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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; letter</title>
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		<title>Appeasement: Obama&#8217;s Secret Letter to Khamenei</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-puder/appeasement-obamas-secret-letter-to-khamenei/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=appeasement-obamas-secret-letter-to-khamenei</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:40:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ali khamenei]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Appeasement]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ayatollah]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Secret]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245318</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president feeds the crocodile. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245319" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH-426x350.jpg" alt="MW-CY442_obama__20141105115645_ZH" width="284" height="233" /></a>The <i>Wall Street Journal</i> headline on November 6, 2014 stated that “Obama Wrote Letter to Iran’s (Ayatollah) Ali Khamenei (Supreme Leader of Iran) About Fighting Islamic State.” The article described the letter as “secret,” and goes on to say that the October, 2014 letter to Khamenei “[m]arked at least the fourth time Mr. Obama has written to Iran’s most powerful political and religious leader since taking office in 2009 and pledging to <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">engage</span></a> with Tehran’s Islamist government.”</p>
<p>President Obama’s “secret” letter has raised deep concerns among U.S. Middle Eastern allies including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates, who have expressed their concern that America’s desperate efforts to reach an agreement on the nuclear issue with Tehran might appear as appeasement, and that the U.S. might soften its demands for Iran’s nuclear disarmament. They are worried that the Obama administration&#8217;s eagerness to get an agreement might leave the radical Iranian regime with the capability to produce a nuclear weapon.</p>
<p>Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to the revelation concerning the “secret” letter to Khamenei, saying, “I think the struggle with ISIS doesn’t need to come at the <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-reportedly-knew-of-obamas-secret-letter-to-khamenei/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">expense</span></a> of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear arms.”</p>
<p>Reacting to Obama’s “secret” letter, Linda Heard’s column in the Saudi based <i>Arab News </i>(November 11, 2014), stated that</p>
<blockquote><p>Iranian tanks rumbling over Iraqi soil is guaranteed to throw a match on the embers of sectarian conflict, would serve as a recruiting tool for Daesh [the Arabic term for ISIS], and inflame Sunni tribes. Furthermore, this does nothing to allay the concerns of Gulf States that the U.S. may be cooking up a Grand Bargain with Iran to act as its geopolitical proxy. Those fears are exacerbated by America’s pivot east, not to mention that the luster of Arab oil has diminished now that the U.S. is on its way to becoming the world biggest oil producer. The question uppermost is this; <a href="http://www.arabnews.com/columns/news/658051"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Is Obama throwing Sunni States under an Iranian bus</span></a>?</p></blockquote>
<p>During his first six months in office, President Barack Obama wrote two letters to Khamenei calling for improvement in Iranian-U.S. relations. To many Iranian liberals who sought more freedom from the oppressive clerical regime, it amounted to appeasement of the Ayatollahs. Moreover, it only served to heighten Khamenei’s contempt for the U.S. and President Obama.</p>
<p>Ayatollah Khamenei rejected Obama’s overtures for improved relations, and in the words of Jeffrey Goldberg of <i>The Atlantic, </i>the latest letter smacks of “Obama chasing after Khamenei in the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/11/a-troubling-letter-to-an-unbending-ayatollah/382505/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">undignified</span></a> and counterproductive manner of a frustrated suitor.” Suzanne Maloney, writing for the  Brookings Institute (November 7, 2014) concludes:</p>
<blockquote><p>There is simply no plausible scenario in which a letter from the President of the United States to Ali Khamenei generates greater Iranian flexibility on the nuclear program, which the regime has paid an exorbitant price to preserve, or somehow pushes a final agreement across the finish line. Just the opposite – the letter undoubtedly intensified Khamenei’s contempt for Washington and reinforced his longstanding determination to extract maximalist concessions from the international community. It is <span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/iran-at-saban/posts/2014/11/06-letter-khamenei-ayatollah-iran-obama-nuclear-isis">a blow</a></span> to the delicate end-game state of play in the nuclear talks at the precise moment when American resolve was needed most.</p></blockquote>
<p>The November 24, 2014 deadline for the final nuclear agreement between the five permanent representatives on the UN Security Council (U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France) and Germany with Iran is fast approaching. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and the outgoing EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met in Muscat, Oman last weekend with Javad Zarif, the Iranian Foreign Minister.</p>
<p>It is likely that the U.S. administration, through John Kerry, urged the Iranians to be more flexible and indicated its desire to reach an agreement, even if it leaves Iran with the capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. The Iranians are bent on retaining their right to enrich uranium and keeping their existing nuclear infrastructure intact. Kerry, on the other hand, seeks to create the impression that the U.S. will adhere to President Obama’s pledge to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.</p>
<p>Former U.S. Representative Dan Burton wrote in the <i>Washington Times</i> (2/19/2014),</p>
<blockquote><p>Based on Iran’s history of lies, deception and hostility, why should we believe they are playing square now? Giving Iran $7 billion in cash while leaving in place one of the most sophisticated enrichment programs in the world is not an act of faith; it is an act of appeasement.  <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Appeasement</span></a><span style="color: #365f91;"> </span>did not work in the 1930’s with Adolf Hitler. It did not work in the 1990’s with North Korea. It will not work in 2014 with Iran.</p></blockquote>
<p>Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), who co-authored a bill with Bob Menendez (D-NJ) that imposed tough sanctions on Iran, reacted to President Obama’s letter saying that “The best way to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is to quickly pass the bipartisan Menendez-Kirk legislation &#8212; not to give the Iranians more time to build a bomb.” John Boehner (R-OH), Speaker of the House, said, “<a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/obama-wrote-secret-letter-to-irans-khamenei-about-fighting-islamic-state-1415295291"><span style="color: #0433ff;">I don’t trust</span></a> the Iranians &#8212; I don’t think we need to bring them into this.” Referring to the continuing nuclear talks between Iran and world powers, Speaker Boehner said he “would hope that the negotiations that are under way are serious negotiations, but I have my doubts.”</p>
<p>In an ironic twist, Khamenei actually blames the U.S. for creating ISIS and al-Qaeda as a way to weaken the Islamic world. It is perhaps a more honest response than the Taqiyya (a form of religious dissimulation or deception of one’s enemy) artists such as Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, who have appeared to have charmed the Obama administration and the British government that recently reopened its Tehran embassy.</p>
<p>The Obama administration appears to have concluded that the Islamic Republic of Iran would be the best American deputy to guard the region and insure the region’s stability. For the Ayatollahs, this couldn’t be a better prospect. For a long time, Iran has sought to become the hegemon of the region. With the U.S. destroying Iran’s rivals, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and the Taliban in Afghanistan, it paved the way for Tehran to spread the Shiite arc. <span style="color: #232323;">Haider al-Abadi’s </span>Iraq, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, and Hezbollah controlled Lebanon are now tributaries of Iran. The Arab Gulf states can expect increased intimidation from Iran. Israel faces an existential threat from a nuclear armed and hegemonic Iran.</p>
<p>And yet, other than in the realm of terrorism, Iran has little ability on its own to project power. Its air force is antiquated, and its regular army is relatively weak. Khamenei’s threat that “if America makes the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/05/world/middleeast/05diplo.html?pagewanted=print&amp;_r=0"><span style="color: #0433ff;">wrong move</span></a> toward Iran, the shipment of energy will definitely face danger” is rather hollow given U.S. capabilities. In fact, the U.S. Navy has the capacity to eliminate the entire Iranian navy in an hour. It is America’s consistent appeasement of Iran despite its unpunished attacks on Americans in Lebanon, (241 U.S. Marines killed in 1983, U.S. embassy in Beirut bombed) Saudi Arabia, (Khobar towers bombing 19 American servicemen killed and hundreds wounded), and Iraq (Improvised Explosive Devises killing numerous American soldiers) that has emboldened the Ayatollahs of Iran. President Obama’s letter to Khamenei appears to smack of further appeasement.</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>Hillary Will Be Alinsky’s Third Term</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/hillary-will-be-alinskys-third-term/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hillary-will-be-alinskys-third-term</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/hillary-will-be-alinskys-third-term/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 04:55:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Daniel Greenfield]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Radical]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saul Alinsky]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=241548</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The radical plot to destroy America continues.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hillary-clinton.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-241549" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/hillary-clinton-427x350.jpg" alt="hillary-clinton" width="283" height="232" /></a>After two terms in the White House by one Alinsky disciple, the United States is divided as never before. One in four Americans are ready for their state to secede from the United States. Three quarters of Americans don’t believe that their children will have a better future than they did.</p>
<p>To anyone else this would be a failure, but to an Alinskyite despair and doom are a success story. Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals that the organizer must “rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.”</p>
<p>He must make the people “feel so frustrated, so defeated, so lost, so futureless in the prevailing system that they are willing to let go of the past and chance the future.”</p>
<p>Obama has made Americans feel frustrated, defeated, futureless and lost. And if they were hoping that the next Democrat will actually bring hope and change, instead of hatred and despair, they will be deeply disappointed. While Obama learned his community organizing skills at the feet of Alinsky’s twisted disciples, Hillary Clinton learned them from Alinsky. Hillary is even worse than Obama.</p>
<p>In the introduction to her senior thesis on Alinsky, Hillary Rodham thanked him for his time and for offering her a job. But those dispassionate words were covering up a much deeper relationship.</p>
<p>The Free Beacon’s <a href="http://freebeacon.com/politics/the-hillary-letters/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">recent release of an exchange of</span></a> letters begins with Hillary anxiously waiting for the release of Rules for Radicals.</p>
<p>“Has it come and I somehow missed the fulfillment of Revelation?” the former Methodist “Goldwater Girl” turned radical leftist wonders.</p>
<p>“You are being rediscovered again as the New Left-type politicos are finally beginning to think seriously about the hard work and mechanics of organizing,” she writes.</p>
<p>In her thesis, Hillary had attempted to depict Alinsky as a mainstream American icon, writing, “His are the words used in our schools and churches, by our parents and their friends, by our peers. The difference is that Alinsky really believes in them”. The media attempted to defend her Alinsky ties by claiming that he was not ideologically of the left. Hillary’s letter however gives the lie to that.</p>
<p>Alinsky was not mainstream. There was nothing American about him. He was a man of the hard left.</p>
<p>For Alinsky, Hillary Rodham represented a connection to the future.</p>
<p>In the introduction to Rules for Radicals, he wrote of her generation of leftist radicals, “It is what they do and will do that will give meaning to what I and the radicals of my generation have done with our lives.”</p>
<p>That is what the last six years have been. The misery, the rising prices, the racial hatred and despair were the meaning that Barack Obama brought to Saul Alinsky’s life. They are the fertile dark territories on which Hillary Rodham Clinton means to build a horrifying future.</p>
<p>Alinsky was more than a thesis subject to Clinton. And vice versa. Her letter to him is cheerfully intimate. His secretary’s response references “his feelings about you”. The year was 1971. Hillary was deep in her political activities and had begun dating Bill Clinton. Three years earlier, Alinsky had offered her a job. Hillary however had chosen to go on working through the system. That continues to be her tactic today.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton didn’t reject Alinsky, as she and the media have tried to claim. His tactics and worldview continue to inform her own. But Hillary, Rodham or Clinton, understood the importance of adaptation.</p>
<p>But so did Alinsky.</p>
<p>“As an organizer I start from where the world is,” Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals. “That means working in the system.”</p>
<p>“If the real radical finds that having long hair sets up psychological barriers to communication and organization, he cuts his hair,” he added.</p>
<p>Hillary’s pantsuits, her $1,500 haircuts and her time with the Democratic Leadership Council were not a rejection of Alinsky. They were the tactics of a Rules for Radicals leftist working within the system.</p>
<p>Alinsky would have understood and approved.</p>
<p>In her first memoir, Hillary Clinton claimed that she had broken with Alinsky over her “belief that the system could be changed from within.”</p>
<p>But Alinsky had believed that as well. Hillary never broke with him, but she had to maintain the appearance of having left behind a radical flirtation to become a mainstream Democrat. That appearance, like everything else about her, was and is a lie.</p>
<p>Quoting Lenin, Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, “They have the guns and therefore we are for peace and for reformation through the ballot. When we have the guns then it will be through the bullet.”</p>
<p>“And it was,” he added.</p>
<p>For now it’s still reformation through the ballot, overseen by a propagandist media and its campaigns of dirty tricks. But the radicals still dream of the day when they have the guns and Americans have nothing.</p>
<p>Despite the media’s attempts to dismiss Hillary Clinton’s ties to Alinsky, the way that they had tried to wave away Obama’s ties to Bill Ayers, she maintained her dirty political connections with Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation even inside the white walls of the White House.</p>
<p>A year after the letter, Alinsky was buried in the cold hard ground of Cook County after an attack of the heart that no one knew he had. By then Hillary Clinton was campaigning for George McGovern.</p>
<p>“The key word for an Alinsky-type organizing effort is ‘power.’” Hillary wrote in her thesis. “’As he says: ‘No individual or organization can negotiate without power to compel negotiations.’&#8221;</p>
<p>The Clintons have gathered enormous wealth and power to themselves. As Obama’s radical fires burn across the heartland, as factories close, unemployment lines bulge and the people despair, the Clintons are positioning themselves as the sensible moderates who will take a step back from his radical ways. For the scam to work, they had to play the long game of pretending not to be radicals.</p>
<p>Hillary had to be seen as leaving Alinsky behind to truly fulfill his vision of a ruined nation brought to its knees.</p>
<p>In 1971, on the cusp of her latest meeting with Alinsky, Hillary Rodham was coming to some crucial decisions that would determine the expression of her radicalism and extremism. Influencing her in this regard was none other than Saul Alinsky.</p>
