliance is shown by the fact that Islam specifically exempts its faithful from the obligation to eat halal food if none is available:</p>
<blockquote><p>He hath only forbidden you dead meat, and blood, and the flesh of swine, and that on which any other name hath been invoked besides that of Allah. But if one is forced by necessity, without wilful disobedience, nor transgressing due limits,- then is he guiltless. For Allah is Oft-forgiving Most Merciful. <a href="http://www.usc.edu/org/cmje/religious-texts/quran/verses/002-qmt.php#002.173" target="_blank">Quran (002:173)</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Every time you drive around London you are subjected to the sight of myriad halal signs, a constant reminder of the transformation of Britain into an Islamic country. You can even measure this process of Islamization by the number of halal signs that you see multiply in the same streets and areas.</p>
<p>If women in the hijab and burka are the visible representation of Muslim presence in the West, halal signs are the visible symbol of Muslim supremacism taking hold of it – at least women who veil themselves don’t impose their dress code on others.</p>
<p>We are witnessing a Muslim takeover of an increasing share of the food industry and other industries, with consequences on the job market of Britain, a nation with a high level of unemployment, especially among the young. Halal products include not just meat, but also a long list of goods containing slaughterhouse by-products like gelatin and collagen, which are ingredients in many various foodstuffs – from Easter eggs to cat food &#8211; cosmetics, toiletries, pharmaceuticals, and other products.</p>
<p>It is a multi-billion dollars industry, and growing.</p>
<p>All halal products require certification by a Muslim agency, which the agency is paid for.</p>
<p>The principle of &#8220;zakat&#8221; in Islamic law makes it obligatory for all Muslims to give 2.5% of their income to charity – only in aid of their coreligionists, of course. Zakat has to be distributed among 8 categories of recipients, one of which is the jihadists fighting in Allah’s cause. From <a href="http://www.missionislam.com/knowledge/zakat.htm">Mission Islam</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Zakat can be given in the path of Allah. By this is meant to finance a Jihad effort in the path of Allah, not for Jihad for other reasons. The fighter (mujahid) will be given as salary what will be enough for him. If he needs to buy arms or some other supplies related to the war effort, Zakat money should be used provided the effort is to raise the banner of Islam.</p></blockquote>
<p><span><span>A</span><span style="color: #000000;">ccording to Islamic law, it would not be permissible, or &#8220;halal,&#8221;</span></span><span style="color: #000000;"> <span style="color: #333333;">for Islamic organizations providing halal certification not to pay zakat, which <span style="color: #000000;">under Islamic law </span>is obligatory for all Muslims, on the fees they charge.</span></span></p>
<p>Therefore, whenever you buy one of the many halal-certified products increasingly found in our Western countries, even without your knowledge and against your will, you are indirectly contributing to Islamic terrorists, killers of Christians in the Middle East, al-Qaeda-linked groups and so on. Buy halal and you fund jihad against Israel.</p>
<div><span><span>Many Islamic &#8220;charities&#8221; have known links to terrorism and Islamic extremism. I</span><span style="color: #000000;">n early July the Gatestone Institute published a report documenting the many links discovered between the </span></span><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3792/islamic-relief-worldwide-terrorism" target="_blank"><span><span style="color: #000000;">Islamic Relief Worldwide charity, with headquarters in the UK, and terror groups</span></span></a><span style="color: #000000;"> with an anti-Western agenda. </span><a href="http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3792/islamic-relief-worldwide-terrorism" target="_blank"><span style="color: #000000;"><span><span>Islamic Relief Worldwide</span></span></span></a> (IRW) consists of a &#8220;family of fifteen aid agencies&#8221; which &#8220;aim to alleviate the suffering of the world&#8217;s poorest people.&#8221; What looks like an innocuous &#8212; indeed philanthropic &#8212; charity is, according to this report, “an extremist organization with a pro-terror agenda&#8230; [which] has worked with a significant number of organizations linked to terrorism.” Western governments, the United Nations and the European Union should be more careful about whom they donate their money to, since they all gave tens of millions of dollars to IRW, whose most important branches include Islamic Relief UK and Islamic Relief USA. The report says:</div>
<blockquote>
<div>IRW&#8217;s accounts show that it has partnered with a number of organizations linked to terrorism and that some of charity&#8217;s trustees are personally affiliated with extreme Islamist groups that have connections to terror.</div>
</blockquote>
<div>Those organizations and groups, over the years, have included Hamas and Hamas-related bodies like Al Wafa and Al Tzalah; terrorists in Chechnya; al-Qaeda; the Yemeni Al-Eslah organization, a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood; terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood groups operating in various European countries; and many more.</div>
<div></div>
<div>What makes IRW, which is one of the world’s largest and most influential Islamic charities, more dangerous is that it has acquired legitimacy among Western politicians and public figures. Even heir to the British throne Prince Charles has expressed support and appeared at IRW events. But there has been very little scrutiny of IRW and its branches.</div>
<p>In sum, although halal is on its surface an animal cruelty concern, it is also a crucial area of conflict between the West and those who want to force Islam, literally, down our throats. It also empowers Muslims culturally, ideologically, politically and, last but not least, economically, in a terrifying way.</p>
