Wright 101

(Compiler's note: Must read rca)

By Stanley Kurtz

Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Rev. Wright’s anti-Americanism

It looks like Jeremiah Wright was just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did Barack Obama savor Wright’s sermons, Obama gave legitimacy — and a whole lot of money — to education programs built around the same extremist anti-American ideology preached by Reverend Wright. And guess what? Bill Ayers is still palling around with the same bitterly anti-American Afrocentric ideologues that he and Obama were promoting a decade ago. All this is revealed by a bit of digging, combined with a careful study of documents from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the education foundation Obama and Ayers jointly led in the late 1990s.

John McCain, take note. Obama’s tie to Wright is no longer a purely personal question (if it ever was one) about one man’s choice of his pastor. The fact that Obama funded extremist Afrocentrists who shared Wright’s anti-Americanism means that this is now a matter of public policy, and therefore an entirely legitimate issue in this campaign.

African Village
In the winter of 1996, the Coalition for Improved Education in [Chicago’s] South Shore (CIESS) announced that it had received a $200,000 grant from the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That made CIESS an “external partner,” i.e. a community organization linked to a network of schools within the Chicago public system. This network, named the “South Shore African Village Collaborative” was thoroughly “Afrocentric” in orientation. CIESS’s job was to use a combination of teacher-training, curriculum advice, and community involvement to improve academic performance in the schools it worked with. CIESS would continue to receive large Annenberg grants throughout the 1990s.

The South Shore African Village Collaborative (SSAVC) was very much a part of the Afrocentric “rites of passage movement,” a fringe education crusade of the 1990s. SSAVC schools featured “African-Centered” curricula built around “rites of passage” ceremonies inspired by the puberty rites found in many African societies. In and of themselves, these ceremonies were harmless. Yet the philosophy that accompanied them was not. On the contrary, it was a carbon-copy of Jeremiah Wright’s worldview.

Rites of Passage
To learn what the rites of passage movement was all about, we can turn to a sympathetic 1992 study published in the Journal of Negro Education by Nsenga Warfield-Coppock. In that article, Warfield-Coppock bemoans the fact that public education in the United States is shaped by “capitalism, competitiveness, racism, sexism and oppression.” According to Warfield-Coppock, these American values “have confused African American people and oriented them toward American definitions of achievement and success and away from traditional African values.” American socialization has “proven to be dysfuntional and genocidal to the African American community,” Warfield-Coppock tells us. The answer is the adolescent rites of passage movement, designed “to provide African American youth with the cultural information and values they would need to counter the potentially detrimental effects of a Eurocentrically oriented society.”

The adolescent rites of passage movement that flowered in the 1990s grew out of the “cultural nationalist” or “Pan-African” thinking popular in radical black circles of the 1960s and 1970s. The attempt to create a virtually separate and intensely anti-American black social world began to take hold in the mid-1980s in small private schools, which carefully guarded the contents of their controversial curricula. Gradually, through external partners like CIESS, the movement spread to a few public schools. Supporters view these programs as “a social and cultural ‘inoculation’ process that facilitates healthy, African-centered development among African American youth and protects them against the ravages of a racist, sexist, capitalist, and oppressive society.”

We know that SSAVC was part of this movement, not only because their Annenberg proposals were filled with Afrocentric themes and references to “rites of passage,” but also because SSAVC’s faculty set up its African-centered curriculum in consultation with some of the most prominent leaders of the “rites of passage movement.” For example, a CIESS teacher conference sponsored a presentation on African-centered curricula by Jacob Carruthers, a particularly controversial Afrocentrist.

Jacob Carruthers
Like other leaders of the rites of passage movement, Carruthers teaches that the true birthplace of world civilization was ancient “Kemet” (Egypt), from which Kemetic philosophy supposedly spread to Africa as a whole. Carruthers and his colleagues believe that the values of Kemetic civilization are far superior to the isolating and oppressive, ancient Greek-based values of European and American civilization. Although academic Egyptologists and anthropologists strongly reject these historical claims, Carruthers dismisses critics as part of a white supremacist conspiracy to hide the truth of African superiority.

Carruthers’s key writings are collected in his book, Intellectual Warfare. Reading it is a wild, anti-American ride. In his book, we learn that Carruthers and his like-minded colleagues have formed an organization called the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations (ASCAC), which takes as its mission the need to “dismantle the European intellectual campaign to commit historicide against African peoples.” Carruthers includes “African-Americans” within a group he would define as simply “African.” When forced to describe a black person as “American,” Carruthers uses quotation marks, thus indicating that no black person can be American in any authentic sense. According to Carruthers, “The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy.”

Carruthers’s goal is to use African-centered education to recreate a separatist universe within America, a kind of state-within-a-state. The rites of passage movement is central to the plan. Carruthers sees enemies on every part of the political spectrum, from conservatives, to liberals, to academic leftists, all of whom reject advocates of Kemetic civilization, like himself, as dangerous and academically irresponsible extremists. Carruthers sees all these groups as deluded captives of white supremacist Eurocentric culture. Therefore the only safe place for Africans living in the United States (i.e. American blacks) is outside the mental boundaries of our ineradicably racist Eurocentric civilization. As Carruthers puts it: “...some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture.” The rites of passage movement is a way to teach young Africans in the United States how to reject America and recover their authentic African heritage.