<p>From his teachings, Hillary came to understand that power mattered more than symbolism and that effectiveness came before integrity.</p>
<p>“All effective actions require the passport of morality,” Alinsky wrote. Hillary carries the passport of morality. Its pages however are blank. Radicals of the left are not citizens of any country or members of any religion. Their only nation is their own ideology. Their only allegiance is to their radicalism.</p>
<p>“We have the serious business and joy of much work ahead,” Hillary wrote to him. Alinsky would soon be dead, but Hillary would be carrying on his work by abusing her advisory position with the House Committee on the Judiciary to bring down the President of the United States.</p>
<p>McGovern had lost, but Hillary Clinton would have her way no matter what the ballots said. And her way was the Alinsky way.</p>
<p>Now the White House has been reserved for her. The Democratic Party is waiting to anoint another of Saul Alinsky’s disciples for a third term of misery and terror in the radical plot to destroy America.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>Don&#8217;t miss Shillman Journalism Fellow <strong>Daniel Greenfield</strong> on this week&#8217;s Glazov Gang discussing <strong>&#8220;ISIS Rising&#8221;</strong>:</em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9E8gGysQZzU" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Benghazi Victims&#8217; Families Demand Real Investigation</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/benghazi-victims-families-demand-real-investigation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=benghazi-victims-families-demand-real-investigation</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Jan 2014 05:29:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[families]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Investigation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[select committee]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Victims]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214719</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Families of the fallen and military leaders call for action -- will Speaker Boehner respond? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jihadist-Hand-Sign.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214390" alt="Jihadist Hand Sign" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Jihadist-Hand-Sign-366x350.jpg" width="293" height="280" /></a><em>Monday, surviving family members of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya dispatched a letter to House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) criticizing Congress&#8217;s disorganized and inadequate inquiry into the tragic incident. Approximately 75 military and conservative leaders, including Freedom Center President David Horowitz, joined in calling for the formation of a congressional select </em><i>committee, equipped with subpoena authority, to provide a serious investigation into the attack. The full text of the letter follows. </i></p>
<p><strong>“To the living we owe respect. To the dead we owe the truth.”</strong> –Voltaire</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The Honorable John Boehner<br />
Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives<br />
The Capitol, H-232<br />
Washington, D.C., 20515</p>
<p style="text-align: right;">January 6, 2014</p>
<p>Dear Speaker Boehner,</p>
<p>We write to express our grave concern over the failure of your House of Representatives to extract the truth from the Obama administration concerning the attack on our diplomatic and intelligence facilities in Benghazi, Libya; and, the brutal deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stephens, U.S. Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith, and security officers Ty Woods and Glen Doherty.</p>
<p>To date, five (5) different committees of the House have conducted separate hearings, uncovering information in a piecemeal fashion lacking professional investigators.  The five committees’ efforts are disjointed and uncoordinated.  The Obama administration has benefited from that dysfunctional process to hide the truth.  Hardly any Obama administration witnesses have testified – publicly or privately.  You have resisted repeated calls for the creation of a select investigative committee with subpoena authority. It appears that you are satisfied to allow that state of investigative incoherence and ambiguity to continue.  The last public hearing by any of the five committees was held in September – four (4) months ago.  The families of the dead who fought valiantly to protect the mission and their families, the survivors, and the American people deserve better from you and your Members of Congress. They deserve the absolute truth from their government. Your failure to get the truth and hold public officials accountable increases the possibility of other repeat attacks and additional failures to defend Americans abroad.</p>
<p>On Sunday, December 29, 2013, the New York Times published a story concerning the Benghazi attacks that directly contradicts the sworn testimony of witnesses who appeared before various committees.  Besides the obvious New York Times editorial and political objectives of inoculating Hillary Clinton and her 2016 presidential campaign from further criticism of her failures as Secretary of State, the story contradicts objective truth and established facts in a way that confuses the public.  Your inaction and failure to lead on the Benghazi investigation directly contributes to the repetition of lies; a lack of accountability from responsible government officials; and the political advancement of persons who seek to continue to “fundamentally transform” the Constitution and our country.  The New York Times recent publication proves the Benghazi story is not “going away.”</p>
<p>Your oversight of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation has been without any meaningful effect or result.  Not a single terrorist in this well-planned and executed military attack by radical Islamists has been apprehended.  Ahmed Abu Khattala, a ringleader of the attack, granted long interviews to reporters in Benghazi cafes, while the Obama administration – and you – have done nothing.  Nearly 16 months after the terrorist attack, the American public has no accountability and no plan of action from House leadership. The public is subjected to undisputed disinformation from a White House who calls the terror attack a “phony scandal.”  While the White House repeats false and misleading information, you continue to ignore claims, documented by Rep. Frank Wolf, of intelligence officers being intimidated with multiple, punitive polygraph examinations and harassing non-disclosure agreement demands.  If Benghazi is “phony” why are intelligence officers being threatened not to speak and subjected to polygraph exams? Why do you stand by passively?</p>
<p>Some analysts believe your inaction and passivity towards getting to the truth concerning Benghazi is because you were briefed on the intelligence and special operations activities in Libya as a member of the “Super 8.”   You may possess “guilty knowledge.”  We recall how then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi developed a form of “amnesia” concerning a documented briefing she received on so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” – later termed “torture” for political purposes.  Are you in the same position as your predecessor?  Are you dodging a legitimate, thorough, coordinated investigation of Benghazi because it will damage your political position as Speaker?</p>
<p>You should be embarrassed that members of Congress, and your own party, are forced to file Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with Obama administration agencies to get basic information about the Benghazi issue.  What a sad and pathetic statement about the operations of House standing committees looking into this tragedy that FOIA has become the last resort of even Republican Members seeking the truth!  Are you concerned that the scattershot and untimely efforts of the various committees may actually be doing more harm than good at documenting facts?  These are all examples of Republican leadership failures.  How are you accountable?</p>
<p>Rep. Mike Rogers and the Intelligence Committee seem to act as defense counsel for the Obama administration.  A recent Intelligence Committee weekly update note stated as fact that no arms shipments were being run from Libya, and that no intelligence officers were being coerced not to speak.  There is substantial evidence to the contrary on both counts.  Why does Rep. Rogers parrot the discredited falsehoods of the so-called “Accountability Review Board” (ARB)?  Conflicting accounts, testimony and evidence need to be investigated – not dismissed or ignored.  Don’t those contradictions and questions compel you, on behalf of the American people, to take any action to resolve the matter and get to the truth?</p>
<p>Aren’t you concerned that General Carter Ham was suddenly and prematurely recalled from AFRICOM, and then made statements at the Aspen Institute that directly contradicted the Obama administration’s position on the nature of the attack in Benghazi?  Why has General Ham not testified publicly before one of the House committees?</p>
<p>The New York Times story reports that the CIA was, in fact, collecting weapons in Benghazi.  If true, why was the CIA running a separate, parallel weapons program from the State Department’s $40 million collection effort?  Where did the CIA-purchased weapons go?  Is the Obama administration arming al Qaeda affiliated jihadists in Syria?</p>
<p>If you wished, you could have publicly engaged Rep. Devin Nunes concerning his November 6, 2013 letter to you, addressing the nine unanswered questions about Benghazi. Instead, there was thundering silence from your office. You have an opportunity to show strong leadership and resolve a national disgrace perpetrated by specific public officials. You are failing.</p>
<p>Your reluctance to lead and resistance to create a Select Committee on Benghazi must end.  More than 75% of all House Republicans – with the conspicuous absence of those in leadership or committee chairmen – have cosponsored Rep. Wolf’s Select Committee bill.  Few bills in this Congress demonstrate such overwhelming support from Republicans.  Additionally, the bill enjoys the support of national security advocacy groups, and the Wall Street Journal editorial board, among many others.</p>
<p>We urge you to bring the bill to the floor for a vote immediately to start effective oversight on this critical national security matter immediately. We have waited long enough. Your approach is not working.</p>
<p>Mr. Speaker, we call upon you to act now and create a Select Committee on Benghazi to investigate all aspects of the United States involvement in Libya, to include, but not be limited to the attacks of September 11, 2012. It must now also include the protracted cover-up the American people, the families of the fallen and those with loved ones serving overseas have endured. The new committee must have subpoena power, capable staff and Members from both parties who are committed to finding the truth, not playing politics.  The Committee must be staffed with new, professional, qualified and experienced investigators. It must have resources to conduct a thorough, comprehensive investigation and issue an exhaustive report before this Congress adjourns.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>The Undersigned:<br />
(<em>Titles for identification purposes only</em>)</p>
<p><em><strong>Charles Woods, Father of Ty Woods</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Pat Smith, Mother of Sean Smith</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Michael Ingmire, Musician/Writer, Uncle to Sean Smith</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> and</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Adm. Jerome L. Johnson, USN Ret., former Vice Chief of Naval Operations</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Lt. Gen. E.G. “Buck” Shuler, Jr., USAF, (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Lt. Gen. Richard D. Lawrence, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> LTG William G. Boykin, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely, USA Ret, Chairman, Stand Up America</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Maj. Gen. Carroll D. Childers, USA (Ret), Ranger</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Maj. Gen. Thomas F. Cole, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Maj. Gen. Richard M. Cooke, USMC (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Amb. Henry F. Cooper, Former Director, Strategic Defense Initiative</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> LTC Allen B. West (US Army, Ret) former Congressman, FL</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Capt Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62, USN (Ret), Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Debra Burlingame, Co-founder, 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Elaine Donnelly, President, Center for Military Readiness</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dick Brauer, Col, USAF (Ret), Special Operation Speaks</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Tom Fitton, President, Judicial Watch</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Allen Roth, Secure America Now</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Joel A. Arends, Veterans for a Strong America</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Ginni Thomas, President, Liberty Consulting</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Catherine Engelbrecht, President, True the Vote</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Anita MonCrief, Black Voters Alliance</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> David Wallace, Restore America&#8217;s Mission</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dr. James Pollock, Maj., USAF (Ret), OIF VETx2, SOCOM, Wounded Warrior Congressional Advocate</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> John J. Molloy, Chairman, National Vietnam &amp; Gulf War Veterans Coalition</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> James C. Harding, Col USAF (Ret) National Spokesman for Veteran Defenders of America</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Diane M. Sendlenski, Veteran US Air Force, Special Operations Speaks Coordinator</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> John G. B. Howland, Publisher, USNA-At-Large</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Katherine Cornell Gorka, Executive Director, The Westminster Institute</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Paul Caprio, Executive Director, Family Pac Federal</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> William L. Walton, Chairman, Rappahannock Ventures LLC</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Sandy Rios, Director of Governmental Affairs, American Family Association</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> David Horowitz, President, Freedom Center</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Peter Thomas, Chairman, The Conservative Caucus</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Rear Adm. Hugh P. Scott, MC, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Rear Adm. Bill McDaniel, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Rear Adm. John A. Moriarty, USN, (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Rear Adm. Robert B. McClinton, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Rear Adm. Don G. Primeau, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Brig. Gen. Michael Neil, USMCR (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Brig. Gen. Francis Hughes, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Brig. Gen. John Zierdt, Jr., USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Brig. Gen. Michael T. Byrnes, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Brig. Gen. William A. Bloomer, USMC (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Captain Kenneth Rauch, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Captain Peter A. Hewett, JAGC, U.S. Navy (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Captain James Knight, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Captain Roger W. Barnett, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Captain Gregory Streeter, USN (Ret) USNA ’58</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Col. G. Huntington Banister, USA (Ret), and former Acting Director, Selective Service System, 1994</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Col. S. Badiner, USMC (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Col. Gregory G. Raths, USMC (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Col. Joseph V. Potter, USAF (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Col. Rob Maness, USAF (Ret), U.S. Senate Candidate 2014, R-Louisiana</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dan Bongino, 2012 Republican Nominee for US Senate, MD</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Lt. Col. Ken Benway, USA (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Lt. Col. Dennis B. Haney, USAF (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> CDR Randolph J. Horhutz, USNA &#8217;61, SC, USN (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Everett Woolum, CMSGT, USAF (Ret)</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Gregory J. Rose, USNA &#8217;73</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Thomas Corboy, USNA, ‘61</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Anthony R. Papandrea, USNA ‘61</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Raymond H. Clary, Jr., USNA ‘65</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> John W. Slagle, U.S. Navy Aviation veteran (Ret) Special Agent U.S.B.P. Anti-Smuggling Unit</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Sarah Folger White, Former Presidential Commissioner</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dick and Patricia Schermerhorn, Appleton, WI</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Lee Boyland, Author, former military officer, entrepreneur, nuclear engineer</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Susan Creed Percy, Advocate for Military Families</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dave Hollenbeck, retired CA Highway Patrol</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Paul F. Wirtz, Military family, OH resident</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> John Lillywhite, U.S. Citizen</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Gene Andrews, U. S. Citizen</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Mrs. Nancy Olbert, Supervisor Criminal Advocates, Daytona, FL State Attorney Office</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Dr. Frank Ingels, Military Defense Consultant, MSIC/TETRA Office</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Robert M. Trent, Senior Special Agent, USINS and former Marine and Vietnam combat veteran</strong></em><br />