<p><iframe src="http://cbn.com/tv/embedplayer.aspx?bcid=1397750218001" height="300" width="425" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></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>ObamaCare&#8217;s Unraveling</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/obamacares-unraveling/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacares-unraveling</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/obamacares-unraveling/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Aug 2013 04:46:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Volpe]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[co-op]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[exchanges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Insurance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199539</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How one new program's demise may imperil the entire system. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/obamacare-supreme-court-cropped-proto-custom_28.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-199554" alt="obamacare supreme court-cropped-proto-custom_28" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/obamacare-supreme-court-cropped-proto-custom_28-437x350.jpg" width="306" height="245" /></a>Another critical ObamaCare program has turned into a nightmare of mismanagement and corruption, and this debacle serves not only as a microcosm of the health care law itself, but also to illustrate how any obscure part of highly complicated and interconnected law can potentially bring down the entire system.</p>
<p>The name of the program is the Health Care Consumer Oriented and Operated Program (co-op). Its $2 billion dollar affiliated grant loan program has been so disastrously mismanaged that Congress has been forced to freeze all future loan funds while it investigates protocols and management of the program.</p>
<p>The health care co-ops were set-up in the Affordable Care Act to serve as a competing force to traditional health insurance on state exchanges, which were set-up to serve those that aren’t able to get insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, or through their employers. Health care co-ops were presented as promising options for cheap health insurance because they were set-up as non-profits.</p>
<p>The program is now the subject of four federal investigations including by the <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-subpoenas-obamacare-co-op-program-documents/">House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee</a><a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/obamacare-co-ops-are-focus-of-four-federal-investigations/article/2531803">, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General</a>, and <a href="http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/house-republicans-take-aim-health-co-ops">the House Energy and Commerce Committee</a>.</p>
<p>Jonathan Ingram, a healthcare policy analyst with the Illinois Policy Institute, has been tracking health care co-ops, and specifically those in Illinois. He explained that while the concept of health care co-ops was written into the Affordable Care Act, the specific rules governing them were written by staff within DHS. Effectively, this means that nameless and faceless bureaucrats were deciding how health care co-ops would function.</p>
<p>With the loan program in flux, the fate of health care co-ops is also up in the air. Twenty-four co-ops in twenty-five states were exclusively selected by DHS to provide health insurance to compete in the health care exchanges in each of the twenty-five states.</p>
<p>The health-care exchanges, of which health care co-ops are so critical, have their own history of turbulence. Initially, the Obama administration planned on having states each set up their own exchanges, but starting in 2011, mostly Republican governors objected, and currently, in nearly half the states, the federal government will be forced to set-up the exchange itself.</p>
<p>Exchanges are supposed to be on-line and fully functional starting October 1, 2013, but all accounts make that a near impossibility in all fifty states.</p>
<p>Ingram said that the impact on health-care exchanges of the collapse of health-care co-ops is a state-to-state issue. Ingram said that in Illinois, there are currently only five entities offering health insurance on the exchange, making the collapse of one quite critical. He said only four entities appear on the California health-care exchange.</p>
<p>According to an emailed statement from the Chief Executive Officer of Land of Lincoln Health Care Co-op, Dan Yunker told Front Page Magazine that the co-op in Illinois should not be affected:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act pledged $3.8 billion in funding loans to assist in establishing co-ops in every state. In all, 24 co-ops received federal approval and loans, however the remaining funding for co-ops was cut as part of the fiscal cliff agreement. Land of Lincoln Health (the co-op sponsored by MCHC) was the last co-op to receive federal approval/funding. Land of Lincoln Health’s approval to launch a consumer oriented and operated health plan and loan award was not impacted by Congress’ fiscal cliff agreement. Land of Lincoln Health is continuing to move forward in creating affordable, comprehensive insurance options for the people of Illinois. Land of Lincoln Health’s plans will be available for individuals and business owners on October 1, 2013.</p></blockquote>
<p>Other states won’t be so lucky. According to figures provided by the HHS, a whopping 43% of all the twenty-four loans are projected to default.</p>
<p>In Vermont, the health care co-op Vermont Health Co-op hasn’t even been able to secure the proper license from the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation despite receiving $34 million in grant money.</p>
<p>Freelancers Union Co-op is a health care co-op functioning in New York, New Jersey and Oregon, and it received a $340 million loan from the program <a href="http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2012-10-02-DEI-Gowdy-to-Horowitz-Freelancers-Union-Co-op-program-due-10-16.pdf">even though it was directly tied to the Freelancer’s Union Insurance Company, a relationship expressly forbidden by the Affordable Care Act.</a></p>
<p>HHS declined to respond to an email on the fate of the health care co-op program and the health care exchanges in light of this recent scandal.</p>
<p>As Obamcare unfolds, it’s clear that the complicated program is predicated on the smooth transition of thousands of obscure and yet interlocking programs, as this story illustrates. The failure of even one obscure program serves as a domino effect to other programs and ultimately to the entire program. Success can only be achieved if all these programs are smoothly and effectively instituted all at once, and that is now a near certain impossibility. As such, the health care co-op program serves as an apt metaphor for the law itself, a never ending sea of endless mismanagement and corruption.</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 Taxpayers Will Bail Out Detroit</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-taxpayers-will-bail-out-detroit/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=how-taxpayers-will-bail-out-detroit</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/how-taxpayers-will-bail-out-detroit/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Jul 2013 04:40:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bankrupt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Detroit]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Health Care]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pension]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=198731</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[And every other liberal financial sinkhole in the nation -- through ObamaCare. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/detroit-604cs041413.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-198740" alt="detroit-604cs041413" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/detroit-604cs041413-450x322.jpg" width="270" height="193" /></a>On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew ostensibly <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/28/obama-treasury-secretary-no-federal-bailout-for-detroit/">ruled out</a> a federal government bailout of Detroit following its recent declaration of bankruptcy. &#8220;You know George, Detroit’s economic problems have been a long time in developing&#8230;I think when it comes to the questions between Detroit and its creditors, that’s what Detroit is going to have to work out with the creditors,” he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Not quite. Detroit is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/us/detroit-looks-to-health-law-to-ease-costs.html?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss&amp;_r=0">proposing</a> an effort to offload much of its bloated healthcare costs onto the American taxpayer, using ObamaCare as the vehicle for doing so.</p>
<p>“The Affordable Care Act does change the possibilities here dramatically,” said Neil Bomberg, a program director at the <a href="http://www.nlc.org/">National League of Cities</a>. “It offers a very high-quality, potentially very affordable way to get people into health care without the burden falling back onto the city and town.” In reality, the proposal would do nothing more than shift the so-called &#8220;burden&#8221; of fiscal irresponsibility produced by decades of &#8220;city and town&#8221; politicians colluding with labor unions onto other cities and towns that had nothing to do with that irresponsibility. As for &#8220;affordability,&#8221; such a statement is equally nonsensical. More affordability for Detroit, and other progressive sinkholes, equals less affordability for those expected to make up the difference.</p>
<p>Furthermore, Detroit is hardly an isolated case. A <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Retirement_security/Pew_city_pensions_report.pdf">study</a> conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts revealed that &#8220;61 key cities across America &#8230; emerged with a gap of more than $217 billion between what they had promised their workers in pensions and retiree health care and what they had saved to pay that bill.&#8221;</p>
<p>As the chart included with the study indicates, cities have been more responsible with regard to funding worker pension benefits. Of the 61 cities included in the study, 24 had pension funding levels of 80 percent or more, while 37 cities had less than 80 percent. Tellingly, Detroit was one of the more responsible cities in that regard, having funded 93 percent of their pension obligations. Considering Detroit has declared bankruptcy, it stands to reason that healthcare costs are either a much more onerous burden, or one that cities take far less seriously.</p>
<p>The second chart in the study reveals that underfunded healthcare plans have reached epic proportions. Only two<i> </i>of the 61 cities surveyed have funded worker healthcare costs at a level higher than 50 percent: Los Angeles, CA at 55 percent, and Denver, CO at 51 percent. The most prevalent number on this chart is <i>zero.</i> Thirty-three cities haven&#8217;t set aside anything and four others are in red figures at negative one percent. The report notes the total shortfall for healthcare funding for cities in 2009, the latest fiscal year with the most complete data, amounted to $118 billion.</p>
<p>The report also reveals the stunningly obvious correlation between such shortfalls and the quality of city services. &#8220;Annual pension or retiree health care payments come out of the same pool of local tax dollars as spending for key services such as education, public safety, sidewalks, and parks. If annual recommended contributions for pensions go up, dollars for other services can be squeezed.&#8221;</p>
<p>No city epitomizes that <a href="http://www.ocregister.com/articles/detroit-517659-city-bankruptcy.html">squeeze</a> better than Detroit. Two-thirds of the city’s ambulances are out of service. Police take an average of 58 minutes to respond to emergencies, five times the national average. Forty percent of the city’s streetlights don’t work, and 210 of its 317 public parks are closed down. The city’s public schools are also on the verge of bankruptcy, and remain some of the worst in the nation. The city’s mass-transit system is virtually non-functional. The murder rate is the <a href="http://www.humanevents.com/2013/07/19/detroit-goes-bankrupt/">highest</a> in nearly 40 years. Yet the most telling statistic is the reality that Detroit&#8217;s retired city workers outnumber active city workers by a more than 2 to 1 ratio.</p>
<p>That is the burden Detroit would like to &#8220;cost shift&#8221; to the American taxpayer.</p>
<p>Not just Detroit. As the <i>New York Times</i> notes, while Detroit&#8217;s restructuring must be approved by a federal judge, the plan being presented there &#8220;is being watched closely by municipal leaders around the nation, many of whom complain of mounting, unsustainable prices for the health care promised to retired city workers.&#8221; The <i>Times</i> further notes efforts are in the process of being &#8220;planned or contemplated&#8221; in Chicago, IL, Sheboygan County, WI and Stockton, CA.</p>
<p>Timothy S. Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, illuminates the implications, noting that such a shift would amount to &#8220;a huge cost for the United States government, and it’s mandatory spending.”</p>
<p>Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn&#8217;t waiting to see what happens in Detroit. In May, he announced that Chicago will begin <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/05/17/Rahm-Shifting-City-Workers-to-Obamacare-Gets-Push-Back">cutting</a> benefits to retired city workers over the next three years, using ObamaCare to shift the cost burden to federal taxpayers. Police officers and firefighters who retired between the ages of 55 and 64 and are not yet eligible for Medicare will remain <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-05-15/news/chi-emanuel-to-shift-retired-city-workers-to-obamacare-20130515_1_retired-city-workers-health-care-health-insurance">covered</a> by the city, due to union contract guarantees. The same goes for workers who retired before August 1989 and are protected by a legal settlement. But beginning on January 1, 2014, the rest of the municipal workforce will see their benefits phased out, with the end result being retired workers paying for their own health insurance or getting ObamaCare subsidies. &#8220;The retirement healthcare system as it stands today is fiscally unsustainable, and we have a responsibility to ensure a secure financial path for Chicago taxpayers,&#8221; Emanuel spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said in a statement at the time.</p>