America as Rape
Carruthers admits that Africans living in America have already been shaped by Western culture, yet compares this Americanization process to rape: “We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist....” In other words, American blacks (i.e. Africans) may have been forcibly exposed to American culture, but that doesn’t mean they need to accept it. The better option, says Carruthers, is to separate out and relearn the wisdom of Africa’s original Kemetic culture, embodied in the teachings of the ancient wise man, Ptahhotep (an historical figure traditionally identified as the author of a Fifth Dynasty wisdom book). Anything less than re-Africanization threatens the mental, and even physical, genocide of Africans living in an ineradicably white supremacist United States.

Carruthers is a defender of Leonard Jeffries, professor in the department of black studies at City College in Harlem, infamous for his black supremacist and anti-Semitic views. Jeffries sees whites as oppressive and violent “ice people,” in contrast to peaceful and mutually supportive black “sun people.” The divergence says Jeffries, is attributable to differing levels of melanin in the skin. Jeffries also blames Jews for financing the slave trade. Carruthers defends Jeffries and excoriates the prestigious black academics Carruthers views as traitorous for denouncing their African brother, Jeffries. Carruthers’s vision of the superior and peaceful Kemetic philosophy of Ptahhotep triumphing over Greco-Euro-American-white culture obviously parallels Jeffries’ opposition between ice people and sun people.

More of Carruthers’s education philosophy can be found in his newsletter, The Kemetic Voice. In 1997, for example, at the same time Carruthers was advising SSAVC on how to set up an African-centered curriculum, he praised the decision of New Orleans’ School Board to remove the name of George Washington from an elementary school. Apparently, some officials in New Orleans had decided that nobody who held slaves should have a school named after him. Carruthers touted the name-change as proof that his African-centered perspective was finally having an effect on public policy. At the demise of George Washington School, Carruthers crowed: “These events remind us of how vast the gulf is that separates the Defenders of Western Civilization from the Champions of African Civilization.”

According to Chicago Annenberg Challenge records, Carruthers’s training session on African-centered curricula for SSAVC teachers was a huge hit: “As a consciousness raising session, it received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey....” These teacher-training workshops were directly funded by the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Another sure sign of the ideological cast of SSAVC’s curriculum can be found in Annenberg documents noting that SSAVC students are taught the wisdom of Ptahhotep. Carruthers’s concerns about “menticide” and “genocide” at the hand of America’s white supremacist system seem to be echoed in an SSAVC document that says: “Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us.”

When Jeremiah Wright turned toward African-centered thinking in the late 1980s and early 1990s (the period when, attracted by Wright’s African themes, Barack Obama first became a church member), many prominent thinkers from Carruthers’s Association for the Study of Classical African Civilizations were invited to speak at Trinity United Church of Christ, Carruthers himself included. We hear echoes of Carruthers’s work in Wright’s distinction between “right brained” Africans and “left brained” Europeans, in Wright’s fears of U.S. government-sponsored genocide against American blacks, and in Wright’s embittered attacks on America’s indelibly white-supremacist history. In Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine, as in Carruthers’s own writings, blacks are often referred to as “Africans living in the diaspora” rather than as Americans.

Asa Hilliard
Chicago Annenberg Challenge records also indicate that SSAVC educators invited Asa Hilliard, a pioneer of African-centered curricula and a close colleague of Carruthers, to offer a keynote address at yet another Annenberg-funded teacher training session. Hilliard’s ties to Wright run still deeper than Carruthers’s. A close Wright mentor and friend, Hilliard died in 2007 while on a trip to Kemet (Egypt) with Wright and members of Wright’s congregation. Hillard was scheduled to deliver several lectures to the congregants, and to speak at a meeting of the Association for the Study of Classical African Civilization, which he co-founded with Carruthers and other “African-centered” scholars. On that last trip, Hilliard accepted an appointment to the board of Wright’s new elementary school, Kwame Nkrumah Academy. Speaking of the need for such a school, Wright had earlier said, “We need to educate our children to the reality of white supremacy.” (For more on Wright’s Afrocentric school, see “Jeremiah Wright’s ‘Trumpet.’”)

Wright delivered the eulogy at Hilliard’s memorial service, with prominent members of ASCAC in the audience. To commemorate Hilliard, a special, two-cover double issue of Wright’s Trumpet Newsmagazine was published, with a picture of Hilliard on one side, and a picture of Louis Farrakhan on the other (in celebration of a 2007 award Farrakhan received from Wright). In short, the ties between Wright and Hilliard could hardly have been closer. Clearly, then, Wright’s own educational philosophy was mirrored at the Annenberg-funded SSAVC, which sought out Hilliard’s and Carruthers’s counsel to construct its curriculum.