<em><strong> Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Christians for a Sustainable Economy; OH resident</strong></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>The Letter Netanyahu Should Send to the EU</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/steven-plaut/the-letter-netanyahu-should-send-to-the-eu/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-letter-netanyahu-should-send-to-the-eu</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Jul 2013 04:04:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Steven Plaut]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[eu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Iran]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Netanyahu]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=197293</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Some necessary preconditions for relinquishing the "occupied territories" to the Arab Palestinians.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p dir="LTR"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ben.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-197297" alt="ben" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ben-350x350.jpg" width="138" height="138" /></a><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: The letter below was formulated on behalf of the Israeli Prime Minister by Steven Plaut:</strong></p>
<p dir="LTR">Dear Leaders and Commissioners of the European Union:</p>
<p dir="LTR">As Prime Minister of Israel I would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts with the world about how Israel should solve the Middle East conflict, namely by agreeing to &#8220;return&#8221; the &#8220;occupied Palestinian&#8221; lands to the &#8220;Palestinians.&#8221;</p>
<p>Always willing to be of public service, I have composed a small list of minor preconditions that must be met in order for Israel to agree to return to the &#8220;Palestinians&#8221; of the &#8220;occupied territories&#8221; that are &#8220;theirs.&#8221; These are really just minor corrections in your own plan. After all, why should Israel be the first and the only country to &#8220;return&#8221; lands to the original inhabitants from which they &#8220;seized&#8221; these lands in &#8220;occupation&#8221;?</p>
<p>So here goes:</p>
<p>It goes without saying that the Americans and Canadians must lead the way and show Israel the light by returning all lands that they seized from the Indians and the Mexicans to their original owners.  The Anglo-Saxons, meaning the English, will be invited to return the British isles to their rightful original Celtic and Druid owners, while they return to their own ancestral Saxon homeland in northern Germany and Denmark.  The Danes of course will be asked to move aside. In fact, they will be asked to move back to their Norwegian and Swedish homeland, to make room for the returning Anglo-Saxons.</p>
<p>But that is just a beginning.  The Spanish will be called upon to leave the Iberian peninsula that they wrongfully occupy and return it to the indigenous Celtiberians.  Similarly, the Portuguese occupiers will leave their lands and return them to the Lusitanians.  The Magyars will go back where they came from and leave Hungary to its true owners. The Australians and New Zealanders obviously will have to end their occupations of lands that do not belong to them.  The Thais will leave Thailand.  The Bulgarians will return to their Volga homeland and abandon occupied Bulgaria.  Anyone speaking Spanish will be expected to end his or her forced occupation of Latin America.  It goes without saying that the French will surrender all their lands, starting with Corsica, to their rightful owners. The Turks will go back to Mongolia and leave Anatolia altogether.  The Germans will go back to Gotland.  The Italians will return the boot to the Etruscans and Greeks.</p>
<p>That leaves the Arabs and Iranians.  First, all of northern Africa, from Mauritania to Egypt and Sudan, will have to be immediately abandoned by the illegal Arab occupiers and squatters and returned to their lawful original Berber, Punic, Greek, and Vandal owners.  Occupied Syria and Lebanon must be released at once from the cruel occupation of the Arab imperialist aggressors.  Iraq must be returned to the Assyrians and Chaldeans.  Southern Arabia must be returned to the Abyssinians.  The Arabs may retain control of the central portion of the Arabian peninsula as their homeland. But not the oil fields.</p>
<p>Oh, and the Palestinian infiltrators, usurpers and squatters will of course have to return the lands they are illegally and wrongfully occupying to their legal and rightful owners &#8211; the Jews.</p>
<p dir="LTR">While we are fixing world problems, let us also return all of Iran to its rightful owners.  I of course mean the Mongolians.</p>
<p dir="LTR">True, Iran was conquered or liberated from the Persians by the Mongols militarily starting in 1219. Iran then became a legitimate part of the Mongol homeland. Tamerlane, who was part Mongol, also ran the place.  All in all, the Mongol liberation of Persia lasted for two and a half centuries, not much different from the length of the period of Arab rule of “Palestine,” after which Iran was “lost” to Turkic tribes.  I guess that means the Turks also have a legitimate claim to a homeland there.</p>
<p dir="LTR">Now if the fact that some Arab armies once conquered the Land of Israel is thought to confer upon them rights of sovereignty and even statehood, why should not the Mongol conquest of Iran do the same? After all, Iran was once a Mongol state, as recently as 550 years ago, whereas the last time the Land of Israel was an Arab Palestinian state was, well, never.</p>
<p dir="LTR">Not only should Mongol rule be restored to Iran as the only legitimate rulers of the place, but these days the Mongols make far better neighbors than do the ayatollahs. The Mongols have no nuclear plans and have never met with the anti-Semitic pagans from the Neturei Karta.  The Mongols would surely put the Persian Gulf petroleum to better use than do the Holocaust Deniers in Iran these days, like developing yak milk production capacities.</p>
<p dir="LTR">So, I say, end these illegal occupations once and for all and return these lands to their rightful owners!</p>
<p>And right after all this, Israel will be happy to implement your proposals in full.</p>
<p dir="LTR">Thanks you for hearing me out.</p>
<p dir="LTR">Sincerely yours,</p>
<p dir="LTR">Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel</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>Open Letter to the UC Regents</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-horowitz-and-jeffrey-wienir/open-letter-to-the-uc-regents/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=open-letter-to-the-uc-regents</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Jun 2013 04:53:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz and Jeffrey Wienir]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[letter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[MSA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sadia Saifuddin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UC Regents]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Sign this open letter and petition the UC regents to stop this outrage.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/reg1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-193584" alt="reg" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/reg1-338x350.jpg" width="270" height="280" /></a><em>Editors&#8217; note: Sadia Saifuddin, a UC Berkeley senior and a member of the MSA and Students for Justice in Palestine, Muslim Brotherhood front groups that regularly sponsor &#8220;Israel Apartheid Weeks,&#8221; was recently nominated to become the University of California student regent for the 2014-15 academic year.  In addition to sponsoring anti-Israel resolutions on campus including one calling for divestment from companies that do business with Israel, she is behind the vicious attack on Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz and one of the lone defenders of Israel amongst faculty within the University of California system.  The following is an open letter to the Regents of the University of California, urging them not to confirm Saifuddin when they convene next month.</em></p>
<p><strong>Sign This Letter and Send the UC Regents a Message:</strong></p>
<p>June 17, 2013</p>
<p>The Regents of the University of California<br />
1111 Franklin St., 12<sup>th</sup> Floor<br />
Oakland, CA 94607</p>
<p>Dear Regent:</p>
<p>We are concerned by your nomination of Sadia Saifuddin, a leading figure in two organizations that conduct an annual hate campaign against the state of Israel and Jewish students on UC campuses to be a University of California student regent for 2014-15.  Appointing Sadia Saifuddin to the Board of Regents would be an offense to the “Principles of Community” for UC Berkeley which are supposed to be core values in the UC system, and which calls on UC students to “ respect the differences as well as the commonalities that bring us together and call for civility and respect in our personal interactions.” How is it respectful for the organizations that Sadia Saifuddin represents to sponsor “Israeli Apartheid Weeks” which support terrorist organizations like Hamas and call for the destruction of the Jewish state?</p>
<p>Sadia Saifuddin has been an active participant in the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement which eminent academics like Larry Summers and Alan Dershowitz of Harvard have described as “anti-Semitic” and which call for the destruction of the Jewish state. Two student senators at UC Berkeley who voted against the divestment resolution that Sadia Saifuddin and her organizations support reported that they had received death threats.</p>
<p>Sadia Saifuddin is a leader of the Muslim Students Association and Students for Justice in Palestine who have featured speakers that promote hate against Jews at multiple campuses in the UC system. Amir Abdel Malik-Ali, a leading figure in these organizations who has spoken at UCLA, UC Irvine and other UC campuses under the auspices of the MSA and SJP openly supports the terrorist organization Hamas, calls for a war against America and describes Jews “the new Nazis.”  And Malik-Ali is not alone.</p>
<p>Recently, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/islamic-supremacist-nominated-as-uc-student-regent/">Saifuddin has been behind</a> the vicious attacks on Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, a lecturer at UC Santa Cruz who is also a co-founder of the AMCHA Initiative, a grass-roots advocacy coalition dedicated to protecting Jewish students from anti-Semitism on UC campuses.</p>
<p>The anti-Jewish activities of Sadia Saifuddin’s organizations are well documented. Here are links to two current lawsuits about them:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/3100/lawsuit-details-depth-of-berkeley-jewish-student">http://www.investigativeproject.org/3100/lawsuit-details-depth-of-berkeley-jewish-student</a></li>
<li><a href="http://zoa.org/2004/10/101869-jewish-students-at-uc-irvine-harassed-intimidated-zoa-reports-in-complaint-to-u-s-civil-rights-office/">http://zoa.org/2004/10/101869-jewish-students-at-uc-irvine-harassed-intimidated-zoa-reports-in-complaint-to-u-s-civil-rights-office/</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The nomination of Sadia Saifuddin as the student regent is inappropriate, and if she were confirmed, it would set a dangerous precedent to encourage escalated anti-Semitism on campus, which is already a big problem in the UC system.  I urge you to reconsider Saifuddin’s nomination and not to confirm her as a Regent next month.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>David Horowitz<br />
Founder and CEO<br />
The David Horowitz Freedom Center</p>
<p>Jeffrey Wienir<br />
Campus Director<br />
David Horowitz Freedom Center</p>
<p><strong>To sign this letter to the UC Regents, fill out the form below: </strong></p>
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		<slash:comments>215</slash:comments>
		</item>
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		<title>Obama Camp Works to Undercut Sheldon Adelson Venture</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/obama-camp-works-with-spanish-socialists-to-undercut-sheldon-adelson-venture/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-camp-works-with-spanish-socialists-to-undercut-sheldon-adelson-venture</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/obama-camp-works-with-spanish-socialists-to-undercut-sheldon-adelson-venture/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2012 04:10:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[attack]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Axelrod]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[casino]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Miguel Antonio]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Spain]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=148825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama campaign warns Spanish socialist party about the "Eurovegas" entrepreneur. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/obama-camp-works-with-spanish-socialists-to-undercut-sheldon-adelson-venture/sheldon_adelson/" rel="attachment wp-att-148848"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-148848" title="sheldon_adelson" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/sheldon_adelson.gif" alt="" width="315" height="247" /></a>It is considered unacceptable etiquette for Americans to criticize the President when they travel overseas.  Similarly, one would expect President Obama not to oppose American business interests when those businesses and their owners are overseas. Yet, the Obama administration did so recently – attacking an American business via a socialist foreign political party.</p>
<p>Behavior unbecoming of the President of this great democracy – yet typical of the Obama administration’s hostile policies towards business. Obama, the great American bully, saw fit to attack self-made billionaire <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/team-obama-should-apologize-for-libeling-adelson/">Sheldon Adelson</a> the other day while he was visiting Spain to announce that the Sands corporation had attracted sufficient funding to start building “Eurovegas,” a major casino complex in Madrid.</p>
<p>Adelson, a high-profile Republican, serves as CEO of Las Vegas Sands, a publicly traded American corporation, and hopes to create tens of thousands of jobs for Spain, one of America’s closest allies, in a country grappling with an unemployment rate of nearly 25 percent.</p>
<p>David Axelrod, a proxy of Obama, attacked Adelson in a note to Antonio Miguel, a member of the assembly and a Socialist Party in Madrid.  Adelson’s offense? Opposing Obama’s political beliefs.  Sounds like Putin’s Russia where the President opposes business interests due to political differences.</p>
<p>The note read:</p>
<blockquote><p>Sheldon Adelson, the conservative billionaire Las Vegas casino owner, has pledged to give up to $100 million &#8212; whatever it takes &#8212; to defeat Barack Obama. We know it’s not out of love for Mitt Romney, so why part with so much money? As President Clinton reminded us last week, sometimes the answer is as simple as arithmetic.</p>
<p>So let’s do the math: According to a new report from the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Adelson could see up to $2 billion in savings under Mitt Romney´s tax plan versus the President´s plan. That´s how much Romney´s policies would favor millionaires and billionaires. If Mitt Romney wins &#8212; $2 billion more for Adelson. If Barack Obama wins, millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share.</p>