<p>Apparently Moody’s Investors rating service was <a href="http://www.suntimes.com/21552920-761/city-of-chicagos-cash-cushion-plummets-debt-triples-arrests-drop-water-use-rises.html">unimpressed</a>. They handed Chicago an unprecedented triple-drop in the city’s bond rating. Moody&#8217;s cited &#8220;very large and growing&#8221; pension liabilities, &#8220;significant&#8221; debt service payments, &#8220;unrelenting public safety demands&#8221; and the city&#8217;s historic reluctance to raise local taxes as the reason for the move.</p>
<p>Regardless, Dan Miller, Harrisburg, PA&#8217;s controller thinks Detroit&#8217;s cost-shifting plan would be a boon for his city as well. Harrisburg <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/13/us/harrisburg-pennsylvania-files-for-bankruptcy.html">filed</a> for bankruptcy in October 2011. “I’m applauding Detroit,” said Miller. “I’m hoping that ObamaCare turns out to be a great solution, and I would love for our city to have the opportunity to do that.”</p>
<p>The <i>entire state</i> of Rhode Island is also <a href="http://blogs.wpri.com/2013/07/19/should-ri-move-public-retirees-to-the-obamacare-marketplace/">considering</a> the same move. This is due to the reality that the state has promised more than $3 billion in medical coverage to retired government and employees, even as it has set aside virtually nothing to cover those liabilities. &#8220;The big benefit to moving workers into the state marketplaces is that it shifts the burden of paying for health care from the city to the federal government,&#8221; <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/19/detroit-wants-to-unload-19389-retirees-into-obamacares-marketplaces/">writes</a> the <i>Washington Post&#8217;s</i> Sara Kliff. That’s a benefit for the city, at least. For the federal government, more cities moving retirees into the marketplaces means a higher price tag for Obamacare, as it subsidizes more individuals’ coverage.&#8221;</p>
<p>That would be a higher price tag on top of a higher price tag. In 2010, Americans were assured by the Obama administration and Democrats that the healthcare bill would <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/23/obamacare-at-three-years-increasing-cost-estimates/">cost</a> $898 billion over 10 years. Three years and four revisions later, the price tag has almost doubled to $1.6 trillion. And again, those revisions were calculated <i>before</i> this latest scheme was envisioned.</p>
<p>“We can expect other cities to pick up on this,” <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/troubled-cities-see-exchanges-as-way-to-unload-retirees.html">said</a> Richard Nathan, the institute’s former director of the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government. “I expect it to mushroom.” What is really mushrooming is the thinly veiled attempt to take the Democrat party&#8217;s unholy alliance with public service employees &#8212; in all its municipal and state budget-busting glory &#8212; and &#8220;redistribute&#8221; such misery nationwide. While it is happening, expect more Obama administration officials to continue denying, exactly as Lew did, that a &#8220;federal bailout&#8221; of Detroit is on the table. Under the table is more like it.</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>Iran’s Secret &#8216;Interfaith&#8217; Outreach in America</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/irans-secret-interfaith-outreach-in-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=irans-secret-interfaith-outreach-in-america</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/irans-secret-interfaith-outreach-in-america/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Jul 2013 04:14:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Alavi Foundation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[influence]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islamic  Republic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Money]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=195905</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The disturbing extent of the Mullahs' money and influence in the U.S.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/alavi.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-195907" alt="alavi" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/alavi.jpg" width="240" height="160" /></a>The <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org"><i>Clarion Project</i></a> recently exposed how an Iranian regime front based in New York donated to <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/iranian-regime-front-funded-30-universities-us-canada">over 30 colleges</a> and <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/iranian-govt-front-group-funded-over-60-islamic-sites-us">over 60 Islamic centers and organizations</a> in North America. Like Sunni Islamists, the Shiite Iranian regime also finds interfaith engagement to be a worthwhile investment.</p>
<p>The data was found by combing the website and published financial reports of the Alavi Foundation, an alleged Iranian regime front. The Foundation’s offices were searched after evidence <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1114/p02s10-usgn.html">surfaced</a> that it was sending money to a bank that is sanctioned by the U.S. because of its role in Iran’s nuclear program. U.S. government investigator <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/report-columbia-and-rutgers-funded-by-iran-controlled-group-1.3599">said</a> “the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation.”</p>
<p>One of the Alavi Foundation’s primary functions is to influence public opinion. U.S. officials <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-11-12/news/36841886_1_alavi-foundation-tenants-or-occupants-iranian-bank">said</a> that it “promotes Tehran’s views on world affairs” and a prominent Iranian in California bluntly <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2009/1114/p02s10-usgn.html/(page)/2">accuses</a> it of being part of the regime’s “propaganda machine.” This should put the foundation’s donations in new light, especially when the money went to major power players like the William J. Clinton Foundation, which received $30,000 in 2005.</p>