Perhaps inadvertently, Wright’s eulogy for Hilliard actually established the fringe nature of his favorite African-centered scholars. In his tribute, Wright stressed how intensely “white Egyptologists recoiled at the very notion of everything Asa taught.” As Wright himself made plain, it seems virtually impossible to find respectable scholars of any political stripe who approve of the extremist anti-American version of Afrocentrism promoted by Hilliard and Carruthers.

Ayers’s Pals
An important exception to the rule is Bill Ayers himself, who not only worked with Obama to fund groups like this at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, but who is still “palling around” with the same folks. Discretely waiting until after the election, Bill Ayers and his wife, and fellow former terrorist, Bernardine Dohrn plan to release a book in 2009 entitled Race Course Against White Supremacy. The book will be published by Third World Press, a press set up by Carruthers and other members of the ASCAC. Representatives of that press were prominently present for Wright’s eulogy at Asa Hilliard’s memorial service. Less than a decade ago, therefore, when it came to education issues, Barack Obama, Bill Ayers, and Jeremiah Wright were pretty much on the same page.

Obama’s Knowledge
Given the precedent of his earlier responses on Ayers and Wright, Obama might be inclined to deny personal knowledge of the educational philosophy he was so generously funding. Such a denial would not be convincing. For one thing, we have evidence that in 1995, the same year Obama assumed control of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he publicly rejected “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation,” a stance that clearly resonates with both Wright and Carruthers. (See “No Liberation.”)

And as noted, Wright had invited Carruthers, Hilliard, and like-minded thinkers to address his Trinity congregants. Wright likes to tick off his connections to these prominent Afrocentrists in sermons, and Obama would surely have heard of them. Reading over SSAVC’s Annenberg proposals, Obama could hardly be ignorant of what they were about. And if by some chance Obama overlooked Hilliard’s or Carruthers’s names, SSAVC’s proposals are filled with references to “rites of passage” and “Ptahhotep,” dead giveaways for the anti-American and separatist ideological concoction favored by SSAVC.

We know that Obama did read the proposals. Annenberg documents show him commenting on proposal quality. And especially after 1995, when concerns over self-dealing and conflicts of interest forced the Ayers-headed “Collaborative” to distance itself from monetary issues, all funding decisions fell to Obama and the board. Significantly, there was dissent within the board. One business leader and experienced grant-smith characterized the quality of most Annenberg proposals as “awful.” (See “The Chicago Annenberg Challenge: The First Three Years,” p. 19.) Yet Obama and his very small and divided board kept the money flowing to ideologically extremist groups like the South Shore African Village Collaborative, instead of organizations focused on traditional educational achievement.

As if the content of SSAVC documents wasn’t warning enough, their proposals consistently misspelled “rites of passage” as “rights of passage,” hardly an encouraging sign from a group meant to improve children’s reading skills. The Chicago Annenberg Challenge’s own evaluators acknowledged that Annenberg-aided schools showed no improvement in achievement scores. Evaluators attributed that failure, in part, to the fact that many of Annenberg’s “external partners” had little educational expertise. A group that puts its efforts into Kwanzaa celebrations and half-baked history certainly fits that bill, and goes a long way toward explaining how Ayers and Obama managed to waste upwards of $150 million without improving student achievement.

However he may seek to deny it, all evidence points to the fact that, from his position as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Barack Obama knowingly and persistently funded an educational project that shared the extremist and anti-American philosophy of Jeremiah Wright. The Wright affair was no fluke. It’s time for McCain to say so.

Muslim Day Parade New York City,

The website Atlas Shrugs contains pictures, video and commentary from the recent Muslim Day Parade in New York City.

There you will see pictures and video of Muslims carrying an American flag – with the stars in the box replaced by the Islamic star and crescent.

You will see New York City police officers, in uniform and apparently on duty, stopping to pray.

You will see an intense confrontation between a Muslim and a Jewish woman. The Muslim crosses a barrier to confront the woman, eventually calling her a “whore.”

These are just a few examples of the troubling and unsettling pictures, video and commentary. We caution you -- there is some profanity and at times the scenes are intense.

The person covering the parade states:

“I have been covering these things for three years now and as I have recently said, there has been a palpable change. It is getting uglier, more aggressive - violent even.”

To log on to the website and see coverage of the parade, click here. ....

Islam: A Religion of Peace? (Part Two)

The following is a transcript of a debate sponsored by The Harbour League on the subject, “Islam: a Religion of Peace? Is Islamic Law (“Shariah”) Consistent With A Religion Of Peace – And The U.S. Constitution?” Eli Gold, president of The Harbour League, introduced the participants. Moderating was Mark Hyman; for the affirmative was Suhail Khan and presenting the negative was Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.

The Harbour League was founded in 2005 as an organization to promote conservative and free market dialogue on the state level. In looking at this question, “Is Islam a Religion of Peace”, the League wanted specifically to look at whether Islamic law, Shariah, is consistent with a religion of peace and with the U.S. Constitution.

Part One of the debate is here; Part Two continues with the rebuttal. ...