<p>It’s a highly cynical but straightforward calculation. Here’s how it would work for Adelson in a Romney-Ryan administration:</p>
<p>• Romney would keep in place the Bush tax cuts, and cut Adelson’s income taxes by an additional 20 percent. Adelson savings: $1.5 million per year on income he earns as CEO.</p>
<p>• Romney´s plan eliminates taxes on foreign profits like the ones Adelson makes on his Asian casinos. Adelson savings: $1.2 billion.</p>
<p>• Romney´s plan maintains the current low tax rate on dividends. Adelson savings: $120 million per year.</p>
<p>• Romney´s plan removes the estate tax. Adelson heirs save: $8.9 billion.</p>
<p>I honestly can’t think of a more straightforward contrast in this election.<br />
We don’t have Sheldon Adelson, and with all due respect, we don’t want him.<br />
David]</p></blockquote>
<p>Owning a leading US <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/">PR Firm</a>, I wasn’t surprised that the letter was leaked to media by the socialist political party – who opposes Sands’ plan. Surely, Axelrod knew that this letter would end up in the media.  Hence, a proxy of Obama, the most powerful man in the world tells a foreign country’s socialist leaders that they “don’t want” an American citizen? Unacceptable, un-American – and perhaps a sign of socialist unity between Obama and the Spaniards.</p>
<p>Las Vegas Sands is an American-owned corporation &#8212; which generates profits and taxes for an American corporation with American shareholders. Is it in America’s best interests to actively and publicly oppose an American corporation legally creating jobs and stimulating the economy?</p>
<p>Sheldon Adelson was born into a poor immigrant family and today is the world’s 14<sup>th</sup> wealthiest man with a net worth approaching $25 billion dollars. He is a proud patriot who is working to create profits for an American company by providing a unique opportunity for a European economy that needs help.</p>
<p>It is shameful, despicable, and un-American for an American President to skewer Sheldon Adelson, a private citizen because of his political beliefs.  Then again, given Obama’s views on business and money, it is consistent with his record.</p>
<p>Adelson and Sands are making money and succeeding – and maybe that’s what the socialists oppose. (Though I hope I am not sent to the gulag for writing this op-ed).</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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		<slash:comments>11</slash:comments>
		</item>
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		<title>Free Speech Under Assault at Sinclair Community College</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/free-speech-under-assault-at-sinclair-community-college/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=free-speech-under-assault-at-sinclair-community-college</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/arnold-ahlert/free-speech-under-assault-at-sinclair-community-college/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 10 May 2011 04:28:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[breast cancer awareness]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92717</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education challenges another college speech code.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NoFreeSpeech.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92720" title="NoFreeSpeech" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/NoFreeSpeech.jpg" alt="" width="380" height="270" /></a></p>
<p>Yet another assault on First Amendment rights on college campuses is taking place in Dayton, Ohio. Last October, <a href="http://www.sinclair.edu/" target="_blank">Sinclair Community College</a> (SCC) prohibited a paralegal studies student, Ethel Borel-Donohue, from distributing pamphlets to her fellow students after a class. <a href="http://onemoresoul.com/pdfs/PBCA.pdf" target="_blank">The pamphlets</a> focused on the link between abortion and the use of oral contraceptives to higher rates of breast cancer. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but Judge Michael Brigner, Paralegal Program Chair, banned the distribution after receiving a complaint from a student who had had an abortion, telling Borel-Donohue she “had no right to hand out any materials to students in the classroom.” Borel-Donohue, contacted the <a href="http://thefire.org/" target="_blank">Foundation for Individual Rights in Education</a> (FIRE) for help, claiming she was worried about repercussions from the incident. FIRE has taken up her cause.</p>
<p>Last Friday I spoke with Madeline Iseli, newly-appointed Vice President of the Sinclair College Advancement Division, who explained to me that SCC has restrictions contained in the <a href="http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/8daf60e09b1752ce2e6ddcce82c40584.pdf?direct" target="_blank">Sinclair Community College Campus Access Policy</a> which allows the &#8220;Board of Trustees of Sinclair Community College to regulate access to such property in such a manner that the purposes of the Community College are adequately served.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sounds reasonable enough. Yet in &#8220;Section IV, SOLICITATIONS AND LITERATURE DISTRIBUTION:&#8221; paragraph 3, the restrictions become problematic: &#8220;Literature may not be distributed in working areas, including: classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls, gymnasiums, libraries, offices, work stations, conference rooms, and corridors leading directly thereto which are an integral part of the work areas.&#8221; Ms. Borel-Donohue reveals the Constitutional dubiousness of such restrictions. &#8220;So you can distribute literature, but you just can&#8217;t do it anywhere. I&#8217;ve been to several universities, but Sinclair, it seems, is really totalitarian in their control,&#8221; she said.</p>
<p>Enter FIRE. In February, the organization sent a letter to Sinclair President Steven Lee Johnson, noting that campus policies restricting distribution of literature outside of class time are unlawful. FIRE cited a 1979 federal district court decision, <a href="http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6940002100596951157&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=2&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr" target="_blank">Solid Rock Foundation v. Ohio State University</a> to back up its contention. In that case, the court ruled that Ohio State&#8217;s attempt to &#8220;regulate the distribution of plaintiffs&#8217; publication so that the campus will be &#8216;aesthetically pleasurable,&#8217;&#8221; was &#8220;likely not to pass constitutional muster&#8221; and that distribution of [of literature] is not the kind of activity which &#8220;materially disrupts classwork or involves a substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others.&#8221; Furthermore, in addressing the issue of complaints as a basis for restricting the distribution of literature, the court noted that  &#8220;[T]here may be complaints from those in the campus community who desire not to be subjected to plaintiffs&#8217; views, such as appear to have prompted the University action in the first place. But the University may not, in the interest of protecting particular persons from an unpopular viewpoint, substitute its judgment for the judgment of the individual, who has a right to determine whether or not he is willing to receive plaintiffs&#8217; message.&#8221;</p>
<p>FIRE president Greg Lukianoff whittled the ruling down to plain language. &#8220;If someone&#8217;s claim to be offended by speech were all it took to overrule the First Amendment, we would all be reduced to silence&#8230; the Constitution does not recognize a &#8216;right not to be offended,&#8217;&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>Yet Sinclair College attorney, General Counsel Lauren M. Ross, who is also the state of Ohio&#8217;s assistant attorney general, insists such restrictions do not violate the First Amendment. &#8220;Sinclair embraces the principles of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the right of free speech &#8230;Citizens are free to peacefully share their thoughts and distribute literature on campus in common areas such as atriums, eating areas, and much of the Physical Activities Center and the outdoor plazas,&#8221; she said. She also sent a <a href="http://thefire.org/public/pdfs/f87aca7f8865c7734d5b6145e2e98e8f.pdf?direct" target="_blank">letter</a> to FIRE vice president Adam Kissel citing both the aforementioned College Campus Access Policy and the  <a href="http://www.sinclair.edu/student/leader/pub/handbook/sjh10.pdf" target="_blank">Student Judicial Affairs Code of Conduct</a> as reasons for restricting Borel-Donohue.</p>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Obama’s Old Senate Seat Is Haunting Him</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/seth-mandel/obama%e2%80%99s-old-senate-seat-is-haunting-him-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama%25e2%2580%2599s-old-senate-seat-is-haunting-him-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/seth-mandel/obama%e2%80%99s-old-senate-seat-is-haunting-him-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 May 2011 04:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Seth Mandel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Barack Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[danny ayalon]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=92471</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sen. Mark Kirk puts the president's anti-Israelism in its place. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/obama_incompetent13.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-92494" title="obama_incompetent1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/obama_incompetent13.gif" alt="" width="375" height="282" /></a></p>
<p>Republicans frustrated on Election Night 2010 that the GOP was unable to win Vice President Joe Biden’s old Senate seat in Delaware were heartened later in the night when they won a more symbolic and consequential seat: President Barack Obama’s seat in Illinois.</p>
<p>But it turned out that the victory was more than symbolic. The new senator from Illinois, former Rep. Mark Kirk, has been perhaps the president’s most knowledgeable and substantive critic in Congress on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The president’s old seat then, far from being just another statistic in the Republican election wave, has been haunting him, doggedly pursuing him as he navigates the challenge of Mideast peace.</p>
<p>There are two facets to the effectiveness of Kirk’s criticisms: timing and issue depth.</p>
<p>The day Hamas and Fatah announced they had reached a unity deal, Kirk tweeted almost immediately: “Hamas+Fatah=probable suspension of US aid to Palestinian Authority&#8230;Hamas supports terror, killed 26 American citizens.”</p>
<p>Kirk’s rapid response gives him credibility on the issue—he doesn’t have to convene focus group to test its popularity or call together his advisers to find out what it all means. This would be a tremendous detriment if he was wrong, but he wasn’t. He has a strong enough grasp of American law and of Palestinian politics to know right away the implications of major developments in the region.</p>
<p>In March, we saw the brutal murders of the Fogel family (including three children) by Palestinian terrorists in the Jewish village of Itamar. While the Western media gave it scant attention and some news outlets portrayed the Fogel family as deserving of their fate for living in disputed territory, Israeli officials recognized the culprit: A Palestinian media that dehumanizes Jews to the point where slitting the throat of a young child becomes something less than barbaric.</p>
<p>Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told me a couple days after the murders that such events don’t happen in a vacuum, and that the incitement must end. Mark Kirk was one of the few in the U.S. to draw the same conclusion, and he led the writing of a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, pressing her to take a more forceful tack with Mahmoud Abbas on the issue. The letter, which garnered the signatures of more than a quarter of the Senate, read in part:</p>
<p>“Although President Abbas has expressed his sorrow over the Itamar massacre, the Palestinian Authority must take unequivocal steps to condemn the incident and stop allowing the incitement that leads to such crimes. Educating people toward peace is critical to establishing the conditions to a secure and lasting peace.</p>
<p>“The Itamar massacre was a sobering reminder that words matter, and that Palestinian incitement against Jews and Israel can lead to violence and terror.  We urge you to redouble your efforts to impress upon the Palestinian leadership that continuing to condone incitement is not tolerable.  We also urge you to consider focusing adequate training and educational programs in the West Bank and Gaza that promote peaceful coexistence with Israel.”</p>
<p>The letter, importantly, also includes other recent instances of official Palestinian incitement to back up its claims.</p>
<p>This is nothing new for Kirk. About a year ago, when the Israeli housing minister announced plans for more homes in a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem while Biden was visiting, administration officials berated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, though it was clear at the time that Netanyahu didn’t know the announcement was coming either. Kirk and Pennsylvania Democrat Christopher Carney wrote to Obama asking him to keep his eye on the ball.</p>
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		<title>Another Phony “Veteran”</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/another-phony-%e2%80%9cveteran%e2%80%9d/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=another-phony-%25e2%2580%259cveteran%25e2%2580%259d</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/rich-trzupek/another-phony-%e2%80%9cveteran%e2%80%9d/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:04:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Rich Trzupek]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Illinois’ Phil Hare is the latest Democratic candidate to embellish his military service record.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/HarePhil070508.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-62318" title="HarePhil070508" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/HarePhil070508-300x202.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="202" /></a></p>
<p>There’s nothing quite so arrogant as an arrogant liberal occupying a position of power. Connecticut senate candidate Richard Blumenthal’s non-apologetic apology over his false claims to have served in Vietnam was a case point. Last week, another liberal Democrat, Illinois congressman <a href="http://hare.house.gov/">Phil Hare</a> (D -17) was in the news again, this time for <a href="http://biggovernment.com/bmccarty/2010/06/05/congressman-phil-hare-fails-with-vets-and-threats/#more-129074">allegedly threatening a constituent</a> who called the congressman out over his fatuous claims of being a veteran.</p>
<p>You may remember Phil Hare. He was filmed telling a constituent that he <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2iiirr5KI8">doesn’t worry about the Constitution</a>. It was a stupid thing to say, but I’m inclined to give Hare the benefit of the doubt regarding the Constitution. In the context the question he was being asked – where in the Constitution does it say that Americans have the right to health care? – he probably meant that he felt that the healthcare bill would survive a constitutional challenge, rather than thumbing his nose at that hallowed document itself. Not that many a Democrat doesn’t <em>think</em> in the latter terms, but they surely know better than to express such an opinion.</p>
<p>What was more troubling in that video was the sneering arrogance that seemed to seethe through congressman Hare’s very pores. Hare sounded more like a feudal lord putting an annoying peasant in his rightful place for daring to question his master’s wisdom than he did an elected representative addressing the legitimate inquiries of an obviously upset and concerned constituent. But, perhaps Phil Hare was just having a bad day? It seems not. The latest accusations leveled against the congressman are enough to make one question not just his qualifications to serve in the United States Congress, but whether he would be fit to lead a Boy Scout troop.</p>
<p>Hare has repeatedly called himself a “veteran.” In fact, he joined the reserves during the Vietnam era and was never called to active service. By most legal definitions of the word, and most importantly to most real veterans themselves, a former reservist is not entitled to call himself a veteran. When a former reservist uses their honored word, real veterans get touchy, and understandably so. If such a deception doesn’t qualify as a case of full-blown stolen honor, it’s certainly matter of taking out an extended, zero-interest loan against the honor of those men and women who earned the title.</p>