<p>The Alavi Foundation is not a small operation. Its <a href="http://www.alavifoundation.org/financials.html#start">2010 financial report</a> states that the market value of all its assets was almost $125 million. To this day, the Alavi Foundation is accepting applications for grants from its <a href="http://www.alavifoundation.org/programs/interfaith.html#start">&#8220;interfaith dialogue and religious pluralism&#8221;</a> initiative. The page states that the organization has funded interfaith conferences at the Temple of Understanding in New York, Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia and Hartford Seminary in Connecticut.</p>
<p>The Alavi Foundation’s financial reports and website disclose that it donated heavily to the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., making contributions of $45,000 in 2007; $60,000 in 2006; and $75,000 in 2005 and 2004.</p>
<p>The Roman Catholic Sacred Heart University in Connecticut received $5,000 in 2008; $39,000 in 2007; $60,000 in 2006; $10,000 in 2005 and $3,000 in 2004.</p>
<p>Hartford Seminary, a theological college, was awarded $35,000 in September 2012; $47,000 in August 2011 and $17,500 in 2008. The International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity, also has a <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/mb-front-succeeds-partnering-us-universities">close relationship</a> with Hartford Seminary and donated over $1 million to endow a chair in Islamic Chaplaincy.</p>
<p>Eastern Mennonite University received $20,000 from the Alavi Foundation in 2010. The IIIT has also partnered with this Christian school. In August 2011, the director of the University’s Center for Interfaith Engagement <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/mb-front-succeeds-partnering-us-universities">attended</a> an IIIT fundraiser.</p>
<p>The Iranian regime front also donated $5,000 to the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia in 2009. Last month, we exposed how <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/ryan-mauro/a-radical-imams-infiltration-of-philadelphia/">two colleagues of radical imam Siraj Wahhaj</a> have had official positions in the Center. Wahhaj has restrained his rhetoric a bit since 9/11 out of necessity. In 2011, he advised Muslims not to discuss Sharia Law because <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/analysis/popular-muslim-iman-working-towards-sharia-america">&#8220;we aren&#8217;t there yet.&#8221;</a></p>
<p>The Interfaith Freedom Foundation in California and the Temple of Understanding in New York were each given $3,000 in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The Islamic Education Center of Maryland, <a href="http://www.alavifoundation.org/programs/islamicorganizations.html#start">owned</a> by Alavi, held an <a href="http://www.alavifoundation.org/news/nws009.html">interfaith event</a> with Christians and Jews in April.</p>
<p>One Muslim organization that received a large amount of Alavi financing is the Universal Muslim Association of America. The Foundation’s website discloses donations of $100,000 in 2005; $3,000 in 2006; $6,000 in 2007; $5,000 in 2008; $4,000 in 2009; $10,000 in 2010 and $10,000 in 2012.</p>
<p>The Universal Muslim Association of America is a <a href="http://shouldertoshouldercampaign.org/members/">member</a> of the Shoulder-to-Shoulder Campaign, an interfaith coalition allied with the Islamic Society of North America. U.S. Muslim Brotherhood documents <a href="http://www.clarionproject.org/Muslim_Brotherhood_Explanatory_Memorandum">identify</a> ISNA as one of its fronts.</p>
<p>To be fair, it is not proven that each recipient knew of the Alavi Foundation’s background and that each one helped advance Iran’s viewpoint. For example, the Red Cross, the American Museum of Natural History and many charities have received large gifts.</p>
<p>However, the regime does not have money to spare and in each case, the Foundation decided that the contribution’s benefit justified its cost. The Foundation was originally established under the Shah in the 1970s, so this article only touches the surface of this influence operation.</p>
<p>A more direct interfaith partner of the Iranian regime is the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization that <a href="https://afsc.org/category/topic/we-divest">supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign against Israel.</a> It was part of a Christian coalition that <a href="https://afsc.org/friends/church-leaders-congress-condition-military-aid-israel-human-rights-compliance">wrote a letter to Congress</a> criticizing U.S. military aid to Israel. Fifteen Christian groups endorsed the letter, including American Baptist Churches USA, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the United Methodist Church Council of Bishops.</p>
<p>In 2006, American Friends Service Committee leader Mary Ellen McNish and about 45 other religious activists <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=2195">met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad in New York.</a> Then in February 2007, she and a dozen other American religious leaders <a href="http://www.ncccusa.org/news/070214iran.html">spent eight days</a> in Iran and again met with Ahmadinejad. <a href="http://ncronline.org/news/pacifist-churches-under-fire-ahmadinejad-dinner">Meetings with Ahmadinejad</a> were again held in New York in 2007 and 2008. The latter event was <a href="http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&amp;x_outlet=118&amp;x_article=1545">co-sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee</a> and also involved the World Council of Churches and Religions for Peace.</p>
<p>The American Friends Service Committee also <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/dgreenfield/with-american-friends-like-this-who-needs-enemies/">filed an Amicus brief</a> on behalf of the Holy Land Foundation, a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity shut down for financing Hamas. The organization also <a href="https://afsc.org/story/chicago-muslim-man-gets-his-life-back-government">joined</a> the lawsuit of Muhammad Salah as a co-plantiff. Salah was designated a “specially designated terrorist” by the Treasury Department for his Hamas ties <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-11-07/news/chi-bridgeview-man-taken-off-terrorist-list-20121107_1_bridgeview-man-terrorist-list-support-hamas-extremists">until November 2012.</a></p>
<p>Every dollar and every moment spent by the Iranian regime courting foreigners deserves scrutiny. Any resource used in interfaith engagement is a resource that could have been used to advance the regime’s agenda another way. The Iranian regime wouldn’t be making these investments if it was dissatisfied with the results.</p>