Spreading the Virus - How ACORN and Its Dem Allies Built the Mortgage Disaster

(Compiler's note: Must read rca)

by Stanley Kurtz

To discover the roots of to day's economic crisis, consider a tale from 1995.

That March, House Speaker Newt Gingrich was scheduled to address a meeting of county commissioners at the Washington Hilton. But, first, some 500 protesters from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) poured into the ballroom from both the kitchen and the main entrance.

Hotel staffers who tried to block them were quickly overwhelmed by demonstrators chanting, "Nuke Newt!" and "We want Newt!" Jamming the aisles, carrying bullhorns and taunting the assembled county commissioners, demonstrators swiftly took over the head table and commandeered the microphone, sending two members of Congress scurrying.

The demonstrators' target, Gingrich, hadn't yet arrived - and his speech was cancelled. When the cancellation was announced, ACORN's foot soldiers cheered.

Editorial writers from Little Rock to Buffalo condemned ACORN's action as an affront to both civility and freedom of speech. Editorialists also pointed out that the "spending cuts" the protesters railed against were imaginary - Gingrich proposed merely to slow the growth in some welfare programs and turn control back to the states.

Yet ACORN had only just begun. Two days later, 50 to 100 of the same protesters hit their main target - a House Banking subcommittee considering changes to the Community Reinvestment Act, a law that allows groups like ACORN to force banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers.

The CRA's ostensible purpose is to prevent banks from discriminating against minorities. But Rep. Marge Roukema (R-NJ), who chaired the subcommittee, was worried that charges of discrimination had become an excuse for lowering credit standards. She warned that new, Democrat-proposed CRA regulations could amount to an illegal quota system.

FOR years, ACORN had combined manipulation of the CRA with intimidation-protest tactics to force banks to lower credit standards. Its crusade, with help from Democrats in Congress, to push these high-risk "subprime" loans on banks is at the root of today's economic meltdown.

When the role of ACORN and congressional Democrats in the mortgage crisis is pointed out, Democrats reply that banks subject to the CRA represent only about a quarter of the loans that led to our current troubles. In fact, the problem goes way beyond the CRA.

As ACORN ran its campaigns against local banks, it quickly hit a roadblock. Banks would tell ACORN they could afford to reduce their credit standards by only a little - since Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage giants, refused to buy up those risky loans for sale on the "secondary market."

That is, the CRA wasn't enough. Unless Fannie and Freddie were willing to relax their credit standards as well, local banks would never make home loans to customers with bad credit histories or with too little money for a downpayment.

So ACORN's Democratic friends in Congress moved to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to dispense with normal credit standards. Throughout the early '90s, they imposed ever-increasing subprime-lending quotas on Fannie and Freddie.

But then the Republicans won control of Congress - and Rep. Roukema scheduled her hearing. ACORN went into action to protect its golden goose.

IT struck as Roukema aired her concerns at that hearing. Pro testers, led by ACORN President Maud Hurd, stood up and began chanting, "CRA has got to stay!" and "Banks for greed, not for need!" The protesters then demanded the microphone.

With the hearing interrupted and the demonstrators refusing to leave, Roukema called the Capital Police, who arrested Hurd and four others for "disorderly conduct in a Capital building" - a charge carrying a penalty of a $500 fine, six months in prison or both. As the police arrived, two of the protesters menacingly approached Roukema's desk, still demanding the hearing microphone.

Requests to the Capital Police to release the activists from Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass,) failed. Then Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) showed up at the jail and refused to leave until the protesters were released; the Capital Police relented.

Meanwhile, instead of repudiating ACORN's intimidation tactics, Rep. Kennedy berated Roukema for arresting one of his constituents and accused the Republicans of preparing for "an all-out attack on CRA." He also promised to introduce legislation to expand the CRA's coverage to mortgage bankers and large credit unions.

THIS little slice of political life from 1995 had a variety of ripple effects. Above all, ACORN's intimidation tactics, and its alliance with Democrats in Congress, triumphed. Despite their 1994 takeover of Congress, Republicans' attempts to pare back the CRA were stymied.

Instead, Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Reps. Kennedy and Waters allied with the Clinton administration to broaden the acceptability of risky subprime loans throughout the financial system, thus precipitating our current crisis.

ACORN had come to Congress not only to protect the CRA from GOP reforms but also to expand the reach of quota-based lending to Fannie, Freddie and beyond. By steamrolling the GOP that March, it had crushed the last potential barrier to "change."

Three months later, the Clinton administration announced a comprehensive strategy to push homeownership in America to new heights - regardless of the compromise in credit standards that the task would require. Fannie and Freddie were assigned massive subprime lending quotas, which would rise to about half of their total business by the end of the decade.

When the ACORN-Democrat alliance finally succeeded in blocking Republicans from restoring fiscal sanity in 1995, the way was open to virtually unlimited lending quotas - and to a whole new way of thinking about credit standards.

Urged on by ACORN, congressional Democrats and the Clinton administration helped push tolerance for high-risk loans through every sector of the banking system - far beyond the sort of banks originally subject to the CRA.