<p>Ken Moffett, a constituent of Hare’s from Moline, Illinois and an actual veteran, asked the congressman to stop describing himself using the term to which – in Moffett’s and many a veteran’s view – Hare is not entitled. The congressman’s reaction was so offensive that Moffett was moved to <a href="http://bobmccarty.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Phil-Hare-Intimidates-Veteran.pdf">pen a letter to Blake Chisam</a>, committee staff director and chief counsel of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics). The following excerpt from that letter, dated June 2, 2010, describes what Moffett says happened during his encounter with Hare:</p>
<blockquote><p>“After I pointed out that according to the law he is not a veteran, he became very upset and demanded to know my name. I refused to tell him my name, saying that this was about his claim of being a veteran and not about me.</p>
<p>Mr. Hare then told one of his aides who was with him, to follow me to my car and get my license plate number so he could find out who I was. I have since been told that Mr. Hare’s daughter works for the DMV.</p>
<p>I then asked Mr. Hare if he was going to stop telling people that he was a veteran. Mr. Hare again demanded to know my name, and again told his aide to get my name or to follow me to get me license number so he could find out who I was, so he could tell the former reservists what I said.</p>
<p>I asked Mr. Hare if he as a public official was going to use his official office to run name checks on private citizens, in order to intimidate them into not asking questions he did not want to answer.</p>
<p>As Mr. Hare was turning to walk away from me he paused, and turning back to my direction, he glared at me intently, and while leaning forward pointed his finger at me, and in a threatening and intimidating manner said, “I’ll find out who you are!”</p></blockquote>
<p>Aside from tossing in the obligatory “and your little dog too!” Hare sounds a lot more like the Wicked Witch of the West than a reasoned and sober representative of the people according to Moffett’s account. The arrogance and veiled threats that Moffett describes in his letter are consistent with the persona Hare revealed in the “what, me worry about the Constitution?” video.</p>
<p>Will there be outrage over these allegations? Will there be a full-blown investigation to find out if Phil Hare has threatened to misuse, or has actually misused, his power to intimidate voters? There ought to be, on all counts. “I’ll find out who you are!” sounds a hell of a lot more scary than all of the rights that we supposedly lost when George W. Bush flushed the Constitution down the toilet so the NSA could snoop around in search of terrorist e-mails.</p>
<p>When it comes to the media and progressives, the “good intentions test” (good intentions, being of course defined solely by them) is the only thing that matters. I suspect Phil Hare, like Jesse Jackson and so many others before him, will get a free pass. Whether Illinois voters will let him off the hook so easily remains to be seen.</p>
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		<title>Betraying Iranian Women</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/betraying-iranian-women/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=betraying-iranian-women</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 18 May 2010 04:06:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Faith J. H. McDonnell]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[U.N Commission on the Status of Women looks to Iran for advice on women's rights.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/iran.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-60348" title="iran" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/iran.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="375" /></a></p>
<p>On April 28, 2010, the Islamic Republic of Iran was elected to the United Nation’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Possibly the world’s worst abuser of women, the <em>Shariah-</em>ruled country in which the fate of women and girls is left in the lecherous hands of misogynistic mullahs had been given membership on a commission founded to protect women’s rights and promote their equality. There was little media coverage of the announcement. And there has been little effort to prevent or denounce this obscene situation. But a few voices in Congress, some women human rights leaders, and, most poignantly, Iranian women themselves, have challenged the moral equivalency and cowardly silence of those that have failed to support women’s rights in Iran.</p>
<p>Iran’s CSW election was not surprising for the United Nations, whose moral vacuity remains proudly unmolested on First Avenue and the Palais des Nations. After all, Libya has chaired the Commission on Human Rights and Sudan has graced the Human Rights Commission with its presence during the most ferocious years of the genocide it has perpetrated in Darfur. But for the United States, it was a new low to remain silent in the face of such an outrage.</p>
<p>Iran was elected by acclamation. (Remember vote by acclamation? That was how Barack Obama got the Democratic presidential nomination, when between clenched teeth Hillary suspended the roll call.) In the case of Iran, it meant that none of the UN member states, including the U.S., asked for an open vote on Iran’s election to the women’s commission. Some say that this was a <em>quid pro quo </em>for Iran withdrawing its bid for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. So human rights abuser Iran will only make UN policy on <em>women’s</em> human rights, not <em>human </em>human rights. The women of Iran are not greatly relieved by this devil’s bargain.</p>
<p>In past years, the U.S. worked to prevent abusers of women, genocidairres, and other assorted miscreants from achieving such positions of authority on UN commissions. American delegations to the UN encouraged the delegations of other countries to take a stand and to work together to present alternatives to objectionable candidates and to objectionable text in resolutions.</p>
<p>This was not an easy task. Dr. Mark Lagon described the challenges faced by the Bush Administration at the UN in an April 19, 2005</p>
<p><a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa20782.000/hfa20782_0.HTM" target="_blank">testimony</a> at a subcommittee hearing of the House International Relations Committee (now House Committee on Foreign Affairs). Then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Lagon explained that “some of the most egregious violators of human rights work through their regional blocs to gain nomination and election” to UN commissions “in order to protect themselves and their ilk from criticism.” The UN Commission on Human Rights (CHR) was being “increasingly confronted with bloc voting. . . shifting the CHR’s focus away from bedrock civil and political rights, and toward economic, social, and cultural rights.&#8221;</p>
<p>If</p>
<p>the United States could not prevent such elections or resolutions, it could at least be counted on to speak out about such injustices, even when criticized for acting “unilaterally.” For example, in the spring of 2004, in the midst of horrific genocide in Darfur, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed an insultingly weak resolution on Sudan. As Lagon later <a href="http://blogs.georgetown.edu/?id=11639" target="_blank">told students</a> at Georgetown University’s Institute of International Law and Politics, the U.S. tried to revise and/or replace text to more accurately respond to the atrocities taking place. When this failed, the U.S. opposed the resolution. A few days later, when Sudan was reelected to the Commission on Human Rights, Lagon said “the U.S. delegation reproached the body by walking out of the meeting and issuing a public, very critical, statement.”</p>
<p>Under the Obama Administration the U.S. delegation has twice</p>
<p><a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g3_pRt7XUWThaEmE4cpP7XEgWeyw" target="_blank">walked out</a> of speeches by Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The most recent walkout occurred on <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1y5JRO7iPo&amp;feature=player_embedded" target="_blank">May 3, 2010</a>, at the UN Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But walking out on the Iranian dictator’s sound and fury about “the Zionist regime,” aimed, in part, at America, is less difficult than a public reproach of the UN body for approving Iran’s CSW election.</p>
<p>Writing in <em>Commentary </em>the day after the election, Jennifer Rubin</p>
<p><a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/rubin/286911" target="_blank">raged</a>, “The U.S. couldn’t muster a word of opposition — not even call for a vote&#8230; why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies. …It is what this administration does and how they envision raising <em>our</em> status in the world.”</p>
<p>Thankfully, “making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies” is not the approach of some members of the U.S. Congress. U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) released a</p>
<p><a href="http://wucr.wordpress.com/statements/sen-kirsten-gillibrands-statement/" target="_blank">statement</a> the day after the election in which she said, &#8220;Allowing Iran to sit on the commission, a nation where gender equality is only a dream and where women are subject to inequality in all aspects of their daily lives, makes a mockery of the commission’s work.&#8221;</p>
<p>Thaddeus McCotter, a Republican member of the House of Representatives from Michigan, also vehemently</p>
<p><a href="http://mccotter.house.gov/HoR/MI11/Home/The+UN+Salts+Iranian+Womens+Wounds+McCotter+Denounces+Irans+Election+to+the+UN+Commission+on+the+Sta.htm" target="_blank">denounced</a> Iran’s election the same day. McCotter declared, “By electing the Tehran butchers to its Commission on the Status of Women, a morally rancid United Nations has salted the wounds of the Iranian freedom movement’s regime-murdered martyrs.” The congressman went on to blast this outrage in an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUcgQurv_Y" target="_blank">interview</a> on Fox News in which he said that the moral relativism of the UN had allowed Iran to “get elected to sit as a predator monitoring the prey.” McCotter will also introduce a congressional resolution condemning Iran’s election. Hopefully, many other members of congress will join on the resolution as co-sponsors.</p>
<p>No corresponding calls denouncing Iran have been issued by the major feminist organizations, however. The National Organization of Women (NOW) is too busy gloating over the Wal-Mart lawsuit, cheering Democratic congressional delegates, and experiencing ecstasy over President Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee to go about the messy and thankless job of defending the rights of women under Islam. On the other hand, the women’s rights group Equality Now does fight against the evils that affect women under <em>Shariah </em>in Iran and elsewhere, such as</p>
<p><a href="http://equalitynow.org/english/takeaction/newsalert/urgentalert_us_20100429_en.html" target="_blank">female genital mutilation</a> (FGM), rape, sex trafficking, and child marriage. But perhaps because they work too closely with the disease-ridden United Nations, Equality Now focuses on the symptoms rather than the disease.</p>
<p>Women’s ministries and commissions of left-leaning and “progressive” evangelical churches have also let down the women and girls of Iran by not protesting Iran’s farcical election. The feminists of</p>
<p><a href="http://www.episcopalwomenscaucus.org/" target="_blank">such groups</a> make careers of attempting to shatter every stained glass ceiling that they encounter. But given the opportunity to respond to the life-long suffocation of women under <em>Shariah</em>’s oppressive ceiling, they are silent. Officers and staff of these ministries spend their days issuing statements against gender inequality, sexual violence, and the perceived iniquities of misogynistic patriarchal Christianity, but <a href="http://www.episcopalchurch.org/documents/Hannas_UN_Thank_You.pdf" target="_blank">the UN is their friend</a>! And the progressive evangelicals of trendy organizations like <em>Sojourners</em> blog and twitter in their usual self-important, <a href="http://blog.sojo.net/" target="_blank">self-righteous</a> way about America’s greed, evil, and injustice. But there is neither a tweet nor a blog post expressing outrage over Iran’s ascendency to the UN commission.</p>
<p>Other than the resolution pending in Congress, there have not been many efforts to support the women of Iran. But on May 5, 2010, a group of women leaders sent an</p>
<p><a href="http://wucr.wordpress.com/endorsers-of-open-letter-to-hillary-clinton/" target="_blank">open letter</a> to Secretary Clinton protesting U.S. silence over the election of Iran to the women&#8217;s rights commission. The letter called on Clinton to &#8220;denounce Iran’s election. . . as an appointment that shocks the conscience of civilized societies&#8221; and demanded to know why the United States failed to request an open vote. &#8220;We await your public and clear condemnation of this outrageously sexist and insensitive decision by the U.N.,&#8221; the letter concluded.</p>
<p>Letter signers range from Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Wafa Sultan, Anne Applebaum to Diana West. They are international human rights and women&#8217;s rights specialists, attorneys, scholars, columnists, media figures, women in the arts, and activists of all sorts. Experience for experience they match and surpass the leftist feminists. But unlike their counterparts in liberal land, the letter signers &#8220;get it&#8221; and their integrity requires them to enter the realm of the so-called politically incorrect and intolerant on behalf of women living under <em>Shariah</em>.</p>
<p>The most courageous effort to prevent Iran’s CSW election came from Iranians themselves. On April 27, 2010, 214 Iranian women’s rights activists inside and outside Iran sent an</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/04/letter-economic-social-council/" target="_blank">open letter</a> to the United Nations urging that Iran not be allowed CSW membership. Supported by “the global sisterhood network” and endorsed by over a dozen other organizations, the Iranian activists told the UN that “for the sake of women‘s rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on CSW is much preferable to Iran‘s membership.” They reminded the UN that “discrimination against women is codified in [Iran’s] laws, as well as in executive and cultural institutions, and Iran has consistently sought to preserve gender inequality in all places, from the family unit to the highest governmental bodies.” Iran will certainly use the opportunity afforded to it on CSW “to curtail progress and the advancement of women,” they warned.</p>
<p>Not long after the UN failed to heed this warning and elected Iran to the CSW, the official Iranian news agency (IRNA) demonstrated the accuracy of the Iranian activists’ prediction when it stated that “Iran’s membership in the Commission on the Status of Women is important because “Iran’s views about the position of women,” through this podium, “can help reflect Islamic views about family and women.” The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran also</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/05/islamic-republic-of-iran-elected-to-commission-on-the-status-of-women/" target="_blank">reported</a> IRNA’s claim that efforts against their candidacy were by “hostile groups and western media” trying to prevent Iran’s membership in the CSW through “poisonous propagation.” IRNA then boasted “their efforts were ignored by members of ECOSOC.” A sad indictment of all of the member nations of the UN.</p>
<p>The U.S. and other nations of the free world let down the Iranian people when they stood by and did nothing as the regime crushed the election protesters last year. Some brave Iranian freedom fighters are still</p>
<p><a href="http://www.iranhumanrights.org/2010/05/iran-political-executions-indication-of-governments-insecurity/" target="_blank">paying the cost</a> for that defiance. Five political prisoners were hanged in secret on May 9, and twenty-seven others are awaiting execution. Now by remaining silent about the election of Iran to the CSW the U.S. has failed to support the people of Iran again.</p>
<p>But this will not deter courageous Iranians. They will find encouragement from those who have decried the UN’s outrageous election. And it’s not too late for the U.S. to help. By supporting legislative efforts like Mr. McCotter’s resolution, the U.S. could, as that resolution’s last sentence says, “reaffirm its solidarity with the Iranian people in their continuing struggle for freedom and human rights, including equal rights for women in Iran.”</p>
<p><em>Faith J. H. McDonnell directs <a href="http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=183&amp;srcid=-2" target="_blank">The Institute on Religion and Democracy’s</a></em><em> Religious Liberty Program and Church Alliance for a New Sudan, and is the author of Girl Soldier: A Story of Hope for Northern Uganda’s Children (Chosen Books, 2007).</em></p>