<p><em>This article was sponsored by the <a href="http://www.theird.org">Institute on Religion and Democracy.</a></em></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>Heritage Is Right About Amnesty Costs</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/heritage-is-right-about-amnesty-costs/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=heritage-is-right-about-amnesty-costs</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/heritage-is-right-about-amnesty-costs/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 May 2013 04:15:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heritage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rubio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Taxes]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=189656</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Taxpayers and low-skilled workers will suffer the most for the Gang of 8's political folly. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/7baathe-gang-of-8-600x350.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-189680" alt="7baathe-gang-of-8-600x350" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/7baathe-gang-of-8-600x350-450x318.jpg" width="270" height="191" /></a>The Heritage Foundation recently issued a comprehensive report showing that Sen. Marco Rubio&#8217;s plan to instantly legalize 11.5 million illegal immigrants would add $6.3 trillion to the nation&#8217;s budget deficits over the next 50 years. Heritage assumed there are 11.5 million illegals, but other estimates put the number at 33 million, which would mean adding another $18 trillion to the deficit. To put that in perspective, the largest U.S. budget deficit in history was $1.4 trillion in 2009.</p>
<p>Currently, the average illegal alien gets about $24,721 in taxpayer-funded benefits and pays about $10,334 in taxes. After full legalization, they will be eligible for a whole new panoply of government benefits such as direct welfare payments, Obamacare, Social Security and Medicare. Heritage concludes that the total government benefits to these former illegal aliens will then rise to about $43,900 per household, while the taxes paid by them will increase only modestly to around $16,000.</p>
<p>Rubio says Heritage&#8217;s report is all wrong because it fails to use &#8220;dynamic scoring.&#8221;</p>
<p>The sentence ends there. It&#8217;s like when Obama responds to questions about Benghazi by saying it&#8217;s a &#8220;political circus,&#8221; or liberals say their position on abortion is that &#8220;it&#8217;s a complex issue.&#8221; What isn&#8217;t political? What isn&#8217;t complex? Those aren&#8217;t answers; they&#8217;re deflections.</p>
<p>How about Rubio explain the hidden rays of sunshine that will appear by applying &#8220;dynamic scoring&#8221; to his amnesty bill?</p>
<p>Dynamic scoring simply requires that changes in behavior brought on by new rules be considered in evaluating the impact of those rules. I can tell you, for example, how dynamic scoring works with tax cuts.</p>
<p>Liberals say if we double tax rates, we&#8217;ll double the amount of tax revenue the government takes in.</p>
<p>But conservatives point out that when tax rates are low, people have an incentive to work harder and longer, to take extra jobs, and to move their money out of tax shelters, such as municipal bonds, and into stocks and business expansion. The economy explodes, jobs are plentiful, everyone makes a lot of money &#8212; and the government ends up with a bigger haul on a lower tax rate.</p>
<p>We know those incentives are there because we&#8217;ve seen them work. As detailed repeatedly by economist Thomas Sowell, the Treasury took in vastly more money after taxes were cut under Calvin Coolidge, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s dynamic scoring. Now, how does &#8220;dynamic scoring&#8221; change Heritage&#8217;s study showing that millions of new welfare recipients will cost America trillions of dollars?</p>
<p>It&#8217;s at least a counterintuitive position. If lots of uneducated, low-skilled workers boost a nation&#8217;s gross domestic product, then Haiti should be an economic powerhouse. For that matter, so should Mexico.</p>
<p>Rubio won&#8217;t say &#8212; or can&#8217;t say &#8212; what veiled incentives are lurking in his amnesty bill that will set the economy on fire.</p>
<p>I can think of plenty of incentives in his bill that will harm America. For example, how do you imagine legalizing at least 11.5 million illegal immigrants will change the incentives of Mexicans thinking about coming to the U.S. illegally? Won&#8217;t a mass amnesty create an enormous incentive for them to run across the border themselves, hoping to get in on this amnesty &#8212; or the next?</p>
<p>What incentives does &#8220;dynamic scoring&#8221; hold for employers of the poorest, least-skilled Americans? An oversupply of low-skilled workers means employers can pay even lower wages than they currently do, while counting on the American taxpayer to take up the slack with government handouts.</p>
<p>How about the low-skilled Americans? Will they have an incentive to try even harder to find one of the few remaining low-wage jobs in America? Or will they throw in the towel and go on welfare when forced to compete with millions more newly legalized low-skilled immigrants?</p>
<p>Wall Street Journal Republicans love to sneer that immigrants are doing the jobs &#8220;Americans just won&#8217;t do,&#8221; but I notice they&#8217;re not lobbying to bring in a lot of immigrants to compete for jobs as editorial writers at The Wall Street Journal.</p>
<p>Dynamic scoring better include the ruinous incentives that will be foist on African-Americans by Rubio&#8217;s amnesty. They&#8217;re already our fellow citizens deserving of our concern.</p>
<p>Black people are about to realize that they are the hardworking wife who put her husband through medical school, and Hispanics are liberals&#8217; flashy new trophy wife. <i>After all we&#8217;ve been through together, you&#8217;re running off with this ranchero slut? Where was she when I was working nights to put you through medical school?</i></p>
<p>Will government bureaucrats, whose jobs proliferate as more people go on welfare, have an incentive to tell us how much immigrants are costing us?</p>
<p>Massachusetts won&#8217;t even cough up details on the Boston Marathon bombers&#8217; use of welfare. State taxpayers reasonably say, <i>I&#8217;m just curious since it IS my money.</i> But state officials indignantly announce that welfare recipients have a &#8220;right to privacy,&#8221; and how dare you even ask! How about a defense contractor telling the public: &#8220;You&#8217;re actually suggesting we submit our records? Our engineers will be humiliated!&#8221;</p>
<p>Will taxpayers have an incentive to keep punctiliously paying their taxes after the government decides to bring in 20 million poor people from countries where tax evasion is a way of life? A smaller and smaller slice of taxpayers will be on the hook to pay for an exploding welfare state. Will they cheerfully agree to pay higher taxes for schools and hospitals that go bankrupt because politicians voted for amnesty in a foolish political gambit?</p>