So it was the efforts of ACORN and its Democratic allies that first spread the subprime virus from the CRA to Fannie and Freddie and thence to the entire financial system.

Soon, Democratic politicians and regulators actually began to take pride in lowered credit standards as a sign of "fairness" - and the contagion spread.

And when financial institutions across the board saw that they could make money by trading what would once have been considered junk loans, the profit motive kicked in. But the bad seed that started it all was ACORN.

HOW does Barack Obama fit into all of this? Obama has been a key ally of Chicago ACORN going back to his days as a community organizer.

Later, as a young lawyer, he offered leadership training to the activists who were forcing Chicago banks into high-risk subprime loans. And when he made it on to the boards of Chicago's Woods Fund and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, he channeled money ACORN's way.

Obama was perfectly aware of ACORN's intimidation tactics - indeed, he oversaw a Woods Fund report that boasted of managing to fund the radical group despite its shocking behavior.

And as a lawmaker, in Illinois and in Washington, he has continued to back ACORN's leglislative agenda.

ACORN's high-pressure tactics live on. And congressional Democrats are still covering for ACORN, funneling it money and doing its legislative bidding. ACORN also continues its shady ways, using a vast network of technically separate but in fact quite interconnected organizations to evade federal laws on the politicized use of government money.

Perhaps most disturbing of all, the Obama campaign appears to have little more regard for freedom of speech than Reps. Kennedy or Waters did when they backed up ACORN's thugs in 1995. The campaign actually practices ACORN-style tactics, sending out "action wires" that call on supporters to block Obama critics from radio appearances (a tactic once applied to me) and demanding legal actions against unfriendly political advertisers.

As a presidential candidate, Obama promises a massive national-service program closely allied with the nonprofit sector. He wants to remove "barriers for smaller nonprofits to participate in government programs."

In other words, he plans a massive effort to funnel America's youth into volunteer work alongside the likes of ACORN. So Obama's favorite community organizers may soon be training your child.

ACORN's alliance with the Democratic Party is at the root of the current financial meltdown. And Barack Obama has stayed true to ACORN's ways.

Pretty soon, the folks who poured into the Washington Hilton to shut down Speaker Gingrich in 1995 may no longer need to take over the microphone. They'll be in charge of it.

The Terror Court: How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Our National Security

by Stephanie Hessler

Our national security is in the hands of the United States Supreme Court. This is incongruous, since the Constitution expressly instructs that foreign policy should be conducted by the executive and legislative branches, through such provisions as the Treaty Clause, the Declare War Clause, the Foreign Commerce Clause and the Commander-in-Chief Clause. Nonetheless, the current Supreme Court has inserted itself into the middle of anti-terrorism policies. In doing so, it has undermined the decisions of our elected branches and thus has undermined the will of the American people. With our national security at stake, now, more than ever, all Americans should have their eyes on the high Court.

With life tenure, a Supreme Court Justice typically holds his position of power for far longer than any president. Take, for example, Justice Rehnquist who served on the Court for 33 years. Chief Justice Roberts was 50 when he was confirmed in 2005. Should he remain on the Supreme Court until he reaches Justice Stevens’ current age, 88, he would be on the bench until 2043, or during 11 different presidencies. By then, the policies of President Bush or a President McCain or Obama will be ancient history. Far more enduring than any other presidential anti-terrorism policy is the choice of a Supreme Court Justice.

Frankly, we should all be troubled by some of the Court’s recent national security rulings. It is instructive to examine a few of these rulings to observe the Court’s trend of blatantly second-guessing the anti-terrorism policies of the elected branches. The three Supreme Court cases discussed below all have two things in common: First, in all three cases, the Court ruled in favor of the enemy combatants. Second, in all three cases, the most liberal Justices – Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Kennedy – were in the majority.

In Rasul v. Bush, brought in 2004, the Court was asked to consider whether the Federal habeas corpus statute allows enemy aliens captured abroad and held at Guantanamo to challenge their detention in US courts. It seemed clear that the habeas statute did not apply to Guantanamo detainees for two reasons. As an initial matter, the text of the statute presupposes that the courts may only hear cases brought in their jurisdiction, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is quite clearly outside of any U.S. court’s territorial jurisdiction. Furthermore, the Court had already decided a case directly on point 54 years earlier, Johnson v. Eisentrager, in which it determined that there has been “no instance where a court, in this or any other country where the [habeas] writ is known, has issued it on behalf of an alien enemy . . . Nothing in the text of the Constitution extends such a right, nor does anything in our statutes.”

Yet, in a true case of legislating from the bench, the Court rewrote the habeas statute to allow for such enemy combatants to enter our court system. As Justice Scalia said in dissent, “For this Court to create such a monstrous scheme in time of war, and in frustration of our military commanders' reliance upon clearly stated prior law, is judicial adventurism of the worst sort.”