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		<title>What Have you Done?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/what-have-you-done/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-have-you-done</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:01:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[An open letter to Americans.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/what.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57297" title="what" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/what.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="243" /></a></p>
<p>An open letter to Americans:</p>
<p>As a Canadian, I’ve been observing for some time now, with great concern and even greater disbelief, the political farce enacted day after day in your country. And I keep asking, what have you done? For it seems to me, and to many others as well, that you have embarked upon a truly destructive course that may eventually bring the United States to the brink of ruination.</p>
<p>What have you done? You have elected a president on the strength of an ellipsis, neglecting to fill in the three dots trailing after his every echoing jingle—“Yes we can”…what? You have credited a nimble spinner of tales, a pretty fellow with no significant experience of the real world of risk, hard work and the hazards of survival, a thug with a beguiling smile. You have elevated to the highest office in the land a man without discernible qualifications who is plunging the nation into unredeemable debt for generations to come. You have installed possibly the most consummate liar in POTUS history, who breaks campaign promises as if he were cracking eggs for the skillet and changes his mind almost daily like a weathervane on steroids. You have put your trust in an intellectual lightweight and geopolitical bungler who makes Jimmy Carter look like a paragon of acute intelligence, moral substance and rare diplomatic foresight.</p>
<p>What have you done? You have bought into a fraudulent narrative. You have made a Faustian bargain with a suave Mephistophelian who offers hope and change but delivers instead inevitable suffering and a violated people. As in all such compacts, the price for a brief state of euphoria is subsequent prolonged distress. You have given <em>carte blanche</em> to a man with a personal dossier blacked out in many places like a letter from the front, so as not, apparently, to divulge sensitive information. You have raised among you a man whose friends and influences would surely have precluded him from meriting your confidence had you paid attention to plain facts rather than to quasi-mystical incantations. You have anointed a man with a sinister agenda. You have voted for your historical nemesis who with his every move and decision renders you increasingly insecure in a violent and unforgiving world.</p>
<p>If you need a slogan to trigger a reaction, it should not be “Yes we can”—whatever that might conceivably have meant—but “What have we done?”—whose implications should now be obvious. I pray it is not too late to reverse the trajectory you have unthinkingly plotted for yourselves. It may be a shame to let a serious crisis go to waste, as your president’s intimate adviser cynically put it, but it would be a much greater shame to let a crisis reach the point of no return. And there is little doubt that you are now facing an impending crisis of the first magnitude, both domestically and globally.</p>
<p>Let us count the ways.</p>
<p>The response to a looming international menace is paralysis, appeasement and misconstrual—to the dire effects of which we are all, not only Americans, susceptible. American troops are targeted on the battlefield by the interventions of rogue regimes, such as Syria and Iran, which the present administration refuses to condemn and, indeed, with which it is seeking closer engagement. Defense capability is progressively truncated. Officials sworn to defend the nation to the best of their ability are saddled with the fear of prosecution, discouraging their peers and successors from properly doing their job. Detained terrorists are repatriated to their fields of operation, many taking up once again the jihadist activities for which they were originally interned. Acts of military aggression are adjudicated as civil offenses, awarding terrorists the same constitutional rights as ordinary Americans. Solemn alliances are flouted with whimsical impunity and typical hissy fits while manifest tyrants are treated with kid gloves and gestures of obeisance. UN kleptocrats and avowed enemies are laureled with meretricious authority. This is what your president’s current foreign policy amounts to, abetted by a carefully selected and pliable cadre of career puppets without character or backbone.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, legitimate dissent is denounced as a form of subversion. The Constitution is euphemistically interpreted as a “living document,” that is, as subject to tampering, which is nothing less than an assault upon the foundational heritage of the Republic. Individual liberties are being relentlessly eroded and private behavior regulated by an expanding government bureaucracy. The prospect of enfranchising up to eleven million illegal immigrants presages an American ochlocracy, that is, government by the masses rather than the laws—the very antithesis of Republican rule. Unelected officials, appointed by the president and known as “czars,” wield disproportionate power as they carry out their master’s directives. Unsustainable entitlement programs impinge dramatically upon the future. Income redistribution schemes disincentivize industrial and commercial productivity, creating a shrinking GDP and budgetary shortfall. Discredited hypotheses such as anthropogenic “climate change” are allowed to drive economic policy, leading to even further instability. Major tax hikes are on the horizon, complemented by the shell game of disappearing numbers, especially in regard to the so-called healthcare “reform,” with revenue calculated over a longer period than expenditures. New debt is piled on old debt like Pelion on Ossa. Fiscal blood drains from the nation’s arteries. These and more are the daylight consequences of your electoral delirium.</p>
<p>Who am I to address the citizens of another country? A loyal friend, and a citizen of a nation whose fate is inextricably bound up with yours. My interests are also at stake. That is why I am glad to note that many people are now awakening to the nature and extent of their folly, but far too many still malinger in the grip of a profound narcosis. To these latter, I would say that, in your desire for novelty, your pampered sense of frivolous grievance and your hypnotic suggestibility, you have chosen to cohabit with an incubus. You have shown a readiness to be seduced not by a lover of freedom but by a votary of his own malign gods. Despite the recent surfeit of Hollywood films, TV programs and neo-gothic novels fondly rehabilitating the undead, deep down you must know there is no such thing as a good vampire.</p>
<p>And so, in conclusion, I ask once again. What have you done?</p>
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		<title>A Day in the Life of a Coptic Christian in Egypt</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joseph-puder/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-coptic-christian-in-egypt/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-day-in-the-life-of-a-coptic-christian-in-egypt</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:00:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Puder]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=51176</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Attacks on the Christian-Coptic minority by incited Muslim mobs have become a way of life.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/copt.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-51179" title="copt" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/copt.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="337" /></a></p>
<p>On Wednesday, January 6, 2010, following the Coptic Christmas Eve celebrations in the Southern Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi, masked gunmen opened fire on the exiting worshipers, <a href="blog.christianitytoday.com/ctliveblog/...orthodox_christ_1.html">killing seven Copts</a> and injuring scores of others.  The gunmen, most likely a radical jihadist offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood intended to assassinate the <a href="http://www.asianews.it/index.php?/=en&amp;art=17293">Coptic Bishop Kirollos</a>. Attacks in Egypt on the Christian-Coptic minority by incited Muslim mobs have become a frequent occurrence in recent years.</p>
<p>An unnamed eye witness to the shootings told the Coptic News Bulletin at the Nag Hammadi hospital that the situation was critical for the injured because of shortages of blood for transfusions. He quipped that, “The Muslims promised us a wonderful Christmas, and I think the message has now been received&#8230;”</p>
<p>Bishop Kirollos accused the security services of negligence in dealing with the events which led to the massacre and added: “Not one single security man intervened to prevent casualties.&#8221; He criticized the absence of adequate State Security forces guarding the church, which is customary during such events and especially in light of the unrest which took place in the area in November 2009.</p>
<p>Bishop Kirollos had recently received a death threat for criticizing the Egyptian authorities and speaking out in defense of the Christian victims of the November 2009 attack, in the areas of Farshout, Abu Shusha, Aerky, and Alshokeify, all part of the Nag Hammadi parish.</p>
<p>In a letter sent to Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak by Dr. Monir Dawoud, President of the American Coptic Association he wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>The failure to protect the lives and properties of the Christians, to implement Presidential decrees and to uphold the law not only defeats the leadership’s efforts to improve the human rights situation of the Copts, but also embarrasses Egypt in a time when more States than ever are making leaps forward towards protecting human rights. As the tide of democratization ushers in our region, Egypt is called upon &#8211; through your Excellency &#8211; to take all necessary practical measures: constitutional, legal, political and social to respect the rights of all its citizens.”</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>The letter to President Mubarak enumerated all the recent attacks on Copts:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>We are writing to you to express our deep concern over the latest attacks on Coptic churches in Sinnouris of Fayoum preceded by that of Shebin El-Kom, Menoufia where the churches had been set on fire leading to complete destruction. This has been going on for a very long time and the security forces and government have been closing their eyes. To mention some of these attacks we may go back to a few of them. The attacks on the defenseless Christian citizens in the churches of Alexandria, on April 14, 2006, resulted in the death of one man and later another, besides seriously injuring several dozens of the worshippers inside their churches.</em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>Dr. Dawoud added:</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>These attacks were preceded by other attacks couple of months ago at the same city.  These followed attacks on the Christians of Al-Udeisat village in Luxor, which took place on January 18, 2006.  The attacks left behind two dead, scores injured, many lives shattered and properties destroyed. To anybody’s astonishment, the violence &#8211; according to Egyptian press &#8211; was instigated by some members of the National Democratic Party, local government and security officials.” </em></p></blockquote>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p>While hosing Mubarak in the White House last August, President Obama described the Egyptian president as a “<a href="http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3417.cfm">force of stability</a>,” deliberately ignoring an abysmal human rights record and turning a blind eye to the persecution of the Christians in Egypt. And while the Obama administration has given the Egyptian regime unqualified support, the Egyptian government has practiced a two-faced policy towards the U.S.</p>
<p>To assuage the growing influence and power of Islamists in Egypt, and to counter the political ambitions of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Mubarak regime has implemented a more Islamic educational system, and the “Vatican of Sunni-Islam”- Al Azhar Islamic University in Cairo has been allowed to become even more radical in its rulings.</p>
<p>The Egyptian government including its Foreign Minister Aboul Gheit incited anti-western (Christian) demonstrations in the Muslim world when he circulated a report on the Danish cartoons labeling them as anti-Islamic. This same government outwardly condemned the Hezbollah in the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese War while portraying the group as a heroic band who defeated Israel.  Mubarak also called for an unconditional cease-fire in direct opposition to the U.S. policy.</p>
<p>The Mubarak regime has encouraged the violent campaign against Coptic Christians as a diversion from its oppressive domestic policies, which have stifled democratic opposition groups, human rights and religious freedom.  By maintaining the status-quo with Egypt, the Obama administration is endorsing the continued suppression and discrimination policies against the Copts.</p>
<p>Coptic-Christians are denied social, economic, and educational opportunities.  Although Copts comprise over 10% of the Egyptian population, Christians are under-represented in government positions, are discriminated against in courts, and denied due process as well as basic civil rights.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has given Mubarak a free pass.  Egypt’s aid package of $2.2 Billion in U.S. taxpayers’ money is secure, all in the name of preventing Egypt from becoming another radical Muslim state.  But, Mubarak’s police state and lack of accessibility to power by legitimate means, makes the future of the regime uncertain.  To appease the Islamists who threaten his regime, Mubarak has made the Coptic-Christians the scapegoat for the frustrations of the Muslim masses.</p>
<p>The attacks against Copts and Christian churches as demonstrated by the Christmas Eve attack in Nag Hammadi must not be allowed to continue.  American must use its aid dollars as leverage in applying pressure on the Mubarak regime so that Copts gain equality and protection under the law.</p>
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		<title>Byron York: Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? &#8211; Washington Examiner</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=byron-york-who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-u-s-prisons-washington-examiner</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:44:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49246</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&#38;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges,&#8221; writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration&amp;apos;s aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the reasons some terrorists were handled in the criminal justice system is that it took George W. Bush and Congress years to establish a military tribunal system that satisfied constitutional requirements &#8212; a process that was lengthened by legal challenges filed by some of the same lawyers who now work in Holder&amp;apos;s Justice Department.You can argue about that forever. But there&amp;apos;s one serious factual debate going on about Holder&amp;apos;s letter, and that concerns those &#8220;300 individuals.&#8221; Just who are they?It turns out some lawmakers have been trying for months to get an answer. They&amp;apos;re not saying the claim is false &#8212; they just want to see what it&amp;apos;s based on. But so far they haven&amp;apos;t been able to find out.It started back in May 2009, when President Obama gave his famous National Archives speech outlining the plan to close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center. &#8220;Bear in mind the following fact,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal &amp;apos;supermax&amp;apos; prisons, which hold hundreds of convicted terrorists.&#8221; Although the president did not put a number on it, various figures, ranging up to 300, have been tossed around in the months since.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Who-are-the-300-terrorists-held-in-U_S_-prisons_-83588677.html">Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? | Washington Examiner</a>.</p>
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		<title>Andrew C. McCarthy: Holder on Holder &#8211; National Review Online</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/andrew-c-mccarthy-holder-on-holder-national-review-online/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=andrew-c-mccarthy-holder-on-holder-national-review-online</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:10:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Attorney General Eric Holder has responded to criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with an “all’s well that ends well” letter to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell. Holder’s missive vigorously defends what he says was his decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, to impose peacetime law-enforcement [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Attorney General Eric Holder has responded to criticism of the Obama administration’s handling of the Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with an “all’s well that ends well” letter to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.</p>