<p>Amnesty supporters just keep asserting that bringing in a multitude of people with no skills and in need of government assistance will magically boost the economy. But when immigrants collect more government benefits than they&#8217;re paying in taxes, they&#8217;re clearly not making a net contribution. So what secret delights are on the other side of the ledger?</p>
<p>Endlessly repeating &#8220;dynamic scoring!&#8221; without understanding what you&#8217;re saying does not answer that question.</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>NGOs vs. Those Who Serve Israel</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/caroline-glick/ngos-vs-those-who-serve-israel/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ngos-vs-those-who-serve-israel</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 13 May 2013 04:48:29 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Caroline Glick]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Arab]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[NGOs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Non-profit]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=189192</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The truth about foreign-funded Israeli non-profits and the Arab minds they poison. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><i><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1799503e-24b8-48a5-94ff-2a4e0e60a7e6.Full_.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-189225" alt="1799503e-24b8-48a5-94ff-2a4e0e60a7e6.Full" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/1799503e-24b8-48a5-94ff-2a4e0e60a7e6.Full_-450x336.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>Originally published in <a href="http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=312695">The Jerusalem Post</a>. </i></p>
<p>In 2010, Cpl. Eleanor Joseph became the first female Arab combat soldier in the IDF. Joseph, a Christian Arab told Ma&#8217;ariv that her good luck charm is a drawing of the Star of David with the caption: &#8220;I have no other land, even when my ground is burning.&#8221; Her commander drew it for her.</p>
<p>Joseph explained, &#8220;It is a phrase that strengthens me. Every time I experience hardship, I read it. Because I was born here. The people I love live here: My parents, my friends. This is a Jewish state? Yes, it is. But it&#8217;s also my country. I can&#8217;t imagine living in any other place. I think every person should serve in the army. You live here? You make your home here? Then go defend your country. What does it matter that I&#8217;m an Arab?&#8221;</p>
<p>Joseph&#8217;s story represents an incipient trend of integration among Israel&#8217;s Arab community.</p>
<p>Among other things, this is manifest in the consistently rising number of Israeli Arab students who elect to study in Hebrew-language schools and in the rising number of Israeli Arabs who elect to serve in national service, the civilian equivalent of military service.</p>
<p>A poll of Arab youth carried out in late 2007 made clear how widespread this integrationist impulse has become. Seventy-five percent of Arab youth aged 16 to 22 supported voluntary national service.</p>
<p>And yet, despite these sentiments and developments, Arab Israelis who seek to integrate into Israeli society and reject the separatist messages of their political leaders are forced to contend with extraordinary social pressures and even coercion to prevent them from acting in accordance with their wishes.</p>
<p>A study completed this week by Im Tirtzu exposes the vast array of NGOs generously funded by the supposedly pro-Israel New Israel Fund as well as by foreign governments which are running a campaign to oppose Cpl. Joseph and her comrades &#8211; Arabs and Jews alike. Since 1999, these groups have been conducting a campaign to undermine Arab integration into Israeli society specifically and to demoralize and reduce the social standing of those who serve in the IDF, national service and IDF reserves generally. The campaign is being carried out on a dual track of discouraging Israeli Arabs from serving in the IDF or national service, and of opposing government benefits to IDF veterans, reservists and those who undertook national service by claiming that these benefits unjustly discriminate against Israeli Arabs.</p>
<p>Im Tirtzu&#8217;s report argues that the dual nature of the campaign, underwritten by the same funders, shows that the goal &#8220;is to prolong irredentism or non-integration of the Arab sector in order to encourage it to act as a sector demanding national recognition and advance the aim of transforming the State of Israel from a Jewish, democratic state into a bi-national state.&#8221;</p>
<p>As the report notes, it is common practice in many countries to give government benefits and preferential treatment to military veterans and reservists. The US government provides massive assistance to veterans in employment, education, housing and other areas. The purpose of these benefits is to raise general motivation to serve and to reward those who have because the American people believe that their personal service advances the interests of American society as a whole.</p>
<p>To substantiate its claims against these NIF- and foreign government-financed Israeli NGOs, Im Tirtzu&#8217;s organized its report as a timeline of efforts undertaken by various NGOs to advance the goals of Arab separatism and reducing the morale and social status of IDF and national service veterans and reservists across the board.</p>
<p>Although the Hebrew-language report is worth reading in its entirety, a few examples will suffice to show the scope of these efforts.</p>
<p>In 1999, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel published a report which claimed it was discriminatory for workplaces to make military service a qualification for employment. The report went so far as to insinuate that Israel could be likened to South Africa&#8217;s apartheid regime due to workplace preference for veterans.</p>
<p>That report was followed by a series of petitions to the High Court beginning in 2002 submitted by ACRI, Adalah and other groups to overturn laws and government decisions that give preferential treatment to IDF veterans and those who served in national service. The petitions have not led to outright court victories. But in a number of cases, the lawsuits were dropped after the government canceled the benefits under challenge.</p>
<p>These groups have opposed every sort of benefit, including tuition discounts for students, differential reductions on government child allotments for those who served in the military and national service and those who did not, preferential treatment in state land tenders and grants and other housing benefits.</p>