When Congress learned that the Supreme Court had somehow misinterpreted its habeas statute to apply to Guantanamo detainees, it sprang into action to correct the Court’s perilous misconception. The Constitution gives Congress the power to define lower federal courts’ jurisdiction and to create exceptions to the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction. So, in 2005, Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act or DTA, which explicitly stripped U.S. courts (with the exception of the DC Circuit) of jurisdiction to hear any petitions from Guantanamo detainees. In very clear language, the DTA states that: “[N]o court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.” This legislation was passed by an overwhelming margin of 84-14, uniting such politically diverse Senators as John McCain and Barack Obama. (It is worth noting that certain protections and safeguards were already in place for any individual detained at Guantanamo, such as his opportunity to appear before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal to challenge his status as an “unlawful enemy combatant”).

After the passage of the DTA, citizens might conclude that the Supreme Court would not, and could not, force itself into Guantanamo proceedings. But, they would be wrong. In 2006, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Guantanamo detainee, asked the Supreme Court to rule on the legality of his detention. His case seemed futile given that the DTA prohibited the Supreme Court from hearing his case. However, in an arrogant assertion of power, the Court ignored Congress’s directive and entertained Hamdan’s petition. Having done so, it then ruled that the military commissions set up by the executive branch to try Guantanamo detainees are invalid unless and until they are approved by the legislature.

The Hamdan decision forced Congress, once again, into damage-control mode. It had to act fast to curb the effects of this dangerous decision. Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Military Commission Act or MCA, which created the military commissions that the Hamdan ruling necessitated. And once again, it specifically prohibited the Supreme Court from hearing petitions from our alien enemies held at Guantanamo. Thus, both political branches agreed on this important matter.

The final chapter in this tragic trilogy of cases is Boumediene v. Bush. The constitutionality of the MCA was challenged by detainee, Lakhdar Boumediene. It seemed an uphill battle for Boumediene because the MCA was drafted and signed into law specifically at the instruction of the Supreme Court in Hamdan, which said that“nothing prevents the president from returning to Congress to seek the authority for [military commissions] he believes necessary.” However, in a groundbreaking opinion, the Court declared part of the MCA unconstitutional and ruled that unlawful enemy combatants held at Guantanamo could enter our court system to challenge their detention. Ironically, such a policy accords terrorists more rights than POWs have under the Geneva Convention.

In dissent, Justice Scalia pointed out the danger of the Court’s supercilious assertion of judicial supremacy: “What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today’s opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails.”

And, there may be no stopping the runaway Court. The logic of Boumediene may be extended in at least two ways. First, there may be no real grounds to limit the case’s holding to Guantanamo. Now, alien enemies captured and held by our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan may ask our courts to set them free, hauling our military officers off the battlefield and into the US court system in an inevitable web of litigation. Second, if alien enemies are entitled to habeas protection under our Constitution, what is to stop them from asserting other Constitutional rights? Why not demand that, before capture, al Qaeda members must be read their Miranda rights? Why not determine that our military officers must get a warrant to enter a terror cell in Afghanistan? Or, why not conclude that members of the Taliban have a right to bear arms? These rhetorical questions may seem outlandish, but the Supreme Court raised these same concerns a half-century ago in Eisentrager when it had the good sense to rule that alien enemies do not have habeas privileges under the U.S. Constitution.

It is not too late to reign in the Supreme Court. When the next president takes office, six of the nine Supreme Court justices will be over 70, including 88 year old Justice Stevens. So the next President is almost certain to nominate at least one new Justice, if not several. John McCain has praised the dissenters in these controversial decisions and there is every reason to believe that he would nominate Justices who would join Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts to put our anti-terrorism policies back in the hands of the politically accountable elected branches, as the Constitution intends. To the contrary, Barack Obama’s nominees are likely to reaffirm the dangerous doctrine that the Court is the supreme arbiter of our national safety policies. Obama has praised a judicial philosophy (or lack thereof) that would give judges unfettered power to ignore the law: he has pledged to nominate judges not who will apply the law as passed by the elected branches, but rather those who will decide cases based on “empathy” for the plaintiff; according to Obama, "the critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart," not by what is in the law of the land. Such a view is both lawless and dangerous.

Sen. Obama is the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate, and liberal presidents have a penchant for appointing judges who think they are legislators. In these perilous times, a President Obama may give us something even more dangerous: judges who think they are generals.

Proof Obama backed ruthless foreign thug

By Bob Unruh

Sen. Barack Obama designated a personal aide as his direct contact for the 2007 Kenyan presidential campaign of Raila Odinga, who later was appointed prime minister after his election loss was followed by widespread, deadly violence that destroyed or damaged 800 Christian churches, according to e-mails obtained by WND senior staff writer Jerry Corsi during a trip to Kenya.

Corsi attempted to release this and other information at a Tuesday press conference in Nairobi. The WND reporter and No. 1 New York Times bestselling author was detained by Kenya security officers as soon as he entered the hotel to make his presentation. He was held incommunicado and without food for the entire day before being permitted to board his regularly scheduled flight out of the country to London, where he is currently recuperating from the ordeal.

As WND has reported, Obama openly campaigned for Odinga during the Illinois Democrat's 2006 Senate "fact-finding visit" to Kenya.