<p>Holder’s missive vigorously defends what he says was his decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a criminal defendant, to impose peacetime law-enforcement protocols on his interrogation, and to charge him in civilian court. He argues that the use of the criminal-justice system has been vindicated because the terrorist is talking again (thanks to whatever undisclosed deal the Justice Department had to make with him). The letter contains various misleading assertions but is a fair statement of Holder’s philosophy — and it is good to have such a statement, given that the DOJ’s practice under his leadership too often has been to stonewall.</p>
<p>The fundamental problem with the attorney general’s line of argument is that it unfolds as though there were no war and no president. Abdulmutallab, Holder believes, is just like any other person arrested in the United States: When an arrest happens, government officials automatically employ “long-established and publicly known policies and practices.” It does not matter who sent the person or what he was arrested trying to do. Miranda warnings are given, lawyers are interposed, charges are filed, and trials are conducted. Even if the nation is at war, we don’t inquire into whether the arrested person is an operative dispatched here by hostile forces to commit mass murder. We don’t concern ourselves with whether he knows about other people plotting the same thing. All that matters to Holder is that we have our procedures, and they must be followed.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/424019/holder-on-holder/andrew-c-mccarthy">Holder on Holder &#8211; Andrew C. McCarthy &#8211; National Review Online</a>.</p>
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		<title>Stephen Hayes: Obama vs. Holder &#8211; The Weekly Standard</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/stephen-hayes-obama-vs-holder-the-weekly-standard/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=stephen-hayes-obama-vs-holder-the-weekly-standard</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:53:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[60 minutes]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the &#8220;American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.&#8221; Obama said: &#8220;I fundamentally disagree with that. Now &#8212; do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>In an interview with 60 Minutes last spring, President Obama discussed the handling of captured terrorists and challenged those who claimed the &#8220;American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama said: &#8220;I fundamentally disagree with that. Now &#8212; do these folks deserve Miranda rights? Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter &#8212; down the block? Of course not.&#8221; President Obama ought to call Attorney General Eric Holder.  In a five-page letter to Senator Mitch McConnell, Holder lays out in exhaustive detail exactly why these folks deserve Miranda rights and why his Justice Department will treat them like a shoplifter down the block.</p>
<p>Holder&amp;apos;s letter responds to criticism of the Obama administration&amp;apos;s handling of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, from McConnell and other Republicans. Holder writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>The decision to charge Mr. Abdulmutallab in federal court, and the methods used to interrogate him, are fully consistent with the long-established and publicly known policies and practices of the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the United States Government as a whole, as implemented for many years by Administrations of both parties. Those policies and practices, which were not criticized when employed by previous Administrations, have been and remain extremely effective in protecting national security. They are among the many powerful weapons this country can and should use to win the war against al-Qaeda.</p></blockquote>
<p>I am confident that, as a result of the hard work of the FBI and our career federal prosecutors, we will be able to successfully prosecute Mr. Abdulmutallab under the federal criminal law. I am equally confident that the decision to address Mr. Abdulmutallab&amp;apos;s actions through our criminal justice system has not, and will not, compromise our ability to obtain information needed to detect and prevent future attacks.</p>
<p>Nobody doubts that Abdulmutallab can be prosecuted. There were nearly three hundred people on the plane when he tried to blow it up. He lit himself on fire. Authories gathered his badly burned underpants and the components of the bomb. His prosecution was never seriously in question, which is precisely what makes the decision to Mirandize him quickly so outrageous.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/print/blogs/obama-vs-holder">Obama vs. Holder</a>.</p>
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		<title>Holder Defends Handling of Abdulmutallab &#8211; CBS News</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/holder-defends-handling-of-abdulmutallab-cbs-news/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=holder-defends-handling-of-abdulmutallab-cbs-news</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:25:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48694</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in civilian court rather than the military system, with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government.In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell PDF, the attorney general wrote that the FBI told its [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/03/politics/main6170460.shtml"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/image6070956l.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday he made the decision to charge the Christmas Day terror suspect in civilian court rather than the military system, with no objection from all the other relevant departments of the government.In a letter to Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell PDF, the attorney general wrote that the FBI told its partners in the intelligence community on Christmas Day and again the next day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab would be charged criminally.Special Report: The Christmas Day Terror AttackHolder said that the possibility of detaining Abdulmutallab in the U.S. military system under the law of war was explicitly discussed in the days following the arrest, including at a Jan. 5 meeting that included President Barack Obama and senior members of the national security team.&#8221;No agency supported the use of law of war detention for Abdulmutallab, and no agency has since advised the Department of Justice that an alternative course of action should have been, or should now be, pursued,&#8221; the attorney general wrote.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/03/politics/main6170460.shtml">Holder Defends Handling of Abdulmutallab &#8211; CBS News</a>.</p>
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		<title>The Terror and Crime of the American Task Force on Palestine</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/joe-kaufman/the-terror-and-crime-of-the-american-task-force-on-palestine/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-terror-and-crime-of-the-american-task-force-on-palestine</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Jan 2010 05:21:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joe Kaufman]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=48026</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The disappearing leadership of one of America’s main terror lobbies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-48084" title="kaufman" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/kaufman.JPG" alt="kaufman" width="500" height="396" /></p>
<p>While America is staunchly pro-Israel, there sits at the foot of the power base of the U.S. government a radical element that wishes to change that reality. The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) is that radical element. But as elected officials gladly jump to attend the group’s affairs, ATFP leaders connected to criminal and/or terrorist activity mysteriously vanish from the group without a word of their leaving, in hope that no one is paying attention.</p>
<p>On October 15, 2009, ATFP held its fourth annual gala – a black tie affair – in Washington, D.C. National Security Advisor James L. Jones gave the keynote address for the event; House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Representative Howard Berman provided a letter of support and commendation; and ten current United States Senators and Representatives were named as parties to the gala’s Honorary Host Committee.</p>
<p>This, while ATFP was <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ATFP_Gala_2009.html">allowing the participation at the gala</a> of one of the leaders of a group the U.S. government has long considered a terrorist organization. The group was the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the leader was Chief Representative to the PLO to the United States Maen Ariekat. Ariekat was part of the Honorary Host Committee and he gave the introduction to General Jones. As well, Ariekat read a letter of support from global PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas. The letter, as well as Aiekat’s gala remarks, is found on ATFP’s website.</p>
<p>According to the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987, which was signed into law by President Ronald Wilson Reagan in December 1987, “[T]he Congress determines that the PLO and its affiliates are a terrorist organization and a threat to the interests of the United States, its allies, and to international law and should not benefit from operating in the United States.”</p>
<p>The Act is still in effect today, albeit it’s been hampered by signed <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/PLO_Mission.html">Presidential waivers circumventing its enforcement</a>. The waivers provide convenient excuses for politicians who wish to attend such functions as what’s sponsored by ATFP and give cover to a group that wishes to affiliate itself with extremists.</p>
<p>But while the U.S. President can protect ATFP when it wishes to honor the PLO, he cannot protect the group from its own leadership, a leadership that has been comprised of terrorists and criminals.</p>
<p>ATFP was established in Washington, D.C. in 1995, under the name American Committee on Jerusalem (ACJ). It held its “inaugural public activity” in November of that year, a briefing given by the group’s then-President, Rashid Khalidi. Khalidi had previously been identified in news reports as “a PLO spokesman” and “a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa,” (Wikalat al-Anba al-Filastinija), which Khalidi himself has described as “<a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/WAFA_Arafat.html">the P.L.O.’s news agency</a>.”</p>
<p>Eight years later, the group changed its name to the American Task Force on Palestine. On the ACJ site, in August 2003, the following message was found: “<a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ACJ_to_ATFP.html">ACJ is now the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP)</a>. Please visit our new website!” And the group provided a hyperlink to it, attached to a ‘thumb nail’ of the new ATFP site.</p>
<p>Immediately, though, the group would completely disown the ACJ. The same month, August 2003, the new website stated the following, “The American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) was founded in 2003 as a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Washington, DC.” Yet, even the group’s current Washington, D.C. corporate status shows ATFP – <em>as ATFP</em> – incorporating in May 1995.</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>A number of the <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ATFP_Board_of_Directors.html">board members of the ACJ</a> stayed on with ATFP. They included ACJ Chairman Ziad Asali and ACJ President Rashid Khalidi, who became respectively ATFP’s President and Vice President. But one name of particular interest was left off of the new board, that being Abdurahman Alamoudi.</p>
<p>At the time that ATFP was being “founded,” Alamoudi was coming to the end of a terrorist plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah using money obtained from foreign sources, including the Libyan government. On August 13, 2003, Alamoudi, while heading to Damascus, Syria, had $340,000 seized from him in London. On September 28, 2003, Alamoudi was arrested at Washington Dulles International Airport.</p>
<p>Alamoudi had been on the ACJ Executive Board for well over five years – of which a good part was spent involved in the terror plot – and the group’s name change could very well have taken effect due to the potential fallout from Alamoudi’s actions.</p>
<p>Another individual who suddenly left the ATFP’s board was Rafaat “Rafi” Dajani. Dajani was Executive Director of “both” ACJ and ATFP. That is, until he was caught robbing ATFP of over $100,000 in donations to the group and forging signatures on ‘thank-you’ letters to the donors. He was sentenced last May to eight years in prison.</p>
<p>And yet another was Tereq Salahi, who was named to <a href="http://www.americansagainsthate.org/ATFP_Board_of_Directors.html">ATFP’s Board of Directors</a> in July 2005. Salahi served on the board for well over four years, and he and his wife, Michaele, attended functions for the group that included a number of high profile diplomats. In one photo, which was taken during a December 2006 ATFP delegation trip to the Middle East, Tareq is pictured, along with ATFP President Ziad Asali, shaking hands with Mahmoud Abbas.</p>
<p>However, Salahi’s bio has now been removed from ATFP’s site. Salahi and his wife are currently the subjects of a criminal investigation into how the two were able to breach security in a successful attempt to gain access to the White House this past November. If it is determined that the Salahis knowingly made false statements to the Secret Service – a felony – the two could face up to five years in prison. When questioned by the Congressional Homeland Security Committee on January 21, 2009, they refused to testify.</p>
<p>Much has been made in the media of the Salahis being “gate crashers” and wannabe ‘reality TV’ stars, but little to no coverage has been given to their involvement with a group that associates frequently with a terrorist organization – a group whose own co-founder, Rashid Khalidi, was in the PLO himself. Though, as of March 2005, his bio and photo have been scrubbed from the ATFP website as well.</p>
<p>Question: Who else will leave the ranks of the radical ATFP?</p>
<p>In truth, it may not matter, because it seems, regardless of all the sinister individuals involved, the American Task Force on Palestine will continue to attract those sitting in the highest echelons of government, ready and willing to be used by the terror lobby.</p>
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		<title>Great Scott!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/thomas-sowell/great-scott/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=great-scott</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:00:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Thomas Sowell]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47787</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Scott Brown’s stunning Senate victory proves that the people are not powerless against bad policies.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47788" title="brown3__1263965364_5222" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/brown3__1263965364_5222.jpg" alt="brown3__1263965364_5222" width="500" height="368" /></p>
<p>Some of the most melancholy letters and e-mails that are sent to me are from people who lament that there is nothing they can do about the bad policies that they see ruining this country. They don&#8217;t have any media outlet for their opinions and the letters they send to their Congressmen are either ignored or are answered by form letters with weasel words. They feel powerless.</p>
<p>Sometimes I remind them that the whole political establishment — both Democrats and Republicans, as well as the mainstream media — were behind amnesty for illegal immigrants, until the public opinion polls showed that the voters were not buying it. If politicians can&#8217;t do anything else right, they can count votes.</p>
<p>It was the same story with the government&#8217;s health care takeover legislation. The Democrats have such huge majorities in both houses of Congress that they could literally lock the Republicans out of the room where they were deciding what to do, set arbitrary deadlines for votes, and cut off debate in the Senate. The mainstream media was on board with this bill too. To hear the talking heads on TV, you would think it was a done deal.</p>