<p>Some of these court cases directly targeted benefits to Arab IDF veterans. For instance in 2005, Adalah petitioned the court against the Israel Lands Authority for making military service a requirement for receiving ILA land grants in Beduin villages. And in 2009, Adalah petitioned the court to revoke preferential treatment to Cirassian veterans in an ILA tender for homesteads in Kfar Kama, a Cirassian village in the Galilee.</p>
<p>ACRI receives nearly a million dollars every year from the NIF, and receives funding as well from the EU, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, the Ford Foundation and Christian Aid.</p>
<p>Adalah similarly receives massive funding from the NIF, the EU, Switzerland and Scandinavian governments through their joint foreign aid organs. It also receives funding from George Soros&#8217;s Open Society Institute.</p>
<p>Some of the organizations involved are both funders and participants. For instance, the Abraham Fund has participated in High Court petitions against benefits to those who have served.</p>
<p>And it is also a donor to Mossawa, an Israeli Arab group involved in the campaign. Mossawa was co-founded by NIF&#8217;s Shatil organization.</p>
<p>According Im Tirtzu&#8217;s report, active NGO campaigning against Israeli Arab national service and military service began in 2007. That year Baladna, which receives funding from the NIF, spearheaded what has become a continuous campaign to discourage Israeli Arabs from participating in national service. Baladna claims that national service is just military service in disguise.</p>
<p>In its words, &#8220;National service is a direct arm of the Israeli Occupation Army and of security frameworks that act and always have acted against the Arab population and the Palestinian nation generally. And so, all attempts to present the notion of civilian service as service for society are founded in a deliberate distortion directed at society generally and against the Arab sector in particular.&#8221;</p>
<p>Following this line of reasoning, in 2010 Omar Nasser, the head of the Araba Local Council, kicked two Arab women serving in national service out of the local school. Defending his actions Nasser said, &#8220;I object in principle to the national service project because I view it as a means of paving the way for male and female volunteers to serve in the military in the future, and I strenuously object to that.&#8221;</p>
<p>As the Im Tirtzu report indicates, the NGO-led campaign against Israeli Arab military and national service has contributed to a situation in which Israeli Arabs who support such service are subjected to physical abuse, social ostracism, humiliation and harassment.</p>
<p>In October 2012, the Forum for Military Service in the Christian Sector held a conference in Upper Nazareth whose purpose was to encourage Christians to serve in the IDF and national service. Three hundred people participated in the conference. One of the heads of Mosawa wrote a widely distributed article accusing the Christian leadership of collaborating with the IDF. She suggested blacklisting the communal leaders involved.</p>
<p>When word of the conference got out, one priest who participated was banned from the Church of the Annunciation. Another priest had his tires slashed and a blood-stained rag placed at his doorstep.</p>
<p>The children who participated in the conference were singled out for abuse. Their photos were disseminated on Facebook and in the Arab media. They were humiliated by their teachers and classmates.</p>
<p>Soldiers like Eleanor Joseph feel compelled to take off their uniforms before they return home, because when they have worn them home, they have faced harassment. One female IDF soldier reportedly was severely beaten by her neighbors.</p>
<p>The general campaign against benefits for IDF veterans and those who served in national service also involves a similar campaign to demoralize high school students and encourage them not to serve. For instance, in 2008, Social TV, which is supported by the NIF and the US government, broadcast a propaganda film targeting Jewish Israeli youth. Its aim was to discourage them from serving in the IDF.</p>
<p>In 2009, 22 self-proclaimed feminist organizations, many of which are financed by the NIF, launched a campaign to support seven members of New Profile who are under police investigation for launching websites instructing young people how to dodge the draft &#8211; a felony offense.</p>
<p>But the main thrust of the anti-military campaign has been to prevent and undermine Knesset and government action to provide benefits for those who serve &#8211; Jewish and non-Jewish alike. According to Im Tirtzu, the campaign has intimidated Justice Ministry officials into obstructing bills still before committee hearings.</p>
<p>For instance, in May 2012, at a Knesset Economics Committee hearing on a bill to provide housing benefits for IDF reservists, MK Miri Regev said the bill was being held up because the attorney-general feared legal challenges in the High Court.</p>
<p>This week, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approved a bill that would allow IDF soldiers to sue for libel those who wrongly accuse them of having committed war crimes during their military service. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni opposed the bill. Her opposition indicates that the bill may face a similar fate as the Knesset&#8217;s attempt to provide benefits to reservists.</p>
<p>Military and national service are vital national institutions. Integration of the Israeli Arab community is a vital national interest. It is obscene that a handful of well-funded radicals are able to undermine them both &#8211; while paralyzing our representative institutions.</p>
<p>Im Tirtzu&#8217;s report concludes with a list of recommendations the Knesset and government ministries should take to help those who serve the country, and to protect Israeli Arabs who serve and those who support them. While they are all correct, and should be followed, they do not go far enough. The time has come for the government and the Knesset to rein in the twin forces &#8211; the NGO sector and the legal fraternity &#8211; which in the name of &#8220;democracy&#8221; undermine our democracy.</p>
<p>Every election we send our representatives to the Knesset. And every election the vast majority of our elected representatives share our desire to support those who serve in the IDF and national service without reference to their religion, race or gender. We want to support them because they contribute to the general good of all of Israel.</p>
<p>But due to a handful of NGOs that receive their funding from outside Israel from governments and groups that do not share our values and interests, and due to the cooperation they receive from activist judges and radical Justice Ministry attorneys, the will of the people is stymied again and again and again.</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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