Odinga called for protests over alleged voter fraud after losing the December 2007 general election. The resulting protest violence left an estimated 1,000 members of the dominant Kikuyu tribe in Kenya dead and an estimated 500,000 displaced from their homes.

The links between Obama and Odinga were documented by copies of two e-mails obtained by Corsi during his meetings in Kenya with various government officials and others.

The e-mails, apparently sent by Obama himself, referenced the senator's aide, Mark Lippert. The e-mails were provided to WND by an insider in Kenya who fled Odinga's Orange Democratic political party and requested anonymity because of the danger of retaliation. ....

Obama believes women should register for draft

Also would consider opening combat positions to females

Stop the Jihad on Campus

By FrontPage Magazine

Students and faculty at more than 100 college campuses are hearing a clarion call to “Stop the Jihad on Campus,” thanks to the third annual Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week, sponsored by this website’s sister organization, the Terrorism Awareness Project.

The David Horowitz Freedom Center launched this national event three years ago to draw attention to the global threat posed by radical Islamic extremism, the ideology fueling worldwide jihad. As in years past, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week (IFAW) is opposing this totalitarian effort to subject the world to the Koran by hosting nationally recognized experts, screening well-received documentaries, and petitioning moderate Muslim students to turn their back on those who would tie their religion of peace to perpetual warfare.

This year’s campaign maintains the broad ideological of years past theme while featuring a more specific thrust: to make the university aware of the disturbing role the Muslim Students Association of the U.S. and Canada (MSA) and campus groups play in supporting the jihadist struggle against America, Israel, and the West. This patriotic event shows campuses the threat stems not merely from aged parchments and Wahhabi preachers on distant shores but a radical fifth column within. Although this news is disconcerting, it also demonstrates that students and administrators are not helpless to fight against it: this year’s events call on campuses to defund the MSA.

The MSA is just one offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood, the ideological font of many jihadists worldwide. The Brotherhood’s radical approach to Islam is reflected in its motto: “God is our objective, the Koran is our Constitution, the Prophet is our leader, struggle is our way, and death for the sake of God is the highest of our aspirations.” Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, forged an alliance with Adolf Hitler during World War II, making it truly an Islamo-Fascist group. Its alumni include multiple terrorists involved in 9/11, not least Osama bin Laden himself. Osama had been mentored by Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood preacher. Ayman al-Zawahiri had belonged to the Egyptian branch of the Broterhood, and 9/11 architect Khalid Shaikh Mohammed belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, as well.

Irrefutable proof confirms the MSA is a pro-terror organization.

· MSA members at UCLA raised money for Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists at their annual “Anti-Zionist Week.”

· Speaker Muammad Faheed told an MSA meeting at Queensborough Community College in New York, “The only relationship you should have with America is to topple it!”

· Nihad Awad addressed the 2003 Iowa Muslim Student Association Annual Conferences. Awad had told a college audience in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.”

· The University of Southern California MSA invited Taliban ambassador Sayyid Hashimi to speak on campus six months before 9/11.

· MSA at California State University Northridge held a fundraiser for Islamic Relief, an organization that received a $50,000 contribution from a front group run by Osama bin Laden.

With such a record, campus officials must explain why they should continue sending campus, student, and taxpayer dollars to the MSA – or prove beyond any doubt that not one dollar of these funds will ever go to international terrorists or tomorrow’s budding al-Qaeda foot soldiers.

The campaign also asks moderate Muslims to repudiate a violent interpretation of their religion’s sacred works. Across the nation, students involved in the IFAW will circulate the Petition for Hadith Reform. It asks its signatories to deny any implication that Jews must be destroyed as a people, and to affirm the equality of all people – both men and women.

Events have already begun nationwide. IFAW sponsored three campus-wide events at as many colleges yesterday. A distinguished panel, including Wafa Sultan and Yaron Brook, discussed “Islamic Totalitarianism’s Threat to Civilization” at the University of California at Irvine, a dialogue co-sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute. The films Obsession and Suicide Killers were screened at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Penn State, respectively.

This year’s distinguished speakers include David Horowitz, Islam expert Robert Spencer, pollster Dick Morris, Daniel Pipes, author and scholar Dr. Andrew Bostom, and Nonie Darwish. Middle East reporter Deborah Weiss is also scheduled to address Tufts University at a date to be determined.

This is an opportunity for education to replace indoctrination and PC assurances that there is no problem at academic associations around the country. The lock exercised by such obscurantists as the Middle East Studies Association cannot censor this invasion of enemy-dominated territory. The third annual Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week is a chance to bypass the campus filter and speak directly to young people, and their administration, with a challenging call for patriotic change. Join us as we bring a second, sober voice to a campus debate that will affect our Homeland Security, our foreign policy, and our relationship with one-fifth of the world’s population.

The calendar for upcoming Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week events includes: ....

Kidnapping for Profit on the Rise: Don’t Be a Victim

By Jenni Hesterman

As discussed in my September 22nd blog, if you travel or work internationally, you are a potential target for criminals and terrorists who want to raise funds by putting a price on your life.