<p>Then Scott Brown got elected to the &#8220;Kennedy seat&#8221; in the Senate, showing that that seat was not the inheritance of any dynasty to pass on. Moreover, it showed that the voters were already fed up with the Obama administration, even in liberal Massachusetts, as well as in Virginia and New Jersey. The backtracking on health care began immediately. Politicians can count votes. Once again, the public was not helpless.</p>
<p>One seat did not deprive the Democrats of big majorities in Congress. But one seat was the difference between being able to shut off debate in the Senate and having to allow debate on what was in this massive legislation. From day one it was clear that concealing what was in this bill was the key to getting it passed.</p>
<p>That is why there had to be arbitrary deadlines— first to get it passed before the August 2009 recess, then before Labor Day, then before the Christmas recess.</p>
<p>The President could wait months before deciding to give a general the troops he asked for to fight the war in Afghanistan but there was never to be enough time for the health care bill to be exposed in the light of day to the usual Congressional hearings and debate.</p>
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<p>Moreover, despite all the haste, the health care program would not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election. In other words, the public was not supposed to find out whether the government&#8217;s takeover of medical care actually made things better or worse until after it was too late.</p>
<p>Although even the members of Congress who voted on this massive legislation did not have time to read its thousands of pages, just the way it was being rushed through in the dark should have told us all we needed to know. For many voters, that turned out to be enough.</p>
<p>Even after Scott Brown came out of nowhere to make a stunning upset election victory, there were still some cute political tricks that could have been pulled to save the health care bill. But enough Democrats saw the handwriting on the wall that they were not going to risk their own re-election to save this bill that Barack Obama has been hell-bent to pass, even when polls showed repeatedly that the public didn&#8217;t want it.</p>
<p>President Obama&#8217;s desire to do something &#8220;historic&#8221; by succeeding, where previous presidents had failed, was perfectly consistent for a man consumed with his own ego satisfaction, rather than the welfare of the country or even of his own political party.</p>
<p>As for the public, it doesn&#8217;t matter if your Congressman answers your letter with a form letter, or doesn&#8217;t answer at all. What matters is that you let him know what you are for or against and, when enough people do that— whether in letters, in polls or in an election, politicians get the message, because they know their jobs depend on it.</p>
<p>As for what is likely to happen to health care, neither the bill passed by the House of Representatives nor the Senate bill can be expected to be enacted into law. Meanwhile, Obama&#8217;s reaction to his political setback has been to respond rhetorically and to call on the political operatives who helped engineer his successful election campaign in 2008. But the public did not know him then, and his rhetoric may not fool them again, now that they do.</p>
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		<title>Global Warming as Segregation?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/likening-global-warming-to-segregation/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=likening-global-warming-to-segregation</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/likening-global-warming-to-segregation/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=47065</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The religious Left likens climate change activism with the civil rights protests of yesteryear. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-47098" title="global_warming" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/global_warming.jpg" alt="global_warming" width="500" height="330" /></p>
<p>The Religious Left understandably relishes its memories, real and imagined, of heroic support for the Civil Right movement during the early 1960’s.  It was maybe their last great and fully admirable moral cause that history still rightly salutes. So Religious Leftists frequently attempt to equate their political causes du jour with fighting Jim Crow 50 years ago.</p>
<p>Now, the chief of the United Church of Canada (UCC) is comparing the struggle against climate change with the Civil Rights protests of yesteryear.  UCC Moderator Mardi Tindal even dramatically penned a letter that she self-importantly likened to Martin Luther King’s historic missive from a Birmingham Jail.  Apparently she composed her letter through tears over the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit to agree to the massive shut-down of global capitalism for which the Religious Left has long prayed.</p>
<p>&#8220;The day after I returned home from the climate change  talks, I needed a place to go where I could safely cry tears of lament,&#8221; Tindal bewailed to Ecumenical News International (ENI).  &#8220;I needed somewhere where I would be supported as I wrestled with the bitter disappointment I felt with the result of the Copenhagen talks.&#8221;  Lest anyone still fail to understand her Civil Rights analogy, she read her letter from the pulpit of her home church congregation on January 17 to coincide with King’s birthday.</p>
<p>As ENI helpfully explained, her Ontario church is where she “she sought comfort immediately following her return” from the devastating disappointment of Copenhagen. Unlike King, Tindal has not been jailed, or faced growling police dogs, or tear gas, or death threats, for her ostensibly heroic struggle against carbon dioxide.  But she still identifies with King as a crusader for justice.  After all, Global Warming, like Civil Rights, is &#8220;one of the most urgent moral challenges in human history.&#8221;</p>
<p>“What if, instead of racial segregation, King had spoken about high greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere?” Tindal preeningly asked from the pulpit.  “Would his words hold? It seems clear to me that they would ring loud and true.”  The church lady’s rhetorical overreach is not untypical for her ultra-politically correct UCC.  Although still Canada’s largest Protestant denomination, over 40 years it has lost about half its membership thanks partly to such obtuse political posturing.  Naturally, emptying pews and Canada’s secularization did not inhibit the UCC Moderator from crusading in Copenhagen.</p>
<p>After all, the whole planet is at stake.  “Our moment of opportunity came and then went, and here we are now, the fate of civilization and of millions of the planet’s life forms hanging by the frayed thread of inaction,” a “heartbroken” Tindal intoned.  “We have no plan to reduce deadly emissions of carbon dioxide. Emissions that are a symptom of our broken relationship with the web of life. Emissions that are rising faster than at any time in human history.”</p>
<p>Terrifying!  Perhaps Tindal’s listening congregation reacted as New England Puritans did when Jonathan Edwards read his famous 18th century sermon “Sinners in  the Hands of an Angry God,” amid shrieks and howls and pleas for divine mercy.   Edward’s hell-fire revivalistic appeal helped ignite America’s first Great Awakening.  Surely the terrors of a warming planet are no less motivating than the threat of eternal damnation.   Edwards warned his unsaved listeners that they were hanging over the nether regions like a spider dangling from his slender web over a fire.   Even more powerfully, Tindal pleaded that not just individual sinners, but the whole planet is “hanging by the frayed thread of inaction” over Global Warming.    No wonder the church Moderator is weeping.</p>
<p>Edwards, in his famous sermon, admonished the impenitent that they could face divine judgment that very evening.  Similarly, Tindal told her church, after Copenhagen’s failure, “I too believe the time for waiting has run out.”  Thankfully, she, as did Edwards, believes there is still some time for repentance. But unlike Edwards, who pointed towards God, she urged self-help.  “I believe the answer…is that hope is in you. It is in me and in all of us who choose to reject despair and embrace hope. Together, we will replace the Copenhagen failure with success. It is up to us.”</p>
<p>It’s a heavy burden to believe that the whole planet’s salvation depends on self-initiated political action.  But Tindal cited King for inspiration.  “Watching the tens of thousands of citizens who gathered at the talks to exhort our world’s political leaders to act reminded me of the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said it would be ‘fatal…to overlook the urgency of the moment.’”  She liked King’s Birmingham Jail letter for describing an “inescapable network of mutuality.”</p>
<p>King was talking about struggles for voting rights and equality before the law.  But of course Tindal applied the sentiment to planet activism.  “Biologically, we live within an inescapable network of mutuality,” she explained. “As the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere rise, the planet will fail to provide for us. Life as we know it will die. Millions of human lives are on the line, rich and poor, old emitters and new, vulnerable and strong. There is no inoculation against this except all of us changing our behavior all at once.”</p>
<p>In the wake of Copenhagen’s “fearful self-interest,” Tindal urged her Canadian parishioners to take immediate action towards planetary salvation.  So much is at stake!  She concluded with an almost imprecatory litany, fiercely declaring:  “When our actions threaten the lives of millions of people and other creatures, that is wrong; When our lack of action endangers communities in every region of the world, that is wrong; When our economic systems jeopardize the well-being of future generations, that is wrong; When the lifestyles of the wealthy undermine the survival of the poor, that is wrong; If we fail to act, we are helping to doom millions of our species to abject suffering and death. That is wrong.”</p>
<p>King’s Civil Rights movement focused on tangible goals to alleviate specific injustices against a suffering people.  In contrast, Tindal and other Religious Leftists apocalyptically warn of an impending cosmic calamity that continued enjoyment of modern conveniences ostensibly will ignite.  King’s achieved his concrete goals because he aimed towards moral and social uplift.  Religious and other leftists failed at Copenhagen, and will fail elsewhere, because they aim to impoverish humanity to evade an unproven threat against the ethereal goal of climate equanimity.</p>
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		<title>Censorship and Libel at USC</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-horowitz/censorship-and-libel-at-usc-by-david-horowitz/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 14 Jan 2010 05:10:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Horowitz]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=45990</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A university shows tolerance for Muslim student radicals – but not for their critics.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-45994" title="david" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/david.jpg" alt="david" width="450" height="402" /></p>
<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note:</strong> In September 2009, David Horowitz was invited by the University of Southern California College Republicans to come on campus and protest an Islamic Hadith calling for the genocide of the Jews that appeared on an official USC website. His speech was attacked in advance by Students for Justice in Palestine and the USC Progressive Alliance, who made up quotes and attributed them to Horowitz in order to paint him as an Islamophobe and a racist. Undeterred by this slander, Horowitz spoke on the USC campus on November 4 to a packed house.</p>
<p>On December 3, the USC Vice President of Student Affairs, Michael Jackson, published “<a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/JacksonOpenLetter.pdf">an open letter to the USC community</a>” in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, the USC campus newspaper, attacking the College Republicans for bringing Horowitz to campus. Jackson claimed that Horowitz’s presence “led members of our community, our Muslim students, to feel threatened, unsafe, and betrayed.” This letter was also sent to every official USC student, faculty, and staff email address and was published as an ad in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>.</p>
<p>Horowitz wrote a response to Jackson’s letter and submitted it as an ad to the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, which Jackson controls and which initially rejected it. The David Horowitz Freedom Center responded by notifying USC officials of its intent to pursue relief under California&#8217;s Unruh Act, which requires student papers to observe rules of basic fairness. After reflection, the <em>Trojan</em> agreed to print Horowitz&#8217;s response and it ran in Tuesday’s edition of the paper. It appears below. Tomorrow, <em>FrontPage </em>will run the speech Horowitz gave at USC, which aroused the ire of the campus left.</p>
<p><strong>An Open Letter to the USC Community: Response to VP Student Affairs Michael L. Jackson:</strong></p>
<p>Vice President Jackson’s “Open Letter to the USC Community” denigrating student leaders of College Republicans for inviting me to speak is ill-informed and provides unfortunate support for campus hate speech, specifically for the attacks on Jewish students that have become increasingly prevalent on college campuses these days. I was invited to USC to speak about this problem and specifically about an incitement to kill Jews posted on an official USC website and attributed to the prophet Mohammed. The incitement was originally posted by the USC Muslim Student Union. It was removed last spring by Provost Nicias, who called it “disgusting,” over protests from the Muslim Student Union. It was recently restored to a USC website by another campus group. When this re-posting came to my attention, I contacted USC students and said I would like to come to campus to address this and related issues. This led to my invitation from College Republicans.</p>
<p>My speech and my hosts were attacked, however, before I even appeared at USC. We were subjected to a series of vicious slanders which should have no place on a university campus. A flyer put out by the USC Progressive Alliance maliciously and falsely claimed that College Republicans hate Muslims and then invented an entire quote attributed to me claiming that Muslim believers are “soulless beasts.” I have never said or written anything that could be construed this way, nor do I believe it. In the millions of words I have published I have never used the phrase “soulless beast” to describe anyone, let alone pious Muslims.</p>
<p>Nor was this the only attack on us. The president of Students for Justice in Palestine sent out a campus email making a series of false claims about what I have written in the past, including the malicious lie that I said that African Americans should be grateful for slavery. A version of this slander endorsed by half a dozen recognized USC student groups and five USC professors was published in the <em>Daily Trojan</em>, which is under Michael Jackson’s jurisdiction and which refused to print my rebuttal.</p>
<p>In his “Open Letter” Vice President Jackson not only ignores these assaults on campus tolerance but singles out the victims of these attacks for disapprobation. He justifies this moral blindness by claiming that I described the USC Muslim Student Union as “a terrorist organization with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.” I never made such a statement – not before my speech nor during the course of it.</p>
<p>What I did point out in my speech was the USC Muslim Student Union’s decision to post the alleged saying of the prophet Mohammed that in order for the Day of Judgment to come, Muslims must “fight the Jews and kill them,” and its defense of the posting after Provost Nicias ordered its removal.</p>
<p>It is true that on other occasions I have said that the <em>national</em> Muslim Students Association is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network with ties to Hamas. I have also said that the national Muslim Students Association sponsors anti-gay, anti-woman and anti-Semitic speakers on many campuses, and is behind an event on every anniversary of the creation of the state Israel that calls for its destruction – a genocidal incitement. These claims are documented here in this <a href="http://www.investigativeproject.org/documents/misc/31.pdf">Investigative Project report</a> on the Muslim Student Association. In any case, they should be a legitimate part of any dialogue on a university campus concerned with the current conflict between radical elements in Islam and the democracies of the West. The fact that a vice president in charge of student affairs should want to de-legitimize and thereby suppress these opinions in the name of “tolerance” is positively Orwellian and does not speak well for the intellectual climate at this great university.</p>
<p>Sincerely,</p>
<p>David Horowitz</p>
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