The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is the primary clearinghouse for all data related to citizens killed, injured or kidnapped as a result of terrorist activity. The NCTC’s most recent report shows trend data from 2005, 2006 and 2007 concerning “noncombatant” kidnappings. Data shows that there has been a slight increase of kidnappings abroad, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in other areas of instability, such as Africa and Central America.

The State Department “A Safe Trip Abroad” website is full of good information for those traveling and living overseas and worthy of review even by the most seasoned traveler. For instance, at the airport, check in and go through security as soon as possible; do your shopping and dining after you are in the secured area.

Make sure someone at home has your itinerary and knows your general whereabouts and movements. Register your travel online with the State Department. Ensure your personal affairs are in order and that papers such as wills and powers of attorney are in an accessible, known place prior to departure. Read the Country Specific Information, Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts issued by the State Department before traveling. Have a list of emergency contact info for your destination including the embassy and consulates.

Stay in large, modern hotels which typically have good security. Travel light so your hands are free and you aren’t burdened by heavy bags if you need to engage an attacker or run. Do not dress or accessorize in a manner that draws attention or makes you appear affluent.

Avoid areas where you could be easily victimized such as festivals, busy marketplaces and crowded subway and bus stations. Don’t use short cuts or poorly lit streets, stay on main roads and sidewalks. Try not to travel alone. Keep a low profile and do not discuss business or travel situations with strangers, including those on airplanes, driving taxis or at the hotel check in desk.

Bring a satellite phone, extra battery and charger. Also, learn how to use the hotel room phone as well pay phones, and have the right change easily accessible. Learn a few key phrases in the host country’s language so that you can indicate the need for police or security response, or ask bystanders for help.

If you have a laptop and need to leave it at the hotel, secure it in the room safe or the hotel safe. A quick internet search will yield several new locking mechanisms that secure your laptop in the hotel room by anchoring it to stationary objects such as pipes or radiators. You can also lock your hard drive to prevent unauthorized downloading. Remember that your laptop will provide a criminal or terrorist a host of information that can later be used against you if kidnapped, including pictures of family members, financial data and work-related information.

If driving, always check your vehicle thoroughly for tampering or unwanted occupants before entering it. Keep the tank full. Don’t fall for ploys such as someone flagging you down for help. If you get into an accident or are purposely “bumped” in the attempt to get you to exit the vehicle, stay put with the windows up and doors locked. Wait until someone of authority approaches the scene before exiting the vehicle and use your cell phone to call the embassy or the consulate and provide information on the incident. When parking at your destination, do not exit the vehicle if you see suspicious individuals, drive by and return later, or park elsewhere and take a taxi to your destination.

In the unlikely situation that you are taken hostage, there are several steps you can take to minimize the danger. First of all, know that if you are kidnapped in a foreign country, the US government looks to that nation to exercise its responsibility under international law to deal with the situation and ensure safe release. However, US government agencies will engage with the country to bring the situation to resolution.

Part of surviving a stressful event such as a violent crime is mental preparation. Envisioning the scenario and how you might react is a good rehearsal for the potential event. The State Department offers the following advice if you find yourself as a hostage (in any situation):
It is extremely important that you remain calm and alert and manage your own behavior.
Avoid resistance and sudden or threatening movements. Do not struggle or try to escape unless you are certain of being successful. Don't try to be a hero, endangering yourself and others.

Consciously put yourself in a mode of passive cooperation. Talk normally. Do not complain, avoid belligerency, and comply with all orders and instructions.

If questioned, keep your answers short. Don't volunteer information or make unnecessary overtures.

Make a concerted effort to relax. Prepare yourself mentally, physically and emotionally for the possibility of a long ordeal.

Try to remain inconspicuous, avoid direct eye contact and the appearance of observing your captors' actions.

Avoid alcoholic beverages. Eat what they give you, even if it does not look or taste appetizing, but keep consumption of food and drink at a moderate level. A loss of appetite and weight is normal.

If you are involved in a lengthier, drawn-out situation, try to establish a rapport with your captors, avoiding political discussions or other confrontational subjects.

Establish a daily program of mental and physical activity.

Think positively. Avoid a sense of despair. Rely on your inner resources. Remember that you are a valuable commodity to your captors. It is important to them to keep you alive and well.

Protecting family members while abroad is another concern. Just a few weeks ago, a 3 year old girl, a US citizen, was kidnapped for ransom in Guatemala. The girl was taken from outside of her home in the early morning hours as she was going to school. The FBI and The State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service immediately responded to the area, and assisted Guatemala’s anti-kidnapping unit (CAS) with negotiations. While communicating with the kidnappers, they were able to pinpoint her location and the girl was successfully rescued and her 5 kidnappers killed in the ensuing operation.

If living in an area for an extended period of time, always vary your schedule and that of your dependants. Kidnappings are often planned events, and the victim is observed over a long period of time. Change routes of travel, times of departure, who travels in the group, etc. Don’t make yourself and easy target by being predictable and habitual.

Finally, trust your intuition. If you believe that you are being watched, or something or someone seems out of place, go with your instincts and take control of the situation. It could be a matter of life and death.